# Starry Knight, or Crazy Heights

Apple Bounce Chip Desk Egg Fizzle Gird Heat Image Jewel Kangaroo Liquor Mustache Nickel Opportunity Person Quiz Reel Saturate Tornado Umbrella Vehicle Wallaby Xylophone Yak Zebra

Alabaster Birth Colonel Disgust Elephant Farm Grip Heifer Igloo Juice King Lemon Marathon Nocturnal Orange Piece Quip Roust Surgeon Tough Upper Veracity Watermelon Xylol Yellow Zenith

        | Bear | Frog | Lion | Deer | Crab
--------+------+------+------+------+------
Maple   |  uv  |  mu  |  ud  |  ju  |  qu
--------+------+------+------+------+------
Oak     |  if  |  hi  |  yi  |  wi  |  ki
--------+------+------+------+------+------
Hickory |  re  |  se  |  te  |  le  |  ne
--------+------+------+------+------+------
Birch   |  la  |  ar  |  at  |  ga  |  ba
--------+------+------+------+------+------
Pine    |  no  |  op  |  zo  |  ox  |  co


Red   \                Orange\
|--------> af          |--------> di
1.12.5/                2.25.2/

Yellow\                Green \
|--------> tu          |--------> ul
1.24.5/                2.13.3/

Blue  \                Indigo\
|--------> ti          |--------> ec
2.1.4 /                2.17.1/

Violet\
|--------> am
1.6.3 /


Professor Electrician Farmer Clerk Saint

+

Hint #1

The title provides an important clue to solving the first part if the puzzle.

Hint #2

_ _ + _ _ + _ _

• This is certainly an excellent puzzle! All I have are a few observations, probably not even enough to be worth posting as a partial answer, but I'm following to see what people come up with! – Somebody Jan 24 at 18:22
• @Somebody thank you for the kind comment! – Brandon_J Jan 24 at 18:24
• Uhh, there's no word for L in the first list. Is this on purpose? – North Læraðr Jan 24 at 22:04
• is it possible that fixing that error changes the puzzle? – cmxu Jan 24 at 23:45
• Is there also a specific reason why "Y" isn't in the list? – North Læraðr Jan 25 at 0:13

I think I got the first part, but I'm completely stuck after that. Hoping someone can help me finish it.

Edit: I've added a bit more progress/thoughts.

Edit 2: Credit to JS1 for the ending and his thoughts in the comments.

First Part.

Starry [k]Night, or Crazy [h]Eights is a clue to look for words that are still words without the first letter. In the first list, you get ([B]ounce, [I]mage, [R]eel, [C]hip, [H]eat) = Birch. The second list gets you ([F]arm, [R]oust, [O]range, [G]rip) = Frog. Birch and Frog both appear in the grid and hint at ar.

Second Part.

While we know what the colors are, the numbers are not immediately obvious. However, one can observe that the numbers come in a triple $$(a,b,c)$$. We notice that $$a \in[1,2]$$, $$b \in [1,...,25]$$, and $$c \in [1,...,6]$$. After quite a bit of trial and error with other possibilities, this actually reminds of the first two lists of words. $$a$$ refers to either the first or second list, thus 1 or 2. $$b$$ refers to which word in the list, there are 26 (although not at the start haha). $$c$$ refers to the letter number in that word. So we get the following$$1.12.6 = R, 2.25.2 = E, 1.24.5 = P, 2.13.3 = R, 2.1.4 = B, 2.17.1 = Q, 1.6.3 = Z$$ From this, and hints from the comments, and a bit of working backwards, JS1 deduces that since $$2.1.4 = B$$ which is the same as [B]lue, we get ti (not sure what to do about [R]ed).

Third Part.

Credit to JS1. Street = St = Saint. Therefore, we get st.

Adding all three parts we get $$ar + ti + st = artist$$
So here I'm just gonna put a random collection of other thoughts/clues. First, we know that in the original statement of the puzzle this was still solvable even though there was no L word in the first list and no Y words in either list. We also know that the above is likely correct because of what the author has mentioned. From the comments we also can assume that in the end only one of the Color/Number to letter things out of the seven will be used. We also know that in all likelihood since the author said that it didn't matter this will not involve (1.12.6 or 1.24.5). 1.25.2 the word changed from zebra to yellow but the letter is still E. Now onto other ideas. We know that in the end we will be summing in some way these two lists. My original thought was that there are two categories again and so we will do a pairwise summing and get 5 2-letter combos for a 10-letter solution. However, now I think that the item to letter isn't really a function but just sort of arbitrary. There are two theories on ar. One, it affects or hints at something in the next diagram. Two, it is distinct and together with the next diagram you will get two 2-letter things that will hint at the final puzzle. My only real thoughts on ar are that it could be Argon = Gas when excited is Violet, ar is a sounding of the letter r, ar hints at a shift cipher of 17 from a to r, ar is actually a and r distinctly that hint at something. No clue, probably none of those are correct. Finally, just thoughts on what the third diagrams could mean. My best theory is that they could be just a pair of letters to be used with the above pair. Also thinking they could imply some sort of substitution from say E -> DI. No clue. 'ar' + 'di' = 'raid?' 'arid?', 'ar' + ec' = 'care?'