2: The Colossalcon 2018 Quest Log:

I suppose I learned a few things in my second con as a freelance adventurer.

1. Sometimes a failed adventure makes for a better story than a successful adventure.

2. A party of adventurers is much more efficient than a solo adventurer.

3. You can survive at Colossalcon without a room if you know how to hide your camp.

Welcome to part 2 of my con-quest log. If you missed the first part, Con-questing is just another layer of activities I do at anime cons. Not only do I cosplay and larp out my D&D/Pathfinder ranger character, but actually take it a step further and attempt to do that thing freelance adventurers do. You know, try to obtain quests from random people, seek out treasures of forgotten lore, and explore the extra planar dungeon space I find myself trapped in with all these strange other people.

This time however, I had to work around a few real world obstacles to continue my experience. Yes, aside from gas money, I was flat broke the entire con. I had obtained my con badge far in advance, my tax return was absurdly late, I quit my 48 hour a week (Minimum) job so I could hopefully find something part time in order to have time to work on projects, so I had barely any money at that point… You get the picture. Basically I parked far in the back of the building under the shade of a tree and camped out in the back seat the entire con. (Thus the unkempt appearance in several pics.) Resorting to emergency rations if needed, trying to ignore the night parties at the bungalows that were happening near by, all that stuff.

And if you’re wondering how the hell I was able to run around in all that medieval garb in the scorching summer heat, well…

1. I have way more heat tolerance than anyone raised in Ohio ever should have, and:

2. You should’a seen Darth Vader.

But compared to Ohayocon, I noticed something different about the people in Colossalcon. Like it’s a lot of the same people, but they’re much more open to playing along and interacting with this adventurer. I have a theory though. Gotta be that people are pent up in their homes all winter, so by the time Ohayocon rolls around, its much more like they have expectations of what they want their con to be. Hence, people are a little more stressed, and thus more reserved when it comes to interacting with freelance adventurers or other roleplayers. Where as Colossalcon? It’s a summer con. People just want to have fun. They relax, they go with the flow, and are less guarded. More likely to approach or even participate. Yes, I had several people join my party and quest with me at Colossalcon. That alone was kinda more rewarding.

Anyways, just found that interesting, because remember. I’ve been to all the Ohio conventions a thousand times, but when I experience them as a freelance adventurer, I get to see different sides to them.

So yeah. All that said, here is what I accomplished at Colossalcon 2018. This time, let’s start with the failed quests.

Colossalcon 2018 Quest Log:

Results: 52 Total | 45 Complete | 6 Failed | 1 Carry overs

Failed Quests:

1. X | Bounty Hunt Storm Trooper X. (We had a swordsmen, a gunman, and a black mage. He had a party of 5, all armed with laser blasters. We lost.)

2. X | Find the Vault 101 Rock. (We found a Kingdom Hearts rock instead.)

3. X | Acquire a boyfriend for Jody.

4. X | Hug Monika. Just Monika. (Failed because none showed up at the photoshoot and I couldn’t abstain from hugging all the Sayuris while murmuring emotionally uplifting encouragements.)

5. X (Sorta) | Solve the Riddler’s Conundrums.

6. X | Count all the Deku scrubs. (At this point I was too bored of counting quests. They aren’t very fun to be honest.)

━━━━━━━━━━

Carry Over Quests:

- | Join a Death Note Mafia game.

━━━━━━━━━━

Completed quests:

1. O | Recruit a mage, a healer, a tank, a rogue, and an animal companion for the duration of two quests.

2. O | Infiltrate a photoshoot and try to convince everyone there you are a character from that series. (So apparently none of the final fantasy cosplayers have played FFXI.)

3. O | Save an NPC’s family from Shadow Link.

4. O | Find Sailor Pluto and say “Hi”.

5. O | Unionize the fellow adventurers

6. O | Find an oversized cosplay and take a picture with it.

7. O | Find out who pulled the fire alarm. (It was actually the Kalahari staff. They wanted to fix an AC unit, so they pulled it to get everyone out of the building. It was pulled a second time by accident when they went to reset it.)

8. O | Hold the Door for 10 minutes.

9. O | Acquire 10 hugs again.

10. O | Team up with the Saiyens.

11. O | Circumnavigate the entire exterior of the Kalahari building. (Twice).

12. O | Duel on the bridge.

13. O | Give a Kaiju a hug.

14. O | Objectively “Have a great con.”

15. O | Follow R2D2 around like a duckling.

16. O | Pat head and rub belly at the same time.

17. O | Find Amethyst and Garnet.

18. O | Find 2 Yugis in one place.

19. O | Start a game of Ninja

20. O | Find a cat, get a cat quest.

21. O | —Cat Quest: Find an assortment of Rainbow Monkeys and Snakes.

22. O | Show a party where to get food. Acquire a free meal. (I am still eternally grateful!)

23. O | Escort a party to the volleyball court.

24. O | Acquire Treasure for Santa.

25. O | Help Caden find friends.

26. O | Acquire Food for Security.

27. O | Escort another group to the volleyball court.

28. O | Acquire 3 Rathian Plates for the monster hunter lady.

29. O | Get picture taken with a badge checker in it.

30. O | Find an easter egg with a pet in it.

31. O | Duel 2B.

32. O | Fistbump Prompto.

33. O | Hug a Noctis.

34. O | Take a picture with Sexy-time Waluigi.

35. O | Loot a Dragon. (Yet again, I acquired whatever a Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid” cosplayer was willing to lend me.)

36. O | Find a 1994 penny.

37. O | Count all the dogs at the con. (We estimated about 3 ½)

38. O | Chidori a Naruto Character.

39. O | Hug someone while doing the dooglebob scream. (Awkward…)

40. O | Hug Laura Croft. (Guess she really wanted a hug. Dunno why she made it a quest.)

41. O | Give a piggy back ride from one end of the hall to the other. (And back.)

42. O | Help a tired fox locate her best friend.

43. O | Slap my adventuring Companion. (Quest acquired by his friend.)

44. O | Ask Ignis to make me a sandwich.

45. O | Ask Arden to murder me.

Join me next time, where I shall post the results of my con-questing at Matsuricon in Columbus Ohio. My next conquest this year will be at Colossalcon again. This time, preferably with money. And as like last time, here are some pictures of me questing that I was able to track down on facebook. Some even correspond to the quests, since they were taken by people who joined my adventuring party.