# The CompuTaria Quest - A young Wizard's journey

### Once Upon A Time In A Land FAR, FAR Away...

Our adventure begins in the enchanted land called "CompuTaria".

You are, "Binaryian" a 3rd year Wizard In Training. Today began like any other day - you woke up, attended to you chores, and then hit the books to study. The Final Entrance exam to the Legendary Wizard Campus is only two days away. No time to play around. You will be the first in your family to break out of the peasant life, and become a successful Wizard, able to take care of his family.

## ... and then it happened...

While deeply engrossed in your Spells and Potions course-book, a cold chill swept over your body. Something -Something bad, was about to happen.

It didn't take long to find out what. The mischievous and outcast wizard, "VirusIon" is back to his old tricks. This time, he has put the spell of ForgetfullNess on everybody in the village.

Ever since you were young boys, VirusIon has always been in competition with you. Now, he has left you alone, un-affected. You must reverse his spell quickly. Chaos will set in soon.

VirusIon was only able to cast such a wide spell over the villige because he has stolen the Sacred Stone Of JayPeg Whomever holds this magic stone, wields great power and magic.

Let Your Quest Begin

You are presented with a riddle to which you must solve before you may proceed:

"The MarketPlace Riddle"

Several "secret village buyers" were sent into CompuTaria's Marketplace today, each with instructions to purchase one type of vegetable and one type of fruit. Using only the clues that follow, determine the vegetable and fruit each buyer purchased, and how much they paid for their total order.

Your Clues:

1. Kathryn's order cost 1 dollar more than the order that included kale.

2. The order that included asparagus cost 1 dollar less than the order that included bean sprouts.

3. Ray's order cost \$5.25.
4. Nettie's purchase cost 2 dollars less than the order that included kale

[Observations: You notice that there are four vegetables (asparagus, bean sprouts, kale, leeks ) and also you see the price signs ($$4.25,$$5.25, $$6.25,$$7.25 ), and lastly you recognize some buyers ( Ellen, Kethryn, Nettiem and Ray ).

When you have solved the riddle...

You have been instructed to add Ellens and Rays prices together - remove any decimal point if there is one. Put that 4 digit number in your "cauldron" for later processing. Your cauldron is a bank of sorts, that will hold your magical data for easy retrieval later.

With that challenge completed, you move on.

The Magic Cards

You are presented with a note from VirusIon that shows a picture of 12 cards, the last one blank.

the note continues, "Binaryian , you have one chance to tell me what card should be next? There is no trickery here - these cards have a pattern. You must figure it out!"

When you have figured out which card is next...

Take the number value of the correct answer card ( j=11, q=12, k=13 a=1 ), and append to the 4 digits already in your cauldron. Do not use leading zero's.

You should have a five digit number in your cauldron now.

... and you continue on. Soon enough you are presented with your next challenge:

Let us see your number skill, brother Binaryian!

The note continued, " Do you remember Mrs. Wazzaliona?!?!? We did have fun teasing her, didn't we???

Well, she loved to survey our class. One time she surveys everyone about their siblings. In the class, 75% of the students have a brother, 82% have a sister, and 65% have both a brother and a sister.

She as always testing us with number problems! This time she asked, So, what is the probability that a student has both a brother AND sister?

Your answer should be formatted like this: xx%

Remove the percent sign, and put in the cauldron for later processing. You cauldron should now contain a five digit number, and a two digit number.

The Changing Boxes You simply see the following boxes on the floor:

...then a magical vision appears before you. It seems you must choose one of the boxes you see in your vision!

The Final Question

Take the number in cauldron and add the integer from Ms. Wazzaliona question to get a sum.

Get a total of all the digits in that answer, and divide by the box number that you saw in your vision.

The result is the PASSWORD, which will reverse your nemesis spell.

You are suddenly face to face with you nemesis, Virusion! You are prepared, though...

THE PASSWORD IS: ___________________

When you give the correct answer, you are presented with ...

and all is well again in the village!

• is this a [metapuzzle]? nice one, +1! – Omega Krypton May 11 at 15:27
• In the marketplace, is it Kathryn or Kethryn, Nettie or Nettiem? thanks – Omega Krypton May 11 at 15:29
• The marketplace puzzle has no info about the fruit but asks to find them - is that right? – Mariia Mykhailova May 11 at 15:31
• yes, Mariia. And @Omega, I am an old man of 47 who forgot his reading glasses. I apologize for the typos. I really do need to start wearing them damn things. – John S. May 11 at 15:38
• @JohnS. You always have the best graphics! Amazing work! – I N T E R E S T I N G May 14 at 0:02

## 2 Answers

The MarketPlace Riddle

1150

Why?

A typical grid deduction puzzle, seems to not have enough info to figure out who bought what but enough to figure out that Ellen paid 6.25, Kathryn paid 7.25, Nettie paid 4.25 and Ray paid 5.25.

Magic Cards

12

Why?

Each column has cards adding up to 17, so the last card is 17 - 4 - 1 = 12.

Shouldn't it be a 1-digit number?

Er, yes. Maybe ace stands for 10, not for 1?

Let us see your number skill, brother Binaryian!

65

Why?

The survey results have this number :-)

The Changing Boxes

4

Why?

In each column combining all boxes produces the same image - dot, two horizontal solid lines and two vertical dashed lines.

Answer

This is where things get weird... We're supposed to somehow get a 5-digit number by appending 12 to 1150, add 65 to the result and divide it by 4, which yields 28769.25.

• as always @Mariia , great work. – John S. May 11 at 15:54
• @JohnS. But that doesn't fit the answer? Shouldn't the answer for 2nd puzzle be rot13(guerr zbq sbhe, fb gung gur nafjre vf vagrtre? Npr jbhyq unir gb or gra sbe gung, abg bar) – Mariia Mykhailova May 11 at 16:05
• oh I was referring to that paarticular section. You do not have the entire answer. You take the total of Ellen and Ray, add the numeral from the missing card, now 5 digits, add to that the percentage whole number of teacher question, add each digit, divide by box num. Unless I missing something you did all those steps though. :) – John S. May 12 at 1:22
• @JohnS. The total of Ellen and Ray is 4 digits. The numeral from the missing card in my answer is 2 digits, so together they can't form a 5-digit number. It would make more sense if the missing card was 1 digit... – Mariia Mykhailova May 12 at 4:06

The password is:

4 or possibly 2893 (see the last step below)

Marketplace:

Ellen-kale-6.25; Kethryn-leeks-7.25; Nettiem-asparagus-4.25; Ray-bean sprouts-5.25. Adding Ellen + Ray (omitting decimals) = 625+525 = 1150

Magic Cards:

Each row contains one card of each suit, so the missing suit is diamonds. Within each suit, the number on the card decreases by 1 as you go down the rows (assuming that the values are only 1-9 so clubs "rolls over" to 9 after the Ace). This means the missing card is the 7 of diamonds (9-8-7 diamonds). Appending this to the previous number puts 11507 in the cauldron.

Number Skill:

Uh ... its given right in the problem. 65% have both a brother and a sister.

Changing Boxes:

Combining each column yields the same image - solid lines on top and bottom, dashed lines on left and right, dot in the middle. Box 4 completes the pattern for the first column.

The Final Question:

"Take the number in cauldron and add the integer from Ms. Wazzaliona question to get a sum." 11507+65=11572

But now I get a bit confused on the instructions: "Get a total of all the digits in that answer, and divide by the box number that you saw in your vision."

If this means to add up the digits in that answer, then the final result is 4. (The sum of the digits in 11572 is 16. 16/4 = 4.

Or ...

If this means to simply use the answer as it is, then the final result is 11572/4 = 2893.