Test Drive Meme 015

[voidtreckermods]

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

1. Post with your character, including their name and series in the subject. We’ve written out some prompts but feel free to make up your own, you have a whole train to play with!

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

3. Have lots of fun. Mandatory, mod-sanctioned fun.

Happy testing!

A Quiet Place

A double carriage with a staircase at each end, the quiet coach has five booths on each floor. With frosted glass doors, locks on the inside, and a pair of comfy benches each, they’re luxuriously private on a train that’s anything but. There are no ICP screens, and each booth is completely soundproof.



Granted, two of the rooms downstairs have been merged in an act of vandalism and are now a workshop-slash-forge, but that has its own attraction. Plenty of things to mess with, plenty of boxes of scraps. The main tinkerer’s not home. Hey, isn’t that a welding torch?



No? Well, you were early enough to snag a room for yourself. Perhaps you’re not alone, or you’re expecting company. Or maybe you forgot to lock the door, and now someone’s in here with you. Awkward.

Too Many Cooks

Once a single room, the kitchen now sprawls over two floors. Banks of industrial electric ovens, a long, steel countertop facing them. Cupboards full of oven trays and pans, racks of implements and appliances. On the first floor, sinks and modern appliances, and cupboards full of crockery.



This month, the month of Harrow, the recipes are centred around chocolate. Chicken Mole, chocolate ravioli, cocoa chilli… it may begin to taste a little sickly sweet after the first week. Fortunately, there’s plenty of room for experimentation as people start to beg for other meals. And a lot of chocolate going spare.



And when the preparation is finished, and the meals have been sent over to the dining carriage… there are stacks, and stacks, and stacks of plates. Pots. Cutlery. And no dishwashers.



Well, no, that’s not strictly true. You’re there.

Allegorical Devices and Other Foes

The world of Torcera, designation #450720816. With a civilisation level roughly equivalent to the medieval ages, the train has deposited its Voidtreckers in a castle town, in which several kingdoms have assembled for an annual tournament. Banners fly from every roof, chattering squires and servants tug mounts this way and that. Some resemble horses with trailing antlers and four lidded eyes, others great flightless birds, and a third popular choice is a species of lanky winged dogs, albeit for the sake of fairness their wings are strapped loosely to their saddles. As a world ignorant of Void travel, you have all been given access to the dressing car’s voluminous stores. Dresses, chainmail, jerkins, or even a few suits of full plate… and plenty of hooded capes. Evil is afoot at the tournament, and you are to root it out.

Team One

Courtiers and their adjutants have travelled from all corners of the planet to assemble for the tournament; the empress herself is said to be participating, and stakes are high. Your team has been tasked with determining the identity of the empress in the tourney, and the identity of her foes, so that Team Two can move in. To this end, you are to mingle with the court and, if necessary, break into personal quarters. Brief instruction in protocol will not be provided.

Team Two

Once you know the identity of the Empress, you can move to defend her - you’re relatively sure she’s either the helmed hedge knight of the crested monlion, or the masked outrider with the seagoose crest and a mount with plumage of deepest blue. But you can’t be sure, and until you are, you’re to sign up for the tourney and look for troublemakers. The melee will be held in the afternoon, and tomorrow the individual lists. Mounts are available, as are a staggering number of weapons. Ideally, the final round would be a number of Voidtreckers, and the Empress. How to arrange that?

Team Three

Team One is in the court. Team Two in the lists. And you, Team Three, are amongst the common folk. Rumours abound, the atmosphere is festive, and several events are open to ordinary citizens on the second day, including one bohort with a single wish of the Empress as the prize. No great problem, perhaps... if not for the tales of a younger brother, long lost, looking to usurp the throne. Unrest is stirring in the town behind the colourful stalls and laughing children, and it's up to you to determine where, and why.

Comments

the cause of and solution to all of a mage's problems

[extrasaltypotato]

He picks himself up, dusts himself off, raises his hand to point and say something, and then he realizes precisely who he's talking to and the words in his mouth escape while it's open and they have the opportunity.

He blinks and coughs into his palm.

"...an unexpected pleasure," he says. "The western gate guardian doesn't do you justice."



...Hikaru are you flirting with the goddess of the Pixies.

Re: the cause of and solution to all of a mage's problems

[thornsofmundus]

Is it possible for a woman made of magic and computer programming to blush? Yes, yes it is. Her brown cheeks flush darker, anyway.

"Mom said you were a flirt too," she finds herself saying.

[extrasaltypotato]

"Say rather the opportunity to flirt is a rare pleasure when I need to be paranoid about who'd flirt back to the 4'2" winged potato."

He bows low, sweeping off his hat.

"Though it stands to reason that the patron goddess of the Pixies is a vision of everything lovely about that species. Happy to see it's impossible to mistake you for a child; it makes me feel better about my prospects."

That may be the smoothest way of saying her tiddy was like BWAO! in the history of flirtation.

"But I digress," he says, putting the hat back on. "It's not something about Mundus that allows me to cast spells, is it? It's something about my avatar!"

[thornsofmundus]

"Of course it is," the patron goddess of the pixies says, blinking at him like she's surprised he even has to ask. "You're made of the same stuff I am, after all. The Mundi don't have any special properties beyond being able to be terraformed for human life--which is what I should be doing," she adds with a sigh. "I really don't know why I'm on this train. They need me back on the Mundi and I can't partition myself, not like--"

She cuts herself off, looking embarrassed to having said that much... but after a moment she adds, "And maybe so, but you did eventually flirt back with Mom when she was Briar. She told me about it."

[extrasaltypotato]

He starts.

"You are giving me questions that demand even more questions, my dear patron," he says - eyes wide, in quite a different kind of religious awe than he's used to. "I had thought that the leyline taps were a unique property - but if they're merely sufficiently advanced -"

He shakes his head.

"Not to mention considering Briar, or her Player, your mother. She was from the Tourism Bureau, I take it? I'd describe my feelings towards her, but it seems awkward to do so to her lovely daughter."

[thornsofmundus]

"All magic is sufficiently advanced science," his patron tells him. "That's what Mom always says. And of course Mom is my mother. She created me. I mean Mother Aurora and Mama Eranda are also my mothers, but they're my sisters too, because Mom created them--although she says I'm her purest creation, because I'm the only one of us that was made wholly by her. That's why I'm her favorite--though you mustn't tell any of the other thirteen."

She laughs nervously. "I really should introduce myself properly. You know me as the Fae Protector of the Sylvan Glades... but my designation is Thorne.tcai."

[extrasaltypotato]

"Tee Cee A.I. -" He smiles. "Turing-Complete?"

[thornsofmundus]

She nods, eagerly. "One of the terraformers of the Mundi, along with my siblings. You'd know us as the five elementals, I think?"

[extrasaltypotato]

"Terraformers."

His breath hitches.

"...I think I'll leave the implications of that alone for now. It's too vast, and I am feeling very small right now, compared to your aura."

Even now he's flirting, but well, consider him a convert, Thorne.

[thornsofmundus]

"That's funny," she says, "because you're two inches taller than me, Hikaru Aosora."

And it's true. He is. Even without his wizard hat he would be.

[extrasaltypotato]

He stands next to her just to confirm, close enough to take her hand if she'd allow it.

And then laughs.

"Miss, you have given me a rare gift today," he says. "Even if your spirit towers above mine."

[thornsofmundus]

She lets him.

"Well, we are both pixies," she points out. "Even if you're a Player and I'm not."

[extrasaltypotato]

He... hadn't actually intended to brush his fingers against hers.

And shies away.

Not sure what he was thinking, really... or which part of him was doing the thinking, to be honest.

But he coughs.

"Well. There will certainly be opportunities to learn about the - can I really be called AWOl when it's no longer the game I'm absent without leave to? Say The players and our Earth - here."

He puts the hand that brushed against the goddess' to his chin. "Have you acclimated yourself to - mortality, and to the train, yet?"

[thornsofmundus]

"I'm still in the process of," she admits. "And I do know something about Earth. That's where Mom started my creation, after all. But I am wondering—do you need to eat food and sleep as a Player? Or do you just do that because you like it? I've never been corporeal before for a long enough stretch to really bother."

[extrasaltypotato]

"It is an absolute necessity. We need the energy and raw material to maintain ourselves, let alone to heal or grow. Any machine needs fuel, and living things are just particularly complex machines - kludged together by the needs of natural selection, even, not even an elegant design."

He smiles. "Making the necessary into things of beauty and grace is one of the more charming things about Earth's most successful life-form. We could survive off of raw food - or we could make dazzling chocolates, aromatic roasts, and composed salads with each vegetable a little jewel. Have you never wondered what the fuss was with ships braving your sister's seas simply to bring back some unremarkable poisonous plants?"

[thornsofmundus]

"Well, humans might be," Thorne.tcai says, "but we're not. I mean, we are particularly complex machines, but we weren't kludged together by natural selection. We were elegantly designed. Your body just as much as mine, Hikaru."

She smiles awkwardly. "But that's good to know. I never knew if the Mundanes were doing it because it was part of their programming or if they really did feel hunger and exhaustion. But if you do and they do, then I'm sure I will as well--do you know if there's a compartment where they keep the plants?" she asks, suddenly.

[extrasaltypotato]

He'd be more annoyed at his Valor-fishing Picard Sentou Akane Masuhiko Speech being ignored if not for what she chose to emphasise instead - which makes him smile.

"Very much so. Deedee would like to extend her compliments to the artists responsible for Deedee." He rolls his eyes and counts on his fingers: "And Ace, and Alesha, and Sekhmet, and I could go on. Silly kitsune going through second puberty."

As to her other question, he points her staff. "Not only that - but I can show you how humanity terraformed Terra - the hard way. Follow me."

And with a dramatic swoop of his cloak, he's powerwalking for another car.

[thornsofmundus]

It's not that she didn't listen to it, but she knows what the fuss about the 'Earth Beans' was for. After all, plants and animals are in her purview. Her data banks know how useful potatoes are as a food source. That's why Mom and the rest of the devteam found an excuse for Viacruz to have them.

"I mean, our way certainly isn't easy," Thorne.tcai points out as she follows Hikaru. "Intuitive, sure, but you try turning a barren rock in the void into a place that can handle living creatures. You try to do that more than half a dozen times over--all at once."

[extrasaltypotato]

"If I gain enough experience, in both senses, I'll certainly look into a career in divinity," he cracks.

Before leading her into the greenhouse car.

Even in a place that didn't have quite the same Aura as any mundane garden, this place had a lowercase aura of the Wood, Resplendent.

"I've two brown thumbs so I don't do much gardening myself, but I find this place conducive to meditation," he says.

[thornsofmundus]

"Would you want Mom to create an AI out of you, then?" Thorne.tcai asks, curiously as they walk along. "I'm sure she'd do it. He wouldn't be exactly you, no more than I'm Mom, but he'd have your personality at the core of him, more or less, just like I have Mom's. And he could look like you, only more beautiful and in the prime of life. Like me and Mom. Though I'm not sure what he'd be used for with the Mundi, since most of the most important processes for creating and maintaining them are already covered by the rest of us. Though I guess someone has to cover for Io on Mundus-Chimaera now, so he could do that--but it seems sad that he'd only be used for one Mundi when the rest of us get to be on all of them."

There might be an oddly familiar air to the way that she rambles on as they make their way to the greenhouse. Not necessarily because he's figured out which of member of the OWTB devteam is the mysterious 'Mom' who was also Briar Lovelace, Eithyr Illusionist on the sly... but because of the patterns her mind (artificially created as it may be) seems to think along.

One gets the impression that if she were a real, human woman she might have some of the same diagnoses as Hikaru.

Before she can continue on with her tangent on the subject of deifying Hikaru, though, they reach the greenhouse car and a wide grin erupts on her face. "Oh! This is lovely!"