Gauntlet

The first dome seen from the Podding station

The second dome seen from atop the elevator
The **Gauntlet** is a location in Maray. It is mentioned by name in the Gauntlet letter that Caroline Farley wrote for Oleg during the Mofang War. Oleg's mission was to "reset all locks in the Gauntlet". At the bottom of the letter there is a diagram that shows what this area includes.

## The Gauntlet area

The diagram under the letter shows one big circle containing four smaller ones on the left, and three medium sized circles containing one or two smaller circles each. The numbering indicates the order in which they are encountered. As soon as the passage through each dome is enabled, it becomes obvious that the first three circles correspond to three consecutive domes that we meet in this area. Whereas all three domes have a central seed-swap device that can swap its whole interior area, the smaller circles within them in the diagram indicate the placement of extra swap devices that have a smaller swap radius. Finally we find out that the big circle at the left corresponds to the Gauntlet maze, also referred to as Puzzlisimo.

## The three Gauntlet domes

The initial interior of the first dome
Once the Maray cell wall portals are open and the Villein armory is reached, the first Gauntlet dome comes in view. Gaining access to it, reveals no way through, but there are two seed-swap devices inside. Swapping, the player comes to the unloading area of the Scrapyard in Hunrath. With appropriate actions, the player manages to create an opening at the far end of the dome. There, an elevator brings one down to a path towards the second dome of the Gauntlet. The change in altitude in Maray, corresponds to one in Hunrath as will become obvious.

The initial interior of the second dome
The second dome has three seed-swap devices inside and a switch at its entrance can rotate the interior room of the dome 180°. At the far through a door the third dome can be seen, but not accessed. A bridge has to be activated but no control panel to do so is present. Also another bridge at the other end is waiting to be activated, although it only leads to the already disabled red beam device.

The initial interior of the third dome
One of the seed-swap areas of the dome seems to belong to a Hunrath mine. Indeed its swap device, or any of the swap devices of the dome, brings one to the mineshaft of Hunrath, a shaft created during the Mofang War to correspond to the Gauntlet area of Maray. Once the correct actions are done and a control panel is present, the bridges can be activated, and access to the third dome is gained. The third dome has a seed-swap device, but there is no way through. It proves to be the hardest dome to get through. Once solved however, the way is open towards the Gauntlet maze, also known as 'Puzzlisimo'.

## The Gauntlet maze

The maze seen from the podding station
The last part of the Gauntlet area is a very big semispherical structure containing the Gauntlet maze. The maze consists of a base with fixed parts of corridors, and in between these corridors, four separately rotatable parts with various shapes of corridors through each. In the front of the maze is an elevator. Simply crossing through it leads into the maze, which may meet a dead end if the maze is not configured to reach one of its three exits. The elevator can also take one up to a balcony overlooking the maze and from where the whole maze can be rotated at 90° steps. It can also take one down to a basement where a seed-swap device will swap the basement area together with the part of the maze overhead on a rotator located in specially prepared cave of the mineshaft of Hunrath. There, it can be rotated or simply swapped with a fifth piece waiting there.

The maze suspended in mid-air over the river
The maze has three exits that can be accessed one at a time by configuring the maze as needed in each case. All three have to do with opening the path and moving to the next destination. The one across, also offers a small path from which the lower part of the maze structure can be seen. While other building have strong supports that keep them in place, the maze, and the other domes of the Gauntlet, are all suspended in mid-air by the help of devices that interfere with the ambient energy. The connections to the various exit paths do touch the maze and the domes but are not supporting them. From four directions of the maze, there are devices that send their typical Villein technology tubes into the rocks and trees and scenery. It is up to the player's speculation as to what their function may be.

## Puzzles found here

Actually the whole area is a puzzle, the Gauntlet puzzle so to say. However, since the logic of solving the passage through the first three domes is quite complicated in its own right and the big maze has a very different way of going about solving it, this area has been split in two puzzles: the Gauntlet domes puzzle and the Gauntlet maze puzzle.

## References

1. ↑ Mayor Janssen's journal 17125AH: "Preparations update -- Farley says that tunneling is almost complete. Tham informs us that the Villeins just completed their construction and have started testing."