Podrace PODRACE: Zugga's Challenge in Mon Gazza! (Open to Spectators and Gamblers)

[Dani Stellaris]

That first leg was not what she was hoping for. Stellaris shook her head and grabbed the controls. Every time she got behind the controls of this pod, she was feeling better about it, but still, the first leg was not what she wanted. Trying to push it from her mind, the blonde was focusing on the Force, and not on the spice dozers. She was a bit gun shy still, part of a podrace was getting to the finish, the other was surviving the course. And as she passed through the dozers? Her next obstacle was up next.

Miner's Town.

She had an understanding that it was a bit of town here but no idea what she was going to get into up here. She knew there were houses and hoped that the road was going to be clear. And as she was getting into town, she had a lot of catching up to do, but it wasn't as clear as she thought. Pedestrians and men with guns on top of the structures, making pot shots at the racers. She was ahead of one at least, and hoped she could keep up the pace as she ran through town.

 

[Cyran Vaas]

Role: Spectator
Location: Mon Gaza Speedway
Tags: Takumi Tikotzki ​

Following Takumi over to a closer spot on the race track, Cyran thought about his question. He didn’t really know much about the folks competing. “Hmm, I’d put my money on that Kirk fella. Being a fellow zeltron I guess he’s like the home team for me.” He replied, watching from one of the large projectors showing the racers from different camera droids who got good views of the race.

“Um, but there is that jedi chick too. Valary uh, Royalty or something. She’s probably got some sorcerous tricks up her sleeve.” Cyran wondered if it was even really fair. Then there was also a Vizsla in race as well. Maybe Cyran shouldn’t bet on Kirk. “Pift, nah I have faith in my fellow pinkie in the race. What do you call Takumi?” He asked, turning to them. “How about a little Wager between the two of us. I’ll do 1k (underworld credits) on Kirk vs whoever you have faith in.”

After proposing they bet Cyran took out one of his macarons to eat. He figured a bit of friendly gambling could keep them more invested in the race and add some extra tension between the two of them even as spectators.

 

[Ardon]

Leg 2
Post 2
Off to a good start, mostly, but far behind the lead. The speed was definitely a thrill, he was used to excessive speed from his ship but that was in space, you had few things to worry about aside from other ships and blasters. On top of that, his ship was designed to integrate with his cybernetics, this pod was not. It made it feel almost blind while this thing sped across the track.

Still, no serious problems yet. So long as he could keep up this pace, maybe someone else would crash and burn. Well...maybe just crash. He didn't really want them to get hurt.

Spoiler: Dice roll.

Done via chaos discord.

 

[Valery Noble]

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Location: Mon Gazza​

Valery: Appearance​

Support: Jax Thio ​

Roll: (6 | GA discord)​

​

The race continued and so did the tension caused by wanting to perform well but also knowing the risks of the sport at the same time. In her talk with Jax, she learned about the dirtier side of podracing, and perhaps that was holding her back from doing as well on the long, mostly straight part of the second leg.​

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But it was likely that her lack of experience racing was also beginning to finally show.​

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"Come on Val..." she muttered as she felt like she was starting to lose a lot of her initial speed. A deep breath was taken and with a new mindset to give it her all, she began approaching the third leg of the race.​

​

 

[Tris]

Spoiler: Roll Total=29

Leg 2 - Miner's Town

Leith smirked as he pulled ahead of Slider 's rig. The three hybrid pods roared as he and the others tore through sand and stone, flying past the crowds and cheers at Miner's Town. The route was pretty straightforward and lacked any sharp turns or harsh obstacles. He peered behind him to see if anyone was going to pull ahead of him now as he led the pack.

 

[Hilal Vizsla]

Current outfit

Hilal's Podracer

(OOC: Rolled a 1 )


"Alright!" Hilal mumbled as she navigated her Podracer through the large Spice Dozers. "These Dozers are harder to get past than I thought!"

When Hilal first looked over the racetrack, she didn't see what was the "challenge" in Zugga's challenge. It was just one big loop around and that was it but given how the Repulsator was struggling against the dusty fields she was starting to see why. "Gotta maintain control....." Hilal straightened Podracer trying to remain balanced even while the other racers were starting to pass her.

Frowning, Hilal activated her thrusters to catch up only to have her top left engine immediately catch fire. Black smoke started to flood Hilal's vision as she began to lose control of her Pod. "ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!" Hilal gave a hacking cough hearing multiple alerts from the computer. She didn't give her engines a chance to cool off before she thrusted. She definitely needed a better coolant system, but she couldn't find anything on the cheap.

"Come on....." Hilal said her trying to start her venting program. "Work....."

Sergeant Omen

 

[Sergeant Omen]

Omen stood by in the pits with one hand on his forehead as the crowd roared around him as the announcer's voice sliced through the air.. "Oh my, looks like Racer Vizula is trouble! Lets see if she can get out of it!" Clearly, this race wasn't going to have a good of a result for the young Mando woman had promised him when she asked him to be her pit boss. She could still come from behind but she would have to repair her damage first and that was no mean task. At least the Clone could help in that task. "Hilal, shut your air intakes. It will starve the fire of oxygen and put it out! Do it now!"

Omen rolls 11 (1-20)

Hilal Vizsla

 

[Jax Thio]

(OOC: Ardon is also tied with Valery Noble at 5th place but I didn't want to clutter the scoreboard so I went with who had the higher roll on the first leg.)


"Oh, things are getting even better!" Tosco Rod said to a rowdy crowd, they had their eyes glued to either the big screen or their rented handheld screen pads. "We nearly had a close call with the young Vizsla having one of her engines catching fire! She seems to be fine but it cost her 1st place. Now Leith Morayson is in the lead followed closely by Slider! Now we're entering the cramped and winding cage corkscrews! From the fast spice lands of the mines to the narrow tunnels, our racers will be a little too close for comfort. Anything can still happen even though Morayson, Slider and Hilal are still duking it out for first place, Kirk Korrado, Valery Noble and Ardon are not too far behind! One mistake from the top three and it's theirs for the taking! We are halfway done with the race let's see what else is in store for us!"

 

[Ardon]

Leg 3
Post 3
This was close, he watched hesitantly as people in front of him started to make mistakes. Even managed to catch up to Valery Noble , but he was a LONG way from the front and things were still not looking good. They went right into this freakish corkscrew that genuinely brought fear into him as he went, still unfamiliar with just how much this machine could actually handle. He realized even as he did it that he messed up. He slowed down more than necessary and he was already in a position where risks were going to be required if he wanted to catch up.

It was just a little, but with so much of a distance as the others had made for themselves and only one leg left he'd need a miracle to catch up, that, or everyone needed to crash, and that was an unpleasant thing to even consider. Even third place was just so far away, and she'd already managed to avert one catastrophe from what he was hearing. He felt he was mediocre the whole way compared to his ability in The Angel.

Just focus, there was little else to do.

Spoiler: Dice roll

Done on chaos discord

 

[Cotan Sar'andor]

(Leg 3 Total: 2+8+3=13, hell yea)

It certainly wasn't winning him any money in this race, but knowing that Asha was watching him, he couldn't exactly bring himself to floor it and try to really win over the competition. This was the first time even pulling his podracer out in years—he was honestly impressed it was still working. However, he did refuse to come in at the very back of the pack without putting in some effort, so with that in mind, he set his sights on a new target and hit the throttle.

He at least had to beat Kal. With any luck, the three engines on his racer would hold out long enough to try and make that happen. Or maybe the younger person would end up leaving him in the dust, who knew. At least Asha would be happy he didn't smear himself against a rock or a wall.

Asha Vynea Kal Jax Thio

 

[Kirk Korrado]

The race was going well, he figured. A cool top 5 spot and this might actually be worth it. He wouldn't be rolling in creds, but any amount of bag was the goal at this point. The junk racer had cost him next to nothing, so he wasn't concerned with breaking even. His concern lied in not breaking anything, especially his knee caps. There were plenty of fellas out to get those from him.

Kirk's pod began to stutter again after rounding into the first turn of the caged corkscrews. He immediately decided whoever design this track had a few of their corkscrews loose, and this leg wasn't worth dying for. Kirk hit the brakes and took it easy. Plenty of racers would pass him, but with luck he'd catch up on the near straightaway that was the last leg.

 

[Tris]

Spoiler: Leg 3 Roll=14 Total=43

The caged corkscrews...The obstacle he was looking forward to the least. A racer pulled up beside him, an ugly Dug piloting a crude podracer with two massive turbine engines. Almost too late he realized the Dug was trying to ram him off the track. With a loud, angry clang the massive turbines crashed into Leith's more elegant hybrid turbines.

"Speyr Balley take you, you damnable sithspawn," he shouted over the roar of engines and wind. Reaching into his cabin he pulled a lever and his turbines screeched to a halt just as the Dug came in for another pass. The dug flew into another racer, their pods erupted in a ball of slag and flame.

"That'll teach ya," Leith said with a smirk as he came out of corkscrew.

 

[Slider]

MON GAZZA, ZUGGA CHALLENGE
PODRACER: THE WHEELHOUSE
ROLL 3: SEE BELOW (TOTAL, 44)​

Finally.

Slider had been waiting, biding his time for this moment. Open stretches and fast-maneuvering turns were all fine and well, but they weren't where the Bereth-Aku and his monobike excelled.

No, his strength was in the moments of the race where visibility was limited. Where turns came fast, and odd angles were negotiated. Why, one might ask? Well, because he knew every dip and angle, every turn in the dark, like the back of his clawed hand. As Slider entered the corkscrew, he was in second, just behind Tris . But when they exited...

He was just ahead.

 

[Kal]

It seems every time he sped up he was forced to slow down to avoid crashing - not that he was as opposed to 'dying' as most, but it would better to finish intact. Especially if he managed to beat Cotan Sar'andor along the way.

That would make for an amusing story, to be sure - especially with Asha Vynea watching.

Approaching the narrow sections ahead with the blasé attitude of one to whom a deadly crash was a minor inconvenience at most, he grabbed ahold of a substance that would supposedly give his engine a boost and poured it in... causing the engine to stutter a bit. Not great, but not terrible either. If nothing else, his lead on Cotan was growing.

Far ahead, Slider seemed to be taking the lead - fantastic, the friendly being deserved to win!

 

[Muk Moadda]

Muk Moadda had signed up to be Kal 's support mechanic, his midrace fixer. He had then proceeded to take the advance and become pleasantly drunk. And thus he had missed his moment.

He scrambled, too late, to engage with the problem at hand, or rather the problem that had been at hand a minute ago. A gadget, pointed in the general direction of Kal's podracer, hissed sparks and acrid smoke.

The podracer jolted forward in a burst of obscene and irrepeatable speed.

KAL'S 9 BECOMES AN 18

 

[Asha Sar'andor]

While she couldn't deny that she was pleased to see that Cotan wasn't a smear across the track, she couldn't help but feel maybe he was taking it a little too easy... What he needed was perhaps a nudge in the right direction, a little added spring to his step so to speak. So she reached out through the Force, spying him through her macrobinoculars, and further engaged the throttle for him. With any luck, it would at least have him catching back up to that Apprentice of hers...​

​

... Not that she was taking sides, of course. Not Asha...​

​

Oops. Maybe that was a little more power than she'd meant to provide... Please don't crash, please don't crash, please don't crash...​

​

Cotan's 3 becomes a 19​

 

[Valery Noble]

​

Location: Mon Gazza​

Valery: Appearance​

Support: Jax Thio ​

Roll: (13 | GA discord)​

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She definitely wasn't as fast this time.​

​

During her very first race on Ossus, Valery had performed much better than she ever could have hoped. Up until the very end of that race, the chance that she could come out on top was significant, but now she was falling behind a bit more. Not that she really minded — it was still very much exciting.​

​

Coming into the third leg, Valery went into her first proper corkscrew but it was likely that lack of experience that didn't allow her to go through quite as fast as she would have liked.​

​

Still, though, Podracing was a sport where many unexpected things could happen, and the last thing she'd ever do was give up. She was giving it her all.​

 

[Dani Stellaris]

These races were definitely taking her to new and interesting places. Miner's Town was not the throughway she was hoping for and she could feel the Pod shuttering as charged slugs were fired at her as she ran through. Shaking her head and tightening her grip, she could almost see the projectile paths and was able to dodge them, but not all the dust they kicked up. But what it did mean was that she was starting to… was it the Force or something else?

She was starting to feel the course. Not that she was going to close her eyes, but she was feeling a bit lucky, or at least a bit more open to what was going on around her. Pushing the throttle, she felt the pod leap. The next obstacle was the Corkscrew. But she was feeling good about this one and was letting the Force, or her reflexes, run with it.

The Pod was moving fast and she was feeling good. She had to make some lost time up.

 

[Kaul "Joker" Emos]

(OOC: Rolled a 16 reroll for Dani Stellaris )


So here was Kaul once again serving as Danielle's engineer for the Zugga challenge. Kaul heard a great deal about Zugga Challenge that it was one of the hardest tracks to race on. Many a great pilot had lost their lives or were forced to retire on Zugga's Challenge. Which made Kaul wonder what kind of mad man would try to revive this track. Not that Kaul cared, the aesthetics of Zugga's Challenge were some of the best that he ever seen and hey if people wanted the track to return then why not? Podracing is a fun sport and it's something Kaul loved anyway. Still Kaul wondered when Danielle was going to uphold her end of the bargain? She still owed him a date and now you might as well make that two now.

The pilot looked at the small pad his eyes growing wide noticing the Danielle's Sleg: An energy enhancer that was built to absorb the heat was overheating, if Danielle continues to overuse it then it will explode likely taking her with it. "Hey Danielle!" Kaul called her through the intercom. "Ease off the acceleration will ya? You're going to blow your engines! Try to vent your engines and then accelerate! Slowly this time! You wanna ramp up speed with this kind of Pod!"

Seriously? Where did Danielle get this Pod? This was causing her more trouble than it's worth.

 

[Hilal Vizsla]

Current outfit

Hilal's Podracer

(OOC: Rolled a 20! )


Hilal continued to type frantically at her computer, black smoke obscuring her vision. Most of the smoke entered the young woman's lungs causing her to cough loudly as well panic. Hilal hated to panic but she was riding about 450 miles an hour on a track that was about narrow now they were heading to the Caged Corkscrews. With a narrow road combined with sharp turns whoever designed surely had a corkscrew loose.

"Okay," Hilal said continuing to cough. "That was a bad joke.... I think the smoke is messing with my head."

Just then, the Sergeant Omen : The engineer who Hilal hired at the last minute was screaming into her radio telling her to shut her air intakes. "Air intakes...." Hilal's head slowly bobbed back and forth her mind feeling fuzzy, the smoke was definitely lulling her into a daze. "OF COURSE!" The young woman slapped herself across the face so hard that a spot of blood formed on the corner of her mouth.

Pressing a few buttons, Hilal shut off the air vents as well as exchange what power she had towards the damaged engine. Grinding her teeth, Hilal quickly pressed the trigger that was supposed cause the engine restart. As soon as she did so, all four Pods showed green across the board which meant....

"TIME FOR A BOOST!" Hilal accelerated going about 700 miles an hour according to speedometer. She weaved through the winding tunnels passing the leaders and taking the lead.

"Come on!" Hilal muttered. "Almost there....."