Solvers are presented with four word-search grids. The first three have
an empty 5 × 5 block in the middle, holding (respectively) one,
two, or three silhouettes, of different colors; the fourth has this block
filled in with black. The first grid is accompanied by seven black
silhouettes; the second, by eight blue and eight red; the third, by three
pink, four green, and three orange. Otherwise, the grids are
identical. It should be noticeable that they use the IJ digraph but
never I or J alone.
Path to Solution
-
Treat the first grid as plaintext. You will certainly find
OLDGREENGRASSHOPPER across the bottom, and you should also find
MISSSPIDER running down in the southeast; these are readily
recognizable as two members of the crew who travel in James and the
Giant Peach. In all, seven members of the peach’s crew are here,
matching the seven silhouettes that accompany this grid. Notably,
however, JAMES, EARTHWORM, CENTIPEDE, GLOWWORM, and LADYBUG all extend
into the blank middle square. This allows you to place seven letters in
the square.
-
One member of the company is still missing: SILKWORM. The newly placed
letters suggest that this missing friend should be found in the blank
square, wrapping from the first to the second line. What goes in the
rest of the blank square? The IJ digraphs, the 5 × 5 square,
and the flavortext (town square, finding a friend to play with) should
suggest that this square is to be treated as a Playfair square, for
which SILKWORM is a valid key. The C and G that protrude into the
square (from CENTIPEDE and GLOWWORM, respectively) should confirm that
the rest of the square can be filled in alphabetically, with I and J
sharing a space.
-
Use the SILKWORM square to start decrypting the second copy of the
grid. Since the Playfair cipher works on bigrams, there are a couple of
possible reading frames in each direction. Try the first frame, i.e.,
grouping columns 1 and 2, 3 and 4, etc. The first row is gibberish, but
the second decrypts to FXFLEWDXDURXARAGORNXKYLP, and the third begins
TARAN. It should be easy to spot Taran (from Lloyd Alexander’s
Prydain Chronicles) and Aragorn (Tolkien) here. (FFLEWDDUR is there
too, but harder to spot because the double letters have to be broken up
for Playfair encryption.) So this is a little different: instead of one
group of friends, in this second grid we seem to be looking for two
groups, both the core group of adventurers from Prydain and the
Fellowship of the Ring. This is also clued by the fact that there are
two silhouettes in the central blank in this grid, by the two colors of
silhouettes accompanying the grid, and by flavortext (“it’s
a challenge just finding one friend to play with, much less two or
three”).
-
Rather than continuing to decrypt the grid in multiple reading frames,
encrypt the characters you’re looking for and search the grid as
given. You should find all the major Prydain characters but EILONWY,
and all of the Fellowship but SAM (new groups of friends highlighted in
green). The letters protruding into the empty block are consistent with
a second Playfair square with key EILONWYSAM.
Group |
Character |
Prepped for Playfair |
Encrypted |
Prydain |
Taran |
TARANX |
QBMBPV |
Prydain |
Fflewddur |
FXFLEWDXDURX |
EYEKGLEVCVMV |
Prydain |
Gurgi |
GURGIX |
CZBDLV |
Prydain |
Doli |
DOLI |
CRKL |
Prydain |
Gwydion |
GWYDIONX |
TBVFSRPV |
Prydain |
Coll |
COLXLX |
HCMLML |
Prydain |
Dallben |
DALXLBEN |
FRMLWMDP |
Prydain |
Hen Wen |
HENWEN |
PCTIDP |
Ring |
Aragorn |
ARAGORNX |
BMBFRMPV |
Ring |
Frodo |
FRODOX |
DARCMU |
Ring |
Merry |
MERXRY |
EPMVAV |
Ring |
Pippin |
PIPXPINX |
NLXLNLPV |
Ring |
Gandalf |
GANDALFX |
FBVNMKEY |
Ring |
Gimli |
GIMLIX |
DWEMLV |
Ring |
Legolas |
LEGOLASX |
MPCBKMLU |
Ring |
Boromir |
BOROMIRX |
ORMRRLMV |
-
Use the EILONWYSAM square to start decrypting the third copy of the
grid. This time the first row, first reading frame holds WEDNESDAY,
while the third holds EDMUND and HOMER. So in grid three, with its
three silhouettes in the grid and three accompanying groups of
silhouettes, we have three sets of friends: the Addams Family, the
Pevensies (Narnia), and the Simpsons. Once again, encrypt the names to
search the grid as given rather than trying to decrypt the grid in
multiple reading frames. You should find all the Simpsons but BART, all
the Addamses but GOMEZ, all the Pevensies but LUCY (new groups of
friends highlighted in purple). The two letters protruding into the
empty block are consistent with a third Playfair square with key
BARTGOMEZLUCY.
Group |
Character |
Prepped for Playfair |
Encrypted |
Simpsons | Homer | HOMERX | QEWNQZ |
Simpsons | Lisa | LISA | OLAM |
Simpsons | Maggie | MAGXGIEX | WMFZCNOT |
Simpsons | Marge | MARGEX | WMZROT |
Addams | Wednesday | WEDNESDAYX | BWGLLWFSAU |
Addams | Morticia | MORTICIA | ANHZYKOY |
Addams | Pugsley | PUGSLEYX | KVDMOIAU |
Pevensies | Edmund | EDMUND | LBYZLG |
Pevensies | Susan | SUSANX | YVAMOZ |
Pevensies | Peter | PETERX | HLEWQZ |
-
Use the BARTGOMEZLUCY square to start decrypting the fourth grid, the
one with the black box in the middle. The start of the first row
decrypts to SPARE GLYPHS; if you do what an ordinary wordsearch would
ask you to do, and read off all the unused letters (“spare
glyphs”) into one long string, and decrypt that string, you get a
lengthy instruction: SPARE GLYPHS IN A ROW NEED TO BE STRUNG UP CHEEK
BY JOWL ONE AFTER ANOTHER AND NEXT CATENATE YOUR ROWS AS ONE BIG CLUE
THAT EGGS ON BEMUSED MIT CAMPUS COIN HUNT GURUS, TO WIT, YOU, TO END BY
SUBJECTING THE RIGHTMOST COLUMN NOW THRICE TO UNENCODING
STEPS. THAT’S WHERE A CONCLUSION HIDES.
-
Apply the three Playfair squares to the rightmost column one after
another:
Rightmost column |
SBWIHKYOLTOLFNEHDXCNV |
decrypt via BARTGOMEZLUCY |
QASNPIUEZGLZDPOKFWDISW |
decrypt via EILONWYSAM |
FOMLKLTIRMNVSDIQBACLYM |
decrypt via SILKWORM |
CALXLINWORDNICKNAMESXA |
Call in the word NICKNAMES, and you’re done.