Test Drive Meme 023

[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!

Dio's Legacy

In an alternate almost exactly like the one inhabited by the Voidtrecker Express, fate went another direction. Instead of the first addition to the train's structure being the games carriage, this train's passengers voted differently.

What makes them happy?

Crocodiles.

The Crocodile carriage isn't a misnomer. It's teeming with reptiles of various sizes, basking under sunlamps or floating lazily in the raised tank built across half of the available space. To be even better for morale, they're all perfectly tame, and unnervingly friendly; it's rare that a passenger is able to cross the carriage without being accosted by some crocodile or gharial looking for attention.

Harvest Void

The greenhouse is a surprisingly bright room, its vaulted ceiling made of a transparent, incredibly tough material that shows the light of the Void along the entire length of the room. The single metal support beam is bedecked in roses. The aisle of grass running through the centre of the carriage is riotous with strange plants and flowers, small stone paths leading off to this patch or that of vegetables or closely clustered fruit trees.

And all of them are laden with produce. Whether a stray spell or a particularly good mood from one of the resident forces of nature, every plant in the carriage has matured at once. Shrubs overflow with berries, rows of stalks groan under beans and tomatoes, apples threaten to fall from overhead branches at any moment.

You may not normally be a gardener, but today it's all hands on deck!

Cold Iron, Warm Hearts

The duchy of Yipre is one of several close-knit factions on one continent, known for both her expansive clockworks and strong links to the Fey. Central to the capital is the Clocktower, the palace home to both the Duchess Stomen and her court of scholars, diplomats and engineers. Home also to a key point in the Ley, where the mundane world and the Fey intersect just enough that one may cross from one to the other.


But the Clocktower is sundered, entire sections of iron and brass sheared away in a great earthquake, and neither world is faring well in the aftermath.

Team One

The gear sprites of the Clocktower are missing, running amok in the streets and squares of the duchy. They're tiny things, fluff, metal filings and dust made quicksilver-fast, with small, glowing eyes and bell-like voices. While normally they keep the machinery of their home running, they aren't nearly as talented with anything else, and are causing general chaos with all devices and machinery they run across. Find them, and herd them back to the Tower. Maybe get them out of the typewriter first.

Team Two

The gateway to the Fey realm is torn, and dreaming magic is spilling out from the Clocktower. Finding the Voidtreckers' minds fertile grounds for its taking, imagined creatures and realms are conjured forth from all kinds of worlds and all kinds of lives. There are many ways to combat these - play them through until the magic is satisfied, for example, or find the Voidtrecker whose mind is the source, and stop them dreaming. It's up to the Voidtreckers on this team to decide.

Team Three

The Clocktower isn't quite in ruins, but large sections are crumpled like tin foil. In other places, steam and magic spill out into the air in a chaotic mix, burning and twisting the air into glittering leaves or long ropes of thorn. And through this, those that called the palace home fight to free themselves from the wreckage. Courtiers, servants, engineers… and, somewhere, the Duchess herself. Help who you can, but find her.

Comments

[sciencegirl]

"Etherian magic! It's really helpful for multitasking, especially at detail work, but I like yours better. They look like they could endure higher temperatures and they have excellent multidirectional joint design. Ball joints? Springs? Okay I should ask that after helping the person survive."

She gently props the victim up with her hair, gloved hand tipping his head so she can use the potion instead of the kit. That seems like a better idea in case they have a concussion. She carefully trickles it into their mouth to get it down their throat without choking them.

"Oh it's absolutely a mess down there. The vines are overwhelming the wreckage at the bottom, too, so if it continues to grow unchecked it should make it up to the upper levels in maybe a little more than a half hour? Something like that. It's fascinating, though, I'd love to know what caused that particular reaction."

Oh, person is starting to wake up! Good. She keeps them propped up even as her hair puts the kit away.

[armsistice]

Magic was about the last answer that Ock expected, and from someone else, it might have felt less convincing, as though there must be a scientific answer masquerading in illusions. As with Mysterio. And yet her immediate enthusiasm for technological shop-talk made the pat 'etherian magic', sibling to 'multitasking and detail work' feel perfectly natural.

"Oh, I don't think there's any reason to compare." Octopus decided on, letting internal delight warm their tone, "Clearly your hair works with the degree of sophistication necessary to accomplish your goals." And her goals were less mystifying; she was trying to minimize the damage here, but more impressively, she was trying to analyze the root cause.

A starfish thrower might make a difference to the odd starfish, but a marine bio analyst could save multitudes.

"We ought to assume there's no way to stop it within your estimation, and evacuate the remainder of the building. Otherwise it would take a fortnight to dig out what few survivors would remain. And, even assuming that, we should also find someone to try to stop it. If you were to give me your best guess..."

Ock very carefully levered the large chunk off to one side, letting it down rather than just dropping it, and retracted all their arms, "Would you say the vines are more likely to be magical, or genetically tampered with?"

[sciencegirl]

"I can't help it! The pinchers are so cute! I love them."

And after that little burst of excitement about the little graspers, she gets back to business.

"I would say magical but the two aren't mutually exclusive by train standards. For example, someone made into an undead being via genetic science may still be harmed by life magic. So it could very well be both. Unfortunately we're woefully short on people that control plantlife. We only have one when ffft. We could seriously use two or three in this case."

The train has come up short.

"Wha-" The victim says, trying to find their feet.

"Oh! Right. You're still here. Woops." She looks around, "Now where did that medical station go?"

[armsistice]

"Thank you," Octopus returned, with only the smallest fraction of hesitation to betray how foreign the concept was, to be complimented in such a way, and then, "When we have the luxury of more time, I would be gratified to see more of what you can do. But only if you feel comfortable showing me."

The revelation that science and magic couldn't easily be separated was even more of a struggle than magic existing, but a useful one, so Ock got over that too, or rather, just slid it off to one side mentally, "I appreciate the correction; this is all very new to me. I agree that more phytokinetics would be very handy. There were none in the world I came from."

As Entrapta was (slightly) more on task than Otto, the Doctor glanced up, evaluating the building. Alas, most of the train's 'heroes' would likely need to be starfish throwers, today. "I suppose I should try to rescue some engineers. Shall I meet you at a safe distance, over there, in about twenty minutes, if no one's been able to arrest the vines?"

[sciencegirl]

"Yeah! That sounds great! Both the showing of things and the meeting in places. Okay, random person, we've saved you so now I have to take you to doctors now."

She's not capable of superhuman strength by any reach, but she's mechanic's strong, and she's able to grab up the person in a fireman's carry. Even if the poor soul looks like their whole life has been upheaved, eyes wide as they're evacuated by a woman that's pretty fast-moving on her hair.

(They'll be left in equal confusion when she gets there, with a shout of, 'I brought someone for you, bye bye!')

In about twenty minutes she does find her way away from the disaster zone, even if she would have happily stayed and risked her personal safety to observe the impending structural doom, because she promised she would. From where she's at she has her magical scanner, scanner held up and watching traces of the world's unique energy on the screen while trying to figure out where you'd even stopper that.

She holds it up in front of her with her hair, rubbing her chin with a gloved hand. Then, oh! There's cool-metal-arms person over there, now she sees them! "Hi!" she doesn't know their name or it would have been more personal. She waves with a real hand. "I don't think they stopped it. Do you want to watch it fall down with me?"

There's always something that can be learned from failure and disaster and everyone rescued most of the survivors. Probably. Sure, they rescued most of the survivors.

[armsistice]

While not as uncomplicated as Electro, Ock thought Entrapta was about as straightforward as their old companion, and (pre-emptively) as endearing. For a few seconds, most inefficiently, Ock watched Entrapta go, still mulling over the magical hair. Etherian magic. They filed that away and, satisfied, returned to the work at hand.

It was a tall order to identify and prevent the plantlife from causing more structural damage, so evacuation did seem to be the only option left open.

Dr. Octopus did not find thoughts of Entrapta's peculiarities distracting, mostly because they prided themself on their multitasking, and they could act on the situation in front of them and consider a bevy of other concerns at the same time.

"Hello again, my dear." Ignorance never stopped Ock from being personal, though it was remiss of them not to offer a name, they'd likely remember shortly, "I'd be only too happy to watch with you. We learn little from successes, and a great deal from failure, as they say."

Otto circled around with interest to peer over her shoulder at the scanner, "What an intriguing device. Did you invent this yourself?"

[sciencegirl]

"Yeah!" she says proudly, happily sharing the read-out. "I made it originally to find First Ones tech! Also I made it so I could find my way out of my castle because it's literally a labyrinth. You know, sometimes you have to make your own fun."

Having a castle and turning it into a trap-laden hell full of robots is totally her idea of fun. It's always nice when it's someone else's!

She pokes the screen with a lock of hair to indicate places she mentions. "You can see here and here and here there are surges of magic. Whatever magic this is is coming in contact with the heated water here and here and here and viola! Disaster. But I bet if controlled it would be great for architecture or reclamation."

She seems happy with that sentiment, though.

"I tell people that, too! It's really tragic how many people get hung up on perfection and immediate success when systemic flaws and imperfections are what make science possible! And even failure is still an accomplishment so long as you try."