Fortūna Advenit
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© The Classical Couple.
It descended from the sky without warning: wings wide, claws shining, a creature no one in the city had ever seen. It landed on the temple roof, left its nest full of glittering stones, and was gone again before the priests could agree on what they had seen.
Seven puzzles stand between you and the meaning of the marvel. Solve one, and the city understands a little more — until, at the end, one final word names what kind of thing it was.
Crossword — the vocabulary of a marvel over Alexandria.
Anagrams — unscramble seven words for the danger the city had already survived.
Cipher — decode a message, then answer the riddle it asks.
Matching — two verbs, recipiō and fulgeō ("to recover," "to shine"), in every tense you know.
Picture Count — reassemble a scattered scene, then count what you see.
Odd One Out — find the mismatched word in each row to learn what the creature did, then answer questions about it.
Final Rebus — one clue from every lock. Their first letters, rearranged, spell the final word.
Every answer box checks itself instantly. Spelling and capitalization are forgiving — macrons are never required.
Fifteen words from a marvel over Alexandria. Every clue gives the English meaning; you supply the Latin. Fill the grid — every crossing letter must agree both ways. Five cells are marked in red: once the grid is solved, their letters unscramble into one more word.
The grid is correct. Unscramble the five red letters:
Seven words for the danger the city had already survived. Unscramble each one.
A message has been shifted 3 letters forward through the alphabet. Shift each letter back 3 to decode it — the message speaks for itself. Answer the question it asks, in Latin.
Decode the message — it already asks its own question at the end.
Two verbs, recipiō, recipere ("to recover, take back") and fulgeō, fulgēre ("to shine") — the whole city catching its breath at what shines in the nest — in every tense you know. Drag each English meaning onto its matching Latin form.
The picture below has been scattered into 24 pieces — click two to swap them. Each piece locks in place once it's correct. When the whole picture is assembled, five counting questions will appear — in Latin, they ask quot ("how many") of each thing you can find.
Click two pieces to swap them. Correct pieces lock in place — keep going until the whole picture is assembled.
In each row, three tiles belong together and one doesn't. Drag out the odd tile. Find all 15 to learn what the creature did.
Now that the story is whole, answer these in Latin:
One clue from every lock you solved. Answer each in Latin — the first letter of each answer will reveal itself, in the order the locks appeared.
You're almost there! Arrange these letters to make a word.
The password was:
sacrum — "a sacred thing." The creature is gone, but the gems remain, and the whole city agrees: fortūna has visited them today.