Adrien put the last few strokes of his pencil as he finished sketching the engine of the Steam Crawler, along with a couple of wagons.
'Hmm, it looks nice.'
~ding~
━━━━━━━━━━━ [ ITEM IDENTIFIED ] ━━━━━━━━━━━
Name: Unnamed
Type: Art by an unknown Artist
Rarity: Common
Description: A sketch of a Steam Crawler
Effects:
*Provides +5% Xp for Engineers (Duration: 30min/Unstackable/Cooldown: 1hr)
"Well done, Adrien, I never knew you could sketch."
"This is something I picked up in my spare time, Vera."
"Though I am a bit disappointed that I do not get any skills."
"Skills? How do you even acquire a skill? And what skill do you wish to get when you can already draw?"
"During the fight, it seems I managed to kill over ten bandits with headshots in quick succession, and thus I gained a skill."
"No way!!" Vera exclaimed.
With a smug look, Adrien continued, "Yes way, the skill is called 'Tactical Marksman'."
"Quick, what are its stats?"
"Be patient, I am telling you."
Adrien opened his skill window as his newly acquired skill flashed before his eyes.
━━━━━━━━━━━ [ SKILLS ] ━━━━━━━━━━━
Name: Tactical Marksman
Type: Combat Passive (Guns only)
Rarity: Uncommon
LVL:01/10
Effects:
* Increases ADS (Aim Down Sights) speed by 2% per level
* Increase Critical Damage by 3% per level.
Note:
* Needs 15 headshot kills during a single fight to level up.
* Does not work beyond a certain range.
"That's amazing, though, from what I noticed, you were already scarily fast at aiming. I think the skill might not be much use to you."
"Maybe or maybe not, only the future will tell."
Adrien looked up and saw a few of the people arriving with a couple of deer and a few smaller animal carcasses, while Bojak was shouting at them for wasting time by bringing deer, but the people did not seem to care as they quickly butchered the carcass and began loading it on the rear guard wagon, which also served as a makeshift kitchen.
"Benefactor, do you wish to learn how to see the engine of this Steam Crawler?"
Adrien looked towards the speaker as he spoke, "Can we?"
"Of course, of course, come in."
"My name is Vladislav, and I am an expert in driving these things, and here is my partner, Stanislav the Stoker."
Adrien and Vera eagerly climbed up from the entrance located at either side of the rear end of the cab.
The boiler fire was already roaring, and Stanislav and Vladislav were already coated in coal, but the main difference between the steam engine and this one was the interior layout.
The cab surrounded the boiler and went past the smoke box, to what Vladislav introduced proudly as the driver's cabin.
"You should be careful while walking beside the boiler, as although it is properly insulated, accidents might happen, and the corridor is quite narrow."
"Vera and Adrien climbed a short set of iron steps into the elevated corridor. The air inside was thick with a stifling, metallic heat, not enough to blister, but far beyond anything that could be called comfortable."
"Here is the driver's space," Vladislav showed them proudly.
The entire area was at the very front, with slightly narrow glass windows and thin iron bars placed to protect them.
Various gauges could be seen, and a steering wheel that had seen better days. Adrien easily recognised the Rotary Valve Steam Brakes, but the strange wheel and the strange eluded his knowledge.
The driver's seat was a marvel of its own; it felt as if someone had put a shelf on the wall and nailed some very hard cushions to it and called it a seat, and, of course, it lacked any safety belts.
"The steering to control the direction, the left valve for brakes, the right for speed, and this small wheel with a handle pointing upwards, at the right of the speed controller, is to control the forward and backward movement."
"Oh, the rope at the top is of the driver's head is for the whistle, while there is a pipe near the left to communicate with the stoker."
Adrien's eyes sparkled; even if the cabin was rudimentary and the aesthetics deplorable, the thought of driving one is enticing.
"I cannot wait to drive it."
Vladislav frowned as he spoke unsurely, "Driving it requires some skills, do you have them?"
"Unfortunately, we do not have the skills, but we are eager to learn," Vera spoke quickly, but it failed to dispel the hesitation on Vladislav's face.
"Uncle Vladislav, we really wish to learn, and I can easily see that you are an expert, so it is a great opportunity to learn under your guidance," Adrien added quickly.
Vladislav sighed as he spoke, "Okay, I will teach, and to tell you the truth, I am desperately in need of assistant drivers, as driving this continuously for nearly a day is too much for me."
"Don't worry, Uncle, Adrien and I will be the best of students."
"I hope so, now let me start with the basics."
Do you see these gauges? Can you guess which is what?"
Adrien looked at that as he spoke while pointing the gauges from his right to left."Both of these are for pressure; this one is for speed, then this one is again pressure, this one seems to be direction."
"Good lad, the first pressure is for the boiler steam pressure, the second is for the brakes, if it drops below a certain threshold, it will be difficult to brake, you will have to let it build, the third one is for speed, the fourth is called the steam pressure gauge, and once again if it falls below a certain threshold acceleration will be difficult so let it built slowly, and the last one is for indicating whether the crawler is going forward or is it on reverse."
"At the moment, the crawler is on 'neutral', so the needle is positioned in the middle."
"Well, this model is a bit old and simple, but it is also rugged at the same time, so while it will be easier to learn from it, it can also be tough to control."
"Now, starting to move the crawler is a tricky part, and can you guess why, Lass?"
Vladislav questioned Vera, who instantly answered, "It needs to nudge the wagons back before moving forward, otherwise the coupling might break as the drag will be greater since pushing is easier than pulling, and once the wagons are set in motion, it will be easier."
Vladislav looked owlishly at Vera, before he spoke dejectedly, "You kids are getting smarter and smarter with each day. Back in my day, it took me days to learn not to make this mistake."
"Oi, Vladi, they are about to start the fireworks." Suddenly, a hoarse voice came from the pipe.
A smile appeared on Vladislav's face, a fierce smile as he spoke, "Let's go, let's go, you two shouldn't miss it."
Under his guidance, the duo of players were corralled back to the stoker's area and out of the engine.
Adrien and Vera looked at each other, unsure of what they were being escorted to witness, and as they stepped out, they found that most of the freed people, except those injured, were waiting patiently for them.
They soon received the answer, as the group had piled a significant part of the bandits' wares outside of the storage area, along with the corpses put on top of it.
As soon as the duo appeared, one of them lit the closest bale of drug plant, and it immediately started to burn.
"We are burning their prized poisonous goods, along with their corpses, wouldn't let them become undead, and without the priest's guidance, the afterlife is denied to these Godless bastards." Stanislav spat out with venom.
"Everyone, get up, quickly, the smoke might attract someone unwanted, not to mention we might get high and fail to escape."
"Quick, quick, both of you come to the driver's area, since you both wanted to learn, I will start by teaching you from now."
Vladislav ushered them to the driver's area, with Adrien taking the driver's seat, and immediately regretted it.
'My poor back, a thousand pardons to you, for I doubt you will survive.'
"Okay, lad, see all the gauges are in safe limits, right?"
Adrien nodded as Vladislav continued, "Now pull the whistle string three times."
~Tooot~
~TooooT~
~Toot~
Everyone heard the shrill blast of the whistle, while Adrien's heart leapt with anticipation.
"Now slowly release the brake by moving the handle towards yourself."
Adrien moved it slowly and under Vladislav's careful watch, though he winced inwardly.
'This valve needs lots of grease; it requires too much strength to move.'
"Now, move the wheel to change it to reverse and slowly pull the acceleration valve a little."
With great strength, Adrien moved the wheel and then pulled the valve, and the crawler moved with a lurch, pushing wagons.
"Easy there, lad, not too much acceleration, now push back the acceleration valve and then spin the wheel to make it move forward, and then push the valve at half throttle."
Adrien gritted his teeth as he followed Vladislav's instructions to move everything, and soon the Steam Crawler left on its journey towards Ashfall Frontier Town.