My first Quest: two of my favorite moments

Writing interactive story-telling for my games, such as The Curse of Allautou on itch.io games, was a fun new branch, as I tried to move away from spending so much time on my long-time hobby of reading, and reading about, the classic Marvel Universe- that is, up to the point where I was collecting as many comics as possible each month, and copious back issues as I could afford them. This blog tells you a lot about my relationship with Marvel Comics Group, though every cartoon or adventure show or book played part, truly.
So over in our sister blog, Be Chill, Cease ill, today, I tell the saga of my First Quest in the parks here in Boulder, with my group of kid Questers.
My first five kids were not, overall, certain of the choices before them. Are you mostly a Warrior? Explorer? Wizard? Mystic? Bard or Artisan?
‘Shape-shifter’ became the watch word. Upon review, that was an ability Path, but what they wanted were Totemic Races. Once they got into Character, almost no one was deeply interested in changing shape, anyway.
I had an idea to get us started. We began our quest over an hour after Check In began, which felt like such a long time to make them wait, as they were not deeply-interested in choosing abilities on their Character Sheets. I felt compelled to get us into action as soon as possible, so, at 9:50 am, my first Quest began. With 20 XP (experience points) and numerous vague ideas, off went my Questers.

Yes, we did find out what was going on with the ‘kidnapped twins’ and located the famous Robinhood-style thieves, The Cat and the Mirror. Thanks to a quickly-cast Inspire spell, Ochinnikov decided to trust these Questers. We partied! He slept in the next day, and we needed a puzzle solution to leave his cave. Fyre said he had a great riddle, which did indeed eat ten minutes’ time. What does Luke Skywalker say at Christmas?
The answer, actually, tied into Day Four’s quest through the Dream Essence Realm. The punchline can be found in the epic heroic ballad I created with ‘Dandelion’ and her ukele and harmonica, in the town square during Friday Bazaar. If I could wait ten minutes for it, so can you. The risen moon in the afternoon was our omen for the direction onward. Read this alone if you like, but yesterday’s post introduces things from the top. This is a narrative hitting highlights of my first-ever week, leading quests for Renaissance Adventures.

With my puppet Sir Officer Oliver Yappee in our company, we left the cave on Day Four, surrounded by a dandelion-based ‘blizzard.’ This was yet another instance of natural conditions becoming game conditions: we’d turned back to the shelter underneath the library on Day One, on our way to confront the witch, Bahgava, whose house had animated furniture (like my first radio drama!) and dolls brought to life. I credited her with the storm. We made it to her house again, just barely. I discovered it’s harder to rally everyone for fight scenes in the last hour, but it’s good to add a little strategy meeting before any Big Boss fight. After Firey and Shadow picked a Dragon booger (sorry, Mark, it wasn’t a ‘burger’ but I was too sheepish to tell you what the sheet said) from Oliver, Snake Man cuddled him up and protected him in the Dream Realm. Ochinnikov apparently was dreaming of himself as a baby dragon today.

Axy was heavy into Meditation that day, so he required a Sage along the way as the boys all watched an insole be our ship that day, racing some black flip flop already there, representing, Shadow said, pirates. The cross-boat battle was epic. Now if only Snake Man didn’t take such humor in throwing ‘bowling balls’ into his own ship...and jumping into traps to see what they’d do, and springing treasure chest booby traps...aw, but we simply commandeered the pirates’ ship and made it back to Vardmark. He’d sprung some imprisoned Bogatyr knights, after we defrosted them from their dreamy snowman attack mode, and repaired some of our gear. He even suggested a trap where the Dagger of the Sun (one-quest worth of power, only) could only be freed if they all five grabbed it and took it out together. Does it even matter why? You have five laughing boys, running. What else do you want?
Heeey, Bali!!!
Maybe my favorite single moment of Questing itself? It was the day my LARP-organizer friend gave a rare call from Australia- a day that ended with my Magic-playing, Emmy-winning video editor buddy in DC calling on the way to the bus out, too. Day Two, I forgot my lunch and water bottles, and discovered there’s no substitute. Thankfully, the library was close to Mustard’s Last Stand, replete with classic rock and Chicago Classic-style hot dogs. (Funny, I’d passed the rain-time with some basic disc-based traps and a vendor of sometimes-magic hot dogs, the day before.) I’d found this place while looking for cash-back for the bus. A lovely blond friend at the cash till admitted she could not do that, but then after advising me, went out to her own car for 12 beautiful quarters to get me home. She’s right, that DOES build a relationship with a place!

And that favorite was one of two things:

One, the boys all genuinely loved Nature’s creatures, save for a few unfortunate ants. The blue jay (I’ll say he’s Mordecai) landed quite close by the creek, and us. We’d been searching for Dragon coin, which needed be no certain amount, all part of the hoard we gathered in good faith for Ochinnikov, who was open to sharing with the land. I thought pine cones worked well, and enjoyed the variety of growth stages of the ones the boys found. It’s a funny thing, assigning arbitrary values to pine coins. Cones. Anyway, the blue jay told Axy about the unfair barons, taking so much wealth for themselves. Then, Firey’s abilities allowed him to learn we could follow the blue jay; he could show us more dragon coins. The blue jay wonderfully took wing across the field; we embarked on his path. The bird sat now atop the other pine tree, closer to Broadway and the government parking lot. Dragon coins a-plenty flourished beneath!


And while I hesitate to mention how much I enjoyed watching the boys imagine themselves aboard the possibly-rule-breaking ‘boats,’ I remembered how much Joaquin’s group last week had enjoyed declaiming their group name and marching forth. Here, too, was a chance for Rink to invoke his Inspire power; I’d add +1 to their individual strength levels, I said, if he’d remember to shout a rallying cry. But, what? No winner emerged for a name. So, I suggested something fun to say: named after my LARP-founder friend, we could simply shout “Hey, Bali!!!” I explained quickly some of the very cool things this guy had done, and taught me, too, like ‘the Superman punch’ waza in ninpo training. I got a healthy ‘hey, Bali!!!’ out of the group. I recorded a message of me explaining it to them, to my friend who inspired it.

The whole job is a nice callback to the days I used to take my nephews Austin and David on walks, pretending to cross the wilderness. I imagine we'll always remember 'Lewis and Clark' expeditions through our neighborhood. I never knew any thing like that was a real paying job- and a fun, if tiring, one. Of course, you never forget those first Quests. See my blog Be Chill, Cease ill for the conclusion of my First Quest, on blogspot.com!- C Lue