(Thanks to @Elizipeazie for the collaboration.)
Having already spent a good two days at camp, Valentin had something left to discuss with the hosts over at Shift Happens.
As such, he heads over to the crew, who apparently are in the process of preparing food of sorts.
Recognizing Kaylie - and by extension the Highway Hooligans - he haphazardly waves at them:
“Good morning. Did you lot have a good nights sleep?” he inquires, not yet taking a seat.
Jake shrugs. “Not really. Cody snores like a roaring chainsaw clearing a rainforest.”
“I slept great,” Cody says, stifling a yawn in the moment.
Trevor glances over at Val as he approaches the table, giving a casual wave and a greeting. “What, do you think you’re some kind of Jedi wavin’ your hand around like that? Mind tricks don’t work on me, only money. Or food.” He then looks to Cody and sets his burger back on the paper plate. “So that’s why you’ve been yawning and bitching about not getting enough sleep? Cody, you’re full of shit.”
Cody, out of defiance, squashes Trevor’s burger, making it ooze cheese, grease, ketchup, and mustard down the sides, guaranteeing it’d be a huge mess to pick back up.
Kayden chuckles and offers Val a plate. “We’ve got burgers, sausages, and steaks. Pick what looks good to you.”
Trevor’s statement manages to effectively overshadow anything the others have said to Val in response to his greeting. “Excuse me?”
“Ah, sorry, stupid joke. Saw the hand wave, went for the obscure Star Wars reference. Mostly because Cody decided to say he slept great. Maybe he did, for the three hours he actually was silent last night,” Trevor replies.
Kaylie chuckles. “Oh, we had a big blow up the other night regarding the fact that Kayden snores.”
“I do not!” Kayden replies with a hint of indignation.
“So we’re left to believe someone was running a gasoline-powered buzz-saw in the tent last night, then?” Kaylie shoots back.
Jayde joins the table and sighs. “Do we have to fight again? If it wasn’t for the normies here, I’d put both of you in a Cone of Silence and let you enjoy not being able to hear or be heard for 4 hours.”
Cody looks over at Jayde. “So, you really do magic?”
Jayde shrugs. “A little. But I’m not supposed to do much around the camp.”
“Right…” Valentin mutters as he regathers his bearings a bit, “I would say I slept alright, but with how flawless it has been for the past year or so, a good nights sleep does not stick out too much in a sea of alright ones…”
At this point, he finally accepts the initially-empty plate, heading around the table to pick out the largest steak in immediate view as well as something to eat alongside said steak.
With the plate full, he takes a seat.
“Initially wanted to drop by and finally check the bus I have already paid rent for,” Valentin notes, “though there is no harm in fueling up.”
Kaylie smiles. “Ah, right, the spare bus.” She motions over to where the second bus was parked. “Right over there. We gave it a basic tune-up, but that was about it.”
“It’s damn good to see you again, by the way,” Cody adds. “Last time we met, it was when we ran that shitbox limo.”
“Likewise.” Valentin nods towards Cody in response. “I still very much remember the attempt at a bucket seat. This time around, I will not be doing too much driving, so the need to actually fit into the bus well is not as paramount here.”
“Well, we made sure that the driver’s seat is suitable for someone your size, Val, if needed. Sariya’s not quite your size, but she had no issues driving it around back here,” Kaylie admits.
Jake shrugs and grabs an extra couple of sausages. “Normally, I’d be watching what I’m eating, but I know the next few weeks, I’m going to be dealing with canned food, boxed pasta, and whatever we can all beg for when Cody inevitably eats all the food with three days left to go.”
Jayde looks over and chuckles. “Well, you might weigh the same as you did when you started, Jake, but you’re starting to thin down a bit. The gym time with Rowan seems to be working for you.”
“I only have to drive it twice in the span of…” he starts, pausing a moment to mentally convert Aetherii times to earthen times, “…three weeks? Anyway, fueling is going to be fun for us during some of the stages. Lack of space to bring non-perishables around has us hope that Holsian cuisine is actually edible.”
Jayde shrugs. “It should be. Can’t be worse than the stuff I grew up on in Altherys, at least. Crugandr had some good spices, Nehmenweld had some good, simple food. Time to see what Holsia has to offer.”
Kaylie looks over at the bus, then to Val, and hands him the keys. “If you want to poodle around the lot in it to get a feel for how the bus handles, feel free.”
Valentin accepts the keys by immediately placing them down onto the table next to his plate.
“Will do once I am done with this steak here,” he notes, likewise taking a glance at it before returning to the meal.
Not wanting to let the steak run colder than it already was, he dug in deep, finishing it remarkably quickly.
Returning the once-again-empty plate to Kayden, he gets up to check on his rental.
Approaching it, it turned out to be exactly what he expected it to be:
A city bus.
Getting into it proved to be a search effort, as Val knew that a button or lever of some sort had to be somewhere to open the front door, which eventually was found underneath the front bumper next to it.
“They hid the button for theft prevention? Okay…”, Valentin mumbles as he boards the bus once the door swings open with a pneumatic hiss.
Taking a seat, Valentin had remarkably little issue regarding space. Sure, he was straddling the steering wheel either side with his knees, but they were not pressed up against the dashboard or other things. Likewise, he had no issues reaching any of the buttons and switches strewn across the dash.
Kaylie wanders over while Val looks around for the door button, about to intervene when Val finds it on his own.
“Yeah, apparently AMCW had a few issues in the past with people breaking in and joyriding in their buses, so they hide the door poppers under the front bumper. Some of them, on other models, are behind a little flap that only opens with the ignition key. These ones from their partnership with MHI were for “low crime” markets, so they have the door button hidden instead of under a hatch,” Kaylie explains. “After all, it’s… Not that hard to pop the ignition lock out of the dashboard, short the terminal so it’s always powered, and then start the bus. Keeping people outside was… What really mattered.”
“If it works…” Valentin mutters, mentally more occupied with familiarizing himself with the controls of the bus. Given that some of the buses functionality is driven by pneumatics, he cranks over the engine, which takes a while to get going, but eventually settles into a nice and reasonably smooth idle.
Afterwards, basic things such as adjusting mirrors, the seat and steering column are made, substantially reducing the problems surrounding fitment in the bus.
“Lets see how this thing maneuvers, then…” Valentin states cautiously as he plants the foot on the brake and presses a button to select ‘drive’, followed by him almost punching the pneumatic parking brake button.
“It’ll handle like a bus. We didn’t have the time to turn it into a sportscar,” Kaylie quips. She settles into one of the front seats and buckles up, just along for the short ride.
An attempt at closing the front door instead opens the rear one, as the two buttons are unlabeled as to which one is for which door. In confusion, Val turns around, seeing and hearing that rear door open, shortly before pressing BOTH buttons once more to actually close them.
Another hiss releases a secondary brake interlock linked to the doors to prevent the bus from moving with the doors open as the bus itself moves into a slow crawl.
“Right…” Valentin mumbles, taking the bus for a small lap around the area at no more than ‘brisk walking pace’.
Returning the bus to the initial parking spot to the best of his abilities, he opens just the front door, applies the parking brake and shuts down the engine.
“It is indeed a bus. I legally cannot leave the lot, so this will have to do, but if it can get us to Holsia and back, it is going to be good enough.”
“Well, that was kinda the plan. It’ll get you through the Rift, it’ll get you back from Holsia, and it’ll do so while hauling all of the good people you have in GECA… And it even has enough room for Lars and his ego,” Kaylie quips, before dropping down out of the front door of the bus.
“He can get a seat group of his own to avoid annoying the others, haha,” Valentin adds with a chuckle, likewise stepping down into the dirt from within the bus.
“Anyway, I suppose we meet again tomorrow morning at the absolute latest. Until then…” Valentin says, already somewhat on the way back to ‘his’ lineup of RVs while sending a polite nod towards Kaylie.
“Until then, Valentin,” Kaylie says, smiling.
By this time, the Hooligans had finished up their meal and started fighting with their tents to get them set up in some form of organized fashion, with Jake surprising both Cody and Trevor by being the only one of the three who could actually drive tent stakes into the ground with the hammer.
At the same time, Jayde unloaded his tent and set it up, adding some tent stakes for the sake of appearing normal.
“We all set up over here?” Kaylie asks.
“Pretty much. Got our tent “normie proofed” as well,” Jayde mentions. “Anyone who we don’t know decides to stick their head in the tent, they’ll just see the inside of a large tent, and forget the reason why they stuck their head in there in the first place.”
Kaylie sighs. “I thought we agreed, no memory curses.”
“It’s not a curse - it’s temporary, makes you forget shit for five minutes. Buys us time in case someone does the same thing one of the previous teams did by waking us up in the middle of the night to help fix their car.”
“Was that the time I-”
“Beat someone over the head with a repair manual? Yes.”
Kaylie chuckles and shakes her head at the memory. “Twin Suns, that year was a mess.”
