Metapuzzle – Answer: IN FOUR X FOUR INSIDE MEDIA ERASER

MetaPuzzle – Answer: IN FOUR X FOUR INSIDE MEDIA ERASER – by Kenny Young

This is the final metapuzzle! You need the answers from all 28 other puzzles, plus more, in order to solve it.

First, let’s substitute the definitions in the puzzle with answers:

not GRACEFUL, not CAMEL (7, 1)

not FOOL, not JOYOUS (1, 7)

not GEORGIA, not SUGAR (5, 4)

not HEMLOCK, not APPLE (6, 6)

not STONE AGE, not R2D2 (3, 2)

not X, not LOTTERY (6, 3)

not NESSIE, not FORTY-TWO (1, 1)

not CARDINAL, not CLAUDIUS (2, 4)

not MESSENGER, not ICICLES (2, 4)

not ENCRYPT, not BELCHING (5, 1)

not ARCHITECTURE, not KING (7, 9)

not DOGMA, not NONSTOP (2, 5)

not ANTIDOTE, not CAIRN TERRIER (9, 1)

not SUPERNOVA, not MONTANO (6, 5)

To make sense of the “not”s in the puzzle, you need some extra information. Specifically, you need to have noticed that there are 14 separate backgrounds on the other puzzles, where each background is shared by two puzzles. Here is the pairing:

Egyptian : Chinese :: KING : MESSENGER

Assyrian : Teutonic :: STONE AGE : ICICLES

Turkish : Sumerian :: FORTY TWO : FOOL

Phoenician : Japanese :: MONTANO : JOYOUS

Babylonian : Viking :: GRACEFUL : ARCHITECTURE

Carthaginian : Briton :: X : NESSIE

Choson : Persian II :: ANTIDOTE : SUPERNOVA

Mongolian : Greek :: LOTTERY : HEMLOCK

Palmyran : Yamato :: GEORGIA : APPLE

Celtic : Persian :: ENCRYPT : CARDINAL

Gothic : Roman :: NONSTOP : CLAUDIUS

Minoan : Shang :: CAMEL : R2D2

Byzantine : Macedonian :: BELCHING : DOGMA

Frankish : Hittite :: CAIRN TERRIER : SUGAR

Replacing, you get this:

ARCHITECTURE, R2D2 (7, 1)

FORTY TWO, MONTANO (1, 7)

APPLE, CAIRN TERRIER (5, 4)

LOTTERY, GEORGIA (6, 6)

ICICLES, CAMEL (3, 2)

NESSIE, HEMLOCK (6, 3)

X, FOOL (1, 1)

ENCRYPT, NONSTOP (2, 4)

KING, STONE AGE (2, 4)

CARDINAL, DOGMA (5, 1)

GRACEFUL, MESSENGER (7, 9)

BELCHING, CLAUDIUS (2, 5)

SUPERNOVA, SUGAR (9, 1)

ANTIDOTE, JOYOUS (6, 5)

Taking letter indices, you get this:

These pairs can be rearranged to spell:

IN FO UR XF OU RI NS ID EM ED IA ER AS ER

The coin was hidden inside the floppy eraser in the mailroom of Building 16. It was enclosed in a floppy disk named “WONDER.JPG” that was suspended in the middle of the eraser. It had to be pushed out with another disk.