Solution: The Lernaean Hydra
Answer: BOOGER
Written by Justin Melvin
When a team solves a hydra head puzzle, the hydra grows back multiple heads (=puzzles), sending a bunch of notifications to everyone else on the team. The number of heads unlocked varies with each type of head. In addition, the order of unlocked heads is consistent throughout (in alphabetical order by answer). For each answer to a head puzzle, there is a corresponding transformed version that matches one of the clues given in The Lernaean Hydra once the "head" of the answer is "cooked."
| Head answer | Cooked answer | Corresponding clue | Number of heads unlocked upon solve | Index letter |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| DOUGHNUT | BREADNUT | Evergreen fruit | 1 | B |
| CORNBALL | POPCORN BALL | Halloween treat | 5 | O |
| WOODBLOCK | CINDER BLOCK | Fireproof construction unit | 9 | O |
| STONER | MAGMAR | Pokemon | 3 | G |
| WATER WHISTLE | STEAM WHISTLE | Thomas the Tank Engine feature | 3 | E |
| SAND LIZARD | GLASS LIZARD | Legless animal | 10 | R |
Giving the final answer,
Author’s Notes
This puzzle is proof that dumb jokes are excellent fodder for adding to one's puzzle.txt of ideas. When I saw that the Classics round needed another puzzle, I jumped on figuring out how this would work. Originally there was going to be a cap on the number of hydra heads that a team could unlock, but it turned out to be more satisfying if there really were potentially infinitely many of them. Internally, this is modelled as a set of a hundred or so puzzles that wrap around (and unsubmit answers, re-lock puzzles, all kinds of ill-advised things). This was definitely a truly terrifying beast of a thing to get to work with gph-site, with numerous special cases peppered throughout the code. I hope that there were some groans or laughs when teams got sent a cascade of unlock notifications.