The Chessboard Predicament
Kyron watched in awe as the woman casually glanced at him after loosing that devastating arrow, immediately lowering her head to stare at the ground again.
"Are you human?" he blurted out inanely, but she ignored him completely.
Kyron crawled closer and realized the woman was cross-legged, etching diagrams onto the stone platform!
With a glance, he recognized it as a map of the chessboard layout.
Crisscrossing lines depicted each square - the real ones, the illusory traps, even the statues' positions - all meticulously mapped out in a densely gridded large framework.
"Hey, what are you trying to do?" Kyron asked.
No response.
"How did you get in here?"
Silence.
"Do you know where the exit is?"
More silence.
Finally, the young woman looked up, clearly irritated by Kyron's pestering. Her bright eyes gave him an exasperated glance. "Could you be any louder? Are all humans this rude?"
"..." Kyron was taken aback. "What do you mean 'you humans'? Aren't you human?"
The young woman eyed him condescendingly. "Of course not, I'm a sea elf. Not one of you noisy humans."
"Eh?" Kyron felt like he discovered a new world, now realizing why her ears were pointed - she was an elf!
"I've seen undead before, but never elves," he remarked in surprise.
"Not surprising, there are few of us left," the elf maiden sighed, elaborating a little. "We sea elves live on islands in the oceans of the Undead Planet, far from the undead mainland controlled by the necromancer tribes we avoid. Then our planet collided with the human world and...."
"So we all got transported here together?" Kyron continued.
The elf nodded. "This is a terribly dangerous place."
If even an elf saw it as perilous after that jaw-dropping display of archery, then as a mere human, Kyron was at the very bottom of the food chain...
"Do you know what kind of secret realm this is?" he asked offhandedly, not expecting an actual answer.
But the elf girl replied seriously, "I've studied some runes and patterns. This appears to be the tomb of a god."
A god's tomb?
Yet guarded by demonic stone statues?
Kyron's head spun at the bizarrely cozy deity-devil relationship in this world.
Unless...could the demons be revered as gods here?
Those horned, bat-winged, red-eyed fiends - were they the gods of this realm?
As he wildly speculated, the elf lowered her head again, knife in hand, marking the chessboard map intently.
Her furrowed brow was rather endearing, especially on such a lovely young woman.
Kyron peered over her shoulder as she mapped out the strategy.
This kid seemed quite bright, slowly grasping the principles.
"Are you plotting a route to take out those statues?" Kyron studied the elf intently.
"Eh? You can understand it?" She looked up in surprise.
"A little. Why don't you explain it to me? I can try to help devise a plan."
The elf met Kyron's gaze, her brilliant eyes filling him with a mix of trepidation and excitement.
"We need to win on this chessboard to open the chamber's main doors. But those statues are powerful and support each other, especially the shielded one. It always hangs back but can teleport to block any of my arrows - it's immune to ranged attacks. I'm trying to find a route where it can't come to the others' aid."
"How do you prevent it from supporting them?"
"It can't pass through other statues. So if I can line up three in a row, it won't be able to reach the outermost one."
Kyron nodded in understanding. He stood up and counted - there were seven statues total on the board, with only one shielded, the rest wielding various weapons.
Clank clank!!
The mechanical sounds made Kyron jump. To his shock, the shattered tiles he had stepped on were magically restored, the entire board reset to its original state.
"Stepping on different tiles triggers different statues. So you need to lure at least three, including the shielded one, get them lined up, while also avoiding any pit traps underfoot. And your final destination has to be safe ground!"
The elf furrowed her brow, clearly vexed by this complex mathematical puzzle.
Kyron rubbed his nose. Though an archaeology major, he was actually a science student at the top program in the country. This puzzle was difficult but not insurmountable for him.
He crouched down, carefully calculating for a while, numbering the statues with the shielded one as 0, and asking the elf which ones each tile triggered.
He then traced out a winding path with his finger, using seven energy stones to represent the statues' positions, the green one for the shielded statue.
As he simulated his own movements, he simultaneously shifted the statue positions according to the rules.
At first the elf paid little heed, but then her eyes widened as three statues indeed lined up in a row!
"Eh? You solved the problem I was stumped on so easily! You humans may be physically weak, but your minds are rather capable."
Kyron wasn't sure if that was a compliment or not.
The elf stood to put the plan into action.
"Not so fast?"
"Hmm?"
Kyron grinned. "Let me rest and recover my strength first. I'll lure them over, you can pick them off with your archery from here."
The elf didn't understand. "Why?"
"With seven statues total, after you shoot the first one, I only need to move one step to immediately form another line of three. Then you can reposition and keep firing..." Kyron proceeded to demonstrate all the subsequent shifts.
Not only had he calculated the first triple-line, he had mapped out every ensuing move and variation.
The elf was astonished. Setting up that initial three-statue line was clever enough, but to have solved the entire sequence so quickly - that took remarkable ability.
Her eyes softened as she studied Kyron without the previous disdain. "Are all humans so capable?"