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

god bless ignoring that typo

[fightcreamsundae]

Cherry herself truly believed in being kind to everyone and giving them the benefit of the doubt. That being said, her particular casual trust also came from the fact that they all had to live together indefinitely in incredibly tight quarters. Sowing mistrust and discord would only propagate and make everyone miserable, as well as put you in a position of social suicide. Obviously this wasn't some invitation to spill all of your history and dirt, but there wasn't a reason to believe someone would backstab you either.

She was going to ask what the heck edge he meant, but her attention easily shifted to his questions and she was excited to be able to be useful about something other than being strong and able to punch things.

"Ooooh!! Yes! So each team gets assigned a mission! So, like, we're on this one where we're gonna go mess up this ritual! And if this didn't seem like what you wanna do you're free to change it up and go to a different mission - the train doesn't require you to go to your assigned one so I tend to act like a floater and help the smaller teams out, for example - but since we're on this one what's gonna happen is the train will stop at each drop off point and drop us off, or sometimes it's just one point and we have to work with the locals to figure out where each objective is..."

She pauses for a breath, then continues.

"So we get dropped off on world, teams usually take some time to group up and get organized. Sometimes on world we can stop and get some supplies that might help us on our mission, but it just kinda depends on the mission. But other than that we all kinda go about our tasks! So for this mission probably everyone on our team will kinda group up like we have and we'll all get to where the ritual is, then we'll all do our stuff to mess it up!! I dunno if the team leader is gonna wanna make a plan or not, some teams are more coordinated than others..."

Her voice trailed off as she considered it, then she shook her head a little - as if to shake the thought out of her head - and continued.

"Usually we're only down on world for a couple of days, the SCA bracelet," she holds her wrist up and points to it, "will tell us when we're done and we need to head up to the pick up place! The map will show us where to go!" She smiled big, her ears wiggling cheerily.

She grew a bit more somber as she continued on. "People have died, yes. All the people with little hearts next to their names on the roster have died before. When they die they wake up in the luggage car like nothing's happened."

[lieindespair]

Kokichi looked happy that his distraction tactic played well, and he stood listening to her, taking a moment to examine his own SCA when she mentions it, fiddling with the buttons and screen a little, still not quite understanding how it works. Oh well, he's sure he'll get used to it in time. Everyone else seems to have so far. If he had questions, surely someone on board would be able to help him figure it out, right?

The last bit drew his attention back to her, and rather than excited or scared, he looks simply astonished. "You mean... you can just... die and come back? Is that really true?" Now that she'd mentioned it, he did recall seeing a few name plaques on the cabins with little hearts on them, but he wasn't sure what that meant, exactly. "How many times can they do it? There's no.. penalty or anything?"

[fightcreamsundae]

Cherry was ready for any number of reactions, astonished perhaps being the one that she was mostly hoping for. Death wasn't something to be taken lightly to warrant an excited response, and she didn't really wish to sit here and have a conversation about how death wasn't the end all be all that likely would have come with a scared reaction. Astonished, however, she could deal with.

"I mean it happened to a couple people. I don't know how many times or if there's any real penalty... It's only happened a couple of times, and only once to each person." A thoughtful look crosses her face. "Some of the others have told me the train has this thing where it tethers us? Or something? Maybe death makes that tether weaker?" A thoughtful pause. "I dunno, but I think it's a good idea to generally avoid dying, where possible."

[lieindespair]

That was good advice, and it's given him a lot to think about... at a time that was more convenient. For now, he'd rather not think about the possibility of dying and what that would mean. Maybe the people who got brought back were special in some way? Maybe they'd earned a free resurrection or something? The idea of a tether was interesting as well, but he wasn't quite sure what to think of it.

"Speaking of avoiding death, what do we have for weapons here? Do you carry a big gun? A sword?" He gasped, the light of wonder returning back to his eyes as he bounces on his toes a little. "Can you shoot fireballs out of your hands?!" Also, not a bad way to lighten the mood back up.

[fightcreamsundae]

"I thiiiink some of the team leaders have some weapons from their worlds they can loan out? But mostly people seem to have brought their own weapons! Like some people have swords, some people have guns, someone once had a bow and arrow..."

His own gasp and excitement is contagious and Cherry smiles - not that she really needs much encouragement. She giggled at the idea of shooting fireballs out of her hands and shakes her head no enthusiastically.

"No, no! No fireballs out of my hands. I can shoot a big laser out of my hands once I've built up enough chakra, though!!" The giggles subsided, though her grin did not. The way she sort of straightens up a little, the way her ears position themselves - she seems confident, maybe a little proud. "I've trained as a monk! My fists and my feet are my weapons!" She brings her knuckles together as she says it as if to make a point.

She knew this wasn't the flashy answer he was probably hoping for, but she saw it more that she did not need a crutch when it came to fighting. If you fought with a sword you could be disarmed, if you used a gun you could run out of ammunition - and then what? It's a little more work to relieve someone of their hands and feet.

[lieindespair]

Who needs fireballs when she can shoot Lasers out of her hands?! If there was any apprehension about taking her along down to the ground, that on its own melted it away completely.

"Wow! That's so cool! I didn't know that there was someone so powerful on this train! I'd have met up with you sooner if I knew!!" Clearly, he was a big fan. Someone small and relatively powerless like him was always looking for someone big and strong to help him in dangerous situations. And what luck that he was able to find her so easily!

He smiled and stood back, finally extending his hand. "Kokichi Oma. I'm excited to call you my partner on this!"