The mysterious email on Mithrandir's Puzzlers Mail

Question

_{Original inspiration from @BeastlyGerbil's puzzle - This is an opportunity. Can you take it?}

I have just received this email, from someone who Puzzlers Email couldn't give me any info on - it just says 'Unknown'. I took a picture with my camera - maybe you can figure out what on earth this guy is saying, because I'm lost.

Hint

Short people have more than you realize...

Wow by the look of the boot case this will take a long time to solve — Beastly Gerbil, Nov 20 '16 at 10:01
Given the title, I suspect you got inspiration from somewhere else as well as Beastly's puzzle ;-) — Rand al'Thor, Nov 20 '16 at 12:28
I don't have enough to even make a partial answer, but there's a 'B' and an 'LKGRY.GIF' hidden in the image. Entering that into imgur urls (in various forms of capitalization) has come up empty. — Tim C, Nov 20 '16 at 19:59
@TimC Yes, that's a valid link - the capitalization is in there. Ignore the B - it's a leftover. o_o — Mithical, Nov 20 '16 at 20:04

Beastly Gerbil · Accepted Answer · 2016-11-29T09:24:38.723

13

The person who emailed you is trying to tell you

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is bad.

Your mind wanders back to the effort they put into hiding this message...

Clicking on the image you found a picture of a bookcase and a computer. The bookcase contained links which led to other images. A lot were filler images, but there were a few that caught your eye...

Some of the images seemed to contain hidden text. The life of Fred had Q3 and h2 quite obviously in it. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows contained Y1.

The trickiest to find

Was in The Hobbit. It is very hard to see but there is a q5 in the top right above the brim and a p4 in the top left corner. You had to zoom in a lot.

Ordering them from their numbers gave

https://i.stack.imgur.com/YhQpq.png gives us

which is

.

The numbers seeemed to correspond with

The numbers in the email. To decode you must take the number in the email, find its match and replace it with the letters

By decoding the entire email with this you got

Hello, Mithrandir. Once you and your little friends have decoded this, go to UOSvt.png. I will wait and watch.

So you went to

https://i.stack.imgur.com/UOSvt.png

And found

To solve it you had to go back to the bookcase and to the book labelled Saruman. In it you found

A hidden imgur link - https://i.stack.imgur.com/R7xgk.png

Which gave you

The small text at the bottom was

Bayl jbeqf gung ner 3 yrggref ybat - ROT13 for

'Only words that are 3 letters long'

So you solved the crossword with words 3 letters or longer and were found only a few letters remained unused.

The letters left over were:

ldhdcdbuerac

You also had to add an 'i' from the hidden link in the 'divergent' link:

And an 's' from the Gas Gage.:

So the final letters were:

ldhdicdbsuerac

Which descrambled to:

Cursed Child: Bad.

You sccessfully unlocked the email's secrets.

edited Nov 29 '16 at 09:24

answered Nov 20 '16 at 14:21

Beastly Gerbil

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@Mithrandir you mean wrong track for the 3 letter words bit? – Beastly Gerbil Nov 20 '16 at 14:29
1

If I remember correctly Monster Donut is a reference to one of the books in the Percy Jackson series 1. – boboquack Nov 20 '16 at 23:53
I dont understand. Where are q5 and p4? – bleh Nov 27 '16 at 13:45
@bleh very hard to see – Beastly Gerbil Nov 27 '16 at 13:49
Q5 i can sort of see. p4 is just indistinguishable – bleh Nov 27 '16 at 13:51
I could only see q5 and p4 after using Equalize in Gimp on these images. – Maria Ivanova Nov 28 '16 at 13:40
@MariaDeleva I had to squint a lot just looking at the images. Eyesight of Youth – Beastly Gerbil Nov 28 '16 at 13:43
@BeastlyGerbil or perhaps it is my monitor... :) I don't think I am that old yet... :P – Maria Ivanova Nov 28 '16 at 13:44
1

@Mithrandir when I solve the puzzle I'll focus on making the images and answer 1) well ordered 2) correct – Beastly Gerbil Nov 28 '16 at 20:24
At this point it's farily obvious that the persom sending it is Rand'al Thor – bleh Nov 29 '16 at 00:52
@Mithrandir, that would work... Tell me when you've added it. – Beastly Gerbil Nov 29 '16 at 09:03

score 6 · Answer 2 · edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:50

6

_{Note: I didn't try to click on the image yet when I wrote this answer, so the following is extremely partial and could be superfluous.}

Partial answer

When

427 = H
826 = E
26 = L
703 = O
504 = M
524 = I
534 = T
629 = R
698 = A
946 = N
857 = D
524 = I
385 = C
112 = T
840 = F
165 = S
9 = Y
256 = U
555 = V
825 = E
280 = W

Then the message partially decodes to

HELLO, MITHRANDIR. ONCE YOU AND YOUR LITTLE FRIENDS HAVE DECODED THIS, TO 634 O TIYNT 315 YLT. I WILL WAIT AND WAICH...
I think the 524 in the last line is supposed to be a 534. Not sure why TO 634 O TIYNT 315 YLT is so much nonsense for some reason... I also still have to figure out what 634 and 315 decodes to.

If the mapping so far is correct, the numbers with a blue border decode to:

HMOINTI

edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:50

Community

1

answered Nov 20 '16 at 10:39

1

The answers are in there. You're supposed to find the answers, not actually solve it! :) – Mithical Nov 20 '16 at 10:43
1

@Mithrandir Um... Wow, can't believe I didn't click on the image yet... Thanks. – Nov 20 '16 at 10:45
Just BTW: I updated the image, so you may want to update this. And, a clarification: The key is in the puzzle, not the actual solution. – Mithical Nov 20 '16 at 14:09

bleh · Answer 3 · 2016-11-28T00:27:36.907

This is just a lead on for other people to come.

This pic

corresponds to the

Pippen cipher probably.

But the text is nonsense, but there is a clear structure

njwj jwtr jrtx jpnq in wnx jxfju

Just too long for a comment

Also, the Magnus chase one

is Samariah al-Abbas. A Valkerie.

Don quixote.

can be nothing less than Rand al'Thor's donkey on SFF.SE, because he has not watched a single Star Wars movie.

I have no clue what a gas gage is, but

a sphygmomanometer apparently is what it is.

The mysterious email on Mithrandir's Puzzlers Mail

Hint

3 Answers3