The Sphinx's Lair

3:43 AM

@whiskrs they shall speak

Q: Neat direction puzzle that for some reason I'm stumped on

3:54 AM

Re: CCCC, I keep thinking that "seat" could be a wooden thing somehow, so that it would start with "WOOD". "Court" can mean "woo", but "proceedings" would have to be a 5-letter word that starts with D, and so I couldn't see anything promising with this theory. (On that note, please do not search "woodeeds" since an NSFW result may show up at the top of the results page. >_<)

Alternatively, this could very well be a ddef or an &lit too (though I find the latter less likely).

Sphinx

I've been sitting here for about 25 minutes now, and I can't find another possible answer. I might just be stupid. Let's see how you guys do! Heres what I have: Pamela's pony is lying exactly north of Becky's bicycle. Alycia's action figure is exactly south of Michelle's stuffed mouse. Pamela's p...

mathematics

1 hour later…

Jafe

5:17 AM

court could be CT or CRT too, from street name abbreviations

Yeah

M Oehm

And Seat could be Ibiza, Toldeo, Leon or any other model. Or, of course, just bum.

3 hours later…

Stiv

8:37 AM

Don't forget sports references - a 'court' could also be a 'pitch, 'arena', 'ground', 'rink', 'alley', 'track'... etc.

M Oehm

And "in" could be "hip", making the court proceedings a something-ship.

(But "nateship" isn't a word for court proceedings, as far as I can see.)

2 hours later…

whiskrs

10:46 AM

@Jafe , kiva ole (translation: you are fun)

That goes for everyone here!

11:26 AM

Hi and welcome to Puzzling, while I appreciate your contribution this is better off as a comment, which you can make once you've earned enough reputation. Take the tour to find out more! — PuzzlingFerret 59 secs ago

2 hours later…

1:17 PM

How has that gotten another upvote??

1:47 PM

@juicifer DON AT ION

I think maybe it should be donations

But that doesn't fit the enumeration

Also I don't see how ION=court. Also, a donation is proceeds, not proceedings, I think.

But I like the idea of DON (or PROF etc) for "seat".

Also REP or SEN or MP.

Hadn't thought of that.

@AncientSwordRage it is not donation, nor is it donations

but, on a related note:

CCCC hint: one of the words clued via the wordplay is singular, but its more popular usage is plural

2:23 PM

Wait, I think this is an &lit, just tidying the explanation up cuz I'm not sure of one thing

TRI(BUN)AL

ah dangit, you got to it first hahah

I was thinking "tribunal" as a "seat" seemed a bit obscure, but as it turned out I found out now that Collins and Google Dictionary attest to that meaning

@oAlt Go ahead and Take it. I'm on vacation in a couple hours and probably won't monitor chat much.

Oh, noted. (Stay safe as well)

@juicifer I pass to @oAlt

Portugal! Sardines and Octopi: get in my belly!

2:32 PM

Ooh yummy

@ChrisCudmore amazing 🤤

@msh210 that last part is a stretch, but apparently Ion Mystery used to be known as Court Mystery

(I've never tried octopus though... squid yes, but octopus not yet)

well in that case, you're up @oAlt

Noted

and nice solve @ChrisCudmore

2:49 PM

CCCC: "Ward off...", etc., written in pseudo-Roman cipher by Gaul, ultimately? (5,5)

@oAlt Would you like to inform us of the letter enumeration?

probably too late to edit so (5, 5)

sorry, i completely forgot

(thx for the edit)

@BeastlyGerbil I'm not sure if that spoiler edit helps?

Good point, wasn't really needed - flagged as NAA anyway so should be made or comment or removed either way

2:57 PM

@BeastlyGerbil I hope so

Although I'm amazed the sequence is on OEIS - it really does have nearly every sequence. I didn't even bother checking if it was as I assumed there was no way it would be

@BeastlyGerbil which?

@ChrisCudmore is that the C4?

@msh210 Ferret's

@msh210 See if you can reverse engineer one out of it.

@BeastlyGerbil it's on oeis? wow

3:03 PM

I know! They really have it all

Well, not all. I mean, there are uncountably many sequences. :-)

that means that even if they keep adding sequences, one at a time, literally forever, they can't have them all

@ChrisCudmore me? highly doubtful

enjoy your trip

3:23 PM

@BeastlyGerbil same here, I thought I was being unique

Q: Enigmatic Reasoning Excercise

3:41 PM

@ChrisCudmore Return heart of Portugal, Sardines and Octopi get in this, for example: my belly! (9)

It's rough, so don't expect the wordplay to be good!

Sphinx

4:25 PM

All rules apply either to all rows or columns. It‘s obvious to me that the blue lines in the background add up from left to right. With this rule you can reduce the amount of possible solutions down to 1,6 and 8. Which rules determine the amount, position and color of the hexagons? What‘s the ans...

logical-deduction enigmatic-puzzle

4 hours later…

Stiv

8:38 PM

Pleasingly, 'offetc' in a Caesar shift of 25 gives 'needs b', which looks like it could spell something, albeit not anything actually relevant to this C4...

2 hours later…

10:11 PM

@Stiv maybe it's something-vinyl?

Stiv

Where does the 'vin' come from? I'm guessing you've got YL from (-b)Y (-gau)L...

10:35 PM

well "in" with a caesar shift of 26 gives "in" so you'd just need "????? v"