Palace of Versailles Metapuzzle

by Andrew Thomas

The technologies feeding this wonder are Agriculture, Alchemy, Doors, Draftsmanship, Mathematics, Monarchy, Plant-Based Ink, Private Property, and Procrastinating. Therefore the puzzle answers feeding this meta are these:

INGRID
STIRFRIED
COLONEL
MERCURY
HEXAGONAL
SUFFOLK DOWNS
UPKEEP
BURDEN
LARGE CRABGRASS

But first, solve the chess problem according to standard chess-puzzle rules (i.e., black is not cooperating with white, but will make whatever moves will delay checkmate as long as possible; white has to figure out the sequence of moves which will prevent black from delaying any longer than five turns). The moves made in the solution are as follows, disregarding whether any individual move is a capture or check or not:

1. Ng4	Kd5
2. Rc7	Na8
3. Ne7	Ke6
4. Bg8	Rf7
5. Rd6

Each move in algebraic chess notation is represented by two letters and a number. As it happens, each of those letter pairs occurs in exactly one of the puzzle answers. For each move of the chess problem, find the puzzle answer containing that letter pair and extract the letter of the answer indexed by the number:

NG4	iNGrid		→ R
KD5	suffolKDowns	→ O
RC7	meRCury		→ Y
NA8	hexagoNAl	→ A
NE7	coloNEl		→ L
KE6	upKEep		→ P
BG8	largecraBGrass	→ A
RF7	stiRFried	→ I
RD6	buRDen		→ N

This spells ROYAL PAIN, which is the answer to the metapuzzle.