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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ashy" data-source="post: 1042499" data-attributes="member: 312">The Enkventure (Part Two) (see it all <a href="http://www.enkwell.com/page.php?s=2-072003-00" target="_blank">here</a>!)Thursday 7:00 AM CSTDarkness and oblivion gave way quickly to softly muted early morning light; I could sense the awkward, jerkily rousing movements of my companions around me. I was tired, hungry and needed a shower and a hot cup of coffee; my first impulse was to roll bag into my bag, rivet my eyes shut for another few hours and then give it another, more refreshed go.  It was then that my brain finally stirred out of its sluggish sleep-induced morass enough to tell me exactly where I was in the continental U.S. – I was not home, I was in Indianapolis – I was at GEN CON!My recollection of the next little wedge of time is awfully clouded in my memory, but several things stand out distinctly, the first of those was meeting my good friend and long-time co-conspirator, Ed Bourelle, with whom I had spoken with countless times and exchanged easily three times that number of emails and whose silhouette I had met the night before. Ed was slightly more formidable than I had envisioned in my mind’s eye and somehow infinitely cooler. Now do not get me wrong on this, folks, as I already knew that Ed was cool (and I would soon learn just how cool he was over the days to come) but Ed exudes a velvety subdued panache and a refined uniqueness that is like all the best possible connotations of silk sheets and sweet jazz – Ed is, in a word, ubercool.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />In the light of Ed’s expertly conveyed sense of self, I was awe-struck to meet, in not just my own opinion, one of the hottest names in the D20 arena, Wil Upchurch. Wil is a quiet and immensely friendly (not to mention utterly laid back) bear of a man who is at once, equal parts quizzical scholar and wookie. Sadly, I think a supreme air of “fanboy” crept over me as I blabbered on about how big of a fan I was and Wil’s keen instincts kicked in with a fight or flight response. Not long after everyone began stirring, Will excused himself to go to the airport in order to pick up a friend.Lastly, I got to hit the showers and my man Hall brewed up a pot o’ joe – that quick one-two jab combo got me kickin’ and ready to roll. As we discussed what to do for breakfast, I gave Jim Butler (of Bastion Press) a ring, as he had said that he would like to break our fasts together and give me my exhibitor’s badge at the same time. Sadly, he and some of the Bastion crew were already at a joint that was slammed and had been waiting for their morning grub for nearly an hour; I decided that an hour was way to long to get some initial eats and told him that I would meet him in front of the Exhibitors Hall around 9:00.Plans were made and Hall, Ed and I geared up for our initial foray into the hallowed halls of the Indy Convention Center. As we got ready, drinking coffee and telling the stories of our various arrivals to Indy, I realized that I had forgotten to print out and bring my Gen Con schedule – out of the entire bundle of indexed and cross-referenced info I had brought along, I had forgotten quite possibly the most important item! I was aghast at first, but knew that I should be able to find net access somewhere and would be able to hit my website and thus, my schedule. Ed, Hall and I cruised out of our posh pad at the Westin and over to the Convention Center, as we had decided that we would slide in with our Exhibitors badges (slipping Hall in just long enough until he could hook up with MEG Hal and score his badge), get the general lay of the land and then jet out to breakfast about 10:00 AM when all of the hubbub began. It was a sweet plan and worked great – we may even do the same next year…  Anywho, back to the tale….We arrived at the front of the Exhibitor’s Hall around 9:10 or so and I looked around for Jim – there were about 8 gazillion people around and I could barely see Hall and Ed, much less someone who I had only seen in grainy, year-old pics on the Internet. I was surprised, in my search, to find, standing not two feet from me none other than Claudio Pozas and his lovely bride. I introduced myself, Ed, and Hall, but I think it was a bit early in the morning for Caudio, or maybe he was worried about finding the Fiery Dragon crew and getting HIS badge, as he seemed a little distracted. I told him that I would see him later and began my search for Jim in earnest.It was not going well so I decided to think like the hunter and watch for movement. I whipped out my cell and tapped Jim’s speed dial number and then watched the crowd, suddenly I saw a flash of black with a splash of red and then I saw Jim putting his cell phone to his head. I watched him answer his phone as I walked towards him, a big (probably stupid) grin on my face.“Jim?” I quipped.The dude nodded and smiled, closing his phone.That was all I needed – I stuck out my hand. “Brannon Hollingsworth, good to finally meet you, boss.”And that was that – I had met the dude that had made me a published writer. I could have hugged him on the spot, but that would likely have escalated me to Lord of the Fanboys, and I was not quite ready for that – yet. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /> It is a funny thing about being a freelancer in this business: (at least for me, as I’ve not confirmed it with enough of my peers to see if the feeling permeates throughout them all) deep down, we are nothing more than fans – fans who have been ridiculously lucky enough to begin to live the dream (just a bit). So while all the fans look to us to be these wheelin’ and dealin’ industry types (I guess – that seems to be the perception and the vibes I get most often), we are just as starry eyed when we meet somebody like Jim Butler, Monte Cook, or Bruce Cordell.It is all good as gold, though, because the hands down coolest thing about this industry is that nobody -and I mean nobody- that I have yet to meet has any sort of attitude or “holier-than-thou” complex going on; I mean, how cool is that?  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" />Jim passed me my badge and I thanked him profusely, I introduced Hall and Ed (both of whom have worked with Bastion in the past, but never met Jim to my knowledge) and we all headed for the Exhibitor Room doors. As we approached the entryway, I felt a sensation wash over me that was quite unlike anything that I had ever experienced before; something akin to knowing that once I passed through those doors, that a portion of my life was going to be stripped from me forever – my anonymity. For those of you that have known my since my Planewalker days, you know well that I have been somewhat reclusive with my real self, I have never posted a picture of myself to the web, or in truth revealed much about the “real me”, even to my closest “e-friends”. Whether or not this was a conscious act is immaterial but the fact that that time in my life was about to end was very real in my mind.Sure, I was excited about going to Gen Con. Sure, I was excited about meeting the folks I had worked with and admired for years. Sure, I was about to game my brains out. But a part of me was about to go away forever and that tinged everything with this weird stain of melancholy; it was by no means strong enough to wash off the big, stupid (yes, I am sure it was plastered all over my face at this point) grin off my face, but I knew it was there and it was undeniably weird, and unusual, and unique.The doors opened before me, and nothing was ever the same…</blockquote>

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