This week, the Crypt Creeps got serious.
Not “we have a plan” serious. Not “we understand the tech tree” serious. Certainly not “Craig has read the instructions” serious, because there are limits to the plausible and this blog remains, broadly speaking, a work of non-fiction.
No, this week we got serious about making money and exploring the desert, which in Icarus is less a financial strategy and more a polite way of saying: “Let’s ride several zebras into a beige death trap and see whether the local wildlife has evolved taxation.”
It began, naturally, with alcohol.
Project Cold Beer
Myles and Dave got on an hour early because “Its never too early for a cold one” declared Dave, a man who treats industrial progress as something that should ideally lead to either weaponry, refrigeration, or something drinkable by the end of the evening.
Dave immediately got busy turning glass and iron into bottles, and wheat, yeast and bottles into Beer, which was then stored in the refrigerator. There are many great milestones in human civilisation. Fire. The wheel. Written language. Refrigerated beer on an alien death planet while a zebra waits outside carrying several tonnes of ore and unresolved trauma.
Myles, clinging to the last shreds of civilised behaviour, asked what we had to drink that wasn’t alcoholic.
So Dave invented Milk.
This was a splendid achievement, slightly undermined by the fact that we didn’t have cows, pasteurisation, refrigeration supply chains, or indeed any of the things traditionally involved in milk that doesn’t cause a medieval public health incident. We therefore had to settle for disgusting soy milk, because in space, no one can hear you fart.
And because the farm had now entered the sticky entrepreneurial phase of development, Dave also bottled some of our enormous honey surplus and turned berries into jam. Somehow, in the minds of the Icarus developers, gooey food is a shared experience to be enjoyed and rewarded with more shared experience. This means Craig can mooch off everyone else’s hard work merely by standing near the agricultural-industrial complex and existing in a vaguely cooperative direction.
To be fair, we need all the sharing we can get, because everyone else is sixteen levels behind Dave.
Dave has not so much advanced through the game as filed for technological custody of it.
Cleaning House
While Dave pursued the sacred arts of yeast, glassware, and suspicious dairy substitutes, Myles decided to spring clean some cupboards.
This was not a small task.
The Winchester storage system is best described as “archaeological.” Somewhere under the wood, rope, sulphur, spoiled meat, spare armour, unidentified fluids, mystery seeds, six kinds of ore, and the spiritual residue of Craig’s previous projects, there are probably early human cave paintings and a tax receipt from the Bronze Age.
All the vestiges were packed in bags and given to Zaph for delivery while everyone prepared for the desert exploration. Zaph, being Zaph, accepted this logistical burden with the quiet air of a man already calculating the shortest route, the safest path, and the number of headshots required if bureaucracy became hostile.
Myles went through the adventuring cupboard and reorganised the bags, because Dave just stuffs things in whatever is handy. This is Dave’s preferred system. It has many advantages, provided you are Dave, have Dave’s brain, and can perceive inventory space in the fourth dimension.
“Did you know we have 5 MXC furnaces?” Myles asked Dave.
“Hey, who's counting?” Dave replied.
Myles was counting. Obviously Myles was counting. Someone has to count, because otherwise Dave’s idea of “packed for a light expedition” includes five portable furnaces, three oxite dissolvers, enough food to feed a scout jamboree, half a geology department, and Craig, who is technically not equipment but often ends up being carried by the group’s patience.
Myles sorted the gear and packed it onto Patch, who accepted this burden with the quiet fatalism of an animal that has seen what we call “planning.”
Farming 102: Almost a Greenhouse
Craig joined us, which meant it was time to give him a job before he invented one.
We sent him to water and harvest the crops.
This was, on paper, safe. It involved plants, water, and repeatedly pressing buttons in the vicinity of agriculture. Craig complained about the lack of reward for his manual effort, presumably because the crops did not explode, scream, or launch him from a cliff.
Zaph watered the crops and noted that 10,000 XP for five minutes of work was a pretty good return.
Dave heard this and immediately thought: I bet I could double that by just adding another 20 plots.
This is Dave’s superpower. Present him with a working system and he will immediately scale it until it becomes either a business, a factory, or a fire risk.
So Dave dug some dirt, raided the sulphur and wood cupboards, and added more plots. This time he planted soy beans, because Project Milk had apparently become a strategic priority, and more coffee, because we were beginning to discover that caffeine might be the true currency of the stars.
Then a half fence was added, with a couple of doors to keep animals out. This was sensible. Practical. Almost professional.
At which point Dave noticed half the crops were getting no benefit from the four glass panels previously installed.
There was a pause. The kind of pause that happens just before Dave says something that begins as a minor improvement and ends with all our silica being converted into architecture.
Back to the drawing board.
After converting all our silica to glass, and making more glass panels and walls, we now have a glass wall going all the way around the glass house.
Is it a greenhouse? Almost.
Is it a statement of intent? Absolutely.
Is it also a monument to Dave noticing one inefficiency and immediately turning the base into a Victorian botanical annex with a sulphur dependency? Yes.
Craig’s Unauthorised Projects
Craig, bored with farming, wandered off to do what he does best.
This is, to be clear, a low bar.
Craig’s role in the group is difficult to define in conventional terms. He is not exactly a scout, because scouts usually report information back. He is not exactly a builder, because builders usually produce structures with an identifiable purpose. He is not exactly a combat specialist, because combat specialists generally try not to introduce monsters to the group by accident.
Craig is more of a mobile incident generator.
His latest masterpiece was his mountain ascension walkway, a project whose guiding design principle appears to be: “What if a tourist boardwalk was designed by Wile E. Coyote after a small electrical fire?”
The first we knew of Craig being AWOL was hearing him complain that he was on fire, having been struck by lightning. This was followed shortly by a scream as he plunged to his death.
There are many ways to interpret this sequence of events. In Greek myth, Icarus flew too close to the sun. In Icarus the game, Craig climbed too close to whatever part of the weather system handles divine slapstick.
Myles set out to assist him, with a detour to refuel a few mining drills, because even emergency rescue in Winchester comes with errands.
Meanwhile, Zaph discovered Craig had built a tall ladder going nowhere on the roof of the house.
This is the sort of sentence that should not require further explanation, and yet somehow explains Craig perfectly.
Zaph climbed the ladder and got stuck at the top. Unfortunately, the ladder was also stopping one of the wind turbines from working, meaning Craig’s pointless vertical infrastructure had successfully interfered with renewable energy.
The ladder had to be dismantled.
“So sad,” mused Dave.
It was not clear whether Dave was mourning the ladder, the turbine efficiency, or the brief but shining moment in which Craig had built something that affected the base without technically destroying it.
A Desert Mining Trip
Dave had heard rumours that there was a cave to mine behind a waterfall in the desert.
What he didn’t know was that this was a rumour started by cougars to attract snacks.
After an even more hurried-than-usual preparation, we set off on a desert mining expedition. “Hurried-than-usual” is an important distinction, because our usual preparation already resembles four raccoons loading a caravan during an earthquake.
This time, under Dave's eagle eye, Craig made work lamps. This was either a sign of growing trust or Dave temporarily confusing Craig with someone who follows manufacturing instructions.
To stop Craig from getting bored, Dave gave him a project to construct a foundry.
This was where the evening’s slow-burning comedy charge was laid. None of us knew it yet. Craig least of all.
We arrived safely at the desert, took the easy path down that avoided cave worms, and waved at the fisherman as we rode past. This is the kind of surreal Icarus detail that has become normal. Alien planet. Hostile ecosystem. Rampant predators. We ride past a fisherman as if this is a weekend cycle path near a municipal lake.
Dave noted two new future automated mining locations for iron and titanium, because even while travelling through danger, Dave sees the world not as a landscape but as a collection of unexploited production nodes.
We travelled along the river, avoiding animals. Eventually we got to the waterfall.
“I don’t know,” said Myles, staring at the terrain with the wary suspicion of a man who has been led into nonsense before. “It doesn’t look like this has a cave.”
Dave checked the map.
Then Dave checked his secret rumour map.
Then Dave hurriedly moved his marker to a different spot in the desert and declared we had taken the wrong turn.
This was accepted with the weary grace of men who have followed Dave before and understand that “the wrong turn” is often not a geographical event but a narrative obligation.
Finally, we got to the waterfall, and there was coal, which is usually a good sign that a cave is nearby.
There were also jackals, scorpions, and cougars.
This is also usually a good sign that the cave is nearby, because Icarus likes to protect natural resources with the same energy a dragon reserves for gold.
Zaph then showed us how to swim up a waterfall, like salmon.
Even zebras can swim up waterfalls.
This was not something anyone expected to learn, and yet there we were, watching alien-frontier livestock perform aquatic miracles. Somewhere, evolution quietly put its papers down and walked into the sea.
We spent way too long playing in the waterfalls before Zaph requested clearer instructions. This was very Zaph: efficient, precise, and increasingly aware that the tactical value of pretending to be fish had expired.
Dave checked the rumour again.
Go behind the waterfall, turn right on the ledge, dig through the wall into the cave.
Zaph was wet and unimpressed, but he found the cave anyway.
Dave started mining while Myles set up a campfire and five MXC forges so Zaph could dry out. This is a perfectly normal sentence in our group. Someone swims up a waterfall, someone else unpacks a portable industrial smelting line, and the whole thing is treated as responsible expedition management.
Craig placed the work lamps, which, to everyone’s surprise, actually worked and provided real light.
There was a moment of silence. Not because the light was beautiful, though it was useful. Not because the cave had been conquered, though it had been located. But because Craig had installed something correctly, and nobody was emotionally prepared.
“Where do you want the foundry?” Craig asked.
Dave smacked himself in the head several times with the flat of his pick.
“It doesn’t fit in the cave, Dave,” Craig added.
Dave considered smacking Craig with his pick.
Instead, with the restraint of a saint and the blood pressure of a shaken soft drink, he replied calmly that we were installing that in his lake workshop back at Winchester.
Craig looked puzzled.
“Why did you tell me to bring it then?”
Dave sighed.
Stripes sighed.
Patch sighed.
Somewhere in the desert, a cougar sighed.
The foundry had not been brought because it was needed in the cave. It had been brought because Craig had been given a task to keep him busy, and Craig, being Craig, had completed that task without passing through the thin checkpoint marked “why.”
We mined.
Myles loaded the finished ingots on Patch.
We started the journey home.
The Hole in the Ground
On the way back, Dave noted another mine.
Zaph scouted ahead and did not find a mine. He found a hole in the ground.
This is not quite the same thing, though in Icarus the distinction is often academic until someone falls into it.
Zaph, being responsible, fenced it off to avoid accidents and installed a couple of ladders to help people descend. Then he fell off and did the fast trip to the bottom.
This was excellent field testing.
Zaph explored and found an easier entrance, and an underwater cave in the cave. Because one cave was apparently insufficient, and the game had decided to include a cave subcommittee.
We installed lights, furnaces and strip-mined the place.
By this stage the expedition had become less “desert exploration” and more “aggressive geological eviction.”
On the way back to Winchester we collected more platinum from our automated mines. At home, we put it in the concrete furnace to bake for three hours.
Industrial civilisation had resumed.
The zebras were probably grateful.
Dave’s Secret Workshop Project
After all the manufacturing of parts and complex machinery, Myles and Craig had levelled twice.
This is always a sign that Dave has been allowed to operate near a tech tree unsupervised.
Also, the state of the nation was as follows:
We are out of Sulphur.
We are out of Silica.
We are almost out of copper.
Craig made and installed a foundry.
Myles made and installed a manufacturer, 2 organic extractors, and a natural oil refinery.
Dave made a 2-storey workshop out on the lake, so any industrial accidents would assist in the fish removal project.
This last point deserves recognition.
Dave had built a two-storey workshop out on the lake. For a while, the platform had simply existed as one of Dave’s many mysterious structures, like Stonehenge if Stonehenge had been assembled from composite beams and unresolved intent.
Now its purpose was clear.
It was an industrial workshop.
On the lake.
Because if a machine explodes, catches fire, leaks oil, or creates some new form of workplace hazard not yet named by OSHA, at least it might help remove fish from the area.
This is the kind of environmental management that makes sense only after midnight.
How Are the Crops Growing?
Craig is doing a great job watering and harvesting.
This sentence is true, and therefore should be treated with the same reverence as a comet, an eclipse, or Dave not picking up every alchemical reagent in a five-kilometre radius.
The only issue is that we still need to get Craig to put the crops in the pouches in the secret stash.
This is apparently the next great hurdle in agricultural logistics. Craig can water the plants. Craig can harvest the plants. Craig can perform the labour. But placing the outputs into the correct storage pouches remains, as yet, beyond the reach of modern science.
Myles took the coffee crop to the trader to sell.
360 Ren.
In far less time than it takes to butcher wildlife, skin it, dry the meat, and ship it to orbit.
To put that in perspective, six hours spent hunting over two sessions to produce dried meat for some corporate schmucks in orbit earns 350 Ren.
Craig, managing the crops for one session, generates 360 Ren worth of coffee.
This was a revelation.
Coffee was not merely a crop. Coffee was not merely a beverage. Coffee was a quiet rebuke to the entire dried-meat economy.
For weeks we had been running around like frontier butchers, turning innocent wildlife into space jerky for orbital executives with protein quotas and suspicious procurement policies. Meanwhile, the real money was sitting in the soil, gently caffeinating itself into financial independence.
Coffee rules.
Visages drool.
The Titanium Mining Project
Dave did the trip out to the titanium mine and installed an electric drill, with a waterwheel in the nearby creek to power it.
This is Dave’s happy place: water, power, ore, automation, and no one asking whether the base actually needed another production chain.
He installed a second waterwheel and an electric drill on the iron site. After unclogging the third waterwheel, he collected its drill’s platinum and headed home.
The industrial network grows.
The map slowly fills with machines.
Somewhere in the wilderness, a cougar wonders why the river now has infrastructure.
There Is Money in Coffee
By the end of the evening, the economy had spoken.
Visages – 165 Ren
Coffee – 565 Ren
Of course, Myles had to ask at half past midnight what the point of the money was.
This is a dangerous thing to ask Dave after half past midnight, because Dave does not hear “what is the point of the money?” as a philosophical question. He hears it as a cry for instruction.
So Myles and Craig got the “It's for spending” lecture from Dave, who opened the catalogue and showed them the fancy backpacks, armour and crossbow bolts that could be made in space and shipped down.
There is something deeply Icarus about this. We grow coffee in a half-greenhouse, sell it to a trader, convert the profits into orbital manufacturing credit, and use that to buy better equipment so we can more efficiently raid caves, build workshops, and grow more coffee.
Capitalism has reached the zebra stage.
Tonight’s Campfire Song: Beer for My Zebra, Sung by Dave
At some point, as all truly doomed expeditions must, the evening acquired a campfire song.
Dave, having invented cold beer, soy milk, glass agriculture, lake industry, and coffee capitalism, turned his attention to music.
The result was a frontier justice ballad aimed squarely at the real villains of Icarus: cougars.
Grandad, according to Dave, had very firm opinions about wildlife management.
They mostly involved rope, trees, stern moral lessons, and absolutely no due process for cougars.
So we saddled up, drew a line in the sand,
then immediately lost the line because Craig had built a ladder through it.
When the smoke cleared and the desert stopped trying to eat us,
we all agreed to meet back at Winchester,
raise a glass to poor decisions,
and sing the only chorus that mattered:
Soy milk for the humans, beer for the zebras.
Soy milk for the humans, beer for the zebras.
Not because the zebras asked for beer. Not because this is recommended animal husbandry. But because those zebras had carried ore, endured waterfalls, tolerated Craig, and deserved something better than being parked outside while we argued about where the foundry was supposed to go.
The campfire crackled.
The desert listened.
Somewhere, a cougar reconsidered its life choices.
Did We Learn or Achieve Anything This Week?
Against all precedent, yes.
We learnt that more crops mean more money, and coffee rules while visages drool.
We learnt what Dave built the platform in the lake for: a workshop.
We learnt that there are things more demanding of biomass than the biofuel composter.
We learnt what hamsters feel like on the endless biofuel wheel of life.
We learnt that Craig can be trusted to water crops, install lamps, and make a foundry, provided the definition of “trusted” includes “may bring the foundry to the wrong place and ask why after the fact.”
We learnt that Zaph can swim up waterfalls, and so can zebras, which raises questions about physics, biology, and whether the Icarus rivers are secretly installed by Bethesda.
We learnt that Dave’s rumours may be accurate, eventually, after he moves the marker.
We learnt that “behind the waterfall” is still the most suspicious phrase in gaming.
And we learnt that if a group of middle-aged IT nerds are placed on a hostile alien planet with farming tools, mining drills, and access to a trade catalogue, they will inevitably reinvent coffee futures, industrial sprawl, and workplace safety violations in that order.
Last Week’s Promises, This Week’s Reckoning
Last week, we said to tune in this week to see if Dave invents cold beer.
Done.
Dave invented cold beer so thoroughly that it became a project, a lifestyle, and the emotional foundation of the evening.
We said to tune in to see what was hiding in the waterfall in the desert.
An empty cave, after we strip-mined it.
Strictly speaking, there were also jackals, scorpions, cougars, coal, water-based salmon impressions, and a foundry misunderstanding of historic proportions, but the final result was indeed an empty cave.
We said to tune in to see if we could sell all the vestiges we collected for more than coffee makes.
Nope.
Coffee wins every time.
The dead may leave behind mysterious relics. The fields leave behind profit.
Achievements Unlocked
Dave achieved: Boss Man — make everyone else do the grunt work.
Myles achieved: Mass Production — unlock the manufacturer.
Myles also achieved: The Better Option — generate refined oil from a natural oil refiner.
Craig achieved: That First Step Is a Doozy — fall from the top of a mountain.
Zaph achieved: Salmon — swim to the top of a waterfall.
Patch achieved: Silent Endurance — carry the consequences of everyone else’s decisions.
Stripes achieved: Moral Fatigue — sigh in the desert at exactly the correct moment.
The cougars achieved: Marketing Excellence — spread a rumour about a cave behind a waterfall and wait for food to arrive.
Tune In Next Week
Tune in next week to see if Dave’s new oil obsession has no purpose.
At time of writing, all signs point to “it will absolutely have a purpose,” followed by “that purpose will require every resource we no longer have,” followed by “Myles will ask one reasonable question and Dave will open another catalogue.”
The greenhouse will probably expand.
The lake workshop will probably gain more machines.
The coffee economy will probably become official policy.
Craig will probably continue building mountain infrastructure that violates both gravity and common sense.
Zaph will probably find the efficient route through whatever nonsense the rest of us are calling a plan.
And Myles will, as ever, map the chaos, pack the bags, clean the cupboards, sell the coffee, and wonder whether the zebras really do prefer beer.
Because on Icarus, survival is optional.
But cold beer and coffee?
Those are civilisation.
