At the Castello

You arrive to the Castello di Dolcci and find representatives of the Sonnburg Police department along with the local police at the scene. They inform you that they have established contact with the other Enigma Fellowship member, who seems to be trapped in an underground chamber.

You walk to the entrance of the underground chamber, which looks like a slab of rock has been slid over a hole in the ground. The local police tried removing it with no success. They tell you that they are afraid to try and demolish it because the underground chambers here are quite old and may collapse if heavy machinery is used.

Luckily, you can communicate with your colleague via an aerating grate into the ground. You learn that your teammate is safe, and they discovered what seems to be the sound of water running near the chamber. But the exit to this underground water source is locked with a sturdy slab and some rods. While poking around in the room your colleague also discovered a map hidden amongst some wine barrels, along with an old broken radio – one that looks like it belonged to the military at some point. They believe that the chamber must have served as a command center at some point.

The gaps in the grate are big enough that your colleague is able to pass the map out to you.

Open the Part 1 envelope now.

The alternate exit your colleague found seems like the fastest and safest way to get them out. But you will need to get that slab off since your colleague has no means of unlocking it.

Just as you are pondering the problem, a police officer informs you that they also found what seem to be entrances to an underground tunnel system. They tell you that all the entrances appear to be quite old, and have the same architecture.

As you follow them to one of the nearest ones, you realize that one of these must lead to the chamber your colleague is inside. You notice that the entrance has three columns on each side, and designs of snakes on the top. There also seems to be a slab with some numbers and letters. The gate seems to be locked using a mechanism that can be moved up, down, left and right.

You need to figure out how to open the gates so you can get inside the underground tunnel system.

Hints

Hint 1

The local police has told you that all the gates look the same, so if you manage to open one of them, the solution will probably work on the others as well.

The gate is made up of:

• Three columns of different sizes on each side.
• Some text that sounds like instructions.
• Some letters I and V in different groups, above the columns of text.
• Snakes.
• Some random looking letters, which are neatly organized into rows and columns.

Hint 2

Do the combinations of the letters I and V, above the columns of text, mean anything to you?

Hint 3

You are in front of an old Roman aqueduct. Could the letters I and V, above the columns of text, be Roman numerals?

Hint 4

The combinations of I and V represent:

• IV = 4
• II = 2
• VI = 6

So 4, 2, 6.

Have you noticed that these numbers almost resemble the ratio between the sizes of columns on the right and left sides of the entrance?

Hint 5

Have you counted the number of columns the random letters are organized into?

Hint 6

The instruction says something about divide and conquer. Would it make sense to divide up the 12 columns with letters sections of different widths?

Hint 7

Try to divide it up into 3 sections. Can you think of what could the widths (number of columns) be in each sections?

Hint 8

The Roman numerals suggest IV (4), II (2) and VI (6). Have you tried to create sections with these sizes? Like this:

• Columns 1-4 is the first group (width = 4)
• Columns 5-6 is the second group (width = 2)
• Columns 7-12 is the third group (width = 2)

Hint 9

You will probably have to read the text on each section separately from the others. The instruction says, that after ‘dividing and conquering’ you must ‘follow the snake’.

Can the slithering movement of the snakes help you read out anything on the first sections (4 leftmost columns)?

Hint 10

Notice how the snake moves downwards, starting from right to left, then left to right?

Hint 11

You must start on the top right letter of your section. For the first section this it the topmost letter in the 4th column from the left.

Then read on, from right to left (T-O-S-T).

When you reach the side of the column you must move down one line, then change your direction from left to right (A-R-T-J).

This already gives you two word! TO – START – J…

Hint 12

Following the snake across the three groups, you get the text:

• Group 1 (columns 1 to 4)
  • TOSTARTJUSTROTATEONCETOTHERIGHTT
• Group 2 (columns 5 to 6)
  • HENTWICETOTHELEF
• Group 3 (columns 7 to 12)
  • TTHENPRESSITUPFIVETIMESANDONELESSTIMETHEOTHERWAY

Hint 13

If you read the full text in one go, you get:

TO START JUST ROTATE ONCE TO THE RIGHT THEN TWICE TO THE LEFT THEN PRESS IT UP FIVE TIMES AND ONE LESS TIME THE OTHER WAY.

Can you get get the sequence of numbers and letters showing what actions and directions you need to do?

Solution

Show Explanation

Notice the Roman numerals on the top of the gate: IV (4), II (2), VI (6)? These sum up to 12. This is the same as the number of columns in the matrix of letters below.

The text on the top talks about divide and conquer. You should divide up the matrix of letters into three sections:

• First section with width of four columns of letters (columns 1 to 4).
• Second section with width of two columns of letters (columns 5 to 6).
• Third section with width of six columns of letters (columns 7 to 12).

Now you have three separate sections that need to be read.

The letters on the top also say that after dividing and conquering, you must follow the snake. For reading the sections, follow a snake-like movement, slithering down, always starting at the top right corner of the area.

The text will read: TO START JUST ROTATE ONCE TO THE RIGHT THEN TWICE TO THE LEFT THEN PRESS IT UP FIVE TIMES AND ONE LESS TIME THE OTHER WAY.

Show Answer

So the solution is: 1r2l5u4d or 1r2lu54d