Saltfire Day 75 13 September 2026
Moss
How do you make Moss in 6 merges?
- 1 Breath + Salt Dust
- 2 Breath + Dew Mist
- 3 Dust + Mist Spore
- 4 Dew + Dew Pool
- 5 Dust + Pool Mud
- 6 Mud + Spore Moss
Why is 6 merges the shortest possible?
Day 75 asked for Moss — a tier-4 element, one of the complex — and it goes in six merges. Not fewer: par is worked out across the whole recipe tree before the puzzle ships, and then proved by replaying the chain above against the game's own rules, starting from nothing but Salt, Ember, Dew and Breath. If that replay had spent one step more or one step less, the build would have failed and this day would never have run.
Three of the six merges come straight out of the primordials — Dust, Mist and Pool — and everything else is built on top of those. The last step is Mud + Spore, which is where Moss finally condenses.
Now look at Dust: made once, then wanted in two different merges. That is the whole reason the floor is six and not seven. A step buys you an element for the rest of the run, so par counts distinct pairs, not branches of a tree — the second time the chain reaches for Dust it is already sitting in the tray, free. Counted as a tree, with a fresh derivation for every single ingredient, this same solution reads as seven merges.
Moss has four recipes in the tree, so the route above is the cheapest way in rather than the only one. Another chain of the same length is quite possible; a longer one is far more likely. One step fuses an element with itself (Dew + Dew). Self-merges are legal moves and a few elements only come out that way — always worth a try when a run stalls. Ember never appears in the short way through — though nothing tells you that while you are playing, which is rather the point.