You whip out your trusty Zippo and show that dictionary the meaning of BLAZE. The book gives a little weazing scream, and buckets of thick smoke pour out of it. Soon, you can't see anything at all through the smoke. Luckily, it doesn't seem that you need to breathe during this, so don't worry about it. When the smoke finally clears, you see that you're in a different room. The floor is made up of a giant chess board, complete with a ladder waiting against the far wall.
Go with black.
Take the whites.