Part 46: Level Three: Out Of The Geyser And Into The Fire

Level Three: Out Of The Geyser And Into The Fire

The geysers present a tricky problem. I'm not going to lie: This is a tough-as-hell puzzle and it blindsides you early in the third level. There's no way to cheat it, no easy answer provided elsewhere; you just have to solve it to progress, or else end up brute forcing it over and over.

To make matters worse, gridding it out visually doesn't really help much, as the answer is wrapped up in a single flash of insight that comes from looking at three of the rules all at once. ManxomeBromide and Kangra hit on the key here: Rules 4-6 essentially force a certain order to be true, because of the way the sequences each rule presents must overlap with each other.

ManxomeBromide posted:

Nasty puzzle here.

We have five geysers B, J, M, O, S, and lengths 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.

We are given three patterns that have to be fit here: B 3 J, M 1, and 4 O. (Rules 4, 5, 6)

The M 1 and 4 O patterns cannot overlap because that would make Old Irregular have a one minute pause, which is not permitted. (Rule 3)

The M cannot be between B and J because J's wait also cannot be 1. (Rule 3)

The O cannot be between B and J because B's wait would then be 4 minutes, which is also not permitted. (Rule 2)

That means the only possible order is M B S J O, with in turn means Spittoon is 3 minutes, Bad Bob is 1 minute, and Jezebel is 4 minutes.

Morgenstern does not have a 2 minute wait (Rule 1) so only 5 minutes is left, which means Old Irregular must have the 2 minute weight.

Final order: Morgenstern, Bad Bob, Spittoon, Jezebel, Old Irregular.
Final waits: 5, 1, 3, 4, 2.

Kangra posted:

The typical grid doesn't really help much here.

The key requirements are the ordering ones. #5 gives us 3 in sequence, and #4 and #6 give us two in sequence. Since there are only five, these must overlap somehow.

We have the patterns

pre:

M_ (#4) _O(#6)  B_J(#5)
_1      4_      _3_

Pattern 4 and 6 cannot overlap each other, since that would give Old Irregular a 1' wait (#3).
So one of them must overlap with Pattern 5. We'll try to match with the start of Pattern 5.
Pattern 6 cannot overlap with the start of 5 as it would give Big Bob a wait longer than 4 minutes (#2).

Therefore Pattern 4 must overlap with 5 at the start; Pattern 6 overlaps with it at the end.

That yields

pre:

MBSJO
51342

This satisfies all requirements and thus we need to wait 5 minutes.

Those extra spoiler tags appear to be necessary to spoiler preformatted text?

Both agree that the order must be 5-1-3-4-2. Let's just hope all this logic checks out. If we're correct, the first geyser before us is Morgenstern, and we need to wait for 5 minutes.

You speed across the geyser -- unharmed! But here -- here is another geyser. About it lie travertine stone and strangely-tinted waters. At the moment, there is only a gentle upwelling from the geyser's hole. How long do you wait?

The next one is Bad Bob, and we must wait 1 minute.

Another geyser successfully traversed. And here is another, surrounded by a pond of bubbling mud. Sulfurous fumes emanate from it. How long do you wait?

The third is Spitoon, so we'll wait 3 minutes.

Not a moment to spare! No sooner have you skirted the mudhole than the geyser spouts, coating your armor with a thin layer of mud. You must remember to clean it when you escape this hellish place. But before you lies the fourth geyser... how long do you wait?

Fourth is Jezebel, with a four minute wait. We hope.

Trotting across the geyser, a thin crust of rock breaks, and your boot drops into boiling water -- but you wrench it free and dart clear only just in time. But before you lies the final geyser. How long this time?

We can take a breather here, because even if we weren't certain of our answer, the fact that we've made it to the fifth geyser at all means we've already won. No two geysers have the same wait, and the only wait we haven't done yet is two minutes. So we can be quite sure this is Old Irregular.

...And there's no message for crossing the fifth geyser successfully. It just dumps us into the next maze.



Another big ol' maze with most of it a distraction. We need to head west to get into the little sliver of maze on the far left that leads us to the exit PoP. But before we get there, we have a familiar -- but perhaps unexpected -- sight:


It's the same inn, except a green dragon instead of a red one, and also it appears to be on fire.



Now here's a less logicky puzzle for the more abstract thinkers to wrap their heads around! The inn is about to burn down, unless something is done. We could help, or not help, which might be the right answers... but the fact we can use the Talisman suggests that there might be something more magical we can do here. Granted, it might not help anything, so we must think carefully about the powers available to us and whether any of them could actually be useful.

As a reminder, the Talisman's powers are: Fire, Earth, Air, Water, Lightning, Cold, Spirit, Mind, and Time. At least one of these can probably do something to help the situation... but many could do nothing at all, or make things worse. Choose carefully, and remember that choosing not to play with magic is a valid choice.

Alternate Solutions & Deaths

Only one here, which is of course screwing up our geyser timing:



Lots of fun to see this over and over if you're trying to brute force the geyser puzzle.