September 2025 - Rome

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Location: Igpay Atinlay

  1. Each “language” follows a simple rule. For every language, there are 2-3 examples of this rule being applied.
  2. The word you’re translating, DIALECT, has to go through all of these rules in order.
  3. The rules for the first 4 transformations are:
    PIG LATIN: Move all letters before the first vowel to the end of the word and add AY
    COW LATIN: Add MOO to the end of the word
    CAT LATIN: Remove all instances of letters C, A and T
    KANGAROO LATIN: Change OO to R
  4. The rules for the second 4 transformations are:
    OX LATIN: Insert an X between the first and second letters
    INCHWORM LATIN: Take all letters preceding the middle 1 or 2 letters and move them behind the middle letter(s)
    SNAKE LATIN: Add SSS to the middle of the word
    OCTOPUS LATIN: Move the first 8 letters of the word to the end
  5. The rules for the final 3 transformations are:
    LIZARD LATIN: Remove the last 3 letters
    STOAT LATIN: Change S to AT
    BAT LATIN: Write the word back-to-front
  6. The final output is TAXIDERMY.

The Chariot Race

  1. The racers will form five different paths on the letter grid.
  2. People who have a big vocabulary of colors would be good at this puzzle.
  3. Every racer’s path spells various shades of that racer’s color.
  4. The first shade for each color is:
    BLUE: cobalt
    GREEN: emerald
    RED: auburn
    WHITE: alabaster
    YELLOW: amber
  5. The last shade for each color is:
    BLUE: slate
    GREEN: jade
    RED: scarlet
    WHITE: snow
    YELLOW: ochre
  6. The full lists of shades are:
    BLUE: cobalt, peacock, sapphire, slate
    GREEN: emerald, fern, forest, hazel, jade
    RED: auburn, cherry, crimson, scarlet
    WHITE: alabaster, cream, eggshell, snow
    YELLOW: amber, gold, lemon, mustard, ochre
  7. What could be the significance of the places where the colors crossover each other's paths?
  8. The crossover letters, from left to right, spell CHEERERS.

The Map

  1. After finding the answers to the eight clues below, you’ll see that all “roads” will indeed have to lead either to or through ROME.
  2. A few essential letters seem to be missing from the grid. Or maybe those letters are just represented differently…
  3. The colosseum icon stands for the letters R-O-M-E.
  4. All the answers to the clues contain a consecutive R-O-M-E.
  5. The answers to the clues are: ANDROMEDA, BAROMETERS, CHROMEBOOK, DROMEDARY, PALINDROME, PROMENADE, PROMETHEUS, SYNDROME.
  6. The roads don’t go through every letter in the grid.
  7. Unused letters spell the answer.
  8. The final answer is INJUNCTIONS.

The Emperors

  1. Some emperors have already been placed. Study their names, especially “Pasteurized” and “Breakable”. How do these nicknames connect to the names of the emperors’ successors?
  2. There’s something hiding either inside or outside every emperor’s first name.
  3. The nickname of one emperor is a clue for the first name of their successor. That’s why the emperor nicknamed “Pasteurized” leads to “siMILKus”
  4. With this logic, you can reconstruct the timeline of emperors. You can also fill in the boxes below their names, depending on how the emperors exhibit their hidden words.
  5. To decipher all those supposed I’s and O’s, you’ll need to use your code sheet.
  6. The I’s and O’s represent binary numbers. When read in the direction and order of the numbered arrows, they spell out the answer.
  7. The final answer is NAME-CALLERS.

The Forica

  1. Try naming the items (or animals, or actions) associated with each picture.
  2. Stuck on any words? Have a look at the pipe system. It contains letters. Maybe this helps you figure out which letters can be used to name the pictures?
  3. Good to know: None of the items pictured contain any letters that aren’t in the pipe system. So the bottle in the eighth picture probably isn’t FIZZ.
  4. Good to know: There are no repeated letters in the pipe system. That probably means that the first word isn’t BEER or GLASS or BEER GLASS. And the words in the fifth picture aren’t likely to be STEER, PAPER and ARROWS. And the words in the ninth picture aren’t likely to be BALL OF YARN or TWINE OR SOMETHING or DEFINITELY THREAD and PRESS A BUTTON.
  5. The first three sets of pictures are: (1) PINT, (2) NOTE, (3) CAR-UNDO.
  6. The next three sets of pictures are: (4) PAINT, (5) DART-NEWS-OX, (6) SNOW-TREX.
  7. The last three sets of pictures are: (7) AT-COIN, (8) TONIC, (9) STRING-UP
  8. The letters needed to spell the pictures correspond to the valves that should be open.
  9. Once the valves are set correctly, imagine water going through the system. What would that look like?
  10. The shape that the water makes should look like the letters of the answer. Sometimes you may need to squint a little.
  11. (Partial solution): The letters corresponding to the pictures are, in order, (1) L (2) r (3) S (4) t (5) A (6) n (7) E (8) C (9) U.
  12. Now, put them in the order indicated by the spaces at the bottom of page 1 of the puzzle.
  13. The final answer is NATURE’S CALL.

Meta: The Pantheon

  1. There are four spaces waiting for your feeder answers.
  2. Somehow, those feeder answers need to match up with the taglines of some as-of-yet unnamed gods. Try to figure out the gods implied by the taglines first.
  3. “Breezy” suggests wind; “fertile” suggests fertility; “fighter” suggests war; “queen” suggests, well, queen. Does this help you infer which Roman god is associated with each tagline? Google is your friend!
  4. Breezy = goddess of wind = AURA; fertile = goddess of fertility = CERES; fighter = god of war = MARS; queen = queen of the gods = JUNO.
  5. The Pantheon isn’t used as a temple for Roman gods anymore, but you can still find them hiding in there if you look closely.
  6. Each feeder answer contains the letters of the names of one of the Roman gods in order.
  7. NATURE’S CALL = AURA; CHEERERS = CERES; NAME CALLERS= MARS; INJUNCTIONS = JUNO.
  8. Draw a straight line between the feeder answer containing a god’s name with their corresponding tagline.
  9. You should now find 3 intersections on top of 3 words of the puzzle. What are those words?
  10. The intersections lie on the words of the answer: TIMES OLD ROMAN.

Bonus: The Gladiators

  1. Every gladiator holds a certain numerical value. The problem is, the gladiators’ names are spelled with letters, not numbers!
  2. There are Roman numerals hidden in the names of the gladiators.
  3. With this in mind, you can easily identify the winners for each match. (Remember that the winning gladiator’s value increases somehow after every fight.)
  4. Most sports brackets have all lines drawn at 90° angles, but this one also has many 45° angles. Strange, isn’t it? Why might that be necessary?
  5. For each numbered intersection, there is a hidden semaphore signal in the line from the winner to the next match-up.
  6. When written in the boxes below, the semaphore letters spell the answer: UNTIL SOMEONE LOSES AN I.