16

Santa straightens, his commanding presence filling the room as he studies the faces around him. "If Grinchuk’s meddling with the sleigh’s systems, we need to know how deep his sabotage goes. I assume you’ve already started an investigation?"

David nods. "We’ve been monitoring the anomalies, but the TSC’s interference is making it harder to isolate his tampering."

Magnus gestures to the console. "And the distortions are growing worse. Just walking across the factory, I saw what looked like a younger version of myself working on a schematic I haven’t touched in years. These time fragments are spilling over into everything."

Santa strokes his beard thoughtfully. "The TSC’s instability... is it localized to the factory?"

David shakes his head. "Not entirely. It’s primarily here, but the effects ripple outward. The sleigh’s field is tied to the TSC, and if we can’t stabilize it, your journey this year will be unpredictable. You could be delivering gifts in 1843 or 3984 instead of 2024."

Before Santa can respond, an alert flashes on the console. A distorted image appears on the monitor – a flickering chessboard, partially obscured by static. But this isn’t just any board. The pieces are arranged in a position Magnus immediately recognizes.

"That’s from a game I played decades ago," Magnus says. "But I don't remember how I got to this position."

Starting from the initial position, give a sequence of moves that reaches this position after White's 8th move (8 moves for White and 7 moves for Black). Please go to the Lichess analysis board, carry out the moves, and copy the PGN under the board. Make sure there are no alternative variants in the PGN before you copy (no parentheses). If you're confused about anything, join our Discord server.