The Shadow Sisters

[E1] Chapter 20 - Hannah Cole

On Friday, after school, Hannah finally attended her first official session of SPACE club. Alex showed her the way. It was located next to the upper IT room in the West Building. They actually had to go in through the IT room to get through to it, as there was only one door.

That brought them into a small room that was just large enough to fit a table, eight chairs, and a whiteboard. When Hannah and Alex entered, they saw that Stick, Jasmine, and Joe were already there.

"Hey, you made it," Jasmine said.

"I'm a woman of my word." Hannah glanced to the board, but could not make heads or tails of the hundreds of words scribbled across it. "What's on the agenda for today?"

"How do you feel about board games?" Joe asked.

"Board games? To be honest, I haven't played one since I was little. I hated Monopoly, but I'm a dab hand at Snakes and Ladders."

Alex laughed and patted her on the back. "They've come a long way since then."

"Oh, really? I didn't mean to fall so behind the times."

"That's okay," Stick said. He reached under his chair and brought out a large box, nearly three times the size of the typical board game box. He sat it on the table, where it dominated most of the space. "The rules to this one are simple enough. It's called Castle Wars."

"It's split into two teams," Joe said, "Of defenders and attackers. Jasmine was the defender against us last week."

"Three against one?" Hannah asked.

"The defenders have a natural advantage, being behind a stronghold," Alex said, "So the teams should never be numerically even, else the game will become unbalanced. I think we should pair you with Jasmine, since you're a new player and she's a good mentor."

Hannah nodded and watched them carefully set up the board. There were several pop-up forts that could be placed in the middle and some smaller structures that could be tact onto that. They had to roll the dice to get their funds and had to spend the coin wisely, building their fort as impenetrably as possible. They were each assigned a dozen pieces aligned to them by colour. Hannah was given her favourite colour, pink.

There were lots of dice and decisions involved as the attackers laid relentless siege to the fort. It was the job of Hannah and Jasmine to stop them at each point they attempted to breach, to cover from any volleys or catapulted rocks, and to allocate resources.

When the timer went off, Hannah jumped in her seat and asked, "What does that mean?"

"It means you win," Joe said.

Jasmine leaned back and folded her arms, while wearing a rather smug expression across her face. "It means we successfully defended ourselves."

"Well done," Stick said.

"Not bad for a rookie," Alex said.

Hannah's heart was still racing as she gazed over the board. On all ends, they'd been inches from breaking through, especially near the sewer, which had a single defence point remaining. But they'd staved them all off.

"I didn't know that could be so much fun," she said.

"It's a hoot," Joe said.

"Beats Snakes and Ladders, doesn't it?" Alex said.

"Maybe."

"Just wait until we get you playing D&D. Then you'll get really into it. Although, you'll need to think of a character for that," Stick said.

"What are we playing now?" Hannah asked, eager to start something else.

Alex chuckled. "We were actually going to start getting ready for the concert."