hutt's puzzle dump

     On the way to the castle, Dahlia speaks her mind. "What I can't wrap my head around is why a spellcaster would need Cheryl. She rarely ventures outside the castle walls. Her proficiencies are in spinning pottery and the clarinet. Not to mention her illiteracy. All the motives I'd envision are flimsy." In an act of pondering, she tugs on her pendant and the chain breaks loose. Diamond-shaped beads are scattered about in the grass. Renn offers to help try to mend it. https://pzprxs.vercel.app/p?diamond/10/13/i1ag.zrdg1dzt2agdzp.i2.i Rules: Solve as a Diamond Chain. The chain is fragile: the ax cannot be used on these clues.

FYTTE THE SECOND in which betrayals are formed on noble grounds.     The woman introduces herself as Dahlia. She explains that she was going on an excursion with a friend when suddenly they got tangled up in some vines by a plant nymph. She says, "I hope she's alright. Before we were separated, the nymph said someone named Neward had plans for her." Felix exclaims to Renn, "He lives in the fortress on that map we've been searching for! I heard he was a great spellcaster, though no one has heard from him in recent years. But if the map isn't here, then where would it be?" Dahlia says, "The kingdom I hail from sacked countless nearby dungeons a few decades ago. You should check our royal archives. If it's not there, I could arrange for you to check the other castles. Anything to help her." Renn smiles and says, "Likewise."     The new pressing issue seems to be getting back to the surface. The darkness discourages everyone from try...

    As the door slowly creaks open, t hey are delighted to find that the chamber ahead of them is naturally lit. Felix claims, "This could be the prize room. We've finally made it." When they enter the room, there is something completely different in the center. A woman is trapped in a cage in the center of the room. Instinctively, she calls for help.     As Renn rushes forward, Felix quickly glances about the room. The oubliette is lit by moonlight through a grate in the roof, which is locked by a hatch from the inside. Various pipes climb the walls, all connected to valves and many gushing water in various directions. One pipe sends water a few inches away from the woman's head. The floor slopes downward slightly from the center toward the walls, where it drops off into a pool shaped like the thick edges of a square.     The cage is held shut by a taut loop of vines surrounding the edges. Renn tries to trim the vine at a safe angle, but the axe keeps want...

  At last, they enter a chamber which resembles an intentional dungeon. Cracks between the patterns etched in the walls allow mystical blue firelight to shine through and illuminate the room. When Renn asks Felix if he recognizes the repeated array, he responds, "It's the magic square of order three. All the rows, columns, and main diagonals have the same sum." The grid on the door to the next room is four cells wide and tall. Above it, a plaque is inscribed which suggests this is the last room before the treasure. Rules: Fill in the 4x4 magic square using the integers from 1 to 16. Numbers along an arrow line sum to the attached circled number. The circled pair should be concatenated in reading order: for example, if 7 was in the left and 15 was in the right, the sum of the three numbers on the line would have to be 715. penpa link (has answer check)

  They reach a dead end. Renn asks Felix, "Are you certain this cave continues?" Felix says nothing. Renn hits another insect. It's the last one this deep. For a moment, there's complete silence. But then Renn says, "I hear something. A crackling beyond this wall." He feels the rough surface of the stone beside him. He decides to ram into it and successfully shoves it back. Fickle beams of light attempt to make their way into the corridor between the boulders through the newly exposed room from some chamber farther ahead. A ray is reflected in Felix's eyes. He's relieved. Rules: Find a path from left to right, which cannot move diagonally or revisit any tiles. Energy starts at zero.  Moving across multiple tiles in the same direction builds up energy by 1 unit per time the path goes in the same direction without colliding with a wall. By continuing in that same direction into a wall, energy is lost by 1 unit per wall that's pushed in a row. Energ...

     Not even the fungi withstand the foul stinky odor that permeates this region of the cave. Due to the darkness and an apparent abundance of insects, all senses but touch are inhibited. Yet, there is still a winding path forward, so they press on. Rules: Shade some cells to form a Cave such that the unshaded cells are all on a path through the grid from the left entrance to the right exit. Numbers are shaded and count the amount of the eight surrounding cells (minesweeper adjacency) which could contain a bug squashed along the path. The ax may be used on the numbers. penpa link (has answer check)