( New Year's Eve )
He floated his way down the shaft on the borrowed broomstick; it had been easy to grab without being noticed. The devil's snare was once again overco with a simple first-year fire spell before he reached the bottom.
Taking in the next room visually, he saw a door, a broomstick, and hundreds of flying keys. Before even trying to catch the keys like they obviously intended, he tried the standard unlocking charm and his charged rune stones, both of which failed to open the door.
Looking at the broomstick provided, it was obvious one had to catch the right key for the door. He also noted for next ti (if that proved necessary) that he wouldn't have to steal a broom. He could probably fly out on the broom provided he thought, before deciding to get on with it.
After several minutes flying around and dodging keys, he noticed one that was rusted like the door handle, which resulted in him chasing it down like a hungry wolf chasing a deer. Eventually he caught the key.
Putting the key into the lock, as well as charging the rune stones, he opened the door to once again reveal that the door did not have an alarm ward on it, but it did have other symbols and runes different to the ones on the first door. He quickly fled back down the corridor towards the devil's snare only to realize that no response was coming; the ward on the door obviously wasn't a detection one.
Deciding to copy it down so that he could try to find out what it did later, he brought out his notepad to record the next series of defences as well as the runes on the door. He carefully copied the patterns engraved onto the wood before refocusing on the room. Once he figured out what it did, who knew when it might co in handy.
Taking in the room he saw a giant magical chess set; obviously the purpose of this task was to 'play' the ga and win. Since there was a horse without the knight, this was the place he was ant to take.
Deciding to look around the room in case there was a faster option, he started making his way across the floor, making towards the black side of the board just for the pawns to draw swords on him and block his path. Thinking everything over, they obviously couldn't see him, they couldn't sll or hear him either, so how did they detect him?
Taking a step back resulted in them sheathing their swords, taking a step forward again resulted in them drawing swords. Looking down at the floor to see the black and white squares, he realized that the floor itself was chard and that was how they detected his position and movents.
He then tried flying over using the broom he had taken, just for the pieces to swap swords for bows and arrows before tracking him actively, confirming that he couldn't just fly over. He concluded there must be another charm in effect to detect a person in flight, so he obviously had to play the ga to get by. The fact that the animated golems could adapt to a changing situation proved that this was an impressive piece of magic.
He made his way over to the starting place, and took his place a top the knight. Since he was obviously in danger from the other pieces, he decided to take a slow, careful approach to the ga.
After a bit of playing, he ca to realize just how different playing against a chard set was versus a live opponent. The chard set followed set rules, its main objective was either to destroy him, or check his king. This made sense since if he was destroyed, the defences would hold; he would certainly be injured too after seeing how the other pieces were destroyed, and that would also lower his chances of breaching the defences.
Against a human player you played against the person, and each person had their favourite pieces, their own styles of play, favoured patterns and strategies, etc. Like Padma's aggressive use of the knight, for instance. You played the player, while the chard set played the sa against everyone, and instead operated on numbers and logic.
Simply put, it decided what to risk and lose based on numbers and pre-determined values of the pieces at risk, making it, to a point, predictable. It used logic alone to dictate its moves; when two of its pieces were simultaneously at risk it always sacrificed the one with the lowest point value or was the most protected.
Using these predictable rules he often moved his knight into position to act as bait, to expose the black set to attack while withdrawing himself as soon as he was in danger.
He was grateful for all the tis he played Padma now as it was proving very useful. Slowly and surely he worked his way towards checkmating the black king; it took an hour or so, but in the end he managed to get across the board and do it without injury to himself.
Putting back on his invisibility cloak, he recast the silencing charms on his shoes since they had worn off during the ga, before making his way to the next door. He recharged the rune stones again and cast the unlocking charm to open the door.
Upon opening the door, he was hit by an ungodly sll which reminded him of the troll in the bathroom, but sohow stronger. Carefully looking around the room revealed four trolls, however they were all thankfully asleep. He carefully looked over the door to see the sa wards that were on the first door. He walked carefully across the room to the next door to avoid doing anything to wake the trolls. He recharged the rune stones again rather than risk another detection ward and then once again cast the unlocking charm to open the door.
Quickly checking the room in case there were any imdiate dangers like trolls or another Cerberus inside, he saw no imdiate dangers. Checking the back of the door he saw the sa detection ward from the door in the third floor corridor. He was grateful he used the rune stones out of an abundance of caution, rather than risking it, otherwise soone would be rushing to him at this very mont.
The room was like a potion lab, to the far end there was a wall of fire blocking the door. Checking out the room to see if any solution was provided, he found a riddle on the desk, next to a series of potions. So of the potions were wines, so were poisons, one would grant him entrance and the other one would send him back to the start.
He couldn't help but laugh out loud at such a simple test of logic; he'd been solving much harder riddles and puzzles to gain entrance to Ravenclaw tower for months. So while most wizards would have had difficulty, any raven would be able to solve this puzzle with ease.
In less than a minute he solved the puzzle. He checked over his logic a couple of tis, though, before committing, and then walked through the fire fearlessly to the final room. The first thing he saw was a strange ornate mirror in the centre of the room.
So if the pattern of all the defences so far held true, the room's puzzle obviously had sothing to do with the mirror. Looking around the room once again, he saw several rune clusters on the walls, but they were faint, almost invisible to the eye. He'd carefully copied them down the best he could, so he could learn more out about them later. He also saw the sa connection runes that were used to link wards to objects at the base of the mirror.
So the room's wards were linked directly to the mirror. Since there was no visible door he assud that one had to solve the mirror puzzle to reveal the door and move on.
Looking over the mirror, it was odd, it didn't actually show his normal reflection. It showed several different images, sotis images of his parents standing by him with proud looks directed at him, or an image of himself surrounded by huge piles of earned gold, a couple tis his relatives were kneeling before him, heads down as if waiting for his judgnt, accepting their fates.
So it obviously was not a 'normal mirror.' Stepping away he walked around the mirror to see if there were any hints to its function, before seeing several letters marked upon it with no apparent aning. It read:
Erised stra ehru oyt ube cafru oyt on wohsi.
He took several minutes looking at and analyzing the letters, trying to decode the ssage, before once again looking back at the mirror to realize the words were back to front, just like a reflection in a mirror would be. It was so obvious in hindsight that he wanted to hit himself for his own stupidity.
I show not your face but your heart's desire
So that was the purpose of the mirror and why it showed him images of his family and friends, but how did that solve this puzzle? He didn't know how long he remained just sitting there or walking around the mirror in circles, trying to understand what was required of him, or what he was obviously missing, before he yawned for the 100th ti.
Casting a quick charm to tell the ti, he saw that it was already close to 4 in morning! He had started at 10pm, no wonder he was feeling so tired and so drained right now. He was tempted to call it quits and co back another night with a fresh viewpoint, but he was stubborn. He really wanted to just smash the mirror to pieces.
Once again he looked over the engravings, before an errant thought crossed his mind. Maybe this mirror is the treasure? After all it was quite obviously a powerful magical artefact, and maybe all the traps and wards were designed to protect this mirror.
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