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Act III, Scene 1

Articulate!

Solution: TEMPOROMANDIBULAR JOINT


This puzzle features a strange-looking Articulate board, five Articulate cards with six clues each, and one final numbered card.

The natural place to start is with the clues. The six clues on each Articulate card have associated categories, which are: Person, World, Object, Action, Nature, Random.

Category Card 1 Card 2 Card 3 Card 4 Card 5
Person BEGUM DECKHAND NECKER ORGANIST WHITEHEAD
World COCHIN GORGAN LIVERPOOL OUTBACK PALMIRA
Object ARMOUR CHINO NAPALM SLIVER VERMOUTH
Action APPEAR BACKSWING FARM HANDLE UNCLIP
Nature GUMMA HEADWATER LIPASE RINGNECK SISKIN
Random EARLIER JACKLEG LEGAL MOUTHY SKINT

There are lots of body parts hidden inside the clue answers! Moreover, for each identified body part, it appears exactly twice; once at the end of an answer, and once at the start. This suggests we should join those two answers together, with the common body part being the "articulation". Then, notice that the remaining letters flanking the articulating body part form a word, which is an answer to one of the clues in the numbered card!

For example, BEGUM pairs with GUMMA to give BE(GUM)MA. The remaining word BEMA means a podium, which is the 9th numbered clue. The "4" next to "Podium" instructs us to take the 4th letter of BEMA, which is A.

Now finally, to determine the ordering. The Articulate board, thus far unused, provides this. From the "Start" space, the first two spaces are "Random" categories. There is exactly one pair of articulating Articulate answers that are both from the Random category: JACK(LEG)AL = JACKAL, from which we extract the J due to the numbered clue "(1) Canid".

Going around the board in this manner provides us the ordering. The extracted letters spell JOINT FOR TALKING, referring to the TEMPOROMANDIBULAR JOINT, the answer to this puzzle.

Clue #1 Clue #2 Leftover word Numbered clue Extracted letter
START
JACKLEG LEGAL JACKAL Canid (1) J
SLIVER LIVERPOOL SPOOL Roll (4) O
NAPALM PALMIRA NAIRA Currency (3) I
UNCLIP LIPASE UNCASE Remove from container (2) N
OUTBACK BACKSWING OUTSWING Type of delivery in cricket (3) T
FARM ARMOUR FOUR Number (1) F
COCHIN CHINO COO Soft call (2) O
VERMOUTH MOUTHY VERY Much (3) R
SISKIN SKINT SIT Rest on glutes (3) T
BEGUM GUMMA BEMA Podium (4) A
APPEAR EARLIER APPLIER Candidate (4) L
DECKHAND HANDLE DECKLE Frame used in papermaking (4) K
WHITEHEAD HEADWATER WHITEWATER Rapids (3) I
RINGNECK NECKER RINGER Of lactate fame (3) N
GORGAN ORGANIST GIST General vibe (1) G
FINISH