Battleship Exchange

The dust has settled from the earthquake, and you've recovered many of the mermaids' colors and the cave trolls' pretty rocks!

There's a lot of other stuff here too, including some of the goblins' discarded machines. One of your team members is an engineer and tries to get them working again, but it's hard to figure out what they're even supposed to do. You push buttons but nothing happens. Eventually, eager to get back to the surface, you leave them behind.

The mermaids and cave trolls have vanished from their former homes, which is weird, but you figure that means more loot for you. And the best prize of all is what you find when you emerge above ground: all the friends you were separated from at the start of this adventure. You hug them joyously and share the tales of all your deeds underground.

Together you head back to the cafe, eagerly discussing what you're going to do with all your winnings, but soon the ground begins to shake again and you hear more rumbling. You hurry around the last bend in the road, worried about what you'll find.

But it's fine! The Shoulder Dragon Cafe is just where you left it, looking the same as always, with a big sign out front that says "NEW! HOT POT!" Across the road from it is a big construction site, which you quickly realize is where the shaking and noise came from. On one side, a huge cave is being excavated from a hill. On the other, a crystal dome is being built. In the middle is an artificial lake surrounded by greenery. Signs in Dwarvish warn of treacherous ground where tunnels are being dug to connect them all.

A spark-sprite flits over and chirps, "Hello! Thank you all for mining so much useful stone for us! We realized we had far more than we needed for just a few gates and such, so we've decided to get together and build a new home far away from those annoying goblins. Plus we can get delicious meals at the cafe whenever we want, and hang out with all of you! Honestly, I don't know why we didn't move sooner." Eyeing your bulging packs and pockets, he adds, "By the way, did you ever find any of the things the goblins stole?"

You all look at one another, bid a silent farewell to your dreams of wealth, and return the belongings of the rainbow mermaids, cave trolls, spark sprites, and delving dwarves, trying to make it seem like that was your plan all along. But they're so overjoyed to have everything back that they reward you generously in the currency you like best: new stories to read and listen to, and new art to look at! You're rich after all!

Main collection | Crystal collection | Mermaid collection | Tunnel collection | Volcano collection

Congratulations to first place Team Tunnel, second place Team Crystal, joint third place Teams Mermaid and Volcano, and all our players on another incredible round of Battleship. Please enjoy the THOUSANDS of works that have been created for this game! We encourage you to be generous with your kudos and comments.

Members of Team Tunnel and Team Crystal will get to pick one tag to be on next year's boards. So will correct guessers from board 2, people who made two or more works for giftless and treatless participants, and Volcano and Mermaid members who post two or more treats to their team collections during the anon period.

But before you dive into reading, listening, looking, and treating, please take the time you need to rest and recuperate, and to bask in what we've all accomplished. And please join the mod team of Soulstoned, Leaf/Tavina, Eirvyan, gaialux, Firebird/Asymptotical, and lailah_tov in thanking:

• azurrys, cricketdust, DontStopHerNow, and eicas for tagmodding
• connect_the_stars for work check assistance
• tuesday for Shoulder Dragon Cafe lore
• toadheart for the pixel art rewards on board 3

...and everyone who coordinated strategy and boosted team energy and made the Battleship Discord such an awesome place to be. You're all amazing!

Go forth and feast! Creators will be revealed in two weeks.

With the combined powers of the entire team, the spark-sprites, and your new animal friends, you finally find enough dust to jam the gears of the automaton to a stop once and for all. When you get a moment to catch your breath and get your bearings, you find that you're at the edge of a huge, shadowy cave packed to the brim with treasure!

There are the spark-sprites' missing belongings for sure, but there's also so so much more—every kind of thing that you can possibly think of, and presumably all of these are stolen from their proper owners.

In the distance there's the sound of more voices, and you're entirely sure it's all those lava goblins again, hogging all the treasure for themselves.

You're weary and you're mad. You've already recovered these treasures once just to lose them to the goblins a second time. You just wanted to do a good deed, and those nasty goblins went and ruined it. But you'll show them. You'll get all the treasure you lost back. You'll return the spark-sprites' belongings... and keep the rest for yourself

But wait, those voices don't sound like goblins…It looks like the other adventurers are here as well.

You'd better start hurrying before those other adventurers pick the place clean!

Grid and list of goals

Crystal collection | Requests | Prompts | AFIRB search

Each square on the 10 x 10 grid hides a treasure. Squares have four tags each. Each tag on this board also appeared on a previous board. All 100 squares must be cleared to complete the board.

Team Crystal members (and only Team Crystal members) should post works to the Crystal collection. Each team member is capped at 10 works per board.

The first team to completely clear its board will win the 2024 Battleship Exchange!

You desperately throw together everything you can think of that a goblin might want: stories, songs, art, whatever comes to hand. At last the goblins are so laden down that they can't hold anything more. They scuttle away, taking all the treasure—not just the spark-sprites' belongings, but everything else you found and made.

"You see what we have to put up with around here?" Your sprite friend sighs. "It's just not safe in these caverns anymore. We need to build a goblin-proof fence, or they'll come back and steal more of our stuff."

"That didn't seem like just your stuff," you say. "What's with all the lore books and gems and rainbow colors and other things?"

"We didn't put that here!" the sprite protests. "The goblins have been stealing from everyone and hiding what they steal in various places so it can't all be retrieved at once. One time some cave trolls nearly smushed me because they thought we'd been stealing their pretty rocks. But it wasn't us! The goblins framed us!"

"Just another reason we need that fence," another sprite says. "But it's taking forever to mine everything we need to make it." He sniffs pathetically. "We're so small... small and weak..."

You're already getting tools out of your pack. "You don't need to play it up," you reassure him. "We're here to help you. Just show us where to dig."

Grid and list of goals

Crystal collection | Requests | Prompts | AFIRB search

( Board 2 rules )

Without further difficulties, you arrive in the crystal caverns. The spark-sprite leads you to the site of the cave-in. "This was our treasure room," he says sadly. "We had so many beautiful things... all buried now. Thank you for your help getting them back! We'd never be able to lift these huge chunks of crystal by ourselves."

A few other sprites are flitting around. "Watch out," one says, landing on your arm. "We had some traps in here to deter thieves, like those lava goblin jerks."

"Of course you did," one of your friends says with a deep sigh. "Well, we know how this goes."

With the confidence of long experience, your team begins to make a plan.

Grid and list of goals

Crystal collection | Requests | Prompts | AFIRB search

Thanks to karanguni for the Automagic App and notearchiver for the AFIRB search sheet!