This is a tale of the about an event that was held in Axemoor some years ago. Lord Thorwald Ingme was the autocrat of the event and the premise was that the Roman gods had come to Axemoor to walk among mortals once again. There were classes on ancient Rome, and a Roman feast. The centerpiece was to be a quest to gain as many favors (points) from the gods as possible. The gods and some notable mortals were played by various people, including myself as the slave Sparticus.
When the quest started Saturday morning, I was in the service of the god Vulcan who was being played by Lord Wil Erinson. Wil is a weapons master and since Vulcan was the god who forged Jupiter's thunderbolts, you earned his favor by sticking a thunderbolt in a weapons master target. The thunderbolt was a throwing knife Wil had made especially for the event, a piece of flat steel about 3 inches wide and foot long with a point ground into one end.
The first few parties came through without much incident but then came a party who evidently took pity on slaves. While Vulcan was distracted, they unchained me and asked me to join their party.
The next deity this party encountered was Diana, goddess of the hunt, who was being portrayed by Baroness Rhiannon of the Isles. You gained her favor through skill at archery. Diana, however, took one look at the leader of the slave rebellion that had nearly destroyed Rome and refused to let the questers participate in her test of skill declaring that, "I do not much like the company you keep."
The group went off a little way and after conferring they decided that it might be a good idea for me to approach Diana since it seemed that there was someone in their company that she didn't like. This group might have known their mythology but it was pretty obvious they had not studied their history!
I was hesitant to approach Diana lest I become a slave once more but I was saved by lunch. As the questers entered the feast hall, they encountered Vulcan, who thanked them for returning his runaway slave and gave them twenty bonus points. Unfortunately for them, Thorwald, who was playing the god Saturn, patron of slaves, was standing by Vulcan. He promptly took thirty points away from them for returning me to slavery.
Vulcan joined Baroness Isolde for lunch and we had a lovely repast. Vulcan was conferring with his fellow gods when another group of questers unchained me and told me to run. I spent the rest of the afternoon playing hide and seek with the gods and managed to remain free.
There was one final bit of schtick for me to do at court that evening. At the end of court, the Baron was to call for the slave Sparticus to come forward. I was to respond by standing and declaring, "I am Sparticus."
As was done in the movie, several others would then jump up and declare that they were Sparticus. Finally everyone would start declaring that they were Sparticus. I tried to wait for a few seconds when Sparticus was first called to lend dramatic air to the moment. Unfortunately, the other pseudo-Spartici were eager to do their bit and jumped up before I could make my claim.
Confronted with a room full of slave rebellion leader wannabes, His Excellency Shaul declared that we would all be executed. Her Excellency Francesca decreed that since the cooks had prepared such an excellent feast it shouldn't go to waste and the executions were postponed until after dinner.
During the set up break, Sparticus made his final escape when I slipped out of my kyten and into medieval garb to become Finn Normansson once again.