Pyramid Scheme

Please note: This puzzle includes a handout – the pyramid-shaped grid you received with this round's course materials.

Words are entered into the pyramid grid in two ways: Levels and Hexes.

Level 1 of the pyramid contains one entry; Level 2 contains two entries, and so on. Clues for each Level are given in order, though where each Level's first entry begins is up to you to determine. One letter is entered per triangle, and words read left-to-right, wrapping around the sides of the pyramid with no skipped spaces (including the gray ones).

As in any good pyramid scheme, each Level kicks something up to the Level above it. In this case, that something is a letter. Each clue in Level 7 contains an extra letter that must be removed before the clue can be solved. Removing such a letter from a word always results in a new word, though the surface sense of the clue may not be maintained. Six of those letters get bumped up to Level 6, and one gets skimmed off the top. The donated letters are absorbed into the Level 6 clues, one per clue, by taking the place of a different letter to form a new word. (For example, absorbing P into CAT could yield PAT with a displaced C, or CAP with a displaced T.) Of the six letters displaced from the Level 6 clues, five are bumped up to Level 5 and, again, one is left over. This process continues through Level 1. The seven leftover letters, read from top to bottom, are the answer to this puzzle.

Hex clues are normal, and each Hex entry is six letters long. Each entry starts in the appropriately numbered square and may proceed clockwise or counterclockwise. Pairs of half hexes at the base of the grid are matched up to form full hexes, as indicated by the lines on the underside of the pyramid's base. Note that the gray squares are used only by Level entries, not by Hex entries.

Level 1

• Where to find pyramids is moot, according to The Boston Herald?

Level 2

• Derive codified angle
• Foremost couple quit airing horror film (2 wds.)

Level 3

• Direct omen
• Almost kiss unsatisfactory storyteller with OCD
• Author Sidney Fleck's finally wasted

Level 4

• Have kids think about hip club
• Someone with a lamp and a box approaches commotion
• Cancels part of one date, strangely
• On TV, Lily's husband runs into brainy fellow

Level 5

• Overheating affected type of leather
• Like Sigmund Freud, reexamined nine eyes
• Retiring greats spoke emphatically
• Run out overturned device containing English loot by the post office
• It'll help you practice wielding customized gun, for short

Level 6

• Baby sins most evenings
• Adding spice to affair (fearing a very choice word)
• Photograph poet loving the first Star Trek captain
• Yours truly slipping by government agency leaders from Arabia
• Back inside, fixes it up for men and women
• Cur growled and collapsed