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

cold iron

[writerkick]

[Kotoha rushes over when she hears Otto's voice. She doesn't seem, well, dressed for rescue work- A long skirt, glasses, she's more the stereotypical librarian than a rescue worker.

She looks over the injured person, and up to Otto.]

Is there water? If there's clean water, I can help at least a bit.

[armsistice]

[As a fellow passenger, (and generally) it was not Ock's habit to underestimate, or undervalue, potential help, especially when it was offered so enthusiastically.]

I saw a well just outside, but... [Yes, when one tentacle probed a mass of debris and began to push it aside, the clockwork groundwater well had mostly survived, but its pump is broken, and looks beyond easy repair.] --I could lower you down into it, perhaps? What are you thinking to do with it?

[writerkick]

It's a bit... difficult to explain.

[To say the least.]

The short of it is, if they can drink clean water from my hands, it should provide... some sort of healing effect. Like Finn McCool.

[armsistice]

Ah, so you're a healer? Wonderful. [Ock took the wrong end of the stick with a lot of confidence, given the situation, and another tentacles darted backward, seeking ... a portion of the destroyed ground level foyer. Proudly, it returned with an ice-bucket for wine, emptied it and then snaked down into the well to scoop and retrieve water for Kotoha to 'work her magic']

An invaluable ability at a time like this; the train does occasionally make a wise decision in its selection process. [Otto really had no idea how wise, though.] And, thank you for answering my summons. It isn't much good if all I can do is unbury people to die in the open air instead.

[writerkick]

Ah, not... Not precisely.

[She watches Otto do his thing with his arms. The curiosity inside her is burning, but... Not the time.]

I have doubts it would work in normal circumstances. But since this place is so heavily touched by fairies, using the remedies and stories of the fairies should work. I studied literature and folklore in college, though I didn't expect to be using that knowledge like this...

[It's a total lie, of course. But it's a plausible-sounding one, and Kotoha would rather not discuss the actual nature of what she can do- It's much better to just be the normal, mundane person.

She kneels, scooping water from the bucket, and slowly pouring it into the poor victim's mouth. And, somehow, it seems to be working? Color slowly returns to the person's face.]

... Think nothing of it. It is the duty of those who can help to do so, after all.

[armsistice]

I shouldn't pry. I don't wish to be indiscreet, especially with someone so willing to offer assistance. It's the scientist in me, I'm afraid, I am always driven to ask questions most would think are better deferred. But, what a delightful subject to major in.

[Otto is happy to buy in without a cross examination, but that last part makes them grimace slightly.]

Not everything dovetails quite as well in real life as it does in literature. Often villains walk free, and victims are construed as monsters. Duty to help becomes... complicated, then.

[writerkick]

Ah, a scientist... I understand. I don't have a scientific explanation, sadly. Not that I expect the fae would be able to be described scientifically...

[That gets her to pause, looking down.]

... You are correct, of course. And the story is spun in a way to suit those who have the most power.

[armsistice]

Indeed! Magic can be frustrating for someone like me, and poorly-suited to bind to laws of physics and the so-called natural world. Your specialties are more apropos. My thanks, for your assistance.

[Kotoha's response surprises Otto, whose tentacles coil around behind them, much more overtly telegraphing confusion, as if the Doctor had expected some resistance and found instead a possible ally. This shows the danger of assumptions.]

Yes, I-... [What more to say? Grandiloquent or plain?] I'm glad you think so, Kotoha. At a calmer moment, on the train, I would like to discuss this with you further. With tea or coffee, perhaps?

[writerkick]

[She smiles, perhaps a bit cryptically.]

I have... experience, you might say. Fighting against the narratives others would impose.

I would like that very much. Do you drink green tea?