And what is a Claire?
That, my friend is the $64,000.00 question – and a question which requires me to travel back in time. Back when I was a younger lad, my very first gaming group was comprised of three, high school aged employees of the long since torn down Sunset Drive In, in Bellevue, Washington. We would play on one of the prep tables behind the concession stand after the main feature began. One or another of us would assist the occasional customer that would wander up for a soda, a pizza or change for the Pac Man or Galaga machines, taking a break during intermission – and then play well into the wee hours after the cars were all gone and the lot and stand was cleaned up. One of the three of us was a couple years older and was our DM. It was in the early days of our game's popularity, and complexity - this said - we still had quite a bit of fun. The Apple 2e became a part of our game, as sitting on the small desk in the same back area where the prep tables were WAS an old Apple 2e. It seemed a perfect destiny that the computer – which at the time was state of the art, would become a part of our game.
Our DM had created an elaborate warren of caves, in which we were searching for the elusive and quite evil Warlord Talon! The famed Assassin! Various levels, encounters, tricks and traps later found us in a large, subterranean cavern, with a massive vaulted ceiling – that fully enclosed a lake, deep beneath the surface. A basalt stone pier jutted out into that lake, and tied to this pier stood a massive, sprawling vessel. The largest ship our characters had ever seen. On the transom was a word, in two foot tall, polished brass letters, that none of us understood, as none of could read English. We climbed aboard, and found it seeming larger yet, with multiple decks, holds, spaces, quarters, and she was fully loaded with all conceivable supplies one would expect of a late 1800s major Ship of the Line.
Except crew
We were alone
The one thing that struck us each as mysterious, odd, and even scary – was instead of a ship’s wheel, a small table, bolted to the deck held… an Apple 2e. Unintelligible symbols were upon, and seemingly within a strange dark glass faced box; and with it was a low, flat object that we eventually intuited somehow controlled the device. Our Thief, Triko, realized a symbol on the flat device, matched one of those which blinked within the murky glass. As he pressed what at the time he did not know was the “enter” key, we all could hear Warlord Talon’s laughter echoing about the chamber as the object, the massive ship and all of us vanished from the cavern.
Claire was a magically augmented, and cursed, Apple 2e computer. At the time its only function was to bring the characters and the vessel to this world, from whatever world that we were on - we hadn't named it actually, and I don’t think there WAS a Greyhawk outside of E.G.G.’S garage yet - anyway, we found ourselves on Earth, circa 1900, somewhere in the Mediterranean. Here we were, on a British Ship of the Line, fully stocked, in pristine condition, with no crew whatsoever, and us: two elves (who were automatically fighter/magic user combos), a dwarf (fighter), a cleric and a thief (both human). We spotted 2 vessels in the distance, closing. We later found out they were Spanish Navy. The first deck gun firing at us was enough to get us into a panic. One of the Elves, Uriah by name had a very mysterious, potent magical spear called the Spear of Ra. He “called upon its power” and touched it to the micro-computer.
Giving it sentience
And power
Just as the Spaniards closed, Claire (as she would let them know her name was)… vanished.
We had many an adventure over those early years of Basic, and Expert DnD, and our many voyages upon the Victorius. I left her behind when I joined the Navy just out of High School, and haven’t really given her much thought over the years…
Talon, who is now an evil God of Assassins, has found the now ancient Claire and has again bent her to his will. Traveling through time and space he has found the Victorius once more… to start the cycle anew.
