Mesnab through the glass.

Ok, so here is the Mesnab little incident from my point of view.  :)

 At the Mysterium we had a marker game.  Guess I should start with that.

Earlier in the morning I went down to the gym in the hotel to go for a jog  on the tread mill.  But that day there was already a dude on it.  I asked how much longer he would be.  He said "30 minutes."  I took a quick evaluation of him and decided that he wasn't kidding.  So I jogged outside.  I was considering doing some scouting for the marker mission anyway, so I took it as a sign and went off scouting for marker sites.

Long story short... I did find some great sites including a long winding road with little or no traffic that would be great for hiding markers.  Well--  back to the marker mission. 

I found myself in the hotel room with my fellow hoodies all decked out in our Amber Horizons t-shirts, waiting to just see who else would be on our team.  Alamnat stood on a chair with the list of sign ups and called out wierrd avie names to be grouped into one of the three teams.  I leaned into Mesnab and whispered, "Uh oh. I think that we're going to be split up."  She looked at me curiosally.  Ace and Glip ended up on the red team, Mesnab on the blue and I was on the green team.

I sat down with my new group and smiled.  We watched as Alamnat and Eleri described the game and the GPSs that we were to use. Basically there were no rules.  A brief survey of my new teammates revealed that no one had really ever used a GPS before.  I offered to help with the unit.  We received a bunch of GPS coordinates and a GPS.  I had held out hope that there would be a clue or perhaps a riddle along with the coordinates or something else, but I my hopes were dashed as I was handed a small handfull of paper slips with nothing but numbers.  Somehow I gave teh GPS hand held unit to Tanith and I was behind the rest of my team.  I glanced at the slips, let my expectations be dashed and trotted after my team mates out the door.

Tanith was wearing a beret that was conveniently green like our team.  I shuffled through the slips of paper hoping to stumble across some sort of pattern or an idea of how to appoach these coordinates.  Tanith allowed the little yellow and black GPS sync up to the satelites.  I found a coordinate that was further away than the rest.  I figured that we could start at one end and work our way down.  I ran that idea by who ever wanted to listen to me and got no objections.  I handed Tanith the first coordinates and we started heading off down the street.

Our little group dodged a few cars and generally became traffic hazzards before we gave up on the first set of numbers.  During this little traffic adventure, I miraculousally ended up not getting hit because I had my head down shifting through the little slips of paper and managed to group them, I hoped, by proximity.  I wanted to get everyone involved- at this time Tanith was leading the group, I was shuffling paper and everyone else was following along like the gaggle of geese that was watching us pass them by.  I handed a new slip to Tanith and we were off again.  I gave the next one to a little shy slip of a girl whos name said "Scoreress".  I told her to hand the paper to Tanith as the next marker and I went back to shuffling.  As we ventured back to the hotel parking lot, we spotted another team sorting through some bushes.  We stopped by a tree and the little "Scorceress" scored us a tri colored marker- one that any team who found it got a point for.  The next "marker" had us heading straight for the bushes now being vacated by the previous team. 

After some foraging around trees and bushes along the semi steep embankment, we decided that the marker must have been another tri colored marker that the other team found, because there didn't seem to be anything else there.  After about 2 more non-existant markers, we were led to the rear of the hotel (and it's 20 or so foot steep, wooded hill.)   After some scrambling by our rugged team mates, we scored another two markers.  We also passed by the room that our group had for the weekend and it's large window to the outside.  Those who were not on the hunt apparently were entertaining themselves by taking pictures of us, waving hysterically, smiling wildly and taking movies to post who knows where.  The result was very energetic chaos. 

At one point I caught site of Ace and Glyip walking casually with strips of paper and a grey GPS unit in their hands.  I instantly thought that they were cheating- even though there was no reason to think so.  I thought that it was decidedly unfair to have those two brains working together against anybody else.  I scampered after my team.  (Turns out this is what Ace and Glyip were doing.  http://www.interregnum.amberhorizon.com/tales/?p=13)

We searched unsuccessfully around the dumpsters, blindly following our GPS unit.  It led us to the side of the hotel and Tanith stated with obvious frustration that the marker was about 10 feet into the building.  We  knew that out unit did't work in there, so we tried another set of coordinates.  At one point we were led into the middle of the parking lot.  Tanith stopped short and said, "It's right here!"  We all looked around.  There was black top in every direction for at least 10 feet.  We headed for the only thing even remotely close to us- the flowers by the flag pole.  After tromping  a few plants, climbing a light fixture and rummaging through bushes, we had to give up on that marker as well. 

At one point Tanith-following our sole guidance to the game, our GPS receiver, led us around from the back of the hotel around the front and to the back of the other end of the hotel.  I stopped.  We had just gone in a huge circle- and we hadn't even left the hotel parking lot!  Time was runing on and I started to wonder if we had a time limit.  We didn't know how many markers we just couldn't find or which ones were tri colors picked up by other teams.  Our GPS marker wasnt' working and we still had that wierd number which was probibly 5 miles away- which we were chased down and told was a typo.  I followed my team thinking that we were just doing something wrong. 

I passed by the Mysterium room again.  There were the previous group waving and laughing, picture taking and still creating chaos through the window, but now Mesnab was also in there waving and taunting me.  I stopped and motioned through the glass. 

I pointed to my wrist.  "Is there a time limit?"

She looked confused.  She pointed to her wrist with no watch and said "I dont' know what time it is!  You have the watch!!" 

I shook my head and repeated my request and got the same answer amid more waving and photo taking by the other observers.  Except that now Mesnab was back to taunting me with something about her being in the cool air conditioning. 

I noted the my team was leaving me behind, but I felt that we really needed information.  I tried again, but couldnt' get Mesnab to listen to what I was trying to say.  So I went for shock value.  I made a rude, adult gesture. 

"*@^&  listen to me!!"

She gave me only a semi faked shocked face, but went quiet for a second.

I motioned "Are you done?"  She nodded "Yes!"  I said "Thank you!"  Smiled sweetly (I hoped) and ran to catch up with my team.

I grabbed a few of my team mates and I went through how we couldnt' win the competition.  We were told that we had to fine 5 tri colored markers.  We had one.  All of the others had been found already.  At best if each other team had only 2 a piece, we still lost.  We managed to get the rest of our team and convince them to give up and come back inside.

Once inside, we discovered that we did indeed lost, and badlly.  There was a marker just inside of the window that we missed.  Seeing as how it was the third marker that our wonderful GPS unit told us was inside, we didn't give it much credit. 

I made a bee line up to Mesnab and gave her a huge hug to make up for my rude gester earlier.  She faked madness (badly) and returned my hug.  I let her gloat a bit over her well deserved victory as I wondered how a person who deals with maps professionally and in the Guild of Cartographers did so horrible in this game.  I signed, tried to let it go and claped for the winners.

 And that's how it happened!