When you’re walking in the woods, in the dark, funny things can happen. You can walk into trees, you can fall in holes, you can trip over a raccoon. None of these things happened to me but only because I was very lucky.
The game space (the same central area of the property) includes a stream (very cold), a forty-foot embankment (pocked with mini-caves and woven with roots), and many, many copses of trees surrounding small patches of moss and wild grasses just big enough to swing a Gladius and just small enough to force fighters with longer swords to pull some blows.
To be honest, I have to confess that the main game space is lit in an eerie way. More than a hundred large flashlights are tucked into root systems and hanging from overhead boughs. The effect never ceases to impress me as spooky. The contrast of black shadows and white pools of light make for interesting moments.
Normally, there are five or six teams that group up, but today, with the special Mardi Gras 3000 theme, we have an incredible division – Terrapyres against Celestials all the way – with the scattered elves and spies aligning with the Celestials (I guess all the leather, piercings and studded belts scared the fantasy creatures away).
My once-a-year constant companion, tonight called Faith, has fallen into the role as leader, which works pretty well since in the “real world” she’s military. She used to keeping people organized, even our wild, hyped up team of twenty-six Terrapyres. The Celestials can climb and they’re really enjoying pegging us with stinging paintballs from treetop perches. They’ve also gained the embankment which we’re pretty sure they have the chest (and the Grail) up there.
Most the Terrapyres are armed with fists and swords (hardwood) with a few rubber-dart crossbows. There isn’t a paint gun among us and this is really proving to suck. But we’ve making our way toward the embankment now, taking on sentries as we go. There’s no “death” in our game. If you want to take someone out of the game you have to capture them. This is accomplished by managing to disarm a character and slip a felt bracelet over their wrist. The bracelet is attachment to a string. The string is attached to another bracelet which is worn by the captor. Captives can escape but often don’t. Over the years, captives have been nicknamed “pets.”
“Come along, my pet,” croons Marco, a willowy Terrapyre man, to his burly Celestial captive, their blue bracelets linked with a green string. The Celestial could easily pick Marco up and run into the woods with him, but unarmed, and surrounded by more than twenty Terrapyres, Mr. Ethereal has decided that getting group-tackled into the cold dark dirt just isn’t worth it. Three other Celestial pets agree and walk along without much trouble (except occasional grumbles and cryptic but hollow threats).
We face the embankment rises before us. We stop in the shadows. The Celestial pets start calling out to their companions telling them all our supposed weaknesses like our weapon count and which of us can’t dodge a paintball worth a fig. They neglect to give them a head count but knowing that our full game compliment is forty it shouldn’t be hard for the Celestials on the mound to figure it out.
We knock the pets down and sit on them. Silence.
Faith steps out of the shadows into the pool of light made by a dozen or so flashlights shining from above. She puts her hands on her hips. “Your friends are full of bluster, which isn’t surprising with the way you fools dress. We’ve taken out all your sentries. We’re armed with their guns. We live in this world and we’re used to pain so we have no problem with a frontal assault. Keep the coins. Just throw down the Grail and we’re gone.”
There’s utter silence then a huge commotion from the Celestials on the mound. They’re arguing among themselves and yelling various and contradicting things down to Faith.
“Crazy woman!”
“Don’t make us laugh!”
“Give her the damned Grail!”
“Bring it on, Pyre!”
Faith just stands there. Then, a quiet falls over the Celestials again. After a moment, the small Celestial I saw at the West entry point comes to the edge of the embankment. “We’ll give you the Grail, Terrapyre. We’ll keep the treasure,” she pauses and you can almost hear the smile in her smooth voice. “But you have to give us the gamer girl.”
This time it’s the Terrapyre turn to bust out with shouts from the shadows.
“Dream on!”
“No deal!”
“Out of line, freaks!”
Faith’s voice shouts over the others, “Not going to happen. We don’t—”
I step forward into the light. Faith turns to me. I strip off my biker jacket and push the left sleeve my cream-colored cable sweater up to the elbow, baring my wrist. “Whose getting a pet?” I smile as sweetly as I can.
There’s a very un-Celestial-like whoop from the embankment and masked creepies start swarming down, shouting their victory, throwing insults into the shadows behind me and Faith, paint guns and other weapons hanging limp at their waists or over their shoulders.
“Where the Grail?” Faith demands as they get closer to us and she steps in front of me.
“In good time,” says the Celestial leader with a smirk, already reaching for her captive bracelet. “In good—”
There’s a shout from the top of the embankment. Six Terrapyres have gained the summit by circling in from behind, just as Faith planned. Three of them are holding the chest high and another is clutching the Grail. There is laughter met with profanity.
“In His time, Celestial, not yours,” Faith smiles and sweeps the legs out from under the Celestial leader as I draw my sword and smack another back. The rest of our team rushes from the shadows and the Celestials are pinned against the slope as we fight, disarm, and find ourselves with an awful lot of pets.
Next year it will probably be back to dragons and elves and fey and spies, but this year the games were quite literally a dream come true.
Thank you, friends. And thank you, once again, to every one who has helped make Mardi Gras 3000 possible.
E.J.
