voidtreckerooc | Test Drive Meme 008

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!tdm

Test Drive Meme 008

Welcome to our Test Drive Meme! Here is the place to see how your character might fit the setting, grab some samples and start having fun!

1. Post with your character. I’ve written out some prompts but feel free to make up your own, you have a whole train to play with!

2. Assume they have been around long enough for threads to jump right into the action!

3. Have much fun!

Happy testing!

Knight Quest

Upstairs in the games carriage there is a VR game set. There are enough headsets and controllers for four people to play. One of the games is Knight Quest!

A game that can either be played on single adventure mode or with the other three headsets in a campaign mode. It is a typical fantasy rpg about a young hero who is searching for a magical item to save the world. The story is simple but fun and engaging. The hero has a sword and shield and fighting in this game requires some physical skill, but practice makes perfect!

Games are a good way of gaining skills so team up and save the world, fighting monsters and practising fighting in a safe controlled environment! Just… Don’t bash into each other.

Making your own Fun

The standard coach doesn’t have all that much in it. Just rows of seats, though at the front of the carriage seats have been ripped up and bookshelves installed.

It’s a good place to read or write in their journals. Or annoy other passengers by climbing from one side of the carriage to the other without touching the floor.

Rehabilitation

The train has arrived at a collection of planets. That is good because your task is finding a place for the lindusi (large lizard creatures, recently rescued from a dying planet) to be settled and the more choices the better.

Team One

The first job is predominantly scouting. The scientists in charge of the lindusi relocation project have given the team a list of important features for a planet to have.

It’s like a scavenger hunt but for running water, certain types of plants, prey animals and other features. They have lent the void treckers some basic scientific equipment for testing the environment.

Team Two

Not all of these planets are going to be empty of hostile creatures. The second teams task is to accompany the first team and keep them safe. They have been given shielding devices, easy to use energy shields large enough to fit two people behind. They are handheld and a quick press of a button will activate the shield.

There are plenty of predators, from bears to strange flying aliens that want to eat you. Good luck!

Team Three

Once a suitable planet has been found the third team are to get the lindusi there. In shuttle ships. They aren’t too difficult to pilot, which is good because the lindusi relocation program is very short staffed.

Once they are safely landed it is a case of releasing them into the wild, in safe locations away from any immediate danger. The lindusi are still recovering from their trip through space after all.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

It's not exactly what Tobias wanted to be doing with his afternoon, but there are no rodent-filled meadows for him to perch over and observe, so he'll settle for a not-quite-sherlockian tale.

Mostly he ignores people, but when this young woman stops by his perch he looks up, blinking at her hair. He's only seen that kind of hair color in comics, but he doesn't say it. Instead, he bobs his head in the affirmative, not bothering to speak just yet.

It tends to freak people out here, and he takes a great deal of pleasure in startling them with it.

Oh, he'd have so much to stare at back on the Isle. Nearly everyone had wildly colored hair, and nearly everyone got it at the same salon. When the hawk bobs his head in the affirmative, Evie doesn't find it strange. She's from a place where a magic truth gummi gave her best friends dog the ability to speak. So if he were to talk to her, even telepathically, she wouldn't flinch.

She sits down carefully on the armrest, making sure she doesn't unbalance the hawk and she picks up the book, leaning back so he could read it.

"Just let me know when to turn the page, okay?"

Tobias bobs his head in a nod, and settles in a little more firmly on the headrest for his seat, wings shifting a little as he gets good and comfortable. He reads through a page, and when he's ready for it to be turned, he gives her shoulder a gentle bump with his beak.

He continues for two or three page-turns before he finally looks at her again. <Is it really not that weird to you, turning pages for a bird?> he asks, his voice going straight into her mind. It sounds like a young teen's voice, but that's just because it hadn't aged with him once he'd made the move to fill-time bird.

"It's really not," Evie says as she turns the page again. "One beings weird is another beings day-to-day."

Turning to give the red-tailed hawk a small shrug, she brushes some of her hair off of her shoulder absentmindedly and speaks again.

"My best friend can turn into a dragon. Her mother could, also, but because of a spell she shrank down to the size of the love in her heart for her daughter." A pause, a small frown. "She made a really small lizard. And one of my other best friends dogs can talk because he ate a magic gummi candy. This really isn't all that different."

Of course, she's also assuming that this whole situation is magic.

He's slightly disappointed, that she's just taking it in stride like this. At the same time, it's a little nice, to be accepted as he is, without the shock and horror that usually comes with someone realizing they're talking to a nothlit. Not that most people even properly understand what it means.

<That's actually a lot different,> Tobias replies, his head tilting at her a bit. <I got turned into a bird by science, then ended up stuck. I can turn back into a human again for a while, but I always have to come back to being a bird,> and frankly, he preferred it this way.

"Really?" Not only is Evie aware magic exists, and is trying her hand at it, but she's also a damn good chemist and general genius, so what he said is intriguing. She turns to look at him, giving him his full attention and listening to him explain why it's different.

"Why do you have to return to being a bird? If that's not an appropriate question, don't answer."

Tobias bobs his head in the affirmative. <Because I'll get stuck if I don't. It's why I'm a bird now. There were... unusual conditions that let me get the ability to change back. But if I get stuck again, that's it. That's what I'll be for the rest of my life.> He wasn't a fan of the idea, even if his hawk body was starting to get old, and he'd have to pick a new form soon.

Or die. It was always an option, but he didn't think he was brave enough for it. <Where I'm from, most people know about morphing, and who I am. Why I'm stuck. I'm another cautionary tale for the morph-capable. Stay too long, and you'll end up like me. A bitter old hawk in the mountains of California,> he manages a shrug with his wings.

"How long have you been a hawk?" Evie asks. She's still holding the book open, in case the hawk wanted to keep reading, but this conversation really was interesting to her. It wasn't her prying. She wanted to understand.

"Morphing. That's what you call it." Okay. She's filing that information away. "We call it shape-shifting, but other than Maleficent, I don't know of anyone that got stuck in a form."

God, that's a hell of a question. <Years. I was thirteen when I was given the ability to morph. Got stuck like this not too long after. Re-acquired the ability to morph before I turned fourteen...> He mentally runs through events, but it's the last gap of years, between the end of the war and showing up here that's hard for him to account for. <Five years, I think? Maybe six? Hawks don't really pay attention to time the way humans do. Anyway, if you can morph, you can get stuck. At least if you get the ability from the same technology I did.>

Definitely not magic, then. Not that she had her doubts, but if there was a chance it was a little like magic, she'd probably try to help. Hades, but she still wanted to help. He seemed...settled, though. She wouldn't be. She'd want to be herself, not stuck in a form that she didn't think was hers.

"I'll keep that in mind," she states with a small, slightly worried frown. "I'm sorry, where the Hades are my manners? I'm Evie Grimhilde."

She was comfortable being human, though, and that's something Tobias never had been. <Tobias Fangor,> he replies when she offers her name. <I'm gonna assume you have no idea what a Yeerk is, right?>

It took her a long time to be comfortable in her own skin. Her mother had been obsessed with appearance and had a really great habit of making Evie feel like she wasn't good enough. Wasn't pretty enough. Wasn't princess enough.

She had to find her own footing and managed to do so only within the last few years.

"I haven't the foggiest idea what that is." But something tells me she might not care for it.

<Good, you don't want to.> Tobias is damn certain of that. <If you ever hear it from someone else, you should let me know.> No one on this train would be prepared for that particular brand of hell.

"So Yeerks are bad news." Evie turns to look at Tobias, curious and concerned. His request gets a nod. She can do that. If he knows what they are, then that means he can help everyone handle them, should they show up. Right?

"Are they why you're stuck as a hawk?"

<They are and, yeah, more or less. It's a long story, not very interesting,> it was absolutely a great story, but he didn't like to talk about it.

<What about you? Did you always have flashy cartoon hair? Or is that magic?> he's not trying to be mean, but he's a bit out of practice in polite conversation.

"I've learned that any time someone says the story isn't interesting is understating things," Evie says, smiling some. But she's not about to pry or ask too many questions. Tobias doesn't seem to want to talk about it, and Evie can respect that.

"Previously, it was hair dye. This time, it's magic." Cartoon hair, huh? That might have gotten a briefly unimpressed expression, but it's not the worst thing she's ever had said to her. "Only because there's no hair dye on the train."

It really is an extremely long story, so it's probably for the best. He could probably bore her to sleep with the minutia of it. Instead, he focuses his attention on her hair. <If you can do it with magic, why'd you do it with dye before? Is it really hard or something?>

That's kind of a loaded question, Tobias. Evie has answers, sure, but she kinda pauses for a moment as she thinks about how best to explain.

"I was born on a prison island. My mother was put there for attempted murder. There was a barrier put over it that not only kept the prisoners and residents in, but prevented use of magic. One of my best friends there helped run her grandmothers salon. I went to her for all my hair-color needs."

Tobias ruffles his wings, tail flipping up and down a bit. <So they punished you because your mom was a criminal?> there's no small amount of bitterness in his tone. <What kind of asshole thinks that's a good idea?>

"The people that set up the island didn't expect children to be born there. The decision to leave us there was a bad one, I'll give you that. But I think they were afraid we'd be just like our parents."

She frowns some, not so much the tone, but at the phrasing. She doesn't think Belle and her king were assholes. She thinks they made a bad choice in regards to leaving children on the isle, sure, but she's gotten to know them. They're wonderful people.

"I was there until I was fourteen, and then myself and a few friends of mine were chosen to leave. We went to the boarding school on the mainland. Before we left, our parents tasked us with retrieving a wand that'd set them all free. We were going to, but..." A shake of her head, nose wrinkling just a bit. "We couldn't. We liked being better than we were raised and we knew if our parents were released, especially my best friends mother, people would be at risk."

<That's stupid,> he grumps, shuffling his wings around again.

He shifts a little closer, reaching out to grab onto a little bit of her hair after she shakes her head, tucking it neatly back into place. <I'm glad you proved them wrong.> He almost sounds a little sad when he says it, mostly because he wasn't so sure he would've been able to. Not because he was bad, exactly, but because he was used to having his hand forced.

"A bit, yeah. But if it helps, we've recently freed all the children from the Isle and dropped the barrier, hoping to give people a second chance."

Which she herself isn't entirely sure of? But she also missed her mother. When the barrier was up, it wasn't like she could just pop over when she wanted to see her.

The small gesture of putting her hair back in place has Evie smiling just a bit, as does what he says.

"It felt really good to do. I kinda still enjoy making people rethink their first impressions of me. It's kind of funny."

<I've only ever been what I'm supposed to be. I've always wondered what it would be like to be something else,> anything else. He'd been manipulated his whole life, so it was hard for him to even tell who he was, if he even existed outside the plan the Ellimist had crafted so carefully for him.

Edited (Shhhhh you saw nothing) 2020-01-23 06:49 (UTC)

"Maybe here you can be whoever you want?" Evie asked, always the hopeful one. Once she figured out she didn't have to pretend to be a vapid, prince-crazy princess, Evie was glad to figure out for herself who she really was.

"My mother was a queen before she was imprisoned. She wanted me to pretend I was a complete airhead and tried to teach me that the only thing I should exist for was finding a prince with a giant castle to marry. On Auradon, I figured out that I'm actually incredibly smart. I graduated top of my class in chemistry. I started my own business and bought my own starter castle when I left school. I was away from her influence and so much better off for it. Maybe this dumb train can be your Auradon." She doesn't see why he couldn't give it a try.

The way she says it, Tobias can almost believe it. Breaking free of expectations and buying your own starter castle sounds like literal magic -- which he supposes fits Evie like a crown. She seems so hopeful that he can't even bring himself to burst that particular bubble for her, so instead of giving her the laundry list of reasons that can't work, he just shifts his talons on the seat.

<Maybe,> he replies. <I haven't been around humans this much in a long time,> so he didn't exactly know what he wanted to be, anyway. Not in terms that would make sense to a human. He'd been perfectly fine in his meadow, living as a hawk, even if the hawk body was starting to grow old.

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