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Nothing too special, a crossword to complete, with some layers beneath.
All you'll need lies within the puzzle. Cross-words are cool aren't they?
Click on it to enlarge image.
Normally you'd use 4 before 7, but this time I'd suggest doing the opposite.
Optpr asmz nsqg lsa siyriv gzy skkmzp xukw emdwnii gce, xugvw qd sag javlp ggwl nzv lqy lw cifqpnm. Nlreo lpp wresfl xifueym hmgj cgcc wresfl nsqg.
So...
R ub bai kqcco rsl byts, mlv cltilyin sdc wijrlt, bai vwx dn mlzb jjhspv. Fbpb tq Z?
The grid:
To solve the ciphers,
notice that there is an unusual hyphen in the comment from the poser: "All you'll need lies within the puzzle. Cross-words are cool aren't they?". In conjunction with the
anagramtag, this hyphen clues us to the fact that we should look at anagrams of the cross letters. This yields FIRST LETTERS.
Next,
as Deusovi notes, taking first letters from the down clues we get CLSENIE, which anagrams to SILENCE; and from the across clues we get TJRPUIE, which anagrams to JUPITER.
Applying these to the first and second ciphers respectively yields:
While your code has helped you figure this message out, there is one final test for you to resolve. Check the second message with your second code.
and
I am the thing you seek, the treasure you desire, the end of this puzzle. What am I?
(M Oehm decrypted these using analysis.)
The solution to this riddle is:
ANSWER or SOLUTION
Constructive criticism:
Some of the cluing was bit unfair, in my opinion. Answers like "dietary", "expenditure" and "lavish" violate the constraint that definitions agree grammatically with the words they are cluing; "Cool numbers that like the number 1" doesn't make much sense as a clue for "primary"; assuming 11 is correct, "in a raging frenzy" may not be an established enough construction to warrant a missing-word clue (although it does have some currency); and, assuming "serendipitous" is correct, the definition is a bit loose. I would recommend using more checked letters in future crosswords as well as adhering to the grammatical agreement rule in clues.
The first cipher is a bit superfluous: It tells you to use a keyword that you already have on ciphertext that is already available to you.
This answer decodes the two messages at the bottom of the puzzle by analysing the messages. That's clearly not the intended way, so it could ba called cheating. It might still help other solvers to find the correct way to obtain the cipher keys. (I haven't got a clue at the moment, despite Silenius's good work on the crossword.)
The second message
This message ends in a question and the puzzle has the riddle tag. Many riddles have the form "I am (the) so and so. What am I?". The letter counts fit and the first shot is a hit. The riddle reads:
I am the thing you seek, the treasure you desire, the end of this puzzle. What am I?
The key is JUPITER.
The first message
This message doesn't have an obvious structure. There are many three-letter words, all different. But there are two ocurrences of the word NSQG, 105 letters apart, and two occurrences of WRESFL, 21 letters apart. If these occurrences are really the same words, a likely key length is 7 letters. (21 letters would also fit, but let's go with the shorter key first.)
The word NSQG is at an offset of 2, covering • • NSGQ • and the word WRESFL is at an offset of 3, covering FL • WRES. Both words cover the whole key.
I've written a small script to attack this problem and it turns out that the words are "code" and "second". The decoded message reads:
While your code has helped you figure this message out, there is one final test
for you to resolve. Check the second message with your second code.
The key is SILENCE.
