‘disheartening’? try brain shattering XD gah it’s so hard i’ve started looking at it and going slant eyed i literally slept from 8 last night to 10 this morning after trying so hard at it yesterday

Welp.
Got part one, at least.

*joins the club of people who have dreamed about this thing*

x-x

Knowing how I tend to be with riddles, I’ve already figured it out and just don’t realize it yet. >_>

first clue got me like….

5th place is still open for those of you still battling to figure out the challenge! OuO

Here are another couple of tips:

First part - Remember to first focus on the numbers.  Once you figure out what the bone monster is trying to tell you with the numbers, you may have to do a little googling to figure out what he wants next.  That is also when the picture above the numbers will come into play.  You can do it!!!

Second part - The bone monster’s play on words will clue you into where your focus should be on the page he links you to.  Dig deep into that; don’t go on a wild goose chase! 

It’s okay, Elsa, neither do I. XD

They’re probably waving the answer in our faces with these hints, too. ^^;;

At this point, I’m just happy I got past the first part. Normally I get nowhere with riddles and such, so I’m feeling pretty accomplished to have gotten past the first part so quickly. XD

i feel daring so imma try again at this…

edit: wow i solved the first part. amazing. idk if I feel smarter or dumber XD

edit: the second thingy has me stumped, although I found something I’m not sure is related to the puzzle or not….hmmm

Kismet: Because it is buffalo-ey!

5th place is still open; here are a couple more tips:

First part: As before, remember that you need to focus first on the numbers.  If you don’t know what a cipher is, start by googling cipher.  That should hopefully get you on the right path. :)

Second part:  Once you figure out which aspect of the page on which to focus (see yesterday’s tip), you need to find the hidden words (in this case, it’s a link).  What are some ways of seeing hidden words on this type of thing? If you’re not sure, google awayyy!

I have scanned the page’s source code I don’t know how many times D:

But I won’t give up! Now with the extra hints I’m closer than ever!

I’ve decided I’m just going to wait until the answer is released, on this one. XD;

Update:

I said I’d stop.

So why can’t I stop? ; A;

same here, miranda XD I just thought it was nonsense but it was literally the first thing I tried. thanks for the hint, myla!

edit: wow, solved part 2! that hint really helped out.

Thank you for participating (or attempting to participate/dreaming about it/pulling your hair out)!  Six people have reached the end of the challenge; not an easy task. But since we have our winners, I can finally reveal the steps required to complete the challenge.

All those who gave the bone monster the correct password before the 5th place was filled will be getting a participation prize of 1,000 nuggets.

Part One: Double Encryption

Your task was to send the bone monster a specific password.  The first thing you were presented with was this odd image:

If you started with the picture of the birds, you didn’t get very far (and were probably frustrated).  That is because, first, you had to deal with the numbers.  Those of you trying to puzzle this out may have noticed that the numbers did not exceed 26.  This hopefully clued you in that it was a relatively simple letter numbers cipher.  Each number corresponds to a letter in the alphabet.  For example, 1 = A.  Converting the numbers displayed in the picture, you get “VIGENERE: EVTISTVXSK.”

On first glance, it looks a little bit like gibberish. Indeed, the second part is still pretty scrambled.  But the first part looks like it could be a word. If you pasted either of those words to the bone monster, you got no response, so you must have to do something else to get to the password.  If you did a search of the word “vingere,” you’ll find that it is a type of cipher that encrypts text based on a keyword of the person who encrypts the word’s choice…

Using that should lead you to your next step:  you’ll have to decode “EVTISTVXSK” using some sort of keyword.  You could use a number of different websites to help you decode.  I used this one.  But what is the keyword you need to decode your scrambled letters?  That’s where the picture comes into play.  They are some sort of bird.  A little research or reverse image search and you will learn that they are cockatiels.  Cockatiels is your keyword.  There were a number of you that attempted to use “cockatiel” instead of “cockatiels” which gets you close, but your decoded word was one letter off (arghjsdfhsdj!).  Using “cockatiels” decodes “EVTISTVXSK” into the word “CHRYSANTHS.”  Finally, the password!  Send it off to the bone monster and he sends you a response.

Part Two:  Digging Up the Flower

After you send the bone monster the correct password, he sends you the following response:

Ordinary on the outside, but secrets lie within.
Look deep; a secret blooms.
Look deeper still to find the seed of words unseen.

https://www.mycenacave.com/~myla

Following the link to that page, you will find that it looks ordinary, just as the bone monster says.  However, he tells you to look deep, a secret blooms.  What sort of thing blooms?  A flower!  There is a flower on the page.  Is that what he wants you to focus on?

If you look a little deeper, opening the image in a new tab, you’ll notice the flower is named “Chrysanths.png”, the same password you gave the bone monster earlier.  This is a definite hint (right?!? :D;;;) that you’re looking in the right place.

But then the bone monster instructs you to “look deeper still to find the seed of words unseen.”

So you’re looking for words in the image… somehow.  A lot of people scoured the image for words, saving and opening the .png file in imaging processing programs and trying all sorts of things.  They found nothing.  That was frustrating.  How can you see hidden words in a .png?  Googling how to hide words in an image would have been a good starting point, because that is exactly what I did to figure out how to hide words in an image. 

To find the hidden words, you had to go to the source (the “seed” in the bone monster’s hint), not opening the file in an image program, but instead a text editor/source editor like Notepad or something equivalent.  There, instead of seeing an image, you see some words, some gibberish, and then at the very end, the hidden link.

Following the hidden link leads you to the third and final step.

Part Three: The Forgotten Cipher

The link leads you to this page, containing an image of the bone monster and some weird symbol things.  Sighhh.  Well, you’ll have to figure out what the heck those are, right?  There’s actually a very simple way to figure that out!  If you open the image in a new tab, you’ll notice the image is named “davidaking_org_Ciphers_htm.png.”

If you go to that page, you learn that the symbols are an old, forgotten number notation.  Turning the symbols into numbers, and then adding together the numbers within the parenthesis, you end up with 5-3-8-15 and 23-8-5-18-5.  Just like in the beginning, you have to convert those numbers into letters using the same technique.  You end up with “echo” and “‘where?’” which might be confusing if you don’t notice the picture of the bone monster.  Taking the picture of the bone monster into account, you should realize that you’re supposed to echo the question “where?” to the bone monster.

He responds that you have reached the end and completed the challenge.  Congratulations!!