"We're all dead," Alex says to himself, quivering with fear and clutching white-knuckled onto his weapon as on the other side of the hill, the battle rages.
"Oh man, we're all dead. This is bad, this is bad, this is so bad....."Indeed, things do appear to have the bleakness. The bulk of our forces have been routed, overwhelmed by the enemy horde. While they fought bravely, they lacked discipline, and most have been laid low. Our reinforcements were cut off, and only with a frantic withdrawal was I able to retrieve a few of my friends and bring them to safety. If we are to win the day, we must act with the boldness, and we must do it in the now.
"Do not despair, Friend Alex," I say, trying to rally the remaining warriors.
"Our enemy has proven strong, but our resolve will be ever stronger! My friends, whatever horrors lie on the other side of that hill, beyond them lies glory! All we need is the courage to take it! Who among you will find your share of honor with me this day?!"Not ten yards away, the grunts and cries and snarls of combat grow louder. Friends Trevor and Eugene whimper.
"I do not ask of you anything I would not give myself," I say, taking my own weapon in one hand and that of a fallen foe in the other.
"The Warlords of Okaara and the blade-singers of Tamaran would sing songs of remembrance, ballads of mighty champions and warrior queens who defended the innocent and slew the wicked. To have so much as a line written in your name, let alone a verse, is a greater honor than most achieve in their lives. And friends, I do believe each of you have names worthy of singing."This raises their spirits a bit. Friends Gerald and Andrew stand, their fear giving way to a quavering confidence.
"The enemy comes. I will charge them, and they will know the fury of a Princess of Tamaran! Come with me and find your honor, or bury your heads in shame!"A defiant war cry erupts from our ranks, and we prepare to meet the foe in one last desperate stand.
Behind me, my most trusted friend and confidant, our powerful sorceress, stands.
"Kory," she says with a sigh.....
".....this is stupid," I say, as the handful of LARPers in the park cry out like they're in the climax of a Peter Jackson movie.
On the other side of the hill, a dozen or so "orcs"-- some other nerds with green face-paint on-- have captured a "sacred relic" (a beach ball with some gold spraypaint and glitter) that we have to take back. I'm the group's sorceress, which means I've got a couple of pouches of bird-seed and tennis balls with streamers on them that I throw around to act as my "spells." For some reason, Kory got it in her head that this would be a great way for us to train for combat, to learn how to use my Soul Magic tactically without outing myself to any prying eyes that might be watching. In action, this whole thing would be humiliating if there were any people in Jump City whose opinions I actually valued.
The rules of this Live-Action-Role-Playing thing required me to dress up as my fantasy character, a Sorceress I named 'Raven.' I initially didn't want to put on a costume, but they didn't want some girl in normal clothes running around their magical fantasy battle-- that would just be silly. I found a couple of cheap pieces at a costume store, a dark cloak and some pieces of faux jewelry. The dress I wanted to wear wasn't really easy to move around in, so I ended up buying a gymnast's leotard and some stockings for the main portion of the outfit-- it's light, I can run around and jump and whatever without any trouble, and it's cheap if it gets torn.
I'm not crazy about how form-fitting it is, but at least it's more modest than the outrageous armored-bikini getup Kory picked for herself. She looks like something from the cover of those old
Heavy Metal magazines Alex and his crusty friends keep in the back of the comic shop.
"For the glory of Tamaran!" Kory yells as she charges towards the first group of pizza-faced ogres. She doesn't run into them, so much as she dances through them. Each of their attacks might as well be moving through pudding as she gracefully ducks underneath one, twirling to land one strike in a nerd's face, then whirls low with a backhand blow across the knees with her off-hand weapon. The second one swings a club at her, and she butterfly kicks over it, bringing both of her weapons together in an X-pattern to slash across his neck.
If she wasn't using a pair of PVC pipes padded with pool noodles and wrapped in duct tape, it would actually be kind of cool.
As Kory engages the main body, three more of the green-painted 'Orcs' run towards me and Alex, who cringes behind me.
"Hang on, hang on," I say, looking through my list of spells as the enemies converge.
"Okay, here we go. Greater Invisibility."I pull a small pouch from my belt, and throw a handful of glitter in the air. As the other nerds approach, I put my hands up. One of them raises his foam-and-cardboard battle-axe to attack.
"Nope," I say, casually taking a step back,
"You saw the glitter. According to the rules you guys gave me, that means I'm invisible, and so are any other friendly players within five feet. So you can't attack me and 'Bolphunga the Unrelenting' here.""....ugggh, no fair!" the axe guy whines.
"Hey, those are the rules. Not my fault your team went all barbarian with no spellcaster.""....okay, but what about all the other guys on your team?" he asks, pointing to the guys who didn't join Kory on her glorious charge.
I shrug.
"What about them? Come on, Alex, let's go get this over with."The attacking orc players eagerly charge in on the couple of cowering dorks, ready to do their dirty work. Even if it's just a game, I do feel kind of bad.
"Oh hey," I call back as they move in on my helpless teammates.
"You see that line I drew in the dirt with the 'X' on it?"Axe guy turns back and nods.
"Yeah?""That's a Dimension Door," I tell them.
"When you ran across that line, it opened up and teleported you to the Abyss. You're out." Game or not, I'm not going to just leave people defenseless.
"Oh come on!" he pouts, and then he and his friends go wander over to the pavilion where their moms have prepared snacks.
A few yards away, Kory does a no-hands cartwheel to dodge an incoming arrow (which has a big foam ball on the end, making it about as dangerous as a thrown pillow) and throws one of her foam swords like a javelin at her attacker, hitting him square in the chest. Meanwhile, I casually stroll up the greenway towards the golden beach ball, Alex cringing behind me.
Eventually, the 'invisibility' spell wears off, and a couple more Orcs with spears try to intercept me.
"Burning Hands," I say as I toss a handful of bird seed at one, harmlessly coating him in pellets. He plays along, falling to the ground and yelling like he's actually on fire. It's silly and lame, but at least he's getting into it instead of griping about the rules. Alex lets out a war cry and swings his pool-noodle sword at the second spear guy, and they split off to have their own little duel.
The golden beach ball is sitting maybe about ten yards away in the middle of the orc players' "base," a small arbitrary area lined out with a couple of traffic cones. With Kory single-handedly cutting down most of the other team, the "relic" looks undefended, so I make my way towards it.....
"Ha-HAAAAAAA!!!!!"....and a scrawny kid with no shirt, a plastic skull mask, two big foam axes, and his arms and chest covered in temporary tattoos, jumps out from behind a bush between me and the beach ball.
"You may have outsmarted my minions, witch," he snarls in as deep a voice as he can manage,
"but I, BROZZGOR THE UNCONQUERABLE, will not fall for your magicks! My steel is thirsty for your blood! BERZERKER RAGE!!!!"He charges, and I toss a ping-pong ball at him, which bounces off of his plastic mask.
"Hold Person," I say.
"We win.""But--- hey, that's....whaa--""In the rules you guys gave me, it says that Berzerker Rage lowers your Willpower. Hold Person is a high-level spell, which means you now don't have the ability to save against it. So you're now stuck in place, which means I can grab the beach ba--...the 'relic,' and we win.""You can't do that!!!!" he starts to shriek.
"There's literally nothing that says I can't," I shrug as I walk over and pick up the beach ball.
Skull guy runs off, still shrieking in a dork rage, while I wave down Kory to let her know we won.
"Oh, Friend Raven," she exclaims,
"This is most glorious! We have one the first of many triumphs today, and have succeeded in kicking many of the butts!""It's Rachel," I say,
"I told you, 'Raven' is just my character's name. It's only while the game is going, and now that we've won, the game is over. This whole thing is weird enough without mixing up everyone's real and fake names.""I see," she nods, clearly not seeing at all.
"Anyway, you did very well today! I believe this was an excellent training session for when we fight the true ass-holes in the world!"I give her a skeptical look.
"I threw bird-seed and pocket-sand at some overweight chuds with bad hygiene. How is that going to get me ready for fighting mercenaries and cultists and super-villains?""You were aware of your gifts," she explains,
"you saw how they could best be used, and you applied them in ways the enemy did not expect. The danger may not be as great as when we confront the HIVE or the Church of Blood, no. But you are beginning to think like a warrior, and that is the first step to becoming one."I shrug, not completely convinced.
"It's better than nothing, I guess.""Indeed! Now, we have been invited to take part in the celebratory feasting upon the cakes of pan! Our new friends Rothgar Blood-Thirster and Zugroth Doomhammer have room in their cars to take us to the domain of IHOP. Never-ending pancakes, four flavors of bottled tree-sap, and free refills on coffee! It sounds like a place of wonders!""Kory, the last thing you need is caffeine," I say,
"But sure, I could eat. You are going to change clothes before we go, though, right?""Is something wrong with my battle regalia?" she asks, looking down at the bits of dubiously-effective armor held together by strips of spandex, the only things between her and a public indecency charge.
"Did it get torn?""I'm pretty sure if it got torn, the parents at the park would never let us back here," I tell her.
"It's just....not appropriate to wear that stuff in public. It's so....degrading.""I fail to see how it degrades me if I do not allow it to make me feel degraded," she says.
"At any rate, I saw many females and males in the public yesterday, who were all wearing regalia like this, and they were not said to be 'degraded.'""They were at the beach, Kory. Those were swimsuits.""I have the confusion. How does the proximity to water influence the amount of shame one is supposed to feel about one's body? Do you humans have some sort of chemical reaction when exposed to moisture?""It's.....complicated," I wave it away.
"Anyway, I'm going to put my 'Raven' costume up. You put on some pants, then we'll eat some pancakes, okay?""I have the annoyance that so many things on this planet are 'complicated,'" she frowns, but then like a light switch she goes right back to sunny and cheerful.
"Still, I look forward to the eating of fried carbohydrates and tree-sap!"She merrily trots away toward the small concrete building where the public bathrooms are so she can get changed (just getting her to do
that instead of stripping wherever she felt like was a chore), and I'm left picking up the ping-pong balls and other bits and bobs I threw around to cast my "spells" before we leave.
"Hey, uhhhh, Rachel?"Turning around, I look and see Alex, still holding his foam sword, shifting nervously back and forth.
"Hm?""I, uh......I thought you were really cool out there," he says.
"Oh, ummm.....thanks," I say.
"Did you, uh, manage to beat that spear guy?""....no," he admits, turning his head away.
"Ah," I say as I stand up, having picked up my last bit of litter.
"Well, you'll get him next time.""Yeah," he says, smiling with a bit of uneasy confidence,
"Next time."He looks like he's about to say something else, then he runs off towards his mom's van in the parking lot.
What a day. What a weird, lame, and very, very stupid day. Then again, 'weird and stupid' could describe just about every aspect of my life for about a month now, ever since a magic space-girl crash-landed in front of me and started sleeping in my apartment. Considering how many people are after us, how many people want Kory on a dissection table and me on a sacrificial altar, a day running around in the park having a fake-fight with a bunch of nerds is practically mundane.
My stomach growls as the sun starts to set on Jump City. Now that I think about it, pancakes don't sound too bad.
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