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"Two things to remember when visiting the chessboard: 1) invisibility and 2) protection from lightning (or potion of invulnerability). "
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I have to tell you that I used an interesting tactic. I paired off the my character(the king ) with a magicuser. Then I used the "one-third rule" from SixofSpades. It was all academic after that. If things get too overwhelming I cast Invisibility on my character(protect the king). It gives you a little leeway to reposition.