World HistoryBack to round

by Herman Chau and Tracey Lin

Answer:
CERBERUS

We are presented with a grid of nodes and a list of emojis. The number of pairs of emojis matches the number of straight lines in our grid of nodes. This leads us to believe that each pair of emojis represents two different words, and we must fill the grid of nodes twice. The title ♊ and the header Twins for the emojis provides additional confirmation.

Here is the list of emojis and the words they represent.

EmojisGrid 1 AnswerGrid 2 Answer
#️⃣
#️⃣
HASHTAGOCTOTHORP
☘️
☘️
SHAMROCKCLOVER
⚙️
⚙️
GEARCOG
⚠️
⚠️
CAUTIONWARNING
⚽️
⚽️
SOCCERFOOTBALL
✌️
✌️
PEACESCISSORS (as in rock paper scissors)
🎀
🎀
BOWRIBBON
🎃
🎃
HALLOWEENJACKOLANTERN
🐊
🐊
ALLIGATORCROCODILE
🐢
🐢
TURTLETORTOISE
🐰
🐰
RABBITBUNNY
💡
💡
LIGHTIDEA
🔥
🔥
FIRELIT
🔧
🔧
WRENCHSPANNER
🕛
🕛
MIDNIGHTNOON
🥩
🥩
MEATSTEAK
🦃
🦃
THANKSGIVINGTURKEY
🧩
🧩
PUZZLEJIGSAW
🩴
🩴
FLIPFLOPSANDAL
🪓
🪓
AXEHATCHET
🪨
🪨
STONEROCK
🪶
🪶
FEATHERQUILL

Each copy of the grid should get one unique emoji word – for example, the grid filled with HASHTAG cannot also be filled with OCTOTHORP. JACKOLANTERN and THANKSGIVING are good starting points, as they are the only emoji words with 12 letters, which means we can put them into the grids immediately. Here are the unique solutions to the grids.

Solved grid with the word THANKSGIVING. Of the nodes that had numbers in them, nodes with the letters WATCH HOUND are in yellow, and the other nodes are greyed out.Solved grid with the word JACKOLANTERN. Of the nodes that had numbers in them, nodes with the letters UNDERWORLD are in yellow, and the other nodes are greyed out.

For extraction, we look at the numbers 1 through 10 that were in the grid of nodes. Each number appears twice, which means we want to extract different sets of 1-10 letters from the two grids. Given this, there’s only one reasonable extraction from each grid: WATCH HOUND and UNDERWORLD. A notable UNDERWORLD WATCH HOUND is CERBERUS, who is the answer to this puzzle.