Leaving Mundania Read Online Free

draped between them but did not touch the floor. When they reached the front of the room, they attached one side of the fabric to an inverted U of PVC pipe and hoisted the banner high. Various multisided dice were outlined with electrical tape on the banner. Later that evening, many audience members would use similarly shaped bits of plastic to play Dungeons & Dragons, or D&D, as it was commonly abbreviated.
    Molly turned to me. “You know how some people talk about having a flag?” she said. “Well that’s our freak flag. And we actually like to fly it.”
    As men finished raising the flag, the audience burst into applause, and several people shouted “Do-ba! Do-ba!” (pronounced “dough-bah”)—some inside joke from the Avatar System that had not yet been explained to me. Molly wouldn’t tell me what it meant. Evidently, I’d have to hear the origin myth from Michael Smith, an affable high school physics teacher who played a character named Michael Lovious Smith in the Avatar System. And he only told the Do-ba story once per convention.
    Onstage, Vinny officially welcomed everyone to the con and introduced key members of his staff to his audience. He introduced us to the spunky Avonelle Wing, who had a mass of red waves flowing to below her shoulders, and to Kate Beaman-Martinez, who smiled a lot and had a cloud of dark brown hair to match Avonelle’s. They were more than Vinny’s nexts-in-command; the three of them loved one another and lived together in a polyamorous relationship that others sometimes called “the Triad.” Recently, the three of them hadbecome mutually engaged, despite the fact that the law wouldn’t recognize their three-prong union.
    Vinny took turns calling various other staff members to the stage, where they each had a chance to say a few words. Finally, Molly and Rob came up to the microphone. This would be Molly’s first convention on senior staff; she was in charge of Con Suite, the convention space where anyone could come for chips, soda, or Gatorade. Molly took the mic and spent a few minutes telling everyone how excited she was to be helping out. “But seriously, you all are my family,” she concluded, echoing the sentiment of many other staff members.
    â€œDo-ba do-ba,” the audience shouted back.
    The following evening, Molly began her transformation. She put on black pants and a green tank top with an empire waist; it looked like silk but was made of something cheaper. She slung a black sheet across her, toga-style, and dabbed makeup on the exposed skin of her neck, shoulders, and arms to make her appear more tanned and Mediterranean and less pale and Caucasian. She bundled her brown hair under a wig that was black and curly. Long, shining earrings of linked metal jingled around her ears.
    In less time than it took Molly to put on her earrings, I nervously slithered into my costume. Verva Malone was from a 1920s world, because I liked the that era’s style so much that I sported a bob haircut with bangs during my hours in “mundania,” as larpers occasionally termed real life. I exchanged my sensible reporting clothes for a white collared shirt that had a flimsy black corset-looking thing sewn to it. A large quantity of costume pearls was slung about my neck. I fit my sweaty palms into black lace gloves and perched a red monstrosity with glitter, a bow, and feathers atop my head. I slapped on black eye shadow and red lipstick and slipped my feet into the too-big purple stilettos.
    Molly wore her costume effortlessly. I appeared conspicuously uncomfortable, like a teen in her first bikini.
    As Molly and I left the hotel room, I began to dread what was about to happen. I would not be taking a vacation from myself or working out any personal issues or experiencing catharsis. I looked like a freak; surely, the people downstairs would send mocking glances myway, stares that told me how much I