This takes place during the events of the Trust Machines: V-LARP series.

V-LARP Mini is a collection of mini shorts focused on the various characters seen in the main story. Written in various styles.

Discomfort Zone

Karen has been playing as Lady Reina, an enigmatic character with a strong hatred of Elves. Karen was the opposite from the character, shy, hated the spotlight, and a big lover of elves. Especially the elves in Lord of the Rings. She wanted Lady Reina to be out of her comfort zone, a bitchy, narcissistic, elf-racist. Though, she had to admit, maybe this character wasn’t doing it for her. It was her fifth Event as Lady Reina, and all the arguing and bitchiness was starting to bother her.

After each event she felt really guilty, but she had brought it on herself. Her only real hope was getting her character killed, so she would argue with the princess at every chance she got, hoping for the “execute her” order. That was a power only the Princess had. Thing is, Esmerelda never took advantage of it. On Saturdays Esmerelda was calm and composed, and on Sunday’s was always too hungover to even care.

At the previous event she was shocked at the assassination attempt against Esmerelda. They had struck suddenly on Sunday morning, and they were Elven assassins to boot. One had escaped, leaving most of the court, including Reina, to watch Esmerelda’s heart wrenching roleplay as one of the retainers died in her arms. The other one was already dead. Reina felt really depressed after that, and couldn’t bring herself to stay in character for the rest of Sunday - staying quiet and reserved. Even after the event, as Karen, she felt really awful for the next week.

Back to the current event, however. She had noticed Baron Krow acting a bit suspiciously before Saturday’s court session, carrying a crate of some sort into his room. He and Esmerelda had a bit of a rapport ever since her rise to power. Power Karen had made her character with the intent to get, but she didn’t resent Esmerelda for stealing it, though.

The downside was that she had to make that a part of her character’s personality, pretending to resent her. Honestly, Karen respected Esmerelda a lot. Hearing about Pirate Essie, scourge of the 7 seas, on Sally’s twitter awakened a respect for her senior in Larping.

Then the Assassination attempt happened on Saturday morning. One of Esmerelda’s new retainers, a very pretty beast-kin, had somehow seen it coming and rescued Esmerelda from the blade that flew through the air at her. Her other retainer had been hit though, and went down. The court had devolved into chaos after that, retainers chasing the assassin, including the beast-kin who was very angry. Reina was in shock yet again, standing there aimlessly. She came here alone, and hadn’t been able to make friends because of her persona. So she didn’t have any retainers to send after the assassin, or she would’ve.

Reina had her suspicions, of course. Baron Krow had to have something to do with it, but she had no evidence, and with her reputation in court, nobody would back her accusation. Then there was her character, of course, would ‘Lady Reina’ even want to inform the princess that stole the throne from her? The battle inside herself was very tough to reconcile, and she had left for a bit to relax in her room at the castle, until the chaos died down.

After that, she had returned to the court, learning that the blade was elven. With a heavy sigh, she psyched herself into character. Her argument would be in character, her hate of the elves driving her to blame them for the assassination, despite knowing that it was definitely the orcs as Karen. Reina put up all she had, even questioning the princesses authority.

It was then Baron Krow, the suspicious one, had interrupted. Just who did he think he was, anyway? With his perfect slicked back black hair, and beautiful ruby red eyes! He didn’t follow the required court etiquette, just butted in whenever he pleased. Worse, he countered her argument easily, not that it was hard to do - even Karen thought it was stupid, but it’s what her character would’ve said. She decided to back down, she was at a loss for comebacks in roleplay now and did the only thing she could; marching out the court.

She decided to hang out at a restaurant, she was hungry, and had missed lunch because of what happened. The rest of her Saturday was pretty uneventful, she hung out at the markets and eventually got dinner before returning to her room at the castle. Alone, she drifted to sleep, feeling guilty for how awful she had been, the princesses friend got hurt by an assassin and her response was to be argumentative. Yes it was in character, but still. Why did she think this character was a good idea? It’s called a comfort zone for a reason, she should’ve at least picked a nicer personality, that would’ve been more comfortable.

Karen hated being so mean, she would have to pull out all the stops tomorrow and get Esmerelda to order her to be executed, yes that was her only hope at this point. And with those final thoughts, that would be morbid if it wasn’t for the fact nobody actually dies here, drifted off to sleep.

Unfortunately, on brand, the princess had a bad hangover on Sunday and had completely zoned out on her duties. Leaving Lady Reina, to storm off thinking of how to spend the rest of her Sunday.

Little did she realize, all she had to do was talk to management about starting over as a new character. Don’t worry, she reads about it after this event on the website, after contacting a friend and confessing her feelings about her character. 

Next event, Karen would no longer be in her discomfort zone.