The ancient temple had invented a form of worship that involved smashing its own decorations.

Six sealed hexagons surrounded a stone face that had apparently spent centuries waiting for somebody to break them. The face wore the expression of an elderly god who’d swallowed a stone and was refusing to discuss it.

There were no priests around to explain the arrangement.

Just coloured carvings, a great circular wall covered in golden patterns, and the enormous face sitting in the middle with its mouth firmly shut.

An early cascade sent several blue masks tumbling down the stepped reels.

They landed beside some purple carvings.

Nothing connected.

The face remained asleep.

Apparently, damaging the wrong part of the temple didn’t count as worship.

I had started with €81.90 and set the stake at €2.00.

The columns rose and fell in height like a little stone pyramid, crowded with hexagonal masks and coloured gems. Red carvings showed fierce faces with enormous teeth. Purple ones had strange golden markings. Blue masks looked as though somebody had spent several weeks decorating them with increasingly complicated eyes.

The stone face in the centre had the simplest expression of all.

A mouth.

Two eyes.

Absolutely no enthusiasm.

On spin four, five red masks finally touched.

€0.10.

The carvings cracked apart and vanished, allowing fresh symbols to tumble into their places.

Ten cents.

Five sacred masks had been destroyed for the price of a very small sweet.

If the ancient builders had known how cheaply their temple could be dismantled, they might have used stronger stone.

Another few spins produced scattered blue and green carvings.

A red face appeared near the centre, showing its teeth. A purple one landed above it, while a blue mask stopped diagonally nearby.

They looked like three completely different gods who’d been invited to the same ceremony without agreeing which one was supposed to be honoured.

Nothing connected.

The central face remained unimpressed.

On spin eight, eight purple masks formed a large touching group.

They flashed and shattered.

€0.60.

One of the carvings had reached a gilded position near the edge of the circular arrangement.

The gold brightened.

Then all four of those special positions changed.

WILD.

Four golden masks appeared together on the following spin.

For a moment, the temple looked considerably more cooperative.

Whatever ancient civilisation had built the place had apparently understood how to organise four pieces of gold.

The next collapse connected ten blue masks, helped by those golden Wilds.

€1.50.

The blue faces broke apart, scattering their fragments across the board.

The golden masks immediately reconsidered their new identities.

On the next spin, the Wilds were gone.

Ordinary carvings had returned to all four positions.

The temple had discovered a magnificent power and decided it was better used occasionally.

Perhaps unlimited golden magic would have damaged the stonework.

Although the exploding carvings didn’t seem particularly concerned about preservation.

A few more attempts brought scattered combinations.

Blue faces landed beside green ones. Purple masks drifted down into spaces where another purple carving might have completed something useful.

The great stone face remained shut.

One red mask stopped near the centre, its little carved teeth pointing directly toward one of the sealed positions.

The following symbols failed to join it.

No explosion.

The lock stayed closed.

The face continued looking as though it had been interrupted during an extremely important nap.

On spin thirteen, eight red masks finally connected.

€0.80.

The cluster burst apart, sending new carvings cascading through the circular pattern.

Several masks tumbled into the middle, but the remaining arrangement couldn’t continue the destruction.

The temple settled.

The six sealed positions were still there.

It was beginning to look as though the ancient builders had been less interested in protecting the stone face than in testing how many coloured objects somebody could destroy before losing patience.

The next few spins brought more near-misses.

A green mask appeared between two blue ones.

Several purple carvings landed close together without forming a large enough group.

A red face stopped near the bottom, baring its teeth at a cluster that had already disappeared.

The centre remained stubbornly quiet.

On spin seventeen, ten purple masks finally touched.

€2.00.

A much larger group shattered, and the empty spaces filled with fresh stones.

The purple faces disappeared in a burst of colour.

Two euros.

The carvings had finally managed to return an entire stake.

The central face didn’t even open one eye.

There was something wonderfully unreasonable about that.

A whole collection of ancient masks could explode around its head, and the face would continue staring forward as if somebody had merely dropped a pebble outside.

The gold ring surrounding everything glowed.

Turquoise lines ran through the circular stonework, making the entire structure look like a gigantic sacred wheel.

It was an impressive amount of architecture devoted to a face that wouldn’t wake up.

On spin twenty-two, ten red masks connected.

€3.00.

The red carvings cracked, disappeared and made room for more symbols.

Three euros.

The biggest payment so far.

Several new tiles settled close to the locked area, but the collapse stopped before anything more interesting happened.

The centre was still protected.

By now, I had begun treating the six sealed hexagons like extremely stubborn teeth.

The temple appeared to want them removed.

The stone face looked as though it would object to the procedure.

No ancient dentist had survived to settle the disagreement.

A few spins later, ten of the smaller stone symbols joined together.

€0.50.

They broke apart in a rather enthusiastic cascade for such a tiny payment.

The circular temple continued rearranging itself.

Every spin brought the sealed patches back, neatly surrounding the central face.

Whatever happened during one attempt had to be accomplished before the stones stopped falling.

The face wasn’t interested in gradual progress.

It wanted the entire problem solved at once.

I kept the stake at €2.00.

The four golden positions continued producing their occasional little dramas. A useful carving would brush against one of them, and the gold would brighten as though the whole temple were preparing for another revelation.

Most of the time, the symbols failed to cooperate.

By spin thirty, eight blue masks finally managed another connection.

€0.40.

They cracked apart, dropping fresh stones into the spaces.

No further group formed.

The face stayed silent.

The temple had now survived thirty spins of small explosions without revealing whatever was hidden behind those six locked positions.

I was no longer particularly interested in the individual payments.

I wanted the face to wake up.

It had been sitting in the middle of that magnificent golden wheel, surrounded by decorations, while everyone else repeatedly fell apart.

At least it could open its mouth and acknowledge the effort.

Spin thirty-three brought eight purple masks together.

€0.60.

The symbols burst.

The centre remained closed.

The next attempt produced nothing.

Then came spin thirty-five.

A large group of red masks formed around the inner section of the circular reels.

Ten touching carvings.

They flashed.

The red faces broke apart, and the empty spaces filled with purple symbols.

Eight purples connected.

Another explosion.

Fresh green masks dropped into the gaps.

Eight greens joined together.

The third collapse tore through the remaining arrangement.

One sealed hexagon opened.

Then another.

A third.

The falling stones continued brushing against the locked positions.

The last of the six seals broke.

The face in the middle lit up.

Its eyes glowed, the circular stonework flared with gold, and the symbol at the centre finally woke.

The ancient builders had successfully created a temple that required thirty-five spins and a considerable amount of destruction to persuade one face to participate.

Ten Free Spins appeared.

The four golden positions transformed into Wilds and stayed that way.

The face in the middle became another Wild.

Five golden masks surrounded by coloured carvings.

The central one displayed x1.

After all that effort, the ancient god had finally woken up knowing how to count to one.

A promising start.

The first Free Spin connected eight red masks through the central Wild.

€0.80.

The red carvings broke apart.

The little number on the face changed for the next spin.

x2.

Apparently, the ancient god learned arithmetic through repeated explosions.

The second Free Spin produced ten purple masks.

The central Wild helped complete the group.

The ordinary payment doubled.

€4.00.

The face brightened.

x3.

The third spin produced eight red masks through the outer golden Wilds, but the centre wasn’t part of the winning group.

€0.80.

The face remained at x3.

It had apparently decided that counting only advanced when it personally participated in the destruction.

A very particular educational method.

The fourth spin connected ten red masks through the middle.

x3.

€9.00.

The stone face glowed with increasing enthusiasm.

Those sealed hexagons had kept it asleep for centuries, and now it was discovering that breaking large groups of carvings could be a very profitable occupation.

On the fifth Free Spin, ten blue masks connected.

x4.

€6.00.

The blue faces shattered around the golden centre.

The temple flashed with turquoise light, its rings glowing as though the entire stone structure had finally remembered what it was built for.

There were still no priests.

No ceremonial drums.

No ancient crowd.

Just one stone face learning to multiply while its neighbours repeatedly exploded.

The sixth spin brought ten purple masks together.

The centre was involved again.

x5.

€10.00.

Then a +2 Free Spin symbol appeared.

Two more spins were added to the ceremony.

The temple had finally learned to extend its own celebration.

I was delighted.

The face had spent most of the session refusing to wake, and now it was apparently unwilling to let the proceedings finish.

The next spin connected ten green masks through the outer golden Wilds.

€1.50.

The central face didn’t participate.

Its multiplier remained at x6.

For once, it seemed perfectly content to watch the neighbouring golden masks do the work.

The following spin produced ten red masks.

They connected through the middle.

x6.

€18.00.

The red carvings shattered in a burst of colour.

The centre lit up again.

x7.

The face that had spent thirty-five spins refusing to open was now multiplying prizes faster than I could stop watching the number increase.

On the ninth Free Spin, eight purple masks connected.

x7.

€4.20.

A smaller payment, but the face continued learning.

x8.

The turquoise ring flashed around the circular temple.

The tenth spin brought another large red group.

Ten masks connected through the centre.

x8.

€24.00.

The red faces burst apart.

The multiplier climbed.

x9.

By now, the central face looked like something that had swallowed an entire golden sun.

I had spent so long trying to wake it, and the thing had turned out to be remarkably enthusiastic once somebody started feeding it winning clusters.

The eleventh Free Spin brought ten purple masks together.

x9.

€18.00.

Another explosion.

Another change.

x10.

One spin remained.

The face had finally learned to count to ten.

There was something rather wonderful about watching a sacred stone idol progress from complete inactivity to multiplying everything it touched.

It had started the feature barely knowing what a number was.

Now it was sitting in the centre of the temple, glowing like a golden furnace, apparently expecting the next group of symbols to provide a proper demonstration of its new talent.

The twelfth Free Spin began.

Red masks landed around the middle.

More red carvings appeared alongside them.

A large touching group formed.

Ten red masks.

The central Wild sat among them.

x10.

The entire cluster lit up.

€30.00.

The red faces exploded, their fragments vanishing into the golden light surrounding the centre.

The multiplier had produced its largest payment of the feature.

The temple flashed.

The free spins were finished.

€126.30.

The same face that had refused to wake for thirty-five spins had now produced a magnificent run of golden Wilds and growing multipliers.

The four outer masks had remained in place throughout.

The centre had climbed from x1 to x10.

Two extra spins had kept the ceremony going.

And the ancient structure had somehow survived the entire process, despite losing enormous quantities of its decorative stonework.

I had started with €81.90.

Thirty-five paid spins and twelve free ones later, the balance was €151.70.

€69.80 ahead.

That was enough.

I stopped there.

The circular temple returned to its ordinary appearance, with coloured hexagons surrounding the stone face and the six sealed positions waiting for another visitor.

The face had gone quiet again.

It was back to looking like an ancient idol with no particular interest in the outside world.

Thirty-five spins to wake it.

Twelve free ones to discover it could count.

Ten multipliers later, I’d walked away with nearly seventy euros more than I’d started with.

The temple had demanded six broken seals before allowing the ceremony to begin.

Then it had spent the next twelve spins smashing its own decorations with extraordinary enthusiasm.

And just when the stone face had finally learned to count to ten, somebody turned the lights off.

Eleven would have to wait another thousand years.

Chaos Crew 2 offered me a bonus. I should’ve run.