While searching the Labyrinth for clues about Return to Labyrinth Volume 4, a young wizard came across two goblin guards.

“We know the title of Chapter 2,” one said.

“Aye, but we can’t tell you!” said the other.

The young wizard was ever so disappointed by this news, but knowing that goblins have a weakness for riddles, he said, “don’t tell me the title, clever sirs, but perhaps you can come up with clues that I might use to find it for myself!”

“Very well!” The guards both said, and these were the clues they offered:

• There are three times as many syllables in chapter 2’s title as there are words.
• The first letter occurs twice.
• The title uses each vowel (a, e, i,o, u) exactly once.
• Chapter 1’s title has two more vowels than chapter 2’s.
• A “devil” of sorts hides in the middle of the word.
• The chapter title is a prominent character’s name.
• Only one of these clues is a lie.
• The highest letter of the alphabet found in the title occurs last.
• No two vowels appear next to each other.
• Jareth’s name  shares 3 letters with the title while Spittledrum’s shares 8.
• Toby, Hana and Skub each share 1 letter with the title.
• The other guy was lying. Three of the statements above are lies.

Clues and explanation below the jump, answer in the comments. So if you’re here to solve the puzzle fresh, don’t go any further yet!

Mouse over to reveal the clues:

Clue # 1 — Chapter 2’s title is one letter longer than Chapter 1’s.

Clue # 2 — If you feel stuck, don’t sweat it. The answer is a “do over.”

And the Answer!
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Okay, let’s dissect these clues. First of all, the lies. According to the clues there’s either 1 lie or 3 lies. If it’s 1 lie, the other statement can’t be true which means that every other clue must be true. If there are 3 lies, then one of them must be the statement that there’s just 1. So the first step is to see if there is any other lie you can detect.

Clue 3 says that all 5 vowels are used once each. Clue 4 says that there are two more vowels in chapter 1’s title — Oubliette. As that title has 5 vowels, if that statement is true, then chapter 2 can only have 2 vowels. We can’t tell which is true yet, but one of these is a lie. Therefore, there has to be more than one lie, which means there must be 3 (one of which is the statement that there’s just 1, one of which must be about the contradictory vowel statements).

Another clue comes from the contradictory statements that the title is either a prominent character’s name, or that the title shares 8 letters with Spittledrum’s name (no character shares that many characters with Spittledrum). So one of those statements must be the other lie.

At this point, it’s possible to know with certain the answer from the initial clues, but one could play out the make assumptions from the above possibilities and work from there. The first hint, however, makes things clearer. If chapter 2’s title is one letter longer than chapter 1’s (”Oubliette +1) then chapter 2 must be ten letters long. If that’s the case, than clearly, the title cannot have 5 vowels. Therefore, it must have 3. We can also deduct that as there are no prominent characters with 10 letters in their name, that the answer must share 8 letters with Spittledrum’s name and 3 with Jareth’s.

So now we know, the answer must:
* have 10 letters
* 8 of those letters are found in SPITTLEDRUM

plus the other clues not mentioned yet.

All right, now Mandy in the comment she snuck in before guessed that “IMP” must be the “devil” found in the middle — ass I, M and P are found in spittledrum, she’s most likely right. Also, the last letter is the highest alphabetically, the odds are high that that last letter is “T.”

Also, if there are 10 letters in the title, and it there are three times as many sylables as there are words, it has to be a single word of three syllables, as it’s highly unlikely that there could be 2 words and 6 syllables.

So we have xxxIMPxxxT

Playing with the other letters of Spittledrum and shuffling them around, the answer would probably present itself eventually, but the second hint makes it easier. “Do over”? If you consult a thesaurus, eventually you might find your way to the answer.

So, the answer is… Post in the comments below!

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