SOLVED: Fragment Six: The Unknown Illiomancer

The Reading Room The Monarch Papers Archive Fragment Six
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Looking into this clue a bit and trying to free associate myself to an answer.

-17.733251, 168.327325 Just outside the University of the south pacific in Port Vila, Vanuatu

Now, there doesn’t to be much South Pacific on this map, so I looked into history. Until 1980 Vanuatu was named New Hebrides, named by Scottish colonizers after the Hebrides archipelago off the coast of Scotland. Now I feel we’re getting much closer geographically to places on this map.

Unfortunately there’s almost too much forklore to choose from on these islands.

I count at least 5 mythical creatures in this article that are on our map. I’m not going to list them out, because frankly I think it’s cheating to just throw up a laundry list of possibilities and hope the Book tells us which is right.

Maybe someone has an idea how we can narrow this down? Or maybe someone want to suggest I’m just making up too many connections? I’m good either way. :-)

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Just so you all know, I’ll be here through the new year if anybody wants to work out these remaining clues together. I have nowhere to go. :sweat_smile:

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Alright, new chicken theory. I’ve been trying to figure out who the ‘man on the sands’ is. I looked up a Neckan is and according to one story I read it’s a man/evil entitiy who tries to lure travellers to enter the water to their death. They usually stand by the water, so if anyone would be on the shore it’d be him.

I’m pretty sure if I follow the way the Neckan is looking out over the water we come to St. Brandan’s Isle. I think that’s where the chicken’s journey ended.

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Alright, I’m back in action - let’s get solving again. Currently, we have the following to solve (stealing @reesylou’s list):

UNSOLVED “Dark water writhes, less reptile than Castor?” (possibly to do with Great Whirlpool or Storm Area, perhaps the birds, crowned fish, tritons)…

UNSOLVED 168.327325 (likely to go with -17.733251)

UNSOLVED “Millenary Outstretched Arms Reveal Sadko’s Temptation. Look Above CC.”

  • maybe CC = Cockpaidle Cape or Caves of Chrysolite (The beach of Pearls
    and Psyche are above it), not sure about outstretched arms (EDIT: Could Millenary Outstretched Arms be the Oreads?)

UNSOLVED -17.733251 ((likely to go with 168.327325)

UNSOLVED Plus the original path the chicken followed leading to (not sure exactly where), perhaps Cockpaidle Cape, perhaps the “Citie of Shagpat and the Sword”

Here are some of my thoughts/idea that could maybe (hopefully) help someone solve these:

For the first one, I really have no idea what reptiles and Castor have to do with each other. I did find a story in a book called Monsters of Greek Mythology which mentions Castor fighting “the king’s lizards”/dragons. So maybe it could have to do with the Three Horned monsters, the Valley of the Dragons, or the Hydra? The Three Horned monsters do look out over the water near the 100 Fathoms mark. Definitely not confident in this idea.

For the coordinates, I like @Robert’s idea with the Hebridean mythology. Could maybe also be Vanuatu mythology or Melanesian mythology (though I haven’t found anything yet)

For Sadko - huge stretch but maybe the Caves of the Sea Bluebells (bluebells = hyacinths which is a word that used in Ancient Greek for blue gems) or the Enchanted Rainbows (gold at the end? lol)

Finally, for the chicken - I think most of us agree we are in the right area near Kelpie Bay but I still have no additional insight on where she could have landed. Maybe it’s one of the leprechaun’s that is pointing, but it would still point to Sarras Point or Never Never Land, which we have said but heard nothing from the Book, so it’s likely something else.

Maybe it’s time to ask the Book for additional clues for solving these few we have left?

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RE: our book clues. As far as I know we have 2 outstanding magic words, posessed by Piki and Leigha. Leigha offered me her word in a pm because she will be unable to help for some undetermined time, but I didn’t take her up on the offer. We haven’t heard from Piki in some time, so at present we may not have any clues available.

That being said, I’m not sure how much it’d help. Unless the book gave us clues for multuple parts we’d just be 1 letter closer, and i’d guess we need at least 2 until we can reasonably just brute force our way through all the possible names. I figure once we have 8 of the 10 letters, and it’s a word with anything resembling standard letter patterns we should be able to guess with a couple dozen tries.

Castor and the reptile - This clue completely baffles me as much now as it first did. The only promising discovery I have is that reptile actually has an additional meaning “a person regarded with loathing and contempt.” But, that makes almost less sense than the snake-like meaning, because I don’t find any reference to Castor being regarded with loathing.

So we either need someone who’s hated less than Castor, or is less reptilian than Castor… shrug I suspect there’s more wordplay at hand here, but I can’t divine it.

The coordinates - I’m pretty positive it’s one of the folklore creatures from Hebridean, but I can’t see any way to narrow that down to one or two prominent guesses.

Sadko - I’ve read maybe 5 different versions of this story now, and the best guess I have for his tempation would be for the river maiden named after the river near Nordgord (Which I’m too lazy to look up her name right now.) But there’s nothing Russian anywhere on this map that I can tell. This is another one I think there’s more to the words used in the clue than we guess, but I don’t know what.

Chickens Path - Well my last guess got no response, so I can only assume it’s wrong. I feel like we’ve tried every reasonable location along the lines we’re thinking. That makes me guess we’re all thinking wrong about this and she hit the shore somewhere else, but I have no idea where.

So, this is where we stand. 4 remaining clues. I think we only need to solve 2 of them. Now, which ones will fall first…if any.

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Sadkos Temptation: I would now suppose the Mermaids Rock in the south, because he was tempted by 3x300 Mermaids and hat to say no to them, to get the daughter of the sea king? Unfortunately there is no cc and no outsreched arms ;(

Chicken: Maybe she swam through all the water to Valhalla and Asgard? - The pointing man from Deeds scribble is roughly pointing there!

Castor: I searched the map for his relatives, which are not “egg-born” but didnt find any - maybe it has something to do with the argonauts, because Castor and Pollux re part of them?

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I wonder whether this is meant as sort of a cryptic crossword type clue. It is capitalized differently from the others and has the question mark.

If so, “writhes” potentially indicates an anagram… if I anagram “less reptile than Castor” (which means “dark water” is the definition… you can get (amongst other things) SELECT NORTHEAST SPIRAL or NORTHEAST SPECTRAL ISLE or NORTHEAST TRIPLE SCALES .

Not sure that helps much, but throwing it out there as an alternative way to look at the clue.

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Was googling this morning and found that “castor” is also the genus of the beaver.

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I came across this early on, when trying to search and follow everyone else’s thoughts on Castor & Pollux.
Hmm… new food for thought and exploration.

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Is it possible that this Fairy Map has any connection to the real world?
Hear me out.
There is a lot of talk of Beacons (Someone please fill me in) and it gave me an idea.
What if Fairy Land is connected to somewhere here on earth? Say, Central Park, and the old Mountineers knew. It is a hunch that I have just from scrolling through this forum, so if I missed something please let me know!

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If you mean the beacons from the fourth fragment, that would have to do with the trials the devoted put as through. Each beacon was activated by solving a certain puzzle and sending in the solution to the devoted. Each beacon I’m pretty sure was a real place is real life, and the discs we found were always in a real place as well. I know not a lot but I know this! I suppose its possible that it could relate to a real place, just not sure where, seems kind of an odd area. Hope that helps.

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It definitely does.
I’m working on my knowledge of NYC
If it is a real world place that’ll be it.
I could just be over thinking this.

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Alright. I’ll guess, I think its the will o’ the wisp from the Hebrides isles near scotland, "Here is Will o’ the wisp’ is on the map. (Its that or werewolves but either way its a W)

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When i Hear Towering tree I think of the large tree at the Top of the map next to you could say towering people?

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Castor, Beaver, Mice are mammals like Beavers, Close to water, Maybe this is it?

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Maybe

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I found one more CC - Cousin Cramchilde, far right just under the Angels holding the symbol legend. Maybe the “millenary outstretched arms” are the Water Babies and Sadko’s temptation is something in that area - there is the word Treasure on the legend but could be something else around there?

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I found something else - near the Weird Wood, there is a lake called Blackadder Lake and it says “here Afanc broodeth” - Afanc is a crocodile/ beaver-like creature! Dark/black water + reptile beaver = I think that Afanc has to be our answer.

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And it would be a much needed vowel!

Edit: Looks like Afanc was right. The page7 was updated. The current word is.

sk**lg*lka

I figure there’s got to be at least 2 more vowels of the 3 left. At this point, if it starts with a vowel, I say investigate it.

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Maybe this is it? Vervain does look like Outstreched hands

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