It was just another day at school.

A sophomore's life in high school in so mundane. No longer the target of upperclassmen, but not enough seniority to warrant interest, sophomore year is a year of "getting by." My friends and I keep close, but are too busy studying to do much more than hanging out at lunch.

I have a secret though. A dangerous secret that I am not privileged to reveal to anyone else for fear of getting burned. Bellevue High School is a school of diplomats' and computer millionaires' children. Mostly pretentious brats, they still need protection from those that would use them as an "Ace" for money and power. An adult cannot move through the throng of angst and hormones as a fellow teen can. This is where I come in. I'm an assassin.

No, I'm not an assassin of children. I'm an assassin of those who would do harm to children of the influential. I've been taxed with this assignment because there are rumors of a "super assassin" roaming the halls of education. Someone "our age"- someone like me.  I am not the only one protecting the brats, I've met another who was hired privately to protect some "Microsoft baby". He and I have developed a friendship- well as much of a friendship as one has in this line of work. Robert Thorn has a long history of "saves," having personally "dispatched" twelve bastards that tried to abduct those he was protecting.

Me? I've dispatched my share- though, admittedly, not as many. Two would-be-abducters and one particularly nasty piece of work named "the viking." The first two were stupid enough to open a couple of love-lettter-bombs I sent to them, the "the Viking"... I took him down in a gunfight- though, not without a shot to the leg he gave me first. The "broken leg" bit I did for the next few weeks tendered plenty of female attention, which was fine by me.

Rumors in high school suck, but rumors in our line of work get you killed. Rumors like the one that got me killed. I was given a tip. Someone wanted to meet me in person to give me information...

Tab was his name. we met in a small room by the gym. The room was a storage and janitor's closet. A little room, poorly lit.

"I know who 'the super' is," he started.

I replied with a curious, "yeah? And what makes you think I care."

"You should, because he's looking for you."

Flicking my lighter, I bring it to my cig with the confidence of Connery in his good years. Putting my lighter back, I pull out my Walther. "Then maybe you should mention his name."

"Please. That won't work." eying my PPK.

Motioning him out of sight, "Just ensuring a bit of safety on my part."

"No. I mean to say that won't work at all. You see, his name is Tab... That is to say, he... is me."

He starts for something in his jacket.

"Click! Click, click, click!" What the... my gun won't work!

He moves to the right as he pulls out what looks to be a flashlight. Not sure what he's up to, I wasn't sticking around to find out!

Time seems to slow down...

He levels the flashlight...

I'm diving for the door...

a blinding light... brief pain...

all silence...

Damn. A time traveling assassin. Fucking hell!

-------------------------------------------------------

This was an episode from a game of "Killer" my friends and I played in high school. We each played assassins and were given targets to "take out." Lot's of fun :)

Of course, this game could never be played now. Anyone moving around a school like that is very likely to get shot for real! A [very] few of you might remember "TAG, The Assassination Game" movie. I think that movie is what killed it in the end. "Killer" was really the precursor to the modern day LARP.

The only LARP pick of me helping to add gravity to the scene

A Live Action Role Playing game (LARP) is like physically moving through a fictional story. The organizers of the game create a basic plot line that only they are privy to. It is up to the players (or the characters they play) to figure out the mystery of the plot as the game progresses. Alliances are created and battles ensue between the characters. All of this leads to the "final battle," which is usually apocalyptic in scale. Cathy and I have personally saved the world from certain doom in the Greensboro/Traid area no less than 4 times (you can thank us later).

The fun thing about this is that LARPers become attached to, and take their characters very seriously. Some a little too seriously ;) I will not name names in order to protect the innocent (my ass, that is). Also, as crazy as some people got, I never met a player that I didn't like at some level. They're all great people with awesome imaginations and a head for stats that I could never get close to!

Strategists and their Egos

Power gamers, they're called. Players that create super-powerful characters that take the field with cunning or sheer brute-force. One such gamer (I will call him "The Kurgen") loved to play a werewolf that intimidated you into the ground. Another played a powerful political type, whom I will call "Briar." He would talk you into signing away your first born!

All of them were intimidating on the field as well as in real life. It was frustrating at times dealing with the arrogance, but they did make the game "interesting."

Cathy with her poker face ;)

Characters

We all had egos at some level and none of us wanted to lose our characters.

Speaking of which, some of my characters that I loved to play were the Gangrel Vampire, "Robert the Bruce;" Ventrue Vampire, "Frederick Meglan" (Ferdinand Magellan) and (for a weekend convention LARP) a really slimy character that in the course of a night started as a naughty Lord, turned into an evil vampire, gotten saved by the Shroud of Turin and went off to become a monk. That was a VERY fun character to play and probably my favorite :D

oh dear... I did it again. Your eyes are glazed.

You see, this is a really bad habit of old LARPers- talking of old conquests. It was a just a game! It was also a good book. It was also theater. It was really fun.

One more thing

How did we play out the battles?

...rock, paper, scissors. Really.

Now imagine this guy doing rock, paper, scissors. Like I said, pure unadulterated fun ;)

I may have mentioned in previous posts that my beautiful wife and I spent four years of our lives participating in Live Action Role Playing (LARPing). What the hell is LARPing, you might ask?  Think Dungeons & Dragons, but in stead of sitting around a table talking about what you're going to do, you act it out. It sounds like it'd be an exciting thing to watch, but if you actually happened upon a LARP game, it'd look fairly mundane. What you'd see is a bunch of geeky people standing around in groups talking (kind of like a Jr. High dance). Below the surface, it's way more interesting than that.

Non-Sparkly

It all started when Cathy and I were attending a local Sci-Fi convention in Raleigh. We came upon a booth owned by a group calling themselves "VampCat Productions." They held a regular role playing game called "World of Darkness." Describing it in enthusiastic detail- it was a bit different than normal role-playing, it was "Live Action Role Playing." They invited us to an game scheduled for the following week and we thought we'd give it  a try.

"World of Darkness" (WoD) is a set of games with characters that include vampires, werewolves, immortals (ala- Highlander) and the like. Mostly, people play Vampires and Werewolves, immortal enemies, BTW. If the vampire/werewolf dichotomy sounds familiar, that's because the "Underworld" movie franchise borrows heavily from  WoD universe. Borrowed, HELL! I think the movies were from a WoD game!

Get this straight, these vampires didn't "sparkle" and they weren't soulless demons like on Buffy. They were like the vampires from Anne Rice's novels or Blade (another that might have been inspired by WoD). You know...interesting characters. The vampires and werewolves were mortal enemies. The werewolves were "protectors" of the earth that hated the vampires, which were "parasites" of the earth.

Vampires = Bustiers

yadda, yadda, yadda... I know your eyes are glazing over because I've seen it happen everytime I've tried to describe the WoD universe to people.

RIGHT! Along with the social interaction and strategy, LARPing ALSO contains a psudo-sexual undertone. Really?! Vampires have a sexual undertone?! Um... Yeah! and THAT is why it has lasted as a genre for so long. All you have to do is read 30 minutes into an Anne Rice novel to figure that out.

Rewind back to March 1997 at our first LARP. Cathy and I are dressed to the nines! We are given our character sheets (describing who we are to be and act like) and we go into the crowd of 75 (or so) similarly dressed people. Not 10 steps into the room... a very-nicely dressed (and by that, I mean scantily) girl walks up to me, gives me full eye contact, walks past, dragging a fingernail along my side.

Now get this straight, I love Cathy and there is no way I could, or would, ever cheat on her, but I'm thinking... I'm going to like LARPing.

Next Post: The Vampire Years 2, Of Strategies and Egos