Sticks And Stones

Hints

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During the actual 2021 hunt, teams could spend patience tokens to purchase hints. The costs are shown below for historical interest, but they have no effect here. Click any answer to reveal it.

Q1. What do the green cells mean? (cost: 20)

Think about common puzzle encodings.

Q2. What do the blue numbers mean? (cost: 40)

They correspond to the ordered sequence in the JMO solution.

Q3. What are the strokes the flavor text refers to? (cost: 30)

The seven answers, which should be placed crossword style.

Q4. What are the stones the flavor text refers to? (cost: 30)

Doesn't the flavor text sound somewhat strange when said?

Q5. I still can't tell where the stones are. (cost: 80)

Notice that each answer has the letter S exactly once.

Q6. What do I do after placing the words? (cost: 40)

Trace out the symbol and look at green letters.