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d'alar'cop was busy solving puzzles and making riddles at his home. He heard a knocking on the door. He got up and reached the door to answer the knocking. Once he opened the door, no one was there. He saw a packet lying in front of the door. It was addressed to cop. He took the packet and got back to his table.

d'alar'cop started unpacking the package with curiosity. As he removed the covering he saw a wooden box. He thought it would be some gift, from a fan. Once he opened the box, he saw a letter. Before opening the letter he also notices a 6 digit long LCD panel and a number pad with button 0-9 and an Enter Key attached to the box cap.

d'alar'cop got confused, what is this? Is this some kind of a trick or something?

He took the letter in his hand and started reading it.

Here is the letter


Hi cop,

You don't know me. I don't have any problem with you personally either. One of your enemies hired me to kill you and I have already planted a bomb in your home. It may explode anytime. There is no way you can find it or defuse it (without my help).

I shouldn't have sent this to you if I haven't created an account at Puzzling.StackExchange.com today. I saw your profile and came to know that you are the most reputed user in puzzling.SE. I have also seen all the riddles and puzzles you made and the answers you posted. All of them are really brilliant and that made me think I should give you a chance to live, if you are really brilliant enough as I thought.

To defuse the bomb you have to enter a 6 digit code with the attached number pad and the fun part is I am not going to tell you the code. I am just going to test you. If you are brilliant enough, you will get the code for sure.

Let's start with a riddle. I know you love riddles more than anything ;).

I was made by hiring some from a family of twenty six
And, if I count the twins as two, my total strength is six

I will help you lit up your house
And also to clean and tidy up your house

But, don't try to get into me too much
I will kill you with hypoxia and such

My origin is actually from the Latin
In perfect form, I am unable to be attained

Once you figure out all the six members, we can move to the next game. A game of chess. But you have to play according to MY RULES

HERE IS THE GAME

enter image description here



RULES

  • Your pieces are White.

  • Assign each member to the pieces you have respectively. That is, the White Pawn on the left is the first member, the next White Rook is the second member, the next White Queen is the third member and so on.

  • I have already made all my moves and now it's your turn.

  • You have to start from the left. That is, from the White Pawn

  • You can only move your piece to the safe position.

  • If there is no safe position, you can leave the piece unchanged.

  • Also, you can cut my piece (Black). But, only if it's safe.

  • You can only move a piece once and so the maximum number of moves allowed is six.

  • You can make your moves one after another. You don't have to wait for my turn since as I told you, I have already made all my moves.

Now Start Playing.....


How was the game? Hope you enjoyed it. Otherwise, you will be "BAAAANNGGGGG"




Cop tried to open the door to run out, but it was locked. Someone might have locked the doors from outside as Cop took the parcel in.

Cop is currently working on it to solve it and save his life. Since he is a very valuable contributer of our community, it's our duty to help him. His loss will affect our community very badly for sure. So I request all fellow community members to help him figure out the code to defuse the bomb. Please post all your answers here. It will help him save himself. If Cop himself finds the answer, he will post the answer and how he saved himself here.

Since Cop is busy solving it, he asked me to post it here. If somebody post the correct code, I will inform him.

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    $\begingroup$ I confess, I hired the hit man (who just so happened to be puzzling.stackexchange.com/users/7313/zumer92) to do this. I was jealous of d'alar'cop's position and respect in the community, and due to his not-so-long-ago claims of giving me all his rep through bounties if he left, threatened to kill him. In hopes he'd start boy tying me and that I would reign supreme! $\endgroup$
    – warspyking
    Dec 15, 2014 at 13:39
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    $\begingroup$ What grumpygutted bugger could downvote this brilliant question?? $\endgroup$ Dec 15, 2014 at 13:51
  • 3
    $\begingroup$ @McMagister - "If there is no safe position, you can leave the piece unchanged." $\endgroup$ Dec 15, 2014 at 13:54
  • 3
    $\begingroup$ @No.7892142 - That's what makes it interesting. $\endgroup$ Dec 15, 2014 at 13:55
  • 4
    $\begingroup$ @rand LOL I have to learn to read! $\endgroup$
    – McMagister
    Dec 15, 2014 at 13:55

4 Answers 4

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For the riddle, please refer to this excellent explanation.


For the Chess part:

We assign the letters from VACUUM to the chess pieces..

The pieces are placed on: a2,Rb7,Qa1,e2,Kf4,Rg8.

Suitable new locations for them are: a2,Rb2, Qd7, e3, Kxf5,Rxg4

These new locations satisfy all the rules and result in a checkmate for Black with a safe King.

This gives a change vector of: $+0,-5,+6,+1,+1,-4$

So the letters from VACUUM would be transformed to: V V I V V I

If we turn this into Arabic numbers for the pad, we have:

$551551$ :D

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  • $\begingroup$ Why not 554550? $\endgroup$ Dec 15, 2014 at 14:14
  • $\begingroup$ @randalthor Any reason for using a greedy algorithm? $\endgroup$ Dec 15, 2014 at 14:16
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    $\begingroup$ @McMagister - No, you were right. Rg7++ is 'attacked' by the Black king (sort of). If Black gets 6 moves in a row after that, he could win. Rxg4 is still checkmate. $\endgroup$ Dec 15, 2014 at 14:20
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    $\begingroup$ @No.7892142 - You don't see 'ridiculously childish' as an insult?! Agreed it's not relevant here; I just thought of it when I encountered you. No apology from you, I notice. $\endgroup$ Dec 15, 2014 at 15:18
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    $\begingroup$ PHEW.. I am happy to know you are safe now. It's correct. :) and the bomb got defused. $\endgroup$
    – AeJey
    Dec 15, 2014 at 19:07
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The first part would refer to

Vacuum

I will help you lit up your house

Light bulbs have vacuum inside

And also to clean and tidy up your house

Vacuum cleaner

But, don't try to get into me too much I will kill you with hypoxia and such

If you are in a vacuum you will have no oxygen to breathe.

My origin is actually from the Latin

Vacuum is originally a latin word

In perfect form, I am unable to be attained

We cannot attain a perfect vacuum

Part 2

1. Rb2
2. Qd7
3. e3
4. Kxf5
5. Rg7 (protected from the Black King by the White Queen at d7)
or Rxg4 (the most correct answer as the Rook is not being attacked at all)

For the final answer that combines these two parts, please refer to this answer.

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    $\begingroup$ Huh, why not Rxg4? $\endgroup$ Dec 15, 2014 at 14:03
  • $\begingroup$ Do we want to play, or do we want to win? :) $\endgroup$
    – McMagister
    Dec 15, 2014 at 14:04
  • $\begingroup$ That's the question. If we want to win, we only need two of those pieces. $\endgroup$ Dec 15, 2014 at 14:05
  • $\begingroup$ d'alar'cop is saved!! Wait a minute and he'll post up the answer :-) $\endgroup$ Dec 15, 2014 at 14:10
  • $\begingroup$ Excellent. You found it out and with awesome explanation. +1 $\endgroup$
    – AeJey
    Dec 15, 2014 at 19:08
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I guess the answer for the first part is:

Power (the twins are double-U)

The hypoxia part:

If you get electrocuted it can result in hypoxia?

Still thinking bout part 2

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    $\begingroup$ Your double-U helped me to realise what the right answer was, but McMagister beat me to it by seconds! $\endgroup$ Dec 15, 2014 at 13:47
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The answer for the first part is

Oxygen.

Fits the bill except for line 4, I suppose.

The second part doesn't make sense to me at all, though. I can assign the letters and then what. There's no real objective unless I'm missing something.


Edit:

Never mind, it doesn't make sense when I learn to lead. Hyperoxia != Hypoxia.


As for the second part:

- Pawn Stays
- Rook goes to b2
- Queen goes to d7
- Pawn goes to e3
- King goes to f5
- Rook goes to g4

Now to get a proper cipher going with this.

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  • $\begingroup$ Doesn't explain the twins though. $\endgroup$
    – McMagister
    Dec 15, 2014 at 13:32
  • $\begingroup$ @McMagister Took that for a red herring. No twins (i.e. double letters), nothing to be counted twice. $\endgroup$ Dec 15, 2014 at 13:36
  • $\begingroup$ How do lines 3 and 4 fit? $\endgroup$ Dec 15, 2014 at 13:43
  • $\begingroup$ Line 3: No fire will burn without oxygen. Line 4: I recall oxygen being used in cleaning tools. $\endgroup$ Dec 15, 2014 at 13:47
  • 1
    $\begingroup$ Oh, vacuum is also nice. $\endgroup$ Dec 15, 2014 at 13:49

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