The princess' journey came to a crossroad

Question

This is a sequel to A princess fell in love

During her journey, the princess encountered a very strange crossroad.

Can you help you her choose a safe way to go to the prince? What would she encounter on each of the roads?

Here is a map of the road:

Note: You can click on each road to view what the princess can see on each road.

The cipher tag seems important, for all the answers have used anagrams.... — Sid, Sep 03 '16 at 13:17

Sconibulus · Answer 1 · 2016-09-03T20:25:30.070

7

Eep, not the bottom left, it has

Fierce Lions

And the bottom right might have

Barbaric Tribes

The top center has

Scorpions

The top left warns of

Suffocation, seems bad, or Taco I/O Snuff, which seems even worse, even if it does have guacamole.

Top top right one is more mysterious, but

4,18,16 comes out of an alphabet cipher as DRP... perhaps that means Don't Run, Princess... but Four Eighteen Sixteen can be anagrammed to "One hints, refugee exit."

So I pick

The top right.

The top right has been pointed out to translate to

Bears

And the top left appears to have a

'Fan of coitus' in addition to the suffocation and taco snuff... still staying away.

So I'm going to go

Back the way I came, hopefully my family still loves me, or I can find a boat to Prince Laniff.

edited Sep 03 '16 at 20:25

answered Sep 02 '16 at 20:53

Sconibulus

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I would actually go to the top left because (ROT-13): Gurer vf n tenl onpxtebhaq oruvaq gur yrggref P N naq G rkprcg vg vf n gvtre be fbzrguvat yby. Not sure if you're deciphering of the top right is correct. – Sep 02 '16 at 20:56
You got three of them right. – Maria Ivanova Sep 02 '16 at 20:59
It's 4, not 14. So it's DRP (assuming the counting actually starts at 1). I think the princess just died, btw ;) – Sep 02 '16 at 21:14
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@LukasRotter probably, but anything to save her from the taco fate... – Sconibulus Sep 02 '16 at 21:17
The last two are still wrong. – Maria Ivanova Sep 02 '16 at 21:17
@Sconibulus But with PNGs I think the taco stuff would be bearable. (assuming I'm not color blind) – Sep 02 '16 at 21:18
I have a feeling that top left might be right. It outright says something evil, but that's probably just a trick... right?! – greenturtle3141 Sep 03 '16 at 07:01

greenturtle3141 · Accepted Answer · 2016-09-06T00:47:02.143

5

I feel bad for stealing work so please do upvote the other answers.

(What exactly is the convention for "Who gets to compile all the answers"?)

What is at the end of each path:

Direction - Puzzle (Credit)

Bottom Left - "Free Silicon!" (Sconibulus)

The sign says Free Silicon!, which is an anagram of Fierce Lions!.

Bottom

This is going back the way we came. There is a very angry family at the end of this road. That is very bad.

Bottom Right - What even is this (Sconibulus)

The words we have are:

Bar Bar Ric Bites!

This is an anagram for: Barbaric Tribes!

Top Right - 4, 18, 16 (Radoslav Hristov)

4, 18, and 16 are the atomic numbers of the elements: Beryllium, Argon, and Sulfur. Their respective symbols are: Be, Ar, and S. When you put them together you get Bears.

Top - "Cross Point" (Sconibulus)

The t is kinda blurred out so we just pretend it's not there. The words we are left with are: Cross Poin, which is an anagram for Scorpions.

Top Left - "Suffocation" (Me for once omg)

The word Suffocation can be converted to Butterflies using a basic substitution cipher.

Yeah I just kinda put "suffocation" in an online cryptogram solver and prayed. I'm not smart.

Answer

The only path that leads to something probably friendly is the top left path leading to butterflies apparently. I guess we should choose the top left path.

(Please upvote the other partial answers though because I'm dumb.)

edited Sep 06 '16 at 00:47

answered Sep 05 '16 at 06:32

greenturtle3141

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And what was the code used to get there? :O – Yandrakus Sep 05 '16 at 06:37
The majestic code of brute force using online tools of course ^_^ – greenturtle3141 Sep 05 '16 at 06:39
And this is correct. Now only if we had a single answer combining all 5 and (although this should be obvious now) and which way should the princess take. :) PS. @greenturtle3141, I believe that turned out to be the hardest part to solve. – Maria Ivanova Sep 05 '16 at 06:47
I would suggest you show the code for it.... That would make it easy to understand – Sid Sep 05 '16 at 06:52
I'm confused. What do you mean by "code"? – greenturtle3141 Sep 05 '16 at 07:09
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Hmmm, a single-word cryptogram. In my opinion, that's a bit too broad without a simple transformation rule like Caesar or Atbash. Perhaps the path leads to the coppermines? And it makes thw other signs ambiguous, too: "cross poin" could mean grass path or small gate when solved as cryptogram. – M Oehm Sep 05 '16 at 07:55
@M Oehm, using a simple substitution cipher on suffocation, got me two words only and they are related. PS. coppermines is not really a valid word - they are two separate words. – Maria Ivanova Sep 05 '16 at 07:57
@MOehm, additionally, your two suggestions for "cross poin" are not descriptive enough - what would she encounter on the grass path, or after the small gate? – Maria Ivanova Sep 05 '16 at 08:02
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Okay, so copper mines is two words, but we don't know whether the cryptogram requires us to find spaces or not in the same way we don't know that it is a cryptogram at all. The anagrams are easy to see and are also signposted by the anagram tag. I stand by my criticism that I find the cryptogram solution a bit disappointing. – M Oehm Sep 05 '16 at 08:06
As for the labels on the signs: If they were warning signs, they should spell out dangers, but if they are signposts, they should spell out destinations. The visual representation of the signs doesn't really tell which kind of sign they are. I like the basic premise of the puzzle, but I'm not so fond of the cryptotgram. – M Oehm Sep 05 '16 at 08:09
@MOehm, there is also a cipher tag. Besides, using cipher on the others could have turned out to too many combinations - so this should lead to the assumption they are not cryptograms. This one, on the other hand, when rearranged doesn't give much information, but when deciphered with a simple substitution cipher (since there are no clues for something more complicated), could lead to two words only - one ending with d and one with s. About spaces - I can easily include them in anagram and it would still be solvable. If I put them in a cipher as short as this one - it would be unsolvable. – Maria Ivanova Sep 05 '16 at 08:18
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Clearly, we have different views, so let's leave it at that. In general, I like your puzzles when I see them, but I'm often not convinced how they turn out. – M Oehm Sep 05 '16 at 08:25
Ok I compiled everything... – greenturtle3141 Sep 06 '16 at 00:47
Good wrap-up of the partial answers with detailed explanations. I don't know whether there's an official way to combine partial answers into a final one, but your approach to reference the contributors is good. Don't feel bad about getting the tick mark; there's no bounty, so you get only a modest 15 rep. And don't be so harsh against yourself: You were smart enough to figure out the last missing item that no-one else could solve for two days or so. Using a tool for that is legit. – M Oehm Sep 06 '16 at 05:40

rhsquared · Answer 3 · 2016-09-03T07:05:35.153

4

Partial answer, top right

If we assume that these are the numbers of elements from periodic table we get 4=Be, 18=Ar, 16=S, i.e. Bears. I wouldn't go there if I were the princess.

To avoid confusion I removed a guess which was wrong.

edited Sep 03 '16 at 07:05

answered Sep 03 '16 at 06:57

rhsquared

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@MariaDeleva All of them look like bad places. Is it a matter of choosing the least evil? – rhsquared Sep 03 '16 at 07:27
You will know which one to choose when you have all 5. :) – Maria Ivanova Sep 03 '16 at 07:28

score 3 · Answer 4 · 2016-09-03T08:58:06.960

3

Alright, I'll just post my guess as a community answer.

Sconibulus and Radoslav Hristov figured out everything except the top left. Which, in my opinion, is the safe one. Because if you notice there is a gray background behind the substring CAT in SUFFOCATION.

This seems like the best option, let's just hope it's a domestic cat.

edited Sep 03 '16 at 08:58

answered Sep 03 '16 at 08:52

Still wrong. Perhaps it is something you overlooked? – Maria Ivanova Sep 03 '16 at 11:27
Overlooked? So does the visual tag apply to the remaining path? Because in the other pictures the graphics were just adornment as far as I can tell. – M Oehm Sep 03 '16 at 15:01

score 3 · Answer 5 · answered Sep 03 '16 at 09:51

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Partial answer:

Top left:

Suffocation can be anagramed as Cautions Off.

Top center (as @Sconibulus said):

Scorpions

Top right(as @Radoslav Hristov said):

Bears

Bottom Left (as @Sconibulus said):

Fierce Lions

Bottom Right (as @Sconibulus said):

Barbaric Tribes

So:

The princess should pick Top left since as other roads leads to dangers.

answered Sep 03 '16 at 09:51

Yandrakus

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I will disappoint you but I gave the same answer and it turned out that it was wrong. – rhsquared Sep 03 '16 at 10:05
Then my answer is completely useless xD – Yandrakus Sep 03 '16 at 10:08

The princess' journey came to a crossroad

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