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

[SurrealCereal]

Machinas Con Passione’s Shitbox Adventures Part 3 - Episode 3: Journey to Menes.
(Featuring @Knugcab and @MrdjaNikolen )
Ah, the rift.

Fewer places of dystopian comfort exist, places where you can find yourself immersed in what is simultaneously the most soothing and terrifying series of images, twisting and warping to reveal candescent streams of light, dark, and shapes impossible to understand to the human eye constantly shifting into forms both recognizable and not.

The only person who actually tried to put any effort to take the scene in was Maria, however, as Loris and Luci were to preocupied being scared shitless at the fact that they had just driven into a portal with no idea of what to expect other than the “trust me bro, everything will be ok” Giacomo gave before promptly screaming at the top of his lungs (which had surely been heard by more than just his fellow teammates) the second they drove into the portal, driving Loris and Luci into the stupid parade that was now making its way to Holsia via the rift.

Maria tried to understand what the Lynwoods were saying, she really did, but whether it was just a result of their Scouse affliction or their adrenaline spike causing them to be incomprehensible it was hard to get really immersed before some random English blubbering put Maria out of her attempt at relaxing.

“MATETHEFUCKISTHATITHOUGHTHISWASARALLYNOTABLEEDINACIDTRIP”

and

“FUCKFUCKFUCKFUCKFUCKFUCKFUCK”

Were the highlights of the conversation.

As for Giacomo, he had already fainted, pen and paper in hand (nobody on the team is entirely sure as to what exactly he was drawing) and was currently snoring almost as loudly as the Lynwoods were screaming when a cloud of smoke ahead signaled a problem that would put the caravan to a halt.

Pulling over, the MCP team would split up for a bit, and seeing some familiar faces nearby, Maria and the now awakened Giacomo would make their way over to the Hillbilly Rollers, winners of the first Shitbox Rally, and break the ice with Giacomo apparently fidgeting in his bookbag for something. Wait, he had a bookbag?

Maria would be the first to break contact. Her most vivid image of the first rally was that pink Freeway Star, a van that could burn its way into the mind of even a blind man. Wanting to catch up for a bit given the time they had to burn, she approached the trio and introduced herself, partially curious to see if they would remember her given her complete change in appearance since their last meeting. “Hillbilly Rollers. Remember us? Well, I’m sure you remember Giacomo, I mean, how could you not, but it has been a while. How’s everything?”

Giacomo, meanwhile would fish around in his book bag and revealed that he’d brought an olive branch for the team, a formerly ice-cold bottle of Birra Moretti that he had neglected to put on ice, so it had admittedly gotten a bit warm, but it should still do the job. “Did you run out of pink paint?” Was all he could ask.

Pink paint?", Andreas said. “Yeah, dodged that bullet but for some reason this POS all of a sudden stinks of old butter!”

“I bet it is Chanty’s fault!”, Marie said.

“Who the fuck is that Chanty you’re talking about all the time?”, Andreas asked. “Is it your imaginary friend?”

“No fucking way I would call her a friend…”, Marie grumbled.

Maria massaged her brow, being reminded of Giacomo’s incessant need to eat in the car. “Oh Christ, tell me about it.” She then noticed the Birra, as Giacomo was struggling to get the lid off, it was all she could do to sigh. “I get the feeling this Chanty would get on well with Giacomo.”

Giacomo looked up, having cut his thumb on the lid in his attempt to open the Moretti. “What? What’s wrong with imaginary friends?” Maria was very close to chewing out Giacomo for being halfway through his lifespan and still believing in imaginary friends, but upon seeing his expression of geniune concern, backed off, for now. “Nothing. It’s perfectly normal.” She said before taking the beer, cleaning it off and offered it to the Rollers. “Here, uh… don’t drink it until we get to camp. Maybe you guys have a cooler in that rolling discotheque of yours.”

Marie was looking at the beer, almost drooling. “Ohhh, that looks interes…”

“YOU HEARD WHAT SHE SAID!”, Andreas told Marie, while Janne got out of the car, opened the tailgate and pointed to the minibar inside. “A bit awkward to get to”, he laughed, “but go ahead and put it in there!”, at least it could be fun to see someone struggling with it. “Proper 70s”, he said. “A show winner in 1979!”.

Standing at a hulking 5 foot 0 (152.4 cm for the non americans), jumping up into the Icarus’ rear was quite the ask from Maria, seeing as how the bed was nearly as tall as she was (give or take a bit of exaggeration). “Yeah. Real marvel of engineering.”

“Anyway”, Janne said while Maria was trying to get to the minibar in the back of the Icarus, “What is happening here? Seems like we’re standing still more than we are moving. At least the Icarus is still running like a champ.”

“I must admit that I was sleeping until now, so I have no idea!” Giacomo declared a bit too excitedly. “I’m sure some team has failed to account the rigorous trial of the rift, a journey that I have planned every mile of! Machinas Con Passione would NEVER enter a car that explodes before the rally even starts!” He declared.

As the two talked, Maria found the task of lifting herself to the admittedly suave interior of the Icarus to be a giant pain in the ass that involved lots of jumping, multiple failed attempts to lift her waist over the bed and, eventually, a running start that ended in her toppling over, shouting “PORCA PUTTANA!” and many other swears that I dare not replicate in this post. Upon hearing Giacomo’s utter baldfaced lie she turned to him with an expression of pure shock. “Did you forget the TWO fuel stops we made? WE caused more of a holdup than anyone else the first time!”

Janne tried to hold his laughter back. “Yeah…”, he said and managed to not burst out into laughter. “…yeah, I know how you only bring quality vehicles to this.”

“Yes!” Giacomo said, getting overly excited for a moment… “This will be the year! I will have the shitbox crown!” Maria, seeing that this was very close to sending Janne over the edge, decided to save Giacomo the shame by forcefully turning him around and pushing him towards the Arnoux. “Yes. Yes. This is the year. Let’s go before you embarrass us any further, I think I see Loris going after your crisps.” This was enough to get Giacomo sprinting towards the Lynwood and out of earshot of the two. Maria, slowly going red faced in her own attempt to keep herself from laughing, decided to follow him as she waved the Rollers goodbye.

After getting underway, the team managed to make it all of 5 minutes before a light hiss began to emit from the radiator, silencing the team as a slow horror crept up in the car as they realized that something, somewhere, had broken and broken terribly.

It took all of 30 seconds for their horrors to be realized when the radiator cap burst from the engine, piercing the hood and windshield, bouncing around the cockpit and causing a chorus of terrified screams and panicked movement for a moment before the rogue radiator cap eventually slowed its momentum, landing neatly in the lap of Loris.

Simultaneously, the radiator was spewing its contents quite literally everywhere, and while the MCP team were scrambling inside of the cockpit the car delivered a nice coat of coolant to any team unfortunate enough to be nearby.

The first team on the scene is team Mravolinski-Chitco, and their first-hand account of their encounter with the phenomenon that is MCP is described, in full detail, below.

Meanwhile MCP team is approached by Pi and Bong. They decided to have argument while arriving

-I really dont think this is smart idea.

-Its fine

-Lets be real: if they dont freak out at sight of someone armored from head to toe and some sort of human centaur, i dont know what to say

-We will try to appear friendly and our looks will be ignored…for most part

As the duo had reached MCP quartet of chaos, they decided to now talk to first person they encounter

-We are from team Chitco. Armored dude is Bong and im Pi. I believe i had likely met some of you and…i think we might be able to help.

Loris, who had already gotten to work screaming swears into the engine bay, was stopped mid “FU-” by the arrival of Pi and Bong. Having been raised with some level of manners (read: British) and not wanting to shout at complete strangers who, despite very clearly not being of this world and maybe even being an affront the to crown itself were still very kind in offering to help Loris who, in all honesty, was completely hopeless without it.

“Right, ah, I’m happy to take the help mate, these muppets here…” he gestures towards said muppets, which include his own flesh and blood. “Not exactly keen on fixing a car they’ve never touched before.”

Bong had looked in the direction of engine bay, acknowledging thats area where problem is located

-Her charisma is not going to solve that engine problem you have…whatever it is.

Whatever the fuck that might be, we are wrong people to help.

-They were smart enough to bring mechanic. We will just do what he says would be needed to repair the car

With that, Pi was noting Loris and his efforts of sort to fix the thing.

It was a relatively simple job to patch up in the short term, and Loris was nothing if not simple, so the job was completed without much of a headache while Giacomo excitedly got out of the Arnoux upon recognizing the duo, happy to see his fellow “Shitbox Veterans” (not sure if this will catch on, but Giacomo is seemingly keen on making it into a thing) and began bombarding them with questions of how life has been, if they really think they can beat Giacomo and if they were ready to taste defeat at the hands of the Mighty MCP. It seems he took it as a chance to blow up his ego.

Bong had decided to satisfy the curiosity of Giacomo.

-Life seems to be very fine so far. As you see…she now looks tad bit more presentable and it was i that did most of the work

He was obviously gesturing towards Pi

That he was, the work that went into fixing Pi over time had made it so that Loris had to double take to notice that there was anything out of the ordinary with her. That was, until Luci, who had also gotten out of the car to stretch her legs, pointed out the obvious fact that Pi’s legs were in fact split at 90 degree angles, and that she had 4. The decision for which of those bits of information was more upsetting to Loris can be left up to you, dear reader.

Alas, conversation between Pi and Bong broke the brief silence.

-Ofc noone compares to my perfect daughter Jakasxandra…

-I doubt it

-Shush

Bickering continued for some time before Pi cut it down

-Well…we dont like to lose, but are aware that our vehicle likely isnt recipe for victory either. Due to fact its pretty much the same one we entered in original rally, you can easily confirm so yourself.

Now does that guarantee that you will beat us? Hard to tell as im not as much into cars as…his daughter.

-I told you my daughter is perfect.

Pi glared at Bong

-Ignore the daddy. Wouldnt be surprized if Nevadan sun fried his brain

-HEY!

-If we dare to say that we have chance against you, its likely through you breaking down more often than us. Our vehicle is big enough to carry lot of stuff including his ego but weighs noticeable amount and, from what i gathered, doesnt have much power.

Bong glared at Pi as it was he that was being called out

Giacomo was all too familiar with the Kontir Cunningham, one of the cars on the grid that managed to double as a live-in house while performing it’s duties as a motor vehicle, and it was one that proved impossible to kill, as one of a handful of cars that managed to keep coming back year after year. Giacomo wished he could say the same about the Aerodynamic Wedge Shaped Beast but… The less said about the current state of the dustbuster the better.

Either way, Giacomo had his sketchpad in hand, and began capturing the scene of Loris and Luci bickering over how to fix the radiator, as Maria had now gotten out of the car herself to try and corral the twins into fixing the damn car.

Between the five of them, someone was eventually able to figure out the correct amount of tape needed to keep the radiator in a functional state for long enough to make it to camp, and after fetching some water, the car was returned to the land of the living after a few hard kicks from Loris, and travel through the Rift could continue.

Before heading out, though, Giacomo would offer Pi and Bong his drawing. “Take this as a memoir of when you helped the great Machinas Con Passione win the rally! You’re sure to be the first ones I mention in my victory speech!” …. Had anyone told him it wasn’t a competition yet?

Drawing was taken and the duo was on their way back.

The car was, at this point, functional, and with the engine roaring (sputtering) to life the signal was given for the caravan to continue, and bar a few incidents (including one where Giacomo, shocker, annoys a fellow member of the rally) the rest of the trip to Menes would go on without a hitch.

SHITBOX RALLY CAMP - STAGE 1 - MENES

After an eventful run through the rift, the MCP squad is finally able to settle down after a full stage’s worth of travel, and having settled down after arriving at noon, they unpacked the trunk, looking to get camp set up early to avoid the pain in the ass of having to fend off whatever variety of insects may come out at night, and quickly found that Giacomo… had neglected to pack a tent. With that, the MCP squad would have to source one from the local town, and whatever supplies would be needed to keep a quartet of barely functional morons alive for the night. Luckily, Giacomo did at least have things of material value, so even if the currency wasn’t exactly one to one, the team for once made sure not to inconvenience the locals while they stayed in Menes.

Other than that, the rest of the downtime for the day was spent working on a long term fix to the car and annoying anyone unfortunate enough to get close during said repairs. I twas about the time that Loris accidentally tore a hole in their radiator while trying to fix it that the reality of their situation slowly sunk in. This was going to be a long rally.

MCP’S SHITBOX ADVENTURE’S - EPISODE 3 - FIN

[Angelustyle]

Team Firulais

The Driver’s Meeting, and Stage 0: “To finish first, first you have to finish”

(Mentioning @SurrealCereal [Machinas con Passione], @Happyhungryhippo [The Rhino Squad] and @Knugcab [The Hillbilly Rollers])

(Note, mentioning Machinas con Passione, yet it didn’t mean the Firulais interacted with them [because they didn’t…])

Morning of March 31st, SR Starting Point, Nevada, United States

Ángel had a rather uncomfortable night after him not being able to sleep properly, again, between a mixture of factors, plus his mindreading instability that made him almost alert everybody on the night before the driver’s meeting.

But, despite what you may think, the Firulais didn’t have a comfortable night either… At least, for a reason. The incident had left them thinking when would the next mindreading incident would happen. One thing was for certain though: they were all present and ready to rally.

The Driver’s Meeting

Initially, Ana was thinking about doing her usual mischief, but, Andrés, in a brisk decision to maintain order, avoided her to do so. The Firulais were still at the back of everything, behind everyone. That added to the fact they were so little (tallest member on the Team was Josué with 178cm), meant they went pretty much unnoticed. Perhaps they wanted to, as they didn’t want Ángel to get nervous, or to have another mindreading incident which would perhaps put them in trouble.

Nevertheless, after the meeting, they prepared to get on the Raft that would take them to Holsia. Josué was driving for this stage.

He just seemed happy to drive the car. After all, all the drive to Nevada had been performed by Ángel, except for a small portion of the trip done by Andrés.

And so their trip began.

???, Road to Menes, Holsia, Aetherii.

Josué:“It truly was a slow trip thru the Convoy, wasn’t it ?”
Andrés:“Ye… But, it was quite beautiful. Besides, we are finally in… uhh… What’s this planet called–”
Ángel:“Aetherii.”
Andrés:“That.”
Ana:“It looks a lot more… Drab, than I was imagining.”
Ángel:“もっと期待していたと思います…しかし重要なことは、私たちがここにいるということです。”
(“I guess you were hoping for more… but the important thing is that we are here.”)
Ana:“明らかに、私はもっと待っていました。 あと、宇宙人じゃないですか？”
(“Obviously I was waiting for more. Also, aren’t you an alien?”)
Ángel:“人型の子孫の子孫。 必ずしも宇宙人というわけではありません。”
(“Descendant of a Humanoid Descendant. Not necessarily an alien.”)

That was some of the conversation the young quintet was making up. Ana and Ángel knew how to speak Japanese, so, they understood each other in said language. Tomás was busy looking at the landscape, Ana was STILL looking for her credit card (Ángel later would give it back in the most discreet way possible, as he didn’t want to face Ana’s wrath), Josué was busy driving, Andrés was playing Pokémon, as always, and Ángel was thinking as they drove by… He remembers seeing some landscape similar to this in his dreams. He rarely dreams when he sleeps. And most of the time, it was either a nightmare or an endless white or black void. But there was the rare occasion in which he dreamt up about something else… And those were the dreams he usually liked to keep.

He decided to sleep, as he hadn’t had a very good rest the night before. But, not long after, the Team would experience it’s first breakdown, several miles after passing Machinas Con Passione… Who, unbeknownst to them, were suffering the same issues the Firulais would encounter later…

…3 - HOURS - LATER…
(Or, well, more like, 2 and ¼ Aetheriian Hours)…

The Team began hearing rather strange noises from the engine. Besides, another worry began to show…

Josué:“Do I smell burning ?”
Andrés:“Indeed, it does smell like burning.”
Tomás:“Well, it’s time for… Oh, wait. Ángel is asleep.”
Ana:“We’ll sure as hell need his skills…”
Josué:“Oh, shit ! Look at that Temp Gauge ! It’s right in the red…”

Well, at least they now knew the dashboard worked for the most part, but, thanks to that, their worries were confirmed. They stopped at one side of the road, as Steam started to pour out. They were worried (they had to attempt to finish this rally, that was their objective… and this was not going up to plan). Just as they stopped, Ángel woke up, and Ana immediately sent him off to fix the car as Josué opened the bonnet…

Suddenly, they hurd a bang, before seeing how Ángel let a short scream before him being douced in Coolant… They later saw they radiator cap falling right on the roof of the car. They waited a bit, until the car would cool down just enough for them to make some work on the cooling system. Now you’d might think Ángel would fix it himself… Instead, he decided to have the Team fix it without him…

Ángel:“I’m trusting on you…”
Josué:“Wait, you’re not going to…?”
Ángel:“Nuh-Uh. It’s a fix that’s easy enough for you to fix.”
Ana:“How do we do it ?”

Ángel facepalmed at Ana’s reply to him, before giving a really, REALLY short explanation. They spent almost an hour waiting for the engine to cool, and then another half hour (both in Earth Time… Roughly 1h 10m in Aetherii), to refill the radiator. And from there, they were going to start again, until…

The Car would refuse to start. This time Ángel had to intervene, and it turned out, several fuses on the car had gone bust, for a reason or another. Nevermind, Ángel got it fixed in a Jiffy (finding the problem and fixing it took him a good half hour though, so, maybe not so much of a Jiffy), and soon they were back under way.

At least the breakdown allowed Ángel to find somewhere suitable to hide Ana’s Credit Card… One of the Sun Visors ! Ana often checked herself in the Mirror of one, and he thought it would be a perfect place to avoid Ana’s wrath…

???, Menes, Holsia.

At last, they arrived. They weren’t exactly the fastest, due to their breakdowns, but, at least they weren’t the worst amongst those affected.

Later that night, both Ángel and Ana would get a bit of a surprise, as Chantal, from the rhino squad, went to apologize to Ángel about the “Mindreading Incident”… and despite Ángel later getting ran over by Marie at camp, he got a much better night sleep that night.

(For the Drawings, I initially planned 6, but I’ve had a lack of time to draw… So I only posted here the only 2 I actually finished.)

(Collabs are open [as always]!)

[Madrias]

Shitbox Rally - Stage 1

Stage 1: Menes to Unmar

Weather: High teens, constant moderate rain, light winds.

---

The scream of a steam whistle wakes the camp as the train departs to carry the GECA onward. Everyone else packs up tents, eats a quickly-prepared breakfast, then gets into their cars and heads onward.

Menes is immediately a challenge with tight, narrow roads, especially for larger vehicles. Then once everyone’s past the city, we’re still in for a hard time with mostly cobblestone roads, the occasional patch of crude asphalt in between, and some really nasty corners.

The larger vehicles have to make a significant detour to avoid getting jammed up in one of the meaner corners, a tight hairpin with a large rock in the center that looks like it was designed to rip cars apart for fun.

It turns out that Machinas Con Passione are the first to discover that rock, bursting a tire and spending a little bit of time on the side of the road to change it. They’re back on their way soon, however, and seeming in high spirits - the car’s doing “great!”

Team Fuist has to stop to deal with a mild overheating issue - a slightly misaligned alternator chewed up the belt and has led to it breaking. Some shims and a new belt, along with letting the engine cool down for an hour results in the car continuing onward with no further issues.

Upon arrival at Unmar, it’s immediately obvious that this is barely more than a village. Dedicated social butterflies might take up a challenge of trying to meet all 420 people in the village. We get to make camp near the large sawmill, clearly the major source of employment for the people of Unmar, where we also have access to a primitive set of outdoor toilets and a place to set up tents.

In town, if you’re looking for food, you may want to check out the local bakery, or the fruit market stalls, or one of the small shops that can sell ingredients needed to make a meal, in the event that you don’t like what’s on offer from the Support Train.

Speaking of the train, it is parked on sidings near the village station, leaving the tracks near the sawmill clear.

---

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

[Knugcab]

TEAM HILLBILLY ROLLERS
PART 0.3 - ENTER THE MAT…RIFT?

Later that day, Marie’s laughter had transformed into a somewhat worse mood, but on the other hand, both Janne and Andreas were pretty used to her mood swings.

“STUUUUUUUUUUUUPIIIIIIID GEEEEEEEEEERMANS!!!”, she was screaming, so it probably was heard by everyone in camp.

“Marie, what is it now?”, Janne asked, while you could watch every hair on his head turn slightly more grey.

“THOSE GERMANS IN THE PRIMUS! THEY REVERSED OVER THEI…MY…THEIR BEER!”

“So what? Their problem!”, Andreas answered.

“You wanted to steal it, right?”, Janne said with a sigh.

“What would they even need all that beer for?”, Marie asked. “They wouldn’t have noticed if I had taken some!”

“No”, Andreas replied, “But when you have stolen 20 of them and emptied every bottle, they would at least notice it on you!”

“Bah, I will find out a way!”, Marie said. And neither Janne nor Andreas did doubt it when she came back to the tent that night, stinking of washer fluid. Easiest, though, was to not say anything.

The morning after, it was time to enter the rift, but our friends did notice that there were some…unusual problems with the IP.

“It stinks of butter”, Andreas said.

“For fucks sake!”, Janne said. “Marie, did you have some weird drunken idea to rust proof the exhaust manifold with butter or something?”

“Yuk”, Marie said. I am as innocent as ever."

“That’s exactly what worried us!”, Andreas said, while the car was boarding the rift.

Even though lots of other teams seemed to struggle, the IP purred like a cat through the rift, and there was a short but friendly visit from Team MCP.

Shitbox Rally 2024 - Journey to Holsia (Entries Closed)

Machinas Con Passione’s Shitbox Adventures Part 3 - Episode 3: Journey to Menes. (Featuring @Knugcab and @MrdjaNikolen ) Ah, the rift. [image] Fewer places of dystopian comfort exist, places where you can find yourself immersed in what is simultaneously the most soothing and terrifying series of images, twisting and warping to reveal candescent streams of light, dark, and shapes impossible to understand to the human eye constantly shifting into forms both recognizable and not. The only pe…

While driving out of the Rift, Marie kept blabbering about Chanty while Andreas said that he didn’t want to hear anything more about Marie’s imaginary friend.

“Well, I will seek revenge anyway!”, Marie said.

Shitbox Rally 2024 - Journey to Holsia (Entries Closed)

The end of the evening after Stage 0 teams included (in order of appearance): Team Firulais by @Angelustyle and Hillbilly Rollers by @Knugcab Jan, as he has a no-drug-attitude, quickly passed the joint back to Chanty. “It´s late, and since you will definitely not drive a car tomorrow, and Thomas is maybe stuck at some place getting drunk, I need to be fit for tomorrow in case Thomas isn´t. Please, don´t freak out too much. I guess you won´t give me company in the tent and prefer to get drunk…

After bumping into Ángel, Marie excused herself, took Rudolf and went back to the IP. Looking through Janne’s toolbox for hose clamps, she found a new use for Rudolph. Being some kind of grille mascot.

TO BE CONTINUED…

[MrdjaNikolen]

Team Chitco
Part 0b: Stage 0

Nevada involved some limited interaction with Kaylie from SH which is approved by @Madrias
Rift will be partially marked by going Straight Outta Saratos, for what you shall partially blame @shibusu mixed with some MCP chaos (SurrealCereal).
In case of latter, collab is in his post and this will just feature link to that in appropriate place. This also explains why he isnt tagged.
Holsia will again involve Shift Happens

Nevada

-Oh hello there
-I knew you lot would come eventually. As expected, you were slow.
-Where is your car?
-Somewhere. In this general space for sure. Will not give off more info than that.
-I wanna know.

Some pause followed

-No.
-Just so you know…you arent listed as member of our team this year. We might be able to smuggle you but i highly doubt hosts would take kindly on that.
-Im not sure how would that be possible. I would need to ask someone to take care of my car…or bring it along
-Sad…still want to know.
-I wanna ask her something.

-Your car does have that?
-Yes.
-In case our own Kontir happens to be in bad condition after event, could you realistically push us?

Amanda chuckles

-Very much so
-We are returning on 24th April for your information.
-Will keep in touch, then.

Amanda and team would continue to exist and would mostly follow camp shenanigans
Most interesting one was ghettoblasting of Marie The Unicorn and some older dude that donned hippo costume (Thomas).
Amanda had thought about pretending to mow these two ungraceful beings down, but decided that their grace indicates too much alcohol for that to go well
Others were amused by whole event.
There were some more arrivals after them as well

---

Drivers Meeting was attended by everyone including one person that would not actually participate.

-Why are you here?
-Because i dont have anything better to do.
-Fair. Now you can meet Kaylie.
-Who?

This was rather obvious as that SH member approached the group.

-Her. I recall she was mentioned as someone you dont want to piss off. Lets say i have every reason to believe that left arm packs quite a punch.
-One is enough

Andrea decided to explain the situation

-This bitch had also decided to join us on this meeting. She is called Amanda and, as you might figure out, also an asshole we had in team last year.
-That is Andrea. She is one you need to give two rings. Im not participating this year but just attending drivers meeting because its guaranteed to not be boring

@Madrias

Malavera watches as Chanty heads over to Kivenaal, and gets a brown paper bag in response. He casts a withering glare at Kiva, who shrugs and holds up two fingers, letting Mal know it was her second bag.

Indeed this one isnt gonna dissapoint either

-I dont understand why is Kiva going towards hangars.

Amanda decides to explain. As she had memorised the mail and knows how Malavera sounds she decided to combine the two therefore reciting relevant part of email in Mals voice:

Do NOT think that because the event starts on April 1, 2024 that you can show up on April 1 - You will have missed tech inspection and will not be going. Likewise, do not disrupt my driver’s meeting at 1000 (10 AM local time) on April 1, 2024, or I will make you run laps around the hangars until you throw up.

-I still dont understand why Kiva is at fault…he did nothing wrong.
-That whole interaction still disrupted the meeting
-I still dont agree.
-Your problem.

Four-armed Valraadi soon finished his punishment

---

Amanda had decided to go over to security officers that would be guarding the gate leading to the premises.
Her intention was to announce her leave from said premises: deemed necessary due to fact she is likely gonna attempt to do so at some speed
After noting they will likely be able to recognise when she starts moving, this was concluded and Amanda returned back to greet others as they go into Rift.

Andrea wondered about something, but testing that out in Holsia sounded as better idea.
Either way, team had prepared for the journey.
Andrea had the honor of honking.

-I LOVE YOU TOO

Amanda had looked as cars and buses and trucks had piled up to go through Rift.
Kontir had gotten in said group sufficiently early so teams potentially getting later into Rift could have seen Amanda going towards somewhere…and would soon hear exactly where she is.
Tires under rear end of that Bricksley were exposed to usual torture by accelerating on dirt until going at like 43.5 mph (70 kmph) when she switched to tarmac.
There was lot of honking, engine noise and probably some tire torture until she passed the gate leading to Twin Suns Aerodrome.
Due to fact she anounced her intentions this went perfectly to plan: gate had closed behind her…and will likely not be passed by any Chitco member until event is done.

Rift

Now we concentrate on group in Kontir. While they certainly heard blaring of horn mixed with engine and tire sounds, they couldnt pinpoint that to specific car as they were too deep into Rift to do so.

-Hopefully Amanda will behave.
-She didnt exactly caused any problems so far, i believe in her.
-Is this that famous Rift?
-Yes. Also yes, if you havent seen Natalia so far, you aint seeing her until end of event and beyond.
-All i needed to hear.

Collective sigh on what was certainly expected reaction

-There are still too many members of host team you can annoy so please do not annoy them
-Will have that in mind.
-That will be appreciated, dad

Jakasxandra thought a little then asked

-Andrea, i had just realised we dont exactly have some proper mechanic in team.
-We will be fine…i had thought about that.
-Am i involved in this thought?
-Yes.
-I have feeling i will hate it.
-Nah you will be fine…might even enjoy doing so.

Bong was still doubtful but chose not to voice his concerns too much.
Ofc this likely wouldnt be Rift journey in shitboxes if no breakdowns had happened

-Why are they laying on the brakes? They are literally first in line.
-They have AI onboard.
-So?
-I believe they are testing it out on this event.
-They have lot of smart AIs…this wouldnt happen to those

Jakasxandra decided to join on convo

-That AI they have is home-made. Mal said as such in one of the chats.
-Thats stupid if im being honest
-Nah it isnt. They decided to challenge their knowledge and skills and…this is challenge for sure.
-But now rest of us shall wait for them to sort it all out.
-wHICH WE WOULD DO ANYWAY FOR SOME OTHER PEOPLE

Example being crazy girl on motorbike and some people reporting their battery wasnt charging while waiting for crazy girl to sort her bike out.

-That crazy girl doesnt count
-Iirc that would be Lana. Sure she is tad bit crazy with idea of duking it out on bike, but that isnt the worst she could do. That bike does seem to be able to relatively decently do long-distance route.
Also, Lana is not one to complain about some discomfort

There would, however, be some teams where this quartet would be able to somewhat help.

---

-Bong, would you be willing to move your ass and help those people with their luggage?
-What are you seeing in me, one that is particularly adept at hauling luggage?
-I see someone who is decently strong and has two perfectly functionable legs.

She was showing that team she refered to regarding luggage help has just two people, one of which is Jace we all know and love and other is other dude.

-Still not interested.
-He is joining me to help this other team if possible, then.
-Wouldnt they be weirded out by your…appearance?
-We know each other. I remember they had some weird doctor of sorts two years ago.
-That doesnt mean said doctor is still there. For all you know, team might be entirely different.
-I recognise one person for sure and im not sure about second.
-There are four of them.
-It will be fine.

Some basic preparations were given

-So me and Jakasxandra go to help Jace and you two go to help that bunch?
-I guess?
-Lets go.

---

After locking the Kontir, two groups went their separate ways.
As Andrea noticed this might be good opportunity for meeting Jace, she and Jakasxandra had went to help him and his friend with luggage.

-Hello Jace. Do you need any help with that luggage? We are from team Chitco: im Andrea and this is Jakasxandra

Jace looked back at the two, while he placed a couple assorted items on the surface of the rift.
“I suppose I could use some help, yeah. Stuff ain’t moving itself. If you want maybe you could move those boxes for me that would be great.”
After speaking he returned to moving some briefcases.

• I guess you are looking for toolbox or something in here?
  she and Andrea carefully move boxes as instructed.
• This is rather quirky looking hatchback. What engine is in it?

Andrea remembered something and got to…little bit of trolling idea

• I recall him talking about it in TND and its also described as being REALLY weird. If you dont believe me, ask them to pop the bonnet up so you can take a look.

At about this point, Jakasxandra had noticed few stickers on rear bumper…but more importantly the grille below said stickers

• Nice try… Who would this guy happen to be?
• Probably his boyfriend.

She had now directed attention to said other guy

• Assuming im right there…Jace had mentioned the struggles you two went together. I hope you two had managed to fully settle in this other country after leaving the military?
• I assumed that we came here to help them, not to just casually chat…there will be plenty of opportunity to do so in camp
• I was kinda aiming to do both, Jakasxandra.

Kirann tried to scramble together the few English words he knew, with questionable results.
“Ava- Yes. We… is good? Have ho-”
Jace heard the struggle and interjected, while he continued to unload increasingly smaller items out of the boot.
“We’re good. We have a house now, garage, I even have a plane. Doing decently, as far as second-world standards go. That other guy’s called Kirann Atal-Mir. You can call him Kat, he’ll understand. Kat, saran uni meri?” [Did you want to say anything else, Kirann?]
“N’avar.” [No.]
Jace, boot now empty, began to unclip the parcel shelf to reveal the mighty 1.5-litre engine underneath.

-That might be a little bit of problem…i really hope you dont need to translate everything we say in native to him because his English is not great.
-Judging by his “We…is good” i think its just the matter of him not used to speak English. Understanding wouldnt be a problem.

Not that the girls would know that much about engine repair, but still looked at mighty boxer

-Your approach in making cars surely is weird combination of stuff. I can name some small (and rather modern) 4-door hatchback made on earth that also has engine in the rear. They are running much smaller turbo engines with just three cylinders…
-To cut Jakasxandra and her lengthy talk, we are used to hatches having boxers and ones running rear engines but they dont really do both at the same time. As neither of us is really a mechanic, we will just stand by for when cargo needs to be put back into car.

Jace, now having slumped over the rear bumper to access the engine, looked back to the two girls and nodded to them.
“Thanks for the help. We’ll do the rest ourselves. Not much to talk about as of now, it’s just the belt…”
He went back to looking at the engine, and shouted to Kirann to start the engine.

-Glad we could be of help and glad we were able to chat a little.
-See you in camp

They left back to Kontir

---

Bong and Pi went to help MCP which is covered here:
Shitbox Rally 2024 - Journey to Holsia (Entries Closed) - #86 by SurrealCereal

Holsia

Quartet is managing to get to other side of Rift without troubles of their own.

-Im staying by car, as i plan to test something.
-Ok. Im going to exchange some money with hosts.
-And im going to spend said money. Although someone else also needs to keep me company as i cant load up my own back by myself.
-I guess both of us could go along…providing Andrea is fine with being left alone. Also not bad idea to go all three to exchange due to fact Bong may not be too likable.
-Natalia isnt here.
-True. Still…

With that, trio went to Shift Happens.

-You shall probably nudge them up and suggest that they stop messing around, turn that fucking AI whatever off and keep it such until end of event.
-One, no. We are going there only to exchange money. They may not be the kind of people to rip someone off for reasons of disagreement, but they may inadvertently do so under emotions.
Two, THEY chose to burden themself with training the thing for the WHOLE event. Rest of us will endure that only through Rifts. If really needed they can step in and override the fucker.
-Hrmph
-Besides you dont need to get more of them on your bad side.

After some thought he decided this is very much true
Also they arrived and Jakasxandra spoke

-In case you heard us on the way here…which turns sternly toward Bong wouldnt be surprising due to their good hearing turns back toward them we will apologise for behaviour.
We had arrived here so we can exchange the money we brought into currency that works in Holsia.

Upon money being presented, SH Exchange Officer is called and waited for.
After said member of SH is indeed caught up to speed on how much needs to be exchanged, exchange was done

-While we are at it, is it known what had caused that sudden braking maneuver you did in Rift? I dont think i saw anything that would have jumped in front of it so its certainly not fault of sensors.

Jayde nods as Bong and Jakasxandra walk up and ask about a currency exchange.

“Oh, we heard. I’d be really tempted to give him an interesting day, if it wasn’t that the bunch of us are so close together that his bad day would be affecting all of us,” Jayde replies.

With a bit of effort and some double-checking with Nova, Jayde counts out an equivalent amount of money and hands it back.

Malavera, upon hearing the inquiry regarding the sudden braking maneuver, and that it couldn’t be the fault of the sensors, calls down to the pair.

“Little bastard panicked when we lost the GPS signal. Takaraya and I are busy patching the code to not rely on GPS data and instead rely on the cameras and sensors to know where it is.”

-GPS?
-Global Positioning System; it works based on satelites that orbit Earth. The vehicle was receiving signal from these satelites and, due to them mapping out entire Earth, would be able to know exactly where it is. This gave this project massive benefits in some way: AI would be able to know that there will be downhills/uphills/sharp turns etc. and prepare accordingly providing they would play around with handling that data.

Bong was very confused

-Their mistake was that seems AI would rely on that GPS connection, which could have been predicted to happen as we are arriving in world where such systems arent established.
As nice as it is to know all this in theory, i cant exactly be of much help in getting it to work.

Bong decided to ask

-So after they rely on cameras and sensors that sudden stop would be solved?
-Well its not like that would be only problem they might have. Im sure they will encounter some other issue that would arise by it being in unfamiliar scenario. As long as noone and nobody gets damaged or hurt, thats fine

She had also decided to ask some questions

I guess you may also be able to implement speed limits from GPS data into code? Because i think that might be another reason why you went with that: fact that road is clear doesnt mean you can drive at 60 mph in case said road is in town, for example.
Also what kinda sensors are used?

Takaraya spoke up this time.

“Road width and traffic speed will be used to keep the bus around the right road speed. We haven’t yet been able to teach it how to read a Holsian road sign, but it should be able to slow down and avoid crashing. As for sensors… GPS, ultrasonic distance sensors around the whole vehicle, some up on the roof to detect if we’re too tall to fit under an obstruction, there’s the cameras so the bus can “see,” and then it’s hooked into the whole rest of the bus. Engine RPM, wheel speed sensors, steering wheel angle sensors. In theory, it could drive this bus without a problem.”

-In theory
-Well they do need to kill any and all bugs that might be present in code. Thanks for explanation and hope you will have nice stay at this camp

After that they went back to Kontir in order to see if Andrea would need anything before they get to town.

-I had succeded but im yet to be sure what to make out of that. Will need to think tad bit more about it.
-So…would you need something from the town?
-No im afraid not. If you manage to find something yourself, feel free to buy it.
-Like what?
-I dunno surprise me. Soil, something plant-based or something animal-based would do…hopefully raw. Im still gonna experiment with what i can so cant really help you.

---

Trio went to the town then.
There was interest in certain 4-legged member of said trio.

-What is THAT mom?
-Just a pers…ok wait…WHAT?!?
-Hello
-Uhhhh…crap.

Trio chuckled

-You put us into this mess
-Im just a child
-You were a mistake
-What?
-I can probably relate

Glance at who said that

-Of course, such a creature is not normal and can only be branded as mistake.
-Not really…i was intended to just do one singular thing and thats to transport some person from one place to other. Someone had looked at me and decided: “She seems like she aint gonna care that im effectively gonna put all of her needs and wants below person i actually care about.”
Jokes on her, person she cared about also decided that im her best friend.
Being ugly and stupid sometimes isnt such a bad thing.

Local looked at Pi with newfound confusion

-Would require lot of explanation that you arent really interested in.
-I guess
-Is there any store that would sell soil, raw fish or raw meat?
-Why would that interest you?
-One member of our group decided that she might need that kinda thing.
-We are actually kinda wondering that ourselves as no further explanation was given.
-You are all weird
-Not hostile however
-How you became…like that?

Pi was not sure how to answer to this kid

-Uhhhhhh…that started with big battle…
-…im afraid that story might not be appropriate for children.
-Wait, really?
-Yes.
-Is it scary?
-Well you probably heard that she was about to mention big battle. Those usually happen to be very violent. That isnt even the worst part.
-What is the worst part?
-Pi is cobbled together from two human bodies.
-Preposterous.

Child giggles

-They called her Pee
-Its written Pee - eye but how we are used to pronounce it is…well…that.
-Why she has that name?
-Its short and therefore easy to remember. We took inspiration from something from math.
-Ugh…math.
-I gather you are not the fan?
-No…
-Im aware it can be complicated and, unless your interests call for it, its unlikely to be much fun. But you will figure it out and…math does happen to appear in normal life quite often.
Example or two
You get in shop because your mom told you to buy some stuff. She gave you list and money to do so. You notice something you would like to get for yourself but…would you have enough money to do so on top of what NEEDS to be bought? You may need to deploy math for that.
Or
You have choice to buy one big something or several smaller somethings: could be bottle of water or juice, chocolates of different size or something else that usually gets eaten, drank or otherwise consumed. One bigger package requires more money to be bought than one smaller package but in a way it can be cheaper.
If you need to buy 2 kg of food, you have option of getting 2 packs weighing 1 kg each, 4 packs weighing 500 grams or 8 weighing 250 grams. In this scenario, despite 1 kg pack being most expensive, it likely turns out that going with two of these is most cost-efficient way to go about it compared to other options
-How?
-To get 500 grams you can get one pack that weighs that much or two packs weighing 250 grams. These 250 gram packs would more often than not cost more than half the price of bigger one: likely due to need for more packaging compared to it…which too requires math.
But to be sure you would need to check prices and do the math.
Im 25 years old where i from and had enough practice to be able to roughly calculate this kinda stuff.
You will surely be able to do so yourself as well with more practice.
-Yeah…we really do need to get going tho.
-True…

The group had found couple of people selling fish and as they assumed Andrea is not really interested in quality of it they decided to get bad stuff out of the market and onto Pi.
Besides that, there would be need for some more supplies which will also be mostly applied on top of Pi.

---

Bong and Jakasxandra are going towards the camp after the shopping spree in town, roughly walking besides each other and by “roughly” i mean there is like 3 meters of distance between the two.
Roughly in middle between them was moving bundle of various stuff that likely would involve raw fish by smell.
Bundle also happens to have entire Holsia on top of it, with some slight changes in geography: as it stands tallest mountain in Holsia would likely be fish head visibly coming from below.

-Are you ok under there?

Bundle grunts in response, somewhat moving the FishHead mountain along

-I had seen better days. Likely will be SORE next day.
-Sorry not sorry.
-OUCH OUCH OUCH OUCH

And with that the bundle with legs had picked up a pace other two couldnt follow, but they attempted to do so anyway judging by sound of stuff.
One local that wasnt really of clearest mind had suddenly witnessed strange bundle going towards him and, since he was scared of this new monster, had took run of his own that ended up with him finding watering place intended for someones horse.

-That creature must have came from deepest burdens of hell

Regarding the “creature” it arrived in camp with noticeable advantage to Jakasxandra and Bong

-I think i was stung by something, my legs are close to failing and i think i scared someone shitless
-Not surprised

After some pause other two had joined, Jakasxandra being faster of the two

-Holy shit she is FAST.
-She would be able to technically keep up with Renata Evo Chitco. You two would not even be able to eat her dust due to both being too slow.
-But she is loaded
-Yeah…that somewhat matters…where did you found this tarp.
-Thats map of Holsia, intended to go on wall. Someone decided they are dissatisfied with its state so they threw it away…
-This reminds me of something from some book “Orlovi rano lete”
-Same…thats why i seized the opportunity
-Map might be useful to us…despite the holes and other signs of wear and tear.

Branko Ćopić had written the book in question and rough translation of name is “Eagles are flying early”.
Some kids had became incredibly dissatisfied with their new teacher and decided to gather in some specific place instead of going to school out of protest. One of them had tools that might be useful in making it happen and other had donkey at his disposal.
Needless to say is that bringing said tools using that donkey was immense inspiration for this…and book had fair bit more such moments, including the final chase when hideout was discovered and people decided to act on it.
Book also happens to be placed in roughly the same time period as Holsia is estimated to be in, point further driven by these kids helping out soldiers in tackling WW2 becoming soldiers themselves along the way.
Hideout has found new usage as well

With that, group had decided to enjoy rest of night.

[Happyhungryhippo]

Stage 1

teams included (in order of appearance): Hillbilly Rollers by @Knugcab and Team Firulais by @Angelustyle

Early in the morning, Marie sneaked to the Rhino tent and the Primus in front of it. She looked at the sticker in disgust.

“HONK IF YOU LIKE CHANTY? DAMN, KIDDO, I WOULD GRAB YOUR UGLY BLUE HAIR AND USE YOUR DAMN HEAD FOR HONKING UNTIL YOUR UGLY NOSE IS SQUEEZED INSIDE YOUR SKULL!”

She grabbed into her pocket, got two other stickers and slammed them onto the car.

“Sadly I couldnt steal barbie stickers from the other teams, but that will do the job.”

The morning for the Rhinos started an hour later with a noise Jan and Thomas were sadly very familiar with. Chanty crying at the entrance of the tent.

“What is it this time, damn?”,

complained Thomas.

“I have terrible headache AND RUDOLPH IS GONE! ORR! ICH RAST GLEI AUS WENNSCH DEN NE GLEI FINDE!”

Thomas and Jan looked in panic at each other. Rudolph gone? That´s a disaster. Not because they would miss the elk, but it being a disaster for Chanty means it´s inevitably also a disaster for them as well.

“I am sure you put him in the car, drunk as you were, because you were afraid to forget him with a hangover”,

replied Jan, in an attempt to calm her down.

“We need to distract her before she starts searching in the car”,

said Thomas, not without fear in his voice.

“Oh, I have a great idea how we can give her something else to make her mad enough she stops missing Rudy that much”.

Jan smiled, told Thomas the plan and both agreed with a handshake.

A few minutes later, Thomas showed up in Chantys favourite pink unicorn t-shirt.

“DAD! NO! JUST NO!”

“I think it looks great with me, don´t you think?”

Jan giggled like a drunk chicken. Tomás from the Firulais, not to confuse with Thomas, was dragged towards the rhino tent, since for him, something sounding like fun seems worth checking out.

"Oh well, your T-shirt is a bit tight, yes, I can´t inhale that much, but my smoker lung can´t anyway. I am surprised it does fit, considering I am 1,93m and you are 1,61,

laughed Thomas, with a slightly evil tone.

“What does that mean?”,

asked Chanty, really having no clue. Tomás didnt notice that he was about to do a mistake, when he explained to her.

“It means, if he is much taller than you, that you must be quite chubby”,

poking her gently in the side. Tomás regretted instantly, as he noticed that Chantys braincell now understood, and with a cracking voice, she protested, and the next tear flood was already on the way.

“I AM NOT FAT! I AM JUST FLUFFY!”

Thomas and Jan facepalmed perfectly syncronized, with a slightly annoyed Jan telling Tomás to fix this now, as he caused it. Tomás immediately asked his much elder counterpart with a similar name to pretend being on a catwalk, and the senior moving like a model with that pink unicorn t-shirt made Tomás laugh so intensively, that Chanty couldn´t resist being amused by that embarrassing sight as well.

“NOW GIVE IT BACK! I need to get a shower, and I want to wear it today.”

“JAN! HELP ME OUT OF IT! I am afraid I would rip it apart, if I nave to put it off alone…”

The team drove off without any inconvenience. Thomas was driving, as he had his drinking habits under control the evening before, and Jan was navigating from the passenger seat, while Chanty tried to cure her hangover in the backseat, also missing her elk.

Dad! Not your 80s mixtape again! I am already feeling miserable enough. What´s the newest you have?

Early 2000s, but that´s a CD, but this luxury stereo has both. Let me change then…

Chanty suddenly really started to feel the third song and tried to sing along without knowing the text, which made Jan wonder.

"Eh, I thought you don´t like such music. This song is old.

“YOUR MOTHER IS ALSO OLD AND YOU STILL LISTEN TO HER!”

“BWHAHAHAHAHA!”

Thomas gave his daughter a high five and almost died from laughter.

“Jan, are you sure this is the correct road?”

“It should be, Thomas, how about finally using your wipers so that we can see what´s in front of us?”

“The visibility is fine, but if you want… Huh? Why is there no more fluid? Wait, I`ll pull over and check.”

While Jan checked the map carefully and made sure they use the correct route, Thomas found a hole drilled into the washer fluid reservoir.

“ORSCHWERBLEEDE, WHO THE FUCK WOULD DO THIS? I mean, a proper sabotage would be puncturing the tire… I really can´t see why someone would to this. Der hat doch nimmor alle Laddn am Dsaun!”
(It was Marie, getting ANY alcohol available, as included in an earlier part)

With an acceptable they arrived safe and without a fault at the finish line for that stage, establishing themselves in the middle of the competition, and both Thomas and Chanty couldn´t explain why this old and complex machine could run so reliable after 250.000 kilometer and then sitting for seven years.

Thomas grabbed a few beers and made his usual camp “control walk”, checking out all teams´activity, while Chanty and Jan could cuddle unbothered in the tent. When he walked past the Hillbilly Rollers, Thomas didn´t believe his eyes: There was Rudolph, attatched to the grille of the IP. Thomas stepped towards the team.

“EH! WHAT IS THE ELK OF MY DAUGHTER DOING ON YOUR CAR? HAND IT BACK, NOW!”

Janne, not even having really arrived, looked at Marie.

“Don´t tell me it is from that Chanty and she is not imaginary?!”

“Of course it is.”

“MARIE!”

“Janne, relax, I even attatched in a way this stinky toy isn´t damaged. They should be grateful that it now smells like a hot engine and no longer after that terrible girly perfume!”

“Now give it back before that angry senior punches Andreas. Marie… eh, Marie?”

Marie already stepped up to Thomas.

“YOUR STUPID BRAT SABOTAGED OUR CAR BY PUTTING BUTTER IN THE HEATING SYSTEM! YOU SHOULD BE GRATEFUL THAT WE DIDNT FEED THAT UGLY ELK TO THE LOCAL ANIMALS”

“She did… what?”,

laughed Thomas, not hiding at all that he was proud of Chanty.

A furious Marie grabbed a knife and held it against Rudolphs throat, ready to slice it.

“So, grandpa. How about a trade?”, asked Marie, pointing at Thomas beers, as from the sixpack were still two unopened left.

“Do you know how expensive beer is here? DAMN!”

“You prefer telling your little innocent brat that Rudolph died a horrible death?”

Thomas sighed, pushed the two beers with his foot towards Marie, who did the same with Rudolph.
Half an hour later, Chanty and Rudolph had a very emotional reunification, but after some minutes of pure joy, she realized that Thomas can´t just have found it “in the trunk” - it smelled a bit like the Huvudvärk Wodka - but Chanty clearly knew she spilled nothing of that onto Rudolph before she saw him for the last time. So Marie must have stolen it.

Chanty grabbed a coke and some Mentos, walked towards the IP and waited for a moment when all three had left the vehicle, which happened after 20 minutes, when Janne, Andreas and Marie agreed to look for firewood.

Chanty mixed the Coke and Mentos, quickly closed the bottle again and stored it in the minibar before quickly getting away from the IP before someone could see her, and an extremely confident and amused Chanty walked back to Jan and Thomas, of course not telling what she had done in the meantime, but the two could tell from Chantys unusually good mood, that she clearly did something she shouldn´t have done.

After an hour of successful search, the Hillbilly Rollers had found enough suitable firewood, and Marie, already having consumed the two beer from Thomas, opened the minibar to get something to drink, took the Coke, and opened it…

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH”

[Knugcab]

TEAM HILLBILLY ROLLERS
PART 1.1 - A DIRTY, SMELLY RIDE

Prepared to leave for the first part of the rally, Janne noticed something weird attached to the grille.

“MARIE! IS THIS YOUR WORK?”, he said in an angry tone, pointing at the grille.

“Yes! You don’t like it?”, she asked.

“I don’t like that you have ruined a whole bunch of freaking expensive stainless hose clamps!”, Janne answered.

“Where did you steal this plush elk?”, Andreas asked, even more annoyed than Janne.

“I did not steal it, I found it in a trash container!”, Marie said.

“M-hm… A parfume factory’s trash container then.”, Andreas said with a sigh.

Ding New Wave - Eddie Meduza

To the tones of Eddie Meduza, the team left the first campground and the slightly slippery, narrow gravel roads did remind them of their home a bit, so did the weather.

After a while they passed the Primus, that seemed to have some struggle with keeping its windshield clean.

“Seems like they are out of washer fluid”, Janne said. “Should we stop and give them some?”

“No.”, was Marie’s answer. “They have a hole in their reservoir anyway!”

“So, how do you know that?”, Andreas asked.

“Uhm…ehm…I heard on TV that Primus washer fluid reservoirs are always broken!”, Marie lied, while the rest of the team started to understand where the weird smell of washer fluid came from.

All in all, the trip went rather well, even if the wide BF Goodrich Radial T/A:s sometimes made the IP go all over the road like a horny snake. What was less pleasant, though, was the smell of butter reaching the passenger compartment once again.

“Yuk!”, Andreas said. And I can’t turn off the heater because then the windshield will be fogged. How pleasant."

“Blame Chanty!”, Marie said.

“I have told you 1000 times we don’t care about your imaginary friend!”, Andreas answered.

After a not too dramatic ride, the team arrived at camp.

Continue here…

[Angelustyle]

Team Firulais

Stage 1: Ana's Payback, and more mindreading incidents

(Mentioning: @Happyhungryhippo [The Rhino Squad], and @MrdjaNikolen [Team Chitco])

???, Menes, Holsia

Ángel had, for once, the night of his life. On comfort, that is. He was happy to finally be able to sleep comfortably, Mainly Thanks to Chantal’s gift, even in the Aurora’s disastrous interior, which was starting to get clobbered by Ángel’s Clothes.

However, one person who wasn’t having much fun… was Ana.

She’d found her credit card, at last. But, despite Ángel’s attempt, he wouldn’t go unnoticed. I mean, who would hide it in such an obvious place as the Sun visor… Only someone as analytical as Ángel would do such thing ! And, seriously, even his attempts of sabotaging other teams, if he does any, are evidently made by him. Probably because they aren’t as harmful… For example, “decorating” cars, removing non-essential parts (after all, Ángel, while sometimes evil-ish, didn’t want to make someone else’s car into a death trap), or causing turmoil for another team (say, waking them up with his frying pan, the only cooking device apart from the basics that HE can control). Up to this point, however, he didn’t feel like doing any mischief… But Ana did… And what better way to do mischief than in your own team as an act of payback ?

So, Ana, making hay about the fact the Firulais brought a bunch of Electronic Devices, connected an Alarm Clock to the Aurora’s Radio… And put it on full volume. As Ángel was sleeping so comfortably that night, he didn’t even notice until the clock hit 4:30 AM (The Clock wasn’t configured for Aetheriian Time [for reasons which are quite self-explanatory], so, it was around the very early morning of the day)… Whatever music was playing out of there made the entire car shake as Ángel got a well-deserved dish of payback… Ana would say. For Ángel, it was actually fair… Although, he did suffer much more than her, after all, she is the most wealthy member in the team, and Ángel is arguably the least in that aspect, despite having 2 cars as we speak.

And then, things got even worse.

As the day progressed at Menes, every single member of Team Firulais went on to do some last things on what could be their last visit at a major city in their entire trip. Tomás went to have some fun with the Nilpferds, Ana went to grab some drinks to drink later, Josué was busy in the bathroom, and Andrés, for once, wasn’t playing Pokémon. He would allow Ángel to “catch up”, so they could have a combat later in the Rally, so Andrés was making breakfast.

Ángel also went to have some fun with other teams, this time, with the Chitcos. He’d already hurd of them before, and so, he was going to try and be social… Which, was harder than you might think. With Ángel not being able to sleep more than, say, 5 hours that night, he was a bit tired. But the fact that he’d drive thru the first stage made his mood a bit higher.

Also, sadly, that ONE NIGHT of 5 hours (earth time) of sleep may be Ángel’s best night of sleep in the entire rally. Life just doesn’t give him a break.

And boy, today, it was going to be, unbeknownst to anyone, even him, his second Mindreading Incident. But, first, let’s put ourselves in context. As said before, Ángel was going to talk with the Chitcos…

“H-How do I even introduce myself… What am I going to do…?”
He thought. And decided to make a friendly approach… Which ended up seeming more like an awkward-scary approach… But, c’mon, it’s Ángel, what did you expect…?

Ángel:“H-Huh… H-Haro…”
Pi:“Did this guy just literally say ‘Hello’ in a Japanese-y way ?”
Andrea:“I mean, he looks Japanese.”
Ángel:“That’s because I kinda am. Anyway… I haven’t really introduced meself properly. Name’s Ángel, from Team Firulais…”

A wave of silence surrounded Ángel.

Ángel:“The one with the blue Aurora ?”

Again, silence…

Ángel:“OK, OK, the one team with the guy who reads minds ?”
Jakasxandra:“Ooh, that one. I remember hearing some rumors of someone wailing the day before we reached Nevada… And it was from THAT team.”
Bong:“Yeah… Who could have been ? He must be a weakass…”

Ángel pointed at himself with his finger.

Bong:“It was you ?”
Ángel:“The one-eyed, Russian-Japanese guy, who got punched in the gut the day before the trip, and nearly started a camp fire, literally…? Yes.”
Bong:“We never met someone like this… Show us your mystical powers !”
Said Bong, with excitement, as he’d never seen anything like that…
Ángel:“I-I… I can’t exactly do it…”
Pi:“What do you mean by that you can’t ? That’s laaaaame!”
Ángel:“I know, I’d love to show you but—”

It was at this point where Ángel’s Mindreading powers kick in… Reading Andrea’s mind… And, while definitely not as agonizing as the incident at Nevada, the guy suffered… His wailing and twitching made everyone around, even civilians, to look at him in such a way… Some were even alerted, and certain civilians were… Scared. They thought he was going to… Who knows, collapse and transform into some sort of legendary deity whose only purpose was wrecking havoc… Luckily for them, none of that was happening. It was just Ángel having his usual Mindreading side effects…

But, unfortunately for Ángel, this time around, none of his teammates were there to help him… He stopped after about 10 minutes (earth time), and got calm down after another 10 earth minutes… However, things were far from over for him…

Shortly after this first incident at Holsia, he’d have his second, reading accidentally the mind of one local civilian as he bought some bread in his way back to the car… This time, he caught so much the eye, he actually got stopped by the police… Luckily, he managed to get away, after a lot of chatter of course, but now Holsia had their eyes looking at him constantly…

When he arrived at his team’s place… The reception was cold… Except for Tomás, who was still laughing at what he’d seen earlier at the Nilpferds’ Tent.

Josué:“May you explain ?”
“What now…?”, thought Ángel, thinking he was going to have his THIRD INCIDENT OF THE DAY…

And while that didn’t happen… He’d still end up suffering.

Josué:“First, why did we overheat the day before this, and WHY were you sleeping during the breakdown ?”
Ángel:“Don’t I have the right to rest ? Specially after some really shaky days… And the Overheating problem… I mean, it could happen to anyone. I’ve Hurd another team also had the same issue.”
Josué:“OK, fine, but, then, why did you left us to repair it ourselves ?”
Ángel:“It was easy enough to fix ! Also, I did replace the fuses, so, I at least did SOMETHING !”
Ana:“Oh, yeah, and, about doing things… You know who woke you up ? Ángel, you sneaky little Communist Bastard !”
Ángel:“Hey, calm down…”(whispering) “And the Soviet Union doesn’t even exist anymore…”
Ana:“I’m not done yet, Ángel, you’ll see ! You shall suffer for as long as we are together !”
Ángel:“…”
Josué:“…and Lastly, WHY did you call the attention of the police ?”
Ángel:“Isn’t Ana the one who usually does that…?”
Josué:“I don’t care ! You’ve got us in trouble now !”
Ángel:“Hey, it was actually only ME the one who got in trouble…”
Josué:“What would happen if they arrest you, and then we have a breakdown which only YOU could fix, huh ?”
Ángel:“Look, First, Calm down, and Second… Remember my mindreading incident at Nevada ? Remember I can’t control it… And if I attempt to, I suffer even more than I usually do when I don’t. Imagine if you were resisting against something… Say, a storm. And then you loose strength periodically… Until you can’t anymore… And the storm destroys you…”
Andrés:“That’s actually a quite metaphorical way to say it… In other words, if you attempt to control it, it may come even worse…”
Ángel (via Telepathy to the entire team):“Well… Yeh… Besides, being… Different, from most, is quite weird here… I don’t know if they know about the Yumeisotitanian Race…”
Andrés:“The… What ?”
Ángel:sigh“L-Let’s stop discussing, and focus. We were going off the conversation… The fact is, though, I… I’m sorry…”

Ángel apologized for the inconveniences, but, was still pretty nervous… After all, this was a really shaky morning…

However, the drive to Unmar would rise his spirits.

???, Menes-Unmar Road, Holsia.

Unlike Stage 0, the car handled brilliantly with the tight roads. Asphalt and Cobblestone wasn’t exactly Ángel’s home turf though… But given it was wet, it felt like it (his “home turf” is Snow and Ice).

And apart from a little in-car discusion, the team was chilling out. Tomás was reading some Manga he’d brought, Ana was occasionally kicking in Ángel’s seat, and Josué was keeping an eye on Ángel, who, same as Andrés, was listening to some old Soviet song… Ángel had brought a few cassettes, all containing some music… Although he had also brought 2 blank cassettes… Along with a recorder, he’d use them as a “log”.

???, Unmar, Holsia.

Upon arrival on Unmar, reactions were mixed. Ana was a city girl, so she as sure as hell wouldn’t like this town… The opposite could be said of Ángel. He was born and lived in a small town in the Kuril Islands for quite some time (only moving occasionally to Nemuro [Small City in Hokkaidō, Japan] and to Vladivostok [where he lives at the moment]).

And Unmar gave him quite the small town vibes, so, he was actually a bit happy of being outside of the city… However, after the incidents at Menes, he, despite being in some way a Social Butterfly, he wouldn’t attempt to approach any of the locals… And, for his sake, that was actually an understandable decision…

And as always…

Also, my drawings… I admit, they are from not the best quality… But at least I’m trying…

[Madrias]

Team Highway Hooligans

Stage 1

---

“Yee haw!”

Cody yells as they leave the first camp in a flurry of wheel spin and tire smoke, mostly thanks to Jake forgetting that the parking brake was still set.

Knowing that there was a rock coming up, and more importantly, it was on the inside of a corner that put their gas tank at risk, Jake takes the detour to avoid it, then weaves their front-wheel-drive car-van-truck-thing through the twisting, winding roads. The cobblestone roads cause the old plastics to rattle and squeak, and makes talking almost impossible. The patches of rough asphalt are a welcome reprieve, the suspension able to handle those bumps a lot better.

They breeze into camp a little after 3-and-39 Sun, where they quickly set up some tents… And then Cody decides to be that guy who turns the Ishu’s stereo up to blast some rock music.

“Well, at least when someone inevitably eggs our car,” Jake says, cracking open a can of chili and heating it on a small portable stove, “the rain should wash most of it off.”

Trevor chuckles and assembles a sandwich from a fresh-baked loaf of bread, some locally produced cheese, and some cooked chicken. “You worry too much, Jake. What I’m worried about is the fat slob over there,” Trevor says, pointing to Marie from Hillbilly Rollers, “breaking into our truck box and stealing our beer. Have you seen the prices of that shit around here? I did the math, it’s like $12 a bottle. Glad I stuffed 4 36-can cases of Coors Light in there, behind the jugs of oil and coolant, and under some blankets.”

“Good point,” Jake quips. “I swear, I saw her drinking window washer fluid the other day.”

“She ain’t right in the head, Jake,” Trevor adds in agreement.

[Madrias]

Team Shift Happens

---

Stage 1

---

Kivenaal sighs. “We really need to leave the AI on for the whole trip?”

“It’s good training data for it. Where else are we going to be able to train an AI to drive a bus with a trailer to drive on tight, winding roads?” Malavera responds with a smirk.

Jayde shrugs. “I’m kinda with Kiva on this one. We’re going to be slow as it is, and then we have to deal with our digital gremlin. Or do I need to remind everyone about it brake-checking people when it went into the Rift?”

“That was a fluke. We forgot to take that out of the code,” Takaraya admits. “Besides, we’re on the road and the AI seems to be fine.”

“You’re not the one watching the screen of debug spew, Tak. It’s not confidence inspiring to see how often it barfs up “AI Panic” with some sort of message soon after,” Kivenaal grumbles.

---

Camp, however, was an easier matter for the Shift Happens crew. Simply toss down Jayde’s magic tent, pin it with tent stakes to the ground so it looks supported, and enjoy all the creature comforts of home, like climate control, electricity, a working refrigerator and stove, and separate bedrooms for everyone if they needed it.

“Downside of not having Rukari with us,” Kaylie admits, “is that we’re missing out on a lot of good camp stews.”

“Mani and Sariya seem to have that covered,” Kayden replies, motioning to the two of them in the kitchen, making something vaguely similar to spaghetti, but with Sariya’s homemade spicy sauce. For Jayde, Mani had a garlic-and-herb enhanced tomato sauce with much, much lower heat.

“Yeah, but even I can make pasta,” Kasiya counters.

“I think most of us are going to miss Rukari’s almost-infinite capacity for brewing alcohol,” Jayde adds. “We’ve got enough beer for everyone to have one bottle, and then we fight over the last one.”

“Any idea what we can trade, or who we trade with?” Lauren inquires.

“Fresh-cooked food for beer,” Sariya replies. “Seriously - Hunger will loosen some pockets.”

[Madrias]

Shitbox Rally - Stage 1

Stage 2: Unmar to Lendehamn

Weather: High Teens, cloudy, occasional light rain showers.

---

We leave the small village of Unmar and head out on a surprisingly well-maintained road toward the next small city. As we approach, the landscape is dotted with farms, some with traction engines, some with relatively-new looking Fordson-style combustion tractors. Small villages can be seen scattered around near the farms, and when there aren’t farms or villages, it’s kilometers of forest. On the road, crews were forced several times to slow down for level crossings after the Hooligans made a report over the CB about “trying to get all the wheels in the air” over one of them.

Shift Happens has to make a stop at the side of the road for an hour to fix a problem with their brake interlock system. Turns out, the rear door of the bus had a door position sensor jammed up with fur, leading to the bus thinking the rear door had opened, and thereby putting the brakes on.

Team Firulais has to change a flat tire along with Transporttjäns Eriksson Aktiebolag Eslöv, The “Crazy” Eight, and the Argonites.

The Spy Kids, however, brought a formerly-expensive German car, which had an expensive German problem with the fuel injection system on this stage. 3 and a half hours are lost after the trigger was pulled on the parts cannon, and new fuel injectors are installed.

“Honey I Bought a S#!tbox” has never been so appropriate after an hour was lost to a mysterious misfire. It’s fixed for now, but there’s probably a reason “duct taping the spark plug wires onto the spark plugs” isn’t a dealer recommended fix.

Machinas Con Passione experiences a semi-catastrophic breakdown when the clutch starts slipping. Five hours later, they finish getting the “brand new” clutch in, but the decision is made to continue straight to the next stage instead of sitting in camp - It’s clear the car’s not as great as Giacomo seems to think.

Lendehamn turns out to be a small city of roughly 21,000 people, looking loosely like a classic 1930’s era European city. If you’re looking to buy something, as long as it’s something fairly common, you shouldn’t have too much trouble here.

Our camp ends up being on a nice empty plot, complete with “for sale” signs. Unfortunately, this means there’s no toilets or showers.

The train is neatly parked up in a siding near the station, providing the equivalent of a nice restaurant for those interested in trying more Holsian cuisine.

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

[Madrias]

Team Shift Happens & Team Highway Hooligans & GECA - Interstellar

(Thanks to @Elizipeazie for the collaboration.)

---

Stage 2 Camp

---

Not much happened during the afternoon for GECA - Interstellar, having spent a sizable portion of their time setting up their bikes, some of which - cough Hugh and Björn cough - having difficulties, thus vastly extending this process.
Add to that lunch, later dinner, a bit of socializing for those willing or able and a more “official” meeting regarding the upcoming stages effectively killed enough time until the evening.

With the sun still comfortably above the horizon, Valentin hauled his equipment over to a semi-prepared “stage”.

Reference to what the "stage" looks like.

Once amplifier, guitar, microphone and minor ancillaries were dropped off, he headed back to fetch the battery to power it all.

Jake, Cody, and Trevor found themselves almost drawn to the stage as they witnessed the musical equipment being set up. Likewise, Jayde and Malavera wandered over there, ready to enjoy the live music.

Nearby-ish, but at a fair distance, Kivenaal, Kasiya, Inaelus, and Mani start practicing with their own instruments, though quite obviously keeping things quiet to not disturb the stage practice.

Shortly thereafter, Valentin returns, a battery about the size of the amplifier already on stage in hand.

“Looks like some people already showed up to see us play…” Valentin speaks to himself out loud while hoisting the battery onto one end of the flatcar, stepping up onto it afterwards.
Largely ignoring them for the time being, the equipment is neatly aligned centrally on the ‘stage’, followed by Val casually hooking things up to each other.

Jake laughs. “Yeah, it’s somewhat hard to beat “free concert” when the radios don’t work in the car.”

Trevor smirks. “He’s just cranky because none of us thought to make a mix tape.”

“For us,” Malavera adds, “it’s just something different than the music that the Four-Armed-Four over there have been practicing with.”

“I still have that bet against Lars,” Valentin comments, looking to the locomotives coupled to either end of the stage,
“Just one moment…”

He heads off towards the GECA train a third time, returning with three staff members, in turn boarding either locomotive while Valentin returns to his guitar on stage.

“Warning to you lot, might be loud,” he notifies, looking at those already present.
Once again, a quick glance is thrown to either side, followed by a singular, aggressive headbang, sending his hairdo flying around wildly, accompanied by a quick whistle blip from both engines.

“Works, good,” Valentin notes with a ‘thumbs up’ gesture to the engine on his left, followed by the same for the one to his right.

Cody laughs. “Oh, that’s mean - He’s even got steam whistles as instruments.”

“I explicitly told Lars that any supplementary things he might want or need to use are perfectly fine,” Valentin remarks while slinging the guitar over his shoulder.

At the flick of a switch, the guitar springs to life with a noticeable hum, followed by Valentin beginning the process of tuning it.

As the first notes drift across the campsite, Kaylie, Kayden, Lauren, and Sariya wander over at first, and Takaraya a few seconds later. Following them was most of GECA - Interstellar, including Lars, who seems very tensed up while approaching the stage and the others.

In the middle of Valentin turning around to fiddle with the amplifier and it’s settings, Lars seizes the opportunity:
“Val… I have news…” he said somewhat sheepishly, but still very much loud enough for everyone present to hear.
Valentin turns back around: “Sorry?”
“I have things to tell you…” Lars repeats, nervously twiddling thumbs in the process.
“I’m all ears,” Valentin replies, ever so slightly annoyed at having been interrupted, though not yet showing any of it.

“I take it you remember April 27th, 2022?” Lars inquired, mustering what little serious courage he had hidden behind his unfiltered self.

The inside of Jayde’s ears go ever-so-slightly pale as he recognizes the date. A quick, semi-discreet check on Mal shows that the fuse on the 520 pound bomb hasn’t been lit, but Jayde’s aware that it’s just a matter of time. With a few careful steps, Jayde tries to position himself in between Malavera and Lars, aware that with a few words, there were good odds that the angry werewolf would go on the attack.

“Ow! Fuck, Jayde, you just stepped on my foot!” Cody grumbles.

“Sorry. Had to move because my leg was bothering me,” Jayde replies, sliding a half-truth into his apology.

Trevor casually cracks open another beer and takes a long swig. “This fuckin’ six pack didn’t last that long,” Trevor mutters, his speech slurred a bit from the alcohol.

Valentin, likewise, distinctly remembers that date: “How could I not?”
And so did Norse, who did not dare to say anything yet, but also expected the worst, given the peculiar timing of this.

a long bit of silence fills the area

Mani looks over at Val and Lars, giving a light smirk as he sees a possible future play out. He nudges Kiva, Inaelus, and Kasiya and says quietly, “Oh, this is going to be a good fight.”

“Shouldn’t we stop it?” Kasiya inquires, just as quietly.

“No. Best possible future is if we don’t intervene,” Mani replies, checking through possible futures as fast as he can. “If any of us get involved, Val gets injured.”

By this time, Valentin was about to set the guitar aside when Lars finally spoke up again:
“You remember because someone in a Pb8 van ran into you and a good 15 others in one go. I remember, too…” Lars spoke, before releasing the bomb from it’s locks, “… I remember, because I was driving that van.”

What initially was miles of fuse that formed Valentin’s patience was lost in an instant, going from “calm” to “blood-boiling rage” in less than half a second.

Malavera’s eyes narrow in an instant, and with a swipe across the screen on his left wrist, he looks toward Lars with a deep, resonating growl.

“I am going to fold you in fucking half! Break everything. I WILL CRUSH YOUR SKULL AND DRINK YOUR BLOOD FROM A BOOT!” Malavera roars, trying to charge toward Lars, only to be blocked by Jayde.

Jayde growls with effort as he tries to hold back 520 pounds of nanite-amplified Khalan, knowing he couldn’t Wyld shift to get the advantage here. He quickly invokes a spell of Amplified Strength, trying his best to hold Malavera back. It works for a few precious moments…

Precious moments which Valentin also uses for a war-cry directed at Lars:

“YOU SHALL FEEL WHAT BEING INCHES AWAY FROM DEATH IS LIKE!!!”, Valentin shouts out of full lungs, starting a complex set of actions as he tries to weaponize his guitar as well as get a run-up at Lars from atop the flatcar, neither of which wholly successful.

The other GECA members present either run off entirely to seek refuge elsewhere or clear out a significant area to watch from afar, not wanting to “meddle” with “personal matters”.

The guitar, still plugged into the amp, yanks the cable out of it’s port on the guitar end. A minor loss in balance due to this has Val shoulder the microphone boom away from himself, dropping it and the microphone into a small puddle on the flatcar with a deafening screech of feedback before going silent to moisture damage.

Still, Valentin manages to land an airborne overhead swing with the guitar against Lars’ right shoulder, losing grip of the former and downing the latter.

Malavera snarls as Jayde continues to fight with him, though he exploits a weakness as he twists his right hand out of Jayde’s left handed grip, then promptly strikes Jayde’s old bite scar. As Jayde yowls in pain, Malavera uses that moment to pick Jayde up and hurl him across the flatcar “stage.”

Jayde lands hard on the tracks behind the stage with a sharp, snapping crunch and a pained groan. Scattered around him are an amplifier, a battery pack, and now one very mangled microphone boom. He glances over to his right arm, seeing that his forearm is definitely broken.

“May you have an interesting day for this, Mal.” Jayde grumbles.

Malavera growls softly as he looks toward Valentin and Lars.

Trevor, never one to lose a perfect opportunity to get involved in an ass-kicking, runs up and tries to kick Lars, misses, and ends up throwing dirt over his clothes. He then promptly falls on his ass and starts laughing.

Lars, now on the ground and in ample pain, is pretty much defenseless, a fact that Valentin eagerly makes use of:

“THIS… IS… FOR… WHAT… YOU… DID… TO… UUUSSSSSSSSSSS!!!” Valentin continues, still with a full force shout while aggressively kicking into the side of Lars.

Norse, meanwhile, is unable to put a stop to it, given that he never even experienced Val like this before, and that is not even considering the obvious weight and strength disadvantage…

Malavera shakes both of his heads, slowly coming out of his blood-wild rage and focusing on the fight properly. He sees Valentin kicking the ever-living shit out of Lars’ side and tries to close the distance, planning to push Val out of the way.

Unfortunately, having forgotten his strength when nanite boosted, what was intended to be a light push turns into a full-blown American-football tackle into Val’s back, knocking Valentin off of his feet. Luckily for Valentin, the 500 pound werewolf isn’t landing on him. Unluckily for Lars, the now-off-balance Malavera comes crashing down on top of him with a weighty thud.

With Malavera at his back and all his focus being on Lars, Valentin had no way of even remotely anticipating the tackle, which very effectively allows Malavera to send him to the ground.
While Valentin failed to cushion the blow, he was lucky enough to not break his nose on impact, instead taking a good hit and slide on the ground nearby.

Lars, likewise, still is in pain and pretty much unable to act in any coherent form, courtesy of Malavera now adding to the pain by virtue of his full weight being atop Lars.

Malavera groans and starts the slow process of getting up off of the ground and Lars. This, however, is not a graceful effort, leading to a hand supporting most of his upper body weight ending up on Lars’ shoulder, a knee in Lars’ kicked-to-hell side, his other knee putting pressure on Lars’ thigh, all in the many seconds it takes for Malavera to stand back up.

Cody smirks. “Surprised when you fell on him that you didn’t squash him flat as a pancake.”

“Nah. They don’t call stupid people “dense” for nothing,” Jake quips. “You could probably drop Kasiya on him and just get an “ow” out of him. Those sorts of people rarely get hurt.”

Not much happens for Valentin, now on the ground and fairly decently scratched and banged up. His glasses have seemingly sailed to the moon, having landed quite a ways off from him, breaking on impact.

Lars, however, cannot stop himself from belting out the mother of all pain-induced screams as Malavera “gracefully” gets off of Lars, obliterating the already FUBARd shoulder even further while adding more damage to his side and thigh.

“What the FUCK did I just witness!?” Norse finally mutters, having seen this mess unfold from the very first row.

Malavera quietly steps away from Lars, heading over to check on Valentin. As he does so, he returns his nanites to normal mode, grimacing and wincing as he feels every bruise he’s picked up from the skirmish.

“Sorry, Val. I didn’t mean to tackle you. Was trying to push you away from the fight once I came to my senses,” Malavera admits.

With a subtle grunt, Valentin rolls around to his back before propping himself up to a seated position with his arms, revealing a lightly scratched up face full of dirt missing a pair of glasses.

“GO TO FUCKING HELL YOU INCURABLE PIECE OF SHIT-STAINED UNDERWEAR!!!”, Valentin blares at Lars and past Malavera, leaning over a bit to get a better view at the ‘victim’, now surrounded by a couple of vaguely supportive GECA members.

Trevor grabs onto Malavera to pull himself up, swaying like a drunk snake despite holding onto the equivalent of a fur-covered tree. As he finally gets up onto his feet, he’s immediately doubled over as he vomits, splattering Lars with puke.

“Fuck. What a waste of good beer,” Trevor mutters.

Lars at this rate has gotten it all, a guitar to the shoulder, a major ass-kicking, being used by a 230-odd Kilo Khalan as a support and now a sink by a drunk Trevor.
Still, the amount of pain he is in prevents him from doing pretty much anything.
Those around him try to help to the best of their non-existent abilities.
The only ones able to help refuse to do so, agreeing with Valentin’s notion of him having deserved every bit of it.

Valentin himself remains furious, verbally bombarding Lars with an unexpectedly large array of Swedish profanities, insults and general trashtalk.

With Valentin at least confirmed to be okay enough to still hurl angry insults at Lars, Malavera heads over to check on Jayde, managing to trip over the tracks and make a similarly-heavy face-plant to Valentin on the far side of them. In the fall, one set of his glasses falls off and ends up broken on a rock.

“Fucking hell… And of course I didn’t bring spares,” Malavera mutters.

Kayden, on the other hand, heads over to Jayde without much of an issue, quickly working to stabilize Jayde’s broken arm.

“Sorry, I know this hurts, but we have to set that arm so you can heal. Ideally, we’d get one of the camp’s medics to take a good look at it, or maybe get a mystic to heal it… Right now, the main concern is getting it set and then getting a cast on it,” Kayden admits.

“This really fucking hurts,” Jayde grumbles.

At this point, Valentin has bled enough steam to cool off a little, to the point where he is no longer shouting profanities across the area. Realizing the lack of glasses, he looks around in search for them.
The initial look-around turns into an actual search as nothing was immediately visible, revealing a pair of bent-to-oblivion glasses nearby.

“Crap…” he mutters as they break in two during the attempt at bending them back to shape.

Lars, meanwhile, managed to utter the words “I wanna go home…”, which prompted a good 5 people or so practically running off to fetch whatever he brought along to the event, placing it near him so that he is directly touching it all in some capacity.

Afterwards, a small discussion ensues as to who gets the honor of turning his ring to send him home, eventually granting Astrid the privilege of doing so.

A couple of turns at the ring and a few seconds of waiting have Lars magically vanish, complete with everything he brought along.

Kayden sighs as he works with Jayde. “Hey, Norse, I could use your help here. I need you to go into our bus and look for a bright red plastic case. It’ll have some markings on it that you probably won’t be able to read, and a white star on either side of it. Weighs about 10 kilos.”

Norse, somewhat snapped out of his shock-induced trance, blurts out a quick “Sure…” before heading off towards their bus.
Shortly after, he returns, but without the case:
“How do I get into the bus?”, he inquires, seeing Jayde and Valentin’s equipment scattered around behind the flatcar, “I am not going to ask how this came to be…”

Valentin, at this rate, also spotted his guitar in the distance, heading over there to check on it.
Initially, it appears surprisingly unharmed, barring some scratches from it impacting the dirt.
Failing to spot the amp on stage, he starts looking around the area for the remainder of his equipment…

Kayden looks to Norse, then gives an apologetic look. “Under the front bumper, near the door, there should be a button. Push that, the door should open,” Kayden explains. “Sorry, forgot we locked up after we parked.”

Jayde groans in pain as Kayden continues to hold his arm together. “Fucking hell, that hurts!”

“Sorry, Jayde. I’ll give you something for the pain once I have my med-kit,” Kayden admits. “Something for the pain, get that arm set, in a cast, and possibly in a sling. I’d give you something to speed up healing, but-”

“Just fucking do it, Kayden. It’s bad enough I’ll be spending the next six weeks in a cast,” Jayde grumbles.

“Guess we’re getting another one in the nanite club, then,” Kayden admits.

“Right…” Norse comments, already hurrying back to the bus and quickly retrieving the box Kayden asked for. Soon after, he returns plonking down the box wherever practical.

Immediately after, Valentin also joins the scene.
“May I ask what the FUCK happened here!?”, he inquires, spotting Jayde with a broken arm, Kayden providing first aid, Norse still fumbling with a nondescript-to-Val box and his remaining equipment strewn across the area.

Jayde gives a weak smile. “The short answer? I prevented things from being worse than they already are. The long answer? When Lard-for-brains Lars decided to mention he was the one who wiped you out last year, you weren’t the only one who lost it. I tried to restrain Malavera so no one would die today… And he tossed me aside like a bug. I took a tumble across the stage, then landed on my right arm… And that microphone stand.”

Kayden, upon seeing the box arriving thanks to Norse, quickly opens the med-kit and looks through his supplies. “Okay, this’ll cut the pain a bit, Jayde,” Kayden says. He quickly administers the medication, ignoring Jayde’s wince, then waits for it to start taking an effect. Once that was confirmed working, he grabs a roll of what seemed like a basic pressure bandage and carefully starts wrapping Jayde’s right arm in it. After he’d wrapped it up, Kayden soaks the bandage in water, then applies the other, light-red colored bandage layer, adding more water as he works.

“Instant cast,” Kayden explains. “Apply layers, add water. I’ve found it works a bit better if you soak the inner layer first. Solidifies in a minute. Now, Jayde, I want you to be completely honest with me, nanites or no nanites? I know you’re a quick healer, but this is a significant injury.”

“I have no issues eating a bit more to have quicker healing. Besides, it’ll probably be helpful at some point,” Jayde admits.

“Deserved all of it…” Valentin grumbles, haphazardly sliding the guitar back onto the flatcar, the momentum carrying it quite a ways ‘inland’.
Leaning against the side of that flatcar, he continues: “Plays bowling with a crew of cyclists and then has the nerve to join that same group and HIDING it for A WHOLE YEAR!”

“I would try and be the voice of reason now, but… he really fucking deserved it…” Norse admitted.

Jayde smiles weakly. “Only reason I got involved is because death-by-Malavera would have been too quick of a punishment for him. Especially given that he’s been stirring the shit-pot by mocking you for the injuries he caused.”

He takes a deep breath, then sighs. “May someone one day do to him what he did to you, Val.”

Kayden picks up a small, metal cylinder that Valentin might find familiar, then grabs Jayde’s left arm and quickly, though carefully administers the nanites. “Okay… It’ll take a bit for those to take hold, but it should help once they’re up and running. For now…”

Kayden opens a pocket in the med-kit, pulling out a slightly-bulky, rectangular-screened smart-watch, securing it around Jayde’s left wrist. “That should at least give you an idea about how they’re doing. Right now, because you have a major injury, they’ll be in “repair mode” until that arm is healed.”

“He has been stirring the shit-pot ever since he joined…” Valentin admitted, crossing his arms.

“Mocked your ass for the injuries, mocked your ass for the modelling thing you did on the side while looking infinitely better than Lars ever could, mocked your ass for playing guitar, mocked your ass for a slew of things I cannot remember now…” Norse recounted with his fingers, “Yes. He still wholly deserved the ‘gay ass payback’ via guitar…”

The mention of a guitar has Valentin turn around once more, reaching for his own one on the flatcar and dragging it back to himself.
Just like before, it looks to be largely intact, apart from some additional scratching on the body and headstock courtesy of it sliding across the rough wooden paneling that makes up the flatcar floor.

Kayden keeps an eye on Jayde, assisted in this by Nova, displaying Jayde’s vital signs on her screen. “Well, looks like Version 2 is… Already starting to do some work. Also, if you need some more pain relief, just ask,” Kayden says.

Jayde gives a half-hearted shrug. “I’ve honestly felt worse.”

Valentin checks the strap of it, delightfully discovering it being mostly intact as well.
Therefore, he shoulders it again and plucks away at it for a moment, realizing that tossing it around threw the tuning of it waaay off, but at least the strings seem to be in good-enough shape.
Heading over to the remaining equipment nearby, his luck ends as he finds the amplifier severely busted-up and very-obviously inoperable, possibly not even fixable. The battery pack, however, seemed to have survived largely unscathed:

“Yeah I am not playing anytime soon here. No amp, likely no mic and a guitar in at-best questionable state…” Valentin notes, chucking his equipment back onto the flatcar as per the ‘nothing but tire tracks’ rule, “maybe the cables are salvageable, but that is about it, I think…”

“Even more shit to blame Lars with, at least.” Norse comments half-jokingly.

“Please shut up, I don’t want anything to do with that bunker-buster of a retard anymore…” Valentin counters, still plucking away at the guitar a bit, partly to see how well the strings are holding tension, but mostly as a means of distraction from this mess.

Kayden looks over to Valentin. “I know you hate favors, but… You could ask Mani if you can borrow his guitar and amplifier for a bit. I know he brought his synthesizer, so it’s not like he can’t play if you’re playing. I think they vaguely had plans to do a set as a group after your guitar battle, but…”

Jayde smirks. “I don’t think anyone anticipated you’d take “guitar battle” literally.”

“Nah… I think I will just drag all of this mess back up front and make an attempt at sleeping it off…” Valentin mutters, throwing a quick glance over at Norse who immediately got the memo of helping with haulage.

Having collected the scrap metal and plastic, the two once again look at Jayde and Kayden:
“Hope you get well soon… Maybe I’ll ask Mani sometime later, but not now…” Valentin speaks quietly.
“If you need anything else, I can help once I’m done with this stuff here,” Norse adds before they both head off towards the GECA train to store the equipment in.

Kayden smiles. “We’ll be okay, Norse. Hardest part is going to be getting Jayde somewhere comfortable with him having a… much shorter walking distance now.”

Jayde gives a light shrug. “I’ve felt worse, but not being able to use my cane or walking stick is going to suck.”

Kayden slowly helps Jayde up to his feet, leading him over to the bus to rest. He then does the same for Malavera, checking for any injuries as a result of tripping over the train tracks. With all injured parties cared for, he closes up his med-kit and puts it back on the bus.

“Hopefully, that’s the worst this year will throw at us,” Jayde says.

[Happyhungryhippo]

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

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

“Be a man now!”

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

“Yeah, so you better be a man then.”

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

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

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

„AAAH! Damn, that hurts.“

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

„OH! It´s… you?“

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

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

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

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

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

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

„Chili Wodka, selfmade.“

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

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

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

„Eh, this is a joke, right?“

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

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

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

“He trolled us! I am sure!”,

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

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

“He has four, Chanty.”

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

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

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

After opening the driver door, Chanty freaked out.

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

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

“DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAD!”

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

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

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

MAXDONTHAVES*XWITHYOUREXITWILLMAKELIFECOMPLEX

Chanty turned down the volume.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“It´s Malavera.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“AAAAAAAAH!”

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

“How do you know, Jan?”

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

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

“Less dangerous than your dad for sure!”

“CAREFUL, JAN! I AM NOT DEAF!”,

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

“I want it then.”

“What?”

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

“CHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANNNNNNNNTTTTTTTTYYYYYYYYYY!!!”

[Angelustyle]

Team Firulais

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

(Collab with @MrdjaNikolen [Team Chitco])

Afternoon at Unmar.

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

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

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

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

Around Midnight at Unmar.

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

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

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

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

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

Morning at Unmar.

A hungover Ángel woke up in the Aurora.

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

He said as he wincingly came out of the car.

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

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

Road to Lendehamn.

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

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

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

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

Sunset at Lendehamn.

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

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

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

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

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

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

As always, Collabs are open.

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

[Knugcab]

TEAM HILLBILLY ROLLERS
PART 1.2 - BERZERK AT CAMP

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“LET ME LOOSE!”, Marie was screaming.

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

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

“Tape the Legs”, Murray said.

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

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

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

“I HEARD YOU!”, Marie said.

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

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

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

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

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

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

TO BE CONTINUED.

Collab with @That-S-cop and @TheYugo45GV

[MrdjaNikolen]

Team Chitco
Part 1

Stage 1: Menes to Unmar

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Stage 2: Unmar to Lendehamn. Gloves are on

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

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

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

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

---

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

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

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

Lars had appeared with something to say

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Rest of the camp was uneventful

[Knugcab]

TEAM HILLBILLY ROLLERS
PART 2.1 - STRUGGLING WITH A SERPENT

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Hyuuuuuullllppppp”

“Marie, what is it?”, Andreas sighed.

“It stinks of butter!”

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

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

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

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

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

“Yup…”

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

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

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

A while later:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

TO BE CONTINUED…

Teams mentioned:
@SurrealCereal @Happyhungryhippo

[Madrias]

Shitbox Rally - Stage 3

Stage 3: Lendehamn to Thornes

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

---

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

---

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

[Happyhungryhippo]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Yes, Sir, of course, Mr. General!”

“Chantal! ENOUGH!”

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

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

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

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

“You don´t say?”

“OOORRRRRRRRRRRRR!”

“What is it NOW, Chantal?”

“My headphone battery died.”

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

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

“Dock…what?”

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

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

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

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

“AAAAAAAAAH! STOP! ITS UNDER THE SEAT!”

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Ah! Ouch! AAAAH!”

“What are you doing there?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Oh, you are a lucky girl today”

, laughed Pi.

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

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

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

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

Andrea giggled a bit and softly wiped Chantys tears away.

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

“Ah, here you are!”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“UUUUUUUUUAAAAAAAAARRRRRRGHHHH! BEURK! IT IS DISGUSTING!”

“More?”

“Sure!”

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

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

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

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

, said Kiva with the smile of a little boy.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

After a deep breath, she tried another attempt.

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Angelustyle]

Team Firulais

Stage 3: Punctures… “Ana’s Curse”?

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

Night in Lendehamn.

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

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

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

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

Early Morning at Lendehamn.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ángel raised his hand, wanting to speak.

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

Josué, menacingly, pushed Ángel gently and replied.

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

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

Road to Thornes.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thornes.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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