Lucas Bachmann

The solution to the previous puzzle can be found here.

If you’ve missed any of the story so far, you can catch up on all of the puzzles here.

And there it was: a crude map of the city port with a big cross marking one of the buildings. Supposedly this was the location of the mastermind’s lair. Bernoulli quickly made a carbon copy of the map, and he and Hansel drove down to the port.

It was turning late afternoon now. The sound of horns resonated in the air as ships returned to port. The stench of fish and salt filled the air. Bernoulli and Hansel drove through narrow streets, between large metal buildings, covered with a decade of rust.

They stopped in front of a dark alleyway. It was unremarkable, except for the large metal door that sticked out like a sore thumb. The two men got out of the car and approached the door.

The first thing of note was a bright glowing screen next to the door. Bernoulli checked around the alleyway while Hansel investigated the screen. Just as Bernoulli discovered a neatly folded yellow piece of paper discarded to the side, he heard Hansel cry: “By golly, what a strange device”.

Bernoulli peered at the screen, to find a checkerboard coloured grid, and two symbols of a crown and a horse.

“This looks like chess.” Bernoulli said. He looked down at the scrap of paper he was holding. It appeared to be a letter of sorts, although there was no signature. He read: “Welcome. These instructions will serve as your initiation trial, as well as give you access to the lair. Once you have read this letter, you must destroy it”. (How convenient for someone to leave this out in the open).

“To open the door, you need to place the Queen and the Knight onto the board, such that every space not occupied by either piece is reachable by either the Queen or the Knight in one move”.

“Sorry,” Hansel replied, “I don’t really know how to play chess”.

“Don’t worry, Constable, I will teach you all you need to know.”

“In chess, we move each piece according to certain rules. The queen can move horizontally, vertically, and diagonally, like this:

The knight moves in an L-shape; two space in one direction, followed by one space sideways, like this:

The queen cannot travel through the knight, and the queen and the knight cannot occupy the same space”

“With these rules in mind, can you figure out where to place the queen and knight in the board below such that every non-occupied square can be reached by either the queen or the knight?”

Scroll down for the solution…

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Solution

After pondering for a minute. Bernoulli dragged and dropped the knight and the queen onto the board. After a few seconds, the doors clicked, and slowly opened, allowing Bernoulli and Hansel to peer into the darkened hallways of the hideout.