CosyKiller: Virginia Steele Box Three

 

And so to the conclusion, and the multi-layered narrative wraps up neatly with an answer to the mystery of just who did set fire to the orphanage and a final twist in the tale (did YOU see that coming?).

Ciphers from the earlier two boxes are reprised here (although not my favourite one, the knock cipher, sob) which were for the most part fun to work through.

However, it would be remiss of me not to offer one small criticism -- the pigpen cipher coupled with a column cipher is also coupled with an atbash cipher but there's no good narrative reason for this, nor any indication (as far as I could tell) that this was being done. This means that firstly you think you've decoded the pigpen incorrectly; secondly, that the keyword for the column cipher has changed; thirdly, to cast around for some other cipher that might be used instead (has this been encoded with the viginere cipher from earlier, perhaps?).

Of course I might have entirely missed a clue somewhere that there would be a third level of encryption for this message (although it's not a particularly important message as other decoded ciphers give much the same information)...narratively it doesn't seem to make sense, and in puzzling terms not having a hint somewhere ("note to general staff -- looks like a reversal of our earlier code" would've done) feels somewhat annoying.

Having said that, the finale and the box is rescued by inclusion of a chocolate box puzzle (not real chocolate, sadly) -- those of us who played Inheritance remember the final artifact in that series with surprise and delight (we weren't expecting to receive that in the final box and what a pleasure it was to have it included) and having this little wooden puzzle present gives not only a memento display piece, but also something for the kids to puzzle over and play with.

Bravo!