LARP GONE REAL IN THE CARIBBEAN

Bert didn't give you much choice.

"It's a human interest piece," he'd said, leaning back in his chair with the particular smugness of a man who knew he was sending you somewhere you hadn't asked to go. "Invite-only. Remote island. Hundreds of people running around in cloaks hitting each other with foam swords. Our readers will love it."

He'd slid a thick folder across the desk before you could argue. Inside: a plane ticket to Bridgetown, a ferry connection to Cayo Solano — a privately owned island forty minutes off the Barbadian coast — and a laminated character sheet someone at the event's PR team had pre-filled on your behalf.

You'd stared at it for a long time on the flight.

ELANDOR. Druid-ranger. Keeper of the Old Paths. Sworn to the Verdant Covenant.

Whatever that meant.

The ferry is smaller than you expected and considerably fuller. Around you, two dozen people in various stages of pre-game excitement are comparing prop weapons, debating lore you don't recognise, and reciting what sounds like oath dialogue to each other with complete sincerity. Someone near the bow has already put their ears on. Pointed ones.

You read the character sheet again.

Elandor is, apparently, a soul of few words and considerable conviction. Tracks. Reads weather and soil and the behaviour of animals. Distrusts cities and the people who love them. Carries a short bow, a carved oak staff, and a leather satchel of herbs that do things the sheet describes in terms you're only half following.

You can respect most of that, actually. You've spent a lot of time in the Scottish Cairngorms and Norwegian backcountry, and the outdoors is your element — just usually a considerably colder, greyer, more sensible version of it.

You glance down at your forearms, already faintly damp in the Caribbean heat, and remind yourself that competence doesn't always survive a change of latitude.

The coastline of Cayo Solano is visible now — low and lush and startlingly green against the blue, a long wooden dock jutting out into water so clear you can see the bottom. There are tents visible through the treeline, and what looks like the top of a stone tower that definitely wasn't there before.

Someone beside you lets out a genuine sound of delight.

You uncap your pen, flip to a fresh page in your notebook, and remind yourself: this is the story. Whatever happens on that island — however ridiculous, however earnest, however far outside your usual stomping grounds — it's all material. Elandor, at least, would probably feel at home in those trees. That's something to work with.

The ferry bumps against the dock.

Time to find out.

Your recorder is in your bag. Your character sheet is in your back pocket. The gear table is just ahead — someone in an event-staff tabard is waving participants forward.

Take a breath. Look around. This is where it starts.