Test Drive Meme 021

[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!

Spring Cleaning

Chores aren’t for everyone. And, as the morning reaches a close, it turns out that they are especially not for wizards.

That is to say, someone may have cast a spell animating all of the mops, brooms and dishcloths on-board, which are now sweeping their way up and down the carriages, cleaning everything - and everyone - they can reach. And animating anything else they can find, for maximum efficiency. Books, clothing, cutlery-

This isn’t so bad in the bathrooms. In the library, however? The armory? Bang, and the dirt is gone.

Open Mic

The ground floor of the music carriage is usually a mess of instruments, but tonight they’ve all been tucked away neatly at one end of the room. Chairs from the upper floor have been carried down en masse, all facing towards the jukeboxes and screens at the other end.

You might not be entirely sure who rigged them for karaoke, but you know one thing: you’re here now, a drink in one hand and a list of popular (by someone’s standards) songs in the other. If people aren’t singing or waiting to sing, they’re cheering friends on, or skulking and trying everything in their power not to be called up, or even escaping upstairs to talk more comfortably.

’Til Death Do Us Part

The world of Abarranz is ruled by the Undying Lords, and has been for almost two thousand years. The civilisation has stagnated - not only due to the immortal council, but also because the majority of its citizens are undead. Some, the rich, the powerful, are able to undergo great rituals to maintain their consciousness and skill even in death; others are unfortunate enough to be dragged into death with neither, and exist as shells of themselves. The greatest necromancers of the planet are harnessing the death of a minor star in the system to fuel a mass conversion of the remaining populace, but the remaining living citizens are those who have already refused the change. Voidtreckers, they cannot resist alone.

Team One

Pockets of the living survive in hiding, but are split off from one another and unable to unify under the overwhelming forces surrounding their enclaves. This first team is tasked with clearing the mindless hordes threatening them, so that they might establish communications, venture out, and join the fight.

Team Two

The best way to escape the ritual is to remove the remaining living to another colony in the system - but the rituals and spells able to do so are all jealously guarded by the eternal council in their libraries and vaults. A viable target has been identified - the treasure rooms of the Viscount Eldermann holds a tome rumoured to contain a mass teleportation ritual. Infiltrating and securing this tome is this team’s task, and while the mission is possible, the traps and guards won’t make it easy.

Team Three

Even with these plans in motion, every second counts. This third team is given the role of saboteur - to interrupt, delay or otherwise slow the Grand Ritual of a Star’s Demise from within the stronghold of the Undying Lords. The dressing carriage - and their SCA wristbands - are at their disposal, the former for appropriate Abarranz costume and pallor, the latter to hide the telltale signs of life, should they have any.

Comments

[averyusefultray]

"Should give you a good angle on the ones we can see. Maybe even catch a glimpse of the ones that have to be in cover." She's assuming they don't have the good fortune of being up against idiots.

"I'll spot." She trusts her companions to know their abilities. She has to or they won't get anywhere.

[worthallthis]

They flash her a quick smile, then heft their rifle up against their shoulder, like a soldier might, instead of throwing it back on its strap. The smile is grim as they turn it on the hallway. "Let's go free some dead people from enslavement."

They might have a somewhat personal stake in this. Just a little bit.

[averyusefultray]

Hera's not Force sensitive but she's pretty sure this wouldn't feel right in it if she was. Small comforts. "There's only one way for us to help them at this point."

[worthallthis]

"At least it's a thing I'm good at doing." For all they sound maybe a little sad about it. Soldat leads the way to their chosen sniping point and lets Hera take a quick look around the corner to give him his targets.

From there it's just a question of turning, aiming, and firing, in rapid succession.

[averyusefultray]

"Sometimes it's what needs doing." She's getting the impression the places the train takes them are going to be no better than home on that front. "We can wish it were otherwise but we can't avoid getting it done."

[worthallthis]

Missions vary, really; this is nothing at all like Soldat's first one. This one is much worse.

But there is satisfaction in making heads explode, even if it might be wrong in most cases. One goes down, then a second, then a third that pops up when the second goes down. That's one hallway cleared. "I take it you did a lot of this kind of thing, where you come from," they say quietly as they ease around the corner with the rifle up, marking the edges and making sure there's no more surprises here.

[averyusefultray]

"The galaxy basically went from one war to another." She keeps it quiet, they're still in danger. Every enemy they knew about had to have companions under cover.

"I'm a pilot, but when things need to be done on the ground, they need to be done on the ground. The odds are always against us." Not that she'll ever let that stop her from doing what needs to be done.

[worthallthis]

Soldat is not really assuming more undead in this corridor, though like Hera, they keep quiet. Even their boots, heavy though they are, somehow manage to step silently down the marbled floors to the next choke point. "I don't know. I think the odds aren't too bad here. I've gone up against worse. And we've got a safety net here."

[averyusefultray]

Maybe she's just in the habit of assuming the odds will be terrible. It saves time. "That's going to take getting used to."

Good thing rebels tend to be pretty adaptable.

[worthallthis]

"So I've heard. At least it's probably not painful. Makes me wonder if the train did something to our bodies, to make them fixable like that." They, of course, are used to being revived after death.

They reach the next choke point, an entrance into a T-corridor that leads to the library proper that they're trying to break into, and lean against the doorway, letting Hera do her spotting to let him know where the undead guards posted along the hall are.