'''Man with scarlet eyes'''

Season <We're talking about innawoods season - for us it is traditionally 1 May - 25 October> of '94 began for us as usual, at Mayday. For the sake of tradition we decided to celebrate in Luzhskie forests, on the river Yashera. We also established the traditional name - Mayday under Luga was called "The Alternative" <"Alternative Green Olympics">. We gathered up quite a large gang, which was joined by our new acquaintances - Lyolik, aka Red Wolf, and his comrades Albo and Trace. Our joint trip had a backstory.

Near the Nevsky prospect, near the DLT **House of Leningrad Trade** there is an institution that was called "House of Nature" by people back then. This is a short building of old fund where, aside from other disgraceful things that we will describe later, there were some suspicious gatherings, "roleplayer meetings". Later on they will even hang out game schedule for the next season, but now they were organizing specialized events in the auditorium.

One of those gatherings was visited by my friend Kostyan, who we called "Strori" <character from Perumov's dilogy "Ring of Darkness", also known as Small Dwarf - drunkard and hoodlum>. Two persons should be thanked for nickname: Perumov, who made up such dwarven name, and Crazy, who applied this name to Kostyan. It should be noted that it was extremely fitting, because my friend possessed all the qualities of this character - laziness, short temper and alcoholism. We got used to it in no time and now when I hear "Strori" I don't even think about Perumov and his book. Strori happened to visit House of Nature during winter and took part in conference of a kind that was dealing with regulation of LARP rules. This was one of the first such conferences - not the first one, but still. According to Kostyan, there was some flat-faced broad with bulging eyes speaking on this meeting - crooked, as if she suffered from cerebral paralysis during childhood. Her hands were covered in hippy bead bracelets up to the elbows, and she spoke of some really weird stuff. The topic was "problem of desadaptants and unacceptability of combat magic on games". Everyone was calling this broad Princess.

On the LARPs, said Princess, there is a certain amount of people who got too carried away with the game and lost the connection with objective reality. Such people should not be admitted to the games. There are many problems even without them: for example, certain roleplayers actually use forbidden gestures that have relation to the true magic!

If someone is skeptical, she continued, then he should keep in mind - all it takes for her (Princess then stared into the auditorium attentively) to raise her hand commandingly, and any human standing before her will end up completely under her control! Therefore such gestures should be banned, or, failing that, at least restricted!

At this moment Strori, who was carefully observing this manifestation, had enough. Her reasoning about "desadaptants" was going against her last words. It wasn't clear who the person who talked about sorcery considered "people who lost connection with objective reality". Thus Strori dared to ask a question.

"Princess", he said, standing up from his seat, "Do anyone can be controlled just like that?"

Princess failed to notice the catch and replied: sure, anyone. Then Strori looked at her and asked again:
"Do you need to just raise your head to do that?"

Everyone present froze in anticipation of answer. Even if Princess had suspected something - it was too late for her to turn back. So she just simply replied: "Yes". Then Strori said:
"How about we test it? Let's assume that I'll just walk over here and fuck you over your flat mug with two-by-four! Then we see if you can take me under control in time!" Times were ancient, Strori was virtually unknown, so Princess had found some defenders. Strori described them as such: extremely hairy, dressed in hippy garb, and everyone had a conspicuous ring with decorative stone on his finger.

The one who delivered their message was someone named Michael, and this is what was going on according to him: Strori just gravely insulted their master (Princess) with his careless words. He (Strori) was, hovewer, unaware that Princess is a mentor of Magic School, and Michael is her favorite disciple. This means that Strori is now royally fucked. First they will beat the shit out of him regular way, and then there will be a magical war declared on him and his buddies.

Stori was practical man and solved problems in first-in-first-out order. He first showcased his jackknife to the Princess disciples to curb their outrage of loyalty. This defused the conflict, and there was one problem left - magical war. This is what he arrived to us with, i.e. to the Crazy's place. At first we had no idea what to do. This was oh so new thing for us!

It's easy to say - magic war. We were considering following solutions: cut off Princess hair and burn it to deprive her of her witchcraft (Crazy's proposal), put the runes onto a stiletto and stab Princess with it (my idea), or just fuck her up while saying "Black mist - Beelzebub, Pan, Ahriman" - this is definitely going to harm her (Elephant).

These proceedings were graced by another person - one Lyolik the Red Wolf. He just got out of prison three days ago, where he was incarcerated for car theft, and now was listening about our troubles with great interest. He was old acquaintance of Crazy, because he was sometimes climbing in the window of the older sister of one of the Crazy's classmates. Older sister was named Velda, and her sister was Ginger.

Lyolik was of average height, and resembled a triangle pointy side down. Just like our Strori, he was always on lookout for someone who was mistreating smaller ones, and considered himself to be the smallest. He hanged out with two older buddies, Albo and Trace, and shared a same hobby with them - Oriental martial arts in the style of "back-alley scuffle".

Red was very critical of our plans. How can you do this, he said. Take up arms against some miserable broad, and ignore her disciples? That's now how you do the things! He explained that the magical war should be waged like this: first we should negotiate a meeting as normal people, and then use it to find out whose magic is stronger. And to make sure we won't make a blunder, we should take fucking magical staves with us - preferably pieces of rebar. And if we are too scared to confront Princess and her henchmen alone, then he, Albo and Trace are glad to help us.

Crazy was entrusted with organization of "magical war", but our opponents had no such wise advisor as Red. Magical war was misunderstood by them, so they refused a meeting on the lot behind V.I. Lenin's Stadium. We weren't insisting, though. After all, it wasn't us who were threatened to be hit with two-by-four over the flat mug.

**Skipping a bit of story of how they named some place in the forest "Fiddlers", because Crazy once got couple of street musicians to go smoke weed with him in the woods and they ended up falling into mud off the cliff there**

After passing "Fiddlers", we walked a little more and set up on the last year's place. Overhanging cliffs form some kind of natural wall, river runs around, and there is lily-covered spot on its bend.

We had single tarpaulin tent with us, which we set up at the clearing's edge, and sat around our main treasure - "lemon backpack" that was brought hereby Goblin. Goblin himself was sitting near the backpack, pulling out glass "lemons" out of it - half-liter bottles of "Citron". **Not really sure what they are talking about - I suppose it's some kind of lemon-flavored/scented alcohol-containing liquid, probably not intended for human consumption. Russian 90's were crazy in this regard.**

This man caused mixed feelings in me. Two meters tall, well-built, he was looking like angel portrayals on old icons to me - those one whose wings got black from the centuries of humidity and unholy prayers. Like a phial full of burning fire and noxious fumes, Goblin was filled with blackest heresy - from the hair roots to the depths of his gloomy, misguided soul. We met him during the last season - there was another game after RHG-93, now on the Finnish bay. We got lucky to play as elves again, but "masters" gave us something new - they put someone in charge of our collective for the duration of the game. We didn't really cared for this, but man in "charge" was Goblin, who introduced himself like that:
"I am doctor and an expert on narcology, and I recommend you to take moradol. <opiate analgesic, also known as butorphanol>. Orally, two ampules per cup of tea."
"And what's going to happen?", asked I.
"Fucking great things!", he answered expertly. "I know this from personal experience!"

Naturally, those words made us respect him a great deal. Crazy didn't wanted to lose face and began explaining our new friend a hallucinogenic mushrooms, which he heard about some time ago. According to him, those mushrooms were psilocybin toadstools <Psilocybe semilanceata>, which grow in abundance on the grassy fields. This is a domestic type of mushrooms that were described in Carlos Castaneda's books, said Crazy confidently, and we can find them ourselves! We just need to get working and look among the bumps.

It should be added that at this point Crazy had no idea neither about what those mushrooms look like, nor about where you should look for them. So we picked great deal of toadstools of kind and ate them right on place, feeling warm feelings and utter trust to the mushrooms. **Pro-tip - NEVER FUCKING DO THIS, YOU WILL DIE A MOST HORRIBLE DEATH.** Goblin, who was watching our actions, laughed, or sometimes - when the game demanded this, yelled at us when we waddled too far away:

"Hey! Elves!" But after seeing us stuffing our faces with toadstools, Goblin began to scream differently:
"Hey, mushroom elves!", yelled he, "Mushroom elves!"

If only he knew what a mighty echo will be caused by his scream! Name stuck, and soon, when someone asked us "Who are you?", we began to answer:
"We are Mushroom Elves!"

This is how true names are born - you don't think them up, they come from outside and stick to you with death grip, so you can't pry them away even with crowbar.

Only one year passed since first Alternative, but everything changed drastically in that year. Instead of smelly "Red Riding Hood" **they mentioned it previously in the part that I skipped - it is a bottle of lemonade mixed with alcohol-containing glass cleaning liquid that was sold in bottles with red stoppers, and some pills added into it.** we had lemon "Citron", and instead of tranquilizers that we were fucking sick of - a whole mug of weed. We set up two camps - we are on the same spot, and further down the shore was a hovel where Crazy's good friends were living - musicians from the "KS" band. There was a Crazy's childhood friend Brick and his colleagues - Pasha (keyboard), Kuzya (guitarist), Jeff (vocals). They were already been there, and an interesting story happened with some of them last year. Here it is.

Last year me, Crazy, Pasha and Kirpich got high on phenazepam and build this hovel from branches, boughs and other shit. But we couldn't live in there due to giant mosquito swarms. Instead we surrounded the bonfire, hiding in the smoke from pestilent bloodsuckers. What is more, everyone sat on the ground, but Pasha - on the only nearby stump. I took offense at that and decided to kill Pasha.

For this purpose I took the hatchet that never left my side in the forest, walked around the stump to its back and hit Pasha over the head as strongly as I could. If not for Crazy who grabbed Pasha by the head and pulled him from under the hatchet in time, he would've gotten fucked right there. But Crazy ruined my jest - hatchet loudly hit the moist wood, and Pasha got out unscathed. But when it's needed, I can be persistent.

I immediately freed my hatchet from the stump and took another swing. Pasha realized that something is off, and since he had no hatchet on him, he ran away. I took off after him and got him near the river cliff, where the lonely tree was growing right on the edge. Pasha hid behind it, and grabbed the trunk with both hands to prevent himself from falling. I ran right next to it and hit him with the hatchet on his hand. To save his hands, Pasha released his grip, lost his balance, fell off the cliff and got all wet.

Couple of hours later Pasha and Brick decided to get back at me. They waited until I get tired, grabbed me and dragged me to the same cliff. They were dragging me by the legs, with their backs to the river, which gave me an idea. I waited for them to get right to the edge, then bent my legs and sharply straightened them, pushing Brick and Pasha with all of my strength. It worked quite good - Pasha and Brick fell into water, and I was still on the ground. It had following consequences for Brick: he decided to dry his clothes. He hung everything - pants, t-shirt, shoes, even underpants, around the bonfire, ate entire pack of phenazepam and went into hovel to sleep. Crazy waited half a hour, then threw Brick's t-shirt into fire and began calling him:
"Brick, wake up! Your t-shirt is on fire!"

Brick heard that and lurched out of the hovel with great difficulty. He had trouble perceiving the reality around himself, so he carefully inspected everything and threw all his other clothing into bonfire, turned around and went back to sleep. Next morning Brick, covered with mosquito bites, crawled out of hovel and shared his nightmare with us:
"Can you believe it, guys? I had a dream that I burned all my clothes! Everything, completely, even underpants!"

KS was camping in the same hovel this time. Afternoon was night - crimson sunset covered the white cliffs, but it began raining during night, and rain turned into complete downpour. We all stuffed ourselves into tent - so it turned into a wet bag bloating with human bodies, at the top of which Goblin lied. Those outside were busy singing "Mama" and running around "lemon bag", making sure that they run right over the tent with each lap. Party was afloat, when Brick came running to our campsite.

He was pale and shuddering. According to him, they were sitting in hovel with a burning candle, when a tall man in crimson cloak appeared before the entrance. When Brick looked at him, he got frozen in place - night visitor's eyes were glowing red in darkness, like rubies. Stranger stared at him, waved his hand - and hovel went ablaze! Brick managed to save himself, but he has no idea what happened with others.

Expedition was led by Red Wolf. We found remains of hovel which burned to ground despite of the downpour, and then we found the rest of KS hiding under fallen tree in the clay pit. They confirmed Brick's words, but with a little addition: scarlet-eyed man came to them after they ate blister pack of phenazepam each. That's why he camped separately from us, they admitted.

Serves you right, said Red Wolf then - such greed disgusts even Satan. But the fact remains - hovel got burned down, and we never saw scarlet-eyed man in those places again.

'''Magical mushrooms'''

We spent most of the summer going from one LARP to another. Season that we opened with The Alternative, continued week later with "Conan-94" that was organized by Berry and Co in Zahodskoye. There we had wonderful and very promising meeting.

It all started when I went there on Friday afternoon, while the rest of comrades promised to come Saturday morning. On the road there I talked with one passenger - swarthy character of most gloomy disposition, who was sitting in my train car near the window. During entire trip he was explaining mysterious things to me: there are, said this gentleman, many different worlds, and there are travelers who wander these worlds.

Good if it's true, thought I! But my companion went on. There is great many of those travelers, he kept pushing, most of his friends are such wanderers, including him. This looked less plausible to me. But I wasn't yet competent in those matters to keep up with conversation.

So I mostly answered by nodding, and listened to his speeches while taking mental notes. That's was the sum: not every person in this world is a human. There are also those who just incarnated into human bodies, for example, the storyteller himself who introduced himself as Ingvar. Without bothering with explanations (what are those worlds and where did they came from), Ingvar changed the subject to the aspects of this phenomenon that occupied him the most.

First he painted himself as "powerful creature", and then briefly informed me about "creatures" that he is friends with. He spoke graphically, you listen this for five minutes - and you'll freak out! It was all good, but Mr. Incarnated kept drinking all this time, and closer we were to Zahodsky, the more improper his behavior was.

"Just look at them!", ranted Ingvar with broken voice, turning and pointing his hand down the train car. Poorly concealed scorn, or even disgust was showing in his speech. "This is soulless scum, animals with vestigial intelligence! And now look at me! Do you see the difference?"

Difference was obvious. It was so dramatic, so I already began to ask myself - would the train passengers beat the shit out of me as well as of Ingvar? It could've happened, because Ingvar was speaking quite loud. Half a car was hearing his words.

"Humans are rabble, who have not a drop of noble blood in them", Ingvar went on with his fiery speech without paying attention to anything, "They deserve nothing but a painful death, but who will agree to give it to them? I think..."

I hoped very much that he will get calm on the station - take a walk, breath fresh air, but no. Ingvar kept repeating like a broken robot:
"I'm not here for long", he flashed with his oily eyes, "Soon I will have to leave this body, to walk away by the black road and into another world..."
"Then leave it right there", I advised him, "There probably won't be a good place near lake."
"Place for what?", Ingvar got confused, but then caught on and corrected me:
"You misunderstood. I'm not leaving that soon!"

Seeing that "road" had no effect on me, Ingvar decided to ask me about my own creed.

"What do you believe in?", he inquired, "Eh?"

I couldn't think of a reason to not tell Ingvar about my beliefs, but I didn't want to stay silent.

"I belive", began I, "In a difference between people. I believe that there is possibility to understand from the first sight, whether you met a faggot or a real human. I believe that you can tell apart a magical creature that possesses the power and some pederast!" I blurted it all on a single breath, then went silent and watched what kind of effect my words will have on Ingvar. Since he weren't objecting, so there is a possibility that he took it all as a praise. So we didn't understood each other.

I was sort of right - about the possibility to meet good people. I found quite a surprising company on the shore of Minor Krasnoperskoy, on the campsite that later got called "The Joy" by its dwellers. The Joy - tiny knoll between to lakes, separated by brush from so called "jousting clearing". Bushes had grown on old Finnish foundation, and further away was a real stone cellar, that was later nicknamed "Bunker".

There was a guy from my yard called Crimson, with his comrades: Roman, Sanya and VPD. And they were here for long. Strewn around were plastic bags from shashlyk meat, plastic cans with tap beer, there were also several metal cans full of (as it turned out) vodka and ethanol. This was a style in which brother Crimson likes to travel, but I didn't knew that back then. We met each other not long ago - just this winter, during the concert where we were "invited" by Crazy.

**I skipped quite long backstory of Crimson. They met when they were literally gatecrashing "Auction" band concert with a bunch of punks that were found by Crazy. Back in school Crimson was abusing his position as Young Pioneer, and in 90s he was mostly busy with accumulating the money**

When I saw Crimson, I didn't believed my eyes at first. We saw each other in the city quite often, but we never spoke about LARPing. Maybe the guys just went to the forest for some shashlyk? But I immediately brushed those thoughts aside when I saw some shields and clubs strewn around the bonfire. I walked forward and asked him:

"Hey, neighbor! What brings you here?"
"Who-o-o-oa!", excited Crimson critically assessed my own "equipment". "Didn't expected to meet you there. The rest of you guys are also into this?"
"Yep.", said I, "They will come tomorrow, at noon."
"And what is the name of your team?", inquired Crimson.
"Mushroom Elves. And yours?"
"Arnor Retinue", answered Crimson. "I think we need to drink to this meeting! Cheers!"

We were drinking diluted ethanol - from the small metal shots, with some hot shahlyk. Suddenly the heat waves washed my body, taking away my consciousness and memory, and magical and wonderful world arose around me. Night painted woods into crazy colors, unbelievable lightness and euphoria took ever me. I picked up a meter-and-half stake, walked to the middle of the clearing and beckoned Crimson. I wanted to find out what kind of man he is, and I knew only one trusty way.

"Do you want to warm up, neighbor?"
"Why not?" Crimson nodded calmly, picked up a similar stake and approached me. "Hang in there, neighbor!"

Ethanol is a magical thing. It slows down the time, turning it into the strained web of smeared, flowing minutes. Heavy stakes are getting stuck in this jelly - steadily rising and lowering, clashing in air with muffled bang, which painfully recoils into hands. Sometimes the spell subsides, and you can realize the real speed of strike: dark streak against somewhat lighter sky. IF you just get distracted for a minute, miss even a single swing - and the weakness and treacherous rigor will spread over the body as a sticky, immobilizing wave.

"Hey-ya!" Stakes collided in air with deafening bang, seeking for an only opening. "Heya, bitch!" **You guys were probably waiting for CYKA**

Just a minute of such fighting can disfigure both combatants - bash the head to the blood, tousle arms and legs with stakes. And only completely drunk person, who is cordial friend with vodka, can do this for his own pleasure. Ethanol gives a power over fear and pain - forcing them away into farthest corners of body, like the scared mongrels in a kennel.

"Hey, people!", someone suddenly called us. "What are you doing?"

We lowered stakes and turned to the voice. Some guy stood on the edge of clearing and stared at us.

"Hey!" he said strongly. "There is game going on in there. Stop fighting and make peace with each other."

Me and Crimson exchanged glanced. We were quite a spectacle - bruised, sweaty. Combat rage was already residing, I could barely stand, but I was able to express my position?

"Why do we have to make peace?" asked I, "When we have no quarrel? Eh, neighbor?"
"Right!" agreed Crimson, and then turned to the stranger and said gravely:
"Why don't you fuck off? Can't you see we are busy?"

Crazy decided to organize his own LARP in August - forty kilometers away from Gruzino station. We came there with boys from Arnor Retinue and camped near the lake, on a hill. Thin strip of beach here is right next to the "cultured" forest belt, cut up with trails and littered with all kinds of waste and trash. There is no wilderness to speak off here, because it is located right next to the humongous gardening partnership **not sure how to translate it, but it is basically a large congregation of dachas**. We drank vodka and waited for others. Among them was Crazy himself - he was staying with his girlfriend Irishka in the nearby dacha village, which he met lately in the Nevsky Prospect underpass.

Our first arrival was brother Goblin. He was dragged in by Velda - he slept with her back then. Helping her was her sister. Goblin was shitfaced. Velda informed us that they drove from station in the truck bed, and when they were crawling out, they met more "invitees" on the road. Those were our new acquaintances in the LARP community - Moradan and Aaz, as well as skeleton of their future team (in the next year it will be known as "Hird").

Moradan haven't accepted Crazy's invitation instantly. At first he kept asking: what kind of event it is going to be? Would there be anyone who drinks or takes drugs? How much of them there will be? Moradan had reasons to ask such questions.

Back in the day Moradan and his camaraderie strictly adhered to the policy of "two noes" - no alcohol and no drugs. Naturally, they only tried to associate themselves with straight-edgers - but there weren't many of them in the community. While everyone drunk, toked and ate pills, Moradan and his comrades were doing maneuvers and drills. And so it happened today - they were about to start maneuvers, but Goblin's outlook quickly "sobered" them. Moradan noticed Goblin when he was hanging out of truck body and barfing. When Goblin saw Aaz standing nearby, he began to gurgle and wheeze, sometimes bleating:
"Aaz', u tebya mazz' ezz'?" **Drunken Russian for "Aaz, do you have ointment?"**
Then he threw up some more, calmed down and bleated again:
"Aaz', u tebya ezz' mazz'?"

When Moradan saw that, he asked Velda who was accompanying Goblin:
"Do you think they are all like that?" At this point Velda was completely fucked up herself and answered Moradan question as such:
"Of course no! Goblin just came here, haven't got off the truck yet! Don't even compare him, he's still sober! Go to lake if you want to see something really fucked!"

After hearing that, Moradan spat on the ground and left to maneuver somewhere else - no idea where. And, to be fair, we didn't really lamented about that.

While everybody listened to the story, it turned out that we are not alone in the forest. As soon as it got dark, wind brought songs and swearing from the shore, and soon they began singing so loudly, that we could tell apart the words:

**Honestly, I can't translate the song properly - it is old Soviet song about guy who is planning to pick flowers for his loved one, but they remade it so it became a song about a guy who is planning to get blowjob from his loved one**

"Locals!", insisted Roma, "Do you hear them yelling? Betcha those are thugs from gardening!"
"Probably so", I agreed. "Who else is going to be there?" Meanwhile song ended, and people on the shore started the next one. When wind was blowing from the water, the sound was getting so strong, that I thought it was going to blow my head clean off.

Old mill spinning around!
Water is hitting the hedge! LA-LA-LA!
Everything can get ground
But never the shield's edge!

"Heard that? Something about shields!" I got roused. "What kind of thugs are those?" Strori stood up and looked around.
"Do you see their bonfire?" Asked he and pointed somewhere along the shore, "There, among the trees. Maybe we should go take a look? At least we'll find out for sure/"

Several minutes later we found their bonfire. Several wooden crates burned in the pit on the coast. Several newspapers were lying on the ground, with vegetables, boiled eggs and all kinds of sandwiches on them. In the middle there was a liter bottle of vodka surrounded by six metal mugs. Owners of all this business sat nearby, right on the edge of light and darkness. We didn't saw his faces - just dark silhouettes. Such lighting only revealed odd details: here it shines on the worker's garb, there - fisherman's beanie.

They were armed with beech mallets and buckles, on which I was able to discern three Kirtar runes <Elven runic writing>. It seemed to me that they form Russian abbreviation "Г.Ж.Г."/"I.H.D.", so I thought for a bit and then guessed:
"I.H.D." means "Iron Hills Dwarves?"
"Yeah, but you shouldn't give a fuck about that", confirmed one of the campers, "We call ourselves differently - "Blue Dwarvew!" **Note that in Russian slang "being blue" means "being so drunk your skin turns blue"**
"Then what's with with runes?" I pointed my fingers, "Why "I.H.D."?"
"Don't give a fuck about that", repeated the same voice, "First we thought one thing, and then we changed our mind. Now we are Blue Dwarves!"

He wasn't lying - even blueprints wouldn't look as blue compared to the venerable dwarves. People present were not just shitfaced - they were thrice, or even quadruple fucked up. And they had their own idea of Dwarven names.
"Best dwarven names end with "-in", mused one of the "dwarves", who introduced himself as Barin **Landlord**. "Darin", "Dwalin", "Oin", and so on - "Stalin", "Filin" **Owl**

Stalin and Filin were another two members of their group

"Or with "-i", echoed him a "dwarf" who introduced as Huli **"The Fuck"**. "For example - Huli and Feri."

Feri heard his name and nodded. After this everyone went quiet and look on the last dweller of the campsite who haven't introduced himself yet. He noticed that, stood up and stepped forward.

"My name is Docent!", he informed us, "This is my name!"
"How it can be?", I asked him, "What kind of dwarven name it is, ending with "cent"?"
"How about we check out your name?" Docent haven't hesitated for a moment. "Let's see whose name is truer!"
"My name is Djonny!" said I, and then looked at Huli and added:
"And this is elven name, no matter which letter it ends with!"
"Same shit with my name", said Docent, "Except it is dwarven!"

In the middle of the night Crazy had shown up, and he brought good news. Somehow he found out where the real psilocybin toadstools grow. Crazy stocked up about thousand of those mushrooms, and now was ready to hand out "character sheets" for his game. This was his surprise for the players, and since he was the only "game master", no one objected.

"Make a line!", said Crazy, "one at a time!"

When my time came, Crazy pulled something out of paper bundle and put it into my hand. It was something cold and wet, and somehow electrifying. I looked closer and saw a wad of fresh mushrooms.

"Eat this", Crazy proposed, "And your life will change." I immediately shoved mushroom wad in my mouth and began chewing.

Something in those mushrooms had entered us, and there were no more regular humans in that night. Reality flowed like paint on the glass - and from under the woolen hats, from locks of hair on the faces inhuman eyes looked at me. They were glowing like young sun, and flowing like warm mercury. I wondered at first, until I realized - this night I have the same eyes.

Couple of hours before the dawn we picked up our equipment and descended into deep pit that we found in a forest belt. It was completely surrounded by bushes, and its bottom was covered with metal scrap and broken glass. We couldn't see a shit in there - but we didn't care, because mushrooms sharpened our perception beyond the limits of our usual senses.

We started a mass scrap in this pit, beating each other into bloody pulp with clubs and pipes. No one was feeling pain - everyone was drunk with joy and elation. It became the sort of a starting point, and if you ask "Where did you came out?", I will answer without hesitation: "Out of this pit."

Morning melted ice armor of anesthesia, and many began to regret yesterday's recklessness. But strong alcohol heals fast, by the lunchtime it cured even those who felt really bad. Best strike of the night was scored by Crimson - battle axe to the balls of his comrade Roma. Axe that we were talking about - "butterfly" that weighs four kilograms and is made from the heavy timber and thick rubber from the running tracks. My back and shoulders were all bruised, someone got his head bashed in - but there were no serious injuries this time. Since all the game objectives were complete, we went home. There is coach that goes from this places to Gruzino station, but we - I, Elephant, and Barin, were late for it. All our comrades left on this bus while mocking us, and we had to walk forty kilometers. This gave us opportunity to learn more about our new companion. Shorter than even our Strori, Barin had wide shoulders and was very agile. He said that he participated in motocross, but got too carried away with two girl spectators in the first row during last races. This caused him to lose control - he almost killed himself and completely destroyed his motorbike.

Seeing that his love of women went against his sport career, Barin didn't waver long. As soon as he checked out of hospital, he told his coach to fuck off, partially for the following reason: coach was demanding him to repair the motorcycle that belonged to the club with his own money.

Barin studied in vocational school on the specialty "carpenter-furniture maker" - many of his comrades from "IHD" were also from there, and he lived on Primorskaya street. He had a time to tell us about the customs of his "homeland".

"Check out a completely new game!", he was explaining, "It is called "Zhu-Zhu-Zhu". Three guys approach the fourth and say - "So, should we play "Zhu-Zhu-Zhu" today?" It is assumed that this guy never played "Zhu-Zhu-Zhu" before. Rules are then explained to him: Dude, we grab your coat with our teeth by the edge, and then we start walking in circle while saying "Zhu-Zhu-Zhu". It's simple, your goal is to not laugh. If someone laughs, he is eliminated from the game, and it goes until there is only one player left!"

"Sounds like shit", said Elephant, "How it is even fun?"

"Ha!", replied Barin, "There is one secret! Check this out - four men are holding the coat by their teeth, but only one is busy trying not to laugh. Everyone else is pissing right on him while covering himself with his own coat!"

I imagined this picture - and began to like "Zhu-Zhu-Zhu" much more. If things go smooth, this can be actually a fun game.

"There were actual cases", Barin went on, "when three guys already let go of the coat, and the fourth one still haven't realized that he is covered with urine! He is holding his coat with his teeth, even screaming "Zhu-zhu-zhu! I won!" Isn't it fun?"

Customs in the Barin's yard were most harsh. He began to really drink in 6th grade - spun "BF" <You guys should know more about this "folksy way of drinking". You make mixture of water, ethanol and "BF" glue, replace a drill bit with pencil, submerge it into the mixture and crank it slowly (in case of a power drill - put it on the low speed). Snot-like gluing fraction will end up wrapped around the pencil, and after several such procedures the mixture becomes safe to drink> **"BF" glue is the type of Russian glue - I'm not sure if it is same to consume, but it is used, among other things, in medicine, to seal up the small lacerations.** or made pruno with other kids. He also huffed glue - in other words, did everything that was done by young warriors who wandered dark cellars and attics aimlessly. He quickly won the respect of his peers and even some of the adults by his complete lack of fear and implacable principles. Barin never allowed anyone to mess with him, and to compensate for his short height, he carried entire arsenal of destructive devices. Even now he had on himself:
Wristbands with razor blades in it (1), army belt with buckle filled with lead (2), chain concealed under the belt (3), screwdriver shiv in his boot (4),  ebonite nunchuku (5), "Military Attack"-brand gas spray (6), brass knuckles (7) and a jackknife with no lock (8).

Some of Barin's friends were spending summer in special camps (such as infamous LRC "Caravel" <Labor and Rest Camp, where the most restless "kids" are sent - huffers, muggers, pickpockets etc. Customs there are savage, so we are not going to touch this shit in this book> for their "exploits", but Barin was not attracted by such rest. Instead he went to games, and visited many places in just one summer. So when we started to talk about Moradan and his yesterday visit, Barin stopped, as if trying to recall something, and then said:

"Moradan? That's what happened with him! It was near the fountain..."

There are remains of old Finnish fountain near Zahodskoye. Once upon a time, when Barin went there with Stalin and Feri, he was met by some short man, with glasses and beard.

"Guys", asked he kindly, "Did you came for the LARP?"

Stalin put his plastic bags of vodka on the ground, adjusted his padded coat and said:
"Yes"
"And what are you names?", asked stranger.
"Andrei, Sasha, Sasha", friends introduced themselves, since they preferred to use their human names while talking with strangers. Stranger then stepped forward, reached out his hand and said:
"My name is Moradan." Then Stalin, who was still not completely at home with realities of magical world, made a mistake.
"Moradan?" he mused, "What are you, a Tatar?"