I was thinking about stuff to do in the challenge as of recently post-DQ but I’m disqualified so I basically gotta wait till next year, I don’t want to bend disqualification by removing a character or something. it is one of the challenges that break the bounds of creativity in rp. I like that kind of stuff
4 Likes
Shitbox Rally
Stage 9 – Addavuul to Pritz
Stage Start: 1 Sun, 27/7/3251, Addavuul Campsite
Weather at Stage Start: Cool, breezy, and humid after yesterday’s rainstorm.
Weather at mid-stage: A little warmer, still breezy, and still humid. Occasional clouds block the sun.
Weather at Stage End (First Car): Warm, breezy, and a little less humid.
Weather at Stage End (Last Car): Still warm, breezy, and less humid than before.
Stage End (First Car): 3-and-52 Sun, 27/7/3251, Pritz Campsite
Stage End (Last Car): 7-and-43 Sun, 27/7/3251, Pritz Campsite
The campsite in Addavuul is much better when it’s not raining for most of the day. Likewise, the road leading out of Addavuul looks a lot nicer than the mud pit from the day before. Unfortunately, this whole stage is a literal uphill battle, because we are going up, and up, and up, toward the city of Pritz. The road starts out mostly as gravel, winding back and forth on dizzying switch-back trails before becoming dirt again. Thankfully, it doesn’t seem like this area got hit anywhere as hard as Vallengarda and Addavuul did during yesterday’s rainstorm, as other than some small amounts of mud, it’s not too bad to drive on. On the other hand, the constant uphill grade puts some strain on the already half-worn-out cars here, threatening at every moment to make something catastrophically go wrong. Thankfully, the campsite outside Pritz is nice, returning to gravel once again with a beautiful view over the forest. The town of Pritz was named for a reason, and this view from the cliff is worth the climb. (Pritz = Cliff Watch)
Notes: Randomization is active. Breakdowns are active. Time is in Earth Time. Times included in finishing order. Stages releasing on a two week schedule.
Note: One team has left the challenge.
Team Shift Happens
Distance Traveled: 355.2
Time (HH:MM:SS): 07:49:28
Average MPH: 45.3
Randomizer: 11
Refueling Stops: 1
Breakdown: 0
Total Distance Traveled: 3019.2
It’s a long and very steady climb with Malavera behind the wheel. While there are a couple of spots where the Bricksley has some trouble, it’s relatively smooth sailing for the team, and they even got another good look at the Dione as it breezed along the rails and past the crossing they were waiting at.
Team Wayfarers
Distance Traveled: 355.2
Time (HH:MM:SS): 07:24:53
Average MPH: 47.9
Randomizer: 11
Refueling Stops: 1
Breakdown: 0
Total Distance Traveled: 3019.2
It’s a long way up, but Jack and Jill do manage to go up this hill without falling back down again. Chernobog is still surprisingly muddy from yesterday, too. Maybe the mud is good luck?
Team Gearknobs
Distance Traveled: 355.2
Time (HH:MM:SS): 08:39:40
Average MPH: 41.0
Randomizer: 9
Refueling Stops: 0
Breakdown: 2 (Chassis)
Total Distance Traveled: 3019.2
So, some good news and some bad news. The good news is that the setback, this time, wasn’t necessarily the car. The bad news is, you spent a good bit of time putting all of your stuff back in the car after the hatch popped open and ejected the contents. Worse, it looks like someone ran over one of your jack-stands.
Team Fallen Angels of the Past
Distance Traveled: 355.2
Time (HH:MM:SS): 11:06:07
Average MPH: 31.9
Randomizer: 8
Refueling Stops: 0
Breakdown: 2 (Chassis)
Total Distance Traveled: 3019.2
Things were going well until the six-legged cat sitting in the back seat decided to puke all over the contents of the trunk. Some time was spent cleaning up the mess so it wouldn’t stink.
Team Slow
Distance Traveled: 0
Time (HH:MM:SS): 00:00:00
Average MPH: 0
Randomizer: 0
Refueling Stops: 0
Breakdown: 6 (Sent Home)
Total Distance Traveled: 2,664 miles
Sadly, given certain events which transpired in camp, Team Slow will not be joining us at Pritz.
Just after dawn and after most of the teams had already left the camp, Team Slow was told to get into their Schnell XL53, at which point Kivenaal, Rukari, and Jayde assembled their emergency plastic mirror. The three of them opened it to the campsite in Nevada, the same path Jayde traveled to get there in the first place, and they were pushed through by Malavera and Kayden. Once the Schnell was safely through along with Matt, John, and Izzy, and once Malavera and Kayden were safely on the Crugandr side of the mirror, the spell holding the mirror open was dropped, and the plastic mirror was quickly disassembled back into a shiny silvery plastic sheet, a bunch of PVC pipes, and a few clamps which all went back into the bag they came from.
Team Oil Crisis
Distance Traveled: 355.2
Time (HH:MM:SS): 08:50:20
Average MPH: 40.1
Randomizer: 9
Refueling Stops: 2
Breakdown: 3 (Tires)
Total Distance Traveled: 3019.2
Things were going so well until the contents of the Hakaru Carica’s hatch ended up on the road in front of you. Aedan swerved hard, but still ended up driving over a jack stand in the process. A few miles later, that rear tire was flat and had to be changed. On the plus side, it seems the two Dyre pups were interested in the tools, and one of them even gave a valiant try at removing a lug nut with the tire iron.
Team Hillbilly Rollers
Distance Traveled: 355.2
Time (HH:MM:SS): 05:24:26
Average MPH: 65.6
Randomizer: 13
Refueling Stops: 1
Breakdown: 0
Total Distance Traveled: 3019.2
On a winding, mixed surface road, the best thing you can have is a reliable engine, all-wheel-drive, and a nice automatic slushbox. Able to focus entirely on driving and not on engine problems, traction issues, or banging gears around, Andreas pushes the atomic-pink van hard.
Team Witchlight
Distance Traveled: 355.2
Time (HH:MM:SS): 11:10:10
Average MPH: 31.8
Randomizer: 9
Refueling Stops: 1
Breakdown: 1 (Powertrain)
Total Distance Traveled: 3019.2
“I think there’s a problem with the carb-a-later,” Finne says, staring at the completely clogged-up air filter. Lacking a proper spare air filter, it’s Ambay who comes up with a solution by cutting a section of trunk carpeting out, sticking the coiled fabric strip into the air-filter housing, and putting the lid back on. It seems to be working, so maybe it was a good fix.
Team Mravolinski-Chitco
Distance Traveled: 355.2
Time (HH:MM:SS): 06:48:08
Average MPH: 52.2
Randomizer: 13
Refueling Stops: 0
Breakdown: 0
Total Distance Traveled: 3019.2
The slightly underpowered engine doesn’t really like the climb, especially not with that camper on the back, but it fights valiantly to lug the Kontir Cunningham up the hill.
Team Blazers
Distance Traveled: 355.2
Time (HH:MM:SS): 05:27:24
Average MPH: 65.0
Randomizer: 13
Refueling Stops: 1
Breakdown: 0
Total Distance Traveled: 3019.2
The Yamada ASR-4 scrambles up the winding road, engine singing a four-cylinder symphony for everyone to hear, a primal song of exploded fuel and raw heat turned into mechanical motion, fed into the gearbox to turn thousands of revs per minute into useful energy. Whoever is behind the wheel showed no fear as they slid the Yamada around corners on narrow switchback roads, trying to close in on a certain rather-battered pink van.
Team Machinas Con Passiones
Distance Traveled: 355.2
Time (HH:MM:SS): 09:46:02
Average MPH: 36.3
Randomizer: 9
Refueling Stops: 4
Breakdown: 2 (Chassis)
Total Distance Traveled: 3019.2
It seems like yesterday’s off-road mud bog has created some annoying little problems today. First, it was dried mud caked in the rims. Then it was cat barf in the driver’s seat during a refueling stop. Thibault nearly drove off the cliff when someone blew a trumpet in his ear. Then, on the fourth refueling stop, they had to try every fuel can they had to find the one that had fuel still in it because someone put them all back in a random order.
Team Quick Rally 47
Distance Traveled: 355.2
Time (HH:MM:SS): 07:04:37
Average MPH: 50.1
Randomizer: 9
Refueling Stops: 1
Breakdown: 3 (Tires)
Total Distance Traveled: 3019.2
Normally, the Mara would be fast in this scenario, being reliable, easy to drive, and a good off-road vehicle. Unfortunately, there was a bit of unseen road debris that punctured a tire. Changing that on the side of a cliff was, shall we say, quite the experience.
Team Mrezhari
Distance Traveled: 355.2
Time (HH:MM:SS): 06:54:09
Average MPH: 51.4
Randomizer: 12
Refueling Stops: 0
Breakdown: 0
Total Distance Traveled: 3019.2
After MREs and energy drinks for breakfast, they go out to kill another stage. They might have been faster if someone hadn’t parked a Mara at the apex of one of the only fast turns on the whole road.
Team Jockey
Distance Traveled: 355.2
Time (HH:MM:SS): 08:09:23
Average MPH: 43.5
Randomizer: 10
Refueling Stops: 2
Breakdown: 0
Total Distance Traveled: 3019.2
After all the setbacks, it was decided to just take things easy today, drive the stage, don’t get stuck anywhere, and maybe get some extra sleep in the camp this time.
Team RK Series Racing
Distance Traveled: 355.2
Time (HH:MM:SS): 07:58:50
Average MPH: 44.5
Randomizer: 11
Refueling Stops: 1
Breakdown: 0
Total Distance Traveled: 3019.2
While for everyone else, it’s a long, winding road, for you, the rails make it even longer of a journey. On the plus side, when you only have to really watch out for the next signal at danger, it’s really quite a nice view. Getting to see the Bricksley waiting at the railroad crossing, with half the team visibly waving and cheering you on was a nice touch.
Team Black Rabbit
Distance Traveled: 355.2
Time (HH:MM:SS): 07:20:42
Average MPH: 48.3
Randomizer: 13
Refueling Stops: 1
Breakdown: 0
Total Distance Traveled: 3019.2
Now this is better! Sure, the Dauer is not the fastest thing on four wheels, but it’s not exactly slow today, either.
Team Spy Kids
Distance Traveled: 355.2
Time (HH:MM:SS): 05:35:35
Average MPH: 63.5
Randomizer: 13
Refueling Stops: 1
Breakdown: 0
Total Distance Traveled: 3019.2
When in doubt, send it! A few times, they threw the AST Elbrus up a few animal trails for good measure, cutting valuable minutes out of their time.
Stage Finishing Order:
05:24:26 - Team Hillbilly Rollers
05:27:24 - Team Blazers
05:35:35 - Team Spy Kids
06:48:08 - Team Mravolinski-Chitco
06:54:09 - Team Mrezhari
07:04:37 - Team Quick Rally 47
07:20:42 - Team Black Rabbit Corporation
07:24:53 - Team Wayfarers
07:49:28 - Team Shift Happens
07:58:50 - Team RK Series Racing
08:09:23 - Team Jockey
08:39:40 - Team Gearknobs
08:50:20 - Team Oil Crisis
09:46:02 - Team Machinas Con Passiones
11:06:07 - Team Fallen Angels of the Past
11:10:10 - Team Witchlight
DNF - DSQ - Team Slow
Team Shift Happens
Previous Chapters:
Cinnamon and Apologies - Stage 5 Drive and Stage 5 Camp
An Apology / Campsite Stories / I Have Gas! - Stage 5 Camp (Collab with Knugcab - Original Title: “Gimme Oxygen!”)
The Prank - Collab. with SurrealCereal (Team MCP)
A Tent-ative Meeting - Stage 5 Camp
Engine Troubles / Racing Stripes - Stage 6 Drive and Camp
Capt’n Crazy Capsizes - Stage 6 Camp Collab with Knugcab
Not the Face! - Stage 6 Camp Collab with Knugcab
The Saber of Light - Stage 6 Collab written by TheYugo45GV
Begging for Mercy - Stage 6 Camp
“Not It!” - Stage 7 Drive and Camp
Don’t Drink and Drive - Stage 7 Camp
“Green Light” - Stage 7 Camp Collab written by TheYugo45GV
Window Repairs / Driving Lessons / Natural-1 Moment - Stage 7 Camp Collab with Elizipeazie (Part 1), (Part 2), (Part 3)
Send It! - Stage 8 Drive and Camp
“Curiosity” - Collab with Knugcab and Elizipeazie
“The Investigation” - Collab with Elizipeazie and Interior
“We Need Water” - Collab with Elizipeazie
“Drunken Karaoke” - Collab with SurrealCereal
Addavuul Campsite, 1-and-5 Sun
Everyone else was racing up the cliff-side road to Pritz (or in one lucky team’s case, racing up the rails on the way to Pritz), but Shift Happens had some extra duties to handle. First, even if the Schnell hadn’t been rendered undrivable in the fight yesterday, Team Slow was already destined to be sent home. Second, someone had cut wires to the ECU during that fight, and while it could be repaired with supplies from the other teams, well… They were already scheduled to go home. And, everyone else had already taken off running for the challenge the instant the old steam whistle screamed at 1 Sun to let the miners know it was time to get to the station, catch a tram, and go to work.
Malavera was the one giving orders, mostly because he was the one in charge of vehicle and team inspections back on Earth, so it was only fitting that he’d be the one in charge of handling a team being sent back safely. “Okay, Matt, John, and Izzy, I need the three of you to get into the car. Matt, you take the wheel. All you have to do is keep the wheels straight. On the other end, call a tow truck.”
Kivenaal, Rukari, and Jayde helped to assemble a mirror out of PVC pipes and the same silvery plastic as the one back in Nevada, just without sandbags to weigh it down. Soon after, they opened the mirror, revealing the Mojave Desert in all of its glory, the hot and dry air probably feeling refreshing after nearly two Earth-weeks spent in Crugandr’s heat.
Kayden and Malavera pushed the crippled Schnell, broken windshield and all, into Nevada. Once they stepped back into Crugandr and everyone was safely away from the mirror, Jayde, Kivenaal, and Rukari dropped their spell and let the mirror fade away.
Packing it back up was done in a hurry, as time was quickly getting away from them. With all the pieces back in the bag, and the bag back in the toolbox where it came from, the crew quickly got into the Highwayman.
Malavera took the driver’s seat, forcing Kivenaal to claim shotgun again, this time with Rukari in the front mid-bench. The rear bench had Kayden in the Radio Operator’s seat, Kaylie stuck in the mid-bench for once, and Jayde over by the driver’s side rear window. Kayden keyed the radio, then playfully called out, “Ready or not, here we come!”
Malavera floored it in 2-High, the rear wheels spraying gravel as the Highwayman shot across the campsite like an arrow shot from a bow, engine bellowing the whole time as Malavera changed through the gears and charged toward the hill.
On the Road
The Bricksley snarled and rasped as Malavera put his foot down coming out of another hairpin bend, winding their way up a switch-back trail. He’d already passed Team Witchlight and Team Fallen Angels to get here, and was rapidly gaining on Team MCP, made easier when they pulled over to make their first fuel stop.
It was a little while later when they passed Team Gearknobs and Team Oil Crisis pretty much back to back, though Kayden did mention, “Did anyone else just see a Dyre pup trying to remove a lug nut?”
“Yeah, and looked like they were pretty close to being able to do it, too,” Kivenaal mentioned.
They swerved around the yellow lunchbox of Team Jockey, Malavera still just sending it hard up the hill, and as the road started to level out and turn toward Pritz, he spotted something in the distance. “Windows down, everyone,” Malavera said, seeing something fast, orange, and on rails heading their way.
Jayde, Kivenaal, and Malavera rolled their windows down. Kayden twisted the microphone control over to the PA system and chirped the microphone once to make sure it was working. The crossing gate swung down into position as Malavera urged the Bricksley to stop, though this time was able to roll up to the gate on his own terms.
There was the first toot of the whistle from the Dione, and soon, the waving started.
“Look! It’s a bird! It’s a plane! No, it’s a speeding orange train! Go on, Valentin, you can do it!” Kayden said over the roof-mounted speakers, just before the second blare of the whistle cut through the air.
Once the crossing gate lifted, Malavera put his foot down and tried to play catch-up on the way to Pritz, as the road followed the tracks for a while. The Bricksley’s mighty 427ci V8 roared as Malavera hammered it in 2-High, throwing dirt-plumes skyward behind it as he chased down the Dione. On the flat ground, it seemed that the Dione was every bit the Bricksley’s match, as even at Malavera’s best, the closest he got was to pull up alongside it, the giant van-truck squeaking and rattling over every bump in the road, while the Dione merely glided along the rails at a terrifying pace.
As they turned toward the campsite, Malavera knew that if it wasn’t for the conversion back from rail to road and having to drive through Pritz, RK Series Racing would have placed ahead of the Bricksley.
Pritz Campsite, 5-and-22 Sun
The Bricksley rolled to a stop, where the crew bailed out of the truck after another successful stage.
“Damn, that rail-car is fast,” Malavera said. “I thought we might have had a chance there, but… No. I couldn’t get the power to the ground without using the 4x4 mode.”
“It’s a hell of a way to travel. Smooth and fast, not this dirt shit we keep running through,” Kayden added.
They looked around their campground and smiled. At least from up here, they had a good view out over the forest. With tents pitched in the large, open dirt and grass field, the members of Shift Happens tried to get a little relaxing done.
Well, most of them did, anyway. Kivenaal still had a project to do, and while he’d made several power sources and had an impressive array of prisms and crystals, he was still nowhere near done, or at least, he thought he was nowhere close to done. However, an idea was somewhat distracting him, and after several minutes of turning parts over in his hands, Kivenaal sighed, set everything back into his project bag, and plopped it into the back seat of the Bricksley. “I’ll be back in a moment. Kayden said something in the last camp, and now I have an idea stuck in my head. I’m going to go find Valentin and see if he’s up for something potentially exciting.”
7 Likes
RK Series Racing; Stage 9 Drive
The last night would have been refreshing, if not for an impromptu Karaoke run started at about 3 moon, where all members were asleep. Especially Valentin was hit hard by the noise made, as he had difficulties getting back into dreamland, leading to him having an equally hard time getting up in the morning. Regardless, progress had to be made and as such, the team got to work packing up and preparing Robert for the day. Well… anyone except Valentin, with how he still was bound to a pair of crutches, spending the better part of half an hour on just getting out of the tent and re-applying some of the pain-relief cream that Kayden kindly supplied to him.
Breakfast was had, the engine greased up again, the stickman that was Valentin hauled into the car and they headed off again for the rails.
At the station, Constantin went about cranking his arms tired, while Valentin looked out the driver’s window making sure that the alignment was correct.
In this process, a local carrying a small bag approached, initially curious, but soon had a moment of realization as he realized what he was seeing.
“Are you heading towards Pritz by any chance?”, he askes, trying to keep down the excitement of meeting the rumored Valentin Schrant and his self-engineered railcar. Both Schrants paused and looked at him, immediately taking notice to his obvious lack of height.
“Yes… need help?”, Constantin countered with a rather stoic voice, continuing the cranking process afterwards.
“Not really. I’d like to ask if you are okay with me joining you. Yes, i could take an ordinary train, but i’d be willing to pay a premium to get a chance to talk to a fellow tinkerer like you.”, the local answered, intently scanning Robert from every angle he can see from where he was stood.
“Ask the guy who actually made the thing, not me…”, Constantin mumbled.
The dark-skinned person walks around the car to have direct line-of sight to Valentin. Because of Valentin’s height, the sense of how big the car actually was got skewed substantially, appearing smaller than it actually was.
“Oi that looks like a tight fit…”, he mumbles, glancing at both of Valentin’s knees which were right up against the dashboard either side of the wheel.
“Erm… yeah. I’m Hamish. I would like to tag along with you for the day. With payment, of course.”, he said, admiring both Valentin and the (rail-)car he was sat in.
“I have no issue with that, if the others are fine with that as well.”, Valentin replies, taking a look at Tim eagerly nodding in the rear seat, knowing that Connor had very little reason to object. He then turns back around to face Hamish.
“Welcome aboard, then, i guess… Luggage goes to the roof where there’s space. Once we are railed, Constantin might be of help storing that.”, Valentin explained, as Hamish’s excitement was very obvious, though he managed to refrain from turning to a giggly child getting some ice cream.
Another 10 minutes pass before both ends are firmly on the railheads, followed by Constantin moving both his own bag and Hamish’s one up to the roof rack, where it was secured with a pair of leather straps they had left over from Itzgarde Steamworks.
Hamish then took a seat, being the unfortunate person in the center rear, forcing him to straddle the chassis tunnel and feedwater connector.
With the preparations done, they went to start their journey with a mighty blast of their whistle.
Most of the trip was pleasant, even though the route they took was a massive detour relative to anyone else’s path on road. At least the rails were once again smooth, mostly, and stunning views presented themselves as Robert gradually climbed the grade up and towards the town of Pritz.
Within, Hamish and the team got to know each other for a bit, though most of the talks were directly related to how Robert was constructed and how it works. Still, getting to know some of the local population on a more casual basis was a pleasant change of pace for everyone involved.
In the latter stages of today’s run, one of many level crossings was approached. As is procedure, the whistle was blown as they spotted the Bricksley on the side, behind a gate.
[quote Kayden via PA system]
With most of SH heavily rooting for Valentin and waving at him in the car, a sense of accomplishment filled him as Robert rolled past the crossing gate, blasting the whistle a second time. Sadly, the whistle was just an on-off switch, as he would’ve attempted some melodic operation of the whistle for added dramatic effect.
The V8 was sent roaring up the rev range as they tried to play catch-up with the Dione, eventually pulling about alongside, before they had to brake for a turn.
While the Bricksley was hard to miss due to the sheer noise it made, the front row was busy working the engine and looking out for wayside signs, of which there were many, given the proximity to the town of Pritz by that point.
“Do you know those people?”, Hamish wanted to know from the back seat, right as the Bricksley slid around the turn, splitting paths with Robert in the process.
“They are the organizers of an event here, in effect the reason of us being here in the first place.”, Tim remarked afterwards, immediately quenching the curiosity of the local.
Not long after, they rolled into the yard and discovered that the marked crossing where they planned to transition to road-use was little more than a set of planks laid inbetween the rails for workers to more easily cross the track.
The still stopped right on top of that crossing, allowing Hamish to leave the car in relative comfort, followed by bags being shuffled on and off the roof rack. Once that was done, he fumbled around in his pocket for a bit before pulling out some coins, which in turn were handed to Constantin.
“Here you go. I promised payment and i shall not break that promise. Has been very nice meeting you!”, he said, heading off and into town.
The payment ended up with Valentin in full, as the others denied their share for varying reasons. Tim conceded not having provided much for the trip, Connor had no right of ownership and Constantin already had leftover funds from when he purchased the pair of bows earlier.
In search for a spot to transition, they roll about back and forth across the yard, eventually ending up on a turntable in front of a roundhouse meant to store steam locomotives.
There, they were approached by a worker, questioning them for their intentions. It became apparent that they had no way of getting off the rails and as such, had to be parked up in one of the bays within the sheds, which proved useful immediately as they once again were swarmed by employees keenly aware of Robert and the previous achievements.
Neither party took their time waiting for anything to happen and once Valentin was “gracefully” extracted once more, they got to work modding Robert again, although with a smaller team of about six people this time.
to be continued
1 Like
RK Series Racing; Stage 9 Camp
this segment was partially written by @Madrias.
Work was assigned to the available employees, while Connor copied Valentin’s engineering from his phone onto actual construction paper. Constantin took the time to study the map Rukari drew up at the start of the race, discovering that they are still a couple of miles away from the actual campsite.
With Valentin busy organizing the workforce and Connor being a human-looking photocopying machine, he took matters into his own hands. He took seat in the fireman’s seat, leant over to enable power to the radio and grabbed the handle.
“Romeo-Kilo Series Racing for Shift Happens. We are sitting in some locomotive sheds a few miles away from camp, unable to get off the rails. Mind getting your big-ass truck over?”, he spoke into the handle, awaiting a response from the other end.
Kivenaal had just mentioned to the others in camp that he was going to find Valentin when Constantin called out over the radio for Shift Happens to bring the “big-ass truck” over.
“Shift Happens to Romeo-Kilo Series Racing, Kivenaal here, I’ll be there when I can,” Kivenaal replied. He picked up his bag of project supplies, opened the toolbox, and put them in there instead, closed the rear door, wandered around to the other side of the truck and climbed up into the driver’s seat, then started the Bricksley up. After making sure he was in gear, Kivenaal took off, being careful not to shower the tents with dirt.
“There’s the station,” Kivenaal said, stopping while he checked the map again. “And there’s the road I need to take.” He turned onto the path, flicked on the headlights so he was quite visible, and then stopped again when the Yardmaster yelled out to him, “Hey! What do you think you’re doing!?”
Kivenaal wound the window down, tossed his hat in the passenger side of the bench, and with at least three of his four arms plainly visible, looked over to the man and replied, “I’ve been politely asked by the crew of Robert, the tangerine railcar, to pick them up.”
The man stared for several seconds before waving Kivenaal through and replying, “Forgive me, I didn’t know it was-”
“I’m not who you think I am,” Kivenaal said, rolling up the window and driving onward, over the small wooden crossings in the yard and over to the engine shed.
Kivenaal parked the Bricksley near one of the doors, pulled his hat off of the passenger seat and tossed it up onto the dashboard, then honked the feeble horn a couple of times.
“Copy that.”, Constantin quickly replied before tossing the handle onto the dash and turning the ignition back off.
Not much of note happened until a recognizable horn was heard through the sheds, catching the attention of practically everyone present.
“Is that the host team?”, Valentin inquired, as the door was answered by a local employee trying to investigate the unfamiliar sounding signal from outside.
“Yep… i’m not hauling our camping gear to camp manually if a 9000 pound truck is readily accessible.” Constantin replied, smirking and went over to the door himself. Valentin went back to engineering work with a mild annoyance, uncomfortably aware at how much he owed the other team as a whole.
“Thanks for coming over. We kind of need some logistics in getting camping gear to camp… obviously, our car… train… thing doesn’t fit through this here door.”, Constantin explained once he was near the driver window of the Bricksley, pointing at the door in question as he spoke.
Connor, meanwhile, made good progress on the copying, having finished some of the component drawings already, which were promptly handed off to the locals for fabrication.
Kivenaal nodded, rolling the window down as Constantin thanked him for bringing the truck over. “Not a problem. We’ve got our tents out of the bed, so there should be a decent bit of bed space there for your stuff. Or you can put it in the cab if you prefer,” Kivenaal replied. He left the engine quietly (or as quietly as seven-liters of V8 could manage) idling while waiting on the others to finish up what they had to and to gather up their supplies.
Constantin nodded and immediately headed back in to collect everything that was needed for the camp to be set up, aided by Tim soon after.
Multiple trips were made back and forth, as tents, cooking equipment, storage for food and water, sleeping bags as well as anything else they might need over there were stacked up in the Bricksleys bed.
By this time, the engine of engineering was up and running, allowing Val to tend to a personal problem that has been bothering him ever since he took the plunge.
“You have all the plans from Connor over here and know what you need to do. I need to head into town to get personal issues sorted.”, he openly announced into the open area that was the sheds.
The supervisor of the sheds was a step ahead, though, approaching Valentin and explaining that shower facilities were present on-site, but supplies other than water were to be privately procured.
This was a problem, as the minimal preparation did not account for two weeks of travel, thus ignoring the need for spare clothing, towels and the likes. Luckily, Constantin came more prepared, willing to switch into his dress uniform, allowing Valentin to temporarily use Constantin’s combat uniform until a replacement could be procured or the current set sufficiently restored.
With a borrowed set of clothes and an equally borrowed towel, Valentin headed into the far corner, followed by Constantin, disappearing into an adjacent hallway afterwards.
Constantin returned quickly in a wholly different outfit, now wearing a very fancy dress uniform with extensive decorative elements and other embroidery and insignia denoting his rank within the military.
He returned to the Bricksley, being joined by Tim afterwards.
“For what it’s worth, we are ready. Though Val said something about needing to head into town to get some replacement clothing. Understandable, given the state of it all…”, Constantin remarked, taking a look around the general area in hopes of not drawing too much attention with his fancy outfit.
Kivenaal noticed Constantin looking around, then said, “To be fair, if anyone’s going to attract attention out here, it’s likely to be me.” He waited until Valentin was done, watching as Valentin made his way out to the Bricksley on his crutches.
“Pick a seat and get comfortable,” Kivenaal said. “So, I need to know where you’re wanting to go, because Constantin’s mentioned you need to get some replacement clothes,” he added. “If the air conditioning isn’t doing enough for you, roll the windows down.”
Kivenaal turned the lights back on, backing up once everyone was in a seat and buckled up. “You know, I never realized how much I use this stupid mirror,” Kivenaal said in a lightly annoyed tone of voice, “until I have to back this hunk of junk up after Rukari shattered it.”
He got the truck turned around and pointed back toward the small path out of the yard, then said, “Let’s just hope I don’t meet the Yardmaster again.”
Valentin made his way over to the Bricksley, his hair, as expected, being soaking wet. Before he entered, he made an attempt at shaking off some of the moisture, similar to how a dog would do it. This proved surprisingly effective due to the length of hair that was being swung about, ending in his hairdo being very damp instead.
The crew piled into the Bricksley, until Tim decides that some degree of supervision over Connor might be a good idea, heading back to the sheds as a result.
“Well… we had some local along for the ride to day and he handed me some coins…”, Valentin explained, holding up the 11 silver syrkals that Hamish tipped him earlier. “I have absolutely no clue how much they are worth, but i am in need of clothing ever since what i had got busted by those geniouses who smeared oil onto the roof rack… I also need to arrange next day’s scheduling with the stationmaster.” he continued, firmly holding the coinage.
“We better sort out the scheduling. Saves me the walk to the signalbox at every single block…”, Constantin added jokingly.
“So, to the station, then?” Kivenaal asked. He put the truck in first gear and low range, got it rolling, and quickly popped the transfer case back into high range, driving through the yard while keeping a close look-out for trains moving around. Other than having to wait as a shunting engine trundled along the rails and came back with a couple of coaches, however, it was a relatively uneventful trip. As they passed the Yardmaster, Kivenaal just casually idled on by, trying to keep the truck as quiet as possible, quickly checking the map and making a turn toward the station.
Sure enough, within a couple of minutes, Kivenaal was parking the truck near the station, where he turned the ignition off and removed the keys from the ignition, clipping them instead to a belt loop as he grabbed his hat and got out of the truck, putting his hat back on as he looked over toward Constantin and Valentin.
Once at the station, Constantin quickly exited the vehicle in preparation of having to drag Valentin out again. However, Val has a remarkably easy time getting out by himself, as the seating position made for a much more level transition on top of not having to shuffle through the entire car diagonally.
They then headed into the station and towards the station masters office, the door of which was gently knocked upon by Constantin.
“Yup!” an unusually young voice sounded from within, after which Constantin opened the door, leading all three into the office.
“How can i help?”, the station master asked, looking at the group as he set some documents aside.
“Greetings. I’d like to arrange tomorrows leg of Robert.”, Valentin answered calmly, followed by the stationmaster fumbling around for some paperwork.
“Right. Robert… erm… i only have documentation on a retired 4-4-2 passenger engine… who exactly are you?”, he inquired, with valid reason as the nameplate was off of a previously retired engine.
“Valentin, Constantin and…” Valentin started, but he didn’t know Kivenaal’s name as they haven’t introduced each other yet.
“Kivenaal, i think…”, Constantin added, filling in the gap.
The station master took a look into recent train movements, eventually locating the new Robert as the experimental 0-4-0 railcar that he was.
“Oh! The blazing-fast railcar that has been effortlessly out-pacing longitude trains for a few days now!”, he realized, moving over to what apparently was tomorrows schedule to see where there was some space.
“Okay… 10-70 moon and 1-30 sun is where you could go.” he explained, handing the schedule over to Valentin for him to see himself, thus sending him into a bit of a thought process.
—Kivenaal grimaced lightly, a little nervous being around so many people, before he finally said to Valentin, “Hey, Valentin, something you mentioned the other day, when we were looking over the Dione, has been stuck in my mind for the better part of the day. You mentioned that Connor says the Dione can theoretically do 215 kilometers per hour, if you had permission to do so. I know that things around here are different, but, in the United States, it was fairly well known that the Union Pacific 4000-class locomotives, the Big Boy, was built to be capable of 125 kilometers per hour. Sure, they spent their time doing around 95 kilometers per hour, but they were capable of going faster. Have you considered doing a proper shakedown run at some point, getting all the right permissions to just open the throttle on a straight bit of track, see how fast you can go, and bringing it right back down to normal line speed? If you add a new brake system to that machine, you should test it to make sure it’s enough to stop from a much higher speed than you intend to go. That way, you know it’s good enough to slow you down no matter how heavily loaded the car is with cargo, how steep the grade might be, or how fast you were going to start with.”
As Kivenaal started his endless rambling about the proper shakedown run, both the station master and Valentin were filled with confusion.
While Valentin didn’t really understand half of it, being interrupted halfway in his tangential thought process, the stationmaster had other concerns.
“215!?!? No engine has even cracked 200 to this very day!!”, he shouts at the top of his lungs, resulting in both Schrants reflexively covering their respective ears.
Once the initial excitement died down somewhat, Valentin tried to make sense of what he was being bombarded with.
“Wait… what exactly is happening now?” Valentin questioned, having absolutely no idea as to what was said previously.
Kivenaal tried to slow himself down a little this time as he explained, “When we were talking about the Dione’s modifications yesterday, you mentioned that Connor says it could theoretically do 215 kilometers per hour. I was wondering if you had ever considered getting permission to do a proper shakedown run, as fast as you dared go, in order to test it? If you’ve added a new braking system to it, it should also be tested above the rated speed to make sure it’s safe. That way, no matter how fast you’re going, no matter how steep the grade is, and no matter how much cargo you’re lugging around, you know your brakes are going to hold up.”
Valentin pondered a bit about how that shakedown run could prove the reliability of everything he did so far, including the in-progress brake systems. Eventually, Valentin came to a conclusion…
“A proper test from whatever Robert will do to zero seems reasonable, i think…”, Valentin said, followed by the staionmaster’s eyes lighting up in excitement as the standing rail speed record might be obliterated by a tiny railcar built in a little over three days.
“It will definitely be the ultimate proof of your engineering talents if it works…” Constantin added, while the stationmaster frantically sped from cabinet to cabinet trying to find how they organized the run that set the current record at 197kph.
Eventually, he plonks down a few sheets of paper onto his desk, waving Valentin closer to have a look as well.
“So. You would be leaving at 10-55 sun, just before the scheduled train at 1. That gives you about 100 kilometres of empty rail ahead of you for your contraption to stretch its legs. If you want or need to stop, just do so wherever, as the area behind is protected by common signalling procedures. Speed will be measured by timing the distance between starter signal of one signal box to the home signal of the next one.”, the station master eagerly explains.
“Erm… okay, i guess…”, Valentin mutters, as the only real change is permission to breach speed limits and knowledge about the next 20 block sections ahead being nearly guaranteed to be clear.
Kivenaal simply stood there, equally eager to see the results of this plan.
“So it’s just me and my colleagues going down that hill at whatever speed we end up doing?”, Valentin inquires.
“Well… you are in effect doing a test run that might cement itself in railroading history by being the first rail vehicle to breach 200kph. Some form of press will probably want to take a seat in there, if you have capacity…” the stationmaster replies, practically hovering over a stamp that would sign a letter to the local newspaper agency.
Valentin, once, again ponders for a while on if doing those speeds in a hastily built, steam converted 70s sedan was a good idea, but eventually relented into agreeing for the time being, as a proper test was still in order.
“I’ll communicate that with my colleagues to see if they are cool with that. If not, we are still there tomorrow morning, but won’t be breaking any speed limits and such on the way down.”, Valentin said, looking at Constantin, who was one of the people he needed permission from.
A bit of a pause follows as Constantin also thought it through, after which he confidently nods in agreement.
Kivenaal smiled as Valentin mentioned he’d talk with the rest of his team to get their agreement, especially as Constantin agreed right there.
“Any other places you two need me to bring you?” Kivenaal inquired. “I don’t mind. It’s better than sitting in camp all day,” he added.
Constantin did not really say anything, as the transit of materials to camp was already agreed upon.
“I’ll manage…”, Valentin said in minor annoyance, not wanting to take on any more favors than necessary.
“As if you’re going to hobble through town on those crutches…”, Constantin countered, crossing his arms in disbelief.
“Not the first time stuck in crutches. These ones actually fit decently for once, so i’ve had worse.” Valentin replied, still minimally annoyed.
“Goodbye, then.” he added, mostly directed at the station master and hobbled out of the station and heading directly into the town’s shopping area in search for clothes made for tall people.
Constantin then turned towards Kivenaal: “Stubborn at times, that guy… anyway, to camp?”
“Yeah, not a problem. And I don’t blame him. Some people don’t like owing other people favors. I know I sure don’t,” Kivenaal said.
He wandered out of the station and over to the Bricksley, stepping up into the truck, tossing his hat onto the dashboard again as he waited for Constantin to climb in. Once Constantin was onboard, Kivenaal simultaneously put the vehicle in first gear and low range, made sure they were clear and that he wasn’t going to run anyone over, then set off toward the camp.
As soon as he’d wound out first and low, he popped the transfer case into high-range, just driving casually back to camp.
As soon as Kivenaal returned to the camp with Constantin in the front passenger seat, Kayden called out, “Kivenaal, I thought you were going to go talk to Val.”
“I did!” Kivenaal replied, pulling up next to the tents and parking the truck. “And Constantin needed some help getting their camping stuff actually to the camp. We have a giant truck, so why not help out a little bit when we can?”
“Good point,” Kayden said.
“Thank you.” Constantin said as he climbed out of the Bricksley and got to work unloading what was packed into the Bricksley’s bed.
One by one, various containers, bags and other things were moved into a neat pile near the massive truck, after which he got to work setting up what needed construction.
“Yeah… our car is stuck a few miles away in some railway shed. Apparently getting off on some random crossing is a nope, as we’d be blocking following trains.” Constantin explained as he dumped the contents of Valentin’s tent bag into the grass.
After that, he began placing tent pegs, poles and pieces of rope as the camp area slowly grows into an actual accommodation for three.
Back in the center of Pritz, Valentin was semi-aimless trundling about the area, surrounded by numerious shopping areas and display areas for a multitude of goods and services. Eventually he stumbles into a shop selling contemporary (read: early 1930s era) suits.
Having absolutely no concept of how the currency worked in Crugandr wasn’t of any help either, as most of the products listed were close to what he had in funds as a whole.
Valentin was then approached by the owner of this small shop, asking if he needed any help. This questioning was met with confusion, as the need for new clothing should’ve been more than obvious by this point. Nevertheless, the usual clerk-to-customer talk followed, indicating that Valentin was in need of whatever was available, within budget and close enough in size for his unusual, even by Crugandr standards, physique.
However, Valentin’s apparent fame followed him into the conversation once again, which allowed him to stike a deal that, while draining his funds in full, allowed him a complete set of somewhat tailored clothing with a few sets of generic underwear on top.
After payment was sorted, he walked out wearing a light brown, almost beige two-piece suit made from very thin fabric to make the tropical climate more bearable. Coupled with an ordinary, white shirt and a cautious tie in a darker shade of brown, he headed back towards the engine sheds, with the old set of clothes draped and/ or wrapped around the crutches for lack of an alternative.
As Valentin arrived back at the sheds, they have been hard at work for the two hours that Valentin has been away for.
By that time, Connor was long done with copying and left the locals to work on fabricating and/ or procuring components, which generally were “close enough” to the specified components, given the quick-job nature of both the build and the engineering beforehand.
Valentin dropped his now derelict clothing into the area either side of the boiler where it wouldn’t disturb anyone working up front.
With that done, he checked up on Connor, from whom he also got his phone back, followed by a rundown of what has been done up until this point. The brake lever mechanism as well as the steam-powered master cylinder already found their way into the railcar, leaving just plumbing and controls.
Some of them marveled at the new look of Valentin while others knew that he would end up wearing something along those lines. Though Tim was rather surprised.
“Getting to a board meeting?”, Tim joked, haphazardly pointing at Valentin.
“Well suits apparently are the thing here if you aren’t in some profession that needs other clothing. I don’t mind that at all, honestly.” Valentin replied, patting the suit jacket down a bit.
“Whatever floats your boat, Mr. Businessman.” Tim countered once again, chuckled and went back to watching the assembly process unfold.
It took another hour or so before the modifications were declared finished, after which Connor was ordered to raise steam. With Constantin not present, Connor offered to eventually help him out of the car instead. With that sorted, pressure was built, followed by a few dry operations of the brake piston to eliminate any source of leaks. Not long after, some extensive slow-speed testing was conducted going back and forth on the yard, which was concluded in them being operational, but a bit finnicky to get used to, since it needed quite a bit of pressure to engage at all and then had a non-linear response curve to boot.
With Robert now back in the sheds, he was shut down as usual, inadvertently scaring a few of the workers present.
After that, both Valentin and Connor made their way out of the car, with Connor assisting Valentin in the last bit of exiting the rear-right door.
however, in doing so, a substantial amount of his hair got tugged upon as he was helped out, throwing Valentin way off.
“OOOWWW!”, Valentin yelled out in reaction, managing to semi-gracefully find his way onto the crutches Tim was holding in the meantime.
“I am sorry.” Connor just handed back, calmly as Valentin rubbed the affected area on his scalp intensely.
Some silence followed as either party collected some thoughts, the workers eagerly awaiting further instructions.
A bit later, Valentin announced that they are done with this stage of Robert’s project and that he was very grateful for the help provided, sending the group into a cheerful mood and applause at having done their part on the mythical tangerine railcar.
After that, Valentin, Tim and Connor left the station for camp, but at the station, they were intercepted by an eager stationmaster.
“Are you taking the speed trip now?”, he asked in excitement.
“What? A speed run?”, Tim asked, up until now completely oblivious to what happened at the station prior.
“Oh sorry… i forgot to ask. I plan on using the upcoming downhill segment to do a proper, full-speed shakedown run with Robert and all the things done to him. Apparently, the theoretical speed Connor calculated is deep into record-setting territory here, which is why shit’s hitting the fan, it seems…”, Valentin explained, wary of the possible added fame and attention he might get if he were to have built the fastest rail vehicle in Crugandr in a little more than two days.
“A top speed run?” Tim asked, pausing a bit but not expecting an answer. “Fucking hell, count me in!”, he exclaimed, eager to see what “his” plucky little family sedan could do on rails. Connor didn’t really do much to agree, but didn’t actively object either, thus de-facto overruling him by majority “vote”.
“There you have it…”, Valentin spoke toward the stationmaster, who was gone into the station about as quickly as he appeared.
They continued on hobbling into camp, soon spotting Constantin, who was already done setting up the tent to the best oh his ability. Due to the car not being available as a place to sleep in, Valentin and Tim were forced to share tents.
Still, the afternoon and evening was calm as they admired the stunning views from the clifftops. Some card games, dinner, more games and such followed before heading to bed rather early as they needed to be present at the station waay before the first train left.
3 Likes
Team Mravolinski-Chitco
Team info: 2022 Shitbox Rally - Out of This World! (Stage 9) - #30 by MrdjaNikolen
Uphill struggles and some game playing
So, we managed to wake up after very nice night of sleep despite 3am band activities by MCP.
Some breakfast was had and with that, it was decided to move.
While on move, Mrdja got hold of laptop and decided to give a go at making some car in Automation.
There had appeared some idea, but try as he might, having no internet proves to be rather troublesome in terms of getting relevant data for making appropriate car.
Considering that IRL Mrdja havent fired up Automation with intention of working on something for some time either, what was his general plan here shall be left to readers imagination.
As for progress made in car itself…well, engine was trundling along and it wasnt particularly happy with this constant uphill battle it waged.
Rest of team wasnt particularly pleased with sounds of hard-working engine, complaining there is tad bit too much of strained-4-pot sounds for their liking
Partially this was also due to fact that such scenario isnt necessarily going to result in good position on stage, which we do care about in normal quantities.
VerBanka also threw fair complaint about moving some of local land with us after spending some time sitting on solid layer of it randomly accumulated on seat.
That was neither very comfortable or particularly clean experience
-Hey Mrdja, is there any data on vehicles that may or may not be avaiable in order to move our stuff?
Dont forget, some devices are pretty big.
-“Devices” can almost be seen as discriminatory word for what some of those can do, Klimentol.
-You get my point tho.
-Yes.
Some of you might wonder what is exactly the issue, and thats going to be explained below
Stuff to move
Klimentol is genius powerhouse and, in one way or another, responsible for existence of many other imaginary characters from this imaginary world of mine.
Something that can be partially thanked for this is fact he made lot of stuff to help or assist him in whatever he is doing, which is equivalent to very versatile labs or workshops along with sometimes very specific equipment.
Feel free to ask about atleast estimate of sheer size of this task and im left almost bare-handed.
Since all of these are placed on piece of IRL land that can be seen from Google Maps, that can be introduced as some way of estimate
Cant guarantee that everything would in fact realistically fit there, but ignore my unrealistic view on matter back when plans were made on that subject
Blue part of land is one refered to here
Pic also has reference of how long are 10 meters
With that sorted out, we can mention likely biggest character in this imagination.
This character is not placed in blue area from pic above, but in place that belongs to different IRL country and is 700-800 km away from area depicted on pic.
Her name is A (pronounced “Ah”) and she can be best described as house entirely controlled by its internal supercomputer.
(Ok technically A IS supercomputer, but being embedded into very structure of that house mwans she cant be easily separated from it.)
A identifies as female and she does use feminine voice as result-irrelevant for this particular story, but might help explaining why this machine is refered to as would be case for person.
Actual dimensions of her were never precisely stated, but we know that half of this character easily allows for two people living in pretty much perfect environment (A is split in two living areas, them being perfectly identical between themselves. If one in which residents currently use is damaged or compromised in any other way, other one gets immidiately prepared to accept them)
Living area features:
- small bedroom. Only notable feature is regular sized bed
- small bathroom. Has bathtub, toilet bowl and sink as notable features
- living room. Most of living area, carries the role of dining room as well.
Besides what is mentioned, there are other things about Pi that make her kinda sizeable:
- Only way to enter A is through some water-filled pit thats integrated into her. Water pit mainly serves to desinfect objects or people entering.
- Noone ever talked about how thick walls of this house must be.
Supercomputer part is partially placed in them, along with:
* air purifier (percentage of oxygen in air inside A is nearing 100%; only other matter consistently appearing being water vapor),
* heating/cooling system (computer part likely has optimal working temperature thats kept; temperature in living areas is kept constant)
* humidifier (humidity in living area is constant and kept in check by controlling amount of water vapor in air)
* cleaning squad (numerous group of ant-like robots; their task is to clean any spillage, repair stuff and make sure high hygiene standards are adhered by)
* “kitchen”, food storage and other similar facilities (yes, this house entirely independently prepares food-deal with it)
* power storage (partially making power on its own and partially being connected to power grid) - Logically, some of features we mentioned for walls might be implemented in ceiling or floor instead.
Unfortunately A is one of, if not only, character that cant physically move from place to place, which would make her difficult to move somewhere else.
She is movable, but we needed some plane back then to transport her. Again i feel i may misjudged and its possible she in fact cannot fit inside of cargo airplane.
We will come up for solution for that soon enough tho, no need to worry.
It came as very positive surprize that we finished 4th on this stage when we arrived. This time we took few minutes to remove bigger chunks of earth from our seats, but then decided to idle around for a fair bit, only to potentially hit bed kinda early.
3 Likes
TEAM HILLBILLY ROLLERS
Earlier parts
PART 0.1 - A prologue to the prologue
PART 0.2 - Another piece of the prologue puzzle
PART 0.3 - Viva la IP 4Z!
PART 0.4 - Robotman
PART 0.5 - Interference problems
PART 0.6 - Can I play Tetris?
PART 0.7 - Tangerine and familiar
PART 1.0 - Now things got serious!
PART 1.1 - Hello, Thibault and friends!
PART 1.2 - Poor kitty
PART 1.3 - Curse you, Team Oil Crisis!
PART 1.4 - Interlude
PART 2.0 - Bird bird bird, bird is the word!
PART 2.1 - D. Head
PART 2.2 - Good night!
PART 3.0 - Freeway Rockstar
PART 3.1 - DISCO TJO DISCO HEJ
PART 3.2 - Van-Werewolf 1-0
PART 4.0 - Calm after the storm
PART 5.0 - Mirror mirror on the…oh, crap!
PART 5.1 - Hello, little puppies!
PART 6.0 - Speed
PART 6.1 - GIMME OXYGEN! (feat. Madrias)
PART 6.2 - Steamin’ hot! (feat. Elizipeazie)
PART 7.0 - The Kayak
PART 7.1 - Marie the valkyrie?
PART 7.2 - Vegetables
PART 7.3 - Time to tie things up.
PART 8.0 - The hangover
PART 8.1 - The new team member
PART 9.0 - From pink to brown
PART 9.1 - Co-op with Madrias and Elizipeazie
PART 9.2 - Where is Sonic?
PART 10.0 - First at last!
"Hey, have you heard that team Slow is being teleported home again?", Janne said before the team left in the morning.
"Do you really think that I care about those yuppies?", Andreas answered.
"Why are they going home?", Marie asked.
"For the drunken driving, I guess", Janne said. "Seems like the hosts had enough, so…you better not chase dyre with the van again, right?"
"Well, in that case it was really an emergency!", Marie excused herself. "You know pretty well that not even I would be stupid enough to drive drunk on a road."
"Yeah…", Janne said. "And you might as well have saved someone in that case, but still. This is not some backyard in Armasjärvi. You know, there is people walking around here from other teams, and cars parked, and… I think the hosts wanted to set an example, so screw it up again and we might be the next team to be sent home."
"Well, you are right.", Marie said. "But I really hope that there won’t be any more emergencies, so…"
The team climbed into the van, was the first team to leave and Andreas was really flooring it.
"Damn, you’re driving this thing really hard!", Marie said.
"I know roads like this", Andreas said. "And the van can handle them too."
And of course he was right. As hard as this the van had hardly been pushed ever before.
"This is basically a group B car in disguise", Andreas said and laughed. “Well, maybe except for the aerodynamics, and engine, and slushbox, and… but at least it has AWD!”, he laughed.
Coming closer to camp, they spotted the Yamada ASR-4 in the mirror.
"Fuck this", Andreas said. “If we finally have a chance to finish first, we are going to finish first!”, he said and started pushing the pink brick harder than ever before. The Yamada shrunk to a little spot far away in the mirror, where it did stay for the rest of the time. The team was the first to arrive at camp, around 3 minutes before Team Blazer’s Yamada was rolling in.
TO BE CONTINUED
4 Likes
Team Shift Happens
Previous Chapters:
“Not It!” - Stage 7 Drive and Camp
Don’t Drink and Drive - Stage 7 Camp
“Green Light” - Stage 7 Camp Collab written by TheYugo45GV
Window Repairs / Driving Lessons / Natural-1 Moment - Stage 7 Camp Collab with Elizipeazie (Part 1), (Part 2), (Part 3)
Send It! - Stage 8 Drive and Camp
“Curiosity” - Collab with Knugcab and Elizipeazie
“The Investigation” - Collab with Elizipeazie and Interior
“We Need Water” - Collab with Elizipeazie
“Drunken Karaoke” - Collab with SurrealCereal
A Team Goes Home / Ideas Brewing in Camp - Stage 9 Drive and Camp
“A Little Shakedown Run” - Collab with Elizipeazie
Pritz Campsite, a little after 7 Sun
Kaylie watched as Kivenaal retrieved his bag of project supplies from the toolbox and wandered off to a quieter area of the campground to continue working on it. In a way, she understood his need to be busy, to keep his mind occupied in the here-and-now and not focused on the past or the future, and she understood that he was one of those people who always had to have a project. She knew that one herself. Sadly, there wasn’t much that she could do, until she remembered the broken mirror on the driver’s side of the truck.
“Now where the hell am I going to find one of those all the way out here?” Kaylie muttered to herself, wandering around to the side of the truck and studying the still-intact metal frame with the broken mirror glass in it. She checked the toolbox and sighed. “Nope, no spare mirrors. Of course there’s no spare mirrors, why would we have packed those?” she grumbled. She closed the toolbox and wandered to the back of the truck, kicking the rear bumper in frustration as she did.
Something fell to the ground with a metallic clink.
Kaylie looked back at the truck, seeing the chrome plated cover for the tow hitch had fallen off when she kicked the bumper. How the hell it stayed on through everything it went through, but twice now had come loose from a well-placed kick, she’d never understand. Between bumper-tag in the Rift with the Magistrate, nine very rough stages, countless tailgate slams, and Kivenaal jumping the truck over a railroad crossing, it stayed in place, but kicking the bumper was enough to dislodge the shiny chrome cover.
Kaylie picked the cover up and went to put it back on, though stopped as she noticed her reflection in the dirty and dusty chrome. “Kayden, where’s our duct tape!?” Kaylie called out.
“In the toolbox!” Kayden responded, sitting near the campfire Rukari had started. Rukari was stirring a great big pot full of stew, occasionally watching the others in camp as they did their own things.
Kaylie grinned, then opened up the toolbox, found one of their rolls of tape, and pulled off a strip. She placed the oversized chunk of metal that was the bumper cover up against the old mirror housing, then started securing it in place with tape.
Kivenaal sighed as he stared at the pieces of his lightsaber project. He had power sources, crystals, prisms, a ton of metal to work with, even a vague idea of what he had to do, but had no clue how best to do it. “Pick something simple, I guess,” he said to himself, carefully assembling the focusing array for the blade. He wasn’t quite sure why his was different to what he’d expected it would be, why his was way bulkier than Jayde’s saber or K’mino’s saber, but he figured it might just be due to the quality of the materials he was working with.
Once he relaxed and started working on it, things became easier, clearer to understand. He wasn’t quite sure how well his homemade components would hold up, or even if they’d hold up, but he was sure that he’d find out soon. Eventually, it started to take shape, vaguely resembling a fantasy sword hilt, complete with a thick metal crossguard that contained two of his three homemade power sources. Feeling inspired by the old-school design, Kivenaal rummaged through his messenger bag and found a strip of leather, wrapping the handle with it and securing it in place at the top and bottom with a little bit of brass.
Kivenaal looked over at the Bricksley and smiled. He was not only far enough away that seeing him was potentially difficult, but he couldn’t hear the card game in progress, so he knew as long as the ignition of his saber wasn’t too loud, it might go unnoticed. He slid the power switch into the on position and was rewarded with a high-pitched hum, though no blade. Then he clicked the switch a little further up and the high pitched hum deepened into a low rasping buzz as the blade ignited.
“So that’s why my focusing chamber was so weird,” Kivenaal said to himself, looking at the intensely purple, sword-shaped blade of plasma. “It looks like an actual sword.” After studying it for a moment longer, Kivenaal slid the switch back into the off position and the blade vanished with a crackling hiss.
Jayde, Rukari, Kayden, and Malavera all sat around the stew pot as Rukari dished up the first servings. Kaylie joined them soon after, holding the steaming hot bowl in her left hand as she ate. “Anyone going to invite Kivenaal over here?” Kaylie asked.
“He’ll come over once he gets hungry enough,” Jayde said, before having another spoonful of stew. “Besides, he’s meditating over there, so chances are, he’s either done with his project, or he’s still working on it.”
4 Likes
........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
2022 SHITBOX RALLY
BLAZERS
Written alongside @Knugcab on a very tight schedule.
A single phrase continued to resonate within the blonde detective’s head, a series of words not even muttered or communicated verbally, but through sheer mechanical spiritual will.
Heed my call.
Yet the detective knew that the message was not for him, as he anxiously gripped the circumference of the wheel before him, staring at his own reflection in the polished silver “Y” badge that sat atop a plastic casing. His eyes peered into the rear view mirror, where he met another man’s dark brown orbs with an invisible anxiety only felt by him as the vibrations of the red crossover’s cast engine shook right into his palms.
Watson reminisced about a tale he had heard a long time ago on one of his travels to Asia, the tale of a sword not meeting its best potential when wielded by none other than its destined wielder. With all seemingly equivalent users having reached a point where they had suffered greater than possibly imaginable, all for the utilization of a tool they had no business in meddling with destiny. Only in the end did the true potential of the killing machine have found solace.
Of course, this was only a story, one among many that he came across in his time spent travelling the world and the course of its timeline. What more could it be and why would such an anecdote send the shivers that now ran down his usually calm spine?
Yet at the last minute, his mind raced to make a decision, as he unbuckled the seatbelt that would have kept him in firm command of the vehicle through the rough course, his hands leaving the dreaded wheel as he turned around towards the back towards Romulo, visibly startled by his sudden gestures.
“Is there something wrong, Watson?” The dark-skinned man asked calmly, but the detective wasted no time with his words.
“Let us switch. I am in no position to be driving right now, not safely. We have no time.”
In a quick move, the blonde man swapped places and sat in the back, with a confused Romulo now buckling himself into position as Emily anxiously looked at the both of them back and forth, and simultaneously glancing down on her wrist where a watch provided by Charlotte now wrapped around her light-coated skin.
Just like so, the next stage began with the opera of machines running towards the singular destination. Different shades of metallic, flat, faded, or even rusted colour flashed by in a flurry of a coloured flag of automobile as they danced through the loose gravel on the forest floor. Once more, a certain crossover’s dreaded screams would stand out as its round steel-and-rubber legs scrambled their way through the unsteady ground for any remnant of grip that it could acquire. The car now cleaned, the red paint dazzled through whatever sun could land upon the layers of urethane and clearcoat that sat atop the steel walls that sheltered its insides.
A flash of deep red would haul its way past the other vehicles on the road, leaving only a trail of crimson that flashed into the eyes of the other vehicle’s drivers as it left them in the wake of its prancing howls. While the other contestants could feel this ghastly presence, the man who sat in the driver’s seat of the Yamada was largely oblivious of it. To him, the vehicle felt like it always had, as it responded with eagerness to his every command as he listened to the dictation of the pacenotes by the blonde girl next to him. Yet, he felt as though he wouldn’t even need to listen to her words at this point, for it felt as though the road was his, and Emily was now having trouble with keeping up with the pace.
This driving in fact, did not just feel great, but it felt simply subliminal, or perhaps arcane, even.
Romulo’s movements were beginning to feel light, unusually light, and his face glowed differently as Emily looked up. To her horror, visions flashed upon him, it didn’t seem like the awkward, blonde-loving Austronesian man she had known for the past week, and instead was shifting towards this youthful but scarily determined gaze that almost looked inhuman. The other blonde and Watson were noticing this too, especially as the road began to seemingly narrow down from the gravel towards the loose and wet dirt.
In accordance with the changes of the driver, the vehicle too began to jolt in peculiar ways, as even on the smoothest parts, it felt more like legs that pushed the vehicle through the trail than a round object on an axle. No longer did it feel as though they were in a propelled carriage, but almost as though a mammal that carried the weight of an unspeakable burden that lay upon its tired back on every centimetre of movement.
Every fine throttle adjustment, every yank of the steering wheel, provided an unprecedented amount of feedback to Romulo as he skimmed through the track at near inhumanly pace. The vehicle moved as though an extension of his own arms, or legs. His vision looked clear of any obstruction but the road ahead, and he began to feel the sensations of the mechanical beast that had just had been unleashed from within the reach of his palms.
While to everyone, the four-cylinder engine sounded like an angry can of resonating bees, a howl of a tormented demon attempting to break free from the shackles of the god that imprisoned its hollow soul, or even the yowling of an innocent being as it yearned for its one desire to achieve its purpose in a make-believe world, there was only one thing that reached the driver’s ears, and it was none other than a pure symphony of desire and submission as he heeded the call of the rage of a machine before him.
A pink dot began to appear ahead of them in the windshield, yet the Yamada did not slow down to match them. Instead, the vehicle only inched closer and closer until the van was right there ahead of them. Even without the headlamps on, bright eyes stared right into the visibility of the drivers of the pink van, in an almost blinding horror that unsettled the machine ahead of them, mechanical shivers being sent down its spine as the splatter of crimson approached without hesitation.
“All-wheel-drive now… is it…?” Romulo spoke in an unsettling fashion unlike him, as the engine roared following his statement. But as the vehicle reached a certain distance, his hand loosened and so did the vehicle as it jolted itself about the track. Romulo now looked dazed, and confused as he wrestled the vehicle back into control and the pink van had begun to fade away from the windshield.
“Stay focused, Ray! Don’t let her voice get to you!” A voice called out from behind as a pair of hands shook Romulo’s shoulders. With a swift yank of the steering wheel, Romulo re-centered the vehicle and got them straight back onto the course. But still, what he had just experienced earlier shook his very core, and he seemed hesitant to continue on with the pace he was just on. “Jesus Christ… Watson, is this why you wanted me to drive?” He questioned as he looked in the rear view mirror, right towards the blonde, short-haired man whose face was just as petrified as he was. He was speechless as he turned his head away from the driver’s, peering over towards the window and onto the side view mirror, which had a small dot begin to grow in size as he observed another team’s car approach.
“We shall be talking more about this later, what matters now is to keep moving, but still be aware of what the machine might do to you.” Watson spoke his final words for the stage. Emily nodded towards Romulo, and began to dictate the pacenotes once more, and the red crossover lunged forward, with more control from the driver than ever.
“Whatever you try to do, I’ll make sure you’re mine…” Romulo silently said as he pushed down onto the accelerator pedal, before slamming the clutch and moving into another gear as the wheels began to feel like wheels once more. To the car behind them, another harrowing holler from the vehicle ahead as the gravel flew from beneath its wheels and into the air as it sped past the corner.
From here, the driver began to feel the resistance, but he combatted it nonetheless. Wherever the vehicle felt as though it wanted to go, he reacted quickly to correct it, fighting an unknown internal pang in his insides as he constantly worked to make the car move to his will. In this battle of wits, Romulo struggled to stay conscious in manuevering the car, and it continued to pick up more and more speed as it continued to fight for its singular purpose.
Charlotte could only look with extreme anxiety as she observed the man in the driver’s seat, she could hear internal screams from the vehicle’s heart as it tugged on every rod within the cylinder, the respiration of the engine piercing her ears in a disturbed bawl as the exhaust continued to pump out gas.
From between the hood’s panel lines and whatever holes lined the vehicle’s front, a small mist began to seep through, which gave rise to shallow steam-like pallid clouds that slowly rose around the vehicle and coated it in a disturbingly spectral aura. Charlotte looked in the windows, the smoke rose upwards towards the sky in a manner that reminded her of a tale she had heard from Earth. She felt the urge to say something, but ultimately remained pensive and silent.
The entrance to the camp was finally made visible to the team, and as they pulled into the clearing, the vehicle was beginning to calm down. Puffs of white smoke seemed to emerge from beneath the bumper, which quickly faded away as it merged with the ambient air around. The only vehicle in the gravel-filled hollow was none other than the pink van that they had met earlier. Romulo drove the vehicle towards the end opposite of them, not wanting to take any risks involving them and the monster they were now dealing with.
Yet even then, once he had shut the engine off and gotten out of the car with everyone else, a pair with a couple of suspicions on the back of their minds were already beginning to approach them with a distinct caution, while a third one stood still at the van, watching everything from a distance.
On the other end of the camp, it was none other than the very vocal Hillbilly Rollers team, where Marie had been a little bit curious about why Andreas was speeding so much when the Yamada had been approaching them in the mirror. Sure, he wanted to win when he had the chance, but she had a feeling that it wasn’t everything. And like the two teams were kind of staring at each other, the same could be said about the cars. They stood there, at a distance, front to front. An IP Freeway Star and a Yamada ASR-4. Probably a common sight, at least in many Asian countries. Less so in Crugandr. And there was something else that was rather uncomfortable about the cars parked head to head. Like the squinty rectangular headlamps and the for IP so typical tombstone grille was staring aggressively at the playful looking ASR-4 with its chubby face and round headlamp reflectors. It was almost as though the flat nosed van was an angry Serbian rottweiler looking at a chihuahua puppy, firmly telling it to get out of its territory.
Though this chihuahua was hiding something sinister as its round headlight filaments glared back into the van’s headlights, vaguely flanked with the wisps of steam that emerged from the vehicle’s vents. The emotionless steel of the van contrasted with the mysterious frown of the crimson crossover, whose sinister fascia continued its faceless ambiguity as it sat upon the loose gravel of the campsite.
“Why were you so hesitant to let them pass?” Marie asked Andreas. When she asked him, his face turned slightly pale, and he took a gulp before he began to say anything.
“Second place is the first loser”, Andreas said, his lips slightly quivering as he took occasional glimpses at the ominous vehicle sitting across their own. This ominous suspicion would be answered by none other than Janne, who began to speak his mind about how he felt with the other team’s vehicle.
“I got a feeling that something is wrong with the Yamada”, Janne said. “And I am not talking about mechanical troubles then.” His look was of sheer skepticism as he glanced over towards the red crossover.
“Oh, stop that goddamned Demons and dragons bullshit now”, Andreas told Janne.
“So, let’s have a talk with the team then”, Janne told Andreas.
“No fucking way”, Andreas answered, almost recoiling back. It was clear that there was a certain anxiety in his eyes, even though his words contradicted what exactly he was feeling.
“Oh, so maybe you believe in Demons and dragons bullshit anyway?”, Janne laughed and took Andreas with him. “Why do you shiver?”, he asked.
“I DON’T”, Andreas answered angrily.
Carefully approaching team Blazers and the Yamada, Janne chose to walk towards Romulo to ask him some questions. Andreas had no choice but to come with him, while Marie was left at the van, probably feeding Sonic or something.
“Hey there, you’re Romulo, aren’t you? Nice Yamada!”, Janne said. “Is everything working like it should?”
“Well… yes. I…guess? You must be…?”, Romulo answered, a bit surprised.
“I’m Janne, nice meeting you! Is the Yamada as good as when it left the factory? Like…everything intact and so?”
“Of course not”, Romulo said, a bit annoyed. “It’s over 20 years old, what do you think? Of course it has some wear showing through, but generally the condition is good.” He looked back towards his car, the blood red paint squirming for sunlight as the clouds continued rolling in.
“So… nothing has been added either afterwards that have altered the function. I have really seen when creativity have more or less wrecked older vehicles”, Janne asked curiously.
“You mean like when you paint them pink?”, Romulo said. “At least this still has the factory paint intact. And other than that I don’t know why you are asking. I have done some small modifications to make it survive through this rally, and that is everything. It’s not like if I remade it into a steam locomotive, like the team with the Anhultz did”. You could hear a kind of uneasy tone showing through in his voice.
From behind Romulo, a heavy hand landed upon his shoulder, and as the tall dark-skinned man turned around, he locked gazes with Watson. There was this unsure look on the blonde’s face, as though he was trying to warn him about something. Romulo seemed to switch partially, but still was largely unstable as he shook his head.
Watson turned over towards Janne, and began walking over. “So you have sensed something too, have you not? Something with this vehicle.”
“I have. Let me get this straight. That car’s alive, isn’t it?” Janne said sternly. There was no change in the emotion on Watson’s face, it remained the cold deathly stare it always was. On the other hand however, Romulo looked unsteady as he leaned over on the crimson vehicle’s fender.
“That, we’re still unsure of. With how things are going, I’m not exactly sure if this rally can be completed.”
“Have you thought of asking the organizers for advice on moving forward?” Janne began walking over towards the Yamada, Andreas behind him looking anxiously at the vehicle as they approached. Moving closer they could feel something with the car, even as they took a closer look at it. The flaky, deep red paint seemed to glimmer in an unusual way, and the rim around the headlights looked wrinkled, almost fleshy. Mist which slowly flowed out of the grille was warm, but not engine warm, and even with the engine off the vehicle looked as though it was heaving in an unusual way. As they moved across the bumper, they felt an unusual presence watching, almost as though the headlights followed their every move. Even then, the car stood perfectly still where it was.
“Hey! Janne, something’s fucking wrong with this!” Andreas began getting alarmed as he tugged on Janne’s arm, before leaning over and whispering, “I don’t believe in none of that fantasy bullshit of yours, but we should go, don’t you think?”
“Calm down, Andreas.” He shook him off, before looking towards the rest of Team Blazers, who was watching as the commotion went on. “I hope you lot stay safe out here.”
With that, Janne and Andreas walked back over towards their own vehicle, with occasional glances from Andreas, leaving the team with the Yamada off on their own.
Emily walked over towards the hood of the vehicle where Watson and Romulo were. She could see the anxious look right through the tall blonde man, yet this time, Romulo was unreadable. His mind was clouded with multiple classes of indescribable dread, indecisive as he attempted to free himself from whatever might be grappling the back of his head.
The short girl moved in front of the crossover, like the other two men had experienced earlier, there was this distinct eeriness to it as she stared at the crossover nearly eye-level with its round halogen headlights. She stood back, and peered right into it, she could feel it almost trying to say something, but she was unsure.
“Ray…” Emily spoke out towards Romulo. She first looked at Watson, before finally turning her head over towards the taller man, and in her blue eyes lied a desperate look.
“… keep driving.”
5 Likes
Pritz, Crugandr
Local time: Pending confirmation
Derailed Plans
The Olive Drab Oil Tanker sailed down the gravel sea, its engine roaring and gravel flying from the tires. Same with how they first arrived, the tan furred brothers took the front, the orange furred Jedi and Keeper shared the middle row, the silver giant, a rottweiler, two Dyre pups and a six legged cat sat in the cargo area. The sun continued rising in the sky, and all was well in the Magistrate.
Grinning, Aedan watched the conifers roll past as the Magistrate barreled down the road. “Finally we get a break from that heat. I never thought I’d see the day.”
A chuckle came from the rear bench. “You really get crabby when you overheat, you know that?”
The grin quickly vanished. “We aren’t made for rain forest climates, Malcolm. You should know this, being the assistant Keeper and all.”
“Whatever. Just remember I was the one who stopped you from tossing that grenade through Team Slow’s portal, so consider yourself lucky that we aren’t the ones going home.”
More hours rolled past until eventually the little Hakaru hatchback, ahead of the Magistrate, came into view.
“There’s that white hatchback again.” K’mino pointed out, leaning over and glancing through the windshield…
The Magistrate responded as the V8’s burble became a roar once more as the gearbox dropped into second.
The gap between the Hakaru and the Magistrate got smaller as the big wagon reeled the small hatchback in, everyone on board the station wagon brimming with excitement, unaware that the Hakaru had a completely unintentional trick up its sleeve.
“Yes. Yes! We are catching them. Orlan enunciated, struggling to keep his voice from rising with the excitement. “Go on, Give it some more power!”
His brother chuckled, “Pedal’s all the way to the floor, man. But we are catching them!”
Everyone was in good spirits until the Hakaru hit a bump and its rear hatch popped open followed Team Gearknobs’ gear avalanching out of the now open hatch.
The entire team ceased their celebrations and Aedan violently yanked the wheel, the Magistrate swerving to the left as a sleeping bag bounced past, then to the right, almost spinning out as a tool box tumbled out and then back again to the left until a huge jack stand fell out which prompted Aedan to swing the wheel back to the right but to no avail as the stand disappeared under the car followed by simultaneous jolt and pop.
“Shit! There goes that tire.”
“You really have to practice your evasive driving maneuvers.”
“You really have to shut your mouth,” Aedan barked, “Why don’t you take the wheel next time and see how difficult it is to swerve 'round random shit that falls out of people’s cars.”
Sighing amusedly, K’mino made a move to get out of his side of the car. “I have to help you, right?”
“Yes, of course, Kameron.”
“Wait, why are we on a first name basis now?”
“Because none of us can bring ourselves to call you by that ridiculous alias of yours.”
“It isn’t–.”
“It is, there’s no other way around it. It’s stupid, unnecessary and has no purpose but to annoy everyone you are with.”
“But–.”
“You heard me.”
K’mino, who had finally been called by his real name and defeated, removed his smile. “Alright then. I didn’t know the rest of you hated it. You could have told me earlier.”
Upon having rolled the window down and adding more gasoline to the fire, Orlan chimed in. “Yeah, no one in their right mind would call themselves ‘Kamino’ of all things.”
“Says you, who writes a name that’s pronounced with an E sound with an A.”
“Not all of us have normal parents, Kam.” Malcolm jeered.
“That’s enough you three," A stern voice ordered, that was revealed to be Pavel.
"How about instead of bickering, we fix the tire and get back on the road. We can’t let ourselves be overtaken now, can we?”
Within minutes, the Magistrate was on a tire jack, and the tire was being replaced. Everyone was helping out, even the two Dyre pups, who were at least attempting to. Pavel, however, had elected to help out Team Gearknobs with picking up the gear that they had lost. As the team fixed up their car, the mood began to calm down as a breeze blew through the air soothing the irritation.
Soon, the flat tire took the place of the spare on the tailgate mounted holder, and the team was getting ready to set off once more.
Right then, A distant train whistle sounded through the forest, prompting looks from everyone.
“How far ahead is RK’s Dione?” Aedan queried.
“They have that high-railer mechanism and I saw them get on the tracks back in the previous camp. So, they should be pretty far ahead.”
At that moment, returning from helping Gearknobs was Pavel, “Then they should be ahead of that train, yes?”
Malcolm shrugged. “I overheard one of them saying something about going in between scheduled trains. But, I don’t know about–.”
Several gunshots rang out in the distance, from roughly the same direction the train whistle came from.The five lombaxes, the dog, the cat, and the two Dyre pups tensed. Every one of them knew what those meant.
Without a second thought, everyone piled into the car, the V8 roared into life, the four stroke, suck squeeze bang blow cycle, firing thousands of times a minute, moving pistons up and down, turning the crank, sending the power into the flywheel, through the transmission, past the transfer case, and out to the driveshafts, differentials and half-shafts.
The rear right wheel spun furiously, tossing gravel and dust high into the air, as it pushed the big olive drab barge from its resting place then the rear diff was locked and the left wheel joined in on the spinning,
The olive drab wagon roared past the Hakaru and disappeared down a narrower gravel road that headed away from the main one towards the railway tracks. Everyone readed their weapons, Pavel grabbed his royal guard Omni Wrench and set it into rifle mode, the weapon humming ominously as it powered up. Kameron readied his lightsaber and Orlan loaded up 6 rounds of the armor piercing .58 Pointed into his rifle before racking the lever.
Slowly but surely, the forest started to thin out as the gunshots became more and more prominent.
Unsurprisingly, the armored carriages shrugged off all the bullets. But once the two men ahead were aboard, they’d get the dynamite in place and all that would be left to do would be to enjoy the fireworks. Mitzal smiled to himself, his planning had paid off perfectly, meticulously calculated to not go wrong anywhere. For instance, He’d brought less men with him, 5 instead of the usual 10, better weapons, more explosives unlike last time, and the fastest lizards. Well, just one of the fastest. Those… murderous scoundrels in the magic self pulling carriage had taken Artemis from him, and they would pay with their blood. But, they would wait, as now 1000 bars and countless syrkals waited for him on that train.
Immense wealth waited for them and–.
The green self pulling wagon burst through the bushes, nearly causing Devastator to fall from his iguana.
The train tracks became visible and so did the train that chugged along them, a streamlined 4-6-2 locomotive pulling behind its tender, four armored train cars. It did not look to be going much faster than 30 miles an hour but what did rouse everyone was the four lizards that were chasing it, and shooting at it. One lizard of particular interest was the one with two people saddled in tandem on the top carrying what looked to be dynamite.
“Brace yourselves!” Aedan shouted right as they hit a bump and got massive air time.
These Barbarians had come back, even better, they would join the train crew. Shot in the head and left to rot, a fate they so very much deserved.
“Hey! Make sure you don’t put those dimwits out of commission, I want them alive!” Mitzal called, kicking his lizard to pick up its speed.
“Yes Sir!” the man replied. “Light ‘em up!”
The rest of the men drew their revolvers and began shooting at the wagon.
Just before anyone could do anything, several bullets struck various areas on the bodywork, perforating the metal, but miraculously missing everyone.
“Ori, Pavel, return fire! We’ll be turned to swiss cheese if you don’t fend them off.
The two did not say anything, and simply got into their fighting positions.
The .58 Standard rifle let out a huge muzzle flash and something more akin to an explosion than a gunshot as it sent a round out, the crack of the round ringing out through the forest.
A less loud bang came from the Wrench-Rifle, as it too sent a round down range.
The carriage began to return fire, and some bullets came very close to hitting their targets, and some of them were glowing blue. These men truly were some kinds of wizards. A carriage that could outrun a train and a weapon that can shoot energy. Could it be? No. They haven’t been here for long, there’s no way they could have encountered Malradi and been trained by him. Another more imperative question was why did they come here to defend a train, surely they knew better than to mess with John Mitzal, especially now.
Whatever their plan was, it wouldn’t work. Mr. Strong and Bridgeway were in position to board the train and soon the charges would be in place. More gunshots came from up ahead as Bow and Arrow fired at the green carriage, making sure to stay far enough away to avoid being hit.
A shout came from the direction of the train. “Sir! Charges are in place!”
“Good! Light them up!”
A large explosion came from the rear-most train carriage, and once the smoke settled, the whole back wall was gone and pieces of it were strewn all over the train tracks behind it. But there was no time to dwell on it.
“Pavel, Kameron, Get on the train, let’s throw a wrench into his plans.”
“We are stopping a robbery?” The latter asked.
“Of course, don’t you remember the thief that we hit who was running with those gems? People see us and the other 16 cars as heroes, let’s not give them false hope.”
“Alright, Keep the car steady.”
The passenger side rear window was then rolled down, the larger lombax of the two pulled himself up out of the window and grabbed the ladder on the back of the train car. The second then followed, jumping from the car to the train and ascending the ladder.
“Pavel!” Kameron shouted.
“What?”
“Duck!”
It was almost too late when the realization hit, with a bullet ricocheting off the metal on the rail car behind them.
“Fuck! That almost took my head off!”
“I don’t think it was one of the bandits, though.”
“What do you mean?”
“One of the guards came up through the hatch and shot at you, Keep your weapons holstered and I think they might realize we are on their side.”
As if on queue, the guard, who appeared to be a supposedly trained Dyre popped up again and took aim with his weapon, before Pavel wrapped his hands around the ladder’s connectors to the car’s roof.
“Wait! We aren’t the bad guys, We are trying to help you.”
“Why should I trust you?” The guard shouted.
“Do we look like we are from here?”
The guard took notice of the green vehicle matching the speed of the train. That was no lizard, and the person he aimed at looked nothing like a Leoni or a Valraadi. Large prominent ears and face that looked like something between a fox and a cat.
“How many of you are there?”
Pavel flatly told the guard; “Five. The other three are in the car.”
“That thing?" The guard asked, using his rifle to indicate.
“Yes, and–”
A bullet struck the armored hatch.
“Just help us to stop that miscreant, before he kills us all!” He shouted before he disappeared down into the carriage with the hatch slamming shut behind him. Less than a minute later the carriage door opened and the guard beckoned them to follow him. He was a Dyre, but he was fluent in speech and appeared to be 8 and a half feet tall.
“Quickly now, get inside.”
The heavy steel door slammed closed and sealed shut Inside were several wooden crates stamped with some kind of coat of arms, and were marked with the crescent moon shape of the alchemy symbol for silver. So it was true, a money transport that was the target of robbery. It looked like that “prophet” from a few days ago wasn’t lying when he warned about theft of fortune.
“Let’s get through that door then!” Pavel boomed, picking up his pace and putting on the gate crasher setting for the wrench.
“Wait, Wait! The door’s been blocked!”
“Not after this!”
A whine came from Pavel’s omniwrench as it charged to full power. The green lights on the prong glowed green once it reached 100% power. The powerful magnets fixed themselves to the steel door, and… nothing? Surely the door breach system would have fired by now, otherwise there would be no way to get through–. A bright flash came from the space between the prongs and there was a bang. When the smoke settled, there was no longer a solid steel wall where the door stood, instead replaced by a giant gaping hole, its edges glowing orange rapidly fading as the metal cooled down.
Kameron turned to the guard. “Go to the forward car and get the engineers to pick up the speed, then radio ahead to the next station of your situation. Go!”
Mr. Strong had made sure that the door was impossible to open, he’d even used that fire magic to melt the bolts into their attaching points and yet, there now was a massive gaping hole in the spot where the door was, the edges glowing orange but cooling rapidly. It was impossible, there was no technology that could punch through that much armor let alone send the section of the steel door and the locking bolts with the damned things still in the door flying over their heads at high speed.
Just as Bridgeway made the first move to grab the first bag, he heard a crash. A gigantic silver furred creature that looked like a cat and a fox with ears bigger than its head threw itself at Mr. Strong. He anticipated its attack and curled his elbow around its neck, but what Mr. Strong didn’t expect it to do was elbow him in the ribs as hard as it could. It doubled him over, but he wasn’t going to give up that easily.
As he was thrown against a crate on the far wall, Strong landed a punch in the beast’s nose, but it didn’t flinch, instead planting a fist into the side of his head which sent him stumbling across the carriage floor.
As if he was going to let some beast defeat him! A snarl escaped the man but just as he threw himself at the silver beast it lunged at him.
Meanwhile, Bridgeway watched in subdued terror as the strongest man of their group was being thrown about like a wood plank in a windstorm. Thinking quickly, the revolver in his holster found itself in his hand and he took aim, but there was no gunshot as a powerful authoritative hissing whoosh came from behind him and an ominous humming blue glow swept through the darkened part of the cabin.
The dodge came quickly, a swift change in stance that left one knee on the ground and aim trained on the new enemy, which did not go very far as the blue glowing beam swung down ward, slashing the revolver in two, the half of the gun still in hand steaming, and the half with the barrel clattered to the ground. Instinctively, Bridgeway reached for his enchanted blade and produced it with a majestic metallic shink sound followed by some kind of magic warbling.
The four people in the cabin continued with their brawl for several minutes, until Pavel finally overpowered the bigger man and shoved him off the back of the train carriage, tumbling down the train tracks.
The power struggle between Kameron and the swordsman lasted only 10 seconds longer before his blade overpowered the enchanted metal one and cut it in half before a powerful kick then sent the man flying off the back of the carriage, but not before the slashed edge of the blade caught a bag of coins which spewed out 10 coins at most, before he stumbled off the back of the train.
Watching as the men disappeared into the distance behind the train, Kameron heard a shout.
“There’s a bridge coming up and a river!”
A glance down the side of the carriage revealed it to be true, and they were approaching fast.
It took 5 precious minutes to get through the debris, through the second carriage, and out the door from where they came in. Just as they reached the ladder Kameron slipped, and almost fell under the train but Pavel grabbed him and pulled him up.
“Just Jump!” Malcolm shouted, as Pavel was stuffing himself through the still open passenger window.
Mere seconds before the bridge structure separated the car from the railroad track, Kameron leapt from the ladder and the ground beneath the Magistrate disappeared. The other guards that leaned out from the windows were cheering the team on as they sailed through the air. The car hung in the air for what seemed like 5 minutes before the ground on the other side of the ravine caught the wheels. The sudden traction gain made the car unstable, and it spun around coming to a stop just before the road, flinging Kameron from his grasp on the roof rack, sending him rolling across the forest clearing.
“K, get your fatass up and get in the car, those highwaymen are coming for us and they are pissed!”
Without much more prompting, Kameron sprinted back to the car, swung the door open and didn’t bother to close it.
The green self-puller carriage took off, throwing up soil and dust , before it disappeared into the forest, seemingly forever. Mitzal pulled his revolver and fired off all six rounds into the forest, hitting pretty much nothing
He’d been outsmarted once again, and the people who did so got away, Again! Surrounded by nothing but idiots. Months of planning lost, and practically nothing to show for it. Someone would get an earful or be shot.
Preposterous!
The drive back to the camp was done at high speed, the Narrowblock V8 howling and roaring as the Olive Drab Oil Tanker sailed across the gravel sea, with the throttles set to full ahead, until the narrow switchback roads going up the mountain prevented that. Within minutes the camp was in sight, and parked there already were Bricksley, the ASR-4, the Freewaystar, Elbrus, and the other teams.
Without warning the Magistrate belted into the camp, narrowly missing Jill from Team Wayfarers who had to jump out of the way. After passing the Chernobog, Aedan yanked the wheel hard to the hard to the left. The V8’s 4 stroke cycle jumped in RPM holding at around 5000 and the rear wheels spinning with more fury a fire breathing dragon, throwing up a huge plume of dust and soil mostly showering, the Yamada, the Dauer Hakaru with dirt, also catching a bit of the Bricksley and Freewaystar, alerting most of the camp with dust cloud hovering over it.
“Is everyone alright?”
A pained groan came from the back. “Yeah… Malcolm, could you please get off me?”
“Give me a moment.”
“That’s all the solace I need.”
The Magistrate finally lived up to its name, upholding justice and thwarting a train robbery and as a reward got a well deserved rest, although being damaged and riddled with bullets in battle.
To Be Continued (Like Always)
3 Likes
Team Shift Happens
Previous Chapters:
“Not It!” - Stage 7 Drive and Camp
Don’t Drink and Drive - Stage 7 Camp
“Green Light” - Stage 7 Camp Collab written by TheYugo45GV
Window Repairs / Driving Lessons / Natural-1 Moment - Stage 7 Camp Collab with Elizipeazie (Part 1), (Part 2), (Part 3)
Send It! - Stage 8 Drive and Camp
“Curiosity” - Collab with Knugcab and Elizipeazie
“The Investigation” - Collab with Elizipeazie and Interior
“We Need Water” - Collab with Elizipeazie
“Drunken Karaoke” - Collab with SurrealCereal
A Team Goes Home / Ideas Brewing in Camp - Stage 9 Drive and Camp
“A Little Shakedown Run” - Collab with Elizipeazie
Mirrors Made From Bumpers / A Vivid Purple Glow / Time to Eat - Stage 9 Camp
Pritz Campsite, A few minutes before 6 Sun
Kaylie watched as the Union Magistrate barreled into camp at an incredible rate of speed, narrowly missing Jill from Team Wayfarers, kicking dirt up all over Chernobog, then slinging dust and soil over the Yamada, the Dauer, and the Hakaru, and catching the atomic pink van and their Bricksley with some of the aftermath. “Really?” she grumbled, getting up to confront the bad drivers. “It’s bad enough when Kivenaal drives like he’s got a death wish,” Kaylie said, approaching the driver’s door of the Magistrate, “but at least he reserves that for the… Are those bullet holes!? What the fuck did you do, piss off Crugandr’s military?”
Jayde shook his head, joining Kaylie at the door of the Magistrate. “No. I’d place my money on them having foiled John Mitzal again. I’d wager,” Jayde said, holding up one gleaming Syrkal between his claws, “that they foiled a train robbery. He’s famous for trying to do it. Usually I’d turn up and ruin his day. Trained a couple Dyre for the company to help protect their silver and gold shipments from getting attacked. No one wants to face an angry Dyre, it’s usually a good way to get ripped in half.”
When none of them countered what Jayde had said, Jayde flipped the coin and put it back away. “One of these days, we’ll get Mitzal and he’ll pay for his crimes,” Jayde said.
1 Like
Shitbox Rally
Stage 10 - Short - Pritz to Garda Winn
Stage Start: 1 Sun, 28/7/3251, Pritz Campsite
Weather at Stage Start: Hot (35C), moderately humid, and breezy
Weather at mid-stage: Still hot (37C), humid, and slightly windier
Weather at Stage End (First Car): Hot (39C), less humid, lower wind speeds
Weather at Stage End (Last Car): Hot (40C), mild humidity, a gentle breeze
Stage End (First Car): 2 and 19 Sun, 28/7/3251, Garda Winn Campsite
Stage End (Last Car): 3 and 75 Sun, 28/7/3251, Garda Winn Campsite
Weather at mid-day (5 Sun): Hot (42C), slightly humid, a gentle breeze.
Weather at end of day (9 to 10 Sun): Cooling down (30C), cloudy, rising humidity, a comfortable breeze.
Leaving Pritz, everyone is glad to see the gravel and dirt left behind them as the downhill road turns to cobblestone. Being a fairly steep downhill road, everyone is able to go faster than they normally would, though some small sharp rocks are sure to cause problems. At the bottom of the hill, it’s an all-out drag race into the campsite at Garda Winn. There, our camp is on the outskirts of the city, and our various vehicles keep attracting the attention of the locals. Some of the more mechanically-inclined local tinkers even drive their motor-vehicles into our camp to get better looks at our incredibly unusual, all-metal self-propelled carriages. Theirs generally resemble the average carriage, but with a single-cylinder combustion engine mounted near the rear axle.
Notes: Randomization is active. Breakdowns are active. Time is in Earth Time. Times included in Finishing Order. New: Aetheriian elapsed time and Aetheriian Arrival Time also included in finishing order. New: Temperatures (in degrees Celsius) return to the weather. New: Weather updates for mid-day and End of Day.
Team Shift Happens
Distance Traveled: 177.6
Time (HH:MM:SS): 02:21:55
Average MPH: 75.0
Randomizer: 12
Refueling Stops: 0
Breakdown: 0
Total Distance Traveled: 3196.8
Kivenaal takes the wheel and decides to put his foot down hard. The Bricksley, despite being beaten up from previous stages, responds eagerly on the downhill grade, engine roaring as more than 9,000 pounds of truck, cargo, and crew go flying down the road.
Team Wayfarers
Distance Traveled: 177.6
Time (HH:MM:SS): 04:21:24
Average MPH: 40.7
Randomizer: 7
Refueling Stops: 0
Breakdown: 3 (Tires)
Total Distance Traveled: 3196.8
The only thing scarier than a flat tire when you’re doing 80 downhill is two flat tires. Chernobog grinds to a halt, and it’s up to Jack and Jill to change a pair of tires out.
Team Gearknobs
Distance Traveled: 177.6
Time (HH:MM:SS): 02:29:32
Average MPH: 71.2
Randomizer: 9
Refueling Stops: 0
Breakdown: 2 (Chassis)
Total Distance Traveled: 3196.8
Like a few others, the Hakaru Carica has to make a stop to deal with a problem. Luckily for you, it was the plastic covering for the skidplate coming loose and making that awful scraping noise. After peeling it off the rest of the way and tossing it in the back, the pedal returns to being welded to the floor.
Team Fallen Angels of the Past
Distance Traveled: 177.6
Time (HH:MM:SS): 02:30:33
Average MPH: 70.7
Randomizer: 10
Refueling Stops: 0
Breakdown: 0
Total Distance Traveled: 3196.8
It’s good to be out of the mud! With a smooth road and not too many curves, the Claussient rockets down the hill, making up some time for all the times it got mired in the mud and dumped in the dirt.
Team Oil Crisis
Distance Traveled: 177.6
Time (HH:MM:SS): 02:30:35
Average MPH: 70.7
Randomizer: 10
Refueling Stops: 1
Breakdown: 0
Total Distance Traveled: 3196.8
You do know that tailgating isn’t very nice, right? Riding the bumper of the little Claussient wagon, the great green land-ship that is the Magistrate roars down the hill. It seems that all the abuse the wagon has taken, including the barrel roll into one of the campsites and the handful of bullet holes, hasn’t caused enough damage to slow them down, and the two Dyre pups are excited about their experience going fast again.
Team Hillbilly Rollers
Distance Traveled: 177.6
Time (HH:MM:SS): 01:50:11
Average MPH: 96.7
Randomizer: 12
Refueling Stops: 0
Breakdown: 0
Total Distance Traveled: 3196.8
The engine screamed the whole way down, nearly on the rev-limiter the whole time. The brakes, likewise, squealed for mercy as the van hurtled into camp. On the plus side, being first into the camp means you get to pick where you want to park.
Team Witchlight
Distance Traveled: 177.6
Time (HH:MM:SS): 03:32:37
Average MPH: 50.1
Randomizer: 7
Refueling Stops: 0
Breakdown: 1 (Powertrain)
Total Distance Traveled: 3196.8
Great time was being made until the V8 overheated and barfed coolant everywhere. Sitting around waiting for a hot engine to cool down isn’t fun. However, it seems that some luck is on your side, as eventually, the engine cooled down enough to make it into the camp, and there, you were able to refill the radiator.
Team Mravolinski-Chitco
Distance Traveled: 177.6
Time (HH:MM:SS): 03:28:00
Average MPH: 51.2
Randomizer: 8
Refueling Stops: 0
Breakdown: 2 (Chassis)
Total Distance Traveled: 3196.8
It was all going so well until a familiar sound reappeared, one that hasn’t been heard in a while. Sure enough, some of the cargo came loose again and was clattering around. Worse still, however, was having to catch a fast-moving roll of nearly-empty duct tape as it tried to escape down the hill at a great rate of speed.
Team Blazers
Distance Traveled: 177.6
Time (HH:MM:SS): 03:13:51
Average MPH: 54.9
Randomizer: 7
Refueling Stops: 0
Breakdown: 4 (Team Caused)
Total Distance Traveled: 3196.8
With it being a concern that the Yamada might be sentient, great care was taken to not push it hard down the hill. On the plus side, the air conditioning seemed to work a little better as a result, as if the car was rewarding you for taking it easy on this stage.
Team Machinas Con Passiones
Distance Traveled: 177.6
Time (HH:MM:SS): 03:29:37
Average MPH: 50.8
Randomizer: 8
Refueling Stops: 2
Breakdown: 3 (Tires)
Total Distance Traveled: 3196.8
The good news: the only time you popped tires was while refueling the van. The bad news: You had to refuel the van twice and both times, you popped the tires.
Team Quick Rally 47
Distance Traveled: 177.6
Time (HH:MM:SS): 03:00:58
Average MPH: 58.8
Randomizer: 7
Refueling Stops: 0
Breakdown: 4 (Team Caused)
Total Distance Traveled: 3196.8
Not trusting in Rukari’s magic, or the strength of his mystical runes drawn with a mix of engine oil and Bricksley Stormy Sky Blue paint, or trusting Rukari enough to even let him paint on the engine block with that mess, the decision was made to go down the hill at a risk-free pace.
Team Mrezhari
Distance Traveled: 177.6
Time (HH:MM:SS): 03:27:30
Average MPH: 51.3
Randomizer: 7
Refueling Stops: 0
Breakdown: 2 (Chassis)
Total Distance Traveled: 3196.8
Four words: Lower Control Arm Bushings. They’re completely shot on the passenger side, causing the car to wander all over the road. Luckily, you had some, and were able to put them in on the side of the road.
Team Jockey
Distance Traveled: 177.6
Time (HH:MM:SS): 02:42:38
Average MPH: 65.5
Randomizer: 9
Refueling Stops: 1
Breakdown: 4 (Team Caused)
Total Distance Traveled: 3196.8
It was all fun and games until someone juggled the fuel cans, spilled one of them all over the place, and left everyone hoping that one can would be just enough to make it into camp.
Team RK Series Racing
Distance Traveled: 177.6
Time (HH:MM:SS): 02:13:15
Average MPH: 79.9
Randomizer: 11
Refueling Stops: 0
Breakdown: 0
Total Distance Traveled: 3196.8
Full Steam Ahead! The Dione blasts out of the station on an early start (with permission) and hurtles on down the hill, gaining speed the whole time. With green signals most of the way, the Tangerine Tank Engine rockets past signal boxes at a frightening pace. In their boxes, the signalmen responsible for passing information onward are writing down times and forwarding information as fast as they can, because Robert the Redneck Railcar is setting a speed record! Sadly, a signal at danger brings the fun to an end, though the new brakes hold up well. It turns out, you were closing in on the train that went before you, and so the rest of the trip is spent at line speed, occasionally having to wait for the track ahead to clear.
Team Black Rabbit
Distance Traveled: 177.6
Time (HH:MM:SS): 02:15:48
Average MPH: 78.4
Randomizer: 13
Refueling Stops: 0
Breakdown: 0
Total Distance Traveled: 3196.8
When in doubt, send it! The Dauer scoots along at a surprising pace, again making up for lost time for once thanks to it not being another mud-bog requiring a 4x4, and by being downright fast on the road.
Team Spy Kids
Distance Traveled: 177.6
Time (HH:MM:SS): 02:41:35
Average MPH: 65.9
Randomizer: 9
Refueling Stops: 0
Breakdown: 3 (Tires)
Total Distance Traveled: 3196.8
“Well, how was I to know those rocks were sharp!?” Turns out, running a little wide and playing in the dirt was a bad idea, because some of those rocks were just jagged enough to slash a tire.
Stage Finishing Order:
ET Earth - ET Aetheriian - Arrival Time - Team
01:50:11 – 1 h and 19 m – 2 and 19 Sun – Team Hillbilly Rollers
02:13:15 – 1 h and 40 m – 2 and 40 Sun – Team RK Series Racing
02:15:48 – 1 h and 41 m – 2 and 41 Sun – Team Black Rabbit Corporation
02:21:55 – 1 h and 47 m – 2 and 47 Sun – Team Shift Happens
02:29:32 – 1 h and 54 m – 2 and 54 Sun – Team Gearknobs
02:30:33 – 1 h and 55 m – 2 and 55 Sun – Team Fallen Angels of the Past
02:30:35 – 1 h and 55 m – 2 and 55 Sun – Team Oil Crisis
02:41:35 – 1 h and 64 m – 2 and 64 Sun – Team Spy Kids
02:42:38 – 1 h and 66 m – 2 and 66 Sun – Team Jockey
03:00:58 – 2 h and 02 m – 3 and 02 Sun – Team Quick Rally 47
03:13:51 – 2 h and 14 m – 3 and 14 Sun – Team Blazers
03:27:30 – 2 h and 26 m – 3 and 26 Sun – Team Mrezhari
03:28:00 – 2 h and 27 m – 3 and 27 Sun – Team Mravolinski-Chitco
03:29:37 – 2 h and 28 m – 3 and 28 Sun – Team Machinas Con Passiones
03:32:27 – 2 h and 31 m – 3 and 31 Sun – Team Witchlight
04:21:24 – 2 h and 75 m – 3 and 75 Sun – Team Wayfarers
Team Shift Happens
Previous Chapters:
“Not It!” - Stage 7 Drive and Camp
Don’t Drink and Drive - Stage 7 Camp
“Green Light” - Stage 7 Camp Collab written by TheYugo45GV
Window Repairs / Driving Lessons / Natural-1 Moment - Stage 7 Camp Collab with Elizipeazie (Part 1), (Part 2), (Part 3)
Send It! - Stage 8 Drive and Camp
“Curiosity” - Collab with Knugcab and Elizipeazie
“The Investigation” - Collab with Elizipeazie and Interior
“We Need Water” - Collab with Elizipeazie
“Drunken Karaoke” - Collab with SurrealCereal
A Team Goes Home / Ideas Brewing in Camp - Stage 9 Drive and Camp
“A Little Shakedown Run” - Collab with Elizipeazie
Mirrors Made From Bumpers / A Vivid Purple Glow / Time to Eat - Stage 9 Camp
The Magistrate Arrives / “Are those bullet holes?”
Pritz Campsite, a little after 10-and-60 Moon
The Bricksley stormed back into camp after performing a vital mission for Team RK Series Racing, and Kivenaal, in his excitement, gunned the engine and did several donuts in the camp, the engine roaring and bellowing like some angry beast as gravel and dirt were kicked up all over the campsite.
Thankfully, Kivenaal was calmed down, and the remaining 20 minutes passed in a hurry. The team stayed in the Bricksley, ready to roll the instant the clock chimed for 1 Sun, with the only exception being Rukari, who hopped out, grabbed a spare bottle of touch-up paint and a little engine oil, created a mixture of oil and paint, then crawled under the car and applied several hand-drawn runes to the engine to protect it from damage.
“Does anyone else want me to put runes on their engine so it stays together going downhill?” Rukari asked.
(Note: If you want runes on the engine to explain why your car was fast, feel free to borrow Rukari for that.)
After all the people who wanted his help had their engines marked, Rukari cleaned off his fingers and returned to the truck.
1 Sun
The bell rang out loud just before the ear-shattering roar of the Bricksley did, as Kivenaal put his foot down hard and ripped through the gears like a maniac. Dirt flew up behind the truck as it left the camp, threatening to dirty the windshields of any teams foolish enough to follow too closely.
On the Road
Luckily, the dirt and gravel gave way to cobblestone shortly after leaving the camp. Kivenaal had the throttle welded to the floor, the engine outright screaming in fifth gear, 8 cylinders pounding hard as seven liters of fury charged down the hill with 9,500 pounds of weight aiding it.
“There’s 50. 55. 60!” Kivenaal called out, watching the speedometer as the Bricksley charged down the hill. “65!”
“Keep your eyes on the damn road!” Malavera yelled.
“There’s 70!” Kivenaal yelled back. The 427ci V8 was snarling like an angry Dyre as the Highwayman charged down the hill, still slowly gathering speed.
“Come on, you can do it,” Kivenaal said as the truck closed in on 75 miles per hour. “Yes! 75 miles per hour! Can we do 80?” He looked over at the replacement for their driver’s side mirror, the tow-hook cover from the rear bumper duct-taped to the mirror frame, and saw in the shining chrome a pink blob approaching rapidly.
Kayden shook his head as the atomic-pink van blew past the Bricksley. “I can’t believe we just got our doors blown off by that!” Kayden said, shouting over the ear-shatteringly loud V8.
“With all of us and all of our shit in it,” Kaylie shouted back, “we’re over 9500 pounds including the truck. And we have the aerodynamics of a brick!”
“I’ve seen bricks with more rounded corners than this truck!” Jayde yelled in response.
Rukari, like Kivenaal, was staring at the speedometer as it wavered between 73 and 77 MPH depending on whether they were going more downhill or more flat at that point in time.
Then, the Dauer breezed on by, a six-cylinder symphony ringing out over the Bricksley’s bold roar.
“YES!” Kivenaal yelled, “We passed 80 miles per hour!”
“Keep your fucking hands on the steering wheel!” Malavera yelled back as Kivenaal cheered.
“I had one hand on the wheel! Keep your shorts on and don’t get your tail in a twist!”
Soon, the road leveled out, and as a result, the Bricksley slowed down to 75 miles per hour, engine still roaring.
“How’s the coolant!?” Kaylie asked.
“We are at 240 degrees!” Kivenaal replied.
“Back off before you blow the engine up!”
“Engine will be fine,” Rukari replied.
“Yeah, and the radiator might not be! Back off!”
With a mile left to the camp, Kivenaal lifted a little and let the truck slow down, not wanting to face Kaylie’s wrath. “What, you don’t feel like converting the Bricksley into a steam engine?” Kivenaal quipped.
“No! We don’t have enough space for a boiler, let alone one big enough to run this great big lump of American scrap iron!” Kaylie shot back.
Soon, they rolled into the camp, though the radiator was, indeed, venting some steam and spitting screaming-hot water out of the radiator cap.
Garda Winn Campsite, 2-and-47 Sun
With the Bricksley overheating, and beaten soundly by Hillbilly Rollers, RK Series Racing, and Black Rabbit Corporation to the campsite, Kivenaal rolled into the campground and parked the truck. The radiator continued to hiss and spit like an angry cobra for several minutes after the engine was shut down while the team set up their tents and tried to find places to rest.
Jayde wandered over to Team Hillbilly Rollers and offered to repair their windshield, now seeing it was held together by duct tape and good luck.
Kivenaal looked around the campsite, closed his eyes for a moment, then after opening them again, sat down on a tree stump near where he believed Team Oil Crisis would park. Thankfully, the wind was blowing in his favor, so for the first time in many long days, he was able to unwrap one of the cigars he’d stored in his duster, held a flame along the edge of his claw, and lit the cigar. He took a long draw and exhaled slowly, just relaxing as he watched over the campsite, not quite meditating, but at inner peace with himself for the first time in a long while.
Malavera sat inside the truck with the windows rolled down and the key turned to the accessory position, placing a 45 RPM record on the turntable in the dash and switching it on. While the Bricksley’s speakers weren’t great, they were good enough for him in the moment, just letting the music play.
Kayden and Kaylie worked on checking over the Bricksley while they waited for the radiator to cool down. Other than being dusty, dirty, and having a windshield caked in dead bugs, the truck seemed visually fine, and mechanically it was okay, other than the growing puddle of water forming under the front of the truck. Eventually, the radiator stopped hissing and spitting, and after letting it sit for a while more, Kaylie was able to remove the radiator cap to see what was left of their water.
“Twin Suns, you could boil a lobster in there right now!” Kaylie grumbled. “It’s still boiling. How the fuck can it get this hot!?”
“Kivenaal drove it like a maniac, that’s how it got so hot,” Kayden remarked. “Though, to be fair, this heat doesn’t help either.”
“Did someone suggest boiling lobsters?” Rukari asked.
“No, but the radiator is still stupid hot,” Kaylie said. “But if you want to head into town and get some supplies for lunch and for dinner, we’d all be happy.”
5 Likes
TEAM HILLBILLY ROLLERS
Earlier parts
PART 0.1 - A prologue to the prologue
PART 0.2 - Another piece of the prologue puzzle
PART 0.3 - Viva la IP 4Z!
PART 0.4 - Robotman
PART 0.5 - Interference problems
PART 0.6 - Can I play Tetris?
PART 0.7 - Tangerine and familiar
PART 1.0 - Now things got serious!
PART 1.1 - Hello, Thibault and friends!
PART 1.2 - Poor kitty
PART 1.3 - Curse you, Team Oil Crisis!
PART 1.4 - Interlude
PART 2.0 - Bird bird bird, bird is the word!
PART 2.1 - D. Head
PART 2.2 - Good night!
PART 3.0 - Freeway Rockstar
PART 3.1 - DISCO TJO DISCO HEJ
PART 3.2 - Van-Werewolf 1-0
PART 4.0 - Calm after the storm
PART 5.0 - Mirror mirror on the…oh, crap!
PART 5.1 - Hello, little puppies!
PART 6.0 - Speed
PART 6.1 - GIMME OXYGEN! (feat. Madrias)
PART 6.2 - Steamin’ hot! (feat. Elizipeazie)
PART 7.0 - The Kayak
PART 7.1 - Marie the valkyrie?
PART 7.2 - Vegetables
PART 7.3 - Time to tie things up.
PART 8.0 - The hangover
PART 8.1 - The new team member
PART 9.0 - From pink to brown
PART 9.1 - Co-op with Madrias and Elizipeazie
PART 9.2 - Where is Sonic?
PART 10.0 - First at last!
PART 10.1 - Co-op with Variationofvariables
PART 11.0 - Why is this van so damn fast?
Unlike Janne and Marie, Andreas had hardly been able to sleep, and woke the team up early in the morning.
“Fuck…go to sleep again you moron…”, Marie said in an annoyed tone.
“No.”, Andreas said. “We got no time to spare. The tangerine tank engine is already leaving.”
"Don’t you think they have a good reason?, Janne asked. “I mean, they are on rails after all, it might be to not be stuck behind some slow moving train or so…”
“Get up!”, Andreas said. “We’re getting away before the other teams, I refuse to start second to anyone else than Team RK series racing now!”
Before leaving, they heard Rukari asking something about runes.
“Hey Andreas, should we get some runes on the motor block…”, Janne asked while slapping Andreas on the shoulder.
“NO RUNES AND NO OTHER DEMONS AND DRAGONS BULLSHIT!”, he answered angrily.
“Hey, why so angry?”, Janne laughed.
“Stop blabbering!”, Andreas said. “We are leaving, and we are leaving now!”
The team was speeding away before everyone else, and with that said, “speeding” was really the correct term. The IP van was blazing away like a pink thunderbolt down the road.
“Andreas, you are driving like a maniac”, Marie said.
“Trust me, I know how to drive”, Andreas said, with the needle of the rev counter pinned just above red.
“But it’s just a short stage today.”, Marie said. “Why so hurried?”
“There is no way I am going to let that freaking Yamada pass us!”, he answered.
“Why so scared of the Yamada?”, Janne laughed.
“I AM NOT SCARED!”, Andreas shouted.
Andreas cranked up the volume so high that the worthless stock speakers was more or less begging to die so he should not hear their blabbering, and almost pushed the accelerator through the floor.
“Andreas…”, Janne said.
“I DON’T WANT TO HEAR!”
“Something must have happened to the van during the night…”, he said.
“No fucking way!”, Andreas said.
“Stop that!”, Janne answered. “I have been driving this van since it was brand new, and you know what? It runs better than ever. An IP van is not supposed to be this fast!”
And Janne really had a point. The pink brick WAS speeding down the road at a truely unrealistic speed at this moment.
“Like what? Someone would have slapped a GMC 3/71 supercharger on the old 4Z during the night? If that was the case, Marie would have it shoved up far into her ass by now.”, Andreas answered with more than just a grain of salt.
“I don’t know but it is running too well…” was Janne’s conclusion.
The pink van indeed crossed the finish line first.
“I will park FAR away. So far away that Team Blazers won’t find us!”, Andreas said.
“Why so scared of Team Blazers?”, Janne asked.
“I AM NOT AFRAID!”, Andreas said.
Things were relatively calm, though, and a while later Jayde was asking the team if they wanted the windshield repaired. “Yes”, Janne said. "HEY, ANDREAS! COME HERE AND WATCH SOMETHING!
TO BE CONTINUED…
@variationofvariables (just to get kind of an update what happened after last round)
@Madrias
5 Likes
minor heads-up in case it was missed
Robert (the car) never was present at 9 Camp
we are being ferried to it by Shift Happens early in the morning, followed by Rukari doing donuts in camp as he returns
4 Likes
OK. I should admit that I have been a bit too busy to read all the segments this time.
But in that case, I’ll go with the explanation that Andreas has not noticed that it never arrived, but noticed that it was not there in the morning.
4 Likes
RK Series Racing; Stage 10 Drive
The night was quiet, but comparatively short, as the team was forced to get up substantially earlier than usual due to their early planned departure. Constantin got to work taking down what could be taken down without disturbing the others. Not that it was of any help, as Tim made such a racket getting out of the tent, ending in it almost being torn down and Valentin being forced awake as well.
Constantin was already productive loading up the Bricksley with their camping equipment as quitely as one can toss various containers into a steel truck bed. At least it seemed quiet enough to not alert anyone who wasn’t already awake.
With Valentin finally out of the tent as well, Tim quickly handed some highly basic breakfast over to the others, which didn’t take all too long to be had. After all, they were in some degree of a time-crunch.
Kivenaal’s ear flicked as he heard the sound of Constantin loading up the Bricksley’s bed with camping gear, and soon after, Kivenaal got out of his tent with a quiet groan and a light yawn.
Despite the noise Tim was making getting out of his tent, all seemed relatively quiet in camp, with most of Shift Happens still being asleep. Kivenaal quietly opened up a rear door on the Bricksley, reaching under the seat for a container, and pulled out a small, gray-plastic brick. Moving from the back of the truck over to the driver’s seat, Kivenaal opened the plastic packaging and started eating the contents within, not caring that he was eating an MRE cold. To him, it was fuel, and it really wasn’t worth wasting his time trying to heat everything up when one considered it had been sitting inside the truck the whole time.
Just after finishing breakfast, Kivenaal came around to the driver side of the Bricksley, himself now starting his breakfast.
“Mornin…”, all three collectively said, quietly, before returning to packing up camp, leaving him to have his breakfast in peace.
Kivenaal, in response, politely waved back at the others, after which he went about eating the cold contents of the ready-made “meal”.
Well, two of them did, as the third one was still in crutches and spent the better part of the morning getting some more of that pain-relief cream on. With the less-tightly fitting suit and the Bricksley’s tailgate making for good support, the process went a fair bit quicker than the last few times.
The cream application was followed up by some looong overdue maintenance of his haircut.
“ow… ow… oow…”, he mumbled on nearly every stroke of his brush as his hair became very entangled over the past few days, making it a less than pleasant experience to rectify.
One by one the equipment bags, boxes and other bits found their way into the Bricksley.
After the last one was placed in the bed, Valentin was shoo’d off of the tailgate, after which Constantin “quietly” closed it, thus finishing the loading process.
What Constantin did not expect, though, was the fact that the tailgate was not some AR400 armor plating hinged to copious amounts of bubble gum, leading ho him violently smashing it shut instead.
“Fuck… Sorry about that…” he said after the little mishap, flinching a little as well.
They headed over to Kivenaal, who was very close to finishing his breakfast by this time.
“As far as i’m aware, we’re ready.” Constantin said, the others nodding in agreement. Only Connor simply stood there, not doing anything worthwhile for the entire time, although he did watch the loading process unfold with some curiosity.
“Not a problem,” Kivenaal replied as Constantin apologized, before stuffing the last bite of food in his mouth.
Kaylie startled awake at the tailgate slam, not knowing what it was. Likewise, Jayde startled as Kaylie jolted awake. Kaylie sighed. “If I find out who’s slamming doors, I’m going to torque-check their lug nuts!” Kaylie called out, though made no effort to get out of the tent.
Kivenaal chuckled quietly and shook his head. When Constantin mentioned they were ready, Kivenaal said quietly, “Climb in. Don’t mind Kaylie, she won’t actually go after anyone with a torque wrench. She just doesn’t handle getting startled awake well.” After Kivenaal said that, he checked the passenger side mirror, then out the driver’s side window to make sure no one was in the path of the exhaust, then turned the key and started the V8.
Kaylie groaned. “Kivenaal, it’s too fucking early to use the truck as an alarm clock!” Kaylie grumbled.
Valentin claimed the front-passenger seat, thus having the greatest available knee and leg room.
The other three shared the rear bench, with Connor being in the cramped middle spot, Constantin and Tim shouldering him either side.
The drive itself wasn’t anything to write home about as the Bricksley rolled through town, past the station and towards the back end of the sheds.
There, they disembarked the big-ass truck again, after which Constantin went to the back to get the first bit of their belongings while Valentin went to the one door the sheds had on this side and politely knocked onto it.
Almost immediately after, the door opened, with an unfamiliar face looking back at them for a bit. The worker, without saying anything, heads back in and returns about a minute later, letting the team in to reclaim their parked railcar.
Work was then started preparing Robert for the big run as Valentin went in to pop the hood, grabbing the grease gun from the roof afterwards. Back up front, he went about greasing up every single bit that needed greasing as Constantin and Tim went back and forth between both cars loading up their equipment.
On one return trip, Tim takes out a roughly half-full purple bottle, carrying it back to the Bricksley and Kivenaal.
“That one’s yours.” Tim said, holding it up to Kivenaal as Constantin went past to collect the next piece of cargo.
“Ah, thank you. I’ll make sure to add this to the fuel later, help improve the mix,” Kivenaal said. “So, is it official that your team is going on the record run?” Kivenaal asked, getting out of the truck and grabbing the bottle, putting it in the bed with the other bottles.
“As far as i am aware, yes, but Val has the specifics, being the driver and all.” Tim replied, excited but uncertain.
“VAAL! The Shift Happens Guy wants to know about the record run!”, he subsequently shouted into the sheds.
“Give me a moment to finish up here! Don’t want it blowing up now…” Valentin replied, gradually becoming quieter leading to only the first four words really reaching the Bricksley.
A few minutes pass as Constantin is treading back and forth and Valentin was preparing the Railcar for it’s historical journey. After that, the team in it’s entirety gathered around the Bricksley again.
“So what exactly do you want to know now?”, Valentin asked, rather annoyed at being disturbed doing highly critical work under the hood of Robert.
Kivenaal sighed. “I wanted to know if you were doing the record run. However,” and Kivenaal looked to Tim, “I would have been fine with waiting until Valentin was done with mission critical work.”
“Well i am done now” Valentin said, with the initial annoyance more intended to be directed at Tim rather than Kivenaal.
“As per the run, we have permission to do whatever speed Robert will get us to. My idea is to see how fast it can go until the rails are level again, then stomp the brakes to see if they work. And hope nothing goes tits-up in the process…”, he continues.
“Well it’s been working flawlessly up until now…” Tim remarked in an attempt to raise the spirits a bit.
“Doing 220 instead of 160 is a wholly different level, though…” Valentin countered, still worried at what could go wrong in which way.
After a rather eerily long moment of nothing from anyone, Constantin pulled out his local-timed pocket watch and checked the available time until departure.
“We are gonna have to get going soon if you don’t want to be as punctual as the Deutsche Bahn…”, Constantin said, half-jokingly, though still serious in wording as time was starting to get somewhat tight.
“Yeah we gotta go. See you in camp later.” Valentin responded, thus wishing his fare-well to Kivenaal.
the others politely nodded or waved and followed Valentin into the sheds, hidden by the wall either side of the door.
Kivenaal nodded. “Good luck, be safe, and be fast,” Kivenaal said. “As my people would say, vuri ada ahd nevuri marin. Strong wind and calm seas. I’ll try to get the rest of them to the station to see you off, and I will see you in camp later,” he added.
Kivenaal cranked over the V8 and backed the truck up, turned it around, then headed away from the sheds at a faster pace than he’d arrived. Before he was out of sight, Kivenaal flicked the tail of the truck out and rounded a corner at speed, before disappearing past the yardmaster’s building.
The four team members piled into the car, Valentin, as always, entering first, followed by the other three in the usual configuration.
Steam pressure was built and soon after, they left the sheds, reversing the entire way to the station of Pritz for lack of a turntable at both ends of the station. With limited visibility through the mirrors and poking the head out being unsafe, Valentin was forced to carefully reverse down the line into the platform area of the station, barely being faster than a jogger for the entire route.
Still, they entered the station with some time to spare, with a slew of people crowding up on the platform, among which were the station master, an unknown member of the press and all of Shift Happens.
The Dione rolled to a stop, less gracefully than usual as the railhead brake seemed quite a bit more sensitive in reverse.
Both passenger-side doors opened, narrowly missing the platform edge because of the low-slung nature of Robert compared to conventional railway carriages.
“Good morning… everyone?” Valentin said from across the car, trying to get a view of who was there, but the seating position prevented him from getting a good look at anything that wasn’t numerous pairs of legs.
“Good morning, Valentin,” Jayde said, grinning. “All of us showed up to give you a proper send-off on this potentially historic voyage,” he added.
“Really, Kivenaal insisted that we show up,” Kayden said with a yawn. “But it’s still exciting, even if I’d have liked to sleep in.”
“Vuri ada ahd nevuri marin,” Rukari said, again giving a proper Valraadi salute on the platform. “Good luck on your speed-hunt,” he added, breaking out of the salute.
“I’ve already said my bit at the sheds, but, might as well say it again, stay safe out there,” Kivenaal mentioned.
“Good luck and have fun!” Kaylie called out.
“We’ll see you at the next campsite,” Malavera said. “I’d try to get Kivenaal to race you there, but somehow, I get the feeling that even if he fangs it, we’re not going to be faster.”
Constantin got out to make way for the editor, who immediately mistook him for Valentin.
“Huh, you sure are a lot bulkier than everyone described you as being…” the editor noted, eying Constantin in confusion. “Anyway. Richard Vellen, editor at the Turntable Times. Glad to be part of this record run.” he politely added, but the excitement was hard to hide.
“Constantin Schrant. Pleas” he responded with mutual respect. “I think you are mixing us up a bit, Valentin is still in the… railcar, more or less stuck in there for a number of reasons.” Constantin explained, followed by a lightbulb-moment of Richard as he took a peek into the car, seeing little more than Connor and the now vacant seat Constantin came out of.
Afterwards, Constantin helped the editor find his seat to the best of his ability, ending in a semi-graceful engress of Richard into the mid-bench rear seat. With Constantin on one side and Tim on the other, it would be a cozy experience.
Before Constantin re-entered, though, he saw how all of SH was present, wishing good luck and rooting for Valentin and the team as a whole. He respectfully nodded, followed by a proper, earthen salute, after which he re-entered the car.
In there, Richard was instructed on the use of seatbelts, not really because there were necessary, or mandatory, but rather through force of habit coming from earth.
With the Editor in place, steam pressure built, they still had a few minutes until scheduled departure.
During those few minutes, not much happened outside at the platform, with a small crowd of people, among which Shift Happens, eagerly awaiting departure.
Within, Richard started peppering Valentin and Connor up front with questions about how Robert came to be, some surface-level technical details, among other things.
He also learns the vague plan of the trip, in that they would be going from Pritz to Garda Winn, using the downhill segment of the early sections to gather speed to the best of their ability. Once on flat rails, a full-force emergency stop shall be performed using the newly installed railhead brake. After that, the remainder is done at ordinary line speed, assuming nothing breaks in the process.
Meanwhile, some other person, also a member of press, is shuffling his way toward the platform edge, spotting Robert still stood at the station.
“Railway Express Magazine! Please let me aboard that railcar!”, he shouts across the platform, annoying basically everyone present.
“Seat’s full… Turntable Times was here first…”, the station master comments next to him, grinning a bit as he was aware of the rivalry between the two papers that has been going on for quite a while now.
While Richard kept bombarding Valentin with questions, he reached for a small knob under the dash, followed by him pulling a plunger on the center, below the radio. This sends a “snake hissing” across the station, though less violent than what the steam main produces when shutting Robert down.
“You’d think that for a rare event such as this, someone would know better than to be late,” Rukari said.
Jayde checked his pocket watch, then shrugged. “Technically, he’s not late. Still got some time before departure.”
“I learned in the Marinzahiri that if you are on time, you’re late, and if you’re early, you’re on time. If you’re late, you’re in trouble,” Rukari replied.
“Not everyone is military,” Jayde replied.
“No, but Rukari does have a point,” Kivenaal said. “It’s probably rather well known that there’s only one spare seat in there. Being early is sensible.”
As a hiss rasped out from under the Dione, Kaylie startled and looked around for the snake she’d heard, then elbowed Kivenaal for laughing at her reaction.
“It’s not a snake, Kaylie. They just released the steam holding the brake in place. Chances are, Valentin’s getting ready to go soon,” Kivenaal replied.
Within the car, Valentin took a few deep breaths, collecting himself and focusing as best he could on the trip ahead.
A few loooong moments later, he reached for the Ignition key, turning it clockwise as far as it will go, thus sending a blast of the whistle across the station.
Everyone, including the press member still on the platform, knew what was happening and (almost) everyone erupted in cheering and applause as a result.
Afterwards, Valentin weighed his foot down a bit, with Robert dutifully reacting, starting to roll out of the station towards Garda Winn.
As the car shrank over time, being further and further away from anyone at the station, the cheers started to die down, with the first people already heading off to return to their daily routines.
So did the station master, who went for his office to see if he could gain sort-of live intel on the Railcar as it went along.
As Valentin set off in Robert and the crowd broke out into cheers and applause, Kayden had to smile. Team RK Series Racing had come a very long way from their exploded distributor on the side of the road, from their conversion of the Dione from ICE to Steam, the modification into a high-railer, and now, the addition of a proper braking system allowing for safe high-speed travel.
As the Dione started to disappear, and the crowd started to thin, it was Jayde who eventually got Shift Happens on the move. “If we leave now, we might be able to make it to the camp before 1 Sun,” Jayde said, checking his pocket watch.
The six piled into the Bricksley, the engine was started, and Kivenaal planted his foot down hard on the accelerator. The V8 gave a triumphant roar as the rear wheels spun, leaving the Railway Express Magazine editor mired in a mixed cloud of tire smoke and exhaust fumes.
As they left the small road leading to the station and shot out onto the main street of Pritz, Kivenaal had the Bricksley damn-near sideways, all-terrain tires howling as the engine bellowed.
“What manner of madness is this!?” Jayde grumbled.
“Speed and POWER!” Kivenaal yelled, as the Bricksley hurtled into the camp like a Dyre with its tail on fire, kicking up dust and dirt as Kivenaal did several donuts.
“Kivenaal! It’s only been a couple of minutes, now cut it out!” Jayde snapped. “Our departure is at 1 Sun. It’s 10 and 57 Moon. We still have 23 minutes to wait.”
“Oh, Twin Suns, the other teams are going to hate us,” Kaylie said, seeing the amount of dirt, grass clumps, and rocks that had been thrown around by Kivenaal’s rather… Enthusiastic entrance to the camp.
Back in the Railcar, the first 10 miles or so have been the calm before the storm as Valentin was taking it relatively easy up until now.
Though once they passed a specific signal box, next to which a few massive banking engines were prepared for the return journey back town the incline, Valentin took one last breath before pegging the accelerator to the footwell beneath. Knowing that at least 40 miles of rail was expected to be clear ahead of them made him a little more willing to give Robert his all for once.
The line started to slope downwards, and with full steam pressure being applied, Robert gained considerable speed. As expected, hunting oscillation made it’s presence known at about 60 MPH as the car swayed from side to side on the rails. Though not long after, the swinging subsides as the RPM gauge kept climbing higher and higher.
100 Miles per hour (160kph) was an easy feat for Robert, as demonstrated on flat-rail running days prior, but still had Richard absolutely awestruck at how a three-day conversion could be this capable.
Above that, acceleration dwindled as aerodynamics took over. Still, speeds kept increasing as they blasted past signal box after signal box every three miles. Within them, they sent special signals back and forth in an attempt to track time as accurately as possible.
In the latter stages of the descent, acceleration halted, the RPM gauge indicating about 3600 RPM, translating to a staggering 217kph, confirmed by Connor, who has been using the mileage posts to keep tracks of speed separate of on-board measuring equipment.
This speed was even sustained until the tracks leveled off again, at which point the planned emergency stop came near.
“Full-force stop in Three. Two. One. Now.”, Valentin called out as he lifted his foot off the throttle and twisted the brake regulator below the dashboard as far out as it would go.
The first turns yielded little reaction, but soon after, the brake pads made contact with the rails, pressing down hard and unloading a substantial part of the weight on the wheels and onto the brake shoes instead.
Having started the braking at a distant signal, despite it showing “clear”, Robert very quickly came to a stop, the referenced home signal in sight, also showing “clear”, but still at least a quarter mile up the line.
With that, the railcar stood there, for now.
“Care to take a view out of the window, Constantin? I’d like to know if the brake shoes are still there…”, Valentin requested, which was immediately acted upon as Constantin opened his door a bit to see the brake assembly next to the sill, pressed firmly onto the railhead and with ample pad life left.
“Looking good from what i can tell…” Constantin replied, having little idea on what exactly to look for.
After that, the brakes were released once again and the trip continued, but at whatever the given segment was limited to, thus ending the shakedown-turned-record-breaking run.
The remainder of that drive was rather peaceful, with Richard now back at work peppering the crew with questions left, right and center.
At some point, signalling stalled progress for some unknown reason, forcing Constantin to take the first walk of the day, informing the active signalman of their presence.
Eventually, they arrived at Garda Winn, where it didn’t take too long for the result of the run to be made aware to quite literally every person and being in the station.
“Now arriving at platform four is the new rail speed record holder at 217 kph.”
The PA system screeched in feedback noises, followed by it shutting off. After that, the stationmaster practically sprinted over to the mentioned platform where the railcar came to a halt, after which the editor was helped out of the vehicle.
An overly excited station master approached, but couldn’t get much of a hold of any of the members, as most of them were sat in the car, unable to leave comfortably and/ or safely.
Thus, the planning of the next stage was done on the platform edge, which quickly was thwarted by a change of plans out of control of anyone in the car.
Apparently, the team and car were invited to some sort of event that would be held in Trugarde main station to honor having broken the 200kph barrier with a railcar.
As such, they would depart as usual, but be diverted into the main station for a grand arrival to celebrate.
With that settled, they headed for their planned transition point, which was little more than a convinient siding. As they went from rail to road usage, a massive freight train roared past, slowly lumbering along pulling what seemed like an endless chain of cars.
The drive to camp was nothing special, mostly as the news of the record run hasn’t spread all that far yet.
But on arrival, one thing became apparent.
They were in second place, with only the Hillbilly Rollers being present.
They parked reasonably close, but not right next to the unmistakingly pink van, where Robert was shut off once again for the day.
(So, this was mostly written by @Elizipeazie with a little help from me. Because they’re on their phone and this segment is a little long, it didn’t want to copy nicely, so he asked me to post it for him.)
2 Likes
Yep. I gave permission to post.
Also a little OOC addendum:
-
the camp will be visited by a group of about 20 to 30 locals at a time for most of the day, as news is spreading and people figured out where the Dione is parked.
-
i ( @Elizipeazie ) am currently on vacation and thus have only limited availability regarding any collabs that people may want (looking at you, @Knugcab )
though things can be arranged if scheduling’s tight
2 Likes
(Turning out to be a busy day for me, it seems.)
Team Shift Happens
Previous Chapters:
Send It! - Stage 8 Drive and Camp
“Curiosity” - Collab with Knugcab and Elizipeazie
“The Investigation” - Collab with Elizipeazie and Interior
“We Need Water” - Collab with Elizipeazie
“Drunken Karaoke” - Collab with SurrealCereal
A Team Goes Home / Ideas Brewing in Camp - Stage 9 Drive and Camp
“A Little Shakedown Run” - Collab with Elizipeazie
Mirrors Made From Bumpers / A Vivid Purple Glow / Time to Eat - Stage 9 Camp
The Magistrate Arrives / “Are those bullet holes?” - Stage 9 Camp
Making Donuts / Speed Demon / Arrival in Camp - Stage 10 Drive and Camp
Garda Winn Campsite, 3 Sun
Jayde smiled as Janne agreed to let him fix the windshield, not quite realizing what Janne’s plan was as he brought Andreas over to watch. Jayde started by carefully peeling the layers of duct tape off of the windshield to see how bad the damage was, then grimaced as he realized some of the glass had gone missing in the time between the initial crash and now finally having a chance to repair it. “I’ll be back in a moment,” Jayde said, before wandering back over to the Bricksley, grabbing one of the empty purple glass bottles out of the back of the truck, deliberately breaking it and collecting up all of the pieces, smashing them further as he added them to a small clay bowl. He then walked back over to the van with a bowl full of glass fragments in one hand and his walking staff in the other. By then, Andreas was standing next to Janne, arguing about how this “Demons and Dragons shit” didn’t exist.
Jayde looked at the cracked windshield, then at his bowl of glass shards, and made a decision to break the top three inches of the windshield further, all the way across the van.
“What the fuck are you doing!?” Andreas yelled. “You’re making it worse!”
“Will you just trust me?” Jayde replied.
Janne smirked, watching as Jayde picked up the pieces of the now-freshly-mangled windshield and added them to his bowl. Jayde sighed, held his bowl of glass fragments in his left hand and his staff in his right, and quietly spoke an incantation. Within seconds, the clear glass added to the top of the bowl started to sizzle as it melted, then vanished in an instant, reappearing in the cracks of the windshield as glowing orange lines that rapidly faded to being clear again. Then, with another quiet incantation, the purple glass melted, vanished as well, and reappeared, now thoroughly mixed with the original clear glass for the top three inches of the windshield, giving it a slightly-purple sun-tint. Like before, the top few inches of window remained glowing for a few seconds, fading rapidly into the new purple-tinted top of the windshield.
“What the fuck is this shit!?” Andreas shouted. “That’s not normal!”
“You have faced Dyre, literal werewolves from your folklore, driven through the Rift itself to get here, to a world that is clearly not your own, traveling alongside beings that aren’t all human, and you’re freaked out over a little repair spell?” Jayde asked, remaining calm, but explaining his own surprise that the windshield repair was the thing that freaked out Andreas. “Not to mention when I cleaned out the interior of your van with a spell. You’d think I just waved Dyre bones around with that reaction.”
“How the fuck did you do this?” Andreas asked, in a cross between a confused, irritated, and concerned tone of voice.
“Do you want the technical explanation, or the magical one?” Jayde responded.
“Both! How does a bowl of glass dust become a fixed windshield?”
Jayde smiled. “The technical side of things is easy. I heated up glass until it was molten, then applied it to all of the cracks to seal them. If you look just right, you’ll see little lines where the window was cracked. The thing is, I can make full repairs of things if the whole object is there. So, I have no issue putting tires back together, or, for another example, patching an oil pan. In both of those situations, nothing has been lost. However, when pieces go missing, I have to add material to equal out the mix. I’d suspect there’s little glass bits from here, going all the way back to when someone drove into a Dyre. From the magical side of things, I had to use a carefully-applied heat spell to melt glass, a translocation spell to move the molten glass into the cracks, and a cooling spell so that the molten glass wouldn’t make a mess. The second spell, which fixed the top bit of the window, had to also melt and mix the glass together up there. Otherwise, you’d have purple lines running through the window. If I had clear glass readily available, I would have just used that instead, it would have been easier.”
“I still really don’t like it,” Andreas said.
“You’re afraid of Team Blazers, and you’re afraid of a little bit of useful magic,” Janne said. “That’s perfectly reasonable.”
“I’m not afraid, damn it!” Andreas snapped.
“Janne, it’s okay. Not everyone likes or trusts magic. I’ve dealt with this a lot,” Jayde replied.
“He just won’t admit that he believes in it, that’s the problem,” Janne quipped.
“The real problem,” Andreas said, “is that we’ve lost track of Marie.”
Jayde closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them. “Marie is passed out drunk in the back of the van.”
“How did… No. No, I don’t even want to know how you know that,” Andreas muttered.
(OOC: @Knugcab did give me permission to borrow his characters. I hope I got them right.)
5 Likes
Lurking here in silence but liking stage 10 so far, keep it up.
2 Likes
Garda Winn, Crugandr
Local time: 2-55 Sun
The Clear Mind
This chapter has been written in cooperation with @Madrias
The journey down the steep hills had gone without issue, even with the abuse the Oil Tanker had taken. The smaller blue speedboat that was the Claussient 25 had managed to get in the way somewhat, but it didn’t really matter, it didn’t have the most power and was piloted by two people who weren’t really familiar with the whole shitbox rally thing. Other than being held up, and stopping to top up the two fuel tanks, the drive was pretty uneventful.
The aftermarket stereo system still had a downloaded Toolroom records playlist coming through the speakers as the car rolled into the camp. Most of the teams were there, but the IP Van was parked on the other side of the camp, in the bushes, its bright atomic pink paint not doing any favors to camouflage it.
Unlike yesterday, the Magistrate did not fly into the camp like a space shuttle, but instead cruised slowly past a few of the cars that were already there, and rolled to a gentle stop next to the Bricksley Highwayman, leaving a sort of open space between the two cars.
Kivenaal looked up as he heard the sound of the Claussient and the Magistrate arriving. The blue wagon cruised across the campsite while the Magistrate rolled slowly and smoothly into a spot nearby to the Bricksley. He looked toward the Claussient, parked near his chosen tree stump, and then over to the Magistrate, parked close to the Bricksley. “Had they been the other way around, I would have chosen correctly,” Kivenaal said to himself. He finished his cigar, stubbing it out on the old tree stump before getting up, only to realize one of the members of Team Oil Crisis was heading his way. The one he wanted to talk to anyway.
Kameron stopped short of Kivenaal when he saw him getting up from the tree stump. “I had a feeling that you wanted to speak to me.”
Kivenaal nodded. “Yes. I saw, a while back, that when Jayde had constructed his weapon of light, you talked with him,” Kivenaal said. He reached to his hip and unclipped his own hilt, holding it in such a way that it showed he knew this was a weapon of great power, even if it hadn’t turned out quite the same as a traditional lightsaber.
The gleaming brass, silver, and copper hilt looked more like a fantasy sword hilt than a traditional lightsaber hilt, even if the blade was currently missing. Kivenaal realized that most of the other teams were dealing with curious townsfolk, that they were far enough away for a safe demonstration, and gave a light smile. His thumb slid the power switch one notch forward, to the On position, producing a quiet high-pitched ringing note, mere moments before Kivenaal slid the switch another notch further. The high-pitched note deepened into a low, rasping buzz as the purple sword-shaped blade ignited. The edges of the blade shivered and rippled, not quite stable thanks to the unusual power system, though the blade was certainly steady enough to fight with, to cut with, even against a proper lightsaber.
“I think it’s different enough, then, to simply call it what it is, a plasma sword, rather than trying to beat it into the definition of being a lightsaber,” he said.
Kameron nodded, “Well, that makes sense. It’s shape and construction don’t really match an actually lightsaber.”
Then he fired up his lightsaber, the blue glow and ominous hum filling their ears. It stayed like that for a moment before it was shut off. “The differences are pretty clear.”
Kivenaal nodded softly, then clicked the switch two notches down to the Off position, where the blade swiftly vanished. “Do you think it would work the same, though?” Kivenaal asked. “I sense there is a certain amount of Darkness out there,” he added, motioning to the clear sky and the stars beyond it, “that you have been tracking down.”
“A touch of that Darkness brought someone here, someone who, if my feelings and intuition are right, was close to you. A mentor, perhaps. Someone who interacted with Jayde. The past is a tangled web of threads, all interwoven into what we all know,” he admitted.
“If we are facing a greater evil that must be stopped, then I want in. Before you go believing that there’s no way that I can help, I don’t have the skill or the training, I do have a few natural talents. One of those talents is that I can’t be burned. I’ve found that out a few different ways. Hot pans, lit charcoal, my own fire, molten metal, even covered my own hand in thermite once when I was younger and wondered if I could generate a fire hot enough to set it off. Even been hit by a plasma rifle once, and all it did was ruin my favorite shirt.”
Kameron sighed, glanced at Jayde who was returning from fixing the windscreen of the IP van, before reverting is gaze back to Kivenaal. “I suppose that your blade could function similarly, but since it’s not fully bound to the force it may be difficult to work with, and not being able to be burned will be significant advantage in a fight.”
“That makes two of us, then,” Kivenaal quipped. “Neither myself nor my blade are fully bonded with the Force,” he explained. “When… When this world ended, far in the future, I felt the pain and the death, and I closed myself off to shield myself against it. It’s only now that I’ve begun to open myself back up to it again.”
Jayde wandered over to Kameron and Kivenaal after putting his supplies away in the truck. “Heard that ominous hum, K’,” Jayde said, playfully shortening Kameron’s other nickname down to just the first letter. He then spotted Kivenaal’s blade and looked back and forth between the two. “Let me guess, our training is soon to start?”
A nod. “Yeah, soon. I was just demonstrating what a true lightsaber looks like for Kivenaal. Before we start we’ll need to find a quiet place where we can focus, and so no one sees us and thinks we’re having a dispute over something and tries to intervene, the last thing we need are people getting injured.”
“Makes sense,” Jayde said. “The last thing we need is people trying to get involved when all three of us have weapons capable of removing limbs in an instant.”
Kivenaal nodded, in agreement. “Injuring civilians would definitely be a bad thing. It’s going to be bad enough trying to find a place out of the way-”
“There’s a clearing in the woods, not far from here. It’s, perhaps, secluded enough to not be noticed, but close enough that once we’re done, we can just walk back to camp,” Jayde said. “It’s quiet enough there.”
“That’s perfect, lead the way.”
Jayde nodded, then headed toward the woods, occasionally looking back to make sure that Kameron and Kivenaal were following.
After a 15 minute hike through the woods, however, the three found themselves in a large clearing, far enough from the camp to cover the sounds of their training, but close enough to not leave them exhausted by the time they were all done.
“Well, it certainly looks big enough,” Kivenaal said. As they walked toward the middle, Kivenaal removed his heavy duster, his hat, and his gun belts, setting them in a neat pile and getting ready to fight.
Jayde, likewise, removed his robe, standing in a pair of linen shorts that left his brass-and-metal leg exposed from just above his knee down.
“Alright, so dueling with a lightsaber is like dueling with a regular blade, but you have the force on your side. The most important thing you should do is just let the force flow through you and let it guide your moves and attacks. Now, Jayde, what I want you to do is to block an attack from me with your eyes open and then with them closed, and Kivenaal, I want you to watch very carefully. I’ll try to go easy so as not to overwhelm you.” Kameron explained.
Jayde nodded, grabbing his lightsaber and igniting the vivid green blade before sticking his staff in the dirt and taking a two-handed grip on the hilt, naturally picking up a classic dueling stance as he listened to the Force.
Kivenaal watched, hilt in hand with the weapon still off, watching as Kameron ignited his blue blade, swinging it up in Jayde’s general direction. Jayde responded instantly by striking out at the blade with everything he had, clashing blades with a blinding flash.
“Well done, Now with your eyes closed.”
The second attempt, with Jayde keeping his eyes closed, was a lot less aggressive, with Jayde moving more in tune with the Force, only moving enough to block the attack, rather than trying to knock the weapon out of Kameron’s hand. They continued this from several different angles, eyes both open and closed until they finally stopped.
“Alright, Let’s see how you do Kivneaal. We’ll start with open eyes and then we’ll try with them closed.”
He gave a respectful nod and ignited his purple blade, stepping forward with the weapon held in his upper right hand. The low rasping buzz contrasted with the ominous hum as both Kameron and Kivenaal raised their blades, with Kivenaal adopting a classic sword-fighting position and naturally keeping his edge aligned.
Kameron made his first strike and Kivenaal crossed it with his own blade, a flash of intense light flaring from the point of contact. Unlike Jayde, however, Kivenaal was more in control, using far less physical strength behind his attacks. Also unlike Jayde, when Kameron tried again with Kivenaal being eyes-open, Kivenaal not only blocked the blade, but immediately countered, causing Kameron to have to block instead. Kivenaal seemed to be surprised at how easy the move had come to him, as if he’d spent decades or centuries training in sword-fighting.
When Kameron had Kivenaal try with his eyes closed, however, Kivenaal was a lot less adept at blocking, instead often times moving out of the way, making clumsy attempts to block, and in one case, completely missing Kameron’s blade altogether and attacking the dirt.
Jayde grimaced and said, “Kivenaal, clear your mind and listen to the Force. Otherwise, you’re likely to get hurt during this training.”
Kivenaal took a deep breath and nodded, and Kameron tried again with a simple, relatively easy to block strike. Kivenaal missed it with his blade, but instead of dodging out of the way, he grabbed the blue blade, stopping the strike. He opened his eyes, fingers still grasping the blade a moment longer before he slowly let go. While the dirt on his hand had been burned away, Kivenaal’s upper left hand was still fine, and after shaking off the still-hot ash, it seemed that Kivenaal wasn’t entirely shaken up by the experience. “Well, I can say that touching that was among the least fun things I’ve done,” Kivenaal admitted. “It’s warm, but that hum resonates through your bones, and it tingles.”
Kameron gave a small chuckle. “Well, you did say that you weren’t able be burned and the saber uses heat primarily to cut through materials. It’s basically a big cutting torch. Anyway, you seem to be far more comfortable with this than Jayde over there, but there are still some things to work on, and there’s also the fact you aren’t 100 percent connected with the force. But, you have got potential.”
Jayde smiled. “He fights like he’s been to a swordfighting school. You can see it in the way he moves, his edge alignment, the way he counters every attack you make and has to stop himself from just continuing it.”
“I’ve never been to one, though. But, it’s like my muscles and body know how to do it, even if I have never done it. It’s almost like I have an instinctive understanding of where to put my feet, how to hold the blade, when to strike, when to block, all just running through my head without having to think about it,” Kivenaal explained.
Jayde chuckled. “You have the physical sword-fighting side figured out, so when your eyes are open, you’re in full control. I’m more in tune with the Force, so when my eyes are closed, I’m at my best for this. I’d guess that K over there,” Jayde said, motioning to Kameron, “will probably have to work on teaching me to sword-fight and teaching you how to use the Force more effectively.”
The three stood there for a moment, blades all still ignited as Kivenaal and Jayde awaited their next lesson.
“That’s how my master trained me, sword fighting and using the force effectively, it shouldn’t be any different. Now, I’d like to see what happens when you swap blades. Out of curiosity, of course.”
“As in, Kivenaal uses my green blade, and I use Kivenaal’s purple one?” Jayde asked.
Kivenaal shrugged lightly, then said, “I think so. Sounded like that’s what he wants us to try.”
Kivenaal and Jayde both extinguished their blades, handing their respective weapons to the other person. Kivenaal had no issue getting Jayde’s green saber to light, but Jayde scowled as he clicked the switch on Kivenaal’s purple plasma sword and only got the high-pitched ringing. “Push it all the way forward, Jayde,” Kivenaal said.
Jayde pushed the switch a little further and the blade suddenly ignited, the high-pitched note deepening into the low, rasping buzz that they’d all gotten used to hearing. “The balance on this is definitely off for me. However, it’s not so disconnected from the Force that I couldn’t use it if I had to.”
Kivenaal, on the other hand, seemed a little disoriented with a weapon that had no defined cutting edge. “Am I even holding this thing right?” Kivenaal asked, trying to find the right way to hold Jayde’s green saber.
“Like this,” Kameron pointed out, flipping the saber to face the right way up.
As Kameron pointed out to Kivenaal how he was holding his own saber, Kivenaal tried the same grip, still finding it to be an unusual weapon with no proper edge.
Like before, Kameron had Kivenaal blocking strikes, starting first with his eyes open. Kivenaal, this time, took a completely different stance, as if fencing, keeping as much distance between him and Kameron as possible, making small, quick strikes from the wrist to block Kameron’s blade using Jayde’s lightsaber. When Kameron had Kivenaal try with his eyes closed, however, Kivenaal’s fighting form again completely fell apart, showing that it was Kivenaal’s weak connection with the Force, and not his choice of weapon, that was causing his issues.
When Kameron had Jayde try the same thing, it became even more clear that Jayde was trying to rely far too much on muscle, swinging Kivenaal’s purple sword as if it were a medieval claymore. When Jayde tried with his eyes closed, like before, he improved, though it showed he was having a hard time with Kivenaal’s rather weighty hilt.
“I get the feeling,” Jayde said, grimacing slightly, “that this little experiment didn’t quite go to plan.”
“He probably did learn something from it, though,” Kivenaal said, switching off Jayde’s saber and handing it back to Jayde. Jayde fumbled with the controls on Kivenaal’s blade until he eventually got it switched off and handed it back over.
“Yeah, he probably figured out that I wasn’t joking when I said I had no clue how to sword-fight,” Jayde quipped.
“Hey, you fight well enough with your eyes closed. I’m flailing around like a fish out of water, trying to figure out how you manage to do that,” Kivenaal shot back.
“Well, that’s why were here.”
“So, what do we try next?” Kivenaal asked, looking over at Kameron as he stood there.
Jayde waited patiently for an answer, though he did comment, “If it weren’t likely to be hazardous, and we had enough sabers, I’ve almost got a curiosity to see how Kivenaal would handle using multiple blades. He is surprisingly well-skilled in at least more than one style of sword-fighting.”
“Yeah, just give me a month and I’ll make three more of these,” Kivenaal quipped. “Somehow, I don’t feel that our trainer really has the time, nor the patience, to wait for me to do that. Especially for something that, let’s be honest, very few people likely do.”
Jayde chuckled, then said, “Somehow, I think you’d manage.”
Removing his saber, Kameron tossed it towards Kivenaal. “Well, let’s try then.”
Kivenaal caught Kameron’s saber in his upper left hand, cautiously igniting the blue blade as well as his own purple one.
Jayde looked between Kameron and Kivenaal, seeing that Kameron was now unarmed, while Kivenaal had two blades in hand. Jayde gave a light look of mild concern, then said, “I hope like hell you’re not planning on having him duel me like that. I’m not good enough to face him with one blade, let alone when he has two.”
Kivenaal gave Kameron’s lightsaber a casual twirl in his hand, before naturally choosing a fighting stance that favored a heavier blade in one hand and a lighter blade in the other.
“I won’t have you two go against each other, but I do want to see how you feel when you swing them as if you are fighting with some one. Just do some attack moves you already know how to do. Ok?”
Kivenaal nodded. “I don’t know how I know them, but I’ll do them,” Kivenaal admitted.
He stepped back to a safer distance, making sure that he could freely move with the two ignited blades without catching anything in his path by accident, then took a deep breath and focused.
Jayde watched as Kivenaal swiftly moved with both blades in hand, favoring quick and precise stabs and slashes with Kameron’s lightsaber, while also still dealing out heavier and more powerful sweeps, thrusts, and cuts with his own purple blade. To him, at least, it was fairly clear that Kivenaal had at least been trained in combat as Kivenaal’s attacks against an unseen enemy were fast and fluid, using no more force than was necessary. Even more particularly interesting was the number of times that Kivenaal turned just enough to deliver a powerful high-kick with a cowboy-boot-clad foot, aimed certainly high enough to catch someone normal in the throat, or someone Jayde’s size solidly in the chest.
Kivenaal had found a natural rhythm where he wasn’t thinking about what move to make next, it was just what felt right in the moment. A left thrust with the slimmer, lighter blade, a heavy slash where an enemy’s legs would be with his heavier, broader blade, a boot to the throat, his twin tails tipped with sharp quills slashing through the air in what would have been an unpleasant strike, even without his brother’s pain-inducing venom. He had a slight blue haze in the corners of his vision, his twin hearts were racing, and in that moment, he felt powerful.
A stick came flying from the side, “Look out!”.
As the stick came flying toward Kivenaal, he barely responded to the vocal warning. Kivenaal brought Kameron’s blade up just at the right time to reduce the stick to little more than ash.
Jayde looked over at Kameron with a grin, lifting a rock from the ground, floating it over his palm, and firing it at Kivenaal, who slapped it out of the air with his own purple blade. He looked more than a little shocked as he hadn’t expected Kivenaal would be able to block that in time, let alone to do so with his heavier and harder to wield blade.
“You’re pretty good, especially, for someone with as little as sword fighting experience as you. I have a feeling it won’t be very difficult to train you in some sort of improvised version of the Jedi arts.”
Kivenaal shut the blue saber down, hissing as it went. “Glad you think so.” he said, before tossing it at Kameron.
After Kivenaal tossed Kameron’s saber back to him, he looked over at Jayde, who gave an innocent smirk, only to look shocked as Kivenaal picked up a similar rock and returned the favor. Jayde ignited his saber just in time to cut the rock in half, getting hit by both pieces of the projectile and grimacing. “Not fair,” Jayde grumbled.
“I wasn’t expecting a rock, neither were you. We’re even,” Kivenaal quipped back.
Chuckling, Kameron clipped his saber back on his belt. “That went a lot better than I had expected, you two already demonstrate a good amount potential. We have quite the journey ahead of us.”
Then a distant voice called, one that Kameron recognized as one of his team.
Kivenaal’s ears twitched as he heard the distant voice, while Jayde recognized it and the presence of the person arriving. “Aedan, over here!” Jayde called out, helping him find the clearing more easily.
Kivenaal switched off his purple blade as Aedan wandered out of the forest and into the clearing. “Have we been gone that long?” Kivenaal asked.
Jayde checked his pocket watch. “Not really. Well, not from my perspective, anyway,” he mentioned.
Kameron looked in the direction of the bushes. “I think he just noticed we were gone so he’s gone looking.”
Soon, the blue eyed and tan colored lombax stumbled out of the bushes followed by his shorter brother, before Orlen tripped and took his brother down with him. Aidan grumbled to himself, as he stood up and dusted off his clothes.
“Is this where you disappeared off to?” Aidan asked, somewhat annoyed that he’d been knocked over.
“Well, yeah. We came here because we needed a quiet space to focus and not hurt anyone.”
“Lightsaber training? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I did?” said Kameron, clearly confused by the question.
“No you didn’t, but it doesn’t matter, now I know. So, Jayde and Kivenaal over here are training to become Jedi, right?”
Kameron nodded. “Yeah,”
“I just came out here to make sure you guys were okay. Kaylie was wondering and a bit worried about where Jayde had gone so, Orlen and I set out to look for you guys.”
The inside of Jayde’s ears paled slightly as he realized Kaylie was wondering where he’d gone. “Ah, shit. I forgot to let her know I was going with the two of you,” he said, sheepishly.
“She’s a keeper, Jayde. Anyone who worries about you when you’re gone, but sends friends to look for you is worth it,” Kivenaal said.
Jayde only shook his head. “It’s too early to know,”
“Hey, I know the two of you have been doing the horizontal mambo, so, no, it’s not too early to know,” Kivenaal quipped.
“How do you… Never mind, I probably don’t want to know,” Jayde grumbled.
“I hardly sleep around here. And contrary to what you might believe, the two of you are just loud enough to be heard through that spell of yours if I’m sitting outside my tent, which is right next to yours. So, consider that next time,” Kivenaal said, lightly smirking.
Aedan raised an eyebrow and had a certain look on his face, but before he could say anything Kameron interjected. “You’re married and you’ve told me about your experiences in grotesque detail, so don’t give them that look. I didn’t tell you about mine even if I am also a family man.”
“Really? You just had to say that in front of them, didn’t you?”
Kivenaal laughed. “Whatever the two of you have done, I almost guarantee you, I’ve seen, or heard, or done it all. Yes, despite my form. Apparently there are people around who are curious about someone with multiple arms and fur.”
Jayde grimaced. “Okay, yeah, we definitely don’t need to hear any of your war stories either.”
Kivenaal chuckled, then clipped his plasma sword to his right hip and pulled his duster over it. “Well, Kaylie’s definitely not one to keep waiting. I’ve seen her kick her brother in the crotch a few times when sparring with him. Wouldn’t want to be on her bad side, and if she’s looking for Jayde, it won’t be long before she sends someone out to make sure I haven’t gone to sleep in a den full of Dyre.”
Nodding, Aidan began walking towards the entrance to the clearing. “That would be bad, and plus, Pavel and Malcolm decided to help out Rukari with dinner because, eating military MREs kind of gets boring after a while.”
With that, the five of them began their journey back to the camp.
Kivenaal nodded, making sure he had everything before they left the clearing, and once he had his four pistols, his plasma sword, his duster, and his hat all back on, he followed the group back into the camp.
As soon as Jayde came out of the forest, Kaylie sprinted over to him and collided with him like a white-furred cannonball, knocking the wind out of him. “You should have told me that you and Kivenaal were leaving the camp. I’ve been looking all over for the two of you,” Kaylie said. “Rukari said he keeps smelling Dyre nearby.”
Kivenaal responded with, “Has Rukari forgotten that Oil Crisis has a couple of Dyre pups, and even when clean, they still smell like Dyre?”
“Yeah, I’m not sure Victor and his sister are a threat to anyone, unless its a pair of shoes or the seatback of a rear bench from a Union Magistrate.”
Kivenaal smirked. “So they’re about as wild as I’ve come to expect. They’ll gladly rip apart an old boot or pull half of the stuffing out of a car seat, but they know better than to claw or bite things that are alive,” Kivenaal said.
“Oh, guaranteed, if they’re hungry they have one hell of a good hunting instinct,” Jayde said, “Pups their size often take down turkeys.” he paused for a moment as he thought, then said, “So, the male is now Victor. Have you considered a name for the female yet?”
Kivenaal chuckled as he wandered back over toward the Bricksley, in a bit of a good mood after having gotten a little exercise in. He could hear the record player in the truck still quietly scraping away, playing another record as Malavera lounged back in the front bench seat, both heads resting lightly against the radio control console behind the seat.
Aidan turned to Jayde. “Well, not really, I still have to consult my wife about the names. I might have Malcolm open up a portal for me to our dimension and home world so I can speak with her.”
Jayde sighed. “That makes sense, I think you and your mate would be great parents.”
“Thanks.”
With that, the two teams gathered round the camp fire Rukari had set up and patiently waited for their dinner.
OOC NOTE:
After some careful consideration, I decided to improve the Union Magistrate now that more mods from 4.1 have been ported to 4.2. Most notably, the Magistrate is now very rusty like it should have been from the beginning, there are now wraparound markers on the tail lights and the headlights, the indicators are also now wraparound, headlights have been changed to fit the 1979 Malaise Regulations and the stuff in the roof rack has been rearranged to make space for stuff that I can't really replicate in automation without taking too long. I also cut the mufflers off because someone decided that the Magistrate needed more ground clearance (I'll include this in my next camp post)
1 Like
TEAM HILLBILLY ROLLERS
Earlier parts
PART 0.1 - A prologue to the prologue
PART 0.2 - Another piece of the prologue puzzle
PART 0.3 - Viva la IP 4Z!
PART 0.4 - Robotman
PART 0.5 - Interference problems
PART 0.6 - Can I play Tetris?
PART 0.7 - Tangerine and familiar
PART 1.0 - Now things got serious!
PART 1.1 - Hello, Thibault and friends!
PART 1.2 - Poor kitty
PART 1.3 - Curse you, Team Oil Crisis!
PART 1.4 - Interlude
PART 2.0 - Bird bird bird, bird is the word!
PART 2.1 - D. Head
PART 2.2 - Good night!
PART 3.0 - Freeway Rockstar
PART 3.1 - DISCO TJO DISCO HEJ
PART 3.2 - Van-Werewolf 1-0
PART 4.0 - Calm after the storm
PART 5.0 - Mirror mirror on the…oh, crap!
PART 5.1 - Hello, little puppies!
PART 6.0 - Speed
PART 6.1 - GIMME OXYGEN! (feat. Madrias)
PART 6.2 - Steamin’ hot! (feat. Elizipeazie)
PART 7.0 - The Kayak
PART 7.1 - Marie the valkyrie?
PART 7.2 - Vegetables
PART 7.3 - Time to tie things up.
PART 8.0 - The hangover
PART 8.1 - The new team member
PART 9.0 - From pink to brown
PART 9.1 - Co-op with Madrias and Elizipeazie
PART 9.2 - Where is Sonic?
PART 10.0 - First at last!
PART 10.1 - Co-op with Variationofvariables
PART 11.0 - Why is this van so damn fast?
PART 11.1 - Co-op with Madrias
PART 11.2 - Demons and dragons bullshit
"I am tired of this Demons and dragons bullshit now! I want to go home!", Andreas yelled.
"And I am tired of hearing you saying Demons and dragons bullshit!", Janne sighed. "Have you ever thought about the fact that it could be called, well, Dungeons and dragons maybe?"
"If you care about what it is named, you are as full of Demons and dragons bullshit yourself!", Andreas yelled.
"Relax, for fucks sake!", Janne answered. “I don’t care whatever you say, I can sense that you are scared!”, he waited for a couple of seconds and continued, “and so can the dyre, so you better calm down if you don’t want to become their breakfast!”, he said and laughed.
"Yeah, you are really good at calming me down. REALLY good!", Andreas said with a great deal of sarcasm.
Jayde was only looking at their fighting and when they finally had calmed down, he told them to go and check in the back of the van.
"Yeah, Marie is passed out here", Janne said. "Not that the chances for that happening was actually low…"
"I CAN’T BELIEVE THIS! I WANT TO GO HOME! HOW COULD HE KNOW?", Andreas yelled, close to the border of a breakdown.
"Now, can you just admit that you have seen magic in action, several times? And have it hurt you this far? No. It has repaired our oil pan, cleaned up our interior and now repaired our windshield. Why are you nagging?", Janne sighed and shook his head.
Someone that did not know Marie probably could have suspected that she was beyond rescue, but the condition was not really unknown in this team, and she would probably be fine the next morning.
"How the fuck could she manage to drink all this beer in such a short amount of time?", Janne said with confusion in his voice.
"So, Jayde, USE YOUR DAMN MAGIC TO MAKE HER SOBER AGAIN!", Andreas yelled.
"You should really do like Janne says and calm down!", Jayde told Andreas. "No, it is very much against my principles to use magic on another person unless if it is a matter of life and death. And from what I have seen, Marie have survived worse conditions than this."
"Do you really want her sober?", Janne asked. "It is after all very calm this way."
"Yeah", Andreas said, "but I don’t want to be here when she wakes up."
"By the way…", Janne said, "Do you realize that you have more or less admitted that magic exists and works by now?"
"STOP THAT DEMONS AND DRAGONS BULLSHIT!", he answered.
"OK, I give up!", Janne said. "By the way, where is Sonic?"
"I don’t care about that spikey little pest!", Andreas said. "Enjoy that he is gone, just let him go!"
"No fucking way!", Janne said. "You can’t start feeding a wild animal and stop all of a sudden. We have to find him…"
TO BE CONTINUED
OOC
Jayde used with permission from @Madrias
If someone wants to encounter Sonic by now, feel free to do it (but don’t hurt him, lol)
3 Likes