Solution: Phase 2 Object and Metapuzzle

Written by Scott Weiss

The grid that looks like a wordsearch is in fact really a wordsearch. It contains the names of twenty-six horror novels (mostly taken from the bestseller list at amazon). The twist is that each title has a mistyped letter. The list of the 26 titles appears below:

BGYSLIFE (Boys' Life)
BTGOFBONES (Bag of Bones)
CRAZLEANDALL (Cradle And All)
DIFQERENTSEASONS (Different Seasons)
DRJEKALLANDMRHYDE (Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde)
EYEOFTHESTOFM (Eye of the Storm)
HANNYBAL (Hannibal)
HAUNDED (Haunted)
HEARTSINVTLANTIS (Hearts in Atlantis)
HOMSEOFLEAVES (House of Leaves)
IPMLEGEND (I Am Legend)
MAGICTERRCR (Magic Terror)
MIDNIGHTENCHANTOENT (Midnight Enchantment)
MISEIY (Misery)
MOSNFALL (Moonfall)
NIGHTLHADE (Nightshade)
RALSEMEMORY (False Memory)
SEIZETHENIGKT (Seize The Night)
THEETAND (The Stand)
THEGWEENMILE (The Green Mile)
THETBENCH (The Trench)
TURNXFTHESCREW (Turn Of The Screw)
UERRICK (Merrick)
VITTORIJTHEVAMPIRE (Vittorio The Vampire)
WITHEH (Wither)
YOUCNMEWHENICALLYOU (You Come When I Call You)

Note that each of the incorrect letters in the list above is different. Take the letters that should be there, and arrange them in reverse alphabetical order of the incorrect letters. You will get the directions DIORAMA OF FAMOUS HORROR STORY.

Look at the unused letters in the wordsearch from top to bottom, left to right (down the first column, then down the second, etc.) You will get the following sequence:

RLANELLISOPHENKPYZBRITHOMASHARATHKINRAMSTOKBARAHAM
BLTEVEALUYDEMAUPASSASHINGTONIRVLIVEBARKOHNSAUYSHEL
Each piece of that long string is the middle part of the name of a horror author (according to Amazon, anyway). For example, the first one is RLANELLISO, which is the middle of HA(RLAN ELLISO)N. Now look at those twelve answer words. One is HA(MA)N. So RLANELLISO encodes the bigram MA. Here's the complete encoding:

String: Answer Word: Author: Bigram:
RLANELLISO HAMAN HARLAN ELLISON MA
PHENK STERLING STEPHEN KING RL
PYZBRIT POPEYE POPPY Z BRITE EY
HOMASHAR TSURIS THOMAS HARRIS SU
ATHKIN DEBTS D E ATHKINS BT
RAMSTOK BITER BRAM STOKER IT
BARAHAMBL BARLEY BARBARA HAMBLY LE
TEVEAL SOFTEN STEVE ALTEN OF
UYDEMAUPASSA GHENT GUY DE MAUPASSANT HE
SHINGTONIRV WARNING WASHINGTON IRVING RN
LIVEBARK COVER CLIVE BARKER OV
OHNSAU JELL JOHN SAUL EL
YSHEL

We've got MARLEY SUBTITLE OF HER NOVEL. So the entity is Jacob Marley, right? Nope. ("A Christmas Carol" isn't a novel, has no subtitle, and wasn't written by a woman.) Take that last string YSHEL, and swap it for the "empty" string in the middle of MARLEY. You'll get: MARY SHELLEY SUBTITLE OF HER NOVEL.

So the entity is Mary Shelley, and the incantation is the subtitle of her only well-known horror novel, Frankenstein: The Modern Prometheus.