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I was travelling to another english-speaking country recently and when it came time to unlock my front door, I discovered I lost my keys! Worse, an uninvited guest was in my house!

You see, I realized at the departures gates, I always forget to close my bedroom window, and this time alligators got in!

On my travels, I went to visit a big city, it's crazy how much a skyscraper towers grand over you!

This isn't where I lost my keys though, because I remember how my front door key seats great in a dent in a table I drank coffee at later.

Eventually, the skies got darker and I decided to come home, and that's when I discovered my keys are missing!

Where did I lose my keys, and where do I live?

Hint:

Someone found my keys and is mailing them to me, what a real G.

edit: It's been more than 12 hours, so here's another hint (imo it makes the puzzle significantly easier, you've been warned):

the first line has 1 clue, the second has 2, the third has 1, the fourth has 1, the fifth has 1 and the last line has none.
Anything after "missing!" is not a clue and are actual hints.

edit 2: This hint covers the "knowledge" part of the puzzle. If you have the "enigmatic-puzzle" part down, but lack the prerequisite knowledge, you can learn what you need by solving it the same way as the main puzzle:

I don't know what got into me, but I managed to evict the alligators. Of them, three gave me trouble, but upon hearing my words, gears finally turned in their head and they left!

edit 3: day 3, hint 4?! this one tries spelling it out for you

The clue in the first line is the word "Uninvited". There exists a strategy to find it without me telling you this, pay close attention to the very first hint.

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  • $\begingroup$ "Another" English speaking country is unclear as we don't know which country you started in. Was that intended? $\endgroup$
    – lulu
    Commented Sep 10 at 13:27
  • $\begingroup$ @lulu: it is intended. additionnal hint: rot13('Guvf chmmyr va guvf rknpg sbez bayl jbexf vs lbh hfr ratyvfu') $\endgroup$
    – Themoonisacheese
    Commented Sep 10 at 13:31
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    $\begingroup$ Probably way off track, and definitely incomplete but rot13(Gur ercrngrq zragvba bs "tenaq" naq "nyyvtngbef" znxrf zr guvax bs Tenaq Pnlzna (cynl ba Pnvzna). V gura jnag gb znxr "xrlf" vagb gur Sybevqn Xrlf ohg V'z boivbhfyl zvffvat n ybg. ) $\endgroup$
    – lulu
    Commented Sep 11 at 20:50
  • $\begingroup$ @lulu: rot13('lbh'er evtug, vg fher vf naq bqq ghea bs cuenfr gb hfr "tenaq" va gung jnl...') $\endgroup$
    – Themoonisacheese
    Commented Sep 12 at 7:20

3 Answers 3

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Well, there's an awful lot of keys in this puzzle...! You left your keys in...

the Baby's Coffee coffee shop in the Florida Keys, US. But you only realised this when you were back in the UK, sitting in the pub in Keyston, Cambridgeshire...

To solve this, I worked backwards from the hints. As they suggest, the key (!) to this puzzle is...

...the letter 'G' (Hint 1). Specifically, since we are told there are 6 hints hidden in the puzzle (Hint 2) it is worth noting that there are 6 words beginning with 'G' in the puzzle. As Hint 4 tells us that 'Uninvited' is a crucial hint word, we should note that it immediately precedes one of these words beginning with 'G'.

If we then look at the paragraph in Hint 3, we can find 3 more words beginning with 'G'. If we look at the words which immediately precede each of those we can read the phrase 'what three words'. This set off the alarm bells in my head...

Because what we then need to do is:

Take the 6 words that precede those beginning with 'G' in the main text - uninvited, departures, alligators, towers, seats, skies - and split the group into two triplets which can then be used to create coordinates under the what3words geocode system.

If we use the what3words website to find the point on the world map corresponding to uninvited.departures.alligators, we can find what must be the coffee shop mention in the text, which is - appropriately for the theme - to be found in the part of the US known as the Florida Keys:

uninvited.departures.alligators in what3words

Then we check towers.seats.skies and find that that leads us to The Pheasant, a pub in (note the pun, again) Keyston, a village in Cambridgeshire, in the UK. This must be your home location:

towers.seats.skies in what3words

Both locations obviously fit the 'key' theme of the puzzle, and satisfy the two 'English-speaking countries' requirements (with Florida also having Miami - a city of skyscrapers - and alligators aplenty, both features of this narrative), so this must surely explain what happened. (However, if truth be told, I don't think I would have found this solution without the additional hints... Still, hard work is the key to success!)

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    $\begingroup$ correct! good job! technically "where i livee" is behind said pub, as you can see on the map the building in question appears separate from the pub proper, but that's the correct answer regardless. $\endgroup$
    – Themoonisacheese
    Commented Sep 13 at 13:37
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    $\begingroup$ @Themoonisacheese I'm not sure how one was to come to the conclusion of using the G's without the Hint. $\endgroup$
    – LeppyR64
    Commented Sep 13 at 14:57
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    $\begingroup$ @LeppyR64 I thought the odd turns of phrase like "towers grand over you" would give it away to be honest, I didn't think it'd last more than a day unsolved, but you're right that the puzzle has a severe case of being made by a noob. I wanted to include what3words because a search turned up only a single result on this site, but ultimately the execution was held back by the fact I had no other puzzle than "find the words" $\endgroup$
    – Themoonisacheese
    Commented Sep 13 at 22:57
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    $\begingroup$ @Themoonisacheese Note that the searchbar on this site doesn't search through content written in spoilers - so there are a few more puzzles than you think that have used this mechanism (e.g. this one) but likely not a vast number. I did clock some unusual word choices in the text but did not know what significance I was supposed to attach to them. A hidden hint in the puzzle itself might have been useful - e.g. 3 paragraphs, beginning with 'what', 'three' and 'words' or maybe a last line containing a lot of G's? Hide it in plain sight... $\endgroup$
    – Stiv
    Commented Sep 14 at 7:03
  • $\begingroup$ @Themoonisacheese I applaud you for making a puzzle and putting it out there. I agree with everything Stiv has commented here. Cheers to the next one :) $\endgroup$
    – LeppyR64
    Commented Sep 16 at 11:01
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Okay so down here I'm writing my thought process:

Of course I will forget the keys in the dent. Then English speaking country and Alligators that can go to bedroom.

  • Alligators are native to America and China => States- Carolina, Texas, Alabama, Georgia, Florida, Louisiana
  • Largest skyscrapers = Georgia --> Atlanta

  • There are 67 native English speaking countries in the world... Which means I stop my research today and make an amazing guess - UK (Since my search also says European countries do not have skyscrapers)

  • I'll think of remaining tomorrow (Like where exactly in UK and which coffee cafe)

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    • $\begingroup$ This answer does not make significant, confirmed progress, which is required for partial answers. Please do not post your "thought process" until it includes some defensible specifics $\endgroup$
      – bobble
      Commented Sep 11 at 21:51
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    In my opinion...

    You lost the keys in the dent of the table and the place where you are living in FLORIDA and you probably belong to some town from maybe any other English speaking country and thus you were amazed.

    And

    The coffee shop's barista asked for your email address and then when he got the keys he looked at the cctv footage found out it was you and then mailed you.

    Also,

    You seem to be somewhat rich as you are travelling to another country and living in a villa sort of in the outskirts of the city near a lake.

    Which means

    You visited Miami as it the only big city near Florida.

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    • $\begingroup$ you are correct that rot13('v ybfg gurz jurer v qenax pbssrr'), but the rest is incorrect unfortunately. how did you come to this conclusion? Please spoiler your potential guesses by prefacing each line with ">!" $\endgroup$
      – Themoonisacheese
      Commented Sep 10 at 14:56
    • $\begingroup$ In which part am i incorrect $\endgroup$
      – Hardik
      Commented Sep 10 at 15:11
    • $\begingroup$ every other part. This is not a deduction puzzle, if you can solve it then there will be no "probably" in your answer, you will be sure. rot13('') denotes text encoded using Rot13 (you can find a decoder online easily), because spoilers don't work in comments. $\endgroup$
      – Themoonisacheese
      Commented Sep 10 at 15:15
    • $\begingroup$ rot13("Svefg bs nyy v gubfr gubfr jurer i drung ceffree gubfr fbhgure sbe pbhegvf uvivat nyyvtugf, gura jurer gur bcfvba jnf HFN. Sbeqvtn ba gur snfg gung gurfr ner zber ab. bs nyyvtugf naq gur evpu cneg ernfba v gbyq") $\endgroup$
      – Hardik
      Commented Sep 10 at 15:23
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      $\begingroup$ Can you explain why this is the answer to the puzzle? I.E. how does the puzzle indicate that this is a probable answer? $\endgroup$
      – Chris Cudmore
      Commented Sep 10 at 15:25

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