Round 3
"Ready?" The guildmates glanced at each other, none daring to imagine what horrors would be committed if the button was pressed. They had assembled all the keys to activate the procedure, but communication with Hackers was still strictly forbidden.
"Well it's only to save the Lord" They whispered to themselves, and someone walked up and pressed the button.
The hackers arched their back and looked upwards, as if they were staring into the face of God. But their eyes had been replaced by blank, sunken hollows, and through these hollows they turned towards the Guildmates.
"You seek the Looord, little elementalists? Do you seek our unending power? Or have you come to gloat, have you come to see what hell looks like?"
"Please, we have just come to find the Elemental Lord." The one who had pressed the button whimpered.
"
Heh, you should've chosen one of the other options. You lot don't look fit enough to traverse the forgotten Minotaur's Maze." With that, the bodies fell limp again.
You know that the Minotaur was the originator of all the Ghosts of the Past which haunted the deserts of Thyme, but its Maze was a long-lost legend. "Well now we know it exists. And we shall find it!"
~*~
After several days of searching you stumble upon the Maze. Almost too easily, in fact. As you try to enter through the gateway though, you find that only one of you can enter at a time. Still nothing too hard, you'll just have to cross one at a time.
As you enter, you find yourself in a large room. Large, but not gargantuan to fit the legendary description of the maze. As you walk through the twists and turns, you find that there is a Gateway at the exact midpoint of each wall, similar to the one you just entered through. You walk up to on gateway, and push through. As you barge in to the next room, you discover to your horror that the walls are turning...
THE TASKThe original configuration of the Maze is as follows:
The red walls are immovable, and the black walls are the moveable walls. The brown lines between rooms are Gateways. Whenever you pass through a Gateway, ALL the black walls in each room move 90 degrees in either clockwise or anticlockwise direction. This direction is constant for each room. So now you must pass through this grid from the Top left corner to the bottom right corner. Also, you must transmit a message back to your comrades telling them how to traverse the Maze. Knowing that the maze might very well change its initial configuration, it would be best if you included detailed steps on how to solve the maze from any initial configuration.
This maze could also be used to stop those thieving scum back town from breaking into your Guild! Send a message back to your guildmates on how to create such a grid. You also have to construct one yourself, making it as complex (or have as few solutions) as possible, but it must fit on a 9x9 grid like the one shown above.
Since this is a
Sudden Death round , entries will be judged by the Guildmasters. Ties will be broken by:
1. Who takes the smallest no. of steps to solve the given maze (Going from one 1x1 square in the 9x9 grid to another counts a step e.g. in the first room, going from the top left to bottom right spot takes 4 steps)
2. The complexity of the constructed Maze. Be sure to keep it within a 9x9 grid!
3. The descriptions present on solving and constructing such Mazes.
Find the solution, make your own grid and describe the methods in detail!
Send it all to the Guildmasters within FIVE DAYS. As it is sudden death, we will need some time, so do try to send them in as fast as you can!
Time left for Round 3: None
