Week 1: Snow Amputation
Snow Amputation
METRICS
Area > Cycles > Cost
Trackless Instructions > Cost > Cycles
("Trackless" means that your solution won't be counted for this metric if there's track in it.)
REAGENTS
Snow Crystal
PRODUCTS
Stabilized Air
Elemental Air
Stabilized Water
Elemental Water
(This puzzle works like Litharge Separation in that it requires extra outputs; you need to output 12 of each product instead of the usual 6.)
It was a cold winter night, the kind that chills your skin instead of your bones. Thick clothing makes it all better, and snow still falls. That eve, it fell lightly, manna from the sky, in flakes as large as your fingernail. I had my fun. Rolling in it, making snowballs, exploring the frozen waterfront.
The sun went low at the end of the day, and the shadows cast long. I returned home, to warm up by the fire, but I stopped at the path to the front door. We had a vegetable garden, with a few plants still strong. On one of them, the leaf was wilting, pointing. It had a single snowflake on it, and it was the prettiest snowflake I’d yet seen that day–and I’d seen a lot of snowflakes. Delicate, large, complex, perfect symmetry, wonderfully sky-blue and reflecting the emerald of the plant leaf…and I was very active, alive from the day of play. It was as if the universe wanted me to do something with it.
And so, I…sat down on the rock in the vegetable garden, and I took that perfect little snowflake, and broke it. I took off one of its six arms. And I thought there was still something beautiful about it, so I removed another arm. I have small fingers, and they were even smaller as a kid. And I wondered how much of it I could take off before it stopped being beautiful.
I took all six arms. And it was completely gone. And I realized that I’d dismembered this gift, one limb at a time, for no reason, and killed it. I killed something beautiful. And it made me sad, but not as sad as the snowflake, which I took everything from.
[click here after solving puzzle to reveal post-solve flavortext]
JOCELYN: The question mentioned pulling the legs off spiders as an example…it reminded me.
––Thank you, Josaline. We appreciate your honesty.
––I hope the people of Bhalgura will, too.
download: OM2026_W1_Snow_Amputation.puzzle (where do i put this?)