(Or: How to Establish an Outpost After the Clients Have Died of Exposure)
Last night’s recap: Craig gets lost again, Myles’s face-palms reach critical mass, Zaph face-plants with commitment, and Dave picks flowers.
If you recall from last week, we finished the night with everything we needed for our new mission, prebuilt and packed on the cart ready to go. Organized. Efficient. A shining beacon of preparedness in an otherwise hostile alien ecosystem.
Given that, Zaph was wondering why it took us an hour to leave.
Let us review the minor, completely unavoidable, utterly essential adjustments:
- We had to double check the cart to make sure everything was loaded.
- Dave wanted to make some steel tools so we could mine additional types of ore.
- Myles wanted to bring along the mission board, so we had to pack that.
- Myles questioned the amount of flooring and walls Dave packed, so we had to mine some stone, make some nails, build a few more sections.
- Since it gets cold in the snow at night, Dave made fur armour for everyone.
- Zaph cooked food, Craig took all the food.
- Dave filled the water trough for the animals.
- Craig fed the animals.
- Zaph made a spare bow.
- Everyone repaired stuff.
Finally, one last night’s rest, and we were ready to go. Thank the stars the game excludes oral hygiene. Or any kind of hygiene really. Our expedition may have been delayed, but at least none of us had to brush.
This week we did not pre-consult ChatGPT, due to its eerily prescient predictions of our suckitude. We prefer to have some mystery. Also plausible deniability.
This Week’s Carol of Doom
This week’s song is themed on a Christmas carol, because nothing says “festive cheer” like cryptids and frostbite:
You better watch out, you better not cryYou better not pout, I’m telling you whyCrypt Creeps are coming to town
Myles is making a list,
He’s checking it twice
He’s going to find out what got left behind
Crypt Creeps are coming to town
He sees you when you’re sleeping
He knows when you’re awake
He knows when you get lost
So look at the map for goodness’ sake
I feel this is self-explanatory.
Departure: The First Face-Palm
It starts like any other mission. We checked the map. We set a waypoint. Dave asked for a minor diversion to check how the automated mining was going.
We set out.
Craig hopped on his horse and asked where everyone had gone.
(queue Face-palm from Myles)
We found the automated mining tool and grabbed the platinum it was producing. Dave was attacked by wolves.
(queue Face-palm from Myles)
We travelled south through the forest to the pass into the frozen wasteland. The weather was pleasant. We did some hunting. Everything was going smoothly.
This was our first mistake.
Snow: The Great Betrayer
We let our guard down. On the snow we were attacked by snow wolves, snow leopards, giant scorpions, those weird bird/bat hybrids that look like someone fed a vulture through a blender.
Combat devolved into shouting, sprinting, and Craig briefly attempting diplomacy via running in a straight line.
We arrived at our snowy outpost.
Dave tried out his new pick axe in the cave to get some platinum. Myles unpacked the Anvil so we could repair stuff. We melted snow over a fire to top up our water supplies and cooked meat.
Myles packed the anvil.
Dave asked for the Anvil again.
So Myles unpacked it.
Dave used it.
Myles packed it.
Zaph wanted to repair his bow.
So Myles unpacked the Anvil.
At this point I had become less a medic and more a mobile hardware deployment specialist with chronic regret.
Frostbite & Face-Planting
In the morning we set out again. Our goal: cross the frozen wasteland and reach the forest.
The weather was decidedly cold. Our fur armour was not performing to the manufacturers’ specifications. We got frostbite and hypothermia.
Dave veered left to avoid a giant scorpion that was picking a fight with wolves.
Zaph veered right.
Zaph shot the wolf that was distracting the scorpion.
The scorpion objected.
The scorpion beat the snot out of Zaph.
Zaph face-planted.
(queue face-palm from Myles)
The Second Outpost That Never Was
Myles called a halt at the pass to the forest.
“As soon as Dave gets here with the Cart we can set up the second outpost,” he remarked.
“Say what now?” Dave replied over comms.
“Our second outpost. The second outpost we talked about establishing,” responded Myles, thinking the hypothermia was affecting Dave’s thought process.
Dave looked at the cart behind him and counted building pieces.
“I don’t remember that conversation,” he replied. “I built and packed enough for the mission objective. There is no way we are building a 2nd outpost.”
(queue face-palm from Myles)
There is a particular kind of silence that follows when you realize the conversation you vividly remember happened only in your own head.
The Great Southern Migration
We pressed on.
Myles and Zaph headed Northeast through the pass to the forest.
Craig followed Dave.
Dave got lost in a flurry of snow and pressed on south trying to catch up to the others.
“What is taking so long?” asked Zaph.
“The buffalo is really slow,” said Dave, hurriedly packing some snow and hopping back on the buffalo.
Craig said nothing.
Myles looked at the map. Dave and Craig had missed the turn and were way off course heading south.
“Where are you going Dave?” he asked. “We clearly said – Turn Northeast.”
“Pssht, bssht, fizz – you are breaking up – fizz, pssht – Come again … over!!” Dave replied.
At this point I began to suspect Dave’s comms were powered by denial.
Myles and Zaph took the shortcut, arrived at the construction site, and cut down trees to clear a construction zone.
Dave and Craig arrived three hours later (game time).
Dave built a 3 * 3 stone house.
Dave and Zaph moved all the rustic furniture in.
We stood back.
It was, objectively, a cabin.
Stuff We Forgot (A Tragedy in Three Acts)
-
Rustic bookcase – oops, forgot to make one. So we had to build one on-site.
-
Anvil – Myles went to use the anvil at the forest location and realized he didn’t repack it at Outpost One after the last time we used it. Probably because he was too busy running around packing the hedgehogs.
-
Oxygen – At one point Zaph was out of Oxygen. We thought he had left it behind on the oxygen machine at Outpost 1. Nope. He grabbed it. Just forgot to equip it.
Mission successful.
Take that, ChatGPT, with your whiny predictions of failure.
The mission board noted that it took so long for us to establish this rustic outpost that the people who requested it died of exposure whilst waiting.
(queue Face-palm from Myles)
We built a charming woodland cabin for ghosts.
Hunter Gatherer: A Study in Role Reversal
That went so well, we dialed up another mission – Hunter Gatherer.
Objectives:
- 350 Cooked Meat
- 800 furs
- 800 leather
- 150 carrots
- 150 Pumpkins
- 150 Watermelon
- 150 berries
Role reversal.
Since Zaph excels at hunting and Dave excels at picking berries and everything else, we sent Zaph off to do the gathering, with Craig to help, whilst Dave and Myles sat around the campfire cooking venison and reminiscing on their days with the scouts.
What a great plan.
- Zaph couldn’t find a carrot if he was standing in the middle of a patch.
- Craig doesn’t know what watermelons look like.
- On the flipside, Myles can’t hit a barn.
- And Dave can’t one-shot a large deer.
(queue Face-palm from Myles)
Craig raged quit. He claimed he was too tired IRL and needed sleep.
Dave and Zaph swapped roles.
Dave found the last 21 watermelon on the way.
Fire, Rain, and Regret
Myles stacked meat in the three firepits to cook.It rained.
Putting out the fires.
(queue Face-palm from Myles)
Finally, we got the job done.
Dave prepped for the return trip by packing the Cart, including:
- 2,000 leather
- 5,000 charcoal
- 500 bone dust
- some other odds and ends
“Do we really need that?” asked Myles.
Dave’s silence suggested the answer was yes and that he had already packed another 700 charcoal out of spite.
Did We Achieve Anything?
It feels like we did.
We built a rustic cabin in the woods that we will probably never go to again.
We collected food for the station.
We learned nothing.
Achievements of Note
Dave achieved:
- Yes we need it (No leather or Charcoal left behind)
- No-one told me (Don’t pack enough parts to make a 2nd structure)
- Overeckynumbered (mine so much you can’t walk)
Myles achieved:
- Stevedore (Check your list 3 times and still forget something)
- My face hurts (stop face-palming)
- Have you seen the? (unpack something so many times you leave it behind)
Craig achieved:
- It wasn’t me (Get lost by following Dave)
- It Burns (set yourself on fire)
Zaph achieved:
- I am bait (be the only one to be killed by wildlife in the session)
- I can’t breathe (top up your O2 tank but don’t equip it)
And of course, we will be back next week to do it again, as we try to survive the journey home.
Assuming Dave doesn’t head south.
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The packing list:
- 1 x Oxygen tank
- 1 x Water bladder & 1 xcanteen
- 10 x healing concoctions
- 10 x Bandages
- 10 x Bandages
- 2 x Heat bandages
- 1 x wood torch
- 1 x small pouch
- 1 x medical pouch
