//------------------------------// // Until // Story: Book 1 - The Behemoth came to Canterlot // by Equimorto //------------------------------// The Sun was almost setting at that point. He'd taken a pause to eat and rest at about what he'd guessed was noon, but still he'd been working on the puzzle for most of the day. He was sure he was almost at the solution, though. It didn't feel frustrating. Part of it was his own attitude towards that sort of things, but part of it was the puzzle's design itself. Whenever he thought he'd found a way forward and instead ran into a wall, he always came back feeling like he'd learned something from it. It never felt like he was out of options or like randomly twisting things around would have achieved more. Of course, that was in part because a random and brute force approach simply wasn't feasible with the amount of variables he was faced with. But even still, it never felt necessary. He had so many roads ahead, and all he had to do was go down them. Whenever one way closed, it felt like another opened, like something that hadn't seemed a possibility before became worth considering. He was definitely getting closer. It was all about going through the correct process of logical elimination. Those branches there and there could only connect this and that way, and so they had to be like that by the end. It was just a matter of figuring out the right set of inputs that would make them land there while making everything else fall into place too. It was rather nice that it was so easy to go back to a previous state. Every single stone eventually made the motion loop around, so there was no real way to get stuck or screw up irreparably. Which was really just a matter of good design, assuming the purpose was to figure out the solution eventually and not on a time limit. More of a process of attrition than a test in the traditional sense. That was part of why he liked puzzles in the first place, all things considered. Their stability, their reliability. A puzzle would always be there where it had been left when you came back to it. Of course not all of them were like that, and he didn't mind the occasional different one, but it was still important to him that puzzles would wait. The other big reason he liked them was getting to see and understand how the different pieces fit together. How they worked together with each other, what correlations and causations existed between them. It was always very satisfying to finally get it, to see the design in its entirety and understand it. That moment when things clicked. Things still hadn't gotten there when it came to the puzzle he'd found himself a part of, though he was working towards understanding that one. But for the one immediately in front of him, he had a pretty good idea of what to do next. A push on a stone, a click, and both rocks inside the square lowered themselves at the same time. Then the whole clearing followed them, revealing an opening that led to a cave, too long to see the end of it. The stallion smiled, and followed the glowing trail into the newly opened squared tunnel ahead.