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

[yondu]

"Nope... no, I mean demons. 'Portals to a hell dimension pourin' out in waves of hateful little shits that threw globes of stinkwater that drained the whole life outa ya' style demons."

He gestures to himself. "Blue team gets these missions where they just protect. Which, I keep feelin' is a poor use of my skills but I do it." Mostly because there are a ton of kids on his team and he feels like he needs to protect them. "Orange team has a lotta the tech eperts, explorers, scholar types. Purple an' red are heavy combat. Purple with a focus on teams. Red with a focus on 'take it out'. At least, that's what we got figured. Nobody knows why people get put on what team."

Not the particulars of it, anyway.

"If'n ya don't like what they got for ya in a mission, you can go with another team. One of our Blue Team fellas went to fight demons."

apologies for changing tenses at random

[intelinside]

Phineas opens his mouth, then closes it again and rubs at his temple with one palm. "All right. There are obviously a few more things I'm going to need to get used to." At least he'd said 'a hell dimension' and not 'actual Christian Hell'.

From the smile Phineas gives in response to that, he's interested. "What skills do you feel like you could use better elsewhere?" The rest was an interesting breakdown, even if it is by Udonta's own admission just observed patterns.

"I doubt I'll be doing much heavy combat," he says, voice dry. Then he gestures over to the VR headsets. "But I can be more help in the field if I make something I can control," he brings his hand back to press his fingers together then, mischievous, "from a distance."

Didn't even have the slightest problem

[yondu]

Yondu pulls aside his long coat, whistling and bringing up his arrow beside his head with a red streak. He sends it on one loop around the room before he catches it out of the air and puts it back. While it's moving, the fin on his head lights up more thoroughly, more than the rare traces that usually run through it.

"I don't miss. But I don't reckon that's the thing this train wanted me for." As far as he can tell, it's 'cause he has experience handling kids and that's some sheer bastardry on the train's part if that's the case. He's also pretty decent at herding idiots, thanks to his crew. "I was a ship's captain so could be somethin' to do with that, but I always been real combat heavy. Blue team is less o' that.

"There's a bunch of robotics folks on Orange team. I'm sure they're willin' to help share their work. They scavenge up bits after missions on technological worlds. And there's a 3-D printer but you gotta either recycle or order raw materials for it an' make a piece at a time."*



OOC: Yondu's ordering the printer this month and he's leaving it in the standard car.

[intelinside]

It's obvious that the whistle and the head fin have a great deal to do with controlling the arrow's loop through the air, and I don't miss is impressive but not what makes Phineas brighten with enthusiasm.

"You have a neurological connection to your weapon? I only know two people who can handle something like that. And since it can fly, you need to be able to think in a completely new dimension of movement." Also that arrow has to not get stuck easily? But that interests him less at the moment, even if it would be useful. "Did you make this?" Even if not, it's impressive!

He huffs a laugh. "It sounds like you're used to herding cats. And I can certainly see how that would be useful for protecting people, but I take your point. From the sound of the current theories I would have guessed Purple team."

He nods to the note about Orange team, definitely filing that away -- as well as the fact that scavenging from the worlds they end up on is allowed, or at least not discouraged. "That should come in handy. Thanks for all your help, Udonta, I'd rather know what to prepare for ahead of time."

[yondu]

"Nah, but I've upgraded it some over the years. More Kree tech." They like experimenting with their living weapons. He's surprisingly not all that mad over it, considering he got the better end of the deal as it turned out. "The metal comes from my homeworld, responds to vibrations an' a current flow gives it differ'nt gravity properties." He'd given some to Siebren to test. Maybe he could explain it in a more solid way. "My fin gives me kinda an artificial sense of my surroundin's. I can kinda make out shapes all around me. Between that an' comin' from a predator species with pretty good vision? That's about how it works."

He puts the arrow back in its holster.

"Yeah, I think that's about it. Herdin' cats."

He's just only recently gotten used to cats just being cats. He was used to them being Flerkens and for the first week he was trying to get out of grabbing range whenever he laid eyes on one.

"No problem. I just know there's a lotta people that buy shit to keep this train goin'. An' so as long as ya put it back together I see the point in takin' a look. Best to know how to fix it if it gets broke."

[intelinside]

"What kind of upgrades?" Pure curiosity; Tinkerer is definitely interested now that the subject is advanced, unfamiliar tech, something he'd be proud to have invented. And it's still impressive that Udonta knows how to upgrade it, frankly -- knowing how to improve something an expert had made is its own skill. "So it was responding to the whistling..."

A predator species, though. "I need to keep in mind that people here might be able to think in ways I'm not used to," he notes. And maybe not just in terms of more degrees of freedom.

That's a point. And speaking of points... "I've heard that you have to buy things through the terminals using a points system. Is it possible to transfer points to another person, or do passengers usually barter?" That last part is almost touching, though, in the same vein as Udonta's immediate reassurance before. "I'm good at that. But I appreciate the understanding."

[yondu]

"This'n's got better range than my last one." He taps the fin on his head. "Sturdier. Less prone to damage."

AKA it's not going to get shot out by a vengeful cyborg woman this time. Might as well just shoot him directly in the skull if they wanna shut him down.

"There's both less an' more of a range of folks than what I'm used to. Most of the train's crew seems to be some fashion of Terran or near to it. We can only get generic Terran train things or we can get some shit from our own timeline." World? Universe? Something like that.

"If you got access to it back home, train can get it for ya. Now, sometimes this is a bargain. Say you want a big ol' hunk of some expensive material? It's gonna cost you the same as a plain box of rocks. It might not always get you somethin' too rare, but if you work with somethin' that's a little spendier back home this train can get it for ya.

"But some us are willin' to trade around if we want somethin'."

[intelinside]

The thought also occurs to Tinkerer that if someone was already capable of aiming at his head fin they could shoot Udonta directly in the head... But then, someone careless might still waste a shot on the fin and someone hesitant to kill would need to find another way, or at least pause. And it was never a bad idea to make something incredible like that harder to destroy.

"'Terran'," he repeated. "Is that the word you use for 'human' or something from Earth?" Which meant that Kree was possibly another species, not just another culture. The train had a lot of new and exciting things! "I'm used to unusual people, but the ones I know at least used to be human," he admitted. "This isn't exactly a convenient situation, but it's a fascinating one."

The explanation about what could be ordered from the train and ways to take advantage of that was great, though. "Now that's useful," he admitted, grinning. "I work with technology a lot, and I build things on commission back home. I wouldn't mind making things for people here, I just need to figure out a payment system. It's workable."

[yondu]

It's also useful when some big asshole throws you around like a ragdoll, he finds. Having sturdy parts, that is.

"Just how my translator handles it." He rubs the back of his neck, frowning a little harder in thought (his face is just made for the expression). "You get used to it. When I got here? Somethin' happened that turned ever'body into kids for a coupla days an' I ain't ever had someone ask me why I was blue so often in my life."

He shakes his head. He hadn't been mean about it. There were worse questions to be asked. But he adds in there a- "All the people from my homeworld is this color of blue. No variation. No tans or nothin'." But, hey, the guy does commissions.

"Might take ya up on that. I can modify an' I can repeat what I know, but I ain't all that good about buildin' from scratch."

[intelinside]

Phineas wouldn't know that from experience, but he can believe it, with the way Spider-Man sometimes tears through his equipment. Better to make things more durable.

"That's fair," he allows, and then he pauses. It's his turn to frown, brow furrowing. "Turn people into kids... Physically or mentally?" Or both? "When I heard that strange things happened here, I wasn't thinking it would be along those lines. I guess it could be worse."

He shrugs, waving a hand at that explanation, wanting to get across that it's not a big deal to him or something he's going to pry about. "Makes sense. I won't pry; I've seen stranger just on Earth."

Tinkerer smiles, pleased at the interest there. "Excellent. If I make you something, you'll be allowed to duplicate it, obviously... What are you thinking of?"