test drive 02

[thestewards]

I know dust grows even when there is a breeze
Can't move, can't grow When you've fallen on your knees

► All TDM threads may be considered canon provided both parties agree and are accepted into the game.

► Canon threads may be redeemed for influence and reputation depending on how you solve the issue at hand or how you engage with the prompt. They also count toward AC.

► Feel free to switch up your character's Jewel from thread to thread. Get a feel for how a Birthright Jewel may limit or enhance your character's abilities.

HOT UNDER THE COLLARD GREENS
The relationship between the Blood and the landens has never been easy anywhere, least of all Draega, and even less so now that the Strangers have arrived. Between Blood and landen, opinions on the Strangers vary wildly. Some Blood believe the Strangers were landen in their original worlds and thus cannot possibly have anything to offer, but some landens think this means that the Strangers will be more sympathetic to them—or that landens could gain the power of the Blood one day, too. Then there are the landens who think the Strangers have sold their souls to Queen Fayura to gain the Jewels and the Blood who think the Strangers have embraced what it truly means to be Blood. Whatever that means.

Tensions are high, and they're highest on the main street of the Old Town Bazaar, where two restaurants have an on-going feud. The Last Meal is owned by a Blood family, none of whom wear a Jewel darker than Yellow. Across the street from them stands the mockingly named Blood and Breakfast, owned by a landen family.

To say these two hate each other would be something of an understatement.

On this particular morning, Lord Harle, the Yellow Jeweled owner and chef at The Last Meal, comes storming out of his front door. "You've done it now, Laney Cook! Soured all my milk!"

Simultaneously, Laney Cook, who is the owner and chef at Blood and Breakfast, comes stomping out the front door of her establishment, brandishing a wooden spoon like a sword. "Aye, and you've replaced all my sugar with salt, you ripe old bastard!"

Without missing a beat, both turn to you and the Stranger at your side. Wrong place, wrong time, friend. The two chefs decide the two of you can be trusted to help them prove the other party guilty of sabotage because neither of you has a stake in this. And, well, if the Queen brought you here, you should be an independent party. Both Harle and Cook seem to think the Queen is pretty okay.

Truthfully, they're both equally guilty. Lord Harle and Ms Cook have been trying to ruin each other for years, but who knows what you'll find when you go searching for evidence. And even if you find evidence that decides one way or the other, perhaps you'll simply lie and manufacture a solution that suits you—or the Queen who brought you here.


TERRIBLE TWO(HUNDRED)S
You're not entirely sure how this happened, but you're starting to understand why Blood females constantly grumble about the caste of males they call Warlord Princes. Prince Loren has, somehow, managed to maneuver you to the place you're at now: the head of a classroom full of Blood children who all look like they're somewhere between the ages of eight and ten. It's hard to tell, and you're pretty sure one bossy little boy declared he was 203-years-old, so everyone else has to listen to him, thanks.

Regardless of how Loren managed to get you there, there you stand. Fifteen energetic elementary school children all wearing Jewels shriek and shout, using Craft to amplify already shrill voices. One girl floats near the ceiling, her face screwed up in concentration as she clutches a Rose Jewel. Two little boys are taking turns passing their hands through their desks, which strikes you as distinctly unsafe for eight-year-olds to be doing. (You're not wrong.)

At least there are two of you, and you only need to babysit these children for the morning. "They're here for Craft lessons. Surely, you can manage until Lady Sheera arrives," Loren had said before abandoning you to a battlefield full of powerful, pint-sized children.

There's a lesson plan on the teacher's desk, but maybe you should lead with the snacks.


REVENGE, SERVED STINKY
The air is crisp and cool; it's still winter, but it's not as chilly as it has been, and so you're out for a walk. You've made your way north through Old Town and now find yourself meandering down the roads in front of the landen Guild Halls. Even though they're all made of red brick, each building is entirely unique. The Hunter and Crafter Hall, the largest of all the buildings, has more in common with a hunting lodge than the university building it once was. The Elektriline Hall might be the smallest building, but it's covered in neon lights and impossible to ignore.

Equally impossible to ignore is Master Tinker Mari and her collection of landen young adults. They're clustered around a storm drain. When Mari sees you, she detaches herself from the group of landen students and bounds over to you. "Ahhah! Stranger! You have been brought here against your will and are surely sympathetic to our cause!" she exclaims.

That doesn't make you feel too great since, you know, you're aware that the Hunter Guild tried to kill all the Strangers maybe two or three weeks ago. They may have mellowed out, or they may just be biding their time. Thankfully, none of Mari's students bear the markings of a Hunter.

She pulls you to the group. Already, canisters have been lowered into the sewers. A handful of students have clambered down after the canisters. "The Blood wouldn't help us repair the damage in Old Town," she says, rubbing her hands together. "Our people's homes were unlivable. So we're going to make their workplace unbearable." She points at the canisters. "Stink bombs."

There's another Stranger in the group, and you make eye contact over the top of the storm drain. Are you of the same mind as each other? As Mari? The choice is yours: agree to Mari's plan and fill the buildings of the Ebon Council with untenable stench or try to convince them there's a better way.


AIR TIME
Whether you catch the news on a Far-caster in the city or you're spinning the dial on your own device, you'll hear…

etiquette with evandra and aren
[Evandra's voice is a little bit rough and a little bit husky, the kind of voice that gives bad ideas to young men and headaches to fathers.] Today we're talking about everyone's favorite subject.

[Aren's voice is chipper and bright. He sounds more like an eager boy than the full-grown man he is.] Food?

[A laugh from Evandra.] No, Lord Aren. Sex and flirting. Culturally, the Blood don't consider it rude to flirt quite blatantly with each other, even when one or both of the parties is married. Isn't that right?

[Aren:] That's exactly it, Evandra. Older males allow young witches to flirt because it's understood that the male isn't interested or available. He becomes a safe partner for her to practice on, and his approval lets her know what is and isn't acceptable.

[Evandra:] What does it mean if a married male or witch flirts with you?

[Aren:] Casual flirting means that witch or male thinks you're safe. It's their way of telling you they feel comfortable around you. Of course, it's always acceptable to ask them to step back! [He laughs.] As we all know, just because you can flirt with a Warlord Prince's lady doesn't mean you should!

[Evandra:] Let's take a look at casual flirtation between different Blood castes…

the weather
[A soft-spoken man's voice rumbles out of the Far-caster. He's pleasant to listen to, with a soothing cadence to his voice.] Warmer temperatures will see melting snow over the next week. Be careful around the Heartsblood River, as the heavy snows will result in flooding along the banks. Need flood insurance? The Transport Guild is looking to expand into…

the news
…amusing to hear that Grand Master Niall blames the Blood for the fires in Old Town. It is my understanding that members of the Blood, these so-called Strangers, went out of their way to rescue both Blood and landen during the fires set by the Grand Master's Hunter Guild. [The man speaking has a slow, clipped cadence to his voice. It's very posh and polished.]

[Another voice, presumably an interviewer:] The Council counts the Strangers as Blood, Lord Grejor?

[Grejor:] What else can they be? They wear the Jewels, therefore they are among our number. [He laughs, and the sound is cold.] The Council is pleased to welcome our new brothers and sisters.

Comments

[theladyofwinterfell]

Hm, well. If this were a dispute presented to me at Winterfell, I would want to see the evidence for my own before talking to the involved parties. I wouldn't want any bias to affect what I saw; words can be twisted but physical things less so.

After I examined the evidence, or lack thereof, I would then speak to each party to obtain their position and deliberate. Usually the answer lies somewhere between two extremes.

( Sansa tries to be fair in her dealings and while she doesn't know if she's as good at it as her lord father had been, she feels a certain pride when she's able to reach a mutually-agreed upon solution to a sticky problem.

She tips her head a bit, wanting Tyrion's thoughts on the matter. He's older and has different experiences in ruling than she; his input will be quite welcome. Besides, it feels nice to be on the same side of things. He's a good ally in a place where she has none. )

[whettedmind]

[He nods his acknowledgment, expression thoughtful.]

A fair approach. And a practical one, in this case, seeing as we're already here.

[It wouldn't be in King's Landing, let alone somewhere like Meereen, where population alone had bred disputes like flies. There, it was someone else's job to collect what evidence there might be, and the trick was sorting through it outside of its original context, along with testimony that was often self-serving even if it wasn't outright false.]

I would start with speaking to the staff. They'll know more about their masters' feud than either of them think, and they're the ones who would be the first to handle any lords and ladies who've had their dinner spoiled by the disagreements.

[theladyofwinterfell]

Should we split up then, my lord, and come back together to discuss our findings? I could begin my investigation in Blood and Breakfast and you might look at Last Meal? It might be best if each of us has only one perspective to draw conclusion from at a time.

( Sansa wants to be in accord with this so that they might do right by these people and come to the best answer. She knows Tyrion to be fair (or he was as Hand and Master of Coin in King's Landing, anyway) so she doesn't anticipate issues. )

[whettedmind]

[There's a moment's pause as he considers, weighing the mood on the street against the practicality of dividing their efforts and the value of going about the investigation in such a way that neither of the injured parties can complain that the other was unfairly prioritized. Willing though the two chefs may be to consider them a collective neutral party by virtue of standing outside the normal order of things, years of resentment aren't so easily wiped away.]

That sounds like a wise division of labour, Lady Sansa. Shall we meet back here in an hour to go over our initial impressions?

so sorry for the tl; dr

[theladyofwinterfell]

( Sansa gives him a quick nod before going to investigate the Blood and Breakfast. She doesn't know much about restaurants but she does know quite a bit about supplies and how to ration them. Sabotaging supplies is something quite serious in Winterfell where it not only costs gold, it costs lives.

She starts here, both literally and figuratively beneath the salt, and sifts a bit through her fingers. It's a coarse grain, much different than the fineness of sugar. Based on the trails of sugar and salt entwined upon the floor of the storeroom, it seems someone must have dragged the salt over and poured it quite hastily into the vacated sugar bags. Two people, perhaps, and not just one. The sugar seems gone entirely - will it perhaps be found in The Last Meal? Sansa wonders. Once she's satisfied with the evidence, she decides to talk to the people involved. She begins with Laney. The landen woman explains she'd only noticed the difference after sending one of her employees down to haul sugar into the kitchens; only in bright light was the swap sussed out. Querying the boy who'd fetched the sugar yielded nothing but some mumbling about how the latch to the storeroom was undone but that this wasn't uncommon.

Sansa looks about and finds a window pushed up a bit in the rear of the kitchens. She asks who might have done that and no one seems to know. Hmm. How could they not know, with the window in plain sight of all who would be cooking? Unless they weren't in the kitchen cooking when the swap happened. If they were, perhaps, sabotaging across the street - well, she'll have to discuss it with Tyrion. She thanks everyone for their time and goes back out into the street to await Tyrion and his judgment. )

[whettedmind]

[Lord Harle is certainly free with his disparagement of Ms Cook, once the door of the Last Meal is firmly shut on the bustle of the street. To hear him tell it, the woman was created expressly to make his life difficult, and solely responsible for all of its ills. Getting him to stop talking is the difficult part, and it isn't until Tyrion suggests that he might want to be on hand to explain why the restaurant won't be open for the noonday meal rather than leaving it to the young woman he's hired to serve his customers their food that the complaints cease.

The serving girl, though happy enough to show him around the kitchen and the storeroom and be spared a little of her employer's frustration, at first insists she has little light to shed on the situation. She'd only just arrived when the soured milk was discovered, after all, and Lord Harle has discovered it as soon as he brought the day's delivery in from the back step. Well, no, he usually isn't that late bringing it in - she was rather surprised, because most mornings he was deep in the day's preparations by the time she arrived. He must have overslept; the past few weeks have been difficult. The kitchen had been in a bit of disarray, too, half the sugar displaced from the remainder of the dry goods. She'd sorted everything out while he was arguing with Ms Cook, though, so he shouldn't be cross over the mess.

The sour smell from the milk bottles makes Tyrion's stomach churn - all of them have spoiled, and while he's hardly an expert on running a kitchen, he is aware enough to know that an extra hour or two sitting out on a morning cold enough that the ground had still been coated in frost well past sunup couldn't possibly have been the cause. Then, too, are the streaks of spilled milk on several of the closed bottles, one smudged in a shape that very much resembles a handprint. It's possible the farmer who had delivered the dairy might have been unusually careless, both with the age of the milk he brought and the handling of it, but that seems far less likely than tampering.

Nothing else seems to have been tampered with, and though Tyrion heads out the back to look around the alley door where the milk had been delivered, nothing seems to stand out. It's possible that one of the neighbours might have spotted something at either restaurant, and he makes a note to suggest that as a possible method of verifying their theories, but for the moment none are in evidence as he circles back around to the main street to find Sansa.]

Lord Harle certainly seems to be a victim of sabotage - though innocent victim might be a stretch.

[theladyofwinterfell]

It seems that Ms. Cook is well. I cannot imagine how the cooks and serving maids wouldn't have noticed a half open window on a cold morning, unless they weren't in the kitchen when the sabotage occurred. As silly as it sounds, it seems as if it might have been simultaneous.

I thought if they were across the street sabotaging the milk, it would be an opportunity for the others to replace the sugar.

( Sometimes things work out this way though it seems a bit strange that it would be such an elegant solution as both parties being wrong. )

My question is - what shall we do about it? Neither will be happy we've decided to call it a draw.

[whettedmind]

No - they're both convinced they're the injured party, and the other is to blame.

[He glances between the two shop fronts, both innocuous enough to the eye despite the ridiculous feud between the owners.]

I didn't get the impression that either of them was quite willing to ruin their own fortunes to get one over on their rival. If the Queen is willing to intervene, it's possible the best way to keep them from ruining each other would be to make it clear that any sudden setback suffered by one of them would be suffered by both of them.

[theladyofwinterfell]

What if we suggested that they make amends to one another simply in a show of good faith? Then neither has to admit guilt and both parties are made right.

We could simply imply that the Queen would want them both to succeed and to get along and making the offer, even if they never did anything wrong, would make them look like the bigger person.

( It's a bit of a falsehood, yes, but it might be a way to make both parties happy and both parties believe they've done right. )