On most planets, worms are small, soil-friendly creatures that recycle life’s leftovers into nutrients. On Dune, they are colossal death tubes that swallow spaceships whole and redecorate the desert in flaming chaos.
Children across the galaxy are currently bopping along to a catchy tune about worms joyfully pooping fertilizer. Meanwhile, we four idiots are learning the Dune remix:
This is my life as a worm. And you know wherever I squirm,
I eat dead things, help them decompose.
My poop is fertilizer that helps the plants grow.
I dig what I do in my life as a worm.
Poop, Poop, Poop Poop, Poop, Poop, Poo
But we digress; all will be explained shortly.
Dave the Architect, Myles the Whinger, and the Murder-Hobo’s Basement
If you remember from last week, Myles had requested a few layout changes to the base – “can everything be on the same level and grouped together?” Dave obliged by spending the week remodelling like a demented space-IKEA architect. The floor of the main hangar was raised, the walls higher, and all manufacturing machinery moved inside. Dave’s hangar was expanded to accommodate The Beast. When the neighbours finally removed their shack, we annexed the land with imperial enthusiasm and built a second entrance to the garage.
Raising the main hangar floor created a cavernous space below, which Dave immediately converted into two million millilitres of water storage, a spice and chemical refinery (double airlocked, naturally), a mezzanine for eight blood refineries (Craig the resident murder-hobo applauded), and room for two ore refineries. Truly a murder-bungalow’s dream basement.
Cannons in the Basin
We woke to our base rattling from thunderous cannon fire, flaming shells streaking overhead. The Hagga Basin had been interdicted overnight: ground-to-space defence cannons everywhere. Fifty of them. Ships were being blown out of the sky. Thopters suddenly looked like bad life insurance investments.
At Anvil trading post we found a CHOAM rep fuming that his trade ships were being shot down and looted. He hired us to fix it: kill 25 Kirrab thugs, destroy cannons, recover 10 trade goods. Payment: cosmetic weapon skins, so everyone would know how much of a bad-ass we were.
There is a sucker born every day—or in this case, four of them. We prepped our shiny new assault thopter (with rocket pods!) and set off.
Dave’s 30% Success Plan™
First cannon, textbook. Land on spire, kill thugs, loot chest, slap explosives, run. Dave recovers 1 cargo. Myles’s chest? Empty. The math was ugly: 10 cargo each, four of us, 40 needed. Cannon count rising.
Cue Dave’s bright idea—a signal to run for the hills. “The CHOAM rep said cargo comes from crashed ships too. I see one down there! We just fly down, Zaph keeps the chopper running, rest of us cut in and grab the loot.”
Given Dave’s plans usually had a 30% survival rating and some vague logic, we agreed. Big mistake.
We had barely started cutting when worm sign went berserk. A worm erupted under us, swallowing the crashed ship, Myles, and Craig in one gulp. Zaph banked the thopter away. Dave ran for rocks, but the worm followed. Sandstorm blinded Zaph; Dave sprinted again before being swallowed whole.
Heroes in Underwear
On Dune the worm song goes:
This is my life as a worm, making mercenaries sneak and hide in fear.
Eating space ships is my jam,
Pooping spice is the plan,
Turning you into spice poop,
If you are lucky you get a tooth.
Luckily heroes are indigestible, so the worm spat us out. In our underwear. All gear lost. Craig’s 100,000-solari auction sword gone forever. A worm tooth was our consolation prize.
We hurried back to base to hose off slime, rearm, and try again. Dave, determined, packed a bike for worm evasion. Result? Eaten again. Underwear again.
Craig claimed this was worse than his infamous Gold Dragon incident from 20 years ago. Dave disagreed: this worm fiasco was pre-agreed, Craig’s dragon disaster had been inflicted without warning.
Cargo, Cannons, and Worm Poop
At last, one crashed ship was close enough to rocks that worms avoided. Salvage success: 4 cargo. Go us. The rest of the quota we filled by gutting Kirrab mercs and blowing up cannons. This event sucked worm poop.
Some late research (Google) revealed worms can be distracted with thumpers. Shame the CHOAM merchant forgot that detail. Thumpers unlock in the AQL quest line—something we’d skipped in favour of endless base building, exploring, and Craig’s murder-hobboing.
The Freeman Trials (or: Puzzle Hell)
So we pursued the Freeman quest line. Learned to make thumpers and sand tents. Final quest: enter an abandoned Seitch. Problem? Only one person on the server can do it at a time. Devs, why?? Dave drew the short straw.
Puzzle one: N, P, S, B, R, T, H. (You had to be there.) Puzzle two: learning symbols on walls. Tests: Bind, Dune, Grass. Planting, shelter, downwind. Burrowing animals, aerate, sand. Luckily Ari, a cute Atreides archaeologist, translated everything—our walking encyclopedia for dummies.
Final test: spin circles to align inner, middle, outer. Then slash your wrists so blood flows through a channel to open the door. Inside: forbidden computers, a vault, an encrypted disk that Ari confiscates “for later.”
Exit: via worm’s butt. Drop to desert floor. Ambush! Ari shoots and distracts half the enemies, runs off. Dave, pinned in a corner, gets cut down twice. He jumps levels, waits for stamina to recharge, but it never does. Rage quit. Bug report filed. Bug report bugged. Chef’s kiss.
Next day Dave redoes it, survives. Later we all clear it too.
Dave the Water Hoarder
Reward: sarcophagi. No more field blood-draining—we could haul bodies back to base and process them like proper eco-friendly murder-hobos.
Myles, repairing The Beast, discovered 10 bodies in its storage. “Why, Dave?”
“Oh, forgot to move them downstairs to the freezer.”
Turns out Dave’s been stockpiling. Forty-two bodies so far. He mutters: “The desert is an endless wonderland of water potential. 42 is the answer to life, the universe, and how many bodies you need to stash before they call you a serial killer.”
Closing Moral
On Dune, worms don’t make soil. They make chaos, trauma, and nudist runs back to base. Dave doesn’t just build bases—he builds basements full of corpses. Craig can’t wash away the gold dragon. Zaph, the only adult, keeps the thopter running.
But at least we’ve got a worm tooth souvenir (Oh, and about that...).
