Solution to Don't Get Eaten!
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Answer: CARNIVORE
by Azalea Weisblat, Josh Alman, Nathan Pinsker, Rahul Sridhar, and Anderson Wang
Visiting the Alchemist Sphinx in ⊥IW, it gives us a riddle. If we get the answer wrong, it will threaten to eat us, but rest assured that it hasn't eaten anyone in a very long time.
The first thing we need to do is get the answers to all the riddles. The Sphinx will confirm our answers, so we'll know when we have the right answer to each one.
| Riddle | Answer |
|---|---|
| For my job, I must be strong You may find me within a song They used to make me out of wood But now concrete and steel is good What am I? | BRIDGE |
| I'm often used to keep some people out That's not my only use without a doubt In the theater I'm the first one on But when you draw me it's just like I'm gone What am I? | CURTAIN |
| I live inside a bigger creature's heart When I am thirsty, I refuse my part But when I'm working hard you'll really know I'll squeal and roar, and then I'll growl real low What am I? | ENGINE |
| Many want me blown away each year And then when it gets warm I will appear I want to eat up all the beams, it's true Or flip me over when you start anew What am I? | LEAF |
| I'm soft at heart despite my harder hull, And sometimes you may think that I am dull I tell so many stories every day But like my heart they do not always stay What am I? | PENCIL |
| Within the day I climb up high At night, in glassy bed I lie If you score highly on my test I'll send you home—it's for the best What am I? | THERMOMETER |
| I taste great and I don't smell I'll be right there whene'er you yell I can be caught by a cat Though I am not a mouse or rat What am I? | TONGUE |
| Don't eat off me! I'm used in rites, I hold a soul or ash or lights I also go across the sea With sailors down inside of me What am I? | VESSEL |
| When the time has come to take a break, audibly a warning I will make. Sometimes you may not notice me at all Unless you are four-leg'd and two feet tall What am I? | WHISTLE |
Once we've solved all the riddles, the Alchemist Sphinx lets us into her inner chamber, where we can see a wall of symbols.
At this point, we can examine the symbols and notice that, while most of them are fairly recognizable, some of the symbols are a little weird. Because this is the Alchemist Sphinx, we might think of alchemical symbols. We can find nine alchemical symbols on the wall:
Each symbol is associated with a different alchemical element or compound:
| Symbol | Meaning |
|---|---|
 | Gold |
 | Mercury |
 | Lead |
 | Iron |
 | Fire |
 | Salt |
 | Tin |
 | Silver |
 | Blood |
Now we have two sets of nine words. Thinking about how we might try to match them, we notice that they form phrases.
| Alchemy word | Riddle word |
|---|---|
| GOLD | LEAF |
| MERCURY | THERMOMETER |
| LEAD | PENCIL |
| IRON | CURTAIN |
| FIRE | ENGINE |
| SALT | BRIDGE |
| TIN | WHISTLE |
| SILVER | TONGUE |
| BLOOD | VESSEL |
We're almost there, but so far we just have a bunch of words, maybe arranged on a statue. We need some way to get only one letter from each of them. Turning back to the inside of the Sphinx, we notice that each alchemical symbol touches exactly one number (shown in cyan in the image above).
| Symbol | Alchemy word | Riddle word | Number | Index |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| LEAD | PENCIL | 4 | C |
| GOLD | LEAF | 3 | A |
| MERCURY | THERMOMETER | 4 | R |
| IRON | CURTAIN | 7 | N |
| TIN | WHISTLE | 3 | I |
| BLOOD | VESSEL | 1 | V |
| SILVER | TONGUE | 2 | O |
| SALT | BRIDGE | 2 | R |
| FIRE | ENGINE | 1 | E |
Indexing the number into the riddle answer and ordering (in row-major order) by the position of the alchemical symbol, we read out the answer, CARNIVORE.