Mystery File 09: The Unusual Unlock
back to index post
Crime Scene: The evidence you need to solve this puzzle is on certain items found in Murders at Karlov Manor play boosters, including one card from the set.
I found a strange contraption. It seems to be a combination lock covered in glyphs, with a chamber hidden inside it. It would be counterintuitive to punch through this enigma with brute force alone. I’ll need some clues in order to figure out how many spaces to advance each tumbler.
After I’ve deduced the password, this translation chart should be useful.
This puzzle is a really cool one, and requires multiple components. I’ll compartmentalize the needed information under the below ‘evidence’ fold so you won’t be spoiled on exactly what you need. We’re provided a substitution decoder for Ravnican glyphs, and the “crime scene” hints at items in play boosters, and one card from the set
the unusual unlock - evidence
early clue token front face speculation, for archive purposes
RivalRowan in the wiki discord pointed out that the Clue tokens in the commander decks have an MKC set code and symbol, when usually they use the main set "printing" of a token if it exists. They did show off a Clue token in the debut stream, so I went and tracked that down, and it took us all way too long to realize the difference - the MKM printing has *flavor text*. The "Lusaht" mentioned in that flavor text also anagrams to Ulasht - a hellion-hydra and Gruul "god"
u/EverythingIsNormal pointed out that the *last* time they did a puzzle, it was Shadows Over Innistrad and there was a message hidden in the flavor text of different Clue tokens. So with that in mind...
Voja has collector number 13, and Thopter has collector number 20. There's probably a 0/0 Thopter token for thopt or fiction, but I don't see any cards that make tokens within that range other than Clues. That potentially gives us 5 different collector numbers (14-18) for Clue tokens - possibly each with different art or flavor text
On 01-25, they posted all 5 of the clue token arts in the "Tokens of MKM" article. Here's some initial speculation about what any of this could be
the unusual unlock - evidence - punch out helper token
The punch-out helper token has "Mystery File: The Unusual Unlock" emblazoned on it, making it fairly obvious that it's meant for this puzzle
the unusual unlock - evidence - clue panorama
A few people caught initially from a box crack video (~1:32) that the clue tokens actually have *backs* which assemble into a panorama
On the third token, there's a decoder/helper for Ravnican glyphs, similar to the Ransom Note puzzle, but not the same. There's also numbers absolutely *everywhere*, on the coins, on the paper, in tally marks, on the 'police tape' markers, in stains on the ground, etc etc.
And of course, the solution writeup:
the unusual unlock - solution
If you actually punch the helper token out and overlay it over the clue tokens, one of the holes highlights a number on each of the clue tokens. The flavor token of each clue token hints at which cutout hole to use - Clue 15 mentions "case solved", so we use the "case solved" reminder. Clue 16 mentions "unlock", Clue 17 mentions "suspected", Clue 18 mentions "plus one", and Clue 19 mentions "stun".
It also happens that each cutout is only used once, and there's only one plausible way to arrange things to match that way - I managed to guess and create the below annotation prior to the mystery file release, which I'm quite pleased with. Either way, here's what we have.
If we use the fronts of the clue tokens as sequencing (1 boot, 2 lockets, 3 knives, 4 prints, 5 pools) we get the number sequence: 3, 11, 7, 14, 8.
Given the information from the back of the clue tokens, we surmised that it might be offsets rather than numbers. newershadow on the official discord pointed out that if Cryptex behaves like a real combination lock, the order of the characters should be in-order, and if we take the clue token hint as offsets that assumption holds true. That gives us a nice little ring of 18 characters for the Cryptex. Now that the mystery file is out, we know that we were right!
We now the sequence of each tumbler dial now, and as Proft prompts us, we now need to figure out how many spaces to advance - well it just so happens that we have a sequence of 5 ordered numbers to match 5 dials! Solving appropriately, we have
NIKYA, or, Nikya of the Old Ways is our solution. Our corresponding MKM card is Glint Weaver, who has the remains of Nikya's staff in its webs.
