Crowns took the win, so the entity’s in the crown car.
FC: Hello, racing fans! I’m Faye Crofton…
CC: And I’m Ciro Caivano, and we’re commentating the Golden Desert race of the Fourteenth Route Sans Fin tournament. What’s your expectation for the race, Faye?
FC: Well, Ciro, I think we’re all excited for exactly how this is going to shape up. All four major teams have new drivers for this race, so it really is impossible to have any perfect predictions. Obviously any of the twelve racing teams of the RSF tournament could take a win today.
CC: Absolutely, it really could be anyone’s race. But I think we both have four teams in mind for who’s got the best chance today.
FC: Oh, very much so, Ciro.
CC: Now, by viewership numbers, a large amount of our audience is unfamiliar with the RSF tournament, and we’d like to welcome you all to what we hope will be a lifelong interest! For our newcomers, Faye, would you describe the top four teams who’ll be competing today?
FC: I’d love to, Ciro. First on the track today is Fort Royale, in the blue livery with yellow crowns. Ironically, probably the poorest team of the top four.
CC: Which is especially interesting when you note the history. Fort Royale was originally a courier company by royal appointment, isn’t that right?
FC: That’s right, Ciro, but with the fall of the western monarchies, the company fell on hard times. They’re out to prove that their skill and tech can stand up in the modern day, but it’s been a difficult journey so far.
CC: Then there’s Monstrovania.
FC: They’re certainly more fun to talk about! In the purple livery with the black bat symbol, Monstrovania’s drivers will tell you whenever you ask that they’re all ancient vampires, mummies, werewolves, and other creatures of the night!
CC: You don’t believe them, Faye?
FC: Pretty sure those things don’t exist, Ciro, but the bat image is pretty scary! That mad stare, you know.
CC: I think it’s kind of cute.
FC: Takes all kinds.
CC: Now, the Red Hornets was your team when you raced in the RSF, wasn’t it, Faye?
FC: It was! Red Hornets is still a team very focused on R&D and having the best cars on the track. They’re very demanding of their drivers. When the circuit was on, I had a very strict regimen; bed by nine, no alcohol except on weekends, regular physical training.
CC: Which did get you to three first place tournament finishes, as I recall.
FC: I just had to live up to the car, Ciro. The mechanics are the real heroes on that team.
CC: And then there’s Sablevert, with those eye-watering colour bands on their shield…
FC: Also a very disciplined team. Not much for talking shop with reporters, especially not with other drivers. Famously durable cars, the kind that can still drive when they’re down to the frame and the engine.
CC: Given how aggressive Sablevert drivers are, that’s often the case at the end.
FC: That’s right, Ciro, but since all four teams have new drivers this race that we’ve not seen before, we can’t say for sure exactly how they’re going to race.
CC: On that note, Faye, what are your thoughts on the nameless entity driving for Fort Royale this race?
FC: If I had to start a new career, I wouldn’t start it on Golden Desert. It’s a punishing track at the best of times, and with the sandstorm warnings out, I wouldn’t want to trust an unfamiliar car and driver to eighty seven laps. I wouldn’t be surprised if it swaps out for another driver in the pits. But I’m ready to be surprised. Fort Royale are strivers through and through, after all!
CC: Like you said, Faye, Golden Desert’s a famously punishing race. I’ve heard most drivers prefer to think of it in three discrete parts – was that true of your time racing?
FC: That’s true twice over, in fact. No one wants to think of driving eighty seven laps all at once, so we’d think of it in the three chunks of beginning, when you’re getting familiar with grip and conditions, then middle, when the car’s warm and the tires are broken in and everything’s working out, and then end, when you need to drive more conservatively with the car pushed to its limits.
CC: And what’s the second way?
FC: Well, the track famously has very little leadup to Algautr Corner, the second corner on the track and a very nasty hairpin. Then there’s two relatively even stretches of straight, split up by that inner turn at Segda Bend, where you can build up a nice head of speed. Then, as you approach the checkered flag, there’s a series of corners at very different angles, and they really call for some very tight control. I know some drivers think the Pepin Turn there before the curve is a nastier hairpin than Algautr, but I always found it an easier drive. So we were always coached to see the track as those three parts, Ciro – first the run up and Algautr Corner, then the two relatively straight runs, and finally the curves of track at the end.
CC: It’s always fascinating to get a look at these insider’s views on the tournament, Faye. Thank you.
FC: Thank you, Ciro. It looks like we’re about to see the flag fall, so good luck to all our racers.
In the beginning laps, the test numbers on the three parts of the road will be 9 for Algautr, 5 for the straights, and 7 for the curves. In the middle laps, with the car warmed up, the test numbers will be 8, 4, and 6. In the final laps, the difficulty will rise to 10, 6, and 8.
One of the commentators had said she wouldn’t start a career on Golden Desert. She’d understated more than overstated the case; the entity would have considered it an odd choice to start a racing career in a tournament race, never having touched the car or indeed any car before. Still, this was part and parcel of its odd existence. It was exceptional in that it was an exception to almost any rules, and it needed to be exceptional in that it was at the peak of performance.
A red light. Two yellow lights. And a green.
The entity pushed down the accelerator for a start that seemed far too fast to it, but the other eleven cars on the grid were soon keeping up with it or overtaking, so, well, when in Golden Desert. The first turn was punishing, but it soon came up to the hairpin of Algautr Corner, and the entity pushed the car to its limit in a hard right turn.
Since the entity doesn’t have a “Drive” skill, fans of numbers and how they work will note that it can at best score a 6 on its Do Anything roll, meaning that getting the 9 required to properly take Algautr Corner is what those deep in the trade like to call “not actually possible”. With a 4, the entity does, indeed, fail. But, importantly, it marks 1 XP, which it should have been marking for failed rolls before but paperwork.
The car fishtailed around terribly, and the entity almost seemed to be getting it back under control until the back left wheel touched sand, at which point all traction disappeared. The car slid into the sand, bogged down, and came to a near-stop.
“Hey, driver!” came a voice over the car’s internal radio. “Hold on a minute, I’m working your traction controls remotely. I’m going to say ‘go’ and you hit the accelerator, got it?”
“Got it,” the entity displayed on its chest screen.
There was what felt like a long pause as the other cars raced by. At the rate of the race, it was probably a very short pause indeed.
“Okay, I didn’t hear anything there,” the mechanic said. “Should I get the paramedics out?”
The entity let out a huff of irritation, which the in-car microphones apparently didn’t pick up. Then, inspiration struck, and it reached into the pack behind it, pulling out the audio recorder and fiddling with the buttons until it started to speak. “ “Got it,” the entity displayed on its chest screen. There was what felt like a long pause…” the recorder spoke.
“Huh. Okay, go!”
The entity slammed down the accelerator, the tires bit into the sand and the asphalt, and the car rocketed itself forward as if driven by sheer force of will. The entity held a steady grip on the wheel, steering into the relatively gentle left as it approached the pack.
5, on the other hand, is doable; less than likely, but doable. The entity rolls a 2, failing. However, it spends its 1 XP to count that 2 as a 6 for purposes of skill gain, and notes down Drive 2 as its new skill.
Despite the car and the entity’s best efforts, every other car on the pack seemed to be doing better – driving better, driving faster, keeping closer to the racing line. Seemingly without any time passing at all, it had fallen to the back of the pack, notable distance between itself and the next rearmost car. It didn’t seem possible to pick up the distance, and the entity almost felt itself relax on the accelerator, as if to surrender the race. Perhaps this was its failing. Perhaps it couldn’t manage it. Surely it didn’t matter, when it came to facing the threat to existence, whether it could drive fast? Surely this wasn’t important?
“No,” it found itself displaying on its screen, without thinking. “This is part of my journey. So either nothing is important, or everything is.”
And with that, it let the engine roar back into contention, approaching the sharp curve at the northeastern corner of the track.
Busting out two dice as the entity makes its run at the corners at the end of the lap. Can it come back to that 7? ...Not with a 2 and a 1, it can’t.
CC: Well, twenty six laps in, we’ve seen some blistering racing on the track so far. What’s your view, Faye?
FC: I have to say, I’m disappointed in the nameless entity’s performance for Fort Royale. No one really knew what to expect from this new driver, but there’s really been no show of skill, no demonstration of competence, and it’s been trailing for essentially the entire race so far. For a driver who started first on the qualifications, it’s a disappointment.
CC: Some of us are hoping for that golden comeback, but it does seem less and less likely with every lap that the nameless entity just doesn’t keep up. Monstrovania, on the other hand, going from strength to strength. It seems like nothing can hold the purple car back!
FC: When you’re an immortal vampire you’ve got time to learn the ins and outs of the car, I suppose!
CC: Maybe we really have been underestimating them! Red Hornets and Sablevert not showing as strongly as expected, with Metric Mile and Velocidad between Monstrovania and Red Hornets, and Sablevert right behind.
FC: It’s still far too early to call this one, Ciro.
CC: Very much so, Faye. Let’s see how this breaks down.
Difficulties decrease as the entity approaches the middle of the race. With a Drive 2 and 1 XP in its coffer, the difficulty of Algautr Corner reducing to 8 seems like a gift. But with a total roll of 6, it still isn’t feeling it. Up to 2 XP.
It never got catastrophically bogged down in the sand again, but Algautr Corner kept its reputation as a bane, and the entity never got the hang of the right speed to take it, the right amount of turn, the right way to drift the car and keep the fishtail in check. The mechanic was at first encouraging, then despairing, and finally, most mortifying, silent. Every turn at Algautr was a bucket of cold water before the straights.
Surely that 4 is going to be attainable with two dice. Surely. The entity gets exactly a 4, which, well, not exactly wonderful, but it does pass. It chooses not to use its XP to get a new skill, for very good reasons that will become apparent.
The straights were where the entity actually learned to drive, and to see what the car was capable of. Opening the throttle and driving at full bore felt good, as did its chances to overtake when they came, small movements and adjustments where the car felt like it was an extension of its own body. It took the last few corners with much more confidence than Algautr.
Difficulty 6; what can the entity show us this time? One of the dice is a two, possibly because I’ve stopped playing proper music in the background, but the other is a six, because we need some drama. Success! The entity spends one XP to count the other as a six, and notes down Cornering 3; see, if it’d gotten that skill on the straights, it would have to get Acceleration 3, and that’s not good on the cases that matter!
Gear changes at the right moment. Decelerate, swing around, wait for the tires to come back into line, and accelerate again. Yes. This was starting to become doable. This was starting to become possible. The thrum of the engine was the beat of the entity’s heart. It was reentering the pack, now, and really starting to jostle for advancement…
FC: Sablevert’s come back around in the contest between them and the Red Hornets, Ciro, and it looks like they’re really pushing ahead. I’ve heard a bit of gossip from the stands about how this is a match between Sablevert’s drivers and the Red Hornets’ cars, and if that’s the case, it looks like man is beating machine in this race.
CC: But still, no one holding a candle to Monstrovania.
FC: They’re really pushing the limits of their cars in this race.
CC: What do you make of Fort Royale’s improvements in this middle section, Faye?
FC: Honestly, I’m not paying attention. I think we’ve seen enough to write them off as contenders.
CC: Well, thirty seven laps left to see if that holds true.
With the entity and its car pushed to its limits, it’s on its way to a difficulty 10 Algautr Corner, but now it has three dice to work with and I’m playing Deep Purple’s “Highway Star”. With a 5, a 3, and a 2 making 10, it just makes it.
It was on the fifty seventh lap that the entity came up to Algautr Corner, and suddenly, all the fear and uncertainty fell away from it. It knew what to do. It had assessed all of its failures, and from them, it knew how to turn them into success. It took the approach at a suicidal speed, racing for the hairpin, then braked hard, turned the car as hard as it could, and let the back tires fly out of control, holding them there just long enough to turn back into the spin, get back into alignment, and open the throttle again. Within seconds, the mechanic – who’d started to offer advice again, with the voice of a man not quite daring to hope – was cheering into the radio almost loudly enough to drown out the monstrous engine noise.
The cars fended with each other time and again, with occasional impacts and nudges, but none yet crashed or took themselves out of the race. It was on the straights, though, that the entity approached the Sablevert car, and the Sablevert driver – perhaps unwilling to yield a place to the poor showing of Fort Royale – dropped into what was nearly a sideswipe, crushing its wheels against the Fort Royale car, lighting sparks and burning rubber as the two machines duelled.
The Sablevert attempt to crash into the entity’s car rolled a 9 difficulty. The difference between the Entity’s Drive roll and the Sablevert’s 9 will be a modifier on the next straight roll. The entity gets a 6, getting it back to 2 XP, but taking a crushing 3 penalty to the straights, taking THAT difficulty to 9. Fortunately, the entity’s roll of 5 wouldn’t have made the original 6 anyway! ...Wait, that’s not fortunate.
The entity tried to press back against the Sablevert car, pushing it to the outsides of the track, pushing with as much aggression as the Sablevert driver showed to it despite the mechanic shouting desperately about limits, but at the last minute, the Sablevert car turned away, accelerated, and the sudden turn knocked the Fort Royale car to a spin, bringing its speed down to a fraction and losing it valuable places in the pack.
It had to pick up again for the last few corners. It could almost feel the car falling apart around it, but in some wild way, it thought, as long as it held on, the car would hold on. It might come down to an engine and wheels, but that engine and wheels could take it to the finish line.
4, 2, 1: 7. That’s not 8.
FC: Well, as we come to the final lap, Monstrovania’s really run out of steam. Two pit lanes in the last ten laps can’t have done well for its placements. The car just couldn’t keep up that performance through these gruelling laps.
CC: Monstrovania’s loss is the Red Hornets’ gain, though, as they’ve really pushed to the front of the pack. Sablevert still pushing in contention, and it really has come to a match between those two. What was that you said about driver versus machine, Faye?
FC: Maybe the machines are the real winners here after all!
CC: It really is a shame that Fort Royale seems to have run out of steam too.
FC: If they ever had steam.
CC: They seemed to be making a real push in the middle there, but that’s just completely petered out.
FC: I could have told you that fifty laps ago, Ciro.
Now, let no one say that I’m trying to bias things towards our entity, as I’m really not. But would this be any kind of racing story if there wasn’t an overdramatic final lap with the potential to change everything?
I’m going to make three rolls at their original difficulties, keeping them secret until the end, to heighten the drama.
Winning might not be possible. Placing might not be possible. But regardless, it had to try. It had to do the exceptional. Because it wasn’t willing to accept that nothing was important, and that meant, perforce, that everything was.
At Algautr Corner, it put its movement into practice again, having to fight for position in the pack at the same time as pulling off the difficult turn, and it nearly crashed at the same time as it nearly failed to keep control of its wheels. With the mechanic yelling almost incomprehensible encouragement, it lined its wheels up again and opened the throttle, coming back into the straights, and there, as the wind and the sand and the heat of burned rubber and gasoline flew past it, it found itself coming back into its own.
It took positions, making itself once again into a real threat. It wove between other cars. It raced not for a first place medal, or a spot on the podium; it raced to show that it could race, that it had the potential for success, that it couldn’t be written out.
Coming into the corners, it slalomed the car around from hard hairpins to easy turns, keeping the machine just on the edge of control, holding its speed as much as it could. Finally, taking the last corner, it let out a breath it felt that it had been holding for at least forty laps. It was enough. It had done the best that it could.
Algautr’s 9 was a 9. The straights’ 5 was a 9. The final corners’ 7 was an 11.
CC: That was an electrifying race, Faye. No one could say we weren’t entertained. Every team and driver seemed to be in it for the entire time.
FC: Well, except Monstrovania; they never really recovered after the middle. More gold for the fans that call them a gimmick team.
CC: Once they dropped out of contention, it was Sablevert and Red Hornets challenging each other for the victory time and time again, and I don’t think anyone was ever certain who was finally going to take that lead.
FC: If you believe Sablevert’s drivers versus Red Hornets’ cars theory, it really was a victory for the human element here. Willpower over horsepower, you might say!
CC: Speaking of willpower, I’ll say I got my faith in Fort Royale’s potential rewarded.
FC: I may have counted them out too early, Ciro. If you asked me to bet after the start of that race, I would not have expected a podium finish.
CC: Nor would many in this audience, Faye. A big start to the career of the nameless entity.
I also rolled a bunch of different dice to see who placed where. We won’t get into the nitty-gritty. Playlist was Casey Edwards “Devil Trigger” (move fast, baby, don’t be slow), DDR “Burning Heat! (3 Option Mix)", Initial D “Wings Of Fire”, Cradle of Filth “Mother of Abominations” (Mother of abominations, Our Lady Overkill, smothering the congregation grips the cosmic wheel, a lover of acceleration, no mercy nor brakes applied, I see dead stars collide in her cold unflinching powerslide), and, of course, Deep Purple “Highway Star”.
The first thing the entity went for at the Fort Royale headquarters was the water cooler, and it managed three drinks before its heart returned to a normal rhythm. It still didn’t know if it needed to drink or not, but if it didn’t, it certainly felt like it did. It let its head fall back, and it sighed.
“You got me that podium.”
The entity turned to face the woman; she didn’t have her clipboard any more, and she was in smart business casual rather than the fireproof suit she’d worn on the track, but she was easy enough to recognise anyway.
“I was worried for the first half,” she said, taking its pincer to shake. “But you delivered. That keeps Fort Royale in contention. If we hadn’t shown in this race, we’d have lost investors, sponsors, and we wouldn’t have a hope of attracting the best drivers. Everyone says RSF is a four team race; thanks to you it’s still a four team race, not a three team race.”
“I did the best I could,” the entity displayed to her, even as it wondered. Would there be another such tournament as this? Would this tournament even continue? Would they not disappear like sand as it moved on to its next destination? How much of this world still existed when it closed its eyes?
Did it matter?
“You did what we needed. So it’s all good. Is there anything we can do for you in turn?”
That was easy enough. “Rations,” it answered. “Food and water. I need it for the rest of my journey.”
She tilted her head. “Really? I thought the Red Hornet guys were already loading up your van.”
It blinked, and its screen remained blank. If there was a proper answer to that, it didn’t know it.
“Check out the Red Hornets garage,” the woman told it, with a kind of mercy. “Bay five.”
“Thank you,” it replied, and then, after a moment, it displayed, “Good luck with the rest of the tournament.”
“What happens will happen,” she said, her tone suddenly diffident. With that, she turned away, joining a knot of chattering mechanics.
Again, it didn’t quite know what to say to that, so it simply turned and went about its business. The Red Hornets garage wasn’t far, and bay five was the only one with any activity. Race-suited mechanics were loading a cooler into a surprisingly massive campervan – about the size of a loaded semi-trailer – with a cross between the Red Hornets logo and the Fort Royale logo on the side. “Hey there, Thursday’s child!” said one of the mechanics, coming out the vehicle’s middle door. “Got your steed all loaded up. For the rest of that journey of yours, you’ll have a home away from home.”
The van certainly looked comfortable. That seemed to be the problem, though. “I thought I’d be walking the Road,” the entity displayed to the mechanic.
“Worried you won’t get enough challenge in your life? Don’t worry. Olga’s only going to take you between the bits where you struggle. You’ll do the rest on your own. But you’re going to have company soon enough, and it’ll be nice for them to have a home base to work from.”
The logic seemed unimpeachable. As long as the mechanic was right. “How can I pay you?”
The mechanic rolled his eyes and puffed out a breath, and that was apparently the only answer the entity would get.
So it boarded the vehicle, and looked about. It was a capacious beast, with two stories inside; a great many beds, a little kitchen, a small dining room, and even a couch and TV on the higher floor. As it watched, words shone on the TV in the same way as the entity communicated. “In 99% of cases, you should never treat a campervan as a residence when it is moving,” the words said. “In this case, it’s perfectly fine; use everything as you go.”
There was an entire tank of clean water and a number of meals already prepared in the fridge. The entity set up its jerky and hardtack in the kitchen cupboards, and then placed the two-snake goblet by the sink. It spent a good long while staring at the cup, thinking. The cup was important, obviously. It was valuable, obviously. So far, though, it hadn’t displayed its worth in any major way. The entity wondered when it would – if it would – or if there was something it, itself, needed to do for it. At a loss, it hung its sword up by one of the beds, and laid the sound recorder on the pillow.
And then it fired the engine and headed toward the unsetting sun.
Olga drove quite contentedly down the Road. It certainly made an upgrade from the walking the entity had been doing before. It didn’t know how long it had travelled, how many kilometres Olga had taken it by, before it saw a person in robes at the side of the Road, waving for its attention. As it decelerated, it looked over the people gathered behind the waving person, all in identical robes, and it briefly thought cult? before it noticed that the robes all had sponsor patches, most for racing teams, and while the oasis they gathered by with its requisite scrub and palm trees looked like just the sort of accessories for the place a cult would gather, the wide-screen TV and well-worn couches did not.
“We saw your race!” said the perhaps-not-a-cult leader, as the entity walked down Olga’s stairs. “Bronze medal! How about that! And you came so quickly to read us our story that you didn’t even collect it! Here, here. I’m Ultra Brightbow.”
Ultra Brightbow pressed a bronze medal into the entity’s pincers, with the RSF tournament logo on the obverse. It turned it over almost without thinking, seeing the other side, and what was printed there: X.
That burned into its mind as clearly as N had done after it turned the rabbit key. That, too, was a letter of its name.
I’m running these letter malarkeys through randomly generating Scrabble tiles. I have a possible name in mind, and this draw actually didn’t invalidate it, which is unusual, considering how rare a letter X is. If anyone’s suggestion is the same as my theory, that will become the entity’s name; otherwise, for each suggestion, I’ll… roll some dice? The name features both the letters N and X, but could have them in any order, in any number, in a name of any length.
“Come on, come on!” Ultra Brightbow said, dragging the entity towards the couches. “We’re all excited for you to read to us! Dayspirit Freeflow hasn’t slept in hours!”
Somewhat perturbed, the entity allowed itself to be led in front of the not-a-cult as they gathered on the couches. One of them had apparently made nachos. The entity considered asking for one, mostly to delay having to decide what it was going to read. Then it realised the obvious, and drew the book out of the backpack. It filled its screen with static for a moment – something like clearing its throat – and began to display text. The not-a-cult watched and read with the awe of easily-impressed children, as it displayed: “Though the Bonefucks summoned by the Hateful Warden were as different and diverse as animated skeletons could be, they all smashed equally well when Gorthor the Motherfucking Hammer swung Batalrioggh, Son of Thunder and Father of Dust, Breaker of Chains, Smasher of Walls, Dealer of Death, Enemy of Assholes and Fucker-Up of Shit…”
There was no sound but the quiet and subdued crunch of nachos with just the right amount of cheese.
The entity read until…
1 – the unsetting sun eventually set, and night fell over the desert.
2 – the unsetting sun eventually rose, and morning spread over the desert.
3 – the not-a-cult seemed satisfied, as it had its own questions to ask them.
4 – the dinosaur attack.
The first post I made for this bullhonkey was 789 words. ...It’s been a time since then.
