"Torment", latest internet rage.

[Newc]

Hmmm. Put the title as the solution and you get the Mona Lisa shaking her head "No"

[SlasZ]

http://www.grngecko.com/error404.html LOL

[Spivonious]

Hmmm. Put the title as the solution and you get the Mona Lisa shaking her head "No"

hmm...the "monalisa"....

and now I'm on this:


It's a portrait of da Vinci in red chalk...but "redchalk" "portraitinredchalk" and "redchalkportrait" aren't the answers.

[Newc]

Haven't gotten there. I'm on the chick with the duct tape over her mouth.

Finally got past the Runes. This helped: http://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U16A0.pdf

[GodOfRhythm]

hmm...the "monalisa"....

and now I'm on this:


It's a portrait of da Vinci in red chalk...but "redchalk" "portraitinredchalk" and "redchalkportrait" aren't the answers.

Dan Brown anagrams.

[Newc]

So what's with the roaches? 6 don't move, 2 face the same direction, 4 are facing different directions.

[GodOfRhythm]

So what's with the roaches? 6 don't move, 2 face the same direction, 4 are facing different directions.

Read the text of the previous page you had to translate for a VERY big (obvious) clue. (last line in particular).

[Newc]

Yep, Ron! I had that in my info sheet, but it proved useless at the time.

I've since cracked a polyalphabetical script:

Here are the latest steps I've taken:

http://www.grngecko.com/sodarktheconofman.html

----> Here you had to grab pen and paper and translate the cryptic message. You can make out 'FIRST THREE' in the bottom line if you look really carefully. I (and my mother ) used that as a base and cracked the text in about 45min
__________________________________________________ ______

http://www.grngecko.com/changofplans.html

--->Now this is insane. Did researching and turned out it was Polyalphabetical encryption. I looked at the text and sometimes you can see single capitalized letters. These could pretty much only be 'I' (or perhaps 'A' or 'O') but you can be fairly certain they're 'I', so we put that in the back of our heads.

Then I looked for the most dominant capitalized letter. Which is: 'Z' (it appears three times in the code). When counting the number of characters between each Z you get two numbers: 14 and 28.

Both are divisable by 7. Now in order for 'Z' to appear again as the code for the real letter 'I', you would have had to have gone through your entire 'group' (or 'key'). So given that both numbers are divisable by 7, the keyword HAD to be 7 letters. My mom had an awesome revelation this morning and said: 'TORMENT' is seven letters. She used that as a key and she woke me about an hour ago and told me she had cracked the code!

Basically: 'TORMENT' is the key. You take your coded text and above each letter of the coded text you write a letter of 'TORMENT'.

Like so:

tor men tt orm e nttormen tt or....
Aid, zsg utr wav n uxuzzrrk. LC ua....


Now you take another piece of paper and write down 'TORMENT' in big letters.

Under each letter of TORMENT on the new page you draw two columns (so that's 14 columns).

In each of the left columns you write your regular alphabet. Now we already guessed 'Z' in the code represents the real letter 'I'. So when you've written 'torment' above the entire coded text, you simply look for the letter of 'Torment' that is above the Z (it was the 'r' of torment that was above each Z in this case).

So on your new page under the R, in the right column you know that the letter Z is used for I. So in our right column you write the 'z' next to the letter I (of the regular alphabet of your left column).

Then you continue finding clues to fill in all of your columns. Then it's just a matter of checking the coded text and for each coded letter, looking at which letter of 'torment' is above it, then going to your new page and seeing which column that is and thus which alphabet symbol was used to replace the original thing.

_________________________________________________

The decrypted text gives you 'planeta americana' (american cockroach), so you enter that as your solution and you get to the next page:

http://www.grngecko.com/periplanetaamericana.html

So for this to work, if, for example, r in Torment = Z in the alphabet, and capital Z = capital I (first-person/self), would I put the Z next to I under the "R" column and then proceed Alphabetically from there, so that J=A, K=B, etc?

Like this?

"R"
a = r
b = s
c = t
d = u
e = v
f = w
g = x
h = y
i = z
j = a
k = b
l = c
m = d
n = e
o = f
p = g
q = h
r = i
s = j
t = k
u = l
v = m
w = n
x = o
y = p
z = q

Another thing I noticed: if you treat R and Z in the Alphabet as bookends, and the letters between them as books, there are 7 "books" between the "bookends" (a bit simpler than the 14/28/7 thing but probably won't work for finding any other letters )

[Newc]

I'm confused, but I think I'm making progress.

Taking my Alphabetical Relation theory above, and assuming the "word" kv'hi is really "we're", then under the R column, the real Alphabet E equals the code alphabet "v", just the same as the code Z in the R column is equal to the real alphabet I.

[GodOfRhythm]

I'm confused, but I think I'm making progress.

Taking my Alphabetical Relation theory above, and assuming the "word" kv'hi is really "we're", then under the R column, the real Alphabet E equals the code alphabet "v", just the same as the code Z in the R column is equal to the real alphabet I.

I think you're on the right path.

Here's another tip:

The first letters in your columns under 'TORMENT' (next to the a) will also spell 'TORMENT'.

So thats:

_T_O_R_M_E_N_T
aT_O-R_M_E_N_T
b...
c
d
e

[Spivonious]

Dan Brown anagrams.

Dan Brown's a loser. :P

So I got a bit farther now...let me tell you, decoding those runes was no fun at all, but now I think I'll be able to make a new translation of The Hobbit.

http://www.grngecko.com/changeofplans.html

This is strangely fun, althought my brain hurts now.

[Newc]

Read the text of the previous page you had to translate for a VERY big (obvious) clue. (last line in particular).

I've been able to guess the message based on context clues and decoding a few of the "TORMENT" keys, and I get this for the last line:
After you spend some time with my little friends then we'll begin to see what kind of shape you're really in.

Going by your "hint" about the last line containing an "obvious" clue, I still can't figure it out. Opening the page in a shockwave decompiler and playing it frame by frame, several roaches stop at different times, perhaps forming letters with others?


This is what I get for the whole message:
Hmm, not bad for a beginner. So do you think you might survive? Perhaps you'll do quite well. But then we've just begun and it hasn't been very difficult, yet. Maybe if I put my mind to it I can torment you a bit more. I think I will. Enough of all this talk what you really want from me is to know how to continue, correct? Let me see, what should it be? How about something disgusting? Are you ready for the periplaneta americana? Yeah, periplaneta americana that's it! I bet you're feeling pretty good about your progress, maybe even a bit cocky! After you spend some time with my little friends then we'll begin to see what kind of shape you're really in.

[Newc]

DOH!

Finally got it! If you can speed up the animation you can see it more clearly.

[Newc]

Here now: http://www.grngecko.com/cube.html

Each "word" is made of 5 letters. I'm assuming the gargoyle has something to do with it? Scaning through online pics of gargoyles now to see if I can find that one. It looks similar to the ones on Notre Dame.

[Spivonious]

I'm there too Newc. It looks like a Bazieres cipher but I've tried gargoyle as the key with nothing that makes sense being translated. http://members.aon.at/cipherclerk/Bazeries.html