Carbombya

The grassy hills and savannas in the east, bordered by ancient volcanos and sprawling lava fields, are the only part of Carbombya not made up of barren desert. Until recently, the country depended on meager livestock herding and subsistence agriculture, but upon the discovery of a huge reserve of very high-grade oil beneath the shifting desert sands, things changed radically. The struggling democracy weathered multiple coup attempts by greedy neighbors and other interested foreigners before finally succumbing to the tender mercies of a home-grown dictator. There are no refugees from war torn Ethiopia being taken in as slave labor, not here under the enlightened rule of President-for-Life Abdul Fakkaddi!

Contents:

CPT

Trypticon <T>

Carbombyan Palace

Obvious exits:

East <E> leads to Red Sea.

West <W> leads to Nile River.

Fly <Up>

Dump Truck <Long Haul> rumbles across the ground, swearing a steady stream in Cybertronian as he goes. Not only is he back to hauling, the latest 'grand plot' is one of those irritating ones where everyone's required to play /nice/ with the Autobots. He's even heard a rumor that they're thinking about using the Constructicons for a publicity stunt! He grumble- erm, trundles in Scavenger's direction and then, because his truck bed is empty, actually transforms to see what his dippy brother is up to.

The dump truck stretches out and unfolds into Long Haul.

"Heya Haul!" Scavenger says with enough cheerfulness that it might even give Catechism a cavity. Of course, unless he's in some rejected funk, Scavenger's always this cheerful. "Whatcha cursin' about?" After all, his brother wasn't hauling anything and, unless he'd developed some special invisible pain, Hook wasn't around yelling about how they were messing up his plans.

<Constructicons> Long Haul prepares to piss Mixy and Hook off with his next pose, once they get around to reading this log. 0>

"No, but I will be soon enough," complains Long Haul. "'Sides, I'm /sick/ of havin' to play nice with the Autobots! I mean, alla these stupid, 'oh, we're not /really/ bad guys, we're perfectly willing to play by humans' rules' plots never go well." Well, except for the treaty with New Zealand that got them the island NCC is on... for some baffling reason, they actually follow that. Possibly because no one really cares about New Zealand.

Of course, Scavenger doesn't much like playing nicey nicey with the humans either--germy little things--and not getting to fight the Autobots, well, that's just plain no fun. Nothing like a shooting match, like say, plugging a certain chevroned Autobot in the headlight, to put you in a good mood. On the other hand, he's not one to complain, so it's a mixed bag. "Yeah," he says, "I'm sick of it too. Better than building some super-weapon that's only gonna get blown up though, or something all temporary and stupid."

"Well, hell!" retorts Long Haul. "I'd rather build a superweapon than this stuff!" Though really, he'd rather be the one using the weapon, if it comes to that. Or better yet, out there with his fists, but that's neither here nor there.

Scavenger nods his agreement. If he had a mouth, he'd probably be smiling. "Well, yeah," he says. "Doesn't help what the duty roster's got me on today. Trench digging." Granted, unlike Long Haul, Scavenger actually /likes/ his job, but still, he'd rather build when he can. And, of course, if he's digging, it means he'll need somebody to help haul the dirt.

That somebody being, of course, Long Haul. He nods and sighs warily. "Yeah, yeah, I know... s'why I headed over here. S'just figured I'd take a break, first." And with that he... continues to stand there and not transform. Oh, all right! Fine! He'll do it! The Constructicon reluctantly returns to his alt mode.

Long Haul folds in on himself and transforms into a dump truck.

Now, it is worth noting that Scavenger doesn't actually know what he's digging trenches /for./ Hook and Scrapper don't usually bother to explain those kinds of things to him. Mixmaster always seems to give him some kind of reason, even if it's one that leaves him scratching his head. But hey, he likes digging, because he nevers know what he might find. "You actually think we're gonna pull this stuff off?" he asks as he transforms. After all, this is the most effort the Decepticons had put into anything in quite a while. If it should fail, there would be mush yelling and ranting and shooting at the troops.

Scavenger folds inward transforming to his steam shovel mode.

Apparently Scavenger was wandering around in a daze during the whole battle fleet building business, or the weeks of energon raids that lead up to that, or the whole ACTUALLY TAKING BACK CYBERTRON (for about two weeks). But hey, he's Scavenger, so it's understandable! "Naw," he answered. "I doan' even know what the hell High Command is hopin' to accomplish here, but sooner or later folks will get tired of playing by the squishie's rules, an' we'll go back to actin' like proper Decepticons." Except that the Constructicons' primary function is to build things, which actually boarders on the un-Decepticonish when you actually thought about it.

Well, yeah, Scavenger's a little scatterbrained, not to mention occassionally messed up in his priorities, so if he's over or undervaluing something, the best thing to do is just smile and nod. So it is with a as much cheeriness as a green and purple steam shovel can muster than he rolls forward, finding the appropriate spot to start digging. And dig he does. Scavenger could be an inspiration poster for taking pride in your work! "Yeah," he agrees amiably. "I can't figure out what they're up too either."

Dump Truck <Long Haul> sighs. "Y'hear some of the latest rumors?" he grumbles as he.. sits there, waiting to have his truck bed filled. This is one of those cases where he's forced to take a pretty passive role. "They're thinkin' on havin' us try some sort of PR stunt or somethin'."

<Constructicons> Long Haul adds the 'thinkin'' in there so that, if it doesn't happen, it can just be said that minds were changed.

"/What/?!" Scavenger boggles, unable to wrap his mind around the concept. It's even enough to distract him from his sacred mission of digging the world's bestest trench. "Don't tell me they're gonna have us put on a show for those filthy human germs! I'd rather taunt the Dinobots with an electric prod than degrade myself like that!"

"Weeeeelll..." drawls Long Haul, "not us. Exactly. The big guy." He seems to settle a bit on his tires. "Which should be pretty innerestin', tryin' to keep /him/ under control in a situation like /that/."

If anything, Scavenger finds this even more boggling. Of course, even with Devastator being made up of him and his brothers, the combination was unruly at best, especially given their various personality qurirks, including his talent for caving into others at the drop of a hat. So such a suggestion fitted nicely into the "bad ideas" category. "Not sure interesting's the word for it, Haul." Madness was one that came more freely to mind. As was slagging stupid.

Dump Truck <Long Haul> mmmmmms. "It's /a/ word for it, anyway. I'm sure they're others, but Hook can play the thesaurus if he wants to. Ain' my job." He bahs. "Been too long since we took the big guy out for something /serious/, an' they want us playin' games." He would shrug but... well, he's a dump truck. Speaking of which... "Y'about done there, Scav?"

"Yeah," Scavenger replies, a bit of his usual "happy-idiot" tone returning to his voice. It was a good trench. Probably not as mathematically perfect as Hook would like, but hey, Hook can go stick is finger in an outlet if he doesn't like it. Holes are Scavenger's business and if there's one thing he knows, it's that dirt and math don't lend themselves to each other.

"Right, then," answers Long Haul, sighing. "Guess I better get this stuff off-site, then." With that he begins rolling off, mumbling /the/ phrase, the phrase that fits him far better than that silly little quote in his +finger. "Remove, remove... always remove..."