Test Drive 032

[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!

Culinary Containment

Every month, the train's stores are filled with crates of ingredients for use by its passengers. And every month, one ingredient is the focal point of all recipes. Potatoes, cinnamon, seaweed… but as the train pulls away from the station this month, there seems to have been a blip in the system when it comes to deciding on a biologically-appropriate foodstuff.

Spilling out from the storage carriage and into the kitchen are hundreds of live frogs. They're in the sinks, they're in the ovens, they're hopping alarmingly close to the transgates that link the area up to the sleepers...

Vote-Rigging

At the behest of its passengers, the train has instituted a voting system to allow for more carriage options and upgrades. Passengers are able to submit new ideas, or crowdfund those already suggested...

It's the night before platform, and all through the train, no one was stirring... Apart from your group, with your stockpile of a thousand points and the luminous voting panel you're all currently pouring them into. Bouncy castle carriage? Funded! Fishing carriage? Funded! Clocks? Eh... You have the points. Funded!

Then it's simply a matter of waiting for the morning, and seeing the chaos you've caused to the layout of the Voidtrecker Express. What new delights have you discovered?

Repo Train

The Void Ministry have another task for the Express: locating and repossessing the contents of a number of minor storage craft in an old mercantile zone. The coordinates are given, a small fleet of space-worthy craft and sufficient hazmat gear has been deposited at the meeting site for Voidtrecker use.

The main area is cushy enough, a round communal area surrounded by living pods renovated for basic Voidtrecker requirements. The hangar above allows for groups to head to the next assigned storage location, or to return with their piles of lawfully impounded gains.

Team One

High-risk storage locations are this team's priority. Potentially explosive material, artifacts or experiments without the requisite paperwork explaining how or why they were made, sometimes living creatures, the kind that shouldn't have been left in a large metal crate habitat for a decade. Opening these areas is a study in initiative and dealing with unpleasant surprises!

Team Two

This team are the back-up for the first group - once the artifacts, creatures or hazardous material has been made safe and brought back, they have to be recorded. Scanned. Studied, and compared to the extensive lists of potential contraband or lost goods. Sometimes, they're not quite as safe as you'd like.

Team Three

Some locations, rather than being used for the storage for which they were intended, have been repurposed by sapients who have developed within the system since the depot was created. Short, furred people with clever, webbed hands and high voices, they've turned crates and ships into cramped, partially-submerged warrens. This team is cleared to assess the damage done, and, if the current official owners of the stores will agree, process the change in ownership to the Su Samuru. Not all owners are happy with their squatters, however...

Comments

Culinary Containment

[stabgremlin]

"Considering you're not dead from touching them, I'd say there's a good chance they're edible," Came the admittedly somewhat snarky toned reply from the latest witness to the frogmageddon currently sweeping through the kitchen. Whatever Aden had expected to see upon entering the kitchen on this particular day- and he'd come to expect a lot of different things, really- this wasn't one of them.

A blue hand shot out to catch a runaway amphibian making a dash to escape the kitchen, fingers curling around the small creature lightly so as to not harm it despite his remark that they might just end up being lunch.

"Oh look, we even have a few volunteers," He added, in much the same tone as he tilted his head toward the frogs that had decided that the ovens were a good and safe place to hang out for a time, "Not that I'm volunteering to try and cook them."

While he'd learned to be less than picky about what he turned into a meal, there was a few limits to how adventurous he felt like being. And so, he gestured vaguely toward the other man and his makeshift bag full of frogs with the hand currently holding the squirming almost-escapee, "May I?"

He was already gathering them up in there, after all. Better that than just putting the frog he'd snatched up back down to make more mischief.

Re: Culinary Containment

[persona_non_ratta]

"Eating frogs?", Bruno said. The idea obviously wasn't appealing to him. "I mean... I guess we could if they're not poisonous, but would anyone want to? I mean, I know there's plenty of other things here to eat that... aren't frogs." Live frogs at that, which would mean they'd need to be killed- likely en masse- before they could be eaten, and he found himself even less enthusiastic about that idea than about potentially eating them.

At the moment, there was still work to do though. "Huh? Oh, right, sure." He held out his bag full of squirming frogs to the blue-skinned, red-eyed man- amazing how quickly that sort of sight stopped being really strange- so that he could deposit the frogs he'd caught into it.

[stabgremlin]

"I'm sure there are those who would, should we lack any other source of protein. Maybe there are even a few obligate carnivores among the passengers. Who knows."

Aden would if he was starving too, he supposed. Desperate men didn't get to be picky. But as of right this moment, he was more irritated about the mess than concerned about whether or not he'd have to be a herbivore for the foreseeable future, depending on what the other available ingredients to cook with were like. And without desperation, he'd never even consider killing and cooking a frog.

"Thank you," He said as the other man held the makeshift bag out, popping the struggling frog down in there with the rest.

He moved over to the ovens, reaching in to pluck the frogs that had ended up in there out, moving to deposit them in the bag too.

"I think our primary concern right now though is catching them all before they can create more mischief. Once we're done with the critter roundup you can think about what to do with our little friends."

Normally he might have just turned and wandered right back out- leaving it to be someone else's mess to deal with. But this was the kitchen, and as far as Aden was concerned, the kitchen was a holy land where all his troubles seemed far away. He wondered how long it would take for him to clean everything once the froggy flurry had been dealt with.

"You seemed content to chase them down yourself, but I think this'll go faster if you have another pair of hands to help."

[persona_non_ratta]

"Yeah, I don't think we'll get that desperate though," he said. "From what I understand, the train is pretty good about keeping everybody fed. At least when it come to having things to cook with." The skill of those doing the cooking tended to vary though.

And Bruno... would probably take up temporary vegetarianism before killing and cooking a frog himself. A lot of the food he was used to was technically vegetarian anyway, thanks to the living situation in the Encanto, so it wouldn't be as much of a sacrifice to him as it might be to some.

"Sure, the more people helping, the sooner it'll be done. We'll probably need another bag eventually though; there's a lot of these little guys."

[stabgremlin]

"Seems like it," Aden commented, somewhat thoughtfully. They'd been fine so far, of course. And the people who'd been around way longer than he had seemed to have been fine too, all things considered. He'd just been cursed with distrustfulness, always waiting for the other shoe to drop. Despite his own inclination to be negative though, he only gave that single affirmation, instead of voicing any worry.

"Were you going to try and tidy it all up yourself if someone else didn't come along?" The Chiss asked, snatching another frog up mid-leap, and moving to deposit it into the other man's makeshift bag.

"I think a large pot should work too. At least for the short-term."

Just leaving them in there would, for a lack of a different term, be inhumane, but until they could get the kitchen back under control and figure out what to do with their froggy friends in the long-term, it would probably work.

[persona_non_ratta]

"Well... I guess, yeah," Bruno said, shrugging slightly. "I'm still pretty new around here, so I figured I'd try and take care of it. Let people who have routines and things keep them up as much as they could, you know?" Plus it was easier than trying to socialize with a train full of still mostly strangers. Not that he disliked them, it was just... a lot.

He nodded at the idea for the pot as a potential container. "There's a bunch of suitcases and things in the last car too that might work. But getting any of the bigger ones up here would be a whole other job of its own."