+Princess Eska? Princess Rita? I look forwards to working together here,+ thought Princess Adila with an extremely strained amount of formality, +but I will be entirely unable to function properly until someone tells me that I am not a bad dog.+ 

Like most things, Princess Adila has an extremely surface level knowledge of battle chess. She's figured out one (1) Dirty Trick which she had saved up in case she ever needed to play against Princess Helya but other than that this is [i]not[/i] her wheelhouse. She turns her head to look at Princess Adila I. She has a different game to play.

To a degree it doesn't matter which team wins. Her friends are represented across all three, getting lost in the game is already ceding victory to Eupheria. What matters is figuring out who can do the most with the victory. Who stands the best chance of getting close? Who can most afford to take the hit? And is there anything in the game itself that represents an opportunity or a threat?

Princess Adila I might be... wrong about some things. But the Operations Manual emphasizes strategic wins over tactical victories. It's not just about capturing princesses but about capturing the [i]right[/i] princess.

[Dice swing in the other direction: Look closely with sense on a [b]14[/b]. 
- What will happen if I let Alina's team win?
- What will happen if I let Kazelia's team win?
- Tell me about the game itself. How could it hurt me? How could it help me?]

The third game was, of course, Brightball. A simple game - seven hoops, one ball, a team wins by scoring once in all seven hoops. Players wear daringly fashionable silk scarves with a special loop for storing the ball - it's illegal to take even a single step while carrying the ball anywhere other than your scarf, and if any other princess lands a touch anywhere on your body the loop loosens to let the ball fall out. It's a game of speed and agility, athletes moving in dancing flows of dodging and leaping, trailed by ribbons of vibrant colours.

Some of the more patriotic Jedadi aristocracy claimed that Brightball was a Jedadi invention, like everything else - the scarves represented Princess Valissa stealing silk from Illumina and the seven hoops represented the seven kingdoms she robbed. It was impossible to believe that was true after watching Princess Alina in battle for even a few seconds. It seemed to her now that the game was battle training for the Princesses of Illumina.

She'd always wanted to be good at it, but never so much now that she knew that to be true. Being good at Brightball didn't just mean being good at a sport, it meant learning how to move like the most beautiful and perfect Princess in all of Hyperborea.