I’m Aligned with a Faction: The Great Game. The new option on the card "Learn the spy’s arts" results in the following tidbit:
There’s a slip of paper in the box. That d–nable Italian cipher. ‘Five letters. Starts with M. The success of every covert endeavour.’
I’ve never been good at this kind of thing. Any ideas? It’s probably not important but I can’t get it out of my head…
edited by Rupho Schartenhauer on 3/24/2015
cough Since this is related to the Numismatrix, the answer is ‘Money’.
Hrmh. Sounds reasonable, but somehow not satisfying… every covert endeavour?
edited by Rupho Schartenhauer on 3/24/2015
[quote=Wieland Burandt]
There’s a slip of paper in the box. That d–nable Italian cipher. ‘Five letters. Starts with M. The success of every covery endeavour.’
I’ve never been good at this kind of thing. Any ideas? It’s probably not important but I can’t get it out of my head…
[/quote]
I’m glad someone asked… I’ve been thinking about it myself (I too, am aligned with the Game), and I too came to travellerside’s conclusion. Alas, I am unsatisfied by, it sort of makes sense, but, I can’t help but expected something of seemingly more mystery or value to be hidden in this cipher.
At least when you compare it to the other cipher I’ve come across ( [color=#ffffff]Six lettters. Starts with “A”. “Bought with a city”[/color]), the answer to that I believe to be sort of an open secret in the fifth city, but an important one none-the-less.
Anyway, perhaps, there’s simply more meaning in the answer, than I currently realize. Perhaps I do not fully understand the implication of this answer, or i’m just making a bigger deal of it than I should… .
[quote=Wieland Burandt]There’s a slip of paper in the box. That d–nable Italian cipher. ‘Five letters. Starts with M. The success of every covery endeavour.’
[/quote]
The bolded title that appears when you choose that option offers another amusing answer.
[quote=armadaos]
At least when you compare it to the other cipher I’ve come across ( [color=#ffffff]Six lettters. Starts with “A”. “Bought with a city”[/color]), the answer to that I believe to be sort of an open secret in the fifth city, but an important one none-the-less.[/quote]
I’ve long wondered if that refers to the [color=rgb(255, 255, 255)]Second City[/color]… [color=rgb(255, 255, 255)]Antony[/color]? Probably not.
[color=000000][quote=Passionario]
The bolded title that appears when you choose that option offers another amusing answer.[/quote]
Moths, yeah. And it does make sense, especially if you take into account Samuel Butler’s definition of the Art of Covery: This is as important and interesting as Dis-covery. Surely the glory of finally getting rid of and burying a long and troublesome matter should be as great as that of making an important discovery. The trouble is that the coverer is like Samson who perished in the wreck of what he had destroyed; if he gets rid of a thing effectually he gets rid of himself too.
[/i]
The most popular solution is Albert, the Empress’ Consort.
[/color]
edited by Rupho Schartenhauer on 3/24/2015
This mystery keeps dragging me back and I felt it was worth sharing my only insight so far. It’s hardly worth mentioning since it’s gotten me nowhere, but any information is useful I suppose.
One of the definitions of covert (that I was completely unaware of) is ‘being married and therefore protected by one’s husband’. ‘Marry’, of course, fits the bill structurally but hardly seems to fit the other half of the clue. If it was going to be that obvious, ‘Marriage’ probably would have been a better grammatical fit. I’m at a dead end. I don’t know that this merits discarding road of inquiry though. Seeing as EB is big on both love and secrecy, I wouldn’t put it past them to have chosen this lesser known definition.
I’m certain it’s referring to an entirely different sort of “cypher”. Quote Wikipedia:
“The first example of a crossword puzzle appeared on September 14, 1890, in the Italian magazine Il Secolo Illustrato della Domenica. It was designed by Giuseppe Airoldi and titled “Per passare il tempo” (“To pass the time”). Airoldi’s puzzle was a four-by-four grid with no shaded squares; it included horizontal and vertical clues”
Hm. That does make much more sense, thanks for clueing me in. I thought we were looking for the keyword for a traditional code cipher.
'Eleven letters. Starts with “C”. “Masters of the Bazaar”.
Chiropteran?
Um, did nobody really ever get this? Morse. Morse is a code. Inspector Morse’s first name is Endeavour. Tsk…
Except Inspector Morse was written almost a century later. Unless the Devils are somehow involved with the italians, I find it unlikely that is what is meant.
The writers probably were referencing it, but ingame it doesn’t fit.
Ah, I see. A reference was all I meant.
Hmm, since we’re bringing this back up I’ve been thinking about it…
How about “maybe”? Maybe a covert endeavour was a success, or maybe it was not. Maybe someone found out about it but chose to not reveal that, so one can never be too certain that it was successfully concealed. Unless of course there’s a time when the covert part of the endeavour no longer matters.
How about “myths”? Because if a covert endeavour is successful, all that remains for people who were not directly involved is to make up stories about what might or might not have happened?
I also think "money" is likely the intended answer, given the Numismatrix connection.
What gives me pause, though, is the way that the clue is written suggests that the correct answer should be capable of being read thus:
"[answer] is the success of every covert endeavour", and not "[answer] is the successful outcome of every covert endeavour", or "[answer] is the result of a successful outcome in a covert endeavour"
where "money" doesn’t make sense in the first example.
I have a sneaking suspicion that these clues are intended to return more than one valid answer.
That has puzzled me, too. Actually, if you read it like this the answer cannot be a noun but should be an adjective or adverb.
How about "muted"? Because if a covert endeavour is successful nobody will know anyway…