April 2023 - The Magnus Archives

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Location puzzle

  1. The flavortext calls attention to a well-known code – do the words “dotty” and “dash” bring anything to mind?
  2. The flavortext says that the man’s “dotty” actions took a short amount of time, but his “dash”ing took a long time. Can you find more examples of length-related language in the statement itself?
  3. The phrase “Take your time; no, WAIT, go QUICKLY!” would translate to the letter N.
  4. CREEPY

Forsaken

  1. Cages that are entirely contained in one row or column (such as the 3-tile cage in the 6x6 puzzle) are a great place to start – the star that has to be placed in that cage will count as that row/column’s star, meaning that none of the other tiles in that row/column can have a star.

    In a similar vein, if a set of rows or columns is made up of an equal number of cages, those rows/columns must contain the stars for those cages. For example, in the 6x6 star battle, the bottom two rows are formed entirely of two cages, allowing us to cross out any tiles in those two cages not in the bottom two rows.

    Every cage has to have a star, and stars cannot touch one another! If placing a star in a tile would eliminate every tile in another cage, you can eliminate that spot. Tile B2 on the 6x6 is a great example of this.

    If you’re really stuck, star battle solvers exist online. Don’t stress out – this is meant to be fun!
  2. The flavortext tells us we’re trying to save people, so it follows that each of these clues solves to a well-known name. To help even further, both sets of clues are in alphabetical order by answer.
  3. Take a look at how long each of our answers are. Isn’t it interesting that they’re all unique lengths? Where else can we find things with those same lengths?
  4. Thanks to the star battles being solved, one tile in each row sticks out. Therefore, one letter in each row sticks out…
  5. LONELY SURVIVOR

The People's Church

  1. The flavortext tells us we need to combine some pairs to make teams. The clues and answers are explicitly listed as “team names” – what are the pairs? How could we combine them to make the “team names” (i.e. answers)?
  2. One clue, #6, is a freebee - the answer is on your answer sheet! Can you find the letters of that word anywhere on the page? Does this confirm any suspicions you might have had from the flavortext?
  3. We haven’t used all of the pairs in the grid. What can we do with the leftover ones?
  4. The remaining letters spell out a cluephrase. Following these instructions will allow us to read the final answer.
  5. Draw a black dot on every pair of letters in the grid without a vowel. Does this now resemble anything you’ve seen before – maybe on your code sheet?
  6. DARK HEARSE

The Unknowing

  1. Not every clue will be immediately obvious, but some should come easily (one of the answers is on your code sheet!). Do we notice anything about our answers so far?
  2. The flavortext tells us The Stranger changes its victims piece by piece. If its “victims” are these words in our grid, how could this change be represented? Do we notice it in any of our found words so far?
  3. The flavortext tells us to “follow the trail”, and the puzzle points out a place for us to start (HELP, in the top-left). If HELP is the start, and our words are changing bit by bit, we should be able to work out the logical “next step”.
  4. The “trail” will spell out our final answer!
  5. IT’S A BLAND NEW YOU

Ceaseless Watcher

  1. Not every clue will be obvious at first, and that’s okay! This is a word search, so it’s totally valid to work backwards (find a word in the grid and see if it matches a clue). There are enough “freebies” to get us started, though – and as a solving aid, clues are alphabetical by answer.
  2. As we try to find words, we may notice it… doesn’t really work. We can find chunks of words (some of them even being pretty long!), but something always gets in the way. What is it?
  3. This puzzle wouldn’t work if it was called “The Eyeball” or “Vision” or something like that. It only works if called “The Eye”
  4. The flavortext mentions that The Eye sees everything – what it’s looking for and anything left over. We’ve found everything The Eye was looking for… so what’s left?
  5. The leftover letters won’t give us the answer on their own, but they will tell us how to find it.
  6. IN THE BLINK OF THE EYE.

Meta:The Ritual

  1. This is a word transformation puzzle. Each of our feeder answers will be changed by the steps we’re given.
  2. There’s not an “aha” here like the other puzzles – just follow the instructions carefully!
  3. TURN OFF DREAD POWER

Bonus: The Corruption

  1. Before we worry about any of the flavortext, we can solve these crossword clues. Additionally, we can identify the bugs that are mentioned.
  2. The flavortext tells us the bugs hide “between things”, and we just so happen to have two distinct sets of things! Take a close look at the beginnings and endings of these words; could they be combined to make something familiar? Extraction: However, each bug is also said to be “missing a piece”; indeed, we might notice that we can’t put our clues together perfectly. What do we get if we make a note of what’s missing?
  3. BEE READY