Overview:

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Topher, his cousins, and their friend Roanne—the players—discover that in the Seven Worlds board game, birth order from oldest to youngest determines the turn sequence. Michael, playing as Spartan, rolls double ones—“snake eyes”—and a twist rule allows the fiercely competitive boy to advance straight to FINISH just as he begins. Allison, as Love Fey, becomes the only token to reach the Beehive, the southeastern panel of the board, by the fifth turn, triggering another hidden rule that makes the sassy girl the second-place winner. Sophie, Bee Girl, lands on a special platform called a FATE space, prompting her to draw a card from the Chest of Destiny. This leads to a chain reaction: the unassuming girl reaches the ninth FATE space and draws the ninth fate card, which reads, “ADVANCE TO FINISH.” James correctly guesses the answer in a surprise mid-game mini-game involving a compass rose, earning himself fourth place. When a token reaches the crystal ball at the board’s center, a bright “star”—a Luminary, a radiant celestial body—begins to revolve around the central core of the game: the Star of Vis.

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Benjamin pushes his glasses up the bridge of his nose—classic know-it-all move, straight out of every anime club president ever. “The rules stated that descending birth order—eldest to youngest—is the basis for the order of turns.” His finger taps the parchment rules like he’s citing the Geneva Convention.

Michael rolls his eyes so hard they might disconnect from their sockets. The kid’s wearing a faded red shirt that’s seen better days, and right now his arms cross in peak defiance mode. “Alright, alright—no need to shove it down our throats. Let’s get to it.”

Total rebel-without-a-cause energy. If this were an RPG party, Michael would be the chaotic neutral rogue who lockpicks everything just because he can.

James—Mr. Diplomat himself—flashes that easy smile that probably gets him out of detention weekly. His fingers drum against his knee, already itching for his guitar that’s propped against the cave wall. “If that’s the case, you go first, Roanne.”

Roanne’s fifteen and carries herself like she knows it. Her hand hovers over her token—this intricately detailed mermaid princess, all gray clay curves and a tiny trident that probably took someone hours to sculpt. She places it on START with the kind of careful precision that makes you think she’s played enough board games to know when something’s about to go sideways.

The START space looks hand-calligraphed onto parchment shaped like a heraldic shield. Very Lord of the Rings aesthetic. Someone put actual effort into this thing.

The tokens line up like a character select screen: James (14), Benjamin (13), Michael (11), Topher (9), Allison (7), and little Sophie (4) who barely reaches the edge of the board when she leans forward. Seven clay tokens, seven players, seven genres mashed together like the world’s weirdest crossover fanfic.

Topher’s voice cuts through—high-pitched, earnest, painfully sincere. “We have to win this and complete the game. I believe this is the only way to save my little friend and free him from the board.”

Nobody’s looking at him. Classic NPC dialogue that everyone skips.

Then the crystal ball does its thing.

The blue-white star erupts from the navy sphere like a Windows screensaver gone sentient—all sparkles and whoosh effects. It floats there, suspended in mid-air, casting shifting shadows across seven surprised faces. The bonfire crackles behind them, painting everything in warm orange that clashes beautifully with the star’s cold blue glow.

Very Kingdom Hearts meets Poltergeist.

“My friend, you’re finally free.” Topher’s voice wobbles, his eyes going glassy with tears. The kid’s nine and believes in magic the way some people believe in Wi-Fi—completely, despite never seeing the actual waves. “You can go back to the stars in the night sky.”

He waits. They all wait.

The star just… hovers. Stationary. Like a game that’s frozen mid-cutscene.

Topher’s face falls—disappointment crashing through his features like a failed quick-time event. His shoulders slump inside his oversized hoodie. “Something’s not right. My friend here isn’t moving from his position. He’s still stuck in some way.”

Benjamin adjusts his glasses again. Of course he does. “Must be a hologram.”

His tone screams rational explanation for everything, the kind of voice that would explain away UFOs as weather balloons and Bigfoot as a guy in a suit. He gestures at the floating star with the confidence of someone who’s binge-watched Neil deGrasse Tyson documentaries.

But here’s the thing nobody’s saying: holograms don’t pulse with light that reflects in seven sets of eyes. They don’t make the air shimmer with potential energy. They don’t feel alive.

The cave walls flicker between shadow and light—stalactites hanging like frozen lightning bolts overhead. The storm rages outside, waves crashing against rock, but inside this chamber, time feels suspended. Like the moment before a game autosaves and you know—you know—something big is about to happen.

The board sits between them, a pizza-slice arrangement of seven worlds: Heaven’s gold, Space’s blue, Kaleidoscope’s pink, Sea’s teal, Battlefield’s red, Concert’s magenta, Beehive’s orange. Each segment is its own genre, its own story, waiting to collide.

Seven kids. Seven tokens. Seven worlds.

One cosmic cataclysm loading at 99%.

Any minute now.

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Roanne’s hand hovers over the dice—two ivory cubes that look hand-carved, worn smooth at the edges like they’ve been rolling since the Renaissance. She’s fifteen, the designated Big Sister of this whole operation, and right now her dark eyes narrow with the kind of concentration you see in speedrunners attempting a world record.

The dice clatter across the board. Five and a four. Nine.

“Alright, here we go—” Roanne reaches for her mermaid princess token, fingers just grazing the cool clay surface.

The token moves on its own.

One space. Two. Three. The little gray figure glides across red platforms like it’s on invisible rails, skipping through the Battlefield world with its heroes at dusk. Four, five, six. The mermaid’s tiny trident seems to shimmer in the firelight. Seven, eight, nine—click. It settles onto its destination with mechanical precision.

Seven jaws drop in perfect synchronization. Very Stranger Things title card energy.

Benjamin’s already pushing up his glasses—the universal gesture of Smart Kid About To Drop Knowledge. “Must be magnetized.” His voice carries that NDT-explaining-astrophysics confidence. “Probably rare earth magnets embedded in the board. The dice trigger specific pathways based on the number rolled. Clever engineering, really.”

James grins, his whole face lighting up like someone just announced free concert tickets. He’s wearing this vintage band tee—something Korean, probably from whatever K-pop group people currently obsessed with. “Nice automatic tokens.” His fingers drum an unconscious rhythm against his knee. Always making the best of weird situations, this one. The kind of guy who’d turn a zombie apocalypse into a dance party.

Classic support-class optimism.

James and Benjamin take their turns next, their tokens skating across the eastern panel—the Battlefield world rendered in miniature. Tiny red platforms wind through a diorama of superheroes mid-battle, frozen in dramatic poses against a sunset that’s either beautiful or ominous depending on your genre awareness. The rocky terrain is detailed enough that you can see individual pebbles, each one probably smaller than a Tic Tac.

Someone put work into this board. Like, art-school-final-project levels of work.

Then Michael steps up. Eleven years old, all elbows and attitude, wearing that jersey shirt like battle armor. He scoops up the dice with the kind of aggressive enthusiasm usually reserved for boss fights.

The dice tumble. Spin. Land.

Snake eyes. Double ones.

Two perfect black dots stare up from each die like the universe just blinked.

The shooting star vanishes.

One second it’s there—floating, pulsing, very much present in three-dimensional space. The next? Gone. Not faded. Not dimmed. Just gone, like someone hit Ctrl+Z on reality.

“Where did my Buddy go?” Topher’s voice cracks with panic. The nine-year-old scrambles to his knees, gilet sleeves falling over his hands as he frantically searches the air around the board. His eyes are wide—that specific kind of childhood terror when your favorite toy goes missing. “Buddy? BUDDY?”

He drops his gaze to the crystal ball.

The navy sphere swirls with light—spiraling patterns of blue-white luminescence that look like someone compressed the entire Milky Way into a snow globe. It rotates slowly, hypnotically, and then—

Text materializes mid-air.

Glowing blue-white letters hover above the board like a video game HUD, the font somewhere between medieval manuscript and sci-fi hologram. Very Elden Ring meets Mass Effect.

HIDDEN RULE

VIII. Should you roll a double one on START, advance directly to FINISH.

The words pulse once, twice, then fade to transparency before vanishing completely.

Benjamin’s already theorizing. Of course he is. “The animation with the shooting star and the text just now—there are microchips inside the board. Maybe even an entire motherboard with wires.” He leans closer, squinting at the board’s edges like he’s trying to spot the seams in a magic trick. “Probably LED projection technology. Maybe even a small computer running custom software. The craftsmanship is impressive, but it’s not—”

“Magic,” Sophie interrupts. Four years old and already done with scientific explanations. She sits cross-legged on the cave floor, her hands tucked under her chin, eyes reflecting the blue-white glow. Her voice carries absolute conviction—the kind only small children and cult leaders can pull off. “It’s simply magic.”

The debate of every fantasy story ever: Clarke’s Third Law versus actual wizardry.

Michael’s still processing. His mouth hangs open slightly, token frozen in his grip. “Whoa, did I just win?” The question comes out half-disbelief, half-victory-lap-warmup.

His superhero token—Spartan, all sleeveless spandex glory with those classic Bronze Age comic proportions, complete with headgear that screams Ancient Greece meets X-Men—launches forward.

Not slides. Not glides. Launches.

The gray clay figure arcs through the air in defiance of physics, soaring over six different worlds, over a hundred tiny platforms, straight to the golden FINISH space in the Heaven panel. It lands with a tiny clink that somehow sounds triumphant.

“HELL YEAH! I placed first!” Michael pumps both fists overhead, practically levitating with hype. His voice echoes off the cave walls, competing with the thunder outside. “FIRST PLACE, BABY! EAT MY DUST, LOSERS!”

Benjamin’s scientific worldview visibly cracks. “What a powerful magnet!” His voice jumps an octave. The kid’s seen his token move automatically—that was weird but explainable. This? This is watching your physics textbook spontaneously combust. “That’s impossible. The trajectory alone would require—”

The superhero token climbs.

Tiny clay hands grip the edge of one of seven silver pedestals surrounding the crystal ball, pulling itself up with the determination of a platformer protagonist. It stands tall on the pedestal, striking a heroic pose inside the Visean Zodiac—that band of constellation glyphs encircling the board’s center.

The silver button marking Spartan’s constellation symbol flares bright, then shifts—metallic silver bleeding into liquid gold that spreads through one segment of the zodiac band like infection in reverse.

The shooting star reappears. Pop. Just manifests back over the crystal ball like it never left, like reality just finished buffering.

Topher exhales so hard his whole body deflates. “Buddy! You’re back!” Relief floods his features—the kind of pure, uncomplicated joy that makes you remember what it was like before everything got complicated.

The hidden rule text? Gone. Disappeared like a Snapchat after viewing.

Something else happens.

The scarlet luminary—closest concentric ring to the central star—ignites. Brilliant crimson light erupts from the sphere, and it begins to move. Slowly at first, then faster, revolving around the blue-white shooting star in its designated plane. The motion is smooth, orbital, like watching a time-lapse of planetary movement.

The crystal ball projects the entire Visean Cosmos in miniature hologram—geocentric universe with the Star of Vis at the center, one colored luminary orbiting in its concentric plane. Right now, only the scarlet one is there. The other six remain hidden, waiting.

Benjamin watches with the intensity of someone reverse-engineering alien technology. “So that’s what happens when an acolyte is hailed—when a token reaches FINISH and stands on a pedestal, a luminary revolves around the Star of Vis, the shooting star.”

His voice has shifted from skeptical to analytical. The kid’s already building theories, connecting systems, mapping game mechanics in his head.

Topher nods slowly, his gaze locked on the miniature cosmos. “To finish the game, all seven luminaries must show.”

Seven luminaries. Seven pedestals. Seven players.

Six more to go.

Outside, thunder rolls. Inside, something ancient and strange hums with potential energy, like the pause between lightning and thunder—that moment when you know something’s coming but you don’t know what.

The bonfire crackles. Seven shadows dance on cave walls. And the game continues loading its cosmic endgame sequence, one dice roll at a time.

Achievement Unlocked: First Acolyte Ascending.

Current Progress: 1/7

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Michael’s on the ground doing push-ups like he’s training for the Super Soldier serum.

“Eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen…”

His arms pump with mechanical precision, his shirt stretching with each rep. The kid’s literally outside the circle of players, exiling himself to Gains Island while everyone else focuses on the increasingly-weird board game. Very gym bro meets fantasy quest energy—the kind of multiclassing that shouldn’t work but somehow does.

Classic impatient player behavior. Can’t sit still during other people’s turns, so might as well grind that STR stat IRL.

Allison reaches for the dice—seven years old and already radiating main-character energy. Her fingers, small and careful, scoop up the ivory cubes. They tumble across the board with that satisfying clack-clack-clack that all good dice make, the sound bouncing off cave walls like nature’s own sound effects.

The numbers settle. Whatever they show (the universe keeps its secrets), it’s enough.

Her magical girl token responds immediately—because of course it does, that’s just how this haunted board game operates now. The figure’s all early-teen proportions rendered in gray clay: tiara perched on sculpted hair, long gloves reaching the elbows, that classic magical girl dress with impossible physics, heart wand raised like she’s about to friendship-beam someone into next Tuesday, boots that probably have hidden weapons in the heels.

Very Sailor Moon meets Cardcaptor Sakura meets every magical girl anime that’s ever existed.

The token glides forward along tiny orange platforms—the Beehive world in the Southeast panel. The detail work is insane: male bee workers frozen mid-flight, their wings carved with individual segments. A river of honey flows through the miniature landscape, its surface catching firelight and glowing amber-gold. Hexagonal structures rise like geometric mountains. Someone watched Bee Movie and said “I can make this epicer.”

The crystal ball flickers. The Visean Universe—that whole Aristotelian cosmos with its concentric planes and revolving luminaries—vanishes. Just blinks out of existence like a browser tab closing.

Benjamin tenses. His shoulders go rigid, jaw clenching. “Another hidden rule.”

His voice carries this new edge—wariness creeping in like he’s finally realizing this isn’t just clever engineering. This is something else. The rational-explanation kid is running out of rational explanations, and you can see it in the way his hands grip his knees, knuckles going pale.

Text materializes mid-air. Blue-white letters hovering in three-dimensional space, glowing with that eerie quality that makes your eyes water if you stare too long.

HIDDEN RULE

IX. On the fifth turn, should your token be the only one inside the beehive in the Southeast, proceed directly to FINISH.

Allison’s face transforms—eyes widening, lips curving into this smile that’s pure vindication. “I really must be the special Queen Bee.”

Her voice drips with seven-year-old smugness, the kind that cuts deeper than any adult sarcasm. She leans forward, watching her magical girl token begin its journey. The figure moves with grace—not the aggressive launch Michael’s superhero pulled, but smooth, elegant, like it’s floating on an invisible conveyor belt made of sparkles and destiny.

The only token in the Beehive. Solo run. Speedrunner strat accidentally discovered.

“See, my magical girl has manners,” Allison announces, volume cranked loud enough to cut through the sound of Michael’s ongoing push-ups. “Unlike someone whose token just leaped to FINISH.”

The shade. THE SHADE. Delivered with perfect timing, eyebrow arched, head tilted just so.

Michael doesn’t react. “Sixteen, seventeen, eighteen…” His world exists purely in the push-up dimension right now, population: one extremely focused eleven-year-old and his biceps.

The magical girl token reaches FINISH in the Heaven panel—that golden sky illuminated by holy light, very Kingdom Hearts final world aesthetic. She ascends to her pedestal with the poise of someone who knows the camera’s on her, striking a pose that somehow radiates both power and cuteness simultaneously.

The zodiac band segment beneath her shifts—silver bleeding into rose-gold, marking her constellation as active.

The pink luminary ignites.

It’s the Second Plane, farther out from the center than Michael’s scarlet first plane. The pink sphere erupts with soft luminescence—think sakura petals and cotton candy and every stereotypically feminine color palette ever, but somehow it works. The luminary begins its orbital dance around the blue-white shooting star, revolving in its concentric ring with the kind of mathematical precision that makes you wonder if Newton’s laws still apply here.

Two luminaries now. Two acolytes ascending. Five more to go.

Allison sits back, satisfaction radiating from every pore of her small frame. “Okay, I’ll concede to being second place.” Her tone suggests she’s doing everyone a massive favor by accepting reality. “After all, at the royal court, the King comes before the Queen.”

The logic is hilariously flawed—Michael’s a superhero, not royalty, and she’s a magical girl, not actual monarchy—but try telling that to a seven-year-old who just discovered a hidden win condition and exploited it like a pro gamer.

She crosses her arms, chin lifted, the picture of dignified acceptance. Still deems her ranking good enough, which is very protagonist-who-doesn’t-need-first-place-to-prove-anything energy.

Michael hits twenty push-ups and finally stops, rolling onto his back, chest heaving. He stares at the cave ceiling, completely oblivious to the royal court dynamics he’s apparently now part of.

The bonfire crackles. Two luminaries revolve. Five pedestals remain empty.

The game’s pattern emerges: hidden rules, automatic advancement, one acolyte at a time ascending to their cosmic throne. It’s like watching a video game’s achievement system manifest in physical reality—each milestone triggering the next phase of whatever this increasingly-strange board game actually is.

Progress: 2/7 Acolytes

Next achievement loading…

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Michael’s migrated to a different corner of the cave, switching from push-ups to sit-ups like he’s cycling through a workout playlist. His back’s against rough stone, knees bent, hands behind his head—textbook form that would make any gym teacher proud.

“Sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty…”

The count echoes off cavern walls, mixing with the distant thunder and the crackling bonfire. Kid’s treating this supernatural board game session like it’s CrossFit training montage time. Very Rocky meets Jumanji, if Rocky decided cardio was more important than watching jungle animals materialize from a cursed game.

Meanwhile, Allison’s in full content-creator mode.

She’s abandoned the vlogging circle, kneeling in front of her phone—propped up on this tiny tripod that’s probably worth more than the phone itself. The screen glows against her face, casting that distinctive smartphone-blue that every parent complains about at dinner. She’s recording for Musical.ly, which is basically TikTok’s awkward preteen phase, before it got cool and took over the world.

Her routine unfolds with practiced precision: a little dance move (some trendy thing that’ll be outdated in three months), followed by exaggerated pretty faces—eyes wide, lips pursed, the works. Then poses that she’s definitely copied from whatever influencer is hot right now. The whole performance screams Main Character Syndrome, but honestly? Seven-year-olds get a pass for that. It’s practically their superpower.

Very Instagram generation meets cave adventure. The aesthetic contrast is chef’s kiss.

Sophie’s turn rolls around—literally.

Four years old and she approaches those dice like they’re sacred artifacts. Her small hands barely wrap around both cubes. They tumble across the board with that perfect clack-clack percussion, bouncing off the wooden frame before settling into their final numbers.

Her bee girl token responds on cue.

And okay, let’s talk about this token because it’s detailed. Whoever sculpted these things deserves a raise or at least a shoutout in the credits. The bee girl sports a bob cut—very Dora the Explorer hair situation—with antennae poking up from her head like biological Wi-Fi receivers. Insect wings sprout from her back, delicate and veined like stained glass windows scaled down to toy size. There’s a honeybee’s abdomen complete with stinger attachment—accurate entomology mixed with cartoon physics.

She’s rocking goggles pushed up on her forehead (classic anime pilot aesthetic), fingerless gloves (because of course), a varsity jacket thrown over a tube top (the 90s called, they want their fashion back, and honestly it still works), cycling shorts, and running shoes that look ready for a marathon or a monster fight, whichever comes first.

The token’s a whole vibe—tomboy athlete meets insect hybrid meets Saturday morning cartoon protagonist. If this were a character select screen, she’d be the speedster class for sure.

The bee girl advances across platforms, her trajectory carrying her toward the Southwest panel. She lands with a tiny clink on a powder blue platform that practically glows against the darker concert scene backdrop.

The Concert world is rendered in dramatic contrast—black silhouette figures frozen mid-cheer, arms raised, bodies pressed together in that universal concert crowd formation. They’re waving glowsticks in cyan, magenta, and yellow, the tiny props catching light like miniature lightsabers. White spotlights beam down from invisible sources, creating this whole arena show atmosphere compressed into a board game panel. The magenta platforms wind through the scene like a VIP pathway through the mosh pit.

Very K-pop concert meets rave meets Broadway, all crammed into a space bigger than a dinner plate.

“A Fate Space, nice.” James grins, the proud big brother energy radiating from every pore. His fingers drum that unconscious rhythm against his knee—the kid’s basically a walking metronome. “That’s good luck, Sophie.”

Allison’s head snaps around. Her content-creator instincts kick in like Spider-sense tingling. “Someone landed on a Fate Space for the first time, I need to vlog this.”

She abandons her Musical.ly project mid-pose, lunging for her phone and practically speed-crawling back to the players’ circle. The tripod gets left behind in her wake—a casualty of breaking news in the board game world. She angles her phone camera to capture maximum drama, her face already morphing into that exaggerated vlogger expression: eyes wide, mouth slightly open, the universal thumbnail face of YouTube clickbait.

The Chest of Destiny—miniature sky blue box with gold trim that looks lifted straight from a Legend of Zelda game—opens itself.

No hands. No triggers. Just smooth mechanical motion revealing a tiny silver deck of Fate Cards inside, each one smaller than a postage stamp.

“You have to pick a card from the deck.” Allison’s coaching Sophie for the vlog, her voice taking on that explaining-to-the-audience quality. Every influencer’s secret weapon: turning mundane actions into Content™.

“Alright.” Sophie’s voice is small, careful. Her fingers—so tiny they make the cards look normal-sized—pluck one from the deck.

She reads aloud, squinting at microscopic text: “Go to the next Fate Space.”

The bee girl token moves. Automatic, smooth, gliding across magenta platforms like she’s on rails. She settles onto another powder blue space.

The chest opens again. Click.

“Oh, two Fate Spaces in a row.” Allison’s sass levels spike. Her eyebrows arch with that well well well energy, already imagining the views this footage will get.

Sophie draws again. Her face scrunches in concentration. “Go to the next Fate Space.”

Click. The chest opens. The token moves. Rinse and repeat.

“That’s the third one.” James laughs, the sound genuine and warm. “Lady Luck must be on your side.”

But it doesn’t stop.

Fourth Fate Space. “Go to the next Fate Space.”

Fifth. Same card. Same instruction.

Sixth. The pattern holds.

By the seventh Fate Space, everyone’s leaning in. Even Michael’s paused his workout—frozen mid-sit-up, abs clenched, watching this probability-defying chain unfold like he’s witnessing a glitch in the Matrix.

Because this? This is statistically insane. If the deck’s shuffled randomly, pulling the same instruction seven times in a row is like winning a very specific, very weird lottery. The odds are astronomical—we’re talking getting-struck-by-lightning-while-holding-a-winning-lottery-ticket levels of improbable.

Eighth Fate Space. Sophie’s movements are mechanical now, autopilot engaged. Draw card. Read. Move. Repeat.

Ninth Fate Space.

“Woah! Unbelievable, it must be fate.” James can’t keep the awe out of his voice. His grin stretches ear to ear, and then he drops this gem: “I read the Pisces horoscope earlier, and it said today is magical for a Piscean like you, Sophie.”

The astrology reference is so James—mixing pop culture, superstition, and older-brother teasing into one perfectly delivered package. Kid probably doesn’t even believe in horoscopes, but he’ll weaponize them for comedic effect anyway.

Sophie’s hand hovers over the Chest of Destiny. Ninth card. She’s hoping—you can see it in her face, that universal kid expression of please let this be over—that this is the final one.

She draws.

Scans the text.

Her eyes go wide.

“Go to the FINISH.”

Beat. Two seconds of processing.

“Oh.”

The bee girl token launches.

Not glides. Not slides. Launches.

She arcs upward—almost horizontal flight path that defies every magnetic explanation Benjamin’s built in his head—soaring over six different world panels, over a hundred tiny platforms, over the crystal ball itself. The token flies like she’s got jet propulsion, like someone activated her secret flight mode, like the game just said screw physics and hit the hyperdrive button.

She lands on the FINISH space with perfect precision. Climbs her pedestal. Strikes a pose—goggles now over her eyes, wings spread wide, ready for action.

Benjamin’s having a crisis.

His rational mind is breaking. You can see the gears grinding behind his glasses, the mental calculations failing to add up. If there are magnets inside the board, how could the bee girl have flown almost horizontally, well above the board’s surface?

His internal monologue practically writes itself across his face. Forehead creased, eyes narrowed, mouth set in that thin line of someone whose worldview is actively crumbling. If that’s the case, those magnets are more powerful than I thought.

Which is Science Kid speak for I have no idea what’s happening and it terrifies me.

The yellow luminary ignites.

Third Plane. Farther out than Allison’s pink, farther still from Michael’s scarlet. The yellow sphere erupts with light—think sunshine, honey, optimism bottled into cosmic form—and begins its orbital revolution around the blue-white shooting star. Three luminaries now, each in their concentric ring, moving with clockwork precision.

The Visean Cosmos is filling out. Three down, four to go.

Allison adjusts her phone angle, making sure she got all that on camera. “You ranked third.”

She congratulates Sophie, but there’s this tone—carefully modulated big-sister superiority. The subtext screams good for you, but I’m still second place, which is obviously better. The smile’s genuine, the competitive edge is real. Seven-year-olds are complicated like that.

Sophie beams anyway, four years old and just happy to have a glowing cosmic sphere with her name on it.

The bonfire crackles. Three pedestals occupied. Four empty thrones waiting.

Michael returns to his sit-ups. Allison resumes vlogging. The game continues its march toward whatever cosmic endgame awaits when all seven luminaries finally spin.

Achievement Unlocked: Fate Chain Master

Consecutive Fate Spaces: 9

Current Progress: 3/7 Acolytes

Remaining players experiencing increasing concern about board game physics: 4/4

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Michael’s still in his fitness dimension, jogging in place now like he’s grinding cardio stats. His feet pound a rhythm against cave stone—thump-thump-thump-thump—creating this weird percussion track underneath everything else happening. His shirt bounces with each step.

Allison’s back at her Musical.ly station, phone propped up, recording take seventeen of whatever dance trend is currently destroying the algorithm. Her silhouette moves against the cave wall, shadow-dancing with firelight.

Sophie—already finished, already ascending-to-cosmic-pedestal done—sits cross-legged in the players’ circle, black crayon gripped in her tiny fist. She’s sketching something on a small pad in her lap, tongue poking out the corner of her mouth in that universal sign of Kid Concentration Mode. Probably drawing the bee girl, or the board, or whatever four-year-olds draw when they’ve just witnessed reality bend to their luck stat.

James reaches for the dice. Fourteen years old and carrying that easy confidence that comes from being the Cool Older Cousin. His fingers scoop up the cubes—they’ve gotten warm from all the rolling, absorbing heat from seven different hands and the bonfire’s glow.

The dice tumble. Land. Numbers show.

His K-pop idol token springs to life.

Oppa Rockstar is dressed to perform. The detail work is ridiculous—stylized headset wrapped around sculpted hair, visor glasses that look like they’re from a cyberpunk music video, jacket with collar popped (obviously), shirt underneath (layering is key), fingerless gloves (because regular gloves are for people who don’t play guitar), pants with probably too many zippers, sneakers that are definitely limited edition. And he’s holding an electric guitar—not acoustic, electric—slung low like he’s about to drop the sickest riff this board game has ever heard.

Very K-pop meets rock star meets anime protagonist. The genre fusion works somehow.

The token glides forward across teal platforms—the Sea world in the West panel. The underwater scene is immersive: coral formations branching like frozen trees, seaweed swaying in invisible currents, fish suspended mid-swim, foam bubbles rising toward a surface that doesn’t exist. The platforms wind through this aquatic landscape like an underwater highway, each tiny teal space smaller than the tokens themselves.

Then the board changes.

The Visean Cosmos flickers out—pop—replaced by new text floating mid-air. But this time it’s different. Not a Hidden Rule announcement. Something else.

MINIGAME

The Four Winds

Below the title, an image materializes—a compass rose rendered in that same blue-white glow. Eight directions marked clearly: North, Northeast, East, Southeast, South, Southwest, West, Northwest. Each point pulses with subtle light, like they’re selectable options in a menu screen.

More text scrolls beneath:

Before you, followers, are the cardinal directions—North, West, East, and South—and the ordinal directions. Guess the location where the Star of Vis will appear. Should you guess it right, advance to FINISH.

Benjamin’s face does this thing. His jaw tightens, eyes narrowing behind his glasses. “There’s a minigame?”

The question comes out flat, tinged with annoyance—like the game just added DLC he didn’t consent to downloading. The kid’s a rules guy, a systems guy, and systems that spontaneously introduce NEW systems make his brain itch. He’s the type who reads instruction manuals cover to cover, and this board just went surprise mechanics on him.

Not particularly pleased is an understatement. He looks like someone just told him the final exam has a secret oral component.

“Even better!” James grins wide, the contrast to Benjamin’s skepticism perfect. Where Benjamin sees chaos, James sees opportunity. The kid’s a born performer—throw him a curveball and he’ll turn it into choreography. “This is awesome!”

He doesn’t hesitate. “I’m betting Southwest—the world of the concert.”

The choice is so on-brand it hurts. Of course the K-pop idol token would manifest in the concert world. It’s like the universe is playing to type, and James knows it. His finger points to the Southwest section of the compass rose with the confidence of someone who’s memorized the board layout, who’s been paying attention while everyone else was distracted by workout routines and vlogging sessions.

Nonchalant. Decisive. Very protagonist energy.

“I’m choosing North—the Heavens,” Topher pipes up, nine years old and happy to participate. His voice carries that earnest enthusiasm, like guessing in a minigame is the best thing that’s happened all night. Which, given the cosmic cataclysm situation brewing, might actually be true.

Roanne shifts uncomfortably. Fifteen and feeling put on the spot. “Um, the West—the sea, I guess?”

Reluctant guess. The older-sister-who-doesn’t-want-to-look-too-invested tone. But she plays along because that’s what you do when magical board games demand participation.

Benjamin sighs—deep, long, the kind of sigh that says I am cooperating under protest. “The Northwest—the nebula in space.”

He picks the sci-fi world because of course he does. Even when annoyed, the kid’s consistent with his aesthetic. Begrudgingly obliging himself to this surprise minigame like it’s community service.

The compass rose spins. I rotate in mid-air, each direction blurring into the next, building tension like a game show wheel. The cave fills with that blue-white glow, shadows dancing crazy patterns across stone walls.

“Oh, here it is,” James says, leaning forward. Anticipation vibrates through his whole body.

The compass slows. Slows. Stops.

Arrow pointing: Southwest.

The Star of Vis materializes in the concert panel—appearing among the black silhouettes and glowsticks, shining like a spotlight’s found its main act.

“YES!” James pumps his fist skyward, nearly knocking over the board in his excitement. “Lady Luck must be on my side!”

His grin could power small cities. The validation, the rightness of calling it—this is his moment and he’s living in it.

The K-pop idol token doesn’t just move. It grooves.

Seriously. The thing advances toward FINISH with this swagger, like it’s riding an invisible moving walkway made of bass drops and confidence. Very airport-travellator-meets-music-video energy. The token practically dances across platforms, guitar catching light, visor glasses gleaming.

It reaches FINISH. Ascends the pedestal. Strikes a rock-star pose—one leg forward, guitar held high, ready to shred an epic solo for the cosmos.

The orange luminary ignites.

Fourth Plane. Farther out than Sophie’s yellow, creating this expanding ring of activated spheres around the central shooting star. The orange light erupts warm and energetic—think sunset, think autumn, think every inspirational sports movie training montage color-graded just right.

Four luminaries now revolving in their concentric planes. Four acolytes on their pedestals. Four genres represented in cosmic form.

Three empty thrones remaining.

Michael’s still jogging. The rhythm hasn’t broken. Thump-thump-thump-thump. Kid missed the entire minigame while cardio-grinding.

The bonfire crackles its approval. Thunder rumbles outside like the universe is keeping beat.

Achievement Unlocked: Minigame Master

Correct Guess: Southwest

Current Progress: 4/7 Acolytes

Players discovering this board has game mechanics: 4/4

Players concerned about what other surprises are programmed in: Rising