There are still a lot of hapax legomena in the transcript even granted that it is intended as a puzzle. But since by definition they can’t provide a useful clue for anything else, I figure that for the most part we can leave looking at those words until the end, unless we need to take a guess at something because it provides relevant context for what comes before or after. (For example, I’d be very keen to find out what LISTEN means even though it only appears once …)
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Possibly a wild theory about the WAVE:
The WAVE FONN in(to?) your SIPASS like a GORONG. It is YCLE “DANCE”.
Could SIPASS be “ear”, so the WAVE is somehow audible, and FONN is related to FAN/TOFAN? I say this because we also have:
>ASK ABOUT GOLD
(ask the door about gold)
The DOOR XOLNE SIPASANO you.
My best guess for this is “the DOOR doesn’t look like it’s listening to you,” maybe? Alternately, maybe the SIPASS is your mind, the spell somehow installs itself in your mind, and the DOOR doesn’t seem to be “minding”/paying attention to you?
Also regarding the DOOR, the word “FI” appears in almost all of its dialogue, and exactly once elsewhere. My initial obvious assumption is that FI is a first-person pronoun, but that one usage outside of dialogue seems to shut down that possibility, plus we already have “KAOL”. But I feel like this one should be guessable.
EDIT: Similarly, a lot of the DOOR’s dialog contains words ending in -NK or -K, and I’m thinking those might be either imperative verbs or a first-person conjugation, maybe? We already have KAOL = “my,” so it’s plausible that -K is a first-person ending, although it would be a bit odd since 2nd and 3rd-person verbs do not conjugate differently; then again, in English 1st and 2nd-person verbs mostly don’t conjugate differently while 3rd-person verbs do, so it wouldn’t be that odd for 1st-person to be the odd one out instead.
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Okay, if the STAND is a weapon, then I think it has to specifically is an axe. Because:
The DOOR throws a STAND VASI.
The dwarf throws an axe, which I believe is a thing that happens in Adventure? And this would fit with the DOOR (dwarf) being WEA (small/little) as already speculated.
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Yeah, in Adventure, the first dwarf throws an axe (which is an actual object in the game), misses, curses, and runs away. All further dwarves throw knives (which are not actual objects) and you use the axe to fight them.
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I also was thinking SIPASS = mind, SIPASAN = understand. But if we understand the DOOR, it’s less likely they don’t understand us. SIPASAN = listen is an interesting idea.
If we’re subscribing to the idea that the DOOR is one of the dwarfs from Adventure, then DOOR GLULK WEA is “threatening little dwarf” and STAND VASI is either “sharp knife” or “nasty knife” (I think both adjectives are used?).
That also gives us:
The BLUE EAST CRELN out of its NABILEN.
“The axe head falls out of its handle,” with BLUE (“head”) being the thing we pick up and throw at the CORSET (note also the similarity between NAMIB “hand” and NABILEN “handle”). Although we have:
a PACSILM WOREL FIRPSA to CRELN your FIRF on
which, if WOREL FIRPSA is “big enough”, suggests that maybe CRELN should be “hang” rather than “fall”? “The axe head hangs out of its handle”?
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I like the DOOR swinging an axe. In which case
- FOUC = swing
- SATRAG = open
- SATRAGII = openly?
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If the EAST is an axe, I think that gives us:
The door fouco its east. It slunt by a fursun.
The door swings its axe. It misses by a(n inch? mile?).
Then that would fit with:
With a oanor varavi, the string fouco satrag.
With a OANOR VARAVI, the door swings open.
EDIT: @evouga beat me to it!
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Oh, I hadn’t spotted that FOUCO is used in both of those places. That seems like a pretty strong case for STRING=“door”, DOOR=“dwarf”, EAST=“axe”.
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Some other speculations, while we’re on a roll:
The GARST NITH might be a wide cave, and to the south the GARTH narrows (ITHI), leading to the maze? Then the ZOON CORSET-EL (Dragon’s Lair?) is also ITH (narrow).
Specifically, we have:
ZOON CORSET-EL
You are sik the top of a sard turn-erjen ith.
You are SIK the top of a narrow, smoke-filled(?) room(?)
(assuming that TURN = “smoke” as suggested, and noting that the TORSHO SILEMI is also a SARD)
Also, do we think the DRAW SILEMI could be a crystal ball, in which we somehow see the WAVE, thus partially resolving the mystery of the corporeality of the WAVE?
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I’m not going to be content with translating GARST as “cave” unless we have a plausible alternative translation for TORSH. As @EJoyce says, it would be strange for the author to incorporate two different synonyms for the exact same thing.
I’ve been skirting around this for a while, but now @averyhiebert has broached the subject:
Is the CORSET a dragon?
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Another random connection that might be useful:
The controls on the door include a LOOK PACKAGE and a LOOK UP, and then at the end we find both a PACSILM and an UPUSILM.
EDIT: Current best guess is that the LOOK PACKAGE/UP are labeled by colour, and the PACSILM and UPUSILM are different colours of gemstone?
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Pushing a bit further on TURN = smoke, we have
You are SIK the top of a SARD smoke-ERJEN ITH.
The CORSET KAIL its LEIFOB; smoke MOZEM out of the JAIR.
The smoke twists and MOZEM, MEFALO the GARST with PLORNY DVASN.
I think
- MOZEM = rise
but I want both “ERJ” and “MEFAL” to be “fill”, so something’s not right. Can you think of alternatives?
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I like this; which reinforces SILEMI as “crystal.”
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Don’t think anyone has explicitly brought this up yet (@Hidnook kinda implied it), but it looks like words ending in -ii are probably adverbs?
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Yikes, I had somehow failed to notice that SILEMI appears in both DRAW SILEMI and TORSHO SILEMI. In which case, yes, “crystal ball” seems like a strong contender. But I’d still like to know what LISTEN FOLKS DRAW could mean. Have we run out of plausible prepositions that could fit FOLKS?
MEFAL has the stronger need to be specifically “fill” in these examples, I think. TURN-ERJEN could be “smoke-choked” or “smoke-blackened” or “smoke-scented”. (Now I think about it, I like “smoke-blackened”; I don’t think the lair is definitely filled with smoke right now, but it clearly has been at some point.)
I’ve been working on that basis, I didn’t realise that no-one had actually said it!
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My money’s on “peer through ball” (or some other look-synonym).
We don’t have “through” yet, do we? Maybe we’re gazing(?) through the crystal ball?
EDIT: beaten to the punch again, great minds think alike
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KAIL is interesting since it’s a verb used to designate both some dialog from the dwarf and CORSET (dragon?) as well as the behavior of smoke:
SMOOTH DUCK
A SHOIN of COAS NOOL PRESNEL around the SARR. The smoke CARHIMI KAIL NEIDII FUS it is QUALEN NEROM.
NEID appears earlier as a verb:
NEXT TURN
The TURN PLOR around the GARST, but it doesn’t look NEIDO any.
I’m not sure what the DUCK is or how SMOOTHing it gets rid of the smoke, but I think the best fit here is
- KAIL = scream
- NEIDII = thinly
- NEID.= thin
- FUS = as
- QUAL = blow?
- NEROM = away?
- PLOR = swirl?
and NEXT is some ineffectual attempt to deal with the smoke (I would argue “push”; except that surely we will need that verb for dealing with the contraptions on the door. Also “blow” works here if QUAL is something else.)
The smoke screaming doesn’t seem completely implausible if it’s magical in origin, but have we figured out where it is that the smoke actually comes from? (It looks like it’s bound up in the meaning of TAKE ALL, which is one of the biggest mysteries that’s still eluding me, since it’s relevant to where the smoke comes from in the GARST NITH and also used as the final step of unlocking the door.)