The Grid
Considering the twenty alphanumeric strings, you may notice that they combine the numerals 0 through 9 and characters ranging from A through J: they are numbers in base-20 (or if you prefer Latin adjectives, they’re vigesimal).
If you convert them into binary (as suggested by “it all boils down to a binary question”), you will find that the longest numbers now have 20 digits. This means that they will all fit into the blank 20-by-20 grid.
Base 20 | Binary |
---|---|
14C30 | 00110000000011111100 |
6G5H | 00001101010011110101 |
10B20 | 00101000001001011000 |
G92E | 00100000001001000110 |
39HJ6 | 10001000100001010010 |
G92E | 00100000001001000110 |
39HJ6 | 10001000100001010010 |
GI84 | 00100001000011000100 |
14BF9 | 00110000000001100101 |
GA8C | 00100000010001001100 |
39HJ6 | 10001000100001010010 |
GBDI | 00100000011001000110 |
6J1I | 00001101100101010110 |
G92F | 00100000001001000111 |
4FG30 | 10111011000111111100 |
0 | 00000000000000000000 |
47HE | 00001000100101010010 |
6G5H | 00001101010011110101 |
47HE | 00001000100101010010 |
1GIFC | 01001000001001011000 |
Or, as rendered in the grid with the 0s as empty cells and the 1s as blocks of black:
Let’s put that grid aside for a moment and turn our attention to the dice.
The Dice
Two of the dice have the numbers 1 through 20, as rendered in vigesimal numbering systems: the Mayan (also the Aztec system), as clued by “land of the feathered serpent” and Dzonghka, the language of Bhutan (aka “land of the thunder dragon”).
The other two dice represent sets of 20: the first 20 narrative feature films directed by Steven Soderbergh and the major arcana of the Tarot (minus the first and last arcana).
Soderbergh is hinted at by “in a director’s chair”; this list of movies doesn’t include his concert films or his shorts, only his full-length narrative films (as underscored by “long stretches of lies and make-believe”), so no Gray’s Anatomy. We start after the Yes concert film 9012Live (“After you say yes”) and end before Haywire (“halt before things go haywire”). The sequence of 20 films on that die is associated with the numbers on the Mayan die (as indicated by the “land of the feathered serpent” and the color blue).
The first face in the sequence and the proper orientation on each die is indicated by the small red triangle.
(Note that for the Ocean’s trilogy, the numbers 11, 12, and 13 are presented as casino chips.)
Confirming that this sequence is correct: “Your quest will lead you through eleven blocks of an insane city: you will meet nine blind men and then brawl with seven British sailors.” That alludes to three consecutive pairs of matching faces (5th-6th-7th): Schizopolis (11), Out of Sight (9), The Limey (7). And the resulting sequence of numbers is quite literally “diminishing odds.”
The die with the major arcana follows The Fool (card 0) and stops before the end of the world (The World is card 21). There are two popular orderings of the major arcana; the text tells you to eschew the Rider-Waite ordering (“Be a walker, not a rider—but do not wait.”). The sequence of 20 Tarot cards is associated with the numbers on the Dzongkha die (as indicated by “land of the thunder dragon” and the color orange).
The first face in the sequence and the proper orientation on each die is indicated by the small red triangle.
(The High Priestess’s symbol is her diadem; Judgement’s symbol is the trumpet.)
Confirming that this sequence is correct: “resist the temptations of ten succubi, take shelter in a castle with nine turrets, and get autographs from eight celebrities.” That alludes to three consecutive pairs of matching faces (15th-16th-17th): The Devil (10), The Tower (9), The Star (8). And the resulting sequence of numbers strides through the primes.
Putting It All Together
We can now turn our attention back to the grid. The text suggests that the Soderbergh/Mayan sequence is useful for traveling east and that the Tarot/Dzongkha sequence is useful for traveling south, and that they will provide the true path after the terrain is reordered. So we will shuffle the columns and then the rows according to those sequences. (Shuffling the rows and then the columns would produce the same final result.)
Our original grid, with numbering running both east and south:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | |
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Reorder the columns heading west to east according to the Soderbergh/Mayan sequence, beginning with the 19th column (moved to the 1st column), then the 17th (moved to the 2nd), and so on:
19 | 17 | 15 | 13 | 11 | 9 | 7 | 5 | 3 | 1 | 12 | 2 | 14 | 4 | 16 | 6 | 18 | 8 | 20 | 10 | |
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Now reorder the rows heading north to south according to the Tarot/Dzongkha sequence, beginning with the 2nd row (now the 1st row), then the 3rd (now the 2nd), and so on:
19 | 17 | 15 | 13 | 11 | 9 | 7 | 5 | 3 | 1 | 12 | 2 | 14 | 4 | 16 | 6 | 18 | 8 | 20 | 10 | |
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To embark on this journey requires ONE STEP.