novelraw Chapter 124: WE PLAY A GAME (1)
Chapter 124: WE PLAY A GAME (1)
[Veltharr — The Broken Rock — 10:00 AM]
Breakfast ended without anyone having the energy to talk about anything important.
The team at the inn’s long table. Hot food.
The nameless boy — still without Fragment 4, without the mask — sat at the far end of the table.
Not uncomfortable exactly.
Just... present in a way that he was still learning what it meant.
He looked at his cup.
Emily watched him for three minutes.
Then she went to her room and came back with a box.
---
She put it in the center of the table.
"What’s that?" asked Raven.
"A board game." Emily opened it.
"I bought it at the Veltharr market yesterday while you were sleeping."
"A board game... and you bought it while we were sleeping?"
"We need to do something that isn’t thinking about Fragments, rituals, or Catacombs for at least two hours." Emily took out the board.
"This is Crowns and Kingdoms. It’s basically about buying territories and ruining your opponents."
Maya looked at the board.
"What are the property acquisition mechanics?"
"Maya."
"That’s a legitimate question."
"You’ll learn by playing." Emily unfolded the board. Cities and territories distributed in a circuit. **Mistport. The Salt Towers. Raven’s Pass. Three Rivers City. The High Fortress.** And at the corners, special spaces with names that promised trouble.
Then Emily looked at the boy at the end of the table.
"Do you want to play?"
The boy looked at her.
"I don’t know how to play anything." He said it without shame. Just data. "I never did anything that wasn’t related to the Veil."
Emily extended her hand toward him.
"Then I’ll teach you."
The boy looked at the extended hand.
He looked at her.
The way the morning light came through the inn’s window and fell exactly on Emily — her brown hair, her genuinely kind expression, Luna’s light faintly visible in the spiritual plane behind her as always.
His eyes, which were no longer completely violet — the white gradually returning without the Fragment — opened a little wider than normal.
*She is...*
Before the thought finished, an arm wrapped around Emily’s waist from behind.
"Oh no, brother," said Alex. "Get your own."
Emily blushed suddenly.
Alex hugged her a little tighter.
Emily didn’t pull away.
The boy blinked.
Raven, from her chair, with a smile: "Welcome to the chaos."
---
[20 minutes later]
Rules explained. Tokens distributed.
Grim had chosen the small scythe token because it was the only one with a shape relevant to him.
The boy had the boat because no one else wanted it and Emily told him it was "the most adventurous."
First lap — light.
No one had enough Crowns to buy important properties yet. Normal conversation.
Kira asking the rules twice because she wanted to understand them completely before committing.
"If you land on an already purchased property, you pay rent," explained Emily.
"How much?"
"It depends on how many buildings it has."
"What’s the maximum?"
"Enough to ruin you."
Kira processed that.
"So the real objective is to control high-traffic routes."
"Technically, yes."
"And to eliminate opponents’ liquidity before they can diversify."
"Kira, it’s a game."
"Games have logic."
Maya, without looking up from the board: "She’s right."
---
[45 minutes later]
*Mistport, The Salt Towers, and North Crossing. Three properties on the same route.*
*If someone lands there with level three buildings... 800 Crowns rent.*
*No one suspects yet.*
Maya rolled the dice.
She moved.
She bought Raven’s Pass without anyone noticing that she already had the two adjacent territories.
*Perfect.*
---
*Wait.*
Kira looked at the board.
*Maya has Mistport, The Salt Towers... and she just bought Raven’s Pass.*
*That’s the entire north corridor.*
*If she builds there...*
Kira looked at Maya.
Maya was counting her Crowns with a neutral expression.
*She’s acting casual. Too casual.*
"Maya," said Kira.
"Yes?"
"How many properties do you have in the north corridor?"
"Three."
"Were you going to say anything?"
"No one asked."
---
BETRAYAL!
---
"ALLIANCE!" announced Raven. "Kira, me, and Emily. We block Maya."
"Alliances aren’t in the game’s rules," said Maya.
"Neither is silently cornering the north corridor."
"That is in the game’s rules. It’s called strategy."
"It’s called betrayal!"
The boy watched the exchange with wide eyes.
Grim beside him, rolling dice calmly, moving, buying a property without anyone noticing because everyone was looking at Maya and Raven.
**"Three Rivers City."**
No one heard him.
---
[1 hour 10 minutes — Second lap started]
*I have The High Fortress, The Merchant’s Vale, and Three Rivers City.*
*Raven has South Port and two properties on the east corridor.*
*If I land on South Port, I lose 400 Crowns.*
*I need to pass through there in three turns.*
*Options: one, negotiate. Two, pray. Three...*
Alex looked at the dice in his hand.
*Three: roll and hope.*
He rolled.
He moved.
He landed exactly on South Port.
"Four hundred Crowns," said Raven with satisfaction.
"I don’t have four hundred."
"Then you have to sell something."
"I’m not selling anything."
"Then you’re in debt."
"Negotiate with me."
Raven looked at him.
"What are you offering?"
"What do you want?"
Raven smiled and scanned Alex from head to toe.
Emily from the other side of the table: "Don’t make any deals with her. Raven in board games is like Raven in everything else."
"Dangerous?" said Alex.
"Lustful." Emily looked at him. "It’s the same."
---
Raven looked at the board and analyzed her opponents.
*Kira has the complete south corridor.*
*Maya has the north.*
*Raven has the east.*
*Alex has the center but scattered — he can’t build yet.*
*Emily has...*
*What does Emily have?*
Raven looked at the board.
Emily had The Crystal Mines, The Temple Garden, and the Southern Archipelago.
Three properties with no logical connection to each other.
*What’s her strategy?*
*She doesn’t have a strategy.*
*She’s buying whatever she likes the name of.*
Raven looked at Emily.
Emily was stroking her token — a small unicorn she had found in the box — with a satisfied expression.
*She doesn’t have a strategy.*
*And somehow she’s second in Crowns.*
---
IMPOSSIBLE!
---
[1 hour 45 minutes]
The boy landed on Alex’s High Fortress.
"Three hundred Crowns," said Alex.
The boy looked at him.
"I don’t have three hundred."
"How much do you have?"
"Two hundred forty."
Alex looked at him.
At the boy who two days ago had been the Veil.
Who didn’t remember his name.
Who had never played anything.
Who was learning Crowns and Kingdoms with the concentration of someone trying to understand the rules of a completely new world.
"Two hundred forty is fine."
"The rules say three hundred," said Kira.
"The rules also say I can negotiate."
"That’s favoritism."
"It’s mercy."
"In this game, they’re synonyms."
The boy made a mental note of that exchange.
*Mercy and favoritism are the same thing in Crowns and Kingdoms.*
*Is it like that in everything?*
---
[2 hours 15 minutes — The war]
No one was talking to anyone.
Or everyone was talking to everyone simultaneously, and no conversation finished before another started.
Maya had built on the north corridor.
900 Crowns rent per property.
Kira had discovered that she controlled the only alternative route to the north and was charging existential toll to anyone trying to avoid Maya.
Raven had bought three more properties using a rules technicality that Emily swore didn’t exist and Raven swore it did.
Emily had the highest amount of Crowns of anyone, and no one understood how.
Alex was trying to sell The High Fortress to Maya in exchange for free passage through the north corridor, and Maya was evaluating whether the deal had a catch.
*It has a catch,* thought Maya.
*It definitely has a catch.*
*What?*
"Why do you want to sell The High Fortress?" asked Maya.
"Because I need liquidity."
"For what?"
"To buy The Central Market."
"The Central Market is between the north and east corridors." Maya looked at the board. "If you have it, you control the connection point between my properties and Raven’s."
Silence.
"It has a catch," said Maya.
"It doesn’t have a catch," said Alex.
"It has a catch."
"It doesn’t have a catch!"
Raven from the other side: "It has a catch."
"Raven!"
**"It has a catch,"** said Grim.
Everyone looked at him.
Grim was rolling his dice. Moving.
Passing through the start space again.
**"That’s the sixth lap."**
---
Silence.
The team looked at the board.
Grim had properties in every corridor.
Not because he had bought aggressively.
But because while everyone was fighting among themselves, Grim had completed lap after lap, collecting 200 Crowns per start, quietly buying what no one else was looking at.
"How many laps have you done?" asked Kira.
**"Six."**
"How many have we done?"
**"First one finishing. Second halfway at best."**
The team looked at their positions on the board.
It was true.
Everyone had been so busy fighting each other that no one had advanced.
Grim had properties in the north, south, east, and central corridors.
He had buildings on four of them.
He had more Crowns than the rest of the team combined.
He had won the game forty minutes ago.
**"I won,"** said Grim. Without emphasis. Just data.