2022 Shitbox Rally - Out of This World! (Results Out!)

Team Slow
Chapter 2 (Follow-up of Part 1 post), Part 2, Are we there yet?
Our Earth made cars feel like things of the Dinosaur era in this planet, where everything is ascending past current innovational limits

After the painful cobble roads, which was well rectified in a luxury car, as per travelling for 355.2mi (or km), We only had to stop once, in-spite of German cars being known to be unreliable, the XL53 was going hard through the non-Earth terrain, Could it be as reliable as a SUV? Who knows.

Tonight on this episode of Slow Machines, totally not slow.
Our all-terrains start disintegrating as they are 10 years old and pulled out of some junkyard, How did they not break apart? Good question.

John cleans the injector system during the stop to improve longevity of the car, and puts it back together, and does a oil change.

Matt comes back from the grocers in his newly acquired e-scooter to get food for the team, and the car with music playing from outside the scooter and it goes off after the scooter is off.

The scooter, despite being bought off an Crugandan?? (clarification needed) marketplace for 350 Crugandr Money

M: Damn, it really is cold here, but this scooter, it is quite fast, don’t you think?

J: Why the fuck did you buy a scooter? After Matt looks at him dead in the eyes that he really did buy a scooter

M: So i could do short distances, no?

J: Where are you gonna recharge your scooter?

M: The power grid in the camps. As much as i do use the power grid for my crypto mines back home. I could afford this bill

J: Your crypto mine broke

M: Oh, Matt goes and throws away a bit of trunk carpeting for weight reduction

TO BE CONTINUED.

(OOC, just a few clarifications. Crugandr is in the steam era. We are far more advanced than they are. Think American Wild West or Gold Rush era. So, if they bought anything off of a Crugandrian, it might have two wheels and be propelled by foot, or if a local tinker got creative, a miniaturized steam engine, but not electrical power. And 350 silver Syrkals (their coin of the realm) is expensive for a push-scooter, but cheap for anything powered. And, as for the weather, Crugandr is tropical. As in, rain-forest hot.)

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Team Mravolinski-Chitco

Team info: 2022 Shitbox Rally - Out of This World! (Stage 1) - #30 by MrdjaNikolen

This is reply to last part.

Swimming time

Considering the situation related to us being slow on first stage, its clear that morale wasnt particularly high when we arrived in next camp place.

There was this breeze that helped handling hot humid weather…wait, is that some water nearby? In which you could swim?
Hmm, tempting solution and i do happen to enjoy swimming.
Ofc it should be noted that i dont exactly have experience swimming in rivers, but we can ask one of Mravolinski chaps to join and potentially assist in returning to shore.
“We” was used bcos VerBanka would be more than happy to freshen up herself a little.
We did brought swimwear on journey bcos…reasons.
Hers would be two-piece one, while i have swimming trunks in black.

Not surprizingly, Klimentol and Aydar decided to accompany us there, so they could remove piss they inflicted on each other back in Nevada once and for all.
And yes, these guys dont require swimwear of any sorts.

Remaining duo are Chicota and Pi, who had observed some other parts of their surroundings and came to conclusion some town is near, so they decided to head there and see if they can find something interesting…which would be done by car.
And yes, Pi was still not repaired/healed from on-stage shenanigans, but noone seemed to mind too much.

We had bit of lunch of sorts and then two of us changed into swimwear, made sure dogs are waiting for us and went for it.
I noted to VerBanka that we dont exactly know how long would those town-going folks need, so suggested that staying in water is probably best possible option for now.
Ofc, its not like i have any trouble with staying in water and swimming for hours, also have nice company while doing so in this case.

As for our duo that went to town, they decided to see if they can renew food and water supplies, but also…yes you guessed it…Chicota saw this as chance to maybe get some local alcohol.
Earlier part noted that paying for stuff is something worth mentioning and here it would come useful that convo Chicota and VerBanka had first night in Crugandr.
Both Chicota and Pi could carry stuff, and Chicota is even capable of fixing it, so thats what they have been doing in exchange for goods of town.
Tbf he did needed to fix Pi a couple of times, but she was holding up somehow with this physical stress on top of her far-from-perfect condition.
This ofc had lasted for hours, no matter if Aetherii or Earth ones, but they achieved success.

Their intended return would introduce yet another interesting twist of fate, happily affecting only one of them.
Less happily, it was caused by Pi’s lack of thought - she wanted to show Chicota she can still jump even tho heavily worn out.
He was convinced when neither of her legs were below certain height from ground for…however long time one spends in mid-air during jump.
She wanted to prove herself further by running alongside Chicota and truck on way back, which went well until some local from opposite direction decided to yeet it down the road.
She jumped on side of road which…havent existed at that point of road.

“Hmm maybe this water wasnt as close to road as i thought” were thoughts on her getting closer and closer to said water.
“Atleast its prob not that deep, i could stand above surface” disproven again when she actually hit, and went deep under the surface of the water. This was surprisingly much more painful than she thought.
But another thing would come to her mind.
“I dont know swimming.”

Chicota saw that something happened, but waited to cross entire bridge to check, to not cause traffic jam on unknown territorry. He did quickly pieced what happened.
He saw that certain swimmer might appreciate having car avaiable again, so he continued to camp, seeing that Pi might be extracted when he gets there.
There wasnt much to say when Aydar and VerBanka decided to approach the car, since she decided its enough swimming for today.
“Pi had fallen from bridge. She is now in river. Two of us would now go to extract her.”
Aydar: “Hrmph, oh well…Lets see in what condition is she now.”
VerBanka was in camper part of vehicle when she heard these two getting back to car, starting it and going.
“Seems we are going to that bridge from which she had fallen”
then, while vehicle was still moving, Aydar had jumped through open door into river.
His fall was dampered by his pissjet of sorts, so he havent hurt anything himself.

There was lot of guesstimating on his side, but eventually, Aydar had found Pi.
She was calmly accepting this whole drowning thing - not much breathing or movement was done as result.
Interestingly enough, that was actually good thing: she did inhaled some water but was alive, if a tad bit more broken than before. Being calm through the ordeal did help.

Aydar had towed her to shore near the camp, then she was finally put in her bed, ready for fixup about a day overdue.
Chicota decided to join me in water, while doctors decided to take short nap, after which them too would be ready.

Pi went through lot of stuff, and these two had generally tried to take Pi back to some workable condition.
This was possible by supplies we got back in Nevada and she was kinda healed.

Few hours later, she would also get in water to about depth of her upper stomach, appreciating coolness that water brings, but no swimming.
We would then see what was brought and had nice dinner.
Doctors decided that Chicota is gonna drive tommorrow, so they werent too concerned about their own tiredness and were running further checks on both car and its most trouble-prone participant.
“We advise you to let the body heal. Dont worry, you still can do some small stuff…hmm…you are free to hang around camp, see what others are up to…if they need some help with something, feel free to notify us.”
-Btw, we should find a way to repair these tires. Two of us havent solved it and i feel we might need that in later part of journey-
“We are aware, Pi. Way will be found.”

Pi decided that sleep is best way to handle this new situation, so there we are, mostly snoozing.

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are you surprised still? COVER ME WITH KISSES BABY COVER ME WITH LOVE ROLL ME IN DESIGNER SHEETS I'LL NEVER GET ENOUGH EMOTIONS CALL I DON'T KNOW WHY COVERS UP LOVE'S ALIBI CALL ME ON THE LINE CALL ME, CALL ME ANY, ANYTIME CALL ME I'LL ARRIVE WHEN YOU'RE READY WE CAN SHARE THE WINE CALL ME

TEAM BLAZERS


PART ONE

On this early morning, Watson had woken up with an annoyance quite visible on his face, the annoyance still there as he began packing up the tent and stuffing them into the back of the small automobile. He hadn’t gotten as good of a sleep as he could’ve as for whatever reason, in the middle of the night he’d began hearing voices, and also gotten bumped whilst in the middle of his important dream, whatever that may have been. He looked over to Romulo, leaning over the hood of the red crossover. He seemed as though he was in not the best of spirits, like someone who’d returned home from a party after drinking too much alcohol. Watson walked over towards Romulo, giving him a good pat on the back which was enough to knock his arms out and cause his face to slam right into the dust-caked fender of the vehicle, leaving a near-perfect impression of his face.

“Watson, you infantile-! What the fuck was that for, you idiot?” He shot him a menacing glare, but Watson was unphased, for he too was in a terrible mood and was not in the right state of mind to be dealing with someone else’s problem. Charlotte looked up from the table she was sitting upon as she heard the bang of someone’s face flopping right onto dusty piece of metal. “What are you two doing…?”

“Checking up on one another.” Watson sneered as he walked over towards Charlotte. “You got the route planned out yet?”

“Pretty much. Should be mostly cobblestone roads, no gravel paths much I believe. It’ll be bumpy and a bit slippery but I think the car will handle it.” She clicked the pen in her right hand and placed it back into her stationery case before finally gathering the papers she was writing on, which included smaller local maps with extraordinarily detailed notes of the speed that should be taken on the run. “I don’t think I’ll be able to pull off these notes again, takes too much brainpower even though it should, in theory, be quite effective.”

“These are, what I believe you called pacenotes, right?” He took one of the papers, examining them carefully. With the rudimentary explanations Charlotte had given him earlier, he was just barely able to make a gist out of what was written on them. Though he’d need a few more minutes of studying to get things properly understood. Charlotte nodded at him in affirmative as she began packing up her apparatuses. She plopped them into the driver’s seat before packing the table back up and shoving it into the vehicle’s back where the table was supposed to be, beneath the piles of other equipment they had to lug around. “Sure is handy having a built-in table…” Charlotte shut the vehicle’s tailgate as she looked over at Romulo, who looked like he was still in great pain. She walked up to him and placed the back of her hand over his forehead, before finally slapping him square in the face in a small cloud of dust.

“Son of a-! You too?!” Romulo angrily exclaimed.

“Can you even drive in the condition you’re in? Stop insisting, you’re gonna get us in an accident if you actually try.” She asserted. “Seriously, you’ve already eaten breakfast and yet you’re still in a very undesirable mood.”

Romulo rested his arm on the Yamada’s fender, and looked over at Watson, who was putting away the fire and preparing to get going. He sighed and called out to him. “Y’know what, Watson… Just take the wheel. I don’t know what you’re capable of, but I guess if we want to get this show on the road… Might as well…”

Upon hearing this, it seemed Watson had a pretty positive change of attitude, although he still seemed rather annoyed at a certain cat fucker. He glared at Romulo for a moment as the taller man waddled his way into the backseat, assisted by Emily. This annoyance would later fade away once he climbed into the cockpit of the vehicle, however. Whilst at first things seemed rather alien to him, he was immediately able to recognize the basic controls. First the steering wheel, then the pedals, and the gear lever. Things slowly returned to him and he began to feel a moment of bliss as he continued scanning the interior. The gauges which displayed the engine’s velocity, fuel levels, temperatures, and the vehicles speed. But though things had began to click, there was still one thing missing as he gripped the steering wheel firmly.

“Don’t forget to start the car…” Romulo snickered as he dangled the vehicle’s keys towards Watson. He took them from his hand and looked at it for a moment before scanning the area around the dashboard. He noticed the keyhole beneath the steering column, and placed the key into what he presumed was the activation hole for the automobile. Before anything, he wiggled the vehicle’s gear selector around first, ensuring that it was in neutral, before finally he placed the key in which started a beeping sound in the cabin, but as he twisted the key until he felt a resistance in his fingers, the beeping stopped and suddenly a noise of whining came from the engine in front of him, which gave way to a loud and spirited roar all around as the vehicle’s exhaust began to sing its four cylinder harmony a close to a thousand times a minute as the engine combusted the fuel. The vehicle’s dashboard lighted up, displaying various amounts of extra information that wasn’t visible when the car was shut off. A small grin lit up on Watson’s face as he felt the car roar into life, and now he was ready. He pulled the door shut and began his own checklist on the vehicle, first scanning the fuel levels, which was pretty much near full. Looking over to the temperature gauge, or what he assumed was the temperature gauge, he found the engine running nominally at a desired temperature. He gave a light press on the gas pedal, and the engine’s pitched changed as the needle rose on the tachometer.

“Ready?” Charlotte smiled at him enthusiastically. The first proper stage of the rally was about to begin, and Watson was at the helm of the vehicle that would hopefully guide this team to their own victory. Out in the distance, a loud firing noise was heard, and Watson saw the tall tiger-skinned being with his weapon pointed to the sky, momentarily catching eye contact with him. That had managed to signal to him that the time was now, and he pressed his foot hard onto the throttle, letting the old but capable four-cylinder maw down on its fuel and sing free into the higher rev range, before clutching into first and releasing the brake. A cloud of gravel flung behind the vehicle’s tyres as it kicked the ground beneath it up into the air around, and the red crossover propelled itself forward with the sheer force of the micro explosions going off thousands of times a minute within its iron-cast heart. Watson felt the communication between him and the car as he slid out from the campsite. Shifting the wheel slightly, he felt the feedback from the wheels reach through to his palms, and right back towards his soul as he felt himself bind with the vehicle. Every small input did something significant, from the slight variations in throttle pressure, to the way he turned the wheel around the short bend. Now a short distance away from the camp, he felt ready to be engaged in a dance with this vehicle, to be engaged with motorsport again, which he’d once lost the connection with.

Charlotte opened the glovebox, revealing a couple of old CDs. She took one of them, a compilation album from the hit rock band Blondie, and placed the disc into the archaic entertainment system on the car’s dashboard. With a subtle whirring noise drowned out by the constant clanking of the stones and debris on the vehicle’s underbody, the small screen flashed to display the first track, and the speakers began to play a sound very much foreign to Watson. “Well then, I guess we’re going to have to settle with this. This music’s likely a bit too new for you, Watson, but I assure you, your kids are going to love it! This shouldn’t be too distracting.” She adjusted the volume of the car’s speakers as she shuffled her papers around, and began to prepare for the stage ahead as the car flew itself over the cobblestone roads.

Charlotte began calling out her pacenotes as the vehicle crossed her marked start. Almost immediately, they were in sync, not only to the cadence of the 1970s-era rock music on the radio, but to everything around them as the red SUV flew through the roads kicking up small pebbles off the slippery stone. Watson was feeling it, as he looked out and saw the trees fly past the windscreen, feeling the car in sync as it navigated its way through sweeping bends and sharp turns. Everything felt perfect in this moment as the vehicle angled its tyres just right through the corners, slipping at the perfect angle to enter the bends at the ample amount of speed. Despite the vehicle’s heavy body, it felt as though the agility was unmatched with Watson behind the wheel as the large tyres squealed for grip. Eventually they had reached a long enough straightaway which marked the end of the first part of Charlotte’s notes.

“Sector end, we can relax a bit here for a few minutes.” Charlotte said as the vehicle came to a cruise on the long straight. “That was some brilliant driving out there! Never thought you’d be the type to be able to take a car that hard!”

Watson let out a small laugh. “Oh, you jest. I feel as though I could have done better, but indeed that was quite an experience.”

“Alrighty, Detective, spill the beans, how long have you been driving?”

“Well, I believe the first time I raced was… Mille Miglia? Not too long ago.”

“Wait, that Mille Miglia?!” Charlotte exclaimed in shock, before eventually remembering that Watson was indeed from the 1930s in the human world, so it wouldn’t be too far fetched. “What position did you come in?”

“I managed to lead the pack for the first few hours, but engine unreliability issues eventually led to us dropping out of the race.” He reminisced. “I enjoyed it quite thoroughly. I hope the engine of this car survives this one.”

“I-I see…” Charlotte’s voice trailed off. She remembered the thing about rallying, there was no guarantees on everything. From her understanding of Earth motorsports history, even the greatest of endurance legends could succumb to an unforeseen failure, like those of the Group B rally cars of the 1980s, or the innovative American entries into the 24 hours of Le Mans during the 1950s. Endurance racing is a gamble, and she was very much well aware of it now.

“Bend’s coming up, you got those notes ready?” Watson said as he began to see the road start to curve ahead, the trees coming ever closer and closer as the vehicle neared the bend. Charlotte went back into reorganizing her notes and quickly, she continued to dictate the turns and angles to Watson, to which he’d respond with the maneuvering of the vehicle through the forest bends to the tune of her loud announcements and the beat of the rock music as they sounded their way around with the rowdy two-litre engine exclaiming its announcements of roars echoing through the depth of the alien (To everyone except Charlotte) forest. The exhaust crackled and popped as the engine speed fluctuated atop the rev range, and the steering shuffled the tyres about the road. It was all so perfect as it was, and Watson felt unstoppable.

For the hours, the occupants of the vehicle surprisingly hadn’t found the ride to be too uncomfortable, with Watson’s smooth footwork and handling of the steering wheel all combining in a perfect harmony of speed and elegance. As Charlotte glanced over to the man in the driver’s seat next to him, her vision of him changed slightly, from a mysterious detective to something seemingly much more. To her, his facial features seemed to exaggerate that of a true racing driver as he gripped the wheel and shifted through the gears, it was a mesmerizing view of what she could only describe as the idea form of what a pilot could be, from the subtle movement of his head, to the rapid shifting of his eyes as he scanned the road foe obstacles, to her, nothing could compare to the view that she was witnessing as of this moment. The subliminal visage of a beyond human form taking the wheel of and becoming one with a mechanical four-wheeled beast. She now wondered about the bust of those legendary racing drivers in history, who have brought many racing teams to their victories, Formula One, the World Rally Championship, the World Endurance Championship, and many others. Did the face and form of those legendary drivers match what she witnessed right now? Were they as engaged with their machine as Watson was? She could only ponder at the sheer legend of these drivers in history, and indeed now she had a full view of the true beauty within Motorsport, when the driver and the vehicle came as one. She stopped her pacenotes, and yet Watson did not flinch. He only continued as the route came to him without any outside assistance, he was beyond any obstacle as he was subliminally engaged with that of beyond the road, a fourth element to the racing driver that was simply beyond anything tangible.

Yet this perfect cadence would end once they neared the camp, seemingly without any prior warning, Watson had lost all connection to the road, a tear in the fabric of his perfect driving harmony, for the car had left the road after going full speed right over a large jump that went unnoticed by Charlotte. The car left the ground momentarily, and Watson was visibly shook as he felt the grounding link sever. For only a moment, he had lost control and the vehicle’s tail gone loose, which unlike his rhythm, was quickly recovered. Charlotte too, was very surprised and quickly reshuffled her papers and recommenced her dictating of the pacenotes. But the effect had been done, and from here on out the team continued at a third of the pace they were going for the first leg of the journey.

Hesus Santa Maria…!” Romulo exclaimed. “That’s going to take some of the life out of this vehicle, that’s for sure…”

Upon their arrival to the camp, they had found themselves among the first to have arrived, second in fact, coming right after yet another SUV. The team still seemed to be setting up their camp however, so the distance likely wasn’t too large, perhaps it could’ve been neck-and-neck had Watson anticipated the jump. Nevertheless, they were finally at the campsite, and Watson maneuvered the red crossover, caked in more loose mud and dust than earlier, out towards the bottom of a small plateau nearby the river. It was rather hot and humid, though the breeze helped to make things just a bit more enjoyable for the tattered and battered crew of Blazers.

“How do I turn this off?” Watson asked as he pulled the parking brake once he found the car to be in a desired spot.

“Right, so don’t turn the car off yet, but when you need to, just turn the key to the left and after a few clicks, it’ll let you pull it out of the ignition.” Romulo said as he got out of the car and moved towards the driver’s door. Watson moved out of the way to let Romulo do his work, and he went onward to the vehicle’s stern, opening the tailgate and pulling out the tent to set it up. As the two men worked on those matters, Charlotte began looking around the area. As the river was close by and the humid heat was starting to get to her, she thought about either going for a swim or perhaps a bath.

“I’ll be right back!” She said as she tossed her jacket through the car’s window. The heat seemed to get to Emily too, however, and so before Charlotte could get out of her grasp, she quickly grabbed a hold of her. “Could I ask where you shall be going to?”

Charlotte looked around a bit, the two boys were once again at each other’s throats bickering over where the tent should be going, and with a sigh she turned her focus back towards Emily. “Well, I’m going to go find a secluded place by the river…” She winked, and instantly the two girls had managed to formulate an idea in their heads. The two felt something tug on their shirts, and they looked down to see Ga’araiya, who had caught up on their plans as well. Now three of them, they slipped around towards the back whilst the boys were busy, and got one of Charlotte’s bags from the Yamada’s cargo hold before finally sneaking away towards an opening through the denser part of the foliage.

After a bit of walking, they’ve managed to find themselves a decently secluded area on the edge of the river, on a bit of creek that just barely branched away from the main body. Here the water was fairly clear and flowed smoothly and slowly as it carved its way past the river’s gravel-like sediment, and all around them were different types of tropical flora and small species of fish that were foreign to Emily and Ga’araiya. Lining the creek bed were small and fairly smooth rocks, carved by the many years they had been settled on the edges of the creek. The tropical brush all around them vaguely reminded Emily of the short amount of time she’d spent in the Philippines when Watson’s watch malfunctioned, although things still felt very much off, as the tropical plants were unlike that of Earth’s, and the overall air ambience felt different too.

Upon scanning the area a bit more, it was quite secluded from the rest of the environment by trees (or what looked to be them), and bushes, and a bit of starlight managed to seep through the unusually-shaped leaves as they bounced around each other and illuminated the low-roof clearing as the quiet fauna twittered and tattered about calmly to the rhythm of the wind as it rustled the bushes and leaves about and landed onto their skin. They looked closer at the creek, whilst it was indeed fairly small, no larger than about two and a half people in width, it seemed deep enough to allow one to float without them touching the creek bed, but still shallow enough that there wasn’t any risk of one drowning.

Charlotte settled her bag down onto a large dry rock nearby, well above the creek and out of the way of any water that may end up splashing about. “Well then, I don’t sense anyone within the general vicinity. I think we’d be fine where we are right now.” She said as she began to strip first, slowly lifting up her red Scuderia Quezon tanktop away from her body, with some of her fur clinging onto the inside of the shirt. Emily looked around, still on alert as she assisted Ga’araiya in lifting her dress away to reveal her small and petite, but refined frame, like one would expect of someone royal. Once Ga’araiya had been disrobed, she quickly made her way towards the water, not even bothering to check the water’s temperature, she sat right in and immediately felt right at home. A face of satisfaction glowed upon her as she finally lay within the creek’s soft-flowing waters. Seeing Ga’araiya enjoy herself, Charlotte quickly rid herself of her shorts and her undergarments, settling them on a low-laying branch of a tree nearby, and climbed right in. Unusually for someone like her, she very much enjoyed as her fur drenched itself in the natural calming waters of the creek.

Finally, Emily tended to herself, unbuttoning the green dress she had on which slowly revealed her busty frame. Charlotte looked back towards Emily, and observed as she slowly disrobed herself of her garments, which revealed her large bosom and gentle curves as the dress slowly began to slide right off of her Italian-sun-kissed arms. “Show off!” Charlotte sniggered at her as she splashed water towards Emily’s general direction. A droplet of the fairly cold liquid seemed to land square on Emily’s belly, which caused a small whimper to emerge from between the blonde’s luscious lips. “H-hey! You might get the dress wet!” Her face flushed and pouted as she set the green dress on another nearby branch, before slowly making her way towards the water, still looking around to ensure that no peeping tom had dared to trespass upon their purity.

“No one’s looking, and besides, weren’t you going commando earlier? You’re acting as though people hadn’t already seen you down there…” Charlotte smirked. It seemed that this cat was very teasing towards her blonde companion. Meanwhile, Emily’s face was still red, and Charlotte’s little remarks weren’t helping either. “B-be quiet, you stupid feline! I took special care to ensure that n-no one would be able to see, so I don’t know what you’re talking about!” Emily crossed her arms as she settled down into the creek’s water nearby Charlotte, leaning back enough where it let the water get up to around her shoulders. It was indeed quite cold, but not cold to the point of shivering and was very much relaxing. She let her buttock rest upon a fairly large and smooth rock as she took a stretch in the water. “I haven’t had a bath in a natural body of water like this before. It certainly feels quite liberating.” As she stretched her arms up above her head, her bosom slowly rose out of the water, becoming visible to Charlotte as they sat aside each other.

The cheeky feline smirked at this, and quite literally she had grabbed the opportunity right there, and Emily squealed as she felt a pair of hands grab right onto her bountiful chest. “W-what do you think you’re doing?! U-unhand me this instance!” She demanded without any major action.

“Well, I wouldn’t be grabbing you if you weren’t flaunting them so much!” Charlotte said as she continued to get a feel of the large lumps on Emily’s chest. She felt them right through, soft and warm with her body heat, and weight aplenty. “I-Impressive…”

“W-wait! D-don’t move them around so much-!” Emily’s sweet voice continued to sound through restrained moans as Charlotte continued groping her.

“Oh c’mon! Such splendid assets such as these and you won’t even let anyone touch them? We’re both girls anyway! And this always happens in Japanese cartoons!”

“J-Japanese cartoons?!”

“Hey, see! You’re not even resisting anymore!”

All the while Emily had herself being harassed by the very likely jealous flat-chested feline, Ga’araiya simply floated along the creek not too far away from the other two with her face toward the heavens, feeling as though she were in deep bliss as she observed the blue sky seeping through the clouds overhead and finding its way through the leaves, before eventually landing on her blue retinas which roughly reflected the colour of the sky. Although something seemed to alert her as her sensitive ears picked up a distant rustling in the bushes came to her attention. Immediately, she turned herself to a swimming position and waddled her way over to the two, splashing at them to grab their attention.

“Hey! Who do you think you’re splashing water at?!” Charlotte exclaimed as she splashed water back at the smaller girl. Ga’araiya was not amused at all by this, she stood up from where she was and whipped her tail into the water, hitting the two of them with a sizeable wave, before pointing towards the general direction of where she heard the bush rustling. “S-someone… bushes…” She said softly, before hiding herself back into the water.

“W-wait! Someone’s there?!” Emily’s eyes grew wide and her face looked anxious, but Charlotte didn’t seem to be able to smell anything, likely due to the strong scent of the creek water clinging onto her whiskers overpowering the general scent of the environment around her, and as such she was not able to tell if anything had gone awry. “I don’t think anyone’s there. If anything, it’s just… a b-bird, or something… J-just keep your body under the water, or whatever…”

Unfortunately, it seemed as though Emily’s fears had come true, and eventually a brown-furred being unlike anything they’d seen before emerged from the bushes, but it seemed as though the being hadn’t managed to catch a glimpse of them as it was too busy scanning the area. Emily screamed upon realizing this, which started the being and got its attention. Quickly, before it could catch a glimpse Charlotte moved her fingers into a gun shape and fired off one of her spells. A bright blue flash of light emanated from her fingertip, which had managed to land squarely on the being’s forehead, swiftly knocking it out before it had the time to react.

“T-this is what I was telling you, goddamn it!” Emily exclaimed, standing up from where she was. Charlotte simply chuckled at her as Emily bared her entire body out of the water without her even realizing. “How bold, you’re showing yourself off already, not even knowing if that thing over there is still conscious or not…”

Emily looked back at herself, and her face flushed a deep red as she quickly sat back down into the water. “…W-whatever…”

Charlotte got up however, shaking her fur almost dry and letting out a hearty laugh. “I’m just messing with you! No creature’s going to keep awake for long after getting hit with that spell! My mentor taught me that when I was younger, as a little self-defense spell if I ever found myself in trouble.” She went over towards her bag, grabbing a towel and covering her body up to look over at the being she just temporarily knocked out, and immediately a pang of realization struck her as she identified the body. “Oh… oh dear…”

“W-what’s wrong?” Emily swam over towards them, lifting herself up from the water to get a closer look. She was able to somewhat recognize who it was, and she too started feeling a slight bit of remorse. “W-wait… isn’t that… from another team?” She said as she leaned closer towards the being. Meanwhile, Ga’araiya had picked up yet another rustling in the bushes, and got up from the water and attempted to reach for the bag which contained the towels, but unfortunately for the small girl, she could barely reach it and looked over at Charlotte with a face pleading for assistance. But the feline was still busy observing the knocked out being however, closely observing its facial features as it really wasn’t like that of any other species she’d seen before.

“Which team was this one from again?” Charlotte leaned over it, managing to identify some of its facial features as masculine.

“I’m not quite sure myself…” Emily got up from the water to assist Ga’araiya, but it right as she lifted herself off, a rustling of the bushes had alerted all of them yet again, but this time it was Ga’araiya who acted first, glaring over towards the bushes that were moving, she chanted some words that vaguely sounded like Greek, and out of seemingly nowhere a large turquoise trident had materialized into her hand, and with the form of an Olympian javelin thrower, she catapulted the three-pronged weapon towards the direction of the rustling.

“What in the bloody-?!” Sounded a very much familiar male voice in the distance, until from the bushes came a tall, blonde figure holding the trident in his right hand. “Y’know Princess, you shouldn’t… Oh…” Watson had arrived at the secluded creek, much to the girls’ dismay. Once again, Emily screamed loudly as she frantically covered herself up with her arms, whilst Watson slowly attempted to walk away.

“I-Insolent fool! How dare thee walk up on a bunch of innocent maidens! Leech! Disgusting!” Emily hurled remarks at him, despite his attempt at walking away. But Charlotte hurled more than remarks, she moved her fingers once again into a gun position and fired yet another spell, which somehow Watson had managed to dodge with just a simple shift of his upper body.

“Hey! I’m walking away already! Geez! Anyway, I think the team of that guy you just conked out is about to arrive, I’ll be waiting somewhere near, though rest assured I won’t be peeping on you.” He said as another bolt of blue light flashed by his face even as he continued to walk away.

“Like hell we can trust that!” Charlotte called out. But Ga’araiya no longer seemed to be on guard, which to Emily was a cue that he kept his word. She moved over towards the rock where the bag was, drying Ga’araiya off first and wrapping her with a towel, before she got her own towel and quickly dried herself off now. After having dressed themselves, Watson mysteriously emerged from the bushes once more, still holding the large trident in his hand. “As I was saying, Princess. Try not to use this too much. It might warrant unnecessary attention that could potentially prove harmful to us.” He tossed the trident back towards Ga’araiya, who swiftly caught it. She spun the trident around her hand before catching it once more and unmaterializing it out of existence. Charlotte simply stared in awe at this technique of hers, but didn’t dwell on it too much as there were more pressing matters at hand. Watson walked over towards the knocked out being, getting on one knee to further examine it. “I believe you were trying to cast the same spell you used on him at me, were you not? Deary me, that could’ve ended quite poorly. Fortunately for this gentleman, he’s pretty resilient.”

Watson lifted the being’s head, and placed his hand on its cheek, and like some biblical miracle, its eyes opened and it was now awake. Before anything however, a set of footsteps started to approach the area, and the rest were now on high alert as anything could happen at this point, and eventually a group of figures appeared from the bushes.



7 Likes

I saw the year and completely didn’t think that.

1 Like

TEAM HILLBILLY ROLLERS

PART 2.1 - D. Head

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!] (2022 Shitbox Rally - Out of This World! (Stage 1) - #238 by Knugcab)

The team appreciated that the van now was much cleaner on the inside, but the fact that they still were high on the scent from the mercy bush was hard to do something about in the hours to come.

JANNE: (laughing) “So…it was an old medicinal herb… I knew it! Hahahahaha…”
ANDREAS: “Haha, yeah…but…like since when do you…haha…care about such stuff”
JANNE: “You know… I was a sage in my past life… HAHAHAHA…”
ANDREAS: “HAHAHAHA stop talking such Demons and dragons (*) gibberish…”

While Janne and Andreas was still together, Marie was just wandering around in the camp, hardly knowing on which planet she was on. She kind of woke up, however, when she heard the horn from the Union Magistrate she managed to step out in front of.

MARIE: “SATANS FÖRBANNADE JÄVLA IDIOTER!” (mumble mumble)… “Hahaha, they probably just does not know that the bird is the word…”

Marie was walking back towards the van, found a piece of white cardboard and some magic markers, and thought out a revenge. Quickly, she drew something on it, took a roll of duct tape, walked back to Team Oil Crisis vehicle, and without even caring that the whole team could as well be looking at her, she duct taped this to the rear side window of the Magistrate.

Still high, she was just smiling and could not care less about their reactions.

TO BE CONTINUED

(*) = Mistake intended

@TheYugo45GV

2 Likes

They’ve been counting their years with breaks in between, but they’ve been in an extended steam era for about 3,000 years. I mean, let’s face it, Earth’s history isn’t only the last 2,022 years. Just we start counting backwards. In Aetherii, they’ve just made breaks after major events. We’re a few thousand years after the first war of magic, but no one ever calls the first war a ‘first war’ unless there’s an intention of a second. So, we’re in 3251 AWM, meaning “After the War of Magic.” Before that, they tracked years, but after the war, those years were relabled BW, for Before the War.

Sorry for the confusion.

3 Likes

RK Series Racing; Stage 1 Drive

The night was rather uneventful, though unpleasant, as only Constantin slept well, resulting in him waking up far earlier than the other two. He quietly packed up most of his “tent”, placing it onto the Dione’s hood for the time being to avoid waking up the others. To kill time, he goes about a morning routine of bodyweight excercises. It take a full Aetherian Hour for the Valentin to open his eyes, followed shortly by Tim. Both of them have not slept well AT ALL due to the stifling humidity coupled with substantial Jet-Lag caused by the different time format.

“Mornin”, Constantin remarks, poking his head in through a window. Both Tim and Valentin stare back at him, looking almost zombie-like in appearance. “I’ll get breakfast going.”, the Swedish Gigachad (as proclaimed by others) adds while reaching in to pull the trunk release, dropping the remainder of his tent to the floor behind the car.

With minimal talking between each other, they have breakfast, consisting of little more than a few slices of bread with non-perishable toppings of various kinds. Once done, the associated equipment as well as Constantin’s tent is packed up and they go to planning the trip.

“The upcoming road is expected to be paved with cobblestone of varying quality”, Connor informs calmly, having gotten the role as Navigator by proxy. “Trip length to next campsite is 355 miles.”

Some discussion regarding seating ensues, which derails towards the state of the car, ending in them digging into the bonnet once more to attempt to fix the broken high beam bulb. It takes a good earth hour of fiddling with the wiring loom, various fuses relating to all kinds of things within the car, until Valentin has the bright idea to check the trunk if they have anything useful: “Maybe the previous owner has left something useful in it?”

He heads back and digs around a bit, eventually finding some small plastic box in the spare tyre well. That box is about the size of a shoebox, half as tall and has a faux-chrome Anhultz logo embossed into the otherwise black lid. He opens that box and realizes that he stumbled upon the original emergency repair kit, containing a feeble lug wrench, a 13/15mm dual headed wrench, another one of 10/12mm pairing as well as a set of screwdrivers. A small compartment within reveals a multitude of fuses and a set of bulbs for pretty much every lighting fixture imaginable. Even a spare belt of some sort has been crammed in there, but it seems to have been put in afterwards as there is no designated space for it.

“Take a look at this! I found the OG repair kit in the spare tyre well. Bulbs, fuses, some wrenches, everything! Even an auxiliary belt of sorts!”, Valentin happily exclaims, heading back up front.

The team gets to work replacing relevant fuses as well as the bulb in question. Upon testing, all four headlights light up as they should, sending a wave of enthusiasm across the team. They soon head off with the usual arrangement.

The enthusiasm dies off quickly, as Tim isn’t exactly able or willing to put the foot down. He is quickly replaced by majority vote (i.e. the other two humans), putting Connor behind the wheel.

His stint, however, didn’t last all too long either, as Connor keeps miscoordinating his newly repaired arm, leading to what are probably the jankiest gear changes the car and all their occupants have seen.

This time, Constantin heads up front, Connor beside him with the other two in the back, already mostly asleep again. Constantin also wasn’t even close to driving at the limit of both him and the car, but with about 15 minutes driving experience and his usual vehicle being a massive military truck, he did not want to risk DNF-ing the team about 80 miles into stage one.

The rest of the drive was rather uneventful, Valentin and Tim spending most of their trip not paying attention to anything whatsoever, Connor navigating and scouting which one of the river roads was better maintained and Constantin taking driving duties for the remainder of the trip.

Upon arrival at the second campsite, the group realizes that they have been the last team to arrive.
They simply roll up onto the last bit of empty space remaining and get out of the car, soon to be starting to set up camp.


to be continued

if anyone wants to ridicule us for being last by half an hour (or a factor of two…), now is your chance

2 Likes

Small note: My team were in their car and watching a movie so they didn’t notice her immediately. I will acknowledge it in the next part after the other interaction that I have in progress.

3 Likes

Team Shift Happens

Previous Chapters:
It’s Go Time! - Starting Party 6 PM
Boldly Going / Through the Rift / Arrival in Jaduvira - Stage 0
When the Hell are We!? - Stage 0 Campsite
Out of His Damn Mind - Stage 0 Campsite
One Hot Night / Letters from the Past - Stage 0 Campsite
Over the Hill and Through the Woods - Stage 1
May the Moons have Mercy on Them - Stage 1 Campsite


Viravalli Campsite

The majority of Team Shift Happens were sitting around the campfire, with only Jayde being missing from the circle, as he was offering help to other teams.

Kaylie looked over at Rukari and asked, “You do realize we’re missing a team?”

Rukari looked back at Kaylie, tapping the ring on his right hand, and said, “They are still moving.”

“Shouldn’t we go back and help them?” Kaylie inquired.

“Neyi. They are still moving. If they stop again, then yes, we will go back for them, but they are still on the move,” Rukari replied.

Sure enough, the Anhultz Dione of Team RK Series Racing, the Tangerine Tank, rolled into the camp and parked in the last remaining good empty space for a car before setting up their camp.

Kaylie, still concerned, went to run over to see if they were okay, though Rukari grabbed her left hand and held her back, shaking his head. “Rukari, let go or I’ll break every bone in your wrist,” Kaylie growled.

“Maybe you can’t scent it, but one of them has great fear when you are close. One without stripes should go,” Rukari said, though he did loosen his grip enough for Kaylie to casually slide her hand free.

“Fine. Didn’t realize I scared them that much,” Kaylie grumbled.

“I’ll check in on them,” Malavera offered. “I’m just as likely to scare the hell out of them, but I’m also less likely to accidentally hurt someone if I have to defend myself.”

Rukari gave a light nod, and Malavera wandered over to the Anhultz.

“Glad to see the four of you made it here safely,” Malavera said, looking over the Dione. “I see you fixed the broken headlight,” he added. “Had a little trouble out there? Or, just no one was comfortable putting their foot down?”

(@Elizipeazie Yeah, no, you’re not getting any real ridicule out of Team Shift Happens. Malavera completely understands being uncomfortable driving fast, even if his condition caused the Flight of the Highwayman today. Also, figured it made sense that Rukari’s the one who’s figured out at least someone on your team is scared of Kaylie. He’s observant like that because of his special forces’ training.)


Jayde, meanwhile, had wandered over to the Kontir Cunningham of Team Mravolinski-Chitco, having heard a rumor that they needed some tires repaired, and that one of their team members may have been badly injured. He walked up to Mrdja, quite aware that being approached by a 2.5 meter tall lion-man in a black robe could be intimidating, especially with him leaning on his staff and his leg gleaming from under his robe, and asked, “Does your team need anything repaired? Is anyone hurt? I’m no mechanic, and not a doctor, but I can repair a few things, and I know a little about healing.”

(@MrdjaNikolen Figured seeing as I’ve got a character who can heal and can magically reverse damage to things like tires, I might as well loan his services out to a team in actual need. If you have to write Jayde’s perspective, he does his magic non-verbally, and generally in the least flashy way possible to save energy, and he’s usually rather quiet. He is, however, not the most skilled in healing, so if he can’t quite pull Pi back together again, that’s also fine.)

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Team Mravolinski-Chitco

Team info: 2022 Shitbox Rally - Out of This World! (Results Out!) - #30 by MrdjaNikolen

Reply to last part

Meet Jayde

Snooze in our case havent lasted very long, so it was decided that we should prob just hang around, also thinking on how to solve the tires and maybe get Pi in much better shape.

Fate does offer sometimes very convenient ways to do some things and one pretty much unknown figure was indeed on the way to us.

He walked up to Mrdja, quite aware that being approached by a 2.5 meter tall lion-man in a black robe could be intimidating, especially with him leaning on his staff and his leg gleaming from under his robe, and asked, “Does your team need anything repaired? Is anyone hurt? I’m no mechanic, and not a doctor, but I can repair a few things, and I know a little about healing.”

Yup, we had encountered Jayde.
We did saw him jumping out of explanatory portal of sorts and were aware that he is now part of Team Shift Happens, but havent talked to him before.

He did made good first impression explaining as to how (or more importantly, why) he jumped through portal in first place; bcos, ya know, that was actually funny.
Tad bit risky, but funny.

Jayde’s scar and prosthetic leg had, interestingly enough, attracted great attention to his only soon-to-be patient with brain.
Answer was quick and to the point: he fought in battle where he lost the leg and got the scar and yes, he did adapted very well to this new arrangement.
Well enough to remind our team of his jump through portal, in fact.

His three “patients” were grouped together and it was a success.
Tires were now comparable to time when they were new, structurally atleast, and they were set as spares should some tire decide to die.
As for Pi, his intervention had covered some stuff hard to do otherwise by our doctors and she too was now like new.

Jayde was also offered some food as compensation for services of repairing tires and healing Pi and soon after would exchange goodbyes with our team.

Where is Jayde going now, you ask?
Well…i would lead that question to @Madrias.
As for us, we decided to hang out a little bit more, until some future interaction takes place.

2 Likes

RK Series Racing; Stage 1 Camp

There wasn’t a whole lot to do in order to set up camp. As such, they just unload minimal amounts of gear, amounting to two fold-up chairs, their gas stove, a small “tray” to put it on and some wind protection to avoid loss of heat. All of that took less than five earth-minutes to set up an their little “campfire” has taken the place of Constantin’s tent for the time being, with all four being sat around it. Valentin and Tim had taken seat on the Dione’s rear bumper, with Constantin and Connor opposing them on the camping chairs. They can be heard discussing about why the trip has seemingly taken much longer than the other teams.

Tim is the first to spot Malavera, looking at him intently, at which point Valentin clears up his vision by tucking some of his hair behind his ears. He immediately is visibly agitated at the sight of what effectively is a twin-headed werewolf almost a foot taller than even him. “Nope Nope Nope Nope Nope Nope Nope!”, he repeats, as he gets up to seek refuge further up front in the car, just to be prevented from doing so by both Tim grabbing his arm (and some of his air by accident as well…) and Constantin, reassuring him that the host team has zero reason to be hostile towards about 100 guests in their home world. “OW! No need to get violent over this!”, Valentin exclaims as he reluctantly reclaims his seat, still on edge and trying to prevent any eye contact with Malavera.

to be continued


@Madrias

  1. can i just point out that you managed to replace a scary tiger-human thing with an even scarier two-heads-wolf-human thing. Valentin is I<—>I this close to shitting himself :smiley:

  2. wanna do this RP like we did with the last interaction? I don’t wanna take hold of Malavera and get him wrong big time

EDIT:
added a line and fixed some typos

2 Likes

(OOC: @Elizipeazie Sure, we can do the RP the same as last time. And I thought Malavera might be less scary to them since he was the one who inspected their car, but then again, this is Malavera we’re taking about. He’s out of his own comfort zone here, but trying to be helpful and kind, even though he’d much rather be off on his own. After all, Malavera even admits he’s just as likely to scare the hell out of your team, but considering they’re only checking to make sure everyone’s okay, he’s only going to be in contact with them for a moment.)

2 Likes

Team Shift Happens

Previous Chapters:
It’s Go Time! - Starting Party 6 PM
Boldly Going / Through the Rift / Arrival in Jaduvira - Stage 0
When the Hell are We!? - Stage 0 Campsite
Out of His Damn Mind - Stage 0 Campsite
One Hot Night / Letters from the Past - Stage 0 Campsite
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


(Thank you to @Elizipeazie for writing this with me!)

Malavera groaned and covered his left muzzle with his left hand, a gesture very similar to a face-palm, but way less violent. “Well, I did tell them I was just as likely to scare all of you as Kaylie was,” Malavera said, shaking his right head. “I came over here to ask if everything was okay, seeing as, if we go just by the arrivals, it seems like you four had a bit of trouble out there.”

Realizing his height might be half the issue in being frightening, Malavera looked around, found a nearby tree stump, and sat down to continue their conversation. “If I’d known I would scare him that bad, I’d have let Kaylie come over. I mean, I suppose we could have sent the gentle giant, Jayde, but, well… He saw another team in need,” Malavera said.

Constantin was the first to speak about the team’s state: “Well… two people didn’t sleep all that much, a third is too mechanically inept to shift and i’m not used to breaching 55mph, given that i usually am sat in massive trucks…”, he explains, motioning to the respective people while doing so. Connor tries to explain his ineptitude soon after: “It seems like i am not yet fully accustomed to the delay caused by the auxiliary driver processing the input signal separately.” Tim immediately smiles at the thought of Connor’s arm basically suffering from high ping, whereas Valentin still is practically staring at the gas stove in the middle to avoid having Malavera in his focused view. He even goes as far as retrieving his haircut previously stowed behind his ears to sort-of hide behind it.

Malavera nodded. “I can understand that. I drive an ex-military truck myself, it’s about the only thing I’ve found myself comfortable in,” Malavera said, replying to Constantin. When Connor explained that he was dealing with signal delays, however, Malavera smiled. “If there’s one thing I know well, it’s high ping,” he said. “Did Kaylie ever try to tune that, Connor?” Malavera asked. “Or did she set it up and hope for the best? Because while I’m not overly familiar with Panthirian powered armor designs, I think the control modules are adjustable. Some people need a higher sensitivity. I mean, the other option is trying to get Jayde involved. He doesn’t understand our technology, let alone yours, but I’m… Well, I’m confident that he could do better than just a patch.”

“From what i remember Kaylie just put it on and left Connor to it with his internal signaling stuff…”, Tim remarks, looking over at the power-assisted elbow brace Connor is wearing. “Correct. The device seems to be optimized to react to nerve signals siphoned off of the skin. I have drastically reduced the signal strength to accommodate. Increasing it’s sensitivity would severely limit fine-motor-control, just like the unexpectedly high current input from the initial movement signal did.”, Connor explains, cycling elbow, wrist and finger movements a few times in the process.

Valentin, while still hiding behind the massive curtain that is his blonde, wavy hair, peeks over to Malavera. Constantin takes note: “Boy, i’ve seen waaaay worse shit in the military… No need to be a pussy about it.” The comment didn’t really help, as Valentin now felt insulted on top of being uncomfortable, even though he truly did not have any bravery or courage to speak of.

Malavera looked over at Constantin after he told Valentin he’d seen way worse in the military. “Some people just aren’t comfortable in some situations. I’d much prefer to have a lens, two computers, about 5 kilometers of network cabling, and a screen between myself and the lot of you, but we all have to face our fears sometime,” Malavera replied. “I’ll go get Kaylie to take a look at that brace, Connor. She’ll know how to tune it better.”

Malavera got up and walked back over to the rest of Team Shift Happens, getting Kaylie’s attention and mentioning to her, “Connor might need that armor frame tuned for him.”

Kaylie nodded, grabbed her kit from the back of the truck, then said, “Might need a computer. I don’t suppose you’ve brought that battleship of a laptop?”

“In the toolbox,” Malavera said. Kaylie opened the lid, then lifted the 20 pound military laptop out with a loud strained grunt.

“Fucking hell, this thing’s heavy!” Kaylie growled, switching it over to her left hand and shaking her right hand in the air with a grimace. “What the hell is in it, Mal!?”

“It’s custom made. I cut down a server board. Twin 8 core CPUs, 128 GB of ECC DDR3, and all the storage space I need locally, plus enough battery to run for 10 hours,” Malavera said proudly as he followed Kaylie.

“Damned tech-junkie,” Kaylie muttered, lugging Mal’s “laptop” over to where Team RK-Series Racing was. “So, Connor, you say you’re having signal latency issues? Serves me right for leaving everything set to their defaults,” Kaylie said, unraveling a wiring harness, plugging it into the serial port and the other end into the control module, then scowling as she tried to work with Malavera’s laptop. “Why the fuck does he have 5 COM ports? What the fuck is he even doing with that many serial… Twin Suns, this laptop is a mess,” Kaylie muttered. “Sorry, guys, had to borrow Malavera’s server-in-a-box. Only used it for a minute so far and I really, really hate it already.”

In the meantime, when Malavera went off to get Kaylie and some equipment, Valentin finally broke the silence for a moment: “I know it’s shallow, but fuck they’re scary to look at…” “Jesus you really are a wuss…”, Tim counters, treating the Shift Happens members as humans in very elaborate fursuits. Valentin just kept quiet, being annoyed at both Tim and Constantin as well as weary about stirring the trouble-pot too much in a completely foreign world.

Upon arrival of Kaylie and Malavera, Connor got to work. “Depending on applied current, the malfunction seems to relate to either sensitivity, latency or a combination of both. I discovered this when trying to change gear en route to this location.” Connor calmy explains, having to trust Kaylie fully for lack of a reasonable alternative.

Valentin manages to take a peek at “laptop”, which is basically an entire server in a suitcase. His angle and the computer’s construction doesn’t reveal much. The only things he can guess that it is immensely powerful and heavy. That raises one question: “Is that a PC? How do you keep that thing cool?”, Valentin mutters, barely loud enough to be audible, yet still directed at Kaylie and Malavera.

Kaylie nodded as Connor described his problem. “You’ve turned your signals down to stop overloading the controller, but this has introduced latency, yes?” Kaylie asked. “I can turn down the receiver’s sensitivity so you can run full signal strength again.”

Malavera, however, looked over as Valentin tried to figure out how his portable server stayed cool. “There’s a reason it’s as thick as it is, and weighs almost 20 pounds, Valentin. Copper heatsinks made for a 1U rack, high-performance fans with a custom fan profile meant to be quiet most of the time, but keep the twin CPUs cool when needed, and a little under-volting here and there to reduce heat without sacrificing stability,” Malavera replied. “That, and I insisted on a 19 inch full-HD 1080P display. When I built it, small 4K displays were too expensive. As for graphics, well… Let’s just say I’m glad I prefer older games, because the stripped-down workstation card in there isn’t great.”

Kaylie, meanwhile, was slowly turning down the signal sensitivity for the armor frame and having Connor recalibrate between each step, trying to see if things were getting better or worse.

Connor simply nods in agreement, followed by a direct “Yes” to hammer down the point even further. Her suggested remedy doesn’t meet an immediate reaction as Connor simply awaits instructions or the completion of the procedure.

Valentin was rather startled by the fact that Malavera actually heard him. He initially doesn’t answer until he receives a light punch to the shoulder by Tim. “Must be awfully loud under load. An array of 60mm fans may generate airflow, but also turns the thing into a jet engine acoustically…”, Valentin remarks, not much louder than before, but making a visible attempt at challenging his fear by at least looking in the vague direction that Malavera and Kaylie were sat at.

Connor internally applied full signal power, but only directed minimal inputs at the device in an attempt to avoid flailing the arm around like a drunkard on the dancefloor doing the windmill. Initially, he more or less did exactly that, much to the surprise of all the others present. Subsequent cycles were much more muted though, until minute and accurate movement was achieved with Connors bottom-clamp value of signal power.

Malavera nodded. “Under full load, it’s quite loud, yes. I’ve got the fan curves set to try keeping the CPUs at 40C if possible. Out here, I’ve got the switch flipped to enable the 50C hold, where it won’t ramp up until it hits 50 degrees. Otherwise,” Malavera said, grimacing as the fans suddenly ramped up, making a racket for several long seconds before shutting down just as suddenly. “Otherwise, it’d sound like that all the time.”

Kaylie kept working with Connor, adjusting the signal sensitivity until Connor couldn’t verify any further benefits to the sensitivity being any lower. “Now, the other thing I’m going to try here is tripling the sensor polling rate. If you pick up any feedback during this, let me know, this is just a mild experiment to see if any improvements are made, but if you get a twitch or a jitter in the arm that you aren’t causing, I’ll try a standard double, and if it’s still a bit jumpy, I’ll turn it back down,” Kaylie said.

“I mean, the laptop’s nothing compared to my battlestation back home, but… Well, it’s not exactly practical to lug a whole server rack around if you don’t need it,” Malavera said. “I know a guy who buys up used business servers and resells the pieces. I occasionally put a notice out to him when I want something specific, and he usually gets back to me if he finds it. If you ever want a custom workstation, Valentin, just let me know, I’ll help you get all the parts. If you ever find yourself needing a mobile server, likewise, I’ll build one for you. Just, be aware, they’re not light.”

“Yeah, he’s not joking on that,” Kaylie said with a grimace. “This thing is killing my knees.”

“It’s made for my lap, not yours, Kaylie,” Malavera replied. “And even at that, it’s best used on a table. Or a desk. Literally any flat surface, really. On one’s legs is only meant for emergencies.”

Valentin over time became more at ease as Malavera and himself were talking about stuff he knew rather well, allowing a common topic that did not end in immediate weirdness. His rig at home was beefy by consumer PC standards, but by no means at enterprise or even server level. “My PC at home is a turd compared to what you managed to cram into a suitcase…”, Valentin admits while watching the happenings between Kaylie and Connor with interest, but minimal understanding of what actually is going on.

On his end, at some point, the control unit simply stops registering Connor’s min_input signal, which is then used as a reference point for the devices sensitivity. The polling-rate idea sounds good on paper, but leads to the affected joints mildly overshooting the desired position as the device reacts to the less-than-instant current drop of Connor’s signal. The double-polling rate seems to work fine.

“Sounds like you got your soulmate located, Val”, Tim jokes, nudging him in the process. Valentin’s answer is not verbal, but ends in him looking back at Tim with an expression of “Really? Yeah no…”. Still, the prospect of sourcing server-grade components sounds enticing enough to keep in mind: “I’ll keep that in mind once my Wi-Fi switch array plans take off, i guess…”

Malavera chuckled. “I do a lot of tasks that often require me to both have a relatively high amount of local CPU power, and also remain relatively mobile. If I’m able to set up a base somewhere, however, I just remote into one of my servers,” Malavera replied. He pulled his wallet out of his pocket, fished a pen out of a different robe pocket, grabbed a business card for the person he often called up for server-grade hardware, flipped the card over, and wrote down an IP address, a username, and a password. “Now, keep in mind, these won’t be immediately active once we go back, but I’ll put it at the top of my to-do list to get the credentials set up. You ever need to get some serious work done, don’t bother with paying for cloud computing. This,” Malavera said, handing over the card, “will get you into Server 4. Kaylie occasionally uses it for video rendering, and to be fair, it’s overkill for that.”

“The last episode of Kaylie’s Garage took longer to upload than it did to render,” Kaylie admitted, looking over to them. “Whatever super-computer he’s got up there is impressive.”

“Relatively recent purchase, actually. And not quite a super-computer,” Malavera replied. “But it is the first time I purchased a full rack sight-unseen from a closing business. Got everything but the drives, and I handled that mess myself.”

Kaylie, finally satisfied that she’d adjusted Connor’s arm-frame to the best of her ability, said, “Unless Malavera thinks he can do a bit more on this, I think we’ve solved it. Might still have some issues, but it should be a lot more sensitive now.”

“I’d rather not mess up your hard work, Kaylie,” Malavera said. He watched as she disconnected the harness, then handed him back his laptop.

“By the way, why do you have so many serial ports on that thing?” Kaylie asked.

“Running three different 3D printers at the same time, and still having one port spare for the CNC machine, and one additional spare in case I’m messing around with something over serial,” Malavera admitted. “I know USB is capable of that, but… I like the old school serial port.”

“Also, seriously, Mal, you don’t have a graphical user interface on that thing?” Kaylie asked.

“I do, but I rarely use it. There’s nothing wrong with running everything from the command line,” Malavera replied, chuckling. “Plus, it means that everything looks the same for me, regardless of whether I’m on Mobile 1, Server 1 through 5, or, well… SC 1.”

“SC 1, Mal?”

“I bought a supercomputer, okay? Haven’t even gotten it set up yet. And no, it’s not top of the line, it’s about a decade old.”

Valentin quietly accepts the business card, reading both the contact data of that businessman and the credentials for the server on the back. “Well thanks, i guess…”, he replies as he stores the card in his pocket.

Connor, upon removal of the equipment, goes to work doing his intricate calibration procedure. He pulls out the recently gifted Tigrilan Crown and said coin effortlessly rolls around the fingers of his left hand, eventually sailing straight to the other, where it is caught safely. The process repeats multiple times and in various combinations, the coin going back and forth, up and down and around the fingers of either hand. The right hand was still slower than the left due to the added external size of the harness assembly, but the fluidity and coordination was equal to the fully functional left hand.

“Seems to be working”, Constantin notes. “Yeah. Good job!”, Tim chimes in as well in a cheerful mood. Even Valentin was smiling ever so slightly at the commendable work in augmenting unknown technology to restore functionality.

“Thank you for your assistance.”, Connor says to both Kaylie and Malavera as he puts the coin back into his pocket, cycling the joints the traditional way to make sure that this performance wasn’t a fluke or anything.

Kaylie smiled. “You’re welcome. I know, I should’ve done this before, but, well, I didn’t think about that after I got things working. I thought maybe you’d adjust, but didn’t realize I should have adjusted the hardware to fit the new user. I mean, you did amazingly well for having Kayden’s profile still loaded in there.”

“Hey, all I did was provide the hardware for Kaylie to work on it, and checked in on you guys after that stage,” Malavera said. “And, Valentin, you ever need tech support, contact me if you can. Doesn’t matter with what, I’ll help if I can.”

“Seriously, he’s good,” Kaylie said. “Last time a friend of ours needed help, he spent three days awake brute-forcing the encryption key so the guy didn’t lose data to some malware.”

“A day and a half, Kaylie,” Malavera replied.

“Yes, and those are Khalan days, with a 48 hour day/night cycle,” Kaylie responded instantly.

“It wasn’t a big deal. And to be fair, I made Hunter do most of the work.”

“Doesn’t a Class 10 AI have better things to do than brute force an encryption key?” Kaylie asked.

“If my battle-station were fully operational, yes, Hunter would have better things to do. As it stands, a Class 7 could take over all the duties and have processing power left to spare. I convinced him to take it on as a bit of a puzzle, how fast can he come up with the key to decrypt this file. It took him a little over a day and a half,” Malavera replied. “And, between you and me, I think he might be above a Class 10, given how fast he got the answer.”

“Or someone used a shitty algorithm,” Kaylie said.

“Well, that’s possible, too,” Malavera replied, shutting down his laptop, closing the lid, and getting up so he could follow Kaylie back over to the Bricksley.

3 Likes

Campsite Two (Team Oil Crisis)

Viravalli, Vira Province, Crugandr.

Local time: 5 Sun.

Weather: Warm and Humid

A portion of this part was written by @variationofvariables

Unintentional Disturbance


A few splashes came from the river just up ahead. Orlan felt the nervousness set in as he continued walking through the undergrowth. Someone had gone swimming in the river, possibly without anything to hide everything. That was a recipe for disaster and he would probably get in a lot of trouble. But, the likelihood of someone being this close to the entrance was low, and it was probably better to not go any further than necessary. He would not be long anyway since the land scanner only took 10 seconds to survey the terrain, and he’d make haste to leave to avoid being spotted and confronted.

The bushes were incredibly annoying, making it almost impossible to move unnoticed. After more stumbling through the bushes, it was decided there would be enough moving and this spot would have to do. Stepping out of the shrubbery with his back facing downstream, he surveyed the land with his eyes and then activated his land scanner.

Someone behind him let out a scream or a yelp of some sort.

Within seconds, he tensed, his fur standing up on end and his large ears stiffened. Placing a hand on the USP nestled in the holster, he turned around but before he fully saw who was behind him, something hit him in the face. All consciousness disappeared, and the impact of whatever did that, knocked him to the ground.

Seconds, minutes or hours could have passed in the time that he lay there out cold. However, the consciousness slowly returned and a strange feeling coursed through his veins. A strange tingling throughout his whole body. But, the realization of his situation hit him, and his ears tensed again, seeing the people surrounding him but as they didn’t pose a threat he relaxed and sat up.

“What happened? How long have I been out? And who are you?” he asks the people around him. Three of them were obviously human and one was an anthropomorphic panther, with one green eye and one orange eye.

The blonde male pats a hand on Orlan’s shoulder. “I see, you’ve woken up, and you’ve ended up somewhere… private, let’s say. On behalf of my team I’d like to apologize for what happened. Are you alright? Something hurting, perhaps.

Orlan sat up further, looking around. “Well, only the back of my head where I fell on it, but other than that I’m alright. Say, what hit me in the face? Had to have been a rock or something. But my face doesn’t hurt, weird…”

These people didn’t seem familiar, he’d seen one of them near the red Yamada SUV but was unsure if she was part of that team.

“Who are you guys?”

That question had already been asked but the realization came too late.

“Well, I’m not quite sure myself. Maybe Charlotte over there could explain to you exactly what it was.” The blonde man explained, pointing to what was basically an anthro-panther.

The black furred feline’s explanation offered a bit more information.

“W-well! It’s a simple self-defense spell! That’s all there is to it! It… sends a beam… of… something…”

The blonde haired man offered him a hand. "It sure was something, alright. Whatever it was, at least you’re fine now.”

With the help of the man, Orlan stood himself up and dusted himself. At Least he didn’t see things he shouldn’t have.

“Well, I guess it serves me right for intruding on whatever… private was happening, albeit unintentional. Now, What is everybody else’s names? I’m already familiar with Charlotte since you already introduced us.”

The blonde man crossed his arms, “I’m… Watson. I believe I saw you earlier back in Nevada. You’re participating in the rally too, I believe? The girls you just walked in on… That’s… Emily…”

The short woman who was keeping a distance simply smiled awkwardly and waved.

“And that girl.” A hesitant tone was present in his voice as he pointed towards the small, child-like girl clinging onto the woman who’d been identified as Emily. Her hair sort of looked like the water in the ocean and she had some kind of tail. She seemed very shy of the big, furry, fox looking thing.

“I see, A pleasure to meet you all, My name is Orlan Draco. My, uh, team are the guys in that big wagon up there. Or at least parked up there somewhere, out of sight.” He said pointing up towards the hill/bluff behind them.

The dark furred feline grinned. “I see, nice to meet you too! I believe your team is… that one rusted wagon we saw at the other camp… A Union Magistrate wasn’t it? From my knowledge, they’re rather rare, and I’m decently surprised you’ve found one that fit the budget that still ran.”

“You are correct that it’s a Magistrate, but our particular car is a Magistrate Vanguard. A Vanguard is just Union Motors jargon for their station wagon models. Ours is a South African spec 4x4 V8 model, which is actually quite rare when you compare it to how many standard 4x4 Magistrates were made, not to mention all the normal rear wheel drive ones. We bought it because it somehow ended up in Galway, which is in Ireland, not really anywhere remotely close to South Africa. As for the reliability through the journey, there have been no issues, yet.”

Charlotte nodded, “I see, Is your team anywhere near⸺?”

Voices and bushes rustling interrupted her from continuing.

“Is that them?”

Orlan nodded. “Yup,”

Three of the same fox-like creatures appeared from the trees, and had come onto the river bank up the stream, and almost immediately, a six legged cat darted across the rocky shore.

A gruff voice came from one of the figures, but the figures were not perceived as a threat since Orlan recognized them.

“Whiskers! No! You get back here right now!”

The six legged cat ran around, stopping to roll about in the sandier bits of the river bank.

“Pavel, Whiskers doesn’t always like to be held.” The shorter fox thing explained.

Pavel then stopped to watch the six legged cat run around. “I just don’t want her to get swept away by the river.”

“She won’t, stop being so worried about everything.” The short one spotted Orlan. “Oh look,”

The group of feline-like things approached the group and stopped short, well two of them did, the tall, silver one Pavel, was looking around for the six legged cat.

“I’m surprised you haven’t gotten washed away by the river.”

“Of course I haven’t, I sort of walked in on them.” Orlan explained. “Didn’t see anything though since I got knocked out cold.”

“Oh my, well you kind of deserved it but I’m glad you’re okay.”

“Thanks. Now, let me introduce you.”

“Watson, Charlotte, Emily. These are my teammates, K’mino, Pavel, and my brother Aedan Draco.”

Orlan then turned around to his teammates and brother.

“Aedan, Pavel, K, Meet, Watson, Emily and Charlotte, and her.” He pointed to the small girl clutching on to Emily’s hand.

Aedan smiled. “Nice to meet you.”

Watson chuckled. “It’s nice to meet you all as well. I hope you don’t mind that one of us accidentally knocked your brother out.”

Grinning and rolling his eyes, Aedan turned and glanced at his brother. “Don’t worry, I’ve almost done so on many occasions.”

“There’s still one of us back at the camp though, I think we best make our way back instead of gathering around in this rather slippery secluded area. Although, it is quite lovely here.”

Watson motioned for his team to follow him, and Oil Crisis waited for them to take off. They then followed the other team and returned to the camp.

K’mino, the slender orange and green eyed one, had gone back to the car atop the hill while Pavel and Aedan waited for Orlan to tie his bootlace. It was at this moment Charlotte walked around the side of the car.

“Could I ask you guys something?”

The darker brown furred being turned to face the black furred feline.

“Yeah, sure, fire away.”

“Sorry, if I sound rude but what are you?”

“What are we? Well, I’m not surprised you had to ask. We aren’t really a common sight in this place anyway.”

“Your species?”

“Yup. All five of us are Lombaxes, or sometimes by ignorant people, Sand Foxes. We, Well, our species, were some of the greatest engineers in the universe, responsible for all kinds of technology. One of the first modern societies to achieve interdimensional travel. But, it all went to shit when one of the most decorated military officers betrayed us and allowed an evil emperor to attack the old home world. He killed millions, but millions survived by escaping to a parallel dimension. We five are a research team, sent to study Human culture. But we have been here before.”

“Woah… That’s a bit heavy to digest, I’ll be honest… You say you’re doing research for human culture, aren’t you? I assume you’ve decided to take on some research about motorsports, then. Some kind of on-the-field thing you’re doing here? Whatever the case, I hope you’re enjoying the rally! I have for certain!” She says looking on with a delighted face.

Aedan nodded. “We sure are, though I’m more a fan of that 24hr endurance racing. But all of us are fascinated by the complexity of the engineering that is required to just design an internal combustion engine. And yes we are sort of doing an on the field thing to study motorsport.”

“But, driving them is a bit new to some of us, especially him.”

Orlan looks up from tying his shoelaces. “Who? Me?”

“Yes, you. You nearly ran over one of the people in the pink van.”

“I didn’t. I almost did”

Upon hearing their bickering, Charlotte couldn’t help but let out a little giggle. “My, my! You’re all certainly quite an interesting group. Indeed, the engineering that goes into vehicles is very, very fascinating.”

From behind the red Yamada, a voice of another man called out, and emerging was this tall figure, dark-skinned and donning a blue Hawaiian shirt. “Charlotte! I’ve heard you-! Oh, who’re these folks?” He stopped right next to her as he looked at the foreign species.

“They’re another team. Oil Crisis, I believe they are? Look at them! They’re so cool! Lombaxes! Ever heard of em’?” She poked him with her elbow before turning her attention back towards the group. “Oh yeah, speaking of drivers, here’s one of them on our team. Raymundo, though you can call him Ray. Oh, and Ray, meet Aedan, Orlan and Pavel!” She pointed to each of them individually.

“Hello there. Nice meeting you all. I’ve heard one of you had an unfortunate meeting… I’d once again like to apologize for Charlotte’s brash actions…”

“Likewise.” Aedan said, nodding.

“Brash?! There was nothing brash about acting in self-defense! W-we were going to have our pure bodies seen by a man! We can’t let that happen! Not to two princesses! If ever someone saw my pure body, I don’t think I’d be able to get married anymore!” She exclaimed, glaring at Orlan every once in a while.

“Right, right…”

Orlan simply shrugged. “Guess I was in the wrong place at the wrong time, but you are lucky you managed to knock me out cold before I saw anything. But I deserved every bit of that. Again, sorry.”
“I agree, You did deserve it, sometimes I wish I could knock you out.”

Just then Whiskers, the six legged cat meowed angrily. “Ow! What in the name of–? Whiskers!” Pavel calls after the fleeing cat. “Get back here!”

“Looks like Whiskers isn’t too happy with Pavel.” said Orlan, watching the giant chase after the cat.

“He’s fine. Where’s Malcolm?”

“Mal? He said he needed to go to answer a call of nature. I’m sure he’s on his way back”

“I’d hope so.”

“He’ll be fine. Also, there’s our car up on that hill.” said Aedan, pointing to an olive drab station wagon parked atop an incline. “Magistrate V8 Vanguard Safari 4x4, It’s a big name so we just call it the Magistrate.”

Romulo glanced over at the large rusted wagon sitting atop the hill, observing it for a moment before turning back at the group. “You sure you want to keep that parked atop there? Looks like the brakes could, y’know… Considering it’s quite an old vehicle… Maybe add some cut up blocks of wood or a stone beneath the wheels, or… something…?”

Watson emerged seemingly out of nowhere, patting Romulo on the back. “Relax… If it has lasted this long in service, it can’t possibly fail now, couldn’t it?”

“I’m not sure about that-”

“Oh, please, we’ll be fine!”

“Well, it should be alright. Magistrates with Narrowblocks blow their head gaskets almost all the time, but I haven’t seen anything on parking brake failures.” Aedan chimed.

Romulo still looked anxiously at Watson, but eventually gave in. “If you insist…” He sighed and looked back at the wagon before sniggering back at Watson. “I mean, you’re a detective after all, I guess.”

Orlan looked back towards the wagon.

“You guys have two tents right? We’ve only got one so the three of us have to share the back of the car. Because our tent is a two person one and we’ve got two people that sleep in it. You can imagine how annoying it might be to sleep directly next to this guy here.” he said, playfully elbowing Aedan in the abdomen.

“You are right about that, especially with Pavel, He’s massive. You guys are probably lucky to have two tents.”

Watson looked over towards Charlotte and Romulo, shooting them a glare that seemed as though it cut right through their souls, and the two suddenly felt goosebumps. “We’ve only got one tent, unfortunately.” He said, heavily emphasizing the last word. “It leads to some very interesting interactions…”

Romulo looked away from everyone, but Charlotte seemed to have this rather smug grin on her face as she tried to look towards Romulo’s face. “W-what the hell are you talking about?” He said, still continuing to avert his gaze.

Just then, K’mino, the orange lombax, suddenly appeared behind the group. “You guys know where Malcolm is?”

Orlan gave him the answer.

“I thought he’d gone off to relieve himself. He should be back by now.”

“He’s not in the car or mingling with the others, hell I even checked under our car.”

The darker brown lombax then turned to face the orange one behind him.

“Ok, that’s not good. We’ll have to go look for him. You’ll have to excuse us, we are down a teammate.”

“Ah! That doesn’t sound good. I hope nothing happened… It was nice talking to you all, we’ll hope to see you again next time around!” Charlotte waved them off, with Watson raising his arm to wave as well, he either unintentionally or intentionally hit Romulo, which sparked even more discord between the two men as they bickered against one another yet again.

K’mino looked back at what was going on. “They seem like interesting people.”

“They sure are, though Orlan gave them quite the scare when he found them by the river.”

A grin formed on K’mino’s face. “What did he see?”

“Nothing, He was knocked unconscious before he saw anything.”

“Oh… I guess he deserved it.”

“Every bit of it.”


To Be Continued (As Always)

3 Likes

Team Shift Happens

Previous Chapters:
It’s Go Time! - Starting Party 6 PM
Boldly Going / Through the Rift / Arrival in Jaduvira - Stage 0
When the Hell are We!? - Stage 0 Campsite
Out of His Damn Mind - Stage 0 Campsite
One Hot Night / Letters from the Past - Stage 0 Campsite
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


Jayde gave a grimace as he got up, his leg aching just a little after helping out Team Mravolinski-Chitco with their two burst tires and wounded teammate. He’d eaten some of his bread with a bit of dried meat, had some water, and now needed to answer a call of nature himself. He closed his eyes for a moment and let his magic flow just a little, gaining an awareness of where everyone was for a brief moment, mostly to make sure no one would be down-river, and that’s when he spotted something unusual. Someone laying over by the river, near where he’d thrown the branches of…

“Oh, no,” Jayde groaned. He headed straight for where he’d thrown the branches of the mercy bush, where he found one incapacitated dark-orange-furred Lombax laying there, a few quill-like leaves in his hand. Jayde sighed, picking up the branches and throwing them into the river to let the current carry them away, back toward Jaduvira, away from the camp, then stood there for several long seconds, trying to figure the best way to carry Malcolm back over to Team Oil Crisis. Magic was right out, as while he was strong in the mystical arts, levitation was one of the things he struggled the most with. Sure, he could do great feats of self-levitation at times, but others… He grimaced to himself as he remembered accidentally slamming the headmaster of Kamwerth Academy of the Arcane hard into the ceiling of the dueling room, when he’d merely intended to float him off of the mat long enough to prevent him dodging Jayde’s next spell. He didn’t need to send this poor Lombax into the stars, even if the high-altitude flight might sober him up.

With a grunt, Jayde spiked his staff into the dirt to hold it before he scooped up Malcolm and slung him over his left shoulder, unwilling to agitate the old wound on his right shoulder even though it had long ago healed. Answering a call of nature would simply have to wait. He turned toward the camp, grabbed his staff in his right hand and pulled it back out of the dirt, and in a rather loose interpretation of a fireman’s carry, brought Malcolm back over to his team.


(@TheYugo45GV Shall we work out your post in PM’s?)

2 Likes

Yes we shall.

2 Likes

this post is in direct response to @Madrias, directly continuing the scene


RK Series Racing; Stage 1 Camp; Part 2

“Amazingly well…”, Constantin counters while motioning airquotes. “He may have pulled of the coinplay yesterday, but his shifting was about quick as the DMV sloth from Zootopia and as accurate as those claw machines.” Valentin chuckles a bit, while Tim breaks out in a hysterical laughing fit upon hearing this, as neither he nor Valentin didn’t notice much on the way here. That was probably due to both being asleep catching up on some "Z"s.

“Yeah i’ll take note of that when my ‘battlestation’ goes tits up. We’ll probably see each other soon enough…” Valentin spoke to the guests of this teams little hamlet of a camp, not sure if the offer of tech-support was well-intentioned help or a subtle insult at his own computing skills.

Constantin also wishes them goodbye, for now, with Tim in tears from his laughing fit.

They continue with what they didn’t manage to start quite yet:
Making some good old Canned Ravioli. The gas cartridge camping cooker, which has been sitting in the middle of their little circle for the better part of half an hour, was fired up. Not long after, a can of Ravioli is busted open with Constantin’s mess kit can opener. For lack of a suitably sized pot, let alone cooker, the meals are prepared separately, one can after the other. Tim is the first to dig in, underestimating the temperature of his meal dramatically, netting him a comment from Constantin: “Congratulations on burning your tongue up.”

A glare back at Constantin follows, with Tim now blowing at each spoonful to prevent another heat-death of his tongue. The next meal is handed to Valentin, wo set it aside to cool for a bit, having learned from Tim’s excursion. At this point, the cooker is shut off, as Constantin skips the process entirely, eating his meal cold directly out of the can to save both time and fuel for the cooker.

Once the eating part is done, crude cleaning of dishes is done and the empty cans are rinsed off and stored as empty containers for whatever need that comes around.

The camp is switched to night-mode, with Constantin pitching his tent and the interior being made for sleepytime. The time has not yet come, though, as the team take laps round the camp, trying to start a round of card games and make some allies in the process.

to be continued


OOC: if anyone wants to, my team is wandering about trying to get to know people

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Campsite Two (Team Oil Crisis)

Viravalli, Vira Province, Crugandr.

Local time: 5:70 Sun.

Weather: Warm and Humid

Written in collaboration with Madrias

The Missing Teammate


“I’ve looked down by the creek on the other side of the camp and checked the forest there. No trace of him.”

This was troubling news. Only moments ago they were joking about how Orlan could have drowned in the river and now it was possible that one of their other teammates had met that fate. A sigh escaped Aedan, which didn’t do much to relieve his blood pressure.

“Have you checked in the bushes, up by the car?”

Orlan nodded. “Yes, Pavel already checked and I did too. Not a single sign.”

This day just got a whole lot worse.

“Keep looking, do not give up until darkness falls, if he doesn’t come back we aren’t leaving without him.”

“Aedan, listen to me, we’ve looked everywhere around the camp and there’s no sign of him, he’s probably just gone into town or is exploring. You have to relax, its for your own good. Any time you get riled up you risk going into cardiac arrest. Your doctor confirmed this.” Orlan’s attempt to console him failed.

His brother’s voice raised, but not enough to attract any attention. “We cannot leave without him! He’s my friend and I’d never leave him behind.”

“What if he’s dead then? Would you still leave him behind?”

“No! Never!”

“Then you should make peace with the fact that he’s…”

“What? You trailed off and didn’t finish.”

Orlan simply pointed to something behind his brother, a gesture to which Aedan responded by turning around. There was Jayde, with Malcolm over his shoulders, unconscious. “If you’re missing a teammate, I might have found him.” The lion man said.

The relief was overwhelming, not just to the two brothers but all five teammates.

K’mino walked down and stopped next to the group. “See I told you, the force does not lie.”

“Always the wise guy, huh?”

“I’m a literal Jedi and you’ve seen me use a lightsaber, yet you still don’t believe in the force?”

“I didn’t say that, I was teasing you. I’ve seen you in combat, you are very skilled in what you do.”

K’mino chuckled. “Thanks.”

Jayde meanwhile laid Malcolm, on the hood of the Magistrate. “If I had to make a guess as to what happened to him, well… I found him unconscious next to the branches of a mercy bush one of the other teams brought into the camp, with some of the quill-leaves still in his hand,”

The robed lion then stood himself next to the Magistrate and shut his eyes for a moment. Then he opened his eyes again. “Now, some people like the smell, and, well, I know from experience that eating the leaves can relieve pain, and in some cases, if you’re unable to sleep because of that pain, eating enough of them will make you sleep.”

"It’s a huge relief to know he’s still alive. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” Jayde replied, jamming his staff into the dirt and sitting on the log.

“Sorry, not exactly easy to carry someone these days,” he said with a grimace, rubbing his upper left thigh. “Going to feel that a bit later, but… Well, when I saw him down by the water, I, too, feared the worst.”
“It’s good to know he’s okay.” said Orlan looking over at his friend that lay on the flame decaled hood.

“It’s a medicinal plant, it’s used as a sedative sometimes, so he’ll be asleep for a little while, but he’ll be fine.”

At this moment, K’mino came back from around the Magistrate.

“Oh Good. Orlan, have someone help you load him into the back of the car. He was very tired all day, He didn’t sleep very well and the jet lag isn’t helping. He’s earned this rest.”

While Orlan and Pavel loaded Malcolm into the back of their car, Jayde closed his eyes for a moment and soon he opened his eyes again. “He is out of danger, at least. I can’t say exactly when he’ll wake up, but he will,” Jayde mentioned. He then looked over to K’Mino and gave a light smile.

“Your aura is a little different. Calmer. More peaceful than the others,” Jayde said to him.

K’mino sat himself down on the log beside him “I had the same thought. I sense that the force is strong with you."

Jayde seemed puzzled as K’Mino mentioned the Force. “I am strong with magic, if that is what you mean,” Jayde replied. “And a mystic who doesn’t carry inner peace generally doesn’t last very long. Anger, wrath, and vengeance tend to lead toward dark magic, toward a path I do not wish to walk,” he added. “We’ve gotten rid of one Dark Sorceress. I do not need to take their place.”

K’mino sighed, but it was a light one. “It’s the same with the Jedi, we too have a dark side and anger and vengeance has the same effect on us, myself included. Unfortunately, many fall to the dark side, could be hundreds, could be thousands."

A sharp inhale filled his nostrils with the cooling evening air.

“I have a son, 13 years old, he’s learning the ins and outs of life, and he’s unaware of his sensitivity to the force. Like any parent, it is my duty to protect him and I would give my life to make sure he’s safe. That’s how much he means to me. But As a Jedi I must teach him to resist the dark side. I have seen the horrible things it has made people do and I cannot allow that to happen to him.”

Jayde gave a grim smile, then said, “My father didn’t want me to learn my talents. He believed that all magic was evil, that I should just forget I had it, learn to work the land as he had, and his father before him, and so on. I went against his wishes, learned what I could at Tendragon Academy. Later on, I followed a group of heroes as they stopped an invasion, stayed behind while they went on across the Great Water. Got myself involved in the war that was brewing, sent back through time to fight in a battle of airships. Didn’t do much the first time. A bit of magic, sure, but I was exhausted, thirsty, barely on my feet. Our ship was hit, and a bit of steam pipe shrapnel scarred my face. A bit of propeller took off my left leg. Spent a month in recovery, nearly six months learning how to walk again.”

Shifting his weight so that he didn’t fall off the log, Jayde moved his robe just enough to reveal his left leg from the knee down, not needing to show just how high up it went. “Later it turned out that while I was in the right battle, I’d been on the wrong ship. Another trip back in time and I was on the right ship that time. I regret that I had to kill that day, but… Such is war. With that battle over, I returned to the Academy. I tried to return to the safety of what I knew, only to be told I’d learned all I could. I didn’t want to just go home, to face my father’s wrath for defying him. Instead, I took an apprenticeship to learn the weather magic of the Storm-Rattlers of Vipara, and it was there that I learned to control my lightning,” he mentioned. “It comes so naturally to me that to cast a bolt of lightning takes less effort than any other spell I could throw. Some spells, I suppose, are easier than others. Summoning objects to my hand or sending them away. Lightning. Glimpses of the future. Great leaps of faith in times of need.”

After a moment, Jayde sighed. “But of all the things I regret, it’s not having gone back home when I had the chance. When the Sorceress was killed, I should have gone home, even if it was just to tell my father I was going to Crugandr. Instead, I just left without a word, and got the letter a month later, giving condolences for my loss. I went back in time three times, spent five years in the past, aged five years as the cost of the spell, and not once did I have the courage to go home.” Jayde took a deep breath, focusing on his inner calm as much as he could, then said, “But, as you said, we’ve both seen what the darker side of people leads them to do.”
Jayde got up slowly and looked out over the camp. “I feel a duty to protect all of them, you know. This land can be dangerous, and while I’m sure some of them know it, others I’m sure do not. I can fight if I have to, hand-to-hand, but I’m not trained as a swordsman. Dancing Sisters above, I hope I don’t have to fight. I feel it, you know? In that moment between life and death, you feel the fear and the pain, the sadness, the blind rage, and then the calm, cold acceptance of their fate.”

K’mino watched him leave. It appeared that the force was indeed strong with Jayde, but the lion man did not notice it, because either the other powers he possessed interfered with his ability to feel it or he believed that it was a skill he mastered while learning how to use magic.

Sighing, K’mino stood up from the log and went to join the rest of his team for dinner.


To Be Continued (As Always)

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Team Mravolinski-Chitco

Team info: 2022 Shitbox Rally - Out of This World! (Stage 1) - #30 by MrdjaNikolen

This is reply to last post

RK Series Racing meet-up

Last thing you heard so far from team stated in title was that they were now wondering around camp, ready to meet some other teams.

Of course Pi (ya know, weirdest-looking member of our team) noticed this group hanging around and decided to greet them first, soon followed by others from our team.
We had thought she might be too weird as one member to make first impression, but RK Series Racing Team’s positive experiences with host team along with Pi’s obvious enthusiasm meant this actually went well.

First thing that came to our attention was height of Schrants, who also happen to be human.
Chicota is taller than any human we encountered so far in my imagination, and yet, there are two here that are much taller.
Constantin politely noted that yes, he is tall, but isnt really interested in being seen as merely tall person, while Valentin waited for novelty of his height to wear off.

This lasted until Valentin’s attention was temporarily put towards bike we have.
Since i did used to cycle a bit around my village, two of us were able to find some common ground - ofc it should be noted im living in rather hilly area, so additional body weight i put during uni meant this routine was cancelled
I did enjoyed those bike rides ngl.
Bike itself wasnt particularly special in any way, but few stories powered by being kinda young and stupid might be different (and no, this is some bike we randomly encountered when getting other mods for car, not some bike i had driven IRL).

Connor would also prove to be very interesting, mainly because of him being a robot.
On our side, it becomes obvious that Chicota was most interested in fellow android, trying to see if thats true, at first kinda disregarding the fact that Connor has some light on his forehead and then there is prosthetic in form of powered brace for right arm.
After some analysis, Klimentol concluded that Connor had one of, if not the, best possible solutions for this issue readily avaiable here in Crugandr - speaks volumes about competency of tech-savvy members of Shift Happens.

It seems rather interesting that this team was put in motion by enthusiasm of someone called Tim
(Btw thats Serb word for team, said in same fashion as English one)
He lacks physical atributes that would make him stand out from rest, but his role as driving force of team (which could be seen literally too, since he is one of drivers) was visible and appreciated.

There was some talk about chosen vehicles, which meant that Dione parked elsewhere in camp would be noted down.
Far from ideal leader to unknown, it was at least stated as very familiar to its users, therefore making some ground in its potential lack of offroad capabilities.
I would imagine its faster than our entry too, which isnt exactly hard to do, but give credit where credit is due i guess.

It was noted down that they finished last in Stage 1, despite not having any mechanical issues.
Ok ok, they had mechanical issue, but its now solved and wasnt related to car itself anyway.
Main thing our team had to say can best be summarized in this:
“Use the fact that roads seem nice to drive on to get good average speed.
Yes, we can see how few of you arent exactly comfortable with driving fast, but, ya know, pace can be increased gradually, as you get to know the car and what it can do.
Feel free to listen or ignore that advice - we would be pretty much happy not coming last :wink:
Tim thanked for advice, agreed that coming last isnt very nice and chose to ignore it.
Why?
Advice was given in good faith, but applied to specific circumstances that are unlikely to repeat in future.

Some more small talk later, it was decided that one more team was met.
But now, RK Racing is gonna go places and do things.
Im looking forward on next part by @Elizipeazie to see what “things” and which “places” would be covered…and feel im not alone in that.

Edit: Thanks and sorry to @Elizipeazie for clarifying few things about other team’s characters
Sorry obviously extends to yet another ping

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