voidtreckerooc | Test Drive 034

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Test Drive 034

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!

Touching the Void

All Voidcraft are built to withstand the tremendous forces at work within the Void. Even craft with as strange a shape as the Express, its shell protecting the passengers from all manner of ill effects. Memory loss, sickness, hallucinations... However, the train-like design includes both large windows and inter-carriage couplings, both of which are weak points.

The shimmering, shifting colours of the Void are visible through the windows for half of the day. Calling, luring-- a familiar face almost visible from one angle, a lost home from another. Hours can be lost, staring out at it, as your headache grows and every nerve in your body flickers with strange sensation. Between the carriages nothing can be seen, but the walls seem thinner, and beyond them you can hear sounds that could almost be called a song.

Friends and Friendly Beasts

Despite various attempts, there is no dedicated carriage for animals and companions on-board the Voidtrecker Express. Small pets room with their owners, battle familiars of various kinds can be sealed in capsules, cards, staffs, souls... and the assortment of cats go where they will. Opening a door and almost stepping on an animal, magical or otherwise, is common. So is almost batting a robotic drone out of the air with a gesture, or squeezing past a spirit communing with her summoner on your way to dinner.

The important question is: whose creature are you holding right now?

Heart of the Valley

Mundos is, the Voidtreckers have been informed, the seventh least habitable world still registered as viable. Ninety percent of its surface is uneven, treacherous swampland, and thanks to the Ongi, huge, pale creatures that graze, mate and die there, that swampland is also highly toxic. Breathing masks and protective suits are advised for any Voidtrecker not immune to air- and waterborne toxins.

Disaster struck - the main bubbled city on Mundus experienced a reactor explosion. While the city was unharmed - all reactors are built outside of the main sectors - a passing herd of Ongi wasn't so lucky, and the gases and chemicals released by their decaying bodies so close is overwhelming the city's filters.

Team One

The chemicals can be absorbed out of the air by a particular substance native to the world known locally as bloodstone. A now abandoned sister city held reserves of the stuff that could be used to shore up the filters. This team is tasked with travelling to that city, and searching it for bloodstone stores.

Team Two
The outer ring of the city has been exposed, and those that live or work there are in serious danger. This team must help evacuate the ring while providing emergency treatment to the affected citizens. Vehicles and medical supplies can be provided.

Team Three
The dead Ongi are being dragged away by emergency services, wrapped in great steel ropes and pulled by any vehicle capable of navigating the swamps. But scavengers - large, solitary reptiles and misshapen pack-hunting dogs - are threatening to overrun them in their hunt for meat. The third team is assigned to each vehicle, to protect them and to keep the scavengers from tearing the bodies apart so close to the city.

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Pets Pets everywhere

Perhaps not the first thing a stitch witch learns, but certainly the most true: Cats are inevitable. Whose cat this is is meaningless, since no one makes a cat do anything it doesn't wish to. There's no more use in scolding the owner than in scolding the cat. It does make catching back her spool of embroidery thread a task though. She could simply call the thread back to her but that would probably hurt the cat's claws.

The only solution, obviously, is to get down on her hands and knees, and peer under the train seat of the general car, holding out her hand temptingly.

"There are far better things to play with than some boring thread. If you give it back, I'll...I'll make you a yarn ball. And maybe someone has some catmint we can stuff it with. Wouldn't you enjoy that more?"

Cats can't understand her so they don't know that there is no catmint on board. Lies or no lies, it's ultimately futile. The cat kicks at the spool with its back feet and she sighs. Loudly.

Team One

Her power has proven rather useless in all the main missions. There is no magic to see, no shortage of bandages, and she holds no power with those in charge. So, she's gone off on a search and retrieval trip instead. An eerily quiet one, it seems. The vast stretches of empty space are unnerving.

"They would be protected. Under lock and key, I assume. Now where is the most guarded place in the city." Sandry turns in a slow circle, wishing she had a map. If it's for purifying the air, you would think it would need to be near the edge. But perhaps they kept it close to the center, under better guards. And why would you abandon a city in the first place without taking the things that help you breathe?

"Now I'm wishing I asked Briar for lockpicking lessons." With her hands propped on her hips, she simply decides to pick a direction and go along the edge. There's probably more of those machines everyone keeps talking about to help them do the purifying, because they don't have signs and spells like proper people. Let's find those.

Given his practice of purposely storing spells in tattoos (rather than Briar's accidental magic tattoo), Thomas's arms, torso and legs might look a bit like a heat haze around him to Sandry, even through his protective suit. "Unless the residents took their stores with them, but didn't bother with existing equipment."

Redundancy means that if he were building this, even if there was a central air purification plant, he'd want backups on buildings and near entrances. Resources permitting, of course. Partially used filters would be less desirable than pristine ones and might be too weather-damaged to work.

"We should look near the entrances. There will be more need for removing the toxic gases there."

He is sticking with Sandry, though. Because having one person looking while the other watches for hazards, territorial wildlife, and (if they are unlucky) other scavengers who don't want the competition is just sensible.

Friendly Beasts

The dog in question was very big, compared to most of the pets. Long time denizens on the train may have wondered how one of them got one so big. When he was sitting upright, he was taller than the average Japanese teenager.

All the same, there appeared to be a dog on the loose although instead of commanding chaos, he was just lying down comfortably.

Anyone would be forgiven for thinking he was a pet, and perhaps pestering him would eventually garner a response.

"I don't belong to anyone." Yamabiko would respond, speaking like any human might.

Team Three

One might think there would be little to do on a mission for a giant dog, but at the very least Yamabiko could offer guidance, carry things, or in this case, be an overwhelming presence to make an animal think twice for attacking them.

When one of them approached he took a more defensive position and growled, making himself as big as possible to scare them off. He figured he could take on a misshapen dog.

He also made a decent lookout.

Touching The Void

Kurumi hadn't spent much time considering what was out in the void. It wasn't that she wasn't curious, she definitely was, but she didn't want to borrow trouble. This place was a welcome respite, no matter how it was she arrived to be there. Who wanted to spend all their time at school anyway?

That would be her excuse anyway. Mostly she didn't miss the late night arguing and dealing with someone who didn't want to live in reality.

It completely caught her off-guard when she caught a glimpse of that person in the void. "Sempai?" She asked softly, whispering more to herself than anyone. He was there and smiling, from what she could see.

She moved closer to the window to try and get a better look.

Friendly Beasts

Coming across an animal on the train may have been inevitable but it took Kurumi completely off-guard. She paused in her step and took a step back from the unsuspecting creature.

"Easy." She said softly, holding up her hands. It might not even be doing anything aggressive, she was just nervous.

Her last encounter with a dog hadn't gone spectacularly well.

Team Two

A call for help had Kurumi sprinting without really thinking about it. She needed to get closer to the person to start with, but she'd get more cautious of her surroundings once she got close.

"Hey!" She called, softly at first, but this time louder. "Hey! I'm right here! I'm coming to get you!"

She approached the fallen rubble that was blocking the door to this shop and started pulling at it with her bare hands, groaning a bit.

“Hold on, I’m coming!” A voice called out. From behind Kurumi was Aile. She skidded to a stop and began helping her move the rubble.

“We can do this together, okay? I’d rather not use too much power here.”

"Oh!" Kurumi was surprised but she turned and offered Aile a smile. "Yes, help would be really nice."

She was used to doing things alone and although she didn't have her shovel at hand, she picked up a decently sized rock with a grunt and pulled it off the pile. She didn't have any special powers, she was just going to do her best as an ordinary high school student.

“Great! Here, start with the smaller ones. Makes the larger ones easier to lift.” Aile said, pointing to some of the smaller rubble on top.

"No problem, I'm on it!" Kurumi said with a little smile and started hauling the next rock.

"Hopefully we won't be too late." She winced a little bit. "Can you hear us? We're here!"

Perhaps a little comfort would go a long way.

Aile concentrated briefly, hearing a soft groan.

“I think someone’s there. Keep going!”

"Okay, I'm on it." Kurumi was scrambling a little bit, heavier rocks and debris tended to make her tremble and huff and puff.

A groan could mean bad things...

She grimaced at herself. That was unlikely here, right?

Perfect just perfect, as if being dead wasn't enough she's now aboard some wierd space time train taking her to who knows where, it wouldn't be so bad if the rest of her team was with her but it looks like she's flying solo for now.

That fine, it's not like she hasn't dealt with that before, granted she wasn't a zombie then and needed makeup to even be in public, which she doesn't have now, but she's banking on her somehow NOT being the weirdest thing here.

"Dammit, where the hell was I sitting?"

She bemoans to herself, wandering the isles aimlessly, not that she needed to sit, but the boredom of simply walking is starting to get to her. Suddenly a voice catches her attention, a girl, who's looking out the window as if she sees something...or someone, she creeps a little closer wanting to see what's got her attention while only being greeted by the empty colorful void.

"...I don't think there's anyone there"

"What?" Kurumi looked alarmed, partly drawn by the void and the images she could see, and partly drawn to the intruding voice.

"You don't see him?" She couldn't help but ask, brow furrowing.

Please tell her she hadn't finally snapped, someone had to remain rational.

Edited 2022-03-19 09:15 (UTC)

Saki leans a little closer looking out the window trying to see what she sees, and one might notice how her skin isn't exactly the healthiest...or the right skin color for any living human.

"I don't see anyone or anything out there, you feeling alright?"

"I...yes, I feel fine." Kurumi answered, putting a hand to her head and stepping back from the void. She could feel a headache, she hadn't noticed one before. She grimaced.

"I'm okay." She breathed.

Kurumi was a little pale, but then again she was maybe acting a little strange it could be forgiven.

Saki looks back at the girl sitting next to her and notices how distressed she is, she hasn't been the leader of a bike gang and idol group for nothing

"No, you're not. C'mon and get up, sitting there just gonna make it worse."

Kurumi was drawn to the window, it wasn't so easy to walk away and the memory was warm and kind, gentle with a smile she remembered.

Part of her understood it wasn't the reality, and the interruptions were helping remind her.

"...Right, we should."

She made no move to do so, however.

Nope, that's not gonna fly grabbing her by her shoulders Saki lifts Kurumi and places her in a standing postition.

Like hell is she just let her mope in her delusions.

"I don't know what you saw out there, but it isn't real! You and me, right here in this train, this is real!"

[OOC Note: I’m planning on using material from he latest InCryptid book (Spelunking through Hell) to set Thomas’s canonpoint, though it is still before the events of the book itself. (Look, this is what happens when your backstory is ‘disappeared into an unknown dimension while your kids were young’.) If you want zero spoilers whatsoever, let me know.]

Friends and Friendly Beasts

Thomas spent a decade living with a tailypo, which are remarkably raccoon-like in their ability to get into things. Which means someone’s pet has gotten into the kitchen and Thomas is trying to fend them off as he cooks.

“I’m sure you have your own food. Do you even eat tomatoes?”

He was pretty sure these were tomatoes. Some of the train’s produce was a bit weird this month. Or it could be not having Earth produce since the 1960s.

Rescue your pet? Or maybe Thomas needs to apologize to a non-humanoid member of the train.

Team One — en Route
Honestly, Thomas Price generally felt like the hostility of Mundos was overstated. Sure, the air and water required either filtration or protective suits, and it was mostly a swamp, but there was clearly a thriving ecosystem of plants and animals here. Thomas Price was also aware his standards had dropped quite a bit, and was reconsidering his stance after running a boat aground, as what he thought was a patch of swamp weed also held enough mud to trap the boat, but not solid enough to easily stand on. So he was waist deep in swamp muck, hoping his gear was water-tight so that he didn’t poison himself from the water, and considering the problem

He was debating if it was worth just going at it with a shovel and machete, or if it was time to consider magic. The problem was, of course, that while sympathy meant there was a connection between the mud here and the mud over there, there was also mud everywhere that would just flow back in.

“Any ideas?”

"Really? Just because I'm cute and cuddly doesn't meant you treat me like that!"

Sorry, Thomas, but it looks like you've insulted a crew member.

"I can eat things like you guys, though I'm not a tomato person."

Thomas took a closer look. Yes, he could see the signs of someone who was clearly an intelligent tool user. It wasn't even subtle, as it was with, for example, Aeslin mice. On Earth, few intelligent cryptids who couldn't shape-shift, pass as human, or otherwise disguise themselves would approach a strange human. Apparently, the presence of other humans on the train had him falling into the same assumptions, despite being very aware that not all planes had a human or human look-alike species.

Clearly, he was already making wonderful impressions on the locals.

"My apologies. There was someone's cat in the kitchen earlier, and I thought it had returned because I was clearly paying too much attention to the tomatos. I should have seen that someone else had come in."

Mina shook her head and shrugged her shoulders. She should have seen it coming and yet... oh, well. First time for everything!

"Don't worry, we all have our moments." Mina admitted. "At least it wasn't a dog."

"Dogs can't climb," Thomas pointed out. There were so many options other than cats or dogs, anyway. "Or is that 'mistook you for a dog' rather than 'someone let a dog into the kitchen'."

"The latter." Mina said. "I'm a mongoose, but being how I look, I probably don't look like how a mongoose should look to humans."

"I haven't heard of any variety of mongoose, living or extinct, being purple and capable of human language, no," Thomas conceded. He isn't going to touch 'should' with a ten-foot pole.

He's got the coloring of a raccoon, but Romero is still very clearly canine, rotting flesh notwithstanding.

And to call him Saki's "pet" might be a bit a stretch too, mascot might be a bit closer to the truth. Leaning back on a nearby wall, she's not gonna turn down someone willing to wrangle him for her, that said she's on standby...just in case

"I'd be more careful if I were you, little guy hasn't bitten anyone yet but I wouldn't want to test him"

Thomas has good reactions; he makes sure his hands are clear and any knives are in known locations (where he can grab them without cutting himself). Yes, that clearly was a dog, though who even knew what was animating the corpse now. (Thomas had a memorable encounter with alkabyiftiris slime decades ago, and is familiar with the idea of parasites that hijack their hosts. Alkabyiftiris slime was pretty bad at long-term plans, being essentially a corpse-eating slime mold, but that didn't mean other organisms couldn't be better.)

On the other hand, this one seems to be the young woman's pet, and he can't tell if that is because she is also infected by whatever this is, it is relatively tame, or that he's a teenager with terrible abilities to judge risk. It could be a combination. What fun.

"Before I do anything, then, how does one treat a bite from... him?" Also, what is it, why is it in the kitchen, and how much food will they need to throw out and surfaces will they need to sterilize?

She knows what's animating him...a jackass loud mouth idol manager, that's who. Still over the past couple of years she's gotten attached to them...the dog mostly, but the manager has his moments too, and right now it's only the dog, and she's gonna take care of him like any other member of her team.

Romero has been mostly tame, acting like any other dog but it pays to be on the side of caution when it counts.

"Hell if I know, he hasn't bitten anyone yet and has been pretty good about it. Doesn't mean I want him to though"

She looks at Thomas and raises an eyebrow, bit of a dweeb, but suprisingly he's got a little bit of muscle on him too. But that just tells her his ability to read the room might be a bit..limited to say the least and in situations like these that's less than ideal, might be in her best interest to smooth over the situation just a tad.

"You got any dried squid? He likes that"

Edited 2022-03-26 02:40 (UTC)

Thomas Price was raised by monster-hunters and spent decades in a hell dimension; his ability to read a situation was badly skewed.

"Me personally? No. But the kitchen might." Thomas might have grown up with English food, but he was well-traveled enough that it wasn't the weirdest thing. And probably better for this creature than the tomatoes. "What is he, if you don't mind me asking?"

He does set things aside, and move to what food storage is there, rather than elsewhere in the train. He's still not putting his back to the pet, or making sudden movements, but it's more caution than fear -- he's not hesitating or anything, just being deliberate. Things look fine, but animals are not the same as humans, and might not read his movements correctly. Of course, if the pet thinks he might get a treat, he might well be mobbed with slobber rather than attacked.

She can tell how skewed they are as she follows him through the kitchen, seeing his movments and refusing to take his eyes off of Romero as he calmly trots along letting out an occasional yap, her movments however being far more casual.

His question causes a moment of pause, mostly out of how...stupid it is, for lack of a better word

"...A dog. What else does he look like?"

And hey; it's that lack of reading siuations coming into play again. Intentional or otherwise there's implications to that question she doesn't appreciate and is going to stomp out before it has the chance grow

"Do you think I don't look like a human either?"

Annoyance and offense written clear on her face, being subtle isn't gonna get the point across, and luckily being blunt is something she's very good at.

Edited 2022-03-26 03:46 (UTC)

Thomas did register that. Dammit, he was used to making the opposite mistake in judgment. He stopped. "My apologies. You don't appear to be any sort of ghost I've heard of, and in the dimension I was born in, the other options would be dozens of intelligent cryptid species that try to look human but aren't. Or I've heard of revenants, but never had a chance to meet one."

Thomas isn't quite getting the idea of alternate Earths. Possibly because his own was so full of things that it is hard to find something that stands out as weird.

Him listing all the things she could be isn't helping much, she isn't a damn butterfly or exotic bird to be cataloged and filed.

"A human, I'm a goddamn human. Doesn't matter if I'm a zombie now, I was alive once and so was he"

She points down at Ramero as he looks up at Thomas scratching his ear with backleg

Yep, he has dug himself into this hole, and he needs to stop digging. "You are. I can only apologize for my atrocious manners." He's not going to make excuses for himself, because at this point he just needed to do better. And he was going to sit on his intellectual curiosity; if there is something he needs to know about this, hopefully, she will volunteer the information.

A rummage through the cabinets has turned up something that smells like it could be dried squid. Thomas hasn't been near an ocean in sixty years, so he may be wildly wrong. "Will this work for your dog?"

"Yeah, yeah..."
A harsh lesson, but a nerdboy like him needed to learn it sooner or later and better from her than someone considerably more hostile

She reaches for the object in his hands and opens the bag, it looks like what she's looking for, tentacles and all, but only one way find out, as Romero makes his way over to her, tail wagging in excitment

"This what you were after?"

She tosses a few pieces to the ground and the zombie dog savagely pounces on it, snarling as he tears the squid pieces apart with reckless abandon, soon all but disspearing as it seems to eaten its full and happily makes his way out of the kitchen.

"...I think he liked it"

"Sadly, now he knows where it's kept in the kitchen, so I expect those of us on kitchen duty will be seeing him again."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Test Drive 034

Touching the Void

Friends and Friendly Beasts

Heart of the Valley

Team One

Team Two

Team Three

Sandrilene fa Toren | Circle of Magic/Will of the Empress

Re: Sandrilene fa Toren | Circle of Magic/Will of the Empress

Yamabiko | Sonny Boy

Ebisuzawa Kurumi | School-Live!

Team Two

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Touching The Void...also I'm so sorry

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Thomas Price | InCryptid

Friends and Friendly Beasts

Re: Friends and Friendly Beasts

Re: Friends and Friendly Beasts

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Friends and Friendly Beasts

Re: Friends and Friendly Beasts

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