Venom Wars 6

April 17-19,2009 saw the 6th installment of the IKV Bayou Serpent paintball tournament known as Venom Wars. Due to an 80% chance of rain,the attendance was smaller than usual with 13 warriors in attendance from the IKV Bayou Serpent and IKV Melota and 2 mundanes. The rain managed to stop nothing.

Friday afternoon everyone started arriving and set up camp in a light rain. Torrential rains were coming from the west and the Melota crew got stuck in it the entire drive. All of the heavy rain at the event occurred late when everyone was asleep.

Saturday was the day of combat. Rain was light most of the time and in short duration. The first game of the day was a new one that I borrowed from the classic "save the President" type games. "Kill the Chancellor" is my working title and involves a cloned Chancellor with 2 bodyguards. The 2 guards must be taken out first with headshots and then the "Chancellor" must be defeated in honorable combat with d'k-tahg's. Rather than go to 3 points,the first person scoring a killing blow is victorious. If the chancellor wins the match the game resets. Since I had a prize that I wish someone else to win,I volunteered to be chancellor. My 2 guards were dispatched quicker than I had planned. I won the first match of d'k tahg against K'Mok of the Melota I believe and the game reset. Again the guards were taken out and I faced T'Kai,son of K'Mok. I was defeated this time and T'Kai won the prize of a Chase Masterson autograph.

Speedball was up next. This isn't the usual "spray and pray" speedball that you see on TV. Each person starts out with no ammo. Ammo is places on top of barricades in pods containing 10 rounds each. Some quite humorous matches usually occur and this year was no different. Dr Gizmo of the Melota was snuck up on by T'Kai and before he knew it,was staring down the barrel of his gun after T'Kai calmly called out "hey.". I also had a funny one after popping my head over the barricade at my shipmate B'ehrmaq until I ran him out of ammo. I'm sure I looked like a gopher popping out of a hole.I managed to take 1st place in this event.

When then took lunch and our 2 mundane guests showed up. We had a trivia contest that had about 20 prizes given away. They ranged from posters to DVD's and everything in between and almost everyone got something. Ni'Vek of the Bayou Serpent once again dominated. Our intelligence officer Rhiana conducted a riddle game next. A prize was wrapped in many layers of wrapping paper and in order to take a layer off you had to answer a riddle correctly. Gizmet of the Melota got the most answered correctly but in the end it went to Salek of the Melota and the prize was another Chase Masterson autograph.

After lunch we decided to play the chancellor game again with an extra guard and the result was a very long game. Quad CO K'Allen was chancellor this time.No one could get an edge and everyones goggles were fogging so badly that we were firing blind. Two of the guards ran out of CO2 and the 3rd was taken out. K'Allen also faced T'Kai in honorable combat and was defeated. The Empire was well protected in the hands of these warriors who dispatched the clone.

The fogged goggles,fatigue, and humidity finally got the best of us and we sat around and told stories of days past before getting ready for the ceremonies. It was still daylight but a wave of heavy rain appeared to be on the way. Ceremonies were pretty standard fare. The bloodwine was opened,a howl was given for those we have lost,and trophies were handed out for the following:

Worst Bruise: K'Mok
Speedball: Ri'Par
Tournament DaHar: T'Kai

We then drank bloodwine and told stories til late into the night.

Sunday morning saw everyone packing for the drive out.Early Sunday saw some heavy rain while everyone was sleeping but by the time everyone was awake the rain was back to light and spotty. I was later told that Gizmo had some tire trouble and Salek was feeling a bit under the weather on the return trip. I hope things are back to normal with them.

I'd like to thank the Melota crew for braving what could have been a rain out and coming anyway. I also want to thank Rhiana and Salek for filming and B'ehrmaq for making his long journey to stand and fight with his shipmates. Finally I want to salute T'Kai,son of K'Mok or "Chancellor Killer" as we were calling him. T'Kai was very deserving of the DaHar award having taken out the chancellor in both games and placing a close second in speedball. MajQa T'Kai!