an un-solvable riddle?

[StrickNine]

So I play Ultima Online on a free shard, and this orb showed up about a year ago with a riddle:


The riddle is the block of ..'s and slashes with the text at the lower left..

Apparently, it has nothing to do with uo or the story or whatever, and anyone can get the answer. It is supposedly easy.

The dots are NOT morse code. This has been tried many times. Neither is it hex, base64 etc.

Originally Posted by PSZ

It does make sense... It's just very round about to get the answer (which is quite easy, in the end).


Just like everything else in the universe, the riddle/dots/whatever are a long way to a short answer.

the above quote is from a gm who knows the answer.

this thing has been unsolved for over a year. anyone got any ideas?

[-=bingo-bango=-]

second in aqua but reverse... wouldnt that b "p"

besides that, i have no fucking clue

[Anshinritsumai]

Originally Posted by -=bingo-bango=-

second in aqua but reverse... wouldnt that b "p"

besides that, i have no fucking clue

That's all I got out of it as well... I'll try it out again later...

[StrickNine]

Originally Posted by uome

Ok so i have a new train of thought on this orby thingy.
here goes:
The other day i watched a film called "Lara croft tomb raider the cradle of life" Anyway in this film she finds a "mysterious orb" in a "luna temple" the orb she finds needs decoding. the code is represented with a series of dots which turn out to be translated into sound waves. Unfortunatly the sound seems to be unrecognisable.
The orb found in the film is a map or a device that behaves like a map. This map leads her to the cradle of life where she finds "Pandora's box"
Once i had seen the film i rushed staight there and typed in pandora's box so that dosn't work but,
......../...
pandoras box fits here in the first line,

second in aqua but reverse is "P"
Pandoras box starts with "P"

Just like each word except the last charachter.
Does this mean "and/or"

PSZ said that there is a song with a similar name to the answer. There are quite a few songs called "Pandoras box" but the on that i noticed is on an album by Aerosmith. Strangley the Album is also called Pandoras box.

In the recent staff aplications there is a part which jokingly says that the answer is "cheesecake" If you look at the Aerosmith Album "Pandoras box" there is also a track called cheesecake.

This may just be one of those coincedences But it seems to fit too well. The only part which dosn't make sense is the pauses in time part. Thats if that was realy a clue at all. Also i cant seem to do anything with the last part of the clue:
Just like end without the fifth.
All i can say there is that "Demise" is a word like end but without the fifth makes "demie" which makes no sense at all.

Anyway thats the best i have for now, so have fun trying and if it helps anyone i want half

And if the staff think its close enough pm me the answer

I think this guy from the shard forums is kindof on the right track. He also says psz said there is a song with a similar name to the answer...

[Circuitous]

Second in Aqua but reverse : p (q reversed)

Just like each word except the last character: each wor (last character of "each word" removed)

Just like end without the fifth: nd (e being the fifth letter)

Peach wornd? I thought I was getting somewhere, but wtf is a wornd?

......../... ./..__....../.__.. .._...__
. . . . . . . ./_.... . .../....
..../........
..../. ......./..__../.__...____
_______..../._.. ./ ........_/........
Second in Aqua, but reverse.
Just like each word except the last character.
Just like end without the fifth.
........?:

"Second in Aqua but reverse" might also be u (second in "auqa"). Ueach Wornd makes slightly less sense, unless it's a jumble to boot.

[StrickNine]

I thought wornd sounded like 'wyrm' wich is a type of dragon in the game.
So I tried peach wyrm. No go. I also tried peach wornd for the hell of it, too.

Some things of note: there is a white flame pillar that rises up around the orb constantly, and if you walk by it, a bolt of lightning hits you, but does no damage. Don't know if either of these have anything to do with the riddle, though.

[Circuitous]

Van de Graaf generator?

[squeek.]

Originally Posted by StrickNine

I thought wornd sounded like 'wyrm' wich is a type of dragon in the game.
So I tried peach wyrm. No go. I also tried peach wornd for the hell of it, too.

Some things of note: there is a white flame pillar that rises up around the orb constantly, and if you walk by it, a bolt of lightning hits you, but does no damage. Don't know if either of these have anything to do with the riddle, though.

Second in Aqua, but reverse could also be "d" or "b". "beach wyrm"?

[Marshmallow Noob]

AOS ftl. I play on defiance sometimes.

[StrickNine]

Originally Posted by Marshmallow Noob

AOS ftl. I play on defiance sometimes.

I don't care.


Beach wyrm didn't work either :/

[Marshmallow Noob]

Vas Rel Por.

[Coronius]

Is there a good RP freeshard out there?

[Ihmhi]

Try:

Peach Worm

Egyx

[Marshmallow Noob]

Originally Posted by Coronius

Is there a good RP freeshard out there?

www.connectuo.com server list

[halo]

......../... ./..__....../.__.. .._...__
. . . . . . . ./_.... . .../....
..../........
..../. ......./..__../.__...____
_______..../._.. ./ ........_/........
Second in Aqua, but reverse.
Just like each word except the last character.
Just like end without the fifth.
........?:

Bit of a bugger that one. Lots of ways of approaching it and none of them seem to make the dots and lines make any sense. I've been thinking on the words on more of a cryptic crossword line.

If I saw 'Second in aqua but in reverse' in a crossword, I'd be looking to put an abreviation of the word second inside the word water. So basically add an 's' to 'water' but not on the end ('in' not 'on'.) That could get you waster. But then there's the 'but reverse' bit which buggers it up a little. I suppose it could be restaw as a phonetic for restore.

[StrickNine]

That's an interesting way of looking at it. I just wish I had a better idea of what the dots, periods, and slashes have to do with the answer. Supposedly there is a song name that is almost exactly the same as the answer to this riddle...

[halo]

Give 'war and peace' a try. And that took some fucking working out so I hope it's right. Still nowhere with the dots and dashes. Not morse code. I really hope you can work it out with just the words part and that the words bit isn't just a clue to help with the dots and dashes because that makes it insanely hard.

There are always 4 or 8 dots between each dash which leads me to thinking that it's a mathematical code of letter replacement, perhaps where the forward slashes are the gaps between letters and the boxes the gaps between words. If that's right you could spend a year testing possibilities and not get it. Easy to make but a bugger to solve.

[StrickNine]

I've tried war and peace before... not it .

[Ihmhi]

Three lines to the riddle, three types of symbols.

I think somehow each line of the riddle might correspond to one of the symbols.

......../... ./..__....../.__.. .._...__
 . . . . . . . ./_.... . .../....
 ..../........
 ..../. ......./..__../.__...____
 _______..../._.. ./ ........_/........
 Second in Aqua, but reverse.
 Just like each word except the last character.
 Just like end without the fifth.
 ........?:

Perhaps "Second in Aqua, but in reverse" could refer to the chemical formula for water.

That would be either H20 or H0H.

In the former, it could be 2 in reverse (which looks like a S, or a 5), or the WORD two in reverse (owt).

In the latter, well... you can not really flip "O", so you could flip "oxygen" to "negyxo".

Whatever the answer it, it appears to be eight characters long.

[halo]

So you're saying it's just got three letters in that repeat a lot? I don't see that that can be the case.