Yo, thanks man! No you're not dumb, in fact you're most of the way there. A is 1, B is 2, and so forth like you said. The key is the line "as day subsides to darker day", so basically each day on the ship you need to score only one letter of the key word. There are seven days, so one letter per day. Let me know if this helps. Sorry, I'm not an expert puzzle maker lol
thank you again. the locked room is so worth it and it has pushed this game to the forefront of favorite games I've played. I'm trying to convince all my friends to pick this up. Such a well made, thoughtful game! And I love that the locked room reward lets me know that as of now 21 other people have entered the locked room. Super cool!