Stymied By Chess

The other day, I found myself in the rare position of being home with only one daughter.  It was my 15-yr-old "Champion" daughter, and she begged me to come with her to run some Burning Crusade heroics, just for the achievements.

I told her she was perfectly capable of soloing them, especially with the way her cat is decked out, but went with her, because it made her feel better.  Besides, it was a kind of fun "mommy-daughter" activity.

After running through all four Auchindoun instances, in between cake-making, frosting-making, etc. (she was making a cake for her 10-yr-old sister's birthday party), she asked if we could go to Karazhan and try for the Huntsman's horse.

Accordingly, we soon found ourselves in Karazhan with a dead Huntsman (no horse).

"Mom," she said, "It sure would be nice to be able to see more of this place."

"Wow, kiddo, I used to get so lost here.  I'm not sure how far we could get."

"Could we try?  Please?"

I figured I had nothing better to do than to spend time with my daughter, so we started up the stairs to the ballroom.  Skirting around the edge of the room, stopping only to kill the staff, who kept getting in the way, we ended up in the banquet hall, where Moroes and his buddies stood on the raised dias.  We cleared the room and got the boss down in no time flat.

The Maiden of Virtue fell in short order, and we headed off toward the opera event.  My daughter was rather excited.  "I wonder which one it will be!"

It was "Romulo and Julianne".  The star-crossed lovers were no match for an 85 moonkin and hunter.

Then we ran into a problem.  Unbeknownst to me, Blizzard had fixed a "bug" in the system.  Whereas before, successfully completing the opera event unlocked the back door, the back door now remained resolutely locked unless unlocked from the inside.  And I had no idea how to get there.

We spent at least the next half hour wandering around places I'd never been (never knew there was a place with soldiers practicing their skills or a blood-stained door), before I finally broke down and found a blog which told me to go out the other stage door.

My daughter found the door on the way and unlocked it for good measure, and we continued on, defeating the Curator, Illhoof, and Shade of Aran.  I couldn't summon Nightbane, and I didn't think we could two-man Netherspite, because of the beam mechanics, so we skipped those two.  Surprisingly enough, I didn't get lost once.

And then we found ourselves completely stumped.

We both know how to play chess, although I never play anyone because I can never win.  But no matter how much we read about soloing the chess event (which should be simpler with two of us, right?), this encounter had us beaten.

Finally, with the need to do the dishes from all that baking looming, I decided enough was enough.  "The lockout will still be there for a few days, honey," I told my disappointed daughter.  "And maybe we can persuade your dad to come with us, so we'll have three people on the encounter."

It seems ironic that of all the encounters, the one which would stop our progress would be the one nobody ever expected to fail in Burning Crusade.  But after we tackle this one, the Prince will feel like a piece of cake.