The votes presented to Patrons in Part Forty Six were unusual. Over the course of the four weeks that the first four chapters of Part Forty Six were released, patrons in the official Discord Patreon channels set to attempting to crack the code. Progress was tracked in a collective Google Document.
Chapter 226[]
Very quickly after the poll for chapter 226 was posted, patrons figured out the vote options were distorted with Zalgo text, and once they were cleaned up, gave a jumble of letters. A patron decoded the jumble using ROT13 - a letter substitution cypher. The decoded cypher for Chapter 226 revealed that each option was a string of three numbers. This would be consistent for all of the votes in Part Forty Six.
| Encoded Vote | Removed Zalgo | Decoded ROT13 |
|---|---|---|
| Option 1: F̴r̷i̵r̴a̷g̸l̶-̷r̵v̴t̵u̵g̷ ̸g̶u̵v̴e̶g̵l̴ ̶a̴v̸a̶r̷ Option 2: F̴r̴i̸r̷a̷g̵r̸r̷a̵ ̶f̷r̸i̴r̸a̷ ̷a̴v̶a̶r̵ |
Option 1: Friragl-rvtug guvegl avar Option 2: Friragrra frira avar |
Option 1: Seventy-eight thirty nine (78 30 9) Option 2: Seventeen thirty nine (17 30 9) |
A wide variety of methods were tested to solve the meaning of these words in the first week, including (but not only):
- Coordinates
- Bible verses
- Malevolent chapters and previous votes
- Page, line, word indicators - works tested include Hamlet, poems that appear in Malevolent, Gest of a Robyn Hood, and Midsummer Night's Dream
- Numerology
- Atomic numbers
- Chinese characters
- Visualized audio
Read the full process and attempted solutions here: Chapter 226 puzzle document.
No solution was reached for Chapter 226, and so the vote was a blind pick.
Chapter 227[]
With the first two steps of the decoding solved, patrons quickly obtained the new string of numbers for chapter 227's poll.
| Encoded Vote | Removed Zalgo | Decoded ROT13 |
|---|---|---|
| Option 1: B̷a̴r̸ ̵u̴h̷a̴q̷e̸r̴q̶ ̸n̴a̷q̶ ̷f̷r̸i̴r̴a̸g̵l̷-̸s̵b̸h̴e̸ sbhegrra̴ ̸g̸u̴v̶e̷g̴r̶r̵a̴ Option 2: A̷v̵a̶r̵g̷l̶-̶rvt̶u̵g ̴sb̵h̶e̶g̷r̵r̴a̵ ̷g̴u̶v̶e̸g̸r̷r̸a |
Option 1: Bar uhaqerq naq friragl-sbhe sbhegrra guvegrra Option 2: Avargl-rvtug sbhegrra guvegrra |
Option 1: One hundred and seventy-four fourteen thirteen (174 14 13) Option 2: Ninety-eight fourteen thirteen (98 14 13) |
This time, several options from the previous week were tried again to check validity, such as referring to previous chapters, polls, or transcripts.
Read the full process and attempted solutions here: Chapter 227 puzzle document.
No solution was reached for Chapter 227, and so the vote was a blind pick.
Chapter 228[]
| Encoded Vote | Removed Zalgo | Decoded ROT13 |
|---|---|---|
| Option 1: R̵v̴t̷u̶g̸l̴-̵b̵a̵r̴ ̸s̶v̶s̷g̷r̷r̶a̷ ̸g̷j̸b̸
Option 2: R̸v̸t̵u̸g̸l-fri̴r̷a̴ ̶a̸v̵a̵r̷g̷r̵r̸a̶ ̶s̷b̴h̴e̶g̶rra |
Option 1: Rvtugl-bar svsgrra gjb
Option 2: Rvtugl-frira avargrra sbhegrra |
Option 1: Eighty-seven nineteen fourteen (87 19 14)
Option 2: Eighty-one fifteen two (81 15 2) |
Various new ciphers were attempted this week, such as Braille and Octal codes, a periodic table cipher, and D3 codes.
Read the full process and attempted solutions here: Chapter 228 puzzle document.
After the poll closed, Harlan made this post to Instagram, which led patrons to the solution.
Solution[]
After the poll closed for Chapter 228, the code was finally cracked through an Instagram post. A patron traced the image to a specific edition to The King in Yellow. The Amazon listing for this edition was found, which gave patrons their first breakthrough: the "Look Inside" preview on Amazon allowed a patron to preview some of the pages. They took Option 1 from Chapter 226 (78 30 9) and followed the preview to page 78, line 30, word 9: "Follow". Multiple other editions of The King in Yellow were tried to verify if this solution was edition specific, and through testing, it appeared as though this solution was specific to this edition. Several patrons ordered copies of the book, but, one of the Discord-active patrons already had a copy from Harlan.
During Part Twenty Nine, Arthur tells a short story to Percival while traveling on a train. A challenge was held on the official Discord’s Patreon channels to find the short story, which had no online PDFs, story summaries, or even mentions on the authors’ Wikipedia page. A member of the discord found it through a 2-star review on Google Books that was 13 years old at the time. The story is Solitude by Ben Ames Williams. The patron who found the book was gifted a copy of The King in Yellow from Harlan as a "prize" - the specific edition used to solve the cipher for Part Forty Six.
Read the full process and recorded solution here: Part Forty Six puzzle solution.
| Chapter | Decoded Options |
|---|---|
| 226 |
|
| 227 |
|
| 228 |
|
| 229 |
|
Chapter 229[]
Chapter 229 was the only chapter where the solution was decoded before the poll closed.
| Encoded Vote | Removed Zalgo | Decoded ROT13 |
|---|---|---|
| Option 1: R̶v̶t̴u̵g̴l̶-̷g̸j̷b̵ ̴g̸j̸r̵a̴g̵l̵ ̶f̵v̵k̶
Option 2: B̴a̴r̷ ̵u̸h̶a̷qer̴q̸ ̷n̵a̴q̴ ̷g̷j̴r̵a̴g̶l̵-̷f̷v̵k̴ ̸r̵vtugrr̷a rvt̴u̶g̵ |
Option 1: Rvtugl-gjb gjragl fvk
Option 2: Bar uhaqerq naq gjragl-fvk rvtugrra rvtug |
Option 1: Eighty-two twenty six (82 20 6)
Option 2: One hundred and twenty-six eighteen eight (126 18 8) |
However, both options produced the same word: Sleep.