The entrapment of Beastly Gerbil

Question

Part 1: The disappearance of Beastly Gerbil
Part 3: The escape of Beastly Gerbil

I've been trapped here for what feels like forever. This is all I've known. Darkness. The occasional flash of light, but then back to darkness, always, always .... back to the darkness. I'd give anything to escape this.

$\qquad$$\qquad$$\quad$

My senses are on fire. I'm... hyper-aware. I can feel everything, sense everything around me. It's torture. There's nothing to sense except the dark maze in which I am currently trapped. It feels like I'm being torn apart. I don't know who I am anymore...

But wait... I'm sensing... something. Something is happening... It's here, it's -

$\qquad$$\qquad$$\quad$

- crushing. I'm being thrown backwards. A stream of characters is flashing past me, blinding, deafening. I can sense every character as it passes, every pulse it emits as it crushes me from all sides.

ROT13O4YNAX1SBEY39R4526GGREC1H9G6AHZOREF2VATE5VQFB472YIR8NQQV6GVB2A9E1RNEEN4ATR82

The same string, flying past over and over, every character inflicting unbearable pain. It's too much. It's crushing, it's....

gone.

Just like that I am left alone once again, alone in the darkness. I never thought I would be so relieved to be back in the dark. But wait. I'm sensing something again. It's coming. I can't, not again, anything but thi -

$\qquad$$\qquad$$\quad$

Another stream thundering past. I'm being pulled in all directions, it's literally tearing me apart. The same two grids, over and over and over. The stream continues...

It's endless, the pain, my senses burning, its - over, it's over finally, it's all over...

I need help. I don't even know where I am.

Where is Beastly Gerbil trapped?

(Click on pictures provided to see them in better resolution)

Number Grid in Sheets

Hint:

2 = 10

@Deusovi, sure thing, if you open it in a new tab it's much, much clearer, but I'll add a google sheets link — Beastly Gerbil, Mar 28 '20 at 18:19
I'm looking at the grid of numbers and keep thinking some of the cells look darker. Genuinely can't figure out if that's an optical illusion or not. — Rand al'Thor, Mar 28 '20 at 18:34
@Randal'Thor There are some darker ones, yes -- there's a plus sign of darker cells in the center of the number grid. — Deusovi, Mar 28 '20 at 18:34

Deusovi · Accepted Answer · 2020-03-31T01:41:53.943

15

To start:

The bold text says "ROT13", and then a lot more text. If we apply the rot13 cipher to the rest of the text, we get:

B4LANK1FORL39E4526TTERP1U9T6NUMBERS2INGR5IDSO472LVE8ADDI6TIO2N9R1EARRA4NGE82

The letters spell out a message: "Blank for letter, put numbers in grid; solve; addition; rearrange".

Next, we follow those instructions:

The original message had 81 letters: exactly enough to fill a 9x9 grid. So, we put those numbers in the grid:

Hey, a 9x9 grid of numbers... looks like a Sudoku! And indeed it is:

The next instruction is

"Addition". If we add the given numbers to the grid, we get another grid:

This has all the numbers from 1 to 81 once.

So, the last instruction says

"Rearrange": this tells us how to rearrange the black/white/gray grid on the right. Using the numbers from 1-81 to fill in another grid (cell 1 goes in the top left, cell 2 goes right of that, etc) gives an image with a nice gray border:

The last step was found by Jens:

Reading each row as binary, we get numbers 8, 74, 7, 5, 88, 53, 7.

Translating these numbers to chemical elements gives O, W, N, B, Ra, I, N, which spells OWN BRAIN.

edited Mar 31 '20 at 01:41

answered Mar 28 '20 at 18:48

Deusovi

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Wow! That was unbelievably quick! You're on the right track, keep thinking :) – Beastly Gerbil Mar 28 '20 at 18:51
@Beastly Unbelievably? This is Deus we're talking about ;-) – Rand al'Thor Mar 28 '20 at 19:02
@Randal'Thor true lol, and hes so close to the final answer too :) – Beastly Gerbil Mar 28 '20 at 20:16
Looking from left side of the image we get rot13(P cyhf), not sure what does it mean, maybe combining it to the rests of the left part of the image? – athin Mar 28 '20 at 22:02
Deusovi's gonna be kicking himself after solving another recent puzzle lol – Beastly Gerbil Mar 29 '20 at 14:52
As it's been over a day, I've added a small hint, hopefully the final bit can be solved now – Beastly Gerbil Mar 29 '20 at 20:10
1

@Beastly Regarding the kicking, I see what you mean! :) Sometimes one's brain works in mysterious ways. – Jens Mar 29 '20 at 23:08
@Jens if you have the answer you can always post another partial!!! I’ll probably give deusovi the tick as he’s got to where he has, but if you’ve worked it out you definitely deserve the credit!!! – Beastly Gerbil Mar 29 '20 at 23:10
Hey deusovi, I can award the tick if you add in a final answer, I want to award it to you as you solved the majority of this (and very quickly!), but if you feel like it should go to Jens, I can award it to him? Although I know he wants you to get it :) – Beastly Gerbil Mar 31 '20 at 00:33
@BeastlyGerbil Added! – Deusovi Mar 31 '20 at 00:56
@Deusovi well deserved tick!! Although might want to change the title of your answer as it’s no longer partial :) – Beastly Gerbil Mar 31 '20 at 01:29
I think the [cipher] tag should have been included. – 1357924680a Aug 13 '23 at 21:23

Jens · Answer 2 · 2020-03-30T01:17:10.500

5

Beastly Gerbil is trapped in his

OWN BRAIN

We get this answer by

converting the 7 lines in the final square (found by Deusovi) into binary, with white squares as 0 and black squares as 1. This gives (from the top) 8, 74, 7, 5, 88, 53, 7. Taking these as atomic numbers we find that their element symbols are O, W, N, B, Ra, I, N, which becomes OWN BRAIN!

Please give Deusovi the tick as he did the majority of the work!

edited Mar 30 '20 at 01:17

answered Mar 29 '20 at 23:23

Jens

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Congrats!!! Next up, the finale - the escape of beastly gerbil :P the best thing about this is deusovi not only tried 7 bit binary (presumably only tried converting to ASCII) he solved another puzzle a couple of hours ago where the answer was hidden using chemical elements lol. Well done on the final answer!! – Beastly Gerbil Mar 29 '20 at 23:26
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I know about that other puzzle because that puzzle was mine! :) – Jens Mar 29 '20 at 23:31
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oh lol, no wonder you saw the answer here then! :P – Beastly Gerbil Mar 29 '20 at 23:31

The entrapment of Beastly Gerbil

Where is Beastly Gerbil trapped?

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