Early dark · Word puzzle
Hidden words lie scattered across the rings — capture each in its meridian.
Turn the rings of a brass astrolabe until a word lines up along a meridian, reading centre outward. It flares gold and burns out of the sky.
Deep night · 4X strategy
Two empires wake at opposite ends of a dark sector, holding one world each.
Farm it, mine it, build hulls and send them out. Sensors only reach so far, so the first you see of a fleet is the turn it crosses them.
Before dawn · A conversation
There is unrest in the forest, trouble with the trees.
Thirty-seven of them, and every trunk has a small door in it. Knock, and the tree tells you what it thinks it is owed. The forest keeps score.
Three games. One long night.