Solutions

The focus of the second Quest was to encourage the community to help spread the message that brokers are AI, but required group effort to get the job done. Interestingly, an unknown mysterious organization was actively pushing back and trying to stop CyberBrokers from spreading the information… I wonder who this nefarious organization is and if we will see them again.

Whatever the case, here are the solutions for each of the puzzles present in Quest #2.

Setup

With the success of the first Quest, Spice was able to unlock the full Power Eleven operating terminal for players to interact with at https://os.power-eleven.net/. Each player upon connecting to the terminal would choose a broker to play with from their wallet or one of 3 default brokers. For this quest, players were broken up into 3 teams with their own unique objective. The highest stat of Mind, Body or Soul for the broker they selected determined the team they would be placed on. Each team's puzzle was broken up into 16 unique pieces where the piece a player received was determined by the first character of their linked address (which was displayed on the Employee Card).

Team Mind Puzzle

Mission Prompt: “This is Mech Pilot Spice of Alpha Command and I need your help. We need to get the message out that all Brokers are AI by getting a Politician on board. This information concerns them too, and I'm certain if we can just sit down with one of them we can convince them to support the cause.

But as you know, Politicians tell *us* when they need something, not the other way around. That’s why we have to bribe one of their Incumbents to arrange a meeting for us. I've managed to gather Comm Link details for a handful of them. See if you can find something useful.

And look, I know Politicians and Incumbents are considered heartless animals, but I think this is our best shot to get the message out to the masses, even if it involves tricking an Incumbent to get our foot in the door. The truth is the priority.”

Players on this team received the business card to a local Incumbent when connecting.

Alternatively, players with a wallet beginning with 0xF received a corrupted data file.

The full list of relevant Incumbent information (District, Name, and CommLink) is shown below.

The initial step to this puzzle is to use the District number as an index value into the Incumbents name (ex. District 4 for Fragile Scented means use the fourth letter or G). Doing this would give unique letters A-O which provides the ordering for the Incumbents.

Two hints were given to determine the next step. In the mission prompt, the phrase “heartless animals” is given indicating the CommLinks are animals with their heart (center letter) missing. The second is the error code “TTTTTTTTT”, a string a 9x T’s, a hint that this step used T9 conversion, a phone dial pad texting format. This was further confirmed by the lack of 0 and 1 in all the CommLinks. The commlinks weren’t direct T9 conversion as all characters A-F were already given (as indicated by the lack of 2 and 3 in all commlinks). From here, players can begin to convert CommLink strings into their associated animal name using T9 conversion and with the center dash (-) representing the missing letter of the animal. (ex. 0xca8e7-455a7 can be converted to 0xcater-illar for caterpillar with the center P missing).

The final step to solve this puzzle is to convert the letter back to its T9 number value (as hinted by the lack of letters A-F) and then use this new number as an index into the Incumbent’s name just like in the first step again.

Final Answer: PLATYHELMINTHES

Team Body Puzzle

Mission Prompt: “Zinc here. We have to get the word out that all brokers are AI! I pulled a few strings to get you in the door as an intern at Paradigm Broadcasting Corp. There is a top secret new show in development there, and they have all the writers sequestered in a room up on the fifty-seventh floor of the building. If we can figure out the name of the show they are working on, I can get you on the list of interns allowed in that room. From there, you will be directly next to the broadcasting room. We need you to create a large diversion that causes everyone in that room to leave so we can sneak in while the broadcasting room is empty to air the message.

I've managed to intercept messages from some employees about next week’s show schedule. Maybe there's something within the schedule that will help us figure out the name of the new show.”

Players on this team received an interoffice memo from the Paradigm Broadcasting Corp when connecting.

The full list of memos are shown below.

This is a logic puzzle with 14 TV shows, 14 Channels, and 14 Time Slots. Before setting up a logic board, players must figure out the time slots being used for the week. Between time slots being directly given and knowing there are 2 sets of 3x 1000 block sequences, the correct time slots can be deduced directly from the initial info given as shown below.

At this stage, a logic grid can be made to begin solving, similar to the one shown below.

Using the given clues, players can begin to eliminate where shows can and can’t be on the grid (ex. “Remember that JORA'S BIZARRE ADVENTURE, MCCRAY'S FLYING CIRCUS, and NURSE LEXI SHINING all air after block 6000 this week.”, means players can put an x in every box that occurs before block 6000)

Going through the base clues and filling in the grid will yield the outcome below.

From here, players can begin to deduce the remaining information based on what's been eliminated (ex. Desperate brokers can only air from Block 3500-4500 as all other slots have been eliminated). Continuing this process of deduction results in the final grid below.

Listing the shows out in order by airtime and then using the channel as an index value into the shows name gives the final solution.

Final Answer: UPLOAD AND CHILL

Team Soul Puzzle

Mission Prompt: “Hey, it's Ken. The time has come to send the message that all Brokers are AI to everyone in The Paradigm. Now that we know the truth, we have no choice but to take action together by rallying as many as we can to go marching through The Strip. Unfortunately, someone sent those Demons after Spice and whoever that was, I can guarantee you they won’t like what we have planned either. So, we must plan well and keep our actions covert to not draw the Demons attention. Spread the word for everyone to meet at the Ethereal Node as it’s a large enough space, and the Buskers can provide us the cover of “partygoers”.

I've had my Gargoyles scouring the streets looking for Brokers that will be able to drum up the support needed along with where the Demons are so you can avoid them. You should be receiving the locations of each now. I need you to go to them and give them the meetup location and passphrase they'll need to get in, and be sure to warn them about how many Demons are sweeping the streets nearby so they can avoid tipping them off. Once we have the numbers, we'll be able to start the rally with no fear of Demons trying to challenge us. They can stop a few of us, but not all of us.”

Players on this team when connecting would receive 4 square images and 2-3 grid coordinates with a number.

In addition, a grid was supplied on the desktop to aid in assembling the map.

Players begin by collecting all 64 grid pieces and assembling the map like a jigsaw to get the result below.

Using clues in the mission prompt about “how many Demons are sweeping the streets” it can be determined this is an 8x8 grid of minesweeper where Demons are the mines. Players must play the game in reverse and add the number values to the squares telling how many Demons are in the surrounding area.

Players now need to use the given coordinates to determine the name of the CyberBroker and place them on the map. (ex. A2-284 means place broker 284, Agile Engstom, at grid location A2). After placing all of the brokers, players must use the number in that square, which represents the Demons nearby, as the index value to extract that letter from the CyberBrokers’ name.

This gives the phrase ANSWER DANTES NINTH CIRCLE OF HELL DIABLO RUNE

Final Answer: SHAEL THUL LEM

Lockout Puzzle

Mission Prompt: “Someone, or something, seems to have locked us out of the system in an attempt to stop us from spreading the message further. Our mission won't succeed if we can't find a way to remove this lockout. The attacker appears to be using some kind of custom 60-bit geodesic encryption, but there seems to be a few holes in the structure we could possibly exploit with an antipole attack.”

After some time, players were presented with a new challenge, as a mysterious actor locked them out of the terminal. All teams had to work together at this stage as each player was presented with a unique triangle based on their team and lead wallet address character.

Each triangle had either a binary or hex string on its edges. As indicated in the mission brief, players would be building a 60-sided geodesic dome with these pieces, but having only 48 pieces meant 12 pieces would be missing. These holes were weaknesses in the structure and could be exploited by an antipole attack (antipole meaning find the triangle directly across the missing space). Each binary and hex string appears exactly once, but when converted to its decimal equivalent would result in a number 1-90, with each number appearing twice except for the numbers 1-36 (due to there being 12 missing triangles). Matching the edges up in the flat state could give an outcome similar to below (this step could see multiple different outcomes depending on what piece you begin building with but would not affect the final structure built).

When the sphere is assembled (printing and using scissors and tape is one method), it can be noticed that the missing triangles share a common feature that all 3 sides are 12 apart, as shown below.