Yes, just have to finish some interaction with Madrias first.
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RK Series Racing; Stage 5 Drive; Part 2
About half an hour of Connor flooring the “throttle” later, first impressions can be drawn on Robert’s performance. While the boiler had ample capacity to supply the engine with enough steam, even at zero cutoff (equivalent to full throttle), the lower maximum engine speeds seriously limited top speed.
On the straights, the car loses all of it’s grunt at about 70MPH and doesn’t go past 75, unless manhandling it downhill. As such, Connor’s momentum-biased driving proved even more useful, granting ludicrous cornering speeds to counteract the lack of top end.
The remaining drive wasn’t exactly eventful, precisely because of the sheer speed they were going at and the somehow clockwork-like pitstop when refueling both tanks of the Tangerine Tank Engine.
Just under 6 hours later, which is substantially quicker than they expected, Robert rolls into the camp, the team seated within, while announced with a toot of the whistle.
to be continued
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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!
PART 5.1 - Hello, little puppies!
PART 6.0 - Speed
PART 6.1 - GIMME OXYGEN! (Co-op with @Madrias - hence the somewhat different format.)
When the team had been relaxing at the van for a while, arriving early as they were, they saw Kaylie from Team Shift happens coming towards them, with Rukari coming after, a bit ashamed it looked like. According to Kaylie, Rukari had something important to say.
“I apologize for side-swiping the van.”, Rukari said
“Side-swiping? No shit, Sherlock, that’s the least thing one could say! How the fuck were you driving?”, Andreas answered.
“I guess we could call it Van Gogh now”, Janne said and pointed towards the now one-mirrored van. “You get the point?”, he asked, smirking.
“Did you get your drivers license in a package of corn flakes or what?”, Marie asked, a bit salty.
Rukari grimaced, though was grateful when Kaylie let go of his ear. “I learned to drive in the Grundzahiri,” Rukari said.
“He’s military,” Kaylie explained. “Grundzahiri is their army.” She did, however, smirk at Janne naming the atomic-pink van as Van Gogh, then added, “Not a bad name for a one eared, rather artistic van.”
Rukari glanced at Kaylie to see if she was done speaking, then said, “We were heading to rescue another team. I drove as fast as I could to get to them, considering our surroundings at the time. A breakdown in Dyre territory is dangerous.”
When Marie quipped that Rukari got his drivers license in a package of Corn Flakes, Kaylie snickered. “In the United States, we’d say he got his license from a Cracker-Jack box, so it’s good to see some things stay the same.”
“What is a drivers license?” Rukari asked. “Vilzahir Arunika Veldrothan-Rhuthan has given me permission to drive any vehicle I need in a time of war, and during a time of peace, any non-military vehicle I deem appropriate.”
The deep sigh that came from Andreas could almost be heard over the entire camp. “Yeah…” he said. “We heard some chatter about that on the CB, but still…”, he said with an even more deep sigh, “…is it really worth driving so you put other teams at risk just because of that? Oh, I forgive you…mirrors aren’t really needed in this world anyway.”
It was almost like if Andreas had calmed down a bit. For some reason it was like if he had no energy for any of his usual outbursts. One could hear that he was just tired of this now.
“But please, next time, don’t drive like a maniac if you don’t have control over the situation”.
“You are almost starting to sound grown up now. I am getting a bit worried for your sake now.”, Janne said with a sigh.
“Well, have you ever mentioned the time you put my Dodge Dart in a ditch, so we had to…”, Marie continued.
“WELL ENOUGH OF THAT, THEY ARE NOT INTERESTED IN THAT STORY!”, Andreas said in a very annoyed tone. Now everyone could recognize him again, so there was probably nothing to be worried about anymore.
“I thought I had more space. Forgot about the mirrors,” Rukari admitted.
When Marie mentioned the time that someone put her Dodge Dart in a ditch, however, and Andreas tried to claim they weren’t interested in that story, Kaylie gave an almost wicked grin. “I wouldn’t mind hearing about this. Seems our resident emperor-to-be isn’t the only one with a history of wrecking cars,” Kaylie said.
Rukari glared at her. “I did not wreck the truck,” he said.
“No, but at the Trafikjournalen 24 hours of Clunkers, you totaled our Sinistra Traville,” Kaylie replied.
“It still ran when the race was done,” Rukari shot back.
“We had to sell it for scrap value! You sent it into the wall so many times that there wasn’t a straight body panel left. You shattered the driver’s side window, caused the front suspension to collapse, making me kiss an airbag, trashed the rear suspension bad enough that we had to fabricate a bracket to keep the rear axle in place, and scattered bits of debris around the track!” Kaylie retorted, smirking.
“Yeah, anyway, we were kind of late for a party…”, Marie started.
“First, it was all your fault, because it took half the day for you to get finished, since you were so drunk so you didn’t know which planet you were on. Second, not everyone calls “some backwood drunkards getting even more drunk as fuck while setting fire to random things” a party just because we do, worth keeping in mind. Not that I think that Shift happens is some city sissies, but still.”, Andreas answered.
“Yeah and he was driving like a maniac…”, Marie continued.
“Like a maniac…sure…with a tired old 318 that has some traces of compression left on at least 7 cylinders…sure…but yeah, keep on humiliating me.”, Andreas said in a somewhat salty tone.
“Well, and I said that we should turn left at the next intersection, but appearantly I was just a stupid drunkard that should keep my mouth quiet because we should drive straight ahead according to Mr. Fittipaldi here…”, Marie continued.
Janne was trying to hide his laughter now, which didn’t succeed very well.
“Only that you could not drive straight ahead there, you could only turn left and right, which he obviously took notice of since he stomped on the brakes, but since this was late in the evening in the spring in northern Sweden, the snow had melted during the day, then freezing in the evening, so he tried to brake on a patch of black ice, and…”, Marie continued.
“My poor beercans didn’t really survive being airborne then…”, Janne pointed out.
“So, we basically did a Dukes of Hazzard jump down in the ditch, which at that time of the year was more or less a puddle of mud, so let’s just say we could not get anywhere, we had to walk for kilometers to get a farmer to pull us from there with his tractor…”, Marie laughed.
“Haha, do you remember how we were scrubbing mud from the floor for days after that?”, Janne asked.
Andreas was turning more and more red in his face, which probably was due to equal parts of anger and shame.
Kaylie laughed, then said, “Black ice is the worst. There’s a reason we set up The Lair in Nevada, and that’s because there’s no snow. We tried to get set up at Malavera’s place in Alaska, and that stopped after the first day where I slid all the way down the driveway and out into the street, then had to crawl back up the driveway with my claws.”
Rukari chuckled. “That sort of party does sound interesting. I think Kivenaal would enjoy it more, though. He has an unusual talent, manages to make water explode.”
Kaylie shrugged lightly. “Kivenaal, and I don’t know how he does this, can split water into hydrogen and oxygen. I’ve seen him make fire, so I’m assuming then that he adds a spark, and you get a deafening bang. Twin-tailed bastard nearly scared my stripes white when he detonated a water bottle behind me. When he’s having a laugh, sometimes he won’t light it, so the blast is just pressure splitting the bottle.”
“My brother likes to scare Kaylie,” Rukari admitted.
“Technically, they’re not exactly brothers, but the Valraadii have no word for distant relatives. Because both of them share a direct family lineage by bloodline, both of them have the same first part of their last name, they claim each other as brothers,” Kaylie explained. “So, even though there’s almost 8,000 years or more between them, they claim each other as brothers.”
“We both have the Khakrin blood. My father’s lineage and his father’s lineage can be traced back to the same source,” Rukari mentioned. “Though I know not when he developed a taste for scorpions. We don’t have them where I am from.”
“Oh, we’re used to snow and ice where we live. You know, we don’t have garden furniture, we just sit on the snowmobile for the only week of the year when you can’t drive it, that’s sort of…summer”. Of course, Janne said that as kind of a joke, but he had no idea if they would take him seriously or not. He listened with great interest (unlike the rest of the team) to what Kaylie and Rukari had to say, but his concentration was now mainly on one thing.
“HEY! Did you say oxygen?”, he shouted.
“Rukari, Kivenaal, and Malavera would like that kind of weather. The three of them are built for cold climates. My brother and I, not so much, and I suspect the same of Jayde as well,” Kaylie mentioned.
When Janne asked if they mentioned oxygen, Kaylie nodded. “Yes. Kivenaal has the ability to split plain water into hydrogen and oxygen. He’s also a bit stoned on cinnamon right now,” she said, before turning to Rukari. “How long will that last?”
“It has been a little more than an hour. He should be relaxed, hungry, but in a more normal state of mind,” Rukari admitted. “Cinnamon isn’t long lasting, but the relaxation from the experience can last a day.”
Janne did not listen to the cinnamon part, instead he opened the tailgate of the van, took something out of it, and started running towards Kivenaal. You could hear another deep sigh from both Andreas and Marie now.
Do anyone of you understand that man at all? Because I don’t…”, Marie asked.
“Nobody does…”, Andreas answered.
Kivenaal looked up as Janne ran toward him, looking a bit curious. Jayde, who had also been keeping an eye on Kivenaal to make sure he didn’t do something stupid like try to take a swim while impaired, looked over at Janne.
“Need something on the van fixed?” Jayde asked, grabbing his staff and getting ready to head over there at a moment’s notice.
“Nah…but this oxygen bottle. It is empty. Can any of you guys do anything about that?”, Janne asked.
“After all, if I get this oxy/acetylene torch to work again, I could help other teams which might spare your magic. So you can really benefit from this in the end, right?”
Kivenaal nodded. “I think I can do something about that, though getting the hydrogen out is going to be a bitch. I know it leaks out of seals, and it’s hard to contain, but not using it for a few days and avoiding sparks and open flames isn’t an option, I’d guess.”
Jayde looked at Kivenaal as the four-armed Valraadi grabbed a plastic water bottle with barely a splash of water left in it, a few drops that hadn’t come out, then watched as the water suddenly vanished and the bottle swelled up, dangerously close to bursting. “There is a lot of lift-gas in there. I’ve worked with airships before, I can get that out of a container,” Jayde admitted.
Kivenaal smiled, pointed the swollen bottle in a seemingly safe direction, and with a practiced flick of his thumb, popped the cap free. There was a fairly loud pop, followed by Kaylie startling as the bottle cap hit her in the back of the head.
“Kivenaal!” Kaylie yelled. “Stop destroying the caps on our spare water bottles!”
Kivenaal chuckled, then told Janne, “I think we might be able to fill that bottle, then.”
Jayde reached into one of his robe pockets and pulled out Kaylie’s adjustable wrench, having been cleaned since the Dyre battle, but still looking relatively ordinary. When Kivenaal told him to remove the valve and gauge from the top of the cylinder, he did so, though it was obvious it was a bit of a fight for him as he got used to the unfamiliar tool. Kivenaal, meanwhile, grabbed an unlabeled water can off of the roof rack and the funnel Kaylie used to fill the radiator out of the toolbox, plopped the funnel into the neck of the cylinder, and poured a rather large amount of water in. Jayde then put the valve and gauge assembly back on the bottle, opened the valve slightly, and focused his magic to only let the lift-gas out of the bottle. Kivenaal, likewise, focused to make the process slower so he didn’t either spit a bunch of oxygen, hydrogen, and water out of the valve, or worse, detonate the tank. For five long minutes, there was a loud, steady hiss from the valve as the hydrogen escaped, before Jayde finally closed the valve.
“I can’t feel any more lift-gas in that container,” Jayde admitted.
Kivenaal looked at the pressure gauge, then said, “Looks like I put a little bit much in there. We’re a little over-full.”
Janne smiled a bit about the comment. “Nah, I think it is hard to avoid sparks and fire with an acetylene torch”. He looked with amusement on the process of filling the bottle.
“Wow, I am impressed. Anyway, if something needs some heat or can be fixed with soldering or welding, just send them to me and you’ll spare some magic for when it’s better needed I guess.”, he offered.
“By the way, Kivenaal. How much do you know about IP?” , he continued.
Kivenaal smirked. “Fire and heat are my speciality, but I understand. Saving Jayde from having to do so many repair spells will be beneficial,” Kivenaal said, holding up his upper right hand so that only the two of them could see the searing-hot blue flame that he had coating the claw of his index finger for a moment. “I’m fireproof. Can’t be burned,” he added.
When Janne asked Kivenaal what he knew about IP, Kivenaal stopped to think for a bit. “I know the 4Z engine is damned reliable. Got two military surplus generators back home with them. They’ll run on just about anything you can feed them, so long as it will burn. Knew someone at the Alaskan secret base I grew up in who had a military truck with an engine built to share a huge amount of parts with the 4Z engine. I think Kaylie resto-modded a 1974 IP Rugger by making an adapter plate for the transmission and shoving a 5.2 liter Sinistra Sidewinder narrow-angle V8 in there. Yes, the ones that are meant to go sideways in a Traville. But I don’t really know much else. I mean, I probably do know more, but… Not off the top of my head like this.”
Janne got a bit excited when he heard that Kivenaal already knew a bit about what he was going to ask about. “Yeah. That military truck… Maybe you know that Sanju heavy industries is the mother company of IP, and that they also make the Sanju brand of trucks. So…what youre talking about is probably a Sanju MDM44 “Wolverine”, right? Well, I heard some rumours that you are into old military vehicles and I have a friend that is absolutely nuts, he has a couple of hundreds of them, everything from motorcycles to tracked vehicles to huge trucks. Anyway, in some months he will be importing a Wolverine…can’t wait to see it”, Janne said and paused for a while of breathing.
“You know, the engine is sick, the 8ZV. As you said, it shares a lot of parts with the 4Z. A V8 with the same pistons, same rods, twice the volume of course. One of the heads is even more or less similar to the ones found on the 4Z. And the thing that is absolutely sick is that it uses dual distributors and dual carburetors that is identical to the ones on the pre 1987 4Z. If something breaks, you can just kill four of the cylinders and run it as a V4, kind of what Cadillac did with the 4-6-8 engine, but manually, so it works. Also, it was advised to do it when going down steep during off road driving to improve engine braking. He has been looking for one for years, you know, if he finds out that something is missing in his collection, he has a hard time sleeping at night, haha”.
Kivenaal nodded. “Sanju, that’s the name. Was escaping me for a moment. The MDM44 is, from what I’ve heard, a damn-reliable piece of equipment. And the 8ZV is an incredible engine. I’ve heard stories of them coming back into their home base, shot full of holes, almost no oil pressure left, engine’s a total write-off but somehow the poor thing still ran well enough to get the soldiers home. I’ve wanted one for years myself, but finding one and finding someone willing to import it into the United States… That’s harder,” Kivenaal said. “And yeah, I’m into military vehicles myself. Not just old ones, though,” he added, holding up his key-ring to show three keys that, at first glance, looked identical, but had different cuts on them. All three were in the same Desert Tan plastic housing, with the key being black-anodized metal. “I own 3 2009 Bricksley Quagmire military trucks. Also,” he said, flipping to another black-anodized key, this time in an olive drab housing, “I have one Bricksley MHT-23 “Salamander” armored troop transporter. Big beast of a machine, quite heavy, nearly impossible to drive it anywhere because you won’t find parking spots big enough, but it’s great in the winter. Well… As long as you know that’s a snow-drift and not concealing a car under it when you decide to park in the snow drift.”
Janne nodded at what Kivenaal had to say. “Yes, I am sure that you and Arne would have a lot to talk about if you met, haha. By the way, what happened to the Anhultz yesterday? You sure were gone for a while. Did you do some heavy repairs on it? Because it seems to be working now.”
Kivenaal gave a half-smile. “I didn’t see much of what went on, but their team converted it to steam power after a catastrophic distributor failure. I… try not to be seen around here if possible, I look too close to someone I am not, and I have no desire to be worshiped,” Kivenaal admitted.
Jayde, on the other hand, spoke up. “Valentin had a brilliant plan. I couldn’t just fix the distributor because it was missing too many parts, but… We were able to tow them to a steam-works to get their car fixed. Rukari blew the radiator hose off of the truck, and Kaylie made him change a brake so he understood how hard fixing these carriages can be. We were there a long time, they were there a long time. If you want specifics on how it works, however, you’re better off asking him.”
“YOU SAID…STEAM POWER?”, Janne answered with eyes big as saucers and quickly ran away towards the tangerine tank.
TO BE CONTINUED
(Might contain valuable info for @MrdjaNikolen and @Elizipeazie )
Also, @BannedByAndroid , thanks for giving me some names of cities in Ariya, Sanju is now officially the home of IP.
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Team Mravolinski-Chitco
Team info: 2022 Shitbox Rally - Out of This World! (Stage 5) - #30 by MrdjaNikolen
Choo choo: Itzgard to Raiegarda
It was a long night for everyone, but we grew accustomed to that.
As was covered quite some time before, it would prove to be specially long for Shift Happens and RK Racing.
They spent quite some time overcoming certain mechanical struggles.
For no particular reason, Chicota was awake when they returned and would be first member of our team to learn about current status of Dione.
Why does it now sound so different, what they have done to it, why were they towed by Highwayman?
That will be confirmed in morning and potentially checked out in next camp.
Some more beer later, he joined his teammates made of flesh in dream-hunting.
His dreams had featured his beloved girlfriend of sorts Costalonca.
Yes, she is also a robot.
Morning came and news about weird sound of Dione were transfered to rest of team, now with visual confirmation that there are some big changes.
Yes, this will definitely be checked out in next camp.
“Choo choo motherfkers” along with whistle had confirmed RK team moving towards next camp.
Why does this move seems so much like handling a steam locomotive?
Aydar took the wheel and kinda enjoyed the drive followed by occasional slide here and there, which lasted until “cobblestone” part of road.
We overtook Team Witchlight, that had definitely struggled with their RWD barge, but were still doing quite fine in both control and pace regard.
Without any obvious issue, we finished in around the mid-pack: 9th out of 17 cars, to be precise.
Priorities had differed in relation of who you are asking:
- Klimentol and Chicota decided to pay the visit to RK Series Racing
- VerBanka and me had gone for a swim in lake, bcos damn its hot out here.
- Aydar and Pi had stayed at the car, to prepare for gathering supplies
It was rather unfortunate that distributor went bust, but it does seem Valentin had found a way.
Work was obviously done well, not surprizing considering that it was done with help from professionals.
Valentin was enthusiastically explaining how this system works, showing that he was:
a) indeed one coming up with idea, as was noted
b) very involved in transformation itself
At first, our duo was sceptical about effectiveness of these updates, but taking closer look did reveal that scepticism was unjustified.
As much as we werent happy to be beaten by aftermarket-steam-engine-swapped car on this stage (which btw had indeed happened; they finished 7th), it was clear that Valentin’s enthusiasm and good plan had paid off.
With enough determination and tad bit of external help (now its understood why exactly we encountered Bricksley in opposite direction), prob biggest change to entrant vehicle during the entire journey could be made.
Oh, forgot to mention…its not just Anhultz Dione or Tangerine Tank anymore.
Now its also named Robert, like few friends i met at uni…and prob lot of other people.
As for swimmers…
Since we are now talking about much calmer water, something i had regularly encountered in my entire swimming experience IRL, we needed no additional teammates to guarantee we arent gonna drift away bcos of current.
This had indeed proven to be refreshing experience and we just relaxed.
Aydar and Pi had went to town.
They also got taste of what lake has to provide, mainly bcos Pi had noticed some chick drowning in water and went in wanting to help.
She had rescued little animal, but slipped and suddenly got into water that was tad bit deeper than she was tall.
Aydar decided to rescue them both, Pi not letting go of small animal.
This freshly wet trio went to town, chick being on Pi’s back.
Undettered, they had nevertheless finished grocery run.
Being the main attraction, it was obvious both did fair share of explaining and interacting with general population.
Someone had even put their daughter on Aydars back, so he was also ridden like a horse.
Daughter seemed to enjoy this experience.
Chick had found its mom when they were returning back to camp. Both animals were happy to reunite and this duo had returned to car with groceries.
Ok, that wasnt entirely true…
(Sounds of munching)
Aydar had started to pay attention. Munching was coming from his back. He requested Pi to remove some stuff and have a look.
Little girl was still there, forgotten by everyone by this point, happily munching on some stuff that was just carried.
To his credit, Aydar was heftily packed with stuff of different nature, more akin to pile of stuff with legs than to dog.
Girl was removed by Pi, allowing both to look at her, which resulted in her wanting to go back.
“What are we supposed to do with you?”
“Food food food…i want food.”
“Bruh. We need to unpack, then we will return to town to give you back to parents.”
“No.”
“You are aware that we literally cant take care of you?”
Kid havent understood that. But had the answer:
“Bruh.”
Pi: “That wasnt kind of influence we meant to leave.”
Aydar: “Why cant that kid just understand stuff. Its simple. We need to return her back to parents.”
Pi, being tad bit more experienced at being stupid/not having lot of knowledge: “Probably doesnt know what complicated words mean. She doesnt feel being in any danger.”
“Bruh.”
Unpacking followed, kid taking chance to consume food.
Then they went back into town, this time kid was on Pi’s back.
This allowed Aydar to rescue yet another individual from freshness of the lake, this time rescued being some local under local equivalent of drunk.
Swaying like crazy, he approached other two.
Noted that Pi is lizard he never saw before and took kid in his arms then started running surprisingly fast towards a lake.
Ofc while being in water, he misstepped and kid was sent flying into the water.
Aydar went quickly again into water along with Pi.
He once again picked up drunk dude and pushed kid towards shore.
“Ohno ohno ohno, what have we done. Why this needed to happen? What to say to her parents, if we find them at all”
Fortunately, someone had indeed prepared very elaborate and detailed answer.
“Do it again”
Kid got some experience of being thrown into water, happily she was fine.
Quartet had entered the town.
“You do be hairy lizard. Never saw such ones before.” drunktard commented on his ride aka Aydar.
“Has anyone saw mom of this girl? Dad? Anyone know her? Please?”
“I…know just what makes me moist. Wideness of your mom…” ye, drunktard is comic relief here.
“Try to explain that to ones that needed to rebuild my mom after my birth. I cant under clear mind be forced to call myself a puppy, but i technically was just born, soo…”
Soon enough, they had found girl’s parents and explained why she is wet
On lighter note, she had eaten very well and was overall fine.
Since she grew fond of riding someone it was decided that Pi will carry her to house.
Drunk guy was in fact uncle of little girl and would too be accomodated until next day, when he would be sober enough to return home by himself.
With that sorted out, they met with Chicota and Klimentol at the car.
Two of us were still swimming.
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Did you 3d model that thumbnail image? Im wondering if you did it online or its some 3d model
Team Slow
Chapter 2, Part 6, A third team member
As the fusebox was half-assedly installed. Some say that German cars are terrible at long-distance rallies, they surely are. They may do it, just do it when the warranty is still active, and not 20 or so years evaporated. John looks for the owner’s manual as Matt goes to the bar to find his girlfriend, who has been there for a vacation. Matt goes up to his girlfriend and comforts her, as she has been doing other things, she agrees to join the team and then she gets in the front seat of the car. “You finally got a bitch, have you Matt” John replies. “YOU COULDN’T GET ANY JOHN SHUT UP!” Matt aggressively replies. They get to work on fixing the car using the XL53’s repair manual. They probably sold every single one of them included with a car. They put the fuses back in the correct spots. “Honestly weird this car is unreliable as fuck.” John says as he sighs fixing the car for the second time. We get driving to the campsite.
New member introductory info and current team ages.
Her name is Isabella and she is matts girlfriend. She is 5’6, and unlike the two. She doesn’t want to argue as much. Also happens to be an ex-Schnell engineer. She is 23 years old, Also happens to be a cute-looking ginger. They have been in a relationship since middle school. So they have known eachother for a long time.
John.S, 25, 6’0ft
Matt.T, 21, 5’8ft
Seating available: 2/5
Dialogue:
Matt: Hey, Isabella I need you over here,
Izzy: Hm?
M: Did we get the fuses correctly?
Izzy: I worked at the company for a while, but not that long ago. But it looks right?
M: Alright, by the way. Could you please tell me anything classified?
Izzy: Sorry, I legally cannot do such a thing. Hate to say that.
M: Ok, I respect that.
Izzy: You actually have 4WD? She sees the hackjob underneath seems messy. But it will do.
John: Whatsup?
Izzy: Hi there John.
Matt: It really is warm out here.
Isabella takes the wheel of the XL53, and drives to the campsite. Eventually at 6:58 Sun, after some driving, we arrive at the campsite after that fusebox failure she helped with. We set up our tent which half of it happens to be situated inside the car, which happens to be the sleeping quarters. “You better not be trying to hit on my girl” Matt says, not long after sleeping next to Isabella in the car, who just happens to be barely awake looking on her phone, then she sleeps a minute later leaning onto his shoulder. John is the only one awake for the hour. He goes and makes a meal for them later on when they wake up, putting it in foil to make sure it doesn’t get cold too fast, whilst Matt talks to his girlfriend in his sleep for 20 seconds. “Looks like they’re making out” As John leans in to try confirm, when they weren’t. he gets slapped across the face by Isabella, “Move” she says to John. John moves away and gets back to cooking.
OOC: Conversations open in rp.
TBC
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Machinas Con Passione’s Collaborative Shitbox Adventures, Part 1 - Stage 5.
(Written with the man the myth the madlad himself @Madrias)
It’s H O T. Good for the engine, relatively speaking, not so good for it’s human operators. Regardless, The Aerodynamic Wedge Shaped Beast was looking slippery as ever. Though there was one small issue that had arisen within Team Machinas Con Passione.
“You know, I was wondering how to bring this up, but uhh, well, the van is decidedly NOT RWD, Giacomo. ” Thibault, his normally neatly trimmed hair plastered seemingly haphazardly about his head, was informing Giacomo of the fact that he was understeering quite severely when trying to treat the car like a rear wheeler. Not that Thibault was mad to have an advantage, he just wished that he was aware of it. Giacomo looked incredulously over at Thibault, raising his hands in surrender. "How was I supposed to know? Ask Chad! He told me it was rear wheel drive!” Thibault facepalmed, reminded yet again of the… particular… nature of his team owner. “Okay, lets try this. Why didn’t you double check? Do you even know what rear wheel drive looks like?”
“…”
“…”
Silence.
Thibault sighed deeply. “Yeah I saw that one coming. Anyway. Uh. I’ll go get ready for the stage. Try not to drown this time. Maybe try feeding the cat instead.”
And thus, Giacomo foraged about for some food to give their cat, now named Bill, as Thibault steeled himself to do the job he was born to do yet again. Thibault entered the zone once more, almost ignoring Maria’s precise co-driving, preferring to use the might of his skill honed through 3 seasons at the WRC, Thibault would seemingly anticipate each bout of oversteer throughout the treacherous gravel first, then severly worn cobblestone roads relishing in the abrasive surface to maximize the grip created by each motion of the wheel, on his way to securing Machinas Con Passione a firmly mid pack finish. During refueling stops, Chad McChad wound up thoroughly tenderizing Giacomo’s ankles by utilizing the patented Jackswing™ while getting the Van hoisted up to ensure their previous tire woes wouldn’t dog them yet again, and Doctor Dover spent the remainder of the stage applying “Pain Cream” (Read: water) to Giacomo’s ankles.
(Note: this is a jackswing.)
After The Stage…
Alas, it was downtime, and as Thibault and Benjamin discussed a strange bug bite the former had received, Giacomo came up to their extremely patient and generous hosts, Team Shift Happens, to pester them with a request.
G: “Hey Rukari, can I ask something of you?”
R: “Do you need help with something?”
G: “Yes, you see, I was wondering if I could use those powers of yours to create a portal.”
Rukari raises his eyebrow at this.
R:“… For?”
G: “To watch the NASCAR ra-”
R: “No.”
G: “Pleaaaaaaaaase?”
R: “No. I was thinking you needed something actually important. I’m not gonna do all of that just so you can watch a race, WHILE IN ANOTHER RACE. The answer is no.”
Kivenaal, overhearing this conversation, has a great idea. He moseys on over to Giacomo, and hears his plight.
K: “Oh, you wanted to watch the NASCAR race? I take it you’re a big fan?”
G: “Of course, I’ve even started my own team! You wouldn’t believe how cheap it is these days!”
K: “I get a strange feeling that’s relative, but I’ll take your word for it. Do you have anything reflective I can show the race on?”
With this, Giacomo brings out his phone, which hasn’t been connected to the internet or charged for a few days now, leading to it being reduced to a fancy screen with some buttons on the side.
K: “Why did you bring your phone? That’d make sense if we were on earth, I guess, but it’s not like we have cell phone towers lying around everywhere. Or even a satellite, now that I think about it.”
G: “I dunno… I thought the luxury of being connected to the internet every waking moment would just… last forever…”
This gives Kivenaal a great idea.
K: “I have an idea. If I use a little magic, I can make the race show up through there, if you like.”
And so, after convincing Giacomo to release his deathgrip from his smartphone, Kivenaal was finally able to conjure up a decent view of the race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. From here, Giacomo began to explain, in rather thorough and excruciating detail, the story of how he found a young kid from Japan, Ryouchi Katou, “The son of racing royalty, mind you!” and had tried to finance his entry into Formula One. Ryouchi took the traditional route to F1, starting with Karts from 2009, advancing into Formula Ford in 2011, F4 in 2014, F3 in 2015, and joining Formula 2 in 2017.It was here his career began to stagnate and after 3 seasons, during 2020 the then 20 year old would be released from his contract for middling performance, before the decision was made with Giacomo to join NASCAR. Upon funding a ride for Ryouchi in the Xfinity Series, Machinas Con Passione wound up moving to Cup, where Ryouchi would drive the #13 Machinas Con Passione Chevrolet Camaro, with the number 13 being chosen because “all the other numbers from first to 12th were taken! Unbelieveable!” Giacomo also went on about his nephew, Johnny, who was also making starts for MCP in the Truck series. Holy shit Giacomo, at least breathe in every now and then.
Kivenaal was not particularly amused, though was glad he’d planned things this way, because what was about to happen couldn’t possibly happen to a better person. He fought to keep a smirk off of his face as Giacomo rambled on about “his” cars and “his” team.
The race went on as usual, though Giacomo’s team notably struggled, staying mid-pack throughout the race. Giacomo and Kivenaal would talk about the race and NASCAR as a whole in-depth, with Giacomo detailing his many failed attempts to enter the series long term, from entering his own cars in the 90s, to buying up rejected cars in the 2000s, with Kivenaal feigning a vested interest for Giacomo’s unending chatter.
After a while, The race was nearing its conclusion, with Giacomo’s team on place for a steady 15th, which, though not a win, was rather close to one as far as new teams were concerned. It was the start of the final lap, when the veteran voice of NASCAR, Mike Joy, called over the broadcast: “Trouble! Turn 3! It’s the Machinas-”
…
The broadcast had completely faded to black, leaving Giacomo staring at his phone in utter disbelief. Longtime followers of NASCAR may know that Mike Joy calling for trouble means someone has crashed. The steady realization that he may very well have lost the race slowly crept in.
…
… …
… … …
“NO GOD! NO, GOD PLEASE NO! NO! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!”
Giacomo’s resounding cry of grief could be heard across the entire camp, not least of all the Team Shift Happens site, where Giacomo began to (finally) ruffle some feathers.
(no, seriously, you’d think he would have irritated someone on day one.)
Kivenaal smirked as his prank had worked perfectly. The middle of the last lap, his stored magic on the phone had run out, leaving Giacomo staring at his phone in disbelief. “Guess there was one too many cautions,” Kivenaal said, covering his prank under a thin veil of truth. Had there not been plenty of cautions in that race, mostly caused by the #13 car, his prank likely would have failed without him intervening. He got up and returned to the Bricksley to find something to eat.
Rukari chuckled as his brother, even slightly stoned on cinnamon, managed to pull off a perfectly good prank. It was good to see Kivenaal relaxing for once since they had arrived here, and at least this prank was harmless.
Kaylie heard the shouting and saw Giacomo holding his phone. “Hey, just because you can’t check your social media pages doesn’t mean you have to have a breakdown in the camp. Everyone else here seems to be doing fine with no signal and no internet. Might do you some good to unplug for a couple of weeks,” Kaylie said.
Malavera growled as Giacomo screamed in disbelief before getting up from his seat and heading back to his tent. “If your phone died in the middle of reading a good book, I’d love to introduce you to the idea of reading actual paper ones,” he grumbled under his breath.
Jayde, meanwhile, just shook his head. Kaylie had told him a few times that Kivenaal was a prankster, but this was the first time he got a chance to see it in action. Harmless fun, but at someone else’s expense, though in this case, someone who had no idea just how much energy it would take to open portals to watch one race. He couldn’t blame Kivenaal for wasting some energy in order to waste someone else’s time, especially someone as self-centered as Giacomo had been. Then, as he sensed the magic that had been used, he had to fight the urge to laugh. “Kivenaal, that was clever,” he said under his breath to himself. The whole race had been nothing but an illusion, created with details from Giacomo’s explanations and Kivenaal’s knowledge of NASCAR.
Kivenaal walked past Jayde and chuckled, overhearing Jayde’s comment. “Best part is, he can’t confirm it out here,” Kivenaal whispered back just as quietly. “So he’ll have to wait two weeks to realize the truth.”
Machinas Con Passione’s Collaborative Shitbox Adventures EP 1 - Fin.
Watch Ryouchi actually win HAHAHA Giacomo will never know.
also there may be some more wacky adventures to come who knows!
2 Likes
Machinas Con Passione’s Shitbox Side Stories - Part 1: Does this look infected?
“No, I’m just saying that it looks way too big to be ‘no big deal’! Look at it!”
“Oh, please Thibault, you’re just exagger- HOLY MOTHER OF JESUS ON A STICK WHAT IS THAT?!”
“Should I be worried? I’m kind of worried anyway. How about panic, should I start now?”
“Uh… Look, It’s… Uhh… Not… THAT bad…”
“Doctor, don’t lie to him, look at that thing.”
“Okay, Thibault, it’s pretty bad.”
“Why did Maria have to coax that one outta you?”
“Never you mind! Anyway, I vote in favor of cutting it off.”
“You know it actually matters if he dies, right, Doctor?”
“Silence, Maria! I’m thinking.”
“You know, I can probably find that bush that got Marie high earlier.”
“I’ve been sober the whole trip. I’m kind of offended that you went there.”
“No, not you, I mean Marie from Hillbilly Rollers.”
“Ohhh, those guys.”
“You say ‘those’ guys like you’re judging them.”
“Ehhh, I might be, a little.”
“What?! They’re kicking our asses, you know.”
“Ehhhhh Fair.”
“Okay Thibault, now hold still as I cut along the edges…”
“Woaaah, shouldn’t we be using anaesthetics?”
“Ha! No.”
“Yeah, sorry Thibault, we don’t really… Yknow… Have any.”
“sigh. I hope you have a plan B if it gets infected.”
Maria and Benjamin look at each other, and back at Thibault.
“Don’t worry. We don’t.”
Fin
2 Likes
i’m assuming that girlfriend is not local to Crugandr, as she is claimed to be an ex-Schnell engineer
but that begs the question:
how did she make the earth-to-crugandr jump?
4 Likes
I think i know who might be to blame.
2 Likes
Indeed not a local. Happened to make it there through some kind of journey. I could imply teleki-
Made it through a long distance plane journey. Or if that doesn’t allow in the rp, Vehicular driving?
Well, considering we had one of the few gateways between Earth and Crugandr… Flight’s pretty much a non-starter. We were the first to drive through the Rift, and while people have flown starships through there as part of faster-than-light travel, an airplane would have had a very hard time making it through doorways. Likewise, we were the first to drive through the Rift, so someone getting there before us in that way is… unlikely.
It is possible that she was brought there by a group of mystics known in story as “The Walkers of Destiny,” who bring heroes in to solve problems. But it’s then likely that she’d also have been given a quest to carry out while here in this world.
1 Like
On the other hand that is something that could spice up the story…
3 Likes
RK Series Racing; Stage 5 Camp
As they arrived at camp, the team took a few minutes to cool down from six hours of blazing-fast driving.
“Okay cool, Connor can drive the everliving hell out of it, but neither of us know how to drive your contraption. Yet…”, Tim comments, in a good mood but mildly annoyed that he didn’t get to drive what was legally his car for three days.
“I’m not stopping you from ruling over your vehicle… i never did. So if you need ‘training’, then i can do that. Up until now it just was agreed upon that Connor would drive simply because he is a better driver than any of us.”, Valentin explained.
“In that case…”, Tim replied, turning to Constantin. “Ro-shambo on who gets to drive first!”
Constantin wasn’t exactly fond of those child-games at this point, but relented into joining the trial, ending up winning Paper vs Rock.
“Good ol’ Rock ain’t gonna cut it, boy… my turn.”, Constantin smirks, as he climbs into the driver position of Robert. Valentin joins in next to him in the Fireman’s seat and ensures appropriate boiler conditions before starting what little training there was to do. Tim also wanted to listen in and climbed aboard in back, leaving Connor outside for the time being.
“So. This basically works like any other car. The ignition now is the whistle switch, but other than that the controls act as normal. You’ll have heaps of torque from a standstill, so you could as well chuck it in 3rd or 4th, release the clutch and put your foot down…”, Valentin explains, as Constantin takes a look around, finding nothing out of the ordinary on his half of the car, save for a multitude of plunger-type switches on the dash. He follows instructions and selects 4th gear, takes his foot off the clutch and slowly weighs down his other one, adding more and more “throttle” in the process. Just before it reaches the floor, the car starts rolling.
“Yeah in 4th it takes a lot of cutoff to get the thing going, but once it rolls it has a lot of power.”, Valentin adds. “I haven’t touched the brakes at all, so they work as normal. Just keep in mind that the car is heavier now.”
The Tangerine Tank Engine takes a few laps around camp, effectively parading Valentin’s work for everyone to see. A few minutes later, it comes to a stop back where it set off from, followed by Constantin and Tim swapping seats.
The process repeats, although Tim uses 3rd, granting more substantial acceleration at the cost of smoothness and noise. As they came back around once more, a pair of known figures were waiting already, curious about how “Robert” actually works.
With the first insights given, they headed off again, this time into Raiegarda, where they plan on getting some much-needed supplies to accommodate the changes made to the Anhultz. The first stop was at the local train station, where they procured the locations of subsequent steamworks along the route of this race. This would allow for more intricate maintenance to take place with professional help as well as free up room to make additional improvements and optimizations, some ideas for which were already floating about Valentin’s head. The other stop was a general store, where they procured a Tent for Valentin to sleep in, now that the car’s interior definitly was too tight to sleep in. Sadly, this was the only tent they had as Tim was starting to get tired of car-camping as well. Buying a bicycle for emergency use also was out of question for now, as they simply did not have enough space to store it.
Mildly disheartened, they head back to camp, with Janne already there, waiting to see the creation they made.
to be continued
2 Likes
For implication’s sake. I will imply that she was given a quest, and that happened to be carried out in Crugandr of all places.
TEAM HILLBILLY ROLLERS
Earlier parts
PART 0.1 - A prologue to the prologue
PART 0.2 - Another piece of the prologue puzzle
PART 0.3 - Viva la IP 4Z!
PART 0.4 - Robotman
PART 0.5 - Interference problems
PART 0.6 - Can I play Tetris?
PART 0.7 - Tangerine and familiar
PART 1.0 - Now things got serious!
PART 1.1 - Hello, Thibault and friends!
PART 1.2 - Poor kitty
PART 1.3 - Curse you, Team Oil Crisis!
PART 1.4 - Interlude
PART 2.0 - Bird bird bird, bird is the word!
PART 2.1 - D. Head
PART 2.2 - Good night!
PART 3.0 - Freeway Rockstar
PART 3.1 - DISCO TJO DISCO HEJ
PART 3.2 - Van-Werewolf 1-0
PART 4.0 - Calm after the storm
PART 5.0 - Mirror mirror on the…oh, crap!
PART 5.1 - Hello, little puppies!
PART 6.0 - Speed
PART 6.1 - GIMME OXYGEN! (feat. Madrias)
PART 6.2 - Steamin’ hot! (Written in co-operation with @Elizipeazie)
"DAMN!", Janne shouted when the Tangerine tank sprinted away without a chance for him to catch it. He returned somewhat disappointed to the other team members.
"Can’t you just sit down and relax? What’s wrong with you?", Andreas asked.
"I tried to get a look at the Tangerine tank", Janne answered. "You remember when they had a breakdown at the road? Appears like they solved it by converting it to steam power."
"You must be kidding", Marie said. "How are you supposed to be able to fill up your gas tank with steam?"
"Sometimes I wonder why I even bother to talk to the two of you anymore…", Janne said with a sigh.
After what seemed like eternity for Janne, the Dione returned, and once again he was running towards it. With eyes big as saucers, he was staring at the (now steam powered) Tangerine Tank. He was slowly getting closer but had a hard time believing his eyes. “You guys…did a…steam…conversion of this thing?”, he said, almost breathless. Seeing him like this was far from a common sight. It only happened when he was totally blown away by something, and he had seen a lot of stuff in his days, so to happen it required something special, to say the least.
With “Robert” having come to a stop, Constantin climbed out of the driver’s seat, startled by Janne directly next to the car, who was intensely staring at it. He didn’t really get anything he previously said as the steam conversion, while quieter than ordinary steam engines, still was a noisy motherfucker compared to what the Dione sounded like under internal combustion. This wasn’t helped by Valentin in the front passenger seat, who was in the process of shutting off the car, sending a number of loud steam hissing noises across camp as he did so.
"Need help?", Constantin asked, not sure as to what Janne wanted.
"Hrm… Hello Mr Schrant.", Janne answered almost ashamed of himself. Now he came back to reality a bit. "Nah, I just heard from Kivenaal that you had done a steam conversion of this to get it moving. And… I am just blown away. Stuff like this is what I like. You know, I’ve got a 1967 Saarland Kardinal that I sometimes have had the idea to convert to wood gas but…that’s just dorky compared to this. Wow. Tell me everything."
Valentin and Tim found their way out of the car in the process, standing on the far side behind it from Janne’s perspective. Establishing direct line of sight was no problem to either of them, especially Valentin, being the tallest of the team by quite the margin. Constantin turns around and slaps the roof of the car. Or at least what little space is left of it from the rudimentary roof rack.
"I think someone needs some insight into whatever you did to this thing.", Constantin spoke across the roof to the other side.
"You’ll need to be a bit more specific in your questioning to get quality answers." Valentin answered. "As it stands, our ignition went bust and this is the best i could come up with…"
Valentin knew very well what he did, but explaining it all is a tough ask with zero guidance, especially given how long it took for him to properly guide his workforce at the steamworks.
"Well…to start with, where did you even find the parts to do this conversion?", Janne asked, a bit puzzled. He really didn’t even know where to start. "Sure, we’re in a steam powered world now. Maybe Shift Happens are having some good contacts?"
"We are apparently following some major rail line of this place. And with steam locomotives for traction comes steamworks dotting the lineside for maintenance of them things. They had everything i could ever dreamt of in this context and even offered up 30-something people to help build the thing.", Valentin explained, himself mildly confused at how they could have missed massive trains doing triple-digit speeds. In some places even right alongside the road they themselves were driving on.
"Team Shift Happens helped us out by towing our car to the first workshop. Or… steamworks i guess. The rest is all Val and the locals from there", Tim blurted, walking around the rear end and joining the others on the driver side, leaving only Valentin on the far end.
"Yeah, as I said, we are in a steam powered world now after all", Janne said and nodded, “so there is maybe no struggle in finding either parts or knowledge if one just knows where to look”. Janne was a bit jealous though. He wished that it was himself that had been coming up with this idea, maybe even before the race start. Steam powered pink van, now that would have been something. Well, even better without the pink. In his imaginary perfect world someone would probably have locked Marie inside a cage at zoo or something. Also, he wish he would have found those good places too, instead of just finding rocks ripping up oil pans and tyres. "And…it is really a conversion of the Anhultz engine from internal to external combustion as I have understood it, so there is no doubt that it is a conversion, right?"
Valentin at this point just walks around to the driver side, carefully shoving the others away to make room for the driver door to open. He then pops the hood release and goes back around to the front, propping the front-hinged hood with the appropriate support rod.
"Well the original block is still in there, serial number and everything. We had to do some real… adventurous stuff to some components to allow for self-starting of the thing, but it seems to work", Valentin replies, taking a look into it himself, which wasn’t the brightest of ideas given the sheer mass of haircut now dangling within the engine bay. He quickly corrects this with a graceful swing of his head, sending his near-white blonde hair down his back instead.
When Valentin popped the hood Janne could not hide his excitement. He checked things through and through, taking notice of every little detail. He didn’t say a word for a very long time, being too concentrated on the new version of the Tangerine Tank’s powerplant. When he had studied it in detail long enough he had a question to ask.
"I hope that I am not being too demanding now, but man… Do you mind giving me a test drive on some later occasion? I don’t want to go home from here still curious about how it is to drive a steam vehicle, haha."
"I mean the car legally isn’t mine anyway, so yo…", Valentin started, before being interrupted by Tim halfway through his sentence. “There’s no point in me keeping what effectively is some other guy’s lifetime achievement, now is there?”, Tim spoke, breaking into Valentin’s train of thought. “If you’re cool with him driving your car, then so am i.” Valentin took a hot minute to adjust to the fact that he just casually had been gifted “Robert”, thus promoting him to team leader as well. “Erm… as long as you don’t crash it then sure, i guess…”, he continues, still flabbergasted by the sudden promotion and change of ownership. “Though we better do it soon, as the chance to do so won’t last all too long.” The latter half sent confusion into Tim and Constantin. Both of them knew that Valentin was up to something regarding Robert. Though neither of them dared to ask just yet.
"This is a Dione, like if anyone would notice if it crashed into something", he replied. “Or…maybe you want to give Marie a test drive of it instead?”, he continued and laughed.
The lack of a sense of humor in Valentin shows:
"The thing probably weighs more than two metric tons like this. They are overbuilt to shit, but ramming it into a tree at 70MPH will be noticed…"
Neither of the other crew members got the joke either, as, while they knew Marie as a person, they did not know her driving.
"So, another question while I am at it… Constantin…how did you end up here of all places?", Janne asked with a bit of confusion in his voice.
"Am awaiting a promotion and have about 4 months to kill.", Constantin replies, rather stoic. "They only do the ceremony once a year so i’ll have to wait until then. Got better stuff to do while i’m away from work."
"Met each other on Read-It and figured i might invite him along. Some… okay, a lot of military prowess seemed useful given what was known at the time…", Tim added, knowing that his idea paid off big-time as soon as the Dyre-Fight was underway and he got the best of four of them via impeccable archery.
"I see…", Janne said, still sounding somewhat confused. "Oh, well, now the idiots over at the pink van is shouting something. Probably Marie got her foot stuck in a toaster or something. Not that we brought a toaster with us but that would not stop her from that…"
"Well we’ll see you around then. As per the drive, we can discuss that next morning, i guess?", Valentin suggested. "Or do you want to set something in stone now? Well… when you are done with whatever that is you are doing over there."
He was vaguely motioning towards the IP van while he finished up, followed by him closing the hood of the Steamer again.
"We’ll discuss that in the morning I guess. Removing a fat wreck from a toaster can take some time", he grumbled.
"Bye, then." Valentin replied, followed by the other three wishing their fare-wells.
Soon after, the team goes about setting up camp, now consisting of two tents instead of one, while Janne returned back to the Hillbilly rollers camp.
"What the fuck are you shouting about?", Janne asked. "Marie, have you gotten your foot stuck in a toaster or what?"
"No", Marie replied.
"So then what is all this about?", Janne asked.
"Andreas says that the only difference between me and a monkey is that I don’t have a tail!", Marie complained.
"Why do you even listen to that? You know very well that it is bullshit!", Janne answered with a slightly annoyed tone.
"Now hear that, Andreas!", Marie said.
"Yes, because I actually looked at Animal planet once when they said that monkeys were actually pretty smart creatures, so there is more differences than just the tail", Janne said with a sigh. "Now, stop fighting about all kinds of unnecessary crap or I will use the teleporter to send the two of you to the moon!"
TO BE CONTINUED
(OOC: Yes, I am scrapping my old format. It worked back in the days where my posts most often contained only interactions between team members, but it feels too weird to write in that style while interacting with other teams too)
5 Likes
Team Shift Happens
Previous Chapters:
“Here Comes the Hound of Death” - Stage 2 Campsite Battle - Written by Elizipeazie, TheYugo45GV, and Madrias.
Fright Night Forest Stage - Stage 3 Run / Stage 3 Camp
The Free Day - Stage 3 Camp (written in collaboration with Elizipeazie) (Part 1), (Part 2), (Part 3)
Safe Arrival - Stage 3 Camp (Written in collaboration with TheYugo45GV)
The Rescue - Stage 4 Drive and Stage 4 “Camp”
The Rebuild - Stage 4 “Camp” (Written in collab. with Elizipeazie ) (Part 1), (Part 2), (Part 3), (Part 4)
“It’s 6-Fucking-Moon!” - Stage 4 Camp
Breakfast with RK Series Racing - Stage 4 Camp Final (Written in collaboration with Elizipeazie)
Cinnamon and Apologies - Stage 5 Drive and Stage 5 Camp
An Apology / Campsite Stories / I Have Gas! - Stage 5 Camp (Collab with Knugcab - Original Title: “Gimme Oxygen!”)
The Prank - Collab. with SurrealCereal (Team MCP)
(Thank you to @Elizipeazie for collaborating on this with me.)
Raiegarda Campsite, Around 8 Sun
With Janne taken care of and the tent-pitching underway, problems started to arise. While Constantin made good progress on what worked for him, Valentin seemed to have very obvious issues in setting his new purchase up. The fact that any form of instructional material was not provided did not help matters at all. In the few minutes it took Constantin to set up his quarters, Valentin achieved next to nothing, turning a neat pile of ropes, poles and cloth cladding into a messy bundle of equipment.
Jayde looked across the camp and saw Valentin was having some trouble with his tent. He stood up slowly, grabbed his staff out of the dirt where he’d stuck it again, and made his way over to offer his assistance.
“Valentin, do you mind if I help you out with this?” Jayde asked.
“Was gonna ask as well, but the struggle was too fun to look at.”, Constantin chuckled as he watched Valentin finaggle with ropes and pegs.
“Won’t stop you…”, Valentin relented, not really knowing who was speaking. Having expected a more intuitive design of tent, he gave up trying to do it alone, though 1920s era equipment hardly was intuitive, regardless of what it was.
Jayde nodded, before carefully sorting out all of the tent’s equipment and trying to show Valentin how to do things so he’d be able to set up his tent in the future.
After a few minutes of mildly fighting with the tent, even though he was experienced with it, Jayde had Valentin’s tent set up and looking proper. “Being a hero isn’t easy,” Jayde admitted, “but now you know that as well.” When he looked at Valentin’s camping gear, however, he noticed that while he had Kaylie’s spare sleeping mat, he was missing a sleeping bag. He shrugged his camping backpack off, unrolled the bed-rolls at the top, and pulled one of the smaller ones out of the bundle, rolling the remainder back up. “Here, you may as well have one of mine. It’ll be a little big for you, but, it’ll keep you from getting too hot or too cold in your tent. I’ll just use one of my others for now.”
Kaylie wandered over, looking curious. “Ah, tent problems?” she asked. “I understand that one myself. I’d show you the scar, but… Well, it’s high up on my right hip. Plastic tent pole came loose and whipped me a good one,” she admitted. “Anyway, you need any help, or have any questions, just ask one of us. We’ll try to help.”
“Well thank you, i guess…”, Valentin shrugged, placing the sleeping bag within the tent, still rolled up for now. Anything being too big for him was an uncommon discovery, but a slightly oversized sleeping bag was substantially better than a substantially undersized one.
“I don’t do much in the way of camping… getting anything big enough for me is a massive headache so i just don’t bother most of the time…”, Valentin added.
“Speaking of questions, there is a thing. Are we mandated to use the route that is drawn on the map?”
Jayde smiled as Valentin mentioned he didn’t do much camping. “I’ve done more than I’d care to admit, honestly,” Jayde said. “And I can understand getting things in the right sizes can be a pain.”
When Valentin asked if they had to use the route on the map, Kaylie thought on it for a moment. “I don’t think we do, but let me go check with the guy who set all this up,” she said, before running over to Rukari, asking him something, and getting an answer. She ran back over to Valentin and said, “No, Rukari says that as long as you make it to the camp-sites, the route you take doesn’t really matter. Staying on the main path makes it easier if you need a rescue, but as far as getting to the campsite goes, if you think you’ve found a faster or easier route, go for it.”
Valentin started grinning ear-to-ear upon hearing that the route was not mandatory.
“What is goin’ on inside this guys head?”, Tim asked, not really expecting an answer from anyone.
“I think we need to visit some other steamworks along the way again.” Valentin blurted out, still excited about his prospective idea.
The reply was simple and came in unison from both Tim and Constantin: “Why?”
It took a minute for Valentin to collect some thoughts before he started explaining his plans: “We’ve been going along those roads for the better part of a week now. We all know how crappy they are. Gravel, rocks, tight turns and the like. We’ve been following what apparently is the mainline of this country… region… whatever. They have trains running over 100 miles per hour there! Imagine the time-saving and comfort of not having to endure whatever they call a “road” by simply going with the best solution. A train!”
The other team members obviously had problems grasping the scope of what Valentin is planning, failing to come up with any follow-up questions as to how exactly he would achieve such a thing.
Kaylie stared at Valentin for a few seconds after Valentin mentioned the best solution was a train. “Wait, you’re going to make a road/rail vehicle out of the Dione?” she asked. “It’s crazy, but brilliant, and seeing as you made a steam engine out of it already, I think that just might work.”
Jayde looked over at the car, mentally picturing it as having a set of wheels front and back to ride on the rails, then said, “I think it would be doable. I know they did some tests a while back pulling some small-wheeled cart along behind a Longitude Express locomotive. Once they were sure the wheels could hold up, they pulled a volunteer along behind them. From my experience, you’ll want some suspension, because even though those rails seem smooth, if your axles are rigid to the frame, well… It’s a rough ride.”
Kaylie thought for a few minutes about it, then said, “I brought extra springs for our truck. I knew the five of us were heavy, wasn’t expecting a sixth, but also I knew we had a lot of stuff in the bed and on the roof. So… I brought two sets of coil springs and shock absorbers for the front, and two sets of leaf springs and shock absorbers for the rear.” She studied their roof rack for a moment, then said, “I think you’ve got enough room up there that I can ratchet-strap the boxed springs down to your roof rack. Or we can carry them another stage for you. Your choice.”
“Suspension is an obvious thing if we actually want to make up time that way and not trundle along at 15 miles an hour. I don’t know how exactly trains evolved here, but in the UK, even the earliest scheduled services had suspension.”, Valentin commented.
He then started thinking about the offering of the Bricksley springs and the way he could use them as a means of keeping Robert level while on rails. Not being able to come up with an idea on the spot, he decides to put those on hold and figure something out later.
“Not sure as to how well they’d work, especially in dampening in correlation with hunting oscillation with whatever wheels we end up with. At least we won’t have to deal with hammer-blow given lack of weight and the way our existing drivetrain works.”, Valentin added while respectfully nodding at Jayde and Kaylie for helping out. Or at least trying to for now.
Kaylie nodded. “Not a problem, we’ll hold onto them for now.”
Likewise, Jayde gave a respectful nod. “If you have any future issues with the tent, don’t hesitate to ask me for help. It took me a while to learn how to set one of those up.”
The two of them headed back over to the Bricksley, with Kaylie chuckling as Malavera came over to the truck after his long swim, fur absolutely soaked with water. Jayde simply said, “Don’t you dare shake that off by us.”
“Wasn’t my plan. Please tell me you haven’t used my towel to clean up oil,” Malavera said.
“Nah, it’s still in the vacuum-sealed bag you stuffed under the front bench,” Kaylie said.
Malavera opened the truck door and pulled the bag out, trying not to drip all over the inside of the truck as he opened the bag, producing a nice hiss moments before he pulled a towel free. Working quickly to get all the water out of his fur, Malavera dried off enough that he wasn’t dripping wet, then sat near the campfire to let his fur finish drying.
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O…K…
Now this is going to get interesting… 
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Anyone open for conversation in RP?
Hmmm
Seems two members of our team would be avaiable after checking out Tangerine Tank.
Klimentol and Chicota, to be precise - i really havent defined where they are or what they are doing in camp
This would also be opportunity to interact with one more team as well.
Could imagine that talking dog such as Klimentol would be interesting sight
(Chicota is robot, but his appearance doesnt indicate that, meaning he would have less of shock factor)
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