Acting like a family was easier said than done. It had been so long since Amaro had properly communicated with his siblings that he sat in silence with them for a good few minutes wondering what to talk about. He thought of confronting Anitus about what he had done to Rixam. Even if they had been a Noxa, there was no reason to go that far. Not to mention, he had beaten a poor girl within an inch of her life.
However, Amaro was in no position to admonish him for it. He had been ready to kill Rixam, and he was too weak to pull Anitus off of that girl. Not to mention, it would only start an argument. There was a feeling of distance between them. A cold silence which proved they had nothing to talk about if it was not thinly veiled insults behind playful banter.
That was until Tulos placed a board down on the table between them. On the board was etched a map of the world. There were several sets of tokens, each crafted from a different type of metal. Iron, gold, silver, bronze, and platinum.
“Here’s how the game works,” Tulos said, “every set has four types of pieces.”
“But there are clearly more than four pieces, brother!” Raktus said.
“Hush, I know that Raktus, I said four types of pieces. Each piece represents your overall ‘power’. The first is your normal and most common piece.” He said, holding a small miniature of a person wielding a pike, “These are each worth one point and you’ve got a total of fifty of them. Next,” He held up what looked like a Sleipniir, “For every set, these units will look a little different. Mine are Sleipniir, but yours are probably drakes, wyverns, wulviir, or bicorns. These are mount pieces and they’re each worth two points. There’s twenty five of them.”
Everyone looked down at their pile of pieces to find their respective ‘mount’.
“Ah! I will take the silver ones, then, those are the ones with Wyverns!” Raktus said, scooping the pieces towards himself.
Amaro smiled at Raktus’s enthusiasm, “I’ll take the iron pieces.”
“At least let me finish explaining the pieces,” Tulos sighed, “Bronze is mine Anitus, don’t take it!”
“Too late, brother.”
Tulos clicked his tongue, “Fine, I’ll take gold since I know Sancta will want platinum.”
“Sancta does love drakes, doesn’t she?” Anitus said.
“What? She hates them,” Amaro said.
“I was being sarcastic.”
“I thought she liked them,” Raktus chimed in.
A couple of metal symbols materialized in the air and clanged together, “Can I continue with my explanation of the rules?” Tulos said.
“Go on, brother,” Anitus chuckled, waiting for Tulos to start speaking before saying, “Please, continue uninterrupted.”
Amaro zapped him.
“Ow!”
“Thank you, Amaro. Anyways, the third piece is worth five points, they are your champion tokens and there are twenty of them.”
Amaro looked at his pieces. Each of the champions appeared to have their own distinct design. Tulos had put a lot of effort into crafting them.”
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“Finally,” Tulos continued, “the dragon pieces. Only five of them in total, but each worth a whopping ten points.”
Each set also had a distinct draconic design. Some long and snakelike, others with numerous heads, wings, and varying body types, but all of them unmistakably dragons. They were the largest pieces on the board, and they looked so well crafted Amaro had to wonder how many dragons Tulos had seen in real life.
“If your name isn’t Raktus you’ve probably already done the math for your point totals, but for those who are named Raktus, this comes out to a grand total of two hundred and fifty points. You’ll also notice that the group worth the most points together are the Champions with one hundred points between them, while the others are all fifty.”
“So how do we start?” Anitus asked.
“You start by picking out pieces until your point total is fifty. Then, you place your pieces on the map. Each square represents a territory that you control. You can place as many pieces as you want in a square so long as it fits. You can only stack pieces on top of the mounts, though. And before you ask, no you cannot stack the dragons on top of the mounts. Only champions and infantry.”
“Then why not cluster all of my units on a single square that can never be taken? I could take a bunch of champions and mounts and leave the rest,” Amaro said.
“If you can manage it that’s definitely a strategy, but each territory will grant you resources after every round. It only takes one piece to control a territory, but it’s probably not gonna be very easy to keep control of that territory if you’ve only got one infantry there.”
“And how do you conquer territory?”
“If your side has more points, then they will most likely win.” He held up a set of dice and rattled them in a steel container, “these dice will determine how well your invasion goes. Each of you will roll dice and subtract the number from each other. The defense gets an extra dice to roll. This will determine the result of your clash. For example, if you’ve got five points on one square and I’ve got ten, I can try to invade. We will roll dice,” Tulos tossed the dice into a tray, “I scored an eight, you get…” Another roll, “An eleven. The difference between that is three, so I take your territory, but I lose three of my points in the process.”
“What if you’ve got two champions, but only lose three points?”
“Then you trade the pieces out until you’ve got a total of seven points.”
“What about if I win the dice roll on the offense?”
“Then you end up gaining points. Think of it as the other side losing morale and joining your side. However, in the same scenario, if I lost any more than five points, I would fail to take the territory, but I would at least weaken the other side by half of my losses.”
“This is a lot of math, I don’t know if I will enjoy this game, brother.” Raktus said.
“Don’t you worry, Raktus. It’s simple enough that even you could follow it once you actually start playing. There are other rules too, You can only take territory next to the territory you’ve got, but when you conquer it you’ve gotta leave at least one piece behind to maintain control of the territory. So you can afford to congregate your points along the borders of your territory. For every square you control, you get one additional point at the end of every round. If you no longer control any territory, then you’re out of the game. Once you control all of the territory, you’ve won the game.”
“This is quite the game you’ve made up.”
“I simply cannot take all the credit for it. In my off time, Kaara and I have been working hard on the rules.”
“And what’s stopping you from manipulating the dice with your magic?” Anitus said.
“Well, as you can see, they are made of stone. Raktus, can you try to lift those dice for me?”
“Easily done!” Raktus said, putting his hand out.
The dice stayed in place. Raktus tried again, but the dice did not move.
“Humans have quite a lot of interesting magic. I had a traveller enchant these with antimagic to prevent any cheating.”
“How much did this cost you to make?”
Tulos thumbed his lip, “Dunno, but I definitely had to make the Tibur a lot of metal blades to get the materials for this. Anyways, the game is still in its early ruleset, and I might go back to change it a bit, but this is the working prototype. I call it: Periculum!”
“So what are the stakes of this game?” Anitus said, “You know I can’t enjoy a game without something to lose.”
“No stakes for the first games, but when Sancta gets back, I say the first one out has to tell us a fear they have, or a secret they keep.”
“I say everyone aside from the winner has to. More incentive to win, that way.” Anitus said.
“Oh? Well if you’re confident you can beat me at my own game, then go on and try it!”