When the Bad Moon Rises, Pack a Thopter (and a Spare Dave)

Bad Moon Rising in Arakas

Dave watched in despair as his brand-new, freshly painted, snazzy light machine gun — a gift from Craig, no less — slid down the gullet of a Sand Worm. The worm didn’t even chew. It just swallowed his pride, his dignity, and all his worldly possessions in one undignified gulp.

But, as all tragedies must, this one had a prologue.

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The Brute 2: A Short-Lived Legacy

Earlier that evening, Dave had just finished applying a fresh red coat of paint to The Brute 2. The Brute 1, of course, had already been swallowed by a worm (worms being the universe’s preferred method of recycling Dave’s hardware). The guys logged in for our weekly Dune adventure, and Dave proudly rolled out his freshly lacquered tank-on-wings, still smelling of new paint and overconfidence.

Zaph flew back from Arakeen just in time to pick up a distress call. Dave, of course, also heard it, and before anyone could talk about coordination or planning, we were all crammed into scout thopters on our way to investigate.

We found survivors at the wreck. They wanted help — specifically from Dave and Zaph. For reasons lost to history (and basic hygiene standards), they wanted nothing to do with Craig or myself. Solidarity being our strongest suit, we left them to die in the desert and headed off to Arakeen for the usual: Atreides gossip, poisoning a bloke, casual treachery.

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Dave Passes the Morality Test (Alone)

In Arakeen, Zaph, Craig, and I cheerfully handed over poisoned wine, waving the poor fool off with a hearty “Bottoms up!” Dave, however, refused. Turns out, it was a test. Dave passed. The rest of us — self-styled “merry murderers” — failed miserably and are now forever paused on that quest.

Undeterred, we hit the new job board: acted as bouncers, eliminated a blackmailer, and ensured that a very snooty wedding went ahead without hitch or corpse.

The Atreides spymaster then handed us a new task: track down the traitor poisoning the spice. Off we went into a new basin, Craig only dying twice — which frankly counts as restraint. We found an audio recording, lots of bodies, and eventually the traitor himself. Mortally wounded, he managed to gasp out that another poisoned shipment awaited on a crashed ship in the deep desert.

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Hazmat Chic

Back to Arakeen via Uber Thopter. Then, on the spymaster’s request, another Uber to base so we could whip up radiation suits and iodine pills for our trek into the high-rad zone.

At the crossroads, we disembarked and hiked south. Everyone popped their pills like good little mentats. Craig rushed ahead, promptly died, and was left smouldering in the sand like an object lesson.

Inside the wreck, we found the poisoned spice. But as we prepared to leave, a sandstorm pinned us down, huddled inside the metal carcass, debating which would kill us first: radiation, worms, or boredom.

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Dave, Fashion Icon

Back in Arakeen, Dave flatly refused to be seen in public wearing his chunky, unstylish hazmat suit. So he ran around in his underwear instead. Naturally, this was the exact moment the Atreides spymaster introduced us to Duke Leto.

So yes, Dave made his royal debut in his invisible finest. If the Duke noticed, he was too polite to mention it. (Or perhaps he simply assumed it was some obscure Bene Gesserit ritual.)

The reward? Dave got to buy a mountain of base decorations and a matching Atreides paint job for our thopters. Nothing says loyalty like tasteful drapes.

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Dinner With the Glutton

Next stop: a dinner date with the Glutton. His food needed poisoning. We took The Beast out to the basin, dropped Dave off, and discovered — surprise! — this was another solo instance.

The rest of us immediately buggered off with The Beast to help Zaph with another quest, while Dave went full Iron Chef Assassin. He poisoned the butcher’s table, got into a running gunfight with the Glutton, and actually survived. Triumphantly, he staggered outside… only to discover his “friends” had nicked the ride.

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Dave Walks Home (Straight Into Doom)

“No problem,” Dave thought. “I’ll just unpack my scout thopter.”

Unfortunately, he’d forgotten to pack it.

The base was close enough, though. Practically walking distance. Just one stretch of sand between two quicksand pits. What could go wrong?

Halfway across, worm sign. Dave dashed. Worm sign turned red. He ran. Cooldown on dash ticking down. He heard the breach. The ground split. The sky fell silent.

Cooldown hit zero. He dashed. Straight down the worm’s throat.

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Epilogue: All Swallowed Up

Which brings us back to where we began: Dave watching his beloved light machine gun — a gift from Craig, no less — vanish forever into the digestive tract of a sandworm. Along with his backpack, weapons, armour, gear, and the shiny new melee weapon he’d just looted off the Glutton.

It was, in the grand history of our group’s misadventures, a perfectly Dave way to end the night.

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🎬 CREDITS — BAD MOON RISING IN ARAKAS 🎬

Starring

• Dave … As Himself: Worm Hors d’Oeuvre Extraordinaire

  (“Fashionably Late, Fashionably Underwear”)

• Zaph … The Reluctant Uber Driver

  (“Shoots straight, leaves friends stranded”)

• Myles … Mentat of Maps & Messes

  (“Still trying to run this group like an actual operation”)

• Craig … The Chaos Engine

  (“Died twice, learned nothing, stole the ride”)

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Special Appearances By:

• The Brute 2 … as Soon-to-Be Worm Chow

• The Glutton … as Dinner Guest Who Didn’t Survive Dessert

• The Sandworm … as Best Supporting Digestive System

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Costume Design

Dave’s Underpants (sponsored by Atreides Housewares™)

Props Department

Craig’s Generously Gifted Light Machine Gun (now unavailable)

Transportation

The Beast (leaving without you since 2025)

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Tagline:

“When the Bad Moon Rises, No One is Safe — Especially Dave.”

1.7 Million Millilitres and Still Thirsty

 

Dave, brandishing his shiny new light machine gun like Moses descending Mount Sinai with a Gatling attachment, declared:

“Don’t go near the water!!”

The rest of us, parched and sand-crusted, did the only sensible thing—begged like supplicants at a mirage.

Myles (that’d be me, forever cast as Responsible Uncle in this desert daycare): “But we are thirsty, please let us drink.”

Dave, glaring as though I’d suggested baptizing in his sacred coolant tank: “Supplies are low—we are down to 1.7 million ml’s of water, we can’t spare any.”

For reference, that’s 1,700 litres. Apparently, when supplies dip below the “local swimming pool” threshold, Dave initiates rationing protocols.

Craig, ever the diplomat, offered: “What if we promised to help you do some harvesting?”

Dave relented—but with the usual mafia-esque caveat: no brushing teeth, or into the juicer you go.

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The Great Slaver Purée

Zaph had the night off (lucky sod), so the rest of us hit every unexplored slaver outpost east and north. We even poked into the Rift. By the time we returned, Dave was whistling merrily while installing extra coolers to store the liquified essence of roughly one hundred slavers. Fremen might call them Deathstills, but we—being plain-spoken colonials—call them “juicers.”

There is something profoundly unsettling about watching Dave beam with pride while feeding “plump slaver bodies” into the machines like fruit at a summer market.

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Enter Craig, Stage Left, Sandworm Bait

Lest history forget, it has been almost 25 years since the Gold Dragon Incident, and Craig apparently felt the group had grown complacent. His solution? Attempting to lure a sandworm into flattening our base.

Craig planted a thumper, fully intending to give Shai-Hulud our home address. But Dave—ever the opportunist prankster—charged across the dunes, flipped on his Holtzman field right behind Craig, and bolted for my thopter. The worm sign went wild.

Craig scrambled into the rocks just in time to watch a gargantuan worm erupt from the sands and devour his thumper whole.

“Curses, foiled again,” muttered Craig, like Wile E. Coyote realizing the ACME rocket wasn’t OSHA-compliant.

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Assault Thopter Mutiny

Undeterred, Craig decided to cheer himself up by rocketing our base into rubble. Except… Dave had quietly revoked his Assault Thopter privileges. Cue Craig, frantically turning keys and muttering spells to no avail:

“Hey Dave, why am I locked out of the Assault Thopter’s controls?”

Dave, with all the gravity of a judge handing down a life sentence, walked over to Juicer #3 and scrawled Craig’s name on its side.

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And Then, The Song

Because why wouldn’t this night end in a musical number? Dave, channeling equal parts Sesame Street and Saw, broke into song while ceremonially juicing another corpse:

Don’t go near my water
To do it any wrong
To be cool with the water
Is the message of this song
Let’s all help the water
Do what we can and ought to
Let’s start juicing today

The juicer hummed, the tanks dripped, and somewhere in the distance, Shai-Hulud sighed in despair at our group’s continued survival.

Addendum: The Great Peak Fiasco

As if sandworm baiting and juicer karaoke weren’t enough, Dave also decided Myles needed a character-building exercise. His idea of “character-building”?

“Climb the highest peak north of our base. There’s loot up there.”

Simple words, devastating consequences.

With some creative aeronautics, Dave wedged the Assault Thopter onto a precarious ledge 800 meters up. From there, I had to grapple the rest of the way to the summit, dangling like a nervous spider in the Arrakeen breeze. Somewhere between prayer and profanity, I finally hauled myself up.

Craig, observing from below, later described it thus:

“With Myles it was like a Titanic situation. Except instead of yelling ‘I’m on top of the world,’ it was more ‘Oh shit, oh shit, argh—I’m falling off the top of the world!’ The only bad thing was that he didn’t.”

(Thanks, Craig. Always rooting for me.)

To everyone’s disappointment, I did not plummet to my doom, but instead successfully used my grapple hook—after only two months of fumbling practice. Craig insists my next life skill should be “learning how to use a sword.” Baby steps.

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A Sunburnt Summit

Naturally, we chose to scale the peak at the worst possible time: midday. The desert sun blazed down, water rations evaporated faster than Craig’s good intentions, and I could practically hear our storage tanks sobbing in sympathy.

By the time Dave swung the Thopter around for pickup, the engines were wheezing and the fuel gauge looked like a countdown timer. He casually mentioned:

“Hope you brought extra fuel. We might need some to get back.”

Translation: he’d burned through every last reserve to prove a point about verticality.

So there we were—sunburnt, parched, clinging to loot, and relying on a chopper that was only marginally more functional than Craig’s Assault Thopter license.

A typical fiasco, really.