"This game barely makes any sense," Colby said as Derby rolled a set of dice that looked like people who had eaten giant dice. She always said that during Ofohp family game nights when a particular board game was chosen. This particular game night was a few weeks prior to the convention.

"Rumbly Tumbly Dinner is not a game for the weak of heart, Colby," Dani said, moving her piece. Each player had one that looked like a dinner item. There were four houses on the board, and with enough dice rolls, a meal could reach a player's house. Once there they get the next meal, until a winner fills the entire house.

"Kay, but the game is about feeding everyone in your house, right?" Colby asked. "So why are the dice these weird people that...ate the dice? Are these the ones we're feeding? And the whole mechanic with the dinner thieves makes negative sense."

"Mmmmgh, I'm rumbly in my tumbly!" Emme said in a deep, gravely voice, making Dani laugh.

"What?" Colby asked.

"It's from the Rumbly Tumbly Dinner commercial from when we were kids," Dani said. "They still show it sometimes."

"Dang it, you ate all my dinner!" Emme said, now sounding like a bratty kid as Dani laughed even harder.

Colby rolled her eyes, then poked Derby, who analyzed the board.

"Derby, isn't this game stupid?" Colby asked. "Wait, don't tell me you're actually trying to strategize."

Derby bit her nails. "If I roll a six, a three, and a four, I can get my meal in. But if I go any higher or lower, dinner thieves will pop in and then it's game over, and Mom wins."

"So you do that or you lose?" Colby asked. "It's all riding on this dice roll?"

"Mhm...I think so, at least," Derby said.

Derby rolled the dice, getting a six, a three...and a one.

"Dang it," Derby said.

Derby and Colby's mom cheered. "Next time, will YOU be the one who's hungry?" She said.

"Only three easy payments of $34.95. Ask your parents' permission before chowing down on our sweet website!" Emme said.

"This game just sucks!" Colby said. "You know what my strategy would have been, Derbs?"

"What?" Derby asked.

"Sometimes you gotta know when to just do this!" Colby flipped the game board, sending the weird dice and food pieces everywhere.

That action resulted in a shouting match that Derby was unfortunately in the middle of, and a night spent cleaning the living room as punishment, that Derby also got roped into despite not doing anything.

The company behind Rumbly Tumbly Dinner was apparently a major funder of the convention, and it seemed almost too convenient that the giant-sized board game was Rumbly Tumbly Dinner. A friendly worker with a megaphone greeted the strange group.

"Alright, the name's Cindi, and you all arrived at just the right time, because any time is the right time for game time," Cindi said, quoting the board game company's slogan. "For Life Sized Rumbly Tumbly Dinner, you can have up to four teams!"

"We're doing a two vs. two," Derby said. Or at least, she wanted to, the words came out a muttering mess that Brie had to translate for.

"Two teams will be doing battle," Brie said. "And one will be embarrassed and obliterated."

"OK, Team A, that's you all, right?" the worker pointed to Derby, Brie, and the thralls Brie had cast a spell on.

"Yes, ma'am!" Brie saluted, and her thralls grunted in approval.

"Nice, nice, and Team B!" The worker said, pointing to CC and the Masked Dark Lord's teams. CC waved, and her thralls did the same in unison. The Masked Dark Lord simply crossed their arms and nodded.

"Hey, wait..." Derby said, noticing that Aunt Emme was among CC's thralls. "Oh, dang it. When did you get her?"

"Back at the parking ramp," CC said. "She's been in my crowd this whole time, I don't know how you didn't notice."

"Because you have like fifty people!" Derby said.

"Oh please, she can only use the thrall spell for about thirty-seven, while I top out at about a hundred," Brie said, batting her eyelashes.

"I don't...really like that," Derby said.

Brie jolted, as though she had already forgotten that Derby did not enjoy the whole "hypnotize a bunch of strangers to be one's minion" spell.

"Well!" Brie said, eyebrows high as she tried to defend herself. "At least I am not low enough to try and steal the beloved Aunt of Hope for nefarious purposes!"

Derby wished she could drop everything and free Aunt Emme, but her gut said she'd be better off waiting for the right opportunity.

"I should've added that you have to let your thralls go if we win," Derby said.

"We'll do that either way," CC said. "I mean, I will. After the game. Dunno about Masky over here."

"Don't call me 'Masky," the Masked Dark Lord said, arms still crossed.

"What should I call you, then?" CC asked.

The Masked Dark Lord stroked the chin of their mask. They raised a single finger, then said nothing.

"Uh," CC said. "Do you mean to call you 'One'?"

"No," The Masked Dark Lord said. "Just that it's a secret."

"Sure, yeah..." CC said. "Doesn't really...answer my..."

"Ugh," Brie said. "Let us begin this game already! How do we play?"

"Simple!" Cindi said, jogging over to foam dice that were as tall as her. "You roll these, and each person acts as your 'food.' Each team gets a house, and you roll the dice until you fill your house. That make sense?"

"Not particularly," Brie said.

"Don't worry, Brie, my family plays the regular sized version of this a lot!" Derby said. "Just roll the dice to start."

"Wait, no fair, we should get to go first!" CC said.

"Nope!" Brie said, charging to the dice. "Hup!" Brie shouted as she punched forward, sending the large chunks of foam careening into the walls.

"We got Cani here for sure, huh!" Cindi said. "No need to go get those, I have an app that tells me exactly what numbers were rolled." She had a tablet hastily taped to her megaphone, and shouted out the numbers drawn. Brie sent a group of her thralls forward.

Derby thought back to all the times she played this game at home with her family. The rules of the giant-sized version weren't exactly the same, but the general premise still remained. With a heavily luck based game, it was hard to strategize. But Derby still knew some tricks that the others didn't.

One trick was landing on a peach colored space. One of Brie's thralls (Derby decided it was easier to think of them as her teammates) landed on one, while a few rows ahead some of CC and the Masked Dark Lord's thralls landed on yellow spaces.

"Ah!" Derby said. "I, uh, do the switch! The switch thing!"

"Oooh, we got a pink-yellow switcheroo!" Cindi said.

"Uh, what?" CC asked.

"Part of the rules, that row of players/food is eliminated!" Cindi said.

"Are you joking? That's a joke, right?" CC asked.

Derby had a few other tricks up her sleeve like that, mainly just taking a few of the other team's players off the board. By the time Derby had one of her team's houses about full, she noticed something strange.

"Brie, is it just me, or are there way, way more players on their team than when we started?" Derby asked.

The pink aura of Brie's thralls looked like just a fraction of the large game area's population, most now had the Masked Dark Lord's purplish shade surrounding them, and there were many more than were there previously.

"Masky, did you add a bunch more players without telling us?" Brie asked.

The Masked Dark Lord didn't answer.

"This isn't allowed, is it?" Derby asked Cindi.

"I think it should be fine," Cindi smiled softly, and it was only then that Derby realized that she too had that purple hue around her.

"Oh...dang," Derby said, backing up as the crowd began to circle them. She bumped into Brie's back.

"Derby of Hope, it does not appear that this is winnable," Brie said.

The Masked Dark Lord's new thralls were all joining the game, rolling the dice, and moving forward. It was technically following the rules, but there was no way they could win against all of these, especially with the referee in their pocket now, too.

"I will add that I do not mind battling with these two," Brie said.

"Sure, but...if we fight then they win!" Derby said. "There's gotta...be a way..."

Derby wracked her brain trying to think of a way out of this that didn't involve them going out to the desert to have a big fight. She thought about what Brie said about the thralls, about the lawn mowers, about the whole day, surely something was in there that could solve this.

"Um, time out!" Derby said.

"What do you mean?" The Masked Dark Lord asked.

"I mean, you changed the rules! In this world, when you change the rules, we have to have a time out, and then we huddle!" Derby said.

Just going by body language, CC and the Masked Dark Lord weren't too impressed by this idea.

"I can't believe I forgot it! It's a huge thing in this world! If you don't do it...you get kicked out immediately. And banned forever." Derby was just spit balling, and not even sounding particularly convinced of what she said, but she couldn't stop here.

"If anyone knows the practices of this realm, it's Derby of Hope!" Brie said.

"You would say that, you're on the same team!" CC said.

"Do you want to get kicked out, CC?" Derby asked. "Because they'll totally kick you out!"

"I...eh...is she for real?" CC asked.

"Yep, that's a big tradition in this world, one of the biggest taboos is going against it," Aunt Emme said as she stepped out from the crowd, winking at Derby.

"Wait...huh? Were you just..." Derby said.

"Faking the whole time? Yep." Emme said, jogging away from CC and the Masked Dark Lord to rejoin Derby. "I thought we were doing a zombie walk, so I joined the crowd, then when I realized what was going on I couldn't find a good opportunity to step away until now."

"Er...OK," Derby said. "But yeah! We gotta huddle! It's really important! I'll accept the rules, and then you can win. But we gotta do the huddle."

CC and the Masked Dark Lord glanced at each other, and shrugged.

"I suppose I don't see the harm," The Masked Dark Lord said.

The other dark lords approached.

"Do you have a plan?" Brie asked. "Because if you don't, I can just punch them really hard."

"We hopefully won't need to do that," Derby said, feeling her legs tremble again.

"How do we even huddle? What is that?" CC asked when the four were together.

"We just...put our arms around each other like this and lean in," Derby said. "Just say you're adding a bunch of people, and the...social tradition will be...fulfilled?"

Derby held her arms out to show it, getting even more nervous at the idea of putting her arm around Brie in any way. Still, she managed to do so, and put an arm around the other two as well. They leaned forward.

"OK, so we're adding a bunch more thralls so we win, so that's—" CC started, before Derby rushed to attempt her plan.

In a flash, Derby quickly kissed the top of CC's head, then moved to the cold mask of the other dark lord. She saved the best for last, trying to kiss Brie's head as well. With Brie's height, she missed though, kissing Brie's cheek. Brie pulled back in shock, breaking the huddle as she blushed. That reaction was worth the bold act alone, but Derby also hoped it would solve this thrall problem as well. She looked around the game area, bracing herself in case it didn't work, trying to think of what to do if Brie really did get in a major fight with the other two dark lords.