Thief of Time

Dia was sitting around and playing a game of Moon Phase with herself. Moon Phase was a simple, yet popular game. It was played on a gameboard eight spaces wide and four pieces long, with circular pieces that represented the phases of the Moons; every player had eight new moon pieces, two crescents, two half-moons, two gibbous moons, and one full moon.

The rules were simple: players would choose a colour, and then turn all their pieces face down. They would then scramble their pieces, and then place their facedown pieces on any of the thirty-two spaces on the board, taking turns to place four pieces at once. Once done, there would be two vacant spaces on the board, as a way to reduce issues stemming from bad luck or judgement.

Every turn, a player could either flip a piece, or move a revealed piece of their own to either an empty space, or to capture a revealed opposing piece in any direction. There was a hierarchy of pieces too — full moons could capture everything except for new moons and their opposing number, gibbous moons could capture anything but a full moon, half-moons could only capture crescents and new moons, while crescents could capture new moons.

As for new moons, they were simultaneously the weakest and the strongest pieces on the board. After all, the objective of the game was to capture the opponent’s full moon with a new moon. Losing all new moons also meant defeat, and to make it worse, new moons could capture their opposite number.

There were games that were decided even before the full moons were revealed, and the mere thought of it was enough to remind Claud about how politics and fights were like in real-life — people could be killed before they could use their trump cards.

He sighed and walked up to Dia.

“Hi, Claud.” Dia’s eyes were still fixed on the board.

“Playing a game by yourself?”

“Yeah,” Dia replied.

She was playing a variant of Moon Phase; instead of choosing where individual pieces went on the board, Dia had arranged the pieces randomly, placing all the pieces down without looking for them. This variant was highly-dependent on luck; if a full moon opened beside an opposing new moon in such a mode…

Well, Claud, on a personal basis, would recommend that person to stay at home the whole day.

This aspect, incidentally, made it a popular game to gamble upon in Moon Street. It was entirely possible that Dia wanted to play Moon Phase today because she had been influenced by the motif of the Moons; when he was walking to Moon Mansion earlier, he had spotted a few games going on.

He plopped down on a seat and watched as Dia continued to play Moon Phase by herself. Since she was juggling two sides, it was easy to screw up the piece counting, but…

Dia’s hand moved to an unopened piece and flipped it to reveal a red round circle.

The red full moon that represented Percuti had been revealed, but unfortunately, it was too close to Plota’s new moon for comfort, which was a black disk with a blue star in its middle. Within a few rapid moves, the game was over, and Dia made a sad noise.

“What’s wrong?” Claud asked.

“I’ve been playing Moon Phase for the past hour, and almost every resolution has a full moon show up within two steps of a new moon,” Dia replied. “Can’t help but feel worried.”

“About your luck, eh?” Claud nodded. “But since you’re playing against yourself, you cannot be that certain.”

“Oh? Is that a challenge?” Dia asked. “Do you want a game too?”

Claud thought about his request, and then figured that Dia would be more amenable if he humoured her for a moment. “Sure. But I won’t hold back.”

Functionally, all three moons were actually the same, but as a thief, Claud found himself more partial to the yellow moon, Gelb, which represented the material side of the world.

To put it more crudely, it represented wealth and resources. Dia cocked an eyebrow as Claud continued to take out Gelb’s pieces, before flipping them over and messing them up. The latter action was just custom, to generate more noise, since a normal round of Moon Phase would have players choosing where to place pieces.

Claud gestured. “Ladies first.”

“I will take you on that offer, then.” Picking out four pieces, she placed them down on Claud’s side of the board. Claud glanced at the unusual opening, narrowed his eyes at Dia, and then decided to build his pieces far away from her opening. After three more back-and-forth exchanges, the board set-up was complete, and they began to play in earnest.

Moon Phase, generally, had three stages. The first one was the flipping phase, one in which both sides either flipped their own pieces or their opponent’s. Since only flipped pieces could move and capture, revealing the enemy’s non-new moons placed them at a movement advantage. Generally, the flipping phase revolved around seeking out the enemy full moon and new moons, and once that was done…

The second stage was the capture phase, which usually occurred when half of either side’s new moons were revealed. Of course, oddballs like Dia — who was currently moving her revealed crescent moons to surround Claud’s unrevealed pieces — existed, but by and large, this was when most of the new moons were captured.

“Jackpot,” Claud muttered, as Dia revealed his full moon. It was sitting right at where her half and gibbous moons were pushing into, rather than hiding behind a safe formation of pieces. Earlier on, she had taken two of his half-moons, flipping them over in one turn and attacking in the next.

“Why is your full moon at the front?” Dia asked.

“The most capable have the greatest responsibility, right?” Claud replied, his full moon glinting under the false lighting. Within moments, Dia had lost both her gibbous moons, which had been eating up his new moons aggressively, tilting the balance in his favour. From how he read it, Dia had assumed that the outermost layers of his set-up were going to be crescent or half-moons, but he had one-upped her by placing the strongest piece at where he predicted the clash was going to be.

Her playstyle really resembled her character, no matter how Claud looked at it. Straightforward, aggressive…

It just so happened that Claud was the sneaky type.

Claud paused at thought. Wait, sneaky’s a bad word. Ingenious sounds far, far better. Yes. This master thief here is the ingenious type.

The third phase was end-game, where the losing player would try to maximise attrition. Due to the luck-based and deduction aspects of Moon Phase, it was customary to play three rounds. The winner of each round would gain eighteen points, with the loser gaining one point for every enemy piece captured. At the end of three rounds, whoever had a higher point total would win.

Dia, however, had lost her strongest pieces in the game, and so, the usual end-game scene of the loser opening as many pieces as possible began to play out. On his part, Claud played cautiously and slowly, and to Dia’s growing frustration, the game ended with eight pieces lost on his part.

“Again?” Claud asked.

“No, I’m an utterly bad match for you,” Dia replied.

“True. They say that one’s playstyle matches their character, after all.” Claud hid a smile. “But don’t you want to try a different style?

“I’ll never adjust well. More importantly, are you implying that I fall into traps easily?”

“I’m implying that you often take the direct approach,” Claud replied. “Nothing else. Against players who like to gather their strength, your playstyle has a far higher chance of winning.”

“…True.” Dia rubbed her nose. “Right, you didn’t drop by here to play Moon Phase with me, did you?”

“Actually, no. I was intending on asking you for a favour,” Claud replied.

“A favour?” She narrowed her eyes slightly.

“It’s nothing much, don’t worry. I’m going to leave Licencia for a while, but I’m worried that the people after you might chase me for some stupid reason,” said Claud. “So I prepared these things.”

He revealed a whole bunch of bottles, each filled with purple mist, and nodded as Dia’s eyes lit up in understanding. “Just help me release the contents every three days or so, and that’ll do.”

“That’s it?” Dia asked.

“Yeap.”

“You aren’t asking me for money or anything?”

“What do I look like in your eyes?”

“Someone who always wants to buy defensive artefacts?” Dia rubbed her nose. “Don’t get me wrong, I really admire your drive to stay safe.”

“For some reason, I can hear a ‘but’ somewhere in that last bit,” Claud replied, annoyed.

“You must be dreaming.” Dia chuckled in an annoying fashion, and the self-proclaimed master thief felt an eyebrow twitch.

“Fine, whatever.” He got up from his seat. “I’m going off now. You better be safe and sound when I return from my time-sensitive high efficacy fetterless trade run.”

“Again, what’s that supposed to mean?”

“Think about it yourself,” Claud replied. “You better be in one piece when I return, or else.”

Smirking, he raised a hand and left.