Hot weather and general uninterrupted busyness over last few days have led to this afternoon being a *KERTHUMP* afternoon. I'm sprawled on my bed with my laptop and don't plan to get up till I go see the new Transformers movie tonight. Will I play Sims? Will I nap? Will I even through my history anxieties to the wind and start writing my story? I don't care, as long as I don't have to move.

(My room is still very messy. Heaps of clothes are glaring at me. But hey, I can still cross it. Precariously, true, but as long as I don't need the bathroom in the middle of the night, I can take my time.)

I saw off my parents this morning - my mum was very happy when I promised I'd come home in a week - and also had a meeting with a woman from the university. There's apparently a big development happening on the Houghall College site, and involved in it is a company called Orcestrator, who seem to be a LARP company, planning on setting up some big event. As president of the already-existent student LARP society, I explained to her the differences between what we do and medieval re-enactment - managing to fit in buzzwords like 'community', 'diversity', 'new skills' and 'representing the university at national events' - and generally described LARP as the awesome and unique thing it is. She seemed very impressed, and not only asked us to take part in Heritage events next year doing fighting displays and stuff but also said she'd speak to the DSU about us getting storage space again. EPIC. WIN.

Far enough exertion on such a hot day. Now, I chill.

Had awesome weekend! Friday night was the Magdalen Ball down in Oxford, where I went with my sister and wore the turquoise dress I bought on my birthday. It was pretty damn awesome, with a circus and dodgems and bands like the Pipettes playing and a chocolate fountain and fireworks. Though my dress was a bit uncomfortable - laced up bodice, just tight enough to be uncomfortable but not tight enough to free me from the constant paranoia from not wearing a bra - and that, plus general tiredness and cold, meant I gave up around 1am and went back to Becca's room, and napped on her sofa till she came back as well.

Saturday, I headed on to Sheffield, for the latest SFX weekend - the 3rd anniversary one, no less - and had the horrific embarrassment of finding out that one of the guys there was from Durham, and had actually been going to the Queen's Head pub quiz for ages along with me, only I'd never recognised him in either location. WAY TO GO, BRAIN. I THOUGHT WE WERE PAST THIS KIND OF EPIC SCREW-UP.

But both gatherings were great, with me getting to see people I don't see nearly enough. And shortly after getting home, marcus_felix came round and gave me the Presidential Sword of TT. I didn't even know there WAS a Presidential Sword! Now I HAVE to tidy my room, just to find somewhere good to put it.

... I graduate on Wednesday. EEK.

Last weekend was the big end-of-year TT event, the 3YGB, which... will be pretty impossible to describe to anyone who doesn't have an idea of what LARPing is. Those who do, it was AWESOME, I basically spent all weekend politic-ing, being dodgy as hell, hitting things, and being in a constant state of Epic Classics Squee. On a related note, Alexander the Great/Helen of Troy is now reasonablycrazy's OTP.

Unfortunately, my arms and legs are now covered in midge bites, which makes life VERY ITCHY. I'm just hoping they clear up by my sister's ball on Friday, or I'm going to look like a plague victim.

Bond filming today! Also, I just bought ticket to see Neil Gaiman in Edinburgh in August! AND it's sunny! Today is off to a good start.

So, my Saturday was VERY busy. ( Cut for those who are not interested in the minutiae of my life, which... I'm guessing is quite a few. )

Oh, Banquet. So difficult to describe. I mean, I could just explain that there's medieval food and medieval clothes and ceilidh dancing and a whooole lotta alcohol, but... that's like describing Battlestar Galactica as a show about a bunch of people running away from an army of robots. Sure, those are the facts and an OK way of telling whether it'll be your thing at all, but you're missing out on so much more, the very SPIRIT of the thing.

But since spirit is one of the hardest things to convey, and I'm a) sleep-deprived and b) still ill, I will stick with facts.

Banquet 2009 - in numbers

Amount drunk: Negligible. A few swigs of mead offered by various people.
Time stayed up till: 3:15am.
Drugs taken: Two rounds of Beechams Flu Plus. Oh yeah, I'm hardcore, me.
Congratulations on being president: About eight face to face, general applause when I wound up making a speech. People were very nice.
Dances: Three - once with some guy, twice with Thorley. Stan asked me as well, but illness struck and spinning round in circles did not seem to be a good idea. Also, Stan.
Public Breakdowns: Usually a common feature of Banquets, yet I saw none. Everyone was strangely... normal.
Score on compliment bingo:* Lost track of counting at one point, but I think it was around 42. Beccy beat me.
People kissed: Two - Dave and Thorley, as per the presidential tradition.**
Offers of kissing declined by me: About five more. Illness is an amazing excuse.
Number of... er... people eating carrots out of my cleavage:*** Oh god. About 10.
Number of people thinking Thorley and I were together: Three. What the hell?
Times tempted to punch Stan in the face: Oh, many.
Number of things I regret: NOTHIIIIIING.

May add more when I think of more.


* Compliment Bingo - a game invented by Beccy and I, which Olwen also joined in on. Basically, you scored compliments you received on a scale of 1 to 4, where 1 was 'Oh, you look nice' and 4 was 'You, me, up against a wall, NOW.' Went slightly wrong when people got wind of what we were doing and tried to skew results, and I got distracted counting down the minutes till I was allowed more Beechams rather than people who were coming on to me. As I said there, Beccy won, but I count all the carrot-cleavageness as extra credit. More on that in a minute.

** There is the presidential tradition that the outgoing president makes out with the incoming president. Dave's girlfriend was mostly not happy about me possibly giving him germs, so we came up with the plan of using the previous president, Thorley, as a proxy - Dave would jump him, then I'd hit on him, and the power would be transferred with him being none the wiser. I ended up telling him this plan when he asked about it though, and Freya (another old president) wanted in on the action ("SHE'D BREAK ME" I cried) and in the end there was so much discussion of who was making out with who that I just kissed Dave and we were done with it. I then kissed Thorley as well because, hey, as I told him, "Just always wondered."

*** There is... ANOTHER presidential tradition. There is the non-official position of presidential concubine, and traditionally at Banquet there are auditions involving demonstrations with cucumbers. (We're a sordid bunch.) I had quite a few applicants, and somehow it devolved into people shoving carrots into my cleavage and eating them. As I said, about ten separate people did this - mostly girls, at first, but then I went out into the corridor and told Thorley, Attfield, Robbie and Ias that they'd missed a bunch of girls eating carrots out of my cleavage, and they were HORRIFIED and went to find more carrots, and it all started all over again.

Sometimes it is unclear whether being a female president just constitutes an acceptable name for 'Society's Ho'.

1. I got elected president of TT! More importantly, I DIDN'T throw up all over the agenda!

2. breakinporcelan saw 'The Fall' and is making icons, like the above! I watched most of it again today. That is, until I got too sick and dizzy to stay sitting upright, and crawled back into bed. It's STILL awesome.

3. In continuation of the new 'vampires are cool' thing, they've commissioned The Vampire Diaries for TV. This makes me VERY happy, because they're written by L.J.Smith, who... wrote The Forbidden Game, my favourite guilty pleasure book. Maybe if it's a hit, they'll reprint that too, and maybe it'll get a fandom... Also, if it's anything like The Forbidden Game, it'll be SOOO gloriously unintentionally cracky.

4. Nausea has decreased so that it's only really overwhelming when I go from still to moving, or moving to still. When I stay in one mode long enough, I can function. Come on, virus, fuck off. We can pretend you were a 24-hour thing and you don't have to lose any face. And then I'll be well enough for...

5. BANQUET TOMORROW WHEEEEEEE.

Went on big adventure for TT today. Generally it's just 'Our village is in ***DANGER*** Help Plx' or 'Come help me do this! I'll give you MONEY', but this week it was something a little more monumental - only fighting off an invasion before the entire city was ransacked.

It was awesome. But so very, very cold. Durham is susceptible to these charming winds that feel like they've come ALL THE WAY FROM THE ARCTIC just to freeze your face off, DON'T YOU FEEL SPECIAL.

Got home and discovered the landlords have heard my pleas and sent me a new mattress! Though it's a very strange sensation to sit on the bed and, rather than sinking half a foot to the zombie-like groaning on springs, just bouncing pleasantly. Ahhh. Can't wait to go to bed.

But first I make foodz, watch MERLIN (yay!) and then go round friend's for Battlestar Galactica and, more likely than not, end up frothing about aforementioned adventure.

It'll be a good evening. But tomorrow, back to work. Sad face.

Wow, I haven't written properly on here in a while. I wish I could say I've been busy, but my exams have been done for a few weeks now, and I've... just been sitting around, doing cross-stitch and playing Sims and rewatching Battlestar Galactica after that OMG FINALE. I've just... always found better things to do. Like re-reading lists on Cracked. Or reading plots of films I'll never watch on wikipedia. Or... just napping. I never really appreciated napping before exams.

Basically, I've had nothing to procrastinate from, so I've procrastinated from productive procrastination by doing absolutely nothing. Perhaps this is why I always try to do so much at once - if I don't have anything to do, I do literally nothing.

Anyway! In this period of nothingness I have, in fact, done a few things which left me thinking "Whoa, this is going to be a HUGE entry on LJ" - and then written nothing. It was Treasure Trap's 3YGB, where I discovered I was very right in assuming that the refs were going to Screw Me and Screw Me Good with Plot. My character had sworn to protect a woman she'd rescued from a vampire at all costs - only to discover:

- The woman really didn't need protecting, she was practically River Tam
- The vampire hadn't been holding her captive, she'd been protecting her
- That vampire was a) extremely powerful and b) pissed at me
- Another vampire who was pissed at me was RIGHT THERE

And yet it was neither of those vampires who killed me, but a random one I met in a hallway who was bored. Still, AWESOME.

I also went to Kenilworth Castle, where Robert Dudley lived, and to Chatsworth, a big country house which they used as Pemberley in the Pride & Prejudice film, where we paddled in a fountain, did roly-polies on the lawn, and I got into such a discussion with a tour guide about a painting of the Siege of Thebes that I was allowed behind the velvet rope to point out some details in the picture! It was so exciting.

And now? Term's over, I've popped home for a quick (stupidly last-minute expensive) visit. Last night I went with my parents to a charity benefit thing a friend of theirs was hosting. My mum has clearly decided I'm her best hope for grandkids, because she dragged me over to meet a guy called Henry, whose own mum was dragging him over to meet me. Apparently he came to my birthday parties when we were kids, and we, no joke, played naked in paddling pools together. I have actually become Bridget Jones.

And now I have the summer holidays ahead of me. Nice, relaxing summer holidays. Aaaaah. I'm going to do cross-stitch and play Sims and go on holiday and CHILL. Because next year I plan to work my ass off.

Also this July, I'm going to do another NaNoWriMo. I'm hoping this will deter me from taking part this November, when there are essays and dissertation and "important" stuff like that, but knowing me, I'll still do it then as well. Mostly, it's because I couldn't decide whether to write Society of Illegal Scholars or my vampire superhero story this summer - this way, I can do both!

So if anyone else wants to join me in my July 30-day breakneck novel writing, feel free...

I will be writing more Sylinder later this evening, once I've done LOLwork. No crack till my essays are done. Shambles the Kitten glares at me if I disobey.

(Shambles is a toy kitten I bought for TT last night, and now get to keep. It's tiny and ginger and adorable. I did toy with calling it Mylar, Sendhil, Sylar, Lyle or even Mr Muggles, but in the end I settled on Shambles, because since I used it as a dog's name in a story I've wanted to use it as a name in real life too. Anyway, I've decided it's the visible personification of the Work Side of my brain, and when I look at it it reminds me to work. Aaand so this pointless aside comes to a close.)

Life continues as usual. OMG work, OMFG Banquet, OMGWTF muesli. But I'm actually really enjoying this whole healthy-living thing - there's a certain satisfaction in it. Plus, the wholemeal tagliatelle from Sainsbury's is NICE. No chips after TT on Monday kinda sucks, but I'll deal with it.

Just a few little things I wanted to record:

1. On the Heroes imdb page, the plot keywords are 'Blood Splatter / Depression / Super Powers / Cheerleader / Gun Shot.' This, to me, is hilarious.

2. The other day I was having a really geeky conversation - figuring out ways to get Star Trek terms into TT - then summoned all my dignity and said "I'm leaving this conversation before I embarrass myself any further!" Then walked into a door. Cue laughter track. I mean, seriously, my life is a sitcom. My friend Sophie said, "Stuff like that JUST DOESN'T HAPPEN in real life!!"

3. Tennant-lecturer today told me I was a 'sunny character'. He said it in tones of slight astonishment, too. I think it was because, despite having walked all the way down to the Classics department to be told my essay was missing and I'd have to re-send it, I was still beaming and ending all my sentences in exclamation marks. But it was nice to hear, because I thought he hated me and thought I was stupid. Who knew? Anyway. So I'm a sunny character. I guess that's nice.

4. LECTURE GUY CUT HIS HAIR. THIS IS SUCH A HORRIFIC SHOCKING DAY. OK, little explanation needed. There's a guy in a few of my lectures who always seems to end up sitting in front or to the side of me. And he has the most AWESOME hair - kind of like Mystery Sock's, only his head is smaller, so it's that much more noticeable.

Or rather, he USED to have awesome hair, BUT NOW HE'S CUT IT OFF! He has a boring haircut now! I was so upset.

Aaand I've finished eating my healthy healthy dinner now (actually, it was soup with a sandwich, so not really all that healthy at all) so I have no real excuse not to work. Boooo.

Don't worry, I'm already feeling better. This is how I deal with pressure. I suppress it and suppress it, then one thing comes out of nowhere and breaks me, and I'm broken for a while - but then I'm back to smiley bouncy self. Probably not very healthy, but it's worked for me so far.

Ref meeting this evening was so fun - well, they always are. But tonight just seemed especially fun. Maybe it was the contrast to my evening previously - just sitting around eating rice cakes and chocolate and scheming about this Saturday's adventure. Yes, I'm writing an adventure for this Saturday, with Alex. It's a Christmas High-Level Non-Continuity Silly. There may in fact be a 100-hit Balrog. BE THERE.

Also, I got the part of Student in the Classics Play!!! COMPLETELY WASN'T EXPECTING THAT!! I get to be a Socrates fangirl in front of an audience!!

Now, I know that essay went badly, and that I still have one more AND an essay/presentation due in. But I also know that there's only three days left this term where I actually have lectures - and I can go without sleep for a week if I must...

Oh - and don't forget it's Pretend to be a Time Traveller day on Saturday!

Today it was Fresher Bash. And it was good. I was kicked in the face repeatedly by Owen and Ali as an orc and a goblin, to show me that boots COULD be good weapons, and got nominated for a pint for protecting woodlice. MattMatt also won one for just being MattMatt. Aka getting spirit-wracked for setting a hungry goblin on some unarmed farmers. Humact sees what you did there.

Fangirl news: Simon Pegg is playing Scotty in Star Trek!! I wanted James MacAvoy, but if there'd been a film with him AND Zachary Quinto, I don't think I'd actually hear a word of dialogue. Plus, Eric Bana as the bad guy. SQUEEEEE.

Also, I hear they're editing the end of 'the Golden Compass'. They've cut out the last three chapters to be the beginning of the Subtle Knife, so that it's not such a mahoosive cliffhanger. This... would normally annoy me, but I've read a statement from Philip Pullman, who's totally behind it, so if he can deal, so can I. Plus, I saw the trailer, and it looks beautiful, and PAAAAAN! IS SO CUTE!

Unlike 'The Dark is Rising', now just called 'The Seeker', which has just changed EVERYTHING because the director and writers are totally wrong for the project, and even though I've never read the books, I feel so horribly bad for the author. The film apparently sucks and is failing massively at the box office, and I'd hate to have anything I'd written be treated that way. We can only hope that by its utter failure, future works of literature are saved from the "Hey, let's make the kid AMERICAN!" approach to film-making.

Book-to-film adaptation that is good? STARDUST. Bet that surprised you. But it is. Sure, they changed stuff, but they kept the spirit of the book there, and they clearly had great respect for the source material, so it was still fantastic. THAT'S HOW IT'S DONE, PEOPLE.

Whereas the director and writers of 'The Seeker' didn't not only love the source material, they seemed to DISLIKE it. They seemed to think it was too stuffy and British. WTF STUDIOS WHY ARE YOU LETTING THEM ADAPT IT? FIND SOMEONE WHO ACTUALLY LIKES IT.

Interesting link I stole from someone else:

http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,22556281-661,00.html

I see her going clockwise. 'Fantasy based' and 'imagination rules'? Sounds about right. But no matter how hard I stare, I can't make her go anticlockwise. Evidently I'm not only right-brained, my left side is lazy and can't be arsed to make an effort.

Another completely random thing. I found this picture of Lee Adama from Battlestar Galactica, and suddenly want to hug him. ( Yes, I'm scared too. )

Finally, I'm actually obsessed with finding motivators on the internet now. Mostly Heroes and Doctor Who ones. ( I struggled so hard trying to choose between which of these two to post, but in the end I love them both too damn much. )

This really was. The weirdest LARP yet, that is.

Thea tried it! I'd made her a shiny character - fire mage, with some pretty nifty magics, all the spells I thought she could use to keep herself alive. But I don't think I could have chosen a stranger first LARP adventure.

Remember what happened at the end of Monday's bar interactive? Everyone suddenly falling asleep?

Well, today our characters woke up on a hillside in the middle of nowhere. We weren't shown a path, and given a task, and told to head along our merry way - we were just left on this hillside, with little scrolls, shiny lammies and a tarot card, and told "WAKE UP!"

Which we did. My character was extremely confused, understandably. And it didn't exactly help when she looked in her pockets and found the tarot card - Queen of Pentacles - and a little scroll saying, basically, 'You're dead, your god Gnome is mad at you for you killing all those people in the Black Forest all those years ago and won't let you into heaven unless you find the Key of Gnome here.'

I knew I shouldn't have sent in my character backstory. The refs use it to SCREW YOU OVER. Because my character HAD killed loads of people in the Black Forest back when she was starting out as a mercenary. And did already feel bad about it.

But her panic about being dead was somewhat diffused by running into Iasus as Bar'ra, the Fire Elf, who was freaking out and muttering over and over again, "I'm not dead, I can't be dead, this is not Kakatal's (the god of fire) place..."

"Hang on, you got a little scroll saying you were dead too?"

"Yes, and it's all lies. I can't be dead, Kakatal would not forsake me..."

"Let me guess, you've got to find the Key of Kakatal?"

"Yes."

"Then it MUST be all lies. Because I was told I was dead too, and we wouldn't end up in the same place."

My character clung desperately to this logic in the face of all troubles. Such as Death coming up to them and telling them they're all dead, but this wasn't the afterlife ("Then what is it?" "... It has no name..." "Then can we name it?" "... if you so wish..." "Right! Wet Scavenger Hunt Land"), people deciding that the aim of the game was to kill as many other people there as possible, and weird Tarot Card lady, who decided to explain them all to us.

"Ahh, the Queen of Pentacles," she said, looking at mine, "So you are the Keeper of Knowledge. You are the counterbalance to The Beast up there."

"Who?" She pointed to a wild-looking guy with two swords halfway up the hill (played by Marios, lethal with a sword, so I wasn't going to be picking any fights any time soon).

"He is Entropy, Destroyer of Knowledge. You two are in balance."

"... so, what, I have to kill him?"

"Hmmm, such violent nature, that's interesting..."

Card Lady was convinced that all this was happening in her head. My character gave up trying to convince her - and to figure out what was going on - and just try to keep out of the way. Not get dead.

And keep dry, because it was literally TIPPING it down with rain. Poor Bar'ra's fire elf was nearly going berserk before I grabbed a cloak and put it over his head to stop him steaming.

But the Beast came over while I was sheltering under a tree with a few others, and said, "What do you want?"

"Hmm. A cloak to keep the rain off would be nice."

"Why do you not take it? There is a man there with a cloak," he said, pointing to another character, "Why not kill him and TAKE it?"

My character was a little weirded out and didn't particularly want to get into this conversation, considering she left the Black Forest to get away from just random killings. "It's not my colour."

He looked kinda disgusted. "You do not REALLY want. You have but mere shadows of desire, you are not really alive."

"I AM alive. I'M NOT DEAD," I insisted, a little too forcefully.

"Then WHAT DO YOU WANT?" he yelled, getting all personal-space-invadey.

"I want to get out of here, OK??? It's confusing and weird and I had a drink back in the pub!! I know I'm not dead, and this can't be real, so something is going on here, and WHY CAN'T I WAKE UP???" Yup, my character was starting to lose it a little.

The Beast grinned at this. "Ahh, now that's what you really want... what would you give to get out of here?"

"I don't know, what CAN I give?"

"Would you kill one of your friends here?" he asked, pointing at the other characters standing behind me, "Or anyone else?"

"... yes."

"Who?"

"The Aerokin." Remember I'm a Tomten, an Earth Elf? An Aerokin is an Air Elf, and they hate each other on principle. The divide goes to their very souls. It was remarkable we hadn't tried to kill each other yet.

"Interesting..."

This was where it got freaky. I'd only just said it - Marios wouldn't have had time to run and tell a ref this or anything, so it was pure weird coincidence - but as soon as the Beast had wandered off, THE AEROKIN GOT ATTACKED. For no apparent reason.

And my character FLIPPED OUT.

"Oh gods!! What the - how, how did that happen?? WHAT DID YOU DO?" I screamed, running after the Beast, looking at the Aerokin lying on the ground.

He span right round to face me, again invading my personal space. "What does it really matter?" he said, standing literally RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME, and bloody hell he was tall.

"She got attacked right after I said I'd give her life - how did that happen?? Was it because of me??"

"Does it matter?"

"YES!"

He just grinned and ran off to join a fight starting up. My character was left staggering around the hillside, slowly losing control, saying repeatedly, "No, this isn't real, it CAN'T be real, I can't be dead, this is all just - what's happening??"

It also happened to be raining. So, annoyingly, all my brown make-up was washing off my hands and face. I just decided to pretend this was happening IC, and made my character freak out that she was turning human, and that Gnome had really forsaken her. Oh dear. But acting massive mental breakdowns is actually much easier in torrential rain. It made it all very surreal and atmospheric.

There was me thinking that while I was sitting on the ground, having a slightly noisy breakdown, nothing more would happen for a while. But things didn't get any better. They got far, far worse.

Because Barnas - as a vampire called Nikolai, with stunning shadows under his eyes painted by yours truly - egged on a mage to try to kill me. I quickly tried to get Thea to help me - I'd been planning on killing her earlier, but never mind - yelled 'Glimmer!' and ran for my life. Sadly, didn't get very far before she yelled "DISPEL!"

Dispel is a very simple spell. Pretty much all mages know it. It basically gets rid of any magic in the target, and is used to destroy oncoming spells.

Thing is, elves are MADE of magic. It makes up part of their soul. So - when I got Dispelled - it practically tore my soul in two.

Which hurts. I fell to the ground screaming my head off.

And the Beast came sidling up, and put a hand on my shoulder. "Do you need strength?"

My character had completely lost it. She didn't know if she was dead or dreaming, whether this was real or some weird fantasy, she thought Gnome had forsaken her and now her soul was being torn apart. All she knew was, she didn't want to die. "Yes."

"I can give you strength. But-" He took hold of my chin and lifted my face to look at his - veeery creepy, nicely done. "- what will you give me?"

"What CAN I give? What do you WANT?" I can't believe that at first I thought he wanted a limb or something. Facepalm subdual single.

But no, he went for the old deal-with-demon standard. "A kiss."

Now, I'm all for proper character immersion. But no way was my first kiss going to be from Marios, as a demon, on an extremely muddy hillside when it was chucking it down, even if it WAS in character.

"Where?" I asked, giving him a look saying 'DON'T PUSH YOUR LUCK'.

He got the hint. "Just on the cheek will be fine."

So I did. And he healed me partially, then dragged me to my feet - then didn't let go of me when we were standing up. I was basically pinned to his side. Ohhh dear.

This sense of doom didn't alleviate when he pointed his sword violently at the first person to come anywhere near us, and yelled "SHE'S MINE!"

My character had her first lucid thought for some time - "Ohhhh shit."

"Oooh, you're warm," said the Beast in a slightly disturbing way, half-dragging me across the hill.

"Yeah, don't get used to it."

"Do you want me to take you over to your little friends here - SHE'S MINE!" he yelled again at them. They all looked at me, extremely surprised and little nervous. I tried to convey my feelings of 'Ohhh SHIT little help?' on my face, but none of them seemed to want to try anything. Marios's skill with a sword is well known. Even Captain Justice Mk 2, new and improved (aka Thorley) didn't seem to want to risk anything - but then, I'm pretty sure I saw his character making out with the Beast earlier (another image seared onto my brain forever, thank you TT) so maybe they already had some kind of deal going on...

"Would you like to sit under the tree?" asked the Beast.

Ooh, I thought - I can talk to trees. That would be good. "Yes, alright," I said.

"It'd be a good place to rear our young."

OHHHH SHIT. I was sat down by the tree - but before I could really talk to it, they called 'Time Out', because there really was no sign of the rain getting any better and we were all literally drenched to the skin.

We didn't bother trying to make it back to the DSU, we just scampered up the hill to Gilesgate, where some of the TT members lived. Thea & I went to Iasus's house, where we got hot chocolate, showers, dry clothes and an unnatural amount of pies. Shiiinyyyy. Then, once everyone was dry, we headed back down to Kingsgate for the debrief.

The refs decided to end the adventure there, and not bother to try to finish it the next day. We would all wake up back in our beds, they said, even if we died.

Which is going to be NO HELP for my character. Because she will take that entire dream as being a metaphor for her life so far. She gets into trouble because of killing people in the Black Forest - ends up alone, lost and confused, not knowing who to trust, and gets severely hurt because of it - before 'selling her soul to the Beast', as it were, and becoming a mercenary, turning her back on her sense of morals. So she was protected from being hurt again - no-one dared attack Marios - but at what cost?

So basically, my character is screwed. The dream made her remember all this horrible stuff from her past and face up to her decision to become a mercenary, and what it's cost her; not only that, she'll probably lose both her sources of work.

On Monday, she got two jobs - an elf assassin with Iasus, and talking to plants for Reuben. But a) she's now had Dispel used on her, and she KNOWS IT HURTS, so I doubt she'll want to use it on another elf any time soon (well, maybe an aerokin) and b) she woke up right when she started talking to the tree. TREES ARE HER SALVATION! She's not going to go chat them up just so that Reuben can uproot them and use them for potions!

Gods, what IS she going to do now? Oh dear... don't tell me she's going to go GOOD. Treasure Trap can't handle a Captain Justice Mk 3...

Right, forget NaNoWriMo, I love LARP so much that I have to rave about it.

Quick recap. Last Monday, it was an extremely innuendo-filled bar interactive. I felt it could be summed up simply by posting the Pirate Song, and most people did seem to get the idea... But I did have great fun that evening. See, I had already decided I was going to ditch my mage character in favour of joining Team Morally Ambiguous, so I couldn't really care less if she died or not. So I could have as much fun as I wanted.

Basically, the bard was singing. My character decided that he was crap, and used 'Douse' on him - basically, emptied a pint of water over his head. Understandably, he was a little pissed.

"Ahh, my hat is all wet! I curse you and your family!" he yelled in a typically crap French accent.

Now, my character couldn't really care less. He was only a bard, and he was just being French. But still... cursing her family... that was just rude. And she knew exactly who to go complain to - Captain Justice.

Captain Justice was actually just this incredibly righteous 'for peace, justice and the Durholmian Way!' kind of guy, and had apparently taken a shine to my mage. So, after being cursed, I went right up to him and looked sad.

"You said to report anything dishonourable and downright mean?"

"Yes."

"Well, that bard just dishonoured me. He cursed me AND my family."

"He did??? That's terrible!!" He turned to the burly-looking sword guys around him. "Come on lads, let's sort him out!"

And so I watched in glee as they surrounded the bard and had him chucked out of the bar. He was only allowed back in when he agreed to sit in the corner and not make trouble. Hee. I started trouble.

Adventure on Saturday - I monstered, and it was good. Basic plot for the adventure was, a star has fallen from the sky and hit a tower, Big Damn Heroes are heading off to investigate, while loads of people think it's the end of the world. So I ended up playing a 'It's the End of the World as we know it, YAY!' girl with an emo brother (Dark Shadow PainFlame) who kept ranting about his inner pain and his journal, while I yelled, "YOU ARE NOT A SPECIAL AND UNIQUE SNOWFLAKE!"; a convert to a cult of DOOOM, getting to yell "FUCK YOU, CROFTER, I WANT MY MATERIAL POSSESSIONS!!!" when I 'saw the light', and starting a fight with the character party when they killed our leader; and Seanna, the Paranoid Demonologist, who thought EVERYONE was a demon. I did rec demon on the entire character party, trying to get my fellow warriors to attack a girl who scarpered when I tried to do it on her ('Only a demon would flee!') - I even did rec demon on a fence that I thought might be lying, and on one of my own character party when she was being mean.

"Rec demon!"

"No."

"Oh. You're just a bitch, then."

But the adventure went by really fast. The character party didn't seem to want to pick fights! Bizarre. Oh, and Barnas seemed to forget to tell the character party where I was Seanna that "if they don't join you, ATTACK THEM", so we basically ended up tagging along behind them, trying to get across "Interact with us!! We have shiny money and lammies and backstories!!"

Anyway. It finished - a little earlier than expected, the character party came fleeing past us right when we were still preparing an encounter - and we headed back to the pub. Wooo.

Sword practice - usual sparring with Barnas. That is, he uses two swords and tries to keep four or so girls at bay. But we also learnt the Crouching Tiger attack, where I ended up getting very muddy (well, everyone knows Tomten girls are dirty), and also, having had my sword knocked out of my hand, resorted to slapping Barnas.

And then we come to this week's bar interactive...

I was all set for Team Morally Ambiguous. I had a character sheet for my Tomtem mercenary whore, Cass (Cassandra Thomas in full, though she hates the name Cassandra - far too girly, takes far too long to say - and Thomas isn't her real surname). I had an outfit - brown top, black corset over it, black trousers. I'd researched Earth Elves, and was armed with basic knowledge. Iasus was lending me his make-up. I even had a backstory. And I planned to leave any kind of compassion and moral sensitivity back in my room.

Apparently, in my outfit I looked 'very Lara Croft'. At least until I painted myself brown. Then I guess I just looked like a very muddy Lara Croft...

Had a very profitable evening - was indeed invited to join Team Morally Ambiguous, though I'm not sure my character is fully committed yet, after having some trouble with working in a group in Wessex (and by trouble, I mean 'most of them ending up dead and scarcely escaping in one piece herself', which is a general definition in Treasure Trap). And under Iasus's pyrokin's advice, I started scouting for clients.

There was one particularly nervous Johnite, who was extremely naive. So, as soon as a rumour started up that there was a werewolf in the area, I sidled up to her. "Hey, have you ever seen a werewolf?"

"Er... no..."

"I have. Terrible things. When I was young, growing up in the Black Forest - surrounded by the things - was out with my brothers, when one came out of nowhere - killed one of them on the spot, couple of others lost an arm before they could even draw their swords... blood, screaming, injuries everywhere, we were lucky that half of us got out alive..."

And went on with tales of blood and gore and general tragedy involving werewolves, getting slowly more and more horrific - all lies, of course - and finally finishing up with, "... so if one came in here right now, you'd be doomed - unless you hired me to protect you. I can talk to werewolves, see. Twenty shillings?"

See, Iasus goes for the honourable mercenary approach. My character doesn't really care.

The Johnite blinked, and said, "No, that's all right, St John will protect me."

I stared at her. "St John doesn't give a flying fuck if you get killed by a werewolf. If it ran at you, it'd have your throat out before you could even start praying."

"But wouldn't you try to kill it anyway?"

"Hey, only if it came at me. I don't like anyone in here by far enough to try to protect them."

Sadly, we didn't reach a business arrangement. I did, however, come to an arrangement with the alchemist, Reuben. Basically, I would talk to plants for him, and find out what they were like and what had been happening to them, and if there was anything wrong with them. Because of this, I spent an extremely surreal part of the evening crouched to the floor outside talking a floor tile that was apparently a patch of purple moss, while the ref stood next to us and spoke for the moss.

Moss is quite chatty, really, if you give it light. Not the smartest plant, but quite sweet.

Anyway, back inside, Reuben asked me exactly what it was I did. After a moment's thought, I said, "I hire out my services for money."

"Really?" An eyebrow went up. "What kind of services?"

"All kinds of services."

"What, like a mercenary?"

"Yes, mostly."

"Oh - so you're not a whore, then?"

"Well..." I raised an eyebrow of my own. "Let's just say I can offer services which put me ahead of male mercenaries."

"Really?" Both eyebrows were up now. I should state now, lest it is not clear, that Reuben is an unofficial man whore (unlike the official man whore, who was ill this week). "'Cause I was just thinking, you're kinda pretty for a Tomten."

"O RLY?" Gods, Treasure Trap is a great place to practice flirting. "I find not many humans like elves, I usually cater for - unusual clients..."

"Aw, hell, I like anything," grinned Reuben, "I mean, some of the girls here at the Blue Rose, they're pretty interesting-"

"Believe me," I interrupted, "Tomtens are an entirely different thing."

"So, what, are you into all kinds of dirty things?"

I looked at him sardonically. "I'm a TOMTEN, Reuben. Dirty is our nature."

The guy playing Reuben did look a little surprised at all this. Most of my other characters have avoided him like the plague, y'see - mostly because he did have the plague.

"So - what - what kind of things do you do?" he asked eagerly.

Eyebrows again. "Wouldn't you like to know."

"YES," he said fervently, no hesitation whatsoever.

"Weeell... it's kind of difficult to describe..." I smiled. "But I can assure you it's more 'interesting' than anything these girls can offer."

Yeah. I'm thinking Reuben and I might be coming to some kind of business arrangement soon.

Other fun points of the evening - Western-type stand-off when an Aerokin came into the bar, alleviated when the Aerokin squeaked and scuttled off behind the head of the Mage's Guild - getting some people into trouble with Captain Justice again - oh, and getting extremely annoyed at some Wessex poets who referred to me as a 'simpler being', and very nearly killing them.

And, very interesting - at the very end, the refs came in with their hands in the air, and put us all to sleep one by one. And then called 'Time Out' right after. So, technically, they're all still asleep on the pub floor.

So Saturday's adventure ought to be veeeery interesting.... Thea, beware.

I have discovered one thing cooler than LARP adventures.

LARP adventures - AT NIGHT.

This thing of wonder is known as Nightbash. This one was designed by a woman who is apparently sadistic on Joss Whedon levels, and had ordered in a whole load of stuff to make it extra-soopa-special for Hallowe'en. It was also for high level characters, so us monsters actually got to be DANGEROUS. HEE.

Us monsters set off from the armoury around 7:30pm (after being briefed on Team Morally Ambiguous by Iasus and sparring with Barnus, who kept rebuking me for not being aggressive enough - "Funnily enough, I don't FEEL like beating you around the head with a stick, but believe me, I'm getting close") bedecked in thick tartan and carrying as many weapons as we could. It was then I happened to see Ed, the Ancient History guy, to whom I chirpily said "Hi!" and waved with my non-spear carrying hand.

We carried on up the hill, actually going through Grey College - saw several people I knew, but none of them seemed to see me, keeping their eyes averted from the scary sword people - into the dark woods beyond.

My first monster encounter was as a zombie. I just had to stagger out of the trees going "uhhhh" and attack the character party. I learnt then - very quickly - that

a) The character party had their own shiny swords
b) They were good with them
c) They DIDN'T PULL THEIR BLOWS.

OW. That's the thing about LARP weapons - they don't cut you, they don't leave bruises, but THEY STING LIKE HELL.

After that encounter, I wasn't too eager to be attacking them again. Thus, when the woman in charge of the adventure - leading along the monsters a bit ahead of the character party and organising encounters - asked for a 'screaming woman', I leapt at the chance. Not get attacked? Huzzah!

My role was thus: I had been captured and handed over to imps as payment for various ill-deeds by an evil priestess. These imps weren't particularly bloodthirsty and, fortunately, weren't in a raping mood (I may have regretted volunteering so quickly otherwise), so were just torturing me - ie, prodding me with sticks and occasionally fire-darting me while laughing. "This is supposed to be serious and scary," she ordered, "Not comedy. No cries of 'Ow, my SPLEEN!'" She said this in the tone of one who has had this happen all too many times before.

So we got into position - me kneeling on the (muddy) ground, the imps arranged around me, ready to prod. And we waited for the tell-tale torches of the character party to appear in the distance.

And waited.

And waited.

I must say, it's very surreal to be kneeling on the (muddy) ground, in the woods, under the stars, while three people in imp masks around you discuss whether a sound they heard was a fox or an owl.

Eventually, I got up again. My knees were hurting. We hung around for over half an hour, in the cold and dark, muttering curses about the character party.

"Maybe you should scream," suggested an imp, "Might hurry them up a bit."

And so I did. "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH!"

The imps recoiled, one yelling, "Bloody hell!"

"OK," said another warily, "Good, but warn us before you do it next time!"

"Sorry," I said meekly.

We saw a monster torch up ahead. "What's that coming over the hill?" we yelled, "Is it a monster?"

"It is a monster!" they yelled back.

Along came Iasus, Barnus and Alex, all of whom had volunteered to be ghouls at the beginning - supposedly, to follow the party and encourage them to keep moving. But apparently, it had had the opposite effect. "They kept turning round to fight us!" complained Iasus, "And we weren't allowed to fight back! Damn, these guys can faff."

"Did you hear me scream?" I asked.

"Oh yes. Very good. But try to have a bit of gurgling at the end."

They hurried along the path, leaving us alone once again. We could hear an encounter further along start singing "Hissy Hissy Little Ghoul", which was surprisingly eerie.

I tried screaming again. And again. I would later learn that this was having the opposite effect - instead of making the characters think "Ooh, someone's in danger up ahead - to the rescue!", it made them think "Ooh shit, someone's in danger up ahead, let's stop and talk about it for a while."

But finally - FINALLY - we saw the character torches up ahead. Quickly I dropped to the ground, the imps encircled me, and I went into full damsel-in-distress mode. "AAAAAAHHH SOMEONE HELP ME!!! GET AWAY FROM ME, PLEASE, JUST LEAVE ME ALONE!!!" repeated in various orders amongst various crying out and occasional screaming when firedarted, while lying in the muddy ground and being prodded.

I actually had to do that for some time, because it seemed that the character party stopped to debate this turn of events AGAIN. Well, at least they were a democracy, I guess. But FINALLY, they ran to my aid, chasing off the imps and letting me scramble to my feet. I cried, "Thank you thank you thank you good sirs you saved me! KTHNXBAI" before dashing off to catch up with the monster party again.

Next encounter was FAWESOME. We had to be ghosts, doomed to relive the moment our village was overrun by ghouls and burnt to the ground, and we were all slaughtered. Which meant we had to pretend to be in the middle of a horrific battle when the character party turned up. Which. Was. FUN.

Imagine you are the character party, if you will. You've already been attacked by zombies, ghouls, skeletons, witches and suchlike. You know you're getting close to the Big Bad. There hasn't been an attack in ages, and you don't know what to expect. Then you round a corner - and enter a smoky clearing, filled with people screaming, and at the front, a line of people with swords facing you screaming, "THERE THEY ARE!!! HOLD FAST!!!"

They FREAKED. Especially when we charged them at full speed - screaming madly - and were cut down by invisible foes just before we reached them, and vanished. (Of course, by 'vanishing' I mean 'raising our hands so that our characters were officially no longer there'.) Fun things - charging straight through the middle of their group, as though I'd walked straight through them, yelling and waving my sword - to get to Iasus, who was writhing on the ground BEHIND them (how the fuck did he get there??) and yelling about being eaten by ghouls. And raising my hand, creeping right into the middle of the group, then dropping my hand and SCREAMING AT THE TOP OF MY LUNGS.

Eventually, they got the gist, and laid all our spirits to rest, so we could scuttle off to the next encounter. This one was with the supposed 'Big Bad' - or so they thought (the Woman in Charge also had the Joss Whedon habit of surprising the audience with a sudden New Big-Ass Villain at the end of the adventure) - an evil priestess trying to sacrifice a girl to a demon. We were random minions, zombies and suchlike, who had to go attack the character party when she yelled at us to defend her.

Which none of us did with much enthusiasm. We'd all had to fight at them some point before, I assume, and most were still stinging.

But attack we did. I think I managed to hit one of them! Woot. But finally got to scuttle onto the next encounter. Because - as the characters were about to discover - when the evil priestess died, her death would allow the demon she was worshipping to enter the world. And we had to go be his unholy army of lesser demons. HEEHEEHEE.

Along the way, I volunteered to be a faff - a monster to delay the characters long enough for the final encounter to be set up. And it was a BITCH of a monster. Eight hits to kill me, and I could do DOUBLE damage with my weapon, and single damage with my HANDS ALONE. And if they called 'Rec undead' or 'Rec demon', I just replied 'Yes'. I DEFIED IDENTIFICATION. DUUUUDE.

But after some time of waiting around - singing 'You Are My Sunshine' in a skeleton mask at 11:30pm in the middle of the woods, another surreal moment - I got recalled. Apparently the faff before us was making the characters faff more than had been expected, and if we wanted to have this adventure finished before daybreak we had to get a wiggle on. Dammit.

So we assembled as the demon Lord Bail's minions. Lord Bail was being played by Iasus, which was also kinda surreal. We just hung around chatting about how much this world sucked and how we wanted to go home and waited for the Superior Faffing Character Party, expecting a huge fight and a possible victory due to strength of numbers.

Which we were denied. The character party, for some reason, didn't fancy taking on a force of more than three times their numbers, and negotiated with Lord Bail, promising to return him to Hell. This involved a long, complicated ritual - throughout which all us minions were kneeling on the cold, hard ground (THANKS for that, Iasus and character party - in the words of Olwen the Evil Priestess, 'I might have been evil, but at least I was fast') and finally, Lord Bail was returned to Hell with a final enigmatic "I think we shall meet again", and all of us put our hands in the air and trudged away up the path.

Time for the last leg. This time, I was a refugee from a nearby village, one of the only survivors of Lord Bail's attacks, waiting for the Durholme Heroes to lead us to safety. Part of playing which involved, as soon as the heroes appeared and identified themselves, major squeeing and glompage. "THE HEROES OF DURHOLME! THEY WILL SAVE US!" and all that.

Iasus and I both ended up glomping the same guy. As soon as he, slightly alarmed, hurried off, we glomped each other, because we had excess glomping energy. Shortly after, when he was off talking to someone else, he said, "Where's my wife? Ah, there you are, come on dear, let's get going."

"I'm your wife??"

"Apparently so, dearest."

So I was Iasus's wife. We set off, guarded by the 'Durholme Heroes', being fangirlish and praising 'The Big Damn Heroes' (Iasus can't go five minutes without some Firefly reference). But our hero worship of them was slightly dented when we kept getting attacked by zombies, and the Big Damn Heroes weren't stopping some of us from dying. Especially when my darling husband got one of his legs cut off. I had to hug him while he had it sorted out.

So this adventure ended with me in the reverse position to how I spent most of the last - being a crutch to SOMEONE ELSE who'd just lost a leg following a zombie encounter. I felt extremely sorry for the alchemist by the end, supporting someone else does leave you sore - but I didn't get into the hobbling-useless-leg business quite as much as Iasus did, who did seem to be relying on me and Claire to support him.

But finally, we emerged from the woods, and thus came out of character. Barnus came bounding up in a state of wild excitement. "I got me a zombie, and a ghoul, and-"

"We're out of character now, Barnus."

"Oh." Beat. "I got me a zombie, and a ghoul, and-"

"Shut up, Barnus."

"...SURRENDER YOUR MATERIAL POSSESSIONS!"

*facepalm*

We got back to DSU, only to discover that a fire alarm was going off, and we weren't allowed back in the armoury yet. So we hung around drinking some of Alex's homemade mulled wine (which is WEIRD, but kinda nice) and trying to ignore the drunk people who were staring agape at our swords and suchlike. I got two shirtless guys coming up to me, asking me to hit them with my sword.

"Is there a particular reason you guys are shirtless?"

"What? Oh, we just hot. C'mon, hit us!"

"Sorry, I only use my sword for good."

"But it is for good! We represent the Forces of, uh, Evil Knowledge."

"Do you really."

"Yeah!"

"Teach me something then, Evil Knowledge."

"Errrr.... Dogs can't look up!"

"Ahem. 'Shaun of the Dead' references hardly count as Evil Knowledge."

"Whaa? But it's true! It's a real fact! Do you have a dog?"

I couldn't stop myself. I hit them both over the head with my sword.

"Oh YES! HARDER!"

I stared. "Hooookaaay, moving away now."

Finally we got into the armoury to dump clothes and armour, and I eventually staggered back up to Grey College, collapsing back into bed around 3am.

Only to get up again at 6:30am, to catch my train to Oxford. Gorrammit.



Damn, this was a long entry. But Nightbash - was - AWESOME.

Let me state this now.

LARP. IS. AWESOME.

Thea. When you go to uni, join LARP. Sarah. When you go to uni, join LARP. Jackie - I'm not sure if LARP is as common over there, but if you can, JOIN ANYWAY. You will ALL LOVE IT.

Last night was the bar interactive. For those not bothering to keep count, I was now on my THIRD character... and I knew I wasn't going to be going on an adventure for a while, so I hoped this one would last for a few weeks at least. So firstly, I wanted a character who would be fun to play, and would be able to go up and chat to random people.

Cue Meg. A Green/White mage (haven't decided yet). Also - one of the most cheerful optimistic people EVAH. The sort of person who sees a strange man in a hooded cloak standing in a shadowy corner, whom everyone else seems to be avoiding, and walks straight up to them and says brightly "HI! Who are you?"

It didn't take me long to realise that it was possible this character wouldn't last for long after all. Someone might just kill her out of sheer annoyance.

One plus - NICE CLOTHES. Tamblyn had these long shapeless robes which weren't really that attractive. Lucretia had a black toga - looked AWESOME, but DAMN THAT TINY FEEBLE PIN! - and a corset for the adventure, which seemed to strive to be as uncomfortable as possible. I knew I had to find some kind of happy medium. Thus - nice pretty green top, black skirt and brown cloak! SHINY. Comfy.

So I got to the bar interactive, and discovered from Barnas that Decimus had fled to Wessex and wouldn't be coming back any time soon. Why? "Because he doesn't have a negative IQ." Barnas was now being a drow mercenary, one of Iasas's old buddies. Next time I saw him, he was sprayed entirely black. Yeesh.

Anyway, the interactive was SO FUN. For one, I had my fun character, who was utterly naive and cheery, and had a full conversation with aforementioned mysterious cloaked man standing in the shadows. I also ended up looking after a girl who was 'strange in the head', and discovered that she had been tortured by Bastites - somewhat denting my character's bright, shiny outlook - and met Ulfric, who my character adored, because he seemed to be one of those Olde Fashioned Heroes(TM). Which, in this society, probably means he's evil.

Lucretia was mentioned several times over the evening. Dude, my character achieved longevity!! But there was the unfortunate moment when I was discussing it with a priestess and Ulfric came over...

"Hey, what are you talking about?"

"A supporter of Vivamort."

"ARGH! Don't say that name to me."

"Oh... all right... well, this supporter of - erm - 'You-Know-Who'-"

All of us fell silent, desperately trying to keep our faces straight, then burst out laughing. Loudly. We had to put our hands up (the LARP sign for 'we're not actually here, we're out-of-character') so we could try to get a hold of ourselves. As the priestess said between giggles, "It begins with 'V' and ends in 'emort'!! And has three syllables!! And he's associated with Undeath!!"

I love this society. I earned quite some respect from the older members with my list '10 Things I Learnt from Treasure Trap' on Facebook. Apparently it was 'win'. That's another thing I love about this society! Everyone talks like they do on the internet! And they're all Firefly geeks, on Saturday Iasas said, "Yes, in my language the word for 'hero' is meaning 'someone who gets other people killed'." SQUEE.

Anyway. 10 Things I Have Learnt From Treasure Trap.

1. Leading the charge may seem heroic, but you END UP DEAD. Unless you are Iasus.

2. Don't have a character who relies heavily on being able to swordfight when YOU CAN'T ACTUALLY SWORDFIGHT YET.

3. Sword practice is good. Making friends with fourth years who are fantastic at sword fighting and willing to give you tips is better.

4. Long robes are not practical for adventures. Nor are corsets. Try to find a happy medium.

5. As fun as it is to control zombies to make them attack each other, the god of the undead WILL get pissed at you, and smite you.

6. Not everyone buys the excuse "Oh, a zombie hacked my leg off, it totally wasn't my god smiting me. Really. It did it while you weren't looking. Then vanished. Um. Yeah."

7. Alchemists and healers are YOUR FRIENDS.

8. Do not spill drinks on fire elves. They will kill you. Every time.

9. The important thing isn't knowing what you're doing. It's making it look like you know what you're doing. Then you can send people to their deaths while you leg it yourself.

10. Always watch out for the quiet ones...

And after the practical... traditional going to fetch chips, hanging around in the marketplace chatting, then walking back up to Grey with other Hill people.

As Thorley and I were heading up Grey drive, he said "I love my life!"

And I realised - so do I.






Love MY life, that is. Not his. Well, I'm sure his is lovely, but I like mine.

Yup. I died AGAIN.

And it was all going so well. Barnas aka Guy-not-called-Marcus and I were all haughty and distant in our togas at the bar interactive, and were so convincing as priests of Asrael that I was actually asked to become the head of the churches. Only minor mishap was when my tiny safety pin holding up my toga decided to break, revealing my pink pants to the world.

Anyway. I was moderately optimistic today. I didn't think I was going to die, because I didn't plan to get involved in any fights.

Har. Har har.

See, one of the rules for Vivamortians is that all Undead are blessed, and thus we can't hurt them. I FORGOT this, and wounded one in a fight.

Immediately the character ref sidled up to me and said "Your holy symbol's burning."

"Oh. Ow."

"No - it's on your foot, right?"

Indeed it was. To avoid detection - wearing a red disc around your neck was kinda conspicuous - I'd gone for the tattoo on the sole of the foot.

"Er... yes...."

"Then it's burning your foot OFF."

Shit. Thinking quickly, I cut off my own foot. And then had to explain to everyone else coming back from attacking zombies, "Oh yeah, this zombie just came out of nowhere and hacked off my foot. Bad luck, huh?"

A nice friendly alchemist let me use her as a crutch for the rest of the way. I wasn't exactly much use - I only had a spear, which I sucked at fighting with, I couldn't do miracles any more since I had betrayed my god, and I was limping along on an alchemist. Still, I thought, I can just get a wooden leg, then slaughter some innocents to get myself back into Vivamort's favour...

Until a guy came up to me while I was walking. "Were you using Control Undead on those zombies?"

"Err... yes... it's a power of priests of Asrael."

"Really. I thought they could only do Dismiss Undead."

Shit.

"Mmm."

"So where's your holy symbol of Asrael?"

"Here." I showed him my pendant.

"Ah." Beat. "Your companion over there said it was on your leg, and you somehow offended Asrael and had it burnt off."

SHIT. Barnas and I should have gotten our stories straight. Bear in mind that the little alchemist is still helping me hobble along, and wondering just what the hell we're talking about.

"No. A zombie cut it off," I insisted.

"Why would your comrade lie?"

"He... er... was mistaken."

Luckily, we got attacked by a bunch of bandits right about then, and he seemed to forget about it. Until later, when we happened to get hold of some red discs.

Remember I'd betrayed my god? Yeah, that meant that all red discs burned me. So when the alchemist and I finally caught up with the rest of them (they'd run ahead to fight a battle, and we'd hobbled along as fast as we could after them) and they were oddly silent, then the accusing guy from before said "Lucretia, can you come here?", I immediately thought - shit, I'm rumbled.

The alchemist was already pushing me forwards. Then the accusing guy suddenly produced a red disc and held it against my cheek. I had to wince, and he began to say "So if you're a priest of Asrael, why does a red disc burn you-?"

But before he could finish, I heard Barnas behind me yell "You BITCH!", and he hit me on the head three times. I was dead while everyone else was still saying "Hey, what's going on??" Very quick thinking on his part there.

I lay there on the ground listening to the accusing guy explaining how he'd worked out I was a Vivamortian, the alchemist being all "OMGWTF I WAS HER WALKING STICK!!!!", and Barnas repeating again and again that he'd had no idea. My body was looted and burnt, and then I had to scuttle off out of the way.

I received much respect from older LARPers, who'd had no idea - one guy, who'd nominated me for head of churches on Monday, yelled in disbelief, "I TRUSTED YOU, DAMMIT!" - and ended up winning Best Character, getting me a free drink. Woot.

So Barnas survives, carrying on the good name of Sneaky Roman Vampire-Worshippers, and I must once again think of a new character.

Today at sword practice I actually managed to kill some folk, as opposed to just running and screaming. I also found out to use a shield WELL, as opposed to just hiding behind it, thanks to Dan.

Anyway, tomorrow guy-who-is-not-actually-called-Marcus and I are going shopping for black togas. Because our characters are evil and also from Rome. We're also working on translating all our spells into Latin, so that other people in the group don't pick up that we're NOT actually priests of Asrael - nice priests who make sure your spirit goes onto the afterlife - but priests of Vivamort, who want you to give them your corpses so they can turn them into zombies and suchlike. If this character lasts long enough, I get to be turned into a vampire. WOOOOO.

Today I had my first real experience of Live Action Role Play.

And it is FANTASTIC.

I created my character last Monday. Basically, I still knew nothing about the system, so I wanted a character who could ask about it. Hence Tamblyn Green - NOT the weirdest name to ever just pop into my head (thank you months of confusion, Mozo Zierski) - a girl whose Obi-Wan equivalent and brother had both been killed by undead in the north, meaning that she OF COURSE had to come up and get revenge.

Yeah, I knew she was going to die pretty quickly. Especially when I realised that by being both a mage AND a warrior (hence a warlock), it meant I was pretty crap at both. Basically, I could only do a few little spells - the most useful of which being 'sword sharpen', meaning my sword caused double normal damage - and a couple of actually good spells, such as Shatter (break an enemy's weapon) and Glimmer (makes you vanish for 5 seconds). Problem was, I could only do the good spells ONCE, since all my other energy was in fighting. Which I sucked at. I'd only had one lesson, and most of that was spent running and screaming.

Anyway, on Monday I went to the bar interactive - going to the student union bar in character and chatting with other in-character people - where it really hit me just how dead I was going to be on Saturday. I was also hit on by a man whore.

So this morning dawned - over breakfast, I took bets about how long I was going to last - then headed off to meet the others.

Where I got an AWESOME sword. One of the old-hand RPers leant me hers, and it was SHINY. (Oh, and another fantastic thing about this society - one of the guys came wearing his armour and declared it to be his 'No power in the 'verse can stop me' armour... which prompted HUGE CHEERS from not only me, but loads of other apparent Firefly fans too. THERE ARE FIREFLY FANS HERE!) Some people came up and said "Oooh, shiny sword."

"Yeah, but it was damn expensive - 98 shillings, since it's Warmetal."

"... you have a warmetal sword?"

"Yeah...."

"So you can do single damage instead of just halves?"

"I can do double if I do a spell beforehand."

They stared. Most freshers can only do half damage, you see, which wears off after five minutes - a double hit is enough to kill someone, if they're hit in the head or chest.

Suddenly I found myself in the front line with a bunch of priestesses behind me, promising to heal me if I got hurt if I'd protect them.

Anyway, we set off along the road - in full costume, drawing many stares from students - me chatting to guy calling himself Marcus I'd met at the bar interactive on Monday. He was just a plain mercenary, and was regretting it since he couldn't actually fight either. And he could only do half damage.

The adventure itself was the standard peasants-being-attacked-by-orcs-we're-going-to-save-them-for-money kind of thing. All the orcs we came across looked pretty damn surprised when they realised I was hitting doubles. A group of bandits actually yelled "Bloody hell!" when I killed one of their friends with one strike and ran away. I must have muttered the spell 'Elements, let this sword bite, give me speed and strength for this first strike' a hundred times today.

The guy Marcus bit the dust about halfway through - he'd annoyed a woman who we picked up along the way, and when he got paralysed by a ghoul she cut his throat from behind. I tried to avenge him but she ran off as soon as she realised I knew it was her. And she ran FAST.

I myself died at the very end - cut down by orcs, one of which played by a resurrected Marcus (I can't remember his real name, which is just EMBARASSING). I learnt a valuable lesson - fighting in the front line might be noble, but you END UP DEAD.

When we were walking back - now accompanied by third years, since their monstering activities were complete - one of them came up said "Hey, were you calling doubles?"

"Oh yeah - warmetal sword, sword sharpen spell."

'Whoa' stares from most people present. "NICE," he said.

"Yeah, but my character's dead now."

"Shame. Warlocks are awesome."

We got back to the student union building and went to the bar for debrief. Marcus was voted best character, for his magnificent death - all the third years were very impressed that we'd had an inter-group murder in our very first adventure ("Normally it takes weeks for that to start!") - the ghoul who'd been tailing us and eating most of the people we'd helped was voted best monster, and the guy who'd been the man whore on Monday got best other for actually roasting some chestnuts for a 'roasting chestnuts' group of secondary characters. We drank, we made merry, and Marcus and I mourned our dead characters.

And then got scheming. We're going to work on our next characters together, and they're going to be EVIL. BWAHAHAHAHA.