Another Day, Another Dollar (post-round mingle)

[midpointmods]

PLAYERS: Everyone!
LOCATION: Midpoint, and anywhere else people want to explore
GOAL: Time to relax after some hard-won rounds.
WARNINGS: None
OTHER: The setting post for those who want to explore

The stagecoach reaches the Ranch... and the cargo isn’t with it. A large, feathery dinosaur reaches the Ranch a little later, with only some of their cargo, having been hit mid-route and between transformations by the bandits.

“Well, we’ll take what we can get,” Lee says sourly at what’s left after the bandits’ raiding - maybe half of the empty crates. He hollers at his ranch hands, “Come get 'em, boys!” Between him and the other workers, and any of the remaining driver team able to be pressed into service (which is mostly just Groot), the crates are unloaded and stacked and filled with supplies for the next train out. Looks like they were useful, after all.

At the end of the day, Lee sends the drivers on their way back to Midpoint, and the bandits can do what they will with their portion of the cargo. Got any use for sturdy wooden crates, friends?

In Tycoon Depot, Tiffany Jamesson has spent a(n enjoyable) day and a half in hiding with Inara, Daylight, and Irene, peppering Daylight with questions and flirting demurely with Inara and Irene, presumably out of boredom. The hand-off with her father goes pretty smoothly, with only Fuwa on the outside - he might be furious, but he's not willing to interrupt and risk the target’s life in a firefight.

Exchange made, kidnappers and bodyguards are free to head back to Midpoint.

In the saloon, North has laid out a buffet of everyone’s favorite foods to choose from, with beer and wine on the house for two days only: the traditional post-round congratulations-or-consolations feast. There’s someone on the piano almost all night providing music, and extra hot water for baths whenever people finally retires to their rooms. Most Players make good use of the additional free food and drink for as long as it lasts; whether for enjoyment, self-medication, or to stave off boredom is their own call.

The dead don't remain so for long, and wake up in jail cells - the same ones they started their round at - at the edges of the game arena around the same time as the round ends, ready to be collected by friends - if there’s anyone who wants to come get them.

The next week and a half belong to the Players to do with what they please, be it sleep all day, spend their hard-earned points on more alcohol, ask lots of questions, or explore the arena. There are no events planned, nothing to steal, no one to murder (unless you really want to, anyway), and plenty of things to learn about and try to get to the bottom of, for any Players not too jaded to try and search. Good luck with that, anyway.

Oh - did you want to know if you won, or how badly you lost? Gonna have to ask North or Booker for your points totals, because there’s nobody who actually announces whether you won or lost...

Comments

[worthallthis]

"A sword duel. Really?" That definitely fits the description "ridiculous". "People still do that?"

Then again, they have no idea where she's from. Might be medieval times, for all they know.

[unofficial_ambassador]

"Yes, people still do that." If this sounds like a conversation she's had before, that's because it is. Last time it was with the person who nearly died in a duel. "It's not commonly practiced anymore, but it's popular among a certain subset of wealthy people on the frontier."

[worthallthis]

Well. Soldat does know rich people are weird. They sure did like having a private assassin, but the idea of them putting themselves in actual danger in a duel seems kind of stupid. "That's. Kinda dumb," he has to say. "Why would anyone want to duel. When they could resolve differences in so many other, better ways."

[unofficial_ambassador]

"Atherton’s a bully. He felt that I had embarrassed him in front of others, and he needed a way to simultaneously restore his honour, show me what he could do to people who crossed him, and remove what he perceived as the final barrier to having me to himself." She had only briefly considered staying with him, and that was mostly because he was so terrible that she couldn't imagine him being upset by her death, but of course he hadn't known that.

[worthallthis]

"Oh." Romantic shit. Gross. They're glad they don't have to worry about that. Their scattered memories of dating back Before seem very stressful, now, and the idea of somebody dueling someone else over him sounds exhausting. And embarrassing. "Sounds unpleasant. Hope you weren't planning on letting him have you."

[unofficial_ambassador]

Oh, it was absolutely both exhausting and embarrassing, between Mal refusing to back down even when she had tried to rescue him and the reaction back home to her outburst on the field.

"For a while, it looked like yielding to him was going to be the only way to keep everyone alive, but fortunately it didn't come to that."

[worthallthis]

"So the one who wasn't the bully didn't know how to fight," Soldat guesses. Because if some rich idiot decided to pick a fight with them, they'd be in trouble.

[unofficial_ambassador]

"Oh, the bully was a much better fighter, at least with a sword, but he wanted to show off instead of just ending things quickly, and was too easily distracted when I offered him something he wanted." She hadn't exactly intended to win the day with her desperate attempt to keep Mal alive, but she's not about to complain about the results either.

[worthallthis]

"Good. Bullies oughta be stopped," Soldat agrees with a little nod. That's a Steve-ism. They know that. But it's still a good thing to believe in. "Glad you got your friend out of there safe."

[unofficial_ambassador]

Inara smiles fondly. She's far enough removed from it now that it's actually kind of funny. "Me too. He's our ship’s captain, so it would have made things complicated. I tried to rescue him beforehand, you know, and he wouldn't leave. Just as caught up in honour as the rest of them." She had been so frustrated with him then.

[worthallthis]

"Well. If that's important to being a gentleman, and all." That might actually be a light tease. It's said very blandly, which is a tell for him; Inara hasn't seen him make jokes yet, but she's probably had more than enough training in reading people to guess it's what he's doing.

[unofficial_ambassador]

Inara gapes at him for a moment. Was that a joke? She's seen him amused a few times, of course, talking about Daylight, and that first time she had been caught by Aethon, but this is a step further that she hadn't expected him to take.

"It was my honour! You'd think I would get a say."

[worthallthis]

Soldat does enjoy taking people by surprise with their sense of humor. With even showing they have a sense of humor. It's funny. "It's never about the lady's honor, Miss Inara, even when they say it is. Seems like it's always about the guy's honor, in the end."

[unofficial_ambassador]

"If I were the type who killed everyone who insulted me, they wouldn't have been able to have that duel because they both would have been dead already." She and Mal have had some conversations since then and she understands it now, sort of, but it's still incredibly annoying.

[worthallthis]

"Didn't say it was smart." They give a faint smile, then says, "I'm not that kind of gentleman, at least. I can say that much. Don't think I've got much in the way of honor to worry about, and I'm sure you can handle yourself against insult." Maybe not against swords, or guns, but insults? Absolutely.

[unofficial_ambassador]

"Some of it's easier in these places." Which is definitely not something she would have expected to say at first. "You've got more control over your own narrative."

[worthallthis]

They might beg to differ, in the Midpoint arena of all places, after a round where the best tactical decision was to kill someone and then be killed themselves, but.... "Last place I was. It was good. Scary sometimes, dangerous sometimes, but we could do what we wanted. Could actually help people. Not like here. More like your place. Better than when I was alive, either place."

[unofficial_ambassador]

It's not surprising - River might have felt the same way if this had somehow happened to her before Simon had found her - but it's still depressing to hear. "I'm sorry.”

"Back home, I was... a lady. People had already constructed a version of me - the circumstances of my life, my value as a person - before we even spoke. I could use it to my advantage sometimes, but it's liberating in a way to be a blank slate."

[worthallthis]

Oh. Yeah, okay, they get that. There's things they're used to having assumed about them, too, even from way back before HYDRA. They nod a little. "Being able to start yourself over. Remake yourself. Yeah. That's a good thing. Nobody here knows you or what you were like before unless you tell them."

[unofficial_ambassador]

"It's kind of funny, there were things that I thought were so important, and suddenly they don't mean anything." A lot of heartache over things that don't really matter anymore.

[worthallthis]

"Everyone has programming to get over," Soldat says with a sage nod. This was one of their earliest lessons in dealing with other people, after everything. Maybe their programming isn't as literal as his, but it's still there, and it's still often wrong. The choice of language might be kind of telling, to Inara, though, as most people don't really refer to thought processes and life experiences as "programming". "I hope you found the right things to consider important, once you could start new."

[unofficial_ambassador]

Multiple people in her life now describe their emotions using ship-based metaphors so it's not as strange as it could have been, but all of those people are deeply damaged so it does paint a bit of a picture.

"I hope so, too." Inara has done a lot of things that she never would have imagined in her previous life, hoping to protect the city that's become her home and her new friends that live there. "Though we've left our fresh start behind too, it seems."

[worthallthis]

"I know... but maybe you can make a new one. Not the best circumstances, but there's new people." Soldat looks vaguely embarrassed. "I ruined mine pretty good, already, but you. You got another chance."