Eventually Amy, who was dressed as her Belegarth character Elizabeth the Dryad, arrived at the battlefield. I came to learn that many people in Belegarth took on the different personas of the warrior they had created. People could be monsters, knights, elves, fairies, dryads, etc. According to my friend Amy, the practice of creating and acting as that warrior is called LARP, which stands for live action role play (Peters). Throughout the whole day, people only acknowledged each other by their battle names.

Elizabeth and I signed a waver so we could participate in the fight; I was promptly given a sword and a shield. Elizabeth's boyfriend Nate, who had been running around and hitting people with two swords, quickly joined us and began the task of training me.

"You can't stab with this one," Nate explained briskly, gesturing to the borrowed sword I held. "You can slash, but can't stab. Only swords with green tape can stab."

I quickly realized that Belegarth and its weapons were more complicated than I expected. After doing an interview with Nate later in the day, I learned the basic weaponry rules. There are four categories of weapons that are identified by different colors of tape: blue, green, red, and yellow. Blue weapons are "one handed slashing weapons" that cannot stab unless they have green tape as well. Green tape represents a stabbing weapon, red weapons are weapons that have to be held by two hands that can break shields. Yellow weapons are throwing weapons; rocks, javelins, and arrows are classified as such. If a person is hit in the torso, they are dead; it takes two hits to either the arms or legs to die. If you are struck on the arm, you must put that arm behind you (Peters). I found out later, through participation that there were other weapons as well, such as foam daggers (that people would sneakily stab others with) and giant mallet-looking hammers.

When a person dies, they are required to lie down on the ground, not merely kneel; the latter would indicate they had only lost a leg and were doomed to pursue their opponents by shuffling along on their knees. Lying sideways on the ground is the recommended position for death, or, if the fighting gets too rough where a dead person is, they can place their weapon on top of their head and walk to the sideline.

My first training session with Nate went as well as it could. After making our way to an empty part of the field, he challenged me to hit him. I quickly became annoyed at the difficulty of this seemingly simple task. Whenever I hacked my sword at him, he retreated so quickly that I did not even come close. With his sword raised, and him crouched in a fighting stance, the experienced Belegarth fighter was a hard target to hit. I could tell he was getting excited over this "fight" as well, by the eagerness growing in his eyes and his constant urging to try again. Eventually I must have hit him, or performed a gallant enough feat that was satisfactory enough for him to move on.

Nate and Elizabeth continued training me and giving me some pointers until the refs announced a new game. Instead of joining in with the traditional battlefield Belegarth scenario, I found myself pulled into a Samurai Tournament. A Samurai Tournament is basically a game where everyone pairs off and fights against each other. The person who wins the best two out of three, gets to move onto the next level where they fight the winner from another pair. We all stood in a line as the refs partnered us up. Thankfully, I was paired off with my friend Elizabeth. Everyone then went off to different parts of the field to begin their duels.

It is an intriguing situation, to find oneself in a sword fight, both exciting and frustrating. I found myself trying to be strategic, finding different ways to get in a hit, or little tricks to deceive Elizabeth and then go a different way. However, with her giant shield absorbing most of my poorly placed and unstable blows, the thought of strategy quickly went out the window, and I simply relied on random swings and luck. Surprisingly, I somehow ended up winning against her; a lone victory in the face of upcoming defeats. Due to my victory, I was then able to move onto a different opponent.

Proud, but still apprehensive, I let the ref who had been watching our fight lead me to my next challenger. When I saw him, my heart immediately sank. I could tell by the way this guy grasped his sword and shield, he was a well-seasoned and confident warrior. Luck was not an option with this one.

The fight ended quickly. True to my prediction, I did not stand a chance. He struck faster than my Belegarth-fresh mind could process, and with a couple of stinging blows here and there, I was out. I limped over to where my parents and friend stood, as they had undoubtedly watched my inevitable demise. They had found my downfall to be quite entertaining.

I came to learn of the other games that people played in Belegarth, which differed from the normal battle scenario. "It's just different styles of gameplay," Nate said in our interview. He told me about Vampire, which is a Belegarth game where if someone dies, the people that they killed come back to life. "Basically one person has to kill everyone". Cut-throat was another game where people could attack anyone (Peters). Other games that I discovered after my time in Belegarth, included games where a person can regenerate after being killed, bridge battles where people try to knock the other team off a bridge, and zombie battles, where the dead have to join the team that killed them (Hooker). After the samurai tournament was over, I then got to participate in the normal Belegarth battle-setting.