Pennsic novel
Saturday night I left Kin Ryu and Carolina’s place around 11:00 to drop off the key to Critter. While there we got to talking and he asked if I had any more room in my car. I told him I had a little, then he reached under his porch and grabbed his great sword saying “Use this in the woods battle, kill something for me.” How could I refuse a request like that? Just as I was about to leave I got a call from Luetfried saying he just got home and was running a little behind. We were planning on caravanning out together and leaving at midnight. I decided to leave without him. I was on my way to Pennsic 35!!!
The ride out was uneventful. I stopped often to get something to eat or drink or use the bathroom. The whole 410 mile drive only took a little over 1 tank of gas. A couple times I got calls from Tina or Eric telling me how far along they were. But I was way ahead of both of them.
I got to Pennsic around 8:00 just as troll was opening. I got my badge and parking tag then I was off to try and find our campsite. It took a couple minutes, but I did find it. Thankfully the A-frames were already set up. They make such a good land mark. When I walked into camp it was all quiet, someone was in the shower, but everybody else was still asleep. Finally Fezzik stepped out and shortly after Kin Ryu, Carolina, Nora, Volsar, Riza and the kids all woke up. There was some initial confusion as to whose tent was going where and how big they all were, but it all got straightened out. After dropping my car off in the parking lot I stopped by some other Markland camps to say hi to old friends. Then it was time to get in garb and let the fun begin.
But before the fun could begin we had to be informed of the camp rules. This year there were a 2 and a 4 year old camping with us for the first couple days. Because of this we couldn’t talk the drunken Vikings we usually do. Welcome to the land of Metaphoria, where a man and a woman will “couple” and unpleasant people are told not to be a “Rich”. I’ll let you use your imagination as to what “priming the pump” and “web slinging” refer to.
Actually there wasn’t that much “fun” the first day. Just helping people getting set up and chilling out. But it wasn’t boring in camp, thanks to Minion who brought along Munchkin a card game that pokes fun at role playing games. It’s become the new Circle addiction.
Sunday morning after breakfast (and a few more games of Munchkin) some of us hit the merchant area. I picked up a new belt pouch and a leather strap bundle, and my first bottle of “Pennsic crack” in a year. For the uninitiated, Pennsic crack is chocolate milk. Not just any chocolate milk, but fresh from the dairy, not full of additives and preservatives, right out of the chocolate cow chocolate milk. I also introduced Minion to the wonders of Pennsic crack.
Sunday night was House Von Drakken’s annual “VD Pajama party” where the drinks are named after different types of venereal diseases. I decided to dress up this year, well it took a little persuasion, but I did finally put on the “Princess Lay-me” outfit. Everyone in camp was in on it except for my knight R, who forbid me from wearing it. I’m a bad squire. I walked to the party with my cloak on when we got in I made an announcement that all the Star Wars fans should pay attention, because their dream girl was here.
I was very popular that evening. And you’d be surprised what you can get away with when you’re a fat bastard wearing a gold lame bikini. There were a couple people not amused though. HVD’s neighbors are the Blue Feathers, a household of Gay/Les/Bi/TS/TV people. One of the pre-ops was giving me dirty looks all night long. And when my knight showed up, he didn’t mind the outfit, but I broke the rule of getting my knight’s permission before doing a prank, so as penance I had to join the belly dancers around the fire.
As I said earlier the party is known for its alcoholic concoctions, but apparently some of the recipes got lost when the household split earlier in the year. They only had gonorria, syphilis, and chlamydia. There were three new drinks, Pennsic squirts, blue balls, and snowballs. And sadly they ran out of just about everything early on in the evening. That seemed to be an ongoing theme of this Pennsic. I did have more than enough to drink though. After the party I stumbled back to camp, and stopped at a porta-castle, after I finished up I decided to remind it who was boss so I yelled out “Marklar!” and shoulder checked it. Then back to camp where I collapsed in my tent still in my bikini and fell asleep. I did wake up briefly to puke though. What a night.
I woke up in the morning and joined everyone for breakfast still wearing my bikini bottoms, (the top came off at some point in the night). People were definitely motivated to get out of camp and onto the battlefield.
Monday’s fighting wasn’t all that good for me. I was having helmet issues, and using the wrong weapon for the scenario. But the Markland Army and East Kingdom prevailed, even thought the mid-realm had us outnumbered, and where being generally whiny.
After the fighting and shower I went back to the merchant area and found the game shop where I and Minion bought most of the Munchkin games he had, later in the day other members of the house bought the rest.
Monday night was the Hell Party. This year’s theme was “Hell Freezes Over” and it was gonna be the last Hell Party ever. Before going I had to go pick up Tina at her camp since several of the larger male members of Kilkenny weren’t gonna let her out alone in the corset she was wearing.
By the time we got back and were ready to go there was a substantial line to get into Hell, and it was raining. We decided to see if we could find a smaller party instead. Then, the sky opened up and the downpour started. Within minutes we were soaked. We figured the rain may have scared people away from Hell, and we couldn’t get any wetter, so let’s give it a try. We did meet up with Mihrimah which was a welcome surprise. In fact she seemed to be shadowing me to most of the parties. It must have been around midnight, cuz Satan was just arriving. Ironically that’s when the fires of Hell went out. So there we were, soaking wet in Hell with no fire. No fire means no drumming circle, and no drumming circle means no belly-dancing. Who woulda thought Hell would be such a lousy place? We left the party and went back to our camp where Tina started shivering so I lent her some of my garb and walked her back to Kilkenny. As I got back home and started to drift off to sleep, Hell picked up again, but I was done for the evening.
Tuesday was the woods battle. The scenario was a little different this year and our strategy was kind of odd. I started the battle out using Critter’s sword. My unit was about to do a pulse charge into the opposing line when I was overcome by the spirit of Critter. I started yelling and running towards the enemy with his sword held high. I don’t know how many different ways I died.
I walked back to our drop off point to grab my spear which ended up working out better for me. I still died, but I took others out with me. Well not directly I got a couple assists though. On my way back to resurrect at one point I stepped in a gopher hole and felt pain shoot up my back. I gave it rest then tried going back in, but even picking up my helmet hurt. I was done fighting for the day. The East ended up losing the day as well.
That night we weren’t sure what party to check out a couple of us decided on Carillon’s Goat’s Milk party. It was kinda lame, so Eric, Evelena, Kin Ryu, Tina, Sven, and I left looking for the Three Skulls Party. On the way we stopped by the Perverts Party which was one of the tamest parties I’ve ever been to. There was a naked guy though who lost his pants to the bartender. We left and continued looking for Three Skulls. On our way we stopped in another encampment and complained about the lack of perversion at the pervert party. We met a like minded soul who claimed she was probably more perverted than any of us. Well not one to back down from a challenge like that I asked her which piercing she’d like to see first. She took the opportunity to check all of mine out. We then continued on. We stopped by Black Talon for some topless hop scotch for beer. And eventually found someone who knew where Three Skulls was. She took us to the camp and we checked out the party, the bar, and the fire twirlers, but we’d been walking for hours by this point and didn’t feel like standing around. As I walked Tina home we realized that Three Skulls was right near Kilkenny. We did almost a giant lap around Pennsic.
Wednesday there was no fighting. It was just a lazy day. I thought about taking a class, but there were none offered I was interested in. I did some more shopping and got a new pair of fighting boots.
Wednesday night was the “Men Without Pants” party. To get into the party women can wear whatever they want, men can wear, kilts, togas, long tonics, loin cloths, etc. But they must “regimental” underneath. After you get into the camp where the party is held, a line on women will check to make sure you’re appropriately attired. This year I wore a kilt, and bells. I’ll let you all guess where the bells were and how they were attached.
The party also featured a kissing booth with all the proceeds going to breast cancer research. I only had a $5 on me so I got to kiss 5 different girls. The first two were ok, the 3rd was a biter who liked my tongue piercing, number 4 had a split tongue, and the 5th was minty.
After I was done at the kissing booth I went over to the stocks where for another donation to breast cancer research two girls would whip/paddle/spank you. They put me in the stocks and started. I guess they were ok for vanilla people, but I’ve done more painful things to myself for fun. Eventually they stopped cuz their arms got tired. But, not before pictures were taken of me.
Thursday’s fighting was the field battle. Before fighting I was told by my knight that I had to get kills with Critter’s sword. I started the fighting with my spear and got two kills. Then for the second round I used the sword. I went charging into battle with the sword held high. I came up to a midrealm knight and swung down on his head. The poor guy dropped I don’t know if he was conscious or not. I raised the sword again, and another opponent who saw what happened to the first raised his shield up over his head, I let the sword fall again on the shield and watched as his arm dropped apparently numb, then a spearman, gacked him in the face. I got one other kill, before I died.
Thursday night was the “Swamp Stomp”. It was not a good night for me, and not something I want to talk about publicly.
Friday was the broken field battle, but I didn’t fight in it due to issues from the previous night carrying over. Later that day thanks to some friends in the household I was feeling better.
That night was another episode of looking for a party, Tina, Nora, Evelena, Kin Ryu , and I started out going to the Rogues Bar Wars which was loads of fun last year. This year it wasn’t as fun and Richey left early to be with Carolina. That left the 3 ladies and I to find some other fun. We ended up wandering for a bit then found a party where sex toys were being raffled off. When we went in numbers were written on our hands. The person writing the numbers was a little drunk and accidentally gave Nora and me the same number. When we were called, we went up front and I lounged on the comfy pillows while Nora backed out. I was then told to pick the next number; I reached in the jar and pulled Tina’s number. We were then told we had 1 minute to be as naughty as possible. I grabbed Tina’s hand pulled her down, crawled on top of her and started making out with her. Eventually we broke the kiss and we got our prizes, for being the aggressor I won cheesy 80’s porn, Tina got a box of raisons.
Saturday was the beginning of the end. Camps started breaking down, goodbyes were said, but we weren’t done yet. We still had to go to House Clovenshield’s “Eat it, Drink it, Burn it” party. One of the treats of the party was bacon. Not crappy supermarket bacon, but fresh from the butcher and cooked in front of you bacon. It was so good, that I was able to use it as an effective bargaining tool, in some very intense negotiations.
Sunday we finished braking down camp, went out to eat together and drove home. I didn’t get home till about 1:30 Monday morning.
I’m sure there’s plenty of stuff I forgot to write about and things in my teaser entry that I’ve left out. Ask me about them and I might tell you.