This puzzle was inspired by by Derek Kisman’s fractal word search, In the Details, which contains a crypto word search as one of the steps.
First we solve clues, noticing that the answers are in alphabetical order:
It ends your sleep (5) | ALARM |
A feeling of unease (7) | ANXIETY |
The end of the world, as brought about by horsemen (10) | APOCALYPSE |
Fear of water (10) | AQUAPHOBIA |
Insects in the stomach when scared (11) | BUTTERFLIES |
It conquered fear and crossed the road (7) | CHICKEN |
This word describes Sunday in a Hungarian song (6) | GLOOMY |
Shuddering fear (6) | HORROR |
A deviation in signal pulses (6) | JITTER |
Sad feeling of singles (10) | LONELINESS |
A moaning ghost living in a bathroom (6) | MYRTLE |
Adjective describing a fallacy attributing human emotion to nature (8) | PATHETIC |
His glass is half empty (9) | PESSIMIST |
Overachiever’s concern (6) | STRESS |
Type of denial of service attack (8) | TEARDROP |
Hamlet or Macbeth (7) | TRAGEDY |
Earthquake harbinger (6) | TREMOR |
Calming root (8) | VALERIAN |
Word to describe a baby or siren (7) | WAILING |
Shed tears (4) | WEEP |
Producer of wrinkles (5) | WORRY |
Scary undead (6) | ZOMBIE |
Looking at the word search table, one might notice that the letter frequencies are off, and overall it looks encrypted. We try a substitution cypher. A good place to start is the word PESSIMIST
, as the string XXY?YX
can be found only in one place. After we place PESSIMIST
, it is easy to place STRESS
, LONELINESS
, and APOCALYPSE
. After that the table can be deciphered.
A | V | M | Y | R | T | L | E | W | E | E | P | E |
C | E | N | E | R | R | E | A | L | I | Y | E | S |
I | C | T | E | A | R | D | R | O | P | D | S | P |
T | N | H | A | F | Z | O | M | B | I | E | S | Y |
E | Y | S | I | Q | E | C | W | T | N | G | I | L |
H | M | S | I | C | U | A | V | I | O | A | M | A |
T | O | E | N | C | K | A | L | A | L | R | I | C |
A | O | R | L | E | L | E | P | A | D | T | S | O |
P | L | T | R | E | N | T | N | H | R | H | T | P |
E | G | S | R | O | M | E | R | T | O | M | C | A |
S | E | I | L | F | R | E | T | T | U | B | L | A |
W | A | I | L | I | N | G | R | E | T | T | I | J |
N | P | N | I | N | E | Y | T | E | I | X | N | A |
Extra letters (in yellow) spell A VENEREAL INFECTION CALLED THE CLAP NINE
. This clues GONORRHEA
. The last step is to encrypt GONORRHEA
using the same substitution cipher. The answer is NECESSARY
.