A colleague let me 'borrow' this puzzle. He sent it around the workplace and I gradually figured it out.
It's another word game. Like doublets, you need to make a change as you move from one word to the next.
In this case you need to add a letter. In then end you should be looking at a triangle made of words.
Anagrams are a big part of this game, because you often have to reorder the letters as you move from one word to the next.
There are no cryptic clues.
To make it a little challenging, the clues aren't in the same order as the answers.
Here is a small example to help you understand:
Clues:
Water as gas
Indefinite article
Relational verb
For wiping your feet
Friend
Answers:
A
AM
MAT
MATE
STEAM
And now for the actual puzzle.
animal seen on safari
settler
if... then... statements
ointments
zero
popular
common pronoun
alliances
pride
painful injury
places
firming up
tissue in the throat
Once you have your answers, turn them into numbers using the A=1, B=2, C=3 conversion.
The [x, y] notation used below means word x, letter number y of that word.
So in the example above [5, 5] = M = 13.
S 35 1A.BCD E 149 0E.FGH
A = [7, 1] - [8, 6]
B = [11, 4] - [13, 13]
C = [13, 8] - [9, 3]
D = [5, 5] - [10, 2]
E = [12, 11] - [11, 1]
F = [6, 4] - [4, 3]
G = [7, 3] - [13, 4]
H = ([12, 2] + [10, 1]) / 2
Checksum: S 22, E 36