Indiana Jones & The Great Circle: How To Solve The Counting Letters Mystery

During the Sukhothai chapter of mysteries in The Great Circle, this one involves finding a locked container, and following a series of clues to discover a way to open it. Unlike many other side quests in The Great Circle, however, this one doesn't require you to bring any prior knowledge to the table: the clues and the tools you need to solve it are all right in front of you, as long as you know how to apply them.

The title "Counting Letters" says it all: you'll need to use a set of codes and ciphers to convert a string of letters into the numbers you'll need to open the combination lock and claim what's inside the chest. With a deceptively simple conceit, plus a few baht and a skill book on the line, this is certainly one mystery you'll want to invest some time in solving. However, if you're struggling to figure out the solution to this mystery, we've got you covered. Here's how to solve the "Counting Letters" mystery in Indiana Jones and the Great Circle.

How To Start The Counting Letters Mystery

Where To Find Counting Letters

"Counting Letters" can be found in the Sukhothai region of Indiana Jones and the Great Circle - specifically, in the main, central restricted area of Wat Mahathat. It's located on the west side of the dig site, just south of the temple itself, in a small wooden shack with a tarp roof. You'll know you've found it when you see a man in a tank top digging through a pile of sand. See above for screenshots of the Mystery's location on the map, as well as a reference for where you'll need to be standing.

While you can sneak into the area necessary to solve this puzzle, it becomes much easier once you've found the Royal Army Uniform.

On the east side of the shack, you'll find the tools of the trade: several code wheels, a cipher machine, a series of notes, and a large lockbox. It seems like you can start the Mystery by interacting with any of these, but for our purposes, you'll probably want to start with the Mystery Note nearest the left side of the table: Bartolomeo's Challenge.

How To Solve The Counting Letters Mystery

Bartolomeo's Challenge

Now, according to Bartolomeo's letter to Lorenzo, the code to the safe is JHHS - but the problem is, the lockbox's combination dial uses numbers, not letters. Bartolomeo goes on to explain that the trick to this puzzle is a method of encoding transmissions employed on Nazi battleships. You'll begin by placing a series of code wheels into a cipher machine, then using that to convert the code Bartolomeo provided into a word, and then using a list of numbers to convert that word into a combination.

Indiana Jones and the Great Circle characters in front of the Vatican at night

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The Code Wheels & The Cipher Machine

There are four code wheels on the table, and only four slots in the machine. Ideally, you'd want to place them such that you could spell out JHHS and figure out how to convert it - but unfortunately, there's no way to arrange the code wheels to spell out JHHS. You'll have to solve this puzzle piecemeal.

Start with the wheel that has the letters C, D, O, Ä, J, B, S, and R on it, and place it in the first slot. Then, take the A, H, I, G, U, V, Z, and Q wheel, and put it in the second. Next, take the Ü, F, H, E, K, T, Ö, and L wheel and place it in the third. You can either take the fourth wheel and put it in the fourth slot, knowing you'll have to ignore it later, or leave it blank and close the lid.

Slot	Wheel Letters
1	C, D, O, Ä, J, B, S, and R
2	A, H, I, G, U, V, Z, and Q
3	Ü, F, H, E, K, T, Ö, and L
4	P, W, Y, M, T, N, X, and ß

Consider the top row of the cipher machine your input, and the bottom your output. Ignoring the fourth slot, rotate the wheels such that you have J-H-H in the first three slots of the top row; you should have B-I-E in the bottom row. Now, you can take the code wheel from the first position and place it into the fourth to get the final letter, spelling out the word "BIER." But honestly, you don't need it; you can deduce the solution from just the first three letters.

The Code Table

Next, pick up the document on the clipboard - the Code Table - and use it to convert your result into numbers. There's only one word on this chart that starts with B-I-E, and that's BIER. Find BIER near the top of the first column, and note the sequence of numbers next to it: 4134. In other words, the lockbox code for the "Counting Letters" mystery is 4134.

Rewards

Indy looking into the lockbox at his reward for completing the Counting Letters mystery in Indiana Jones and the Great Circle.

Dial in 4134 on the lockbox to open it and claim your bounty. There are two items inside: a stack of 75 baht, and a skill book called Street Scrapper III that upgrades your damage with both one- and two-handed melee weapons. You'll also get 250 Adventure Points for solving the mystery, a small fraction of the 1,500 required to learn your new skill book. With all that in hand, you'll have solved "Counting Letters," and can move on with your Indiana Jones and the Great Circle experience.