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

[its_dad_sanzo]

[ Koumyou makes a thoughtful sound, considering that for a second. ]

Maybe?

[ And because he has no idea what Devero's current problem is, he comes over to sit on the other end of the bench. Why wouldn't he? ]

But the sutras were used to make everything, holy and unholy, light and dark, existence and void, life and death. Why shouldn't someone 'unholy' guard a piece of it, too? It's as much theirs as it's anyone's.

[subcircuits]

[At least it's slightly easier on him now that Sanzo has his robe back on, even if he's not all the way wrapped up in it. Still, Devero clamps his tongue between his teeth for a moment and has to swallow before he can speak.]

So many binaries. [He looks off into the middle distance.] That seems like such a limiting way to view the world.

[its_dad_sanzo]

[ Koumyou laughs at that. ]

Well, everything in between, too! But I find it paints a better picture in people's heads to highlight the extremes, first.

[ And he bends to the side for a second to snag one of the loose sleeves of his robe, and dig into it. His hand comes out with his sutra in it, currently in its tightly rolled form. ]

It's hard to conceptualize. I couldn't fully wrap my head around it either until I became Seiten's keeper.

[ He doesn't offer the scroll over, of course. They're not nearly so well-acquainted for that. But he holds it out for looking at, at least, even if his bony fingers will stay locked around it. ]

Once a Sanzo takes up their sutra, there's a... bond. It helps with the understanding part of things.

[subcircuits]

...Ah. Of course. [Sheepish. That's what you get for assuming that religious folk are simple, Dev, especially in a place like this. It's not an uncommon prejudice where he comes from, though.

Devero looks down curiously at what, to him, just looks like a rolled up piece of paper. He raises a hand, like he might reach out to it, then decides against it and puts it down on the bench again.]

Is that the thing you said you protect? The... [How had Sanzo phrased it?] --'one-fifth of that which was used to create existence'?

[its_dad_sanzo]

[ He'd touched it plenty earlier, with all the dancing and throwing, and when Koumyou had twirled on the stage. It would have just felt like regular old paper. ]

Mm-hm.

[ Koumyou flicks his wrist, and the sutra unrolls from his hand. It goes across the car, and bounces off the side of a plant bed and just... keeps on going.

And going.

And going.

And going. ]

If I let it, it could fill the whole train up, and it wouldn't even have to wake up to do it.

[ And hey, it's still going. The floor's covered in sutra now. It's very possibly run over Devero's feet. Just this rustling, never-ending scroll. ]

[subcircuits]

[That... that is not just a roll of paper. Devero's eyes go wide as it unrolls out impossibly long-- and then longer, and longer, and longer. In no time at all, that piece of paper has multiplied to cover the floor. Its rustling makes the hair on his arms and the back of his neck stand up.

Before, when Devero has just thought it was a weird paper scarf, he hadn't thought twice about touching it. Now, seeing it casually flaunt the laws of conservation of mass and energy, laws that he has to operate within on a daily basis, he shies from contact with it. He actually yanks up his feet onto the bench to keep them out of the sea of sutra.

Yes, he'd seen Sanzo do magic in the cinema car, and in the hallway before that, but somewhere in the back of his head his mind had been thinking of ways technology could pull off the same feats. Magnets, aerosol nozzles-- there were a lot of places he could think of to start and end up at fire and wrenched metal.

But this? This is unexplainable. The unrolling of the sutra defies anything his brain could come up with, consciously or unconsciously, to replicate the effect.

This is magic. This is real magic.

For the first time since his little glitch a moment ago, he looks directly at Sanzo.]

If it can do this when it's not awake-- what can it do when it wakes up?

[its_dad_sanzo]

Going by the way you're reacting now, I don't know if you really want that answer.

[ Koumyou doesn't do anything that could be a command. There's no gesture, no words, not even a flinch in his serene expression.

Just one minute the sutra's still unrolling, and unrolling, and unrolling, and unrolling.

And in the blink of an eye, it's back in Koumyou's hand. Just a regular white paper scroll backed and bordered in dark green. ]

[subcircuits]

[Devero is definitely looking a little spooky, huddled up on the bench beside the priest. He looks from Sanzo to the rustling sea of paper and licks his lips, then nods.]

Another time, maybe. [Maybe.

If there had been any hint of recoil or return, Devero might have flinched himself right off the bench when the sutra returned to Sanzo's hand. But it happens so instantaneously that it takes him a moment to even realize that it's gone all small and normal.

He watches it for another moment, searching for some... some mechanism, some explanation for how that could have happened. Of course, there's nothing to be seen, nothing that would fit into his schema of the world is supposed to work.

He licks his lips again, a nervous tic, and then wipes them unconsciously with the back of his hand.] Sorry, I'm-- sorry, I-- I wasn't expecting anything like that.

[its_dad_sanzo]

It's quite alright.

[ And Koumyou attempts to pat him reassuringly on the back, like this is a totally normal situation. Whether successful or not, he leans away to put the sutra back into the sleeve of his robe. ]

So! Topic change! Why do you have a scorpion on your shoulder? Don't tell me you have more of them under your skin, like the circuitry.

[subcircuits]

[Thankfully(?), Devero is too distracted by having his conception of the way the universe works blown open to be skittish about the pat. And there's no denying the way his shoulders slump in relief when that scroll is tucked away.

He seizes on the change of subject gratefully, even sputtering a shaky laugh.] Oh hell, I hope not!

No, I got this one when I was in the Guard. I was a scorpion jockey-- I piloted an SC-ORP090K unit. My whole squad went out and got these when we finished our training.

[its_dad_sanzo]

[ And Koumyou gave the scorpion tattoo a playful poke. ]

You never know~ they could be in there now, skittering around!

[ Koumyou, stop. The man's already traumatized. ]

[subcircuits]

[Devero doesn't jump this time, but he does swat at Sanzo's hand with a(n exagerrated?) scowl.]

You-- you better hope not. [It's almost a relief to retreat back into shallow teasing. He wiggles his fingers in Sanzo's direction.] They could get tired of me and migrate into you.

[its_dad_sanzo]

[ Koumyou gasps dramatically, covering his mouth in horror! But his eyes are glittering with amusement, and maybe just a bit of glee.

He trolls everyone, and very few -- if any -- ever plays back! ]

Oh noooo!

[subcircuits]

[Devero dares to lean closer, skittering his fingers up Sanzo's nearer shoulder.]

Too late! Here they come! They crave fresh wetware!

[its_dad_sanzo]

Aieee!

[ Koumyou tries to make it sound suitably dramatic, but he's too busy laughing to really pull it off. And leaning away, to make it harder for the 'scorpion' to get him. ]

What ever shall I do?!

[subcircuits]

[Devero hesitates for a moment, mind racing. This kind of easy, teasing camaraderie doesn't come naturally to him, especially not lately. So there's a definite awkward pause before he snatches up the scorpion hand with his other one and 'wrestles' it back towards himself.]

Uh-- run? Before they get into my wires!

[its_dad_sanzo]

[ Koumyou grabs the 'scorpion' hand, too! ]

No! I can't let you sacrifice yourself!

[subcircuits]

[Devero gasps dramatically, and turns said hand to grip Sanzo's.] Koumyou Sanzo, no! What have you done!

[its_dad_sanzo]

[ And Koumyou pretend-'throws' the scorpion away, before snatching at Dev's other hand and shouting-- ]

Run!

[ Here he goes! Don't get dragged! ]

[subcircuits]

[Devero lets Sanzo drag him up off the bench, breaking character only to pull one of his hands free and snag his shirt and hoodie. But the other hand stays firmly in the priest's, and--]

Before they get us!

[--he runs with him. Laughter spills out of him, and rings all the way up to the transparent roof arching overhead.]