LARP Night on Union Station

by E. M. Foner

  “No difference,” Jeeves said. “Whether the Grenouthians pushed the story at the top of their news, as they did, or whether they ignored it completely, it would have had no impact on the Cherts.”

  “It was a trick LARP?” Marilla asked.

  “So what’s the point?” Jorb demanded.

  “Did you ever stop to think how the Grenouthians go about selecting which stories to run on their network and what impact that has on the galaxy at large?” Jeeves shot back.

  “No, but you’re saying it doesn’t even matter.”

  “I’m saying that in this instance it didn’t matter because nobody was going to chase the Cherts onto Stryx stations and they’re welcome to stay as long as they want. The point of this exercise was to put yourself in the shoes of another species which happens to control the most popular news network in the galaxy and to take responsibility for your actions.”

  “Which didn’t matter in the end,” Jorb muttered stubbornly.

  “I learned what an ombudsman is and that the Grenouthian network has one, though they probably ignore him,” Samuel said. “I get why somebody thought these might be good scenarios for alien role-playing, but don’t you have anything where we could at least get some exercise, Jeeves?”

  “I’d like to fight some zombies,” Vivian said.

  “Next week,” their orchestrator told them. “I’m not promising any zombies, but there will be plenty of opportunity for rough-housing depending on your actions.” Then the holographic instance of the Stryx vanished before the students could ask any questions.

  “So how many gold coins do you guys have left?” Marilla asked.

  “I’ve got two hundred,” Vivian said after checking her university LARP account.

  “One-eighty,” Samuel reported.

  “Why do you want to know?” Jorb asked suspiciously.

  “I saw a notification in the Galactic Free Press that there’s a traveling LARP fair coming to the station this weekend on the Human calendar. They’re going to have all sorts of enchanted weapons and costumes for sale, and the Open University is a sponsor so they’ll accept our virtual gold.”

  “You still take the Galactic Free Press?” Vivian asked.

  “I got used to reading it when we were running the committee for refitting Flower, and they had a super discount deal for students to subscribe to the ad-free edition that was too good to pass up,” the Horten admitted. “Anyway, I think we should all go to the fair together and pool our gold if there’s something that will help the whole team.”

  “Can we use the stuff we buy outside of the Open University LARPs?” Jorb asked. “If Jeeves keeps giving us these talking roles to play, I’m going to look into signing up for a league that will let me swing my noodle axe.”

  “All purchases are guaranteed to work on the stations,” Marilla informed them. “The Stryx librarians provide the back-office support for the leagues, including handling the non-player characters and all of that.”

  “I still think we should outfit Jorb as our tank,” Vivian said. “When the game gets physical, the outcome is based as much on our actual ability as on the point system.”

  Marilla scowled. “You want me to spend my gold making the Drazen stronger?”

  “Just so we can send him through the door first to take all the damage. While he’s getting pounded, we can stay back at a safe distance and deal with the attackers.”

  “Oh, that doesn’t sound so bad then,” the Horten girl said.

  “Do I get a say in all this?” Jorb asked.

  “If you don’t want to do it, I can,” Samuel offered. “It’s just that I’m only good with the one weapon, while you’re used to fighting guys with four arms.”

  “I just wanted to be asked. But the deal is, if Jeeves doesn’t find us a fight soon, I get to use the stuff in another LARP league, even if you guys don’t join.”

  “And what if you get killed there?” Marilla asked.

  “It’s just a game,” Samuel pointed out. “He won’t really be dead.”

  “I don’t care about that, I’m talking about the gear. If you get killed in a role-playing game, don’t you drop all of your possessions?”

  “So he’ll pick them up.”

  “No, she’s talking about something else,” Vivian said. “The Hortens have role-playing games where you sit around a table and the outcomes of encounters are determined by random number generators. All of your gear is imaginary, and sometimes you drop stuff when you get killed and you don’t get it back. My brother says they do something similar in the professional LARPing league, except you only lose the stuff that you found on the current quest if you die.”

  “Thank you all for your concern about my equipment should I be killed outside of your service,” Jorb said as he rose to leave. “Ping me when we’re meeting for the fair.”

  Nine

  Affie lounged against the wall in the lobby of the practice space, dressed in a molded one-piece combat suit that left nothing to the imagination. A group of human teenagers emerged from the virtual stage and stopped to stare at her, wondering if they had somehow been trapped in an alternate fantasy reality. Brandishing her noodle sword wasn’t enough to get the boys moving, so she offered them a dazzling smile and said, “I haven’t had a chance to test my pheromone control on Humans lately. Who wants to act like a chicken for the next twenty-four hours?”

  The heavily armed adventurers fled, almost trampling a figure wearing an odd patchwork dress in their rush for the exit. “What was their hurry?” Dorothy asked the Vergallian when she finally made it into the room. Then her eyes narrowed with suspicion. “Did you just threaten those boys with chemical warfare?”

  “It seemed like the right thing to do before they could get themselves into trouble,” Affie replied innocently. “What are you supposed to be?”

  “A seamstress,” Dorothy declared, showing off her cloth workbag. “I have pincushions, needle assortments, and a selection of thread, plus all of my scissors.”

  “You were supposed to stop at the rental counter for an outfit. I reserved a complete mage setup for you.”

  “But I don’t know anything about being a mage. Why is it that everybody who plays these games has to be a swordsman or a priest in some made-up cult? I don’t want to be a minstrel or a dwarf or any of that. I’m sure that wherever our adventure takes place they’ll need seamstresses.”

  “Not in combat,” Affie said with an exaggerated sigh. “I thought I explained to you that all the normal occupations are reserved for non-player characters. That includes shopkeepers, monsters, castle guards—”

  “Since when are monsters normal?”

  “Since fantasy role-playing games made them normal. We need to slay them in order to earn gold and level up, and real players don’t want to dress up as monsters just to get killed. Monsters are all holographic glamour layered onto constructs.”

  “Huh?”

  “You didn’t watch the introduction holo, did you?”

  “I meant to, but I got caught up working on my outfit.”

  “You’re lucky we’re both here early. Constructs are dumb mechanicals that are controlled by the game. Rather than building different types of brainless robots for every character you can imagine, there’s a standard model with attachments for different types of limbs and weapons, but it’s only there for the sake of giving the real players something solid to hit. The constructs are always wrapped in holograms so you think you’re fighting a Dollnick assassin or giant snake, and the studio effects make everything super realistic.”

  “Wait. Did you say they’re going to attack us with real weapons?”

  “They won’t break your skin,” the Vergallian girl assured her. “The constructs are all variations on the basic dueling bots people use for practicing their combat skills, and they use noodle weapons as well.”

  Flazint entered the studio waiting room, a longbow in one hand and a wicked dagger thrust through her belt.

  “What are you
?” Dorothy asked.

  “Forest Ranger. I did archery in school for my physical ed requirement.”

  “What about the knife?”

  “It’s an honor dagger. I thought every girl knew how to use one. Why are you dressed like a rag doll?”

  “I’m a seamstress,” Dorothy replied, sounding a little less confident in her choice. “I mean, a ninja seamstress.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I have secret assassin training,” the girl replied, glancing furtively in Affie’s direction.

  “So secret she didn’t know about it herself two minutes ago,” Affie said. “Listen. I had to charm the clerk into accepting our reservation because he said that subletting is actually against their policy.”

  “You rented us time in another group’s LARP?” Flazint asked.

  “It’s a big studio space. They’ll be on their quest and we’ll be on ours. If we run into them, just make sure they know we’re players so they don’t get us confused with NPCs and attack.”

  “That sounds kind of dangerous.”

  “I doubt we’ll come across them,” Affie reassured her. “Players prefer big groups to get the studio cost down and to cover all the skill sets that are needed for complicated quests. The gamemaster always keeps track of the real players and acts to prevent them from hurting each other. It’s easy to mix up who’s who in a skirmish.”

  “So let’s get this show on the road,” Dorothy said in a show of false bravado. “At least we don’t have to worry about making fools out of ourselves in front of the boys.”

  “There’s nothing in there we can’t handle,” Affie proclaimed confidently. “It’s just an entry level simulation that gives us the chance to kill lots of NPCs to level up. This way we’ll be prepared to do something more interesting at your Jack-and-Jill. Some of the friends we’ve invited have been playing for a while, and it would be too boring for them if it was your first time.”

  The three women headed through the portal into the playing space, Affie in the lead, Flazint following with her bow held loose in her hand, and Dorothy bringing up the rear with her sewing kit. If the ambassador’s daughter hadn’t known she was entering a holographically enhanced game space, she would have thought she had just stepped into a small clearing on the surface of a planet overgrown by jungle. Ruins of stone towers poked through the vegetation in places, but there were no signs of the original builders.

  “Spooky,” Flazint said, as an animal screeched in the distance. “So we’re supposed to hunt monsters or something?”

  “I can’t believe that’s not really a sun.” Dorothy squinted at the giant orb where the ceiling should have been and inhaled deeply through her nose. “The air is different from the station, too. It’s like we really have been transported to a new world.”

  “Get in character,” Affie warned them in a whisper. “Monsters have ears, you know.”

  Dorothy climbed up on a flat stone that may have once served as a sacrificial altar and swatted at a mosquito. “I hope all the bugs are holograms,” she said in a low voice, and took a moment to survey the clearing. “What does it mean when the grass rustles and there’s no wind?”

  “Where?” Affie demanded, clambering onto the rock to look in the direction the girl pointed. “Whatever it is, it can’t be very tall. Flazz, get up here and load an arrow.”

  “Nock,” the Frunge girl corrected the Vergallian’s terminology. She removed an arrow from her quiver and carefully placed the notch in the fletched end on her bowstring.

  “Why aren’t you pulling it back?” Dorothy asked.

  “Never draw a bow until you have a target,” Flazint recited from rote. “It has to come out of that grass if it’s going to attack.”

  Affie cut an impressive pattern through the air with her sword and declared, “Whatever it is, we’ll make it sorry it met us.”

  The grass parted and a twitching nose emerged, followed by large whiskers and a pair of beady black eyes. Then the shoulders pushed through the grass and the animal stepped out into the open, sniffing at the air.

  “It’s a giant rat!” the Frunge girl screamed, retreating behind the other two.

  “Shoot it, Flazint,” Dorothy said, closing one eye in hopes of seeing less of the jumbo rodent.

  “I’m not shooting THAT,” the forest ranger replied. “It’s gross.”

  “Can you kill it with your sword, Affie?”

  “Not from here,” the Vergallian royal replied in a tone that made it clear she wouldn’t be budging from the spot. “Ugh, why is it squealing so loud when we aren’t bothering it?”

  The answer quickly became apparent as the tall grass began rustling all the way back to the forest.

  “It must be calling its friends,” Dorothy whispered. “How can rats be so big?”

  “That one must be the size of a dog,” Flazint said, peeking over Dorothy’s shoulder. “Not a Cayl hound,” she added hastily as the human girl’s knees buckled. “Just a regular dog.”

  “I count five of them already, and more are coming,” Affie told the Frunge girl. “If you can’t shoot them we’re going to have to make a run for it.”

  “Do you think they can get up here?” Dorothy asked.

  “We did.”

  “Oh no!” the Frunge girl cried, her head twisting around like it was on a pivot. “They’re coming out of the jungle all around us.”

  “Get the station librarian to make them go away,” Affie begged the ambassador’s daughter. “You’re friends with her.”

  The rats grew bolder, risking themselves in the open. They crept closer and began circling the rock the girls were standing on, occasionally making little feints towards the players, testing for a response.

  “You have to shoot them, Flazint,” Dorothy pleaded with her friend. “I can’t get eaten by rats before my wedding.”

  “Remember, they can’t hurt us,” Affie said. “They’re just constructs wrapped in holograms. Get the station librarian to call them off already.”

  “My implant isn’t working. I just get a message that outgoing communications are forbidden in LARP space.”

  “I’m going to try to kill one,” the Frunge girl announced, and drawing back her bowstring, let fly an arrow towards the biggest of the rodents. The rat twisted faster than the eye could see and caught the shaft in its teeth, shattering the arrow with a loud crunch. The three friends looked at each other and screamed.

  Almost immediately, their chorus was drowned out by an even higher-pitched squeal, and squinting through half-shut eyes, Dorothy saw a fountain of gore shooting into the air where the king rat had stood. It was replaced by a balloon showing two gold coins, which quickly faded. This was immediately followed by more squeals and more balloons, though the latter were mainly for one gold coin. The rats fought valiantly with their attackers, but the three men, whooping battle cries, made short work of the pack.

  “Playing through,” the tallest of their saviors called to the huddled girls. “Sorry about skimming off your easy kills, but they were in the way.”

  “Hold up, Boz,” one of the warriors called. “Stupid rat took a chunk out of me.”

  “So take a healing potion, Zach. We’re already late for the rendezvous.”

  “It’s not my body I’m worried about. I can’t play like this,” Zach complained, and turning his back towards the other two men, showed that the seat of his pants was hanging in a large flap below his belt, exposing colorful boxer shorts.

  A tremendous explosion sounded in the distance, and then bits of jungle and less savory items began raining out of the sky.

  “They blew the mine,” the leader shouted in disbelief. “I can’t raise any of our guys on my telepathic link.”

  “Look at my magical map,” the third man cried, holding up the square of tanned leather for Boz to see. “Their avatars are all gone.”

  “That’s it, then,” Zach said, edging around the clearing towards his friends while keeping his face towards the women. “We m
ay as well just work on our stats. Without a necromancer and mage, it would be suicide to try to invade the underground kingdom.”

  “Not to mention that it just got blown to high heavens,” Boz pointed out.

  “Uh, excuse me,” Dorothy called from her perch on the altar. “Does that mean you guys can stick around in case the rats come back?”

  “You three are doing the entry level quest, right?” the map owner asked.

  “Yes, “ Affie replied, stepping out from behind Dorothy and Flazint. “We’ve never LARPed before.”

  “You only get one chance at the easy points, so the rats won’t be back. If I remember, it’s zombies next. Right, Zach?”

  “It may have been great-billed woodpeckers.”

  Flazint let out a strange hiss and nocked another arrow.

  “We should introduce ourselves,” the tallest warrior said, leading the others over to the altar, but stopping several paces away so he wouldn’t have to tilt his head way back to talk to the girls. “I’m Boz, the guy with the map is Funt, and the Frunge mooning the jungle is Zach.”

  “Tzachan, but these Drazen idiots can’t pronounce it,” Zach said, and removing his helmet, performed a sweeping bow.

  “But where are your tentacles and your hair vines?” Dorothy asked the aliens in disbelief.

  “We’re playing Humans,” Zach told her. “It’s the Cursed Earth adventure. And what made you guys decide to play a Vergallian, a Frunge and a Human on an entry level quest? It’s a weird combo, and those glamour potions must have cost a fortune in gold.”

  “We aren’t glamoured,” Flazint said, and her hair vines turned dark green.

  “You mean the three of you actually look like that in real life?”

  “Well, we usually dress better,” Dorothy told them. “Speaking of which, if you give me your pants I can fix them in a jiff. I’m a ninja seamstress.”

  Zach looked from Flazint to Dorothy and back again, and to everybody’s amazement, the holographic overlay that made him appear human blushed bright red.