Table of Astronomy

"How about Table of Astronomy? I've never heard of that." Qilen gives a holler for joy, while you simply look confused at the excitement. "The game requires seven," Faexina explains. "The only time we ever get to play is when someone new tries to join the group, and last time they chose chess." Ah, that explains that then. "The rules are pretty simple by the way," Faexina continues as someone pulls out the board from under the table, it being circular with a number of markings on it; they start setting out pieces. "Each player has seven pieces, and their side of the board represents one of the bodies in our star system; Solis, Hermes, Gaea, Ares, Midas, Hades, Magica." You notice people shuffling around you. "On your turn you'll roll two dice, and can move your two pieces based on the numbers shown, or one piece twice. You can't move a piece onto a spot with doubled-up pieces and if you land on a spot where a single piece is, you capture it. Play continues until only one player remains." By the time Faexina finishes explaining, the board has already been placed, and players are in place. You're sitting in front of the side which has on it a red planet, and to your immediate right sits Giovannia; to your immediate left sits Qilen. Following clockwise from Giovanni are Violet, Aaron, Irina, Faexina, and then that comes back around to Qilen. The board has displayed clockwise from your red planet an orange planet, a blue planet, a purple planet, a yellow star, a magenta planet, and a green planet.

After some debate over who goes first, eventually it's settled on a simple roll of the dice, and Aaron ends up with that privilege. His luck is both good and bad, as he gets two ones, causing him to move two of his seven pieces forward once. Irina goes next, rolling one and three. This is followed by Faexina, who is **** to move one piece forward once and the other to the end of her side. Qilen, on the other hand, is able to double his pieces up two spaces from his start. That brings it around to you. You roll the two seven-sided dice, and they land on one and seven. Counting out, that means that one of your pieces can't move, unless . . . you move one piece forward once, and then move it once more, seven spaces forward, just barely past Giovanni's wall, who thankfully doesn't roll a one but a three and a six.

As play continues, you notice something interesting - the other four players seem to almost be trying to gang up on Aaron and Giovanni. When you inquire about it, Irina chimes in, "well if we don't, they win. Even with this, they have a good shot." Oh, dang. Play continues, and in time the first player to be eliminated is Faexina, who unfortunately loses her last magenta piece to one of Giovanni's orange ones. Dang, Irina wasn't joking. However, it does seem that the lot of you have successfully taken them down a peg or two: Aaron is down to just two pieces, and Giovanni has three. You and Qilen, on the other hand, both have five pieces remaining, while Irina has two and Violet just one.

Giovanni is the next to get out, amazingly enough, while Irina has lost one other piece, leaving her with just one, and Qilen loses one as well (however, this leaves him with four). You, on the other hand, have had quite the turn in luck, being left with just two pieces. Meanwhile, Violet somehow has kept her one piece. Now that Giovanni is out, the other players seem to take the duo of alleged smart people way less seriously, leading some players to turn on Qilen, who has nearly half the pieces. However, play also begins to slow, as few enough pieces remain such that captures start to become far more difficult.

The next piece to get out is one of Aaron's, by one of Qilen's green pieces. Qilen simply smiles, as he now has four of the remaining nine pieces. Play continues, and you notice that Qilen starts to have his focus broken, his cheeks reddening. Wait, is someone . . .? You look up, studying everyone's expressions, but no one's face reveals anything. However, Qilen speaks up, "Faexina, don't tell me you're resorting to cheating when you're not even in the game?" "Really now, accusing the rogue of cheating? I'm going to go grab some cake." She gets up and heads out of the room; however, Qilen's blush only deepens. Faexina turns around, "despite how cute you are when someone plays with you like this, Qilen, hopefully you understand now that it's not me." He blushes, adding a deep crimson to his already reddened cheeks.

Play continues, the mysterious rogue who's not the rogue unrevealed in their antics. Despite the loss of concentration by Qilen, Aaron is ejected from the game rather quickly, his last piece being **** out by Violet's last piece on her second move of that piece. Well, you suppose something like that was bound to happen eventually. He stands from the table, but Qilen's playmate has obviously continued their activities, making it obviously not the wizard, either. "I think I'll join Faexina for some cake. Good luck, by the way Qi, if it's who I think it is you'll need it." He simply groans, unable to maintain his focus enough to snap back a retort.

With Qilen's focus completely out the window, he's the next to lose a piece, to you this time. This is followed by one of yours being claimed by Qilen, almost as if in retribution. However, it would seem that Irina is the next to lose a piece, once more to Violet's second move. This leaves you, Irina, and Violet with one piece each; Qilen still has three, despite his lack of focus. Suddenly you realize: Violet has to be the one playing with him; you were told that Irina is a lesbian. You look over to her questioningly, and she simply raises a finger to her lips. Caught red-handed, you suppose.

Play continues for several hours without any more pieces being eliminated, and you gain quite a bit of respect for Violet - without being able to see what she's doing, she's managed to make it so Qilen hasn't cum. By now, Aaron and Faexina have returned, chocolate cake crumbs on their mouths. "It took you two three hours to eat cake?" Irina asks. Aaron pipes up, "we may have gotten a bit distracted." He looks over, "oh dang, Vi's really gotten Qi on the ropes, hasn't she?" You look to Qilen to see his reaction, but it seems that he's in no state to process what was just said.

The next piece to be eliminated is yours, by Irina. Surprisingly, this is quickly followed by Irina's piece being taken by Qilen, who despite everything, has somehow managed to keep playing. Now it's down to just the two involved in some sort of additional game under the table; you briefly consider going to search for some of that cake, but you don't know where the kitchen is and besides, you kinda want to see how this turns out. In theory, Qilen has enough of an advantage that he should have no problem winning, but then Violet gets a lucky roll and manages to snag one of Qilen's remaining three pieces.

After another twenty minutes or so, she once more gets lucky, causing Qilen to have a single piece remaining. You give her a strange look, wondering if her under the table cheating is also reflected above board. "Nah, even if I had the ability to do that, Giovanni put a permanent antimagic field in the area of the table after Aaron used illusion magic one too many times." So she's really good at reading people, good to know.

After about an hour more of play, Qilen ends up getting an opportunity to take Violet's pawn five spaces from his, at which point he suddenly has his concentration slightly rejoin him. "Why did you stop?" "Oh, I don't know, I don't see much point in continuing if the game's not going to continue." He looks distraught over these words, but hesitates to make his move, as if trying to resist the corruption Violet is offering him. After a moment, though, he moves his pawn forward seven, then five spaces. "Good boy," responds Violet with a rich silk in her voice, as Qilen's concentration is once again destroyed - seems whatever under the table antics were going on have resumed. "Holy Magica, seems the inseductible bard can be seduced after all!" you hear from Aaron's mouth. Violet rolls the dice, which land on 5 and 7 once more; she, in her mostly clarity of mind, of course moves seven first, capturing Qilen's last remaining piece.

"Now Qilen, do you want your reward now, or tonight in my room?" In a rare moment of clarity for him these past few hours, he says "tonight will do just fine." "Perfect timing then," Giovanni states. "Because dinner is just about ready." Now that he mentions is, you are rather hungry — did the game really take up the whole day? You look out the window to see the setting sun; it would seem it indeed did. You follow the rest of everyone to the dining room, where Giovanni and Irina are bringing food to the table. Now when did they get the time to do that, during the game?