In Which I Finally Get Around To Writing Up Friday

[chess]

Ate Coco Pops for breakfast, went for a nice walk along the canal, got 10am train to Manchester. Commented on conductor's whizzy PDA in a box thingamy that printed real tickets, and that this appeared when there were no automatic ticket barriers to need them whereas our people used carbon paper where there were automatic ticket barriers everywhere. Walked from train station to Dom's house, stopping at Pooh's room on the way to steal net access and mango sorbet. I approve of people who feed me mango sorbet. On arrival at Dom's house, Dom decided that he'd had enough of life for the moment and retreated into his computer to code PHP, so I stood around and talked about the statting of massive dragons and the appearence of Cthulu in FD, and other such RPG-related stuffness, with Dom's housemates.

Eventually we went downstairs and I threatened Rob (Look! I remembered a name! Aren't you proud?) with LARP weaponary for quite a while, because it was amusing. We talked about food for a while (no-one had had lunch and it was getting on for 2pm), and decided that Dom would make us pizza, but we needed to go shopping for weekend supplies (most of the house was going on the weekend). We waited for a final person to come back (Guy? The one with black hair?) and then went In Search Of Foodstuffs.

Our original plan involved going to find some food shops only one person particularly knew about; we found some shops, but none of them were selling proper foodstuffs, so we had to move on to Asda, which was where we were planning to go originally. Asda had plenty of relavent foodstuffs, and special offers on pizza and Pepsi Max, which we therefore got excessive quantities of (especially the latter). Halfway through the second circuit, a few of us decided that was quite enough shopping and hence sat down in the middle of Asda to wait for the others, because tiring our legs out *before* a LARP weekend was a dumb thing to do. We discussed whether we'd be thrown out by security, but we didn't have any trouble apart from the others attempting to run us down with the trolley.

After having some fun attempting to find our way out of Asda (you have to leave by the doors you enter, passing lots of things that look like exits but are actually alarmed fire doors and basically half of the shop, especially if you were at a reasonably faraway till) we decided that we would need more than two pizzas, so Dom went back to get some more flour. Being the kind, considerate souls that we are, we decided to take a completely different way back, which resulted in many insistances that we were utterly lost, and the amusing misreading of Buckingham Place as Buckingham Palace (now that *would* have been lost!) and 'eleven two-bedroom apartments' as 'elven two-bedroom apartments'. We finally managed to make it back to the house fractionally before Dom did, so at least he didn't get back and then get completely confused because he'd not seen us and we weren't there either.

Some putting things away and clearing up the kitchen then ensued, while I sat on a sofa and whined about pizza. There was actually some washing up done, too. Eventually the process of making pizza began, so I went back to threatening people (well, mostly Rob, because he was the most entertaining) with LARP weapons. Pizza gradually happened, and as is traditional I carefully picked out all the tomatoey bits and ate the melted cheeese and bread, which always sounds like a good meal to me, especially if I haven't eaten practically all day. People began to drift in and out collecting bits of LARP kit together and there was some shuffling about Raven tabards, which were currently plain beige tabards because they hadn't actually arranged what the symbol ought to be to avoid clashing with the similar Ullratha legion.

Eventually all the pizza was made and eaten, the last batch with Extra Cheeese, which almost slid off the top of the pizza when Dom transferred it to a plate. We went and packed our random LARP stuff, or rather Dom packed stuff and I gave him back the shoe he'd put in my case (because he'd been wearing his toe-protector shoes to bring them along, but they were too uncomfortable to walk from the station in with thin socks, so he'd changed them for his trainers halfway along and I'd put one in my case so we could carry both). I threw a slight last-minute fit about my kit being rubbish, but I couldn't be bothered to unpack my case and demonstrate its rubbishness. We then had some fun attempting to contact Gareth, who was supposedly giving us a lift in, because I wanted to get there earlyish to give myself the best chance of whining at people about my lost character card.

Went back to the main room to sit around, then everyone migrated outside to wait for lifts to arrive. Gareth was the first to turn up. I must admit to being somewhat surprised when they pointed out the car that was supposedly him because I was convinced it was a woman in the driver's seat, bah. Anyway, lugged stuff down and dumped it in his boot, then sat up front when he complained he looked like a taxi. We talked about interesting FD stuff, like the soundtrack to the Big Bad Gil Guy, most of the way there. (He does not look quite so much like a girl from closer range, although still reasonably androgynous.)

Naturally, we arrived before the armoury did, but that was okay because it gave us time to stake out a corner (this time we were in a big hall (the Linmouth) instead of a bunch of small dorms and rooms (the barn complex); there were a few actual bedrooms but the refs and Charlie took those, there was however an ample supply of camping matresses and I didn't do much sleeping anyhow) and talk to people. After throwing food in the kitchen, I wandered around talking to people (and stalking elf-Dave because I do things like that) until the armoury van arrived, at which point I ran out and waved at it like everyone else (and someone-whose-name-I-should-remember-by-now decided to leap up and cling onto the back of it, at which point we all encouraged Charlie (who was driving) to reverse into some nice prickly hedgerow) then conspicuously failed to do anything useful, instead proceeding to begin harassing Charlie for a new character card.

Wandered around talking a bit more (said hi to Gem - that's another name I remember - and some of the other people from the house began to arrive), managed to acquire a new character card, then located the loos and changed into kit (in the semi-darkness because the lights didn't work in the loos). The kit was not half as rubbish as I was fearing, in fact I think it looked reasonably good, for a couple of things from the charity shop. People started being seperated out for monster briefings and battleboarding. I got Tess carded up again, including the 60xp she should have had, whined at the armoury until they gave me a sword and shield that I liked (the same sword as last time, and a lighter shield; the Big Cheaty Shield went to the-lady-whose-character-name-was-Periwyn-or-something-similar), got battleboarded, was chainmail-enabled and handed what could have been a rather nice physrep tigers' claw if it had not got a skull on it and the capacity to freak out anyone within a hundred yards. Then spent reasonable quantities of time doing a beached turtle impression because chainmail is heavy for just standing around in. (For some reason it seems significantly less heavy whilst running around. Go figure.)

Eventually everyone managed to sort out their character (the new person and semi-new person were much more fussy about what class they chose than I'd been :-) ) and we got to start. Awkwardly we were on Tal Anum this time (am I the only person who attempts to have a consistant downtime backstory without recourse to a normal guild type thing?), but I ignored that totally and just hello'd the people I knew (Meridian(=Gem) and Kazruun(=OtherDave)). We were commissioned to 'run around and kill things', basically - "there have been mixed reports about evil activity in this area, go check it out, kill stuff if it's bad and likely to kill innocent villagers or something". Hence we, uhm, ran around and killed things.

Our first encounter was a grumpy old man. With adequate provocation, he zapped us all with 'area fire dart', which is definitely a spell I want to get my hands on someday - on the dealing end :-). Of course, I'd rather do area cold dart, but still. Then we came across a bunch of nasty little lizard things, which we attempted to go around, at which point we were promptly fireballed by a lizardman in the middle of them. The fireballer thought he was targetting one of the guys, but it ended up that he was targetting either me or Meridian, which was amusing. After slaughtering the lizard things and finally pinning down the mage (I like being able to call doubles), we had to flip a coin in the battleboard for which of me and Meridian (both doing the 'we're not really dead, we're just in chainmail' sprawl) got fireballed, and the fireball went to Meridian, who was supposedly sporting a distinct lack of eyebrows for the rest of the weekend.

After the nasty little lizard things, we proceeded to kill a field full of undead including a necromancer, whose head (apparently worth 50 gold crowns) subsequantly went sailing off into the undergrowth under the influence of a rather overenthusiastic decapitation, so one of the party went chasing after it. We also met some 'Mysterious Men' (that was apparently actually what they were called on the monster briefing), yelled at them for a bit and then killed them; also our scouts met another group, but we assumed the warriors scared them off when we came round the corner because they ran for it. The ones that we killed blew themselves up; more lovely explosions. There was a ring of scarecrows in a field which decided to try and kill us too, so we hacked them to bits, and we also came across a patrol of Gil which we, surprise surprise, hacked to bits, this time retrieving a letter from one of the bodies (which was the plot element, as far as we could work out afterwards). There was also a 'letter' which blew up on someone next to Tess, who got to drink lots of CLW water, and a group of three demons and a demonist, who just wanted to help us; Meridian killed one of the demons when it ran towards us, but it only wanted to give someone darksight, and she proceeded to feel really bad about it for the rest of the day.

As for the character interaction, Tessaret befriended Zealous, a young scout who had become a fighter when his eyesight failed on him, and promised to get him a shield because he was running around with just a sword, and kept dragging him back to the party when he attempted to get in the way of the scouts. On the way back to the tavern, Tessaret also berated Meridian for joining the militia, not a career move she plans for herself anytime soon!

Kazruun was happy when we got back to the tavern, because they announced that drinks were on the house and they expected us to drain the bar dry. Tavern was quite amusing; after failing to meet up with Elanril, Tess cheerfully informed anyone who was interested how many times she'd been blown up, and generally sat and commiserated with the rest of the party that'd been out. Eventually she got talking to Thorn (elf-Dave), presumably a half-ice-elf due to being white-painted, and his half-brother (half-dark-elf, black-painted), which was amusing.

All the new players then got rounded up and taken outside for a discussion as to whether everything was okay; I said that it was and could I get back to Tavern now please :-). But no, I had to sit out there while the new-new players asked questions and stuff. Got back in and sat down just in time for the first bad guys of the evening to appear and strength-drain everyone in sight; being a sensible creature, Tess ran straight out the back doors and stayed out until the bad guys had gone away :-). Peter was one of the people who got drained, but there was plenty of healing to get them all back up on their feet. Just as the tavern was recovering from that, there was a slight altercation outside, involving a certain friendly troll attempting to eat some dangerous floating weaponary. The dangerous floating weaponary somehow survived this awful fate, and entered the tavern, managing to get a spirit double through Tess' shield before she could complete running out of the other door this time. Much running backwards and forwards ensued, to avoid said nasty floaty blades. Eventually someone managed to take them down, somehow, and we all trooped back into the tavern.

At some point, Peter went over to talk to the stranger in the white mask, but they seemed quite content to be left alone and not particularly dangerous to anyone. I seem to remember that pizza appeared sometime around this point, which was most welcome (I do like pizza mysteriously appearing). After the pizza, there appeared to be some excitement in the middle of the room, so Tess went over to check it out, as nobody seemed to be dying of it. Apparently there was a mysterious stranger with a pack of cards which did various good or bad things to you depending on what you drew; Thorn had been hit by something that made him only tell the truth, according to his brother, who found the whole thing highly amusing. Tess thought it sounded quite interesting until somebody fell over dead. After somebody fell over dead (and Thorn helped get them off the Halls of Healing or something), Tess attempted to discourage people from going anywhere near the cards, especially Kasruun. Kazruun responded by saying "If anything happens to me, I'm leaving you all my stuff," and promptly got himself killed. Tessaret was pretty upset by this, understandably. As they took Kazruun's body over to the side of the room and talked about locating his next of kin, she cautiously mentioned about what he'd said, which led to the journalist guy going off to find out if there was anyone who'd heard it be said, and Tess being guarded by a militiaman in case she decided to nick Kazruun's stuff.

Meridian had been standing closest, but she hadn't heard either, so Tess changed tack and asked that at least they didn't give the stuff to Kazruun's father, a nasty piece of work who'd probably sell it all to the Gil. They said that they could do that, at least, as his mother was okay to contact about it. Later on, it was decided that they'd try and find someone who could speak with the dead, to work out exactly what was going on and what Kazruun wanted (especially with regards to selling the stuff in order to get him resurrected).

Shortly after this we were all informed that it was 2am and it was probably a good idea to let at least some people get some sleep, so some tables were moved around and many camping mattresses were spread out, and some sleep was got by most people, although there were some people who stayed up talking loudly, some kind of announcement, and various things that conspired to keep me at least semi-awake (which is a wonderful state to listen to such things in, and I had a very odd and interesting dream due to it all.)

I was technically supposed to be Tess, I think, although I looked significantly more like a 12-year-old boy with shortish black hair. The context was supposed to be the morning's mission, which Tess was tremendously underpowered for, but was going on anyway. For some reason we were in a rather SF-like construction (thinking about it, most of it looked like the corridors of Moya in Farscape), and there was something to do with a big pool of water (which was the ocean where the undead are, obviously). And there was a big discussion about water-breathing, which led to me wandering around lost at the bottom of the big tank of water. Apparently there was also some kind of time limit, and we didn't do hardly anything within it because everyone was looking for me instead of doing stuff, and didn't actually know that the time limit was that short. There were stairs in the room with the water which we ran up and down a few times, and we did fight some things too, but we didn't seem to get anywhere. And then someone yelled 'Time Out!' (in the dream) and I woke up.

And that was Friday. (And technically some of Saturday, I guess.)

Comments

[dr-vannacutt.livejournal.com]

Fair enough,

But i think most of my LARP chars and my AD&D chars would have cleaved his head from his body if it was a member of the party that had dropped. Though some of the neutral evil ones may have just looted the bodys while peoples backs had been turned.

[chess]

Tessaret has some kind of sense of self-preservation :).

[dr-vannacutt.livejournal.com]

A scence of self preservation is a good thing to have ;-)

Hows you been and that you been up to?