@Chip Veres Hey, Chip! Fwiw, I wouldn't get too caught up in yenned, and as far as the end goes, there could be eight of them. 😯

@DayDreamer I like it! When I posted the above I had the line "Where it's always around 90 degrees" in mind. Text at 90 degrees. I briefly considered the cipher and stanza poem working in tandem, some time ago, but have steered clear of it since. Can't recall what put me off. Don't know where you got Athens, GA from but I haven't made a dent in the cipher, so go for it. And I've never seen the connection you've made posted. If the stanza poem is needed to solve the cipher, it would explain a lot of failed attempts. Thanks for the input.

@DOLOS Sounds like the angels on my shoulders. Have to watch out for those knife-wielding pixies.

@The Spirit of Magic Why is ONCE removed? nvm.

That's a bit Y in the sky, Chip. I now have you down as odds on favourite to solve the puzzle. 😜 Edit: @Chip VeresDon't take my above comment the wrong way. I like the way you think out of the box, and believe it might be the only way we can find out what kind of box we're looking for. The jester in me gets the better of me at times. You see that, but others may not.

@Απάτη! 🙋 Guilty as charged. What's the penalty? Put your hand up, Magic, the sentence is shorter. Oh, you already did.

@Chip Veres I've wondered whether the bit text ought to be separated, possibly used as a master key to the keys? 49 words on the ring, 3 words shy of a full deck. The big letters on the keys could help with that; Love, Health, Wealth? The end of the ring poem would look a bit odd after applying that, yet strangely similar: LETHE LOVE HEALTH WEALTH

@SeivelN If you do a direct conversion of the numbers to alphabet (top key), using A=0 through Z=25, you get: U FALE WOE MXI K(C)BAC The C in parentheses is 28. You Fail Woe? MXI = Mix? Whip the (C) out because we shot off the end of the track. KBAC = Back? So, we fail miserably, mix something up, go back and try again? Sounds familiar.

@Chip Veres Not necessarily anything. If we listen, we could hear Four (4), Fore (ahead), Fur (hairy beast), Fork (with tines), <something R rated>... maybe more. The "get" or "et" part is less easily escaped, but is the "and then" to be included, "kiss it"? 4 get and then kiss it. Forget hand... Fore get and then... A numbers game would suggest 4. How do we keys/kiss a 4? I don't know either, I'm still dancing around the Maypole. Edit: Of course, there's always the scary possibility that 4 get and then kiss it is telling us that there's a fourth hidden key. 😲

Kiss, Keys, Keys, Kiss; both sound the same to me. Sumthin' I miss?

Is it The End? It's cooler if you're a Brit: 22/2/22

@Apate (who doesn't exist in the pulldown) I'm convinced that the keys work in tandem, but not necessarily for the numbers. Dolos has said to think of them as gears that need to turn together. Which layer I wonder 🤔 Well crafted indeed. I keep firing torpedoes at that craft, sadly missing the mark. Oooh, he said it had moving parts, also that it's a numbers game. A variable is a kind of moving part. Naaah! He wouldn't be that mean... would he?

@Απάτη! I like the idea of reading the top rows left to right, and even travelling backwards on the bottom line back to the bow. The bit ends are iffy but could be resolved with trial and error. The problem: What do we do with the numbers? And, more importantly, as Magic stated, we do not know what the end is. Still a good question though. 👍 Edit 1: The more I think about the path traversed, and the mismatch in numbers to English, and just liking the end to be the end of time, the circular route sounds appealing, at least for the numbers. Thanks for making the cogs tick.

I read from left to right, but those words look like snakes of a caduceus staff, facing off at the bows. Still, head to tail reading, switching over on the way. Sounds too complex. 🐍

The Kiss! It's at the tip of my tongue...

Climb up the tree and prune bad stuff you see. What's left is surely the place we must be.

"Third" is the word you have given us.

Reeeeally? Then we must seek them out and torture them. Thanks for the tip!

You're in the middle of a circle, a compass pointer? You're a tricky trickster! Or am I mything something?