Solution: The Death of the Library
Answer: ENTITLEMENT
Written by Adeline Wong, Thomas Gordon, and Ella Sheffield
This is the metapuzzle for Floor 3. It uses the answers from the floor, which are:
| Puzzle | Answer |
|---|---|
| 🔍🔍🔍 | TRAINED HUSKIES |
| Eight Cells | JINGLE DRESS |
| Elementary | TEMPLE STATION |
| Flight of the Babelbees | SPEED EATING |
| Folk Wisdom | WHISKEY BOTTLE |
| Greetings! | ADVANCE SCOUT |
| How the Turntables | POMPEY LADIES |
| Poly Lines | PARTNER DEBATES |
| Sandwich Shop | HEALTHY GRAINS |
| The Launch of This Puzzle Has Been Delayed | KINCHELOE AWARD |
| Through the Looking-Glass | CLOUD SEEDING |
Solvers should note that each puzzle answer is two words, and that the flavor text talks about "initial solutions" and "pen[ning] new ideas". In fact, each answer has an enumeration and a pair of first letters that match a famous author who is usually referenced by their initials. Taking the eigenletter of the answer and the author (disregarding the initials), and "put[ting] them on the shelf"—i.e., ordering them by the author's last name—gives the answer ENTITLEMENT.
| Answer | Author |
|---|---|
| KINCHELOE AWARD | KATHERINE ALICE (K.A.) APPLEGATE |
| ADVANCE SCOUT | ANTONIA SUSAN (A.S.) BYATT |
| TEMPLE STATION | THOMAS STEARNS (T.S.) ELIOT |
| SPEED EATING | SUSAN ELOISE (S.E.) HINTON |
| PARTNER DEBATES | PHYLLIS DOROTHY (P.D.) JAMES |
| CLOUD SEEDING | CLIVE STAPES (C.S.) LEWIS |
| JINGLE DRESS | JEROME DAVID (J.D.) SALINGER |
| POMPEY LADIES | PAMELA LYNDON (P.L.) TRAVERS |
| HEALTHY GRAINS | HERBERT GEORGE (H.G.) WELLS |
| TRAINED HUSKIES | TERENCE HANBURY (T.H.) WHITE |
| WHISKEY BOTTLE | WILLIAM BUTLER (W.B.) YEATS |
Author’s Notes
Adeline: All of our metas gave us at least some trouble constraining feeder answers, but the ones for this round are by far the most tortured. Finding a balance of "reasonably well-known" to "has a half-decent extraction" was the main obstacle to our author selection—I tried for a not-insignificant amount of time to find a three-word answer for JOHN RONALD REUEL, to no avail. That said, I'm pretty happy with the way this one turned out—or, really, that it turned out all. I'm very glad we managed to get a pure meta into this hunt, especially one literature-related.
Thomas: The identity of the third meta was an open question for the first six months of Shardhunt's development. It was on the final day of August in that first year that I eventually gave my initial pitch for this meta, which Addie and Ella reworked heavily into something actually publishable. Like all parts of Shardhunt, there were many, many versions of this meta's two parts over the months and years, with many different answers and authors passing in and out of vogue with the writing team.