Yes. At least I think it was. My copy of the puzzle was recycled a few months back. I finally gave up on finding the link to OLD WIVES TALES. If someone gets there, I will be impressed.
I was hoping you could share a bit of how you got to the end; sounds like I missed it by a few months. I hope you still remember a bit of the puzzle.
I think I have the final grid correct; the message in the shaded squares makes sense, and all the clues sort of work, but I’m not completely sure. One of them is
“Subject of hook spot that thou packeth”
I got the answer SMEE, which works for “subject of Hook”, but I’m not sure about the rest.
As for the final phrase, it could mean to take the M, E, N, T, or S off the beginning of a clue (or answer), or it applies to clues that end in T, H, or E, or both, or something else. It also says the final phrase is “concretely deduced”, which I think is significant, but I don’t know how.
The rooms in the large grid have names, Torture Chamber, Armory, etc. and symbols, which I don’t think have been part of the puzzle so far. They could just be for style, or they could mean something.
Which one was OLD WIVES TALES? I was cleaning off my desk and found all the puzzles that I think were linked upthread.
SMEE = SEE (spot) “packing” M (thousand).
I am sure you are right about the final room. But what to then decapitate? I played with it a long time. I gave the puzzle to cryptic-loving friends. I posted about it here. But no solution. The crazy thing is we all know the final phrase we are supposed to get. But no one has figured out how to get it.
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That’s really a stretch.
I don’t know the final phrase. I suspect it will be in keeping with the theme of the puzzle, and may be a play on some phrase in the instructions like “concretely-derived” or “grisly finish”, but I don’t know the exact phrase.
Let me work on it for a bit. Probably not another two years, though.