Chapter 1 Lar, Ping
In the year 1388, or 1883, the scribe was also larping, so the date is unreliable, there lived a man named Lar Ping. He had no armor, no horse, and no quest. He had a stick. He called it "Sir Stick."
One morning Lar Ping woke up, looked at his reflection in a puddle, and said, "Today, I am a knight." Nobody had asked. Nobody had knighted him. He just walked into the village square and declared it, loudly, as if it were a law.
Then he saw it. A dragon, which only he could see, was sitting on the baker's roof. Lar Ping drew Sir Stick, planted his feet, and yelled, "Foul beast! Lar, ping!" He meant "Lar Ping the Brave," but he got excited and cut himself off.
The battle lasted six hours. He rolled behind a barrel. He dodged fire that did not exist. At one point he took a heavy hit, clutched his side, and whispered, "Tell my sheep... I tried." He didn't own sheep.
The villagers gathered around, concerned. The mayor asked, "Lar Ping, who are you fighting?" Lar Ping, bleeding from absolutely nothing, said, "Lar... Ping!" and then collapsed dramatically into a hay bale.
The villagers heard "Larping" and nodded slowly. "So that's what this is," they said. From then on, anyone who dressed up and fought invisible things was "larping," and nobody could say why.
Lar Ping never got credit. The dragon was never found. Today there's a statue of him in the village square, a man holding a stick at a roof, and every weekend people in costume gather around it and swing sticks at nothing, because it feels right.
