test drive meme

[barrayarmods]

Playlists by tsarcasm:
Barrayar ⚔ Cetaganda ⚔ The Invasion

Have you read the FAQ?

The Village ⚔ The Barrayaran Camp ⚔ The Cetagandan Base ⚔ The Fight

You've been on Barrayar for a while now, and you're finally starting to adjust. Or maybe you're not. Maybe this is all still too much for you – the attacks, the constant raids, living in the middle of a war zone by no choice of your own. But if you want to live long enough to make it back home one day, you might as well do what you can to help the war effort. Besides, where else are you going to go?

The fierce Barrayaran winter rages even to the southern end of the continent, and it's been none too kind to Vorkosigan's District. Temperatures at sea level are well below freezing, and up in the mountains, it's even colder. Several inches of snow already blanket most of the mountains all the way down to the Cetagandan base, and the storm that's just started up is only bringing more down. Visibility is low in the flurries, wind swirling snow everywhere, and God help you if you get lost on your own out in the storm. Nights are cold, these days.

A recent attack on the Cetagandan base has left half their facilities damaged and in disarray. Raid parties snuck in by night, planting bombs in previously scouted locations for maximum effect. Damage to the base's water treatment plant and organic grow labs have considerably impacted the Cetagandans' food and water supply, and in the chaos caused by the explosions, the Barrayaran guerrillas raided their medbay and made off with a considerable bounty of medical supplies. One man's bane is another man's boon, and while the Cetagandans have reserve supplies to sustain them for now, some of the damage is extensive and the repairs will take time. But in the meantime, the Barrayarans have scored a precious victory as well as equally precious resources.



the village
The Riverfall villagers are used to the harsh winters of the Dendarii mountains, and though they don't have much themselves, they are happy to offer what they can in terms of cold-weather clothing and extra blankets to those allied with the guerrillas. Despite the cold, the hill children are going wild in the snow, and they may try to lure you into their play by sneakily pelting you with snowballs.

Cetagandan allies, however, may not be met so warmly, and at the first sight of ghem soldiers, any children out playing in the snow will be immediately ushered into their homes. Unaccompanied outsiders from the Cetagandan base might have an easier time talking to the hillfolk, but any attempt at digging information about the guerrillas out of them will get you stonewalled fast. A sneaky hill child or two may steal away from their home to approach one of the "bad guy" outsiders to sate their curiosity.



the barrayaran camp
Morale is higher than it has been in a while after their recent victory, and the guerrillas are in high spirits. And do they ever love their spirits – as night falls, most of the Barrayarans gathered around the campfires are enjoying the deceptively named, dangerously alcoholic moonshine they call maple mead. It might start out sweet, but it burns all the way down, and a few glasses of that stuff will tank even the heaviest Barrayaran soldier.

But the storm rages on despite their celebration, and preparations must be made. Clearing as much snow off the tents as possible will help ensure that no tents collapse overnight, the horses need to be tended to, and the officers are always running training drills. Food is in real supply now, but the guerrillas need help foraging and hunting nonetheless. And when night falls, you'll have to find a way to keep yourself warm – it's a good thing there are a cozy ten of you to a tent.



the cetagandan base
The Cetagandans outnumber their guerrilla enemies almost seventy-to-one, so their base has not been completely devastated, but it hardly looks to be the work of a few raiding parties. Nothing is beyond repair, but the water treatment plant has been taken offline, which means that all water is now locally sourced and must be treated by hand with purification tablets. No one in the base will starve, but fresh food is mostly unavailable until they get the grow labs back online, which means that meals are mostly comprised of ration bars and MREs. Morale isn't exactly at an all-time low, but none of the ghem officers seem to be in a good mood.

They won't hesitate to put you to work, either. They need all the engineers and laborers they can get for the grow labs and the treatment plant, and the medbay's inventory needs to be thoroughly audited before they can send a request for more supplies. But if you need a break, it's not too hard to slip away for a little quiet downtime. Some of the lower-ranked ghem ladies might let you participate in some more artistic activities, or maybe some of the enlisted soldiers who are a little more used to you by now might invite you into one of their Cetagandan games of strategy. Or, since the treatment plant only affected potable water, you could appreciate your comfortable surroundings and take a nice hot soak in the bathroom while everyone else is working.


the fight
PVP
You're in the midst of a skirmish with the other side -- maybe you signed up for the battle, maybe you just got caught up in the fight -- but at least it's easy to tell who's on what side. Only one side is wielding swords, and the other guns.

But then you come across someone who doesn't look like they're either -- not one of the rugged Barrayarans or the face-painted Cetagandans, but an outsider, an exotic like you. They must be. So do you fight?

RECON
Maybe you're not on the front lines, but there's plenty more to winning the war than just fighting. You're partnered with another outsider on recon; the ground is cold, and you try not to let your shoes crunch too loudly on snow as you scout, scanning for patrols or supply lines.

Or maybe you're with the Cetagandans, hiking it thorugh the mountains with one of your fellow exotics in an attempt to locate the enemy camp. Except it's damned cold, and there's hidden ice everywhere, and everything is starting to really look the same.

--

Feel free to write prompts for your character on either side -- you don't have to choose just one for the TDM! Just label it clearly so folks know. GO WILD, MY FRIENDS

Comments

[pigsfeet]

She ain't a sore winner, that's for sure. And she has that edge, that smile that says this is right. For a moment, she forgot the war.

That can cheer Daryl more than anything, these days. The little light in the darkness, the shit that keeps you moving beyond hope or reason. He doesn't smile back, but there's a lightness to him that wasn't there before. This is good people. Worth protecting.

He nods. India sounds right, not that he'd know if she was lying. He follows her, because she wants to be followed. "Sounds like its own kinda shithole," Daryl says, lightly, his horse just barely in pace with hers. "You miss it."

Like he misses Georgia. You always miss home, even if it were a prison.

[shri]

Her eyes close briefly, shaking her head - yes, she misses her home, oh how she misses it. She missed it long before now, before ending up in this other world. With them shut, and this cold removed from her, she can see it. See it as it was. Maybe it would be easier if she could only remember it in flames. But she can see it still - the walls of the Mahal, the Fortress. The call of her husband's elephants, the raga's sung, the warm colour of the carved stones. The patter of Damodar's feet towards her, running towards her and calling for her with his nursemaid trailing behind. "No, it is not." A warmth to the words. "It is beautiful, because the people there make it so." She's being - fanciful. Waves her hand as if to dismiss the sun from her eyes and good memories from her mind.

Because he's right. "I do, I have missed it for years. It has been some time since I have been able to return."

[pigsfeet]

Daryl snorts at that. "Don't sound like Georgia. Beautiful place fulla assholes."

He rides alongside her, and he's still not smiling, but his voice is gentler than it was before. He's less gruff. It's good, he thinks, that this one's on their side.

"Dunno if it's lucky, to have a home worth missing." Who's better off? The person with happy memories and longing, or the one with none and no forlorn feelings about being gone?

[shri]

"It would depend, I wager, on how you treat your memories. Are they burdens or your comfort? What is their weight? Know that, and you will know if it is worthwhile." An amendment that comes with a grimace. "For you, at least. Such things are as personal as prayers."

She pauses, it's sharing, sharing of herself, not out of a need to keep her secrets. They truly aren't secrets now, and he had not reacted to her name. Such as it was, it would have been enough if he had any relation to the Knights in hunting her down. That, and he was American. Little as it might for others, it couldn't in his favour as she considers his words. "It is not my home that is a weight upon me, it is knowing that it was burned, that is heavy on me. That I can no longer protect it. That is what I have lost so many hours sleep on." Home, and missing it, was one thing, but she could stomach it easier than knowing her people - her beautiful home - was no food for Lycans and their ilk.

[pigsfeet]

His memories are just... memories. There are ones he doesn't want to revisit, ones he does. They offer no succor, for the most part. They just are, like a stone in hand, something to distract him. A quiet man spends an ungodly amount of time in his own head, it turns out.

"Sorry to hear it," he says. He doesn't want to share his story, but fair is fair, and this woman has been exceedingly fair so far. "Georgia ain't no place to live. America too. Corpses and that's if you're lucky; the living folks are worse."

[shri]

He's - not of her home, and she had worked hard, so hard, that the sickness that befell her people, befell so many other of Britain's colonies, in their greed to control as much as they could - would not befall them.

But as he speaks, she snaps back, they're not just talking, her fingers go tight on the reigns, the horse makes a sharp noise in complaint. Where her fingers are just bare at the end of her gloves, they strain white in the force of holding herself. "Lycans? Or did the vampires spread there too?"

Curses, faintly, what was it all for if not to protect a future she would do anything to make free of such fear.

[pigsfeet]

Daryl doesn't know what lycans are, but vampires makes sense, so he assumes more of the same. It's all bullshit, anyway. Daryl's seen enough shit that he's not gonna bat an eye at someone believing in some other coffin dweller.

"Nah, worse," he says, because what could be worse than the dead rising to eat the living? "Walkers. It's in everybody."

[shri]

"What is... a walker?"

Alright, she's - taken completely off guard, and it shows. Revel in the victory, Daryl, it's not often she's confused very much. Though, it happens here often enough.

[pigsfeet]

Daryl gets about as excited as ever: he raises a brow. "Dead people coming back and eating folk." Have fun with that mental image, lady. Daryl goes a little grim at the memory, and lets his horse trot on forward, directionless.

[shri]

She bares her teeth in something like a smile, something like a grimace. "Certainly sounds like the half-breeds. They are just men? They do not turn to another form?"

[pigsfeet]

Daryl shrugs. 'Half-breeds'? Helluva name. "They rot." He tilts his head to the side. "That count?"

[shri]

She shakes her head. "A half-breed are those bitten by a pureblood. The day after they are ... infected, they turn into a great monstrous creature, twice the size of a man and twice as strong. Wolf-like, thus the name Lycan, but still retain the intelligence of their human selves." She shakes her head, slowly, bitterly. "They are a plague on men. They feast on them, sometimes not even in the form of a wolf. I am surprised you do not know of them?"

She shrugs, perhaps America had these... walkers instead. It was possible.

[pigsfeet]

"We call those werewolves." Duh, lady. Of course they have different words for things in America. "Walkers're just... people who turn. Everybody does."

[shri]

"... I suppose that's as good a name as any." The next question, she gives him the benefit of not looking at him over for it. Her gaze forward on the road ahead of them. The sounds of the camp becoming distant. "Even you?"

[pigsfeet]

Daryl nods, somber as anything. "If I died," he said, "and nobody got my brain first." He taps his temple. That's the essential spot, who knows why.

[shri]

She nods, the once, and then she does look. "You must be killed with a blow to the head? Shall I make sure of it?"

[pigsfeet]

Daryl gives her a flat look. "Not now, thanks."

[shri]

Her grin is sharp, but well meant at least. "If you insist." Contemplates and - this is not her home, she has not seen it for years, and these people not of her own customs. But neither is he, just as much a stranger - and with war their fate, it would be important soon. "Are you likely to pass the sickness on?"

read: does she need to get into the habit of stabbing everyone in the head.

[pigsfeet]

Daryl shakes his head. "I seen some folk die, here. If I passed it on, they would'a come back." He'd watched, cautious, careful, knife at the ready, and then... the corpse had stayed dead for days, long past the point of turning.

[shri]

She nods, once, trusts him, or at least trusts his earnestness over it. "I've yet to see a Half-breed, but they can be hard to tell until much too late." That being said - "I am glad there is not another disease to worry over. Dysentery is bad enough."

[pigsfeet]

Daryl nods, warry, and speeds his horse to a trot, bobbing along with it on the dirt road. "Ain't a wolf." If he's some kind of monster, it's just the normal sort that everyone is. "Wouldn't be surprised if there were some other diseases crawling around here, though. If we really are from all over."

[shri]

"Good - " something vicious, wide, all sharp and proven that sits behind the eyes, with the sharp curve of the words as they form in her mouth. English is not her first language, and she considers them particularly. " - I would hate to have to kill someone so quickly acquainted."

It's gone as quickly, more pleasant a topic that's easily diverted to: disease. "Naturally, everyone has their own... variation of such things. Though I am sure some of it is still the same. Be careful off the water you drink, the food you eat."

[pigsfeet]

Daryl cocks his head to the side, expression wary. "Next you're gonna tell me to boil it first." Wow, lady, who would'a thought?

[shri]

Look germ theory is new okay. Though the look is puzzled, maybe confused. Tesla had said something about it from the correspondence he kept.

"Well, I am told it's the only way to be sure. At least to the latest findings. I've heard it's still somewhat debated in the medical circles."

[pigsfeet]

Daryl just stares. Is she fucking with him? "Dunno what medical circles you're hanging out in," he says, a tad (just a tad!) dismissive. "Sounds like a bunch'a idiots."