Secrets of the Alchemist Dar/Unsolved Puzzles

=Unsolved Puzzles=

This section describes puzzles which have been identified on the [http://www.alchemistdar.com/fusetalk/forum Offical Trovers Forum] .

Caution: There is technically no way of knowing if these are the puzzles, because they have not been solved yet, but it seems likely that they are.

Page numbering Acorns

Most acorns point south. 12 of the 73 point in odd directions.

Page 10,11 Mushrooms

Surrounding the book's preface (pages 10 & 11) there are 59 trees. Between the trees are clumps of mushrooms which always number from 1-5. As almost all of the gaps between the trees can also fit into 5 different measurements, it has been speculated that a Polybius Square, (a throwback to ATT), may be somehow involved. Oddly several of the trees and mushroom images are copy'n'pasted two or three times around the border further adding to the confusion.

Page 58 Apples and Berries

Many seem to think that this page is important and somehow a Cipher Disk may be involved, but no clear theories have developed. There are 32 notches around each apple, 6 red and 26 orange. There are 113 berries along the bottom of the page of which 17 are red.There is evidence supporting both claims that the wheel is to be populated with letters from the alphabet by placing them into the lighter colored notches, as well as populating the entire wheel with letters darker ones included, while the former has yet to yield any tangeble clues, populating the wheel with letters in a sequence: 1-32 = A-Z + ABCDEF has yielded the words "Page Number IV" or "VI" Trovers are quick to point out there is no way to confirm this as a solve.

Page 80 Gems

The leaves have been used for a morse message above, which leaves the Gem encrusted medallions unused. Some of the medallions, if you look closely, have green spots on them instead of red....if you turn the page upside down, one with a green spot is at the head of the page. There are 16 of them and several clues on this page and in the trailer pointed to the idea of reflecting this page by 180 degrees and overlaying it on itself so that Zac and Ana comingle, but there the trail has run cold.

Page 92 Vine border

The background of the border on this page is tiled and 41 are picked out in magenta. The vines are symmetrical left to right and there are 42 pairs of leaves where either the left or the right (but never both) leaves are discoloured. On top of the vines are 15 blue flowers which break the symmetry.

Page 94 Berry Border

There are 17 sprigs of berries on each side. They are symmetrical except for the way that they are colored; each sprig has at most one coloured berry.

Page 108 Border

The border is again tiled and 17 tiles are picked out in a darker green.

Ladybug rings

Throughout the Book of Spells there are 41 rings, 36 are ladybugs and 5 are red diamonds. The colors of the ladybugs fit into three groups: RED, YELLOW and BLUE. Not considering rotation or size variations, there are 11 different types. It has been speculated that page 19 should be flipped horizontally so that there are only 9 distinct types. Interestingly, the Red ladybug rings depicted in the Book of Spells do not appear to have any spots.

Filled in Letters

Throughout the first few pages of the Book of Spells certain letters are filled in. There are 52 on page 1 and 104 all together. There are 10 different filled in letters: a b d e g o O p q R.

Droplet Symbols

Pages 2 & 5 of the Book of Spells contain strips of geometric symbols. 38 + 30 + 35 = 103 in total. The number of sides on the symbols neatly goes from 1 to 6 and there are 11 different types. It has been speculated that one of the pages should be turned upside down so that there are only 10 distinct types.

Celtic Borders

Pages 3,4 & 5 of the BOS are surrounded by multicoloured celtic braids. There are at least 7 different colors used to fill in the braids and also many white parts. This looks to be the least popular puzzle.

Huge Code Blocks

Pages 16, 17, 18, 19 of the Book of Spells include huge blocks of code which have been dubbed HCB (Huge Code Blocks) on the [http://www.alchemistdar.com/fusetalk/forum/messageview.cfm?catid=59&threadid=710&enterthread=y Official Hunt Forum] . These blocks include similar symbols to the Quinary page numbers, but are much more complex. Players on the Official Hunt Site speculate that the HCB are keys to understanding the treasure hunt.

Taken in its simplest form the HCB can be completely constructed from 4 shapes:
* Crescent (moon)
* Circle (sun)
* Line
* Bar

These 4 can face in various directions, can be large or small, and can be white or black.

Taken in its most complex form the HCB consists of over 8000 symbols of which over 700 are unique. The larger symbols can be made up of as many as 9 smaller components. The most common symbol is also one of the simplest; a small white sun, which appears approximately 670 times alone and over 5000 times in all.

*Further, small snippets of the HCB symbols appear on page 6 of the Book of Spells. These 4 snippets can be combined (through rotating and overlaying) to form 13 characters that may be a key to de-coding the HCB. [http://www.alchemistdar.com/fusetalk/forum/messageview.cfm?catid=55&threadid=687&enterthread=y Source: Official Hunt Site]

*Page 16 has 77 small black dots in five sets. When these dots are 'shifted' across the HCB on that page they pick out certain symbols. [http://www.alchemistdar.com/fusetalk/forum/messageview.cfm?catid=54&threadid=918& Source: Official Hunt Site] Some trovers speculate that the highlighted symbols should then be removed from the HCB facilitating further constructions.

*Further snippets of the HCB have been released in the [http://www.alchemistdar.com/multimedia/76.swf Trailer] , where oddly the sequences are directly taken from the HCB but have been colored in (blackened) differently.

*Michael Stadther released yet further HCB code in the [http://www.alchemistdar.com/Public/NewClues/index.cfm New Clue] on Christmas Day whilst appearing on Fox TV. This time the HCB symbols encircled an ambigram of the word Reflection.

Digitizer101 has re-created the HCB for easier printing and cracking, however these recreations do not include the small black dots mentioned above. The digitized versions of the HCB are available at: [http://www.geocities.com/digitizer101/Page16.html Page 16] - [http://www.geocities.com/digitizer101/Page17.html Page 17] - [http://www.geocities.com/digitizer101/Page18.html Page 18] - [http://www.geocities.com/digitizer101/Page19.html Page 19]

Others

Other pages have been discussed as possible puzzles (or parts of puzzles) including:
*Book's front cover and its oddly tiled trees.
*Page 31 where the sun at the top is upside down.
*Page 41 workshop with 25 fairies and a variety of wood shavings and carpenter's tools.
*Page 48 contains one hidden message (see above) but has room for another?
*Compass page in BOS.