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You wake up in a strange room. No one is there, as far as you can tell. But there are three doors, a piece of paper and a numpad, which is a standard keyboard. (this is N. O. T. a 'what door should you open' question). The piece of paper, although it is tattered and old, reads this:

Inside each door is a piece of paper with clues.

One is for the day, another for the month, the last for the year.

Find the name of the battle to get out!

You find, as stated, there are three papers in each room. One paper is marked for the day, another one for the month and the last one for the year.

Day

Hint: It has something to do with the letters...

Most of the things in the picture are RED HERRINGS. Only a few contribute to the solution. It's your job to find those few...

enter image description here

Month

good base cave nice lie calm pig bars rinse help handwave veil exit value bounds year visa life

Year

Hint: The year is a four-digit number.

Notice how there are letters in the grid, yet you want a number. What cipher would be appropriate?

It's been nearly a month. Or has it? It feels like a decade. You hobble around the room for clues, then suddenly find a fresh piece of paper. It must have been put there by someone, maybe the mad scientist who trapped you. It says: "I didn't make the grid so colorful just to mess around with styling!" You think that somehow the colors are related to the answer. But you don't know HOW they're related...

Strong: "Look at that arrow. Follow it."

enter image description here

What is the name of the battle?

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  • $\begingroup$ I don't know EXACTLY what tags this should include, so feel free to edit. $\endgroup$ Jun 28, 2021 at 14:27
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    $\begingroup$ I think a hint would be good $\endgroup$
    – Ankit
    Jun 30, 2021 at 19:36

1 Answer 1

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Is it:

The Battle of Austerlitz?

Day:

Looking at only the lowercase letters, adv, and applying rot19, we end up with two.

Month:

Extracting the italicized character from the words, we end up with gsvnlmgsrhwvxvnyvi. When we apply the atbash cipher, we get themonthisdecember.

Year:

Applying the A1Z26 cipher to the letters in the grid, we wind up with numbers, which is what we are looking for. Then, reading the grid from top to bottom, as directed by the arrow, the only color set that produces a valid year is green. The result is a -> h -> _ -> e, or in numbers, 1805.

Putting it all together, we get the day of the battle to be:

December 2nd, 1805.

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