Test Drive 018

[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.

Happy testing!

Heated Debate

The spa carriage, the newest addition to the train, boasts sunlamps and loungers, massage tables stocked with fluffy towels and a variety of oils and lotions, an enclosed sauna… Soothing birdsong fills the warm, scented air, and the terminals offer several masseuse courses or a playlist of relaxing music.

In pride of place, a three-tiered heated bath in the centre of the room, each tier able to fit five people comfortably.

‘Comfortably’? Well, it could definitely fit more, but it might get a little awkward, depending on your feelings on personal space. Ditto with the sauna, really. But the important thing is, you got here first.

Didn’t you?

Getting Draughty In Here

The lower floor of this carriage is open and sprawling, with two wide, low tables and plenty of cushions and beanbags. The walls are lined with shelves and wooden chests, both filled with games. Board games, card games, you name it, though train themes feature heavily. On a shelf of its own sits a case of Duel Monsters cards.

The upper floor is split into two. One half has a pile of oversized games - lawn jenga, twister, giant connect4 - and the other, sectioned off with soft rope barriers, hosts a screen, a console, and a variety of video game controllers, including four VR headsets.

Perhaps you’re testing yourself in one of the VR Crisis simulators. Perhaps you’re learning the rules of a competitive card game a little too well, and your friendships are suffering accordingly. Perhaps you’ve convinced someone to play twister with you..?

Shiver Me Timbers

You are aboard the PNV Vexation, a first-rate ship accompanied by several escort vessels currently halfway through a voyage across the Sunsea of Yarra, AKA #59352110. The cargo she carries is of utmost importance, and must reach the Shining Port intact.

The pirates who sail the Sunsea have other plans.

Team One

The Vexation has several sloops in tow - the best of which are the Gemstone Heart, the Fallen Lord and the Duckling. Team One is split across the three sloops, and can use their greater speed to good effect in boarding actions. Your job is simple - sink every unmarked ship that approaches the Vexation. The captains are cooperative and daring, and happy to lend out boarding axes and pistols. The pirates are less happy.

Team Two

Back aboard the Vexation, it seems that either the crew are playing tricks, or something more sinister is going on - whispers of spirits roaming the deck at night, strange screams or whimpers in the hold. Lights off the starboard bow. The day holds no such terrors, and shipboard life is mostly ropes, deckwork and stints on the masts, but as the mission continues, the crew are getting more and more restless… Team Two needs to figure out the source of these strange events, before they incite the crew to mutiny.

Team Three

Unbeknownst to the crew, on the second day of the mission, the precious cargo is loaded onto the fourth and fastest of the Vexation’s escorts, the Sun’s Edge, and sent ahead, while the fleet remains as as a decoy. Team Three are sent aboard the Edge to crew the ship and keep the treasure - something sealed in a large, padded steel pyramid - safe. The pirates don’t notice the deception, but the sea serpents definitely do, and with just one serpent able to wrap its entire length around the Edge, the third day is a harrowing one.

Comments

and it's probably not even his couch lbr

[its_dad_sanzo]

Wires? Inside?

[ Koumyou glances over said spread hands, like he might see them poking out of Devero's skin. ]

You know, that sounds like it would hurt.

[subcircuits]

[Sorry, nothing nearly so obvious visible there. He does have faint white scars where some of the biggest pieces were implanted, but those are few and far between.

He wiggles his fingers.] They're very, very small wires. But, here-- [He squeezes the tip of one of his pinky fingers with the other hand in demonstration.] You can kind of feel the transponder in this finger, if you squeeze hard.

[And he offers that hand out to Sanzo.]

[its_dad_sanzo]

[ Well it's not like it's out of place, with all the hand holding they've done since meeting just... what, a few hours ago?

Koumyou reaches out and pinches. Carefully. He's way stronger than he looks, and he's as bad at restraint as he'd said earlier, but he's trying not to squish anything. ]

...What's a transponder?

[saveas]

Gosh, that sounds neat...

[Sort of like something out of a comic. He wonders if they ever could have done anything like that - but back in his day, the scientists were all working on the Core, and then, well. Alphys. The point is, they were doing other stuff. Maybe making a fake sky would've been better; maybe not. He follows her gaze upward again.]

There was a part of the Underground with all these blue gemstones in the ceiling. Everybody said they looked like stars, so monsters made wishes on them. But it wasn't really like this.

[.....]

You're not...a monster, are you?

[subcircuits]

[Deep in the pad of Devero's finger, he'll be able to feel a very small, very hard node, like there's a tiny bead stuck in there.]

Think of it as a tiny radio. When it gets certain signals from my body, it sends an little electronic transmission to here. [With his other hand, he taps the Interface perched on his ear.] Depending on what app I've got activated at the time, that transmission tells my Interface to do something.

[saveas]

[Asriel sort of...bleats in alarm, a little. It's kinda cute.

Except! A human standing over him is sorta scary? The only good humans he's ever known were kids, about his age, and he can't really tell how old this one is supposed to be but he's not in stripes and he's pretty tall...

He scoots back a little before finding an answer.]

Uh, it's...it was fun.

[blue_ice]

[ Kaiba kneels a safe distance away, aware that his size is...sometimes intimidating to kids. He assumes that's the reason, anyway. He lifts a palm in an attempt at a calming gesture. ]

Didn't mean to startle you. I'm just trying to learn what everyone likes and doesn't like about the games.

{ A little smile appears. ]

I'm a game designer, and I want to make better ones.

[its_dad_sanzo]

Signals?

[ Koumyou finds it after ramping up the pinching just enough, lingers for a second as though trying to figure out what that is, and then lets go. Huh. ]

Like... your pulse? Or... oh! Like that mudra you tried to do, when you gave me your name?

[ And he demonstrates the hand gesture he'd seen, because it had been enough of a curiosity to stick in his memory for at least a little while. Middle finger to thumb, and a flick. ]

[subcircuits]

No, the one that monitors my pulse is here. [He draws his hand back and turns it over, tapping the center of his wrist.] Well, one of them.

Mudra? [He tilts his head, brow furrowing-- then his expression clears when Sanzo imitates his gesture from before. He shifts a little self-consciously.] Oh, that. Well, yes, actually; I was trying to send my public cookie to the Interface that you don't. have.

[its_dad_sanzo]

I was slightly confused when you didn't chant, and when nothing happened.

[ Koumyou admits it easily, and then something dawns on him and he claps his hands together once, enthused. ]

You use gestures like for spellcasting, to use your technology!

[ Is that neat or what? ]

[consider8]

[Nervous chuckle.] I'm sure there are some here and on my world that would call me that.

[She shook her head.] No. I wouldn't call myself a monster. I'm an Octarian Octoling.

But that still doesn't mean we can't be friends.

[firewalled]

You got a point. For all I know, modern to you could be ancient to me. I'd... guess it was the other way around though. I don't got a fancy monocle like you.

[He points at Devero's interface.] What's that called?

[subcircuits]

Unfortunately, I'm still getting used to nothing happening when I do that. [He shakes his head.] It's so automatic.

[His face lights up when Sanzo draws that comparison.] I never thought of it like that!

[subcircuits]

[Deadpan:] It's my fancy monocle, obviously. [He relents a moment later, though.] It's called an Interface.

[saveas]

O-oh.

[Well. He's doing all the right things, at least. Asriel relaxes a bit - he's seen enough different kinds of people in the halls, anyway, to suspect that maybe people here don't mind monsters all that much.

(plus, they don't know anything about him personally)

...gosh, though, does he have anything useful to say about the game, really? Probably not.]

I haven't...played a lot of video games before.

[melodiouspacifist]

He chuckled lightly and waved him off a bit. "Ah, I just don't get it! Sure, hit me with a joke."

[saveas]

[Asriel blinks, before - right. Chara had mentioned, how humans use the word "monster". They'd been furious; he can't really bring himself to care.]

Oh. Ha, no, that's just what we're called. I'm a monster.

[Which doesn't actually clarify anything, in his case. That's funny.

It's good she isn't a monster, anyway. She wouldn't know anything about him at all. He already knew he hadn't met her before, of course, but there was a pretty long time before he woke up again.]

My name's Asriel. [.....] Asriel Dreemurr.

[consider8]

[Eight nodded. She wasn't even going to question it. This was a land where humans were still around, demon books led penguin minions, and some claiming to be gods. So he's a monster. No big deal.]

[Suffice it was to say, the meaning of the last name was also lost on her.]

I'm called Eight.

[saveas]

[yeah that's really for the best]

That's an interesting name. It's nice to meet you, Eight.

[.....oh come on, Asriel, you know how to talk to people. Except maybe he never really did, he kinda only ever did have one friend. Maybe two. Frisk doesn't exactly count, he only had like one real conversation with them and he has no idea why they were so nice to him anyway.]

Do you think there really is something here? Like a ghost? We have...ghost monsters, at home, but that's not the same thing.

[consider8]

[Eight give the matter a long think.] Perhaps. Perhaps not. If it is something supernatural, we will have to decide how to handle it then. It may also be someone trying to cause trouble, and we're only making it harder for them by patrolling. Or it could just be some misheard sound by a drunken idiot.

Between the two of us, it usually the last two, 90% of the time.

[deferences]

So long as you're sure. [it wouldn't be inconvenient for him, considering they're both right here already and sizhui doesn't have much else to do besides wander the train and find ways to entertain himself. although he won't insist if she believes she's got it handled for now.]

You're welcome! It's, ah... if you are familiar with trains and technology, it isn't as difficult? Where I come from, we have neither, so it was somewhat harder to adapt to such things.

[its_dad_sanzo]

How fun!

[ Get high enough in technology, and maybe the lines between it and magic started to get a little bit blurred! ]

What other gestures do you do that usually does something?

[inquisitor_lavellan]

"I'm not sure you could find enough booze for either of those things," Alleyana's humor was, as usual, as dry as could be.

But also, ha ha only serious.

Good luck bribing the Inquisitor in general.

"If it's any consolation, it usually takes some work to actually get on my bad side. Not sure anyone's managed it on accident."

[lovelikeyou]

Oh! That must have been hard.

[Humans did have such a hard time with Gem technology, back in the day. They still don't really match it, though Rose herself doesn't see why they should. Going out into space can't lead to anything good.]

We do have trains - well, humans do. I've only been on them once or twice. But I know how they work!

[subcircuits]

[It's almost like there's some kind of platitude from Before about that-- not that Devero would know it.]

That's like asking what functions of my body usually do something. A lot of the gestures repeat; it's what system you're networked with that interprets them. [A laugh.] But since the only network I've got right is with this--

[He taps his interface, and then heaves up out of the cinema seat.] Let's see... This activates low-light mode on the forward camera, this switches it to no-light, and this resets it back to normal. This to playback from the video buffer, this to clip and this to save, this to start active recording...

[Each this is accompanied by a movement. Sometimes it's as small as just the fingers on one hand, sometimes of the hand and arm together. All the gestures are quick, and back in his home reality would be subtle. Maybe not so much in places where people don't use their hands to control the technology around them, though.]