ღ | The Scarlet Conundrum | Solutions Posted

Your grandma had always been a person of mystery. During the many days you spent with her, she bestowed upon you her furtive stories and cryptic puzzles in exchange for your company. It’s not far-fetched to say that the erratic afternoons spent under her cherry tree had hardened you into quite the little puzzler. Despite such a relationship, most of her life was still very much shrouded in mystery. One of many said conundrums was a red metal 3-digit safe that she always kept near her bedside table. When you asked about it, she only smiled innocently.

She was as much a mystery in death as in life. She passed peacefully, leaving many unanswered questions and exactly one missing safe.

At the very spot where the massive scarlet container had been only days before, there was in its stead a small pile of snow white envelopes, each stamped with a blood red seal. They are each filled with several papers adorned with incoherent letters and symbols.

Here you have the entirety of grandma’s letters. Without physically searching, these clues are all you require to uncover the location of the safe somewhere on the grounds of her mansion and the 3-digit combination to unlock it.

Spoiler: Envelope One

You carefully open the first envelope. There are two notes.

The first:
2-12-6 8-19-12-6-15-23 25-22 26-25-15-22 7-12 8-12-15-5-22 7-19-22 24-12-23-22 4-18-7-19 22-26-8-22

The second:
xhwjmrkxhiymx oxxleusqbaretasrikxlrwi

Spoiler: SOLUTION

We start with an a1z26 cipher.

blf hslfow yv zyov gl hloev gsv xlwv drgs vzhv

This is a atbash cipher (opposite of Caesarian shift), pretty easy to identify as there are only few mono-alphabetical substitution ciphers.

you should be able to solve the code with ease

"EASE" is the keyword here. In fact, it's the key word to unlock the next part of the code.
Using "EASE" as the key for the next vignere ciphered code yields you:

thefirstdigitofthecombinationisthree

The first digit of the combination is three.

Spoiler: Envelope Two

Scrawled disorderly across the exterior of the letter is a single phrase. Lost at sea. You ponder what it could mean.

3. 1.1- 3. 3. 1. 1. 1.1- 1.1- 3. 1. 3. 3. 1.1- 3. 1. 1. 1.1- 1. 1. 3. 1.1- 1. 1. 3. 1.1- 1.1-2. 1. 1- 1- 1. 1.1-1. 3. 2. 1-1. 3. 1-1.1-1. 1.1- 1.1-1. 1.1-2. 1. 1- 2- 2. 1-1. 2.1- 3. 3- 1-1. 1. 1.1- 3. 3. 1. 1.1- 3. 1. 1. 3. 1.1- 1.1- 1. 3.

A N U D M O B K F P E N R A V P F L O F
W R U Y Q E D A R T X G O P L H X A D S
X E X F S D Q P Q D G Y G R I T E W S I A
Q T S E M R W Q S D E J D S F D S R W L
K S T R S D G A R L K G H J Y A F S E W A
L H J U S G Y U H S K A S U H Y S I E U L
K J N A U H U J U L U Q X G S D R F A Q

Spoiler: SOLUTION

"Lost at sea" and the periods/dashes can only hint to one thing... Morse code.
Deciphering the Morse yields you:

SASSEEAASESSASEEAEESAEESALETTERSINSCARLETMINUSONEASSEASEESAAES

There are seven letters in "scarlet". Minus one gives you six.
Counting every sixth letter in the second code reveals:

o n l y t h e p r i m e s t r y a g a i n

Counting every prime number reveals:

n u m b e r f o u r

The second digit of the combination is four.

Spoiler: Envelope Three

To your surprise, the third envelope contains only a single image with a cryptic message.

Spoiler: SOLUTION

I daresay this is the easiest envelope to solve.
Embedded steganographically in the picture is a link to a pastebin page.
I will not post the contents (just click it to see it) as it's pretty damn long.
Here you find an octal encoded ASCII string that reveals:

your next destination is http://imgur.com/yJ0mSUA do not fret for you are almost there

Steganography. Reveals:

/user/114121117117

A Reddit account. The account has exactly one thread.

a king of Rome once revered,
with seven quick strikes severed
fvbohclkvulleayltlsfdlssavjvtlaopzmhyaolshzakpnpapzlpnoa

This refers to Julius Caesar; revered, then assassinated. Caesarian shift using the key number 7 (to decode, you use 19, because you shift it the opposite amount of times) reveals:

youhavedoneextremelywelltocomethisfarthelastdigitiseight

The last digit of the combination is eight.

Spoiler: Envelope Four

You are not quite sure what to make of the strange symbols you find on a single sheet of paper in the last envelope.



On the back of the image, you find a cryptic message scrawled in grandma's messy handwriting.

I found this on a piece of paper on the train yesterday evening. I can't find out what it means!
imucmUxZpgigroUB5Fn

Luckily, this is something you saved from the early days when the mansion was purchased. You can still remember going from room to room, scanning the marble walls with curious eyes.
You never knew the floor plan would serve such a purpose. You are relieved.


irrelevant to the puzzle, the image source

Spoiler: SOLUTION

Thanks to @Thunder for completing the first step for everyone! Overlaying the two maps gets you a unified map where the symbols correspond to their respective rooms.



Now to find the symbol.

I found this on a piece of paper on the train yesterday evening. I can't find out what it means!
imucmUxZpgigroUB5Fn

Keyword train. This refers to nothing other than rail cipher (or railfence), a very generic transposition cipher. Deciphering the code (2 rails, 0 offset, you'll have to have done a little bit of guessing) reveals:

iimgurcomUUBx5ZFpng

Obviously an imgur link.

i.imgur.com/UUBx5ZF.png

You arrive at a picture that says "twinkle twinkle" in blue. It's pretty obvious from there.
The safe is hidden under the blue star.

The scarlet safe is in the terrace.

The reward is 2 stacks of LE.
Where is the scarlet safe, and what is the lock combination?

Congratulations to @Pokextreme for winning this giveaway!

 

oh! something different

 

Ok lol I'm dumb so no free money :(

 

Same :(

 

Are you my grandma then?

 

Whats with all the ciphers and shit nowadays?

 

I feel like the first one is about Midas.

Not the brand, the guy.

 

To make us poor people feel sad :(

 

i hate puzzles

 

The answer to everything is always 42

 

you arent alone...

 

Bish pls

 

I'm calling it now that the person who wins this already has a tonne of le already
(Betting An emerald block cause that's all I have)

 

I think I did something helpful:


This is assuming that the symbols shouldn't be flipped upside down or something.

 

I'll raise that to 1LE



I'm just kidding I have no money D:

 

Ummm is it 7?

 

mark I m going to solve it

 

It's said that the floor plan is irrelevant to the puzzle.

 

Does any information in one puzzle help with another? I.e. if I solver puzzle one, would any information in puzzle one help me with the other puzzles?

 

Is the combination 8-1-2?