i’m not exactly sure as to how, or if, i should react to this, given that my team noticed exactly none of that happening
still a good read 
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Nah, main reason I tagged you was not for interaction but mainly to notice you about that it happened.
I still haven’t really thought out the story but… 
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Somewhere in the Garda Province, Crugandr.
Local time: 5:15 Moon - 7:70 Moon
Weather: Still hot as hell.
The Great Escape
The Magistrate hurtled across the camp, the engine roaring as it pulled the weight of the olive drab station wagon with it. Almost all the other teams had left, but K’mino had other plans than to be left behind. In the rear view mirror of the Dione, Tim sees the green boat complete a spectacular powerslide as it flew around the corner.
“K! Make sure you keep that foot planted, We’ve got to keep going until that fuel gauge shows a quarter of the primary tank left.” Aedan called from the back of the car.
“I’ll try my best. But there’s no guarantees.”
Meanwhile, Orlan was barely holding himself together, horrified that he was the reason that several people almost died. An idiot, a total idiot. Why did he have to go into the woods, why shoot at something that wasn’t trying to kill him.
“I’m an idiot.” He muttered, somberly. “Nothing but a fool.”
Over the sound of the car driving and the tires on the road, his brother somehow overheard him. “You aren’t an idiot, you made a mistake, it happens.” Aedan whispered
“But I almost got us and everyone else killed.”
“Hey, don’t worry about that, all of us got away safely. You saw it yourself.”
“I don’t trust myself anymore, I almost killed you guys twice before. I collapsed the bridge we were standing on, lost control of our ship, and now this.” Orlan explained, “My own friends nearly died then and they almost did today, its a disgrace what I have done.”
Aedan opened his mouth to speak but was interrupted.
“I opened fire on that wolf just because it stood up, an unjustified attack on something that didn’t even try to harm me.”
The sounds of the engine, the gravel pebbles bouncing off the car and sound of the tire filled the cabin and the silence remained for most of the journey. It took twenty minutes for Aedan to speak up and change the topic.
“Pavel? Where is Whiskers?”
Pavel looked at him and a meow came from one of the rifle crates, to which he pointed. “In… there. I didn’t want her running off into the woods and being eaten. I saw what happened to the cat our friends in the Bricksley befriended.”
Acknowledging the answer with the nod Aedan looked at Malcolm. “Speaking of which, Did we bring everything?”
Malcolm nodded. “Yes, everything that I saw that didn’t look like a stick or a pebble I tossed in the back. Hell, maybe I did throw a few rocks and sticks in. I double checked before we left.”
“I suggest we try to get some sleep. I reckon three hours of sleep aren’t enough for anyone.”
Everyone except for K’mino murmured in agreement. Despite this suggestion, the adrenaline kept the sleep away from them, and when it started to settle in, every small creak and bump snatched it away from them. The Magistrate continued to push on through the night, with the occasional rattle from the roof rack, creaking from the suspension, and the gravel and dirt bouncing off the underside and the fenders.
The 25 minutes of silence were broken by a question from K’mino. “How much further do we have to go?”
“Probably 90 miles? I’m not sure.” said Aedan. “I’m sure we aren’t last.”
K’mino glanced in the mirror. “But it does look like–.”
Suddenly, out of the blue Malcolm gasped.
“K’mino! Watch the road!”
“Huh? Oh Shit!”
The front wheels locked up, but to no avail as the Magistrate jolted violently and something tumbled under the wheels. The car continued for another four feet before it came to a stop, and everyone on board climbed out.
Orlan was horrified at what had just transpired. “You hit one of them!”
K’mino did not respond, only turning around and getting into the car’s passenger side.
“Guys? I have something to tell you. That wolf we just hit was a mother.”
The three remaining teammates ran around to the back of the Magistrate. There they saw the scene of horror, the Dyre’s corpse was laying in the road and there was blood streaked down the gravel road. Almost immediately Orlan spotted the two smaller beings laying next to the corpse, and he quickly fumbled for his sidearm, but something stopped him. He was back in the forest with the Dyre, it was curious, it wanted to observe him, not at all attempting to threaten or kill him. No threat at all, just like these two. The thought was cut off as Pavel placed a hand on his shoulder and shook his head. Looking down, the USP was no longer in the holster, but in his hand. Orlan turned away quickly, struggling to pull himself together and climbed back in the car, horrified that he nearly killed something that wasn’t a threat again.
Aedan sighed, walked over and picked up the two Dyre pups.
A look of concern flashed through Pavel’s eyes. “Are you sure its wise to bring them into the next camp?”
“We killed their mother, the least we can do is to protect them. Can you drive?”
“No, Twisted my ankle when I was trying to get back to the car.”
“Malcolm, what’s the damage?”
“Radiator’s been knocked loose and I’ve secured it back in position with a bungee cord. But, its leaking. I did reconnect some hoses but I don’t know how long it’s gonna last.”
“It needs to last us just until we get to the next campsite. You drive, Pavel twisted his ankle, Orlan and K’mino are traumatized, and I’ve got these two.”
Malcolm obeyed without hesitation got in the car and started the engine. Aedan put the two pups the back with Pavel and Orlan and moved the corpse off the road as best he could. He returned, climbed into the back and shut the rear hatch with out a word. The team then resumed the journey and continued driving through the night in silence, hopeful that they would be safe at the next campsite.
To Be Continued (Like Always) (This one is a little more haphazardly written as I have a bit of a creative block today.)
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YEAH, SOME FOLKS INHERIT STAR-SPANGLED EYES THEY SEND YOU DOWN TO WAR AND WHEN YOU ASK 'EM, "HOW MUCH SHOULD WE GIVE?" THEY ONLY ANSWER, "MORE, MORE, MORE" IT AIN'T ME, IT AIN'T ME I AIN'T NO MILITARY SON, SON IT AIN'T ME, IT AIN'T ME I AIN'T NO FORTUNATE ONE, ONE IT AIN'T ME, IT AIN'T ME I AIN'T NO FORTUNATE ONE IT AIN'T ME, IT AIN'T ME I AIN'T NO FORTUNATE ONEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE NO NO NO NO TURUNNNNNNNNNNN DURUNNNNNNNNNNNNN DURUNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN DURUNNNNNNNNNNNNN DURURN
TEAM BLAZERS
In the dead of the night as the gunfire raged on through the lush undergrowth of the alien jungle, the rest of Blazers managed to get a good night’s sleep in their tent, completely oblivious to the warring state that occurred with all the other teams. It was indeed only the rest of them, one blonde haired figure on the other hand, dealt with a certain matter as the dark raged on, and not long after when the air continued to smell of smoke, blood, and gunpowder, Watson rested himself on the Yamada’s door, clutching his 1848 Colt close to him. He pulled out a pipe from his coat, which almost seemed as though it had appeared from thin air, and disappeared from the same way, he lit it up and the scent of tobacco pierced his nostrils as smoke rose all around him, and for the first time in a while the cigarette had a far more bitter taste than usual.
Watson was worn out, much more than necessary. He secured his firearm back into its holster, and pulled out the faded gold stopwatch from his pocket. Still, the device didn’t budge, stuck in the same time as it was back in Negros, the hour hand pointed just after two, and the minute hand before three. The air all around him was a distinct kind of thick, embedded with embers of forces that felt familiar, but were completely distant.
Stuffing the watch back into his pocket, he sighed a puff of smoke as he tossed the still-lit pipe somewhere, where like his coat, it materialized into an existence unknown to everyone but him. He got up from where he leaned onto the vehicle, and covered a cough that originated seemingly from deep within his chest, and when he pulled his hand away, a splatter of deep crimson revealed itself on his pale palms.
And yet, he seemed unfazed as he simply shook it off his hand, with the ferrous liquid landing on the ground below. Still coughing, he looked around the clearing carefully, making sure not a single soul would ever bear witness to him, pointing his hand towards where a square depression was in the tropical gravel, he whispered words in an language unfamiliar. A blue haze took shape before him, slowly and gradually taking the form of a cheap hiking tent one would find at any regular department store. Once again, he coughed out loud, without covering his mouth a crimson red liquid fell out onto the ground, and dissipated within seconds. With his task apparently accomplished, Watson headed out towards the lush jungle before him.
Not long after, the rest of Blazers woke up from what they felt was possibly the best night they had had since their arrival to Crugandr, with Charlotte comfortably taking her place within Romulo’s arms, and Ga’araiya having made a makeshift pillow of Emily’s bosom. They woke up feeling far more energized than they could’ve been, but despite their bodies now being in good condition, something did not seem right at all. Someone was missing from inside the tent.
No stranger to them was Watson being the early bird, but instead of them being awoken by his loud cackling telling everyone to wake, they were instead met with a soft bestirring as they all got up at the same time. Romulo was the first to speak up between the four of them as he made his way towards the tent’s entrance. “Where’d that blonde bastard go this… time…” Romulo’s voice trailed off as he opened the tent up and found the morning still hadn’t come, and there sat a collapsed Watson leaning next to the Yamada, clenching the old revolver in his holster and his white dress shirt stained with an unusual tint that reeked of iron. Watson’s eyelids slowly blinked open, revealing his light blue eyes as they looked back into Romulo’s, and a smug look crept up on his face.
“You’ve awoken, it seems.” He coughed. “I bestow upon you a good night’s sleep and you still choose to call me by the term ‘bastard’. You do seem quite unappreciative of what I’ve provided.”
Romulo immediately rushed towards Watson’s side, patting him around to make sure he wasn’t injured anywhere, and indeed he wasn’t. The bloodstains on the white dress shirt had dried, and he couldn’t sense any other injury on him. “Tangina naman… fuck did you do this time? You sure you’re not hurt anywhere? Why’s it still night time?”
“Do slow down with the questions. My body is in a better state than it could have ever been.” Watson sat up. “Be that as it may, I’m not quite sure about the other teams.” He glanced around, the rest of the campsite seemed to be in a rush, and some of them had the same blood on their weapons and clothing as Watson. Charlotte emerged from the tent as well as the other girls, and immediately a disturbing reek had flown into her sensitive nostrils, and she began frantically looking all around.
“Looks like Princess Katzen knows something that we may not.”
“Dyres…” She said as the emotion of horror clouded her face. “They’re… everywhere…” She pointed her gaze towards Romulo, with clear distress in her eyes. “We-”
Before Charlotte could say another word, a deep disturbing howl sounded from the thick bush around them, followed by more howls that sounded as though a hunting pack had gathered around them. Rustling came from everywhere, and Charlotte’s fur stood up, her claws sheathed themselves, and her ears retracted, as though she was ready to pounce back and fight.
Watson got up from where he sat. “An announcement- or rather, an order was made for us to all evacuate this campsite. It’s not a very safe place where we are at right now. It would be best we make a move quickly. Other teams are already going.” He said, nearly collapsing again as he clenched his arm, muttering some incomprehensible words.
“Jesus fuck, man. You’re not doing fine at all. Get in the car- now!” He ordered Watson, who complied as he had nothing else to do anyway in such a situation. “Charlotte! You’ve got the notes?” He looked over towards the black feline who still seemed on guard, but calmed down at the mention of her name. “I don’t, but I have an idea of what the next stage should be like, I can sit in the passenger’s seat next to you, and we’ll be fine.” She says shaking her head. Romulo tossed the keys towards Charlotte, signalling for her to start the car as he made his way towards the tent, ordering Emily and Ga’araiya to get into the car, and maybe tend to Watson if he needed anything, they quickly complied as well as Romulo hastily folded the tent up, but something made him pause.
He stared into the dark jungle, and felt something stare back at him, deep orange eyes that pierced right into his soul, and muttering unfamiliar noises as it rustled away, leaving him staring into a deep darkness yet again. Charlotte called out to him, and Romulo immediately got back to folding the tent back, never pointing himself away from the bushes where he saw the horrifying reminder of the beasts that lurk in a world very much alien to him.
Not long after, the tent was finally placed into the Yamada’s rear compartment, and with the vehicle started up, they made their way out of the campsite and rushed out towards the gravel road, with Romulo just barely able to follow along Charlotte’s vague instructions, but a slight mistake sent the team’s anxiety levels high, as a sharp pop sounded from the vehicle’s front right.
“That fucking tyre!” Romulo exclaimed as he pulled the car off towards the side of the road, which thankfully was wide enough for him to walk around without getting ran over by the other teams which were all making their way out of the campsite as well. He looked towards the tyre, it was a goner, the sidewall had been torn right through, and a claw of the animal that Charlotte had mentioned earlier was embedded deep into the rubber, causing threads to have been strewn about everywhere. He looked around, and in the distance behind him he saw a disfigured, severed hand sitting on the side of the road, the blood still looking fresh from the point of severance, and a claw missing from one of its fingers. He felt as though he was about to throw up, but he held it in and asked Charlotte for assistance in changing the tyre out.
With the two’s teamwork, they quickly managed to jack the front right of the car up, take off the damaged wheel, and shove one of the spares sitting on the tailgate onto the hub. Romulo initially wanted to just leave the damaged tyre on the side of the road, seeing as there was no real vulcanization shop anywhere in this world they were in, but after a quick scolding by Charlotte, he mounted it back onto the tailgate, and the team once again set off on the muddy gravel road that ran parallel to the river. He stepped on the accelerator pedal which got them up to speed quickly.
Anxiety was high in the car, but still Romulo and Charlotte remained focused on the road ahead of them, the foglights Romulo had installed were working like a Charm, and helped to illuminate the thick dark fog ahead of them, but what it also did was show the true extent of the alien creatures that lined the sides of the road, every few metres a flash of orange would reflect back towards them, and shivers were sent down both of their spines as the howls continued on.
Up ahead, a pair of taillights glowed through the fog, and it slowly approached more and more, and Romulo was forced to back off the throttle until the road opened up a bit more, allowing him to overtake the slower vehicle. He recognised the car, a white van with a large number one printed on the side, a vehicle which had passed the team earlier whilst they were changing the tyre out. He flashed his headlights as he passed, before speeding up and having the van’s faint glow slowly fade away in the thick fog.
The trepidation the team was going through kept everyone awake throughout the drive, not helped by whatever Watson had done to wake everyone up earlier than they would’ve. The events right now were largely inexplicable, Watson’s bloodstained shirt, his seemingly injured arm, the creatures that lay hidden in the dark, lurking through the road, these were things that the team were never prepared to deal with, but now enraptured with the horrors that they bore witness to, they were ready to adapt with the situations ahead.
As they slowly crept along the road, the fog was beginning to slowly fade, but still the night was dark and filled with an eerie inscrutable dread, which sharply turned into an intense consternation upon Romulo’s catching of a flash that ran across the road. He slowed down slightly, scanning the road ahead before continuing back onto the pace he was going at before. He looked into the rear view mirror, in the distance a feint glow of another vehicle’s headlamps shone through above the passenger’s heads, and they didn’t seem to be gaining on them. Through the rear-view mirror, he had also seen the condition of Watson, who was now fast asleep, his head leaning on the headliner right after the door as the seat angled backwards. He could see the man was breathing, but was unfazed by all the bumpiness of the road. Ga’araiya seemed to have a perturbed look clouding her small face as she continuously looked up and down the collapsed blonde man. She rested her palm on Watson’s arm, the same arm he was clenching earlier, and a soft blue glow emanated from it, which quickly faded away, and the stressed look on Watson’s face gave way to a calmer emotion on him. Romulo briefly met eyes with Ga’araiya through the rear-view mirror, before he continued to look back onto the road ahead.
After a couple of hours with an ambience of thick trepidation in the air, the team finally arrived at the campsite, now closer towards the town than in the middle of thick flora, numerous cars were already there, some of which he’d not seen arrive before them. He parked the vehicle close to the river yet again, and took a minute to rest on the driver’s seat for a bit.
“Ray, can you sleep right now…?” Charlotte tugged on his sleeve.
He simply shook his head. “No, in fact, I feel very much energized. I assume you feel the same, don’t you?” He looked at her, and she nodded back.
Charlotte took a quick glance towards Watson, who was still asleep in his seat. “I don’t think we woke up naturally. It felt as though it were a magical spell used upon us. It didn’t seem like the type that people of this world would use, however.”
Romulo remained ecstatic, staring into the vehicle’s windshield at the river. There was a long pause before he would say anything, and when he did, his tone shifted to that of pure vexation.
“You know, Charlotte…”
It was clear in his intonation, intentional or not, and there was a sense of lassitude as he uttered his words of displeasure. No longer was he calm about things, and for the first time in a while, he’d felt as though he’d been peeved of any joyful emotion that could ever remain.
“…I’m pretty fucking tired of magic.”
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RK Series Racing; Stage 3 Camp
NOVEL WARNING
The entirety of this post was written in collaboration with @Madrias. His post will seamlessly connect to mine as we have managed to barrel past the 32k character limit.
Duskriver Village Camp; about 2 sun
As the Anhultz Dione rolls up to the camp, it slows down and stops only a few feet short of impacting the Bricksley of team Shift Happens. By the time Connor had shut down the car, the three humans were already asleep, recovering from the rude awakening that was the battle with the Dyre the previous night.
The team gets up at a little after 2 sun the next morning, taking longer than usual due to the less-than-optimal sleeping position all three of them found themselves in.
Constantin, once again, wakes up first, but is pegged in the car by the still-asleep Valentin next to him, as his door and window won’t open to allow egress on that side.
About 20 minutes later, Tim wakes up as well, intensely stretching to loosen up a bit. This results in Valentin kind-of waking up as well, transitioning from true sleep to a state of half-asleep slumber.
Tim immediately exits the car to extend his stretching, the slam of the door kicking Valentin the rest of the way out of sleep.
The zombie that currently is in the rear right also more or less falls out the rear right door, managing to not hit the deck completely. He then joins the stretching session, though with substantially more structure behind it, starting at the neck and working his way downwards.
With the team now awake (mostly, anyway) they head out back and prepare breakfast, mostly in separation, as neither Tim nor Valentin seem mentally capable of meaningful conversation.
With that done, Constantin was the first to speak to the others, who in the meantime “warmed up” enough to be considered truly awake.
“I gotta go talk to the guys up front for a bit. I’ll be back soon.”, he exclaims, the others nodding in acknowledgement as he turns around and walks up to the Bricksley.
Back at the rear end of the Brick™, Valentin and Tim were once again discussing the events of last night, albeit with much less shouting…
“So you left all of us out there to die to save your own ass?”, Valentin accused Tim, still not happy about it.
“I was scared shitless and my brain went: here danger, need go, car can go. Thinking straight ain’t trivial when there’s a goddamn fight going…”, Tim replies. In hindsight, he knew that what he did was very much not cool with anyone. “And from what i know, you weren’t much better off, all curled up and such…”
“None of us were well-off… Can’t say i was mentally straight either.”, Valentin confirms, the thought of having his hair tugged halfway across the car prompts him to get his hairbrush out. He then starts going about trying to un-messify his hairdo as he always does.
Valentin and Tim were busy killing time and venting a bit by playing some Rummy (
;local names may include: 
Rommé; 
Rami; 
Jolly/ Rummy), when an enthusiastic Kaylie dragged Kayden and Malavera towards them.
“Oh umm… Hi.”, Valentin notes, being the first to see the group of three approaching. He still wouldn’t say that he’d be perfectly comfortable around them, but at least he knew some of them well enough to know that neither of them were an immediate threat.
“Well hello. Wanna join?”, Tim adds as he shuffles over to increase the available space in their little circle.
“Hope you have brought some chairs… we only have those two and the rear bumper…”
Kaylie stared at the table, recognizing all of the signs of a game in progress. “Don’t let us interrupt your game, we can wait. Plus, let’s face it, we don’t really know many card games. I’ve picked up Go Fish, but I know that’s a children’s game in the United States,” Kaylie admitted. “That, and no matter what we play, we’d have to teach Malavera, because he’s never really had a chance to play cards with anyone.”
Kayden settled down onto the ground, just glad to get off of his feet for a moment, and Malavera did the same. Kaylie looked around, then decided, tentatively, to sit on the Dione’s bumper, clearly testing to make sure she wasn’t going to break anything. Then, after a moment of thought, she looked at Malavera and asked, “You wouldn’t happen to have a spare shirt, would you?”
Malavera sighed, then shook his left head. “No. And I’m not giving you mine.”
Kayden chuckled and said, “Kaylie, you’re not going to scratch their paint. Your chrome is too smooth for that.”
Constantin walks up once more and retrieves his equipment, namely bow and quiver, from the trunk which, to his surprise, was still broken, but not mentioned yet by anyone. Being in a self-imposed time crunch, he doesn’t mention it either, instead electing to report his intentions to the others:
“I’ll head into town to get some replacement arrows. I’ll be back later.”, he says, already on the way back towards Jayde waiting near the Bricksley.
“Copy. See ya!”, Valentin responds, unintentionally slipping into the communications code he usually uses when cycling out with some local friends.
Him and Tim return to the game, which Tim ends up winning my a small margin.
With Valentin having lost, he was in charge of cleaning up the playing field.
He then goes to sort the cars by back-face color, separating the two 52 card decks from each other.
“Go Fish? Never heard of that.”, Valentin remarks, still sorting blue back-faces from red ones.
“Me neither”, Tim adds, despite being in a better position of knowing it, being an American and all.
“If you wanna play that, you’ll need to explain”, Valentin says as he finishes sorting and holds the blue stack of cars up towards Kaylie.
Kaylie nodded, then said, “It’s really a fairly simple game, as far as I’m aware. Everyone gets dealt five cards, the rest go face down in a stack in the middle. Any matching numbers, you put in front of you, face up, in pairs. On your turn, you pick a card from your hand, pick a person, and ask if they have that number. If they do, they give you that card and you get another turn. If they don’t, they say ‘Go Fish,’ and you take a card from the deck. Then the next person goes. This might just be a variant we learned, but we’ve played by the rule that the game ends when one person runs out of cards, and whoever has the most matches wins. It leads to slightly quicker games.”
“So, then, who would go first?” Malavera asked.
“Typically, either oldest or youngest first. Then it’s either clockwise or counterclockwise, depending on table preference,” Kayden said. “Whenever we play,” he said, nudging Kaylie’s left arm, “we have to flip a coin for who goes first because we’re twins.”
“Let’s do youngest first,” Kaylie said, smiling. “I mean, Kayden and I are, well, both of us are 67 back home, but we’d be about 102 years old if we used Earth years.”
“I’m 51,” Malavera said.
“On Khalara Five, yes, you are. You’re 357 years old on Earth,” Kayden said.
Malavera groaned. “Fine, I’m the eldest, but I’m counting that as a technicality,” he said, shaking both heads. “I still think it should be who feels the oldest.”
“Says the guy who’s older than some countries,” Kaylie quipped with a smirk on her face.
“Tim’s starting then.”, Valentin remarks, setting the game up in the way Kaylie described instead of handing the deck over for her to do it. Strangely enough, the wildly disproportionate claim of age didn’t bother him as much as he thought it would. His mind simply went: “Well if they think they’re THAT old, so be it… With all the gender and sexuality stuff it isn’t surprising.”
A set of five cards was dealt to each player, with the remaining 32 cards forming the face-down drawing pile.
“Yeah… 19 does undercut 23.” Tim adds, marveling at what he thought was immense dedication to their roles.
“U got a King?”, he starts, looking up from his own set of cards and towards Kayden. He didn’t know his name, but also didn’t care enough to ask.
Kayden grimaced as he handed over the king he had in his hand.
Kaylie chuckled, then said, “Well, you get to go again.”
Malavera tried to relax, holding his handful of cards in his left hand and resting his right hand on the ground. Being around two strangers was mildly stressful for him, even if he loosely knew one of them from talking before.
Kayden fished around in his pocket and slid a slim, black rounded rectangle out of it, taking a quick scan of his cards and trying to get Nova, his AI assistant, to help him decide who would be best to ask when, or if, he got a turn.
Kaylie spotted this and lightly punched her brother in the shoulder. “Hey, Kayden, we’ve agreed on this on the ship, no AI assistance in card games!” Kaylie said.
Kayden set the smartphone-shaped device down on his right knee and rubbed his shoulder, mere moments before Nova herself materialized as a six-inch tall golden tigress in an elegant dress standing on the screen. Nova put her hands on her hips, looked over at Kaylie, and said, “Oh, I’m just the AI now? What did I do to you to lose the first name basis?”
“Nothing, Nova. Was trying not to freak out our new friends here,” Kaylie said.
Nova spun around on top of the sleek armor-glass screen, spotting Tim and Valentin in the process. “Oh. My apologies. I am Nova, a Class 3 personal assistant to Kayden,” she said, motioning to Kayden as she did so. “Forgive me for my diminutive stature, projecting myself at my preferred size would generate more heat than I can safely dissipate in this atmosphere, and I doubt that I could convince Kayden to assemble his armor frame for my personal use.”
“Yeah, not happening, Nova. You still haven’t apologized for kicking me in the ass the last time,” Kayden replied.
“To be fair, you did deserve it,” Kaylie and Nova said at nearly the same time. Nova followed up with, “See, even your sister agrees with me.”
“Deserve it for what?” Kayden asked.
“Trying to use me to gain an advantage in Go Fish. So, I guess that means when I get the chance next, I owe you another kick in the ass,” Nova said, giving a light laugh before sitting down on the screen. “Don’t mind me, I’ll just watch the game.”
“Got one!”, Tim cheerily shouts, placing his pair of Kings face-up onto the dirt in front of him.
“Need a seven”, he continues, now looking at Malavera.
As Kayden pulled out what looked like a phone, he didn’t really pay much attention to it until Nova appears on the screen. This also grabs the attention of Valentin, who isn’t all that surprised anymore that Nova assumed the shape of another Tigralian, though the digital nature made it far less unnerving than the initial contact with Kaylie was.
“Looks like you have your own, digitized spin-off of Connor, it seems.”, he notes, not really knowing what exactly Nova was other than some glorified form of Siri. “Well hello there.”, he speaks, leaning forward to get an idea of how detailed the projection of her was.
Upon hearing about Kaylie using Nova to cheat Go Fish, Valentin wasn’t exactly impressed, though didn’t say anything about it.
Malavera looked over his cards, then shook his right head. “Go fish,” Malavera said, watching as Tim reached to the pile of cards.
Nova seemed to pause for a split moment to ‘think,’ then responded with, “Cyberlife model RK 800, serial number 313 248 317 - 60. Designation, ‘Connor.’ I believe it is possible we have met, but that information would be on my better half. Sorry, my local storage is a little limited.” When Valentin leaned in to get a better view of her, and said hello, Nova smiled. “If you’d like to see me better, please, just ask. I don’t mind scaling up a little for a short time.”
Kayden chuckled. “If you need to, feel free to pick up Nova’s handheld. It may be a little bit warm, but at least then, you’re not bending over quite so far.”
“And don’t worry, I won’t use that to read your cards. And even if I did, I’d give Kayden the wrong information anyway,” Nova said, before turning momentarily to face Kayden. “Because you know better than to use AI support in games. Seriously, you’re never going to improve if you don’t try,” Nova said, pointing a finger at him.
Kaylie just chuckled as her brother grimaced and pulled his head backwards as if he’d just been scolded by their mother. “Yeah, this is classic Nova. We have to restrict her to her Class 3 mode for games because her Class 7 ship-board AI is a master strategist.”
Nova, not willing to let Kaylie steal the show, cocked her head with a smirk and said, “My other chassis is a starship,” in the same tone of voice one might read a bumper sticker in.
Duskriver Village; about 2 sun
The bed of the Bricksley stayed a complete disaster overnight, getting worse as various needed items were dragged out of it, often overturning items or spilling other boxes and bins in the process.
For the first time since they had started, all five tents were used and the Bricksley remained empty. Jayde and Kaylie’s tent remained shrouded in the translucent purple orb, blocking all sound from leaving their tent, though the two of them could still hear what was going on outside. Rukari slept lightly, on alert even though he was asleep. Kivenaal was exhausted and sleeping heavily, having barely gotten out of his clothes before collapsing on top of the sleeping bag. Kayden occasionally growled in his sleep, albeit quietly, and infrequently enough that it could be mistaken for snoring. Malavera, on the other hand, couldn’t sleep and spent a few long minutes pacing the camp until he eventually got tired enough to go to bed.
At 2 Sun, however, things were different. Malavera was the first out of his tent, followed by Rukari. Kivenaal woke up slowly and got out, sitting on a log and just trying to let his brain get up to speed. Kayden crawled out of his tent and looked over at the truck, half expecting to see Kaylie or Jayde crawl out of it. Instead, the purple bubble dissipated and Jayde could be heard grumbling, “Ow. Kaylie, get off of my arm.”
“Sorry, Jayde,” Kaylie said, getting up and getting dressed, this time in a light tan tank top and denim shorts before crawling out of the tent. Jayde took a few minutes more, wandering out in light brown linen pants and a light tan shirt, not caring that they didn’t exactly match.
“It’s fine, Kaylie,” Jayde said, sitting down and helping Rukari prepare breakfast, mostly by providing a surprising amount of supplies.
“How the hell do you have fresh bacon and eggs in that bag, Jayde?” Kayden asked.
“Standard bag of holding with a stasis enchantment. If it’s fresh when it goes in, it’s fresh when it comes out,” Jayde responded, while Rukari fried the bacon in the pan, transferred it to everyone’s plates, then whipped up some scrambled eggs. Between the bacon, scrambled eggs, and one of Jayde’s loaves of piping-hot fresh bread, the team had a simple but satisfying breakfast.
“Right. We really have got to clean up that damn truck bed,” Malavera said. “It’s a real mess.”
“I could do a basic like-to-like sorting spell. Anything similar ends up in the same spot,” Jayde said.
“As long as you don’t sort everything into ‘junk,’ that should work,” Kayden said, chuckling. He then yowled as Kaylie grabbed Jayde’s staff and hit her brother on the butt with it. “Ow! What was that for?”
“He’s offering to make the job easier and you’re teasing him,” Kaylie replied. She let go of the staff as Jayde grabbed it, walked over to the truck, and focused his energy. Sure enough, things rapidly shuffled around in the bed, sorting by truck parts, weapon parts, ammunition (unfired, primitive, and expended each in three piles), clothing, weapons, and finally, camping supplies. With everything made at least a bit neater, though it would still have to be sorted through later, the truck bed was made a bit more presentable. Jayde scooped up all the spent brass and decided the best he could do with it was to compress it into an ingot, making it somewhat useful and a lot less of a mess. After that, he grabbed up the arrows as Constantin walked up to the truck.
“Good morning… allies.”, he goes, deliberately avoiding names as he simply doesn’t know most of them. He immediately goes straight to the point, as is customary with military-grade efficiency.
“We kept the others safe in that… conflict yesterday. Has been an honor to fight alongside you, despite apparent lack of firepower on my part.”, he speaks in a powerful, but also sincere tone while standing sort-of at attention.
As Constantin mentioned that he thought it was an honor to fight alongside them, standing at attention, it was Rukari who responded first, turning to face Constantin, standing to his full height, pulling his heeled boots together with a quiet click, and snapping both fists up to cover the twin hearts on the left side of his chest with a light thump. His brass tags quietly clinked from the force of the action, before Rukari said in a quiet voice, honed from years of duty, “The honor was mine.”
Jayde looked a bit surprised, knowing that not many people at all would outrank Rukari. However, Jayde quickly recovered and said, “From my perspective, there was no lack of firepower from you. I’ve fought alongside archers. You matched the best I’ve seen for firing speed and surpassed them for accuracy, and I know that isn’t easy.”
Kaylie, on the other hand, went a bit pale and tried to turn to hide her chrome left arm, now marked with a bright golden scar. Jayde, however, saw this and pulled Kaylie closer so she couldn’t hide her arm. He turned to her and again reminded her, “That arm saved your life. Also, in all the time you shared with me, not once have you harmed me with it.”
“Still hate that I killed two Dyre,” Kaylie said. “I thought I was going to knock the first one out. The second one, I didn’t mean to tear his throat out.” Kaylie had tears in her eyes as she buried her face in Jayde’s chest, and Jayde just wrapped an arm over her back to support her, understanding.
“No one sane likes killing,” Kivenaal said, rummaging through the toolbox and putting some of their supplies away.
Malavera, likewise, looked over to Constantin and said, “If anyone was lacking effectiveness last night, it was me. I shot one and knocked the other one out.”
“I’ve never been in a battle before,” Kayden admitted, “and if I never have to face a fight like that again, I’ll be quite happy.”
Initially, Constantin is rather confused by Rukaris reaction, but it soon dawned on him that he was in the Military as well. He stiffens up his posture and executes a textbook salute, albeit “earth-style”. What he wasn’t sure of was Rukaris rank, as him saluting first indicates Constantin being of higher rank than Rukari. The fact that he did not wear uniform or other rank insignia did not help either.
He maintains posture during the time in which Jayde compliments his archery, nodding in acknowledgement once he is done doing so.
Constantin also took note of Kaylie and knew how it feels to be a murderer, even if it was in self-defense.
“You are very much not the only one mentally affected by this.”, he calmly states, taking a step aside and motioning to the remainder of the team sat near the Tangerine Tank, with Tim and Valentin apparently playing a card game of sorts. Though Constantin wasn’t sure as to what the others knew about what Valentin did during the battle.
Rukari gave a polite nod and left his salute first, and as Constantin mentioned to Kaylie that she wasn’t the only one mentally affected by the battle, he spoke up, “We all were in different ways, and all have our ways of handling the aftermath. I have seen many battles in my time, the worst are always the ones up close.”
Kaylie slowly started to relax as Jayde held her, and as she regained her mental strength, she tried to put a brave face on and just get through with this meeting. “Most of us were in the fight, trying to keep everyone safe,” Kaylie said, her voice still a little shaky. “I wasn’t expecting to be in the middle of it.”
Kayden stepped closer to his twin sister and rubbed her natural right shoulder lightly. “None of us expected to be in the middle of that, sis. Look on the bright side, no casualties on our side.”
“Depends on your definition of casualty,” Malavera said. “If you mean deaths or physical injuries, then yeah, no casualties. If, however, you mean everyone got out unharmed, even mentally? No, we have casualties. Kaylie killed two in self defense. Tim stole the Dione and went on a joyride mid-fight. Valentin’s had a rough night behind the Elbrus. Gods only know how fucked up Orlan’s going to be considering he started that mess. Aedan had to face one down as it tried to kill him,” Malavera added. When Kaylie, Kayden, and Rukari stared at him, he sighed. “Two heads, guys. I can look through a thermal scope and still see my surroundings. That and I barely did anything in that fight.”
Constantin knew that it would take a while for some people to truly recover from the fight, though standing there wailing about it after the fact surely ain’t helping.
“Let’s not get caught up in the past and look ahead.”, Constantin tries to motivate the others present.
“I see you even found the time to clean up afterwards. Commendable to stick to your own rules.”, he adds, looking at the bundle of arrows Jayde was holding.
“Cannot say that about myself, recently…”, Constantin continues even further, remembering how he lied to Valentin about having seen worse in the military.
Jayde nodded, then handed Constantin the arrows. “I can’t tell how good they are. I’ve done some archery in the past, but I’m not good at it. Took a few classes a long while back when I got disappointed in archers who couldn’t hit their targets, and learned a whole new respect for the art of archery,” Jayde admitted. “Had an instructor who was left handed. I’m ambidextrous, but learned to shoot left handed.”
Kaylie looked over at Connor, Tim, and Valentin playing cards. “I wonder what game they’re playing,” she said, thinking out loud.
“Considering you cheat at Go Fish,” Kayden said, smirking.
“I do not! Those cards were stuck together and you know it,” Kaylie shot back.
“I know,” Kayden said, chuckling. He knew it had worked, his sister was no longer thinking about the battle.
Malavera shrugged. “I’ve never played cards. Never really had anyone to play any games with, and no one to teach me.”
Kaylie grinned, then grabbed Kayden and Malavera by their hands and practically dragged them over to the trio, with Kayden protesting the whole way that he hardly knew them, didn’t want to scare anyone, and wasn’t dressed enough to play cards.
“Twin Suns, Kay, it’s not like they’re playing strip poker, you big wimp,” Kaylie quipped at her brother. “Sorry about this, Valentin, if he’s scaring you. He’s probably more scared of you than you are of him,” Kaylie said, teasing her brother.
Kayden sighed. “In front of new people, Kaylie? Really?”
Malavera chuckled. “Don’t worry about Kayden, Valentin. He’s big, but, well, he’s Kaylie’s brother, and I know him well.”
Back at the truck, after Constantin had taken the arrows from Jayde, it was Kivenaal and Rukari who both realized they had weapons to clean after last night, and decided the cab of the truck was out-of-the-way enough to start cleaning. Rukari swabbed out the barrel of his murdaira while Kivenaal disassembled his four Colt Peacemakers, grumbling the whole time that he should have brought bigger guns.
Jayde, on the other hand, looked at Constantin and asked, “Do you have any way to check those arrows, or are we just going to have to go into town? Because if you need new ones, well,” Jayde paused for a moment, rummaging in the messenger-bag-sized pouch hanging at his side, then pulled out a bag of coins and handed it to Constantin, “at least now you’ll be able to pay for them. Any extra, you can keep. Best if your team has at least some of the coin of the realm.”
Jayde knew that the bag contained 80 silver Syrkals, the currency used all across Crugandr, and that if they had to buy anything, that would almost certainly be enough. “And don’t worry about repaying me. I’ve got enough that I can afford to give a little bit of coin away. At least this way, I know the coin isn’t going straight into the local tavern for a mug of ale.”
Constantin accepts the bundle of arrows and shuffles through them. The coinage is also accepted and promptly is stored in one of the multitude of pockets of his combat uniform trousers.
“First off, you took more from the field than i shot. Some of those aren’t even mine.”, he explains, discarding three arrows noticeably shorter than the remaining ones. He then goes about the remaining five, taking each one individually and mildly bending it a few times.
“The very bad ones are easy to filter. If you bend them a bit, and they break, they would’ve broken when you shoot them, fucking your bow in the process.” Constantin explains, just as one of the remaining arrows breaks in twain under the load. “See? That one was unsafe, as i call it.”
The remaining four pass the bend-test, which leads him to the next stage of filtering.
“Normally, i’d trial-shoot the remaining ones to see if they still behave as i expect them to. Though it’d take the better part of an hour to test that, so i’ll just see if i can get replacements. They are consumables anyways.”, he continues, mentally flagging all of them as altered, which is his way of saying that the arrow’s characteristics don’t match his expectations anymore.
“Let me get my stuff and then we can go.”, he finally finished as he turns around on his heel to grab both his bow and quiver, together with the 8 remaining arrows stored within.
Jayde nodded as Constantin explained that he’d gathered up more than just Constantin’s arrows. “I didn’t have time to be picky, I just gathered up everything reasonably close,” Jayde mentioned. “Better to have cleaned up too much than to have not done enough.” As Constantin, however, explained how to spot bad arrows, Jayde smiled, glad to learn something new.
When Constantin headed back to the Dione, Jayde stayed near the Bricksley out of respect for Valentin, watching as Constantin got Kaylie to move at least enough that he could get his bow and quiver and not hit Kaylie with the hatch.
As Constantin returns back at the “pickup truck”, he took a few moments to free up both hands. To achieve this, his quiver is slung across his left shoulder, with it resting by his right thigh, just like he did when the Dyre battle happened. The bow, meanwhile, was also parked on the left, but was resting vertivally instead of going diagonally across his chest like the leather strap of his quiver does.
“I’m ready when you are”, Constantin states, now having finished the procedure and having both hands empty.
Jayde retrieved his staff from where he’d left it leaning against the Bricksley, then headed onward down the path to Duskriver Village, being careful across the wooden bridge crossing the river. “It’s slower here than down by Jaduvira, but try not to fall in,” Jayde said. “I can swim well enough to get you out again, but I’d rather keep dry if possible.”
He knew it was only a couple minute walk to get into the village, and knew that the fletcher and bowman were relatively close to the guard-house, which wasn’t far from the wooden wall they’d put up to keep the Dyre out. Almost instinctively, he found himself walking at Constantin’s left side, so that if he had a bad step and fell, he wouldn’t take Constantin down with him.
“Well… my workplace is a ship, so swimming capability is basically mandatory, as are rescue procedures if any seamen were to go overboard.”, Constantin chuckles, following the instruction of taking care to not break the bridge. Granted, he wasn’t overly heavy, but the bridge apparently wasn’t made with sturdiness in mind.
Not long after they cross the bridge, a violent sound, similar to someone breaking a 2x4 in half by jumping onto it, can be heard.
Said 2x4 wasn’t actually a 2x4, but instead Constantin’s bow, which after close to 4 years of near-constant use finally gave way.
As it breaks in half just above the grip-portion of it, splinters are sent away from the bow, most of which flying out back and away from him like tiny wooden pieces of shrapnel. Some, however, make their way into his skin on the back.
The bow’s string releases it’s tension, digging into his chest in the process.
After that, the bow leaves his shoulder entirely out the front, with the lower limb going out sideways and impacting Jayde’s walking stick as a result. It comes to rest in pieces, both limbs now only connected by the string at either end, the middle heavily splintered.
Immediately after, Constantin curly up in pain, the string having done substantially more initial harm than the splintering on the back near his left shoulder blade.
“[Swedish expletive]. Hnnngrgh…”, he groans, being caught completely off-guard by the sudden equipment failure, also curling up and crouching down to ease the pain just a little.
“Ah, a navy sailor, then,” Jayde said. “My apologies for assuming otherwise, I’ve met too many people who can’t swim.”
As Jayde heard the loud snapping crack, followed by the crash against his walking stick, Jayde swore in Valraad. “Skadu vi!” he said, moments before kicking the slightly-displaced end of his walking stick with his right foot, leading to an almost comical half-hopped step to keep his balance. As Constantin curled up in pain, and Jayde saw the broken bow laying on the ground, he put two and two together and realized what happened.
“Are you okay? If you need help getting those splinters out, let me know. I can’t do much for the pain,” Jayde said.
Constantin stays crouched down for the moment to recover from the pain.
A few Civilians roaming about the place look at the events from afar, without saying a word or offering help.
“I’m good… i think…”, he replies as the pain caused by the bow string subsides, though it left a very visible red imprint on his chest and parts of his shoulder. The splinters, though, were more of an issue.
He gets up and tries to reach for that one pesky splinter, managing to touch, but not quite extract it.
Multiple attempts with both arms from different angles prove futile, as his right arm isn’t long enough and his left one not getting there due to poor flexibility.
Not wanting to admit defeat, he keeps trying, but it was almost painfully obvious that he wasn’t getting that one out without outside help.
Jayde saw Constantin struggling with one rather troublesome splinter, then carefully removed it. “Friends do not let friends suffer,” Jayde said as a way of apologizing for not asking first. “If there’s any others you can’t reach, I’ll help,” he added.
As the crowd wandered around, Jayde sighed and shook his head lightly. “And this is why they need heroes,” Jayde muttered to himself, though loud enough that Constantin might be able to hear it, “No one wants to help each other. No one wants to get involved. Then evil takes root and someone has to cut it out.”
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Team Shift Happens
(As mentioned before, this was written in collaboration with @Elizipeazie and is split among a couple of posts because we shattered the 32k limit)
Duskriver Village, 2-and-10 Sun
The splinter removal was as successful as it was painful, ending in him flinching hard when the splinter made it’s way back out of his skin. Very minimal bleeding follows it out of the puncture wound.
The other part of what Jayde said was drowned out by Constantin’s focus on dealing with the pain both up front and in back. Well… the chest was more along the lines of heavily irritated than truly in pain, but the splinter would will linger for a while.
“Thank you”, he simply goes, collecting himself a bit before picking up the now-broken bow.
“[Swedish Expletive]. What a waste of money… Thought it’d do a bit longer than that.”, he grumbles. The bow may have seen heavy use, but he did not expect it to fail this early in it’s service life, let alone catastrophically.
“Well let’s hope the local bowyer has better stuff…”, he continues, visibly annoyed at the fact that his bow that set him back a hefty four-digit sum went bust.
“My apologies for the pain,” Jayde said, after Constantin thanked him. “As for wasted money, I would think otherwise. Given the situation, I’d guess at some point your bow took a good hit, probably while strung. At least, if there is one good thing from this, it’s that it broke now and not after we got back to camp with new arrows.”
When Constantin mentioned that he hoped the local bowyer has better supplies, Jayde smiled. “There are two here in town who compete with each other regularly to see who makes better bows. I have one for… Well, my other form,” Jayde said, pulling the unstrung bow out of his bag of holding to show Constantin, “made by Kiyaru, here in Duskriver Village, as a gift from Queen Nuwala of Miravall.” He then put the large bow away and said, “If I had to trust anyone to make a really high-quality bow, it would be Kiyaru Lisven-Endavi. She’s… She’s a Valraadi, like Rukari,” Jayde said.
He sighed, then said, “Long story short, she’s one of their famous soldiers. Fought in the Grundzahiri, Marinzahiri, even the Adazahiri. Never made Vilzagrund or Vilzamarin, and became Vilada of the Adazahiri. Lord of the Sky, roughly. A flight instructor. She looks a bit torn up from her war wounds, but that hasn’t stopped her.”
As they walked into the bowyer’s shop, Kiyaru looked up at them, clearly blind in her right eye and missing the ring finger and little finger on her left hand. “Vuri ada ahd nevuri marin, Jayde. To your friend, calm seas and strong wind,” Kiyaru said. Her light brown fur was, unlike Rukari or Kivenaal, completely lacking in stripes, and despite being female, she was still physically quite strong. Likewise, it appeared that she was missing half of her tail, and walked with a noticeable limp. “What do the two of you need?” she asked.
“Leaving it in would’ve been worse, especially with it possibly getting infected…”, Constantin counters. “I mean it going while drawn to length would’ve done much more harm, i guess… And it going now already hurt like… a lot.”
As Jayde pulls his bow out of the bag of holding, Constantin is visibly confused: “How the fuck did you get that to fit in there? Is that a takedown bow?”
He looks at that bag for a bit, then returns to Jayde himself with his eyes, as he explains something about a master bowyer in the village.
“It’s not like i have a lot of choice if i want to retain some defensive ability.”, Constantin says, shrugging, and sets off further into town.
Upon entering, Constantin took a look around the small shop they found themselves in. He knew that Kiyaru was part of the military, but not knowing their procedures or her rank, he decides to treat her as Civilian for the time being.
“Greetings. As for what i need… Well… some new equipment, so to speak. My current bow has blown itself into pieces and it needs replacing.”, Constantin explains, calmly, placing the broken bow onto the counter.
“I don’t know your procedure regarding manufacturing them, so if you need any info, measurements or something like that, go ahead.”
Jayde smiled and showed Constantin the bag. “No, the bag is… There is magic in it. Somewhat a bit like the portal, there’s more space in here than you might think,” Jayde answered, simplifying things a bit. “It cost me a fair amount to get it.”
Kiyaru nodded. “I can see the stripe it’s left on you,” she said, after Constantin set his broken bow on the counter. With great care and respect, she removed the string from one end of the broken bow and aligned the broken halves together to get a rough idea of what she’d be working with.
“Good news is, you’re within one of my favorite patterns,” she said. “So, what exactly do you need? While you tell me that, hold this,” she said, handing Constantin a short stick, “in the hand you hold your bow with, and pull an arrow back. If you have to use an actual arrow, I don’t mind. I just need to know your draw.” As Constantin held the stick in his right hand and drew an arrow back with his left, Kiyaru smiled.
“What are the odds of three left-handed archers in one room?” Kiyaru said with a smile. “Do you know your draw weight? I’ve dealt with a few heroes in the past, I know a Fist is about one of your kilograms.”
She looked over at Jayde and raised an eyebrow. “You need anything?” she asked as well.
Jayde sighed. “I won’t take up your time. I get the feeling you’re going to need it.”
Kiyaru smirked. “I see. Well, I know you have a bow and arrows for it, both for your other form. I’ve had this one,” she said, grabbing one made for Jayde’s normal form, “waiting here for the last two weeks for you.” She set the bow on the counter with a quiver of sturdy black arrows. Jayde paid for the bow and his arrows, placing both into his bag, having at least loosely explained it to Constantin.
“Now, on account of you being here with Jayde,” Kiyaru said, looking over at Constantin, “I’m not going to charge you as much as I would most others who show up here.”
The excuse of “magic” wasn’t exactly satisfactory to him, though given more pressing problems at hand, he saw no real reason to dig further.
“Had it slung across my shoulder when it went bust. Hurts like high hell is what i’m gonna tell you…”, Constantin remarks, looking at Kiyaru as she aligns the two halves to vaguely form a complete bow.
He accepts the stick and proceeds to draw an imaginary arrow, taking great care to emulate his form as closely as possible as if actually drawing to weight. It definitly wasn’t easy to maintain posture, with the lack of resistance the bow usually would provide. Once the stick was drawn to what he felt was full length, he retains the pose, starting at some wall off to the side as if aiming at it.
Constantin’s positioning gave a crystal clear view at his front, with the stick facing left, from Kiyaru’s perspective.
“If you need the numbers, i’m drawing 100 pounds to 34 inches.”, Constantin says, hoping that the raw values provided some help to Kiyaru. Even though she said something about metric, Constantin only really knew the accurate weight in pounds. “Last measured a year ago when having this bow made.”, he adds, briefly glancing at the counter before re-focusing on the non-existant target until other instructions were issued.
The mentioning of not being charged as much is acknowledged with a nod, but not really of use for him since he’s not paying out of his own pocket anyway.
Kiyaru nodded slightly, taking a measurement with a basic string, setting that down, and saying, “You may relax.”
“So, you need two bows of equal nature, both around 100 pounds as close as I can manage, with a 34 inch draw by your reckoning,” Kiyaru said. “That’s about 45-and-a-half kilograms, which is a common hunting draw for my kind. Your draw is,” Kiyaru picked up the string and checked it against herself, “remarkably close to mine, actually. I will get started once both of you leave, and if all goes well, I will be done by 8 Sun. I’ll send your measurement to a friend of mine to get your arrows made so that I can focus on the bows. May you always walk with Yawli’s favor,” she said, before turning to look for two identical pieces of wood.
Constantin releases the imaginary draw, in proper form as soon as he’s instructed to do so, handing back the stick to Kiyaru. He simply nods, confirming the order for two identical flatbows and takes his broken one back off the table.
“I’ll keep that one as a sort of service trophy.”, he states, before following Jayde out of the shop.
Jayde led Constantin out of the shop and back toward the camp, mentioning, “She’s the one who taught me archery. I’d been having a lot of fights alongside archers where I seemed to be doing far more than they were, and rather than blindly assume that they were terrible, I tried it for myself. Not as easy as they make it look, and I know that now,” Jayde said.
“I don’t know how well you are shooting, but i do appreciate the respect for the sport. Shooting a bow in itself isn’t that hard. But being accurate is.”, Constantin explains, mildly smiling at the pleasant surprise being brought up with Jaydes respect for archery.
“By the way,” Jayde mentioned as they walked onto the bridge, “I think Rukari honored you. I don’t know your military rank, but I saw your uniform in Nevada. The only one who can give Rukari orders is the Emperor or Empress themself, as they would call them, the Vilzahir.” Before he could say more, however, there was a quiet ominous creak mere moments before Jayde took another step, releasing the tension stored in the loose plank and tipping Constantin sideways into the river. Jayde looked as he heard a heavy splash.
Constantin couldn’t even react in time, as the plank gave way below him, on his currently weighted foot, no less. As a result, he slips into the gap formed by the now-gone plank, the loose combat uniform pants getting caught on the adjacent one, friction burning his right shin in the process. The other end of the plank is sent sky high, coming around to impact Constantin’s left shoulder, pushing him into the river.
“Shit,” Jayde said, making sure to avoid the same plank as he looked for Constantin in the water.
After having taken the plunge, he finds his way to shore quickly and climbs up the foot-an-a-half of banking onto dry land, soaking wet all over, including his boots being filled to the ridge with water. All that while throwing Swedish Expletives about the place in annoyance.
His face at that point is best-described as the “grumpy-cat-meme”, as he takes off his boots and socks, resorting to bare-footed walking for the time being.
Jayde grimaced as Constantin crawled out of the river. “I am sorry that happened,” Jayde said, his tail lower than usual. “That was my fault.”
“How? Seems like i found the ominous plank you mentioned…”, he replies, totally oblivious to the fact that Jayde was securing him by having stepped onto the other end of that plank first.
He then realizes that his broken bow and most of his arrows have gone missing.
“Hold on… gotta at least save my trophy…”, he remarks, hopping back in to retrieve the two individual pieces, slowly being carries away by the current.
Upon returning, he collects his soaked pair of boots, and shakes his head to indicate readiness to continue.
“It’s actually rather refreshing, given the scorching heat out here…”, Constantin comments, trying to make the best of the extraordinarily bad luck he’s been having today.
Jayde sighed. “I was standing on the other side of it. I knew there was a bad plank, I didn’t know which one, and, well,” Jayde looked back at the mess they’d made of the bridge, now with a completely missing plank, “when I stepped off of it, it came up.”
When Constantin had retrieved his broken bow from the river and returned, Jayde shrugged lightly at Constantin’s comment regarding the dunk in the river having been at least somewhat refreshing.
“You warned me… or… us. And it happened.”, Constantin shrugs.
“Either way, has been pleasant. See ya!”
As they approached the camp, Jayde left Constantin’s side so he wouldn’t disturb the game in progress.
Constantin walks over to the back of the Dione, boots and broken bow in his arms and still soaking wet to the point of leaving a very wet trail everywhere he goes.
Meanwhile, at the Duskriver Village Campsite, 2-and-10 Sun
Kayden chuckled. “If you need to, feel free to pick up Nova’s handheld. It may be a little bit warm, but at least then, you’re not bending over quite so far.”
“And don’t worry, I won’t use that to read your cards. And even if I did, I’d give Kayden the wrong information anyway,” Nova said, before turning momentarily to face Kayden. “Because you know better than to use AI support in games. Seriously, you’re never going to improve if you don’t try,” Nova said, pointing a finger at him.
Kaylie just chuckled as her brother grimaced and pulled his head backwards as if he’d just been scolded by their mother. “Yeah, this is classic Nova. We have to restrict her to her Class 3 mode for games because her Class 7 ship-board AI is a master strategist.”
Nova, not willing to let Kaylie steal the show, cocked her head with a smirk and said, “My other chassis is a starship,” in the same tone of voice one might read a bumper sticker in.
Connor, who wasn’t doing much up to this point other than silently progressing his language pack for the local tongue via the supplied ring, was now prompted by Nova’s incorrect declaration of him.
“As far as i am aware, we have not. It seems like have encountered a later copy of myself.”, Connor replied.
Both Valentin and Tim turn around to look up at Connor standing a few feet outside the little play-game circle. Neither one said anything, but their faces told “you know each other?”
They quickly return to the game, when Valentin realizes that it’s his turn.
“Tim, you have a four?”, he asks, looking over at him.
“Nah…”
“Damn…”
Valentin reaches forward to draw a card. The offer of holding Nova to get a closer look was known, but is discarded without much of a reaction as he was doing his turn. Even then, he wouldn’t want to break it somehow.
“Yeah i’m good, thanks.” Valentin politely declines the offer, having satiated his initial curiosity for the time being.
“Oh. My apologies, then, Connor,” Nova said. “My local storage says there was an interaction between -60 and my other half that ran for 300 milliseconds. But I don’t have a transcript of the data, so I don’t know what they were talking about.”
Kayden, realizing it was his turn, turned to Valentin and asked, “You wouldn’t happen to have a Queen, would you?”
Malavera looked at his cards and tried to hide a look of relief that Kayden hadn’t asked him that.
Kaylie looked at Nova, then said, “You better not be giving Kayden answers.”
“I’m not!” Nova said defensively. The only answer I’m giving him is this," she said, before flipping Kayden the bird.
“Great. Now even my own AI is giving me attitude,” Kayden said, shaking his head.
“Well, you were the one who tried to involve her in a game she wasn’t invited to play,” Malavera said. “And it’s not like she can hold up a set of cards on her own.”
“Excuse me?” Nova said. “I’ll have you know,” she said, stepping off of the screen and mimicking a fall under gravity from Kayden’s knee to the dirt, pushing tall grass out of her way, “that I am perfectly capable of interacting with something as light as these playing cards.” She walked up to the stacked deck and, although it seemed to take Nova some significant effort, slid the top card half a centimeter sideways.
“Nova, the last time you did something like that at this size, you overheated your hard-light generator. Leave the deck alone,” Kaylie said.
Nova, on the other hand, vanished for a split second, only to reappear while lifting the whole deck of cards. Two seconds later, she said, “Oops,” just before she vanished again, dropping the deck of cards neatly where she’d picked them up, not even really scattering them.
Kayden looked down and grimaced, setting Nova’s handheld on the dirt instead. “She’ll be back in a few seconds,” Kayden said. “Though she won’t be able to physically interact with anything for another hour.”
“I’m still here!” Nova said, appearing on the screen in 2D this time.
“For a Class 3 AI, you do some really foolish things sometimes, Nova,” Kaylie said.
Connor just looks at Nova, mildly befuddled. At some point, he returns to his in-progress dictionary, silently.
Valentin simply nods and hands over a Queen of Spades. The snappy nature of Nova wasn’t exactly to Valentin’s liking, but the ensuing hilarity made him chuckle a bit anyway. Tim also is getting a good, genuine laugh out of Nova’s trashtalking.
“Never said she wasn’t invited. I just didn’t know Nova being a thing in the firs place.”, Valentin remarks, watching Nova move… attempt to move the cards in a state between confusion and interest.
“Still your turn.” Tim remarks toward Kayden, also intrigued by Nova’s capabilities.
Kayden smiled and matched the Queen of Spades with the Queen of Hearts, then looked to Kaylie. “Got any 8’s?”
“Go fish,” Kaylie said with a cheery smirk.
Kayden groaned and grabbed a card. “Two steps forward, one step back,” he said.
Kaylie looked over at Malavera and asked, “So, do you have any Queens?”
“How on Earth did you- Never mind,” Malavera said, handing over the Queen of Clubs to match with Kaylie’s Queen of Diamonds.
“It was all over your face, Mal, when Kayden asked Valentin,” Kaylie said. She looked over at Tim and asked him, “Got any 7’s?”
Nova, by this time, had cooled off enough from her little trick to show back up on top of her screen. “Well, that was embarrassing. Squished by a deck of cards,” she said.
Both Valentin and Tim just watch the game unfold, not really saying much as either of them are trying to figure out suitable strategies for winning.
After being asked, Tim groans mildly and hands over his 7.
By this time, Nova had reappeared, with Valentin smirking at the return of the Karma-Cannon to bite her in the… charging port.
Kaylie smiled, then looked to her brother again after putting the pair of sevens down on the table. “Got any twos?” she asked.
“Go fish,” Kayden said, grinning at Kaylie’s mock pout as she grabbed another card.
Malavera looked over at Kaylie and asked, “Any aces?”
“Go fish,” Kaylie said, chuckling.
Malavera reached for the deck, trying to be careful only to take the top card without scattering cards everywhere, and managing to do so with only minimal chaos caused to the deck. “Sorry, grabbing small things with these hands isn’t easy.”
Kaylie gave a smirk as she looked over at Malavera.
“Don’t you say it, Kaylie,” Malavera said, causing Kaylie to burst out laughing.
Tim took the honor upon himself to crack a cheap joke.
“That’s what she said.”, he exclaims, grinning ear to ear, before returning to the game.
“Need a three.”, he demands from Kaylie.
Valentin’s lack of humour may be near-bottomless, but high-school quality dick jokes couldn’t miss him. He starts laughing and calms down rather quickly, though a latent, occcasional chuckle escapes him every once in a while.
Malavera sighed and covered his right muzzle with his right hand.
Kaylie shrugged, handing the three over to Tim, still smirking at Malavera.
Kayden was almost bent double, still trying to recover from the unexpected dick joke. “Glad you did that,” Kayden said, trying to catch his breath. “If I did, I still have to live with him in the truck.”
Nova sat there on top of the screen, amused. “I have to admit, I’m trying to… Oh! Right. Got it. Physical joke,” Nova said, suddenly figuring out why everyone had gotten a good laugh.
Tim simply places the pair of threes down onto the ground, proudly smirking about having produced genuine laughter in most of the team.
“Gib Jack!”, he orders to Valentin, who is simply shaking his head, after which Tim draws a card from the pile.
“I’ll take a ten.”, he says, but it’s not exactly clear as to who he is referring to, as his massive hairdo makes it hard to see which player he is looking at.
“From which one of us?” Kaylie asked, smirking.
Valentin was startled by the question, having forgotten about his hairdo obstructing the view, as he also hid his cars behind the curtain of blonde hair.
“Err… Kaylie?”, he stumbled, opening the blinds, so to speak.
“Should really get a haircut… or at least some bands to tie it down. Isn’t the first time now, is it?”, Tim pokes at Valentin, who doesn’t take too kindly to this as he stares him down as best he can, letting off very quickly after realizing that Tim is right… Tying it up to a massive ponytail would probably help.
“Ah, damn. Yeah, I’ve got a ten,” she said, pulling the card out and handing it to Valentin.
When Tim poked at Valentin’s wild hair, Kaylie remembered she often kept a couple of hair ties around for the purposes of carrying tools strapped to her left arm. She set her cards face down on the grass, then popped one of the covers off of her left arm. “Damn. Left my hair ties in the Bricksley,” Kaylie said, completely uncaring that the mechanical internals of her left arm could be seen. “I normally keep a couple here to hold onto wrenches when I’ve gotta climb to fix things,” she said, before clipping the cover back in place.
Nova, meanwhile, decided to poke fun and said, “Kaylie, I know you’re not a robot, but it is considered rude to have your parts showing. It’s as bad as being naked.”
Kaylie groaned. “Low hanging fruit, Nova.”
When Constantin walked over, Kayden raised an eyebrow at the amount of water dripping from him. “Out of curiosity, how was the water?” he asked, genuinely curious. “Considering taking a swim myself to get out of this heat.”
Valentin casually chucks the other ten out in front of him, before taking Kaylie’s ten and setting it alongside the previous one.
When Nova jumped onto the NSFW-joke-bandwagon, both Valentin and Tim were surprised by her behavior once again.
“Oh snap!”, Tim exclaims, as Valentin collects himself again to address Kaylies offer.
“Thanks. Maybe we have some lying about in our car. If need be, a reuseable zip-tie will do as a stop-gap.”, Valentin explains. The zip-tie trick he adopted when starting work on bicycles, as his hair had a habit of tangling up in the intricate shifting mechanisms.
“Tim. U got a six?”, he asks, getting denied quickly, prompting to draw a card, ending his turn.
“Unintentional, but rather pleasantly refreshing.”, Constantin calmly replies to the question regarding water quality, plonking down the boots and bow onto the Dione’s roof. “Though i would scout the riverbed first. May be rather shallow in places…”
Kayden looked at his cards and smirked, remembering someone at the table had an ace, but he couldn’t remember who, thanks to the perfectly-timed dirty joke. Was it Mal or was it Val? he thought. He looked to Valentin and asked, “You got an ace?”
Valentin shook his head and Kayden sighed. Tim smirked in response as the turn passed to Kaylie.
Kaylie gave a polite smile, then said, “Tim, I know you have a Jack. May I have it, please?”
Tim’s smirk evaporated as fast as water in the hot desert sun as he handed over the jack, watching as Kaylie put it in her pile. Then Kaylie looked back at him with one card left in her chrome hand. “Got a two?” she asked.
Tim reluctantly handed over the card. Kaylie added it to her collection, then said, “Thank you, everyone. Good game,” before politely cleaning up her cards and adding them back to the deck. Likewise, Malavera placed his handful of cards on the deck, and Kayden straightened up his one match, added it to the cards in his hand, and placed them in the deck.
“That was surprisingly fun,” Malavera admitted.
Kayden chuckled. “You did alright for it being your first time, Mal.”
Malavera groaned and shook both heads while Kaylie chuckled.
Soon after, the three of them got up, with Kaylie heading over to Jayde, Malavera returning to the Bricksley to at least attempt to make sense of the now-organized chaos it was in, and Kayden heading straight for the river in his light-gray shorts, planning on getting a good relaxing swim in.
3 Likes
That is one hell of an essay
3 Likes
RK Series Racing; Stage 3 Camp; Part 2
this post is in direct continuation of the massive novel from earlier, one again partly written with @madrias
@Knugcab: if you want to do some interaction regarding Constantin, i’d appreciate you telling me ahead of time, as some substantial plot-planning is currently ongoing behind the scenes
As the bigger gaming circle cleared up, Constantin had to explain himself as to why he was wet and also how he got that stripe running down his chest, prompting mild amusement for the water dunking and condolences for the destroyed bow.
The broken-trunk situation was also cleared up peacefully, with little blame being placed on anyone due to the nature in which it broke.
After cleaning the resulting mess up, both Tim and Valentin returned to their more complex card games and spent the better part of the afternoon doing so. Constantin, after taking a crisp swim in the local river, took it upon himself to start work on a beach-body tan on the hood of the Dione, both to kill time and to give his clothing a chance to dry off as he switches to knee-long shorts for the duration of his sunbathing.
8 Sun, Duskriver Village Campsite
Jayde gave a groan as he got up and onto his feet, grabbing his staff and walking over toward the Dione, where he could see Constantin was sprawled out across the hood of the Tangerine Tank, clearly soaking in the sun in his shorts. Jayde stepped up close, making an attempt to not block the shade, stuck the end of his staff into the dirt to hold it, then lightly knocked on the hood with the back of a knuckle. “It’s 8 Sun,” Jayde said, holding his pocket watch in his left hand. “I know you could probably find the way, but at least this way, if anything ended up more expensive than expected, I’ll help cover it.”
As Jayde knocked onto the hood, Constantin rolled his head over and opened his eyes, looking at Jayde.
“Uhhhhm… Sure… lemme see if my clothing is dry.”, he replies in his semi-awake state as he gets up to check on his combat uniform bottoms and boots on the roof. After spending the better part of the entire day there, both of them were bone-dry.
He opens the passenger side rear door as a sort of cover and goes about changing into his usual uniform within less than two minutes. After that, the shorts are chucked onto his backpack in the back and the door is closed.
“Time to see what she’s capable of.”, Constantin remarks, not knowing how well the bow’s turned out.
Jayde nodded, waiting patiently as Constantin changed over to his now-dry uniform pants and boots, tossed his shorts into the car, and got ready to go. Once Constantin was ready and had said, “Time to see what she’s capable of,” Jayde gave a light nod and started walking toward the village.
As they got to the bridge, Jayde stepped carefully around the newly-formed hole in the bridge, shaking his head. “I’m going to let their sentries know that someone’s going to have to fix that,” Jayde mentioned to Constantin.
“Better fix that before i end up in the river again…”, Constantin commented, not knowing Jayde had taken the plunge twice already. As they continued, he pondered as to how he could be accurately telling time here.
“Do you have a watch of sorts? I can’t really make sense of the clock-tower bell pattern here…”, Constantin inquired, unsure on if that was appropriate to ask.
“I’ve taken that swim a couple of times myself. Really quite fun in the spring-time. That river gets surprisingly cold for a land that never gets snow,” Jayde mentioned. “And I’ll make sure they know about it, because if someone finds that in the middle of the night, that could break an ankle.”
When Constantin asked about a watch, however, Jayde nodded. “Actually, I do. Hold on a moment,” he said, reaching into his pocket and then handing Constantin the slightly-larger-than-Earth-standard pocket watch. “I have my good one in my robe, that one’s my spare.” Jayde admitted. “A little unusual compared to an Aetheriian clock because mine only has one dial, stamped with both the hours and the minutes. Most of our clocks and watches have two dials, one for the hours, one for the minutes. Top half is Sun time, bottom half is Moon time. I needed to know whether it was still day or night after spending hours in a library, so the watches are a little unusual,” Jayde said. “You can keep that one. If I find I need another one, I’ll just pay a watchmaker later on.”
As they walked into town, Jayde looked up toward the sentry on duty. “Hey! Sorry to trouble you,” he called out, raising his voice just enough to make sure he’d be heard, “but pass it on that someone has to go out there and fix the bridge.”
“You fall in again, Jayde?” the man called back down.
“No, my friend here did. Now there’s a great big hole in the bridge. I don’t want to see someone getting hurt because they stepped in it,” Jayde said.
“I’ll get the word out and get that fixed.”
As they got closer to Kiyaru’s store, Jayde sighed and shook his head. “Some people,” he said to Constantin. “You’d think after I fell in the second time, they’d have gotten that fixed.”
“I’m frankly not surprised, to be honest”, Constantin replies, looking at the rather decrepit state the bridge was in.
He then accepts the watch, studying it carefully and trying to make sense of the 10-10 day-night cycle.
After pocketing it and heading into town a bit further, Jayde mentioned the need for maintenance on the bridge to the local town guard.
“Yes i did… and that nobody-getting-hurt ship has sailed…”, he speaks in a heightened voice to cover the distance between himself and the guard, as he pulls up his right trouser leg, revealing a reddish area on his right shin created by a friction burn on his pants.
“Nothing serious, though.”, he adds, letting the cloth settle back down.
As they headed further in, Constantin nodded at the apparent disappointment of Jayde regarding Duskriver’s maintenance standards.
Jayde opened the door to Kiyaru’s store and stepped inside. As Constantin followed Jayde in, Kiyaru smiled.
“I’ll admit, it wasn’t an easy task you gave me, but I did get two matched bows made,” Kiyaru said, “and the fletcher came through with the arrows. Now, normally this would cost you 115 silver Syrkals, but… I can see you’re friends with Jayde, so I’m only going to ask for 64.”
Jayde watched as Constantin fished out the pouch of coins and started counting out the unfamiliar currency, studying each coin before setting it down. Kiyaru thought for a moment, then asked, “One moment. Were you the archer I’ve been hearing about from the battle against the Dyre the other night?”
“If by the other night, you mean yesterday, then yes. Yes i am.”, Constantin confirms, having been interrupted in the counting process.
He then is starting over, sorting the coins by value and counting out 64 silver Syrkals, leaving the remaining 14 in a pile near Jayde.
He then grabs one of the two bows and studies it.
That bow was a, by modern earth-standards, rather simple Flatbow made from maple wood.
It was adjusted in length to Constantin’s height and featured a near-black color due to weatherproofing measures as well as a well-secured, thinly-layered black leather grip. The arrows didn’t look like anything special, being a typical shade of brown with ordinary broadheads and simple fletching on the back.
The other one was eerily similar, the only true differences by sight being the details on the wood used and minor variances in the way the grip was wrapped.
Kiyaru nodded. “Then in that case, I won’t charge you for those bows. Knowing that you took down four of those wolves is payment enough,” she said. “Lost the sight in my right eye and got these scars on my face from one of them.”
As Constantin studied the bow, Jayde waited patiently off to one side, understanding that this could take some time. He did, however, gather all the coins back up into a pile, put them back in the pouch, and kept it in his hand to give back to Constantin later.
“I made those in Vyrzadoburi style,” Kiyaru explained. “Relatively plain, darkly colored for stealth as well as weather-proofed enough to be used onboard an ocean-going ship, should you need to. Very similar to the ones I used to make for our special forces. Lighter on the draw, though, as you requested.”
“Yeah, four kills. Failed to make the fifth one stick…”, he comments, before returning to inspecting the work done.
“Well… they are simpler very traditional for what i usually shoot.”, Constantin remarks, coming from a modern, laminated composite longbow with a sculpted wooden grip area.
“It will certainly be a new experience. Thank you and have a nice day.”
He deliberately doesn’t test-draw the bows in the shop as doing so without an arrow risks damage if tension is suddenly released. With an arrow, it becomes a loaded firearm in a rather tight space.
As such, he simply picks up the bundle of arrows, the two bows and the respective strings and motions to Jayde that he’s ready to head back.
“Considering I’ve seen some of my fellow soldiers fail to kill one Dyre, let alone four,” Kiyaru said, “failing to kill a fifth is hardly a problem. From what I’ve heard, the forest will be a safer place once the wolves settle back down,” Kiyaru said.
As Constantin mentioned they were simpler and traditional compared to what he usually used, Kiyaru smiled. “I saw your bow when you brought it in, even damaged as it was. If I’d had more time, I would have loved to try to match that carved grip, but that, I fear, would have taken me two or three times as long with the tools I have here. Back home in Galren’s Height, I would still have only managed one in the time I had,” she admitted.
As he thanked her and wished her a nice day, Kiyaru replied, “You have a good day as well.”
Jayde nodded as Constantin gathered up his arrows, the bows, and the bow-strings, then motioned to him that he was ready to return to camp. Jayde walked alongside Constantin up to the bridge, which now had a new, significantly-less-weathered plank of wood where the old broken one had been. “At least it’s fixed now,” Jayde said, though he still prodded it with his staff before he stepped completely over it, not trusting it after two falls himself and dumping a friend in the river. “It seems solid enough, but I’m not trusting it,” Jayde admitted.
As they walked back into camp, Jayde again left Constantin to return to his team. He looked into the truck to see that Kivenaal and Rukari had, at some point, finished cleaning their weapons and nodded off in the front and back bench seats respectively, with Kivenaal’s knee being perilously close to the horn switch.
Constantin also returned to the Dione, new equipment in tow, having hobbled over the newly repaired plank in a similar level of distrust.
Between the team members, Valentin and Tim showed some curious interest into what he brought along, taking a look at one bow each. With both not knowing much on archery, they quickly hand back the two bows, allowing Constantin to store them in the trunk for the time being.
A meal is then prepared with some casual, largely irrelevant banter accompanying their feast on some MRE’s Constantin took along for the trip.
The rest of the evening was nothing out of the ordinary, with nothing truly of note happening until the one tent is pitched and they head into their sleeping quarters.
2 Likes
Nah, I think any interaction is far away, if it will happen at all…
3 Likes
Team Mravolinski-Chitco
Team info: 2022 Shitbox Rally - Out of This World! (Stage 3) - #30 by MrdjaNikolen
Reply to last part
Camp of Duskwater Village
We were visibly disturbed by these happenings: As it turns out, being attacked by group of very big and strong creatures isnt for faint of heart.
Only member of our group that was happy about battling was Chicota, seeing that he was made to enjoy fighting, partially bcos…uhm…thats his purpose.
To be more precise, he is supposed to protect weaker members of whatever group he is in from bad guys. Fact he enjoys said process is just a bonus.
Even so
-This was good practice no doubt, but…i must agree with decision of hosts regarding our movement.
I really dont think we would be able to keep those all night and even if we did, not sure how we would continue with rally next day.
Mrdja:
-Sure Chicota. This was scary experience, but we had enough able fighters in this group to keep everything under relative control.
Pi:
-I shall inform you that my injuries seem kinda bad. Unlike you Mrdja, i fought bravely.
Mrdja:
-Word you are looking for is “stupidly”, Pi. We have told you already.
Chicota:
-I have plan on going to whatever we are supposed to be.
Then we shall plan according to that
Drive was uneventful, save for us being passed by Freeway Star that more and more seemed like a proper shitbox, still running that distinct pink paint
Mrdja had genuinely wondered:
-What would my cousin think of Marie?
(Cousin also happens to be named in same-ish fashion. Few IRL days ago i had actually read out loud some funny stuff that happened to Hillbillies to said cousins.
Them being 9 and 7 prompted me translating to both Serbian and…more child-friendly language,
but they were amused nonetheless, answering hypothetical question from above.
Rollers were only team introduced to them btw)
-Rukari said we are going towards village
-Perfect, we shall use that fact to our advantage.
For the first time during journey, we had no issues during drive, which resulted in our car finishing 5th on this stage.
We were happy about that, well atleast until fatigue had taken its final toll and we went to sleep.
Since both phones in our group show some Earth-compliant times, we couldnt have properly judged when we woke up.
Still, crisis of getting up too late for start settled in…until we looked around tad bit better and saw others both present and unpacked
Klimentol, Pi and Chicota decided to go to said village not much after.
Chicota soon decided to go his own way and entered some store hoping that item he wants would be sold.
On other side of counter was some local, obviously not in good mood and even more obviously drunk.
-I would like to buy biggest sledgehammer you have…providing you do sell sledgehammers ofc.
-YOU MOCK MY STORE!!! We have EVERYTHING!!!
-Havent meant for that to be interpreted that way, but could understand: you dont seem to be in most sober state.
-And now you brand me as drunk. Gonna break you like a stick.
-Thats not how customer should be treated.
-THATS IT. U gonna feel my fist on ya face bud.
Counter was jumped over and punches were thrown. This really became a proper fight, attracting attention of some young female that had entered the shop.
Interestingly, she entered this space from behind the counter, indicating that she is definitely not the next customer.
Over the sound of punches:
-DAD!!! How many times we told you to stop drinking so much and attacking people.
-Im protecting my honour here, sweetheart.
-Ye…right, dad.
-Honour? Bro, i just wanted to buy really big sledgehammer.
-Dont you call me “bro”. Dont deserve such honour in any way.
-Then im gonna continue by talking with young lady. She seems more helpful…
-If you say one word to my daughter, consider yourself thrown from this store.
-Oh, right…dude, i already have significant other.
Not interested in wifes, daughters etc in that kind of way.
-DUDE…do i look like a “dude” to you? Everything you say just pisses me off.
-Forget it, im prob gonna leave this store and find good sledgehammer somewhere else.
Daughter started crying, prompting dad to stop punching and reconsider situation.
-Look what you did to my daughter. Now she is crying bcos of you.
-Hmm, i have feeling that she just doesnt want to lose potential customer…again.
-Why would she have customers?
-Khm khm, i feel she may know how to run the store when you arent around. Just a guess, that one.
Mercifully, fight calmed down by this point.
Chicota took a chance
-Now, i may want to get really big sledgehammer
-Oh ye, forgot about that possibility, that she can run a store herself. I have some idea…
-Oh no. You dont plan on going to bar and getting more drunk, dont you? Im gonna tell mom.
-Dont care
-Can you wait on me to finish buying sledgehammer? I would also appreciate having some better drink than piss-poor beer i have avaiable at my camp.
(Confused looks by other two)
I would say 9kg one would be sufficient.
As already covered by Madrias in his last post (well, as of writing this one atleast) unit of measurement used in Crugandr called “Fist” is similar to our kilogram.
However, unlike Kiyaru, these two werent aware of this little fact and tbh Chicota was also confused by mention of fist as mass measurement.
This was solved by Chicotas ability to accurately determine the mass of hammer head they gave him for scaling.
It weighted half a kilogram or 1.1 lbs.
Based on that, it was determined that Chicota is looking for 18 times heavier tool.
-Oh, before we go…If certain duo composed of large dog and some human-based centaur stroll around looking for Chicota, direct them towards favourite place of your dad.
-Large dog…(shivers)…you are friend with some Dyre?
-Not really, this guy is of much smaller stature and, ya know, actual dog.
Weighs 11.11111111 times more than this sledgehammer i got and is of equal height as me when propping on rear legs.
With that cleared up, Chicota and man went into a bar.
Klimentol and Pi were going for supplies.
Locals were curious about Pi’s scars, most of which have no connection to last night, and injuries, which were all result of last night.
-I was going up against Dyre laat night when they attacked our group. Most of scars have no connection to that, but injuries…definitely.
-Khm khm…“going up against Dyre” implies you fought them, not that you were quite bluntly beaten by them.
All Dyre you encountered seemed to play with you instead of fighting, prob curious about how many times can they smack you only for that to result in you standing up for more punishment.
You should have stayed in car and left Dyre to actual fighters.
Some local hearing this: Whats “car”?
Klimentol realized this may be confusing to them:
“Car” is transportational device we are using for travel. I would say its combination of carriages and locomotives you are used to seeing…how, you may ask?
Car uses exactly the same roads as carriages and just like them it can actually travel without particularly defined road.
This is achieved without animal power: just like locomotives, car has an mechanical structure called engine that produces power propelling the vehicle.
-So, carriage with steam engine instead of horses?
-Kinda yes, only that our car uses different type of engine. Since this type is something you dont see around, i would assume you arent familiar with technology used to make it or with how it kinda works.
I could explain that, but dont see how that would be important for this particular conversation.
Locals were satisfied with answer and once again Pi gained most of their attention.
Duo loaded up with supplies and turned back to camp, only to find that Chicota havent returned yet.
Klimentol had returned into town and happened to stumble into same shop that was already visited by Chicota.
-Hi, im looking for a friend of mine. Same height as me, slim build, likes both drinking alcohol and fighting. You seen someone like that recently?
-…No? Wait…how is friend called?
-Chicota
-Oh…OH. They went into a local bar.
-They?
-He and my dad.
-Can you give me directions?
-Sure…(proceeds to do exactly that)
-Thanks.
Some time later, trio composed of father, son and their sledgehammer had returned to camp.
Now our group is hanging out around Kontir, so we are open for interactions with rest of teams.
5 Likes
Very nice writeup, I love it.
1 Like
Duskwater Village, Crugandr.
Local time: 2 Sun
Weather: Still hot as hell.
By @Madrias and @TheYugo45GV
Safe Arrival
The unmistakable sound of an engine and tires on gravel, signaled the arrival of Oil Crisis and the Magistrate. Soon the olive drab wagon appeared turned into the campsite, rolling to a stop next to the Bricksley. Only Aedan and Malcolm got out, which meant that something was up. Jayde could feel that the team’s mood was off, the aura dark and cold.
The damaged bumper and the roaring radiator fan revealed that they had hit something, and the clump of fur clinging to the dented metal revealed more. A Dyre had met its doom to the Magistrate.
Jayde had looked over at the Magistrate as it pulled up sensing the two Dyres in the car. Kaylie had put her hand over her chest realizing what had happened. Malcolm sat in the grass and Aedan grabbed the two pups, who were asleep, leaned against the Magistrate and took a deep breath. Kivenaal returned from somewhere followed by, Rukari who walked around the front of the Bricksley and saw the two pups in Aedan’s hands.
“If you raise them,” Rukari said, “they are very intelligent.”
Aedan nodded. “That’s what I plan on doing, I just hope they aren’t a huge handful.”
Meanwhile, Jayde rummaged around in his messenger bag before he pulled out a mirror about the size of a smartphone. "Rukari’s right, Aedan. At that age, you raise them as part of society, while they’ll never completely lose their wild nature, they’ll always have some traits of Dyre heritage, they’ll be almost indistinguishable from other shape-shifters,”. Then he focused on the mirror which slowly faded into displaying an image of a gray-furred wolf.
“Hello, Jayde!” she said.
“Good Evening, Lyrra. I’d like you to meet a friend of mine, Aedan. He, through some unfortunate circumstances, has just become the adoptive father of two Dyre pups.”
Lyrra gave a slight whimper since she likely knew what Jayde meant by it. “He plan to raise pups?”
Before continuing Jayde leaned closer to Aedan. “She learned to speak when she was 20 years old,”
Then he nodded. “I think so.”
“He will be good father,” Lyrra said, just before a crash from behind her got her attention. She turned around, seeing the shattered remains of a glass inkwell on the floor, turned to the mirror and said, “One time,” then walked over and grabbed the guilty pup off of the desk by the scruff of his neck. “You no play with glass!” she said. “To room, now,” she added, setting the pup down.
As she walked back to the mirror, Lyrra smiled lightly. “Not easy some days. Had three, what is word? Years? Yes, years. Had three years with pups. Had learn that pups play with all things, try eat all things, sleep all places. Can see Ae- A- Can see he will be good father,” Lyrra said, though it showed she couldn’t quite figure out how to say Aedan’s name.
“Aedan, Lyrra,” Jayde said, completing the name for her.
“Aethan,”
Jayde smiled and looked at Aedan, then said, “She has a little trouble with names.”
Aedan simply chuckled. “I’m glad she thinks I will be a good father.”
“I not have trouble with names. You have names that have trouble with me,” Lyrra replied with a smirk. “First was Marlock, Cat Lynn, Murkus, Russell, and Raja, now is Aethan.”
“Heroes of the Four Corners War,” Jayde said to Aedan. “Murlocke, who is Rukari’s father. Caitlyn, also known to some as Mane-of-Snakes. Marcus, a big tiger shifter. Russell, a Wyld-form wolf shifter, and Raja of Bittrenn, a lion who started as a bit of a brat and became a hero.”
“I see, it’s been a pleasure to meet you, Lyrra.”
"You raise them,” Jayde said, motioning to the two pups, “to be part of society from this age, no one will be able to tell.”
“That’s great, they’ll be in good hands.”
K’mino had climbed out of the car completely catatonic, his eyes emitting a dark aura. Jayde knew what the look meant. “You do realize this wasn’t your fault, right?Even if you had slammed on the brakes, you may have hit her only just hard enough to break bones, and she still would have dragged herself into the forest to die. I’ve seen it happen. Wounded Dyre have a surprising amount of determination to escape.”
Kivenaal then spoke up. “War is hell,” he said. “And civilian casualties of war, no matter what, are always the worst part. Doesn’t matter whether they’re human, Valraadi, Dyre, the snake-folk of Vipara, it’s a tragedy all the same. They were running from the noise, some were bound to have run across the road while we were running from them.”
K’mino stayed silent, but his eyes lost their darkness, and he went to find a quiet place to meditate without saying anything else.
Orlan had rolled the Magistrate’s window down in an attempt to get some air and listened in on the conversation. The fight was being discussed again and he felt his heart sink, everyone nearly died because of him. He was still the idiot who nearly killed them all, and what was absolutely terrible was that he lost every last drop of his self trust. However, a certain white tigress was watching him as they listened in on the conversation. She recognized the look in Orlan’s eyes as the same look she’d seen reflected back at her in the reflection off of the Bricksley’s large rear door windows. The look of someone who had made a huge mistake, someone who shouldered the blame personally for what had happened.
With a sigh, Kaylie walked up to the window of the green car. “We both have our regrets, Orlan,” Kaylie said gently, catching Orlan’s attention. “I don’t know all that happened last night with you, but… I never meant to kill those two Dyre." She sighed. As this happened, Orlan noticed the moonlight glinting of something in her eye. “The first one–” She paused to try and compose herself, “I just meant to knock him out.” Another pause, “The second, I didn’t mean to tear his throat out.” Then just as Jayde walked around the corner, Kaylie wasn’t able to hold herself together any longer. Jayde pulled her into an embrace as she softly wept.
Orlan didn’t say a word instead choosing to climb out of the car and stretch his legs before leaning against the roof next to Kivenaal who leaned against the dented fender of the Magistrate. “I’ve seen this kind of thing, Orlan. Not trusting yourself because you started a fight. Flashbacks to the past. Thinking there are threats around every corner. You ever find a solution, you let me know. I’d love to have an answer,” he said, looking upward toward the stars.
“I’ll try my best. I used to be in law enforcement until I ended up shooting and killing someone who didn’t even pose a threat, he made a sudden movement and next thing I knew that man was being taken away into an ambulance that I don’t even remember calling.” A sigh escaped him and he too looked up at the stars.
Kivenaal nodded. “Being here is difficult for me. I saw the end of it all. This… This is where it started. Bright purple fog, something that… For my people, purple is the color of life. It’s why Rukari’s cloak has purple-dyed fur up around the shoulders. The fog swallowed up the whole world. All that was left were the trees. And the only reason I survived is because I look like someone I can never be,” he explained.
Orlan meanwhile gazed into the sky watching the stars, he breathed letting the sound of the river let him relax him. The peace was broken however when Kivenaal spoke up,
“I look like the Valraadi deity, Xelth, the Father of Us All. I’m only a few inches shorter in height, at least according to the mythology. I can’t go anywhere without people ‘recognizing’ me and treating me differently. When I was on Earth, I was treated differently, too, but it wasn’t being treated as someone to be worshiped, and so I was okay with that. Here, I can’t even buy food without sending people into a panic.”
Stopping his gaze, Orlan stopped leaning on the Magistrate and sat on the ground right where he was standing. “Sounds like people hate you just because you coincidentally look like someone you are not. I knew someone who was like that, but I forgot his name.”
“Honestly, I’d prefer the hatred,” Kivenaal said. “I don’t like getting treated better just because I look like someone I am not. And the people who panic are the ones who fall over themselves trying to find ways to please me, not realizing that I just want to be treated normally.”
Kivenaal got up to head toward the Bricksley for a bottle of moonshine, however, Malavera stopped him.
“We don’t need you being drunk right now,” Malavera said gently. “If something goes wrong, we need you to be able to fight.”
Kivenaal shoved past him and grabbed the purple glass bottle anyway. “I’m tired of fighting, Mal. I really am,” he replied, sitting down against the side of the Magistrate, making sure not to scratch the paint with his horns or hit the car with his quilled tail tuft. With a tell-tale amount of skill, Kivenaal pulled the cork free with his claws, something he’d clearly done countless times.
Orlan watched him sit down and make sure that he didn’t damage the already wounded Vanguard. The bottle was quite big, but in Kivenaal’s hand it seemed smaller.
“You want to share? I need something to help me forget what happened, plus I’d like a taste of something other than whiskey. You don’t have to if you don’t want to.”
Nodding, Kivenaal passed the bottle. “Be careful, it’s stronger than you think,” he warned. “Rukari’s the one who makes it, and I swear you could run an engine with it. Somehow, you can still get a hint of the lemons it was made from, but it’s very faint,”
“That stuff’s about 190 proof,” said Malavera, putting something away in the cabin of the Highwayman. “The scary thing is, I’ve seen Kiva there drink the whole bottle and still seem mostly sober.”
“He has Khakrin lineage,” Rukari chimed. “My father had a legendary capacity for alcohol, as did his father, and all the way back to where our blood-line started. Wouldn’t surprise me if that carried forward for him, too.”
“Rukari, I consider you as a brother, but I swear by the Dancing Sisters above, if you mention who started that blood-line, I will hurl the empty bottle at your head, and this time, I won’t miss,” Kivenaal replied, somewhat unamused.
Jayde looked over at them. “You won’t hit him, either,”
The only reply Kivenaal gave was a roll of his eyes.
Meanwhile, Orlan took a swig from the purple bottle. The alcohol hit like a freight train which set off a fit of coughing. While it was strong, it had a somewhat sour but relatively smooth taste, quite surprising for homemade alcohol.
“This is really good, I’ve never seen someone make an alcoholic drink from lemons.” he observed, passing the bottle back to Kivenaal. “Though, I feel that 190 proof is a bit too much for me.”
“I learned that recipe from my father’s journal,” Rukari beamed, “from his time learning magic in Tendragon Academy.”
“Helps to have a second bottle to mix it with water,” said Kivenaal “if it’s a bit strong.” He took a fairly large swig, seeming oblivious to how strong it really was. “I’ve been drinking this for a while now, so I’m used to it.”
Malavera added in, “The Valraadii have some interesting biological differences. They’re immune to cancer and have an incredible tolerance for alcohol to start with. On the other hand, that blue blood of theirs is highly destructive to steel and iron, and I’ve even seen it corrode the hell out of aluminum.”
“You win some, you lose some,” Kivenaal said, taking another swig.
Kaylie, meanwhile, had pulled herself together and had taken note of the situation, looking for the other purple bottles in the bed of their truck, handing it to Orlan. “I sometimes get some of Rukari’s mix before he distills it down. That’s like a sweet lemon beer, but there’s a lot of it.”
“Thank you. I never thought I’d end up trying something new.”
Aedan and Malcolm had used the time Orlan was conversing with Team Shift Happens to get the tent and the other camping supplies out of their car, setting up their sleeping arrangements. They’d mess with the radiator later once there was daylight and more well rested people to help. Orlan had wrapped up his conversation with the other team and had gone to his team.
“Are we going to sleep?”
Aedan nodded, yawning.
“Yes, we only got about three hours until you decided to start shooting.”
“Sorry about that.”
Soon, the five team members had got into their beds wanting to catch up on the much needed rest that they missed out on.
To Be Continued (Like Always)
2 Likes
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20/7/3251 /// 4:70 Moon LJT
It was a night hotter than any other, one that made even an Australian like Mel writhe in agony. No amount of midnight outback heat could compare to the furnace-like conditions she was trying - and failing miserably - to fall asleep in. The wind was slow and the air was hot; cracking both windows, the sunroof, and even the tailgate open did little aside from providing ventilation. The quick bath she took in the river earlier had gone to waste now that she was trying to sleep in a pool of her own sweat, making her clothes stick to her back. To make matters worse, a certain war criminal was sleeping with her, and the body heat of two girls trapped inside a greenhouse combined with a sweltering Crugandr midnight made them feel like they were getting cooked alive. And indeed, Mel’s trauma was not an isolated experience, but rather a trauma shared with Tanuki.
“Meru-chan… Mel! I can’t sleep!” Amidst endless tossing and turning that rocked the entire car, Tanuki finally voiced her complaints out loud. Mel clasped her hands over her ears and buried her face in a pillow, but nothing she did was welcoming enough to the unavoidable embrace of the slumber she so desired. Not when Tanuki was being as restless as she was.
“God! What is it now?” Mel kept her voice quiet but sharp, glaring at Tanuki in annoyance. She still wore her black face mask even when in bed, or perhaps it was only because she was sleeping with Mel. Strands of black hair fell sideways across her face, partially obscuring her eyes that were already barely visible in the foggy void of the night. At least she doesn’t sleep with her shades on too, Mel smirked.
“It’s too hot! I feel like I’m getting cooked alive!” Tanuki whined. The two of them had inadvertently tucked themselves away from each other as far as the confines of the Dauer’s interior would allow them in order to escape the body heat of the other. “Hey! Turn the AC on!”
“What? No! We have to conserve our petrol! Doesn’t exactly grow on trees here!” Mel shot back. “Just get out of your sleeping bag!”
“I already did, but it’s still too hot!” Silence, and then Mel heard the sound of damp clothes being frantically peeled off. “Fine! If you won’t turn the AC on, then I’m stripping! You better not look… or else!” Tanuki hissed, sitting up as far as she could in the Dauer’s cramped interior and sliding her black gym shorts down her legs. She tossed her soaked pajamas to the passenger seat, landing with wet rustles. Mel unknowingly caught a glimpse of the forbidden sight as Tanuki fell back down on her makeshift mat. Her back was turned towards Mel, exposing her surprisingly toned lats and trapezius that were somewhat concealed under a binding sarashi cloth wrapped tightly around her breasts. Now that she had stripped down, the hands of fate would occasionally reward Tanuki with a gust of wind that blew through the cracked open windows, cooling her down and quenching her restlessness.
How silent the night was after that damned war criminal stopped fidgeting about! Save for the incessant din of various insects and pests chattering and chirping in the forest canopy around them, the campsite was swathed in a midnight serenity. Silent, stationary, and most importantly, asleep. Despite her cruel, teasing, at times bombastic demeanor, Tanuki’s snores could barely even be called that, being so soft and gentle that you couldn’t have heard it unless you were right up against her. Mel took this occasion to simply take in the rare moment of tranquility she had been granted. A blackened night sky unmolested by urban light pollution with no hint of distant traffic or commotion, just the sounds of nature. Just like the old days, where weekend-long camping trips in the outback were just among the many monthly festivities.
Unfortunately for Mel, who was just about to drift into the first stage of sleep, the virgin silence of the night would not remain untouched for much longer. A set of rapid gallops emerged from the canopy of silence, growing louder and closer. The Dauer was violently jostled as something struck a loud glancing blow on the right rear fender. Whatever it was, it clearly wasn’t there to stay, and the hasty, thundering footsteps disappeared as quickly as they had appeared.
“What the hell was that?!”
The duo sat up in unison. Their eyes met each other’s, then the cloudy windows around them. Through the thick fog that rolled through the campsite, they could see rapid flashes accompanied by the dangerously close, ear-piercing chatter of automatic gunfire. Dark silhouettes darted in and out of the fog around them like a swarm of locusts, their heavy footsteps sending ripples through the ground. In a matter of seconds, the two of them hastily threw on whatever clean clothes were immediately within reach and began buckling up in their respective seats.
Mel stabbed the key into the ignition and twisted it, the starter chirping loudly as it spun all six cylinders of the engine. First came the spray of the air-fuel mixture, then the spark, and the rapid gunfire of the exhaust rang loudly through the entire campsite. She turned all eight lights on, only to be blinded right back as the fog reflected most of it into her eyes. Turning off the rally lights and keeping the headlights in low beam mode, Mel and Tanuki could now clearly ascertain the quickly evolving - or devolving - situation around them. Wolves, but not just any ordinary group of specimens of the canine family. Perhaps wolves on steroids was a more fitting name; these creatures were two to three times as big as the dingoes she was used to seeing back at home, and probably over twenty times as massive. Their jaws were big enough to fit an entire head inside and their powerful legs were bulging with muscle under their fur, and the pack swarmed the campsite in increasing numbers, barking and howling loudly.
“Strewth! What the bloody fuck are those?!" Mel cried. Tanuki reached behind her seat for her shotgun; 5.56mm wouldn’t suffice, not even 7.62 NATO. Suddenly, an explosion sent a pressurized wave of air smacking into the Dauer’s side, even setting off the alarms of the other teams’ cars. Chaos to the maximum possible order was in session, and Mel could barely even hear her own thoughts over the sound of automatic gunfire, screaming, bone-chilling roaring and howling.
Off to her left, Mel saw a pair of glowing green eyes staring right back at her. The outline of its canine head emerged from the cloudy obscura, and it silently stepped into a visible range. Maintaining eye contact with this colossal beast, hands glued to the steering wheel with a vice grip, Mel looked right at the face of death and remained as still as possible, frozen in fear.
Tanuki elbowed Mel in the shoulder as she brought the shotgun to her shoulder, aiming at the unwanted, hungry visitor. “MEL! DUCK!” She screamed, pushing Mel out of the way to clear the tip of the barrel.
Mel grabbed the steering wheel and planted her face into it, and the Dauer honked loudly in response. The beast bared its fangs with a growl, dug its paws into the ground and launched itself right for the door that it could easily rip into shreds as if it was paper. But Tanuki’s aim was deadly, and immediately after the booming signature of the Mossberg 500, a 12 gauge slug ripped through the massive Dyre’s open mouth and past a terrifying gallery of long, sharp teeth. Not even letting out as much as a whimper, its huge muscle-bound, fur-lined body crashed into the ground with an abrupt thud that they could feel even inside the car. It came to a rest after twitching once, exposing the fist-sized exit wound on the back of its head that carried blood, bone fragments and brain matter through it. “MEL!” Tanuki practically yelled in her ear, racking the pump back with authority and ejecting the spent shell. “Drive now, or you’ll end up like that bastard and I’ll take the wheel myself!”
No other commands were necessary. Mel threw the gear lever into first and released the clutch at half throttle, then spun the wheel to the right as she fully depressed the gas pedal. The Dauer’s trajectory evolved into a tight spin, its rear tires throwing up a mini localized cyclone of dust and dirt that disoriented and confused the Dyre immediately around them. Their dark shadows and glowing eyes disappeared in the swirling makeshift smokescreen through which not even all four of their aftermarket rally lights could pierce. Mel’s quick thinking bought them enough time to quickly leave the campsite without attracting any more of the Dyre, and the 632 S went barrelling down that same gravel road by the river, singing the vibrant anthem of its boxer-6.
The car rattled and shook vigorously as it rocketed down the road of gravel and dirt with reckless abandon, carving through pitch black and the dense gray fog that shrouded them in blindness. Their visibility was limited to everything that lied no further than 20 or so meters, and combined with their rapid pace, every bend, turn, dip, hump, bank, off-camber, and obstacle in the road would materialize out of thin air and force itself under the car. Given these sudden changes in road conditions, Mel had very little room for error and even less time to react and adjust her steering angle or throttle/brake application. But given the speed of these Dyre and their ability to sustain a pace that nearly matched some speed limits in Adelaide, they didn’t have much of a choice. Their heart-rending howls that echoed for miles in the woods only seemed to grow in intensity, occasionally being overcome by the soaring throaty rumble of the Dauer’s own howling motor.
Louder grew the sounds of rocks being thrown up by tires and hitting the wheel wells, and harsher became the shaking and the swaying car as the road it sped over became rougher and bumpier, marked with deep scars running along the length of the road and random dips that could cause the Dauer to bottom out if Mel didn’t choose a good line. She eased on the brakes, but as a pair of red lights situated in a familiar boxy orange profile suddenly cut through the fog, she pushed the pedal all the way into the footwell and the entire car lurched forwards, rapidly decelerating. “HEY!” Tanuki yelled, her body most certainly having harness-shaped welts after that harsh maneuver. “It’s those bastards! What the hell are they doing?!”
“Do you see where we’re driving? Trail’s absolutely fucked! That, and thanks to this fog we’re as blind as bats!” Mel shouted back, getting thrown left and right in her seat as she followed the Dione closely, almost tailgating it. “And next time,” she glared angrily at Tanuki, “give me a good warning before you fire a fucking shotgun right next to my ear! My eardrums are still ringing, bloody hell!”
“A thank you would be nice, you know!” Tanuki hissed, jabbing a pointer finger into Mel’s sternum. “You’d be their next meal if it wasn’t for my quick thinking and perfect aim! Next time, show some respect to the cute girl that saves your life!”
Their bickering was rudely interrupted by a series of loud barking and snarling in very close proximity around them, and from the corners of their vision they could see dark gray shapes dart in and out of the thick fog around the impromptu convoy of vehicles spearheaded by the orange Anhultz. One of them lunged from the canopy of blindness in the Dauer’s direction, and Mel swerved the vehicle to the right, narrowly missing a strike that would have been powerful enough to cripple a door or tear a wheel clean off. She fought the slipping rear of the 632 S and quickly brought it back on course, muttering obscure bogan obscenities she wouldn’t say twice around her parents lest she receive a swift ass-whopping.
“They’re back! The doggos are back!” Tanuki loaded another shell into her shotgun and flicked the safety off. “Meru-chan, focus on driving, but try to keep the car steady, okay?” she winked and rolled the window down. A hot breeze of wind sifted through the cabin and Mel’s platinum blonde hair, dancing in the warm wind like blades of grass serenading the sunset over green Pacific cliffs. Unbuckling her racing harness, she leaned out the open window, wrapping her legs around the seat and harness to keep her anchored in place.
Mel made sure to keep the Dione within her direct line of sight, a task made easier by its vibrant paint that contrasted well against their dark, drab, low-vis surroundings. The suspension and chassis responded immediately and precisely to the frequent, sudden derivations in the road surface, perhaps a little too well; as the car was set up primarily for high-speed tarmac courses, the springs and dampers were tuned much stiffer than what would be typically found in other rally cars. Every little bump and rock in the road was amplified and transmitted directly to Mel’s weary body, which only made her fight against her inescapable tiredness harder as time went on.
“They’re coming!” Tanuki’s yelling was barely audible over the noise of the wind that poured inside and the boxer-6 flying through the higher end of the rev range, but Mel steeled her fortitude and smoothed her inputs, making gradual and gentle motions as opposed to quick and sudden maneuvers with her hands. She heard the roar first, and from the corner of her eyes saw a shadowy extrusion turn into an eleven foot-long Dyre, its mouth wide open and ready to devour the twin-tailed warmonger. “ORRRA!” Tanuki shouted, gratuitously rolling her r’s. With a pull of the trigger, the barrel shotgun erupted with a flash of white and yellow light and a thunderous clap that echoed loudly through the forest. A subsonic slug wedged itself in the Dyre’s midsection with enough stopping force to throw its lifeless body slightly off trajectory, missing the Dauer narrowly as it flew past.
A second Dyre came into view, this time on Mel’s side of the car. Tanuki swung the Mossberg around with her upper body and propped it on the roof, using her left hand to hold onto the ceiling grab handle. As she steadied her aim on the gargantuan wolf that readied itself for a pouncing attack, the Dione in front of them suddenly swerved around a random sharp protruding rock placed conveniently in the middle of the road. Just as Tanuki lined up her shot and pulled the trigger, Mel mirrored the Dione’s actions and swung the Dauer violently around the sudden obstacle. Although the slug found its target, the punchy recoil from the shotgun combined with the sudden movement made her lose her balance, and she fell over backwards, pulled by the unforgiving hands of inertia.
As Mel straightened the car, heard a high-pitched scream to her right, and from her peripheral vision saw Tanuki falling down. Moments before her legs loosened and her head dipped below the window sill, Mel reached over and grabbed Tanuki by her shirt with as much grip strength as she could afford. In a single powerful motion, she yanked her small-framed co-driver through the open window and back into her seat. Amazingly, she was still clutching her shotgun and stopped screaming once she realized she was safe.
“Crikey!” Mel cursed, loosening her grip on Tanuki’s shirt. “You okay?”
“I’m fine!” Even in the face of death, she was as stubborn as ever. Completely unfazed. “Do you job and I’ll do mine!” Making sure to wrap the harness around her legs and waist, Tanuki leaned outside the window with her shotgun, once again ready to protect them and the other vehicles from sudden Dyre attacks.
Tanuki’s powerful legs (and now the harness) helped her remain anchored in place, even with the occasional sudden braking, accelerating, turning, and hopping that naturally came from the Dauer traversing the rough terrain. She was the shotgun messenger, the German coupe was her stagecoach, and Mel its driver. She kept her head on a swivel, watching for any unusual manifestations from the thick fog that got a little too close for comfort. They would strike without warning, but Tanuki’s razor sharp reaction time would grant them a swift death via a 12 gauge slug through center mass or one of their eye sockets, whichever came first.
Minutes passed into hours of loud, droning engines that ripped through the trail at wide open throttle, frequently broken up by the resounding bang of a Mossberg 500 that they were growing used to. With each Dyre that fell, their attacks grew less coordinated and less frequent. By the time she was halfway through a second tube magazine, the Dyre had stopped attacking for a few minutes, and the handful of cars closely giving chase to the Dione in a single-file line were finally at peace.
After just over five hours of rough trail taken at considerable speed, half of which was also dedicated to warding off unsolicited Dyre attacks with a certain pump-action shoulder-fired cannon, the brightly-colored Dauer came upon the new campsite, having managed to keep pace with the familiar Dione through most of the course. This time, a generous clearing was situated between the campsite and woods, giving them not only a peace of mind but also a much shorter distance to the nearby settlement, Duskriver Village. Most of the other teams had arrived well before they did much to Tanuki’s chagrin, but Mel couldn’t have given more than a sliver of rodent’s ass. With barely a few hours of sleep that preceded five long, grueling hours of driving through heavy fog that was now only starting to lighten, her entire body ached and her eyelids were begging to meet each other and consummate for a full night’s rest.
After peeling her clothes off, not even sparing an extra minute to slip pajamas over her undergarments, Mel mounted the sunshade on the inside of the windshield and crawled over the rear passenger bulkhead into the boot area. Shortly after, Tanuki wedged herself into her half of the hatch, crawling under a thin blanket that the two of them shared.
“Meru-chan?” Tanuki’s whisper was soft and relaxed, a true sound for Mel’s sore, ringing ears. Her voice was close; she could tell from the tickles of her breath against the back of her neck.
“What is it?” Mel grumbled, but her weariness reduced whatever hint of annoyance was in her voice into barely intelligible mumbles. Inches away from comatose, she was slipping further and further into unconsciousness, barely held up by the loose thread of Tanuki’s silent beckoning.
“What if… what if you just let me fall back there?” Unlike before, where Tanuki’s enthusiasm and energy carried enough momentum to persist through breaks or pauses in her words, now there was only an eerie dread that Mel felt in her voice. She continued to interrogate her partner. “Meru-chan, why did you do it? What if you didn’t see me or hear me… what if I died back there?”
“Oh, bite your arse, will you!” Mel snapped, raising her voice above a hushed whisper as she tilted her head in Tanuki’s direction. “You’re here now, and that’s all that matters! Stop getting your tits in a tangle and be quiet!” With that, Mel rolled over to her side away from Tanuki and closed her eyes, praying for the sweet embrace of sleep that she so desired.
And an embrace she did receive, but much to her surprise, the giver was not what - or who, rather - she was expecting. It was only for a moment, such a short lapse of time that she doubted if it actually happened at all, but she was almost certain that she could feel a slender pair of arms wrap tightly around her waist and Tanuki pull herself into Mel’s scantily-clothed back. Her soft, labored breaths against her bare skin were like a heavensent breeze of cool, moist wind from an oasis embedded deep into the Sahara.
“Thank you.”
3 Likes
Shitbox Rally
Stage 4: Duskriver Village to Itzgarde
Stage Start: 1 Sun, 22/7/3251, Duskriver Campsite
Weather at Stage Start: Hot, cloudy, and windy. High humidity, even compared to before. Those skilled in understanding the weather will know this means incoming rain.
Weather at mid-stage: Cooler than before, but still hot. Clouds have begun to darken, wind has calmed. Humidity is still quite high.
Weather at Stage End (First Car): Warm, with heavy cloud cover. Wind has picked up a little as the first drops of rain begin to fall.
Weather at Stage End (Last Car): Warm and breezy, with light rain.
Stage End (First Car): A little before 3-and-40 Sun, 22/7/3251, Itzgarde Campsite
Stage End (Last Car): A little after 8 Sun, 22/7/3251, Itzgarde Campsite
People are understandably a little restless when the fourth stage starts. Spending a little over 20 Aetheriian hours, almost 36 Earth hours, sitting around getting a well needed break and some much needed time to fix their cars has left a lot of teams wanting to go, and go quickly. Similar to the road on the way into Duskriver Village, the road on the way out is a lot of dirt with rocks in it, slowly transitioning to gravel as you approach Itzgarde. To your left is still the Duskwater River, and to your right is still a fairly dense forest. Thankfully, the only Dyre anyone sees on the road is one lone wolf who stands up to watch the cars drive by, clearly curious and not a threat. At the Itzgarde camp, it’s clear that Itzgarde is less a small town and more of a small city, with a stone bridge wide enough for traffic in both directions leading up to the walled city. As for the campsite itself, we’re making use of an old logging camp near the forest, which even has a few leftover wooden buildings for teams wanting to avoid sleeping in tents tonight.
Notes: Randomization is active. Breakdowns are active. Time is in Earth Time.
Team Shift Happens
Distance Traveled: 355.2
Time (HH:MM:SS): 07:45:03
Average MPH: 45.8
Randomizer: 9
Refueling Stops: 1
Breakdown: 3 (Tires)
Total Distance Traveled: 1243.2
New driver, same problems. With Jayde taking a cautionary first try behind the wheel with Malavera’s calm guidance, he did well, right up until a jagged rock ripped the sidewall wide open on the Bricksley’s rear left tire. Kaylie changed the tire for the one in the bed, saving their magic for later. After that, it was relatively smooth sailing… If one could ignore the very, very crunchy gear changes and being all over the road, from shoulder to shoulder and everything in between.
Team Wayfarers
Distance Traveled: 355.2
Time (HH:MM:SS): 05:05:24
Average MPH: 69.7
Randomizer: 13
Refueling Stops: 1
Breakdown: 0
Total Distance Traveled: 1243.2
With the misfire fixed, Chernobog seems like a new truck! With his foot to the floor and askin’ for more, Jack Willow-Wright powers through Stage 4 like greased lightning. They get to the campsite as the first raindrops fall, making bright, clean spots in the well faded and absolutely filthy paint.
Team Gearknobs
Distance Traveled: 355.2
Time (HH:MM:SS): 06:04:23
Average MPH: 58.4
Randomizer: 12
Refueling Stops: 0
Breakdown: 0
Total Distance Traveled: 1243.2
With the engine running quite well and their brakes fixed, the Carica manages a solid stage this time. While the dirt may have slowed the car thanks to the ground clearance and all of the rocks, once they hit the gravel, Team Gearknobs showed that even with the low-quality-fuel-tuned engine, the Carica had some rally heritage peeking through.
Team Fallen Angels of the Past
Distance Traveled: 355.2
Time (HH:MM:SS): 07:33:57
Average MPH: 46.9
Randomizer: 11
Refueling Stops: 0
Breakdown: 0
Total Distance Traveled: 1243.2
Rear wheel drive and dirt are not the best of friends. Even still, the Claussient is pushed rather quickly through this stage, considering how far out of the wagon’s comfort zone this is.
Team Slow
Distance Traveled: 355.2
Time (HH:MM:SS): 11:03:36
Average MPH: 32.1
Randomizer: 7
Refueling Stops: 1
Breakdown: 1 (Powertrain)
Total Distance Traveled: 1243.2
Things were fine for the first 30 miles. Then the Service Engine Soon light came on, started flashing, and the engine refused to let you accelerate beyond 35 MPH once the Gauge Light Party started. Team Slow slowly crawls along the road in Limp Mode until they get to the camp and find out that, after their brilliant showing in the first three stages, several fuses and relays have wiggled loose in the fusebox and created some wonderful chaos.
Team Oil Crisis
Distance Traveled: 355.2
Time (HH:MM:SS): 05:39:43
Average MPH: 62.7
Randomizer: 12
Refueling Stops: 2
Breakdown: 0
Total Distance Traveled: 1243.2
Making up time after their accident in the last stage, the Union Magistrate sails through the rough dirt and gravel. The two newest passengers are mesmerized by the tree-line turning into a blur around them, and occasionally growl in tune with the snarling Narrowblock V8.
Team Hillbilly Rollers
Distance Traveled: 355.2
Time (HH:MM:SS): 08:06:19
Average MPH: 43.8
Randomizer: 8
Refueling Stops: 1
Breakdown: 3 (Tires)
Total Distance Traveled: 1243.2
Like the sound of a machine gun, it’s blam, blam, blam as the front two tires and the passenger left tire pop in relatively rapid succession. The front two are chalked up to damage caused by Marie driving through a Dyre the day before. The rear one was a rock that was hit. Thankfully, the team has enough spare tires and a tire patch kit to get back on the move.
Team Witchlight
Distance Traveled: 355.2
Time (HH:MM:SS): 07:07:20
Average MPH: 49.8
Randomizer: 12
Refueling Stops: 1
Breakdown: 0
Total Distance Traveled: 1243.2
Like the Claussient, the RWD nature of the EAAC Aphrodite makes it a little squirmy in the dirt. Elist spends most of their time with the back end of the car out sideways, driving like they were in an old 1970’s TV show car chase. Finne and Kira just wish that Elist would drive the car straight like the other teams, not understanding the difficulty of driving. Still, Elist manages a decent pass on the little Claussient wagon.
Team Mravolinski-Chitco
Distance Traveled: 355.2
Time (HH:MM:SS): 08:14:59
Average MPH: 43.0
Randomizer: 9
Refueling Stops: 0
Breakdown: 4 (Team Caused Slowdown)
Total Distance Traveled: 1243.2
It must be a reflex at this point that if things clatter and rattle, it’s time to stop and check the cargo, because the Kontir pulls off to the side and stops, only for the team to realize that no, in fact, their cargo stayed put this time. Thankfully, it’s only a small slowdown.
Team Blazers
Distance Traveled: 355.2
Time (HH:MM:SS): 06:45:54
Average MPH: 52.5
Randomizer: 9
Refueling Stops: 1
Breakdown: 2 (Chassis)
Total Distance Traveled: 1243.2
After the disaster the other day with running over a Dyre’s hand, the team is extra cautious on the road today. When a mysterious new clunking noise from the rear shows up, the Yamada ASR-4 is stopped and the problem is fixed on the spot: A loose bolt was letting one of the rear shock absorbers make noise.
Team Machinas Con Passiones
Distance Traveled: 355.2
Time (HH:MM:SS): 07:46:45
Average MPH: 45.6
Randomizer: 10
Refueling Stops: 4
Breakdown: 0
Total Distance Traveled: 1243.2
The good news: Everyone has gotten used to stopping a lot for refueling stops, which means unlike some other teams, no one here has sore legs from sitting in their seat too long. The bad news: A minivan with the fuel efficiency of a jet engine means a lot of refueling stops.
Team Quick Rally 47
Distance Traveled: 355.2
Time (HH:MM:SS): 05:25:11
Average MPH: 65.5
Randomizer: 10
Refueling Stops: 1
Breakdown: 0
Total Distance Traveled: 1243.2
It’s clear that the rough roads of Archana must be very, very similar to the dirt-and-gravel mix the Mara Kanyon was thrown through here. Despite not driving flat out, the Quantum Xenoanthropology Department manages to pull a good second place, and gets to observe the teams as they pull into the new campsite.
Team Mrezhari
Distance Traveled: 355.2
Time (HH:MM:SS): 06:32:21
Average MPH: 54.3
Randomizer: 11
Refueling Stops: 0
Breakdown: 0
Total Distance Traveled: 1243.2
The Dunav dances across the dirt at devilish speed, spitting streaks of soil into the air as the maniacal madman behind the wheel Scandinavian-flicks their 4x4 machine around. It’s clear that someone was having fun in the dirt, as when they got to the gravel, they got serious and pushed the Dunav hard.
Team Jockey
Distance Traveled: 355.2
Time (HH:MM:SS): 10:51:06
Average MPH: 32.7
Randomizer: 7
Refueling Stops: 2
Breakdown: 3 (Tires)
Total Distance Traveled: 1243.2
Tiny car, 4 people, not a lot of room for spare tires. Getting four flat tires at once meant a long, long drive on what was left of the tires and hoping not to trash the rims too much. Once they were back at the camp, Jayde was able to fix their rims and tires for them, but it was clear to Team Jockey that they were going to need to get some spares and put them on the roof, even if those spares were made of wood with a metal band around the outside.
Team RK Series Racing
Distance Traveled: 355.2
Time (HH:MM:SS): 11:53:01
Average MPH: 29.89
Randomizer: 7
Refueling Stops: 1
Breakdown: 1 (Powertrain)
Total Distance Traveled: 1243.2
Disaster! Connor pushed the Dione hard in the last stage, and hard again for a good portion of this stage. The bouncing and jostling was too much, however, for the distributor to take, the clips on the cap have cracked, and the rotor was spat out and driven over. Luckily, Team Shift Happens was alerted to the stopped car, made an incredibly-hasty return trip, and with a quick application of a tow-rope, dragged the crippled Dione into the camp, over the two-lane bridge, and into town.
Team Black Rabbit
Distance Traveled: 355.2
Time (HH:MM:SS): 07:40:49
Average MPH: 46.2
Randomizer: 12
Refueling Stops: 1
Breakdown: 0
Total Distance Traveled: 1243.2
The Dauer’s six-cylinder symphony rings out through the car as Melanie pushes the vehicle hard. RWD on dirt isn’t their best friend for speed, but a lot of fun can be had by sliding the car around even once they get onto the gravel.
Team Spy Kids
Distance Traveled: 355.2
Time (HH:MM:SS): 05:25:44
Average MPH: 65.4
Randomizer: 11
Refueling Stops: 1
Breakdown: 0
Total Distance Traveled: 1243.2
Barreling through the backwoods in a great big cloud of dirt is a ton of fun. Arriving third in the camp is a nice surprise.
Stage Finishing Order:
Team Wayfarers
Team Quick Rally 47 (the Quantum Xenoanthropology Department)
Team Spy Kids
Team Oil Crisis
Team Gearknobs
Team Mrezhari
Team Blazers
Team Witchlight
Team Fallen Angels of the Past
Team Black Rabbit Corporation
Team Shift Happens
Team Machinas Con Passiones
Team Hillbilly Rollers
Team Mravolinski-Chitco
Team Jockey
Team Slow
Team RK Series Racing
Team Shift Happens
Previous Chapters:
Over the Hill and Through the Woods - Stage 1
May the Moons have Mercy on Them - Stage 1 Campsite
Helpful Friends are Helpful - Stage 1 Campsite
Tune-ups and Tech Talks - Stage 1 Campsite
Having Mercy on a Missing Teammate - Stage 1 Campsite / The Missing Teammate - Written by TheYugo45GV and Madrias
Sleep? What is that? - Stage 1 Campsite
A Rude Awakening - Stage 1 Campsite
Another One Bites The Dust - Stage 2 Run / Stage 2 Campsite
Repairs / A Good Meal - Stage 2 Campsite / The Green Crystal (Written by TheYugo45GV and Madrias)
A Good Night’s Sleep? - Stage 2 Campsite
“Here Comes the Hound of Death” - Stage 2 Campsite Battle - Written by Elizipeazie, TheYugo45GV, and Madrias.
Fright Night Forest Stage - Stage 3 Run / Stage 3 Camp
The Free Day - Stage 3 Camp (written in collaboration with @Elizipeazie) (Part 1), (Part 2), (Part 3)
Safe Arrival - Stage 3 Camp (Written in collaboration with @TheYugo45GV)
Duskriver Village Campsite, 1 Sun
Jayde heard the bell strike out once after they had packed away their camping equipment and decided that, if he was going to keep being a part of this team, he needed to try wrangling this strange beast. So far, only Kivenaal, Malavera, and Rukari seemed to drive it, though Kayden said he knew how, just not on a manual gearbox, and Kaylie admitted she could drive, but not with the 5 speed. He ran to the truck and threw himself into the driver’s seat, surprising everyone.
“You know how to drive, Jayde?” Malavera asked, laughing as Kayden got into the mid-bench and he took the navigator’s seat, leaving Kaylie in the back with Kivenaal and Rukari for company.
“No, but I need to learn,” Jayde admitted.
“Fair enough. We’re on dirt and gravel, you won’t kill the clutch,” Malavera said. “Start by putting your right foot down on that brake pedal, the middle one, and push the left pedal all the way down with your left foot.” He waited until Jayde had done both actions, then said, “Grab the taller stick and make sure it’s in the middle, then turn the key.”
Jayde wiggled the gear lever, then cranked over the Bricksley’s proud 427ci V8 engine, which gave a healthy roar as it awakened at 1500 RPM and settled around 750.
“Gear lever toward you and forward. That’s first. Toward you and back is second. Middle forward is third, middle back is fourth, away and forward is fifth. Don’t go away and back, that’s reverse, and you’ll drive over the Dione if you do that,” Malavera explained. As Jayde stuffed the truck into first gear, Malavera tried to give him the advice, “Ease off on the brake, we’re on level ground, press the long, skinny pedal a little bit, and gently ease off of the clutch.”
Jayde had no clue how little pressure was needed, and with the Bricksley’s transfer case in neutral, revved the crap out of the engine and went nowhere. Behind them, the Dione rasped into life. Kayden reached down and yanked the transfer case into 2-High just as Jayde floored the throttle, and the Bricksley suddenly lunged forward and kicked up a shower of dirt.
Kaylie leaned out of the window and yelled to the crew in the Dione, “Sorry, guys. Trying to teach Jayde how to drive, and, well, he’s never driven stick before.”
With all of the windows down, Jayde said in a loud voice, trying to be heard over the engine, “I’ve never driven before, stick or otherwise! Merciful Dancing Sisters above, I’d rather ride my bicycle than do this!”
“Too late, Jayde, you’re behind the wheel until the first fuel stop,” Malavera said. Jayde scowled at him in a silent response.
The Bricksley bombed along with the engine howling in first gear until Malavera told Jayde, “Gas up, clutch in, second gear, clutch out, gas down.”
Jayde got it mostly right, stomping on the clutch and letting the mighty 427 scream to valve float, making Kaylie glad that the old pushrod block was not an interference engine, stuffed the gear stick into second, and dumped the clutch, kicking off another dirt shower and almost spinning out the truck. Luckily, he seemed to have a hang for counter-steering, as he kept the front wheels pointing where he wanted to go, with the rear wheels kicking up dirt and the V8 screaming. His attempt at third gear sent shivers up Kaylie’s spine as there was an ear-splitting crunching, grinding noise from the transmission, followed by a hard jolt as the gear engaged and the truck rumbled forward.
“Just leave it there, Jayde. Kayden, put him in four-wheel-drive before he spins out,” Malavera said.
Kayden stuffed the transfer case into 4-High and Jayde immediately felt the truck straighten out.
All went well until Jayde simultaneously drove over a rock and ran the engine out of fuel, having to coast with the clutch down to the side of the road. He stepped on the brake pedal hard enough to jostle everyone in their seat and cause all the stuff in the bed to clatter, at which point Malavera told him, “The tiny pedal on the far left, step on that and push it a good bit down. Then you can take your feet off of the pedals. Oh, and turn the ignition off before you fry the coil.”
The parking brake creaked ominously as Jayde tried to put the pedal through the firewall unintentionally, then stayed there as Jayde cautiously removed his foot from both pedals, before he turned off the key.
Kaylie hopped out, grabbed the tire iron from the toolbox and the jack out of the bed, spun the lug nuts off of the burst rear tire, jacked up the back of the truck, pulled the burst tire off of the hub and threw it into the bed, dragged their spare out of the bed, put it onto the truck, cranked the lug nuts on finger tight with her right hand, lowered the truck off of the jack, then torqued the lug nuts down with her left hand, applying the proper amount of torque. She tossed the tire iron and jack back into the truck bed, shoved their dirt-covered flat into the spot where the old tire went, then climbed back into the truck, laughing as she realized how much seat swapping had happened while she was dealing with the tire. Kayden was getting his try at driving stick for the first time, Jayde was in the middle of the rear bench as usual, Kivenaal was sitting next to Jayde, Rukari had the front mid-bench, and Malavera, again, took the navigator’s seat.
Being at least familiar with most of the controls, Kayden got the truck started, fumbled his way into what he thought was first gear, then with feet on the clutch and the brake, pulled the parking brake release handle and ended up with a faceful of dirt courtesy of the rapidly rising parking brake pedal.
“I hate this truck,” Kayden grumbled, looking over at Kaylie with his dirt-speckled face.
Kaylie laughed. “Didn’t the Sinistra do that to you once, too?”
“I don’t understand why the humans insist on a spring-loaded pedal as a parking brake,” Kayden grumbled, before bringing the revs up and letting the clutch out. The truck nearly stalled until Kayden floored the gas.
“Not bad for taking off in third gear, rookie,” Malavera said.
Itzgarde Campsite, a little before 5-and-20 Sun
Kayden gave a sigh of relief as the Bricksley rumbled into the rainy campsite. He turned the engine off as the rest of the team bailed out to set up their camp. Unfortunately, just after they got all of their tents set up, Rukari said, “There is a problem. We need to go back and pick up Team RK Series Racing. They have been stopped for more than two hours.”
Rukari hopped into the driver’s seat, with the rest of the team piling in, almost at random, though with some amount of order, with Kaylie holding the radio operator’s seat. She reached up, slapped Radio D’s Boost switch, watching as the red light came on bright and steady, cranked the knob over to Radio D, then keyed the microphone. “To the Dione, don’t worry, we’re coming back for you!” Kaylie said, just as Rukari cranked the key, brought the engine screaming up to the redline, popped the transfer case in 2-high and the gearbox in first, dumped the clutch, and spun the truck around with brilliant twin-rooster-tails of dirt flying. He jammed it into 4-High and rowed through the gears, engine screaming for mercy as they barreled along, on a mission to help a bunch of friends.
3 Likes
RK Series Racing; Stage 4 Drive
The next morning, the crew woke up very well rested, having spent the day before to catch a breather after being forced to drive through the night.
Valentin, as always, spent most of the morning brushing his hair, though secures it with multiple reusable zip-ties, creating a semi-braided-looking ponytail going down his entire back.
The team packed up and took seats following an otherwise uneventful morning. In front of them, the Bricksley’s V8 roared into life, settling into a burbly idle soon after.
The Dione quickly followed suit, their 4 cylinder engine of less than half the displacement being much less mighty in terms of noise.
The Bricksley didn’t move for what felt like an eternity and jsut as Connor maneuvered the gear stick into reverse to get some space between them, the V8 up front howled, followed by the Bricksley jumping forward, showering the Dione in dirt and pebbles as a result.
Kaylie’s apology was heard and replied to by Tim with a simple thumbs-up out the front passenger window.
Jayden’s note about preferring cycling over driving made Valentin rather curious, though a reply seemed impractical given the immense noise created by the V8 of the Bricksley in front.
With the Bricksely gone, the Dione followed, maintaining a good deal of distance, knowing a n00b being at the helm of the car ahead.
A few miles in, Jayde seemed to get the hang of it as the Truck was ever smaller in front of them before vanishing entirely.
A good 300 miles of mostly nothing later, disaster struck:
A quiet, but audible “pop” came from the front, followed by the engine losing all power, solely being back-driven by the wheels.
“We have lost power.” Connor notes, safely bringing the car to a stop about a quarter of a mile later on a bit of grass next to the road.
“Maybe it’s a loose wire or something.”, Valentin speculates, his new haircut creating far few problems for the time being, even though the plastic zip-ties weren’t comfortable at all, irritating and scratching his neck and also back.
Making sure nobody else was barreling past them, the team of four got out of the car, with Connor releasing the hood latch on his way out. Once in the engine bay, the damage was hard to miss.
“Seems like the distributor went bust. Hopes are we can locate the cap somewhere”, Valentin notes, looking into the mess of loose ignition wires and some bits leftover from the rotor.
“Well… it must be somewhere further back then, right?”, Tim replied, weary and unsure as to how the fix could be done.
The team set off, backtracking up the road for a little more than 1000 feet until Tim manages to locate the cap. Or rather, part of it.
“Erm… i found half the cap…”, Tim exclaims, picking up the broken pit of plastic from the ground on the transition between gravel and grass.
The others gathered around him, looking at the non-functional part.
“Do we gave superglue or JB-Weld or something?”, Constantin suggests in a stroke of supreme intuition.
“We have duct-tape, but we’re still missing the other half”, Valentin responds, trying to think of a way to fashion a cap out of whatever they might have available, to no avail.
Connor, meanwhile, managed to collect some more pieces, which mostly are tiny shards of the cap, probably shredded by some rotating assembly further downstream.
“This is all i could locate in the immediate surroundings.”, Connor admits, holding up a small pile of plastic bits, not much larger than the surrounding pebbles.
“FUCK! We’re Stranded!”, Tim shouts, visibly agitated at the thought of their million-mile car having failed them once the normally very plentiful parts supply was not there.
“Didn’t the host team people… thingys… mention some way of knowing when teams were stranded? I remember them being like: Yeah if you were stopped for some time we would’ve gotten back and collected you.”, Valentin notes, firing up memory of that conversation happening in the other teams.
“This statement was made by Shift Happens at the end of what they consider to be Stage One.” Connor also confirms, at least retaining decent morale within the team.
At that point, the first raindrops started to get to ground-level, which the team did not think much about as the minor rain proved a refreshing spin on the hot and humid weather of the past few days.
“Maybe they have a distributor?”, Tim proclaims in a naive spell of hope, quickly being brought back down by Valentin.
“In your dreams, maybe. They have a V8, no chance in hell that it’ll fit.”, Valentin counters, immediately ruining the added hope for Tim.
Constantin pokes his head into the car to release the trunk, getting his newly-“purchase” (read: gifted) equipment out of the back-end of the car.
He then goes about setting up his field Jacket as a target by propping it up in the ground with some random sticks, inside out so it’s a bit better to see in the grass patch between dense forest they ended up in.
Quite a ways into the distance, all the way on the other side of the river, a train pops out behind a group of trees, barreling along the tracks of the Longitude Main Line. It announces itself with a powerful blow of it’s whistle, directing everyone’s gaze at the light blue heavily streamlined pacific-style locomotive. As it made it’s way up the very gentle sloping track with it’s art-deco design, a total of 6 carriages, complementing the engine in both their streamlined nature and blue paintjob with a silver stripe running along the side. In big, bold, golden letters, “SILVER LINE SPECIAL” was written across the tender of the engine, easily legible from the other side. A mixture of immense amounts of steam and dark grey smoke was pumped out the well-integrated chimney as the engine was sent up the hill at full power by it’s driver.
“Whoah!” Valentin exclaims as he, as well as the others, practically stares at the train gunning it up the mild gradient. Soon that thought was followed by questioning the engineering choices made. “Must be hell to maintain with all the important bits covered in cladding…”
The sight of the engine, with all it’s power and aerodynamics also planted an idea in his head.
“Connor, mind coming along to talk for a bit?”, Valentin asks, already heading off and away from the car for some secrecy.
Connor, without saying a word, followed, whereas Tim wasn’t sure as to what Valentin was planning.
“What plan are you hatching now?”, Tim demands, being dismissed by Valentin.
“I have an idea, but i need Connor for a while to check if it could work. I’ll explain later. If it does, we’re back in the running.”
Tim wasn’t exactly satisfied with the response, but the thought of not DNF-ing this event was reason enough to let Valentin do whatever he felt was needed.
Constantin, meanwhile, returned to his archery and now had Tim as a silent spectator.
He draws the first arrow out of his re-stocked quiver and takes careful aim at his Jacket. Once the arrow is released, it does the journey over there, but goes past, missing the target by a good foot-or-so to the top.
Attempts two, three and four are all missed as well, with all of them going much further than intended.
Tim, thinking he is somehow disturbing Constantin, retreats to the car to sort whatever was in the trunk.
Constantin continues, now alone, also missing shots five through eight.
“Something is off…”, he remarks, placing the bow on the ground and heading downrange to collect the arrows.
With Constantin trial-shooting, Valentin and Connor apparently hatching a plan and Tim cleaning and sorting, about three hours pass during which the rain intensifies from a few drops to actual light rain.
to be continued.
Important OOC Note:
Any teams that want to interact with RK Series racing on this stage only have a narrow window to do so:
- when the respective team passes the Dione during their wait for rescue
- waaay deep into the night (close to 6 moon), though they won’t do much there
- anyone slower than shift happens will pass the Dione while waiting
1 Like
Team Shift Happens and Team RK-Series Racing
So, funny thing happened: @Elizipeazie and I kinda got a bit carried away here, and while I’m sure it’s a good read, most of it takes place out of camp. So, for the sake of reading in this thread, we’re going to condense multiple posts together and hide them so that we don’t have a 128k blowout in the thread to scroll through.
The Full Story, Part 1 of 4
Kayden stared at the dashboard as Rukari drove the Bricksley harder than any of them would have dared to go. The engine roared as they hurtled back down the road at a terrifying pace with Rukari double-clutching every gear change, occasionally sliding the truck around corners.
“Slow the fuck down!” Malavera yelled from the back seat. “You bin the truck, Rukari, and who’s going to rescue us while we’re rescuing them?”
Kivenaal was frantically looking around for things to grab a hold of as Rukari took another turn while going almost 60 miles per hour. In the process, he grabbed the CB handle in its resting place, and with it being that close to the speakers, it gave a squeal of feedback over the air.
Kaylie winced and grabbed the microphone out of Kivenaal’s upper right hand, holding it instead in her right hand to keep it from being grabbed by the startled Valraadi in the mid-rear bench. “Grab the seat in front of you if you have to!” Kaylie said.
Jayde looked almost terrified as the Bricksley surged around another corner. “Rukari! There are other cars!” He yelled as they shot past the atomic-pink van of Team Hillbilly Rollers with an insanely-high closing speed, headlights glaring and wipers working hard to keep the windshield clear.
(@Knugcab)
Despite this, Rukari kept his foot down. Kayden glanced at the dashboard again and grimaced as the Bricksley’s temperature gauge was climbing fast. The suspension rattled and squeaked as Rukari left the road momentarily to let Team Mravolinski-Chitco’s truck pass without incident, shaking up all the cargo in the bed again.
“Oh, in the Name of the Rift, slow down! This is the corner Kayden almost missed!” Jayde said. Rukari piled on the brakes with everything he had, trying to haul the heavy van-truck down to be able to make the turn. Malavera groaned as he smacked both heads into the roof-mounted radio box, courtesy of only having a crappy back-seat lap belt holding him in place.
“Can you not drive like an idiot, please?” Malavera snapped.
“I am not driving like an idiot,” Rukari growled back. “I am driving as fast as I can.”
“Like an idiot. What good will we be for help if we die on the way?” Kivenaal said.
Two hours after they had left the camp, however, they saw the Dione of Team RK Series Racing pulled off to the side of the road. Rukari, again, slammed on the brakes, though this time everyone was prepared for it, though the cargo wasn’t, with the jack and the tire iron slamming into the toolbox with a crash.
Kaylie looked over at the dash and told Rukari, “Leave it running! We’re at 230 degrees Fahrenheit, if you shut it down, we’ll vapor lock and it’ll take forever to restart. Plus, this means the water pump is still turning, so we’ll cool down.”
The doors were opened and all six members of Team Shift Happens bailed out. Kaylie wandered over to the Dione, seeing the hood open, then groaning as she realized what had gone wrong. “Twin Suns. How did that happen? Broken clip, loose cap, the rotor’s missing. No wonder you guys stopped,” Kaylie said. She looked over to the others and said, “Looks like we’ll have to tow them in. Their distributor came apart in a real bad way.”
Kayden stared at it, popped the hood on the Bricksley, then said, “Couldn’t we just put our spare in their car?”
Kivenaal shook his head. “No. Our rotor is too big, and if I remember my cars correctly, the distributor drive gears are different. Even if all of that wasn’t a problem, it mechanically wouldn’t fit, ours is just too big.”
Rukari rummaged around in the bed for a while, even looking in the toolbox and under the spare tire. “Where are the tow-chains?” he grumbled to himself.
Malavera looked at Rukari, then said, “Probably about 60 miles back the way we came, flung into a ditch from one of your little off-road excursions.”
Jayde looked over to Constantin, who was still trying to hit his target with his new bow. “How is the archery going?” he asked.
At some point, with multiple other cars having passed the stationary Brick™, Connor was the first to spot the rapidly approaching Bricksley.
“Team Shift Happens has arrived. And their vehicle is overheating.”, Connor remarks, gently pushing Valentin off the road that bit further to avoid being ran over.
As soon as Rukari stomped the brakes, not much happened, as the immense weight of the thing overburdens the brakes, which cannot lock the wheels even on the loose surface.
The Bricksley rolls to a stop, and all six team members jump out of their van-truck-hybrid thing.
Kaylie was the first to receive an answer from the Valentin - Connor duo:
“Not entirely sure, it went bust and the cap now is broken…”, Valentin exclaims, equally confused as to how that was even possible.
“Likely material fatigue and wear. I found the parts number on what remained of the component, and it was manufactured in 1979. It was installed by AMP Holdings as the vehicle was manufactured.”, Connor explains, holding up the remains of what once has been the distributor cap. Valentin was impressed, not by Connor’s knowledge, but by the cap itself: “Well… when the OEM cap joins the million-mile club… gotta comment the build quality of those indestructible fuckers.”
A discussion arose about fitting the Bricksley spare distributor onto it. However, that was quickly dismissed due to compatibility.
“How are you gonna make a V8 distributor work in the first place? Not even looking at the gearing or anything… We have a straight-four.”, Valentin commented, seeing no use for a spare cap meant for a V8.
As Jayde was approaching Constantin, he looked at him immediately, as he was inbetween shots and not focused on missing the target almost every time.
“Very poorly… something’s very off with this stuff your friend made.”, Constantin replies, calm, but also rather frustrated at his poor performance.
The jacket downrange only had a few holes in it, despite him spending a good three hours and close to a hundred shots trying to hit the damn thing.
“I see you found a way to keep your hair out of the engine bay,” Kaylie said, smiling as she looked at the zip-ties holding Valentin’s hair back. “Getting grease out of one’s hair is a nightmare,” she said.
“Kayden, Valentin’s right. Trying to rig something up with the Bricksley’s distributor is just not going to work. Even if we skipped every other cylinder, you’re still throwing live high-voltage sparks around the engine bay. That’s going to mess with their CB radio, could potentially interfere with Connor, possibly start a massive engine fire, and that’s even assuming we could adapt the diameter. Not possible, and we’re not trashing my only spare distributor so you can try it,” Kaylie said, looking at her brother.
Kayden shrugged and put the spare distributor back into the toolbox. “It was just a thought.”
“How about you leave the mechanical stuff to us mechanics, please, and help Rukari find something to tow their car with?” Kaylie replied.
Jayde nodded. “I apologize for that, Constantin,” he said. “I’ve seen her make good bows before, it’s the only reason I recommended her. I’m not sure what went wrong, but I’ve seen your skill in battle. Even I can see something isn’t right,” he admitted.
Kivenaal grimaced as he grabbed one of the containers off of the roof rack, feeling rather thirsty. He popped the lid open and took a long swig, glad that they still had water, but wishing like hell it was cold instead.
“Kivenaal!” Malavera said, glaring at the four-armed Valraadi as he caught him red-handed in the middle of taking a drink out of one of the jerry cans. “Not straight out of the containers! We’ve told you this before!”
Kaylie stopped studying the Dione’s engine bay and sighed. “Really, Kiva? We all have to drink that water, there’s bottles in the truck, and you’re chugging it out of the cans.”
“I was thirsty,” Kivenaal replied.
“And there are bottles in the truck you could have filled,” Kaylie responded. “You didn’t have to be lazy and take a great big slug of water out of the can.”
Kivenaal sighed. “Yeah, bust my ass for drinking straight out of the water jugs as if you guys haven’t done it, too,” Kivenaal grumbled.
Malavera pulled off a strip of duct tape and labeled the can Kivenaal had in his hands so that no one else would accidentally drink out of it before someone could clean it.
Rukari closed the lid on the toolbox and sighed. “Can’t find any tow chains,” he grumbled.
“Well, instead of sitting on the toolbox, Rukari, start trying to find a solution,” Kayden said.
“Still prefer it either open or kept with actual ties… those plastic things are itchy as hell”, Valentin replies, actually reverting that change as he simply pulls them off the end of his hairdo, pocketing them afterwards.
“Though i do have an idea.”, Valentin continued, not yet revealing as to what exactly it was. But he was grinning, knowing that at least in theory, it was possible.
“I mean… i am Constantly aiming high, it seems like. I think the arrows came out waay too light, but there’s no proof, as the old ones got soaking wet yesterday. Well… the ones i still have, that is.”, Constantin explains, distraught after having spent four hours practicing with a bow that obviously wasn’t of use for him.
At this point, Tim joins the group in front of the Dione, having heard the ruckus about not drinking out of containers.
“Maybe assign each member a jerry-can then? Seems like your fuel eco is about on-par with that of your truck.”, Tim jokes, mostly speculating on the actual fuel economy of the Bricksley. Though with it looking decidedly 70s, six people on board and both trunk and roof full of cargo, it certainly seemed very heavy to him.
Kaylie nodded. “I can understand that. I mean, I don’t have any hair to pull back, but… I swear, zip-ties seem to be made out of the most irritating plastic possible.” As Valentin then stated he had an idea, Kaylie smiled. “I believe there is a quote, that necessity is the mother of all invention. If we can find anything to tow you guys with, we’ll get you to the camp, or into the town if you think you need supplies there.”
Malavera looked over at them, then said, “We did bring tow-chains, but the gray-furred idiot behind the wheel bounced them out of the bed trying to get here at the speed of sound.”
Jayde nodded. “This is one of those times I wish I could wind back time, tell myself to listen to my instincts,” he said. “I knew there were two bowyers in that town, both good ones. Rather than asking around to see who was better, I went with who I knew, and that seems to have been a mistake. A major one, at that. Maybe at one time, she was better, but it seems that she’s losing her touch. Or she was distracted. Either way, I let you down, and for that, I am sorry,” Jayde said.
When Tim mentioned assigning people a jerry can, it was Kayden who stared at Tim for a few long seconds, then looked back at Malavera. “Seriously, we’ve got six people here, several of which are incredibly smart, and a damn AI, and we can’t think of using a few strips of duct tape and a Scribble marker to label a few cans? How the fuck any of us got off the planet, I’ll never know.”
“Remember, Kay, you ran our ship out of fuel. Also,” Kaylie said, walking over to her brother and tapping him soundly on the nose with Nova’s handheld, “you know better than to leave expensive military hardware just laying around. Be glad I picked this up or I’d make you march your ass back there.”
Kayden flinched even though Kaylie hadn’t hit him hard at all, more from being scolded for leaving things laying around again. “Got it. Won’t happen again,” he said, opening the door and setting the phone-like device on the dashboard.
Malavera, meanwhile, was ripping off strips of duct tape and using a black marker to label out 6 of their 20 water cans. “Anyone wants more than 5 gallons, label a second can,” Malavera said.
Rukari wandered over toward Jayde and Constantin. “Sorry for the delay. I’ve managed to lose our tow chains,” he said.
“Well… Not sure whether it’s even reasonable, but I have a climbing rope,” Jayde said, reaching into his bag and pulling out a coil of rope. “It can hold up my other form when climbing, but… I don’t know if it can hold up to a car.”
“Well… we’re gonna need a whole workshop and some manpower to get that done by tomorrow morning…”, Valentin admits, not wanting to be too much of a burden to the others, but also trying to help his own teammates out.
“With how you explained how this is basically some kind of steampunk-y, tropical country, i figured we use local technology.”
Tim looked at Valentin rather befuddled, failing to utter a word in confusion.
“We turn the car into a traction engine. I spent the better part of four hours theorizing this. It’s definitely possible!”, Valentin continues, confident in his truly ambitious idea.
Constantin, meanwhile went about the process of de-stringing his bows after having tried the other to see if the bow was the issue.
“Well… i appreciate the attempt at providing aid, though those bows are of no use to me. Look at this!”, he exclaims, pointing at his Jacket propped up down range. “I spent more than three hours and close to 100 shots on trying to hit this thing! Of those, i hit like what… eight?” Constantin continues, as he chucks the now un-strung bow a few feet into the grass field ahead of him.
Constantin took note of Rukari approaching, but didn’t react all that much, being stuck in a state between disappointment and frustration.
Kaylie raised an eyebrow as she heard Valentin’s plan. “In any other situation, I’d say that was a crazy idea, but here? That might just work. From what I know, a typical combustion engine uses a controlled, but very rapid burn to expand hot gas and push the piston down in the cylinder. A steam engine uses a controlled measure of high-pressure water vapor to push a piston inside a cylinder. The operating design is the same, pistons go up and down, connecting rods transfer that reciprocating motion into a crankshaft, the crankshaft rotates as a result. The only real difference is how those pistons are moved,” Kaylie said.
Rukari smiled as Jayde showed he had a rope. “That might work,” he said.
Jayde seemed skeptical, but followed Rukari.
Rukari, on the other hand, called out to the others, “Jayde has a rope we could use.”
Jayde grimaced slightly, then said, “It’s my climbing rope, but… I’m not quite sure it’s able to handle this.”
Kayden looked over at the rope, then asked, “Wouldn’t Connor be able to tell? Let him have a look.”
Jayde nodded, then stepped closer to Connor, respectfully leaving as much room as he could between himself and Valentin as he handed over his rope for an inspection.
“Exactly!”, Valentin called out after Kaylie had finished explaining the difference between internal combustion and steam expansion. “Given a high enough boiler pressure and a good valve gear mechanism, we could make quite the torque-monster!”, he continues.
As Rukari called out that a suitable rope might have been found, Connor walked over to take a look, as was suggested by Kayden.
“This rope is a typical 12KN climbing rope. Towing the Dione using it, while possible, will require extreme caution to avoid damage to the rope”, Connor replies, after having inspected the Rope in question.
“We could double it up.”, Valentin suggested. “Loop the rope through one hook and tie both ends to the other hook, effectively giving two ropes.”
Jayde nodded. “Didn’t know if it was reasonable to tow something like that with a rope, so, glad to hear it’s at least possible,” he mentioned.
Kaylie grabbed the rope and looped it through the Dione’s tow hook, then studied the back of the Bricksley, trying to find a good attachment point. “Fuck, this one doesn’t have the towing package,” she grumbled.
“Could loop the rope around the axle,” Rukari suggested.
“Absolutely not!” Kaylie said, glaring at Rukari. “That could ruin the suspension, wreck our differential, and potentially tangle a broken rope up into our driveshaft!”
Jayde studied the back of the Bricksley, looking for anything suitable for tying a rope to that also seemed strong. Kayden, having a moment of mild frustration, kicked the rear bumper, causing a cover to fall off and exposing a tow hook. Jayde raised an eyebrow at Kayden, who shrugged. “Totally meant to do that,” Kayden said, trying to make it sound like he knew it was there the whole time.
“Right. That’s why you kicked the bumper on that corner,” Jayde said, pointing to the passenger side of the truck, “and the cover fell off on this side,” he added, now pointing to the driver’s side of the truck, “instead of just telling me to remove the shiny cover.”
Kaylie chuckled, then tied both ends of Jayde’s climbing rope to the tow hook.
“Right, we’ve all been here waiting long enough, some far longer than others,” Kaylie said. “Let’s get into our respective vehicles. Rukari, I swear if you break this truck on the way there, snap that rope, or wreck their car because you’re driving like a moron again, you will be doing all of the maintenance.”
Rukari nodded, climbing up into the driver’s seat, while Kayden took the front mid-bench to make shifting easier for Rukari, and Malavera took the last front seat, having had an experience once with the rear seat radio console. In the rear bench, Kaylie took her usual spot as the radio operator, Jayde took the mid-bench, and Kivenaal took the driver’s side window seat.
Kaylie leaned out of the window and called back to them, “Honk once you’re ready!”
Rukari planted his foot on the brake pedal, which went concerningly close to the floor, stepped on the clutch, put the gearbox in first gear and the transfer case in 4-Low, then waited for the signal.
Tim and Valentin nod in eager agreement, piling into the front passenger and rear driver seat respectively.
“Thanks for sticking to your word. We still have the battery and radio and all, as we knew you were coming at some point.”, Constantin remarked as he walks past the others to get his jacket downrange.
His trip into the field took longer than expected, as he made sure to not leave anything else behind that belonged to him, collecting two leftover arrows in the process.
He then heads back and pokes his head into the nearside front window.
“Mind if i take charge of the radio? As far as i know, we still have power and we could coordinate the tow better that way.”, Constantin suggests.
“Sure. You probably know your way around this radio stuff better than i do…”, Tim admits, freeing up the front passenger seat for Constantin.
After having dumped the useless bows and ancillary equipment as well as his jacket through the broken rear window, he gets into the Dione, picks up the radio handle and motions to Connor to turn the ignition back on.
An order was followed by it’s execution, as power was needed to sound the horn anyway. For completeness sake, the hazards were also turned on to warn later drivers about the Dione being slow and poorly controlled.
“Constantin Schrant for Shift Happens, we’re ready, over.”, he speaks into the handle with a degree of professionalism unheard of for anyone else but maybe Connor.
This was followed by Connor tapping the horn a few times to confirm the state of readiness via the previously-agreed-upon method.
“We said no one gets left behind on the entry form,” Malavera said to Constantin in response, “and we meant that.”
Kaylie smiled as Constantin called over the radio. “Kaylie of Shift Happens to Constantin Schrant, heard you loud and clear. Heading out, over,” she replied, adopting some measure of professionalism on the radio.
Kayden, seeing the hazards were on with the Dione, quickly hit the toggle for their hazards as well as Rukari slowly let the clutch out and pulled forward, taking up the slack in the rope remarkably carefully, considering how he’d showed up. The V8 growled as the combination of first gear and low range gave the truck all the torque it could possibly need to get the Dione moving, and other than a brief spin of the driver’s side rear tire, quickly stopped with the differential lock, soon the two vehicles started to move on down the road.
“Think you can manage to shift smoother, Rukari?” Kivenaal asked.
“I can try,” he said, for once not double-clutching the gearbox as he went for second gear. Then it was third, and he realized that any faster and he’d start slipping thanks to the now-wet gravel and dirt. “Not fast, but we are moving.”
Kaylie keyed the microphone, dropping her previous professionalism in favor of getting to the point. “Rukari says this is about as fast as we can go. Any faster and the tires start slipping.”
As they rolled along at an almost-seemingly-casual pace, V8 roaring in third-gear, low range, the little yellow Yinzer MightyTiny buzzed by, carrying Team Jockey along on four flat tires. (@NoahC)
The team was in surprisingly good mood as the Dione slowly started rolling.
The wet dirt kicked up by the offside rear prompted the use of the wipers to get the windshield clean again. Connor then had a suggestion: “A higher gear could be attempted. The lower engine speed allows for more room in throttle modulation due to less power being available.”
Constantin then went for the handle again: “Shift Happens, Connor is suggesting the use of a higher gear to give more leeway in throttle use, Romeo-Kilo Series Racing.”
In the back, Tim inquired once again as to how Valentin plans to convert the thing.
“Without going too deep, it doesn’t matter how you move the pistons in the engine. If you apply force to them, the engine spins and you have power. There’s people runnning them off of compressed air for shits and giggles. And steam is not much different from compressed air, really…”, Valentin explained, confusing Tim a bit.
Neither party in the rear went deeper into the explanation, instead relying on mutual trust for it to work out.
As Constantin advised them on using a higher gear, courtesy of Connor in the Dione, Kaylie acknowledged with, “Thank you. We will try a higher gear, then.”
Rukari grabbed the transfer case stick and shoved it into high range, and almost immediately, the Bricksley shuddered and chugged, the engine trying hard to stall. He stomped the clutch to the floor and stomped the throttle as well, the engine bellowing as it recovered from a near-stall. Taking advantage of what little momentum they had left, he put the gearbox in first and carefully set off again.
“Sorry about that back there. Our driver went for high range when he should have tried fourth gear,” Kaylie replied over the radio. “Trying again for first to second, over.”
“You are such an idiot sometimes, you know that?” Malavera said. “He said, ‘a higher gear.’ You had fourth, you had fifth, why the fuck did you try third in high range?”
“I thought it would work,” Rukari replied.
“With all of us loaded, and all of our shit in and around this truck, we’re probably around 9,500 pounds, Rukari,” Kaylie responded. The truck shuddered a bit as Rukari engaged second gear, though it managed, barely, to pick up the RPM enough to keep going.
“I’d wager we’re a bit more than that,” Malavera said. “Water, kerosene, parts and supplies, all of us, the truck itself, all of the shit in our toolbox. It all adds up.”
Jayde grasped his green crystal in his hand and muttered a quick prayer of, “Just, please, let all of us make it.”
As the Bricksley meandered on down the road with the engine rumbling and black smoke pouring out of the exhausts, the temperature slowly climbing, and Kaylie trying to let everyone in the Dione know when they were going to have to actually use the brakes, the Schnell XL53 of Team Slow (@interior) passed them slowly enough that Kaylie had to tell Rukari not to even think of drag-racing them with a load behind them.
Kayden grimaced as he saw the water temp climbing up again. “Rukari, you’ve just reached the start of the yellow band,” he warned.
“It will be fine,” Rukari replied.
As the engine of the Bricksley up front came to a near-stop, so did the car itself, forcing Connor to smash the severely diminished brakes due to the brake booster not being driven.
As a result, the car almost rear-ends the Bricksley, slackening the tow-rope in the process.
Kaylie then apologized over the radio, while also seemingly ordering Connor to put the car into second.
Everyone in the Dione knew that this was a dumb idea, leading to Constantin going back to the radio controls.
“Negative. That would add useless load to your car. We’re not putting it in gear, let alone first, Romeo-Kilo Series Racing.”, Constantin spoke, attaching the handle back to the spot on the center heater vent.
With lack of power came lack of AC, forcing them to open the windows and shed some layers where possible.
Valentin ends up removing the underlying tanktop, leaving just the fully-unbuttoned Hawaii-style shirt on, Constantin and Connor were already topless and Tim only has a basketball jersey he could rid himself of, but didn’t feel entirely comfortable doing so.
Other than that, the group of four in the Dione were simply waiting for it to end…
Soon, though not soon enough for everyone in the Dione and everyone in the Bricksley, as Kayden had turned off their AC to give them every last ounce of spare power possible and reduce the load on the already overheating engine, the campsite was at least visible in front of them.
Or, it would be, at least, if the Bricksley hadn’t moved past the yellow band and into the red on the temperature gauge, and started spitting and sputtering steam out of the radiator cap. The windshield wipers, previously fine on a mid-speed intermittent setting, now flicked back and forth on low just to keep the window clear.
Sure enough, nearly 12 Earth hours after they’d left that morning, the Dione rolled into the fourth campsite. “Where is the nearest steamworks?” Rukari asked.
“Over this bridge, down the main street to the far side of town, past the gate. It’ll be a right, down the road. There’s a train station before it,” Jayde said.
“Shift Happens to Romeo-Kilo Series Racing, Jayde has mentioned a steamworks is on the other side of the town, near a train station. We’ll tow you there, over,” Kaylie said.
As Rukari turned to drive across the bridge, careful not to yank the rope or drive them, or the Dione, through anyone’s camping supplies, Kayden scowled at the temperature gauge. “Rukari, that gauge has been trying to tell you something for the last 20 miles,” Kayden said.
Sure enough, as they crawled through the town of Itzgarde, the needle reached the end of the gauge, pinned to the H. What had been occasional spitting and sputtering had turned into a constant hiss from the cap as they passed the gate leading out to the train station and steamworks. Rukari turned to the right, lined up on the road, and that’s when there was a sudden thunderous pop and the air filled with steam.
“Off! Off! Off! Shut it off!” Kaylie yelled from her seat. Rukari slowly pulled the Bricksley over, roughly 60 feet from the doors of the steamworks, then shut the engine off. Everyone in the Bricksley got out, grimacing at the task of shoving almost 7,000 pounds of shit up the driveway into the steamworks.
Not much happened from the perfective of the car being towed, until Kayle went back onto the radio, telling everyone that the destination was a local steamworks normally used to repair and maintain the locomotives used by the local population.
“Affirmative. We’re being towed to the steamworks on the other side of town, Romeo-Kilo Series Racing.”, Constantin replies, in effect saying that they are aware of the info and have acknowledged it.
The team had been oblivious to the overheating of the Bricksley up until the coolant loop went bust, engulfing their front end in steam.
Likewise, the three humans also bailed with Connor remaining in the drivers seat to retain control.
At least the push wouldn’t be that far.
“I’ll steer and stop the truck,” Kaylie volunteered. “I’m the lightest, and I should still be able to steer despite not having any assistance. Might have to two-foot the brake, but I’ll manage.”
Jayde untied the rope between the two cars and inspected it for damage before coiling it up and putting it back in his bag.
With Kaylie in the driver’s seat, Kayden at the driver’s rear corner of the truck bed, Jayde pushing against the tailgate, Malavera pushing at the passenger’s rear corner of the truck bed, Kivenaal putting his hands on the passenger side B-pillar to distribute as much force over as large an area as he could, and Rukari grabbing hold of the driver’s side B-pillar, they set off and started pushing the Bricksley into the shop.
As soon as the truck started rolling, Rukari stepped up onto the running board, while Kayden said quietly, but clearly, “Nova, authorization code K 54812, prepare for battle, safeties limited.”
“Confirming combat mode set, safeties set. Limiting perception of fatigue and pain, increasing oxygen uptake by increased respiration, accelerating heart rate. Engaging fight-or-flight response with instinct suppression.” Nova responded from Kayden’s pocket, her tone switching from the sassy, light-hearted AI she’d been to a more harsh, war-weathered battle-maiden.
Malavera shook his head. “You better turn that off once we get in there.”
“I will,” Kayden said, before pushing with everything he had.
Jayde was startled by the sudden shove at the back of the truck, lost his grip for a moment, and once he’d regained it, was no longer really contributing that much to their combined effort.
As they got within 15 feet of the open door, Kivenaal backed off and walked off to the side, sitting down on a nearby bench to avoid getting spotted.
Kaylie looked over her left shoulder and glared at Rukari. “The least you could do is help!” she snapped.
Rukari suddenly pointed and said, “Crate!”
Kaylie snapped back around, wrenched at the wheel with her right hand, but it wasn’t enough, and when she went for the brakes, the pedal sank straight to the floor as if she’d stepped on a lemon. There was a mighty bump, the sound of wood cracking and then screeching along the floor, and the sound of a certain pain-in-the-ass Valraadi falling off the running board and shattering the driver’s side mirror with his horns.
“Hey! We’ve been waiting weeks for those valves!” the Foreman yelled, rushing over to see what damage was done. Thankfully, it seemed that the crate did its job, protecting the screw valves inside from damage. Before he could scold them any further, however, he saw someone he recognized.
“If any of them are damaged, I’ll pay for them,” Jayde said. “Otherwise, my friends here,” he added, motioning to the crew by the Dione, “need to borrow your workshop for a project of theirs.”
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Team Shift Happens and Team RK-Series Racing
The Full Story, Part 2 of 4
The plan turned out to be as follows:
Constantin stayed up front and was pushing into the passenger side A-Pillar through the open door. Tim and Valentin taking position on the rear left and rear right corner respectively.
The combined effort was far more than needed to get the car going, especially since Valentin seemed to muster a very unusual amount of strength out of his legs, being propped up against the taillight with his left shoulder, his cycling-specific shoes providing ample grip due to the metal plate built onto the sole acting as a traction mat. As such, the car gained quite the amount of speed, forcing Constantin to largely abandon his attempt at helping push the car along.
As Connor stepped on the brakes, which, unlike the Bricksley, still were working semi-decently albeit without the brake booster, Valentin did not expect that at all, given no verbal warning being made and him not seeing anything due to both his position and haircut. The inertia of him on the rear end breaks the passenger-size rear taillight cover.
“OWW!”, Valentin shouts as he rights himself, looking at Connor up front. “Could’ve at least announced the stopping!”
“I am sorry, Mr. Schrant.” Connor simply replied, not having thought of the two in back.
With the car now stationary next to the Bricksley, the team heads up to greet the foreman, Valentin being pushed ahead as the brainchild of the idea. He wasn’t exactly confident, especially with the amount of people buzzing about behind the foreman in the building.
Though the entire team was in immediate need of help, which allowed him to muster enough courage to speak semi-confidently about what he planned.
“Greetings.” Valentin says, trying to leave a friendly, well-mannered first impression. “I’m Valentin Schrant. I have Constantin Schrant, Tim Redwood and Connor for company.” He continues, motioning to each member of the team as he goes along.
“Our vehicle has broken down and cannot be repaired to original state, and i thought of converting it to use steam instead of internal combustion.”, Valentin adds.
The other three simply line up next to Valentin, nodding as their respective names are mentioned.
“Greetings to you as well, Valentin. I am Duncan Michaelson, the foreman of the Itzgarde Steamworks,” the foreman replied, looking over the pale orange painted car in front of him. “An internal combustion engine? I’ve seen a big one, sounds like it could move the world if it could ever get up to speed, but it was so heavy it had to be shipped by rail and hauled the rest of the way into town by a team of eight lizards. One of the local tinkers in Duskriver Village has a self-pulling carriage she uses on business trips, selling perfumes and such. You want to convert yours to run on steam? Heard that internal combustion can be a bit unreliable at times. Then again,” Duncan said, waving a hand around his shop, “so can steam.”
When Duncan looked over at the members of Team Shift Happens, or at least the ones who had made themselves known, he asked, “Is there anything you need?”
“To wait for our vehicle to cool down, mostly,” Kaylie said. “Otherwise,” she motioned to the open hood, “it’s one stupid hose clamp, a rubber radiator hose that came off, and a whole lot of water. They’re going to need your help, we just need time. And some space, I suppose, because we’re not going anywhere until this cools down.”
Duncan nodded. “You’re friends of Jayde, right? From the War?” he asked Valentin.
Jayde spoke up with, “Not from the War, but they did help fight the Dyre.”
“I figured with the lack of parts and suitable workmen for our internal combustion… carriage, making it run on readily available technologies seems like a valid alternative.”, Valentin reasoned, finally making his teammates grasp why he wanted to do this in the first place.
“So THAT’s why you were so keen on steam!”, Tim exclaimed.
“Yeah. Steam seems to be everywhere in this place. Might as well use stuff locals know.”, Valentin replied, looking past the foreman into the building. Other than some empty rails and a few workmen, he couldn’t see much due to the angle they were standing at relative to the road entrance.
“I mean… yes, ummm… some of us did…”, Valentin admitted, twiddling thumbs in some degree of shame on having done nothing to support the effort.
Duncan smiled, then said to Valentin, “We’ll get you back on the road, then. Hey, Jayde, think you could get that boiler over there and bring it over for them?”
“Not… like this, no. And they’ve just been in a Dyre fight. If I use my larger form around them, I’m going to scare most of them senseless,” Jayde admitted, covering for Valentin in the moment.
Duncan nodded. “Not a problem,” he said, turning back to Valentin. “I’m making you, officially, the Lead Engineer on this project, then,” he told Valentin. “My work crew is yours. Any parts you need made, machines you need operated, you say the word and it will be done.” He then turned to his work crew and said, “Listen up, men. Mister Schrant here has a project that he needs help with, to convert their combustion carriage to steam power. Any of you choose to volunteer for this project, step forward.”
At Duncan’s order, 30 men out of the larger work crew stepped forward. Duncan smiled, turned to Valentin, and said, “Looks like you’ve got a full crew. Same as we’d use on a locomotive. You need any help with any of them, you just ask me, alright?”
“Son of a bitch!” Kaylie yelled, shaking her hand after scalding it on the radiator core support. “Rukari, I can’t even get this hose back on because the whole front of our truck is hot!”
“Let it cool down, then,” Rukari said, wincing as Kayden held him still and picked shards of glass out of his mane. “Could you be gentler?”
“This is gentle,” Kayden said in a half growled voice.
“Kayden, remember your agreement. Off with it,” Malavera said. Kayden, recognizing what Malavera meant, slid the black square out of his pocket and silently commanded Nova to take him out of his combat mode.
“Can someone get Kivenaal to come over here and put this damn hose back on?” Kaylie asked.
Jayde grimaced. “You know he won’t do it, right?”
“Convince him,” Kaylie replied.
Valentin initially smiled in enthusiasm and so did Tim and Constantin. Though, as Duncan continued about promoting him to lead-engineer, Valentin’s already very pale face went practically white. This was the very first time he had full authority over a group of specialized employees at a major company. The next best thing is bossing two friends about when moving apartments.
As the steamworks employees, one by one, formed a small company of volunteers, neatly arranged in a grid, Valentin tried to grasp the magnitude of manpower he was now commanding.
Unsure on how to manage this amount of a workforce, he starts highly basic to see how their command structure works.
“Could someone get me a 13 mill wrench?”, he orders, carefully and not knowing what would happen.
The other two simply submitted to the newfound person of higher rank, even if that rank was by circumstance, and awaited orders as well.
As Valentin called out for a 13mm wrench, one of the men quickly stepped away from the group, walked over to a toolbox, and pulled out a somewhat large, though still reasonable 13 millimeter wrench, wiped it down with a rag, and then walked over to Valentin, handing him the tool he’d requested. “Anything else you need?” he asked.
Over by the Bricksley, once Kayden had picked all the bits of broken glass out of Rukari’s mane and made sure the Valraadi wasn’t bleeding, it was Kaylie who decided to step up and take charge of her team. Jayde came in with Kivenaal, who quickly stuffed the hose onto the radiator, slid the hose clamp into place, and tightened it down with the screwdriver Kaylie handed him. Once that was done, Kivenaal slipped back outside, hoping to go unnoticed.
Kaylie then glared at Rukari. “So,” she said, hands on her hips, “you say your kind don’t fear maintenance. I say, you fried the brakes, you get to fix them.”
Rukari stared at Kaylie, slightly surprised that despite being the smallest member of the group, Kaylie was proving to be the most energetic when agitated.
“If you don’t fear maintenance, Rukari, then I say,” Kaylie said, opening the toolbox in the truck bed and grabbing their imperial wrench and socket kit, “that you get to put your hands on the wrenches for once!” She slammed the kit into Rukari’s chest, making him take half a step back as he grabbed the kit and stared at it, completely lost with these foreign tools. Kaylie, meanwhile, rummaged around in the toolbox and grabbed two new front brake rotors, new brake pads, the spare set of front calipers, a set of rear brake shoes for the drums, and several bottles of brake fluid.
“I do not know where to start,” Rukari admitted.
“Not a problem. I’ll be guiding you through every step of the way,” Kaylie said, grinning.
Jayde looked over to see the look on Rukari’s face and laughed. “I never thought I’d see someone who only takes military orders from the Emperor or Empress could look so terrified of a little bit of wrench work,” Jayde admitted.
“Oh… Thanks… uhhm…”, Valentin stuttered, still very much befuddled and now holding a rather clunky 13mm wrench he had no immediate use for.
“I’m sorry… I’m… very much not used to commandeering 30-odd people…”
The Constantin and Tim mostly remained silent, due to differing reasons.
While Constantin perfectly knew what it was like to have hundreds, if not thousands of people under his control, Tim was equally clueless on large-scale leadership as Valentin was.
Constantin, though, did not feel to be in the position to be of use, having broken trust the day earlier.
Then, Jayde of all people, from all the way across the driveway behind the Bricksley, tried his hand at motivating Valentin: “Valentin, these people, these men who work on steam engines every day, are here to help you. Their skilled hands are yours, their talents are yours, their tools are yours. They will help you make your plan a reality. You have the plans, they have the skill. Some leaders are born. Some are forged in battle. Others come from people like you and me. I believe that you can do this. These men are disciplined and skilled in their craft, and you have a bold plan in your mind. Let them help you with it.”
Valentin just stared at Jayde with a blank and show-white face, still unsure as to how to handle it, but now at least willing to give it his best shot. He turns back around, facing the small army of workmen.
“Uhm… so… one. The car needs to go inside. Cannot really work out here in the rain now, can we? Two. I need some info on what we have available in terms of tools, machinery, components and such.”, Valentin explains, still shaken but making a valiant attempt at being reasonably professional.
Jayde looked over at Valentin, knowing the kind of struggle he was going through. He’d been there before, standing on the shores of Tapari during the Four Corners War. A hundred-and-thirty men under his command, someone who had never once held command over more than a handful of friends, now having to fight against armed invaders. He sighed quietly to himself, then asked Kaylie quietly, “What is his name?”
“Him? Valentin,” Kaylie replied quietly. She understood Jayde might have a plan, and right now, she didn’t have to pay too much attention to Rukari fighting with the lug nuts on the Bricksley.
Jayde nodded, moving to the passenger side of the Bricksley and standing by the tailgate, giving some respectful distance between them. He gave another quiet sigh to himself, then looked up and spoke in a calm, quiet, but strong voice, “Valentin, these people, these men who work on steam engines every day, are here to help you. Their skilled hands are yours, their talents are yours, their tools are yours. They will help you make your plan a reality. You have the plans, they have the skill. Some leaders are born. Some are forged in battle. Others come from people like you and me. I believe that you can do this. These men are disciplined and skilled in their craft, and you have a bold plan in your mind. Let them help you with it.”
Duncan looked over at Jayde, slightly impressed, but not saying anything in fear of ruining the moment. Once Valentin had, however, found his footing and given the command to bring the car inside, and that he needed information on tools, machinery, components, and other such items, Duncan smiled and respectfully left Valentin to do his thing.
Several of the men helped push the Dione into the steamworks, parking it up next to an old steam lorry with a sign on it saying it was to be scrapped for spare parts, with a list of all the parts that were still good, which looked to be just about everything except the frame and the actual steam engine itself.
Then one of the men gave Valentin a hand-written list on a clipboard of all the tools, the various bits of machinery, known quantities of brass tubing, spare parts, and even mentioning supplies they had in storage. “You need anything, just let one of us know. We’ll get it for you,” he said, before walking off to join the others in their wait for further instructions.
Just as Rukari finally got all of the lug nuts loosened up, Kaylie said to him, “Grab the wheel chocks out of the truck bed, make sure they’re under the rear tires, and while you’re there, grab the jack. The tire iron, by the way, is also the jack handle,” Kaylie mentioned.
Rukari groaned as he got up, kicking the wheel chocks under the rear wheels, grabbed the jack, and tried to figure out where exactly to put it. At first, he put it directly under the running board, and Kaylie told him, “You do that, you’re going to peel the whole side of the truck up like a can of sardines. Under the frame, zaruki.” She smirked as Rukari stared at her, then said, “Yes, I know it means ‘idiot’ in your language. You say it enough, I’ve finally learned it.”
Valentin watched four people push the car inside, following them in immediately after, himself being followed by Constantin, Tim, Connor and the remaining 26 temporary employees. One of which had split off and procured what to him looked like the inventory list of the steamworks. He accepts the clipboard and starts shuffling through the pages of it, spotting a multitude of components that could work in the Dione. In his mind, he already had the first steps figured out, though it was on him to accurately convey them to the workforce.
“Okay. I don’t know you lot and what you do, so ideally i’d have you sorted by skillset.”, Valentin orders, immediately second-guessing himself as he isn’t even sure they have specific traits to them. “That is assuming you are trained differently in the first place…”
A small break of silence follows as he shuffles further through the remarkable parts-list. After that, he hands that clipboard over to Connor, who scans it in less than a minute, internalizing the contents in the process for future reference.
“Also i’d like that boiler to be checked for the safety of it.”, Valentin adds, pointing at a derelict steam lorry full of brass, bronze and other, similar materials.
Tim, meanwhile, was starting to feel the urges of hunger and made his concern known:
“I take it that we’re staying here for a while… maybe i can get some food going.”, he suggested, getting a non-verbal agreement as Valentin once again dug into the inventory list.
Tim thus headed off and was searching for Duncan, a completely unrelated, but friendly worker pointing him the way.
“Erm… hi. Valentin sent me to prepare some food… well… kind of, though he agreed to it.”, Tim stutters, not sure as to how Duncan would react, as he explicitly appointed Valentin in charge of the operation.
Constantin followed Tim along, but with a different idea.
After the conversation with Tim was resolved, Constantin raised his own concern:
“Greetings. Do you know of any Bowyers in this town? I got some made yesterday, but they aren’t exactly what i expected.”, Constantin asked politely and with much more confidence than Tim had.
As Valentin mentioned he wanted the men sorted by skillset, one of the men took the initiative and said, “Boiler crew, stand over there. Engine crew, over here. Piping crew, I need you to stand here.” He then looked to Valentin and said, “Your four main crews. Boilers, engines, pipes, and controls. Some of us can paint, too, if you need that.”
When Valentin pointed out that he wanted the boiler checked for safety, one of the men climbed up and checked the tag they’d put on the boiler. “We’ll get this checked again. We had it tested last month when someone said they had a steam wagon that needed a boiler, but that one was too small,” he said. “Better to be safe than to be sorry.”
Duncan smiled as Tim and Constantin walked over to him. When Tim asked about food, he nodded. “I’ll show you around the workplace kitchen in a moment.” When Constantin asked him if he knew of any bowyers in the town, Duncan thought for a bit, then said, “Right, you’re the archer who took down six Dyre wolves. Head back on the road you came here on, back through the gate. It’ll be the, was it the third shop or the fourth shop on the right? Ones a tavern, the other’s the bowyer and fletcher. I wish I could tell you more, but… I don’t drink. I’ve seen what being drunk around heavy equipment can do.”
As Constantin headed out, Duncan led Tim into the workplace kitchen. “Fairly standard in here. Wood fired stove, cooking pot over an open fire, pots and pans are here in on the rack. Plates and flatware, bowls are up here. If you need hot water for something, put this glove on and turn that valve. The glove’s in case she spits at you, that small boiler can be a bit mean some days. If you need supplies, just holler and I’ll send someone to run into town and get what you need.”
Valentin looked at the crew basically sorting itself by their specialties and was rather impressed by the orderly fashion created by this.
“So my idea is as follows. Boiler-Team, please go and have the lorries boiler safety-tested and measured by external dimensions and weight. Controls, i’ll show you what we have for controls and we can figure something out. Connor will accompany the engine team and tear it up as needed. Get rid of the manifolds, coolant piping, anything fuel delivery related. We don’t need that anymore. As per piping, that is step two, you lot please help the other teams as needed. Especially the boiler crew.”, Valentin ordered. He seemed to quickly grasp what he was now in charge of and with a fairly accurate plan made up in advance, he got to work explaining the car’s existing controls to the controls team.
Connor took a few members of the engine department, had the hood popped by Valentin and dug in to get rid of anything immediately unnecessary.
Meanwhile in Duncan’s office, Constantin had to correct the story a bit:
“Seems like numbers getting inflated. I shot five arrows, all of which hit. Four of those were lethal.”, Constantin calmly corrects. “Not faulting you. Inflation happens with tell-tale stories.”
The three head out of the office, splitting when Tim and Duncan took the turn into the works kitchen. He went to great length showing what was available and how it worked, though Tim did not know how to make a good fire with a wooden stove.
“You have someone who knows oven firing? I usually have it heat directly via steam.”, he explains, partially lying about the steam part as he had a gas stove at home, but that didn’t change the fact that he had no clue as to how a wood-fired one worked.
Constantin headed past the Dione, sat in one of the eight berths usually used for steam engine maintenance. One other was occupied by a Mountain-Type locomotive, which was currently undergoing extensive repairs after a connecting rod failure. A third one contained one of the engines used on the Longitude Express, currently stripped of it’s streamlining panels for routine valvetrain maintenance. The other five berths currently were empty, for now, at least.
“I’m out looking for another bow to replace these ones!”, Constantin shouted across the entire hall.
“I’ll be back for food!”
No immediate reaction from Valentin followed, as he was busy explaining the car’s pedals, stocks and steering to the controls-crew.
As such, Constantin left the building, encountering Team Shift Happens, still busy with their brake job.
“Hmm…” Duncan said, thinking about what Tim had said. “I’ve never tried cooking with a steam stove before. But, I can probably help you there with a wood fired one. Before I worked here, I used to run a locomotive on a branch line, a little wood-fired engine that got replaced rather soon after I got there. But, I know how to build a good wood fire.”
Kaylie chuckled as Rukari wrestled the wheel off of the brake rotor, then watched him fighting with the caliper bolts. As the lower one suddenly gave way, Rukari gave a yowl of pain as he smacked his hand into the ground and dropped the wrench.
“And how much do you fear maintenance now?” Kaylie asked as Rukari scowled and lifted the loose caliper out of the way, just in time to drop both brake pads, or more specifically, what was left of both brake pads, straight to the ground. The rotor was visibly heat-scarred and discolored, and also visibly warped.
Rukari sighed, removed the bolts holding the rotor in place, and promptly dropped the heavy steel disc on his left hand, cursing roughly in Valraad as Constantin walked by.
Kaylie looked at Constantin, then said, “He says his people don’t fear maintenance. I figured I’d make him change the brakes he ruined. Jayde, how long has he been at this?”
Jayde flipped open his pocket watch, then closed it. “It’s taken him about 30 minutes to get that far,” Jayde replied.
Kivenaal got up off the bench outside, trying his best to not be noticed by anyone else but the rest of his own team as he lifted one of the purple glass bottles out of the Bricksley’s bed and returned to the bench.
In the steamworks, progress was going well.
Valentin and the workforce were going at it tearing the Dione apart where it mattered. Carburetor, Intake and exhaust manifold, the rest of the exhaust, what was left of the ignition, among other things found their way out of the engine bay. Within the car, theories were crafted as to how one would arrange all the switches, levers and dials needed for safe operation of a steam powerplant. It was determined that single-driver operation was impractical due to lack of space and personnel overload.
Meanwhile in the kitchen, Duncan had started a small fire on their stove and Tim got about looking at the number of ingredients available.
“How many people are working here? Like… would be a waste to cook twice for the same meal, right?”
After getting a reply that he would likely be feeding somewhere up to 80 people, Tim held still for a bit, but wanted to challenge himself while also handing a bit back to the crew that is currently working with Valentin on the conversion.
With what was there and the amount to be made, Tim decided that something easily scalable would be the best course of action, as grilling 80 individual steaks concurrently would be outrageous.
He settles on a rather simple pasta-based meal and got to work with some help from Duncan, managing the fire under the stove.
Outside the massive building, Shift Happens seemed to be poking fun at Rukari, who was currently digging about the wheel well working the brakes.
“Seems like you lot are having fun watching one person fix the car.”, Constantin joked, then looked at Jayde.
“I was gonna head out and visit the local bowyer. Apparently there’s only one here, so might as well try that one. Do you still have the Coin?”, he said, mentally preparing to catch the pouch in it’s entirety
“One person broke the car, so one person will fix the car,” Kaylie said, grinning. “Seriously, you guys didn’t get to see how many times he sent us off of the road.”
“He made me hit my heads on the radio console, too,” Malavera added. “So, yeah, we’re letting our royal pain in the ass fix the brakes he fried.”
When Constantin asked Jayde for the coins, Jayde reached into a robe pocket and pulled out the pouch, then handed it to Constantin. “Didn’t want to throw it. Last time I did that, the pouch burst and there were coins everywhere,” Jayde admitted.
Rukari scowled as he put the new brake rotor on, then went to put the old rotor in the truck bed. He picked it up and put it in the back of the truck with a surprisingly loud crash, then fumbled with trying to disconnect the caliper from the brake line.
Kaylie looked up at Constantin, then said, “We can’t trust the caliper seals after he got them that hot. Full front brake overhaul, guaranteed at least brake shoes in the drums out back.”
“One person broke the car, so one person will fix the car,” Kaylie said, grinning. “Seriously, you guys didn’t get to see how many times he sent us off of the road.”
“He made me hit my heads on the radio console, too,” Malavera added. “So, yeah, we’re letting our royal pain in the ass fix the brakes he fried.”
When Constantin asked Jayde for the coins, Jayde reached into a robe pocket and pulled out the pouch, then handed it to Constantin. “Didn’t want to throw it. Last time I did that, the pouch burst and there were coins everywhere,” Jayde admitted.
Rukari scowled as he put the new brake rotor on, then went to put the old rotor in the truck bed. He picked it up and put it in the back of the truck with a surprisingly loud crash, then fumbled with trying to disconnect the caliper from the brake line.
Kaylie looked up at Constantin, then said, “We can’t trust the caliper seals after he got them that hot. Full front brake overhaul, guaranteed at least brake shoes in the drums out back.”
At the massive engineering project surrounding Valentin and the Tangerine Tank™, not much of note happened. With the boiler now declared safe, teams boiler and control got to work stripping anything useful off of the derelict steam lorry. Most of it’s cab was taken off and set aside, various smaller controls, dials, knobs, levers and other various stuff was removed off of the engine. Even the piping team could start dedicated work sourcing piping of suitable size for the intake and exhaust ports of the engine’s cylinder head.
Constantin quickly thanks Jayde for the coin, pocketing the pouch and it’s contents as he did yesterday.
“Well… true. Sounds like a lot of work i cannot help you with, even if i wanted to.”, he chuckles, then heading off into town to the bowyer.
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Team Shift Happens and Team RK-Series Racing
The Full Story, Part 3 of 4
As Kaylie supervised the mayhem Rukari was causing with the brakes, she had to laugh when she realized what had become almost second nature to her was almost impossible for Rukari to figure out. He’d managed to remove the old caliper, and promptly spilled brake fluid on himself. Now he was fighting with the brake pads.
“Other way around,” Kaylie said, seeing Rukari putting the pads in with the steel backing facing the rotor side. She watched as he pulled them out and tried to fit them in not only backwards, but now upside down. “The other ‘other way,’ Rukari.” Now he had the friction material facing the rotor disc, but the pads were still upside down. “Only one more ‘other way’ to go.”
“Why are they so difficult?” Rukari growled out.
“If you hadn’t dumped the pads when you took the other caliper off, you’d have known which way they went back in,” Kaylie said, watching as he loaded the pads in the right way this time.
Navigating to the bowyer in town was just as easy as Duncan had described. As Constantin walked into town, he spotted the sign denoting a combination of bowyer and fletcher businesses.
As he walks in, a small bell was rang by him opening the door, and shortly after he was greeted by a very stocky, short man with short, curly hair.
“Hello! What can i do fo…”, he stopped halfway through his greeting, marveling at the sheer size of the lad that was Constantin, especially amazed by the fact that he was, in fact, fully human and no shapeshifter of sorts. “… for you?”
Constantin wasn’t surprised by the man in front and kept his calm, mildly smiling at the impressed shopkeeper.
“Good evening. I was looking to procure a pair of identical bows. I had a pair made yesterday, though they turned out unsatisfactory. And at latest, i need them by tomorrow morning.”, Constantin explained, just now noticing that he did not bring the old equipment along. “I would’ve brought them along but i forgot them at the steamworks.”
“That’s alright. It would’ve helped, but we can figure this out.”, the shopkeeper replied and went in the back for a bit before returning up front with extensive measuring equipment. “Now i’m gonna start with some questions first.”, he said, setting a bundle of seemingly random stuff down onto the shorter-than-average counter.
“Go ahead.”, Constantin replied, already more confident in this bowyer.
“I’d need to know draw length, weight and preferred arrow weight, if you have those values.”, the bowyer returns, untangling a mess of strings and sticks in the meantime.
“I draw 100 pounds to 34 inches from what was measured a little over a year ago. The bow made with those measurements was very comfortable to me until it broke, which is why i had the first pair made. As for arrow weight, all i know is that i apparently shoot really heavy and that the ones i have are too light or soaking wet.”, Constantin explains.
What followed was familiar to Constantin, as the bowyer nodded and, just like Kiyaru, handed a stick to Constantin, albeit this time it was substantially longer and curved to resemble an actual bow. He once again was ordered to draw an imaginary arrow to what he felt comfortable with, aiming it at a thin painted line off to the side. Afterwards, an attempt at measuring wad made, but he was forced to get a little stool out from behind the counter to actually be able to reach far enough. He took a multitude of values, some of which seemed entirely inconsequential to Constantin, noting down each one on a slip of paper. He even went as far as wrapping what was similar to play-doh around the stick in case he found the time to carve the grip to better fit Constantin’s right hand. Once that was done, he took back the stick and dragged his stool back behind the counter, allowing Constantin to relax once again.
“Now i just need a name.”, the bowyer said, poised over the counter with a pencil and his sheet with all the measurements.
Constantin wasn’t sure on if he should include his rank or not, but ultimately decided against it. “Constantin Schrant.”, he replied, setting off a lightbulb moment in the person on the other side.
“Wait… aren’t you that master archer from the Dyre-battle, having killed 7 Dyre?”, he asked, suddenly excited as if he was meeting a celebrity.
“Well… five arrows, five hits, four kills.”, Constantin corrects once again, smirking at how quickly, though inaccurately rumours have spread.
“I appreciate the honesty! Still a very commendable result given the fast-paced nature of it.”, he notes, respectfully nodding. “I’ try to get them done as quickly as i can manage. How can i contact you once the first one is done? It would make sense to test one before making the other.”
“I’ll probably stay at the steamworks for a good bit. My colleagues are working on out vehicle.”, Constantin answers, vaguely pointing in the cardinal direction the works were placed at.
“Alright. It was an honor to meet you! I’ll get right to work!”, the bowyer goes, immediately scrambling together what was on the counter and heading into the back.
Constantin, befuddled by the eagerness of the bowman, simply turned around and left again and headed back to the steamworks.
There, Shift Happens was still busy with the braking system of the Bricksley.
Rukari, by that time, had gotten to the point of putting the front caliper onto the Bricksley. The smell of brake fluid was easily recognizable in the air, a result of Rukari tipping the old caliper the wrong way and getting brake fluid all over his hands. He was in the middle of tightening up the first bolt on the caliper when Constantin returned to the steamworks.
Kaylie turned to face Constantin and said, “Welcome back! Rukari has almost finished with the first brake out of four.”
“Though,” Kayden said, “the rest of us are probably going to have to help with the rest of the brakes, or this is going to take all night.”
There was a sudden clang and an equally sudden outburst of cursing as the wrench slipped and Rukari smacked his elbow into the ground. “Why are these cars so difficult to work on!?” Rukari snarled.
“Because they’re complex bits of machinery, not tractors,” Kaylie replied. “You pushed it hard, you burned the brakes, and now you’re finding out how hard it is to fix this. The good news is, once you get that caliper tightened down, the next major thing is to bleed the brakes, and then the wheel goes back on.”
Kayden grabbed a bottle of brake fluid and said to Kaylie, “I know how this goes. Don’t let the reservoir suck air or you have to start over.”
“Well, we’ll need someone strong to pump the brakes because we’re not starting the engine with the truck on the jack and a jack-stand,” Kaylie said. “Jayde, I think you can do this. All you have to do is sit in the truck, put your foot on the middle pedal, and when I tell you ‘Down,’ you push it as far down as you can. When I say ‘Up,’ you take your foot off of the pedal.”
Jayde grimaced. “I really hate trying to drive this thing,” he said.
“You’re not driving it, Jayde, you’re pumping the brakes so we can get all of the air out,” Kaylie explained.
Jayde got behind the wheel reluctantly as Rukari finished tightening up the caliper bolts.
“That one, right there,” Kaylie said, pointing to the bleed screw for Rukari. “You’re going to unscrew that a little. When I say ‘Down,’ you leave it open. Then after a moment, you close it, and I’ll tell Jayde ‘Up.’ After a moment, you open it again, and we’ll get the air out of this brake system.”
Kayden topped up the reservoir as Rukari opened the bleed screw. “Down,” Kaylie ordered, and Jayde mashed the pedal all the way into the firewall and held it there. Kaylie watched as Rukari tightened the screw a little, then told Jayde, “Okay, now up.” Jayde pulled his foot off of the pedal, and Kayden topped up the reservoir. They repeated this process several times until, on one occasion, Kaylie ordered Jayde to press the pedal down, and instead of air, a stream of fluid shot out instead. “Right,” Kaylie said. “That’s our driver’s side front brake done. Put that tire on, Rukari, and you’ll have officially done one full brake overhaul on one corner of the truck.”
Rukari looked exhausted, but struggled through getting the wheel back on and the lug nuts tightened down. He set the truck down and Kaylie grabbed the wrench left handed, torquing the bolts down to their proper required amounts.
Jayde looked at his watch again, then said, “I don’t know how long that normally takes, but he did one brake in an hour and 35 minutes.”
“Yeah, we’re going to have to help him on the rest,” Kaylie said.
“Hello there.” Constantin quickly remarked as he simply watched the semi-controlled chaos of Rukari doing brakes unfold. He decided to not tell anyone about his experience at the bowyer in fear of throwing them off and/ or insulting Jayde. As the wheel finally was put back one and Jayde declared that Rukari used more than one and a half hours to fix one brake, Constantin finally spoke again:
“I’m not sure either. All i know is that it takes two people a little less than an hour to do the same on an offroad Military truck. At least that’s what i remember from the maintenance reports.”, Constantin said, giving some sense of a reference point to Rukary and the others. Although it wasn’t comparable, given the rims alone being 22.5 inches in diameter. Everything simply was bigger, heavier and needed more torque on the bolts.
From inside the works, Tim popped out and into the driveway.
“Hi! Hope you’re making good progress. So… i’ve spent the past bit making food for the crew and all and am now inviting you to join. Duncan also is fine with it, if you’re asking.”, Tim spoke, followed seconds after by a high-pitched steam whistle sounding.
Kaylie nodded. “Sounds similar to my experiences. One person, one standard midsize sedan, roughly about an hour to take it all the way down and fix everything. Taking about double that for someone’s first time seems reasonable,” Kaylie said.
Malavera scented the air, then said, “I think someone’s been making food.”
Sure enough, a few seconds later, Tim arrived and invited them to join in a meal, moments before a steam whistle blared.
“Yeah, just let us wash up a bit first,” Kaylie said, grabbing a container off of the roof and pouring water over Rukari’s hands to help him get the brake fluid off of them.
Once Rukari’s hands were as clean as they were going to get, it was Kayden who rounded up all of the members of Shift Happens, including a barely-tipsy Kivenaal, who really couldn’t care less about being seen now. Kaylie, Jayde, Kayden, Malavera, Rukari, and Kivenaal all made their way into the steamworks’ canteen, making sure not to bump into anyone or knock anything onto the floor.
Tim and Constantin followed suit, entering to see most of the employees practically sprinting over to the canteen, much to the confusion of Valentin.
“Huh? Where are you all off to?”, Valentin asked, confused and not aware of the whistle being their way of announcing dinner.
“Feasting on whatever your friend prepared for us. DINNERTIME!!!”, one worker replied, a young gun overly enthusiastic on getting some food into his stomach.
Valentin also went over to grab his serving.
The canteen itself was what one would expect a canteen to be like. Rows of benches next to basic tables served as seating accomodation for anyone sourcing meals from there. A counter top was used to distribute servings among the personnel, behind which multiple wagons were line up with pots containing the food, as well as plates and cutlers. In front of that counter, all of them lined up forming a queue going all the way back out the canteen into the steamworks main hall.
Valentin, not wanting to stir up trouble, simply joined the line, with Constantin and a few other workers behind himself. Tim went back around the counter and started distributing the servings to each one, handing them a tomato-sauce covered plate of pasta as well as a spoon and fork.
After they collected their plates of pasta and their utensils, the six members of Shift Happens looked for a relatively empty table, finding one at the far corner of the canteen.
Jayde sat down first, not seeming concerned at all about the pasta in tomato sauce as it was something he’d had before. He stuck a fork in and twirled up a scoop of wide, long noodles, popping it into his mouth and enjoying the hot pasta with delicious, tangy tomato sauce.
Kaylie was curious about the noodles more than anything, as while it looked vaguely like spaghetti in length, and from the thinner edge, at the thickest edge it was easily as wide as three spaghetti noodles. “Should hold onto the sauce well,” Kaylie said, thinking out loud as she likewise twirled her fork in the noodles and got a mouthful of noodles and sauce.
Rukari, like Jayde, wasn’t concerned as to what was on his plate, although unlike Kaylie or Jayde, he was taking smaller forkfuls of pasta, using his spoon to cut off the excess length of noodles and to keep the sauce from dripping as he raised it to his mouth. Proper ettiquette at the table was something he’d once had classes in as a child, and here, it was almost impossible to break that habit.
Malavera didn’t really have the coordination for fork twirling, instead taking his time to break the noodles down with the edge of his fork, then scooping up spoonfuls of both noodles and sauce, working the best he could with what he knew.
Kivenaal, even tipsy as he was, managed to expertly twirl up noodles like Kaylie and Jayde did, enjoying the pasta dish. Like Rukari, however, it showed that he was taking extra care not to stain his clothing with tomato sauce, or get it everywhere.
Kayden had to admit, he was enjoying the pasta, though he was struggling a little with getting proper forkfuls of it. Kaylie had shown him twice how to twirl the fork properly, and even Jayde did so once at a slower pace, which was the only reason he was able to get even as much as he was on a fork. “This is quite good,” Kayden admitted.
“Agreed,” Kivenaal said in between bites. “Whoever did this, they did a great job. It’s simple, but sometimes that’s what you need, and pasta is a good filling meal.”
“This sauce is amazing,” Jayde admitted. “Sweet, tangy, savory, but the spices aren’t overpowering anything. You can tell those tomatoes are fresh.”
“A little hard to eat, but that’s just me having trouble,” Malavera admitted. “I can’t get the hang of twirling the fork like the five of you.”
Rukari pointed to Malavera’s hands and said, “The five of us have retractable claws, even if they are longer when extended. You have short, fixed claws that are getting in your way. Not your fault that you can’t twirl a fork.”
Kaylie smirked. “Our father couldn’t do that, either, Mal. He had to chop up his pasta into little pieces the same as you. A lot of people have to do that.”
With all employees, Shift Happens and the remainder of RK Series Racing fed, Tim also went out and grabbed himself a good serving, settling down with the Constantin and Valentin at a table near the front.
They end up being sat inbetween a group of workers as seating spaces were few and far between at that point. A few of those workers were of Valentin’s engineering task force, but most were unaffiliated staff, being friends with each other.
As the three dug into their meals, morale skyrocketed as an actual plate of pasta was vastly better than any of the canned stuff they were lugging around:
“I’ll have to say that you make a very good cook.”, Constantin praised the meal, visibly content at the dish being served.
“Yeah. This shit’s really good!”, Valentin added, and before he could elaborate, some worker jumped up from his seat.
“WHO MADE THIS PASTA!! WHO MADE THIS!?”, he shouted all across the canteen, silencing most of the others as they stare at this one person standing in the middle of the canteen.
Constantin nudged Tim a bit, at which point he sheepishly stands up. “I did. Anythi…”
“CUZ I FUCKING LOVE IT!!!”, The guy blared, sending a signal for intense cheering and applause directed at Tim and his cooking skills, as many of the other employees also appreciated the meal.
Tim blushed a little, before slowly sinking back down onto the bench.
“They sure love it…”, he stuttered, not knowing what he did differently, as to him it was just ordinary pasta he frequently made for himself to feast off of for the better part of a week.
A minute or so later, the applause had died down and the noise returned to usual dinner-time banter between friends and colleagues.
As someone suddenly jumped up and demanded to know who made the pasta, Jayde sighed and set down his fork, getting ready to get up and put a stop to the altercation he expected was about to happen. When Tim stood up, and the man yelled out that he loved it, however, Jayde visibly relaxed.
“Glad I didn’t have to stop a fight. I hate doing that,” Jayde said quietly to his table companions.
“I’d have had your back,” Kaylie replied, smiling. “Might not trust myself to use my left arm, but I can sure as shit kick high enough to make anyone regret that.”
Kayden grimaced. “Yeah, because you’ve been practicing on me your whole life.”
“You’re the one who always said you needed a sparring partner,” Kaylie quipped back with a smirk. “You got one who’s not afraid to make you fight on your knees.”
“Wait, how many times has this happened?” Malavera asked.
“A dozen,” Kayden said, at the exact same time as Kaylie said, “I think about three, maybe four times.” The two of them stared at each other for a few long seconds, before Kayden sighed. “I’m going to say six, because the couple of times you kicked me squarely in the tail were almost as bad,” he said.
“Fair enough,” Kaylie said, chuckling.
Soon, however, their meal was finished, plates scraped nearly-clean with the last of the noodles, just the residue of tomato sauce left behind. Now satisfied and full, the team got up slowly, walking up to put their plates and utensils on the counter where the sign said to put them. As they passed by the table that Valentin, Tim, and Constantin were eating at, Kaylie said, “By the way, Tim, that pasta was awesome. I might have to get that sauce recipe from you in the future.”
The six of them walked up to the counter and made a neat little pile of plates and utensils, then headed back out to the Bricksley.
After all, those brakes weren’t going to fix themselves.
The team further forward in the canteen kept on eating, talking about how Valentin’s plans were getting along and how Constantin had ordered new bows. Again.
With very little left on the plates, team Shift Happens waltzed on past, Kaylie complementing his pasta on the way towards the counter.
“Thanks. I can note that down for you when i get to it.”, he replied, happy to supply recipies but also knowing that more pressing issues were at hand.
Soon after, the pasta was finished, with most of the employees also on their way back out again. Almost everyone who had the opportunity to do so thanked Tim for the, by their standards, amazing meal as they went past.
All three of them also returned their dishes, with Duncan approaching the group after having done so.
“It seems like the people liked the food you made. Thank you!” Duncan congratulated Tim, bowing down in respect for the cooking he did.
“Erm… gotta hand something back to the lot… i mean, half your workforce is fixing our car at the moment.”, Tim replied, starting to have had enough of the cooking fame in this place. Sure, being complemented on cooking is great, but having 80-or-so people do so in unison was a bit much for Tim.
As such, they headed back to work, the offered workforce was in good spirits as they took cutting equipment to the rear of the Dione to make some room for the boiler to go in.
Up front, the camshaft was freed and rotated by 90 degrees to allow steam to be exhausted the way the planned to. This was made that much easier as the Dione was not an interference engine, negating the fear of valves impacting the pistons.
Out by the truck, Malavera asked, “Should we do the other front brake first, or deal with the rears?”
“Those are fucking drum brakes out back. We’re doing them now before it gets any darker, because if the spring that’s in there escapes, we’re going to have to use up the last of our spares on an impromptu, field-built disc brake conversion if we can’t find the little fucker,” Kaylie said.
The jack was slid under the rear of the Bricksley, lifting up to touch the frame as Kaylie cracked all of the lug nuts loose, then being lifted further so she could get the tire off.
Of course, as Kaylie had predicted, no sooner had she pulled the drum off of the axle, the spring shot out with a metallic twang, skipped off of the ground, and went skittering to a stop just inside the doors of the steamworks. “Whoever thought this was a good design,” Kaylie said, retrieving the spring before it got lost, “was an evil genius.”
Rukari just found himself glad to not have to fight with these brakes that liked to fight back, after seeing Kaylie swapping out the brake shoes and getting a nasty pinch from the spring as she put it back in place. Soon, the drum was put back on, the tire soon followed it, and then the lug nuts were tightened back into place. “Now, it’s the other side. I hate drum brakes,” Kaylie said.
Back within, work was going smoothly.
With the boiler now ready for extraction, they waited for the boiler basket to be finished up on the recipient vehicle. Unfortunately, that would still take a while, as they just about finished the first cut after having removed most of the carpeting back there.
A few berths further down, the entry doors slowly were opened and a familiar-looking engine chuffed into the maintenance bay. It announced it’s entry with two quick puffs of it’s powerful whistle, alerting anyone within that an engine was moving in the building.
Most of the team turned around to see what was rolling in and went back to work upon spotting the engine. Valentin, however, was glued to it with his gaze, now seeing the Silver Line Special in all it’s glory, up close and personal. Not wanting to stall progress, he queued a few orders to keep the crews busy for the time being and went over to watch the beast come to a stop just shy of the buffer at the end of the rails.
Duncan also took note and came over to fill some info in:
“Feast your eyes… The Silver Line Special, out pride and joy of a Pacific locomotive along the Longitude Express.”, he spoke, also impressed by the mighty appearance of the streamlined engine. Valentin just stood there, in awe. Sure he’d seen steam locomotives before, but none of them were as fast or powerful as this one is.
As the crew stepped out and requested routine maintenance to be done, the respective workers assigned to the crew got to work cleaning the engine inside and out, oiling up what needs oiled and removing soot and ash out of the smokebox and firebox.
This was soon followed by a quick tour of the engine, including a full walk-around as well as a look at the cab, with all it’s controls and gauges.
Afterwards, he headed back to work on his own design, visibly content after having seen the very engine that sparked the idea in every little detail.
Like with the first brake drum, the second was equally a real pain, starting by taking a bit of extra effort to get the drum itself off, followed by again firing a spring out, though this time, Rukari redeemed himself by having fast enough reflexes to catch it.
Kayden, this time, helped his sister put the brake shoes on, and this time, he was the one who put the escaped spring back where it belonged. With the rear brake done after 50 minutes of fighting, the team put the rear tire back in place, dropped the jack, moved it over to the front, and prepared to begin the same process that had started the whole job, with the last remaining front brake disc.
Unlike the last time, though, this one immediately started giving them trouble after the wheel came off. “What the fuck!?” Kaylie said, yanking hard on the wrench to break the bolts loose on the caliper. “Seriously, if I ever find the guy who put these fuckers on with a rattle-gun, I’m going to torque wrench him in the nuts.”
After quite a long time, a lot of use of the blowtorch, the hammer, and the application of copious amounts of harsh language, Kaylie got the brake disc off. Likewise, the caliper fought her the whole time, refusing to come off of the brake line without being difficult. But, after a long battle of the brakes, the brakes were finally done on the Bricksley. The team took a break, grabbing their labeled cans and having a long, long drink of cold water.
Back at the soon-to be steaming-hot tank, work was running rather smoothly.
Nobody noticed, or cared, that it was already dark out and most of them were already past their shifts end. They simply kept pushing forward turning the Dione into a road-worthy express engine.
The boiler housing was crafted from sheet metal brackets, which where generously bolted into the space previously occupied by the spare tyre and it’s housing. The engine’s rocker cover found it’s way back on, with a bit of oil being added to counteract the amount lost through the top-end.
Early pipework followed, with brass pipes bolted to the exhaust and intake manifold brackets, which were led further forward and into the radiator, now serving as a steam condenser. The engine itself was meant to be kept cool by running the water from the reservoir through it, taking some load off the boiler creating steam. That reservoir was also now ready for installation, but mandated removal of the hood as it wouldn’t close all the way otherwise. It was sent off for a cutout to be added, which would clear the water reservoir tank.
After that, the car was lifted about two feet into the air to allow access to the underside for installation of the main steam carrier pipe and the feedwater pipe next to the driveshaft, filling the space where the other exhaust of a dual-exhaust system would’ve been on the V8 models of the DIone. Surrounding the front half and engine bay, pedestals were placed, as work continued on fitting a Stephenson Valve link, which was taken off the retired steam lorry. It was attached up top to the cylinder head with cast-iron brackets, driven by what once was the distributor drive mechanism and a pair of 90 degree bevel gears. Within, early controls such as the regulator were installed, together with a hose fitting in case the engine needed to be used as a water pump of sorts.
Work was nearly done on the Bricksley, merely needing all of the coolant to be added back into the radiator and the engine. They grabbed the first of the five-gallon cans, removed the engine’s thermostat, and started pouring, waiting until the water came spilling back out. A new gasket was put on, and the thermostat went back in before Kaylie opened up the radiator cap and started filling the radiator. Once the radiator filled up, Kaylie looked to her brother and said, “Moment of truth. Kayden, go start the engine, we need that water pump turning to push coolant through the system.”
Kayden got into the cab of their van-truck, made sure the parking brake was on, the gearbox was in neutral, then turned the key. The starter cranked over the big V8, and it roared to life just outside the shop.
“Just let it sit and idle,” Kaylie said, a funnel stuck in the radiator cap and a white-painted water can in her hands. “She’s got to get hot enough to open that thermostat before she’ll pull any of this through the loop.”
3 Likes
Team Shift Happens and Team RK-Series Racing
The Full Story, Part 4 of 4
The Dione’s conversion was nearing finalization, as most other controls found their way into the passenger half of the dashboard. Various gauges, knobs, levers were ripped directly from the steam lorry and resembled a steampunk version of a gauge pod on tuner cars on earth. With work below the car done, it was lowered again and the surrounding pedestals moved aside, followed by the final pipes going from the steam chest to the individual cylinders, being installed. Finally, the hood was put back where it belongs, now with a rectangular cutout through which the feedwater tank and it’s top-up valve were poking through.
What followed was the moment of truth for the whole team.
Connor was made to organize the boiler and it’s gauges and thus got into the front passenger seat, with Valentin taking place on the driver half.
“Raise the steam!”, Valentin ordered from within the car, followed by Connor flicking a few switches. A very long minute of waiting followed, as the water-tube boiler in the back burned through the Kerosene supplied through the stock Anhultz fuel tank, producing ample amounts of pressure rather quickly.
“We have full operating pressure, opening the regulator.”, Connor declared after having visual confirmation on the boiler pressure gauge and auditory confirmation through the boiler’s safety valve dumping the excess.
Valentin then puts the gearbox into second, the clutch welded to the floor at this point. After that, a little bit of throttle was added to allow the non-quartered crankshaft to remain spinning and not stall the engine. A turn of the ignition key forced the starter to turn the engine, which span into motion immediately, sounding like an extremely fast, but remarkably quiet steam locomotive.
A wave of optimism filled the crowd of workmen, seeing the engine turn over through the hole in the hood.
The small whistle that was part of the boiler was blipped twice to warn anyone still in there that an “engine” was in motion.
Valentin released the clutch, almost stalling the engine, but also moving the Dione forwards and out of the maintenance bay that was assigned to it.
It made it’s way towards the gate, which was hastily opened to allow the DIone to pass through.
Though it did not make it far out of it, as a pop was heard, immediately stalling the engine, followed by copious amounts of steam being released out of the feedwater tank cap with the associated wooshing noise to boot.
“FUCK! ABORT! Shut the thing down!”, Valentin ordered, followed by Connor turning down the regulator to zero and cutting fuel supply to the boiler.
The steam-driven Tangerine Tank rolled to a stop next to the V8 Bricksley, with Valentin looking at team Shift Happens, currently unsure as to what was broken.
When two toots of a steam whistle sounded out through the shop, all attempts by Team Shift Happens to finish collecting up their supply of tools and spare parts came to a screeching halt.
Jayde was excited as he saw the doors open just ahead of the Dione steaming toward the exit, pausing in his cleanup of the tools to watch as the faded orange car whooshed and chugged its way toward them. Unfortunately, just as fast as it had gotten going, it seemed to let off as much steam as the Bricksley had when Rukari had overheated the engine.
Kaylie ran over to see what had happened, then took a look down the side of their water tank, getting a look at the way they had connected up the valve gear to the engine. “Oh, shit. You guys used the distributor drive for that. Those gears aren’t meant to handle a lot of torque, they strip really easily,” Kaylie said.
“Done that a time or two,” Kivenaal admitted. “Older Bricksleys, sometimes when the distributor fails, the rotor jams in the cap, but the cap clips give way. Other times, those clips hold up and the gears strip out.”
Valentin popped the hood latch, got out of the car and took a look inside as well.
“Well from what i know, Stephenson Valve Gears aren’t all that heavy regarding torque need. Then again the AMP engineers could’ve bolted the rotor straight to the camshaft end, but oh well.”, Valentin muttered, annoyed at the fact that the engine was an early model, as that change was made the standard on cars from 1980 onwards.
“Either way the thing ran like shit anyway… It was about as smooth as my father’s old-ass tractor and keeping water levels in check is nigh-impossible without control over the pumps. Problem is… the engine’s water pump is our feedwater pump supplying the boiler, and the alternator is ran off of the same belt, so we’ll need to figure something out on that. Also, that crankshaft needs quartering… guess the flywheel wasn’t enough in smoothing the thing out.”, Valentin explained, having thought quickly about the issues the engine had and the fixes needed to remedy them.
He turned around, looking into the hall:
“Get the car back in! We have some unfortunate fixing to do!”, Valentin shouted into the hall, followed by a group of five barging out the door and wheeling the car back in.
“You know, if you moved the alternator to where your air conditioning pump is,” Kaylie mentioned, “that would get it off of that belt. To keep tension on it, you could put an idler pulley down there, and that’s how you change the tension.”
Jayde smiled as Kaylie suggested a possible solution to the problem of belt tensioning, then picked up Kaylie’s wrench kit and went to put it away. Unfortunately, he didn’t latch it first, and the sound of a 50 piece wrench and socket set hitting the ground rang out. “Sorry, Kaylie,” Jayde said.
“You know how many times I’ve done that, Jayde?” Kaylie asked. "Far too many times. Looks like we’re putting a puzzle together for a moment. “Oh, wow, you really did a good one,” she added, realizing he’d even managed to tip the screwdriver bits out.
The two of them crouched there in the driveway, picking up sockets, screwdriver bits, wrenches, ratchets, and socket extensions, while Malavera, Kayden, Kivenaal, and Rukari continued to organize the truck bed.
“Thanks a lot! That should work. AC is useless anyway with a boiler in the back heating the thing.”, Valentin responded and eagerly headed back inside.
With a routine beginning to establish itself, both in workflow between employees and how Valentin kept track of their actions, the extensive work needed to optimize the engine went ahead.
The bottom half was torn up, with the oil drained into a storage container for re-filling later on, the pan was removed, exposing the crankshaft. To get that out, the gearbox was dropped to release the flywheel and clutch pack together with the crankshaft. The crank assembly was then wheeled off for the first two cylinders to be rotated by 90 degrees, while the gearbox was subjected to cutting and grinding to make way for the new valve gear mechanism, which was to be driven off of the flywheel teeth. Up top, a similar process was started to correct the camshaft to match the crank, though there the process was a lot easier to accomplish due to less load on the bearings.
A new valve gear was sourced from the parts-bin of the steamworks. It was, once again, of Stephenson type, though featured two sets on a shaft to drive two double-acting cylinders. Or four single-acting ones, as was the case in the Dione.
Within the car, two levers and a number of plunger pulls were added to extend the funtionality and useability of the engine.
With the valve gear in, the alternator was relocated, removing the AC compressor entirely and allowing separate de-tensioning of the two water pumps the steam engine now had. The throttle pedal was also reconnected to the new steam chests, as was the steam main supply.
On the outside, the roof recieved a basic brass cage to house the teams belongings, fashioned out of the frame that once held the steam lorry’s roof in place.
Bit by bit, the Dione’s gearbox, crank and camshafts found their way back in, with careful attention being paid to align them properly to each other and the valve gear next to it.
Finally, some valve springs off of a disused stationary engine of massive proportions found their way as a replacement pair for the Dione’s rear coils to better support the boiler’s weight on top of the cargo they already had.
As a result, at about 5-50 moon, the car was ready for a second test. The steamworks crew, as well as team RK Series Racing were starting to tire noticeably, but still eager to finish this off to keep going in this rally.
“Raise some steam”, Valentin, ordered once again, followed by a near-immediate rise in steam pressure. Knowing that now the engine was quartered, it wouldn’t need a starter or clutch to set off. At least in theory. As such, he once again went for second, but releasing the clutch as soon as it was in gear.
“Here we go… now or never…”, Valentin prayed, hunched over the steering wheel as the whistle hooted and tooted twice again. He gave it some throttle, with little happening initially. To his surprise, it needed much more throttle to set off, but the car was moving. Connor on the passenger seat now had much more control over the water levels and boiler state.
Slowly, the Tangerine tank, in it’s second evolution in steam propulsion, made it’s way back towards the door, rolling out and into the driveway, followed by a wave of workmen on edge, not knowing of their work was fruitful or not.
Once out, the car came to a stop, still running and making steam.
“I don’t want to jinx anything, but this is going much better than the first one did.”, Valentin spoke in cautious optimism, selecting neutral on the gearbox and executing what must be the first case of free-revving a steam engine, albeit slowly and at a steady speed of roughly 800RPM to make sure the thing did not blow up again.
While the Dione was being modified further, Team Shift Happens looked over the Bricksley and gave a collective sigh. “We might as well start cleaning it up. All of our tents are in the camp, so the bed’s as empty as it’ll ever be,” Malavera said.
“Right,” Kayden admitted, “Let’s just get this over with. Looks like they’re going to be here a while, so let’s at least try to make it look like the host team is organized.”
“I’ll start work in the cab,” Rukari said.
Kaylie stared into the truck bed and sighed. “I’m going to have to crawl up there,” she mentioned. A moment later, Jayde picked her up and set her in the back of the bed, where she immediately started putting all the little random electronics bits back into the plastic container they came from. “What a bunch of junk!” she said, staring at the half-full box of circuit boards, knobs, buttons, and lights.
Kayden started dropping the remains of their first ever roadside brake service into the toolbox, counting up two warped and heat damaged rotors, four badly worn brake pads, four equally badly worn brake shoes, and two heat damaged brake calipers, plus two empty bottles of brake fluid, courtesy of trying to bleed brakes in the dark. “Think Jayde can fix these?” he asked.
“Why don’t you just ask me instead?” Jayde quipped. Kayden face-palmed and sighed.
“Because I’m damn tired is why. Can barely think right now,” he admitted.
“Well, the good news is, while I may not understand them, I don’t need to understand how it works to fix it with magic. I just need the whole item to do it, or all of the pieces of the item,” Jayde admitted.
“So that’s why,” Kivenaal said, “you didn’t just offer to fix their distributor.”
“Yes. I need all of the parts to make it whole again, or suitable material to fill in the gaps,” Jayde said.
By 5-and-50 Moon, the Bricksley’s bed was organized again, the cab had been cleaned up and organized, with all of their personal supplies stowed under the benches, and a small inventory of “missing” items was made. “How have we gone through nearly 5 bottles of moonshine already?” Kaylie asked.
“Marie took one before we ever got into Crugandr. Kivenaal’s been drinking them. I added some to the fuel tanks to improve the fuel quality,” Rukari said.
“Could you slow down on the moonshine, please?” Malavera asked Kivenaal.
“I can try, but… It does help with being here, you know,” Kivenaal said.
“Could always use the ring and go home,” Rukari said. “They work for individuals, just don’t do it in the truck.”
Kivenaal held up his right hand, the blackened and rather damaged ring still in place. “Tried that,” Kivenaal admitted.
Jayde stared at the ring, then looked to Rukari. “What was the intent of the spell?” he asked.
“If the wearer turned the ring upside down, thought of home, and said out loud, three times quickly, ‘I wish I was at home,’ they would be teleported to where they thought of,” Rukari said.
“And if that home was, say, no longer there?” Kaylie asked.
The inside of Rukari’s ears paled noticeably. “The spell would fail. He didn’t try to go home to Earth, he tried to go back home to Aetherii,” Rukari said.
“A time before the war broke out, yes,” Kivenaal admitted. “I just… After fighting the Dyre…” Kivenaal sighed. “I wanted to go to a place I knew.”
“Time-travel magic is… It’s difficult,” Jayde said. “And it’s risky. These rings likely held only just enough energy to get people back to Earth, plus or minus a few years. If what you’re saying is true, you tried to jump thousands of years. There wasn’t enough energy in that ring for that.”
“My question is, then, how is it still working for him?” Kayden asked. “We can’t understand anything here if ours aren’t on our hand.”
“The language spell,” Jayde said, “was woven separately to the teleportation spell. One can work while the other has failed.”
As the Dione chugged its way outside, however, the grim conversation stopped. “Right, we’ve got to get back into camp,” Malavera said. “It’s about 20 minutes at a nice slow pace. We’ll have to coast in, though, because our V8 is a bit loud.”
As the Dione kept chugging while stationary, the hood was popped once again to take a look inside.
With all the gears gearing, levers levering and pipes piping, all was good for departure.
“It looks to be working.”, Valentin declared, with a content but also incredibly tired tone in his voice.
“Time to pack up and head back to camp.”, he added, prompting every single member of his team to rush inside to get everything that the team owned, including whatever parts were taken off the Dione in the process.
It took less than five minutes for the cargo to be loaded up even without any help from team RK Seires Racing itself.
To top it all off, Duncan walked up, holding a pair of what seemed to be locomotive nameplates.
“Normally, the creator gets to name the engine, but i figured with you lot being tired and all, i’d get a pair with a suitable name.”, Duncan spoke, holding up a pair of plates which originally belonged to a 6-2-0 Crampton-Type locomotive that has been retired more than half a century ago.
“Maybe i can get the word out to stamp a pair to your liking at some point.”, he added.
“Thanks a lot.”, Valentin replied, handing the plates to a crewman for installation. “They shall go on either side of the roof rails, then.”, Valentin said to the worker, who split the plates with a second guy and went to town mounting them.
Another five minutes went by and the plates were on.
“Thank you once again for helping out on this. I really do appreciate it.”, Valentin repeated, as he walked around to swap seats with Connor.
Duncan smiled, and before Valentin contorted himself into the fireman’s seat, he looked over at Kaylie.
“Sleeping will be fun… all those controls up here will force me to curl up like a hedgehog.”, he remarked, before taking a seat and closing the door.
When Valentin looked over to her and commented that sleeping was going to be difficult before they got in their car, Kaylie hopped up into the radio seat of the Bricksley, already starting to come up with a plan.
Malavera, being the most visibly awake one, got behind the wheel. Jayde sat next to Kaylie, and Kayden sat next to Jayde in the rear bench, while Rukari and Kivenaal took mid-front and passenger-side front respectively. The doors were closed, the engine was started, and as both vehicles rolled out into town, Kaylie brought up Valentin’s concern.
“Valentin’s been sleeping in the car this whole time,” Kaylie started, “but now he’s got a bunch of controls in the way. I know we have six people and five tents, but I’m sharing with Jayde,” she stopped as her brother snickered, reached across Jayde, and thumped her brother solidly on his right arm with her left.
“Ow! Fuck, that hurts!” Kayden said, rubbing the spot.
“Deserved it,” Kivenaal said, chuckling.
“As I said, I’m already sharing with Jayde. Before that, though, I was sleeping in the truck-”
“Until you threw a fit, blared the horn, and revved the engine,” Kayden said, playing the dangerous game as he teased his sister, “until we were forced to make you sleep in a tent. Ow!” He rubbed the spot where Kaylie had hit him again, “Damn, you hit the same spot twice.”
“Keep it up, smart-ass, and I’ll make it three for three,” Kaylie said, before continuing. “The thing is, I know the truck is comfortable. It’s just not big enough for Jayde, or I’d ask him to give up our tent and take over sleeping in the truck. So, I need a volunteer to start truck camping.”
“Not me,” Kayden said. “I couldn’t get comfortable back here. Kept finding seat belt buckles with my back.”
“I’ve slept in the front bench, but when I woke up, I had one of my knees resting on the wheel rim. A bit higher up, I’d have hit the horn,” Kivenaal said. “I mean, I’ll do it if I have to, but I’ll have to use the rear bench, and I’m going to be sore in the morning.”
“The seats aren’t quite wide enough. Good way to wake up with a cramp in one of my necks,” Malavera admitted.
“I’ll do it,” Rukari said. “Can’t be worse than a military tent in the jungle.”
Kaylie breathed a sigh of relief as the problem was solved at last. “Thank you. I’ll let you get your things out of your tent once we’re there, and I’ll get him my spare sleeping pad.”
“You brought a spare?” Kivenaal asked.
“Kaylie’s had a history of rough wake-ups,” Kayden mentioned. “Three days after we thought she was used to her new arm, she punched a hole in her mattress and broke the bed in the process. We went camping once and she woke up in a pile of blanket confetti. She’s gotten better, but…”
“Always be prepared,” Kaylie said. “Better to waste the space packing an extra sleeping mat and spare covers than to spend the rest of the trip laying on the ground and being cold.”
“Not like you’d have that problem, though,” Kayden said with a smirk, “considering you’d just lay on Jayde instead. Ow! Ow! Twin Suns that one hurt!”
Kaylie grinned as she’d gotten her brother squarely on the same spot, just before Jayde elbowed Kayden, apparently right in the same already-forming bruise.
With not much distance left to the camp, Malavera put the truck into neutral and switched off the engine. Instead of the expected eerie silence broken up only by the rasp of their off-road tires, they also had the pleasant sound of the Dione puffing away quietly nearby. The Bricksley rolled up next to their tents and Malavera brought the truck to a mostly-gentle stop, where he applied the parking brake, put the truck in first gear to keep it from escaping should the brake fail, and just for good measure, got out and kicked wheel chocks under the rear tires. “Better safe than sorry,” he admitted.
Rukari quickly gathered up the few things he had in his tent, bringing them over to the Bricksley instead and getting set up in the rear bench seat. Within five minutes, he was out like a light, covered by a thin purple sheet in the cab of the truck.
Kaylie opened up the toolbox and pulled out a large bag that had a rolled up sleeping mat in it, then walked over to Valentin. “If you want us to move the tent, we can do that, but this mat is yours. I had a spare. Rukari, the big one with gray fur and horns, he volunteered to sleep in the truck, and apparently he took to it quite well, because I don’t think I’ve seen him fall asleep that fast ever. Anyway, if you choose to sleep near us, well, it’ll be the last tent on the right, closest to the Bricksley’s tailgate. Kayden’s the next one over, Jayde and I are in the middle tent, Malavera’s the second tent, and Kivenaal’s in the first tent. Doubt he’ll sleep the night, though, so he’ll probably be patrolling the camp,” she said, giving a tired smile.
As the Dione rolled into camp, it came to a short stop next to where Team Shift Happens had set their camp up. Valentin, still awake enough to notice the car being stopped at the campsite, slumbered out of the car, progressively getting worse and almost falling asleep right then and there.
Once out, he barely listened to Kaylie, took the mat and dove straight into the empty tent. He didn’t even care that he was surrounded by a foreign team, most of which he still would be trying to avoid, though he did seem content at finally having done the job and getting some Zs.
Constantin leaned out the window of the Dione, having seen Valentin and his tent-raid.
“We’ll park a bit away from camp. The thing apparently is noisy as hell when shut down.”, Constantin spoke, repeating what Connor explained to him with little knowledge as to why.
“If he wakes up before we’re back here, tell him we’re a few hundred metres further west of here.”, he added, making sure Valentin knew where the remainder of his team was, at least once he woke up in the morning.
The Dione steamed away again and came to a final stop further down the road they came from way earlier that day. Conner went through the procedure of shutting the car down, venting the major steam lines and cutting fuel supply to the boiler.
Constantin used that time to set up camp using the traditional “trunk lid tent” method, whereas Tim had enough and simply slopped over on the rear bench as soon as space was available.
With the car set for the night, two of three members asleep and the third idling, Constantin finally had the time to check on the progress of his bows.
While he wasn’t contacted yet, the message might as well have been lost in transit, so he decided to check anyway, hoping that the bowyer was still awake. He went to grab the damaged bow and walked back towards town and through the camp.
Kaylie nodded as Constantin explained where they’d be and why they were leaving the camp. “If he wakes up before you’re back, I’ll let him know,” Kaylie said.
Around the camp, Kayden and Malavera had already crashed hard, including Kayden still having both feet sticking out of his tent without a care in the world. Kivenaal was staring into the distance, clearly anticipating that he wasn’t going to get any actual sleep tonight. Jayde tapped his staff at the four corners of Valentin’s tent, being as quiet as he could, non-verbally casting a spell to reduce the intensity of sounds coming into Valentin’s tent so he could get a little rest.
“That was nice of you,” Kaylie whispered to Jayde, realizing what he’d probably done.
“He’s had a rough day,” Jayde whispered back. “No reason he should have a rough night, too. Won’t block all sounds out, but it will lessen how loud they are.”
Jayde and Kaylie crawled into their tent as well, tired enough that they fell asleep almost as soon as they laid down.
Constantin apparently wasn’t needed for talks with Shift Happens and thus walked on past and to the bowyer. The darkness made navigation more difficult than necessary, but it wasn’t all that hard to locate the only bowyer in town.
To Constantin’s surprise, it seemed as if some activity was still going on in there, with the inside still being lit. He politely and quietly knocked onto the half-open door, before pushing said door open to peek inside.
The bell rang once again and soon after, the bowyer made his way to the front, already having expected him.
“Oh hello! You finally made it!”, he says, excited and heads back quickly to get his first results out. He reuturn with a bow that initiallly was just another flatbow, albeit in a shade of brown rather than near-black in color.
“If you want to test the thing, i have a 15m range out back. I also prepared a range of arrow weights for you to try since i wasn’t sure on what you meant by heavy.”, he added, handing the bow to Constantin and going into the back again, motioning for Constantin to follow.
That bow, once again, was a flatbow, though brown rather than black in color due to less extensive weather-proofing being employed. The grip was sculped to at least sort of guide Constantin’s hand into position, but apart from that, nothing of note could be seen in the construction of it.
The two found themselves on a rather narrow private archery range of decent quality. A target was set up 15 metres (50ft) away from a line on the ground, with ample wooden shielding surrounding the lane on all sides to prevent stray arrows from leaving the premises. He handed a pack of arrows to Constantin, with their fletchings color-coded by arrow weight.
Constantin doesn’t wait too long to start shooting, going through the arrows one by one. Over the course of roughly 20 minutes, the incorrectly-weighed arrows are weeded out, ending with three shots each on a pair of arrows. Eventually, the two settle on a weight that felt eerily natural to him.
“This green one it is. I’d like 12 Broadheads and 4 Bodkins of that weight. Also, do you mind me paying up front? We’re kinda in a hurry tomorrow morning and i would just pop in to collect the goods.”, Constantin confirms, holdung up an arrow with three green feathers at the back.
“Absolutely no problem. Then we’re set. I’ll make a copy of this bow and the arrows and you can collect them in a few hours.”, the bowyer replies, satisfied that an agreement has been made.
Constantin paid 50 Silver Syrkals to the bowyer, leaving an additional 30 in his pocket.
After that, he went back to camp, stored the broken war-trophy of a bow on the roof and went into his sleeping bag for the night.
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TEAM HILLBILLY ROLLERS
Earlier parts
PART 0.1 - A prologue to the prologue
PART 0.2 - Another piece of the prologue puzzle
PART 0.3 - Viva la IP 4Z!
PART 0.4 - Robotman
PART 0.5 - Interference problems
PART 0.6 - Can I play Tetris?
PART 0.7 - Tangerine and familiar
PART 1.0 - Now things got serious!
PART 1.1 - Hello, Thibault and friends!
PART 1.2 - Poor kitty
PART 1.3 - Curse you, Team Oil Crisis!
PART 1.4 - Interlude
PART 2.0 - Bird bird bird, bird is the word!
PART 2.1 - D. Head
PART 2.2 - Good night!
PART 3.0 - Freeway Rockstar
PART 3.1 - DISCO TJO DISCO HEJ
PART 3.2 - Van-Werewolf 1-0
PART 4.0 - Calm after the storm
PART 5.0 - Mirror mirror on the…oh, crap!
For some strange reason there was two relatively uneventful days spent at the camp (read: Marie’s hangover was no fucking joke, so she was simply too zombiefied to start any new chaos), and now it was time for the fourth leg of this rally. The team had woken up kind of late and hurried to pack the stuff, became the last car leaving the camp. Or, leaving is maybe to stretch things too far. They did not even leave camp until the van started to behave strange.
BLAFF!
ANDREAS: Oh, crap! I blew a front tyre! Let’s hurry to put a spare wheel on.
JANNE: No.
ANDREAS: What the fuck do you mean by “no”?
JANNE: We have a tyre patch kit in the glowbox and we should use that one.
MARIE: Uuuunnnghhhff… what are you fighting ab…ZZZZzzzzz
ANDREAS: That will take a hundred years!
JANNE: Yes. Can I also remind you that the roads are full of sharp rocks. We might as well shred a tyre completely and then we can’t use the repair kit and will need the spare.
ANDREAS: (mumbling mumbling)
The team got out of the van, jacked it up and removed the left front tyre for inspection.
ANDREAS: HA! There is a splintered dyre bone that has penetrated it. Nice driving, Marie.
MARIE: Oh, cool! I will hang that from the mirror with the air freshner we got from Jayde.
JANNE: I would not recommend that?
MARIE: Why?
JANNE: I have a feeling that it will bring bad luck to the team.
ANDREAS: Oh, stop with your goddamned Demons and dragons shit! (ooc info: Wrong naming intended)
JANNE: OK, well, you’ll see that I will be right in the end.
Janne removed the dyre bone, which Marie quickly made a trophy of, repaired the tyre, put it back and the team was good to go. After they had driven just a short while, though…
PFFFFFF FLAPPAFLAPPAFLAPPAFLAPPADRRRRRRR
ANDREAS: Not another one…
JANNE: Well, just repeat the same process once again.
(Which they also did, not much to write about)
Now our friends felt that they were probably lagging very far behind, and Andreas stomped on the accelerator. At least they managed to pass Team Slow, spraying some dirt on their german luxobarge while honking the dixie horn.
MARIE: At least we aren’t in last place anymore.
JANNE: I would not suggest driving like this, though.
ANDREAS: Oh, come on! You know my driving skills, right?
JANNE: Yes, I trust your skills, but considering what the roads look like, I would not…
KABLOW!
JANNE, ANDREAS, MARIE: …
While our team was removing the rear tyre, Team Slow passed again and it looked like they had some sinister smiles on their faces.
JANNE: Stupid yuppies!
ANDREAS: We will show them later, right?
JANNE: I suggest to take it easy, look what you did to the tyre!
A rock had ripped the tyre completely to pieces, which meant that mounting one of the spare wheels was the only way to go now.
JANNE: Was I right as always, huh?
ANDREAS: Ok, ok, Mr. Wise Guy!
With the spare in place, they approached team Slow again, which now was driving more than slow.
ANDREAS: What the fuck, are they trying to block the road for us now? They are driving slower than an old moped with a worn out spark plug!
MARIE: We will show the bastards, just floor it!
While Andreas floored the accelerator to pass team slow, Marie flipped the switch for the dixie horn which blared on loudly, climbed over to the right on the bench seat (which Janne was not completely happy with) and did some good old mooning to team (now very much) slow.
They also managed to pass Team Jockey’s little Pacman car and Team Mravolinski-Chitco that had stopped for checking out that their cargo had not rattled loose again. The van stopped briefly alongside the Kontir, Janne cranked the window down and threw a roll of duct tape to Mrdja.
JANNE: HEY! USE THIS, THAT MAY SECURE YOUR CARGO A BIT BETTER!, he shouted and laughed before the team took away again.
On the CB they heard some chatting that the Dione had broken down. But since they also heard that Shift Happens were on the way to help them, they took it quite easy when they passed the tangerine tank. The stereo was playing this little cheerful tune:
…but when there was just some seconds left of it, the stereo went completely quiet.
MARIE: Oh crap, will we have to do this race completely without Eddie Meduza now?
JANNE: Unfortunately not, I think that it is just a simple fault that is very easy to fix, but please, not now!
The team also passed a lone individual of the dyre species, sure, they had quite a lot of respect for it, but inside the van, there was absolutely no danger, at least as long as it didn’t break down.
All of a sudden they saw the Bricksley heading towards them at something that seemed to be mach 2. Andreas was trying to honk the regular horn, not remembering that there now was a mess of shattered plastic and duct tape where the horn buttons once were. He tried to press the button to the dixie horn that now was all quiet. The Bricksley was coming even closer and Andreas was steering toward the ditch to avoid a disaster.
WHAK!
The two vehicles was passing so close that they struck each other, if only barely. A pink piece of plastic and some shards of glass was flying through the air. A little piece of glass was still left in what once was the mirror housing, though. The last thing Andreas could see in the mirror was the speeding Bricksley, and the text that was printed on the glass…
“OBJECTS IN MIRROR MAY BE CLOSER THAN THEY APPEAR”
It all seemed quite ironic, considering that the Bricksley was about as close as it could ever be. Finally, the little piece of glass fell off and now only the base of the mirror was left.
ANDREAS: HOW THE FUCK ARE THEY DRIVING?
MARIE: Metal american truck 1 - Ariyan plastic mirror 0
Andreas was trying to shout at Team Shift Happens through the CB, but now the CB also was dead.
ANDREAS: GREAT, NOW THE FUCKING CB IS ALSO DEAD!
JANNE: No, it is not.
ANDREAS: Do you really have to say “no” to everything.
JANNE: No.
(silence)
JANNE: I have been wrenching on those things ever since I started working. I know exactly what the problem is. Fuse #8. “Aux. equipment (const. feed)”.
ANDREAS: How do you know that, Mr. Wise guy?
JANNE: Easy. No stereo. No dixie horn. No CB. This fuse is feeding optional equipment that is supposed to work even with the ignition turned off.
MARIE: Can we fix it then so I can listen to Eddie Meduza again?
JANNE: No. None of the equipment is necessary. And the fuse box is located behind the engine. Which means that we have to flip up the front seat to reach it. It’s not worth risking a dyre encounter for changing a fuse that is not needed. Also, another thing…
MARIE: What?
JANNE: WHAT DID I SAY ABOUT THIS FUCKING THING? IT WILL BRING BAD LUCK TO US!
Janne grabbed the dyre bone, managed to pull the inside mirror loose, cranked the window down and threw out the dyre bone.
MARIE: Meh. My amulet.
JANNE: Yes, a really good amulet, indeed.
ANDREAS: And another broken mirror.
Janne managed to put the mirror back, however, and a little bit grumpy our three friends rolled into camp.
VEHICLE STATUS:
Interior unusually clean.
Airbag cover duct taped together
SRS light removed
Front bumper broken
Rear bumper scratched
Bull bar bent
Windshield cracked
Left side sliding door caved in, door handle broken
Right side sliding door being stiff to open and close, something must have happened during the werewolf fight
Left outside mirror mostly gone (only the metal base left, plastic housing and glass gone)
Fuse #8 blown
Still running like a champ!
TO BE CONTINUED
@interior @MrdjaNikolen @NoahC
OOC: This is written as I presume that this world has right hand traffic. @Madrias , if it has left hand traffic, I can change the few necessary details, mostly about which mirror that was hit.
Also, dyre bone bringing bad luck, can either be folklore or just Janne’s wild imagination, I have no idea.
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