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My only friend left me this puzzle when he visited my house for the first time and I tried to solve it but it's too hard for me. Maybe you can help me out:

You can find me in every sports team,
I make people happy yet also let them scream

I am almost always there,
You can find me everywhere

I am the definition of start,
But not in a certain Art

This Art doesn't punch you KO,
Though has something in common with SO

As a last thing I want to slam,
Where I definitely not am:

EnCt2224b070f865c161072137d84694d62182886d2ca224b070f865c161072137d84vBDHbp+d6wH KuVMZw1dbQg0tYvQyIwEmS

Now be advised and hear,
I am hidden within pear

I am also used in this text,
But in another language indexed

If you manage to encipher.
it will surely have a hit

My reputation is not high,
So I will now say goodbye


----------------------------------

What am I referring to, LordCanada?

GL with the riddle,
John Johnson

Hint 1:

Look at the exact formatting of the riddle! Do you see any irregularities?

Hint 2:

Look closely. There is a URL hidden in the text. (Hint 1 will help you find it)

MAJOR Hint 3:

The Paragraph under the cipher gives you the key.

Hint 4:

My friend John just texted me that removing "in" will help in finding the key

Hint 5:

It is intended to first find the key and use it on the cipher text and use the deciphered text to solve the riddle. Use Hint 3 and 4 to get the key.

MAJORLY MAJOR Hint 6:

The decryption key is not a normal word. "in another language indexed" means that the key which is contained as words in the text has to be converted in a certain way before using it as a key

Hint for non-key solving:

The part under the key isn't helping you with solving in any way. Also my friend is currently in Austria and he sent me another clue:
"I am the outcome of good learning,
but I'm not good at earning."

  1. Hint for non-key solving:

    First of all: the "...slam, where I definetly not am" part is not useful for non-key solving. It's intended to be just a flavortext for adding the encrypted code. Now the hint: I think "SO" could refer to a similar website as you are on right now.

Feel free to ask a few question about things you don't understand.

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  • $\begingroup$ Hello, welcome on Puzzling ! I have edited your title, feel free to change if it doesn't fit your puzzle. Can you tell what is the purpose of the puzzle ? Find who you are ? Find the meaning of the 2 encrypted lines ? Or may be finding what to do is part of the puzzle (in this case you can use the "enigmatic-puzzle" tag) $\endgroup$
    – Fabich
    Jul 26, 2016 at 13:39
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    $\begingroup$ Will think of a better title. Good question on the purpose of the puzzle. It is not really a "Who am I" but almost every line in the puzzle refers to the same certain thing which you have to identify. So kinda "Who am I". I will think of a non-puzzle-breaking change of text to make it more specific $\endgroup$
    – user26784
    Jul 26, 2016 at 13:53
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    $\begingroup$ Well I think it's safe to say it's not "I" because we all know that isn't in team $\endgroup$
    – Moose
    Jul 26, 2016 at 14:05
  • $\begingroup$ How can the hash be a hash? It's 101 bytes long. $\endgroup$
    – Krii
    Jul 27, 2016 at 15:53
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    $\begingroup$ I was already trying to combine hints 3 and 4, and had been looking for other words containing "in" (notably "within", suggesting e.g. "iampear" and "Iampear" as keys; these, and several other variants, don't appear to work). Hint 5, of course, reveals only what was already obvious -- but I sympathize with your difficulty, because very likely there is no way to hint further at the key that doesn't completely give it away. I'm sorry that I (and anyone else who's attacking this) am being so dim... $\endgroup$
    – Gareth McCaughan ♦
    Aug 22, 2016 at 23:32

5 Answers 5

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Well, here's where I am stuck. First of all, the mysterious encrypted blob.

The unique full stop and following lowercase initial letter suggest the website encipher.it, and a bit of websearching also reveals that the format of the blob matches something they use. Pasting the blob into the obvious place on their website makes the "Encipher it" button turn into "Decipher it" (note: it doesn't on my mobile devices) but now we need a key to proceed.

Unfortunately,

if there's any clear indication of a key in the riddle I have so far failed to notice it. Some things I have tried (getting an "Invalid password" message every time) are: "a" (present in "team", very common letter, featuring in a happy "aaaah" and also in a screaming "aargh", at the start of the alphabet), "LordCanada" for obvious reasons, "password" because why not?, both "space" and " " (there are spaces in "every sports team", even commoner than "a", people need a certain amount of space, "in space no one can hear you scream", you might kinda consider the big bang to have occurred "in space"), "GL" (hidden in plain sight). Maybe (in view of hint 3, which at the time said something like "the stuff before the encrypted blob has nothing to do with the key") it's an error to look in the early portions of the riddle for hints of the key -- I guess they're hints for the actual answer instead -- but the post-blob part gives me no ideas at all.

After the update to hint 3, which makes it clearer where to look for the encryption key (though not altogether clear -- what exactly is a "paragraph" here?), I have ...

tried all of the following, with no success. "pit", "pip", seed", "pits", "pips", "seeds", and "core" (actual things hidden within a pear). All 10 nonempty substrings of "pear". All 12 things obtained by inserting one of {"i","I","iam","Iam"} somewhere into the middle of "pear". "aria" and "arIa" (an actual word after "I am hidden within ...", though it extends into the next stanza which hint 3 may or may not be intended to exclude). "partridge" ("in a pear tree") and variants "Partridge" and "a partridge". Hundreds of things could in principle be hidden within a pear, a pear tree, or something made of pearwood, but I have only so much patience :-).

I assume I should be focusing on decrypting the blob rather than looking for actual answers as such before doing so. As you might gather from the second spoilered block above, I can think of a few things to do with the pre-blob material (though the business about the Art seems too vague to be useful to me at present) and nothing useful to do with the post-blob material.

That hear/pear non-rhyme seems like it might be significant, though nothing I can think of to do with it makes perfect sense of it. E.g., perhaps "... and hear" indicates that we should replace "pear" with something that sounds the same ("pare", "pair"). Perhaps the non-rhyme indicates that "pear" is an error and needs to be replaced with something similar that does rhyme with "hear" ("peer", perhaps). These things all seem harder to find something useful hidden inside than "pear".

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  • $\begingroup$ Wow I'm so freaking impressed. This is my first puzzle and I wouldn't have thought that one can think of so many different ways to approach my puzzle. I want to give you one hint. Don't think too complex. It's my first puzzle after all. Oh and the part of the riddle you are talking about in your 3rd spoiler is a very valuable one. $\endgroup$
    – user26784
    Jul 31, 2016 at 23:35
  • $\begingroup$ Using the "hear" hint and the spelling of the non-rhyme, perhaps hidden within the non-rhyming word is an organ used for hearing? Or maybe not. This does not seem to square with later hints. $\endgroup$
    – Hugh Meyers
    Sep 20, 2016 at 12:45
  • $\begingroup$ There is, but it's one of the many kinda-plausible possibilities that gets only an "Invalid password" message from the decryption tool. And it doesn't fit the very recent hint that the key is "not a normal word". $\endgroup$
    – Gareth McCaughan ♦
    Sep 20, 2016 at 12:49
  • $\begingroup$ That particular segment of the riddle made me think of HTML. It's just how "hear", "pear" and "text" appeared so close together (hypertext?) and "language" so close behind. Not sure if this helps though. $\endgroup$
    – Xenocacia
    Sep 21, 2016 at 2:05
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That's the best I can come up with:

A Starter?

The first person to make a play in a team is a starter

You can start with anything anywhere

It is "start" and has "Art" in it

It's not a martial art, but you start a family with your significant other

The following thing after "where I definately not am" appears to be a hash cypher, which would need a starter value to encode

A seed is the starter of a plant,

A starter again, referring to the hash

"If you manage to encipher" is a hint as to the string of numbers and letters being a hash,

Someone newly starting something, a starter, would not have a high reputation in that task.

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  • $\begingroup$ Please explain each line why you think the answer is a starter. $\endgroup$
    – mbjb
    Jul 27, 2016 at 4:25
  • $\begingroup$ fixed. Sorry, new here. $\endgroup$
    – Jynxed
    Jul 27, 2016 at 4:30
  • $\begingroup$ Wow incredible answer @Jynxed! It isn't the searched answer though. You missed two valuable points: First explain what "I make people happy yet also let them scream" has to do with starter and secondly the hash should be used to solve the riddle $\endgroup$
    – user26784
    Jul 27, 2016 at 6:08
  • $\begingroup$ Please spoiler your answer so that other readers won't accidentally have the puzzle ruined before they can respond to it. $\endgroup$
    – Nij
    Jul 27, 2016 at 6:18
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Edited the previous answer(Again)

my last guess was

talent

Then it was

star

After the new hint, I came up with bunch of answers, and now I am super confused,
anyways I am updating the answer

My new guess is

legend (meanings)

You can find me in every sports team,

every sports has legend/icon/star/title

I make people happy yet also let them scream

happy : legend of tarzan
scream : urban legends

I am almost always there,
You can find me everywhere

have a look at your desktop screen (icons)

I am the definition of start,
But not in a certain Art
This Art doesn't punch you KO,
Though has something in common with SO

still no idea about this
(I am taking SO as "Stack overflow")
So, icon of both sites or stack overflow legendary badge

As a last thing I want to slam,
Where I definitely not am:

Thank god this is not a part of riddle, frankly I was tired of referencing door(Slam! glad that door was closed)

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  • $\begingroup$ Great guess again @smriti. But as you said there are still a few points unclear. The meaning of your word is close to the thought one again but the word itself is far away from it. $\endgroup$
    – user26784
    Sep 21, 2016 at 6:43
  • $\begingroup$ @LordCanada Ahh...Dammit, Oh well, I hope the Third time's the charm $\endgroup$
    – smriti
    Sep 21, 2016 at 6:58
  • $\begingroup$ Just want to point out again that your last guess was almost correct! $\endgroup$
    – user26784
    Sep 21, 2016 at 14:11
  • $\begingroup$ @LordCanada I dont think this is an answer, but is it "goal"? $\endgroup$
    – smriti
    Sep 26, 2016 at 9:13
  • $\begingroup$ Nope it isn't even close. $\endgroup$
    – user26784
    Sep 26, 2016 at 18:47
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I don't have the answer, just maybe another observation that might lead to the answer:

I am also used in this text, But in another language indexed

It could follow that this is referring to:

Indexed Languages and Indexed grammers as seen here : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indexed_language

So maybe...

one piece of the poem, which is in an Indexed Language, is the decryption key?

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This riddle is driving me crazy for some time, and yesterday, I am going through some good old riddles, and this struck me(I was gonna wait till the next hint, but I cant anymore)

Is it

Ace

You can find me in every sports team,

Every sports team has ace player

I make people happy yet also let them scream

Why 'S' is scary? Because it makes cream 'scream'(this is how I got the idea for answer)

I am almost always there,
You can find me everywhere

letter 's' is used oftentimes in words

I am the definition of start,

's' starting start(yea, I am not sure about this)

or

in cards it can go like : ace,two,three...

But not in a certain Art
This Art doesn't punch you KO,
Though has something in common with SO

This can be related to tennis and similar games : a service that an opponent is unable to return and thus wins a point.

As a last thing I want to slam,

Door?

Where I definitely not am

Door does not contain letter s

I am stuck on the second part! Any thoughts on this answer

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  • $\begingroup$ Very good answer man. It's not correct though :-/. The answer is not correct and therefore the guesses are also not but the word is very close to the solution. I wonder if u can solve the riddle without using the code... $\endgroup$
    – user26784
    Sep 8, 2016 at 12:25
  • $\begingroup$ @LordCanada hmm.. I thought this was it... -_- , Oh well, thinking CAPS on again!! $\endgroup$
    – smriti
    Sep 8, 2016 at 12:29

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