Beat the AI
A Fireglass Treasure Hunt
Linara and Kael versus Tess
Tess has turned the galley table into a starfield divided into silver sectors. Planets, moons and hazards drift through the projection.
Somewhere on the board is a hidden treasure cache. Linara and Kael must find it, prove its location and claim it before Tess does.
Tess has played this game many times.
She always wins.
“She’s had years of practice sounding smug,” Kael tells Linara.
“I am not smug,” Tess replies. “I’m accurate.”
The first clue
Where fire sleeps under stone, and the blind moon watches.
A cracked red moon glows with volcanic seams. A grey-black moon sits half-hidden in the shadow of a gas giant. An old station cluster lies closer to their starting position.
Where should they search?
The blind moon
The grey-black moon hangs near a gas giant with two narrow rings. One ring is complete. The other has broken into scattered clumps.
Tess’s marker is already moving towards the relay near the moon. Linara and Kael need to reach the surface before she can block them.
A narrow drift route runs between two asteroid shoals. It is fast, but dangerous.
Linara studies the tumbling rocks. “That looks awful.”
“It’s free fuel.”
“It’s full of rock.”
Which route should they take?
The old king beneath glass
Linara’s drones find a frozen crust, old lava tubes and mineral deposits curled beneath a crater basin.
The final clue appears:
Where the blind moon watches the broken ring, the old king sleeps beneath glass.
From the moon’s surface, the broken ring hangs above a crater whose central peak resembles a crown. Impact glass covers the basin.
Before they can claim the treasure, Tess places a navigation lock across the surface approach.
“Or?” Kael asks.
“You may go around. That will take three turns.”
Linara notices something Tess may have overlooked. The old lava tubes connect with the crater basin beneath the lock.
How should they reach the treasure?
Meet Linara, Kael and the extremely accurate Tess in Fireglass, a Dryden Universe novella.
Read Fireglass