Fernando's Fifth Quest

Saturday started with a bang: Macombo and Natasia informed Fernando and Ronaldo straightaway at breakfast that a crazy French lady had spent most of her breakfast time berating the waitstaff over the paucity of choice provided at the meal and the overall low quality of the food and drink which had been provided. Alas, not every breakfast can be the delicious continental European spread. If it were, Fernando would eat far more breakfasts.

As decided the previous evening, in no way would the party endeavor to be timely at the convention. They would late, fashionably so, and hopefully avoid the glut and torrent of people. They watched some of the other convention-goers who shared the hotel clamber into the shuttle from a position of safety and semi-comfort in the lobby. The chairs were Victorian, high-backed and rather narrow, and the gathered crew exchanged ribald tales of past adventures at the Dungeons and Dragons table, for both Macombo and Natasia expressed interest in attending. Furthermore, Fernando would host a going-away jamboree for Ronaldo the following week, as that man would functionally exit from Fernando life for always and ever in short order—this journey was, after all, one last adventurous huzzah before the Fellowship's breaking, and the pair received formal invitations to this gathering. Fernando plied them with promises of ginger ale and of delectable, hand-crafted vittles, and they did swiftly agree to attend.

The gang's ride carried them to their location without trouble and the busiest day of all the days began. Fernando first panel of the day featured a comic book writer who had been in the business for thirty years sharing kernels of wisdom he had gained over his tenure in “the biz” with regards to plotting and storytelling. Mostly, of course, as it applied to the medium of comics and graphic novels, but Fernando took away the notion of fractal plot pacing: that every subsection of a given story arc, novel, D&D campaign, whatever, ought to have a miniaturized dramatic arc to call its own. This is something that Fernando had grasped on a subconscious level but had, to this point, never had overtly explained to him, and it is the single most edifying thing he encountered at the convention, something he shall endeavor to insert into his own literature in order to become a better storyteller.

A long, long stream of guest panels ensued. Fernando sat in the same room as Stan Lee and a loud, annoying guy who served as a combination of interpreter and question-gatekeeper. This gentleman was also the one who'd attempted to rile up the crowds by being a dumbass over the intercom the previous day. What more can be said? It was a Q&A with Stan “The Man” (seriously though why was this little appellation appended to every single instance Fernando encountered the dude's name at the convention?) Lee.

Fernando sat in the same room as Manu Bennett, who is actually a surprisingly small man only of about Fernando's height. His roles in Spartacus and The Hobbit skewed Fernando's understanding of the man's size, but Mr. Bennett explained that onlookers fill in size narratives on their own, so long as you carry yourself like someone who is large and in charge.

Truly, the human mind is an easily manipulated thing.

Fernando and Ronaldo then met up and sat in the back of an overcrowded room of five thousand-ish people who waited for Mr. Norman Reedus. Natasia and Macombo mingled with the pair for a while, but they had VIP tickets and so were granted access to actually decent seats once the panel was to begin. To help pass the time until the Guest of Honor made his grand debut, Jon Berethal entertained the crowd, and it was glorious. In stark contrast to Michael Shannon's halfhearted dipfuckery, Mr. Berethal was a genuine (albeit not classy...he swore like a sailor), genial guy. He wanted to be there and wanted to engage the horde of Walking Dead-ites. He pimped his new show and convinced both Fernando and Ronaldo to give the premiere a look-over.

Norman Reedus then apparated and sprayed silly string all over the table, which of course caused everyone in the crowd go apeshit and all of the ovaries to explode in miniature big bangs. He was forbidden to discuss the show by his contract with AMC, which deflates a significant portion of why many audience members wanted to be there, but he did hold forth at length about Boondock Saints and how they are making a third movie in the series.

Hollywood. Stop.

Once Norman Reedus stepped out of the building, Fernando decided that he would go on a solitary adventure, splitting the party and forcing the Great DM Above to cater to the Keeper's selfish player character whims. He would visit the city of Chicago proper, using public transportation, transforming into a regular city mouse like he had been in the days when he'd resided in Vienna! What would he do? Mysteries, left to the DM's graces! But just that he did, and he did randomly encounter many unique characters in his travels. More amusing characters and situations, daresay, than he did over the full weekend at Comic Con.

First, the fistfight! Fernando stood against one of the stripper poles which he has always favored on public transport, as he believes in keeping the seats open for those who must sit, and standing burns more calories besides. As the train pulled into one of the many stops, a pair of men, one white and one black, hopped off and started stripping down. The other passengers on the train seemed to take this as a bit of street theater, for they immediately readied their cell phones for a kingly performance. It seems the while man had said something offensive and sexually suggestive to a lady in the vicinity of the black man, and the black man had come to the woman's defense, and the white man had taken offense at the defense, and now two shirtless men were punching the everloving fuck out of one another on a subway platform while everyone recorded the fight.

The black guy won the first round of combat and, to his credit, turned and headed for the stairs rather than to continue whaling on his stunned and helpless victim. The white guy, upon stumbling to his feet, escalated the conflict by threatening to retrieve his “twenty-two” and “pay [him] a visit tonight.” The black guy stopped at the top of the stairs, turned, and said in one of those scarily calm voices that his “posse” (perhaps this is a Chicagoan term for adventuring party?) would “teach [him] a lesson if [he] tried that shit.” White Guy's brash response was that he would “fuck all y'all up.”

Quaint. The subway car had pulled out of the station before Cop Dudes could arrive on the scene, so Fernando did not know if, indeed, White Guy carried through on his infantile threat or if it had been all posturing and bluster, like what most assholes are capable of producing.

One of Fernando's fellow passengers, a teenaged African American lad, commented on the situation at Fernando. “Yo, you see that shit happen! Crazy!”

Well, yes, he had. Fernando had been standing right there. “Little bit, yeah.”

“You taking this awful calm.”

Fernando shrugged. “I'm just trying to get from Point A to Point B here.”

TAAL quieted down.

A little bit later, a skeevy, scrawny man clambered onto the subway car scant moments before the doors shut. He addressed the gathered people in breathless, rote cadence, “I'm sorry, this will only take a minute of your time I have been really down on my luck lately and living on subway cars like a dog I'm trying to get some medication but please bear with me--” (Here he hiked up his pants leg and revealed to the world a pus-rimmed, swollen brown sore that blanketed the side of his calf) “--to fight this infection I got and sleeping on subway cars doesn't help at all so please if you could give me some money even the tiniest bit it could go a long way to helping me out please and thank you.”

Then he crouched on the floor in front of the subway car's doorway muttering “I'm sorry I'm so sorry” every fifteen-odd seconds. Most people had the good sense to ignore his solicitous ramblings. A few soft-hearted (soft-headed, more like) souls gave him some dollars. One man even gave him a five. Because encouraging a busker is the way to go through life, right city folk?

At the next stop, Skeevy Stevie slithered out the door, walked down the platform to the adjacent car, and climbed right back on to work another crowd.

Fernando also stumbled across a conservatory in his travels, and it was comforting being surrounded by living things that shared the Keeper's notions of solitude and introspection. None of them tried to consume him, and this is how Fernando knew the DM was fudging his dice rolls.

By the time Fernando returned to the convention center, it was dark. Ronaldo and the rest had gone home, but the dark is just the beginning, for the convention's “after-party” had just begun! Fernando dropped by and had a few, not too heinously expensive, drinks. He, by the grace of Lovecraft, actually received a ginger vodka when he asked the bartender for a ginger vodka.

It was a very loud afterparty. The music could be summed up as generic and forgettable nnn-tss-nnn-tss-nnn-tss electechnotronic. Fernando spent most of his time there nursing his drinks and watching people. He kind of made a friend, in that a young lady named Latisha or Latasha approached him and started telling Fernando about a Superman poster she'd bought from one of the myriad dealers earlier today.

Fernando got bored in short order and contacted Cool Driver Jim for pickup. He took a while to arrive, as he had drop-offs to make at the airport, but the night was warm and mosquitoes nonexistent, and the moths were kept away from Fernando by the abundance of streetlights, so he sat on a curb outside the convention center and waited for nearly an hour. When Cool Driver Jim pulled up, the shuttle was completely empty, so Fernando climbed in and rode shotgun. Cool Driver Jim started telling Fernando about his day, and it was like they shared a series of moments.

The series of moments ended when he swung by the airport and six other people joined the party. Upon reaching the hotel, Fernando exited the van, gave Cool Driver Jim a five dollar tip, shook his hand, and said to him, “You know, I never caught your name, and we've been calling you Jim all weekend.”

“It's Josè.”

“Thanks, Josè. You're a king among men.”

Josè laughed. “I'll see you tomorrow again?”

“Maybe so. I definitely hope so. Have a good night, man.” Fernando entered the hotel and trudged up the stairs to the room he shared with Ronaldo and Teodor, and he did indeed hold to the hope that some year down the road he would share in Cool Driver Jim...no, Josè's company once again.

But, alas, it would not be tomorrow. The adventure drew to its inevitable close.