Yeah, move away from where I am supposed to park a certain pink van… 
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You can park behind the Bricksley if you want. But Robert is parked nose-to-nose with the Bricksley with some space between the two vehicles, and it’s needed for RP purposes.
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i like how our car is actually “Robert” now, not just “Anhultz” or “the Brick™”
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I made some edits to fix those oversights. Its now more ambiguous as to where the Magistrate rolls to a stop.
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Team Hillbilly Rollers
and
Team Shift Happens
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RK Series Racing; Stage 8 Camp
Just after they rolled to a stop near the Bricksley, Connor went about shutting Robert down for now. But he didn’t get all too far into the process, as an absolutely ecstatic Janne sprinted towards the Dione at a speed so fast, he might as well have teleported there.
Connor quietly continued de-steaming Robert, before having to halt the process once again.
“Constantin, can you please roll down the window?”, Connor said, followed by Constantin cranking the handle just far enough for a small slit to open. Connor then looks straight at Janne.
“Please step away from the vehicle!” Connor sternly orders in an attempt to free up space for the steam venting.
Janne initially had a face of utter confusion, but eventually takes a few steps back, followed by Connor pulling a plunger in the cabin, venting the boiler’s pressure to atmosphere with a loud and violent hissing noise.
Valentin then leant over and between the front seats to the rear to have a visual of Janne, but didn’t say anything yet. Instead, Constantin was the first to speak to him.
“Need anything…”, he asked in a stoic tone of voice, aware that he was the same Janne that woke the entire team up at 8 moon a few days prior.
Once the Dione rolled to a stop near the Bricksley, attracting the attention of Janne not that much later, it didn’t take long for Kivenaal, Kayden, and Malavera to get up from their various positions around the Bricksley and start to approach the Dione.
Which, of course, is when the mother of all snakes hissed from underneath the Dione, startling Kayden.
“Blowing the boiler down,” Kivenaal explained, “to avoid condensation in the steam lines and to blow out any water scale. It’s a maintenance thing.”
“Does it have to be that loud?” Kayden grumbled.
“You’ve opened bottles of soda before,” Malavera said. “This is like that, just way bigger and under more pressure.”
Once the hissing finally stopped a few seconds later, the three made their way over to the Dione, with Kivenaal adjusting his hat so that the water ran down his shoulders and back, instead of potentially pouring into someone else’s face.
Kayden stared in awe at the plume of steam dissipating into the distance, the aftermath of relieving the pressure in the boiler. “Twin Suns, that is impressive,” he said.
Of their group of three, it was Kivenaal who reached the Dione first, followed by Kayden, and lastly, Malavera. Unfortunately, this meant it was up to Kivenaal to mention why they were there.
“Sorry if we’re being a pain,” Kivenaal said a little nervously, “but the three of us are curious about the engineering of the Dione. I mean, It’s really quite impressive, and… Well… I have an interest in steam engines, so I’d love to get a good look at things. I swear upon all the stars in the galaxy, I’ll keep my hands off of it.”
Janne realized that he had been a bit to excited so when he got told to step away, he excused himself and did so. When he saw that they were venting the boiler he really understood, and stood there waiting for his turn. When Constantin asked if he needed something, he thought that the question was, in fact, almost stupid.
“NEED anything…uh…I need to know what the fuck you have done to it…or ehm…it’s rather obvious, but still…”, he said, a bit puzzled. At the same time Kivenaal appeared and told them why they were coming to the Dione. “Uhm, yeah…exactly. Me too.”, Janne said, which in this case, honestly speaking, was a kind of diffuse statement that could mean more or less anything.
As half of Shift Happens approached, Valentin immediately turned back around to the other side of the car, seeing Kivenaal through the driver window with Malavera and Kayden behind him. With Kivenaal’s appearance, him being this close to him, even if behind a window and no prior interaction easing tensions, Valentin wasn’t exactly eager to meet him. Still, he did the same thing that Constantin did with his window in the opposite corner, albeit electrically assisted this time.
“Uhm… mind waiting a bit for us to actually get out?”, Valentin said, before hastily closing the window back up again.
The others took note as well and both nearside doors opened up, followed by Constantin and Connor exiting the Redneck Railcar.
“I shall continue work on the investigation.”, Connor commented and went off in search for the Schnell of team Slow.
With Constantin out, Tim shuffled over and followed suit while Valentin got to removing his headrest in the meantime. It took a while until he finished preparing the seat, the headrest and seatbelt for his exit shuffle-job.
He inched his way to the back seat previously occupied by Tim and then moved over, back first to Constantin’s spot. There, he was aided (read: dragged) the rest of the way out of the vehicle by Constantin, with Tim reaching in to hand Valentin his crutches.
It was obvious that this entire ordeal wasn’t pleasant for Valentin, and the rain, even if it was pleasantly warm rain, didn’t add to the already less-than-ideal morale.
He looked around, at Janne, then across the roof and it’s rack to the members of Shift Happens.
“Now… what exactly do you want?”, Valentin asked, trying to keep calm in the midst of his latent pain, the poor weather and the unusual amount of attention he was getting.
As Valentin asked if he minded waiting for them to get out, Kivenaal smiled lightly. “Take all the time you need. I might be excited to see what you’ve done to the car, but I can wait,” Kivenaal said.
Once Connor left the vehicle and headed toward the Schnell, it was almost visibly obvious that Kivenaal became a little more relaxed, waiting patiently while Constantin and Tim got out, and then Valentin was assisted out of the car.
When Valentin asked exactly what they wanted, Kivenaal gave a light smile, then said, “Mostly to ask questions, but also to look, if you don’t mind, at some of the rather extensive and impressive modifications that you’ve done here. I have an interest in steam engines in general, so, I’m naturally curious. Especially after seeing it running down the rails.”
Janne looked at Valentin a bit confused when they were helping him out of the car, even more when he was jumping around on his crutches. It was obvious that he was in pain.
“Ehm…what the fuck happened to you?”, Janne said, feeling a bit guilty. “It’s not…is it…ehm. I hope that I am not guilty to this…you know, the ehm…flashlight incident.”, he said in a lowered voice.
With Valentin and the others now out of the vehicle and the doors closed up again, Valentin went about addressing the others, already drenched in rainwater.
First, he turned to Kivenaal and answered in as calm a manner as possible, given Kivenaals appearance being even more inhuman than Jayde’s: “Ask away and look all you want, but be at least somewhat specific with those questions please. I wouldn’t touch anything though, as most of it is still steaming hot.”
After that, it was Janne’s turn.
“Hard to explain, but it was not you, is all i can say in summary.”, Valentin spoke, trying to avoid the details of it, just to be backstabbed by Constantin.
“Tried, and failed, to enter the car through the driver window…”, Constantin added, followed by an annoyed stare from Valentin.
“Just go in and pop the hood for the others, please…”, Valentin grumbled as he tried to keep both visiting parties in his field of view.
Constantin went into the car through the front passenger door and pulled the hood release all the way on the other side of the car below the dash. Once back out, the door was semi-gracefully slammed shut again, followed by him propping up the hood for the visitors to see.
Valentin went a bit further up front, but kept his distance to retain an overview of what was happening.
Kivenaal stared at the mechanical heart of the Dione, the former four-cylinder gasoline engine now converted into a full-blown steam engine. “This is clever engineering,” Kivenaal mentioned, studying it a bit more. “Exhaust to the… Okay, the exhaust connects to what was the intake, and that goes to the radiator? So you’ve doubled the camshaft speed, and you’re feeding it steam through the spark plug holes. That is really quite clever,” Kivenaal said, following the plumbing carefully.
“Why is the radiator upside down?” Kayden asked, looking over to Valentin while Malavera carefully leaned in.
“Are those steam turbines between this exhaust runner and the water tank?” Malavera inquired. “At least, I think it might be a water tank.”
Kivenaal looked to Valentin, then asked, “What inspired the high-railer conversion? To take to the rails like you did is incredibly clever. Also, forgive me if I’m wrong, but some of these valves over by your turbines look… Maybe a little hazardous to reach without finding a steam pipe with your hands. I know you’d lose a little water capacity, but have you considered extending the valve handles up through the water tank? I mean, it might be a bit hard to do out here, but it’s an idea.”
Janne joined Kivenaal, Kayden and Malavera as they were looking at the powerplant of the Dione. “Yeah sure, you guys probably know more about steam engines than I do… but I have already investigated the powerplant…” he said, maybe more a case of thinking out loud than actually speaking. “What I wonder more about however is the high railer conversion. How did you even get that idea, I mean, that’s something I could dream up but I probably would never have done it myself, and absolutely not in just a few days. Well, I am honestly jeal…”
“HAVE YOU GUYS SEEN SONIC?”
Marie’s voice was interrupting everything which seemed to annoy Janne a lot.
“NO WE HAVEN’T SEEN SONIC, KEEP TRACK OF YOUR OWN DAMN PETS, WE DON’T HAVE TIME FOR THIS!”
“Ehm…excuse me. Where were we?”
Valentin simply watched the group hunched over the engine bay and Janne taking slow paces around the car. Some questions arose surrounding the powertrain. Valentin waited a bit for them to queue up in order to reply in one go.
“Okay… so the camshaft gearing actually is stock, which is why i am taking the steam out of both the intake and exhaust valves and into the condenser up front. Speaking of which, i turned it upside down to use the cap as a drain for the result of condensing steam.”, Valentin explained as the group was staring and pointing at various things in and around the engine.
“Yeah i had to move the engine’s accessories away from the belts as i needed the pulley mount for the rail-wheel-drive. Also allows extended time spent stationary without drying up the boiler.”, he added.
as Malavera inquired about the turbines and water tank, Valentin simply nodded in response.
The high-railer conversion, however, was a different can of worms.
“Simply put. Rails are better than roads, especially in this place, apparently. We are sitting on worn cloth seats for ten hours a day, so i figured i’d smooth out the ride a bit by avoiding the need to do 70 on there.”, he commented, pointing at the packed gravel road leading away from camp and into town, the direction they came from and will be heading into tomorrow.
“I agree with you on the power steering turbine valve. The second one from the firewall. We tried running it, but the volatile load of it makes it impractical, so we turned that off and have been running with heavy steering since. Bearable, given that most of the day is spent not touching the wheel anyway… The alternator one is just se…”, he continued, before being interrupted by a screamish Marie from across camp.
He turns around, or at least attempts to, as Marie inquired about a certain “Sonic”, before being shut down by Janne in response.
Valentin then returned to the group and finished the last bit of his explanation for this round of questions.
“Yeah… we set that alternator one once and never really touch it. The control circuitry regulates load already so we don’t need to do that manually.”, Valentin finished while trying to keep his soaked hairdo in check. Not exactly easy, given the movement limitations that crutches entail.
When Valentin mentioned that the camshaft gearing was actually stock, Kivenaal looked a little surprised, then tried to puzzle through how the camshaft was still operating the intake and exhaust valves, now all exhaust valves, then shook his head, impressed. “Clever. I mean, I’ve made a few steam engines back home, but, nothing this complex. Little things that sit on your desk and give you a sense of accomplishment, but don’t actually get a lot of work done,” Kivenaal admitted. “To see this done, it’s impressive. Doubly so when one considers that, well, there’s no computers around. This was done the hard way, and I respect that.”
Kayden nodded as Valentin explained that the radiator had become the condenser, and as a result, was why it was upside down, so that steam entered up high, cooled down by fast-moving air, and exited through what was once the radiator fill spout. “That makes a surprising amount of sense,” Kayden admitted. “It’s still doing the same job, a hot fluid comes in, a cold fluid comes out. Just instead of it being a few degrees from intake to exhaust, it’s shedding more heat and returning from vapor to liquid again.”
Malavera gave a light smile, then said, “By having them like that, as long as you have steam, well, you have power, too. I’m surprised they had steam turbines, but, I guess in the end they’re not too complex, all things considered.”
Once Valentin mentioned why they did the high-railer conversion, however, Kivenaal smiled. “Makes a lot of sense. The Bricksley is nice, but I think Malavera would agree with you, the rails are smoother, and that last road was rough.”
“This fucker hit every jump he could find,” Malavera grumbled. “I threw up four times.”
“I didn’t do it on purpose. Well… Except for the second railroad crossing,” Kivenaal said.
Kayden chuckled. “Kivenaal is our group’s prankster, when he’s not worrying about his past or his looks. Malavera can’t handle negative G-forces, so, Kivenaal being Kivenaal, decided to send it on the dirt,” Kayden explained.
Malavera, meanwhile, listened as Valentin mentioned that the valves were difficult to get to with the engine hot, as well as the volatile load of the pump making it just impractical to leave on all the time.
Kivenaal, likewise, was paying attention, though Marie screaming across the camp about “Sonic” startled him for a moment. When Valentin finished his explanation, that they had simply set the alternator one to on and left it alone, Kivenaal nodded. “Makes sense. It’s a very impressive bit of engineering, Valentin.”
Kayden then asked, “Does it really drive any differently from before?”
Malavera looked into the cab, then said, “It still has three pedals and a gear-stick, Kayden. I’d guess that it’s probably still the same.”
Kivenaal grimaced. “No, this would have way more torque. One, every piston in there is producing a power stroke, so it’s a bit like a two stroke engine in that respect. Two, given the lack of a starter motor, and the complex valve arrangement on the side, I’d hazard a guess that they’ve had the crankshaft modified, so for every rotation, each piston has a power stroke and an exhaust stroke, and nothing else. This thing might make as much power as a V8 twice its size, if not a bit more,” Kivenaal said. “Of course, I could be wrong in that guess.”
“I have driven it”, Janne said to Kivenaal. “I have to tell you one thing, the smooth and direct power delivery is something that needs to be experienced, not the easiest thing to describe”, he said. “I really dream about doing something similar now”, he said, “I’ve got a 1967 Saarland Kardinal that I have had some plans of converting to wood gas power, however, compared to this, that’s just meh. Maybe a steam powered Kardinal instead?”.
“Yes, strong indeed”, he said, “but if I remember right a drawback with steam engines is that they don’t really have very good effiency, so power might come at a cost I guess. You guys probably know more about that than me though?”
“Err… Thank You. Only having to look at a the wayside for signals and signage, with zero need for active turning and all that make for a rather pleasant drive.”, Valentin added in response to how nice Kivenaal thought the Bricksley was.
“Unless you have to walk half a mile to a signal box three times in this weather…” Constantin added, chuckling at how he was put in charge of informing the nearest signalman about how Robert was waiting for a signal to be cleared.
The tangent on how rough the road was and how Malavera emptied his stomach contents multiple times over was noted, but not acted upon to not derail too much from the existing show-and-tell nature of this.
As the attention moved to the inside, people questioned how it was to drive.
“On the road or on rails?”, Valentin countered, eventually deciding to elaborate on both.
“On the road, it works like any other car. Think of it as an electric but without regenerative braking, so you have to use the actual brake to slow down. I just leave it in third and not touch the clutch and gearbox. The lack of power steering, as said already, is annoying, though, but it is what it is… a quick-job conversion to steam to not DNF this thing…”, Valentin explained, mimicking the driving motions with his feeble arms during this part.
“On rails, it largely is one-pedal, since we obviously don’t have all that much traction to get going and all. No steering, just your right foot - and the fireman - dictating your speed.”, Valentin added, as Janne chimed in with how he test drove it in the middle of the night, also mentioning something about poor efficiency.
“It could be worse… The thing doesn’t rev all that far by internal combustion standards, but Connor reckons that it still does 120hp because of the two-stroke nature and more of 50 bars of pressure behind that boiler. And that was with all the pumps still belted straight to the engine.”, Valentin commented.
At this point, Connor returned to the group, but stayed back for now to avoid interrupting any ongoing conversations.
Kivenaal nodded. “Necessity is the mother of all inventions,” he said, before looking over the fireman’s controls. “Definitely complex, but then again, steam engines are. You’re quite a clever engineer, Valentin, to come up with a steam-conversion to keep in the race.”
Kayden, on the other hand, had another question in mind. “How fast do you think it can go?”
Malavera groaned. “It’s a steam car, not a rocket-ship, Kayden.”
“Some steam cars could do 100, Malavera,” Kivenaal said. “They don’t have to be slow.”
“Well thank you once again…”, Valentin replied.
“On road, we run into lead-steam issues at about 75. We need a longer diff or more RPMs to get faster, neither of which are easy. On rails, we apparently have no issues keeping up with mainline traffic. At least, that’s what the foreman told us when we got to that rolling stock maintenance facility yesterday… Connor claims it being able to do 135, somehow, but we haven’t gone much faster than 100 yet due to line speed limits and all… Before we send it, i want an actual brake on there, though. Just using the belt is rather temporary at the moment.” Valentin added, scratching his head a bit at the though of his railhead brake idea that is floating about as a possible addition.
Meanwhile, Connor quietly took Constantin and Tim aside to have samples taken from them, similarly to how Valentin was screened this morning.
Kivenaal nodded. “Brakes are always good to have. And going around 100 miles per hour with nothing but engine braking has to be scary.” He took a look at the side profile of the Dione, then said, “It would chew up some of your ground clearance, and it’s a bit primitive, but… Have you considered using a steam piston to lower a large brake pad down to the rail surface? If you have hinge points mounted here and here,” Kivenaal added, pointing near the car, but not touching it, “it would swing down parallel to the rail. Could use a spring to return it. I mean, it’s going to make a lot of noise, and finding something that won’t eat up the top surface of the rail could be difficult, but at least you’d have brakes.”
Kayden looked at the chain system running down the side of the Dione and smiled. “So the chain makes it all wheel drive on rails, right?” Kayden asked. “Any reason you aren’t just using the rear wheels?”
“Rails could be too thin, would potentially wear the tires out,” Malavera mentioned.
Janne was pretty quiet, but listened and looked at what Val and the staff from team SH was discussing, nodding every now and then. He felt that the information he got was pretty useful if he ever was going to build something similar himself.
Valentin thought quite intensely about the suggestion on implementing a service brake. Before he could reply, Connor returned to the group with Constantin and Tim in tow.
Valentin took note of this:
“How have things been going?”, he asked, keen on getting a result, but still sort-of hoping that it was just his stupidity that caused it all.
“Progress has been made and a number of samples were taken. I would like to have the last one taken from Mr. Mäkitalo.”, Connor replies, looking over at Janne.
“Speaking of which… who’s in charge of running all this? Like… of your team, who is the lead?”, Constantin questioned in the general direction of the Shift Happens members. With how progress was made, communicating it with the organizers made sense to him.
When Connor wandered over and interrupted their discussion, Kivenaal had a look of mild annoyance on his face, less at the interruption and more at the presence of the android being nearby.
However, when Constantin asked who was the leader of the team, Kayden laughed.
“Realistically speaking, that answer can go a lot of ways,” Kayden said. “We didn’t really designate a team captain. I’m a field medic, so definitely not the team lead. Rukari and Kivenaal are sort of like our scouts. They found out a route for everyone that should be equally fun and challenging. Malavera is our vehicle safety inspector, but also the guy who sent out the invitations. Jayde joined us after the start, and while he’s done some heroic things in his past, we can all tell he’s not the leader. Kaylie’s our designated mechanic, but… I suppose she is the only one hard-headed enough to be our team captain. She’s not afraid to threaten to tie Rukari’s tail in a knot, for example, and if she can stand up to him, I think she can handle whatever you’re throwing her way.”
Malavera gave a light nod. “Kayden’s right. None of us really want the title of team captain. On the other hand, all of us can be the team captain if we have to be. But, Kaylie’s usually the level-headed one. She’s got a temper, though, as we saw with the drunk driving incident.”
Janne got very suspicious when he heard what Valentin and Connor were talking about.
“Taking samples? What do you mean by that? What kind of samples are you looking for to take, and what’s the reason behind that?”, he asked, a bit annoyed. They should not believe that he would give in without questioning anything if they were going to perform some suspect experiment on him for no given reason.
As the team dynamics of Shift Happens were explained, Constantin nodded.
“Well… Kaylie it is, i guess…” he muttered, before awaiting Connor to be done with his work.
“I am investigating a case of possible assault against a competitor in this event. Therefore i am collecting samples off of the palms from anyone who was near the Victim’s vehicle around the time of the accident. Those will be compared to the sample taken off of the Victim’s hands as evidence. I would appreciate your cooperation to help further the case.” Connor calmly spoke, deliberately keeping the details vague to avoid unnecessarily alerting anyone. Though with Valentin now obviously being in crutches, the attempt was mediocre at best.
Valentin was intrigued, as this was the first time he has seen Connor do his designated work, but refrained from saying anything to not be a nuisance given the situation.
“Robot investigators. I suppose that’s one way to guarantee fair and impartial justice,” Kivenaal said with a light grimace. “I may not like robots or AI in general, and androids, well…” Kivenaal trailed off, realizing he was treading on thin ice there, before saying, “I’ll at least say that I’m glad this investigation will be thorough.”
Malavera chuckled. “Kivenaal really doesn’t trust AI,” Malavera mentioned.
“With good reason,” Kivenaal grumbled.
Kayden smiled lightly. “Connor’s one of the good ones.”
“Hrmpf, OK”, Janne said. “As long as it is just that, fine. I can’t say that I have anything to hide there. I just hope that some other bucketheads, won’t mention any names, in this camp get checked out too then. I think that I have seen several already that I would suspect long before I would suspect someone like me.”
You could still hear that he was a bit upset, but his choice was to not start a shitstorm over this right now, it was simply not the right time for that.
After a long bit of silence, Tim finally had something to say.
“Well apparently he’s from like te 2030s or something, where Androids as a whole are common already. He usually follows whoever he is assigned to like a slightly annoying and clingy dog. Then again he’s a very well-trained dog, so to speak.”, Tim remarked at how little care was needed to prevent Connor from doing stupid stuff.
Connor, meanwhile, went through the process by first directing Janne to present both palms to him. This was followed by Connor dragging his fingers across Janne’s hands, followed by him licking the fingers used to analyze the sample taken. His LED briefly went from blue to yellow and back to blue again.
“Thank you for your cooperation.”, Connor said to Janne and took a step back again, creating some distance between Android and Human(-oid).
“Yeah sorry about that… he’s very sterile when it comes to work…”, Tim added, having had first hand experience with this multiple times already in other, similar events.
Not long after, Constantin and Connor went off for the Bricksley to discuss the findings with Kaylie.
As Constantin and Connor left, heading toward Kaylie, Kivenaal again visibly relaxed. He looked around at the rear of the Dione, studying the boiler, though again kept his hands off of it.
Kayden and Malavera, on the other hand, took a last look at the Dione before returning to their tents to get out of the rain. After Kivenaal had gotten a last good look at the boiler system, he turned to Valentin. “Thank you for your time and patience. It’s a remarkably clever bit of engineering.”
“Yeah, thanks…”, Janne said. “Why didn’t I come up with this?”, he mumbled and gave the whole arrangement yet another look. Well, going on rails really had been a better experience than mudbogging with a cargo van, despite the mediocre AWD system fitted to it. Still, it was not without a kind of sour feeling he left everything. He still felt that it was a bit unfair that they suspected him, and he felt that he couldn’t be sure that they actually were going to test some of the way more suspicious ones that were walking around on this campsite.
“Because you don’t smash your head into the roof on every bump”, Valentin said in reference to his height being the biggest issue in spending the entire day in the Dione.
He simply watched Janne take another lap around Robert before leaving in silence, apparently drowned in thoughts. Not wanting to burst into then, he simply let it be, watching him as he went back towards the IP cargo van parked nearby.
Not long after, Constantin and Connor returned with Kayden in tow.
to be continued
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RK Series Racing; Stage 8 Camp; Part 2
and
Team Shift Happens
and
Team Slow
John gets out the Schnell, starts setting up the barbecue in a torrential downpour, and then tries lighting a flame. It does not work, and then Matt tells him “Are you an fucking idiot? It will not light up in the rain!”
Connor approaches, having seen the stroke of genious that was an attempted BBQ, but decided to not comment on it. Instead, he went straight to the point:
“Good afternoon. I am investigating a case of potential assault against a competitor of this event and would like to ask a series of questions.”, Connor spoke, rather sternly and with absolutely zero emotion. He too was absolutely drenched in rainwater, but didn’t seem to care at all.
Matt then replies to Connor “Potential assault? I don’t think i did the assault myself. Probably someone in my team, are you able to describe them”
“I have a number of potential suspects, the appearance of which cannot be confirmed yet. Because of your proximity to the Victim, you serve as potential witnesses. Therefore i would like to collect evidence to support the case.”, Connor answered, glancing into the car at Isabella, before also scanning the vehicle she was sat in.
“Alright, here is the trunk.” Matt replies to the stern Connor.
Connor was confused initially, since he only inquired about questioning and not the vehicle’s contents, but with what was already known, taking a look into the trunk was very helpful for his work. There, he spotted the three cans of 10w40 engine oil, of which one has been opened at least once. “Is that the oil used for your vehicle’s engine?”, he inquired, unsure about the use for it as it might as well be carried for other use-cases.
Matt then says to Connor, “Yes it is for our vehicle’s engine.”
Connor nodded ever so slightly in acknowledgement, before he turned back to Matt.
“I would like to collect samples of evidence to compare against the sample taken from the Victim’s vehicle.”, Connor spoke, still rather stoic, but but not with an aura of authority.
“Those include samples from all three team member’s palms, if possible.”, he added, unsure as to how the two people outside the car at this time would react.
Matt replies to Connor, “Why the samples, What?” He is rather confused at this point, thinking its an DNA test.
“I can analyze samples taken in real-time. Please show me your hands, palms up.”, Connor ordered calmly, trying to not scare Matt on top of his apparent confusion. He then looked at John, then Isabella to see if either of them noticed as well.
Matt then shows his hands, palms up. John doesn’t notice.
Connor looks at those palms for a moment, before dragging two fingers along one of them, then the other like he did with Valentin’s hand this morning. Afterwards, he licks his own fingertips, accompanied by his circular LED on his right temple going from a steady blue to a flashing yellow hue. A few additional seconds pass, before the LED returns to blue.
“Thank you for you cooperation.”, Connor said in a voice that was calm, but the friendliness was still obvious compared to the previous tone of voice. He then nodded and went over to John, who was sat beside the not-lit grill.
John then looks at Connor. “Is this the uhh, test to verify if i have motor oil in my hands?”
“In effect, yes. I am checking every potential suspect this way to compare against the sample taken from the Victim’s vehicle.”, Connor replied. He was aware that John was nowhere near Robert, the Redneck Railcar at the time of the accident, but him being a team member might prove to be useful later on.
“Sure.” He then puts his hands, palms up.
Connor repeats the exact same process, followed by the exact same line of text thanking him for his cooperation. He nods a little to say goodbye and heads over to the driver window of the Schnell, behind which Isabella was sat. He carefully and lightly knocks against the door of the vehicle to get Isabellas attention.
Isabella says “Huh, what’s this about?”
Connor looks at Isabella, followed by a quick scan of the vehicle’s interior.
“Greetings. My name is Connor and i am working on a case of potential assault against another competitor. I am here to see if evidence or witness testimonies can be found to aid the case.”, Connor explained in a more friendly, but still professional way.
Isabella replies to Connor “Alright, that would work on my end.”
“I would like to collect a sample to compare against the one taken from the Victim’s vehicle. Please show me both hands, palms facing up.”, Connor ordered once more.
She then puts her hands up, palms facing up “This feels kinda awkward” Isabella says not long after doing that.
“I am sorry, but this is necessary to make progress in the investigation.”, Connor replies, before repeating the analysis procedure a third time.
“Thank you for your cooperation.”, he adds once he’s done taking the sample.
“No problem” Isabella replies back to Connor.
Connor rose from the window to address the team as a whole.
“I wish you a nice afternoon and appreciate the help in furthering the work on solving the case.”, Connor spoke aloud to all three and then turned around to head back to the other and of camp where the Bricksley, Anhultz and IP were all parked up.
Kaylie looked up as Constantin and Connor walked toward her after taking samples at the Dione while she was busy changing the Bricksley’s oil, currently in the process of adding the last quart. “Just a minute, I have a rule of no conversations until the oil cap is back on,” Kaylie said, finishing pouring the bottle, putting the cap on the Bricksley’s engine, then started cleaning up her funnel, emptying the drain pan into a jug that she then dropped into the toolbox, and wiping off her hands before closing the hood.
“So, what do you need?” Kaylie asked.
Both Constantin and Connor patiently waited for Kaylie to finish topping up the Bricksley’s engine oil.
Spotting the container of 10w30 synthetic oil being stowed, Connor gathered additional information for the investigation.
Once that was done, Connor didn’t wait long to get to the point.
“Concerns have been raised that the injuries Mr. Valentin Schrant sustained yesterday were not coincidental. I have collected evidence and would like to present them, for lack of a suitable superior to forward them to.”, Connor explained, calmly, yet professionally.
“Figured maybe one of those guy with the German V8 were less-than-lawful, since they’ve been snooping around our car for upwards of half an hour.”, Constantin added, crossing his arms as he did so.
“I see,” Kaylie said, a bit of an angered growl hiding behind her voice at the thought that someone could have been deliberately sabotaging other teams. The 9/16-inch wrench in her left hand glinted slightly in the Crugandr sun as she then said, “Very well, let’s hear this evidence, then.”
Before Constantin could warn about Connor potential bluntness, he started listing off what he discovered over the course of this day.
“I took a sample off of Valentin’s right hand, with which he grasped the roof rack before sliding off it. Within that sample were traces of grease, 15W20 engine lubricant used in our vehicle and foreign oil of 10W40 specification, supporting the initial idea of it being either battery or assault. At this point, the list of suspects had six entries, of which only four are currently known by name.
After arriving here, i took samples off of anyone of that list i could to see if traces of the foreign oil are to be found there. To finish assigning the samples to names and therefore people, i need to know who is competing using a modified Schnell XL53 V8”, Connor explained, not yet getting to his actual conclusions as the list of suspects currently is only partially filled with names.
Constantin, for now, just stood by, waiting for anything Kaylie had to say to him.
Kaylie’s eyes narrowed and her left hand clenched almost involuntarily, the poor 9/16 inch wrench bending under her grip. “The only people here with a modified Schnell XL53 V8 are the same trio of knuckleheads who thought driving drunk was a good idea. John, Matt, and Izzy. No, I don’t know their last names, they initialed their entry form,” Kaylie said in a deadly, low tone of voice, punctuated by a sharp snap as the wrench finally had enough and broke. The top of the wrench landed in the gravel with a metallic clink.
“Of course it’s them…”, Constantin mumbles under his breath, before Connor started going through his list of suspects.
“Thank you. I took samples of various people from three teams.”, he begins, his LED very briefly going yellow as he is recalling the data he has gathered.
“Constantin Schrant both never touched the Anhultz’s roof rack and also had no contact to any lubricant. Tim Redwood operated the grease gun used to prime the steam engine, but the viscosity didn’t match that found on the rack and on Valentin’s hands. Janne Mäkitalo was not present in a time frame close enough to allow intentional planning. By the time the accident happened, the lubricant applied would have diluted itself in dirt and dust. You were actively working on the driver-side window during your visit. Also, oil stains in fabric… or fur… would be very hard to get rid of. That leaves either member operating the Schnell, of which the taller male can be ruled out due to him not having been present.”, Connor cotinued after he had gotten the names, which weren’t of much use due to a lack of visual knowledge on who was Matt and who was John.
Connor was very thorough with his explanation, detailing everything known at this point in time.
“As of now, i only have the sample data as hard evidence. Questioning six people would have been substantially more time-consuming.”, Connor added, knowing that he jumped steps to get it done quickly.
Kaylie pointed at Connor with the broken end of the wrench still in her left hand. “You get any more evidence, I want to know about it. As it stands, I gave them one second chance, because everyone makes mistakes. Should have sent them home for that drunk driving stunt, but I was lenient. If it turns out that they did this,” Kaylie said, motioning toward the Dione and Valentin, “they will be going home. If they put up a fight,” Kaylie said, dropping the broken wrench and extending the titanium claws on her left hand, “they’ll get one.”
“I still have evidence.”, Connor replied, having stopped short of the biggest nugget that he had in stock.
"Traces of 10W40 oil have been found on Valentin Schrant’s hands. A suspect’s vehicle, the Schnell LX53, also uses 10W40 oil, of which they have three cans stored in the trunk. One of those cans has been opened at some point. In addition, residual oil was found on all three member’s hands.
I cannot confirm any intentional planning that would have caused injury to the victim, as it may also have been accidental. And without law enforcement in support, getting the investigation to progress further will be increasingly difficult.", Connor explained, sure of himself regarding the oil used, but also a bit disheartened at the fact that he had no legal basis to continue working off of.
“Yeah sure… ‘accidental’ caressing of a brass roof rack next to the nameplate. Mhm…”, Constantin muttered, now convinced, but equally unable to confirm it being intentional.
“With any other team, I’d give them a warning for being careless. They’ve had their warning,” Kaylie snarled, retracting her left hand’s claws abruptly with a sharp click. “It’s one thing to look at another team’s car. Twin Suns, even Kayden, Malavera, and Kivenaal had a look. Janne had a look. I had permission to help fix it. But I’d be willing to bet on it that none of them touched it without permission,” Kaylie said, holding up a Tigrilan crown coin. “Of course, betting isn’t in the spirit of this,” she added, rolling the coin back and forth across the knuckles of her left hand, more out of something to do that kept her from grabbing and destroying more tools than anything else.
She sighed. “Any other team, I’d tell them to be more careful. Team Slow is just reckless. Driving under the influence, and neither of their male team members had the thought to tell her, “No, you’re not doing this,” at any point? We’ve had impaired teammates. The worst was Malavera, who put his foot on the accelerator after he got a bit intoxicated and made Kivenaal have to fight a speeding truck. Kivenaal refused to drive under the influence. Jayde warned us that he wasn’t driving on this stage. At this point, they are endangering the safety of every person here. We’re all driving shit cars here to one degree or another. Malavera’s first rule was “Don’t be a dick.” Yes, he talked about breakdowns as the big one, but driving drunk is the ultimate dick move. That at the bare minimum, the day that they got a talking to about driving drunk, someone at the best was careless with oil, says they aren’t being responsible.”
After a few seconds, Kaylie shook her head. “I’m doing what I should have done for the drunk driving incident,” she said. “Team Slow will not be leaving for the next stage, they’ll be sent back to Earth. I’ll have to let Kivenaal, Rukari, and Kayden know, but I’ve made my decision.”
Constantin recalled their journey up to this point, taking a while to think and collect himself.
“We also had our share. Granted, none of us drink, as far as i am aware, but tiredness is as much of a killer as well. The very first day, all of us were knackered to shits and we ended up having Connor drive because he had no issue dealing with this whacky scale of day and night… And now that we are on rails, i am glad that our driver at least is guaranteed to be sober, even with both legs being in some state of fucked…”, Constantin said, vaguely pointing behind himself over his shoulder in reference to Valentin.
Connor simply stood there, having presented what he knew and was aware of, and was awaiting any specific orders from either Constantin or Kaylie.
Kivenaal, Malavera, and Kayden passed by as Constantin mentioned that tiredness was just as much a killer as driving under the influence. “Damn straight,” Malavera said. “We’ve had a few times where, even if Kivenaal might have been the better option for driving, we haven’t been able to put him safely behind the wheel because he has issues sleeping.”
“Seriously, he’s had at least once where he spent three nights waking up and not sleeping,” Kayden added. “Though, to be fair, he seemed to know he was too tired to drive safely because he never offered.”
Kivenaal gave a light shrug. “I don’t sleep well to begin with. It’s hard to be here for me, so… I try to deal with it. First, I tried to hide with alcohol, but after hearing about drunk drivers in camp, I poured the last of our moonshine into the fuel supply. I’m not saying I won’t ever drink alcohol again, but… Only to relax, and never alone. And after realizing how fucked up I was after the cinnamon rolls, stoned so completely that I didn’t even realize you’d changed the car so much, I’m never doing that again.”
Kaylie chuckled, though gave a serious look toward Connor. “Thank you,” she said, before looking to Constantin, “both of you, for bringing this to my attention.”
“At least no one else will get injured over this anymore… That shit with Val could’ve ended faaaaar worse than it did, really…”, Constantin countered, while Connor nodded in acknowledgement.
“Well i’m gonna head back and see if Val can be helped with his pain… somehow.”, he added, already in the process of turning around to head back for the Dione.
“Kayden, grab your kit and go with them, please,” Kaylie said. She turned to look at Constantin and added, “Kayden’s a field medic. Some of his stuff should be reasonably safe to use to help Valentin.”
Kayden nodded and grabbed a large black bag from under the rear bench seat. “At the very least,” Kayden said, “I’ve had it confirmed that the pain cream is quite safe. There may be a couple of alternative options, but,” Kayden sighed, “basically, the more I try to help, the more risks he’ll be taking. Now, I’ve been reasonably assured by my AI, Nova, that even the riskiest option is 95% likely to work, and that there’s no chance for death, but… Let’s just say that if I’m using that option, there’s going to be a lot of paperwork involved for me.”
to be continued once again
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Does this imply i cannot do stage 9?
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i am gonna forward you to the actual host on that one as i have no authority to decide that kinda stuff
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So, here’s the thing:
I let you run Stage 8 because I was too fired up about the drunk driving stunt to be rational in the moment. I gave myself time to think, time to make a decision.
After thinking on it for a while, I’m doing what any race official would have done if they found out a team had driven a race car drunk.
Team Slow should have been ejected the moment it was known that Izzy drove a stage while drunk.
However, because of what has happened in the past (some people here are in the know about this particular event, but long story short, I lost a best friend and two good friends to a drunk driving incident, and the only reason I wasn’t part of it was because I skipped the party and decided to play Skyrim instead), I didn’t want to react based on emotion alone.
I gave it some thought and, well, the sad truth is thousands of people across the world, yearly, die as a result of drunk driving.
The oil incident was clever roleplay, and would likely have led to an in-story warning for any team who actually did it (after all, no one gets seriously injured and no one dies, unless the owners of those characters decide that fate for their characters), but would not have been a black mark against the team.
Some people might mention other teams have driven while impaired, but I’ll counter with, “How many teams knowingly let their driver become impaired?”
I get it, we’re in a seemingly-lawless world with bandits, giant werewolves, spiky porcupines that can destroy tires, aliens and D&D characters, but I have to draw a line in the sand somewhere.
Don’t drink and drive, not in the real world, and not in role-play challenges. It’s not cool. Some people have lost friends, family, and loved ones because someone had a drink or two and thought they were fine.
So, while I hate to do this, I have to do what a race official would do. Sadly, @interior , yes, this means that Team Slow has been disqualified. It wasn’t for the oil incident, it was for the drunk driving. If this hadn’t happened, you would still have been halted at the beginning of Stage 9, and I would have left a note in the stage information informing you as to why.
I am sincerely sorry about this.
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I am sorry for both of those events. To clarify, the oil incident was accidental. The run was good whilst it lasted. Besides drink driving, that is not a good one.
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For the reason they started to look at the Dione wasn’t to purposely injure them in any way. (This is a kalan style moment, i know.)
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The oil incident was just clever roleplay. That isn’t what got you disqualified.
I’m making a hard stand on driving drunk so that it doesn’t become a thing in future challenges. Any serious racing event would have done the same.
It was good to have you here, and with any luck, we’ll see you in a future challenge.
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I understand, I actually had fun for the most part writing up RP Scenarios. Though i agree with you on drunk driving. It would be the same IRL, same with any other racing series. If Shitbox rally 2 or something like that comes out, I would enter, Well. It’s a shame i’ve got disqualified, but also another thing that frees up more of my real-life time.
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i’m gonna chime in regarding the oil bit
i know that it wasn’t on purpose and i never claimed it to be that way, unless i fucked up the wording somewhere big-time
on our end (POV my team’s characters here), the concern was valid since you randomly popped up, snooped around the car for half an hour and conviniently were gone when Valentin took the plunge, not even RPing an excuse as to why they didn’t provide first aid despite being literally the next car over and therefore within direct earshot of Constantin.
as stated already, the oil bit has no correlation with the drunk driving bit
i just wanted to clear up the apparent confusion surrounding the oil incident
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Wait, it actually happened when they fell? Though for the drunk driving bit it was a rainy day conception i had in my head writing that piece up before i went to school., fairly poorly executed.
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the timeline is as follows:
RK arrives at camp
[some irrelevant gap]
Matt and Izzy look at the car, while Kayle (Shift Happens) is fixing the driver window
They both leave roughly when that window is finished
literally the next event is Valentin trying to enter through said window, failing because of that accidental oil bit
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Oh ok, Although can i write up a segment where we (my team) get teleported back to earth marking the end for my team on this challenge.
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I was going to do it at the start of Stage 9, honestly.
Kivenaal, Rukari, and Jayde are characters that, well, they have some complex interactions with other characters here, and just teleporting a car out of the middle of the camp could break a lot of RP with a lot of people.
TBH With teleporting a vehicle out of camp it would, but idk how to go about with it without breaking RP and defying the laws of RP etc
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I just want to mention that my team does have the ablity to travel between the two dimensions. However, they won’t use it because they’d get in worse trouble than being teleported away. Madrias, you can send me a DM over discord if you’re curious.
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