Forums » Epic Week 2023 » Puzzle 1 Symbol (SOLVED)

This topic is for discussing clues and potential answers to the Puzzle 1 Symbol in Epic Week 2023. Please stay on topic. Remember, these puzzles are designed to be challenging and require a group of people brainstorming together; don't feel intimidated if you don't know the answer right away. Every little idea can help. In puzzles, all information you will need to solve it is contained within Epic Week materials.

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The first clue could be about musicals with overtures that didn’t get on broadway?

This symbol's a puzzle symbol! That means that we should mostly be able to solve it using information from the Research Library.

Hrm hrm hrm. I've gone and read through all the research library materials, now, and I think this puzzle has to do with Moa's initial letters to Apteribis, two in particular: One Two

The third clue, "tense years"... I don't know if it's a coincidence, but the years between the two letters, late 1929 to 1931, made up the first part of the Great Depression.

Hmm that seems quite possible let me take a look and see if i can agree or come up with something new.

What about this? I know it doesn't seem to relate but if you take a look it talks about the main land struggled to hatch eggs this could relate in that the years were tense and hard to bear. Its just a thought

Ah-*ha*. I noticed this too late to play around with it before we just got a giant lizard spawn, but - Moa's way of addressing Apteribis changes throughout the years. There's a while where she uses "Venerable Apteribis", another while where it's just down to "V. Apteribis", and then eventually in later years it changes to just plain ol' "Dear Apteribis". Friendship is dear, right? So if they weren't friends before then - those are maybe the tense years we're looking for??

Anyway, I've got to get some sleep, LOL.

I'd agree with you, Dragonfire - an overture could mean (broadly) 'the start of something bigger', so maybe it's referring to the 1929 letter where Moa rejects Apteribis's offers of sympathy? From what the letter says, it's happened multiple times before as well. Not quite sure how the 'overture' bit links in though... If at all!

Has anyone found anything else yet?

I am thinking it starts with the rejected condolences and pushing away letter on October 17 1929, with the tense years clue ending when the 3 eggs of 7 hatch after decades in the September 22 1936 new clipping.

I've tried every name in all of the letters and news in those two and the ones between them, every full date, and every year by itself, as well as:

3 eggs
triplets
hope
there is hope
failure to thrive
condolences
forgiveness
gratitude
funeral
genres
hatching
mourning

and various combos of those.


I even looked up Rail, Crake and Caracara birds and saw they all have orange beaks, so I tried "orange" and "orange beaks".

I'm at a loss at the moment for anything else to try.

I spent the better part of 3 hours rereading the resources top to bottom over and over, doing countless google searches of dates, birds, and things relating to loss. I've probably put in over 100 guesses at this point, and really should've written them down but... My head hurts, so I hope someone else has fresh eyes!

The only other thing I can think of maybe it's related to Viti's funeral? That seems to be what made Moa and Apteribis reconcile. A bit of a shot in the dark, though...

I had tried a bunch of things specifically related to the period of time between Moa's scathing letter to Apteribis and the month after Viti's funeral, but hadn't gotten anywhere there. Hrm.

I tried 2,532 days, the amount of days between October 17 1929 to September 22 1936.

I tried Virgo, and Virgo triplets because the triplets that hatched were Virgos.

I tried "Wild's Triplet" which is a group of three small, interacting spiral galaxies visible in the constellation Virgo.

I think you're on the right track @MercyinReach ! Has anyone tried the number of years between October 17 1929 to July 19 2016 (the first time she uses Dear Apteribis)? I guess it would be about 86 or 87 years? The bonus hint says to "count them", so maybe they mean to count the tense years?

no luck on my end, I have tried based on the time period I gave:
86
87
Eighty six
Eight seven
86 years
87 years
Eighty six years
Eight seven years
31687 (these are the days)
86, 9, 2 (years, months, days)
86 years, 9 months, 2 days

based on MercyInReach's suggestion, I've tried:
six
seven
6
7
six years
seven years
6, 11, 5
6 years, 11 months, 5 days

I've also counted the number of letters sent between October 17 1929 to July 19 2016 and I tried 11 (10 and 12 just in case I miscounted ), without the new articles in between.

I didn't have time to try with the news articles though, if someone wants to try, and I didn't try with another time period yet!

I'm also wondering if the rejected overtures might have anything to do with the invitations Moa keeps rejecting?

edit: These did not work either

16 (the number of documents in general)
17 (just in case )
3 (the invitations rejected)

Oh. New clue! I feel a little silly.

"Venerable Apteribis,

With all due respect, I do not accept your condolences. Keep them to YOURSELF. You are wise and old and celebrated and somehow can think of nothing better to do with your time than write to the last of us every year, giving perfunctory pats on the back when our eggs don’t hatch? OF COURSE THEY DON’T HATCH.

This is my fourth letter from you and I don’t want to ever receive another. It’s not comforting. It’s not kind. You’ve turned our grief into bureaucracy. I’ve come to expect a card from you like you’re sending me a certificate to mark “failure to thrive.” Am I supposed to put them on the mantelpiece? Line them up and collect them? I must be on some checklist of married Struth you go through every year. Well, take me off it!

No one asked you to do this and it’s not your responsibility. Don’t you dare send me your pity again.

Respectfully yours, Moa"


So that means they've been sent since 1926, right?

Oooh. Yes. 1926 would've been the first time she got one of those letters.

(Ugh, Apteribis. Faux pas.)

Congrats on solving this symbol! The answer was "90".

For those of you wondering how this answer could be arrived at, here's a quick explanation.

Just a simple puzzle to start you off with! The answer was 90, the number of years between Apteribis' first letter to Moa and when Moa finally started opening her responses to Apteribis with "Dear"

The main twist is that the first letter Moa sends to Apteribis is in 1929, but she says it is in response to the fourth letter she has received from Apteribis, and that she has been getting one each year -- which means there have been 3 years before that Apteribis wrote. That makes 1926 the year the first time the two of them were in touch.

The first letter we see with Moa addressing "Dear Apteribis" is in 2016. 2016-1926 = 90.

this was such a good one. I spent like 3 days in a row burning the midnight oil rereading over and over, it was driving me up a wall!!! I'm so relieved someone figured it out.