The Great Big Chessboard

Choice adventure number: 443

The Great Big Chessboard

You follow the map to a huge sunny meadow, meticulously landscaped and criss-crossed with sparkling brooks that divide the grassy plain into sixty-four squares, some of which are occupied by people in dark-colored clothing who appear to be waiting patiently for something. As you approach the first rank of squares, marveling at the strange beauty of the scene, you accidentally bump into someone dressed as a <piece> who was running to occupy the same square. They fall over backwards with a surprised squawk and vanish mysteriously when they hit the ground. Even mysteriouser, you feel a strange tingle throughout your body, and find that your clothes have changed into a <piece>'s outfit. Huh.

Standing at the first rank of the chessboard, you see a large golden chest sitting just on the opposite side of the eighth rank. I believe the first rule of adventuring is "Anything in a treasure chest is yours, if you can grab it."

• When the white piece reaches the top row of the board:

Trumpets blast a fanfare as you advance to the eighth rank. You kneel to open the golden treasure chest, and it melts and shifts in your hands, turning into an elegant golden tea-tray. There's only one cookie (or 'biscuit', as people who own tea-trays are wont to say) left, but it looks like a particularly tasty one.

You acquire an item: queen cookie

OR

You acquire an item: king cookie

OR

You acquire an item: rook cookie

OR

You acquire an item: bishop cookie

OR

You acquire an item: knight cookie

Walk Away

You give up and walk away from the board. Ya seen one crowded, polluted, stinking town, ya seen 'em all.

---

Occurs at choice in A Moment of Reflection.

Instructions

You start with a randomly generated chessboard with a single white piece at the bottom row. To complete the puzzle and receive a cookie, capture black pieces to get to the other side of the board.

You can click on black pieces to capture them with your white piece. Whenever you capture a black piece, you become that piece and may move again. You can also click on empty cells in the top row if your white piece can reach them.

If there are no other pieces remaining when you reach the top of the board, you receive a queen cookie. If you capture the King but have one or more pieces remaining, you receive the king cookie. Otherwise, you randomly receive one of the other cookies.

It is possible to get stuck in a position where you cannot capture any more black pieces or reach the end of the board. In this case, your only option is to walk away, and you will fail to receive a cookie.

Notes

• Capturing a King doesn't end the chess game, it simply lets you move like one.
• When you receive a queen cookie, you also increase the value of all of the various buffs granted by eating chess piece cookies, including the pawn cookie mentioned below. This value is capped at 50 queen cookies received.
• The pawn cookie is similar to the other chess cookies, but can only be acquired via a special Halloween adventure.
• When the board is generated, there is always a sequence which will lead to a queen cookie. Once you capture a piece, that guarantee no longer exists.
• Although there are many boards, they are still from a given set and you could get the same map again.
• If you're stuck, a script has been developed to solve it (if a solution exists): Chess Solver.
• There is also a greasemonkey script to solve it with even less effort: Greasemonkey Chess Puzzle Solver.
• KoLmafia provides a "Solve!" button if you enable "Show blatant spoilers" in its configuration. Alternatively, you can load the chessboard in the relay browser and type in chess solve in KoLmafia's graphical CLI.

References

• Your rewards for this puzzle are the KoL version of Pepperidge Farms Chessmen cookies.
• The message for walking away quotes the song "One Night in Bangkok", from the musical Chess.
• The word "mysteriouser" is an allusion to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, where Alice, upon changing size, states, "Curiouser and curiouser!" The scenario itself, becoming a piece on a chessboard and moving through the ranks, is from the sequel Through The Looking Glass where Alice does just that.