Sure [Cypher: Part II]

Posted on 04 Feb 2016 @ 5:55am by Ensign James Langley

568 words; about a 3 minute read

“THE FIRST WORD YOU SEEK IS BE THE NEXT ONLY THE BLIND CAN SEE AND ONLY IN COUNTING BY THREES.”

So the puzzle was spelling something out for me. Solving the first part only gave me one word to a phrase or writing that could be many words long. I'd be at it for months or even years depending on what was written and how I was to find out. Fortunately I'm young and decided I had plenty of time to spare. I got cracking.

So instead of a cipher the next part was a riddle. Something only the blind can see? Obvious! It had to be braille. I suppose other people can see it, too, but it was the only thing that came to mind other than philosophical ideas that had no place being in a puzzle. I confirmed my theory upon the realization that almost the entire sculpture was covered in small dots and some smaller still. So where to start? Another needle in a stack of needles.

Well, the first place to start for me was to learn braille. That was a chore took more time than I care to remember but I had a good teacher...

I sort of felt like one of those old music thingies but with two needles. I even learned to read with both hands, but that was somewhat useless given the size and orientation of the art. But onward I pressed. I caressed every damn centimeter of that sculpture with my bare hands. It was like falling in love.

There were a lot of numbers in a lot of combinations underneath all the letters, not to mention different directions. Try reading braille while suspended upside down! That hurt, but in the process I also learned to read it upside down and backwards. What can I say, I have nimble fingers. Ladies?

One, two, nine. Eight, two, three. Small clusters of dots under larger dots. Each letter had a number underneath and I had to follow the numbers. One, two, three. One, two, three. At last I found the pattern! So here's what it said: “BEHIND YOU.” I opened my eyes and looked behind me instinctively! Whoever made the puzzle certainly had a sense of humor.

So I pressed onward. One, two, three. One, two, three. A “HEY THERE, CUTIE” and a “KILROY WAS HERE” later and I finally found it! Wavy little zig-zaggy of a bugger!

“THE SECOND WORD YOU SEEK IS 'SURE.' IF YOU WANT MORE YOU ARE GOING TO HAVE TO MOVE TO THE GROOVE. X MARKS THE SPOTS BUT YOU ARE GOING TO NEED A DRILL AND A PICK TO GET WHAT YOU WANT.”

Oh, and did I mention it wasn't all in Federation standard? At least the numbers were all recognizable which allowed me to write a few patterns down and scour the ends of the figurative Earth to find just what languages matched up to the patterns. Fortunately most languages can be quite repetitive in their use of certain words. Whoever made this wanted people to learn because when all was said and done I had picked up on four different types of braille. I still can't speak or read the languages for the life of me, but I was able to have the characters translated once I recognized them.

Anyway, on to the next part...

To Be continued...

RSS Feed