Shitbox Rally 2024 - Journey to Holsia (Completed, Final Stage Released)

[Happyhungryhippo]

Stage 1 - Evening
*team mentioned: Hillbilly Rollers by @Knugcab *

Thomas and Jan knew something was wrong when Chanty smiled and had a mood too good for her.
Not too long after, a raging Marie with an axe ran towards the rhino tent. Without saying a word, both knew that Chanty brought herself in trouble again.

“Be a man now!”

“THOMAS, THAT´S 150 KILO OF HILBILLY RAGE!”

“Yeah, so you better be a man then.”

Marie was thankfully stopped before she could harm Chanty with the axe, and Jan wasn´t too disappointed about that, giving his nervous girlfriend a protective hug and waiting for the others, mainly Maries own teammates, to solve the problem for him.

The next morning - Stage 2
teams mentioned: Shift Happens by @Madrias, GECA by @Elizipeazie and Hillbilly Rollers by @Knugcab

The jetlag between the different day durations struck Chanty like a lightning, and she woke up exhausted again. After a shower, she put on her headphones and closed her eyes while walking to enjoy the music better – this not too smart habit of hers caused her bumping into another person again – and since this one was way larger than her, she fell on the ground hard.

„AAAH! Damn, that hurts.“

„On what mission have you been, running straight into me? Is that a… pairing ritual?“

„OH! It´s… you?“

Kiva looked quite amused when he looked down on Chanty, still making a painful faclal expression, as she ran with quite some force into him. As she failed a quite pathetic attempt to get up again, Kiva helped her onto a bench.

„I guess you don´t want more of these fried scorpions? So, what is it then?“

„I just forgot to open my eyes, because I was…. elsewhere in my thoughts, sorry. Damn, I can´t stand up. My pants are torn, and my knee hurts a lot… AAAAAARRRRGGGHHH!“

“Hey, calm down, I am sure there is no need to cry, as I am sure you are fine, but I believe you that it was a bit painful. I can bring you to your campsite and give you a cool pack.”

Kiva checked on Chanty, but thankfully no serious injury happened to her, as she just fell on a bruise that was about to heal, and the giant Kiva took Chanty and just carried her back to the camp, even if considered Chanty quite heavy for her size, he had already lifted heavier people before with his four arms.
Thomas was already cleaning up the campsite with Jan and just held a bottle with something weird in it. After a short chatter about the reason of Chantys Valraadi „Taxi“, Kiva pointed towards the bottle that Thomas put aside when he took his daughter and placed her in his camping chair.

„Thomas, what the hell is hat?“, asked a curious Kiva.

„Chili Wodka, selfmade.“

Kiva, being into exotic alcoholics, thought it would be a great invitation to prank the german freakshow again.

“Anything stronger than beer is forbidden here, and if you get caught with that, all of you could be in jail for 7 years. That’s… Almost 11 back on Earth. They take rum-running seriously here.”

Jan made a very annoyed face that told „THOMAS, I HAVE TOLD YOU!“ without even saying a word, and Chanty just sat there with eyes wide open.

„Eh, this is a joke, right?“

„No, Thomas. Wouldn’t be the first time I’ve gotten people out of trouble. I’ll take that off of your hands - Because higher strength alcohol is part of Valraadii religions, we’re allowed to have some on hand. It’ll be our secret."

When Kiva walked away, trying hard not to burst into laughter, Jan complained to a demotivated Thomas mourning his bottle.

„Dude! I knew your drinking habits will cause trouble.“

“He trolled us! I am sure!”,

said Thomas, suspecting that his precious bottle had been looted the smart way.

“And even if, you can´t do anything against his six arms, dad.”

“He has four, Chanty.”

“Oh? I see six, but I also feel a bit dizzy from the impact. He was sooo huge…as if I ran against a rock. You call ME heavy? Try this guy then!”

Chanty grabbed the map, following the route in her thoughts.

“Oh, finally some more civillization. Well, I think I drive today.”

After opening the driver door, Chanty freaked out.

“ORRRRRRR NEEEE! EUER ERNSTE? WIE GOMMT IHR UFF SON MIST? WHAT IS THAT? A BRATWURST WUNDERBAUM?”

“Yeah, that bubblegum stench you want is terrible, so I thought I spice it up with something delicious. I thought you like food?”

“DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAD!”

While the Rhinos were still busy with arguing, Marie took the opportunity and stole Kivas bag full of looted alcohol. Being a prankster, Kivenaal of course not only took Thomas precious spirit, but also did that prank on other teams - and Marie, told by Janne and Andreas to NOT focus on Chanty, shifted all her attention back to the usual: The other team´s alcoholics, noticing Kivas tactics.

Of course Kiva would know who is the thief, and might prepare a revenge prank…

Soon after, the Rhinos started off, with the Primus purring like a satisfied cat. A few kilometers later, Chanty and Thomas were again arguing about Thomas music, now blazing a tape from E-Rotic.

MAXDONTHAVES*XWITHYOUREXITWILLMAKELIFECOMPLEX

Chanty turned down the volume.

“This is my car, and I will keep it free of devil music! That´s a treasure of the 90s! You know, your mother and me…”

“I CANT HEAR YOUUUUUUU!”, laughed Chanty, putting on her headphones.

“Eh! That´s dumb. You can´t hear anything then! Eh, nevermind, besides the rallye drivers there is hardly any traffic anyway. Thomas, I think we can let that slide as long as we look after our surroundings for her,”

“Jan, can you at least stop her singing? THIS IS AWFUL!”

Chanty was actually calmed down by her weird music, and so they had a safe arrival at the destination, even as 15th, they were quite slow. But better Chanty drove like a overly caraful teenie girl than like a total maniac.
Later in the afternoon, the teams Shift Happens and GECA have set up a stage to perform music, but before they could do that, a huge brawl started, and Thomas made himself ready to enter.

“EH! That strange slenderman is kicking the one on the ground. Nah, I can´t let that slide, he will kill him. See you later!”

“DAD NO! NO! HE IS MUCH YOUNGER AND TALLER THAN YOU! JAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN STOP HIM!”

Chanty, having the speed of a tortoise with broken legs, couldn´t stop her father, but Jan was also out of range. If Thomas had target fixation, he was hard to stop despite his age.

“Crap, he is too fast… ah, that could work!”

Jan grabbed a beer bottle and threw it at Thomas full force, and the bottle knocked him out instantly.

“YOU IDIOT! YOU SHOULD STOP AND NOT KILL HIM!”

“You asked me to stop him, and he is stopped, damn!”

“Yes, and now the wolf with two heads there has …”

“It´s Malavera.”

“Nevermind, Malavera has stopped Valentin now. Couldn´t you have waited a bit to throw the bottle?”

“I am fed up with both of you. Whatever I do, it´s always wrong and you are not helping here, in fact, you mostly cause all the trouble. I really love you, but you should grow up!”

Jan regretted it the moment after the last word was spoken, as Chanty exploded in tears and tried to run away, well, it was not really running, as both her not too sporty figure and her injured knee prevented her from being really fast, but Jan now had the choice of running after her or checking for Thomas, and as a trained medical, he had no other choice but to focus on Thomas, who would surely need some time to get back on his feet again.

Meanwhile, Chanty, trying to ignore her aching knee, got lost in the forest, still in an emotional chaos. And as she had thrown away her SOS and Teleport ring as she didnt want to be localized easily, was completely alone on herself - and it was now becoming really dark and rather cold, and she was freezing with her thin t-shirt and completely exhausted, as she might “ran” three kilometers.

Thomas woke up an hour later from that point, and he was deeply worried about Chanty, after Jan told him what happened. Finding her rings didn´t ease the situation at all, so they searched for her.

Chanty meanwhile has not gotten any further, as she gave it all more or less up, just sitting on a rock and waiting for everything to happen - but suddenly a tree snake lost grip of the branch it was on and fell on Chanty, who freaked out, ran in any direction - directly into a tree, because she focussed on the snake that was propably more scared than her.

The impact caused her a bloody nose, and the fall wasn´t better for her knee either, so she finally decided to do something: Screaming for help, which was heard by Thomas and Jan who already got quite close to Chantys location.

“AAAAAAAAH!”

“Thomas, relax, its not poisonous. They don´t even bite!”

“How do you know, Jan?”

“Because I read the folder about the local nature, unlike you two. Malavera gave it to me when I talked to him about the green foxes.”

“So… it is not dangerous?”, asked Chanty, still with a craking voice.

“Less dangerous than your dad for sure!”

“CAREFUL, JAN! I AM NOT DEAF!”,

barked Thomas, grabbing the snake and curiously, but also a bit annoyed, looking at it.

“I want it then.”

“What?”

“If its friendly, I need to apologize for it! You grabbed the snake waaaay to harsh. And the snake is propably cold, I need to warm it up.”

“CHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANNNNNNNNTTTTTTTTYYYYYYYYYY!!!”

[Angelustyle]

Team Firulais

Stage 2: Alcohol Shenanigans, Bee Problems, and Car Crashes

(Collab with @MrdjaNikolen [Team Chitco])

Afternoon at Unmar.

Ana:“Ahora bien… Dónde es que está su botella de agua… Oh ! Aquí está. Vale, hora de hacer el cambio entre agua ordinaria, y… Ehh… Agh, todavía no le he puesto nombre… B-Bueno, la cosa, como sea que se vaya a llamar.”
(“Now… Where is his water bottle… Oh ! Here it is. Right, time to make the swap between ordinary water and… Uh… Argh, I still haven’t named it… W-Well, the thing, whatever it’s going to be called…”)

That was Ana’s way to say that she is now doing some swap into someone else’s water bottle. The water in there goes to some puddle of mud, and in the bottle comes in some homebrew alcohol… Now, Ana had bought some drinks back at Menes, but she’d also brought some homebrew booze that she usually made, and was enjoyed by her teammates. The only teammate that hadn’t tasted it yet… was Ángel. And, as a second act of payback, she’d decided to take advantage of one of Ángel’s many, many weaknesses. Namely, his low resistance to alcohol.

The Russian-Japanese mechanic didn’t even notice, despite the drink’s unusual smell or colour, but he did notice when he saw the world getting weird… when his senses got dumber. When he felt dizzy and active at the same time.

He walked into the woods, and didn’t come back in a while. And as he drank his bottle to the point it was empty, he was so dizzy that he nearly got entirely lost (to give an idea… He gets drunk with a SINGLE BOTTLE of Rosé beer… And Ana’s Home-brewed Booze was actually fairly strong… Yeah, you can see where this is going). Luckily for him, Andrés and Tomás had come as well, several hours later, to come and rescue him from his alcohol shenanigans.

Around Midnight at Unmar.

Andrés:“I seriously didn’t believe he’d drink.”
Tomás:“Neither have I. Where on earth-- Err, I mean, where in Aetherii did he go…?”
Ángel (nearby, tired and drunk):“Мама, сегодня пятница, мне пора в школу…”
(“Mom, it’s friday, I have to go to school…”)
Andrés:“That’s him.”
Tomás:“How do you know ?”
Andrés:“His voice. As well as the language… Not to mention, he’s already said that once before. Remember when we were doing a Sleepover at your house ?”
Tomás:“Y-Yeaaah…”
Andrés:“Remember how Ángel fell asleep watching the TV, and when we woke him up at like 1 AM…”

They both started laughing at that memory. Ángel’s reaction at that moment was actually quite funny: he said the words, and then proceeded to go to the bathroom and showered, and got in clothes to go out, only to then notice the time and day they were actually in. It was just him not paying attention, but, it was a fairly funny memory given the circumstances…

However, and back in Real Time, Andrés was carrying Ángel (an authentic lightweight by the way), and it was all going fine. That is, until they reached camp.

Andrés:“…see? He’s that light. I bet he’s even lighter than you.”
Tomás:“Hehe, maybe…”

Ángel then let the poison out by puking out, ruining Andrés’ Shirt in the process…

Morning at Unmar.

A hungover Ángel woke up in the Aurora.

Ángel (to himself):“Печаль во благо… Такое ощущение, что моя голова вот-вот взорвется…”
(“Good Grief… I feel like my head is about to blow up…”)
Ana:“Morning…”
Josué:“I hurd Ángel had a funny night.”
Ángel:“Ugh… I barely get to remember anything from last night, so, I don’t really know what you’re talking about…”

He said as he wincingly came out of the car.

Ángel:“And I’m as dry as Darvaza…”
Josué:“And you…”sniff“Dude, you smell like if you had just passed thru a garbage dump.”
Ángel:“Again… I dunno what happened last— Oh. …aaaaaand, uh… W-Why is Andrés without a shirt…?”
Andrés:“Oh, you know what happened.”
Ángel:“I-I didn’t do anything !”
Ana:giggles
Ángel:“What did I do now ? P-Please, t-tell me…!”
Tomás and Josué:they also began laughing.
Ángel:“G-Guys ?!?”

Ana laughed too, evilishly, as Ángel couldn’t really do much to defend himself. Ana was happy today, because of many things: first, her payback actions had payed off really well as of now, and she was delighted after hearing Ángel didn’t even remember what happened in his crazy holsian night (meaning she could REALLY take advantage of that one weakness of his…). Second, Ana was driving today, something she really wanted to do. And third, they were leaving Unmar today, which was something Ana really, REALLY wanted to do, as Unmar was far, far from her tastes.

Road to Lendehamn.

The interior of the Firulais during the fast drive to Lendehamn was as usual. Although this time, everyone insisted on not sitting even near to Ángel. Probably because of his smell after that drunken night. “If I smell so badly then, I shall take a shower as soon as we arrive to the next camp”, he promised, as Ana drove the Aurora to the limit. She was at her home here, given the road’s good condition. She still was very reckless, but, hey, she didn’t crash ! Although, during the trip, besides the puncture of a tire, which took little to fix, came another interesting issue…

Ana:“Do I hear buzzing ?”
Andrés:“It may come from the radio. Maybe one of Ángel’s cassettes is stuffed.”
Ángel:“If that were the case, then the radio would most likely not make a noise, maybe even ruin the tape, but, not that noise. It also doesn’t compare to radio stat–”
Tomás:“Uhh… G-Guys ?”
All (except Tomás, at semi-unison):“What ?”

Tomás proceeded to point to the roof, more specifically, the left-hand side B-Pillar… There was a bee sitting right there. Everyone got a bit frightened… Specially our man, Ángel, who didn’t like insects at all (unless they were harmless). During those 5 minutes or so, which felt like more, they remained quiet and still, and they also slowed the pace down a bit, until finally the bee decided it had enough with annoying them and went out thru the window.

After that, their drive was pretty much back to ordinary. And they finished in a very respectable 4th Place for the stage, although the Firulais didn’t know that until later that day.

Sunset at Lendehamn.

Everyone in the crew got their things up to snuff. Andrés bought a new shirt, Tomás was having a walk around the city, Ángel had showered (In case you wonder how, he asked a local… A local who didn’t knew about Ángel’s Incidents at Menes, luckily)… But Josué and Ana were about to have some fun with the Aurora: after Ana’s drifting shenanigans at Vladivostok, she’d do them again that afternoon at sundown, this time she did better. That’s until she hit the Chitco’s Kontir (which, by that point had just arrived) with the Aurinko’s rear bumper… Josué, Ángel and Ana were in the Aurinko at that moment, and, before the Chitcos noticed, Ana literally made a “How to swap seats with your mates” in a matter of seconds… Later making Ángel look like if he was the one who made the mess…

However, when the Chitcos came to inspect, it seemed like the Aurinko had taken more damage than it dished out. Yet it would be Ángel the one to apologize again. Although, unlike the drifting shenanigan at Vladivostok, this time Ángel wouldn’t loose cash, nor get a punch in the gut. In fact, after this, the boys made a secret agreement… For every time Ana crashes into someone or something, even a minor crash, she paid out $25 USD to each other member in the team… The pact would get in Motion by Stage 3, given she had decided that she’d drive for Stage 3 too… Let’s see how that works out…

Later that night, Andrés would make a bet with Ángel… But for something different.

Remember when Andrés told Ángel they could swap places to sleep in ? Well… Andrés proposed him this: Every Night, they had a Pokémon Combat. If Ángel won, he got the right to sleep in a tent that night and the next night as well. If Ángel lost, he would keep sleeping in the Aurora.

Now, why is this ? To incentive Ángel to play, of course… And also help Andrés to grind the game… Andrés is quite a Videogame Tryhard.

Let’s say that, in this first combat of the trip, Andrés mopped the floor with Ángel. So the Mechanic-Driver would sleep for the 6th Night in a Row (counting the nights at Nevada as well) in the Aurora… and Ángel was already getting accustomed, so now the interior was more like a minor concern for him.

As always, Collabs are open.

Also, sorry for once again, no Images… I shall try to make the next ones feature from 1 to 2 drawings at the very least.

[Knugcab]

TEAM HILLBILLY ROLLERS
PART 1.2 - BERZERK AT CAMP

Standing there, looking like a wet dog, with the exploded coke bottle in her hand, it was pretty clear that Marie had enough. Now, someone had pushed her over the edge, and was probably going to regret that too.

“THAT’S IT!”, she said while getting an axe from the IP that the team had brought with them in case some roots or something would cause troubles. “NOW THAT STUPID KID WILL REGRET BEING BORN!”

“Can’t you just relax a bit?”, Janne said. “You have probably shaken the bottle or something…”

“SHAKEN THE BOTTLE?”, she replied back in a furious tone. “No fuckin’ way. I am sure she rigged this, and this means the end!”

“Hey, what are you going to do with that axe?”, Andreas asked her.

Running towards the Rhino Squad’s tent in fury, she declared the whole thing pretty loud. “WHAT I AM GOING TO DO? FIRST I AM GOING TO KILL THAT STUPID KID! AND THEN I AM GOING TO SMASH THE PRIMUS TO SMITHEREENS! AND THEN I AM GOING TO MAKE A STEERING WHEEL COVER OUT OF THAT UGLY LITTLE PLUSH ANIMAL! RAHHHHHH!”, she screamed so barely anyone can have missed it, while running with the axe towards the Rhinos.

“You’re going nowhere!”, both Janne and Andreas said, while running after her. Being a bit quicker than Marie with her…eh….somewhat ungainly amount of mass, they managed to run fast enough to catch up with her, but stopping her seemed to be a bit more of a struggle.

“CAN WE GET SOME HELP WITH CALMING DOWN CIRKA 2 TONNES OF FURY?”, Andreas shouted all over the camp, while desperately trying to stop Marie from waving with the axe.

Murray from team Cunning Stunts looked up. “On it!”, he said.

On the other side of the camp, near the GPV, Neil hears the call for help. He shares a glance with Miles, who just nods at him. He mutters to himself. “Well shit.”
Then, he goes around the side of their truck, opens the passenger door and retrieves his USP-C handgun. Hopefully, he wouldn’t need to use it.

Meanwhile, Murray was dashing towards Hillbilly rollers. “GET THE AXE, I’LL GET HER ON THE GROUND”

Falling into pace with Murray, Neil somehow gets to Marie before him, and he goes for the axe. He grabs the handle just below the axe head, and holds on for dear life. He isn’t worried about strength, for sure, but what would happen if he lost his grip on it. Murray then takes for a Steve Irwin style take down forcing Marie Away from Neil and the axe.

“Are you going to calm down now?”, Andreas asked Marie in a voice that proved that he was everything but pleased.

Seeing that Neil now seems to be free, and holding the axe, Janne said “Good, get that one back to the IP”.

“LET ME LOOSE!”, Marie was screaming.

“IF YOU DON’T SHUT UP WE WILL DUCT TAPE YOU TO A TREE AND YOU WILL HAVE TO SLEEP LIKE THAT TONIGHT, UNDERSTOOD?”, Andreas shouted to Marie in an even less pleased voice.

“I WILL KILL THAT GODDAMNED KID, JUST LET ME LOOSE!”, Marie continued to shout.

“Tape the Legs”, Murray said.

“Yeah, probably that is a good idea”, Andreas said, shouting to Neil “HEY, GET A ROLL OF DUCT TAPE FROM IT TOO!”

In that moment, Neil’s half-brother walks over, holding a pair of police grade handcuffs. “This is a better solution.” Neil steps over out of the way, as Miles one of Marie’s arms, clasping one side of the cuffs onto her wrist. “Duct tape can be broken out of, all you’d need is a sharp stick.”. Murray looked at the blob of a woman. " Considering I’m used to Crocodile mouths and pythons…"

Andreas smiled a bit at the handcuffs. “Be careful, she might enjoy it…”

“I HEARD YOU!”, Marie said.

“So are you going to calm down now?”, Andreas continued.

“RAHHHH NOT UNTIL THAT STUPID KID IS DEAD!”, she screamed.

“OK, we’ll just leave you there until you have calmed down then, I guess you will have tamed your mood in some hours anyway…”

“If you need us later, Holler”, Murray said.

Miles hands the keys to the handcuffs to Andreas. “Only let her out of the cuffs if she decides behave.”

Eventually, Marie calmed down and could be freed, going to sleep at least temporarily without any plans to kill Chanty…

TO BE CONTINUED.

Collab with @That-S-cop and @TheYugo45GV

[MrdjaNikolen]

Team Chitco
Part 1

Stage 1: Menes to Unmar

One noteworthy thing that happened in Menes camp that would be worth mentioning was meeting Ángel

Thankfully, Andrea`s mind was relatively clear of worst of it, but it likely had some pretty unpleasant sights
Atleast it wasnt Bong…

-Does he have seizure or something?
-Best we can do is try to keep everything away that he may hit and hurt himself in process

Yes, closest to this any of quartet encountered would be seizure.
After what seemed to be long time (but was actually about 18 minutes) they had decided that Ángel has regained his senses and decided that its best to leave him alone
This was done just in time to be tempted to try stop Marie but this has proven to be under control (and then some)

With great care this quartet had left the camp, knowing full-well choice of vehicle may not be most optimal
On more positive note atleast it proves to be reliable enough for them to go through stage without problems and it even wasnt completely last

-Why tf do i need to squat?
-They dont feature toilet bowls?
-NO!
-Deal with it
-Hrmph

Mood of Bong got vastly improved upon digging in food that was avaiable: Turns out he got some hefty burger to himself, so all was good…atleast until next toilet need

Stage 2: Unmar to Lendehamn. Gloves are on

Once again, the group had piled up into truck and decided to tackle this stage. Better roads contributed to better mood of everyone involved and nobody felt the need to take on the challenge by Highway Hooligans, if for nothing else but for inevitable issues they might face with their cargo.

However, the camp of this stage will introduce some rather interesting events
Starting with small bump by Aurinko

-Are we getting to the point where we encounter imbeciles behind the wheel?!?
-Bong, calm down, im sure its nothing to worry about

And indeed both cars might had, at worst, ended up with some more dents but its not like either was in pristine condition anyway
Ángel also wasnt kind of person toward which you can be angry at for long period of time anyway
This compliment sadly cant be extended towards certain participants however…

---

-Why am i going to be dragged into this?
-Its great way to socialise
-Im not into socialising
-Its not like you have any choice. Besides, imagine what other interesting events would come as result of everyone.
-sigh Fiiine…

Bong`s first words upon getting to the stage were certainly words of absolute wisdom

-Showoff
-Hopefully he doesnt hear you
-Its great use of his massive hair; lovely dramatic effect

Lars had appeared with something to say

-He is forfeiting
-We shall ask Val to still do his part. Hopefully wouldnt be much of the bother

There will be no concert afterall…partially because of what Lars had to say and partially due to reaction of Malavera

-Ti se sećaš tog dana jer je neko u vojnom kombiju pokosio tebe i još 15 drugih biciklista u momentu. Ja se takođe sećam tog dana…sećam ga se, jer sam ja vozio taj kombi.
-Ima da te presavijem napola! Izlomim sve. ZGROMIĆU TI LOBANJU I NAPITI SE TVOJE KRVI IZ ČIZME!

It seemed Lars had just signed rather brutal death sentence by Khalan…until stopped by Jayde
Pi sighed and pulled some leather gloves, deciding to put them on and face off Lars.

-No! You shall not scare the normies…besides…someone more appropriate will take care of it

Indeed…someone that doesnt need magic to fuck stuff up would respond:

-OSETIĆEŠ KAKO JE TO BITI NA IVICI ŽIVOTA I SMRTI!!!

Even if he wasnt conveniently weaponised with guitar, Val would have been impossible to beat from perspective of his almost-a-killer
Bong got interested in the fight all of a sudden, mentally taking notes of everything that is happening: Jayde gaining flight and further suffering of Lars.
Sadly, this havent lasted for long…well, sadly for Bong because he was all for seeing some new and original ways in which person can be injured

Lars went home without much further troubles…and will live to see another day

Rest of the camp was uneventful

[Knugcab]

TEAM HILLBILLY ROLLERS
PART 2.1 - STRUGGLING WITH A SERPENT

Loading up the IP for stage 2, Marie for some reason had a hangover from hell.

“Urgh, don’t close the doors so loud”, she said. “Gahhh, can’t someone turn down the brightness of the sun a bit…where the fuck is the remote?”

“Stolen beer is the best beer, huh?”, Andreas asked her.

“I did not steal it”, Marie answered. “I…traded it”.

“Yes, for that stolen plush elk”, Janne said with a sigh.

“Yeah and that was so ugly so I would be happy if someone stole it from me, hence it is not theft”, Marie answered, before cramming herself into the IP.

At least, the surroundings made our friends feel right at home. It looked rather close to the Torne river valley, and Janne took lots of photos of the vintage looking farming equipment they passed on the way. What also was rather familiar was the weather…like a summer day at home, some fan was needed to keep the windows from fogging and…

“Hyuuuuuullllppppp”

“Marie, what is it?”, Andreas sighed.

“It stinks of butter!”

“Yes, I have noticed that.”, he answered with a salty tone.

Rapidly she threw herself over Janne, that was seated at the outboard right position on the bench seat, opened the door and…well, let’s just say that Team MCP got a little break in the middle of their clutch change to instead watch a…less pleasant show.

“For fucks sake, you threw up over the rear quarter panel!”, Janne said.

“So what? That can be washed off with paint thinner!”, Marie answered. “Urgh, that fucking butter smell makes me puke”.

“Yeah, it is totally the butter and not all the beer you traded for that plush elk”, Andreas said.

“Yup…”

“Because we absolutely can’t smell the same horrible stench…euwh.”, Andreas answered, while Janne was once again busy with filling up his memory card with pictures of vintage farming equipment. Finally, after a not totally dramatic ride, our team arrived at camp, made a fire and threw some finnish sausages on it. Life was good…at least for Marie that somehow now had a huge vodka bottle to drink from for the dinner.

“Hey, that’s not ours, right?”, Janne said.

“It is mine now, but don’t worry, I won’t give you anything of it!”, she answered in a snarky tone.

A while later:

Marie rushed to Janne, shouting “CAN I GET THE AXE BACK?”.

“No”, Janne answered. “How come you’re asking?”

“There is a fucking snake here! I must kill that little bastard!”

“Oh, for fucks sake yes”, Janne said. “Probably some poisonous bastard, kill it before it kills the whole camp!”

With the axe in her hands, Marie was chasing the poor serpent all over camp.

“TAKE THIS YOUR BASTARD!”, she said, swinging the axe so the dust was flying everywhere, though missing the snake, that crawled up into a tree.

“YOU THINK THAT YOU CAN HIDE THERE? WELL SOONER OR LATER, YOU WILL COME DOWN, AND THEN I WILL CHOP YOU INTO PIECES, YOU FUCKING LITTLE GARDEN HOSE!”, Marie said, still violently swinging the axe.

Meanwhile, Jan was trying to support a crying chanty that seemed to be looking for some “Dieter”

“Oh, relax, I am sure we will find him…”, Jan tried to comfort her.

“It is my fault, I shouldn’t have let him…”, Chanty cried, “…THERE! LOOK!”

Chanty was rushing towards the tree, now being the one pulling Jan with her. Unfortunately, Marie was standing in the way.

“Excuse me, can you please listen to me…”, Chanty tried.

“NO, I won’t listen to you, what do you want you stupid kiddo?”, Marie answered.

“What are you doing with that axe?”, she said, sobbing.

“THERE IS A FUCKING SNAKE IN THE TREE AND I WILL WHACK IT FLAT ENOUGH TO FIT INTO AN ENVELOPE IF JUST THE BASTARD WILL COME DOWN!”, Marie said.

“Noooo, you can’t hurt Dieter”, Chanty continued with tears in her eyes.

“I DON’T CARE ABOUT SOME FUCKING DIETER, I ONLY CARE ABOUT THIS BASTARD OF A SNAKE THAT IS GOING TO DIE BEFORE IT KILLS SOMEONE HERE IN CAMP!”

“But… But…. Dieter isn’t dangerous…I mean…he is not poisonous…”

“SHUT UP, FUCKING KIDDO BEFORE I TAKE THE AXE AND SPLIT YOUR HEAD OPEN LIKE A FUCKING MELON! DO YOU THINK THIS IS SOME FUCKING PLUSH ANIMAL AGAIN? IT IS A WILD GODDAMNED SNAKE THAT IS VERY MUCH REAL!”

Jan tried to convince Marie that “Well, actually, that snake is not a poisonous one and you should probably listen to…”

“WELL WHO PUT A QUARTER IN YOU, YOU FUCKING CITY DWELLER! WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU KNOW ABOUT SNAKES? COME BACK WHEN YOU HAVE DRIVEN A TRACTOR THROUGH YOUR NEIGHBOUR’S BARN WHEN YOU HAVE HAD ONE ON THE FLOOR THERE! SHUT UP OR I’LL USE THE AXE TO MAKE YOUR HEAD FLY TO THE MOON!”

Approaching them was Thomas, that seemed to be quite tired of the circus that Chanty and Jan once again seemed to pull off, and finding out that he once again had to deal with 150 kilograms of discount valkyrie filled up with a substantial amount of stolen booze wasn’t going to make his life easier.

“I am too sober for this shit”, Thomas said with a sigh. “Now, man up!”, he said to Jan that was struggling with keeping Chanty’s emotional breakdown under control. “You’re supposed to be able to fix shit like this!”. While being rather nervous, Jan stood still while Thomas went back to camp to get a carton of cheap wine he had used for cooking earlier. With Marie watching, he threw it away.

“NOOOO KIDS IN AFRICA COULD HAVE DRANK THAT WINE!”, Marie shouted, ran away to desperately trying to catch the wine carton, but too late, it landed on the ground and split open.

With Marie desperately running for an empty bottle to scope up the wine, Rhino squad could concentrate on Dieter the snake. Just one thing, though…the snake ran away from the circus to save its own skin.

“I can’t believe he is gone…”, Chanty cried outside the tent.

“Chanty, you are supposed to leave wild animals alone, they have it much better living free out in the woods”, Thomas tried to convince her.

TO BE CONTINUED…

Teams mentioned:
@SurrealCereal @Happyhungryhippo

[Madrias]

Shitbox Rally - Stage 3

Stage 3: Lendehamn to Thornes

Weather: High teens, cloudy, no rain, but the roads are still wet.

---

Leaving Lendehamn takes us outward… And upward. The roads are at least decent, but frequent uphill moments slow down a lot of the traffic. People in CE class vehicles have to make a lengthy detour to take wider roads better suited to their vehicles.

Team Firulais is the first to stop today, having to change a tire. The same goes for Cunning Stunts with the bike, followed by Machinas Con Passione with their absolute disaster-pile of a car. Even Ramjet’s duallies aren’t immune, as a punctured steering tire leads to a brief stop.
(@angelustyle , @that-S-cop , @SurrealCereal , @JCurtiss96 @Leone)

Transporttjäns Eriksson Aktiebolag Eslöv spends an hour diagnosing a mystery misfire.
(@WoodenPlankGames)

“Wait, what do you mean it wasn’t the fuel injectors?” Team Spy Kids spends another 3.5 hours chasing gremlins in their German SUV.
(@SheikhMansour)

Likewise, Team Peak Performance are sidelined for 3.5 hours to replace the busted ball joint after a slight brush with a curb.
(@HappyHungryHippo)

What we end up seeing by the time everyone gets up the hill and into Thornes is a city that is very vertical naturally, using the multiple valleys formed by rivers a long time ago. There are no typical high-rise buildings, just a lot of smaller buildings giving Thornes a very Italian feel.

Our camp ends up being on the same plot as a large and impressive mansion belonging to the second richest family in Holsia, which means we have access to good toilets, showers, and other facilities.

A bit of railyard shuffling gets the SR Support train onto the mansion spur, where it offers up some easy and relatively quick meals.

---

Spreadsheet is here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vQriVPEky_B00QiZ6lYrtLVt-u3XWPQW7CvfFNFordo91W4o4LYgWKmW6-SchgIpnTR4wQ6cfSyyQfl/pubhtml

[Happyhungryhippo]

Night from Stage 2 to Stage 3
teams mentioned: Hillbilly Rollers by @Knugcab

Before going to sleep, Chanty spent some time with her new “pet”, calling the snake Dieter. In her manic episode, Chanty doesn´t really get that “Dieter” is way too stressed by her and wants to be anywhere but in Chantys arms.

“So, good night Dieter, I sadly can´t take you with in the tent, my dad doesn´t want that. Would you please wait for me here, so that we can have our breakfast together?”

said Chanty, giving the snake a kiss and disappearing into the tent. Dieter was rarely that relieved as right now and escaped in record speed from the Rhino campsite, propably in need of a dolphin therapy…

Stage 3
teams mentioned: Hillbilly Rollers by @Knugcab, Shift Happens by @Madrias, Team Firulais by @Angelustyle and Team Chitco by @MrdjaNikolen

The next morning started again with Chanty sleeping too long, so that the others had to wake her up and drag her out of the tent by grabbing her feet, a method against which she protested loud enough to make everyone else in the camp knowing what is happening. She was very disappointed to say Dieter is gone, and as the tear flood just did not stop, Thomas ordered Jan to look for Dieter together with Chanty to have a bit of peace.

But Dieter could not be brought back and escaped into the forest.

While Thomas was packing the stuff together with Jan, a crying Chanty ate all snacks she could find. Thomas was definitely not amused.

“Do you REALLY have to eat all that trash at once? And what is it this time you cry about? A good daily morning routine should include brushing your teeth, not causing drama.”

“Dieter is gone… I thought he would wait for me. I thougt he liked me. But I guess nobody could have feelings for a monster like me…”

“Yes, I am together with you because you are THAT terrible, sure…”

Jan seemed quite insulted, but nevertheless cared for Chanty, giving her the dose of love she needed. Thomas on the other hand was grumpy for having to do the work all alone again.

“Do you really want to spend the day in that pyjama?”

“Of course! You have no idea how comfortable it is.”

“Yeah, but I can see how filthy it is now with cookie and chips crumbles. Clean that up at least before we start!”

“Yes, Sir, of course, Mr. General!”

“Chantal! ENOUGH!”

Thomas drove fast this time, and Chanty complained that she felt sick - Thomas blamed it on her binge eating, but she of course disagreed, claiming that it´s from the disappointment and emotional pain from Dieter abandoning her.

“THOMAS! THE CLIFF IS VERY STEEP! And I don´t trust the guardrail!”

“We have two airbags in this car, Jan, calm down.”

“THEY WONT HELP US IF WE FALL DOWN THERE!”

“You don´t say?”

“OOORRRRRRRRRRRRR!”

“What is it NOW, Chantal?”

“My headphone battery died.”

“Well, the solar chargers weren´t that effective with yesterdays weather, and the car´s power output is for the phones, so… you will have to wait a bit.”

“NAAAAAAAAAAH! Then you have to listen to my music then, I´ll use the car stereo you praise. Let me just put my phone in the docking station.”

“Dock…what?”

Thomas couldnt even finish his sentence, as Chanty already rammed her phone into the cassette drive.

“Why doesn´t that fit? What is this crap`”

“CHANTAL JOLINA NILFERT! STOP DAMAGING MY CASSETTE DRIVE, YOU DONKEY! THIS IS NOT A PHONE DOCKING STATION!”

Thomas yelled quite harsh at his daughter that now decided to have an emotional support cigarette, but she dropped it by accident before finishing the smoking.

“AAAAAAAAAH! STOP! ITS UNDER THE SEAT!”

“DAMN IT! CAN YOU DO SOMETHING ONCE WITHOUT BURNING DOWN OUR CAR?”

Thomas pulled over from the narrow mountain road into a small mud path and cared about Chantys cigarette before it could burn the carpet, then decided that he could also need an emotional support cigarette. Chanty preferred doing selfies on the beautiful road, but did not pay attention to the traffic. A Holsian in his car tried his best not to run her over, and Chanty could not dodge that fast as her knee still hurts, and the car missed her by not even 20 centimeters.

Thomas and Jan heard both the honking, tire squeals and screaming form Chanty and ran towards the source of the sounds - finding Chanty shocked, but unharmed. The both men were visibly relieved to see her uninjured, as both already thought they would have to call an ambulance without their phones working and would spend the next weeks next to a hospital bed, as that would not have happened for the first time, and none of them is willing to go through that again… Chanty needed a few minutes to calm down from her panic attack, with Jan again giving her a warm hug and a few kisses, while Thomas was unable to stop yelling that his daughter needs to be more aware of her surroundings.

The rest of the drive was more or less boring, except for the nice mountain landscape. Their destination was a nice small town that looked a lot like an old italian one, and their camping site was very nice this time. Not only warm showers were offered, but they could finally wash their clothes and dishes again without too much trouble.

After arranging the campsite and getting all work done, they went eating in the train, as nobody of them felt like cooking again, especially after the dishes were now all clean. But Chanty was still hungry, and took a bottle of ketchup from the train with her to drink it later. She was sure that nobody noticed it, but maybe the other people in the train just had other things in their minds than giving Chanty a lecture about a bottle of ketchup.

Thomas had no interest in socializing and preferred to rest with one or two (or maybe three) beers, so Jan and Chanty walked over to the town.

“Ah! Ouch! AAAAH!”

“What are you doing there?”

“That plaster on the nose looks shit on photos, so I remove it. It´s not broken so it´s not that bad.”

“Not broken yet… I know you good enough to know that having three first aid kits is definitely a smart idea.”

“You will need one for yourself if you don´t stop.”

After a romantic walk holding hands, they decided to go seperate ways for an hour: Jan checked out the local sights, and Chanty looked at the stores, when she bumped again into someone, this time a young woman.

“Oooops. Sorry. I, eh, was distracted… I guess? You are … so small, I think that´s why I didn´t see you… and I am really rarely the taller one… so… I am not used to that, well… eh… sorry, I am a bit derailed in my mind today…”

“Oh, no problem, someone not seeing me happens a few times, although those running into me are indeed taller than you. Aren´t you also from this year´s rallye? You are definitely not a local here”

“Yes… I am Chantal… my friends call me Chanty…”

“Nice to meet you, by the way, you are sooo cute! I am Andrea. Come on, don´t look like I am going to eat you, have a hug if you want. You checked that jewelry store? They have soooo many beautiful things. I think I´ll buy something for Pi, my best friend.”

Chanty acted a bit clumsy trying to give Andrea a hug, so her new friend just did it with Chanty, having problems getting with her short arms around Chanty, who is… a lot more fluffy than Andrea.

“Sounds great… I am… well, that looks so expensive. And I am totally broke. In fact, I… don´t even have a single cent.”

“Well, that sounds like I need to invite you for a snack with Pi and me? And don´t say no, I really want to get to know you. By the way, she is a Centaur, so don´t be surprised if… ah, just see yourself and follow me.”

At the food stand, Chanty seemed to be a more interessing sight than a centaur like Pi, weirdly enough. As Holsians rarely spot people as exotic as Jan and Chanty, they were stared at a lot, but not in a hostile way, was more that the locals were very amused of their appearance. Especially Chanty with her blue hair and garish pink clothes, and despite her generally being a bit insecure, she allowed everyone to take a closer look at her - including a family with small kids that approached her while she was daydreaming.
The town was quite wealthy, and this was also visible in the inhabitants. One of the kids politely asked to have a closer look at Chantys sparkling unicorn wristband, as such things were totally uncommon in Holsia. Chanty had many of them left at home, as she loses one from time to time, and gifted it without hesitation to the little girl, as the father suddenly opened his wallet and gave her 300.000 Krona Holsia with a friendly smile, and they already walked happily away before Chanty could refuse the compensation she did not even ask for.

“Oh, you are a lucky girl today”

, laughed Pi.

“That looks sooooo much with all these zeros… am I… rich? It was worth absolutely nothing, I ordered that for… five dollar or so… I feel bad now, as if I committed fraud, but it all happened so fast.”

Chanty looked with her bambi eyes towards Pi, with a few teardrops running down her cheeks, and Pi was now a bit amused by Chantys helplessness with the money.

“Well, look at it and then you know, the good thing about money is that the amount it´s supposed to be worth is written on it. And I guess they considered it so valuable because they have never seen an item like this and will never know that it´s sold for 5 Dollar on another planet. Exotic things are always worth a lot. Really, I could also see me buying such a cute and sparkling thing I don´t need at all for a totally absurd price.”

“Ok, but…I… don´t know the exchange rate…”

Andrea giggled a bit and softly wiped Chantys tears away.

“Me neither, but you don´t have to, just compare it to the prices in the stores and you get a feeling of how many money you have. That isn´t that complicated. It seems you are a bit distracted today, hm?”

“Ah, here you are!”

Jan had spotted Chanty and waved her to come over, so she gave Pi and Andrea a hug and joined Jan, who had no idea about what happened briefly before.

Later, when it was early evening, Janne walked over to the trio, holding Thomas chili wodka.

“Eh, Thomas, sorry about Marie, she is… well… dumb. I know it´s not polite to talk like that without her being present, but I am also tired of inventing excuses that sound more pleasant. I also found stolen alcohol, and I think this belongs to you, because there is something written in German on it.”

“MY BABY IS BACK! THANKS A LOT, eeeh…? Who are you, by the way?”

“Janne, Janne Mäkitalo. Mechanic of the team.”

“Ah, yes, I remember. I just talked to the other two yet, but I saw you arguing with Marie in the background when I got that plush elk back. So, I am Thomas Nilfert, also mechanic. Now that you brought it to me, I feel like you should at least try what Marie will be missing now.”

“It doesn´t look that tempting, though. What is that?”

“That used to be a Chili, its in there for a year so it turned white. Ha! This will MAKE YOUR THROAT BUURRRRRRRN!”

“Thomas, I am afraid I am not the targeted audience for the product you are offering, but one little one… yeah, just a small one.”

“Ah, come on Janne, sometimes you need to blow your head gasket. Here, take a big one!”

“UUUUUUUUUAAAAAAAAARRRRRRGHHHH! BEURK! IT IS DISGUSTING!”

“More?”

“Sure!”

Both executed the next attack on their muscles, as all they had were now contracting again, as Kivenaal stepped towards the scene, smiling at the two elder men struggling with the “pimped wodka”.

“AAAAH! HERE IS IT! Thomas, didn´t I warn you about booze in Holsia?”

“Ah, come on, you pranked me! You did that to most other teams as well.”

“I am just friendly and trying to prevent you from being imprisoned”

, said Kiva with the smile of a little boy.

“As you two seem to have problems swallowing that, I may ask, is it spicy?”

Without answering, Thomas held a glass towards him, and Kiva tried it, contently smiling.

“Oh, this is delicious. Thomas, Janne, may I join here to relieve you of the burden of having to drink this?”

Both nodded, so Kiva finally got to drink the spicy booze he already considered lost.

While Jan was cleaning the Primus inside and outside, Chanty told him that she had forgotten something in the train, where they all ate before, and sneaked back in town, emotionally supported by Rudolph, just a moment before the all stores would close. At the jewelry store, she offered her 300.000 Krona for the most beautiful wedding rings she could get. Acutally, you would need engagement rings for a proposal, before buying the actual wedding rings, but… Chanty just doesn´t care about such small details.

She sat down on a bench near the river and prepared herself for the right moment, which would definitely happen at the end of the rallye. She trained for it by proposing to Rudolph, who sadly didn´t give that much feedback to Chanty.

“My love, as we are now together for a year, and this is the longest relation I ever had… Nah. This sounds as if nobody could stand me yet…as if I am a terrible person…”

After a deep breath, she tried another attempt.

“Hey, I don´t know how I can prove you that you are the one and only for me, and therefore I… EH, what is that?”

It was Angel, speaking some drunk blah-blah in various languages his ring couldn´t translate. But it was obvious that he was drunk and in a more or less helpless state, so Chanty grabbed the wedding rings, Rudolph and Angel, guiding him back to his place and storing Rudolph and the rings in the Primus, as her own campsite was on the way to the rest of the Team Firulais. Somehow Angel managed to talk in a way the translator could tell Chanty at least roughly what happened, and she became enraged, giving Ana a lecture about how to treat your friends the right way.

“ANA! ARE YOU FUCKING DUMB TO GIVE PEOPLE ALCOHOL AGAINST THEIR WILL AND LAUGH AT THEM? THATS CHILDISH, MEAN AND EVEN A FORM OF ASSAULT!”

“Oh, how long did you need to prepare yourself for speaking up to me? Requires more courage than I thought you have. I thought your only mood is crying like a baby. I can give you a good advice: Mind your own business. I don´t have a problem with you, AS LONG AS YOU DO NOT ANNOY ME!”

“JUST SHUT UP AND APOLOGIZE TO ANGEL! You just can´t treat someone like shit just because he is the weird one.”

“And you seem to have experience with being the weird one, hm? Ah, how about, Hey Ana, I did not like what you did to Angel, just that you know it, goodbye, fine, … nah, you uncivillized meat loaf are not even capable of basic interactions. But hey, nobody is perfect, right? Grab yourself some booze as well, maybe that helps your relaxing a bit.”

[Angelustyle]

Team Firulais

Stage 3: Punctures… “Ana’s Curse”?

(Mentioning @HappyHungryHippo [The Rhino Squad] and @Rambow [Honey, I’ve bought a S#!tbox])

Night in Lendehamn.

Once again, night had fallen, and all of the Firulais had gotten out for some fun before the next part of the trip. As stablished the last stage, Ana would be driving for Stage 3 as well, in hopes for another Top 5 Finish.

Tomás would be the first one to head to go and sleep. Followed by Andrés, who wanted to get as best as a sleep as possible, given how at any given moment, his tent could be occupied by Ángel… Still, the chances of Ángel winning any Pokémon Match they have are still very slim.

Ana would once again do her magic with Ángel’s water bottle, before going to sleep. And again, Ángel would suffer the consequences. He once again had a night of disorientation and was ultimately pushed back to the car by Josué, who was at that moment, one of the few people staying awake so late that night. Once again, Ángel would puke shortly before arriving to the Aurora, this time, without smelling awfully bad or ruining clothes in the process. However, by the time this happened, Josué, same as maybe (or maybe not) a few others, began to suspect something fishy was going on with whatever Ángel drank at night.

The Russian-Japanese mechanic didn’t have a very comfortable night of sleep, mainly due to the hangover, which only intensified as the night progressed. Josué, who was American, didn’t have a very comfortable night either, although it was more due to thinking about WHAT was causing Ángel’s lack of… ¿Consistency? in his actions…

Early Morning at Lendehamn.

Andrés, Ana, and Tomás woke up with barely a few minutes of separation, and they all had a good night, especially Ana, who was all night happy thinking about what to perform next on Ángel. Josué would wake up later, although he had also slept fairly well… Ángel would not be having any of that. People saw the Mechanic of the Firulais crawl out of the rear seat of the car, out of the gap made by the now reclined forward Passanger seat, and fall face-first to the floor. He’d get up in his feet after a few moments, and, unlike Josué, who was thinking deeply about his friend’s troubles… Ángel had another thought thru his mind…

This was the second day in a row without Mindreading Incidents… He didn’t knew if his lack of memory of the nights of the previous two days played a role, or if he is finally being able to control his powers (SPOILER ALERT: He isn’t… Far from it, in fact.)… But whatever is causing it, is causing it. Worse still, despite not having mindreading incidents in a while, Ángel is still worried. He knows that if things are going THIS well, they’ll go horribly wrong sooner or later.

Nevertheless, the morning of the Firulais at Lendehamn was more centered on a peculiar statement…

Josué:“Guys, news.”
Andrés:“Go on.”
Ana:“What is it…?”
Josué:“I’ve noticed how Ángel has… had some rough nights…”
Ángel:“Я ничего не помню…”
(“I don’t remember anything…”)

“My Plan must be going perfectly.”, thought Ana.

Josué:“So, I’ve given a thought about investigating what causes this… I still have no clue, and, due to Ángel not being able to remember much, if you see anything awkward from him, plea—”

Ángel raised his hand, wanting to speak.

Josué:sigh“Yes, Ángel…?”
Ángel:“May I say something…?”
Ana:“I mean, ain’t it obvious…”whispering“愚かな共産主義ロシア人…”
(“Stupid Communist Russian…”)
Ángel:“すみません ？”
(“Excuse me ?”)
Josué:“Ángel, Ana, I don’t speak Chinese !”
Ángel:“Uhm, Actually, It’s Japanese ! Can’t believe you can’t distinguish it, considering you watch Anime…”

Josué, menacingly, pushed Ángel gently and replied.

Josué:“Look, you nerd. You’d personally not like to reply to me that way…”
Ángel:“S-Sorry… I let myself get carried away. But what I wanted to say was… Have you all noticed ?”
Everyone (except Ángel, at Unison):“What…?”
Ángel:“This is the second day in a row in which I don’t have a mindreading incident…”

An eerie silence kinda showed how indifferent was Ángel’s little thing to say in respect of how he was suddenly less consistent… And therefore, due to popular vote, he’d remain with his mouth shut for a great part of the stage… Even Tomás was a bit annoyed at this seemingly unimportant piece of info.

Road to Thornes.

Due to that popular vote, most of the trip to Thornes would be silent… But not all. You see, there were two points at which they’d stop.

First, would come a short stop at a Gas Station. This left them some time to do a bit of things. Whether it be waiting for the tank to fill up, or buying some stuff, things happened… Although Ángel was getting increasingly nervous.

The next pullover, done a few hours later, would be a lot more humorous, as a puncture allowed Ángel to finally chuckle for the first time in a while…

Ana:“Ah, goddamn, the second time under my command in which it punctures ! Mierda !”
Andrés:“I guess it could be you driving too hard—”
Ana:“Cállate, Andrés.”
(“Shut up, Andrés.”)
Ángel:“Hehehehe… Será que Ana tiene una maldición ? La maldición de Ana… Hehehe…”
(“Hehehehe…Is Ana Cursed ? Ana’s Curse… Hehehe…”)

Ana, with her two eyes, gave a death stare directly towards Ángel’s left eye… His only working eye (he lost the right one during a bombardment that happened in the Kurils, during a short war between the Nations which disputed the territory…)… She was changing the tire desperately and even threw a small wrench towards the Russian-Japanese Yumeisotitanian Humanoid Descendant (or, YHD, if you prefer it that way)… Luckily, the window was rolled down, so the wrench didn’t hit him, went thru the window, and he simply picked up the wrench from the floor, and came back to the car, still with a smug, yet small and cute smile in his face…

He’d still be giggling a bit a few minutes later, until Ana would give him a slap in the face, and another one in the back of the head, which made Ángel’s glasses fall to the floor, leaving him blind for a good half hour… After that, the rest of the trip would be relatively silent… And, honestly, it was probably best it was that way…

Thornes.

They didn’t notice they’d tied with the people from “Honey I’ve bought a S#!tbox”. Luckily, Ángel noticed the leaderboard, and was actually the only person looking at it consistently, along with a few others… He’d try to meet said team, and a few others the next day, feeling with enough courage to try something he would’ve done at Menes, if it weren’t for his incidents there.

Later that night, Ángel informed that he’d managed to get a little deal to play in a soccer match at Thornes a few hours before departure from Thornes on to their next destination. Given Holsian Players aren’t good, and Ángel wasn’t any better (holding a dubious record of having scored 6 goals… And 13 own goals), this was the setting for a perfect attempt to try and have a nice time with the locals.

However, the night for the Firulais was far from over. Andrés and Ángel had their Pokémon Match earlier than usual, and, as usual, Andrés won… But Ángel was getting closer and closer to winning eventually. He could even taste the feeling of sleeping in a tent…

After said match, Ángel would drink from his water bottle once more… And would get lost around the streets of Thornes shortly after, mainly due to Ana keeping on throwing Ángel’s water, and replacing it with her booze… Fortunately for Ángel, this nightmarish cycle would come to an end… Chantal had confronted Ana that night, and after that, Ana retired to her tent, frustrated…

Interestingly, Ángel wouldn’t puke said night… But he couldn’t sleep that night either…

As he regained consciousness, he wondered… “How have I lasted so long without suffering these mindreading incidents…?”…apart from the tastes of pain, sometimes fun, and the taste of incoming victory over Andrés, the most notable taste he could feel was the one of the next mindreading incident lurking over slowly, preparing to strike at the worst possible time…

(As usual, collabs are open… Sorry for only uploading one uncoloured drawing… Real life events are consuming me…)

[Knugcab]

TEAM HILLBILLY ROLLERS
PART 3.1 - IMPROVING THE PRIMUS

After the somewhat dramatic morning, our team entered the IP and left the camping area with a squeal from the old BF Goodrich Radial T/As that now had more or less the same friction as bakelite. Songs from Bourbon boys last album were doing their best to surpass the tyre squeal in sound level. Just like they had been playing all the time at the local radio at the area they had left.

Bourbon Boys - Rolling Home (Lyric Video)

“Damn, I hope we don’t blow any of them”, Andreas said.

“Bah, tyres that have started to hold up usually keeps holding up”, Janne said. “It was not our turn today”, he continued and pointed to Team Firulais Aurora Aurinko.

“Yes, but do that finnish shitbox stink like old butter?”, Marie said.

“At least it doesn’t stink like you”, Andreas answered. “And if you learned to behave we wouldn’t have to smell this shit”, he continued.

Luckily, it was a kind of better weather this run, meaning that the heater didn’t have to blow constantly, somehow eliminating the butter stench. The aftermarket sun roof kept out the worst smell too, since it could now be open. The next car they passed was team Spy Kids VW Touareg.

“Wrong choice of car”, Janne grumbled. “Couldn’t they have strapped a barrel of TNT on the roof too?”

“Did they think it would be like running a 1980 diesel Jetta?”, Andreas said with a sigh.

“No, because I hate Jettas”, Marie said. “My fucking fascist of a geography teacher had one!”

“Like that would matter?”, Andreas said. “Were you ever at a single lesson?”

“Whatever”, Marie said. “If they had been showing up with a fucking Jetta I would have put it on fire. Maaaaan I CAN NOT STAND THIS SMELL ANYMORE! GODDAMNED KID, I WILL BEAT HER UP UNTIL SHE LOOKS LIKE A MOTHERFUCKING JETTA IF SHE DOES ONE MORE PRANK! URGH AND THE HEADACHE…”

“Feeling well?”, Janne said with a smirk.

“Urghhh no…”

The winding mountain roads maybe weren’t really compatible with the shocks in the rear (Gabriel Hi-Jackers from the late 70s) but…the vehicle arrived safely at camp after nothing more than a fuel stop.

Later, while Janne seemed to be busy doing something with Thomas (“Traitor”, Marie thought), she collected the wires and tools Janne had been using for repairing the harness to the steering column, and went towards the seemingly very abandoned Primus.

Some creative rewiring later, and the brake light switch, eh…was now connected to the horn. Fucking genious, she thought.

Going back to camp, Janne had gotten back, and wondered what Marie had done with his cable crimping tools.

“Nothing! I just cleaned up after you since you can’t keep track of your fucking tools!”

“Ah, I see, that’s why your house clearly does not look like a SCUD has passed through it and hit a manure sack standing in the middle of it. Yeah, good thing you’re cleaning up, taking my tools from the toolbox where they are supposed to be”, a slightly drunk Janne said with a bit more irony and salt than usual, that Marie probably didn’t understand anyway.

“By the way, how could you even drink that piss in the german bottle?”, he asked.

“Ah, it had a little taste of gasoline and something but I am not…WAIT, HAVE YOU BEEN DRINKING FROM IT?”

“No”, Janne said. “I gave it back to its owner.”

“The owner is ME!”, Marie continued.

“No way it is”, Janne answered. “Your knowledges in German are so good that you think that “Lebensgefahr” is a German cheese! Where would you have got it from?”

“I found it in a trash container”, she said.

“Yeah…in the same trash container as you find everything else…right?”

TO BE CONTINUED

Teams mentioned
@SheikhMansour @Angelustyle @Happyhungryhippo

[Madrias]

Shitbox Rally - Stage 4

Stage 4: Thornes to Mosoto

Weather: High teens, mostly cloudy, and dry.

---

After the upward climb yesterday, we head generally downward on some comfortably wide roads. While a few corners on the forest roads prove to be a little bit tough for the largest vehicles here, it’s at least a pleasant drive.

As we get closer to Mosoto, the farms and small villages show up again, though the forest is still the dominant landscape out here.

It seems that Team Firulais must have a driver who hates their tires, because another one has been burst. Other teams to be cursed with a burst tire on this stage include: The Argonites, Team Hillbilly Rollers, Straight Outta Saratos, Machinas Con Passione, and Peak Performance.
(@angelustyle , @redfoxlol , @Knugcab , @shibusu , @SurrealCereal , @HappyHungryHippo)

Transporttjäns Eriksson Aktiebolag Eslöv loses an hour to a fuel pump failure. At least in the van, it’s a relatively easy fix.
(@WoodenPlankGames)

Ramjet isn’t making like a rocket on this stage after the clutch blows up. Five hours of fixing later, they make it into camp just fine, if a bit greasy.
(@JCurtiss96 , @Leone)

Mosoto is a large village or small town of roughly 2,800 people centered around a church. The figure on the roof of the church appears to be “aggressively average.”

We get to camp in a small meadow on the outskirts of the village. We’ll have to get out the tents again, and there’s no showers, but at least the toilet is, well… It’s two steps below an outhouse. There’s some boards put up in front of the log for privacy, and you’re doing your business into a ditch. At least there is a “sink,” if one considers a small dammed-up water source courtesy of the local creek to be a sink.

---

Spreadsheet is here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vQriVPEky_B00QiZ6lYrtLVt-u3XWPQW7CvfFNFordo91W4o4LYgWKmW6-SchgIpnTR4wQ6cfSyyQfl/pubhtml

[Happyhungryhippo]

Stage 4

teams mentioned: Firulais by @Angelustyle, Hillbilly Rollers by @Knugcab, Chitko by @MrdjaNikolen

In the night, a still drunk Thomas was deeply annoyed by a loud noise.

“DAMN, they have woodpeckers here? Do they have to piss me of on ANY planet?”

“Thomas, we want to sleep.”

"None of your business, Jan. I will get that bird and grill it!

“The anatomy of them makes them totally unsuitable as a source of meat, and …”

“I DONT CARE!”,

yelled Thomas and went out chasing the bird, but that had no use and did nothing except either amusing or pissing off the other campers.

The next morning started with Chanty not feeling like crying - she rushed into town directly after getting up, buying a cactus - she was told by Andrea and Pi that Marie liked such a plant, and Chanty somehow felt that it … fitted well. But with the catcus as peace offer, it might cool down the tension between them.

“A cactus, young lady? … That´s these.”

“Oh, they look strange, as if they were… AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH”

“Spikey, yes. I thought you knew that…”

She placed the cactus on their camping table, then going for a shower, from which Thomas just returned. He scrutineered the plant while getting a morning beer and placed on the camping chair, as he wanted to fold the table and store it in the car.

Chanty meanwhile bumped into the next person, pushing Angel on the ground by accident.

“Oh… sorry, I was… distracted”

“No problem, I wanted to visit you anyway!”

“Eh… why?”

“Because that was so brave of your how you told Ana a lesson, I am surprised it worked so well, usually she listens to absolutely nobody.”

“Oh, really? Well, I can be a lion sometimes, too, when it comes to people treating others in a bad way…”

Chanty hugged a grateful Angel and then continued her way to the showers, but then Angel fell to the ground, taking a fetal position and screaming in pain. The screams were so terrible that it must have been Chantys mind which he read, and Chanty tried her best to comfort him, starting to cry herself from being emotionally overwhelmed, but thankfully, after five minutes, Angel felt better, and feeling too embarrassed that he caused his blue-haired friend another trauma to say anything, he rushed off.

“I… need to go.”

While Angel felt the force of a freight train running directly into his brain with all the negative things in her mind, including almost every mental struggle a human could have, Chanty was deeply traumatized by seeing Angel in a devastating mindreading attack that was propably the strongest he had ever experienced.
Something in Chantys mind snapped even more than before as a coping strategy since she on the other hand blamed herself for the next incident with Angel as well, and she started banging her head against the shower wall quite hard in order to disable her mind hard enough to not be able to hurt Angel again.
As that did of course not work and made her only feel dizzy, she started some awful singing to calm herself down, and then rushing back to her campsite, as Thomas was already waiting for her, as the next stage would continue in only half an hour.

Thomas just wondered where the damn cactus was, as he was putting the tent in it´s bag. Just in that moment, Chanty returned and took a seat without looking, as she still felt dizzy from banging her head against the wall and needed a rest, and the disaster happened.

“AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH NOT AGAIN!”

“Eeeeh… that has not happened, has it?”

“DONT LAUGH! HELP ME!”

“That… is a case where we should wait for Jan then… I guess that cactus is now… a flattus.”

“SHUT UP!”

“I didn´t know the smurfs also had a hedgehog”

, laughed Ana, passing by the scene and still bitter that Chanty defeated her in the night before.

“Move on, nothing to see for you here”,

complained Jan, comforting his girlfriend, then trying to ease the situation a bit by joking.

“Well, maybe it feels less painful if you imagine that it´s all tattoo needles, so that´s something you like?”

“Jan, don´t bring her to such ideas, I found that tattoo machine already in the car. Let´s hope she just doesn´t tattoo herself another VIN number of our cars.”

Jan carefully freed Chanty from spikes, and not soon after, it was time for departure - with Thomas again taking the driver seat.

HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONK

“THOMAS WHY ARE YOU HONKING?”

“I AM NOT! I WAS JUST BRAKING!”

Thomas braked again, and the horn of the Primus Legacy blazed again loudly.

“Crap, what is this shit? Well, there is only one solution, I won´t brake anymore then to stop this”

“THOMAS, NO! THIS IS DANGEROUS!”

“Calm down, we have two airbags in the car.”

“Thomas, the airbag warning light is on, they do not work!”

“I said we have two airbags, not that they are functional.”

“SO…WE WILL ALL DIE! FINALLY I WILL BE HAPPY! BUT I DONT WANT YOU TO BE DEAD, TOO!”

Both looked in disbelief at the chubby smurf in the backseat that was again in tears.

“CHANTAL JOLINA NILFERT! I AM TRYING EVERYTHING TO MAKE YOUR LIFE BETTER AND…”

“THOMAS! LOOK OUT! WE ARE TOO FAST!”

HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNKKKKKKKK

“Now I got enough, Jan, grab the manual of the car and check it for the fuse diagram.”

Jan did as told, and the fuse for the horn was shared with other functions, but nothing vital for driving, so this was a five minute fix on the roadside, removing it and scheduling the troubleshooting to the evening to not loose time.

But Thomas discovered something very close to their new campsite - an old barn, and the tubes around it looked like this could become a moonshine distillery. Instead of fixing the Primus, he told Chanty to figure it out and ran to Janne - as Thomas thought swedish hillbillys would be experts at that stuff. And, that is right…

“Thomas, this would work, let´s go shopping. But if it doesn´t, we will die from intoxication.”

“Well, if your eyes are blinded from the metanol, you can as well drink the rest at that point. How about letting Marie try first? It would solve a lot of problems!”

“Yes, that would be a great idea. But… in case, we did deadly shit here, do you have enough good alcohol to save her?”

“Barely. That gollum stole most anyway, not to forget about that Valraadi rascal… and propably my own thirst… and the thirst of my blue-haired money pit. So we better be careful.”

Janne, basically Thomas with more madness and creativity when it comes to making things work for purposes they were not supposed to, created a distillery in record time, and the brewing started.

Jan, on the other hand, put out another fire at the Firulais camp, assisting them with cooking and giving Angel a lesson, but if that would really work, might be doubted. At least nobody in the Firulais team now had to suffer from hunger. And what did Chanty do?

She discovered that the Primus was manipulated, and the horn became connected to the brake light switch behind the pedal.

“OOOORRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR WENNSCH DIESES BLEEDE GOLLUM SEH RAMMSCH DER DEN GAGGDUS SOWAS VON INNEN ORSCH!”

(the translator ring fails at that dialect again, better not translating this in either proper german nor English, but for Chanty, it was obvious that it must have been Marie who did this)

“Hey, Chanty, what´s wrong?”

“Oh, hello Andrea… well, I just fixed an act of sabotage on our car done by this swedish gollum?”

“Sabotage? Like… trying to kill you?”

“No, that would propably go too far even for a mean gollum like Marie…just something annoying. But still… AAAARRRRRRGH. I need to either get booze, a new tattoo or a new plush toy to calm down!”

“Your tattoos are sooooooo cool. You did them yourself?”

“Most, yes… I even have the machine for it in the car, I bought that last year in Sweden.”

“So, you can tattoo me 3.141592653589793238462643383279502884197?”

“Why such a number? Eeeeh?”

“That´s the mathematical value of Pi, and I think this is a very creative way to have her on my skin, as a sign of our strong bond.”

“I suck at maths… but I can do that… are you sure that you didn´t mix up one of these many numbers?”
Chanty did as asked, with a very nice result, so Andrea gave Chanty a slight kiss on the cheek, then helped her dying her hair again, as blue color does not last very long and a little bit of her natural blonde was already shining through.

“Thanks, this tattoo is perfect. I can learn so much from you… maybe also playing a guitar. I bought that yesterday and I have no clue how to use it.”

“My dad played in a garage rock band… maybe he can show you…”

“When was that? 1875?”

Both young women giggled and hugged each other, then exploded in laughter.

Later in the evening, all three rhinos reunited - Thomas with tons of booze, Chanty with a guitar she couldn´t play and Jan with food for the team, as he taught Angel how to cook a lot of different stuff and many food was left.

Thomas and Chanty were quite drunk after another hour, and Thomas grabbed the guitar and played on it, and it became quite obvious why Mr. Nilfert never became a successful musician. On the other hand, the terrible playing was covered up by Chanty having absolutely no talent at singing but a deafening volume trying it, using an empty beer bottle as microphone.

It did not take long to attract others at this miserable performance, including Pi and Andrea. The centaur and her friend took a quick snack from Thomas´booze to be able to bear the terrible “band”, becoming drunk almost on the spot, with Andrea hugging Chanty and entering the karaoke disaster, while Pi smiled at Jan.

“You have such a wonderful girlfriend, really.”

“I know, thanks. But she embarrasses herself again.”

“No. She´s not. She is just happy at the moment and that is what counts.”

“True…”

“But I think one very important thing is missing to make her even happier.”

“Rudolph?”

“Naaaah. You. Come on, dance with her and give her some love… as a side effect, I might get Andrea loose of Chantys hug and can get her back.”

[Angelustyle]

Team Firulais

Stage 4: Own Goals, Mindreading Incidents, and Ángel’s Revenge

(Mentioning @Happyhungryhippo [The Rhino Squad] and @Fayeding_Spray [Timeloss])

Morning at Thornes.

Everyone would wake up, but Ángel and his team would wake up earlier than most. Ángel, if you remember, had made a little deal to play soccer with the locals. He was ready, despite the hangover and the sleepless night in the Aurinko. He’d be playing for the Local Team of Thornes, for the first half only.

That morning, he attempted to call other teams, trying to make some friendships… Or at least, trying to give some entertainment before leaving. But none, except his own team, actually came to watch, amongst a crowd of only 200.

Initially, things would go fairly well. The Locals got ahead by scoring a goal at the 7th Minute. Ángel was making really good defense… Until the later third of the first half of the match… Which is where Ángel’s fall from grace began.

At the 32nd Minute, he’d make a catastrophic defense error, allowing the opponents to score the equalizer… And then, came the worst. It was the 44th minute. Ángel was trying to defend and the first of many Mindreading Incidents would kick in… He’d read the mind of a teammate… Which initially wasn’t bad… Until Ángel saw the sort of things he’d definitely not like to watch…

In his suffering he fell over by himself, as the ball went from one opposing player to the other, meaning Ángel had made a deviation on the ball’s trajectory. Subsequently, the Goalkeeper, who was initially preparing to run for the other players, didn’t got prepared for Ángel’s Achilles Heel… THE OWN GOAL.

After this, Ángel quickly recovered (He knew what happened just then, but he still felt the pain), and was desperate to get out of the field, hoping a swap with a teammate. Luckily, his manager was so infuriated, that that was what happened just after…

The Match ended 2-1, approximately 70 minutes later (adding the half time, and the added time of each half of the match), with Ángel’s own goal certifying victory for the Visitors…

Ángel’s team wasn’t happy either, oh, no. Everyone was infuriated at Ángel for misrepresenting the team. But… If that really was the case, shouldn’t someone else have gone out and play? Ángel left his team’s spot at camp with several doubts, and as the others left to prepare for the short trip to Mosoto, Ángel remained in site, admiring the Mansion just in front of camp. He was then bumped by Chantal, and it was a nice chat… Until the ocurrings at Menes would repeat. Ángel had another mindreading incident, in a lapse of time of roughly half an hour…

Still, it was impossible it could get worse, right?

After said incident, his team came back. This time, no discussions happened… Because a THIRD incident happened. And the day was far from over. This time, the target chosen by Ángel’s powers was Ana, and again, Ángel saw things he’d most likely NOT want to see. This time it took him further to recover, and they left camp late in comparison to the other teams…

Andrés would drive for this stage, which was good for him… At least he thought. Because little did he or anyone know they’d soon encounter the same issue that they’d been facing for the past 2 stages…

Pullover, between Thornes and Mosoto.

Andrés:“It’s so un-f#¢king believable how we’ve done so far… And how always punctures is our Achilles heel…”
Ana:“Ves que no estoy maldita, Ángel?”
(“You see I’m not Cursed, Ángel?”)
Ángel:“Ey, no es mi culpa… Solo era una suposición. En este Rally hay mucha gente rara, y hay gente que tiene magia… Así que… Si te maldijeron, no sé que hacer ante ello…”
(“Ayyy, it ain’t my fault… I was just supposing. There’s a lot of weird people in this Rally, and there are people with magic… So… If you were cursed, I dunno what to do about it…”)
Josué:“En parte es tu culpa.”
(“It kinda is your fault.”)
Tomás:“A qué si? Porque no compraste neumáticos nuevos? Cuando es que los neumáticos de esta cosa fueron cambiados por última vez?”
(“Yes it is. Why didn’t you buy new tires? When was the last time the tires in this thing were changed?”)
Ángel:“La última vez, al menos, según dice el historial de mantenimiento, fue en el 2005, hace 19 años… No que tú naciste en ese año? Pero da igual. Los neumáticos cuestan algo de dinero, y preferí invertirlo en intentar evitar problemas en la transmisión o en el motor… Y adivinen que? Aparte de nuestro recalentamiento cuando íbamos a Menes… Nada nos ha pasado.”
(“The last time, at least, according to the servicing history book, was in 2005, 19 years ago. Weren’t you born that year? Anyway. Tires cost some money, and I preferred investing it on trying to avoid problems in the transmission or in the engine… And guess what? Besides our overheating issue while heading to Menes… Nothing has happened to us.”)

…if you don’t count punctures, that is.

Mosoto.

Ana:“This place stinks.”
Ángel:“I mean… To me it ain’t that bad. I’ve had to handle worse smells.”
Josué:“Remember the day at Unmar and Lendehamn?”
Ángel:“Yes, Josué, just… don’t remind me of it.”

It was still fairly early in the day, so, the Team decided to spend their time doing certain activities to pass the time.

Ángel, despite having suffered 3 mindreading incidents today, felt like deploying his social butterfly skills with the other teams… Even after realizing that said skills aren’t really functional with the locals. So, he invited Andrés and Josué to come along with him to meet the other teams. The first was Timeloss, one of their closest competitors in the overall standings… But inmediately when they approached, they started to feel… inferior.

Nevertheless, it was Ángel, as usual, the one to break the ice…

Ángel:“Uhm… H-hello…”
Ruuka:“Look what is coming. After 4 days of constant boredom, we’ve finally got something to do…”
Ángel:“W-well… We just came here to talk… First of all… What a machine you’ve got…”

“It kinda makes me feel like nothing with our Aurora…”, thought Ángel, feeling a bit small compared to the girls.

Mirage:“Well… it took some time to prepare it. So far nothing has gone wrong with it… which is surprising, to say the least.”
Josué:“In ours, nothing has gone wrong either, even if it falls a bit short of yours…”
Andrés:“Well, apart from constant punctures… Guess who didn’t change some 19 year old tires…”
Ángel:“Tires are expensive, Andrés!”
Josué:“Then how did you buy the spare ones…?”
Ángel:“I-- Yeah…”

Both groups burst into some short laughter, except Ángel… I mean, he knew he just made himself look dumb.

Ángel:“I-I mean… The tires worked fine, it was you driving too hard…”
Josué:“Yeah, just like you reading minds too hard.”
Selena:“You’re the mind reader, right?”

Selena asked, with no intention to offend, but Ángel, who felt already a bit bullied over said fact, felt like it.

Ángel:“Would people stop recognizing me JUST for THAT!?”
Andrés:“Heyyy, pal, calm down… At least I don’t.”
Ángel:“Ana bullies me over it. The thing that made me recognizible was that specifically! Would people recognize me for something other than that?”

As Andrés was trying to calm Ángel down, Josué saw an opportunity to try and score something on the girls… But Ángel’s mindreading powers had other plans… The target was Josué, and, for once, Ángel’s mindreading issues were useful… as he wailed, twitched, cried and suffered, he could see Josué’s intents, which, while not as disgusting as what he saw on Ana’s mind, per say, was enough to kick off his alarms. Ángel, despite feeling the pain (as he hadn’t fully recovered), ran to get in front of Josué, and unexpectedly, he’d say something that would’ve been proper meme content… If someone got a camera to record it.

Ángel:“Aaaaayyyeee, Bud, this is a rally event, NOT a dating sim.”
Josué:“How did you know?”
Ruuka:“Didn’t hurd him wailing to the high heavens?”

The girls then laughed, and this time it was Josué the one who felt stupid. Besides, Ángel wasn’t happy, but, this consolidated the sole reason why Ángel would be recognizible, and, sadly for him, said reason was the one he despised to a degree.

After this latest incident, Ángel would come again.

Ángel:“I… I feel sorry for what happened… It’s just that… We are still very unexperienced in this… W-we…”
Mirage:“You’re doing fine. Mind Reading isn’t the worst thing one could do.”
Ángel:“I mean, it’s a common power for Yumeisotitanian Humanoids and YHDs…”

“Yumeiso-what? YHDs? What is that?”, Mirage thought. And she’d soon realize that wasn’t the only trick on Ángel’s sleeve… or, should we say, under that eyepatch.

Ángel (by telepathy):“Besides, while not as effective, because I can only hear me and whoever I want to in a range of 100 meters around me, I can communicate by this as well… And this I CAN control. Say “Hello!”.”

Mirage’s mildly confused expression made Ángel laugh, at last, before he’d have to leave same as his two teammates had done moments ago: Ángel would have to make dinner, something which we know can end catastrophically.

Mirage was still a strong spellcaster though, so, she wasn’t that confused after all. But still, she felt like it would be a good idea to investigate this…

Afternoon-Sunset at Mosoto.

…meanwhile, back at the Firulais’ Spot at Camp, Ángel had burnt something to a crisp again, and almost started another fire, similar to his incident at Nevada.

However, this time, Jan, from the Rhino Squad, would come and teach Ángel, over the next couple of hours, to make some meals. And, while Jan’s results were by far and away better than Ángel’s, at least Ángel managed to make things that were decent-ish. Ana, however, didn’t seem to approve…

Ana:“Are you sure this is edible?”
Ángel:“I mean… It ain’t burnt. And I made it with Jan’s Help.”
Ana:“I don’t know… Being you, I wouldn’t trust it. And who the hell is Jan?”
Ángel:“Chantal’s Boyfriend, from the Rhino S—”
Ana:“That smurf’s boyfriend ?”
Ángel (a tad frustrated):“Ana…”
Ana:“Yeah, yeah, I’m not eating this… Are there any—”

Ángel, while patient for most of the time, had enough, and pushed the food into Ana’s mouth, kind of a rude move. But Ángel wanted at least some way to say “Thanks”… He didn’t spend 2 hours learning how to cook, and Jan didn’t spend 2 hours teaching him how to cook for nothing!

Ángel:“Just TASTE IT, and tell me how it is!”
Ana (with increasing enthusiasm):“This… This…”

Ana wanted to raise Ángel’s hopes just to smash them in an instant.

Ana:“This ain’t too bad.”

Ángel’s expression kinda marked how he felt.

Ángel:“W-Well… It’s better than to starve, that’s for sure.”

Very Late Night at Mosoto.

Not much happened for the Firulais later in the night. Ana got drunk and went to sleep relatively early. Tomás did the same, but without being drunk. He actually stayed up a bit further and watched some Anime he’d downloaded to his phone. Andrés and Ángel had their Pokémon Match, and Ángel came gut-wrenchingly close to finally sleeping in a tent, if Andrés would’ve committed an strategic error. So, Ángel had officially passed a week sleeping in a car. Josué was neutral. I mean, after what happened with Timeloss, he preferred keeping his mouth shut.

Late that night however, Ángel would still be awake. But this time it wouldn’t be his own sleeping issues, another mindreading incident to add to the 4 he had today, or Ana’s Alcohol Shenanigans (because for once, she forgot to do them…). It would be him plotting something…

He’d come over to the Nilpferds’ Tent…

Ángel:“Pst.”

Nobody Hurd him, so he whispered.

Ángel (whispering):“Pssst. Chantal!”
Chanty:“…what is it?”
Ángel:“I need some help with something.”

At this point, Ángel realized his telepathic powers would come in handy.

Ángel (by telepathy):“I have an idea on how to mess with Ana. I’ve just realized that she’s been giving me Alcohol… So I’ll give her some things in return…”

Chantal didn’t know how to respond to this. Did she just hurd Ángel’s voice in her mind ? This was all very strange. And the weird things wouldn’t stop there, as Ángel then asked something unusual.

Ángel:“Have you got any spare hair dye ?”
Chanty:“Uhhh… Yes ? Why ?”
Ángel:“That’s part of my idea.”

They giggled quietly, as Chantal got an idea of what Ángel was plotting. They then made the Short Walk to Ana’s Tent, One of 4 in the Firulais’ Spot at Camp. On the way there, Chantal noticed another one of Ángel’s makings… A “Red” T-Shirt was drying over… It seemed like it was cheaply made, but later, it would be revealed that Ángel had painted it… Guess who was the one who owned it.

Chanty:“C…C…C…P ? What does that mean ?”
Ángel:“Союз Советских Социалистических Республик. Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. A.K.A., the USSR, the Soviet Union. I actually painted that.”
(“Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik.”…)
Chanty:“Why the Soviet Union ?”
Ángel:“Ana usually bullies me over the fact I’m Russian… And the fact I live in Russia. But I’m not exactly Russian, I’m Russian-Japanese… A-Anyway. Have you got the hair dye…?”

Ángel whispered as he was starting to giggle again, very silently.

During what was quite a while, Ana, who was in deep sleep thanks to her drinking habits, wouldn’t realize what Ángel and Chantal would be doing to her hair for the rest of the night. Of course, they’d try their hardest not to wake her up with their giggles… And fortunately, they managed to do the whole process without waking her up. After that, Chantal left to her tent to sleep…

…and Ángel headed to the Aurora, feeling very satisfied for the day… He could hardly wait to see Ana’s reaction.

[SurrealCereal]

MCP’s Shitbox Adventures Episode 3 Part 4 - All Out War

It had certainly been an interesting rally so far for the Machinas Con Passione crew. A rally of ups and downs, literally and figuratively, as the team would go from winning to immediately having one of the worst breakdowns the team has suffered, and going from climbing a treacherous ascent in their previous running to enjoying a downhill blast down to Mosoto. The stage was rather eventful for the team, with Loris taking advantage of the opportunity to drop clutch (managing to destroy second gear in the process) and going overboard with the aggression on the handbrake, resulting in the handle being pulled clean off on multiple occasions.

And by eventful, perhaps it would be more fitting to say it was “irritating” or even “proper shite”, to borrow a phrase from Loris, the team mechanic who currently found himself buried under the car for the 5th time in 4 stages, funny how the math works out. On this particular episode of “Loris and Luci bicker about what was broken this time”, the hottest new show on the Shitbox Rally, the twins found themselves somehow locked in on the debate of whether or not they should patch or replace the tire, a discussion that found itself taking up more time than either decision would have.

Not helping was the side input from Maria and Giacomo, who had each taken the side of a twin. The battle lines were as follows:

Maria and Luci were adamant that the entire thing should be replaced. It just so happened that this was the only side that actually had an argument, with the points of “if we replace the tire, it’ll last longer than any patch or half-assed fix would” and “if it pops again we’ll be stuck here all day!” being met with the very sophisticated counters of “Mate, I can tape the bleedin’ wheel together with some gum and dirt!” and “I do not want to be tripped by the jack swinging technique again!” from Loris and Giacomo.

“Alright, that’s it!” Maria shouted, stopping Giacomo mid rant about ‘not having any healing water this time’ should he fall victim to the patented jack swing again. A silence fell among the squad as Giacomo, Maria, Luci and Loris all exchanged a brief moment of tense eye contact, before Maria continued. “We’re going to settle this. Like men.” Giacomo gulped, knowing that Maria could probably, no, definitely fold him with her pinky if it ever came to that. The thought alone was enough for Giacomo to immediately fold and surrender, leaving Loris to take on the two ladies himself.

Loris, not one to back down even when it is very apparent he should, stood up to Maria, getting in her face for all of two seconds before realizing he is much taller than her, and scooting back a bit so the two could make eye contact. “Right. Like men… Wait, what?”
At that moment, the warzone was revealed. Rock. Paper. Scissors. Maria smirked. “To the death.” At that, Loris cracked his knuckles, giving the girls a smirk before settling into battle position.

The loss suffered that day by Loris has since gone down in Rock Paper Scissors history, and after the tire was replaced, the MCP crew would move on to finish the stage in a perfectly average position, though the highlight of the day would be when the team drove up to the stage camp, leaving the car to find themselves at the foot of the most grand mansion Giacomo had seen since the team set off. Giacomo, with breakneck speed, ran off towards the mansion’s exquisite fountain and set off a goose chase that would more than likely end with something invaluable being broken and the crew trying to wiggle their way out of another disaster wholly caused by their own stupidity.

What else is new?

MCP - Fin

[MrdjaNikolen]

Team Chitco
Part 2

Stage 3: Lendehamn to Thornes

Once again, route was mostly positively uneventful.

-That was quite some ass-kicking. Imagine if two-headed had gotten to that dude before…Valentin?

• He would be dead
• Yes…but how dead?
• Very? Malavera would obviously be able to absolutely pummel him into the ground
• Shame i couldn`t have brought some Kaskaderkas for him to attack. Would be immense fun to sort that out.
• Providing he doesn`t figure out you are behind that…in which case he might decide to deal with you personally. He might lack potential knowledge and skills to do that, but others might.
• Either way, don`t get on their bad side.

Drive wouldn`t be particularly noteworthy, save for some tight sections of road, where driver would need to utilise all of her skills to avoid damage to car and environment
Upon arriving, Andrea and Pi would go to town and gather some supplies…and meet Chanty

Jakasxandra had stayed in camp and witnessed consumation of chili wodka, which was amusing sight
Upon return from town, best friends would end up being united with rest of group and absolutely in awe upon campsite they would use tonight

• I have feeling we are making good progress in regards to getting to finish, but are slow.
• Yeah, so far sounds that is indeed the case but on other hand it does mean that we dont need to worry about breaking down yet.
• It would be kinda pain in ass to solve potential breakdown
• Ye but i have an idea for that situation

Stage 4: Thornes to Mosoto

Fuel stop was to be expected and passed without further complications

In camp, best friends are once again with Hippo Squad

[Madrias]

Shitbox Rally - Stage 5

Stage 5: Mosoto to Lauda

Weather: Low 20’s, a few clouds, dry, with a decent wind.

---

A very well-maintained road leads us out of Mosoto, flanked by forests, occasional small villages, and small farms. It’s flat, smooth, and wide enough to support all of the vehicles with only minor slowdowns for the larger ones.

An echoing boom announces that Shift Happens has blown a tire. While it’s nowhere near as dramatic, Team Spy Kids also pop a tire, and incur the wrath of the Tire Pressure Monitoring System light that will now refuse to go out for the rest of the rally. Honey I Bought a S#!tbox also manages to let all the wind out of a tire in dramatic fashion. Peak Performance also has a popped tire to replace, and Ramjet loses one of the outer duallies, having to swap it out for another spare tire.
(@SheikhMansour , @Rambow , @HappyHungryHippo, @JCurtiss96, @Leone)

This time, instead of hitting something that popped a tire, Team Firulais drives over the tire shrapnel from the bus and spends an hour fixing the resulting torn brake line and then bleeding the brakes.
(@angelustyle)

Likewise, the Rhino Squad loses an hour after one of Thomas’ little fixes causes a minor catastrophe. A rat had chewed through their original spark plug wires, so Thomas grabbed some spares in camp and swapped them in. They were a bit too long and ended up in the radiator fan, which wrecked the cables, fried the alternator, and killed the battery.
(@HappyHungryHippo)

Team Hillbilly Rollers spends 3.5 hours on the side of the road, some of it spent cursing as they drain out the fuel tank, some of it spent yelling at Marie, and a bit of it spent threatening to pour all the beer out. Why? Because Marie, in her great and mighty wisdom, poured water in the gas tank “because it’s nasty and fish fuck in it.”
(@Knugcab)

The dry-rotted spare that Machinas Con Passione put on in the last stage comes apart and covers the road in rubber chunks, leading to another stop to fix it, only to have to proceed to the next stage at a significantly reduced pace because there isn’t another spare tire.
(@SurrealCereal)

Lauda itself is the capital city, housing 1.8 million people in ornately-decorated houses and densely packed streets. It’s clear that if you want to explore, you’re probably going to want a bicycle or to walk. On the plus side, if you can think of it, it’s probably here. The mystically-inclined can even find some minor magic supplies if they’re needed - and if they look hard enough. There are a few boulevards, with their adjacent areas being a fair bit less dense than the residential areas, containing theaters, bars, early cinemas showing silent films, and other places of business.

While vehicular access to the Support Train is pretty much impossible (unless you brought a motorcycle) with it being parked inside the Holsian State Railways’ most impressive station, it’s unlikely we’ll need many of the train’s supplies. After all, courtesy of Valentin’s contacts within the railway, we’re being lodged in a mid-range hotel near the station. It’s safe to say that toilets, showers, sinks, and food won’t be a problem here.

Spreadsheet is here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vQriVPEky_B00QiZ6lYrtLVt-u3XWPQW7CvfFNFordo91W4o4LYgWKmW6-SchgIpnTR4wQ6cfSyyQfl/pubhtml

[Knugcab]

TEAM HILLBILLY ROLLERS
PART 4.1 - WHEN INTENTIONS GOES WRONG

(Note: This writeup is about the previous stage)

Rock Town Boogie

Speeding off from Thornes in the morning to the tones of this, the butter smell was somewhat less unpleasant due to the heater being turned off. Not even Marie was complaining, she was laughing for herself instead over her little prank of rewiring the Primus.

“Marie, what the fuck is so goddamned funny?”, Andreas asked.

“Oh, nothing!”, she answered. “Just remember that I had a funny dream.”

Janne, on the other hand, laughed more at the Argonites having to change a tyre at the side of the road.

"Yeah, they can’t keep their things in order. Meanwhile, our tyres from the 70s seems to kee…

FlabberflabberflabberDRRRRRRRRRRRRRRrrrrrrrr…

“They seem to what?”, Andreas asked.

“Oh, nevermind…”

With a spare in “great” condition in place, the rest of the drive was rather uneventful, and arriving at camp, while Janne somehow made a still in record time, Marie was gulping some booze stolen from god knows where at an alarming rate. That led to her having a “great idea”.

“If I pour water in that stupid kid’s fuel tank…”, she thought. “HAHA, just imagine when they get a pike stuck in their fuel line or something”. Heading away to the ditch she filled up a bucket…

Unfortunately the booze had taken its toll and filling up the right car wasn’t that much of a concern…

“Stupid kid, now she will learn that cars does not run on this gross shit that fishes are f_cking in…”

TO BE CONTINUED…

Teams mentioned: @redfoxlol @Happyhungryhippo

[Happyhungryhippo]

Stage 5

teams mentioned or/and included (in order of appearance): Chitko by @MrdjaNikolen, Shift Happens by @Madrias, Firulais by @Angelustyle, Hillbilly Rollers by @Knugcab

In the night, a suspicious animal sneaked into the engine bay of the Legacy 320 - and it was hungry. Hungry for rubber, and it seems that the brand new spark plug cables of the Rhinos smelled the most delicious.

In the morning, Thomas wakes up with a terrible hangover, but … Chanty is nowhere to be seen. As he is not in the state to have any clear thought until he got some non-alcoholic beverages and maybe an aspirine, he decides to care for himself first, before he could be of assistance for Chanty.
Jan got up, too, and made Thomas something healthy to drink, and then started walking around the camp to find his girlfriend.

Chanty sat lonely in the grass and was crying terribly while hitting her head with a small rock, and Pi passed by, immediately running to her friend and stopping her from doing such things.

“Oh, no, Chanty, please do not do this, what happened?”

“I miss my mother, but Jan told me there is no way I can call her… but… I miss her so much!”

“Oh, I can totally understand this. Maybe I can ask Shift Happens if there is a way… they are capable of some magic, so… let me try. Andrea is also here, should she stay with you here while I am away?”

“Yes…”

While Andrea did her best to make Chanty feel better, Pi rushed to the campsite of Shift Happens, but they told her that they won´t help Chanty, but have valid reasons for that. They picked Lauren to explain to her, because that´s the friendly “camp mother” of them and would propably be able to comfort Chanty.

“You are Chantal? I am Lauren… finally I get to meet you, I heard so much about you.”

“Propably that I am a terrible person.”

“Not at all, in fact, I was told you are very lovely, maybe a bit weird, but not in a negative way at all. And I got some information about the issue you have, and I can understand it.”

Chanty smiled a bit after these kind words.

“Some of us could get you home if they had to, but it’s a huge use of magic power to do that, and you’d be asking one of them to risk not having any energy for the rest of the day in order to have a phone call.”

“So… you can´t help me?”

“No, sadly not in the way you asked, but… if you need a bit distraction and company, here are many kind individuals willing to give you support. So, I am afraid, if it´s really too much for you, you would need to use the emergency teleporter ring, but then the event is over for you. Just opening a rift for that is…not what we would do unless it is a real emergency.”

“BUT I WOULD MISS JAN AND MY FATHER AT HOME!”

“Well, this is why I think you should stay with us, and if you feel bad, we will find ways to cheer you up.”

“Or I need to have an emergency, correct?”

“Chantal. Please. Don´t even think about it. I like you way too much for you doing such dumb shit. Take my hand and promise me.”

“Ok… yes, you are right… I think I need to sleep over it I guess.”

Andrea guided Chanty back to her campsite, where Thomas was yelling at the car.

“Ah, there you are. Jan is gone looking for you. Damn, you look terrible!”

“You too, dad.”

“Yeah, a bit too much booze last evening. But well, now the car won´t start, some rat or marter has chewed the cables!”

“Don´t we have spares?”

“We do, we do. But my headache is too much to be able to do the change, fuck.”

“Let me do it then, I think… I can do it.”

Chanty changed the cables, but noticed that Thomas picked the wrong ones when packing their spares back in his garage. The cables did fit for the engine, but not the car: They are those of a 1988 Imperator 320 with that engine - and therefore too long.

“YES, CHANTY! I KNOW THAT THEY ARE TOO LONG! But let me try a fix here. How about… a paper clip? The previous owner has left some in the glove compartment.”

“I don´t know. But I ruined my t-shirt, damn. I liked it!”

Andrea, being a bit stressed with her own preparings for the next stage, proposed Chanty to hurry up a bit.

“Oh, eh, grab some fresh clothes, we better go showering, as we have to start in a little more than an hour, hm?”

“That is a good idea.”

When both came back, a hungover Thomas was still throwing tools around, but Jan was finally there and greeted Chanty with a morning kiss, and Andrea was happy to see that her friend is in good hands. With a few words, Andrea told Jan what happened, as Chanty herself was still not in the mood to say something, and Jan gently hugged her.

“Well, I think, if you can neither do without your mother and Thomas and me, we might quit as a team and go home.”

“ARE YOU MAD? DAD PAID SO MUCH MONEY FOR US TO TAKE PART! He will hate me!”

“I think Thomas will be grumpy about it, but he will never hate you.”

“I can´t do this to him.”

Jan walked over to Thomas, asking him about his opinion, and Thomas promised to discuss the matter with his daughter, asking Jan to continue packing their stuff.

“What can´t you do? Leaving? Come on, I miss your mother sometimes, too. It´s a shame it didn´t work well for long, but we will soon be at half the time we spend here, it´s not that you will have to wait ages.”

“So you do hate me now!”

“Eh, not at all, you are my daughter, I will never hate you. I might be pissed yes, but I was that already a 1000 times and it will all be fine again. So if you leave, we all leave. Can you please pass me the duct tape?”

“Here is it…Why are you just not running me over with the car, so that you can finally get rid of me?”

“Now that´s enough”.

Thomas sighed deeply, and his facial expression was serious. He decided to make use of the duct tape that Chanty passed him.

“I know you all have enough of me. So then just end… MMMMMMFFF!”

“Thomas, what are you doing there?”

“JAN! DON´T SAY ANYTHING! I KNOW THAT THIS IS A BAD METHOD BUT I CAN NO LONGER HEAR HER SAYING THIS SHIT WITHOUT BECOMING SAD MYSELF!”

“MMMMMFFFF!”

“But…how to get that tape off without ripping out her piercings? Thomas, that was dumb as fuck! This will hurt her a lot.”

“I know, I know! Shit.”

The crying continued, but was now a lot more silent, and Thomas regretted his drastic methods already.

“Come on, Jan, you drive. I am not feeling good, and she propably shouldn´t drive, too. While you two are in the front, I will try to fix the spark plug cables here in the backseat… and figure out how to remove the tape without hurting her, ok? I did the shit, so I will fix it, I promise.”

“m-hmm”

“Chanty, please, don´t worry. It´s just that I can´t stand it when you talk so negative about yourself, don´t you think that I as your father don´t suffer with you, too?”

“m-mh.”

They went off, and everything seems “normal”, at least for their habits, for a while: Thomas repairing the marter bites in the original cables in the backseat, Jan being totally focussed at driving, and Chanty silently dropping a few tears while cuddling with Rudolph.

“Thomas, do you have any idea how to get that damn duct tape off her?”

“Well, usually I use paint thinner…”

“MMMMHHHH!”

“Calm down, I said USUALLY. Alcohol or oil might work, too.”

“ENGINE OIL? DO YOU WANT TO POISON HER?”

“Of course not. Vegetable oil might work, too, and we are heading to the capital. I can buy anything there that could be helpful.”

Suddenly, they were interrupted by the radio, it was the Firulais having driven their car into a ditch. But when the Rhinos arrived at the scene, Angel was already pushing it out, so no need to bend the fenders here.
Not much later, they passed the stranded IP of the Hillbilly Rollers, with Andreas and Janne yelling at Marie.

“MFF!”

“Yes, I see it, I wonder what that gollum has done this time.”

“Propably it involved alcohol and rage.”

“I agree. Well, we better don´t stop for assistance, Thomas, they don´t look as if they would want to offer us some cookies at this moment.”

Only a few kilometers away from the finish line, the Legacy started to shake and vibrate.

“EH, Jan, what is it?”

“The computer says misfire, I will stop…”

“NO! WE ARE ONLY A FEW MINUTES AWAY FROM THE FINISH LINE! KEEP GOING! I can fix this directly after then.”

“But that feels not healthy for the car, its really… urgh.”

“Increase the revolutions of the engine by downshifting, it will cure the imbalance at least a bit. It feels like we lost all power at low rpm.”

Chanty saw that Jan had no clue what to do, and moved the lever from D to 3, forcing the automatic to lock the top gear.

“Oh, that … works with an automatic?”

“Jan, you really need to get driving practice, so it´s good that you are competing here. Shift manually between 2 and 3 depending on the road situation, and keep the rev counter at at least three, below that I will loose my tooth filling!”

“MMMMMMH!”

“Yes Chanty, I know you wish exactly this happening to me now.”

But after maybe three minutes and the problems getting worse and worse, with a bang the engine went out.

“Great, Thomas. This happens when listening to a mechanic. Great.”

“Come on, it was worth trying. Pop the hood, I need to see what happened.”

Well, Chantys warning seems to have been legit: The longer cables got tangled in the radiator fan and were properly chopped off, one after the other, resulting in one cylinder leaving after the other - and a short circuit that totally blew the alternator and the battery, and most fuses were thrown out of their housing. Thomas used the old cables he more or less repaired and a new alternator that he had as spare, but for the battery, Thomas had no replacement, but the car started with the help of a jump starter, then the new alternator took over, and after an hour of repair, the car was ready to finish the stage - if they found the hotel.

“How is that damn street called? I thought people as old as you are used to road maps?”

“Jan, don´t stress me! I have other things in mind!”

“MMMMMHH!”

“Yes, exactly that, but I have a plan. Looks like we are in a hotel, and… THERE IS IT! Finally, I thought our fuel would run out before we find that damn thing.”

Having a hotel with a warm bathtub, electricity and a comfortable bed made Chanty feel better instantly, and Thomas warmed the duct tape with a hairdryer, then using vegetable oil to get the glue loose, and after an hour, Chanty regained her ability to speak.

“See? I promised to remove it without pain, and I did it… Now, let me buy some car parts. You two could use the time for sightseeing, as we won´t propably come back here again.”

“You are mean. Really. But I propably don´t deserve better for being an useless daughter.”

“CHANTAL JOLINA NILFERT! NOW THAT I KNOW HOW TO REMOVE IT I CAN APPLY IT AGAIN IF YOU FORCE ME TO!”

“BUT YOU ARE REALLY MEAN, I AM NOT LYING!”

“THAT IS NOT THE PART OF YOUR SENTENCE THAT I AM TALKING ABOUT AND YOU KNOW IT!”

While Jan grabbed a few of his savings, visited a hairdresser with a still very sad Chanty (his hair was now grown impractically long) and bought himself a few clothes he considered interessing but good enough for a fancy restaurant, as he also took his girlfriend out for a romantic dinner to make her feel better, and it worked very well.

Thomas was meanwhile fascinated by parts that he never saw at home. In fact, he felt like scrutineering more of the local car models to understand how they work. Even if most of the parts he bought would not work on “earth cars”, he wanted to get them as souvenir of Holsia.

When finally arrving at a store that sold fitting 12 Volt Batteries, as most Holsians vehicles were stuck to 6 Volt, he met Angel.

“Oh… you are Chantys father, right?”

“I am.”

“I… am Angel.”

“I know.”

“Because you remember me for my… unfortunate incidents.”

“More for your apocalyptic cooking, but you sound as sad as Chanty.”

“She is not well?”

“Totally not, a bit her fault, and a bit my fault, so keep away from her if you are in danger of reading her mind by accident, you won´t survive that today. I know that I am sometimes harsh to her, but my points are valid, so I refuse to really apologize, but I also want her knowing that I support her in everything and that I see that I am also doing things wrong.”

“That… sounds complicated.”

“Anyway, have you ever seen such a thing? It looks like an inverter, but it isn´t one. Fascinating!”

“Or this one. What is that supposed to be?”

“Seems like something for a sidevalve engine, it doesnt surprise me that somebody as young as you has never seen that.”

“It might be of no use for our cars, but I could build some kind of… fascinating artistry out of all of that in your basket.”

“Eh, Angel… I might too, but I totally lack imagination and creativity. I don´t even make drawings or such things. Here is a bit of money for your own car parts. Can you build that piece of art today as fast as possible? And make it some kind of trophy, with the title “Best daughter of the world?””

“Of course, Mr. Nilfert. It will be ready by tonight.”

“Excellent. You can join me for dinner in the hotel restaurant then. Jan and Chanty are eating in town so I´ll be alone there. I think they need a bit time for themselves.”

After dinner, Jan and Chanty walked back and wanted to get a rest, but she stopped at the hotel restaurant.

“These fancy restaurants really taste great, but…”

“But what?”

“They… serve … for mice, not for rhinos”

“You are still hungry?”

“Yes…”

As Chanty ate more or less like… a large grey animal that is not an elephant, Thomas stared at her in disbelief from a few tables away.

“Angel, … it is like an accident. I don´t want to look at this, but I also can´t look away.”

“We also don´t eat formally.”

“Yes, also true.”

“So, I have prepared what you asked for.”

Thomas checked the “trophy”, considered it as good, thanked Angel and walked upstairs to get a rest, too, but found a notice attatched to the door of the Rhinos hotel room.

“We need some privacy, please knock first”

Thomas, returning from the hotel restaurant, didn´t feel like disturbing them as he was well aware what he might get to see then, walked off and knocked at the Hillbilly Rollers room.

“YES, COME IN!”

“How without keys?”

“Oh, it´s you Thomas, I thought it´s Janne. Marie wouldn´t knock first.”

Andreas opened the door, and told Thomas that Janne and Marie are at the bar getting drunk, and that he was about to join them, and Thomas agreed, but directly adressed Janne.

“So, Andreas told me that you are into… occult stuff?”

“Could be.”

“Maybe, having supernatural abilities and such?”

“Yes.”

“Hm, it is technically impossible for my daughter to call her mother, and … do you think you can call aliens to make that possible or even beam her to her mother for an hour or so, then bringing her back?”

“Thomas, WHAT? IS YOUR DAUGHTER “ET” OR WHAT THAT THIS BULLSHIT IS THAT URGENT?”

“I have booze left.”

“In this case, let me think if it is possible, but we need to use the old computer in my IP.”

Meanwhile, Chanty opened the hotel room door in order to get to the smokers area, finding the … trophy… Angel built in front of their room.

“What is that?”

“Let me see… Seems to be made of mechanic parts.”

“Detective Jan Conan, or what? I see this myself… but there is something written on it.”

“Shitbox Rallye 2024, 1st place…”

“Its not even over yet and we are barely in the top 10, what the fuck…”

“Could you please let me finish reading it then? I was about to solve the mystery. It says 1st place in being the best daughter.”

“Awwwwwwwww!”

Chanty ripped it out of Jans hands and cuddled with it as it was Rudolph.

“This is MINE then, get your hands off it.”

Jan sighed, but was somehow relieved that the issues between Chanty and her father seem to be cured again, and that the team´s morale is finally improving.

[Angelustyle]

Team Firulais

Stage 5: Dumb Fights, the “Braking” of the Tire Curse, and a Horrifying M.R.I.

(Mentioning @Happyhungryhippo [The Rhino Squad] and @Madrias [Shift Happens])

Early Morning at Mosoto.

Ana:“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGHHHHH!!! ÁNGEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEELLLL!!!”

Said Ana, sounding a roar of anger which was hurd through the whole eastern part of camp. She’d just realized what Ángel and Chantal had done…

And, while she had feelings that it would’ve been Chantal the one to do this, she knew there was someone… Smarter, who also looked for revenge: That YHD. That Kuril. That Own-Goal Scorer. That Single-Eyed, Russian-Japanese Mechanic.

She’d knock furiously at the Aurora’s Door. Ángel, for once, had slept really, really well. Being the best night he had since the one at Menes, and so far his best night in the rally. The Plush Rhino was making it’s effect. But of course, Ana’s scream had started to wake him up. And the true wake up call was those knocks on the door.

Ana:“Wake the f#¢k up, Samurai. I know what you’ve done, go out and meet you fate!”
(Reference intended there…)
Ángel:“W-Whut?”

Those were, ironically, Ángel’s last words before a small fight got underway at the Firulais’ Spot… And also Ángel’s last words for the next hour or so… Ana had the great chances to win, and, so it would be, as just a few tens of seconds after the fight became physical, Ana would recur to the almost always effective “Kick in the Gentleman’s Area”, and leave Ángel almost immediately resenting. It wasn’t too powerful of a kick (certainly not powerful enough to reduce Ángel’s possibilities to reproduce), but it was painful enough to make Ángel barely able to stand up for long without help for the next few minutes. And it also was hurting him enough to literally not allow him to take breakfast; his stomach hurt too hard after that.

The rest of the team watched nervous at first, thinking that things might get out of hand, but, after the kick, they burst into laughter (after all, those kicks were usually something only seen on movies or that sort of stuff). The only ones not to laugh were Ana, who was still Angry because she didn’t like her now blue hair (although, she’d later end up liking it, trust me), and Ángel, who was twitching wincingly on the ground. This time, not because of a mindreading incident…

And then, his pain just got worse. Ana then noticed her T-shirt just as Ángel recovered. This would trigger a chase that lasted some 15 minutes before Ana got to punch Ángel in the gut after he fell over by himself. Ángel’s clumsiness was sometimes his worst enemy. And he’d once again twitch as he was heading back to the car.

Tomás would drive for this stage. He ain’t necessarily a good driver, but, he lives in China, in a place of 1.4 BILLION people… And in Shanghai (one of the world’s most populated cities). He sure knows how to drive without crashing into someone.

Road to Lauda.

Ángel:“Smoooooth Roads… No failures so far… This feels like a dream… And at last I can relax… If it weren’t for Ana.”
Josué:“Does it still hurt?”
Ángel:“Just as it did hurt you to fail in your Casanova attempts last night.”
Josué:“Shuddup, you Jappie.”

The conversation wasn’t being much interesting, although it was getting spicy (“spicy” in the sense of probably going to generate a second fight), until they noticed something. Everyone had flats. Except THEM. For once they didn’t have a puncture. They were celebrating as their “curse” was finally over… Just to then suffer something worse… Because 20 minutes later, they’d find out something had gone wrong…

This is what was hurd in Radio Chatter, as the Radio in their car was on (without them noticing), and caught this piece.

Tomás:“G-Guys?”
Ángel:“What?”
Tomás:“I’m pressing the brakes and the car ain’t slowing down.”
Ángel:“Yeaaaah— Wait, are you serious…?..”
“…”
Ángel:“Oh, Блять. Alright… Can we… Like, Swap seats while we’re moving ? Or do I tell you what to do?”
(Блять [“Blyat”] = “F#¢k”)
Tomás:“I… Think I can handle this…”
Ángel:“OK, then, downshift as soon as you see those revs slow down enough, and, for the team’s sake, don’t hit the throttle. We’re gonna go Engine Braking testing mode… Of all the things that could fail, were the brakes the first to fail… When I was fixing this car, the brakes were amongst the least concerning things…”
Josué:“I mean… Aurora never really made cars which were exceptional at braking.”
Ángel:“They were exceptional… Exceptionally bad at it.”
[30 seconds pass.]
Ana:“I don’t think we’re stopping any time soon.”
Ángel:“You’re correct… Let’s try something, how fast are we going?”
Tomás and Andrés (at Unison):“40 KPH.”
Ángel:“Pull the car over, not entire on the grass, but enough so half of the car is— Hey, not so violently! Hey, Hey, Hey, Hey, Pull The— The Handbrake barely does anything, to the right, Tomás, to the right, think if you were learning how to drift! OK, OK, pull the car on that side, how fast are we going now? Move it not so abruptly, I felt like—”
[During said moments, some screaming and yelling could be Hurd… Notably, Thomas screaming in Chinese while trying to regain control… And Ángel yelling at him IN JAPANESE {talk about language malfunction} on how to do so. As Japanese ain’t the same as Chinese, the messages “didn’t translate” {quite literally}]
Josué:“Look, over there, pull to the right, Tomás, now!”
Ángel:“Aren’t we OK enough now that—”
[A bang was hurd]
Andrés:“What happened!?”
Tomás:“The car feels… Like if someone has lifted the left side…”
Ángel:“Lemme see… Oh, F#¢k.”
[Brief Pause]
Ángel (actually communicating on the radio now, the first message sent at will by them):“Uhhhhhh… People… W-We… Weee aaaareee ooon a ditch.”
Ana:“At least we’ve stopped.”
[Everyone laughs]

As the other teams passed them, they saw Ángel pushing the car out of the ditch… They managed to listen something more.

Ana:“C’mon Ángel, push…”
Ángel:“I’m pushing like a madman at the moment!”
Ana:“Just keep pushing like a madman.”

Some lifting up with the Tire Jack, Replacing the Torn Out Brake Lines, Filling the Car again with Brake Fluid, and making sure to bleed the brakes properly (one of the few things Ángel doesn’t do very well at with cars… But this time he did) took roughly one hour. Ángel, while still having the pains from the early morning, and the feeling of more incoming mindreading incidents ready to attack, would fix the brakes, and they soon got on the road again, in what was, for the rest of it, a rather uneventful day on the road, up to that point at least…

Lauda.

Ana felt right at home here. A big, big city, with commerce, a lot of people… She felt happy here. Sadly, someone who didn’t think the same was Ángel. He knew both of his incidents with Locals happened at somewhat major population centers, and with this one being even larger, he thought it was best to stay at the hotel.

After an hour though, he’d go out. On his walk thru the streets of Lauda, he’d meet up with Thomas, from the Rhino Squad, near a parts store.

Thomas gave Ángel some cash, and the order (or favour) to build a trophy for Chantal, so, Ángel bought the best tires he could afford (giving in the fact that Punctures and Flats and Tire Blowouts were a common thing for everyone [them included… Talk about having 3 punctures in a row]), and a few other parts, and after that, he got to work with what he had at the Hotel.

Some hours later…

Ángel decided to give himself a little break from building the trophy. So far, he was going very well… He just hoped his teammates wouldn’t come in the room and notice it… Specially Ana.

But then, he collided with someone from Shift Happens, without noticing. In this case, with Manikihali. Given most people in said team are taller and heavier than most, and Ángel is only 162cm and 52kg, he fell to the floor afterwards…

Ángel:“I-I… I-im so so—”

Was what Ángel managed to say before realizing with which team he’d cross into.

Ángel:“Uhm… S-Sorry…”
Manikihali:“Who is it…?”
Ángel:“I-I… I am Ángel, from the Firulais.”
Manikihali:“The team that was screaming on the radio just a few hours ago…?”
Ángel:“Y-Yeah… That one… We lost the brakes for a moment back then…”

“First team and/or person besides the Rhino Squad to NOT recognize me or us as the team with a mind reader… Nice.”, thought Ángel, who was still… A bit stunned. After all, despite this was the Host Team, Ángel was still a bit surprised that they were that big.

Ángel:“I suppose you’re the Team with the Bus, right…? I think someone had told me about you, when we were at Nevada…”

Here is where he’d begin to suffer… Literally mind-sentence, he was feeling something…

“Don’t, have, a, mind, reading, incident, Ángel…”, Ángel thought for himself, as he was feeling the next one coming. He would, for once try to resist. And, while he knew that most of the times he resisted, things would go wrong, he was hopeful that his mindreading incidents would retreat…

…But they wouldn’t. As their conversation carried on, Ángel would slowly, but surely, start to get more tense. His face expresion was starting to seem more… Painful. He began to tremble, and his tone of voice seemed to get more and more nervous… And that was all from resisting to the mindreading incident… Amongst the people who came later, being Kivenaal and Malavera, they could see him struggling. It was like an extreme version of holding up a sneeze.

10 minutes later…

It had passed several minutes of Ángel resisting his mind-reading. He’d been struggling for quite the time now. Manikihali also felt like something would happen. He already got the premonition a few moments ago.

Ángel:“A-A-Aaaand, uh… A-Any s-short advice you m-may have?”

It was weird that Ángel asked for the advice to be short. But it was a sign he was loosing that battle against the powers of his own. Ángel’s worst enemy, was, ironically, Ángel himself. His own powers were useful at times… But most of the time, they would cause agony on the very same guy who possessed them.

Manikihali:“First… This ain’t a race, keep that in mind. Your team seems worried about when they’ll finish… Or how well they are performing against others… Just don’t worry about that. And second, don’t overthink stuff. I see you get worried or nervous most of the time like you are now… If you overthink it, you’ll just extend your suffering even further.”
Ángel:“O-Ok… I-I need to go… B-B—S-Seeee ya…”
(He tried to say “Bye”, before changing it to “See ya”)

…and as he was turning around, the mind reading powers would kick in at fuller-than-full force. The scream Ángel let as soon as he turned around was similar to that of Ana earlier in the day… Only that, instead of having a tone of anger, it had a tone of fear rooted in desperation. The mind reading this time would last longer than the rest he had during the trip to the rally and the rally itself; normally, the mind reading lasts no longer than a few seconds. In some cases, Ángel reported feeling 15 to 30 seconds. In his worst case up to that point, which was the reading of Chantal’s at Thornes, he was there for about 40. The mind reading, which chose Kivenaal’s Mind this time, lasted not 5, not 15, and not 40, but 1… MINUTE. And 5 seconds. Way past the average, and certainly an agonizing experience for Ángel.

What did Ángel see, by the way ? If he was screaming this loudly, in this tone of fear, agony and pain, he must have seen something truly horrifying. To give basic ideas… Ángel didn’t like to think about the end of the world very much. Said question about the end of everything was one of the questions he overthought the most… Well… What Ángel had seen was the end of Aetherii. Thousands of years into the future. From Kivenaal’s POV. At that same time, it kinda reminded him how Yumeisotitanian Humanoids came to earth, which was in a similar fashion… Or at least, from what he’d hurd. Only that instead of escaping a planet that came down entirely to a war, the Yumeisotitanians came crashing down to the oceans of Planet Earth, after their planet, due to its unstable nature, “snapped”. The images, much like what you see after a major disaster, were shocking, to say something.

Ángel ran back to the Hotel’s main building, and, as his recovering process was far from over, he crashed into two locals, to which he properly apologized. He also apologized to Shift Happens in the process… But as he left Shift Happens back to their own things, they, same as Mirage, from Timeloss, felt it was a good idea to investigate this.

Afternoon, Night, and Late Night at Lauda.

After such an eventful day, Ángel felt like he wanted to go to the restaurant of the Hotel… He knew he had to deliver that trophy he’d made, and luckily, he’d finished a while ago.

After Thomas took the trophy however, Ángel felt the need to go back into his room. He was still affected by the events in the morning, the events in the afternoon… He now didn’t want any events to happen at night… He was fearful.

“What is going to happen next…?”, was the question Ángel often got that night. But he tried to ignore said question that constantly came to himself. He’d try to spread the words from Manikihali (“This ain’t a race”) to his team the next morning, but all he wanted now was to rest…

He wouldn’t rest though. After a while, came dinner, some gaming with Andrés, and then everyone came back to sleep… Well… I said “everyone”…

Ángel spent some part of the night wandering and walking across the streets of Lauda for some more, while everyone slept. He just needed to relax a bit, after such a day full of events that he could barely handle.

After that, near midnight, he came to sleep.

(…and as usual, collabs are open!)

P.D.: I just noticed how inconsistent I was while writing this, as a make the 4th Editing to this.

[Knugcab]

TEAM HILLBILLY ROLLERS
PART 5.1 - A FIRE, A COMPUTER MELTDOWN AND A TIN CAN

Already when leaving Mosoto for the trip to Lauda, the IP was showing some trouble, being very hard to start.

“It’s rather hot, maybe I gave it too much choke”, Andreas said, pushed the knob into the dash and floored the accelerator, with no luck in cranking it.

“Eh…maybe I did not give it ENOUGH choke?”, he thought, pulled it out again, it woke to life, but sputtered along, barely managing to stay running by some sensible fiddling with the throttle and choke. It ran like shit…well, until it stopped running.

“Considering that fiddling with the choke and throttle seemed to help, I guess it is fuel related and not ignition”, Andreas said.

“Yeah… maybe rust in the tank or something, considering for how long it has been standing still. Well, then it is probably stuck in the fuel filter, good thing I was prepared and have some extras with me…”, Janne mumbled, while unscrewing the fuel filter and taking notice that there was…very filthy water running out of it.

“HOW THE FUCK DID THIS HAPPEN?”, Janne said, scratching his head.

“Looks like if there is half a mud creek in the tank, why is all of this coming now?”, Andreas answered, equally confused.

The gold Primus was passing, with Chanty making an even weirder face than…her usual one…against the team.

“Stupid kid!”, Marie said. “Oh well, good news, they won’t get far!”

“Wait, what?”, Janne asked and seemed really curious.

“I put gallons of filthy water into their fuel tank yesterday”

“YOU DID….YOU DID WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU DO SAY THAT YOU DID DO YOU…YOU…RAHHHHHH!!!”, Janne said and lost his temper for once. “ARE YOU REALLY SURE THAT YOU PICKED THE RIGHT FUEL TANK?”

“No. EHM I MEAN VERY MUCH YES, I AM TOTALLY…no…OH YES I AM TOTALLY SURE!”, Marie said, in a tone that would not have convinced a 4 year old.

“YOU STUPID FUCK, YOU ARE TOO STUPID TO LIE SO WHO THE HELL ARE YOU THINKING YOU ARE GOING TO FOOL, YOU FUCKING DRUNKARD! I AM TOTALLY SURE YOU DID PICK THE WRONG FUEL TANK, THAT’S IT, NO MORE BEER UNTIL YOU…”

“Oh, relax, I can fix it”, Marie said.

“YOU CAN’T FIX A FLASHLIGHT WITH A BAD PAIR OF BATTERIES!”, Janne answered. “THAT REQUIRES AT LEAST ONE INTACT BRAIN CELL, WHICH YOU DON’T EVEN HAVE!”

Marie, somehow getting grumpy said that she had enough, grabbed the jack, lifted the car up, and drained the fuel tank into a couple of empty canisters in record time.

“FINE, I HAVE FIXED YOUR GODDAMNED CAR IN SHORTER TIME THAN IT TAKES YOU TO OPEN THE FUCKING GAS CAP, CAN YOU STOP NAGGING NOW YOU…”

Everything was interrupted by Marie falling with the canister into the ditch, somehow pouring out all the gasoline into the ditch again.

“Well, this was probably not what they meant with “leave no traces”", Andreas said.

“Oh well, accidents do happen”, Janne answered.

“I am getting tired of this”, Marie said. “I need a break from the two of you”

“Hey, where the fuck are you going?”, Andreas said.

“I just need to have a smoke all by myself to calm down a bit, five minutes, OK?”

“HEY WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOU THROWING THAT MATCH?”, Andreas said in panic when Marie had lit her cigarette up, only to see the ditch engulfed in flames.

“STUPID CLUSTERFUCK, CAN’T YOU DO ANYTHING WITHOUT CAUSING A DISASTER?”, Andreas said, now as furious as Janne, running for the fire extinguisher, but emptying it quickly.

At least the area saturated with gasoline was taken out, and the only thing remaining was burning grass. Janne managed to find a pond nearby and after some running back and forth with buckets of water, they managed to finally put out the fire, but still stayed for a while to be somewhat sure that it wouldn’t light up again. Finally, after filling up the tank with some fresh gasoline, changing out the fuel filter, they sputtered away for the rest of the trip. Needless to say, there was a kind of ice cold atmosphere in the butter-stinking cabin of the IP.

Arriving at the unusually fancy camp, Marie declared how tired she was of all drama and that she needed a drink at the bar (or two or twentyfive).

“YEAH BECAUSE YOU ARE CLEARLY INNOCENT WHEN IT COMES TO THIS DRAMA!”, Andreas said, still being upset, while Janne had calmed down. “Go watch her or I’ll tie her to someone’s roof rack tomorrow, for fucks sake”, Andreas said to Janne. “I am staying at our room and I will do it for the rest of tonight”, he continued, almost showing signs of regretting this whole idea.

Then, this little interlude happened.

Thomas and Janne went into the IP, and when Janne tried to turn the computer on, a smell of burnt plastics and electronics was spreading inside.

“Oh for fucks sake…”, he said. “…this is NOT good.”

“Wait…What? What is happening? Did we break something?”, Thomas said a bit anxious.

“I think so. Or rather, Marie broke something with forcing the connector to the tape player into the port upside down”. Janne started taking the computer apart and discovered some nasty stuff.

“Eugh…. This is a goner”, Janne said, shaking his head, looking at the burned motherboard.

“You mean…you can’t repair it?”, Thomas said, starting to lose his hope. “I…. I had so hoped to solve this problem with Chanty after all. She is wrecking my nerves with all her drama, and…”

“Are you trying to say that there is something I can’t repair?”, Janne answered in a grumpy tone. “Of course I can, but I would prefer to not have to do it with vacuum tubes or whatever exists in this world…”

Thomas looked unusually worried and sighed as if he had lost all his hope. All the strength was kind of running off him. “Is there really nothing we can do…”. It was obvious that his kryptonite now was Chanty’s well being.

“I’ll cook something up. Just leave me alone for a while…”, Janne said to Thomas that now was looking kind of doubtful, but respected his will.

A while later, Janne came to Thomas with a bag of salt, and a tin can that had contained sausages in baked beans from the Swedish military, but now was brazed together.

“Eh, what am I going to do with this ju…I mean stuff?”, Thomas asked.

“Well, this can is loaded with some very powerful stuff”, Janne said. “In case she keeps it close to her when she is asleep, she will be able to communicate with her mother in her dreams. But you have to tell her that. Having this power without the knowledge can cause really nasty situations, you know!”

“So that hocus pocus is supposed to wo…I mean, of course, yes, I promise”, Thomas said. “But the salt?”

“Well, in case she has any wounds she has to rub them with this first, because otherwise bad entities can enter through the wounds and take her into possession, so it has to be done very carefully!”.

“I understand…”, Thomas said, with a face that was turning into a mix of fear, curiosity, regret that he had even mentioned anything to Janne, and hope that Chanty would be able to communicate with his mother again. “…but tell me, what is it really in that can?”, Thomas asked.

Janne looked genuinely worried. “Oh, you really are not supposed to tell that. That may cause…nasty things to happen. And by all means, do NOT try to open the can up again. Like ever again. THAT….will get you into trouble!”.

Thomas, not knowing what he should think, still respected Janne since he seemed to know what he was talking about, took the can, thanked him for it and was looking for where Chanty went, to be able to show her the magic jar.

When getting back to the hotel room, Andreas asked Janne in a salty tone if he wasn’t supposed to look after Marie.

“Do you think earthquakes in Tokyo stops happening just because people are looking after them?”, Janne answered back.

“True. What have you been doing?”

“Oh, I just made a magic can for Thomas”, Janne said.

“ARE YOU TRYING TO GET PEOPLE INTO YOUR OCCULT STUFF NOW? I AM SO TIRED ABOUT THAT! UP UNTIL THE FIRST SHITBOX RALLY I THOUGHT YOU WERE KIND OF NORMAL! WHAT IS IT EVEN IN THAT CAN?”

“Some gravel… A couple of old spark plugs… Marie’s sweaty old sock…”

“And how is that supposed to help?”, Andreas said with a sigh.

“The thing is, it doesn’t. Damn, coming to ask me to do occult stuff. People watch too much TV! They think that it is just to pull something off in 5 minutes that makes wonders! The only thing that makes wonders in such a short time is the power of your mind, that is stronger than anything, and I am pretty sure the power of Chanty’s mind will overcome her trouble now…but she can’t see it until I have given her a fucking jar full of old crap”, Janne said and shook his head.

It all was interrupted by someone knocking on the door. “I think I forgot to lock it, just come in”, Janne said. Someone opened the door, said “I think this one is yours!” and with the help of a couple others, threw in Marie and closed the door quickly before Janne had the time to react.

“…hyuuuurggghhhh……”, Marie said.

“This feels way to familiar…”, Andreas said while looking at Marie lying on the floor.

TO BE CONTINUED…

[Madrias]

Shitbox Rally - Stage 6

Stage 6: Lauda to Björnes

Weather: Mid 20’s, a few clouds, and a light breeze.

---

Today’s trip takes us out onto a smooth, high-speed highway, wide enough and smooth enough for everyone, regardless of their vehicles, to travel between the two cities. It’s remarkably close to one of our modern interstate highways, which allows everyone to make some decent time on this stage. The train can occasionally be seen on one of the various crossing bridges, clearly traveling at a good rate of speed as well.

Unfortunately, someone must have been pushing the train a little too hard, as the train breaks down and has to be replaced with two smaller engines. This process takes about 3.5 hours to complete.
(@Elizipeazie)

Team Firulais is going to be making another trip to talk with Jayde for magic-based repairs after yet another burst tire. Timeloss also has some lost time to a punctured tire, and Cunning Stunts gets to patch up another burst bike tire. Likewise, the Spy Kids get to change another tire on their SUV after one of the tires grows a few warts on the sidewall, and Ramjet discovers another flat front tire, this time with a nail sticking out of it.
(@angelustyle , @Fayeding_Spray , @That-S-Cop , @SheikhMansour , @JCurtiss96, @Leone)

Transporttjäns Eriksson Aktiebolag Eslöv has to spend an hour on the side of the road after their van starts overheating. Everything seems fine after it cools down, and they finish the stage with no additional issues.
(@WoodenPlankGames)

Straight Outta Saratos also has to stop and fix an overheating issue - mostly by “letting the engine cool down” for an hour and hoping it’s nothing more than warm-ish weather and the high speeds causing the engine to get hot.
(@Shibusu)

After dealing with squealing every time they hit the brakes, Honey I Bought a S#!tbox finally spends the 2 hours it takes to change some brake pads… And replace the warped brake rotors on their car.
(@Rambow)

Machinas Con Passione is forced, once again, to skip camp and drive onward to the next stage after their attempt to replace some worn out brake pads results in smoking, flaming wooden brake pads, courtesy of the scammers getting scammed. Luckily, a proper set of used pads is found under the passenger seat, which will work for now.
(@SurrealCereal)

The Troublesome Trio and Theo have a spot of trouble when the car just conks out for seemingly no reason. After 3.5 hours of fiddling around and trying various different “fixes,” the car starts running again.
(@06DPA)

Team Peak Performance learns the hard way that misfires are bad for performance, and they have to stop and change out some spark plug wires. This is made harder because someone removed all of them at once, and they had to figure out the firing order.
(@HappyHungryHippo)

When we arrive at Björnes, it’s immediately obvious that this is Holsia’s main port city. At 700 thousand people, it’s another large city, with shops catering to a lot of seafaring trades, as well as a few other niche markets if you look hard enough.

Our camp appears at first to be a dedicated campground, but really, it’s just a compacted dirt parking lot on the outskirts of Björnes, with facilities provided by the HSR Steam Refurbishment Plant of Björnes… As well as plenty of noise pollution, which explains the lack of locals. At least we have primitive toilets that flush, and access to the plant’s shower room to get cleaned up… As long as you’re comfortable with a semi-public shower experience.

---

Spreadsheet is here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vQriVPEky_B00QiZ6lYrtLVt-u3XWPQW7CvfFNFordo91W4o4LYgWKmW6-SchgIpnTR4wQ6cfSyyQfl/pubhtml