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

[fun_thementalist]

"Can you make a face?" Gen asked, leaning in to look a little. "That's really extraordinary."

Of course, he wanted to know if it's a sort of thing that could be taught, but he'd let the new guy play around and show off first.

[smolwitch]

"You know what they say. Misery loves company." His stomach did something unpleasant again, but he didn't think there was anything left to come up, so he was relatively spared.

"Staying on the main ship had to have been better than this." A bigger ship meant less effect from the waves, right? And the waves were the problem here. "How do people do this?"

[inquisitor_lavellan]

"Masochism, I'd say," the elf said sourly, gripping the rail tightly enough to crack the wood with a sharply audible snap! as the ship swayed particularly hard atop a wave. "Definitely masochism."

No Dice

[wisdominshadows]

A moment and a strange flash of light later the pirate freezes, sinking to his knees.

The knife is still buried in the other woman's chest, but with a minute to breathe Zelda can take care of that.

"This will hurt," she warns, summoning a warm, bright light in her right hand. "I'm so terribly sorry-"

Which would be ridiculous, but she needs to pull the weapon from the wound before she heals it, and that really isn't likely to be pleasant.

team one

[lightsmith]

[When addressed, Scintilla froze in the middle of what she was doing--that being 'also leaving the kitchen with a pair of mysteriously acquired knives'. Her ears pinned back as if she was well aware she'd been caught, looking over him warily.]

Er...aye, should be?

[inquisitor_lavellan]

It'd been a while since Alleyana had been stabbed like this. It wasn't a sensation she'd missed, to say the least, but it was one she'd felt before. She'd immediately gotten up onto a knee, intending to lunge to her feet--

Ah. A healer?

"Do it," Alley grimaced, but she held still. Her singular hand was still gripping her crackling mace. The scarred elf's other arm ended just below the elbow in a flat metal bar with a shield bolted to it. Neither arm lifted to interfere, as so many would have done by sheer reflex. Nope, let the healer yank it out, like a good patient. "I've had worse."

[wisdominshadows]

A nod, and then Zelda grasps the knife’s handle with her off-hand and yanks.

Before too much blood can be shed, though, she releases the magic in her other hand, pushing life and warmth into the other woman’s body.

“Done,” she says as the wound fades- there’ll be a fresh scar, likely as not, but that’s hardly the worst that could happen.

She allows herself one last look-over before stepping back to the battlefield. To be sure, she adds, “Is the worst damage dealt with?”

[inquisitor_lavellan]

That was fine, a new scar among so many that it wouldn't even register. Alley hissed in a breath as it happened, and lifted her singular hand to prod at the spot with a gloved fingertip, leaving her mace on the ground for a moment.

"That's a handy trick," Alley snatched up her mace and lunged back up onto her feet, "I'd say so. Lung didn't even get a chance to start filling with blood."

That's some high praise from the often-taciturn warrior. Even her voice is fucked up, sounding like she'd gargled with broken glass at some point before.

[only_one_wei]

"No, no, not that way," Wei Wuxian said with a smile. For all his bravado, once out of the water he quickly wraps himself in his inner robe, hanging nearby.

Once covered up properly, he beckoned Wen Ning over to the nearer of the two closets. "They have suits here. I know, it is a little odd, but it is a cultural thing. Something about the children?" He really didn't understand it himself, but if it kept the peace he would wear the briefs into the water.

"Would you prefer something like I'm wearing, or something longer?" he asked his friend.

[deferences]

Once he's settled, the boy casts a glance around them, locating another controller that he can hold in his own hands. Not for playing – unless Wen Ning wants him to? – but feeling the device mostly helps him remember what buttons to push and how he should move the knobs for control.

Thud goes the controller from Wen Ning's hands and his head whips in that direction, eyes widened with astonishment at the reaction before he realizes— “Ah! No, no, not an actual death.” Honestly, it takes some willpower for Sizhui to not laugh at the thought, but in Wen Ning's defense, he didn't actually explain it all that well. Although, had the man grabbed him, he would've been absolutely surprised by such an outright gesture. Meanwhile, let him explain a little better to help ease the sudden panic.

“In the game, the character you're playing can die, but nothing happens to you outside of it. There are also magical healing items that keep you from expiring.” Sorry for the mild heart attack, uncle, he didn't mean to!

[melodiouspacifist]

"Hey, I'm not gonna stop you, if you want to take down the next one, go ahead." Demyx shrugged a little lazily. He didn't mind, he could do less, he was pleased enough by that.

"Uh, maybe I guess."

[melodiouspacifist]

"I mean, sure?" Did this guy mean like a happy face, like a water emoticon? That was what he got when he morphed the water in something else.

[fun_thementalist]

Gen's eyebrows raised slightly at that response - was she really someone so important, or someone who thought of herself as that important - to believe they were all kidnapped in a plot to eventually get to her?

"It ruined my plans too, though I wasn't doing anything terribly important," Gen lied, understanding in his tone. "Interrupted right in the middle of a performance. But I think this train has been ... too careless and random, really, to be out to ruin any one person's day in particular."

[zechs_isonfire]

A soft snort. "You could say that."

His reality also didn't have ... was she an elf?

That really didn't matter.

Zechs' eyes narrowed slightly, but he's taking that seriously. "I assume you've already gotten the full explanation about our current prison. The people abducted can be even stranger. But it seems you're very capable of handling any threats tossed in your direction."

[fun_thementalist]

"Cool," Gen said, honestly, even if some of his cheer was his facade. He sat down near the hot tub and grinned hugely. "Can I see?"

[inquisitor_lavellan]

"I'm not complaining about you doing the work," Alley grunted, "I'm just going to feel like an idiot if the other ships could have used more fighters and I got on this one."

[inquisitor_lavellan]

Whatever reason the rest of these people were here for... it had nothing to do with her. But the reason she'd been sent to join them? Suspicious at best, given the givens.

"I have no idea what the train's motivations are," the Inquisitor glanced at whoever else was around them; just a casual check. Reflexive. "Everyone could be here completely at random. But I'm fighting a world-changing God back home who has a history of shoving people he doesn't want to deal with into other shards of reality... so my joining you may or may not be so random."

[inquisitor_lavellan]

"Any threats? That may be stretching it a bit," the scarred elf had no qualms admitting it. "I don't have my shield, or armor. A mace and a high pain tolerance can only do so much, and I'm the last person to pretend otherwise."

Gotta be realistic.

"But I'm not paranoid, either. If people on this contraption were prone to attacking one another over every little slight, I'd have seen it by now."

[digitalism]

"Were you expecting more?"

He pulled the laptop over and opened the small compartment that held the USB-C cable, pulling it out finding the port on the laptop to plug it in. His eyes easily took in all the icons already on the screen. The laptop was an old model, it seemed, as was the desktop. Although he refrained from saying as much, maybe it was the latest back home for him. Yusaku wasn't unfamiliar with this though, even before the Lost Incident he had dabbled on his parent's computer all the time. It didn't take long before he found the card reading program and set out modifying it to become compatible with his duel disk.

He also made sure not to include his Cyberse deck in the list of cards that would download. Different world, but he didn't want to take the risk for someone he just met.

"SOL Technologies," He answered as he watched the list load up. "They created LINK VRAINS as well."

[smolwitch]

"I wouldn't be s-" he looked up when he heard the snap, a little startled. "Damn, go easy on the ship." He sounded surprised, but he was also impressed. Anyone who could damage railing like that deserved some respect.

[deadwenwalking]

The quick glance at what Wei Wuxian is wearing was all he needed to see for him to decide he wanted a different option if one was available. And he most definitely doesn't want to be the only one not wearing anything in the room. Respecting other cultures is important! With a body like his he'd like to show off as little as he can get away with while still getting clean.

"Something... something longer." He pauses, then adds: "Please." He only hopes the other man doesn't take his preference as an insult to his own choice in bathing wear.

Even if he's new, that isn't going to keep him from being embarrassed about being unprepared. He should have asked in advance, and that's on him!

[deadwenwalking]

The relief shows on Wen Ning's face immediately. His shoulders relax and he allows himself to look embarrassed, even though he had no way of knowing what playing the game really entailed. He should have guessed from Sizhui's calm description.

"O-oh good. Sorry." Death in game terms only. Harmless. How silly of him. He picks up the controller again, following the boys' example in regards to holding it. In hindsight, this position makes the most sense. Or does he only think that because now he knows what the right way is?

"Not that dying in the game would be much of a concern anyway... I can't seem to get it started." The controller has to control something. So what is he controlling? Are there more knobs he needs to press?

[only_one_wei]

He had been pretty sure that Wen Ning would opt for more coverage. Bold and in-your-face was not his friend's style.

He pulled out a couple of pairs of 'board shorts' as they were called by some others on the train. One was bright purple, the other was black and red, but the pattern reminded Wei Wuxian of the lines on Wen Ning's skin.

"First, do you like either of these?" he offered.

[inquisitor_lavellan]

"The ship's welcome to go easy on me, first," Alley grumbled, watching the distances shrink as their ship started to close in on an enemy vessel. Her borrowed shield was already bolted to the metal bar that stood in for her left forearm, so she was as ready as she was going to get.

"I hope you're ready to kick some ass," Maker knew she sure was. It was the only upside to having boarded this awful thing.

[melodiouspacifist]

"Uh, well I hope not, I guess." Demyx answered. He didn't look like he'd really thought about it.

"It's better if they don't get close anyway. Less fighting to do."