Test Drive Meme 024

[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!

Crisis On… A fairground

The train has a game carriage and the VR video games are always popular. A good way to relive boredom as well as teaching some good skills.

Crisis on...This game can be played with two to four players. It is essentially a crisis simulator mixed with an escape room. You can chose the scenario (the bridge of a space ship, a camp in a jungle, a high rise building, a sailing ship etc) and you are thrown into the middle of a crisis of some kind. Teamwork and a cool head are important as is using the surroundings wisely.

How hard can running a fairground me? Well very hard when so much has gone wrong. Is it sabotage? Is it bad luck? Shoddy engineering? No mater what it is the important thing is rides are breaking, people are in danger, there’s temperature fluctuations in the fun house and the banshee in the ghost house won’t stop screaming. This is perhaps one of the more light hearted scenario’s in Crisis On but brings it’s own level of stress. Good luck keeping everyone safe and pacifying those angry guests.

Jam Session

Downstairs in the music carriage there are a variety of instruments. Mostly smaller instruments (a guitar is the largest instrument there). There are a couple of each type. There is however an entire box of recorders, another box of panpipes and a box of mixed small percussion instruments (symbols, shakers etc). There are music stands small stools to sit on are stacked along the wall. There are folders of various sheet music as well as some ‘learn to play’ books.

When there is only one practice room well then it is the perfect time to learn to play together. No matter the skill level, instrument or music preference. Playing music together is a good team bonding activity after all.

Or perhaps everyone is just playing their own thing, descending into chaos.

Jungle Heights

The latest mission has taken them to a vast jungle, where people live high in the trees. There has been an influx of tree dwelling creatures with sharp teeth, sharper claws and a love of destruction. To make things better the forest floor is not safe, damp and marshy many creatures lurk there ready to bite at ankles and it is home to a root, the sap of which burns.

Team One

Treetop fighting is an acquired skill and one the voidtreckers are having to learn quickly. Swing on vine ropes and tangle with monsters. Quick movement and quicker thinking is needed to take down the creatures in terrain they are naturals at traversing.

Team Two

People here live on platforms in the trees, with bridges and walkways connecting them. Fend off the creatures and chase them away from peoples homes. At least there is slightly solider ground beneath their feet, but they must be careful not to fall to the jungle floor beneath.

Team Three

Many of the people here are not fighters and they need help to get somewhere safer. It's a tough journey through the forest, especially when they leave the bridges and platforms of the village behind. Children may need carried and climbing from one tree to another is difficult even with sturdy branches to walk along.

They must be careful to stay in the trees, avoid getting too close to the forest floor but do not get too high, lest they attract the creatures.

Comments

[lanxichen]

[ Xichen's expression softens, eases slightly more. He knows the harder questions will come - he knows he must find out what this younger self knows, and what he needs to be cautioned about - but this part is relatively easy. ]

It does become possible to get accustomed to it, though it is very overwhelming at first. We are brought to it because there are places - entire worlds - that need help so life and hope is not extinguished. Those come with what would be a moon's time between them, and half that between platforms - where people arrive and leave.

Between such times, there are days to try to understand. This train is large, but smaller than a town, so there is enough time to learn the people in it.

[ And, knowing the people, it is easier to accept the whole. ]

[calmness]

[the reason for their purpose on the train, that he can accept. helping others, protecting people, this is something xichen will not cast aside. that explanation earns a nod, eases the tension in xichen's shoulder a fraction. it is an unnoticeable thing, but surely the man before him will know the comfort he has brought himself.]

Is there any indication why we were particularly chosen? Or how it's possible to bring us face to face?

[lanxichen]

Somewhat, at least the latter - a few weeks back, the train would answer questions. One of the answers stated that we are all from different worlds, though some of them very similar. There are also two Wangji, two young master Wei, and even two A-Yuan, though one of them from a world different enough that he grew up with his family.

And some are from very different times.

Meng Yao is from before the Sunshot Campaign began.

[ There is softness in the way he says the name. Not quite A-Yao, but softness all the same. The man is so young. ]

[calmness]

[while it is fantastical, even for a cultivator, xichen nods as he soaks in the details he is given. he trusts himself, so trusts another version of himself as well.] And now two of us. Though what time and world are you from?

[establishing that will at least help him understand where they stand, what the other man knows. questions about the other worlds, how a-yuan was able to grow up with his family given the yiling patriarch's involvement with the wens makes him uneasy but perhaps in that world things did not take such a sharp turn. he hopes that's the case, for a-yuan's sake.

the mention of meng yao is distraction enough, though he does note that his counterpart does not call him 'a-yao.] A-Yao is from his time in the Unclean Realm then? [so young, then. here but not the dear friend that xichen knows him as.]

[lanxichen]

I.. rather think a slightly different one than yours, and from a later time.

In my world, he only worked for da ge during the Sunshot campaign, mostly on the field - rarely at the Unclean Realm.

[ He tilts his head slightly to one side. ]

Did he come to the Cloud Recesses with Huaisang? If so, he is from shortly after that.

[ And, no, that never happened in this Xichen's world. But that is all right, if they are from closer worlds, it might make things easier for Meng Yao.

It might make things both more and less easy for Huaisang, too.

And... even Wanyin. ]

[calmness]

Ah. That is different... [he nods, letting it sink in that there are other realities. perhaps whatever has changed this older version of himself is not set in stone for him.] Before I arrived on the platform, only a few months had passed since the Yiling Patriarch's death at Nightless City. I assume if that happened in your world, years have passed since?

[his current reality is one filled with delicately trying to balance the rebuilding of his home and supporting the newly budding peace spreading through the cultivation world, raising a nephew, mediating the tense relationship between his sworn brothers, guilt over his brothers injuries and recovery, and running a sect. the train and all its strangeness shouldn't feel like relief. and yet...

the mention of meng yao in cloud recess earns a fond smile and nod.] Yes, he did.

Did he not come in your world? [he wonders if they are not as close then, if they're sworn brothers in the world his older self is from.]

[lanxichen]

[ Xichen shakes his head slightly. ]

I did not meet him until he saved me, after the Cloud Recesses ... after Wen Xu went there. He did not know da ge until after that.

[ Beat. And then frown. ]

Young master Wei... died at Nightless City? For us... Wangji took him away. He then perished when the major sects besieged the Burial Mound. Near a decade and a half ago.

Wangji...

Is he in seclusion?

[ Did he still get punished, even if he did not hurt elders? ]

[calmness]

You lost your home too, then? [he does not know what the elder lost then, but know what it is like to flee a home.] I stayed with him after as well...

[the difference is a curious one and xichen nods, slowly. he notes the familiar title, wonders why that's the case when he cannot fully quench his anger with the same man.] Yes. Wangji tried to save him but... [and all of that was a mess of it's own, that and its aftermath.] Wangji went to the Burial Mounds afterwards, as did the major sects.

He is. [there's a slight tremor in his hand as it rests on his thigh, his brother's injuries are healing slowly and he is barely at a point one would consider stable.]

[lanxichen]

[ Xichen breathes out a silent sigh. Why... why hadn't he been enough...

Though he knows the answer, anyway. Because he is himself, and all he tries to help with is doomed to failure.

His words, instead, are soft. ]

Wangji will mend. His body... faster. His spirit, only after more than a decade, when a desperate youth sacrifices his soul to bring young master Wei back, and young master Wei's name is cleared enough that he is not in danger.

[ This spoiler, Xichen is not shy of giving. He knows his own state of mind - many things matter, but above the sect and Wangji... ]

[calmness]

[xichen breathes out and nods, taking that in. he hopes that is the case in his world, that wangji recovers.

the next piece of information is new, different. he'd been looking at his lap and his gaze snaps to the elder man.] Wei Wuxian's name is cleared? [ How? After what he'd done to those who cared about him and the dead, those that did not deserve to be his puppets.]

[lanxichen]

Mm. [ Xichen nods. ] While not entirely innocent, information came to light that others manipulated things to push him into a corner that would be too much for anyone to endure, envious of his power. Lies were told and not questioned...

For an example of the lies, when Jin Guangshan spread the ashes of Wen Qionglin and Wen Qing at Nightless City... that was not truth. Wen Qionglin was preserved, under control. A weapon, and a subject of experimentation. His grief over his son and proclaimed need for vengeance, all were subject to his want for power.

[calmness]

I see... [and that's unsettling. xichen continues to frown, letting the normal mask he wears fall here.] And no one close to Jin Guangshan knew of it?

[he wonders if he will remembers this. if he can go back and tell a-yao of this, so he can look out for this deceptions and help right this wrong.

someone must know, of course. jin guangshan does not act alone or dirty his hands, nor is he without loyal supporters.] Are the names of who supported him in this also revealed?

[lanxichen]

[ Xichen doesn't flinch, but his body shakes slightly, as though he has been stuck.

After a moment, he answers, his voice duller than before. ]

Jin Guangyao, [ and the way he says that name sounds ... dead, very different from the way he said 'Meng Yao' earlier, ] did everything in his power to earn his father's approval. He was privy to all.

[ His eyes are fixed on the 'ground' before him. ]

I'm sorry.

[calmness]

What? [no.

no.

meng yao wouldn't, xichen wants to say with a harshness that his elder self does not deserve. but the man before him is more shaken than he is and there is nothing in what he says that's a lie.

meng yao wants that approval, wants what he was so long denied. what he has but not in the way he envisioned --- xichen knows that and yet.] He wouldn't. [there's a desperation in his voice, seeping in.

he can tell the man before him isn't lying.] There are lines he wouldn't cross.

[lanxichen]

[ Xichen's lips tremble for a moment, and his eyes turn down, red around the corners. ]

There are, [ he says, softly.

Lan Xichen! In this life, I've lied countless times, killed countless times. Like you said, I killed my father, my brother, my wife, my son, my teacher, my friend - of all the evil in the world, what haven't I done? But I've never even thought of harming you!

It's hard to breathe. ]

There are. They are merely ... at a different place than we think.

[calmness]

[he's not lying.

xichen knows that. it's the part that hurts the most, makes him feel nauseous as his hands tremble in his lap.] I-- he-- [it's rare that xichen cannot find the words, cannot weave together a response that's level and grounded.

normally he is the voice of reason in a room, a source of calm. yet, here he is. unable to pull anything to the surface.

the 'why' of it has already been answered, so he does not ask as he sits trembling. there are questions forming but now, after this, he needs time before he can ask.]