Very nice writeup, I love it.
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Duskwater Village, Crugandr.
Local time: 2 Sun
Weather: Still hot as hell.
By @Madrias and @TheYugo45GV
Safe Arrival
The unmistakable sound of an engine and tires on gravel, signaled the arrival of Oil Crisis and the Magistrate. Soon the olive drab wagon appeared turned into the campsite, rolling to a stop next to the Bricksley. Only Aedan and Malcolm got out, which meant that something was up. Jayde could feel that the team’s mood was off, the aura dark and cold.
The damaged bumper and the roaring radiator fan revealed that they had hit something, and the clump of fur clinging to the dented metal revealed more. A Dyre had met its doom to the Magistrate.
Jayde had looked over at the Magistrate as it pulled up sensing the two Dyres in the car. Kaylie had put her hand over her chest realizing what had happened. Malcolm sat in the grass and Aedan grabbed the two pups, who were asleep, leaned against the Magistrate and took a deep breath. Kivenaal returned from somewhere followed by, Rukari who walked around the front of the Bricksley and saw the two pups in Aedan’s hands.
“If you raise them,” Rukari said, “they are very intelligent.”
Aedan nodded. “That’s what I plan on doing, I just hope they aren’t a huge handful.”
Meanwhile, Jayde rummaged around in his messenger bag before he pulled out a mirror about the size of a smartphone. "Rukari’s right, Aedan. At that age, you raise them as part of society, while they’ll never completely lose their wild nature, they’ll always have some traits of Dyre heritage, they’ll be almost indistinguishable from other shape-shifters,”. Then he focused on the mirror which slowly faded into displaying an image of a gray-furred wolf.
“Hello, Jayde!” she said.
“Good Evening, Lyrra. I’d like you to meet a friend of mine, Aedan. He, through some unfortunate circumstances, has just become the adoptive father of two Dyre pups.”
Lyrra gave a slight whimper since she likely knew what Jayde meant by it. “He plan to raise pups?”
Before continuing Jayde leaned closer to Aedan. “She learned to speak when she was 20 years old,”
Then he nodded. “I think so.”
“He will be good father,” Lyrra said, just before a crash from behind her got her attention. She turned around, seeing the shattered remains of a glass inkwell on the floor, turned to the mirror and said, “One time,” then walked over and grabbed the guilty pup off of the desk by the scruff of his neck. “You no play with glass!” she said. “To room, now,” she added, setting the pup down.
As she walked back to the mirror, Lyrra smiled lightly. “Not easy some days. Had three, what is word? Years? Yes, years. Had three years with pups. Had learn that pups play with all things, try eat all things, sleep all places. Can see Ae- A- Can see he will be good father,” Lyrra said, though it showed she couldn’t quite figure out how to say Aedan’s name.
“Aedan, Lyrra,” Jayde said, completing the name for her.
“Aethan,”
Jayde smiled and looked at Aedan, then said, “She has a little trouble with names.”
Aedan simply chuckled. “I’m glad she thinks I will be a good father.”
“I not have trouble with names. You have names that have trouble with me,” Lyrra replied with a smirk. “First was Marlock, Cat Lynn, Murkus, Russell, and Raja, now is Aethan.”
“Heroes of the Four Corners War,” Jayde said to Aedan. “Murlocke, who is Rukari’s father. Caitlyn, also known to some as Mane-of-Snakes. Marcus, a big tiger shifter. Russell, a Wyld-form wolf shifter, and Raja of Bittrenn, a lion who started as a bit of a brat and became a hero.”
“I see, it’s been a pleasure to meet you, Lyrra.”
"You raise them,” Jayde said, motioning to the two pups, “to be part of society from this age, no one will be able to tell.”
“That’s great, they’ll be in good hands.”
K’mino had climbed out of the car completely catatonic, his eyes emitting a dark aura. Jayde knew what the look meant. “You do realize this wasn’t your fault, right?Even if you had slammed on the brakes, you may have hit her only just hard enough to break bones, and she still would have dragged herself into the forest to die. I’ve seen it happen. Wounded Dyre have a surprising amount of determination to escape.”
Kivenaal then spoke up. “War is hell,” he said. “And civilian casualties of war, no matter what, are always the worst part. Doesn’t matter whether they’re human, Valraadi, Dyre, the snake-folk of Vipara, it’s a tragedy all the same. They were running from the noise, some were bound to have run across the road while we were running from them.”
K’mino stayed silent, but his eyes lost their darkness, and he went to find a quiet place to meditate without saying anything else.
Orlan had rolled the Magistrate’s window down in an attempt to get some air and listened in on the conversation. The fight was being discussed again and he felt his heart sink, everyone nearly died because of him. He was still the idiot who nearly killed them all, and what was absolutely terrible was that he lost every last drop of his self trust. However, a certain white tigress was watching him as they listened in on the conversation. She recognized the look in Orlan’s eyes as the same look she’d seen reflected back at her in the reflection off of the Bricksley’s large rear door windows. The look of someone who had made a huge mistake, someone who shouldered the blame personally for what had happened.
With a sigh, Kaylie walked up to the window of the green car. “We both have our regrets, Orlan,” Kaylie said gently, catching Orlan’s attention. “I don’t know all that happened last night with you, but… I never meant to kill those two Dyre." She sighed. As this happened, Orlan noticed the moonlight glinting of something in her eye. “The first one–” She paused to try and compose herself, “I just meant to knock him out.” Another pause, “The second, I didn’t mean to tear his throat out.” Then just as Jayde walked around the corner, Kaylie wasn’t able to hold herself together any longer. Jayde pulled her into an embrace as she softly wept.
Orlan didn’t say a word instead choosing to climb out of the car and stretch his legs before leaning against the roof next to Kivenaal who leaned against the dented fender of the Magistrate. “I’ve seen this kind of thing, Orlan. Not trusting yourself because you started a fight. Flashbacks to the past. Thinking there are threats around every corner. You ever find a solution, you let me know. I’d love to have an answer,” he said, looking upward toward the stars.
“I’ll try my best. I used to be in law enforcement until I ended up shooting and killing someone who didn’t even pose a threat, he made a sudden movement and next thing I knew that man was being taken away into an ambulance that I don’t even remember calling.” A sigh escaped him and he too looked up at the stars.
Kivenaal nodded. “Being here is difficult for me. I saw the end of it all. This… This is where it started. Bright purple fog, something that… For my people, purple is the color of life. It’s why Rukari’s cloak has purple-dyed fur up around the shoulders. The fog swallowed up the whole world. All that was left were the trees. And the only reason I survived is because I look like someone I can never be,” he explained.
Orlan meanwhile gazed into the sky watching the stars, he breathed letting the sound of the river let him relax him. The peace was broken however when Kivenaal spoke up,
“I look like the Valraadi deity, Xelth, the Father of Us All. I’m only a few inches shorter in height, at least according to the mythology. I can’t go anywhere without people ‘recognizing’ me and treating me differently. When I was on Earth, I was treated differently, too, but it wasn’t being treated as someone to be worshiped, and so I was okay with that. Here, I can’t even buy food without sending people into a panic.”
Stopping his gaze, Orlan stopped leaning on the Magistrate and sat on the ground right where he was standing. “Sounds like people hate you just because you coincidentally look like someone you are not. I knew someone who was like that, but I forgot his name.”
“Honestly, I’d prefer the hatred,” Kivenaal said. “I don’t like getting treated better just because I look like someone I am not. And the people who panic are the ones who fall over themselves trying to find ways to please me, not realizing that I just want to be treated normally.”
Kivenaal got up to head toward the Bricksley for a bottle of moonshine, however, Malavera stopped him.
“We don’t need you being drunk right now,” Malavera said gently. “If something goes wrong, we need you to be able to fight.”
Kivenaal shoved past him and grabbed the purple glass bottle anyway. “I’m tired of fighting, Mal. I really am,” he replied, sitting down against the side of the Magistrate, making sure not to scratch the paint with his horns or hit the car with his quilled tail tuft. With a tell-tale amount of skill, Kivenaal pulled the cork free with his claws, something he’d clearly done countless times.
Orlan watched him sit down and make sure that he didn’t damage the already wounded Vanguard. The bottle was quite big, but in Kivenaal’s hand it seemed smaller.
“You want to share? I need something to help me forget what happened, plus I’d like a taste of something other than whiskey. You don’t have to if you don’t want to.”
Nodding, Kivenaal passed the bottle. “Be careful, it’s stronger than you think,” he warned. “Rukari’s the one who makes it, and I swear you could run an engine with it. Somehow, you can still get a hint of the lemons it was made from, but it’s very faint,”
“That stuff’s about 190 proof,” said Malavera, putting something away in the cabin of the Highwayman. “The scary thing is, I’ve seen Kiva there drink the whole bottle and still seem mostly sober.”
“He has Khakrin lineage,” Rukari chimed. “My father had a legendary capacity for alcohol, as did his father, and all the way back to where our blood-line started. Wouldn’t surprise me if that carried forward for him, too.”
“Rukari, I consider you as a brother, but I swear by the Dancing Sisters above, if you mention who started that blood-line, I will hurl the empty bottle at your head, and this time, I won’t miss,” Kivenaal replied, somewhat unamused.
Jayde looked over at them. “You won’t hit him, either,”
The only reply Kivenaal gave was a roll of his eyes.
Meanwhile, Orlan took a swig from the purple bottle. The alcohol hit like a freight train which set off a fit of coughing. While it was strong, it had a somewhat sour but relatively smooth taste, quite surprising for homemade alcohol.
“This is really good, I’ve never seen someone make an alcoholic drink from lemons.” he observed, passing the bottle back to Kivenaal. “Though, I feel that 190 proof is a bit too much for me.”
“I learned that recipe from my father’s journal,” Rukari beamed, “from his time learning magic in Tendragon Academy.”
“Helps to have a second bottle to mix it with water,” said Kivenaal “if it’s a bit strong.” He took a fairly large swig, seeming oblivious to how strong it really was. “I’ve been drinking this for a while now, so I’m used to it.”
Malavera added in, “The Valraadii have some interesting biological differences. They’re immune to cancer and have an incredible tolerance for alcohol to start with. On the other hand, that blue blood of theirs is highly destructive to steel and iron, and I’ve even seen it corrode the hell out of aluminum.”
“You win some, you lose some,” Kivenaal said, taking another swig.
Kaylie, meanwhile, had pulled herself together and had taken note of the situation, looking for the other purple bottles in the bed of their truck, handing it to Orlan. “I sometimes get some of Rukari’s mix before he distills it down. That’s like a sweet lemon beer, but there’s a lot of it.”
“Thank you. I never thought I’d end up trying something new.”
Aedan and Malcolm had used the time Orlan was conversing with Team Shift Happens to get the tent and the other camping supplies out of their car, setting up their sleeping arrangements. They’d mess with the radiator later once there was daylight and more well rested people to help. Orlan had wrapped up his conversation with the other team and had gone to his team.
“Are we going to sleep?”
Aedan nodded, yawning.
“Yes, we only got about three hours until you decided to start shooting.”
“Sorry about that.”
Soon, the five team members had got into their beds wanting to catch up on the much needed rest that they missed out on.
To Be Continued (Like Always)
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20/7/3251 /// 4:70 Moon LJT
It was a night hotter than any other, one that made even an Australian like Mel writhe in agony. No amount of midnight outback heat could compare to the furnace-like conditions she was trying - and failing miserably - to fall asleep in. The wind was slow and the air was hot; cracking both windows, the sunroof, and even the tailgate open did little aside from providing ventilation. The quick bath she took in the river earlier had gone to waste now that she was trying to sleep in a pool of her own sweat, making her clothes stick to her back. To make matters worse, a certain war criminal was sleeping with her, and the body heat of two girls trapped inside a greenhouse combined with a sweltering Crugandr midnight made them feel like they were getting cooked alive. And indeed, Mel’s trauma was not an isolated experience, but rather a trauma shared with Tanuki.
“Meru-chan… Mel! I can’t sleep!” Amidst endless tossing and turning that rocked the entire car, Tanuki finally voiced her complaints out loud. Mel clasped her hands over her ears and buried her face in a pillow, but nothing she did was welcoming enough to the unavoidable embrace of the slumber she so desired. Not when Tanuki was being as restless as she was.
“God! What is it now?” Mel kept her voice quiet but sharp, glaring at Tanuki in annoyance. She still wore her black face mask even when in bed, or perhaps it was only because she was sleeping with Mel. Strands of black hair fell sideways across her face, partially obscuring her eyes that were already barely visible in the foggy void of the night. At least she doesn’t sleep with her shades on too, Mel smirked.
“It’s too hot! I feel like I’m getting cooked alive!” Tanuki whined. The two of them had inadvertently tucked themselves away from each other as far as the confines of the Dauer’s interior would allow them in order to escape the body heat of the other. “Hey! Turn the AC on!”
“What? No! We have to conserve our petrol! Doesn’t exactly grow on trees here!” Mel shot back. “Just get out of your sleeping bag!”
“I already did, but it’s still too hot!” Silence, and then Mel heard the sound of damp clothes being frantically peeled off. “Fine! If you won’t turn the AC on, then I’m stripping! You better not look… or else!” Tanuki hissed, sitting up as far as she could in the Dauer’s cramped interior and sliding her black gym shorts down her legs. She tossed her soaked pajamas to the passenger seat, landing with wet rustles. Mel unknowingly caught a glimpse of the forbidden sight as Tanuki fell back down on her makeshift mat. Her back was turned towards Mel, exposing her surprisingly toned lats and trapezius that were somewhat concealed under a binding sarashi cloth wrapped tightly around her breasts. Now that she had stripped down, the hands of fate would occasionally reward Tanuki with a gust of wind that blew through the cracked open windows, cooling her down and quenching her restlessness.
How silent the night was after that damned war criminal stopped fidgeting about! Save for the incessant din of various insects and pests chattering and chirping in the forest canopy around them, the campsite was swathed in a midnight serenity. Silent, stationary, and most importantly, asleep. Despite her cruel, teasing, at times bombastic demeanor, Tanuki’s snores could barely even be called that, being so soft and gentle that you couldn’t have heard it unless you were right up against her. Mel took this occasion to simply take in the rare moment of tranquility she had been granted. A blackened night sky unmolested by urban light pollution with no hint of distant traffic or commotion, just the sounds of nature. Just like the old days, where weekend-long camping trips in the outback were just among the many monthly festivities.
Unfortunately for Mel, who was just about to drift into the first stage of sleep, the virgin silence of the night would not remain untouched for much longer. A set of rapid gallops emerged from the canopy of silence, growing louder and closer. The Dauer was violently jostled as something struck a loud glancing blow on the right rear fender. Whatever it was, it clearly wasn’t there to stay, and the hasty, thundering footsteps disappeared as quickly as they had appeared.
“What the hell was that?!”
The duo sat up in unison. Their eyes met each other’s, then the cloudy windows around them. Through the thick fog that rolled through the campsite, they could see rapid flashes accompanied by the dangerously close, ear-piercing chatter of automatic gunfire. Dark silhouettes darted in and out of the fog around them like a swarm of locusts, their heavy footsteps sending ripples through the ground. In a matter of seconds, the two of them hastily threw on whatever clean clothes were immediately within reach and began buckling up in their respective seats.
Mel stabbed the key into the ignition and twisted it, the starter chirping loudly as it spun all six cylinders of the engine. First came the spray of the air-fuel mixture, then the spark, and the rapid gunfire of the exhaust rang loudly through the entire campsite. She turned all eight lights on, only to be blinded right back as the fog reflected most of it into her eyes. Turning off the rally lights and keeping the headlights in low beam mode, Mel and Tanuki could now clearly ascertain the quickly evolving - or devolving - situation around them. Wolves, but not just any ordinary group of specimens of the canine family. Perhaps wolves on steroids was a more fitting name; these creatures were two to three times as big as the dingoes she was used to seeing back at home, and probably over twenty times as massive. Their jaws were big enough to fit an entire head inside and their powerful legs were bulging with muscle under their fur, and the pack swarmed the campsite in increasing numbers, barking and howling loudly.
“Strewth! What the bloody fuck are those?!" Mel cried. Tanuki reached behind her seat for her shotgun; 5.56mm wouldn’t suffice, not even 7.62 NATO. Suddenly, an explosion sent a pressurized wave of air smacking into the Dauer’s side, even setting off the alarms of the other teams’ cars. Chaos to the maximum possible order was in session, and Mel could barely even hear her own thoughts over the sound of automatic gunfire, screaming, bone-chilling roaring and howling.
Off to her left, Mel saw a pair of glowing green eyes staring right back at her. The outline of its canine head emerged from the cloudy obscura, and it silently stepped into a visible range. Maintaining eye contact with this colossal beast, hands glued to the steering wheel with a vice grip, Mel looked right at the face of death and remained as still as possible, frozen in fear.
Tanuki elbowed Mel in the shoulder as she brought the shotgun to her shoulder, aiming at the unwanted, hungry visitor. “MEL! DUCK!” She screamed, pushing Mel out of the way to clear the tip of the barrel.
Mel grabbed the steering wheel and planted her face into it, and the Dauer honked loudly in response. The beast bared its fangs with a growl, dug its paws into the ground and launched itself right for the door that it could easily rip into shreds as if it was paper. But Tanuki’s aim was deadly, and immediately after the booming signature of the Mossberg 500, a 12 gauge slug ripped through the massive Dyre’s open mouth and past a terrifying gallery of long, sharp teeth. Not even letting out as much as a whimper, its huge muscle-bound, fur-lined body crashed into the ground with an abrupt thud that they could feel even inside the car. It came to a rest after twitching once, exposing the fist-sized exit wound on the back of its head that carried blood, bone fragments and brain matter through it. “MEL!” Tanuki practically yelled in her ear, racking the pump back with authority and ejecting the spent shell. “Drive now, or you’ll end up like that bastard and I’ll take the wheel myself!”
No other commands were necessary. Mel threw the gear lever into first and released the clutch at half throttle, then spun the wheel to the right as she fully depressed the gas pedal. The Dauer’s trajectory evolved into a tight spin, its rear tires throwing up a mini localized cyclone of dust and dirt that disoriented and confused the Dyre immediately around them. Their dark shadows and glowing eyes disappeared in the swirling makeshift smokescreen through which not even all four of their aftermarket rally lights could pierce. Mel’s quick thinking bought them enough time to quickly leave the campsite without attracting any more of the Dyre, and the 632 S went barrelling down that same gravel road by the river, singing the vibrant anthem of its boxer-6.
The car rattled and shook vigorously as it rocketed down the road of gravel and dirt with reckless abandon, carving through pitch black and the dense gray fog that shrouded them in blindness. Their visibility was limited to everything that lied no further than 20 or so meters, and combined with their rapid pace, every bend, turn, dip, hump, bank, off-camber, and obstacle in the road would materialize out of thin air and force itself under the car. Given these sudden changes in road conditions, Mel had very little room for error and even less time to react and adjust her steering angle or throttle/brake application. But given the speed of these Dyre and their ability to sustain a pace that nearly matched some speed limits in Adelaide, they didn’t have much of a choice. Their heart-rending howls that echoed for miles in the woods only seemed to grow in intensity, occasionally being overcome by the soaring throaty rumble of the Dauer’s own howling motor.
Louder grew the sounds of rocks being thrown up by tires and hitting the wheel wells, and harsher became the shaking and the swaying car as the road it sped over became rougher and bumpier, marked with deep scars running along the length of the road and random dips that could cause the Dauer to bottom out if Mel didn’t choose a good line. She eased on the brakes, but as a pair of red lights situated in a familiar boxy orange profile suddenly cut through the fog, she pushed the pedal all the way into the footwell and the entire car lurched forwards, rapidly decelerating. “HEY!” Tanuki yelled, her body most certainly having harness-shaped welts after that harsh maneuver. “It’s those bastards! What the hell are they doing?!”
“Do you see where we’re driving? Trail’s absolutely fucked! That, and thanks to this fog we’re as blind as bats!” Mel shouted back, getting thrown left and right in her seat as she followed the Dione closely, almost tailgating it. “And next time,” she glared angrily at Tanuki, “give me a good warning before you fire a fucking shotgun right next to my ear! My eardrums are still ringing, bloody hell!”
“A thank you would be nice, you know!” Tanuki hissed, jabbing a pointer finger into Mel’s sternum. “You’d be their next meal if it wasn’t for my quick thinking and perfect aim! Next time, show some respect to the cute girl that saves your life!”
Their bickering was rudely interrupted by a series of loud barking and snarling in very close proximity around them, and from the corners of their vision they could see dark gray shapes dart in and out of the thick fog around the impromptu convoy of vehicles spearheaded by the orange Anhultz. One of them lunged from the canopy of blindness in the Dauer’s direction, and Mel swerved the vehicle to the right, narrowly missing a strike that would have been powerful enough to cripple a door or tear a wheel clean off. She fought the slipping rear of the 632 S and quickly brought it back on course, muttering obscure bogan obscenities she wouldn’t say twice around her parents lest she receive a swift ass-whopping.
“They’re back! The doggos are back!” Tanuki loaded another shell into her shotgun and flicked the safety off. “Meru-chan, focus on driving, but try to keep the car steady, okay?” she winked and rolled the window down. A hot breeze of wind sifted through the cabin and Mel’s platinum blonde hair, dancing in the warm wind like blades of grass serenading the sunset over green Pacific cliffs. Unbuckling her racing harness, she leaned out the open window, wrapping her legs around the seat and harness to keep her anchored in place.
Mel made sure to keep the Dione within her direct line of sight, a task made easier by its vibrant paint that contrasted well against their dark, drab, low-vis surroundings. The suspension and chassis responded immediately and precisely to the frequent, sudden derivations in the road surface, perhaps a little too well; as the car was set up primarily for high-speed tarmac courses, the springs and dampers were tuned much stiffer than what would be typically found in other rally cars. Every little bump and rock in the road was amplified and transmitted directly to Mel’s weary body, which only made her fight against her inescapable tiredness harder as time went on.
“They’re coming!” Tanuki’s yelling was barely audible over the noise of the wind that poured inside and the boxer-6 flying through the higher end of the rev range, but Mel steeled her fortitude and smoothed her inputs, making gradual and gentle motions as opposed to quick and sudden maneuvers with her hands. She heard the roar first, and from the corner of her eyes saw a shadowy extrusion turn into an eleven foot-long Dyre, its mouth wide open and ready to devour the twin-tailed warmonger. “ORRRA!” Tanuki shouted, gratuitously rolling her r’s. With a pull of the trigger, the barrel shotgun erupted with a flash of white and yellow light and a thunderous clap that echoed loudly through the forest. A subsonic slug wedged itself in the Dyre’s midsection with enough stopping force to throw its lifeless body slightly off trajectory, missing the Dauer narrowly as it flew past.
A second Dyre came into view, this time on Mel’s side of the car. Tanuki swung the Mossberg around with her upper body and propped it on the roof, using her left hand to hold onto the ceiling grab handle. As she steadied her aim on the gargantuan wolf that readied itself for a pouncing attack, the Dione in front of them suddenly swerved around a random sharp protruding rock placed conveniently in the middle of the road. Just as Tanuki lined up her shot and pulled the trigger, Mel mirrored the Dione’s actions and swung the Dauer violently around the sudden obstacle. Although the slug found its target, the punchy recoil from the shotgun combined with the sudden movement made her lose her balance, and she fell over backwards, pulled by the unforgiving hands of inertia.
As Mel straightened the car, heard a high-pitched scream to her right, and from her peripheral vision saw Tanuki falling down. Moments before her legs loosened and her head dipped below the window sill, Mel reached over and grabbed Tanuki by her shirt with as much grip strength as she could afford. In a single powerful motion, she yanked her small-framed co-driver through the open window and back into her seat. Amazingly, she was still clutching her shotgun and stopped screaming once she realized she was safe.
“Crikey!” Mel cursed, loosening her grip on Tanuki’s shirt. “You okay?”
“I’m fine!” Even in the face of death, she was as stubborn as ever. Completely unfazed. “Do you job and I’ll do mine!” Making sure to wrap the harness around her legs and waist, Tanuki leaned outside the window with her shotgun, once again ready to protect them and the other vehicles from sudden Dyre attacks.
Tanuki’s powerful legs (and now the harness) helped her remain anchored in place, even with the occasional sudden braking, accelerating, turning, and hopping that naturally came from the Dauer traversing the rough terrain. She was the shotgun messenger, the German coupe was her stagecoach, and Mel its driver. She kept her head on a swivel, watching for any unusual manifestations from the thick fog that got a little too close for comfort. They would strike without warning, but Tanuki’s razor sharp reaction time would grant them a swift death via a 12 gauge slug through center mass or one of their eye sockets, whichever came first.
Minutes passed into hours of loud, droning engines that ripped through the trail at wide open throttle, frequently broken up by the resounding bang of a Mossberg 500 that they were growing used to. With each Dyre that fell, their attacks grew less coordinated and less frequent. By the time she was halfway through a second tube magazine, the Dyre had stopped attacking for a few minutes, and the handful of cars closely giving chase to the Dione in a single-file line were finally at peace.
After just over five hours of rough trail taken at considerable speed, half of which was also dedicated to warding off unsolicited Dyre attacks with a certain pump-action shoulder-fired cannon, the brightly-colored Dauer came upon the new campsite, having managed to keep pace with the familiar Dione through most of the course. This time, a generous clearing was situated between the campsite and woods, giving them not only a peace of mind but also a much shorter distance to the nearby settlement, Duskriver Village. Most of the other teams had arrived well before they did much to Tanuki’s chagrin, but Mel couldn’t have given more than a sliver of rodent’s ass. With barely a few hours of sleep that preceded five long, grueling hours of driving through heavy fog that was now only starting to lighten, her entire body ached and her eyelids were begging to meet each other and consummate for a full night’s rest.
After peeling her clothes off, not even sparing an extra minute to slip pajamas over her undergarments, Mel mounted the sunshade on the inside of the windshield and crawled over the rear passenger bulkhead into the boot area. Shortly after, Tanuki wedged herself into her half of the hatch, crawling under a thin blanket that the two of them shared.
“Meru-chan?” Tanuki’s whisper was soft and relaxed, a true sound for Mel’s sore, ringing ears. Her voice was close; she could tell from the tickles of her breath against the back of her neck.
“What is it?” Mel grumbled, but her weariness reduced whatever hint of annoyance was in her voice into barely intelligible mumbles. Inches away from comatose, she was slipping further and further into unconsciousness, barely held up by the loose thread of Tanuki’s silent beckoning.
“What if… what if you just let me fall back there?” Unlike before, where Tanuki’s enthusiasm and energy carried enough momentum to persist through breaks or pauses in her words, now there was only an eerie dread that Mel felt in her voice. She continued to interrogate her partner. “Meru-chan, why did you do it? What if you didn’t see me or hear me… what if I died back there?”
“Oh, bite your arse, will you!” Mel snapped, raising her voice above a hushed whisper as she tilted her head in Tanuki’s direction. “You’re here now, and that’s all that matters! Stop getting your tits in a tangle and be quiet!” With that, Mel rolled over to her side away from Tanuki and closed her eyes, praying for the sweet embrace of sleep that she so desired.
And an embrace she did receive, but much to her surprise, the giver was not what - or who, rather - she was expecting. It was only for a moment, such a short lapse of time that she doubted if it actually happened at all, but she was almost certain that she could feel a slender pair of arms wrap tightly around her waist and Tanuki pull herself into Mel’s scantily-clothed back. Her soft, labored breaths against her bare skin were like a heavensent breeze of cool, moist wind from an oasis embedded deep into the Sahara.
“Thank you.”
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Shitbox Rally
Stage 4: Duskriver Village to Itzgarde
Stage Start: 1 Sun, 22/7/3251, Duskriver Campsite
Weather at Stage Start: Hot, cloudy, and windy. High humidity, even compared to before. Those skilled in understanding the weather will know this means incoming rain.
Weather at mid-stage: Cooler than before, but still hot. Clouds have begun to darken, wind has calmed. Humidity is still quite high.
Weather at Stage End (First Car): Warm, with heavy cloud cover. Wind has picked up a little as the first drops of rain begin to fall.
Weather at Stage End (Last Car): Warm and breezy, with light rain.
Stage End (First Car): A little before 3-and-40 Sun, 22/7/3251, Itzgarde Campsite
Stage End (Last Car): A little after 8 Sun, 22/7/3251, Itzgarde Campsite
People are understandably a little restless when the fourth stage starts. Spending a little over 20 Aetheriian hours, almost 36 Earth hours, sitting around getting a well needed break and some much needed time to fix their cars has left a lot of teams wanting to go, and go quickly. Similar to the road on the way into Duskriver Village, the road on the way out is a lot of dirt with rocks in it, slowly transitioning to gravel as you approach Itzgarde. To your left is still the Duskwater River, and to your right is still a fairly dense forest. Thankfully, the only Dyre anyone sees on the road is one lone wolf who stands up to watch the cars drive by, clearly curious and not a threat. At the Itzgarde camp, it’s clear that Itzgarde is less a small town and more of a small city, with a stone bridge wide enough for traffic in both directions leading up to the walled city. As for the campsite itself, we’re making use of an old logging camp near the forest, which even has a few leftover wooden buildings for teams wanting to avoid sleeping in tents tonight.
Notes: Randomization is active. Breakdowns are active. Time is in Earth Time.
Team Shift Happens
Distance Traveled: 355.2
Time (HH:MM:SS): 07:45:03
Average MPH: 45.8
Randomizer: 9
Refueling Stops: 1
Breakdown: 3 (Tires)
Total Distance Traveled: 1243.2
New driver, same problems. With Jayde taking a cautionary first try behind the wheel with Malavera’s calm guidance, he did well, right up until a jagged rock ripped the sidewall wide open on the Bricksley’s rear left tire. Kaylie changed the tire for the one in the bed, saving their magic for later. After that, it was relatively smooth sailing… If one could ignore the very, very crunchy gear changes and being all over the road, from shoulder to shoulder and everything in between.
Team Wayfarers
Distance Traveled: 355.2
Time (HH:MM:SS): 05:05:24
Average MPH: 69.7
Randomizer: 13
Refueling Stops: 1
Breakdown: 0
Total Distance Traveled: 1243.2
With the misfire fixed, Chernobog seems like a new truck! With his foot to the floor and askin’ for more, Jack Willow-Wright powers through Stage 4 like greased lightning. They get to the campsite as the first raindrops fall, making bright, clean spots in the well faded and absolutely filthy paint.
Team Gearknobs
Distance Traveled: 355.2
Time (HH:MM:SS): 06:04:23
Average MPH: 58.4
Randomizer: 12
Refueling Stops: 0
Breakdown: 0
Total Distance Traveled: 1243.2
With the engine running quite well and their brakes fixed, the Carica manages a solid stage this time. While the dirt may have slowed the car thanks to the ground clearance and all of the rocks, once they hit the gravel, Team Gearknobs showed that even with the low-quality-fuel-tuned engine, the Carica had some rally heritage peeking through.
Team Fallen Angels of the Past
Distance Traveled: 355.2
Time (HH:MM:SS): 07:33:57
Average MPH: 46.9
Randomizer: 11
Refueling Stops: 0
Breakdown: 0
Total Distance Traveled: 1243.2
Rear wheel drive and dirt are not the best of friends. Even still, the Claussient is pushed rather quickly through this stage, considering how far out of the wagon’s comfort zone this is.
Team Slow
Distance Traveled: 355.2
Time (HH:MM:SS): 11:03:36
Average MPH: 32.1
Randomizer: 7
Refueling Stops: 1
Breakdown: 1 (Powertrain)
Total Distance Traveled: 1243.2
Things were fine for the first 30 miles. Then the Service Engine Soon light came on, started flashing, and the engine refused to let you accelerate beyond 35 MPH once the Gauge Light Party started. Team Slow slowly crawls along the road in Limp Mode until they get to the camp and find out that, after their brilliant showing in the first three stages, several fuses and relays have wiggled loose in the fusebox and created some wonderful chaos.
Team Oil Crisis
Distance Traveled: 355.2
Time (HH:MM:SS): 05:39:43
Average MPH: 62.7
Randomizer: 12
Refueling Stops: 2
Breakdown: 0
Total Distance Traveled: 1243.2
Making up time after their accident in the last stage, the Union Magistrate sails through the rough dirt and gravel. The two newest passengers are mesmerized by the tree-line turning into a blur around them, and occasionally growl in tune with the snarling Narrowblock V8.
Team Hillbilly Rollers
Distance Traveled: 355.2
Time (HH:MM:SS): 08:06:19
Average MPH: 43.8
Randomizer: 8
Refueling Stops: 1
Breakdown: 3 (Tires)
Total Distance Traveled: 1243.2
Like the sound of a machine gun, it’s blam, blam, blam as the front two tires and the passenger left tire pop in relatively rapid succession. The front two are chalked up to damage caused by Marie driving through a Dyre the day before. The rear one was a rock that was hit. Thankfully, the team has enough spare tires and a tire patch kit to get back on the move.
Team Witchlight
Distance Traveled: 355.2
Time (HH:MM:SS): 07:07:20
Average MPH: 49.8
Randomizer: 12
Refueling Stops: 1
Breakdown: 0
Total Distance Traveled: 1243.2
Like the Claussient, the RWD nature of the EAAC Aphrodite makes it a little squirmy in the dirt. Elist spends most of their time with the back end of the car out sideways, driving like they were in an old 1970’s TV show car chase. Finne and Kira just wish that Elist would drive the car straight like the other teams, not understanding the difficulty of driving. Still, Elist manages a decent pass on the little Claussient wagon.
Team Mravolinski-Chitco
Distance Traveled: 355.2
Time (HH:MM:SS): 08:14:59
Average MPH: 43.0
Randomizer: 9
Refueling Stops: 0
Breakdown: 4 (Team Caused Slowdown)
Total Distance Traveled: 1243.2
It must be a reflex at this point that if things clatter and rattle, it’s time to stop and check the cargo, because the Kontir pulls off to the side and stops, only for the team to realize that no, in fact, their cargo stayed put this time. Thankfully, it’s only a small slowdown.
Team Blazers
Distance Traveled: 355.2
Time (HH:MM:SS): 06:45:54
Average MPH: 52.5
Randomizer: 9
Refueling Stops: 1
Breakdown: 2 (Chassis)
Total Distance Traveled: 1243.2
After the disaster the other day with running over a Dyre’s hand, the team is extra cautious on the road today. When a mysterious new clunking noise from the rear shows up, the Yamada ASR-4 is stopped and the problem is fixed on the spot: A loose bolt was letting one of the rear shock absorbers make noise.
Team Machinas Con Passiones
Distance Traveled: 355.2
Time (HH:MM:SS): 07:46:45
Average MPH: 45.6
Randomizer: 10
Refueling Stops: 4
Breakdown: 0
Total Distance Traveled: 1243.2
The good news: Everyone has gotten used to stopping a lot for refueling stops, which means unlike some other teams, no one here has sore legs from sitting in their seat too long. The bad news: A minivan with the fuel efficiency of a jet engine means a lot of refueling stops.
Team Quick Rally 47
Distance Traveled: 355.2
Time (HH:MM:SS): 05:25:11
Average MPH: 65.5
Randomizer: 10
Refueling Stops: 1
Breakdown: 0
Total Distance Traveled: 1243.2
It’s clear that the rough roads of Archana must be very, very similar to the dirt-and-gravel mix the Mara Kanyon was thrown through here. Despite not driving flat out, the Quantum Xenoanthropology Department manages to pull a good second place, and gets to observe the teams as they pull into the new campsite.
Team Mrezhari
Distance Traveled: 355.2
Time (HH:MM:SS): 06:32:21
Average MPH: 54.3
Randomizer: 11
Refueling Stops: 0
Breakdown: 0
Total Distance Traveled: 1243.2
The Dunav dances across the dirt at devilish speed, spitting streaks of soil into the air as the maniacal madman behind the wheel Scandinavian-flicks their 4x4 machine around. It’s clear that someone was having fun in the dirt, as when they got to the gravel, they got serious and pushed the Dunav hard.
Team Jockey
Distance Traveled: 355.2
Time (HH:MM:SS): 10:51:06
Average MPH: 32.7
Randomizer: 7
Refueling Stops: 2
Breakdown: 3 (Tires)
Total Distance Traveled: 1243.2
Tiny car, 4 people, not a lot of room for spare tires. Getting four flat tires at once meant a long, long drive on what was left of the tires and hoping not to trash the rims too much. Once they were back at the camp, Jayde was able to fix their rims and tires for them, but it was clear to Team Jockey that they were going to need to get some spares and put them on the roof, even if those spares were made of wood with a metal band around the outside.
Team RK Series Racing
Distance Traveled: 355.2
Time (HH:MM:SS): 11:53:01
Average MPH: 29.89
Randomizer: 7
Refueling Stops: 1
Breakdown: 1 (Powertrain)
Total Distance Traveled: 1243.2
Disaster! Connor pushed the Dione hard in the last stage, and hard again for a good portion of this stage. The bouncing and jostling was too much, however, for the distributor to take, the clips on the cap have cracked, and the rotor was spat out and driven over. Luckily, Team Shift Happens was alerted to the stopped car, made an incredibly-hasty return trip, and with a quick application of a tow-rope, dragged the crippled Dione into the camp, over the two-lane bridge, and into town.
Team Black Rabbit
Distance Traveled: 355.2
Time (HH:MM:SS): 07:40:49
Average MPH: 46.2
Randomizer: 12
Refueling Stops: 1
Breakdown: 0
Total Distance Traveled: 1243.2
The Dauer’s six-cylinder symphony rings out through the car as Melanie pushes the vehicle hard. RWD on dirt isn’t their best friend for speed, but a lot of fun can be had by sliding the car around even once they get onto the gravel.
Team Spy Kids
Distance Traveled: 355.2
Time (HH:MM:SS): 05:25:44
Average MPH: 65.4
Randomizer: 11
Refueling Stops: 1
Breakdown: 0
Total Distance Traveled: 1243.2
Barreling through the backwoods in a great big cloud of dirt is a ton of fun. Arriving third in the camp is a nice surprise.
Stage Finishing Order:
Team Wayfarers
Team Quick Rally 47 (the Quantum Xenoanthropology Department)
Team Spy Kids
Team Oil Crisis
Team Gearknobs
Team Mrezhari
Team Blazers
Team Witchlight
Team Fallen Angels of the Past
Team Black Rabbit Corporation
Team Shift Happens
Team Machinas Con Passiones
Team Hillbilly Rollers
Team Mravolinski-Chitco
Team Jockey
Team Slow
Team RK Series Racing
Team Shift Happens
Previous Chapters:
Over the Hill and Through the Woods - Stage 1
May the Moons have Mercy on Them - Stage 1 Campsite
Helpful Friends are Helpful - Stage 1 Campsite
Tune-ups and Tech Talks - Stage 1 Campsite
Having Mercy on a Missing Teammate - Stage 1 Campsite / The Missing Teammate - Written by TheYugo45GV and Madrias
Sleep? What is that? - Stage 1 Campsite
A Rude Awakening - Stage 1 Campsite
Another One Bites The Dust - Stage 2 Run / Stage 2 Campsite
Repairs / A Good Meal - Stage 2 Campsite / The Green Crystal (Written by TheYugo45GV and Madrias)
A Good Night’s Sleep? - Stage 2 Campsite
“Here Comes the Hound of Death” - Stage 2 Campsite Battle - Written by Elizipeazie, TheYugo45GV, and Madrias.
Fright Night Forest Stage - Stage 3 Run / Stage 3 Camp
The Free Day - Stage 3 Camp (written in collaboration with @Elizipeazie) (Part 1), (Part 2), (Part 3)
Safe Arrival - Stage 3 Camp (Written in collaboration with @TheYugo45GV)
Duskriver Village Campsite, 1 Sun
Jayde heard the bell strike out once after they had packed away their camping equipment and decided that, if he was going to keep being a part of this team, he needed to try wrangling this strange beast. So far, only Kivenaal, Malavera, and Rukari seemed to drive it, though Kayden said he knew how, just not on a manual gearbox, and Kaylie admitted she could drive, but not with the 5 speed. He ran to the truck and threw himself into the driver’s seat, surprising everyone.
“You know how to drive, Jayde?” Malavera asked, laughing as Kayden got into the mid-bench and he took the navigator’s seat, leaving Kaylie in the back with Kivenaal and Rukari for company.
“No, but I need to learn,” Jayde admitted.
“Fair enough. We’re on dirt and gravel, you won’t kill the clutch,” Malavera said. “Start by putting your right foot down on that brake pedal, the middle one, and push the left pedal all the way down with your left foot.” He waited until Jayde had done both actions, then said, “Grab the taller stick and make sure it’s in the middle, then turn the key.”
Jayde wiggled the gear lever, then cranked over the Bricksley’s proud 427ci V8 engine, which gave a healthy roar as it awakened at 1500 RPM and settled around 750.
“Gear lever toward you and forward. That’s first. Toward you and back is second. Middle forward is third, middle back is fourth, away and forward is fifth. Don’t go away and back, that’s reverse, and you’ll drive over the Dione if you do that,” Malavera explained. As Jayde stuffed the truck into first gear, Malavera tried to give him the advice, “Ease off on the brake, we’re on level ground, press the long, skinny pedal a little bit, and gently ease off of the clutch.”
Jayde had no clue how little pressure was needed, and with the Bricksley’s transfer case in neutral, revved the crap out of the engine and went nowhere. Behind them, the Dione rasped into life. Kayden reached down and yanked the transfer case into 2-High just as Jayde floored the throttle, and the Bricksley suddenly lunged forward and kicked up a shower of dirt.
Kaylie leaned out of the window and yelled to the crew in the Dione, “Sorry, guys. Trying to teach Jayde how to drive, and, well, he’s never driven stick before.”
With all of the windows down, Jayde said in a loud voice, trying to be heard over the engine, “I’ve never driven before, stick or otherwise! Merciful Dancing Sisters above, I’d rather ride my bicycle than do this!”
“Too late, Jayde, you’re behind the wheel until the first fuel stop,” Malavera said. Jayde scowled at him in a silent response.
The Bricksley bombed along with the engine howling in first gear until Malavera told Jayde, “Gas up, clutch in, second gear, clutch out, gas down.”
Jayde got it mostly right, stomping on the clutch and letting the mighty 427 scream to valve float, making Kaylie glad that the old pushrod block was not an interference engine, stuffed the gear stick into second, and dumped the clutch, kicking off another dirt shower and almost spinning out the truck. Luckily, he seemed to have a hang for counter-steering, as he kept the front wheels pointing where he wanted to go, with the rear wheels kicking up dirt and the V8 screaming. His attempt at third gear sent shivers up Kaylie’s spine as there was an ear-splitting crunching, grinding noise from the transmission, followed by a hard jolt as the gear engaged and the truck rumbled forward.
“Just leave it there, Jayde. Kayden, put him in four-wheel-drive before he spins out,” Malavera said.
Kayden stuffed the transfer case into 4-High and Jayde immediately felt the truck straighten out.
All went well until Jayde simultaneously drove over a rock and ran the engine out of fuel, having to coast with the clutch down to the side of the road. He stepped on the brake pedal hard enough to jostle everyone in their seat and cause all the stuff in the bed to clatter, at which point Malavera told him, “The tiny pedal on the far left, step on that and push it a good bit down. Then you can take your feet off of the pedals. Oh, and turn the ignition off before you fry the coil.”
The parking brake creaked ominously as Jayde tried to put the pedal through the firewall unintentionally, then stayed there as Jayde cautiously removed his foot from both pedals, before he turned off the key.
Kaylie hopped out, grabbed the tire iron from the toolbox and the jack out of the bed, spun the lug nuts off of the burst rear tire, jacked up the back of the truck, pulled the burst tire off of the hub and threw it into the bed, dragged their spare out of the bed, put it onto the truck, cranked the lug nuts on finger tight with her right hand, lowered the truck off of the jack, then torqued the lug nuts down with her left hand, applying the proper amount of torque. She tossed the tire iron and jack back into the truck bed, shoved their dirt-covered flat into the spot where the old tire went, then climbed back into the truck, laughing as she realized how much seat swapping had happened while she was dealing with the tire. Kayden was getting his try at driving stick for the first time, Jayde was in the middle of the rear bench as usual, Kivenaal was sitting next to Jayde, Rukari had the front mid-bench, and Malavera, again, took the navigator’s seat.
Being at least familiar with most of the controls, Kayden got the truck started, fumbled his way into what he thought was first gear, then with feet on the clutch and the brake, pulled the parking brake release handle and ended up with a faceful of dirt courtesy of the rapidly rising parking brake pedal.
“I hate this truck,” Kayden grumbled, looking over at Kaylie with his dirt-speckled face.
Kaylie laughed. “Didn’t the Sinistra do that to you once, too?”
“I don’t understand why the humans insist on a spring-loaded pedal as a parking brake,” Kayden grumbled, before bringing the revs up and letting the clutch out. The truck nearly stalled until Kayden floored the gas.
“Not bad for taking off in third gear, rookie,” Malavera said.
Itzgarde Campsite, a little before 5-and-20 Sun
Kayden gave a sigh of relief as the Bricksley rumbled into the rainy campsite. He turned the engine off as the rest of the team bailed out to set up their camp. Unfortunately, just after they got all of their tents set up, Rukari said, “There is a problem. We need to go back and pick up Team RK Series Racing. They have been stopped for more than two hours.”
Rukari hopped into the driver’s seat, with the rest of the team piling in, almost at random, though with some amount of order, with Kaylie holding the radio operator’s seat. She reached up, slapped Radio D’s Boost switch, watching as the red light came on bright and steady, cranked the knob over to Radio D, then keyed the microphone. “To the Dione, don’t worry, we’re coming back for you!” Kaylie said, just as Rukari cranked the key, brought the engine screaming up to the redline, popped the transfer case in 2-high and the gearbox in first, dumped the clutch, and spun the truck around with brilliant twin-rooster-tails of dirt flying. He jammed it into 4-High and rowed through the gears, engine screaming for mercy as they barreled along, on a mission to help a bunch of friends.
3 Likes
RK Series Racing; Stage 4 Drive
The next morning, the crew woke up very well rested, having spent the day before to catch a breather after being forced to drive through the night.
Valentin, as always, spent most of the morning brushing his hair, though secures it with multiple reusable zip-ties, creating a semi-braided-looking ponytail going down his entire back.
The team packed up and took seats following an otherwise uneventful morning. In front of them, the Bricksley’s V8 roared into life, settling into a burbly idle soon after.
The Dione quickly followed suit, their 4 cylinder engine of less than half the displacement being much less mighty in terms of noise.
The Bricksley didn’t move for what felt like an eternity and jsut as Connor maneuvered the gear stick into reverse to get some space between them, the V8 up front howled, followed by the Bricksley jumping forward, showering the Dione in dirt and pebbles as a result.
Kaylie’s apology was heard and replied to by Tim with a simple thumbs-up out the front passenger window.
Jayden’s note about preferring cycling over driving made Valentin rather curious, though a reply seemed impractical given the immense noise created by the V8 of the Bricksley in front.
With the Bricksely gone, the Dione followed, maintaining a good deal of distance, knowing a n00b being at the helm of the car ahead.
A few miles in, Jayde seemed to get the hang of it as the Truck was ever smaller in front of them before vanishing entirely.
A good 300 miles of mostly nothing later, disaster struck:
A quiet, but audible “pop” came from the front, followed by the engine losing all power, solely being back-driven by the wheels.
“We have lost power.” Connor notes, safely bringing the car to a stop about a quarter of a mile later on a bit of grass next to the road.
“Maybe it’s a loose wire or something.”, Valentin speculates, his new haircut creating far few problems for the time being, even though the plastic zip-ties weren’t comfortable at all, irritating and scratching his neck and also back.
Making sure nobody else was barreling past them, the team of four got out of the car, with Connor releasing the hood latch on his way out. Once in the engine bay, the damage was hard to miss.
“Seems like the distributor went bust. Hopes are we can locate the cap somewhere”, Valentin notes, looking into the mess of loose ignition wires and some bits leftover from the rotor.
“Well… it must be somewhere further back then, right?”, Tim replied, weary and unsure as to how the fix could be done.
The team set off, backtracking up the road for a little more than 1000 feet until Tim manages to locate the cap. Or rather, part of it.
“Erm… i found half the cap…”, Tim exclaims, picking up the broken pit of plastic from the ground on the transition between gravel and grass.
The others gathered around him, looking at the non-functional part.
“Do we gave superglue or JB-Weld or something?”, Constantin suggests in a stroke of supreme intuition.
“We have duct-tape, but we’re still missing the other half”, Valentin responds, trying to think of a way to fashion a cap out of whatever they might have available, to no avail.
Connor, meanwhile, managed to collect some more pieces, which mostly are tiny shards of the cap, probably shredded by some rotating assembly further downstream.
“This is all i could locate in the immediate surroundings.”, Connor admits, holding up a small pile of plastic bits, not much larger than the surrounding pebbles.
“FUCK! We’re Stranded!”, Tim shouts, visibly agitated at the thought of their million-mile car having failed them once the normally very plentiful parts supply was not there.
“Didn’t the host team people… thingys… mention some way of knowing when teams were stranded? I remember them being like: Yeah if you were stopped for some time we would’ve gotten back and collected you.”, Valentin notes, firing up memory of that conversation happening in the other teams.
“This statement was made by Shift Happens at the end of what they consider to be Stage One.” Connor also confirms, at least retaining decent morale within the team.
At that point, the first raindrops started to get to ground-level, which the team did not think much about as the minor rain proved a refreshing spin on the hot and humid weather of the past few days.
“Maybe they have a distributor?”, Tim proclaims in a naive spell of hope, quickly being brought back down by Valentin.
“In your dreams, maybe. They have a V8, no chance in hell that it’ll fit.”, Valentin counters, immediately ruining the added hope for Tim.
Constantin pokes his head into the car to release the trunk, getting his newly-“purchase” (read: gifted) equipment out of the back-end of the car.
He then goes about setting up his field Jacket as a target by propping it up in the ground with some random sticks, inside out so it’s a bit better to see in the grass patch between dense forest they ended up in.
Quite a ways into the distance, all the way on the other side of the river, a train pops out behind a group of trees, barreling along the tracks of the Longitude Main Line. It announces itself with a powerful blow of it’s whistle, directing everyone’s gaze at the light blue heavily streamlined pacific-style locomotive. As it made it’s way up the very gentle sloping track with it’s art-deco design, a total of 6 carriages, complementing the engine in both their streamlined nature and blue paintjob with a silver stripe running along the side. In big, bold, golden letters, “SILVER LINE SPECIAL” was written across the tender of the engine, easily legible from the other side. A mixture of immense amounts of steam and dark grey smoke was pumped out the well-integrated chimney as the engine was sent up the hill at full power by it’s driver.
“Whoah!” Valentin exclaims as he, as well as the others, practically stares at the train gunning it up the mild gradient. Soon that thought was followed by questioning the engineering choices made. “Must be hell to maintain with all the important bits covered in cladding…”
The sight of the engine, with all it’s power and aerodynamics also planted an idea in his head.
“Connor, mind coming along to talk for a bit?”, Valentin asks, already heading off and away from the car for some secrecy.
Connor, without saying a word, followed, whereas Tim wasn’t sure as to what Valentin was planning.
“What plan are you hatching now?”, Tim demands, being dismissed by Valentin.
“I have an idea, but i need Connor for a while to check if it could work. I’ll explain later. If it does, we’re back in the running.”
Tim wasn’t exactly satisfied with the response, but the thought of not DNF-ing this event was reason enough to let Valentin do whatever he felt was needed.
Constantin, meanwhile, returned to his archery and now had Tim as a silent spectator.
He draws the first arrow out of his re-stocked quiver and takes careful aim at his Jacket. Once the arrow is released, it does the journey over there, but goes past, missing the target by a good foot-or-so to the top.
Attempts two, three and four are all missed as well, with all of them going much further than intended.
Tim, thinking he is somehow disturbing Constantin, retreats to the car to sort whatever was in the trunk.
Constantin continues, now alone, also missing shots five through eight.
“Something is off…”, he remarks, placing the bow on the ground and heading downrange to collect the arrows.
With Constantin trial-shooting, Valentin and Connor apparently hatching a plan and Tim cleaning and sorting, about three hours pass during which the rain intensifies from a few drops to actual light rain.
to be continued.
Important OOC Note:
Any teams that want to interact with RK Series racing on this stage only have a narrow window to do so:
- when the respective team passes the Dione during their wait for rescue
- waaay deep into the night (close to 6 moon), though they won’t do much there
- anyone slower than shift happens will pass the Dione while waiting
1 Like
Team Shift Happens and Team RK-Series Racing
So, funny thing happened: @Elizipeazie and I kinda got a bit carried away here, and while I’m sure it’s a good read, most of it takes place out of camp. So, for the sake of reading in this thread, we’re going to condense multiple posts together and hide them so that we don’t have a 128k blowout in the thread to scroll through.
The Full Story, Part 1 of 4
Kayden stared at the dashboard as Rukari drove the Bricksley harder than any of them would have dared to go. The engine roared as they hurtled back down the road at a terrifying pace with Rukari double-clutching every gear change, occasionally sliding the truck around corners.
“Slow the fuck down!” Malavera yelled from the back seat. “You bin the truck, Rukari, and who’s going to rescue us while we’re rescuing them?”
Kivenaal was frantically looking around for things to grab a hold of as Rukari took another turn while going almost 60 miles per hour. In the process, he grabbed the CB handle in its resting place, and with it being that close to the speakers, it gave a squeal of feedback over the air.
Kaylie winced and grabbed the microphone out of Kivenaal’s upper right hand, holding it instead in her right hand to keep it from being grabbed by the startled Valraadi in the mid-rear bench. “Grab the seat in front of you if you have to!” Kaylie said.
Jayde looked almost terrified as the Bricksley surged around another corner. “Rukari! There are other cars!” He yelled as they shot past the atomic-pink van of Team Hillbilly Rollers with an insanely-high closing speed, headlights glaring and wipers working hard to keep the windshield clear.
(@Knugcab)
Despite this, Rukari kept his foot down. Kayden glanced at the dashboard again and grimaced as the Bricksley’s temperature gauge was climbing fast. The suspension rattled and squeaked as Rukari left the road momentarily to let Team Mravolinski-Chitco’s truck pass without incident, shaking up all the cargo in the bed again.
“Oh, in the Name of the Rift, slow down! This is the corner Kayden almost missed!” Jayde said. Rukari piled on the brakes with everything he had, trying to haul the heavy van-truck down to be able to make the turn. Malavera groaned as he smacked both heads into the roof-mounted radio box, courtesy of only having a crappy back-seat lap belt holding him in place.
“Can you not drive like an idiot, please?” Malavera snapped.
“I am not driving like an idiot,” Rukari growled back. “I am driving as fast as I can.”
“Like an idiot. What good will we be for help if we die on the way?” Kivenaal said.
Two hours after they had left the camp, however, they saw the Dione of Team RK Series Racing pulled off to the side of the road. Rukari, again, slammed on the brakes, though this time everyone was prepared for it, though the cargo wasn’t, with the jack and the tire iron slamming into the toolbox with a crash.
Kaylie looked over at the dash and told Rukari, “Leave it running! We’re at 230 degrees Fahrenheit, if you shut it down, we’ll vapor lock and it’ll take forever to restart. Plus, this means the water pump is still turning, so we’ll cool down.”
The doors were opened and all six members of Team Shift Happens bailed out. Kaylie wandered over to the Dione, seeing the hood open, then groaning as she realized what had gone wrong. “Twin Suns. How did that happen? Broken clip, loose cap, the rotor’s missing. No wonder you guys stopped,” Kaylie said. She looked over to the others and said, “Looks like we’ll have to tow them in. Their distributor came apart in a real bad way.”
Kayden stared at it, popped the hood on the Bricksley, then said, “Couldn’t we just put our spare in their car?”
Kivenaal shook his head. “No. Our rotor is too big, and if I remember my cars correctly, the distributor drive gears are different. Even if all of that wasn’t a problem, it mechanically wouldn’t fit, ours is just too big.”
Rukari rummaged around in the bed for a while, even looking in the toolbox and under the spare tire. “Where are the tow-chains?” he grumbled to himself.
Malavera looked at Rukari, then said, “Probably about 60 miles back the way we came, flung into a ditch from one of your little off-road excursions.”
Jayde looked over to Constantin, who was still trying to hit his target with his new bow. “How is the archery going?” he asked.
At some point, with multiple other cars having passed the stationary Brick™, Connor was the first to spot the rapidly approaching Bricksley.
“Team Shift Happens has arrived. And their vehicle is overheating.”, Connor remarks, gently pushing Valentin off the road that bit further to avoid being ran over.
As soon as Rukari stomped the brakes, not much happened, as the immense weight of the thing overburdens the brakes, which cannot lock the wheels even on the loose surface.
The Bricksley rolls to a stop, and all six team members jump out of their van-truck-hybrid thing.
Kaylie was the first to receive an answer from the Valentin - Connor duo:
“Not entirely sure, it went bust and the cap now is broken…”, Valentin exclaims, equally confused as to how that was even possible.
“Likely material fatigue and wear. I found the parts number on what remained of the component, and it was manufactured in 1979. It was installed by AMP Holdings as the vehicle was manufactured.”, Connor explains, holding up the remains of what once has been the distributor cap. Valentin was impressed, not by Connor’s knowledge, but by the cap itself: “Well… when the OEM cap joins the million-mile club… gotta comment the build quality of those indestructible fuckers.”
A discussion arose about fitting the Bricksley spare distributor onto it. However, that was quickly dismissed due to compatibility.
“How are you gonna make a V8 distributor work in the first place? Not even looking at the gearing or anything… We have a straight-four.”, Valentin commented, seeing no use for a spare cap meant for a V8.
As Jayde was approaching Constantin, he looked at him immediately, as he was inbetween shots and not focused on missing the target almost every time.
“Very poorly… something’s very off with this stuff your friend made.”, Constantin replies, calm, but also rather frustrated at his poor performance.
The jacket downrange only had a few holes in it, despite him spending a good three hours and close to a hundred shots trying to hit the damn thing.
“I see you found a way to keep your hair out of the engine bay,” Kaylie said, smiling as she looked at the zip-ties holding Valentin’s hair back. “Getting grease out of one’s hair is a nightmare,” she said.
“Kayden, Valentin’s right. Trying to rig something up with the Bricksley’s distributor is just not going to work. Even if we skipped every other cylinder, you’re still throwing live high-voltage sparks around the engine bay. That’s going to mess with their CB radio, could potentially interfere with Connor, possibly start a massive engine fire, and that’s even assuming we could adapt the diameter. Not possible, and we’re not trashing my only spare distributor so you can try it,” Kaylie said, looking at her brother.
Kayden shrugged and put the spare distributor back into the toolbox. “It was just a thought.”
“How about you leave the mechanical stuff to us mechanics, please, and help Rukari find something to tow their car with?” Kaylie replied.
Jayde nodded. “I apologize for that, Constantin,” he said. “I’ve seen her make good bows before, it’s the only reason I recommended her. I’m not sure what went wrong, but I’ve seen your skill in battle. Even I can see something isn’t right,” he admitted.
Kivenaal grimaced as he grabbed one of the containers off of the roof rack, feeling rather thirsty. He popped the lid open and took a long swig, glad that they still had water, but wishing like hell it was cold instead.
“Kivenaal!” Malavera said, glaring at the four-armed Valraadi as he caught him red-handed in the middle of taking a drink out of one of the jerry cans. “Not straight out of the containers! We’ve told you this before!”
Kaylie stopped studying the Dione’s engine bay and sighed. “Really, Kiva? We all have to drink that water, there’s bottles in the truck, and you’re chugging it out of the cans.”
“I was thirsty,” Kivenaal replied.
“And there are bottles in the truck you could have filled,” Kaylie responded. “You didn’t have to be lazy and take a great big slug of water out of the can.”
Kivenaal sighed. “Yeah, bust my ass for drinking straight out of the water jugs as if you guys haven’t done it, too,” Kivenaal grumbled.
Malavera pulled off a strip of duct tape and labeled the can Kivenaal had in his hands so that no one else would accidentally drink out of it before someone could clean it.
Rukari closed the lid on the toolbox and sighed. “Can’t find any tow chains,” he grumbled.
“Well, instead of sitting on the toolbox, Rukari, start trying to find a solution,” Kayden said.
“Still prefer it either open or kept with actual ties… those plastic things are itchy as hell”, Valentin replies, actually reverting that change as he simply pulls them off the end of his hairdo, pocketing them afterwards.
“Though i do have an idea.”, Valentin continued, not yet revealing as to what exactly it was. But he was grinning, knowing that at least in theory, it was possible.
“I mean… i am Constantly aiming high, it seems like. I think the arrows came out waay too light, but there’s no proof, as the old ones got soaking wet yesterday. Well… the ones i still have, that is.”, Constantin explains, distraught after having spent four hours practicing with a bow that obviously wasn’t of use for him.
At this point, Tim joins the group in front of the Dione, having heard the ruckus about not drinking out of containers.
“Maybe assign each member a jerry-can then? Seems like your fuel eco is about on-par with that of your truck.”, Tim jokes, mostly speculating on the actual fuel economy of the Bricksley. Though with it looking decidedly 70s, six people on board and both trunk and roof full of cargo, it certainly seemed very heavy to him.
Kaylie nodded. “I can understand that. I mean, I don’t have any hair to pull back, but… I swear, zip-ties seem to be made out of the most irritating plastic possible.” As Valentin then stated he had an idea, Kaylie smiled. “I believe there is a quote, that necessity is the mother of all invention. If we can find anything to tow you guys with, we’ll get you to the camp, or into the town if you think you need supplies there.”
Malavera looked over at them, then said, “We did bring tow-chains, but the gray-furred idiot behind the wheel bounced them out of the bed trying to get here at the speed of sound.”
Jayde nodded. “This is one of those times I wish I could wind back time, tell myself to listen to my instincts,” he said. “I knew there were two bowyers in that town, both good ones. Rather than asking around to see who was better, I went with who I knew, and that seems to have been a mistake. A major one, at that. Maybe at one time, she was better, but it seems that she’s losing her touch. Or she was distracted. Either way, I let you down, and for that, I am sorry,” Jayde said.
When Tim mentioned assigning people a jerry can, it was Kayden who stared at Tim for a few long seconds, then looked back at Malavera. “Seriously, we’ve got six people here, several of which are incredibly smart, and a damn AI, and we can’t think of using a few strips of duct tape and a Scribble marker to label a few cans? How the fuck any of us got off the planet, I’ll never know.”
“Remember, Kay, you ran our ship out of fuel. Also,” Kaylie said, walking over to her brother and tapping him soundly on the nose with Nova’s handheld, “you know better than to leave expensive military hardware just laying around. Be glad I picked this up or I’d make you march your ass back there.”
Kayden flinched even though Kaylie hadn’t hit him hard at all, more from being scolded for leaving things laying around again. “Got it. Won’t happen again,” he said, opening the door and setting the phone-like device on the dashboard.
Malavera, meanwhile, was ripping off strips of duct tape and using a black marker to label out 6 of their 20 water cans. “Anyone wants more than 5 gallons, label a second can,” Malavera said.
Rukari wandered over toward Jayde and Constantin. “Sorry for the delay. I’ve managed to lose our tow chains,” he said.
“Well… Not sure whether it’s even reasonable, but I have a climbing rope,” Jayde said, reaching into his bag and pulling out a coil of rope. “It can hold up my other form when climbing, but… I don’t know if it can hold up to a car.”
“Well… we’re gonna need a whole workshop and some manpower to get that done by tomorrow morning…”, Valentin admits, not wanting to be too much of a burden to the others, but also trying to help his own teammates out.
“With how you explained how this is basically some kind of steampunk-y, tropical country, i figured we use local technology.”
Tim looked at Valentin rather befuddled, failing to utter a word in confusion.
“We turn the car into a traction engine. I spent the better part of four hours theorizing this. It’s definitely possible!”, Valentin continues, confident in his truly ambitious idea.
Constantin, meanwhile went about the process of de-stringing his bows after having tried the other to see if the bow was the issue.
“Well… i appreciate the attempt at providing aid, though those bows are of no use to me. Look at this!”, he exclaims, pointing at his Jacket propped up down range. “I spent more than three hours and close to 100 shots on trying to hit this thing! Of those, i hit like what… eight?” Constantin continues, as he chucks the now un-strung bow a few feet into the grass field ahead of him.
Constantin took note of Rukari approaching, but didn’t react all that much, being stuck in a state between disappointment and frustration.
Kaylie raised an eyebrow as she heard Valentin’s plan. “In any other situation, I’d say that was a crazy idea, but here? That might just work. From what I know, a typical combustion engine uses a controlled, but very rapid burn to expand hot gas and push the piston down in the cylinder. A steam engine uses a controlled measure of high-pressure water vapor to push a piston inside a cylinder. The operating design is the same, pistons go up and down, connecting rods transfer that reciprocating motion into a crankshaft, the crankshaft rotates as a result. The only real difference is how those pistons are moved,” Kaylie said.
Rukari smiled as Jayde showed he had a rope. “That might work,” he said.
Jayde seemed skeptical, but followed Rukari.
Rukari, on the other hand, called out to the others, “Jayde has a rope we could use.”
Jayde grimaced slightly, then said, “It’s my climbing rope, but… I’m not quite sure it’s able to handle this.”
Kayden looked over at the rope, then asked, “Wouldn’t Connor be able to tell? Let him have a look.”
Jayde nodded, then stepped closer to Connor, respectfully leaving as much room as he could between himself and Valentin as he handed over his rope for an inspection.
“Exactly!”, Valentin called out after Kaylie had finished explaining the difference between internal combustion and steam expansion. “Given a high enough boiler pressure and a good valve gear mechanism, we could make quite the torque-monster!”, he continues.
As Rukari called out that a suitable rope might have been found, Connor walked over to take a look, as was suggested by Kayden.
“This rope is a typical 12KN climbing rope. Towing the Dione using it, while possible, will require extreme caution to avoid damage to the rope”, Connor replies, after having inspected the Rope in question.
“We could double it up.”, Valentin suggested. “Loop the rope through one hook and tie both ends to the other hook, effectively giving two ropes.”
Jayde nodded. “Didn’t know if it was reasonable to tow something like that with a rope, so, glad to hear it’s at least possible,” he mentioned.
Kaylie grabbed the rope and looped it through the Dione’s tow hook, then studied the back of the Bricksley, trying to find a good attachment point. “Fuck, this one doesn’t have the towing package,” she grumbled.
“Could loop the rope around the axle,” Rukari suggested.
“Absolutely not!” Kaylie said, glaring at Rukari. “That could ruin the suspension, wreck our differential, and potentially tangle a broken rope up into our driveshaft!”
Jayde studied the back of the Bricksley, looking for anything suitable for tying a rope to that also seemed strong. Kayden, having a moment of mild frustration, kicked the rear bumper, causing a cover to fall off and exposing a tow hook. Jayde raised an eyebrow at Kayden, who shrugged. “Totally meant to do that,” Kayden said, trying to make it sound like he knew it was there the whole time.
“Right. That’s why you kicked the bumper on that corner,” Jayde said, pointing to the passenger side of the truck, “and the cover fell off on this side,” he added, now pointing to the driver’s side of the truck, “instead of just telling me to remove the shiny cover.”
Kaylie chuckled, then tied both ends of Jayde’s climbing rope to the tow hook.
“Right, we’ve all been here waiting long enough, some far longer than others,” Kaylie said. “Let’s get into our respective vehicles. Rukari, I swear if you break this truck on the way there, snap that rope, or wreck their car because you’re driving like a moron again, you will be doing all of the maintenance.”
Rukari nodded, climbing up into the driver’s seat, while Kayden took the front mid-bench to make shifting easier for Rukari, and Malavera took the last front seat, having had an experience once with the rear seat radio console. In the rear bench, Kaylie took her usual spot as the radio operator, Jayde took the mid-bench, and Kivenaal took the driver’s side window seat.
Kaylie leaned out of the window and called back to them, “Honk once you’re ready!”
Rukari planted his foot on the brake pedal, which went concerningly close to the floor, stepped on the clutch, put the gearbox in first gear and the transfer case in 4-Low, then waited for the signal.
Tim and Valentin nod in eager agreement, piling into the front passenger and rear driver seat respectively.
“Thanks for sticking to your word. We still have the battery and radio and all, as we knew you were coming at some point.”, Constantin remarked as he walks past the others to get his jacket downrange.
His trip into the field took longer than expected, as he made sure to not leave anything else behind that belonged to him, collecting two leftover arrows in the process.
He then heads back and pokes his head into the nearside front window.
“Mind if i take charge of the radio? As far as i know, we still have power and we could coordinate the tow better that way.”, Constantin suggests.
“Sure. You probably know your way around this radio stuff better than i do…”, Tim admits, freeing up the front passenger seat for Constantin.
After having dumped the useless bows and ancillary equipment as well as his jacket through the broken rear window, he gets into the Dione, picks up the radio handle and motions to Connor to turn the ignition back on.
An order was followed by it’s execution, as power was needed to sound the horn anyway. For completeness sake, the hazards were also turned on to warn later drivers about the Dione being slow and poorly controlled.
“Constantin Schrant for Shift Happens, we’re ready, over.”, he speaks into the handle with a degree of professionalism unheard of for anyone else but maybe Connor.
This was followed by Connor tapping the horn a few times to confirm the state of readiness via the previously-agreed-upon method.
“We said no one gets left behind on the entry form,” Malavera said to Constantin in response, “and we meant that.”
Kaylie smiled as Constantin called over the radio. “Kaylie of Shift Happens to Constantin Schrant, heard you loud and clear. Heading out, over,” she replied, adopting some measure of professionalism on the radio.
Kayden, seeing the hazards were on with the Dione, quickly hit the toggle for their hazards as well as Rukari slowly let the clutch out and pulled forward, taking up the slack in the rope remarkably carefully, considering how he’d showed up. The V8 growled as the combination of first gear and low range gave the truck all the torque it could possibly need to get the Dione moving, and other than a brief spin of the driver’s side rear tire, quickly stopped with the differential lock, soon the two vehicles started to move on down the road.
“Think you can manage to shift smoother, Rukari?” Kivenaal asked.
“I can try,” he said, for once not double-clutching the gearbox as he went for second gear. Then it was third, and he realized that any faster and he’d start slipping thanks to the now-wet gravel and dirt. “Not fast, but we are moving.”
Kaylie keyed the microphone, dropping her previous professionalism in favor of getting to the point. “Rukari says this is about as fast as we can go. Any faster and the tires start slipping.”
As they rolled along at an almost-seemingly-casual pace, V8 roaring in third-gear, low range, the little yellow Yinzer MightyTiny buzzed by, carrying Team Jockey along on four flat tires. (@NoahC)
The team was in surprisingly good mood as the Dione slowly started rolling.
The wet dirt kicked up by the offside rear prompted the use of the wipers to get the windshield clean again. Connor then had a suggestion: “A higher gear could be attempted. The lower engine speed allows for more room in throttle modulation due to less power being available.”
Constantin then went for the handle again: “Shift Happens, Connor is suggesting the use of a higher gear to give more leeway in throttle use, Romeo-Kilo Series Racing.”
In the back, Tim inquired once again as to how Valentin plans to convert the thing.
“Without going too deep, it doesn’t matter how you move the pistons in the engine. If you apply force to them, the engine spins and you have power. There’s people runnning them off of compressed air for shits and giggles. And steam is not much different from compressed air, really…”, Valentin explained, confusing Tim a bit.
Neither party in the rear went deeper into the explanation, instead relying on mutual trust for it to work out.
As Constantin advised them on using a higher gear, courtesy of Connor in the Dione, Kaylie acknowledged with, “Thank you. We will try a higher gear, then.”
Rukari grabbed the transfer case stick and shoved it into high range, and almost immediately, the Bricksley shuddered and chugged, the engine trying hard to stall. He stomped the clutch to the floor and stomped the throttle as well, the engine bellowing as it recovered from a near-stall. Taking advantage of what little momentum they had left, he put the gearbox in first and carefully set off again.
“Sorry about that back there. Our driver went for high range when he should have tried fourth gear,” Kaylie replied over the radio. “Trying again for first to second, over.”
“You are such an idiot sometimes, you know that?” Malavera said. “He said, ‘a higher gear.’ You had fourth, you had fifth, why the fuck did you try third in high range?”
“I thought it would work,” Rukari replied.
“With all of us loaded, and all of our shit in and around this truck, we’re probably around 9,500 pounds, Rukari,” Kaylie responded. The truck shuddered a bit as Rukari engaged second gear, though it managed, barely, to pick up the RPM enough to keep going.
“I’d wager we’re a bit more than that,” Malavera said. “Water, kerosene, parts and supplies, all of us, the truck itself, all of the shit in our toolbox. It all adds up.”
Jayde grasped his green crystal in his hand and muttered a quick prayer of, “Just, please, let all of us make it.”
As the Bricksley meandered on down the road with the engine rumbling and black smoke pouring out of the exhausts, the temperature slowly climbing, and Kaylie trying to let everyone in the Dione know when they were going to have to actually use the brakes, the Schnell XL53 of Team Slow (@interior) passed them slowly enough that Kaylie had to tell Rukari not to even think of drag-racing them with a load behind them.
Kayden grimaced as he saw the water temp climbing up again. “Rukari, you’ve just reached the start of the yellow band,” he warned.
“It will be fine,” Rukari replied.
As the engine of the Bricksley up front came to a near-stop, so did the car itself, forcing Connor to smash the severely diminished brakes due to the brake booster not being driven.
As a result, the car almost rear-ends the Bricksley, slackening the tow-rope in the process.
Kaylie then apologized over the radio, while also seemingly ordering Connor to put the car into second.
Everyone in the Dione knew that this was a dumb idea, leading to Constantin going back to the radio controls.
“Negative. That would add useless load to your car. We’re not putting it in gear, let alone first, Romeo-Kilo Series Racing.”, Constantin spoke, attaching the handle back to the spot on the center heater vent.
With lack of power came lack of AC, forcing them to open the windows and shed some layers where possible.
Valentin ends up removing the underlying tanktop, leaving just the fully-unbuttoned Hawaii-style shirt on, Constantin and Connor were already topless and Tim only has a basketball jersey he could rid himself of, but didn’t feel entirely comfortable doing so.
Other than that, the group of four in the Dione were simply waiting for it to end…
Soon, though not soon enough for everyone in the Dione and everyone in the Bricksley, as Kayden had turned off their AC to give them every last ounce of spare power possible and reduce the load on the already overheating engine, the campsite was at least visible in front of them.
Or, it would be, at least, if the Bricksley hadn’t moved past the yellow band and into the red on the temperature gauge, and started spitting and sputtering steam out of the radiator cap. The windshield wipers, previously fine on a mid-speed intermittent setting, now flicked back and forth on low just to keep the window clear.
Sure enough, nearly 12 Earth hours after they’d left that morning, the Dione rolled into the fourth campsite. “Where is the nearest steamworks?” Rukari asked.
“Over this bridge, down the main street to the far side of town, past the gate. It’ll be a right, down the road. There’s a train station before it,” Jayde said.
“Shift Happens to Romeo-Kilo Series Racing, Jayde has mentioned a steamworks is on the other side of the town, near a train station. We’ll tow you there, over,” Kaylie said.
As Rukari turned to drive across the bridge, careful not to yank the rope or drive them, or the Dione, through anyone’s camping supplies, Kayden scowled at the temperature gauge. “Rukari, that gauge has been trying to tell you something for the last 20 miles,” Kayden said.
Sure enough, as they crawled through the town of Itzgarde, the needle reached the end of the gauge, pinned to the H. What had been occasional spitting and sputtering had turned into a constant hiss from the cap as they passed the gate leading out to the train station and steamworks. Rukari turned to the right, lined up on the road, and that’s when there was a sudden thunderous pop and the air filled with steam.
“Off! Off! Off! Shut it off!” Kaylie yelled from her seat. Rukari slowly pulled the Bricksley over, roughly 60 feet from the doors of the steamworks, then shut the engine off. Everyone in the Bricksley got out, grimacing at the task of shoving almost 7,000 pounds of shit up the driveway into the steamworks.
Not much happened from the perfective of the car being towed, until Kayle went back onto the radio, telling everyone that the destination was a local steamworks normally used to repair and maintain the locomotives used by the local population.
“Affirmative. We’re being towed to the steamworks on the other side of town, Romeo-Kilo Series Racing.”, Constantin replies, in effect saying that they are aware of the info and have acknowledged it.
The team had been oblivious to the overheating of the Bricksley up until the coolant loop went bust, engulfing their front end in steam.
Likewise, the three humans also bailed with Connor remaining in the drivers seat to retain control.
At least the push wouldn’t be that far.
“I’ll steer and stop the truck,” Kaylie volunteered. “I’m the lightest, and I should still be able to steer despite not having any assistance. Might have to two-foot the brake, but I’ll manage.”
Jayde untied the rope between the two cars and inspected it for damage before coiling it up and putting it back in his bag.
With Kaylie in the driver’s seat, Kayden at the driver’s rear corner of the truck bed, Jayde pushing against the tailgate, Malavera pushing at the passenger’s rear corner of the truck bed, Kivenaal putting his hands on the passenger side B-pillar to distribute as much force over as large an area as he could, and Rukari grabbing hold of the driver’s side B-pillar, they set off and started pushing the Bricksley into the shop.
As soon as the truck started rolling, Rukari stepped up onto the running board, while Kayden said quietly, but clearly, “Nova, authorization code K 54812, prepare for battle, safeties limited.”
“Confirming combat mode set, safeties set. Limiting perception of fatigue and pain, increasing oxygen uptake by increased respiration, accelerating heart rate. Engaging fight-or-flight response with instinct suppression.” Nova responded from Kayden’s pocket, her tone switching from the sassy, light-hearted AI she’d been to a more harsh, war-weathered battle-maiden.
Malavera shook his head. “You better turn that off once we get in there.”
“I will,” Kayden said, before pushing with everything he had.
Jayde was startled by the sudden shove at the back of the truck, lost his grip for a moment, and once he’d regained it, was no longer really contributing that much to their combined effort.
As they got within 15 feet of the open door, Kivenaal backed off and walked off to the side, sitting down on a nearby bench to avoid getting spotted.
Kaylie looked over her left shoulder and glared at Rukari. “The least you could do is help!” she snapped.
Rukari suddenly pointed and said, “Crate!”
Kaylie snapped back around, wrenched at the wheel with her right hand, but it wasn’t enough, and when she went for the brakes, the pedal sank straight to the floor as if she’d stepped on a lemon. There was a mighty bump, the sound of wood cracking and then screeching along the floor, and the sound of a certain pain-in-the-ass Valraadi falling off the running board and shattering the driver’s side mirror with his horns.
“Hey! We’ve been waiting weeks for those valves!” the Foreman yelled, rushing over to see what damage was done. Thankfully, it seemed that the crate did its job, protecting the screw valves inside from damage. Before he could scold them any further, however, he saw someone he recognized.
“If any of them are damaged, I’ll pay for them,” Jayde said. “Otherwise, my friends here,” he added, motioning to the crew by the Dione, “need to borrow your workshop for a project of theirs.”
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Team Shift Happens and Team RK-Series Racing
The Full Story, Part 2 of 4
The plan turned out to be as follows:
Constantin stayed up front and was pushing into the passenger side A-Pillar through the open door. Tim and Valentin taking position on the rear left and rear right corner respectively.
The combined effort was far more than needed to get the car going, especially since Valentin seemed to muster a very unusual amount of strength out of his legs, being propped up against the taillight with his left shoulder, his cycling-specific shoes providing ample grip due to the metal plate built onto the sole acting as a traction mat. As such, the car gained quite the amount of speed, forcing Constantin to largely abandon his attempt at helping push the car along.
As Connor stepped on the brakes, which, unlike the Bricksley, still were working semi-decently albeit without the brake booster, Valentin did not expect that at all, given no verbal warning being made and him not seeing anything due to both his position and haircut. The inertia of him on the rear end breaks the passenger-size rear taillight cover.
“OWW!”, Valentin shouts as he rights himself, looking at Connor up front. “Could’ve at least announced the stopping!”
“I am sorry, Mr. Schrant.” Connor simply replied, not having thought of the two in back.
With the car now stationary next to the Bricksley, the team heads up to greet the foreman, Valentin being pushed ahead as the brainchild of the idea. He wasn’t exactly confident, especially with the amount of people buzzing about behind the foreman in the building.
Though the entire team was in immediate need of help, which allowed him to muster enough courage to speak semi-confidently about what he planned.
“Greetings.” Valentin says, trying to leave a friendly, well-mannered first impression. “I’m Valentin Schrant. I have Constantin Schrant, Tim Redwood and Connor for company.” He continues, motioning to each member of the team as he goes along.
“Our vehicle has broken down and cannot be repaired to original state, and i thought of converting it to use steam instead of internal combustion.”, Valentin adds.
The other three simply line up next to Valentin, nodding as their respective names are mentioned.
“Greetings to you as well, Valentin. I am Duncan Michaelson, the foreman of the Itzgarde Steamworks,” the foreman replied, looking over the pale orange painted car in front of him. “An internal combustion engine? I’ve seen a big one, sounds like it could move the world if it could ever get up to speed, but it was so heavy it had to be shipped by rail and hauled the rest of the way into town by a team of eight lizards. One of the local tinkers in Duskriver Village has a self-pulling carriage she uses on business trips, selling perfumes and such. You want to convert yours to run on steam? Heard that internal combustion can be a bit unreliable at times. Then again,” Duncan said, waving a hand around his shop, “so can steam.”
When Duncan looked over at the members of Team Shift Happens, or at least the ones who had made themselves known, he asked, “Is there anything you need?”
“To wait for our vehicle to cool down, mostly,” Kaylie said. “Otherwise,” she motioned to the open hood, “it’s one stupid hose clamp, a rubber radiator hose that came off, and a whole lot of water. They’re going to need your help, we just need time. And some space, I suppose, because we’re not going anywhere until this cools down.”
Duncan nodded. “You’re friends of Jayde, right? From the War?” he asked Valentin.
Jayde spoke up with, “Not from the War, but they did help fight the Dyre.”
“I figured with the lack of parts and suitable workmen for our internal combustion… carriage, making it run on readily available technologies seems like a valid alternative.”, Valentin reasoned, finally making his teammates grasp why he wanted to do this in the first place.
“So THAT’s why you were so keen on steam!”, Tim exclaimed.
“Yeah. Steam seems to be everywhere in this place. Might as well use stuff locals know.”, Valentin replied, looking past the foreman into the building. Other than some empty rails and a few workmen, he couldn’t see much due to the angle they were standing at relative to the road entrance.
“I mean… yes, ummm… some of us did…”, Valentin admitted, twiddling thumbs in some degree of shame on having done nothing to support the effort.
Duncan smiled, then said to Valentin, “We’ll get you back on the road, then. Hey, Jayde, think you could get that boiler over there and bring it over for them?”
“Not… like this, no. And they’ve just been in a Dyre fight. If I use my larger form around them, I’m going to scare most of them senseless,” Jayde admitted, covering for Valentin in the moment.
Duncan nodded. “Not a problem,” he said, turning back to Valentin. “I’m making you, officially, the Lead Engineer on this project, then,” he told Valentin. “My work crew is yours. Any parts you need made, machines you need operated, you say the word and it will be done.” He then turned to his work crew and said, “Listen up, men. Mister Schrant here has a project that he needs help with, to convert their combustion carriage to steam power. Any of you choose to volunteer for this project, step forward.”
At Duncan’s order, 30 men out of the larger work crew stepped forward. Duncan smiled, turned to Valentin, and said, “Looks like you’ve got a full crew. Same as we’d use on a locomotive. You need any help with any of them, you just ask me, alright?”
“Son of a bitch!” Kaylie yelled, shaking her hand after scalding it on the radiator core support. “Rukari, I can’t even get this hose back on because the whole front of our truck is hot!”
“Let it cool down, then,” Rukari said, wincing as Kayden held him still and picked shards of glass out of his mane. “Could you be gentler?”
“This is gentle,” Kayden said in a half growled voice.
“Kayden, remember your agreement. Off with it,” Malavera said. Kayden, recognizing what Malavera meant, slid the black square out of his pocket and silently commanded Nova to take him out of his combat mode.
“Can someone get Kivenaal to come over here and put this damn hose back on?” Kaylie asked.
Jayde grimaced. “You know he won’t do it, right?”
“Convince him,” Kaylie replied.
Valentin initially smiled in enthusiasm and so did Tim and Constantin. Though, as Duncan continued about promoting him to lead-engineer, Valentin’s already very pale face went practically white. This was the very first time he had full authority over a group of specialized employees at a major company. The next best thing is bossing two friends about when moving apartments.
As the steamworks employees, one by one, formed a small company of volunteers, neatly arranged in a grid, Valentin tried to grasp the magnitude of manpower he was now commanding.
Unsure on how to manage this amount of a workforce, he starts highly basic to see how their command structure works.
“Could someone get me a 13 mill wrench?”, he orders, carefully and not knowing what would happen.
The other two simply submitted to the newfound person of higher rank, even if that rank was by circumstance, and awaited orders as well.
As Valentin called out for a 13mm wrench, one of the men quickly stepped away from the group, walked over to a toolbox, and pulled out a somewhat large, though still reasonable 13 millimeter wrench, wiped it down with a rag, and then walked over to Valentin, handing him the tool he’d requested. “Anything else you need?” he asked.
Over by the Bricksley, once Kayden had picked all the bits of broken glass out of Rukari’s mane and made sure the Valraadi wasn’t bleeding, it was Kaylie who decided to step up and take charge of her team. Jayde came in with Kivenaal, who quickly stuffed the hose onto the radiator, slid the hose clamp into place, and tightened it down with the screwdriver Kaylie handed him. Once that was done, Kivenaal slipped back outside, hoping to go unnoticed.
Kaylie then glared at Rukari. “So,” she said, hands on her hips, “you say your kind don’t fear maintenance. I say, you fried the brakes, you get to fix them.”
Rukari stared at Kaylie, slightly surprised that despite being the smallest member of the group, Kaylie was proving to be the most energetic when agitated.
“If you don’t fear maintenance, Rukari, then I say,” Kaylie said, opening the toolbox in the truck bed and grabbing their imperial wrench and socket kit, “that you get to put your hands on the wrenches for once!” She slammed the kit into Rukari’s chest, making him take half a step back as he grabbed the kit and stared at it, completely lost with these foreign tools. Kaylie, meanwhile, rummaged around in the toolbox and grabbed two new front brake rotors, new brake pads, the spare set of front calipers, a set of rear brake shoes for the drums, and several bottles of brake fluid.
“I do not know where to start,” Rukari admitted.
“Not a problem. I’ll be guiding you through every step of the way,” Kaylie said, grinning.
Jayde looked over to see the look on Rukari’s face and laughed. “I never thought I’d see someone who only takes military orders from the Emperor or Empress could look so terrified of a little bit of wrench work,” Jayde admitted.
“Oh… Thanks… uhhm…”, Valentin stuttered, still very much befuddled and now holding a rather clunky 13mm wrench he had no immediate use for.
“I’m sorry… I’m… very much not used to commandeering 30-odd people…”
The Constantin and Tim mostly remained silent, due to differing reasons.
While Constantin perfectly knew what it was like to have hundreds, if not thousands of people under his control, Tim was equally clueless on large-scale leadership as Valentin was.
Constantin, though, did not feel to be in the position to be of use, having broken trust the day earlier.
Then, Jayde of all people, from all the way across the driveway behind the Bricksley, tried his hand at motivating Valentin: “Valentin, these people, these men who work on steam engines every day, are here to help you. Their skilled hands are yours, their talents are yours, their tools are yours. They will help you make your plan a reality. You have the plans, they have the skill. Some leaders are born. Some are forged in battle. Others come from people like you and me. I believe that you can do this. These men are disciplined and skilled in their craft, and you have a bold plan in your mind. Let them help you with it.”
Valentin just stared at Jayde with a blank and show-white face, still unsure as to how to handle it, but now at least willing to give it his best shot. He turns back around, facing the small army of workmen.
“Uhm… so… one. The car needs to go inside. Cannot really work out here in the rain now, can we? Two. I need some info on what we have available in terms of tools, machinery, components and such.”, Valentin explains, still shaken but making a valiant attempt at being reasonably professional.
Jayde looked over at Valentin, knowing the kind of struggle he was going through. He’d been there before, standing on the shores of Tapari during the Four Corners War. A hundred-and-thirty men under his command, someone who had never once held command over more than a handful of friends, now having to fight against armed invaders. He sighed quietly to himself, then asked Kaylie quietly, “What is his name?”
“Him? Valentin,” Kaylie replied quietly. She understood Jayde might have a plan, and right now, she didn’t have to pay too much attention to Rukari fighting with the lug nuts on the Bricksley.
Jayde nodded, moving to the passenger side of the Bricksley and standing by the tailgate, giving some respectful distance between them. He gave another quiet sigh to himself, then looked up and spoke in a calm, quiet, but strong voice, “Valentin, these people, these men who work on steam engines every day, are here to help you. Their skilled hands are yours, their talents are yours, their tools are yours. They will help you make your plan a reality. You have the plans, they have the skill. Some leaders are born. Some are forged in battle. Others come from people like you and me. I believe that you can do this. These men are disciplined and skilled in their craft, and you have a bold plan in your mind. Let them help you with it.”
Duncan looked over at Jayde, slightly impressed, but not saying anything in fear of ruining the moment. Once Valentin had, however, found his footing and given the command to bring the car inside, and that he needed information on tools, machinery, components, and other such items, Duncan smiled and respectfully left Valentin to do his thing.
Several of the men helped push the Dione into the steamworks, parking it up next to an old steam lorry with a sign on it saying it was to be scrapped for spare parts, with a list of all the parts that were still good, which looked to be just about everything except the frame and the actual steam engine itself.
Then one of the men gave Valentin a hand-written list on a clipboard of all the tools, the various bits of machinery, known quantities of brass tubing, spare parts, and even mentioning supplies they had in storage. “You need anything, just let one of us know. We’ll get it for you,” he said, before walking off to join the others in their wait for further instructions.
Just as Rukari finally got all of the lug nuts loosened up, Kaylie said to him, “Grab the wheel chocks out of the truck bed, make sure they’re under the rear tires, and while you’re there, grab the jack. The tire iron, by the way, is also the jack handle,” Kaylie mentioned.
Rukari groaned as he got up, kicking the wheel chocks under the rear wheels, grabbed the jack, and tried to figure out where exactly to put it. At first, he put it directly under the running board, and Kaylie told him, “You do that, you’re going to peel the whole side of the truck up like a can of sardines. Under the frame, zaruki.” She smirked as Rukari stared at her, then said, “Yes, I know it means ‘idiot’ in your language. You say it enough, I’ve finally learned it.”
Valentin watched four people push the car inside, following them in immediately after, himself being followed by Constantin, Tim, Connor and the remaining 26 temporary employees. One of which had split off and procured what to him looked like the inventory list of the steamworks. He accepts the clipboard and starts shuffling through the pages of it, spotting a multitude of components that could work in the Dione. In his mind, he already had the first steps figured out, though it was on him to accurately convey them to the workforce.
“Okay. I don’t know you lot and what you do, so ideally i’d have you sorted by skillset.”, Valentin orders, immediately second-guessing himself as he isn’t even sure they have specific traits to them. “That is assuming you are trained differently in the first place…”
A small break of silence follows as he shuffles further through the remarkable parts-list. After that, he hands that clipboard over to Connor, who scans it in less than a minute, internalizing the contents in the process for future reference.
“Also i’d like that boiler to be checked for the safety of it.”, Valentin adds, pointing at a derelict steam lorry full of brass, bronze and other, similar materials.
Tim, meanwhile, was starting to feel the urges of hunger and made his concern known:
“I take it that we’re staying here for a while… maybe i can get some food going.”, he suggested, getting a non-verbal agreement as Valentin once again dug into the inventory list.
Tim thus headed off and was searching for Duncan, a completely unrelated, but friendly worker pointing him the way.
“Erm… hi. Valentin sent me to prepare some food… well… kind of, though he agreed to it.”, Tim stutters, not sure as to how Duncan would react, as he explicitly appointed Valentin in charge of the operation.
Constantin followed Tim along, but with a different idea.
After the conversation with Tim was resolved, Constantin raised his own concern:
“Greetings. Do you know of any Bowyers in this town? I got some made yesterday, but they aren’t exactly what i expected.”, Constantin asked politely and with much more confidence than Tim had.
As Valentin mentioned he wanted the men sorted by skillset, one of the men took the initiative and said, “Boiler crew, stand over there. Engine crew, over here. Piping crew, I need you to stand here.” He then looked to Valentin and said, “Your four main crews. Boilers, engines, pipes, and controls. Some of us can paint, too, if you need that.”
When Valentin pointed out that he wanted the boiler checked for safety, one of the men climbed up and checked the tag they’d put on the boiler. “We’ll get this checked again. We had it tested last month when someone said they had a steam wagon that needed a boiler, but that one was too small,” he said. “Better to be safe than to be sorry.”
Duncan smiled as Tim and Constantin walked over to him. When Tim asked about food, he nodded. “I’ll show you around the workplace kitchen in a moment.” When Constantin asked him if he knew of any bowyers in the town, Duncan thought for a bit, then said, “Right, you’re the archer who took down six Dyre wolves. Head back on the road you came here on, back through the gate. It’ll be the, was it the third shop or the fourth shop on the right? Ones a tavern, the other’s the bowyer and fletcher. I wish I could tell you more, but… I don’t drink. I’ve seen what being drunk around heavy equipment can do.”
As Constantin headed out, Duncan led Tim into the workplace kitchen. “Fairly standard in here. Wood fired stove, cooking pot over an open fire, pots and pans are here in on the rack. Plates and flatware, bowls are up here. If you need hot water for something, put this glove on and turn that valve. The glove’s in case she spits at you, that small boiler can be a bit mean some days. If you need supplies, just holler and I’ll send someone to run into town and get what you need.”
Valentin looked at the crew basically sorting itself by their specialties and was rather impressed by the orderly fashion created by this.
“So my idea is as follows. Boiler-Team, please go and have the lorries boiler safety-tested and measured by external dimensions and weight. Controls, i’ll show you what we have for controls and we can figure something out. Connor will accompany the engine team and tear it up as needed. Get rid of the manifolds, coolant piping, anything fuel delivery related. We don’t need that anymore. As per piping, that is step two, you lot please help the other teams as needed. Especially the boiler crew.”, Valentin ordered. He seemed to quickly grasp what he was now in charge of and with a fairly accurate plan made up in advance, he got to work explaining the car’s existing controls to the controls team.
Connor took a few members of the engine department, had the hood popped by Valentin and dug in to get rid of anything immediately unnecessary.
Meanwhile in Duncan’s office, Constantin had to correct the story a bit:
“Seems like numbers getting inflated. I shot five arrows, all of which hit. Four of those were lethal.”, Constantin calmly corrects. “Not faulting you. Inflation happens with tell-tale stories.”
The three head out of the office, splitting when Tim and Duncan took the turn into the works kitchen. He went to great length showing what was available and how it worked, though Tim did not know how to make a good fire with a wooden stove.
“You have someone who knows oven firing? I usually have it heat directly via steam.”, he explains, partially lying about the steam part as he had a gas stove at home, but that didn’t change the fact that he had no clue as to how a wood-fired one worked.
Constantin headed past the Dione, sat in one of the eight berths usually used for steam engine maintenance. One other was occupied by a Mountain-Type locomotive, which was currently undergoing extensive repairs after a connecting rod failure. A third one contained one of the engines used on the Longitude Express, currently stripped of it’s streamlining panels for routine valvetrain maintenance. The other five berths currently were empty, for now, at least.
“I’m out looking for another bow to replace these ones!”, Constantin shouted across the entire hall.
“I’ll be back for food!”
No immediate reaction from Valentin followed, as he was busy explaining the car’s pedals, stocks and steering to the controls-crew.
As such, Constantin left the building, encountering Team Shift Happens, still busy with their brake job.
“Hmm…” Duncan said, thinking about what Tim had said. “I’ve never tried cooking with a steam stove before. But, I can probably help you there with a wood fired one. Before I worked here, I used to run a locomotive on a branch line, a little wood-fired engine that got replaced rather soon after I got there. But, I know how to build a good wood fire.”
Kaylie chuckled as Rukari wrestled the wheel off of the brake rotor, then watched him fighting with the caliper bolts. As the lower one suddenly gave way, Rukari gave a yowl of pain as he smacked his hand into the ground and dropped the wrench.
“And how much do you fear maintenance now?” Kaylie asked as Rukari scowled and lifted the loose caliper out of the way, just in time to drop both brake pads, or more specifically, what was left of both brake pads, straight to the ground. The rotor was visibly heat-scarred and discolored, and also visibly warped.
Rukari sighed, removed the bolts holding the rotor in place, and promptly dropped the heavy steel disc on his left hand, cursing roughly in Valraad as Constantin walked by.
Kaylie looked at Constantin, then said, “He says his people don’t fear maintenance. I figured I’d make him change the brakes he ruined. Jayde, how long has he been at this?”
Jayde flipped open his pocket watch, then closed it. “It’s taken him about 30 minutes to get that far,” Jayde replied.
Kivenaal got up off the bench outside, trying his best to not be noticed by anyone else but the rest of his own team as he lifted one of the purple glass bottles out of the Bricksley’s bed and returned to the bench.
In the steamworks, progress was going well.
Valentin and the workforce were going at it tearing the Dione apart where it mattered. Carburetor, Intake and exhaust manifold, the rest of the exhaust, what was left of the ignition, among other things found their way out of the engine bay. Within the car, theories were crafted as to how one would arrange all the switches, levers and dials needed for safe operation of a steam powerplant. It was determined that single-driver operation was impractical due to lack of space and personnel overload.
Meanwhile in the kitchen, Duncan had started a small fire on their stove and Tim got about looking at the number of ingredients available.
“How many people are working here? Like… would be a waste to cook twice for the same meal, right?”
After getting a reply that he would likely be feeding somewhere up to 80 people, Tim held still for a bit, but wanted to challenge himself while also handing a bit back to the crew that is currently working with Valentin on the conversion.
With what was there and the amount to be made, Tim decided that something easily scalable would be the best course of action, as grilling 80 individual steaks concurrently would be outrageous.
He settles on a rather simple pasta-based meal and got to work with some help from Duncan, managing the fire under the stove.
Outside the massive building, Shift Happens seemed to be poking fun at Rukari, who was currently digging about the wheel well working the brakes.
“Seems like you lot are having fun watching one person fix the car.”, Constantin joked, then looked at Jayde.
“I was gonna head out and visit the local bowyer. Apparently there’s only one here, so might as well try that one. Do you still have the Coin?”, he said, mentally preparing to catch the pouch in it’s entirety
“One person broke the car, so one person will fix the car,” Kaylie said, grinning. “Seriously, you guys didn’t get to see how many times he sent us off of the road.”
“He made me hit my heads on the radio console, too,” Malavera added. “So, yeah, we’re letting our royal pain in the ass fix the brakes he fried.”
When Constantin asked Jayde for the coins, Jayde reached into a robe pocket and pulled out the pouch, then handed it to Constantin. “Didn’t want to throw it. Last time I did that, the pouch burst and there were coins everywhere,” Jayde admitted.
Rukari scowled as he put the new brake rotor on, then went to put the old rotor in the truck bed. He picked it up and put it in the back of the truck with a surprisingly loud crash, then fumbled with trying to disconnect the caliper from the brake line.
Kaylie looked up at Constantin, then said, “We can’t trust the caliper seals after he got them that hot. Full front brake overhaul, guaranteed at least brake shoes in the drums out back.”
“One person broke the car, so one person will fix the car,” Kaylie said, grinning. “Seriously, you guys didn’t get to see how many times he sent us off of the road.”
“He made me hit my heads on the radio console, too,” Malavera added. “So, yeah, we’re letting our royal pain in the ass fix the brakes he fried.”
When Constantin asked Jayde for the coins, Jayde reached into a robe pocket and pulled out the pouch, then handed it to Constantin. “Didn’t want to throw it. Last time I did that, the pouch burst and there were coins everywhere,” Jayde admitted.
Rukari scowled as he put the new brake rotor on, then went to put the old rotor in the truck bed. He picked it up and put it in the back of the truck with a surprisingly loud crash, then fumbled with trying to disconnect the caliper from the brake line.
Kaylie looked up at Constantin, then said, “We can’t trust the caliper seals after he got them that hot. Full front brake overhaul, guaranteed at least brake shoes in the drums out back.”
At the massive engineering project surrounding Valentin and the Tangerine Tank™, not much of note happened. With the boiler now declared safe, teams boiler and control got to work stripping anything useful off of the derelict steam lorry. Most of it’s cab was taken off and set aside, various smaller controls, dials, knobs, levers and other various stuff was removed off of the engine. Even the piping team could start dedicated work sourcing piping of suitable size for the intake and exhaust ports of the engine’s cylinder head.
Constantin quickly thanks Jayde for the coin, pocketing the pouch and it’s contents as he did yesterday.
“Well… true. Sounds like a lot of work i cannot help you with, even if i wanted to.”, he chuckles, then heading off into town to the bowyer.
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Team Shift Happens and Team RK-Series Racing
The Full Story, Part 3 of 4
As Kaylie supervised the mayhem Rukari was causing with the brakes, she had to laugh when she realized what had become almost second nature to her was almost impossible for Rukari to figure out. He’d managed to remove the old caliper, and promptly spilled brake fluid on himself. Now he was fighting with the brake pads.
“Other way around,” Kaylie said, seeing Rukari putting the pads in with the steel backing facing the rotor side. She watched as he pulled them out and tried to fit them in not only backwards, but now upside down. “The other ‘other way,’ Rukari.” Now he had the friction material facing the rotor disc, but the pads were still upside down. “Only one more ‘other way’ to go.”
“Why are they so difficult?” Rukari growled out.
“If you hadn’t dumped the pads when you took the other caliper off, you’d have known which way they went back in,” Kaylie said, watching as he loaded the pads in the right way this time.
Navigating to the bowyer in town was just as easy as Duncan had described. As Constantin walked into town, he spotted the sign denoting a combination of bowyer and fletcher businesses.
As he walks in, a small bell was rang by him opening the door, and shortly after he was greeted by a very stocky, short man with short, curly hair.
“Hello! What can i do fo…”, he stopped halfway through his greeting, marveling at the sheer size of the lad that was Constantin, especially amazed by the fact that he was, in fact, fully human and no shapeshifter of sorts. “… for you?”
Constantin wasn’t surprised by the man in front and kept his calm, mildly smiling at the impressed shopkeeper.
“Good evening. I was looking to procure a pair of identical bows. I had a pair made yesterday, though they turned out unsatisfactory. And at latest, i need them by tomorrow morning.”, Constantin explained, just now noticing that he did not bring the old equipment along. “I would’ve brought them along but i forgot them at the steamworks.”
“That’s alright. It would’ve helped, but we can figure this out.”, the shopkeeper replied and went in the back for a bit before returning up front with extensive measuring equipment. “Now i’m gonna start with some questions first.”, he said, setting a bundle of seemingly random stuff down onto the shorter-than-average counter.
“Go ahead.”, Constantin replied, already more confident in this bowyer.
“I’d need to know draw length, weight and preferred arrow weight, if you have those values.”, the bowyer returns, untangling a mess of strings and sticks in the meantime.
“I draw 100 pounds to 34 inches from what was measured a little over a year ago. The bow made with those measurements was very comfortable to me until it broke, which is why i had the first pair made. As for arrow weight, all i know is that i apparently shoot really heavy and that the ones i have are too light or soaking wet.”, Constantin explains.
What followed was familiar to Constantin, as the bowyer nodded and, just like Kiyaru, handed a stick to Constantin, albeit this time it was substantially longer and curved to resemble an actual bow. He once again was ordered to draw an imaginary arrow to what he felt comfortable with, aiming it at a thin painted line off to the side. Afterwards, an attempt at measuring wad made, but he was forced to get a little stool out from behind the counter to actually be able to reach far enough. He took a multitude of values, some of which seemed entirely inconsequential to Constantin, noting down each one on a slip of paper. He even went as far as wrapping what was similar to play-doh around the stick in case he found the time to carve the grip to better fit Constantin’s right hand. Once that was done, he took back the stick and dragged his stool back behind the counter, allowing Constantin to relax once again.
“Now i just need a name.”, the bowyer said, poised over the counter with a pencil and his sheet with all the measurements.
Constantin wasn’t sure on if he should include his rank or not, but ultimately decided against it. “Constantin Schrant.”, he replied, setting off a lightbulb moment in the person on the other side.
“Wait… aren’t you that master archer from the Dyre-battle, having killed 7 Dyre?”, he asked, suddenly excited as if he was meeting a celebrity.
“Well… five arrows, five hits, four kills.”, Constantin corrects once again, smirking at how quickly, though inaccurately rumours have spread.
“I appreciate the honesty! Still a very commendable result given the fast-paced nature of it.”, he notes, respectfully nodding. “I’ try to get them done as quickly as i can manage. How can i contact you once the first one is done? It would make sense to test one before making the other.”
“I’ll probably stay at the steamworks for a good bit. My colleagues are working on out vehicle.”, Constantin answers, vaguely pointing in the cardinal direction the works were placed at.
“Alright. It was an honor to meet you! I’ll get right to work!”, the bowyer goes, immediately scrambling together what was on the counter and heading into the back.
Constantin, befuddled by the eagerness of the bowman, simply turned around and left again and headed back to the steamworks.
There, Shift Happens was still busy with the braking system of the Bricksley.
Rukari, by that time, had gotten to the point of putting the front caliper onto the Bricksley. The smell of brake fluid was easily recognizable in the air, a result of Rukari tipping the old caliper the wrong way and getting brake fluid all over his hands. He was in the middle of tightening up the first bolt on the caliper when Constantin returned to the steamworks.
Kaylie turned to face Constantin and said, “Welcome back! Rukari has almost finished with the first brake out of four.”
“Though,” Kayden said, “the rest of us are probably going to have to help with the rest of the brakes, or this is going to take all night.”
There was a sudden clang and an equally sudden outburst of cursing as the wrench slipped and Rukari smacked his elbow into the ground. “Why are these cars so difficult to work on!?” Rukari snarled.
“Because they’re complex bits of machinery, not tractors,” Kaylie replied. “You pushed it hard, you burned the brakes, and now you’re finding out how hard it is to fix this. The good news is, once you get that caliper tightened down, the next major thing is to bleed the brakes, and then the wheel goes back on.”
Kayden grabbed a bottle of brake fluid and said to Kaylie, “I know how this goes. Don’t let the reservoir suck air or you have to start over.”
“Well, we’ll need someone strong to pump the brakes because we’re not starting the engine with the truck on the jack and a jack-stand,” Kaylie said. “Jayde, I think you can do this. All you have to do is sit in the truck, put your foot on the middle pedal, and when I tell you ‘Down,’ you push it as far down as you can. When I say ‘Up,’ you take your foot off of the pedal.”
Jayde grimaced. “I really hate trying to drive this thing,” he said.
“You’re not driving it, Jayde, you’re pumping the brakes so we can get all of the air out,” Kaylie explained.
Jayde got behind the wheel reluctantly as Rukari finished tightening up the caliper bolts.
“That one, right there,” Kaylie said, pointing to the bleed screw for Rukari. “You’re going to unscrew that a little. When I say ‘Down,’ you leave it open. Then after a moment, you close it, and I’ll tell Jayde ‘Up.’ After a moment, you open it again, and we’ll get the air out of this brake system.”
Kayden topped up the reservoir as Rukari opened the bleed screw. “Down,” Kaylie ordered, and Jayde mashed the pedal all the way into the firewall and held it there. Kaylie watched as Rukari tightened the screw a little, then told Jayde, “Okay, now up.” Jayde pulled his foot off of the pedal, and Kayden topped up the reservoir. They repeated this process several times until, on one occasion, Kaylie ordered Jayde to press the pedal down, and instead of air, a stream of fluid shot out instead. “Right,” Kaylie said. “That’s our driver’s side front brake done. Put that tire on, Rukari, and you’ll have officially done one full brake overhaul on one corner of the truck.”
Rukari looked exhausted, but struggled through getting the wheel back on and the lug nuts tightened down. He set the truck down and Kaylie grabbed the wrench left handed, torquing the bolts down to their proper required amounts.
Jayde looked at his watch again, then said, “I don’t know how long that normally takes, but he did one brake in an hour and 35 minutes.”
“Yeah, we’re going to have to help him on the rest,” Kaylie said.
“Hello there.” Constantin quickly remarked as he simply watched the semi-controlled chaos of Rukari doing brakes unfold. He decided to not tell anyone about his experience at the bowyer in fear of throwing them off and/ or insulting Jayde. As the wheel finally was put back one and Jayde declared that Rukari used more than one and a half hours to fix one brake, Constantin finally spoke again:
“I’m not sure either. All i know is that it takes two people a little less than an hour to do the same on an offroad Military truck. At least that’s what i remember from the maintenance reports.”, Constantin said, giving some sense of a reference point to Rukary and the others. Although it wasn’t comparable, given the rims alone being 22.5 inches in diameter. Everything simply was bigger, heavier and needed more torque on the bolts.
From inside the works, Tim popped out and into the driveway.
“Hi! Hope you’re making good progress. So… i’ve spent the past bit making food for the crew and all and am now inviting you to join. Duncan also is fine with it, if you’re asking.”, Tim spoke, followed seconds after by a high-pitched steam whistle sounding.
Kaylie nodded. “Sounds similar to my experiences. One person, one standard midsize sedan, roughly about an hour to take it all the way down and fix everything. Taking about double that for someone’s first time seems reasonable,” Kaylie said.
Malavera scented the air, then said, “I think someone’s been making food.”
Sure enough, a few seconds later, Tim arrived and invited them to join in a meal, moments before a steam whistle blared.
“Yeah, just let us wash up a bit first,” Kaylie said, grabbing a container off of the roof and pouring water over Rukari’s hands to help him get the brake fluid off of them.
Once Rukari’s hands were as clean as they were going to get, it was Kayden who rounded up all of the members of Shift Happens, including a barely-tipsy Kivenaal, who really couldn’t care less about being seen now. Kaylie, Jayde, Kayden, Malavera, Rukari, and Kivenaal all made their way into the steamworks’ canteen, making sure not to bump into anyone or knock anything onto the floor.
Tim and Constantin followed suit, entering to see most of the employees practically sprinting over to the canteen, much to the confusion of Valentin.
“Huh? Where are you all off to?”, Valentin asked, confused and not aware of the whistle being their way of announcing dinner.
“Feasting on whatever your friend prepared for us. DINNERTIME!!!”, one worker replied, a young gun overly enthusiastic on getting some food into his stomach.
Valentin also went over to grab his serving.
The canteen itself was what one would expect a canteen to be like. Rows of benches next to basic tables served as seating accomodation for anyone sourcing meals from there. A counter top was used to distribute servings among the personnel, behind which multiple wagons were line up with pots containing the food, as well as plates and cutlers. In front of that counter, all of them lined up forming a queue going all the way back out the canteen into the steamworks main hall.
Valentin, not wanting to stir up trouble, simply joined the line, with Constantin and a few other workers behind himself. Tim went back around the counter and started distributing the servings to each one, handing them a tomato-sauce covered plate of pasta as well as a spoon and fork.
After they collected their plates of pasta and their utensils, the six members of Shift Happens looked for a relatively empty table, finding one at the far corner of the canteen.
Jayde sat down first, not seeming concerned at all about the pasta in tomato sauce as it was something he’d had before. He stuck a fork in and twirled up a scoop of wide, long noodles, popping it into his mouth and enjoying the hot pasta with delicious, tangy tomato sauce.
Kaylie was curious about the noodles more than anything, as while it looked vaguely like spaghetti in length, and from the thinner edge, at the thickest edge it was easily as wide as three spaghetti noodles. “Should hold onto the sauce well,” Kaylie said, thinking out loud as she likewise twirled her fork in the noodles and got a mouthful of noodles and sauce.
Rukari, like Jayde, wasn’t concerned as to what was on his plate, although unlike Kaylie or Jayde, he was taking smaller forkfuls of pasta, using his spoon to cut off the excess length of noodles and to keep the sauce from dripping as he raised it to his mouth. Proper ettiquette at the table was something he’d once had classes in as a child, and here, it was almost impossible to break that habit.
Malavera didn’t really have the coordination for fork twirling, instead taking his time to break the noodles down with the edge of his fork, then scooping up spoonfuls of both noodles and sauce, working the best he could with what he knew.
Kivenaal, even tipsy as he was, managed to expertly twirl up noodles like Kaylie and Jayde did, enjoying the pasta dish. Like Rukari, however, it showed that he was taking extra care not to stain his clothing with tomato sauce, or get it everywhere.
Kayden had to admit, he was enjoying the pasta, though he was struggling a little with getting proper forkfuls of it. Kaylie had shown him twice how to twirl the fork properly, and even Jayde did so once at a slower pace, which was the only reason he was able to get even as much as he was on a fork. “This is quite good,” Kayden admitted.
“Agreed,” Kivenaal said in between bites. “Whoever did this, they did a great job. It’s simple, but sometimes that’s what you need, and pasta is a good filling meal.”
“This sauce is amazing,” Jayde admitted. “Sweet, tangy, savory, but the spices aren’t overpowering anything. You can tell those tomatoes are fresh.”
“A little hard to eat, but that’s just me having trouble,” Malavera admitted. “I can’t get the hang of twirling the fork like the five of you.”
Rukari pointed to Malavera’s hands and said, “The five of us have retractable claws, even if they are longer when extended. You have short, fixed claws that are getting in your way. Not your fault that you can’t twirl a fork.”
Kaylie smirked. “Our father couldn’t do that, either, Mal. He had to chop up his pasta into little pieces the same as you. A lot of people have to do that.”
With all employees, Shift Happens and the remainder of RK Series Racing fed, Tim also went out and grabbed himself a good serving, settling down with the Constantin and Valentin at a table near the front.
They end up being sat inbetween a group of workers as seating spaces were few and far between at that point. A few of those workers were of Valentin’s engineering task force, but most were unaffiliated staff, being friends with each other.
As the three dug into their meals, morale skyrocketed as an actual plate of pasta was vastly better than any of the canned stuff they were lugging around:
“I’ll have to say that you make a very good cook.”, Constantin praised the meal, visibly content at the dish being served.
“Yeah. This shit’s really good!”, Valentin added, and before he could elaborate, some worker jumped up from his seat.
“WHO MADE THIS PASTA!! WHO MADE THIS!?”, he shouted all across the canteen, silencing most of the others as they stare at this one person standing in the middle of the canteen.
Constantin nudged Tim a bit, at which point he sheepishly stands up. “I did. Anythi…”
“CUZ I FUCKING LOVE IT!!!”, The guy blared, sending a signal for intense cheering and applause directed at Tim and his cooking skills, as many of the other employees also appreciated the meal.
Tim blushed a little, before slowly sinking back down onto the bench.
“They sure love it…”, he stuttered, not knowing what he did differently, as to him it was just ordinary pasta he frequently made for himself to feast off of for the better part of a week.
A minute or so later, the applause had died down and the noise returned to usual dinner-time banter between friends and colleagues.
As someone suddenly jumped up and demanded to know who made the pasta, Jayde sighed and set down his fork, getting ready to get up and put a stop to the altercation he expected was about to happen. When Tim stood up, and the man yelled out that he loved it, however, Jayde visibly relaxed.
“Glad I didn’t have to stop a fight. I hate doing that,” Jayde said quietly to his table companions.
“I’d have had your back,” Kaylie replied, smiling. “Might not trust myself to use my left arm, but I can sure as shit kick high enough to make anyone regret that.”
Kayden grimaced. “Yeah, because you’ve been practicing on me your whole life.”
“You’re the one who always said you needed a sparring partner,” Kaylie quipped back with a smirk. “You got one who’s not afraid to make you fight on your knees.”
“Wait, how many times has this happened?” Malavera asked.
“A dozen,” Kayden said, at the exact same time as Kaylie said, “I think about three, maybe four times.” The two of them stared at each other for a few long seconds, before Kayden sighed. “I’m going to say six, because the couple of times you kicked me squarely in the tail were almost as bad,” he said.
“Fair enough,” Kaylie said, chuckling.
Soon, however, their meal was finished, plates scraped nearly-clean with the last of the noodles, just the residue of tomato sauce left behind. Now satisfied and full, the team got up slowly, walking up to put their plates and utensils on the counter where the sign said to put them. As they passed by the table that Valentin, Tim, and Constantin were eating at, Kaylie said, “By the way, Tim, that pasta was awesome. I might have to get that sauce recipe from you in the future.”
The six of them walked up to the counter and made a neat little pile of plates and utensils, then headed back out to the Bricksley.
After all, those brakes weren’t going to fix themselves.
The team further forward in the canteen kept on eating, talking about how Valentin’s plans were getting along and how Constantin had ordered new bows. Again.
With very little left on the plates, team Shift Happens waltzed on past, Kaylie complementing his pasta on the way towards the counter.
“Thanks. I can note that down for you when i get to it.”, he replied, happy to supply recipies but also knowing that more pressing issues were at hand.
Soon after, the pasta was finished, with most of the employees also on their way back out again. Almost everyone who had the opportunity to do so thanked Tim for the, by their standards, amazing meal as they went past.
All three of them also returned their dishes, with Duncan approaching the group after having done so.
“It seems like the people liked the food you made. Thank you!” Duncan congratulated Tim, bowing down in respect for the cooking he did.
“Erm… gotta hand something back to the lot… i mean, half your workforce is fixing our car at the moment.”, Tim replied, starting to have had enough of the cooking fame in this place. Sure, being complemented on cooking is great, but having 80-or-so people do so in unison was a bit much for Tim.
As such, they headed back to work, the offered workforce was in good spirits as they took cutting equipment to the rear of the Dione to make some room for the boiler to go in.
Up front, the camshaft was freed and rotated by 90 degrees to allow steam to be exhausted the way the planned to. This was made that much easier as the Dione was not an interference engine, negating the fear of valves impacting the pistons.
Out by the truck, Malavera asked, “Should we do the other front brake first, or deal with the rears?”
“Those are fucking drum brakes out back. We’re doing them now before it gets any darker, because if the spring that’s in there escapes, we’re going to have to use up the last of our spares on an impromptu, field-built disc brake conversion if we can’t find the little fucker,” Kaylie said.
The jack was slid under the rear of the Bricksley, lifting up to touch the frame as Kaylie cracked all of the lug nuts loose, then being lifted further so she could get the tire off.
Of course, as Kaylie had predicted, no sooner had she pulled the drum off of the axle, the spring shot out with a metallic twang, skipped off of the ground, and went skittering to a stop just inside the doors of the steamworks. “Whoever thought this was a good design,” Kaylie said, retrieving the spring before it got lost, “was an evil genius.”
Rukari just found himself glad to not have to fight with these brakes that liked to fight back, after seeing Kaylie swapping out the brake shoes and getting a nasty pinch from the spring as she put it back in place. Soon, the drum was put back on, the tire soon followed it, and then the lug nuts were tightened back into place. “Now, it’s the other side. I hate drum brakes,” Kaylie said.
Back within, work was going smoothly.
With the boiler now ready for extraction, they waited for the boiler basket to be finished up on the recipient vehicle. Unfortunately, that would still take a while, as they just about finished the first cut after having removed most of the carpeting back there.
A few berths further down, the entry doors slowly were opened and a familiar-looking engine chuffed into the maintenance bay. It announced it’s entry with two quick puffs of it’s powerful whistle, alerting anyone within that an engine was moving in the building.
Most of the team turned around to see what was rolling in and went back to work upon spotting the engine. Valentin, however, was glued to it with his gaze, now seeing the Silver Line Special in all it’s glory, up close and personal. Not wanting to stall progress, he queued a few orders to keep the crews busy for the time being and went over to watch the beast come to a stop just shy of the buffer at the end of the rails.
Duncan also took note and came over to fill some info in:
“Feast your eyes… The Silver Line Special, out pride and joy of a Pacific locomotive along the Longitude Express.”, he spoke, also impressed by the mighty appearance of the streamlined engine. Valentin just stood there, in awe. Sure he’d seen steam locomotives before, but none of them were as fast or powerful as this one is.
As the crew stepped out and requested routine maintenance to be done, the respective workers assigned to the crew got to work cleaning the engine inside and out, oiling up what needs oiled and removing soot and ash out of the smokebox and firebox.
This was soon followed by a quick tour of the engine, including a full walk-around as well as a look at the cab, with all it’s controls and gauges.
Afterwards, he headed back to work on his own design, visibly content after having seen the very engine that sparked the idea in every little detail.
Like with the first brake drum, the second was equally a real pain, starting by taking a bit of extra effort to get the drum itself off, followed by again firing a spring out, though this time, Rukari redeemed himself by having fast enough reflexes to catch it.
Kayden, this time, helped his sister put the brake shoes on, and this time, he was the one who put the escaped spring back where it belonged. With the rear brake done after 50 minutes of fighting, the team put the rear tire back in place, dropped the jack, moved it over to the front, and prepared to begin the same process that had started the whole job, with the last remaining front brake disc.
Unlike the last time, though, this one immediately started giving them trouble after the wheel came off. “What the fuck!?” Kaylie said, yanking hard on the wrench to break the bolts loose on the caliper. “Seriously, if I ever find the guy who put these fuckers on with a rattle-gun, I’m going to torque wrench him in the nuts.”
After quite a long time, a lot of use of the blowtorch, the hammer, and the application of copious amounts of harsh language, Kaylie got the brake disc off. Likewise, the caliper fought her the whole time, refusing to come off of the brake line without being difficult. But, after a long battle of the brakes, the brakes were finally done on the Bricksley. The team took a break, grabbing their labeled cans and having a long, long drink of cold water.
Back at the soon-to be steaming-hot tank, work was running rather smoothly.
Nobody noticed, or cared, that it was already dark out and most of them were already past their shifts end. They simply kept pushing forward turning the Dione into a road-worthy express engine.
The boiler housing was crafted from sheet metal brackets, which where generously bolted into the space previously occupied by the spare tyre and it’s housing. The engine’s rocker cover found it’s way back on, with a bit of oil being added to counteract the amount lost through the top-end.
Early pipework followed, with brass pipes bolted to the exhaust and intake manifold brackets, which were led further forward and into the radiator, now serving as a steam condenser. The engine itself was meant to be kept cool by running the water from the reservoir through it, taking some load off the boiler creating steam. That reservoir was also now ready for installation, but mandated removal of the hood as it wouldn’t close all the way otherwise. It was sent off for a cutout to be added, which would clear the water reservoir tank.
After that, the car was lifted about two feet into the air to allow access to the underside for installation of the main steam carrier pipe and the feedwater pipe next to the driveshaft, filling the space where the other exhaust of a dual-exhaust system would’ve been on the V8 models of the DIone. Surrounding the front half and engine bay, pedestals were placed, as work continued on fitting a Stephenson Valve link, which was taken off the retired steam lorry. It was attached up top to the cylinder head with cast-iron brackets, driven by what once was the distributor drive mechanism and a pair of 90 degree bevel gears. Within, early controls such as the regulator were installed, together with a hose fitting in case the engine needed to be used as a water pump of sorts.
Work was nearly done on the Bricksley, merely needing all of the coolant to be added back into the radiator and the engine. They grabbed the first of the five-gallon cans, removed the engine’s thermostat, and started pouring, waiting until the water came spilling back out. A new gasket was put on, and the thermostat went back in before Kaylie opened up the radiator cap and started filling the radiator. Once the radiator filled up, Kaylie looked to her brother and said, “Moment of truth. Kayden, go start the engine, we need that water pump turning to push coolant through the system.”
Kayden got into the cab of their van-truck, made sure the parking brake was on, the gearbox was in neutral, then turned the key. The starter cranked over the big V8, and it roared to life just outside the shop.
“Just let it sit and idle,” Kaylie said, a funnel stuck in the radiator cap and a white-painted water can in her hands. “She’s got to get hot enough to open that thermostat before she’ll pull any of this through the loop.”
3 Likes
Team Shift Happens and Team RK-Series Racing
The Full Story, Part 4 of 4
The Dione’s conversion was nearing finalization, as most other controls found their way into the passenger half of the dashboard. Various gauges, knobs, levers were ripped directly from the steam lorry and resembled a steampunk version of a gauge pod on tuner cars on earth. With work below the car done, it was lowered again and the surrounding pedestals moved aside, followed by the final pipes going from the steam chest to the individual cylinders, being installed. Finally, the hood was put back where it belongs, now with a rectangular cutout through which the feedwater tank and it’s top-up valve were poking through.
What followed was the moment of truth for the whole team.
Connor was made to organize the boiler and it’s gauges and thus got into the front passenger seat, with Valentin taking place on the driver half.
“Raise the steam!”, Valentin ordered from within the car, followed by Connor flicking a few switches. A very long minute of waiting followed, as the water-tube boiler in the back burned through the Kerosene supplied through the stock Anhultz fuel tank, producing ample amounts of pressure rather quickly.
“We have full operating pressure, opening the regulator.”, Connor declared after having visual confirmation on the boiler pressure gauge and auditory confirmation through the boiler’s safety valve dumping the excess.
Valentin then puts the gearbox into second, the clutch welded to the floor at this point. After that, a little bit of throttle was added to allow the non-quartered crankshaft to remain spinning and not stall the engine. A turn of the ignition key forced the starter to turn the engine, which span into motion immediately, sounding like an extremely fast, but remarkably quiet steam locomotive.
A wave of optimism filled the crowd of workmen, seeing the engine turn over through the hole in the hood.
The small whistle that was part of the boiler was blipped twice to warn anyone still in there that an “engine” was in motion.
Valentin released the clutch, almost stalling the engine, but also moving the Dione forwards and out of the maintenance bay that was assigned to it.
It made it’s way towards the gate, which was hastily opened to allow the DIone to pass through.
Though it did not make it far out of it, as a pop was heard, immediately stalling the engine, followed by copious amounts of steam being released out of the feedwater tank cap with the associated wooshing noise to boot.
“FUCK! ABORT! Shut the thing down!”, Valentin ordered, followed by Connor turning down the regulator to zero and cutting fuel supply to the boiler.
The steam-driven Tangerine Tank rolled to a stop next to the V8 Bricksley, with Valentin looking at team Shift Happens, currently unsure as to what was broken.
When two toots of a steam whistle sounded out through the shop, all attempts by Team Shift Happens to finish collecting up their supply of tools and spare parts came to a screeching halt.
Jayde was excited as he saw the doors open just ahead of the Dione steaming toward the exit, pausing in his cleanup of the tools to watch as the faded orange car whooshed and chugged its way toward them. Unfortunately, just as fast as it had gotten going, it seemed to let off as much steam as the Bricksley had when Rukari had overheated the engine.
Kaylie ran over to see what had happened, then took a look down the side of their water tank, getting a look at the way they had connected up the valve gear to the engine. “Oh, shit. You guys used the distributor drive for that. Those gears aren’t meant to handle a lot of torque, they strip really easily,” Kaylie said.
“Done that a time or two,” Kivenaal admitted. “Older Bricksleys, sometimes when the distributor fails, the rotor jams in the cap, but the cap clips give way. Other times, those clips hold up and the gears strip out.”
Valentin popped the hood latch, got out of the car and took a look inside as well.
“Well from what i know, Stephenson Valve Gears aren’t all that heavy regarding torque need. Then again the AMP engineers could’ve bolted the rotor straight to the camshaft end, but oh well.”, Valentin muttered, annoyed at the fact that the engine was an early model, as that change was made the standard on cars from 1980 onwards.
“Either way the thing ran like shit anyway… It was about as smooth as my father’s old-ass tractor and keeping water levels in check is nigh-impossible without control over the pumps. Problem is… the engine’s water pump is our feedwater pump supplying the boiler, and the alternator is ran off of the same belt, so we’ll need to figure something out on that. Also, that crankshaft needs quartering… guess the flywheel wasn’t enough in smoothing the thing out.”, Valentin explained, having thought quickly about the issues the engine had and the fixes needed to remedy them.
He turned around, looking into the hall:
“Get the car back in! We have some unfortunate fixing to do!”, Valentin shouted into the hall, followed by a group of five barging out the door and wheeling the car back in.
“You know, if you moved the alternator to where your air conditioning pump is,” Kaylie mentioned, “that would get it off of that belt. To keep tension on it, you could put an idler pulley down there, and that’s how you change the tension.”
Jayde smiled as Kaylie suggested a possible solution to the problem of belt tensioning, then picked up Kaylie’s wrench kit and went to put it away. Unfortunately, he didn’t latch it first, and the sound of a 50 piece wrench and socket set hitting the ground rang out. “Sorry, Kaylie,” Jayde said.
“You know how many times I’ve done that, Jayde?” Kaylie asked. "Far too many times. Looks like we’re putting a puzzle together for a moment. “Oh, wow, you really did a good one,” she added, realizing he’d even managed to tip the screwdriver bits out.
The two of them crouched there in the driveway, picking up sockets, screwdriver bits, wrenches, ratchets, and socket extensions, while Malavera, Kayden, Kivenaal, and Rukari continued to organize the truck bed.
“Thanks a lot! That should work. AC is useless anyway with a boiler in the back heating the thing.”, Valentin responded and eagerly headed back inside.
With a routine beginning to establish itself, both in workflow between employees and how Valentin kept track of their actions, the extensive work needed to optimize the engine went ahead.
The bottom half was torn up, with the oil drained into a storage container for re-filling later on, the pan was removed, exposing the crankshaft. To get that out, the gearbox was dropped to release the flywheel and clutch pack together with the crankshaft. The crank assembly was then wheeled off for the first two cylinders to be rotated by 90 degrees, while the gearbox was subjected to cutting and grinding to make way for the new valve gear mechanism, which was to be driven off of the flywheel teeth. Up top, a similar process was started to correct the camshaft to match the crank, though there the process was a lot easier to accomplish due to less load on the bearings.
A new valve gear was sourced from the parts-bin of the steamworks. It was, once again, of Stephenson type, though featured two sets on a shaft to drive two double-acting cylinders. Or four single-acting ones, as was the case in the Dione.
Within the car, two levers and a number of plunger pulls were added to extend the funtionality and useability of the engine.
With the valve gear in, the alternator was relocated, removing the AC compressor entirely and allowing separate de-tensioning of the two water pumps the steam engine now had. The throttle pedal was also reconnected to the new steam chests, as was the steam main supply.
On the outside, the roof recieved a basic brass cage to house the teams belongings, fashioned out of the frame that once held the steam lorry’s roof in place.
Bit by bit, the Dione’s gearbox, crank and camshafts found their way back in, with careful attention being paid to align them properly to each other and the valve gear next to it.
Finally, some valve springs off of a disused stationary engine of massive proportions found their way as a replacement pair for the Dione’s rear coils to better support the boiler’s weight on top of the cargo they already had.
As a result, at about 5-50 moon, the car was ready for a second test. The steamworks crew, as well as team RK Series Racing were starting to tire noticeably, but still eager to finish this off to keep going in this rally.
“Raise some steam”, Valentin, ordered once again, followed by a near-immediate rise in steam pressure. Knowing that now the engine was quartered, it wouldn’t need a starter or clutch to set off. At least in theory. As such, he once again went for second, but releasing the clutch as soon as it was in gear.
“Here we go… now or never…”, Valentin prayed, hunched over the steering wheel as the whistle hooted and tooted twice again. He gave it some throttle, with little happening initially. To his surprise, it needed much more throttle to set off, but the car was moving. Connor on the passenger seat now had much more control over the water levels and boiler state.
Slowly, the Tangerine tank, in it’s second evolution in steam propulsion, made it’s way back towards the door, rolling out and into the driveway, followed by a wave of workmen on edge, not knowing of their work was fruitful or not.
Once out, the car came to a stop, still running and making steam.
“I don’t want to jinx anything, but this is going much better than the first one did.”, Valentin spoke in cautious optimism, selecting neutral on the gearbox and executing what must be the first case of free-revving a steam engine, albeit slowly and at a steady speed of roughly 800RPM to make sure the thing did not blow up again.
While the Dione was being modified further, Team Shift Happens looked over the Bricksley and gave a collective sigh. “We might as well start cleaning it up. All of our tents are in the camp, so the bed’s as empty as it’ll ever be,” Malavera said.
“Right,” Kayden admitted, “Let’s just get this over with. Looks like they’re going to be here a while, so let’s at least try to make it look like the host team is organized.”
“I’ll start work in the cab,” Rukari said.
Kaylie stared into the truck bed and sighed. “I’m going to have to crawl up there,” she mentioned. A moment later, Jayde picked her up and set her in the back of the bed, where she immediately started putting all the little random electronics bits back into the plastic container they came from. “What a bunch of junk!” she said, staring at the half-full box of circuit boards, knobs, buttons, and lights.
Kayden started dropping the remains of their first ever roadside brake service into the toolbox, counting up two warped and heat damaged rotors, four badly worn brake pads, four equally badly worn brake shoes, and two heat damaged brake calipers, plus two empty bottles of brake fluid, courtesy of trying to bleed brakes in the dark. “Think Jayde can fix these?” he asked.
“Why don’t you just ask me instead?” Jayde quipped. Kayden face-palmed and sighed.
“Because I’m damn tired is why. Can barely think right now,” he admitted.
“Well, the good news is, while I may not understand them, I don’t need to understand how it works to fix it with magic. I just need the whole item to do it, or all of the pieces of the item,” Jayde admitted.
“So that’s why,” Kivenaal said, “you didn’t just offer to fix their distributor.”
“Yes. I need all of the parts to make it whole again, or suitable material to fill in the gaps,” Jayde said.
By 5-and-50 Moon, the Bricksley’s bed was organized again, the cab had been cleaned up and organized, with all of their personal supplies stowed under the benches, and a small inventory of “missing” items was made. “How have we gone through nearly 5 bottles of moonshine already?” Kaylie asked.
“Marie took one before we ever got into Crugandr. Kivenaal’s been drinking them. I added some to the fuel tanks to improve the fuel quality,” Rukari said.
“Could you slow down on the moonshine, please?” Malavera asked Kivenaal.
“I can try, but… It does help with being here, you know,” Kivenaal said.
“Could always use the ring and go home,” Rukari said. “They work for individuals, just don’t do it in the truck.”
Kivenaal held up his right hand, the blackened and rather damaged ring still in place. “Tried that,” Kivenaal admitted.
Jayde stared at the ring, then looked to Rukari. “What was the intent of the spell?” he asked.
“If the wearer turned the ring upside down, thought of home, and said out loud, three times quickly, ‘I wish I was at home,’ they would be teleported to where they thought of,” Rukari said.
“And if that home was, say, no longer there?” Kaylie asked.
The inside of Rukari’s ears paled noticeably. “The spell would fail. He didn’t try to go home to Earth, he tried to go back home to Aetherii,” Rukari said.
“A time before the war broke out, yes,” Kivenaal admitted. “I just… After fighting the Dyre…” Kivenaal sighed. “I wanted to go to a place I knew.”
“Time-travel magic is… It’s difficult,” Jayde said. “And it’s risky. These rings likely held only just enough energy to get people back to Earth, plus or minus a few years. If what you’re saying is true, you tried to jump thousands of years. There wasn’t enough energy in that ring for that.”
“My question is, then, how is it still working for him?” Kayden asked. “We can’t understand anything here if ours aren’t on our hand.”
“The language spell,” Jayde said, “was woven separately to the teleportation spell. One can work while the other has failed.”
As the Dione chugged its way outside, however, the grim conversation stopped. “Right, we’ve got to get back into camp,” Malavera said. “It’s about 20 minutes at a nice slow pace. We’ll have to coast in, though, because our V8 is a bit loud.”
As the Dione kept chugging while stationary, the hood was popped once again to take a look inside.
With all the gears gearing, levers levering and pipes piping, all was good for departure.
“It looks to be working.”, Valentin declared, with a content but also incredibly tired tone in his voice.
“Time to pack up and head back to camp.”, he added, prompting every single member of his team to rush inside to get everything that the team owned, including whatever parts were taken off the Dione in the process.
It took less than five minutes for the cargo to be loaded up even without any help from team RK Seires Racing itself.
To top it all off, Duncan walked up, holding a pair of what seemed to be locomotive nameplates.
“Normally, the creator gets to name the engine, but i figured with you lot being tired and all, i’d get a pair with a suitable name.”, Duncan spoke, holding up a pair of plates which originally belonged to a 6-2-0 Crampton-Type locomotive that has been retired more than half a century ago.
“Maybe i can get the word out to stamp a pair to your liking at some point.”, he added.
“Thanks a lot.”, Valentin replied, handing the plates to a crewman for installation. “They shall go on either side of the roof rails, then.”, Valentin said to the worker, who split the plates with a second guy and went to town mounting them.
Another five minutes went by and the plates were on.
“Thank you once again for helping out on this. I really do appreciate it.”, Valentin repeated, as he walked around to swap seats with Connor.
Duncan smiled, and before Valentin contorted himself into the fireman’s seat, he looked over at Kaylie.
“Sleeping will be fun… all those controls up here will force me to curl up like a hedgehog.”, he remarked, before taking a seat and closing the door.
When Valentin looked over to her and commented that sleeping was going to be difficult before they got in their car, Kaylie hopped up into the radio seat of the Bricksley, already starting to come up with a plan.
Malavera, being the most visibly awake one, got behind the wheel. Jayde sat next to Kaylie, and Kayden sat next to Jayde in the rear bench, while Rukari and Kivenaal took mid-front and passenger-side front respectively. The doors were closed, the engine was started, and as both vehicles rolled out into town, Kaylie brought up Valentin’s concern.
“Valentin’s been sleeping in the car this whole time,” Kaylie started, “but now he’s got a bunch of controls in the way. I know we have six people and five tents, but I’m sharing with Jayde,” she stopped as her brother snickered, reached across Jayde, and thumped her brother solidly on his right arm with her left.
“Ow! Fuck, that hurts!” Kayden said, rubbing the spot.
“Deserved it,” Kivenaal said, chuckling.
“As I said, I’m already sharing with Jayde. Before that, though, I was sleeping in the truck-”
“Until you threw a fit, blared the horn, and revved the engine,” Kayden said, playing the dangerous game as he teased his sister, “until we were forced to make you sleep in a tent. Ow!” He rubbed the spot where Kaylie had hit him again, “Damn, you hit the same spot twice.”
“Keep it up, smart-ass, and I’ll make it three for three,” Kaylie said, before continuing. “The thing is, I know the truck is comfortable. It’s just not big enough for Jayde, or I’d ask him to give up our tent and take over sleeping in the truck. So, I need a volunteer to start truck camping.”
“Not me,” Kayden said. “I couldn’t get comfortable back here. Kept finding seat belt buckles with my back.”
“I’ve slept in the front bench, but when I woke up, I had one of my knees resting on the wheel rim. A bit higher up, I’d have hit the horn,” Kivenaal said. “I mean, I’ll do it if I have to, but I’ll have to use the rear bench, and I’m going to be sore in the morning.”
“The seats aren’t quite wide enough. Good way to wake up with a cramp in one of my necks,” Malavera admitted.
“I’ll do it,” Rukari said. “Can’t be worse than a military tent in the jungle.”
Kaylie breathed a sigh of relief as the problem was solved at last. “Thank you. I’ll let you get your things out of your tent once we’re there, and I’ll get him my spare sleeping pad.”
“You brought a spare?” Kivenaal asked.
“Kaylie’s had a history of rough wake-ups,” Kayden mentioned. “Three days after we thought she was used to her new arm, she punched a hole in her mattress and broke the bed in the process. We went camping once and she woke up in a pile of blanket confetti. She’s gotten better, but…”
“Always be prepared,” Kaylie said. “Better to waste the space packing an extra sleeping mat and spare covers than to spend the rest of the trip laying on the ground and being cold.”
“Not like you’d have that problem, though,” Kayden said with a smirk, “considering you’d just lay on Jayde instead. Ow! Ow! Twin Suns that one hurt!”
Kaylie grinned as she’d gotten her brother squarely on the same spot, just before Jayde elbowed Kayden, apparently right in the same already-forming bruise.
With not much distance left to the camp, Malavera put the truck into neutral and switched off the engine. Instead of the expected eerie silence broken up only by the rasp of their off-road tires, they also had the pleasant sound of the Dione puffing away quietly nearby. The Bricksley rolled up next to their tents and Malavera brought the truck to a mostly-gentle stop, where he applied the parking brake, put the truck in first gear to keep it from escaping should the brake fail, and just for good measure, got out and kicked wheel chocks under the rear tires. “Better safe than sorry,” he admitted.
Rukari quickly gathered up the few things he had in his tent, bringing them over to the Bricksley instead and getting set up in the rear bench seat. Within five minutes, he was out like a light, covered by a thin purple sheet in the cab of the truck.
Kaylie opened up the toolbox and pulled out a large bag that had a rolled up sleeping mat in it, then walked over to Valentin. “If you want us to move the tent, we can do that, but this mat is yours. I had a spare. Rukari, the big one with gray fur and horns, he volunteered to sleep in the truck, and apparently he took to it quite well, because I don’t think I’ve seen him fall asleep that fast ever. Anyway, if you choose to sleep near us, well, it’ll be the last tent on the right, closest to the Bricksley’s tailgate. Kayden’s the next one over, Jayde and I are in the middle tent, Malavera’s the second tent, and Kivenaal’s in the first tent. Doubt he’ll sleep the night, though, so he’ll probably be patrolling the camp,” she said, giving a tired smile.
As the Dione rolled into camp, it came to a short stop next to where Team Shift Happens had set their camp up. Valentin, still awake enough to notice the car being stopped at the campsite, slumbered out of the car, progressively getting worse and almost falling asleep right then and there.
Once out, he barely listened to Kaylie, took the mat and dove straight into the empty tent. He didn’t even care that he was surrounded by a foreign team, most of which he still would be trying to avoid, though he did seem content at finally having done the job and getting some Zs.
Constantin leaned out the window of the Dione, having seen Valentin and his tent-raid.
“We’ll park a bit away from camp. The thing apparently is noisy as hell when shut down.”, Constantin spoke, repeating what Connor explained to him with little knowledge as to why.
“If he wakes up before we’re back here, tell him we’re a few hundred metres further west of here.”, he added, making sure Valentin knew where the remainder of his team was, at least once he woke up in the morning.
The Dione steamed away again and came to a final stop further down the road they came from way earlier that day. Conner went through the procedure of shutting the car down, venting the major steam lines and cutting fuel supply to the boiler.
Constantin used that time to set up camp using the traditional “trunk lid tent” method, whereas Tim had enough and simply slopped over on the rear bench as soon as space was available.
With the car set for the night, two of three members asleep and the third idling, Constantin finally had the time to check on the progress of his bows.
While he wasn’t contacted yet, the message might as well have been lost in transit, so he decided to check anyway, hoping that the bowyer was still awake. He went to grab the damaged bow and walked back towards town and through the camp.
Kaylie nodded as Constantin explained where they’d be and why they were leaving the camp. “If he wakes up before you’re back, I’ll let him know,” Kaylie said.
Around the camp, Kayden and Malavera had already crashed hard, including Kayden still having both feet sticking out of his tent without a care in the world. Kivenaal was staring into the distance, clearly anticipating that he wasn’t going to get any actual sleep tonight. Jayde tapped his staff at the four corners of Valentin’s tent, being as quiet as he could, non-verbally casting a spell to reduce the intensity of sounds coming into Valentin’s tent so he could get a little rest.
“That was nice of you,” Kaylie whispered to Jayde, realizing what he’d probably done.
“He’s had a rough day,” Jayde whispered back. “No reason he should have a rough night, too. Won’t block all sounds out, but it will lessen how loud they are.”
Jayde and Kaylie crawled into their tent as well, tired enough that they fell asleep almost as soon as they laid down.
Constantin apparently wasn’t needed for talks with Shift Happens and thus walked on past and to the bowyer. The darkness made navigation more difficult than necessary, but it wasn’t all that hard to locate the only bowyer in town.
To Constantin’s surprise, it seemed as if some activity was still going on in there, with the inside still being lit. He politely and quietly knocked onto the half-open door, before pushing said door open to peek inside.
The bell rang once again and soon after, the bowyer made his way to the front, already having expected him.
“Oh hello! You finally made it!”, he says, excited and heads back quickly to get his first results out. He reuturn with a bow that initiallly was just another flatbow, albeit in a shade of brown rather than near-black in color.
“If you want to test the thing, i have a 15m range out back. I also prepared a range of arrow weights for you to try since i wasn’t sure on what you meant by heavy.”, he added, handing the bow to Constantin and going into the back again, motioning for Constantin to follow.
That bow, once again, was a flatbow, though brown rather than black in color due to less extensive weather-proofing being employed. The grip was sculped to at least sort of guide Constantin’s hand into position, but apart from that, nothing of note could be seen in the construction of it.
The two found themselves on a rather narrow private archery range of decent quality. A target was set up 15 metres (50ft) away from a line on the ground, with ample wooden shielding surrounding the lane on all sides to prevent stray arrows from leaving the premises. He handed a pack of arrows to Constantin, with their fletchings color-coded by arrow weight.
Constantin doesn’t wait too long to start shooting, going through the arrows one by one. Over the course of roughly 20 minutes, the incorrectly-weighed arrows are weeded out, ending with three shots each on a pair of arrows. Eventually, the two settle on a weight that felt eerily natural to him.
“This green one it is. I’d like 12 Broadheads and 4 Bodkins of that weight. Also, do you mind me paying up front? We’re kinda in a hurry tomorrow morning and i would just pop in to collect the goods.”, Constantin confirms, holdung up an arrow with three green feathers at the back.
“Absolutely no problem. Then we’re set. I’ll make a copy of this bow and the arrows and you can collect them in a few hours.”, the bowyer replies, satisfied that an agreement has been made.
Constantin paid 50 Silver Syrkals to the bowyer, leaving an additional 30 in his pocket.
After that, he went back to camp, stored the broken war-trophy of a bow on the roof and went into his sleeping bag for the night.
3 Likes
TEAM HILLBILLY ROLLERS
Earlier parts
PART 0.1 - A prologue to the prologue
PART 0.2 - Another piece of the prologue puzzle
PART 0.3 - Viva la IP 4Z!
PART 0.4 - Robotman
PART 0.5 - Interference problems
PART 0.6 - Can I play Tetris?
PART 0.7 - Tangerine and familiar
PART 1.0 - Now things got serious!
PART 1.1 - Hello, Thibault and friends!
PART 1.2 - Poor kitty
PART 1.3 - Curse you, Team Oil Crisis!
PART 1.4 - Interlude
PART 2.0 - Bird bird bird, bird is the word!
PART 2.1 - D. Head
PART 2.2 - Good night!
PART 3.0 - Freeway Rockstar
PART 3.1 - DISCO TJO DISCO HEJ
PART 3.2 - Van-Werewolf 1-0
PART 4.0 - Calm after the storm
PART 5.0 - Mirror mirror on the…oh, crap!
For some strange reason there was two relatively uneventful days spent at the camp (read: Marie’s hangover was no fucking joke, so she was simply too zombiefied to start any new chaos), and now it was time for the fourth leg of this rally. The team had woken up kind of late and hurried to pack the stuff, became the last car leaving the camp. Or, leaving is maybe to stretch things too far. They did not even leave camp until the van started to behave strange.
BLAFF!
ANDREAS: Oh, crap! I blew a front tyre! Let’s hurry to put a spare wheel on.
JANNE: No.
ANDREAS: What the fuck do you mean by “no”?
JANNE: We have a tyre patch kit in the glowbox and we should use that one.
MARIE: Uuuunnnghhhff… what are you fighting ab…ZZZZzzzzz
ANDREAS: That will take a hundred years!
JANNE: Yes. Can I also remind you that the roads are full of sharp rocks. We might as well shred a tyre completely and then we can’t use the repair kit and will need the spare.
ANDREAS: (mumbling mumbling)
The team got out of the van, jacked it up and removed the left front tyre for inspection.
ANDREAS: HA! There is a splintered dyre bone that has penetrated it. Nice driving, Marie.
MARIE: Oh, cool! I will hang that from the mirror with the air freshner we got from Jayde.
JANNE: I would not recommend that?
MARIE: Why?
JANNE: I have a feeling that it will bring bad luck to the team.
ANDREAS: Oh, stop with your goddamned Demons and dragons shit! (ooc info: Wrong naming intended)
JANNE: OK, well, you’ll see that I will be right in the end.
Janne removed the dyre bone, which Marie quickly made a trophy of, repaired the tyre, put it back and the team was good to go. After they had driven just a short while, though…
PFFFFFF FLAPPAFLAPPAFLAPPAFLAPPADRRRRRRR
ANDREAS: Not another one…
JANNE: Well, just repeat the same process once again.
(Which they also did, not much to write about)
Now our friends felt that they were probably lagging very far behind, and Andreas stomped on the accelerator. At least they managed to pass Team Slow, spraying some dirt on their german luxobarge while honking the dixie horn.
MARIE: At least we aren’t in last place anymore.
JANNE: I would not suggest driving like this, though.
ANDREAS: Oh, come on! You know my driving skills, right?
JANNE: Yes, I trust your skills, but considering what the roads look like, I would not…
KABLOW!
JANNE, ANDREAS, MARIE: …
While our team was removing the rear tyre, Team Slow passed again and it looked like they had some sinister smiles on their faces.
JANNE: Stupid yuppies!
ANDREAS: We will show them later, right?
JANNE: I suggest to take it easy, look what you did to the tyre!
A rock had ripped the tyre completely to pieces, which meant that mounting one of the spare wheels was the only way to go now.
JANNE: Was I right as always, huh?
ANDREAS: Ok, ok, Mr. Wise Guy!
With the spare in place, they approached team Slow again, which now was driving more than slow.
ANDREAS: What the fuck, are they trying to block the road for us now? They are driving slower than an old moped with a worn out spark plug!
MARIE: We will show the bastards, just floor it!
While Andreas floored the accelerator to pass team slow, Marie flipped the switch for the dixie horn which blared on loudly, climbed over to the right on the bench seat (which Janne was not completely happy with) and did some good old mooning to team (now very much) slow.
They also managed to pass Team Jockey’s little Pacman car and Team Mravolinski-Chitco that had stopped for checking out that their cargo had not rattled loose again. The van stopped briefly alongside the Kontir, Janne cranked the window down and threw a roll of duct tape to Mrdja.
JANNE: HEY! USE THIS, THAT MAY SECURE YOUR CARGO A BIT BETTER!, he shouted and laughed before the team took away again.
On the CB they heard some chatting that the Dione had broken down. But since they also heard that Shift Happens were on the way to help them, they took it quite easy when they passed the tangerine tank. The stereo was playing this little cheerful tune:
…but when there was just some seconds left of it, the stereo went completely quiet.
MARIE: Oh crap, will we have to do this race completely without Eddie Meduza now?
JANNE: Unfortunately not, I think that it is just a simple fault that is very easy to fix, but please, not now!
The team also passed a lone individual of the dyre species, sure, they had quite a lot of respect for it, but inside the van, there was absolutely no danger, at least as long as it didn’t break down.
All of a sudden they saw the Bricksley heading towards them at something that seemed to be mach 2. Andreas was trying to honk the regular horn, not remembering that there now was a mess of shattered plastic and duct tape where the horn buttons once were. He tried to press the button to the dixie horn that now was all quiet. The Bricksley was coming even closer and Andreas was steering toward the ditch to avoid a disaster.
WHAK!
The two vehicles was passing so close that they struck each other, if only barely. A pink piece of plastic and some shards of glass was flying through the air. A little piece of glass was still left in what once was the mirror housing, though. The last thing Andreas could see in the mirror was the speeding Bricksley, and the text that was printed on the glass…
“OBJECTS IN MIRROR MAY BE CLOSER THAN THEY APPEAR”
It all seemed quite ironic, considering that the Bricksley was about as close as it could ever be. Finally, the little piece of glass fell off and now only the base of the mirror was left.
ANDREAS: HOW THE FUCK ARE THEY DRIVING?
MARIE: Metal american truck 1 - Ariyan plastic mirror 0
Andreas was trying to shout at Team Shift Happens through the CB, but now the CB also was dead.
ANDREAS: GREAT, NOW THE FUCKING CB IS ALSO DEAD!
JANNE: No, it is not.
ANDREAS: Do you really have to say “no” to everything.
JANNE: No.
(silence)
JANNE: I have been wrenching on those things ever since I started working. I know exactly what the problem is. Fuse #8. “Aux. equipment (const. feed)”.
ANDREAS: How do you know that, Mr. Wise guy?
JANNE: Easy. No stereo. No dixie horn. No CB. This fuse is feeding optional equipment that is supposed to work even with the ignition turned off.
MARIE: Can we fix it then so I can listen to Eddie Meduza again?
JANNE: No. None of the equipment is necessary. And the fuse box is located behind the engine. Which means that we have to flip up the front seat to reach it. It’s not worth risking a dyre encounter for changing a fuse that is not needed. Also, another thing…
MARIE: What?
JANNE: WHAT DID I SAY ABOUT THIS FUCKING THING? IT WILL BRING BAD LUCK TO US!
Janne grabbed the dyre bone, managed to pull the inside mirror loose, cranked the window down and threw out the dyre bone.
MARIE: Meh. My amulet.
JANNE: Yes, a really good amulet, indeed.
ANDREAS: And another broken mirror.
Janne managed to put the mirror back, however, and a little bit grumpy our three friends rolled into camp.
VEHICLE STATUS:
Interior unusually clean.
Airbag cover duct taped together
SRS light removed
Front bumper broken
Rear bumper scratched
Bull bar bent
Windshield cracked
Left side sliding door caved in, door handle broken
Right side sliding door being stiff to open and close, something must have happened during the werewolf fight
Left outside mirror mostly gone (only the metal base left, plastic housing and glass gone)
Fuse #8 blown
Still running like a champ!
TO BE CONTINUED
@interior @MrdjaNikolen @NoahC
OOC: This is written as I presume that this world has right hand traffic. @Madrias , if it has left hand traffic, I can change the few necessary details, mostly about which mirror that was hit.
Also, dyre bone bringing bad luck, can either be folklore or just Janne’s wild imagination, I have no idea. 
2 Likes
a little insight:
Team RK Series racing never claimed being broken down on CB (though other teams might have)
they were aware from past interactions that they would get help eventually, so they decided to save the battery and wait it out
3 Likes
Team Slow
Chapter 2, Part 5, May the tragedies, and travesties start.
As we begin driving from Duskriver to Itzgarde, tragedy struck, the car’s powertrain starts acting up, from fuses being loose and relays loosening. This caused near-disaster for the car.
Duskriver Village pathway, mile 30, 1:55 Sun.
As we drove from the Campsite, it was smooth sailing, for the past three stages. The car could not hold at stage four, Something went loose, and the powertrain thought that the car was broken, The christmas tree dashboard began to shine, soon after, it became a chaotic moment.
We CB in onto a channel, “Car breaking down, after driving, the car started limping and uh, there is no smoke.”
J: What’s happening!?! The car is breaking down all of a sudden
M: Try to hit the fusebox till it gets in, that might work.
J: You do realise the fusebox is in the front of the car, like at the engine bay and we’re inside?
M: Oh, well, then get out of the car and reconnect them?
J: It’s probably something mechanical, not the fuse!
M: Moron! How else would it suddenly limp?
J: You are the moron. There is more than a fusebox, it could be the actual drivetrain itself! idiot.
After back and forth arguing, John goes to check the fusebox. Some of the fuses responsible for the car are loose. After shoving them back inside, the car’s problems are cured halfway, asides from the relays.
J: The car’s still somehow broken
M: Probably ask Jayde (@Madrias), He could fix the car’s problem.
They try asking Team Shift happens for a fix.
2 Likes
(OOC: Team Shift Happens is not in the camp until about 6 Moon. If you woke up Jayde to do that, Kaylie’s likely to hit you with a Dummies’ Guide to Car Repair and tell you to try putting the fuses back where they go.)
Edit: You know what, I’m going to have a bit of fun with this… Interior, I’m going to borrow John for a moment.
3 Likes
(Lol, probably would)
1 Like
Actually, I would like to see this happen, lol.
1 Like
Wise choice, the arguing guy.
1 Like
Team Shift Happens
Previous Chapters:
Another One Bites The Dust - Stage 2 Run / Stage 2 Campsite
Repairs / A Good Meal - Stage 2 Campsite / The Green Crystal (Written by TheYugo45GV and Madrias)
A Good Night’s Sleep? - Stage 2 Campsite
“Here Comes the Hound of Death” - Stage 2 Campsite Battle - Written by Elizipeazie, TheYugo45GV, and Madrias.
Fright Night Forest Stage - Stage 3 Run / Stage 3 Camp
The Free Day - Stage 3 Camp (written in collaboration with @Elizipeazie) (Part 1), (Part 2), (Part 3)
Safe Arrival - Stage 3 Camp (Written in collaboration with @TheYugo45GV)
The Rescue - Stage 4 Drive and Stage 4 “Camp”
The Rebuild - Stage 4 “Camp” (Written in collab. with @Elizipeazie ) (Part 1), (Part 2), (Part 3), (Part 4)
Raiegarda Campsite, 6 Moon
Kaylie and Jayde were both just about contently asleep when John of Team Slow (@interior) stuck his head into their tent and asked, “Hey! Can you two help us out with the car?”
Jayde gave John a tired look and started to sit up when Kaylie snapped awake, stuffed her right hand into one of the many bags laying around the inside of their large tent, and pulled out a book, the “Dummies’ Guide to Car Repair.”
John had barely enough time to glance at the tell-tale yellow-and-black cover and read the title before Kaylie swung the book at his head. Making a hasty retreat after getting smacked in the face by a soft-cover book, John stood outside the tent and tried to recover. “I was just asking-”
“It’s 6 fucking Moon!” Kaylie snapped, crawling out of the tent with the book in her hand. “Would you call your mechanic at 1:30 in the fucking morning back home!?” She swung the book at John again, prompting him to run back toward the Schnell XL53 and his teammate, Matt. Kaylie, now properly wound up, gave chase, occasionally swinging the soft-bound book at John whenever she thought she was close enough to hit him with it.
“Matt! Help!” John said, dodging around behind the car.
“You couldn’t just wait until the morning?” Matt asked, trying not to laugh at the absurdity of John hiding from an angry mechanic tiger-woman trying to club him with a book.
“You said to ask Jayde!” John said. “Ow! How can that book hurt that much!”
“Be glad I don’t have a rolled up newspaper,” Kaylie said, “and that I respect this book too much to curl it up to hit you harder.” She stopped trying to hit John and set the book down on the car’s hood. “I suggest you consult that book and try it yourself. You might learn something. I am going back to bed.”
(OOC: Hope I at least got the characters close. I got a bit of mild inspiration for this out of the Discord, so I ran with it. At least with that book, they can try to fix the car.)
1 Like
Team Mravolinski-Chitco
Team info: 2022 Shitbox Rally - Out of This World! (Stage 4) - #30 by MrdjaNikolen
Reply to last part
Stage 4: Duskwater Village to Itzgarde
Since noone else was interested in hanging out, our stay at Duskwater camp would be uneventful, which kinda included sleeping situation.
Our journey on the other hand would follow the format that is well known from almost any other part of this trip: starting strong, but then experiencing some setback, denting our progress as a result.
We were slowed in fact by two or three things during this stage, which shall be explained.
Im kinda thinking two, but its on you to decide.
We had heard some concerning noises from the back and from above, or atleast i thought i had heard them.
So, we stopped, exited the vehicle and went to back to check said cargo.
I was patiently waiting by riding a bike a little bit.
Not long after, we were reached by your friendly neighborhood Swedes (team organized by equally yours friendly neighborhood Swede @Knugcab ) and they saw what we were struggling with.
Janne had passed the tape to me and i returned back to our car, partially covered in dust from Andreas’s speedy restart
At this point, rest of us determined all cargo was indeed securely fastened to car, but decided that we will keep duct tape, courtesy of Rollers getting far away.
We could give it back to them anyway in camp or keep it if they have enough, its always useful thing to have.
We continued journey, not aware of the fact that we are yet to experience next setback.
(Thoughts of certain local mentioned by Madrias in Stage 4 post)
Hmmm…i never saw these things before, but they surely are fast…wait, maybe i did.
.
.
.
Something doesnt add up tho:
- Where are their lizards?
- If they dont have lizards, how are they moving without lizards?
- Why they sound weird?
- Why they smell weird?
Maybe its because that meal i had eaten, plenty of birdies are now in my stomach.
I dont think it was possible for me to over-eat, no, i had indeed never encountered such situation.
So…its definitely not that.
They are indeed moving rather swiftly and running after them might accomplish nothing.
But im eager to find out whats happening.
Although…
My parents had always taught me that this is dangerous behaviour, that these thoughts could be the end of me.
I…kinda see where they are coming from: something common to all that use these roads is that they are scared of our kind, unlikely to be any different to these ones, despite some difference in transport.
They could react differently: some scream and cry and beg for mercy and others answer with whatever they have in their disposal
I heard plenty of stories of my kind being killed by latter group
But…i just wanna know…
Oh wait, seems that one of them had stopped. I might have opportunity to find out
Do i take it?
.
.
.
As i was saying previously, it almost always happens that we start good, then we get some setback.
This time, setback was caused by Pi deciding she wants to navigate by loudly yelling LEFT CORNER and RIGHT CORNER directly in ear of poor driver, resulting in us hitting some small ditch near right side of road.
Half of us had decided to exit vehicle and were positioned away from road. Chicota, Klimentol and Aydar were examining the car, engine still idling.
Chicota was near tailgate when he noticed some sound of something big approaching.
Maybe some Dyre?
Sledgehammer in his hand, he was ready to fight
Few moments afterwards, mystery had cleared up: this was a Dyre indeed, putting everyone on high alert.
Beast was moving rather casually and it did moved towards our car, not really what we wanted to see.
Something here seemed off tho: this Dyre havent seemed angry by any means.
It just moved towards our car, kinda ignoring Chicota’s warnings…
Soon, intentions of this individual became clear, as it noted that engine is idling and was just traversing around front of the car, as if it was, dare i say…curious to whats in that part of car that makes that foreign noise.
Chicota had joined at front, still equipped with sledgehammer, still being suspicious
But he was able to tell source of curiosity and opened the bonnet.
Sound of idling engine was now clearer to hear, since bonnet (or hood, if you prefer that word) was now opened.
Our exhaust doesnt really extend all the way to the back, but sure enough, Dyre had also heard that and tried to reach.
At this point, rest of us determined everything was fine with car, but decided to not move into car, courtesy of curious Dyre.
He was able to reach exhaust with paw, but visibly jolted when it touched obviously hot exhaust, also shaking the truck in process of removing limb from under vehicle.
-Thats kinda hot, bud, not sure what you expected.
Dyre then smelled oh-so-familiar smell of some forest prey he usually hunts in bed, although stored for few days already.
Bcos yes, he took about 5 birdies, no questions asked and no answers given.
Aydar had rolled his eyes, but he kinda felt this coming, and besides, eh, they can easily catch more.
Pi had incredibly smart idea to feed him Petite Beurre, some other meat we had around, some local fruits…
Considering he usually doesnt encounter such varying diet, especially not that easy, this Dyre noted that this move was actually good idea.
Well, if we exclude burned paw that had visibly troubled him now…
Klimentol now carefully approached the visitor.
Just as carefully, he asked to see the paw.
Paw was seen and happily, no great damage was made, it was just a small burn.
Klimentol washed that up with bottle of water, visibly giving some relief to Dyre.
He had an better idea tho and both have went to river, motioning for Dyre to follow him.
He put equivalent paw in river water and motioned for his patient to do the same.
-Thats likely gonna be enough to kinda help with pain, will heal in couple of days. But try to avoid stepping on that paw.
We must go, tho. Take care i guess.
Dyre had stayed some time with paw in water, but then decided to return back to original position.
Curiosity was largely satisfied, but it was still very interesting to look at all those weird carriages.
At the moment, it shall be noted that @Madrias enjoys his deca mocha and this is important bcos i said that.
He decided to sit back and enjoy the chaos caused by rest, but…dont worry, he also made sure to brew some during this stage, through he-knows-who.
We werent exactly aware what caused this exactly, but again we got into some nearby ditch, deep enough to shake us deeply once again but not so much to have struggle exiting it.
Ok, we know why we partially exited the road and got into that ditch.
On other hand, how and why is Bricksley of Team Shit Happens driven like a death wish in opposite direction?
Beffore you complain about me not including certain letter in that team name, know that they were indeed Shit Happens, by likely causing great ffear in everyone on road who dared to cross their path.
And im pretty sure pants would thicken with more than a ffart.
Also make sure to read this paragraph with great care, maybe i did included all letters that need to be… 
And yes, we made sure Chicota and some host member havent swapped places, so throw no guilt on our android guy.
With all that figured out, we rolled into the camp, not exactly happy with being in lower end of pack once again but eh, atleast we werent last…
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i havent drawn in a week i fell off also i have the exact shirt romulo is wearing in this drawing but i'm too lazy to pull it out of my laundry basket so anyway i need to listen to more 70s rock for this shit because waltz music doesn't have lyrics so i'll just describe how they sound like with onomatopeias - tururururunturunturuntun piririri tun tu turn turun tun piriririri tuntunturuntuntururyunutrunrutmnununununinininiiiihuhuhuuueueueueueueueeueueueueueueueueueueueuehiiiiiiiiiiheeeeehihuheehihuetuntuntuntuntuntuntuntuntuntuntuntuntuntunninininininininininininininininipwomftujneeeeeeeeeeeeenneneneeeeeeeeeeeeneeeeeeeeeeeeneeeeeeenunnununununninihnuhnunununnununeeeeeeeennununneneneeeeeeeeeennununutunninnununuhinunininihinieeeeee
TEAM BLAZERS
A tense night in the Duskriver Village had passed, and the team was rather troubled, as Watson seemed to not be in the best of spirits. His face visibly tired and his movements slurred as though he’d drained his remaining energy supply. Charlotte anxiously wrote down the stage’s pacenotes with Emily, the two of them occassionally striking a glance over to the open tent, where Watson sat alongside a sleeping Ga’araiya with a face clouded by a lack of distinct emotion, his ripped up sleeve rolled up to reveal a heavily bruised arm.
“It was a Dyre bite.” Charlotte blurted out. Emily looked at her for a moment, not knowing what the animal was. She had heard it from Charlotte the night before, but there was no elaboration on what the creature was, just simple haunting words and the orange glows of their predatory eyes as they drove down the treacherous paths. There was too, the tyre which was ripped up by a claw of a fallen one, the image of which was deeply engrained into their minds. Emily paused her work for a moment and spoke up. “What… exactly is a Dyre?”
Across the table, the feline looked deep into the blonde’s blue eyes with a twin-coloured gaze that pierced with a seeming sense of dread, and she began to speak. “Wild beasts… The aggressiveness of an Earth Wolf, and the size of a grizzly bear. They weight about as much as a cannon, and strike as hard as one. One bite will leave you wretched in pain.” She looked back at Watson. “And yet… he… stood up against one of the foul beasts? Without him having turned into skewers?” Charlotte was in disbelief, but relieved as Watson was still there with them. “I have yet to ask him exactly what happened last night, but it couldn’t have been good, considering the state of him right now.”
A shut of the car’s rear door came from the side opposite of the two girls as a disgruntled Romulo emerged with the sheath of his sundang in his hand. He looked around the campsite, first to Watson before finally setting his eyes on the two girls on the table.
“Anything wrong?” Charlotte spoke up.
Romulo paused for a moment and shook his head. “Nothing really, other than my… knife…? Yeah, knife… It’s been missing since last night.” He took one more glance into the car’s window. Charlotte shook her head as well, not really having seen him take it out at all in the time they’ve spent.
“That blade you were holding when we first met?” Emily spoke up, and Romulo’s ears perked, he quickly shifted his gaze towards her with his eyes lit up, but just as quick as they lit up, they went back to disappointment. “I-I haven’t seen it around though! Come to think of it, I don’t believe you utilized it at all in the time that we were here. Could it be that perhaps you left it back in Nevada?”
“No way, it’s been underneath the driver’s seat the entire time. Couldn’t possibly miss it even if i tried.” He looked over towards the pensive Watson, simply staring out into nothingness as he sat motionless inside the tent. “Watson…” He began walking over.
Romulo hadn’t even asked anything, yet Watson retorted. “If you’re looking for that machete of yours, it is stuck in a Dyre’s chest somewhere thither at the last camp.” The blonde looked up at him. “If it meant something to you, I sincerely apologize.”
“That was… quick. I guess there was no choice then, huh? What were you even doing the other night?” He sat down in front of him. Watson sighed and scratched his forehead.
"Truth is, every night I keep watch over you all. It’s my obligation, you provide the transportation so that we may get out of here in one piece, and that will allow me to continue my mission to return the Princess. Things as simple as that fuel my drive. The Queen of Atlantis had entrusted me to fetch her one and only troublemaker, and that I shalt do.
"So there I was, on guard as usual. But this night was unlike the others. In the distance, bright flashes of light shone through the thick jungle around, and the sounds of gnarly creatures announcing their awe-filled roars of pain hadst managed to catch the attention of the organizers, calm thither. Immediately worry had come over me like a curtain of dread, I simply couldn’t just stand there with the Princess at risk.
"Thus, I hadst acted. I hadst well known of the placements of your equipment, and the only battle-ready item you had was that machete of yours. Armed with that and my pistol, what else was I to do? I prepared myself for the oncoming slaughter, and with the bitterness of the pipe now in my mouth I commenced forth as I couldn’t risk the beasts of the forest to come hither where the Queen of Atlantis’ most prized possession lay in jeopardy.
"Out I went into the forest I went nearby the camp, and surrounding me were the ghastly gazes of the beasts, their eyes glowing and hungry, their countenances drooling with desire, and their prey was in sight, a large group of prey for an equally large amount of predators.
"And so with six shots in my right hand, a near-dull blade in my left I rushed with all my might. The only thing in my mind was the protection of Her Majesty’s precious offspring. It was in that battle where I hadst lost your precious machete. I presume I hadst struck one of them in the arm and the blade was caked in their thick blood, and with only the sharp end left, I hadst no need for deadweight, I thrust the weapon into the chest of one of the foul beasts. The howl of torment it sounded as the sharp metal pierced its ribcage I assume was heard throughout the camp. It fell backwards and I hadst lost sight of it as I was reduced to whatever fighting methods I had left, which involved my fists and the handle of my revolver.
"We as a team are not at all prepared for any combat such as that. Unexpected behaviour from unexpected creatures that roam these foreign lands. I was forced to back out of that fight after one of them hadst grabbed ahold of my arm. God! Those beasts hadst a jaw that was simply unyielding to aught. Not only that, but their movements were supple, and their feet nimble. For such a large beast to exist could be described as nothing but subliminal. Truly beyond!
“Once I hadst managed to get out to safety, that was where you found me.” Watson sat himself up straight. “Does that explanation now satisfy thee?”
For a moment, everyone stood still after listening to his story. Charlotte still remained in disbelief upon hearing Watson’s words, but she kept her mouth shut as she set the pen down onto the table. Romulo moved away from the tent, nodding at his story. He was never the type to judge about anything, so he took the man’s words as they were and got up, never allowing the visual images of the Dyres to leave his mind as he pondered about the battle. “With all you said, I wonder if you’re actually a detective, or some kind of knight. Whatever the case, are you alright now?”
“Possibly.” Watson rolled his sleeve down before getting out of the tent. He tensed up slightly from the pain of the cloth touching his arm, but held his composure as he finally got up.
“You fought Dyres and were bitten…?” Charlotte got up and approached him. “Do you feel anything strange? Feel hungrier than usual perhaps? It’s been a long time since I’ve had to tend to something like this, but if you were bitten or had any kind of substance from a Dyre enter your blood, you’d turn into a shapeshifter.”
“I don’t feel anything strange and we just had a meal earlier. Are there any downsides to being one?” He asked, but the girl simply shook her head. "Not much other than turning into one would be extremely painful. She said, grabbing a light from the table and shining it towards him. “Does this annoy you?”
“Anyone would get annoyed by that, you know?” Romulo smirked. Charlotte set the lamp down and began pondering yet again. “The common symptoms of turning into a shapeshifter would usually start showing now… yet here you are, apparently feeling nothing? Are you completely sure you don’t feel anything strange? Usual symptoms are that you’d start getting hungry and preferring meat. Though not just any meat, usually something raw… There’s also a sensitivity to light, feverish feelings, or a heightened sense of smell…”
He let out a small laugh and placed his free hand on her head, giving it a gentle rub. “I’m fine, really. There’s nothing to worry about. My nose is naturally strong, too.” Before he could continue patting her, she pushed his arm off of her so she could return back to the table. “I suppose, and if you do say so…”
“I guess It’s about time we pull it all together? I believe the bell is about to ring any minute now.” He looked around, and the crew of Shift Happens were exactly as he expected, some awaiting the bell, and some tired and battered from the fight and sudden rush towards the next camp.
The team packed things up again, and onwards did they go once the bell rang. Once again, Romulo took the wheel as Watson was out of commission with his little defensive battle of his. Emily was there in the seat next to him, ready to read out the navigation notes. The car left the campsite and were met with a slippery path of dirt. It wasn’t a mud bog by any stretch of the imagination, and some parts of the road were drying up from the heat and the road was caked with decently sizeable rocks, but the moist air managed to keep some deeper puddles wet, enough to trap a small vehicle if they weren’t careful.
Steadily, they navigated through with the windows upwards to prevent any kind of mud from finding its way into the cabin, and after a short while they found the road continually drying more and more until they found a smoother gravel path. Still, Romulo was hesitant to go all the way, the image of the destroyed sidewall and a severed hand sent disturbing mental images through him, and he couldn’t force himself to go even just a bit harder on the throttle. Especially not when after a while, a distinct rattling shook the entire crew after an unseen bump on the road jolted the car about.
“That does… not sound good…” Romulo said as he slowed down a bit, turning the hazards on to allow other vehicles to pass them calmly. He pulled the car over into a flatter part just off to the side of the road, leaving a lot of space for them to work on the vehicle. “Charlotte, Emily, I’ll need your help here since… Watson needs some rest.”
Upon hearing that, Watson immediately tried to respond, but Charlotte quickly stopped him. “Go get some rest. We’ll be able to manage this.” She winked at him before getting out of the car to assist Romulo. They pulled out some stands from the storage compartment and lifted the car up from the somewhat dry ground, they got to work.
“I believe the sound started from the rear, so it’s best we take a look at that section first.” Emily commented. Charlotte was pensive, not having a lot of prior experience with any of this. Still, she wasn’t going to let the team down, and began clunking around the vehicle’s suspension bits.
“I don’t think you’re going to find anything going at it like a monkey.” Said Romulo as he instead opted to pull out a flashlight from his toolbox and shining it around the opposite side of where Charlotte was, checking carefully and pedantically for anything loose that could make a sound. He handed the flashlight over to Emily, instructing her to shine it wherever his hands went. On the other hand, Charlotte continued thumping the rear links with the tool she was using, with small clouds of dust appearing out from where the spanner made contact with the suspension part. Having found nothing, she got up from where she sat and took matters into her own hands. She got a large wrench from Romulo’s toolbox and one by one she cranked all the lugs from the wheels loose, and with a thunk the wheel was off the hub, the landing of it on the muddy gravel surface alerting Romulo and Emily.
“Oh, didn’t think of that…” Romulo said getting up from the ground. Charlotte tossed him the wrench and now both rear wheels were off the vehicles. Charlotte continued tapping the spanner around, and jolting the suspension every now in the hopes that her methods would eventually lead to success. Whilst that happened, Romulo and Emily slowly checked each and every individual part, the links all seemed intact, and the dampers weren’t out of alignment, compression and extension were all right. They were about to place the tyre on, when out of nowhere the exact clunking noise they heard inside the cabin sounded from the other side, and when Emily got up and walked over, Charlotte was pushing the suspension up and down, tapping a bolt that rest atop the damper. Her eyes lit up when she tapped it again and it made the noise, and at last it seemed she had found it even with the most unsophisticated of methods. “Hah hah! I knew that would work!”
She grabbed a spanner from the toolbox that fit the loose bolt, and slowly tightened it down until it no longer made a noise when she jolted it. She finally got up once the noise had stopped, and with Emily’s help the two of them had put the tyre back onto the vehicle and with a bit of packing up later, they were on the road again with no disturbing noise to interrupt them. Romulo got back on the throttle, and they continued towards the next campsite with no issue.
Their arrival to the camp was largely uneventful, with six other teams having made it first to the camp and another coming right before them. The weather seemed fairly gloomy, however, with dark clouds rolling over from the horizon and light droplets beginning to form on the car’s windshield. The campsite seemed a bit better than the previous ones as they drove through the city, as this time there were small little cabins for people to spend the night in if they so chose. With the impending weather, Romulo parked the Yamada over towards an empty one and at last they came to a rest.
“Looks like it’ll rain tonight, I presume those cabins are free to use considering the weather, but we’ll need to check up on it later.” He looked into the rear view mirror, and his eyes quickly met with Watson’s as they greeted one another with eyebrow raises. “Still not feeling any of those symptoms, Watson?”
“Not at all.” He shook his head before looking outside. “It’s been a few days since we’ve seen the rain, hasn’t it?”
“Uh huh. Climate here’s really similar to the Philippines. If I brought a sketchbook along I probably could do a Crugandr version of Fernando Amorsolo’s works.” He chuckled before getting out of the car. He inspected the cabin nearby, it was a simple cabin constructed of wood from nearby trees, and the inside was decently warm. Whilst not a high-class hotel, it was certainly liveable, and when their eyes are closed it’s not like they’d be able to see their sleeping area.
At last, everyone had gotten out of the car to make camp and rest. Romulo looked around the vehicle, it was covered in all sorts of god-knows-what, and new scratches and dents had formed up where there weren’t. Yet still, the fifteen-year-old car was running, decently well. Quietly, he let out a small thanks as he rested his hand on the vehicle’s hood.
“Who’re ya thanking?” A voice suddenly called out from behind, and of course it was none other than Charlotte.
“No one in particular…” His voice trailed off as he glanced back at the vehicle. "Well, my father I guess. After all, in all this car’s fifteen years of service, thirteen of those were spent in his hands. He loved this car, and that was something that I only really understood when I got older.
"I spent the vast majority of my childhood fawning over sportscars, and other such low-slung streamlined performance machines. My family was decently well off, we could certainly buy something better than this old piece of junk, was what I told myself. Maybe a higher end Seikatsu sedan, or a Quezon, or even another Yamada, just as long as it wasn’t a crossover.
"I couldn’t understand why my dad would go for something like this, but when I finally owned it, it just clicked. Capable on and off the road, comfortable, able to give you a decent sports experience. Just like the term went, sports utility vehicle.
"It’s impressive, this car. I’m sure you must’ve heard of the Paris-Dakar Rally, seeing as you knew of Mille Miglia. But that year, I remember my father watching from the television screen and seeing a car very much similar to this one race across those vast desert plains. I didn’t understand the words of my father then when he cheered for the Yamada team, a complete underdog in the discipline of rallying, as it just barely clenched its way through. The drivers of that team, in that car which they were unsure of, they just… drove…
“Maybe it was my prejudice against the manufacturers that made SUVs into this thing that wasn’t at all like its roots. Maybe I was ungrateful, or I just didn’t know much at all. Either way, when you get older, some things just click into place, don’t they?” He finished his short speech as he moved his arm atop the faded red hood of the Yamada.
Charlotte walked over towards him. “It’s more than just monetary value. I get it. This car means something to you that just can’t be replaced with money or another one like it.” She too placed her hand atop the vehicle’s hood. “I’m sorry my selfishness dragged you into this.”
“Don’t be, if anything I should be blaming myself for not anticipating what lay ahead. I was overconfident without even realizing it.” He sighed. “But still, we’re still here. It’s still running, which means we are too. Let’s finish this race. The car is doing its purpose, getting from point A to point B. Might as well let it, yeah?”
Charlotte nodded and chuckled. “It’s a fate better than being garage-queened, don’t you think?”
“Certainly.”
With the Yamada’s hot engine components ticking and crinkling as they came to a cool, the team at last began their preparations for the next stage, with more confidence now than ever.
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Duskriver Village, Crugandr.
Local time: 7:15 Sun, (The next day)
Weather: Raining, Thankfully
Greetings from Itzgarde
The rain continued hammering down on the campsite as the heat was washed out of the atmosphere making it much more pleasant to be in the camp. Pavel had made himself in charge of supervising the animals, Gunther had laid down on porch of their cabin and had fallen asleep while Whiskers was grooming herself. The two Dyres were sniffing about around the cabin familiarizing themselves with their new surroundings. Aedan was helping Malcolm to unstick the Magistrate from mud Orlan parked it in.
“Did he really have to park it here?” Aedan asked, exasperatedly.
Malcolm jammed one of the wood planks under the front right wheel of the Magistrate. “I don’t know, why don’t you ask him. You let him drive.”
“Why am I not surprised.”
“Aedan, He’s absolutely sucks at driving. It’s not wise to have him as a co driver.”
“I know, But I can’t. It would upset him.”
Pavel then manifested behind Malcolm seemingly out of nowhere. “Hey there!” He exclaimed, startling Malcolm.
“Gah! Where in the hell did you come from?”
“Just wanted to ask if you’ve seen our small wolves anywhere.”
“Wolves? What wol–. Oh for fuck sake, Pavel! You were supposed to be watching them!”
The giant’s eyes filled with surprise. “I was tracking them both and I looked away for not even a split second and boom. Gone.”
“If they have–.”
“Wait a second, I think I know where they’ve gone.”
“Where?” Aedan snapped.
Pavel pointed behind him, the turnaround revealing a pink van with the smaller of the two pups sniffing about around the front of the van.
“Oh, thank the stars. Sorry for shouting at you, but please be more careful next time.”
“Don’t worry, I fully understand.”
The smaller of the two pups looked up from sniffing about and looked at Aedan and Pavel as they approached before going back to surveying the area around the van.
Marie, was sitting on the driver’s doorsill with the larger of the two Dyres and was stroking her hand through its fur. The wolf on the other hand was very unhappy about this and was squirming in feeble attempts to free itself from Marie’s iron grip.
To Be Continued (Like Always)
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