Brain Teasers
Don't Hang the Man!
Willy and Nilly were two friends who were time travellers. They decided to take a round of ancient lands and explore some of their traditions.
As was bound to happen, frequently they landed up flouting the tradition of the time, and in those days, ancient as they were, imprisonment was unheard of. The penalty for any kind of crime was death by hanging!
Their time capsule was programmed for them to stay in the ancient world for 10 days, so they had to be real careful to stay out of trouble.
As luck would have it, Nilly managed to look into one of the ancient men's homes when they were out at work, and the ladies of the family promptly informed the men when they returned.
Sure enough, the next day, Nilly found himself in the public execution area with a noose around his neck! Aghast, Willy was pleading with the King, who had also come to view the execution.
For this teaser's sake, we have to now assume that the King actually spoke and understood English very well! Maybe he was a time traveller too? The mystery remains unsolved to this day!
Willy was surprised to hear the King laugh and reply in English - "You will be given one chance, one single chance to save your friend. Do you agree?"
Willy readily agreed. The King fished out an ancient scroll from his robes and presented it to Willy."Solve this if you can", he rumbled, "and your friend can go free".
On the scroll was written the following -
A-7,14
B-9
D-16,20
E-10,11,19
F-21
H-6
I-2
L-3,4
N-1,12,18,24
O-17,22,25
P-13
R-15,23
S-8
W-26
Y-5
Can you decipher what this was? Would Willy be able to save Nilly?
As was bound to happen, frequently they landed up flouting the tradition of the time, and in those days, ancient as they were, imprisonment was unheard of. The penalty for any kind of crime was death by hanging!
Their time capsule was programmed for them to stay in the ancient world for 10 days, so they had to be real careful to stay out of trouble.
As luck would have it, Nilly managed to look into one of the ancient men's homes when they were out at work, and the ladies of the family promptly informed the men when they returned.
Sure enough, the next day, Nilly found himself in the public execution area with a noose around his neck! Aghast, Willy was pleading with the King, who had also come to view the execution.
For this teaser's sake, we have to now assume that the King actually spoke and understood English very well! Maybe he was a time traveller too? The mystery remains unsolved to this day!
Willy was surprised to hear the King laugh and reply in English - "You will be given one chance, one single chance to save your friend. Do you agree?"
Willy readily agreed. The King fished out an ancient scroll from his robes and presented it to Willy."Solve this if you can", he rumbled, "and your friend can go free".
On the scroll was written the following -
A-7,14
B-9
D-16,20
E-10,11,19
F-21
H-6
I-2
L-3,4
N-1,12,18,24
O-17,22,25
P-13
R-15,23
S-8
W-26
Y-5
Can you decipher what this was? Would Willy be able to save Nilly?
Answer
If you see the numbers above, the highest is 26. Draw 26 blanks on a paper and put 1-26 below them. Fill them up as per the numbers shown above. For example, fill up 'A' in blank 7 and blank 14 and so on.The finished message reads -
NILLYHASBEENPARDONEDFORNOW
or
NILLY HAS BEEN PARDONED FOR NOW
Willy thanks you for helping him save Nilly's life! Until next time that is!
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Comments
Good one. Fun to do.
Cool, but should be under cryptography
I don't agree blagh since the rules state different.
I liked this one; fairly easy but quite original. (This wouldn't be cryptography because each letter is not assigned a constant value.)
Thanks AwwwSweet! Glad you liked it!
why can't nilly die!?
Because I hope to make a series out of this and need both friends to be alive!
I loved it! I got it after I read the title because it was like the game hangman, which I'm sure is what you were aiming for.
Yup, you got that right! Actually I love playing hangman in the Games forum and that's where I got the idea of this teaser from.
I loved it. It was fun and would have been appropriately violent if the guy would have been hanged.
Being a time capsule puzzle, it will still be interesting if this does make a fantastic series style teaser! WTG! Brain
Great teaser! I loved both the storyline and the puzzle itself!
But...Nilly has only been pardoned "for now"? He won't die later, will he?
But...Nilly has only been pardoned "for now"? He won't die later, will he?
I had originally planned to work this into a series, I still hope someday I'll find the time to do that. That's why I ended this one on a cryptic note! Thanks for the nice comments.
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