Survive the LARP (part I)

Waterfront Park-Portland, OR

His knees almost buckled as his shield was driven into his face, and dazed him just enough to send him staggering two steps away.

“Easy!”

The grunt that came from the heavyset woman that had just clubbed his shield, and as Colin looked over the edge he saw the woman waddle away, shaking her head as her long, grayish-brown hair flopped around her head. He was surprised in the next second as one of his countrymen, the half-elf Greyden, came striding up to him. Greyden’s left ear was nearly falling off, ruining the fantasy just a bit, but he was too excited and started talking before Colin could tell him.

“Dude! You should see this ogre Allie and I, I mean Gaelenda, were fighting! The thing looked insane! Like, they had drool coming off their tusks and everything!”

“Cool!” Colin said with a smile, forgetting the pain in his shield arm for a moment. A trained fighter didn’t let their pain show after all. He and his buddies had been LARPing for a while now and each year it managed to get a little better. But this year was already pretty cool. Their country, Allabash, was a minor one at best, but they were determined to take down the ruling country of Deramin, just like every other group was.

But a few things had happened already that made Colin think that people were going all out this year. The structure that could be seen near the north end of the park, the Graldhome. It actually looked like real stone, complete with-

A battle cry sounded out from behind them as Colin and Greyden spun around.

Colin cowered in uncertainty as Greyden shouted, “Dude! Gnarly!”

(to be continued)