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

[Madrias]

Shitbox Rally - Stage 4

Stage 4: Thornes to Mosoto

Weather: High teens, mostly cloudy, and dry.

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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.

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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

[Happyhungryhippo]

Stage 6.1 - Need for Feed: The Buffet

as I have typed too much for the post limit, I need to split it up. And bringing the morning mess so early means other teams can adapt to it in their writing before publishing their stage 6 events.

Teams involved (in order of appearance): Team Firulais by @Angelustyle, Shift Happens by @Madrias, Hillbilly Rollers by @Knugcab and Highway Hooligans by @Madrias

Early in the morning, Thomas got up for breakfast, also dragging Chanty out of her bed, who, realizing that it was about food, got up in record speed. She was a bit sad that her magic jar she got from Janne did not help yet, but she felt like she might have done something wrong, at least she did not have a nightmare this time, so she felt like this thing worked somehow. As the Rhinos had their room on the same floor as the Firulais, and Jan noticed that Ana now had her hair colored exactly as his girlfriend.

“Eh, for not liking you, she seems to be quite a fan of you.”

“Oh, you mean the blue hair? Well, I guess it wasn´t her idea.”

“Chanty! Was that your work… as a prank?”

“Ehm… maybe??”

"CHANTY! But… yes, yes, it´s fun. And she deserves that considering how she treats Angel. “Actually, some other campers were very surprised how you told her a lesson some nights ago to stop her forcing him to drink booze. You`re propably a real lion if you want.”

“But a cute one. Like this: RAWR!”

, said Chanty, imitating a lion, and both laughed when going downstairs to the buffet.

Thomas stayed for another five minutes in the room, cuddling with Rudolph.

“Ah, Rudy, please continue to make my daughter´s live a bit easier. I am really… at the end of my power. I am exhausted, please make her feel better, no matter what you do.”

Chanty and food is a difficult matter, and after half an hour, she more or less plundered the breakfast buffet. People became really annoyed, but also didn´t want to tell her, since it was well known by now how sensitive she can be. Lauren from Shift Happens debated with her mates what to do, and prankster Kiva came up with the solution, and Lauren politely told the upset hotel staff that Chanty is a bit special but does not do that on purpose, as she suffers from a rare disease that forces her to eat absurd amounts, if she doesn´t, she would get mindreading attacks.

The staff felt sorry for Chanty and just refilled the trays, and all problems seemed solved… until Marie finally got up, causing her chair to make frightening noises, being late for finally grabbing food because of her hangover that had to be cured with tea and aspirine first. She just grabbed the whole tray with sausage and casually walked to her team´s table, while the other teams watched in disbelief.

“WHAT ARE YOU STARING? I am hungry.”

“MARIE! YOU JUST CANT GRAB IT ALL!”

“Andreas, I am eating exactly the same amount as that discount smurf, just without getting up five times and bumping into everyone else, this is more efficient.”

“For fucks sake, bring it back, you have embarrassed us enough by now”

“JANNE! WHY IS IT OK THAT THIS FAT SMURF IS ALLOWED THIS JUST BECAUSE SHE´S CRYING ALL THE TIME, BUT I AM NOT?”

"Marie, you are twice her age. Just look at her. That´s still a confused kid, so b r i n g i t b a c k N O W!

It seemed to go well… but exactly at the moment Marie has put the tray back after… taking a significant amount of food out of it… Chanty already grabbed it, and Marie was in a too bad mood to not make a comment about it.

“DON´T YOU THINK YOU ARE FAT ENOUGH?”

“Funny that you are the one asking me that, gollum!”

Meanwhile, at the table of the Firulais, Ana leaned towards Andrés:

“Oh, wow, the two fattest here starting a fistfight, that will be sure some fun!”

“Especially for Angel, as a jap he surely enjoys sumo fights.”

, added Josué.

“This is not funny. Marie could process Chanty to cat food if she wants.”, said Angel, being very worried.

“Well, it looks like she wants to, so I bet 10 bucks on Marie”

, laughed Josué.

“Where the fuck is Thomas now?”

“I am here!”

“Not you Tomas, I mean Chantys father, I think she could need his assistance now. I better get Maries teammates here to stop her, they are propably sitting to far away.”

Ana held Angel back.

“Her old man is outside smoking, and her boyfriend is already back upstairs. You do nothing. Let´s just watch and enjoy.”

What was Ana said before Ángel pointed to nowhere, Ana got distracted, and Ángel began to run as fast as he could (he ran quite fast) to outside of the Hotel, looking for Thomas. There, he found him smoking, and tapped his shoulder.

“トーマス、トーマス！ マリーとシャンタルが喧嘩中！ レストランでは、今すぐ行きましょう！”
(Tōmasu, tōmasu! Marī to shantaru ga kenka-chū! Resutorande wa, ima sugu ikimashou!, translated: Thomas, Thomas! Marie and Chantal are fighting each other! In the restaurant, go now!)

“What ? I don’t understand Japanese.”

, replied Thomas.

“Oh, god, I-im sorry ! I meant, Chantal and… Uhh… Marie ? Yes, Marie, have gotten into a fight…!”,

Ángel tried to explain.
He wasn’t able to finish the sentence, but Thomas got the message and began to look what was going on in there.

The discussion between Marie and Chantal heated up to the point that Marie pushed Chanty away, with surprisingly low effort, propably as a warning sign before she really explodes, then grabbed some cheese.

“NOT THE LAST CHEESE! THIS IS MEAN!”

Chanty complained and stole the gouda from Maries plate, and that was finally enough: Marie pushed Chanty hard against a table, the one of the team Highway Hooligans, and she fell over it. Cody immediately felt like entering the slugfest.

“God damn it! You two spilled my fucking coffee!”

“Jake, cool it. Chantal, when we get you up, I want you to go right over there and punch Jabba the Slut right in the throat.”"

The trio helped her up again, and it could have been over without too much trouble, but Chanty made the mistake to feel encouraged by the Highway Hooligans to run towards Marie and start a second attempt to steal her cheese, and this time Marie gave her a slap, causing Chanty to fall, but as it was no longer restrained as Marie lost her temper now, Chanty crashed into multiple tables before hitting a pillar head first. Marie grabbed a chair and was about to smash it on her opponent, and it became very silent, nobody dared to deal with 150 kilo of hillbilly rage - yet. But as she was about to potentially kill Chanty, the first got up from their chairs, but were relieved to see that Marie put the chair back where it was and continued walking to her table. Thankfully, this incident was nowhere as violent as the one after stage 2.

Thomas, having heard the noise, came just in to watch his daughter begging for her life to Marie, and had no time to react, so he was also relieved that Marie was not a mean person - she just has no temper management - seeing Chanty defeated and crying on the ground, made Marie abandon her attack and walking off as if nothing happened.

Janne meanwhile joined Chantal and Thomas, passing Marie and giving her an angry look.

“Oh, I apologize for Marie, is Chantal alright?”

“I think so… I mean, she begged for NOT to be killed, finally. Usually she would have asked Marie to do her the favor of ending her misery, so I think she is totally fine.”

“NOTHING IS FINE! I WANTED THAT CHEESE!”

When they took off for the next stage, Chanty insisted on driving and was soon raging at the locals with her primitive vehicles moving rather slow through the capital, so thankfully the translator ring failed at dealing with her dialect.

“ORRR! DIE FAHRN HIER ABORR WIE DIE HEGGNPENNOR!!!”
(better not translate this)

“ORRRRRRRR! Statt Schatzi kannste ooch ne Schaufenstorrbubbe ans Steuer setzen und trotzdem sind wir schnellor als de Schlafmützn!”
(she considers Jan an equally good driver to a mannequin, but the Holsians still manage to be slower)

“CHANTAL WATCH OUT! THIS IS A PEDESTRIAN ZONE! STOOOOP!”

Thomas left the passenger seat and took a seat in the back. When Chanty asked what was wrong, he just answered that… he felt last stage that the backseat is also comfortable…
Chanty was singing loudly along to Thomas 80s cassettes, a thing worrying both other occupants.

“SLAY! That´s a good one. I DONT CARE IF MONDAY´S BLUE, TUESDAY´S GREAT AND WEDNESDAY TOO…”

“Pssh! Thomas! I don´t think this is a good sign.”

“Me neither. Where have you been? I am gone five minutes for a smoke and then everything ends up in chaos again. What does Slay even mean in that context? That she will slay us… by crashing?”

“No, in our generation that means something really cool… and according to Chantys mother, it´s quite clear where she has that from.”

“A LIE! Nothing against my ex, but this… nah, as if I was causing trouble all the time.”

“Thomas, … all your relatives tell different stories.”

“They are all liars. Damn, that´s disappointing.”

The highway - surprisingly close to earth ones and quite well maintained - was where a car like the Primus Legacy felt at home. The mighty V6 was roaring, the expensive suspension filtered all of the few bumps - as Chanty was in some pain after her wrestling with Marie, this was welcomened - and the weight and size of the luxury car made it easy to pass this stage. While many others had trouble with overheating, the Primus was exactly made for frequent travellers driving long distances with high average speeds, and even after 33 years, the car still fulfilled the purpose it was engineered for.

[Happyhungryhippo]

Stage 6.2 - Chanty´s secret and the salty prank

teams included, in order of appearance: Firulais by @Angelustyle, Chitko by @MrdjaNikolen, Hilbilly Rollers by @Knugcab and Shift Happens by @Madrias

After a quite unspectacular stage, the Primus Legacy arrived at the site, with Chanty still being unusually excited for her habits.

“Oh this looks like a nice camping si… eeeh, nevermind.”

“Damn! This looks like some muddy parking lot for industrial vehicles.”

“Maybe because it is, Jan… but well, for being one of the few men that have never been on a construction site, that was a good guess, I must admit…:”

“Dad, don´t insult him! He is a real man as you are!”

“Hey, that was a compliment, Chantal.”

“I KNOW YOUR SO CALLED COMPLIMENTS TOO WELL BY NOW! And why are we only seventh?”

“Maybe because we had a food stop even if we told you that we could buy you something for less money after the stage and don´t have to order food on the highway restaurant.”

“BUT I WAS HUNGRYYYYYYYYY!!!”

Chanty now blamed herself for the mediocre result and took an emotional support cigarette. As she still had some pain after the conftrontation with 150 kilogram of hillbilly rage, with every part of her body aching like she was put in a car crusher, she was relieved of the duty to build up the tent, and Angel came over to look for her. As the teams built up their campsites next to each other in order of their finishing, both the Firulais and the Chitkos were close to the Rhinos, so Chanty had her favourites near her.

“Oh…”

“Mh?”

“It is just… that you look worse than I thougt…”

“Yes, I know, but I was not really a beauty before, so a few scars more or less are fine…”

“No, Chanty, you are beautiful, don´t say that.”

“eeeh, no free flirting here, hugging is free, but I charge an expensive fee for more from her.”

, laughed Jan, knowing well that Angel would never dare to take away Chanty from him, also well aware of the fact that Chanty wouldn´t dare to cheat on him either, but he wanted to ease it all up with a funny comment.

But actually, Angel got it wrong and felt like being caught and called out, as he really does feel very close to Chantal and stress started to build up, a factor well known for starting mindreading incidents.
The next step towards the inevitable disaster was Josué passing by, being curious what Angel is doing, asking him in a spiteful way, taking revenge for ruining his flirting at Mosoto:

“Look who is the Casanova now!”

Just in that moment Angel also realized which song Thomas was playing with the car´s audio equipment to motivate himself for cooking… and the title alone is self-explanatory while it finally made Angel having the next attack…

This time it was almost taking two minutes. For spectators, it seemed like Angel was burning alive, and he went through Chantys whole thoughts once again, but more in depth. He saw again all negative things, like the ugly divorce of the parents, her first pet dying, being bullied in school, losing friends, being cheated at… but this time it went deeper into details, also making him feel what Chanty feels for, or better said, against herself, and it is not positive, to say the least. He was not even spared of Chantys most painful core memory, and that was her father almost dying from a heart attack in Sweden last year.

As if this was not enough, he also went through some happy events in Chantys life, and there were actually some very beautiful memories in her, like her first feeling of love, getting an ice-cream after falling on her knees as child, or sitting on the lap of her father when he drove, being allowed to honk, and many more. But by sharing her thoughts, these wonderful memories made Angel also fall into an even deeper hole.
He just discovered the reason for Chantys sadness despite keeping positive memories. For her, it hurts more to remember good things that are no longer there. Or, if it was still present, her first thought would be when it´s over or the loved one would leave her in the one or other way.

The one minute and 43 seconds felt like an hour, and Angel remained on the ground, not even trying to get up again. He seemed stuck processing the information he had just seen.
What Ángel found was a very similar sight to what he usually saw… He being bullied not only at school, but at work, at home, even sometimes by himself… The cold feeling of Far Eastern Russia with a douce of Japanese Awkwardness, His never-ending clumsiness which always made him a troublesome person, or, more like, a person who easily got in trouble. His endless Own-Goal scoring Carrer… And, how could he forget, the war at the Kuril Islands, which is the reason why he has only one eye.

But seeing Thomas nearly die, that was the thing that put Ángel in shock. He understood the sort of traumatizing feeling that Chantal may have gotten when that happened. It was as bad as what he had with Kivenaal who lost his homeworld. This incident broke Chanty so much that her already existing depression became a lot worse from that night on, and Angel was forced to read all of Chantys plans what she would do after Thomas dies from a heart attack, and this would be too dark to even mention a tiny bit of it.

Only one single thing was good about this extreme mindreading incident - at least he was now relieved that his stronger-than-usual affection to Chantal was not neccecarily romantic interest, more feeling of her like a very much loved younger sister, as they have matching characters and have lived through similar events.
Jan, medically trained, checked for Angel, and he was… more or less alright, but having lived through Chantys mind clearly ruined his mental health.

“Damn, we need to cheer him up before we let him go back to his team.”

“Hey, Jan, I got an idea.”

Chanty took off her t-shirt and gave it Angel.

“So, its one with an angel, and I think that fits to your name…so, the little Rhino you got from me won´t miss me that much if you have something else from me.”

Angel opened his eyes, well, his one left, and stared at Chanty, and he blushed a lot before desperately trying to look away from her, which was easier said than done with only one eye.

“Eh, Jan, better bring me another t-shirt, I guess he´ll explode otherwise. Damn, Angel, have you never seen a girl, or what?”

Angel thought Jan was going to kill him now, but the opposite was the case - Jan and Chantal, despite arguing on a daily basis, have a very trustful relationship and are rarely feeling jealous.

“Well, baby, I take my time for getting you something out of our trunk, because I enjoy the sight even more than Angel does, hm?”

Thomas, busy with preparing food, ranted at Jan in response.

“CAN YOU STOP DOING BULLSHIT? MY NEED FOR DRAMA IS SATISFIED FOR TODAY. JUST GRAB SOMETHING FOR HER, THIS IS NOT OUR FKK BEACH!”

“Yeah, we should monetarize this and make you an Onlyfans account. With that income, we buy Thomas´garage, I become the boss and make him my assistant.”

“JAN! SHUT THE FUCK UP AND FOLLOW ME IN TOWN TO BUY MISSING GROCERIES. Chantal, make sure that Angel is arriving safely at his camp.”

Chanty did as ordered, and Angel, in need to talk with someone about his latest incidents to not lose his mind, started with Kivenaals mind content, describing what he saw in detail - a mistake, as Chantal did not know about this yet and started crying about the end of Aetherii that Angel described a bit too detailed. When arriving at the nearby Firulais camp, the others quickly grabbed Angel, telling him to help with the preparations for the next stage, while Chanty decided to have a mental health stop at the Chitkos. Pi was shocked when she arrived.

“OH NO! I heard what happened this morning, but… damn, this looks so bad.”

“I had worse … incidents … already, it´s fine.”

“Well, considering that Marie was your opponent, I guess you are very lucky that she left you alive. But still… that looks painful.”

“OH NO! DAMN!”

“What? Have I said something wrong?”

“Damn, I need that salt… eh… eh… here is it. I don´t want to have even more demons posessing me than it´s already the case.”

Before Pi could stop it, Chanty rubbed a lot of salt on her wounds, making her scream in pain and crying. Actually everyone in her surroundings was shocked seeing her doing this to herself, even if such behaiviour was more or less expected from her already by those that watched her a bit in the past days. Bong ran towards Chanty, ripping the salt out of her hands and spilling it all over the ground.

“ARE YOU DUMB? DO THAT ELSEWHERE BUT NOT HERE!”

“BONG! SHE IS NOT DUMB! JUST SPECIAL. How about being nice to her instead of being so harsh?”

Pi could not look at Chanty crying, as it was too painful for her, she grabbed some booze, and Andrea gently hugged her and then turned to Chanty, also comforting her.

“Why did you do that? And why in front of Pi, you know how much we like you, and that this will cause her nightmares. It might not look that way, but Pi is as sensitive as you are.”

“I … was told so. Janne told my dad that I need to do this in order to not be possessed and now the salt is gone, now I will be an easy target for demons!”

Bong, as a doctor, insisted on getting the salt off Chanty, but she refused, and he went back to his daughter Jakasxandra in order to rant, but now didn´t want their guest to hear this.

“Have you heard that nonsense? Is that Janne a total idiot? And why does her father even encourage her to listen to that?”

“I have, but as my loving father you can imagine how hard it would be for you if I was cursed by life like her, and you would try everything to make me feel better, don´t you think?”

“Sure, Jakasxandra, but why salt? This seems like a… questionnable attempt at curing her.”

“I once talked to Janne when he had a booze-fueled philosophic moment, and he said, at some point, mmh, let me put it back together, ah, yes, he said, healing and cleaning out your self-inflicted wounds is helpful to actually improve your own strength and gain trust in it. I think what Janne was up to is… that Chanty is actually very strong, but she doesn´t know that yet or has forgotten about it.”

But both really doubted that the instruction given by Janne included using almost all salt at once, causing Chantal to still cry in terrible pain after some minutes, and Bong, even if being very annoyed at his blue-haired guest about the incident, politely told Chanty that Jannes ritual includes using one single grain of salt - since it should not cause pain, but only keep the demons away.

Before arriving at her own campsite, she walked over to Shift Happens, asking for Kiva.

“Oh, what is it that late?”

“Angel told me what is in your mind. The end of Aetherii, to be precise.”

“Why did he do this?”

“He needed to vent, I guess?”

“And, what are you willing to talk about now?”

“I don´t want to talk, I just want to make your life a bit better.”

Chanty, way too small to give Kiva a “proper” hug, grabbed his leg and leaned against it, and the giant Valraadi sighed. Not that the things in his mind didn´t bother him, but having - from his perspective - kids dealing with it was not his intention. But for the moment, having the affection and gentle hug of Chantal had a positive effect on him. He even considered his team doing magic to let Chantys bruises heal faster, but on the other hand, he thought that a harsh lesson like Marie taught her might help her learning from mistakes, in this case, carelessly challenging superior opponents.

“Thanks, little one, I appreciate it. But looking at your makeup, you cried a lot today, hm? Let me bring you back to your team, someone charging other peoples inner batteries like you needs to recharge herself as well.”

When Kiva again gave her a lift “home”, Chanty arrived just in time to enjoy the dinner that Thomas and Jan had prepared and went to sleep with Rudolph, waiting for Jan to cuddle with her when he was done washing the dishes, a task usually Chanty did, but with her hands being injured, nobody expected her to do it this evening, and exhausted as she was, she was already sound asleep when Jan and Thomas joined her in the tent.

[Angelustyle]

Team Firulais

Stage 6: “Mind Reader’s Hell”, “Champion Andrés Defeated”, and Ángel as a “Bold Action Man”

(Mentioning @Happyhungryhippo [The Rhino Squad] and @Knugcab [Team Hillbilly Rollers])

Early Morning at Lauda.

Ángel:“GYAH! Ack! W-What…?”

Ángel said to absolutely no one as he woke up from a nightmare.

Ana:“Wake up, Jap.”
Ángel:“えっと…おはようございます、かな？”
(Pronounciation: Etto… ohayōgozaimasu, ka na?
Trans.:“Uh… Good morning, I guess?”)
Tómas:“We were waiting for you to wake up. Where were you last night, by the way?”
Josué:“Don’t tell me you took another ‘Accidental Dose of Booze’.”
Ángel:“You guys know I am not even interested in Alcohol. It is more likely from you to buy and drink booze than me.”
Josué:“Remember when we were at Tokyo on the trip to Nevada?”
Ángel:“I… Honestly don’t. I just remember having a mind reading incident while I slept on the Trip to L.A…”
Andrés:“Anyway. How did you sleep?”
Ángel:“Fine, I guess.”

“That is a lie…”, Ángel thought for himself.

Josué:“Well then. We’ll go down to take breakfast and we’ll get on the road a bit early. Remember, don’t call too much the attention, Ángel. We are in trouble already for that since we came to this country.”
Ángel:“Alrighty. But first, I could go into one of the rumoured magic stores here in Lauda. Maybe they’d have a cure for these Unintentional Mind Readings, but, besides I believe it’s unlikely, I doubt they even know what a Yumeisotitanian is. Oh, and, before I forget, guys, this rally, this event ain’t a race… It’s like the Mongol Rally, if you get it—”
Josué:“What the hell is the Mongol Rally?”
Ángel:“A charity rally that goes from England to Mongolia. There’s no prize, just the reward of having fun with your family, friends, other people… Unshitting your Spring or Summer Season, in some way.”

With that statement, they showered, changed clothes, and went down to take breakfast.

The Breakfast Mess.

It all began after Marie did her usual things and began stealing from everyone, a bit jealous about Chantal. Ana and Josué got to joke about it, but Ángel was nervous.

(Tómas ain’t present… He arrived just as Ángel was wondering where Thomas was.)

Distracting Ana, he came down to tell Thomas (not to be confused with Tómas) about the situation, but given his nerves, he spoke to him in Japanese (Thomas must have been lost in translation at that point), and only after telling him in English, Thomas ran back to the Hotel.

After that, Ángel came back to join for breakfast, but not without trying to fix something that came with the Aurora first… The Heater and the A/C didn’t want to work, so he tried to fix it… Which didn’t work, but at least he didn’t worsen their situation: see, only Ángel knew it, but, the Heater was stuck in the fully on position, so, he’d secretly disconnected it as soon as they arrived to the US (before they even got to Aetherii)… for both safety and to not annoy everyone, specially on the hotter stages.

And after breakfast, he told his team he’d go on the search for the mentioned magic store or supplier.

An hour or so later, in Downtown Lauda…

Ángel had found his store. He wouldn’t check them all, just the first he could find. As said before, he’d look for some sort of cure for his issues…

Take in mind (an unintended pun may be done whenever I say those words with Ángel…), such cure doesn’t exist, or is capable of existing. Not even temporary solutions are on existence. And given Ángel’s race of ascendency, if the local storekeeper knew only a bit about Aetheriian Magic, about Yumeisotitanian magic, he’d know even less, if anything to a very minor degree.

Ángel:“P-Please. You m-must know how to help me with this. Couldn’t t-there be a way to…?”

The owner denied with his head, replying that he “didn’t know about Yumeisotitanian Humanoids”, but he’d “research about it, and hoped that he (Ángel) would hop again at Lauda afterwards”. Ángel, while definitely not able to find a cure (because there isn’t one), was at least a bit relieved by the fact he finally had a friendly encounter with the locals, as the ones at Menes, and at Thornes hadn’t worked out so well.

Ángel:“Oh… OK. Спасибо.”
(Спасибо [“Spasibo”] = “Thanks” in Russian.)

With that, he left back to the Hotel, and they began their trip to the next destination, Björnes.

Road to Björnes.

They left with high hopes of making up some time this time, but, it seems the tire curse hadn’t “braked”, or, at least, it did, but, only for a short period of time.

They’d have another flat tire. The 4th in just 6 stages. It seemed that whenever Ángel wasn’t driving (he hadn’t driven since Stage 1), misfortune struck the Firulais… And Ana had seemed to have enough as she was changing (or trying to fix) the tire as best as she could.

Ana:“Está maldita maldición me tiene mamada hasta los ovarios, carajo!”
(I better not translate this…)
Andrés:“Hey, Ana, calm down, you seem… Stressed.”
Ana:“Well, of course I am! Ángel painted my T-Shirt, my hair, and now we have yet ANOTHER flat tire, due to HIM not changing some 19-year old tires, these tires are as old as me! Ángel, malparido, ya verás cuando te toque manejar a ti!”
([…]“Ángel, you son of a b!tc#, you’ll see when you get the turn to drive!”)
Ángel:“Ana, calma. Si has visto, todos los equipos han tenido por lo menos un problema. La mayoría han tenido pinchazos.”
(“Ana, Calm down. If you’ve seen, all teams had at least one issue. Most had flats.”)
Josué:“Si, pero si nosotros hasta este punto hemos tenido 4 pinchazos…”
(“Yes, but we had 4 flat tires up to this point…”)

Josué spit a fact. He, same as Ana, was tired of so many flat tires. At least they changed the tire, again, and managed to do the rest of the stage without any other major inconvenience. Well… I said “major”…

Ángel (on the radio):“I don’t know if anyone can hear me, but, uh… Our wipers somehow have decided to work at will, Josué is pulling the lever, and the wipers just won’t go off. They aren’t squeaking or anything, but they don’t want to go off.”
Josué:“How much horsepower does this thing have?”
Ángel:“I think it had like 60… something, maybe a bit less, from the factory. When I tested it on the Dyno, it did 57 or something like that, not bad for a 4-pot, not bad for a 1.4l engine, and not bad for a car with 42 years of age.”
Josué:“So, 57?”
Ángel:“Yup, 57. Well, 56 now. The wipers just don’t want to shut down.”

Björnes.

Ángel:“Этот город… дарит мне атмосферу Владивостока. Если бы здесь не было жарко, я бы чувствовал себя как дома.”
(Pronounciation: Etot gorod… darit mne atmosferu Vladivostoka. Yesli by zdes’ ne bylo zharko, ya by chuvstvoval sebya kak doma.
Trans.:“This city…gives me Vladivostok vibes. If it weren’t hot here, I would actually feel at home.”)

Tómas:“这个地方让我想起了我的父母。”
(Pronounciation: Zhège dìfāng ràng wǒ xiǎngqǐle wǒ de fùmǔ.
Trans.:“This place makes me think of my parents.”)

It truly wasn’t exactly the best place to sleep, or to do anything. But at least Ángel got the vibes. Plus, the weather helped him to adapt to the conditions in Okinawa, which he expected to be a lot warmer than Vladivostok. Why Okinawa? Ángel would move there after the rally ended… He needed to feel closer to his family, after several years of living in Russia.

However, the thing that made this day “Mind Reader’s Hell”, was yet to come.

Afternoon at Björnes.
“Mind Reader’s Hell” begins.

It all seemed to be a good day for Ángel, despite the morning incidents and the flat tire, and the seemingly stuck in “ON” position wipers (which turned off as soon as they shut the car down, but would turn on again, whenever they turned the car back on). However, later in the afternoon, he would suffer a catastrophic mind reading incident.

The incident left him in such a shock that he later insisted for the other people in his team to drive for him in the next stage (Stage 7) as well as the next stage after that in which he would drive… He needed a little break.

He didn’t knew if telling Mirage from Timeloss, or the people of Shift Happens. He didn’t knew if trying to meet new people; while Marie wasn’t at all in the list of people Ángel would like to meet here, after the breakfast incident at Lauda, Ángel felt like talking to Janne might be a good idea (because he didn’t knew the occult things were… Fake). He could also come back to the Chitcos, or try chatting with his own team. But he didn’t know what to do. He was so altered by having 2 mind reading incidents that lasted over a minute in just 2 days, that he was essentially crumbling. He ultimately recurred to a very very short talk with Kivenaal, from Shift Happens, the victim of the mind reading incident prior to the one of today. The talk was about what Ángel had seen, and let’s just say that what he said didn’t improve much the situation. He told Kivenaal exactly what he saw, in his own words. But that hurted Chantal even further, or, so he saw it… So he preferred to not mention what he’d seen in Chantal’s Mind… for now, at least.

What he knew was that he would have the usual Pokemon Match of the Night, and that he’d make dinner; he did said thing first, making Bolognese Pasta, with surprisingly good results; even Ana said it was good. And then came the Pokemon Match with Andrés, for the tent…

In Andrés’ head, this was the music that sounded when he faced Ángel in this game…

…and this is the music that Ángel hurd in his head when facing Andrés.

(Note how they both come from the same game… Just that Andrés’ can be found very early in the game, and Ángel’s is the theme of what is, essentially, the final boss of the game…)

“Why do I hear boss music?”, he wondered. And, boy, it was their longest battle to date. The match lasted almost half an hour (imagine how much strategy they had in place)… And for once, a miracle happened.

Ángel:“Did I just…?”
Andrés"Condamner."
(“Damn.”, in French.)
Ángel:“私の勝ち ！ とりあえず勝てた！ 実際、私はアンドレスに勝ちました！ ついに ！”
(Pronounciation: Watashi no kachi! Toriaezu kateta! Jissai, watashi wa Ando resu ni kachimashita! Tsuini!
Trans.: “I win! I won for once! I actually beat Andrés! FINALLY!”)
Andrés:“Very well played, Ángel.”

The disasters of today were forgotten a bit by this one moment of happiness, as Ángel screamed of joy in the same tone a Japanese TV Game Show Host would.

However, Ángel had gotten so accostumed to the Aurora, that he honestly preferred sleeping in it rather than sleeping in a tent, so, he allowed Andrés to actually sleep in his tent for tonight.

Ángel:“Next time, we will actually dispute for that tent, though.”
Andrés:“I’ll make sure you don’t defeat me next time.”
Ángel:“Sure, Champion Andrés…!”

Ángel said jokingly (making a bit of a reference to the game they were playing), before they both noticed something… Someone had broken into their car’s trunk… Guess who was looking for booze.

Ángel:“おい ！そこで止まって下さい！”
(Pronounciation: Oi ! Sokode tomatte kudasai!
Trans.:“Hey! Stop right there!”)

Ángel shouted as he saw Marie doing her usual things again… And, for once, someone caught her “in fraganti”. They began chasing her thru camp, and said chase lasted long enough for Tómas to join as well. During said chase, one question arose…

Andrés:“Why the hell are we chasing her ? I mean, didn’t you say you don’t like Alcohol ?”
Ángel:“I said that, but I’m doing this for both Ana and Josué, and for you too, because Imagine how infuriated will Ana be realizing her beer got stolen.”
Tómas:“I mean… I’ve seen what happened between her and Chantal, so, I’m coming with you guys.”
Ángel:“彼女を驚かせようとします…”
(Pronounciation: Kanojo o odoroka seyou to shimasu…
Trans.:“I’ll try to catch her up by surprise…”)
Andrés:“What ?”
Ángel:“Uh… Nothing. You two go and persuade her, I’ve got a plan with some bold action.”

Without thinking it too much, Ángel would take a detour from the main chase, and divert into the next point the chase would arrive to. Marie wouldn’t notice, but Ángel did the tactic perfectly… By tackling her. It was good enough to stop her and make her fall over. “I’M THE BOLD ACTION MAAAAN…!”, would say Ángel before tackling Marie from the side, and, as said, the plan would go perfectly…

…Until the beer bottles shattered upon impact to the ground.

Ana (from the distance):“…What was that?”
Ángel:“Oh, crap.”
Marie:“I didn’t do anything, he broke them!”
Ángel:“Nuh-uh, SHE did, she was trying to steal it!”

They both said, pointing at each other.

Ana:“Andrés, is that true ?”
Andrés:“They both broke it.”
Ángel (almost at the same time as Marie):“何 ？”
(Pronounciation: Nani?
Trans.: “What?”)
Marie (almost at the same time as Ángel):“WHAT?”
Ángel:“I mean… You could’ve as well just asked for it, we are a bit more loose on this than the…”

…but again, Ángel wouldn’t finish before the person he was talking to left, in this case, Marie.

Ángel:“…rest. sigh”
Ana:“Well… You were the one who broke the beer, so, get those hands ready, we’re not cleaning any of YOUR mess.”
Ángel (a bit… annoyed):“…Really?”

So, Ángel would have to pick up the pieces of Glass by himself, by Ana’s Orders… Making himself some cuts in his left hand which he easily recovered from with some gauze and medical tape. After all, the beer wouldn’t have shattered if Ángel wouldn’t have made such an abrupt -yet brutally effective- move.

After that, and some more, they all went to sleep… Except Ángel. By 4 Moon (a very rough equivalent to what would be 10-11PM on earth), he was still awake, looking at the stars, wondering what to do. While the advice of telling the others that the rally wasn’t a race was… Working (?), the one about not overthinking about stuff continued to “not translate”.

And, again, Collabs are open as usual.

[Madrias]

Shitbox Rally - Stage 7

Stage 7: Björnes to Drur

Weather: Mid 20’s, some clouds, low but gusty winds.

---

A well-built and wide road carries everyone at a decent pace on the shockingly-flat first half of the trip. The second half has some hills in it, but nothing so awful that it would be a problem.

For Transporttjäns Eriksson Aktiebolag Eslöv, it’s a rough day. 3.5 hours lost to changing the failed water pump that was missed yesterday.
(@WoodenPlankGames)

Rhino Squad bursts a tire early on in the stage. The Spy Kids manage to pop a tire as well to keep them company.
(@HappyHungryHippo, @SheikhMansour)

Team Hillbilly Rollers spent a couple hours on the side of the road trying to find some mercy bush quills to get rid of the horrible smell in the van. After a few hours of looking around, but finding nothing except some normal-smelling flowers, they’re back on the move.
(@Knugcab)

Straight Outta Seratos has a similar problem to TEAE, losing 5 hours in total. 3.5 hours to the water pump replacement… And the other 1.5 hours moving cargo around to access the engine.
(@Shibusu)

Machinas Con Passione spends an hour “fixing” a misfire by wrapping all of the spark plug wires in electrical tape. It doesn’t work, but Giacomo swears it’s made a difference.
(@SurrealCereal)

Drur itself is a sizable town of roughly 43,000 people with a great view of the ocean. The hillside location is a callback to the medieval origins of the town, offering an excellent defense from archers and invaders long ago. The center of town holds a lot of older buildings and architecture, slowly getting more modern the further out you go. If you need common goods, you shouldn’t have any problem finding them here.

Our camp, however, is not in the town. The support train is parked on a spur in a nearby yard, normally used for rolling stock for the main station in Drur. Our camp is just off to the side, in a nice grassy clearing perfect for pitching tents. Unfortunately, there are no services in the camp, but it’s a short few minute walk to some actual toilets used by the staff and crews at the yard.

---

Spreadsheet is here: SR2024 Stage Results - Google Drive

[Happyhungryhippo]

Stage 7.1 - The BetterWheel

teams included: Highway Hooligans by @Madrias, Firulais by @Angelustyle (only mentioned) and Fuist by @Djadania

The night was free of interruptions, and Chanty started her day with a morning cigarette, while Thomas complained about back pain - he definitely preferred the hotel bed from the previous night.

At the same time, after having a session on the men´s toilet in the office building of the adjacent plant, Jan met Jake Storm, who was about to do what Jan just finished.

“Jan, do you have a minute?”

“Sure… what is it?”

“Do you remember me, too?”

“Yes, last year´s 24h in Sweden. You are… eh, I have a 33 percent chance to get this right now.”

“Jake, yes. And last year is exactly the point. Chantal looks quite banged up…”

“Sadly, that´s normal for her. She´s great at getting into trouble. We even can´t go bowling without her injuring herself. But it´s nothing serious, looks worse than it is.”

“Not only physically… I mean, she gained at least 10 kilos since then, and … well, she was more a shy one in Sweden, and also cried a bit there, too, but she´s totally exalted here.”

“I know what you mean, but you can believe me that I try everything to…”

“JAN! THAT WAS NOT AN ACCUSATION! But something must have happened since then, and I am just worried. Wasn´t that mindreader with you yesterday?”

“Yes… well, I wish he wasn´t, not that I don´t like him, his incidents are just bad for himself and also for Chanty who suffers a lot from causing Angel that pain. Yesterday it seems he read the whole mind at once.”

“Yes, I noticed that Angel is … very much down today. But, do you have a clue why Chantal´s state became worse after Sweden?”

“No, I mean, there was a lot happening. She bonded with an elk she had to leave… well, she even cries about throwing away a plush toy. But her first car was destroyed, and we had a DNF, that was hard to swallow. Not to forget Thomas was almost dying and I broke my foot in a serious crash. I guess all at once was too much for her, so Thomas and me were against competing here, but… well, she begged so much for it that we registrated.”

“How about asking Angel what he saw, he maybe knows what it is?”

“Are you sure? I guess dealing again with what he saw isn´t pleasant.”

“Jan, it is well visible that Angel really loves Chanty, not what you think, but…”

“Yes, we figured it out which relation they have, don´t worry. I think he sees her as his little sister.”

“So, Jan, if Chantal was your little sister and in need of help, wouldn´t you grab a rose with thorns for that?”

The time that passed until their departure was not eventful, in fact, it was almost boring this time. Chanty insisted on driving again, and nobody wanted to talk her out of it in order to keep her happy. She raced off with quite a pace, soon making her teammates look for the grab handles. Jan felt extremely uncomfortable, and as you should do when you are not sure if to panic or not, you look for the staff, and Jan decided to look towards Thomas, who nervously played with some buttons and had put his seat upright, as if he prepared for an emergency…

“Baby, are you sure that you are in the mood to drive?”

“SURE! Does that look like I am not motivated?”

“That´s not the point, eeh, your father is rarely scared in cars but he doesn´t look too happy…”

“It´s just his back pain, RIGHT DADDY?”

“I think if you continue driving like this my back pain transforms in no pain at all up there in heaven.”

Just in that moment, a tire popped, causing the car to spin. Even Thomas was scared at that speed, and somehow Chanty prevented them from ending in the ditch, not really getting how she managed to do that.

“That was… impressive. Well done.”

“Thanks…”

Chanty froze in her position, and tears started to pour down her cheeks. Another panic attack was about to happen, and it had to be avoided at all cost, if it was not too late for that already. Thomas looked to Jan, who also froze in his position, holding up the roof handle of the car that he ripped off.

Thomas was the first to react, addressing Chanty in order to distract her from getting one of her panic attacks.

“Let´s get out of here. Damn, I need a smoke. Chanty, you join me?”

“Y…e…s… do you have a cigarette for me?”

After getting out of the vehicle, Thomas opened the boot, already ready to complain again.

“OF COURSE THAT SHIT SPARE WHEEL IS ALL DOWN THAT MESS HERE, CRAP!”

“It… isn´t.”

“What do you mean, Chanty? The spare wheels of these cars are below the trunk space, not on the underbody of the vehicle like some other brands.”

“I don´t mean that.”

“CHAAAAAAAAAAANTY, WHERE IS MY SPARE TIRE?”

“I… felt a subwoofer would be of better use in that spot.”

“So that means we have no spare tire?”

“No…I mean… yes. We don´t.”

“CHANTAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAL!!!”

“But… now you can listen to your favourite music even louder… when calling a towtruck…”

“JUST SHUT THE FUCK UP!”

Thomas yelled a bit too harsh at his daughter that sat down and started crying, and a very pissed Jan took over and comforted her. Just in that moment, the Team Fuist stopped.

“Are you in need of help?”

“Actually yes, I need a spare tire fitting on my car, I have 5x115…”

“Eww, that´s a weird one. I am afraid our spare doesn´t fit. But, I have some tirefit and a compressor, if you need one…it is from betterDeals, so please do not expect too much of it…”

“Thanks, the tire damage isn´t too extensive, I think… I can repair it. Who are you, by the way, I am Thomas.”

“Louis. And that is Marceline. I think we haven´t met yet.”

“The slenderman there is Jan, my daughter´s boyfriend, and that smurf is Chantal, …”

“Your daughter?”

“Yep.”

“I think that´s the hungry one from yesterday. That fight looked nasty.”

Louis laughed a bit.

“Eww, it would be better not to tell her that´s your first thought when you see her. She is a bit sensitive.”

“I can see and hear that… damn, looks like she´s really not well right now. I guess anyone with blue hair is sensitive, because you just don´t dye your hair like that without serious psychological problems”

, answered Marceline.

“That´s a stereotype, come on, I know you didn´t mean it offensive but it actually is, so don´t ruin our first impression here.”

“Don´t worry, your first impression was giving us stuff to fix the tire, so…”,

said Thomas, already fiddling with the tirefit, while Jan slowly managed to stop Chanty from crying. She considered herself stable enough for driving when Thomas told his teammates that the tire is fixed, and she made use of the subwoofer, as Marceline passed Chanty a proper adapter for the Aux jack.

“ARGH. THAT IS NOT MUSIC, THAT IS NOISE. A very unpleasant one. And why does it just repeat the same stupid line over and over?”

“Daddy, THIS IS ART! It´s a queer-friendly band, and the text is addressing the toxic boomer mentality.”

“So I have to feel… adressed?”

“Nah, you are cool. Unlike uncle Wolfgang.”

“My brother is a bit… difficult, yes, but… that´s normal in families that they have difficult relatives.”

“Dad. This “come on, it is not that bad, get along with it” is exactly this boomer attitude destroying the mental health of us young people.”

“COULD YOU TWO STOP ARGUING PLEASE?”

, and it was really rare that Jan exploded, as he was otherwise the calm one of the trio, so Chanty returned her attention to the road and Thomas was pretending that he was enjoying the landscape.

[Knugcab]

TEAM HILLBILLY ROLLERS
PART 6.1 - FELINE TARTARE

TW: DEAD ANIMALS, GORE-ISH

Surprisingly enough, the trip to Björnes, as well as setting up the camp there, had been very undramatic. Well, except for Marie complaining that she didn’t want to get to some childish piece of shit town (finally convinced by Janne and Andreas that it had absolutely nothing to do with the Swedish childrens TV show “Björnes Magasin” from the 80s), Marie stealing beer and…well, if someone saw the “semi public shower experience” that Janne and Andreas forced Marie into, that could be a sort of drama in itself.

However, in the rather warm environment, the butter Chanty once put in the heating system of the IP was now really starting to smell like shit.

“RAHHHH I CAN’T STAND THIS ANYMORE!”, Marie said after some miles.

“Driving with the sunroof and windows open won’t do shit anymore”, Andreas said. “Damn, and no recirculation either, becausee…well, the 70s.”

“You know how they made these cars?”, Janne said. “First, the heater core was coming down the production line, and then they assembled a car around it. I refuse to disassemble half of the interior to get to this!”

“So, we’re going to smell this shit getting worse and worse for every day?”, Andreas asked. “You can forget about that!”

“Nah…I guess I have a better idea. Do you remember the mercy bush?”, Janne said.

“Yes, and I remember I could hardly drive because of that smell…”

“M-hm. But we have a smell now that makes it hard to drive, too!”, Janne answered. “If you have to drive at half throttle in first gear, then be it. I mean, it has probably cleansed the car by tomorrow. And what we don’t tell Shift Happens won’t bother them.”

“Yeah”, Andreas said. “But we have to be really sneaky then”.

After walking and walking through the scenery in heat that our friends weren’t used to, for some miles, no mercy bush was to be found.

“This smells…boring. And this… And this…”, Janne said while sniffing every plant at the side of the road, in search of a replacement.

TW!

“This smells…gross”, Marie said, finding….something at the side of the road.

“What smells gross?”, Andreas asked, while Marie got some new ideas about pranking Chanty.

“Oh, just some…dirty water in the ditch”, she said, taking a plastic bag she had forgotten in her pocket somehow, to wrap around her….discovery. A half eaten stray cat that some larger predator probably had taken, just to be scared away by some even larger predator, or whatever had happened.

“Nah, there is nothing to find here, let’s go back to the car”, Janne said.

Somehow, Marie carrying the plastic bag went on unnoticed walking behind Janne and Andreas. She threw it into the rear of the van, and the gross butter smell in the passenger compartment somehow managed to hide the gross dead cat smell in the cargo area. Dizzy from the stench, our friends arrived at camp, as one of the last teams.

“OK, I have no choice, I’ll have to disassemble this shit and clean it up!”, Janne said, immediately starting to take out the dashboard of the IP.

Meanwhile, Marie noticed the gold Primus left unsupervised for some reason. She left the plastic bag with the half eaten cat inside on the hood, and left a little note taped to the plastic bag.

Totally undiscovered by Janne and Andreas that was very busy with arguing if that wiring, that cable, that screw was necessary to loosen to be able to get the heater core out of the IP.

TO BE CONTINUED…

[Happyhungryhippo]

Stage 7.2 - Sport, mean pranks and an adventure

teams included: Firulais by @Angelustyle, GECA by @Elizipeazie, Hillbilly Rollers by @Knugcab, Chitko by @MrdjaNikolen and Highway Hooligans by @Madrias

The Rhinos arrived with a surprisingly competetive result, thanks to Chantys maniac driving.

“I can´t believe it, we made it here alive!”

“You can believe on sundays, Jan. I didn´t know you were religious. Knowing is better than believing, and I know that we are lucky to be alive. Chantal, could you please… CHANTAAAAAAAAAAAAL!!!”

“Yes?”

“Turn down the volume and stop trying to kill everyone, we are there. We are even well in the top 10 despite the time we lost. Damn.”

“YAASSSSSSSSSSSSSSS! SMASH!”

“Not Slay?”

“That also!”

While Thomas and Jan built up the tent, with Thomas having his usual temper at that task, Chanty started cooking, and when the Firulais arrived much later, Jan excused himself, but also had a feeling of hunger - and ate with his team before leaving.

Jan stepped towards the Firulais camp after eating, but Angel, who he wanted to speak was no longer present. Andrés was the only one at the campsite, and Jan tried is luck. Josué was also there, but at that time in the tent, relaxing and reading a bit.

“Eh, Andrés, where is Angel`”

“Propably reading the minds of the Cunning Stunts team.”

, laughed Andrés.

“Shit. I really need to talk to him.”

“He isn´t trying to date Chantal, it´s just…”

“Yeah, I know, it´s not that. But … I need to know what he read in her mind. She never tells me how bad it really is, because she doesn´t want to make me sad or worried.”

“Oh, in this case… Angel talked a bit about it to vent, because he couldn´t stand the pain Chantys mind caused him, don´t be mad at him, he really needed to vent a bit. But I am not your hairdresser, so I can´t just expose Angel and your girlfriend that much.”

“I am not mad… but I am curious. I just see Chanty destroying herself more and more, and last night, she was again crying and woke me up by desperately grabbing my hand while whispering for help.”

“In this case… it would be Angels will to help you, and… well, her actually. So, listen.”

Andrés told Jan more or less everything Angel revealed, and even if Jan knew that Chantal didn´t always had an easy life, it was new to him that Chanty can´t be happy about positive moments, as she assumes that after these are over, they will never come back, and that everything she loves can also be lost sooner or later. And also that Thomas health is a huge concern. When Angel told Jan what Chanty had planned in her mind in case her father dies, Jan just ran away in panic.

“Oh shit. JAN! SORRY! I didn´t mean to… ah, crap. WAIT!”

Andrés already regretted telling Jan that in detail.
When Jan arrived totally exhausted at his camp, he immediately startet yelling at Thomas.

“THOMAS! COME WITH ME! NOW!”

“Eh, what is it? I have just opened a beer, and you need a damn good reason to…”

“MOVE!”

Chanty was also alarmed by Jan´s unusual temper.

“What is it? What is wrong?”

The tension in the situation alone caused Chanty crying again, as she assumed something really bad happened, but Jan assured her that this is not the case, and Thomas and Chantal followed Jan to the GECA team.

“Damn, why would anyone ride a bike if he or she had a driving license?”

“DAD! THERE ARE MORE THAN JUST TWO GENDERS!”

“Alright, why would ANYONE OR ANYTHING WITH A LICENSE…”

“CAN´T YOU TWO STOP FOR ONCE???”

Jan then showed Thomas the bike of Hugh: It was the only one at least remotely fitting Thomas figure. Thomas was mad at first when he noticed that Jan forced him on a bike in order to improve his cardiac condition, but didn´t want to make a scene, especially when being at another team´s camp.

“So, you are Hugh?”

“Yes, and it´s a pleasure to show you the joy of riding a bike.”

“This is fun?”

“It is, and its nice to meet you, as I get to know many different persons in this event.”

“Yeah, would be for me too, if it didn´t involve doing sports…Do you have an allen key to adjust the saddle, please?”

“Sure.”

“What am I supposed to do with a knife?”

“Damn, wrong key, sorry…”

Valentin then explained the irritated Rhino Squad that Hugh is sometimes a bit weird and seems to have a neurodivergence. Actually, Hugh is a game character who is played by someone in a parallel universe, but nobody knows that. Thomas just made a weird face, Jan nodded in disbelief, and Chanty understood nothing at all, but soon after, Thomas sat on the bike- and Jan also, as he wanted to make sure that Thomas is really using it and not just riding to the nearest bar to get drunk.

“And me?”

“Sorry?”

, asked Valentin.

“I mean, I feel bad if they have to ride a bike while I am sitting lazy at the campsite.”

“Well, Ingrids bike might fit. But I have to ask her first. You would propably also not lend your car anyone, so I will be right back.”

10 Minutes later, Chanty was also equipped with a bike, and all three rode off to explore the region a bit. Drur was a beautiful city with ocean view and historic medieval buildings, so it made totally sense to do that biking trip here. After an hour, Chanty was totally exhausted and almost falling off the bike.

“STOOOP! AAH!”

“Oh, you´re exhausted already?”

“ALREADY, JAN?”

“Yes, sorry, I mean, that´s quite an archievement for you to ride a whole hour. And it´s great that you even bothered doing this. I am surprised you kept up this long.”

“Yes, I know, I am fat… and its a miracle that the bike didn´t break in half…”

Jan got off “his” bike and hugged Chanty in order to silence her with a love does instead of duct tape, and after a few minutes, she was feeling good enough to slowly ride back.

“Thomas, how is your state?”

“MY ASS HURTS FROM THAT FUCKING SADDLE! It feels like sitting on a sharp rock. The riding position is like being stuck inside a washing machine and … I HATE IT! I will ride back with Chanty.”

“Dad, no, please… do me the favour. Riding a bike is good for people with cardiac problems, if you still can go on, then please do it…”

“Yeah, fine, another 30 minutes more, but then I am also done, I also struggle to keep up Jans pace by now. And we have to ride all the distance back…”

Chanty seperated herself from the group, while Thomas started ranting again as soon as they continued.

“I CAN SEE WHY PEOPLE INVENTED THE CAR AFTER HAVING TO DEAL WITH THIS!”

“Thomas, damn, do you even know that we do this for you, in oder to improve your health?”

“Beer has vitamines, too.”

“Chantys mental state is also that bad because she saw you almost dying, the mindreader can confirm it. She isn´t over it.”

“Everyone has to die one day.”

“THOMAS! You know what she does when you are gone? Right at the moment, there would be two funerals at once then. This is not a joke. You can lock her up in the psych ward then, so my objective is letting you live as long as possible and that also includes sport and healthy food.”

“HEALTHY FOOD? YOU FORCE ME TO EAT RABBIT FOOD? LIKE SALAD?”

“So, Thomas. here is the deal: Either healthy food, or daily 30 minutes of cardio-centered excercises?”

“Yeah, well, I prefer sport then, let´s get back on the bikes.”

While Thomas tried to act cool, he clearly changed his mind to the bike not because he himself wanted that or had an interest in living longer - but for the wellbeing of his daughter, he would do almost anything - except for eating salad daily.
Chanty brought back the bike to Valentin, who checked for possible damage.

“You… have a checklist?”

“Sure. These are expensive and highly complex bikes for professional use. Any damage could be dangerous at the speeds that our team members are able to ride with their training and experience. Also, they are very expensive, so we have to make sure you did not cause us unneccecary expenses.”

“Ah, so… I guess it is still ok, we didn´t crash or such.”

“I hoped you would finish an activity without a disaster, and I am delighted that wish came true. Did you enjoy it?”

“Propably only Jan really enjoyed it, but we had a nice view of the ocean, and I propably did something good for my health as well, but I was just exhausted after an hour and needed to ride back, the others will arrive in an hour or so…”

“Definitely. And it does not matter how far you got, as you at least tried and successfully rode a few kilometers. Whenever one of you, or at best all of you, feel like doing this again, we might make that possible.”

Chanty was looking foward to some snacks, and this time, she really had earned them. She found a plastic bag next to the car, with a notice for her. Marie was obviously giving her half of a cat…
Almost everyone could hear the scream, and then the crying, thankfully, Angel was quite close and could look after her, but almost threw up himself from the stench and the… look of the slaughtered cat. Andrea and Pi also wanted to help her friend, but just couldn´t when seeing what was in the bag.

“We need to bury it… we can´t let it lay here like trash”,

cried Chanty, so terribly that the translator ring failed, and she needed multiple attempts to make the technology understand her.
Angel answered, that he could do this, but his hands are injured from the glass splinters… in that moment, Bong appeared.

“CHANTAL! Your cause my team so much drama! Can´t you just be normal, at least a bit? Why would you even…”

“IT WAS MARIE!”

, sobbed Chanty, still sitting on the ground and not able to do anything except handing Bong the notice.

“Oh, sorry, then it is definitely NOT your fault… this time. I heard you wanted to bury it, but you can´t look at it and your friend is injured? In this case, Angel, please get me a shovel and we will do this, no problem.”

Dr. Bong did as promised, and Chanty took a shower at the train yards employee bathrooms, she was, after doing some sport activity, in need of it anyway, and some fresh water would maybe help her clear her mind, too.

Meanwhile, Thomas and Jan are on the way back to the campsite, when Jan pulled over at a cliff for the beautiful ocean view.

“Thomas, do we have beer?”

“Plenty. What´s wrong that you want to drink alcohol? That´s unusual for you.”

“I mean, in your backpack. You won´t go anywhere without beer if you´re not in charge of driving a motor vehicle.”

“Yep! Here is one for you, and one for me. So, what´s the matter?”

“We will soon be back at home, right?”

“Yep. Chanty can´t wait to have internet again, and I can´t wait to get to work.”

“That is it, that internet thing. Acutally, we were about to break up before we went here, and it was about that damn social media.”

“WHAT?”

Thomas spilled a bit of his beer, looking at Jan as if he had seen a ghost.

“So, in her Tiktok and Instagram accounts she used to write SINGLE and, that with presenting herself like she does, generates… .attention. Briefly after we came together she removed “Single”, but didnt write taken. I asked her why she doesnt just write that then, and she said “I am no longer single here so its fine, isn´t it?”, I then replied nah, you are pretending I dont exist because you want more likes and thats not ok, she is also trying to not accidentally reveal me in her videos, even removing my stuff in the backgrund, and her recation was “YOU WANT TO OWN ME LIKE A THING OR WHAT”, and I honestly don´t want to own her, but I don´t want her presenting herself like a professional just for some likes of horny old men…”

Thomas sighed, and Jan waited for an answer that was apparently never coming.

“She´s old enoug. I see your point, so don´t think that you are wrong, but also, social media seems to follow some rules - back in my day, I was running after attention with fancy cars to show off, and her way is posing with sparse clothes to some weird music. I honestly ask you, do you think she would cheat on you?”

“Of course not!”

“So, I see that it´s not respectful to, well, let´s say, hide you in her account. But, on the other hand, that account is an artificial portrait of her. Social media is mostly fake. Don´t you think that most of the content there is realistic? Or they show their real life there? At least from the professionals, I doubt that. Don´t mix her online personality up with the real one that begs for the love of only one person, and that is you. Come on, let`s get the beer empty and ride back to the camp, I AM FUCKING HUNGRY.”

At the time when Thomas and Jan arrived at the camping site, Chanty and Angel were already on an expedition to the abandoned medieval castle. Cody from the Highway Hooligans, who also spotted Chanty desperately sobbing, proposed this adventure as a distraction, and Chanty actually is into ghosts and haunted things, but as she was totally scared of the possible outcome and Jan was not present yet, she insisted on Angel going with her - which he did, of course.

“Hm, it is becoming very dark… Angel, do you have enough battery on your phone?”

“Yes, for two or three hours of lighting it should be totally sufficient.”

“This looks really impressive. Uargh! I can already feel the ghosts.”

“We better stay in motion, let´s go into that area, the moonlight is shining through the windows, so we can save phone battery.”

“Good idea, Angel… do you mind holding my hand? I am scared…”

Chanty was firmly grabbing Angels hand to a point that it was almost squeezing, which was painful with the cuts he had, but he didn´t dare to complain - he was a bit scared himself, but the most important was that Chanty did not have a panic attack - this was the last place where he would like this to happen.

When they wandered through the giant hallways, Angel was asked to do a bit of filming and taking photos of their tour in order to later use it for social media, but suddenly Angels face turned pale.

Was asked to hide this because the story contains a large spider, please be aware of that before opening the spoiler

“Eh, what is it?”

“D…dont… tt-t-t-turn around.”

“Why? Is there a ghost?”

“N…no… what I see is v-v-v-v-very m-m-m-much real!”

Chanty was great at doing the opposite of what she was told, and of course she turned around.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!! AAAH! AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!! THATS THE ABSOLUTE HORROR WE MUST GET OOOOOOOOUUUUUUUUUTTTTTTTTTTTTTT BEFORE IT KILLS US!!!”

“C…come on!”

“I CANT MOVE, MY LEGS ARE FROZEN! AAAAAAAAAAH!”

“I can´t carry you, you are too heavy…Should I get help or stay with you?”

“IF YOU LEAVE ME NOW I WILL TELL MARIE TO KISS YOU!”

“I…I…count that as… I should stay…”

“BUT HOW CAN WE GET HELP NOW?”

“What about the e-e-e-emergency ring?”

“My hand is so sweaty, I can´t activate it… WE WILL DIE!”

“Damn, I am shaking too m-m-much, neither c-c-can I.”

“HEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEELLLLLLLLLLLPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPP!”

Only a few minutes later, Thomas entered the room.

“DADDY! What are you doing here?”

“Bong has told me what happened, and then Cody joined and told me that you got Angel for that…eh…expedition. And I thought I can´t leave a team consisting of one with one eye and another one with one braincell alone… WHY are you crying for help, Chantal?”

“There…there … is …a GIANT SPIDEEEEEEEEEEERRRR!”

“Argh, what, you are hyperventilating because of a fucking spider? All right, let´s have a look at it. Where are your phones to make some light?”

“My…battery is dead and Angel lost his phone on the run… but… that spider…IT IS AN ABSOLUTE NIGHTMARE!”

“Yeah, sure, spider, wait, here is my lighter. So, let´s see… OOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!”

Thomas shivered as he saw the large spider that was still looking at the humans and slowly walking towards Chanty who started another tear flood as she looked at it in detail, while Thomas almost burned his fingers with the lighter, then he continued, whispering.

“That…thing is … huge, yes. Boah, is that thing disgusting… the body is…as fat as a bowling ball…uuuuuuuarrrrrgh.”

“Thomas, do you have a plan? I-i-i-i-t is coming towards meeeeee!”

“Angel… eeeeh… eeeehhh… YOUR BACKPACK! OPEN IT!”

Thomas, scared as hell, carefully grabbed the spider as if he was defusing a bomb, then quickly throwing it in Angels backpack, and nobody on Holsia has ever seen someone closing a zipper as fast as Thomas.
Chanty slowly calmed down, as Angel comforted her, and Thomas grabbed the backpack.

“LEAVE IT HERE, THOMAS! I really liked my backpack, but I will never be able to look at it again, and I do NOT WANT THIS SPIDER IN THE CAMP!”

“Don´t be a pussy. It´s now trapped inside. I need Jan to check if it´s poisonous.”

“It is… uncommon to check that AFTER grabbing it.”

“Should I let it out again then?”

“NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!”

When Chanty came back with Angel and Thomas, Cody was curious to hear how it was, and she told him everything in the most dramatic way possible, also crying again, and it is clear that she … isn´t over the spider encounter yet. So Codys teammate Trevor had the idea to just make a huge party, and Trevor handed Chanty another of their beers, while preparing a special surprise: The confetti cannon, made out of some plumbing stuff, and the 50 year old big guy proved that he can still party like when he was half his current age, and Chanty enjoyed that party very much.

Meanwhile, after Jan, who is very familiar with biology, confirmed that this spider looks terryfiying but actually isn´t, Thomas sneaked with the backpack to the Hillbilly Rollers, opening the backpack and letting the spider find some rest in the IP… right in the fridge where the Booze was stored, making sure the right person finds Mr. Spiderman…

[Angelustyle]

Team Firulais

Stage 7: A brief continuation of the Night, a Rather Uneventful Stage with an Eventful Conversation, and a Search for the Supernatural

(Mentioning @That-S-cop [Cunning Stunts], @SurrealCereal [Machinas Con Passione, just a mention] and @HappyHungryHippo [The Rhino Squad])

Continuation of the Night at Björnes.

Ángel continued to wonder about his life as he continued to look at the stars, with seemingly no clear objective… Just the one to relax after the events of that afternoon… He continued like that up to 6 Moon. In his stargazing however, he was starting to get familiar memories… Literally.

He looked at a picture of his family, more specifically, of him and his siblings (Ángel has 3 siblings… Kanna, Ryoga and María [not to confuse with Maria from Machinas Con Passione]). He missed them so hard. He hadn’t seen them in person in months, which may sound as little, but, for Ángel, it felt like an eternity. He lived isolated from them for a long time, and he didn’t exactly have much friends in Vladivostok either … hell, not even his neighbors had some compassion with him. He was, after all, Vladivostok’s troublemaker.

Ángel (to the photo):“I wish you could’ve come here too… We’d have such a good time. As soon as we return back to earth, I’ll make sure to tell you… And, also, don’t worry… I’m coming to Japan soon, you’ll see…”

This was just a fragment of what he said, before Ana rept screaming in her tent… Apparently something had happened to her, but, luckily, they’d discover she’d just had a nightmare…

… Ángel would also struggle with his sleep that day… In fact, everyone in the team was asleep heavily, probably excluding Andrés (who decided to quit sleeping for a moment and stay up for a while more, playing videogames), Ana, who just had one nightmare, and Ángel, who felt like his world crumbled whenever he had a nightmare, which happened more often than you’d guess… Take in mind (there goes the unintended pun), the fallout from Ángel’s Mind Reading Incident here was still very much present…

Late Morning in Björnes.

Josué:“This night was… Surprisingly… Smooth.”
Ángel:“You Say… Think about me…”
Ana:“Hey, what time is it…?”
Andrés:“It is… Wait… Why does my clock say it’s 6:23 PM… When it clearly ain’t…?”
Ángel:“Starting to get accostumed to Aetheriian Day and Night Cycles ? It’s, like, 2-Sun.”
Ana:“Which would be…?”
Ángel:“Let me think… If 5-Sun is like, Noon, and right now it’s 2-Sun-55, that means it must be… 80 by 80… by 20… Would be roughly the equivalent of 7, 8, 9 AM ?”

Of course… Ángel could be totally off… But, as soon as the team hurd that… They freaked.

They rushed breakfast, packed up as soon as they could… Ana didn’t even got the chance to buy booze of any sort, Ángel didn’t got the chance of taking photos of the Coast and missed breakfast, Tomás didn’t got the chance to meet someone else, Josué couldn’t make some shopping, and Andrés almost lost his cool, because he almost lost his phone in the Aurora’s Boot.

Ultimately, they sat off, with Ana behind the wheel, relatively late…

Road to Drur.
The Moment of Truth.

Josué:“Well… As sparkling as this stage is going for us… This stage is getting boring…”
Ana:“I think I know how we can spice this up.”
Ángel:“How ?”
Ana:“Well… What about you tell us what you saw in Chantal’s Mind at Bj… Bijoo… Ugh…”
Ángel and Josué (in unison):“Björnes ?”
Ana:“That place.”
Ángel:“I don’t know… What if it’s something very personal… What if it’s disturbing for y’all…?”
Ana:“Nah, we’ll see…”
Ángel:“No, no, seriously, I d—”
Ana:“Go on, tell it. Or otherwise, I’ll force you to dance at the next stop !”

Side Note: Ángel SUCKED at dancing. Mainly due to bullying at school, as people often took that as one of many things to pick on Ángel, and start laughing at him… Due to his social skills at the time, he felt… Embarrassed.

Now, not wanting that to happen again, 9 years later, he had to speak.

Ángel:“sigh”
Josué:“Go on, Ángel. Don’t worry, we’ll try our best to understand.”
Ángel:“Alrighty… So, I saw many memories of Chantal’s life, some not bad at all… But, many bad things have happened in her life… She was bullied at school, she had an ex…”
Ana:“I can relate…”
Ángel:“Last year… In… Uh… I think Sweden ? Somewhere around the Scandinavian Part of Europe, Jan hurt his foot, and Thomas nearly died…”

When Ángel’s Team hurd THAT one part: “Thomas nearly died”, the ambient inside that Aurora suddenly felt colder… drabber… more serious than expected.

Nevertheless, Ángel had a lot to tell, so he continued.

Ángel:“…Many things have happened in her life. She lost her first pet, her parents divorced -which, as disastrous as my relationship with my parents MIGHT be, mine are still together-, she was cheated on, she lost many friends… She was bullied in school… as mentioned, in Sweden, her father almost died…”

Again, the ambient seemed to turn colder inside that Aurinko… The only sounds were that of the engine, the vibrations of the road, the wipers, and Ángel’s voice…

Ángel:“Not all was bad though. As I said earlier, she had a lot of good memories too… Her first feeling of love… I understand that. Same as for being given an Ice Cream after falling… I used to fall so often… Yet, sadly, in Malokurilskoye there weren’t any Ice Cream shops… So I often got hot chocolate. Hell, she was even allowed to sit in the driver’s seat of her father’s car… She looked so happy at that moment…”

Everyone felt it… Specially Ana. Who had also passed thru similar bad things… Her pet had died a few months prior, she was also cheated on by someone -wouldn’t you know it… Ángel, Tomás and Andrés had passed thru that too…-, and her parents were on a particular situation as of marriage…

Ana felt sympathy.

Ángel might have sounded envious, but, he also had truly bad and good moments… Just that his were quite different in a unique way…

Ángel continued.

Ángel:“I don’t exactly understand why is she like this… I assume that her happiness lasted for very short, or ain’t lasting for very long… I believe it hurts for her to remember good things that are no longer present, as if her present day is some sort of shadow of the past… Why do we, humans, or in my case ‘Yumeisotitanian Humanoid Descendants’, or ‘Yumeisotitanian-Human Crossbreeds’, have more clear memories about things which are bad ?”

That was actually a question… But no one responded…

Ángel:“Guys. Guys ?”

“I must have said far too much…”, he thought.

And the rest of the stage, even the small fuel stop, was silent. All they hurd for those few hours was, again, road vibrations, engine noise, wipers, and probably some music from Ángel’s cassettes…

As they started to arrive at Drur, however, the mood started to slowly rise up again… The beautiful scenery was perfect for them… Sadly, their time of arrival wasn’t, but, honestly, who cared…? This wasn’t a competition after all. Josué had just gotten into that, as he didn’t really focus on how fast they were going, or, really, where they were going anyway… Andrés and Tomás had still to learn about it, and Ana… Well, she drove it like she stole it, despite having to make a pit stop for fuel…

Drur.
A Nice Talk with Cunning Stunts.

Cunning Stunts had a rather decent stage that day. Lana and Murray were just starting to set up camp at that point. Meanwhile, Ángel, Tomás, and Ana, were walking thru camp, having just arrived, and they were just passing thru there.

Ana:“Why, out of all things you could do, you had to tackle her ?”
Ángel:“What else could I do ? Besides, I don’t normally say this, but, it would -and did- look quite cool…”
Ana:“Gosh, I’m dying of thirst…”

There, they hurd a can of beer (“Four X”) being opened by Murray, and Ana, who, as mentioned, was feeling thirsty, saw an opportunity.

Ana:“Heey, can I—”
Ángel:“Ana…”
Tómas:“Ángel… Just, let her be.”

He thought it for a moment, and, after almost no time, he indeed let her be. Lana looked at them to see if they were hungry or anything, but, apparently, it was only Ana being thirsty. Ángel showed slight signs of malnourishment, but, nothing actually serious… In fact, it could be said to be the usual for Ángel… Remember, they sat off from Björnes in a hurry, and to speed up their progress, Ángel decided to sacrifice himself by not eating breakfast…

Lana:“You guys need anything ?”
Ana:“Can you give me beer, or booze, or anything ?”
Murray:“How many of you need Four X ?”
Ángel:“Just her. Tommy and I don’t really drink.”

Murray chucked a can of the beer with considerable strength, and Ana caught it with a bit of a jump. After all, the Firulais weren’t exactly tall… Right after, she opened the can.

Ana:“Gracias !”
(In Spanish: Thanks!)
Tómas:“You are the ones who blew a head gasket on the rift, am I right ?”
Lana:“Yeah… This bike doesn’t like to be babied, it likes high revs. So we somehow blew it.”
Ángel:“Hm… Well, we’ve had constant problems with our tires… As if we were cursed.”
Ana (mumbling):“Because this Gopnik didn’t change the tires…”
Ángel:“…But I can’t deny the fact that a head gasket failure is terrible in such an early stage-- hell, the rally didn’t even truly begin at that point…”
Lana:“It wasn’t all that bad though… The engine came off easily.”

Ángel gave a glance at that Motorcycle… He rode in motorcycles before, so, he kinda knows… But, he never rode one with an engine beyond 250cc. So seeing a 1100cc was just insane for him. He then realized something.

Ángel:“This Motorcycle has a similar engine size to that of our Aurora…”
Ana:“It kinda explains why our performance has been pathetic, even after you supposedly rebuilt the Engine and the Transmission…”

Yes, you hurd her right. They’ve only finished outside of the top 10 twice… And yet she considers their performance pathetic. For Ángel’s standards, not finishing last (or, in this case, just finishing) was an accomplishment in itself…

Ángel:“How much horsepower does it have ?”
Lana (dubious):“195 ?”
Ángel:“Almost quadruple our Aurora…”
Ana:“Guess Ángel’s restoration project with that Aurora was the peak of Finnish Tech with the quality of Russian Repairs.”
Ángel:“Look it this way… At least, apart from one overheating issue, and our brake line issue on the way to Lauda… We’ve had no problems…”
Tómas:“Also, apparently, no signs of your things today, right ?”

Ángel’s “things” were his mind reading incidents… And overall, his powers… Lana and Murray started to doubt. And Ángel was being forced to lie in order to hide the mind reading capabilities to at least one team…

Lana:“What things ?”
Ángel:“Uhm… S-See, I usually get a panic attack… f-for no apparent reason…”

Lana didn’t do anything menacing. But Ángel wanted to go back to camp. Not only he was hungry, being the only one who didn’t eat breakfast… But also, he felt pressure, even though none was being applied at him.

Ángel:“I-I Will go back to our spot in Camp… S-See ya…”

And then his clumsiness played a role in not hiding completely his skills… He somehow tripped over with something. Little did he know, when he thought about things, he was talking telepathically to someone… And not someone from his team.

Murray:“You better watch out for the railway ballast… Are you OK ?”
Ángel (telepathically, to Murray):“Yeah, Yeah, I’m—”

Compared to his mind reading, this was a minor, maybe even invisible incident. Yet he felt the need to tell Murray to not say anything related to this.

Ángel (telepathically to Murray):“You… Just… Don’t tell anyone I have telepathy, OK ? Unless I tell you otherwise…”

Ángel then walked back to the Firulais’ spot… And shortly afterwards, the other two did the same, after realizing there wasn’t really much to talk about…

Little did they know that the information Ángel gave them thru the stage, was now on the Hands of Jan.

Later that day…
A search for the Supernatural.

Ángel accompanied Chantal on her attempt to search for ghosts and spirits in an abandoned medieval castle. Ángel wasn’t exactly prepared to encounter a spider though and a big one too… Ángel has some fear for insects. Luckily for him, Thomas came on the scene just in time to save them.

While his backpack was in the hands of Jan who was examining the spider, Ángel returned to his team’s spot at camp… His team seemed a bit concerned by seeing him shaking and all.

Even Ana showed some worry.

Ana:“Ángel… You alright ? I mean… You’re shaking, and you look a bit more pale than usual.”
Ángel:“N-Nah, don’t worry, I-I’m OK.”
Andrés:“Also, are we going to play Pokémon tonight or what ?”
Ángel:“Y-You know what ? Y-You win by default tonight… M-My console… Uhh… Is out of battery.”

That was a lie…

Andrés didn’t feel exactly happy, but he conformed, meaning Ángel’s lie to not play that night had gone thru unnoticed.

Not much more happened that night, except some shopping (making hay about the fact they could buy here, and not commit the same mistake as in Björnes earlier in the morning), and maybe Ángel drawing imagery of the views. As a fun fact, he did later attend to the small party held for Chantal… But he only lasted there for 30 minutes before being too tired to continue, and decided to go to bed (or, should we say, the back seat of the Aurora) and sleep.

Weirdly, he was, for once, the first of the team to sleep…

I guess the Stage ends here…

And, as always, Collabs are open…

[Madrias]

Shitbox Rally - Stage 8

Stage 8: Drur to Hofrost

Weather: Low 20’s, dense clouds, and windy.

---

The roads are generally fine, if a little bit narrow or patchy in places, and they wind their way through the hilly terrain. For a while, we’re still following the coastline, but it does eventually start to become obvious that we’re heading toward the mountains.

Shift Happens is the first team spotted on the side of the road with the hazard lights on - Their wonderful driving AI panicked and locked the brakes up, refusing to move. Why? Because someone put a sticky note with “Ha Ha” over one of the front cameras… And some black electrical tape over a couple of the others. After spending 5 hours searching for all of the hidden tape, the team vows to find out who did this.

The Argonites encounter the bane of all drivers - A curb. One flat tire later, they’re back on the move.
(@Redfoxlol)

The advantages of a motorcycle are many, but so, too, are the downsides. Unfortunately, crashing the bike and having to use most of the repair spares up costs 5.25 hours of Cunning Stunts’ time after a failed “shortcut” attempt.
(@That-S-Cop).

The “Crazy” Eight are driven almost to the point of insanity by an irritating little misfire causing pops and bangs in the exhaust. Two hours later,the bad fuel injector is found and replaced.
(@TheYugo45GV)

Machinas Con Passione gets to experience the fun of changing a dead fuel pump. It takes two hours to splice the aquarium pump into the fuel line, figure out how to stop the cheap Chinese inverter from blowing the cigarette lighter fuse (by sticking a paper-clip in the fuse holder), and to get used to how underpowered the car now feels thanks to the abysmal fuel flow rate.
(@SurrealCereal)

Team Peak Performance spends two hours hunting down electrical gremlins. It’s amazing what a bad ground can do.
(@HappyHungryHippo)

Ramjet had to stop because of two flat tires. Luckily, they’re easy enough to change at this point.
(@JCurtiss96 @Leone)

Hofrost is an example of “Holsian Sprawl” with 78,000 people spread out over many hills and valleys, an otherwise-small city on the edge of Holsia’s mountain ranges.

Our camp is on the far side of the city, in the direction we’ll be heading tomorrow, with all of the crew told to pick a spot on a large, grassy hill. There are no services here either, save for some outhouses used by train crews. The support train is parked in a passing siding off the main line, not that far from the camp - we will be hearing trains for most of the night.

---

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