RetRollSpective – Quicksilvers

Hello and welcome to another RetRollSpective, where we reflect on the history of marble sports teams that have competed in the tournaments of Jelle’s Marble Runs. This time, we’re going to focus on the Quicksilvers, a team that debuted in Marble League 2017 but left the tournament after 2018. Read on to find out how this team has sped through the competition!

The four original athletes, Silvery, Quix, Mercurial, and Argent, come from the village of Quixote, a humid and hilly town known for its medieval-era network of narrow streets, shops with homes perched above, and brick-laying plazas, dotted with flora and fountains throughout. Stone-cased windmills outline and face the town at its outskirts, providing farmers a means to grind grains into flour and villagers solace from the often-scorching sun during the summer months. 

The area was not particularly well known or recognized much in Marblearth until the emergence of Quicksilver around 2006, who made their name flying down the bluffs surrounding Quixote’s plains. In the days before organized individual tournaments, Quicksilver would have to travel throughout the region competing in smaller races before being invited to big races in Marblopolis and at the historic Colina Umerun. 

Quicksilver held a race in early 2009 for young Quixote athletes, the prize being free tickets to the race at the Colina Umerun for each of the top four competitors. Lined up on a hill outside town, competitors failed to pose a challenge to Silvery, who won by over 3 seconds. Quix, Mercurial, and Argent finished close behind, all of them earning their tickets to Numerun. 

The four Quixotians found themselves in the city of Numerun weeks later, astounded at its sprawl, culture, and history, with the Antigua neighborhood built around the Colina Umerun. “Numerun is like a city built for marble racing,” Quix would comment. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”
On the morning of race day, the four raced up and down the street outside of where they were staying. That afternoon Quicksilver finished third, decent enough but below Quicksilver’s all-or-nothing expectations. Although the team was there in their honor, the individual athlete did not approach the four during the trip until the day after the race. Over a shared meal, Quicksilver broached their true intentions behind the trip – to form their own marble sports team to compete in Numerun’s Surculo League. The four marbles were ecstatic to participate, and thus the Quicksilvers were officially formed.

Quicksilver was able to find a trainer for them, Gallum, and they returned to Quixote to train, finish school, and compete in small local competitions as they aged into larger regional competitions. When they weren’t running laps around their peers in physical education, the Quicksilvers’ faces were stuck in books, reading fantastical stories as well as studying the deepest philosophical theories. 

“Aristarble says that there is a ‘ladder of life to climb’. For each rung you climb, the more effort it takes to go up,” explained Argent. “At that point in our lives, I feel like we were putting in much more effort than marbles normally would. We wanted to be great.”

Come 2011, the team was ready to take part in the Surculo Entry League. Despite their optimism, the Quicksilvers were not as prepared as they may have thought. With Quix earning the team just one bronze in a dismal first half, the pressure was on Quicksilver to compete well as Silvery prepared to take on the Colina Umerun GP for the first time. 

There was a fierce battle for the Surculo championship going into the race between the veteran team, the Monarchs, and a team also in their first season, the Jungle Jumpers. Silvery struggled with the sand and stone terrain at first but managed to catch up to the two leaders by the race’s final straightaway, which steeply dove down the hill’s slope. Silvery meant to draft behind Tiger of the Monarchs, but accidentally pushed them to the lead. Silvery would also pass Hop of the Jumpers for second, and the Monarchs would win the championship.

The silver moved the team up to a top-half championship finish. Silvery didn’t think they had done anything wrong, but a moment before heading to the podium, they were confronted by Hop, along with the rest of their team. 

“They were yelling something along the lines of ‘giving favoritism’ or something like that,” Silvery recalled. “They had surrounded me, I tried to get out but then it all somehow broke out into a fight.”

With one accidental pass from Silvery, the Jungle Jumpers would consider themselves rivals of the Quicksilvers. The Quicksilvers wouldn’t think the same way towards them and were quick to move on from this incident and began training for 2012. 

2012 was an improvement, with the team earning their first two golds amidst a myriad of inconsistent finishes, and found themselves in a qualifying placement for the Surculo Elite League. Their rookie season as elites, in 2013, did not go as hoped.

“We didn’t expect the competition to be that much more difficult in the elites, but we barely escaped relegation,” admitted Argent. “Quicksilver told us we had to train as hard as we could ahead of our next season, or the team would be dissolved.”

The Quicksilvers earned two golds and a bronze medal, finishing sixth in Surculo 2014. “That was a roller coaster of a season,” Quix reflected. We would train our hardest, do well, slack off, and then do poorly again. Rinse and repeat.”

“It felt like we were rolling boulders up the bluffs, only they were rolling back down to try and crush us,” quipped Mercurial. “It was absurd how much we were training and yet could not stay consistent.”

Some thought that the Quicksilvers would be too burnt out to compete come the 2015 season, but they proved the doubters wrong. Leading the standings with one gold going into Event 4, Quix earned bronze after an incident in which Quix caught too much air over a hurdle, bumping into Leap in lane 2. The contact pushed Quix back into lane 1, but sent Leap into lane 3, blocking Rojo Tres of the Rojo Rollers.

The Jungle Jumpers were immediately disqualified, but appealed, saying the blockage only happened because Quix pushed Leap into lane 3. Their appeal was denied, to a chorus of boos from the Jungle Jumpers fanbase.

“How convenient of you to fly off the track like that and get back into your lane. Next, you’ll say it was a track defect or something,” accused Leap.

“I did appeal to race officials,” Quix responded, flashing a red slip of paper to Leap. “They did an inspection. Found nothing. And said the ruling stands.”

Leap snatched the slip from Quix, scanning the review document and sighing shallowly. “Okay. I see. Thanks, I guess.”

“And for the record, you can also ask a question before judging,” Quix sneered.

Despite their Hurdles bronze, the Quicksilvers’ gap ahead of second in the championship closed. Podiums would be scarce in coming events, and after a costly underperformance in the Water Race caused by Skip moving over to squeeze Argent against the wall, the Quicksilvers were behind the leading Jawbreakers and Jungle Jumpers as they headed into the Colina Umerun GP.

With Candy leading the way and Jump in second, Silvery realized that victory was out of reach. Overtaking the Jawbreakers for the lead wouldn’t win them the championship, but the Jumpers would win the championship if they were to do so.

“There was one last straight where I could charge ahead, and I nailed the slipstream, charging into Jump as they started to close in on Candy,” said Silvery. “I didn’t intend to beach Jump, but I’m not sad about the outcome.”

Silvery would come home with third in the race, and third overall, as the Jawbreakers won the championship with gold to close out, and the Rojo Rollers finished runners-up, pipping the Quicksilvers by two points. The Jungle Jumpers consequently lost the podium.

It was just a brief exchange between Silvery and Jump that triggered the Jumpers’s fans, chasing Quicksilvers fans out of the stands and chucking debris at the podium once the Quicksilvers rolled up to it. The offending words from Silvery: “They were now even.”

The Quicksilvers returned to Quixote shortly after the season ended to train, but in February 2016, something unexpected happened.  The Quicksilvers received an invitation to the new Marble League, a tournament managed by Jelle Bakker featuring the best teams from all corners of the globe. The Jawbreakers and Rojo Rollers also received invitations, which they accepted, but the Quicksilvers were in a different situation.

“We felt we still had something to prove in the Surculo,” Silvery stated. “The Jawbreakers had already won, and the Rojo Rollers thought they weren’t gonna do any better. We could’ve won the championship, and we wanted to get it done in 2016.”

Fans expected a title fight between the Quicksilvers and Jungle Jumpers, and tempers would eventually boil over in some way. With three events to go, the Quicksilvers held a 37-point lead over the Jungle Jumpers in the standings, but the latter team surged in the next two events, reducing the gap to nine points. With many medals in two, both teams were at each other’s throats for a tense finale at the Colina Umerun GP: Silvery vs. Jump. 

Both racers had the start they needed, with Jump leading the pair. After only a few turns, Silvery fancied their chances as they were about to enter the tight S-section. However, Silvery underestimated how far back they were from Jump, and hit the back of the opponent, stopping their momentum completely. They stormed through the field, attempting to make up lost positions, but could only make the pass for fourth before crossing the finish. The championship went to the Jungle Jumpers by four points as Jump bested the Colina Umerun, finishing the GP in a record-setting time. 

The loss was devastating. As the team was preparing to take the second step of the overall podium, zero words were exchanged. In past seasons, the Quicksilvers would have begun training for the next year immediately after the season ended, but not this time. Their solace became the very books that they had studied while attending school, and their answers came in the form of further questions.

“Ancient philosophers would argue that we know nothing, and for some time after we lost the Surculo, it certainly felt like that,” said Quix. “I got into a new philosophy during those months at home, and it helped me focus more on building a simple life for myself, one that wasn’t so focused on the excitement of winning or the pain of losing.”

“I couldn’t shake that feeling of grief,” remarked Silvery. “I turned to a different philosophy to recognize that pathos, and determine the logic I needed to understand and move towards a rational state of existence.”

“I didn’t understand that way of thinking,” confessed Argent. “Meditative philosophy was much simpler. Instead of considering how bothered I might be if the Jungle Jumpers bump us off the track next year, I think I should keep my inner peace instead.”

“Before all of our studies accelerated, I had convinced myself that there have to be some rules to follow. Nowadays, I’m big on going with the flow,” Mercurial said.

Gallum laughed. “Don’t look at me – I just train them. But if you want to know, I don’t think any of this stuff matters. I just hope my team enjoys being around each other and what they’re doing to win.”

Adding insult to injury, the Quicksilvers were made aware that thanks to the title they had lost, the Jungle Jumpers received an invitation to the Marble League. In June of 2017, however, the squad of Quixote received yet another invitation, one that was originally offered to the Gliding Glaciers, but was eventually transferred to the silver team.

“We discussed this with Quicksilver, who put our nomination forward to the rules committee, and decided that this was probably our last chance to join the Marble League, and our best chance to put the Surculo heartbreak past us. So we accepted,” explained Gallum in a recent interview.

After finishing Event 1 of Qualifiers in tenth place, the Quicksilvers quickly realized that they were facing a higher level of competitors and needed to improve their performances for the remaining events. In the Sand Race, Quix finished sixth, boosting their team up to seventh overall. 

“Quicksilver insisted that we train together, which was terrifying,” confessed Quix. “And yeah, I got pushed during training, but I think my results proved that our time together paid off.”

Coming off a 12th in Block Pushing, Argent finished second in Funnel Spinning, raising their team to fifth in the overall standings. Escaping disqualification by way of strong individual performance, the Quicksilvers qualified for Marble League 2017 in the best spot of all four new teams.

“We witnessed a strong result from newcomers, the Quicksilvers,” one analyst noted. “These Quixotians got their start competing against each other in a local comp and you can still see some remnants of that in their Qualifier showing. Some weaker team events, you have to wonder if there’s a lack of confidence, even if they have the Surculo experience and training from Quicksilver…”

With their success in the qualifier event, it was to no one’s surprise that Argent was nominated to run in the Funnel Race. Their 14th place finish, after such high expectations, was rather sobering. After two more bottom-four finishes, the Quicksilvers were dead last, and the Jungle Jumpers were just ahead of them in 15th. Something had to be done.

Two ninth-place finishes by Quix and Silvery were followed by bottom-half finishes in the next two team events, with Argent’s last place in the High Jump capping a devastating series of performances for the team. The poor teamwork skills identified in the Quicksilvers’ qualifying events were more obvious than ever. The team sat 15th heading into the final third of events.

“I wish I could say it gives us solace that the Jungle Jumpers are a spot below us, but I’m not a utilitarian,” joked Mercurial in a post-event interview. “This is a dire showing, and I feel like there’s something wrong with us that we can’t compete. And not just our team – the Chocs and Jawbreakers too. We’re all in the bottom half, just waiting for this pain to end.”

With two team events next, marble sports pundits predicted the worst results for the Quicksilvers – but curiously, the opposite was true. Their Steeplechase time of 43.32 was just enough to edge ahead of the Limers for seventh, and in Archery, Argent scored one bullseye, Mercurial and Quix 9.5s, and Silvery a 7 to place fourth, their highest finish since Qualifiers. 

But even their strongest events were eclipsed by other Surculo teams finishing ahead of them. While the Jawbreakers’ 42.67 finish in Steeplechase placed them just ahead of the Quicksilvers in sixth, the worst affronts to the Quicksilvers’ sliver of hope were the Chocolatiers’ silver and Jungle Jumpers’ gold in Archery, both teams locking the Quicksilvers out of their best chance for a medal yet.

“We feel like we’re at our best, and we can’t even be better than the Jumpers,” lamented Quix. “I feel like giving up.”

Their 15th place finish in the Underwater Race, accompanied by a bronze by Hop, left the writing on the wall for the Quicksilvers, who needed silver or better to escape last place in the standings. That fate rested on an athlete as familiar with the sand as Quicksilver themself – Silvery. Entering the event as part of the first heat, Silvery performed a key divebomb maneuver to pass Lemonlime and Ocean towards the final straight, slotting them into a transfer spot for the final race. As they trekked back up the hill at Doornse Gat, Silvery heard a line from Greg Woods that could have changed their season:

“And the Jungle Jumpers, you notice the Did Not Start down there…they overslept! They’ve been celebrating so much from their last couple of, uh, very successful events. They’ll still be present in the closing ceremony, but they did not make scrutineering and they did not make it to the starting gate in time, they will not compete in this event.”

For a moment, Silvery didn’t feel as if they were climbing a sand hill. The yellow sand reminded them faintly of the freshly tilled dirt in the grain fields outside Quixote, with the sails of the nearest windmill briefly blocking the sun. Silvery panted, having finished sprinting from row to row in a race against Quicksilver.

“As racers, we have to prepare for every situation,” Silvery remembered Quicksilver saying. “We have to push ourselves when we feel like we have nothing left to give. And we have to learn to trust ourselves, against all odds.”

Beads of sweat streamed down Silvery’s body as the windmill turned, exposing the hot Quixotian sun onto the field as farmers nearby began seeding and watering. Quicksilver stood ahead, still as a stone, staring down the field to their student without a hint of squinting.

“In the end, the only marble you can truly depend on is yourself.”

Lining up for the starting gate, Silvery zeroed into the hill before them, narrowing their eyes to better study the track ahead of them. No doubt inspired by the Colina Umerun itself, the twists and turns were rough around the edges from the two heats prior, and the sand looked just a little loose. The starting gate lifted, and none of that mattered. Silvery rushed to take P4 heading into the first turn, hoping to rebound ahead into the lead. They instead caught themselves in a duel with Starry of Team Galactic, with Wispy of the Midnight Wisps in their slipstream, and fell firmly to P5.

“Because there is no tomorrow,” said Greg Woods, their voice echoing in the distance. “There is no next event.”

Knowing this, and being so far from the lead, Silvery’s heart sank. They sunk further in the race order to P7.

“They cannot wait. They cannot put a single roll wrong.”

With all of the rolls they had put wrong throughout a losing season, Silvery thought for a fleeting moment about how it would be fitting to end the race in P8 as if they stole the last transfer spot from an athlete that deserved it far more. Why bother? And it was then that something clicked. Remembering a quote from Marbus Auresinus, Silvery decided to let go of their emotions, focus on the remainder of their race, and let fate take control.

“Waste no more time arguing about what a good marble should be. Be one.”

~Marbus Auresinus

Two milliseconds behind the Shining Swarm’s Shiny, Silvery crossed the finish line in P6, streaking ahead of Wispy to claim 10 points for the Quicksilvers. Even as they finished last overall with 58 points, the team felt a sense of optimism that had eluded them throughout Marble League 2017.

“Our performances in Archery and the Sand Rally prove that we’re capable of competing with the best of the best,” stated Argent, interviewing with budding marble sports network Inside the Marble League. “Mark my words: we will come back stronger next year.”

Hopes were high for the Marble League 2018 Qualifiers. With Gallum joining as a reserve member, they were ready to try it all again. And they were confident.

Last place in Curling, a team event, was the worst start in Qualifiers they could’ve imagined, and following this with a sixth in the Snow Race and last in the 5 Meter Ice Dash made their biggest fear come true. The Quicksilvers failed to qualify for Marble League 2018, finishing last in Group A. Not even placing fourth in the Halfpipe could help them – Marble League 2018 was over before it started.

“I remember looking over at Leap, and there was just no expression I could identify on their face,” remarked Silvery. “It looked like they were having the worst day of their life.”

“That was the same expression you had, Silvery,” Gallum noted. “Or, the lack of an expression. It’s like you were in total shock.”

“It felt like everything I feared would happen had come true. I was living my own worst nightmare.”

Silvery represented the Quicksilvers in two off-season races – the Marble League 2018 Consolation Race and the 100 Meter Water Race, in which they finished 11th. As for the Consolation Race, the event saw four Surculo teams take the top four placements in a historic first. Having spent so much time in the top three, Silvery was surprised to see Hop slot into fourth and make contact with them. Silvery charged ahead, attempting a pass on Cocoa before bumping into several walls and the Chocolatiers athlete, allowing Hop in the slipstream to claim P3 and the eventual bronze. In an eerie reversal of events from the 2011 Colina Umerun GP, Silvery finished fourth.

“Okay, now we’re even,” joked Hop. “If it’s any consolation to you, at least this is a mythological bronze.”

Silvery shrugged. “What does it matter? Does anything matter?”

While offseason results were promising, the situation behind the scenes was changing. Quicksilver, who had advocated for the team since its formation and served as their manager, had amassed enough financial resources and business contacts for the team to survive without their involvement. The Marble Rally racer privately informed the Quicksilvers of their departure following Qualifiers, transferring the ownership collectively to the five members of the team and making an official announcement shortly before entering Marble Rally 2018.

The Quicksilvers’ retirement from the Marble League came some months later, as the Amazing Maze Marble Race invitational was being held in Knikkegen.

“We are ready to move on,” stated Gallum in a brief press conference.

For the rest of 2018 and early 2019, the Quicksilvers stayed silent, not taking part in anything marble sports related. Rather, they made an unlikely ally offstage from all of their drama.

“The real consolation wasn’t that race a few months ago, it was the friends we made along the way,” joked Argent, cheekily. “Realizing that we had no friends but each other, our team realized we have more in common with the Jungle Jumpers than what set us apart, so we reached out to them.”

“Time heals all wounds, right? We were very different athletes from those first days in the Surculo.” said Jump of the Jungle Jumpers. “And we opened up to them. After qualifying in 2019, we had all these plans to expand our Marble League career. But we missed the Surculo and we missed home.”

“The Jumpers said to us: if you still have something to prove, why not return to the Surculo?” said Argent. “Win a championship not just for yourselves, but for all of us who made it to the next level.” The Quicksilvers thus accepted their invitation to the Surculo Elite League in March 2019, ending their marble sports hiatus with minimal training involved. 

The Quicksilvers rejoining was also for the tournament’s benefit, as it had begun reorganizing its leagues into a similar format as the Marble League. The Surculo had seen harder times in the past two years, struggling financially due to their more accomplished teams accepting other opportunities, such as those offered by Jelle’s Marble Runs. The Quicksilvers offered to host the entire tournament in the city of Mercazogue, a nearly two-hour drive beyond the simple village of Quixote. The main draw for the hosting city was the Silverdrome, an outdoor stadium typically used for touring musicians and bands, which would become the setting for each event and the crown jewel, the Silver Surculo GP.

“Of course, most people would think that having less training and having to manage hosting responsibilities will mean we will do worse,” Mercurial said. “This season is going to be different. If it isn’t, our marble sports career is over.”  

Different made the Quicksilvers evolve. The team collectively earned a silver in the Relay before earning an individual gold heading into the final two events. Although they lost their chance to win the championship after finishing second-to-last in Collision, the Quicksilvers’ hopes for a podium once again rested with Silvery.

After half a race without overtakes, Silvery would send it up the inside on two marbles in a tight right-hander, and make it stick. They would pass Cap of Team Toadstool after Cap made a mistake on a short straightaway. Silvery would sit in third as they entered the long straightaway at the end of the course. They got a brilliant run out of the final turn, and almost immediately passed the Mossballers for second, but they had to make up a gap of three seconds by the end of the straightaway. The odds were against them, but Silvery managed to bridge most of the gap through raw pace alone. Just two meters from the finish line, Silvery looked left and Stun of the Electric Eels moved left to block, hitting the wall. This allowed Silvery to pass on the right side to win the race and secure second in the overall standings.

Silvery would comment, “Athletes will say that training is everything, but I don’t believe that to be true. In the end, no marble is free who is not their own master.”

Having done their best in the Surculo yet, several local businesses swarmed the Quicksilvers’ front offices with sponsorship offers. The team graciously redirected their offers to the Surculo itself, ensuring that the league could continue. Among these sponsorships was an offer from the Marble Rally athlete, Quicksilver, who congratulated Silvery on finally winning a Surculo Grand Prix, nearly a decade after their trip to Numerun. Instead of supporting their former team, Quicksilver’s funds would instead go to ensuring more prospective athletes could be inspired by the Surculo, just as the Quicksilvers were.

Sometime after confirming their appearance in Surculo 2020, the Quicksilvers were asked by league officials to name a captain. Before discussing amongst their team, Argent had planned to step down as the “de facto” captain and let Silvery take over. They headed into the meeting only to learn that every other athlete had nominated Argent to take the position, and so, Argent officially became the Quicksilvers’ Captain.

Following a visit to Quixote, Jumpers captain Jump remarked, “With so many ups and downs, Argent’s understanding of failure demonstrates that they know what they need to succeed. And I have little doubt that the Quicksilvers are the team that can…and will.”

The 2020 edition of the Surculo would see a return from the Rojo Rollers to the league, and the attention that came with them gave Surculo officials the confidence to move the league back to Numerun. The Quicksilvers got off to a good start, but the rest of the season was filled with finishes in the mid-pack. Finishing with a silver and two bronzes, one of which was in the Colina Umerun GP, the Quicksilvers finished sixth, while the home team, the Rojo Rollers, captured their first Surculo championship.

Despite their disappointment in 2020, the Quicksilvers were determined to continue in the Surculo. Argent had convinced Silvery that being captain would be the best thing for the team, citing their consistently strong performances throughout their career. Their final act as captain was hiring a coach for the team, Aggie. A few months into their tenure, they detailed their managerial philosophy: “I’ve tried to ensure that the mental health and morale of the team members stay high. I agree with them that poor mentality was part of the cause of their disappointing results recently, but also, the team can’t stop training if they want to win, so I am trying to maintain a balance between having the team train as much as possible and making sure they are not worn out.”

Silvery’s first act as captain was reestablishing communications with other Surculo teams beyond the Jungle Jumpers, inviting them to a retreat in Mercazogue. Only the Jumpers and Rollers were in attendance as the Chocolatiers hosted their annual chocolate festival in Bonsel, and the Jawbreakers, caught in constant team arguments, left their invitation unanswered.

“The Quicksilvers become more cordial since withdrawing from the Marble League,” noted Rojo Dos. “I never thought I would see the Jungle Jumpers become so close to them, but those teams have really warmed up to each other.”

“Maybe removing the pressure of being up to Quicksilver’s standards changed them for the better,” mused Rojo Tres. “Red Number 3 never put that pressure on us, you know.”

“I don’t think it was that,” responded Mercurial in a later interview. “The flow we were going with was just not serving us at the time. But we had to trust that it would lead us to a place like this.”

The team was in attendance for the Raceforest Grand Prix for Marbula One Season 2, where they confirmed in an interview with CMM that the Jungle Jumpers had personally invited them as guests of honor to tour their sports complex under construction in Lewara. “I told the Jumpers they were forced into a position I knew they didn’t want,” former Quicksilvers captain Argent asserted.  “Marble League performances come and go, but staying true to yourselves is forever.”

Once scaling back their plans and completing construction on the Lewara Sports Parc, the Jungle Jumpers hosted several events, from a massive marble sports athlete reunion to a smaller-scale retirement party for the Jawbreakers. The Quicksilvers attended both, conversing for much of the night with Jawbreakers members during the latter celebration. Both teams returned the favor a few months later, surprising the Rojo Rollers with a party in Felynia for their Marble League 2021 qualification, their first in team history.

“We’re realizing how important it is to celebrate not just our accomplishments, but others’. We Surculo teams have gotten a bad rap in the Marble League, and being down on ourselves is only going to make that feel worse. We’re stronger when we stick together,” former Jawbreakers member Candy, speaking to a Felynia Times reporter, asserted.

Electing to stay behind in support of the Rojo Rollers and their other Marble League contemporaries, Candy bid farewell to the Quicksilvers the morning after, who flew directly to Numerun to compete in Surculo 2021. Despite winning Balancing, the Quicksilvers struggled against a very competitive field. This included the surging Wolfpack from the Northern North, scoring medal after medal as if a Marble League team.

“It’s been years since one of us made it internationally, but I don’t see why they wouldn’t,” predicted Argent.

The Quicksilvers had amassed 33 points with two events to go, and marble sports pundits were as bullish on their opinions as ever: “This year, we’ve seen every reason it’s time for these Quixotians to quit. The Quicksilvers are a team that has convinced you they have promise, but they’ve earned nothing but fool’s gold. Every year that they go without a championship, you become more and more convinced that they’re allergic to kicking the football, and that it’ll always be yanked away from them by a team that’s slightly less mediocre.”

Coach Aggie’s response was blistering. “I thought this was supposed to be a feature about ‘How to pick your favorite Surculo team.’ It reads more like a roast scripted by someone who would rather live in a world of satire than think for themself.”

Joined by Candy as a temporary technical director for the final two events, the Quicksilvers won Collision in a dominant showing, knocking out the leading Wolfpack to face the Electric Eels in the final. Fans reported sightings of Quicksilver for the Sand Rally, conducted in the shadow of Numerun’s Pico de Manatial as the Colina was being renovated. There, Silvery finished solidly in second, adding a silver medal to their collection as the team finished fifth with 60 points – nearly doubling their total from the two events prior.

Although the athlete was there in their honor, the Quicksilvers did not approach Candy until the day after the race. Over a shared meal, the team thanked Candy for their help and broached an offer to them – to join the team as their technical director. Candy accepted, putting forward Tidbit, their former colleague working with the ​​Extreme Lucha Marbre Championship, as a suggestion for the Quicksilvers’ open manager position. 

As they adjusted to their front office changes, the Quicksilvers took a hiatus from the Surculo in 2022 but ensured their spot for Surculo 2023 remained secure. They announced their investment in a training facility in Mercazogue just before traveling to Bermenghank for Marble League 2022, where they celebrated the Chocolatiers’ victory in Qualifiers and witnessed the Wolfpack compete on the international stage as the newest Surculo representatives. Following the tournament’s end, they were reported to be working with the Chocolatiers on designing a Grand Prix for Season 4 of Marbula One, but their plans fell through, and the Quicksilvers refocused their efforts on training for Surculo 2023, which will mark their tenth appearance in the tournament.

Despite no longer being their manager, Quicksilver is known to have closely watched the team’s progress. “I’m not typically philosophical, but I’ll always have hope that the team’s best days are ahead of them. One day, they will be as much as, if not more than Quixote’s pride, than I have strived to become.”

In RetRollSpective, the Quicksilvers are a team that has had to contend with heartbreak but has never given up on marble sports. They have certainly had many ups and downs throughout their career, but the Quicksilvers are still here to this day, and it’s hard to imagine that they will quit anytime soon. Best of luck to the Quicksilvers in the near future, keep on rolling!

Credits

• Writers: ElrQ, Roldo, Stynth
• Editors: Edu G. J., Fouc, Laurent Rollon, Smacg13
• Artist: Toffeeshop
• Graphic Designers: Emmun_Isaac, Jelle’s Marble Runs, MightyCucumber, Laurent Rollon, Novawolf, Tim Ritz
• Photographers: Jelle’s Marble Runs, Pesky
• Release: 20/09/2023