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Lord Lefthide was found dead in his mansion, to what it would seem of a heart attack. But it appears that moments before his death, he was writing some uncanny childish story. He was indeed found dead at his desk with a pen in his hand and the following note in front of him:

"That wretch ! He still watches for me", the bunny says.
Old, browsing the site, the patient hunter embraces the shadows
"Nobody is immortal, especially not you, bunny!"

Fearless little bunny, he nonetheless hides beneath a shrubbery.
"Great human, hunting's forbidden! Drop your searches!", he cries,
"The tide is rising, stop this madness at once!"

"What an insanity!", says the lurking man, "The sea is set one mile away!"
He stops, most of his body is moistening.
"Indeed, in water I dwell..."

What truly killed Lord Lefthide ?

Hint 1

The three verses are separated for a reason, and they all have a common point.

Hint 2

The name of the Lord is definitely a red herring, sorry for that. Still, it's an interesting anagram of someone's name linked to this puzzle.

Hint 3

The answer to A most curious story about something stolen

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    $\begingroup$ Not necessarily I'd say, although it can help $\endgroup$
    – Keelhaul
    Mar 12, 2018 at 13:02
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    $\begingroup$ the bunny is a bunny transported from Minecraft and is actually the rare Killer Bunny... dun dun dun $\endgroup$
    – L_Church
    Mar 12, 2018 at 13:39
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    $\begingroup$ @Phylyp And so I added another hint, but the Rand al'Thor way :p $\endgroup$
    – Keelhaul
    Mar 19, 2018 at 13:25
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    $\begingroup$ After seeing the accepted answer, I'm afraid this puzzle was smack in the middle of the "unsolvable, and impossible to know that it is unsolvable" territory for most people. That's the most disappointing kind of puzzle, since the harder you try, the more you will be punished, and in the end, when the answer is finally revealed, you'll know for certain that all your efforts were without any hope of success, right from the beginning. To avoid such puzzles in the future, please at least add the knowledge (or trivia) tag to alert the would-be solver of such a possibility. $\endgroup$
    – Bass
    Mar 21, 2018 at 11:31
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    $\begingroup$ It's also a bit strange that hint #2 says the Lord's name is a red herring, when it isn't. Indeed, the name is precisely what led to the breakthrough. $\endgroup$
    – Statman
    Mar 21, 2018 at 13:40

4 Answers 4

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Answer

Clued in by @Gustavo-Gabriel we know that Lefthide is an anagram for Hetfield, the last name of James Hetfield, the songwriter for the band Metallica. The suspect is confirmed with the lyrics of the Metallica song “The Thing That Should Not Be”. The main chorus of the song holds the similarities:

Fearless wretch
Insanity
He watches
Lurking beneath the sea
Great old one
Forbidden site
He searches
Hunter of the shadows is rising
Immortal
In madness you dwell

Indeed if we use the third hint, we find that each word comes from reading each third word in successive paragraphs going from the 2nd, then 1st, then 3rd paragraph, and repeating.

Theories
I’ve tried to look at different patterns in the remaining words - nothing so far, but there may be some other steganography relating to the common point from the first hint. Perhaps we’re supposed to look for “the thing that should not be”.

The song is strongly influenced by the stories of H.P. Lovecraft an American horror fiction writer. The answer could be the same way that Lovecraft died - Cancer of the small intestine and malnutrition.

Another possibility would be to look more in depth into the meaning behind the lyrics or to find more clues in Lovecraft’s stories that could lead to a solution. For an example possible lead, a quote from Wikipedia about Lovecraft’s novel The Call of Cthulhu (which is featured heavily in the song) reads “After finishing the manuscript, Thurston realizes he is now a target of Cthulhu's worshippers”, although I don’t think this is correct.

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  • $\begingroup$ That is a superb find! But I'd be quite disappointed if the mystery unfolded just to find the message "It was malnutrition!" ;) $\endgroup$
    – M Oehm
    Mar 21, 2018 at 6:58
  • $\begingroup$ Well done! No need to go really far into theories, what you found describes what killed him: rot13(Gur Guvat Gung Fubhyq Abg Or), which is rot13(Pguhyuh), or more broadly rot13(N Ybirpensgvna ubeebe). It is broad enough to allow multiple answers of that kind though, the most important part being finding what you found ;). $\endgroup$
    – Keelhaul
    Mar 21, 2018 at 9:23
  • $\begingroup$ Also, I edited your answer to add the spoiler tags $\endgroup$
    – Keelhaul
    Mar 21, 2018 at 9:24
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    $\begingroup$ Wow, when I said Hetfield I didn't think it was related to James Hetfield, I should have investigated the songs more. And I am a big Metallica fan :( $\endgroup$
    – Gustavo Gabriel
    Mar 21, 2018 at 12:53
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I'm not too certain but I believe the answer is:

The letter C somehow

Explanation:

There are three verses each with 3 lines. C is the third letter of the alphabet. Each verse has some reference to the verb "to see" or "the sea". "Watches", "Searches", and "The Sea"

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  • $\begingroup$ I'm not sure this is the full answer either, but it looks like a good start! Well spotted! Welcome to Puzzling.SE! $\endgroup$
    – F1Krazy
    Mar 19, 2018 at 16:07
  • $\begingroup$ Sadly, this is not it, not even close :p $\endgroup$
    – Keelhaul
    Mar 19, 2018 at 16:15
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This isn't a full answer (yet), but I noticed a few things:

Hint 1:

I think the verses' common point is that they each have 27 words.

Hint 2:

Not entirely clear, but we have reason to believe the anagram is James Hetfield. (Thanks, @gustavo-gabriel!) So, maybe Metallica-related?

Hint 3:

The clue from the answer is 3.

EDIT: Not sure where to go from here, based on OP's comment. May need another hint.

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    $\begingroup$ I thought hint 2 was the anagram LeftHide = Hetfield, but couldnt find any user related, only Metallica's singer xD $\endgroup$
    – Gustavo Gabriel
    Mar 19, 2018 at 17:48
  • $\begingroup$ There's also a Swedish music producer and DJ who goes by "The Field," but I can't find anything that relates to the puzzle, unfortunately. $\endgroup$
    – The Spartan
    Mar 19, 2018 at 17:51
  • $\begingroup$ I also tried to make sense of Cliff Burton's (Linked to Hetfield) death and the numbers 27 and 3 that you found, but with no luck... $\endgroup$
    – Gustavo Gabriel
    Mar 19, 2018 at 19:59
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    $\begingroup$ Still not too cose, but there's improvement... also in the comments ;) $\endgroup$
    – Keelhaul
    Mar 19, 2018 at 20:51
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Trial for an answer

Lefthide ate something and died?

Clues:

Based on the hint given, I counted the number of words between each commas and other punctuations and thus they are:

enter image description here

Based on this, we can deduce that 8 is the number missing and so something that Lefthide ate(8) must have killed him...

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  • $\begingroup$ You're faaaar from it :) $\endgroup$
    – Keelhaul
    Mar 20, 2018 at 9:18
  • $\begingroup$ For what it's worth, 9 and 0 are also missing. $\endgroup$
    – Trevor Powell
    Mar 21, 2018 at 1:09

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