And we do mean all the fish.
Seven advanced fish traps’ worth, cleared three times during the evening. Each trap contained, on average, nine fish, plus weeds, useless sponges and whatever else the aquatic ecosystem had decided to surrender rather than continue living near us.
Seven traps.
Nine fish per trap.
Three collections.
That is 189 fish, assuming the traps had maintained something resembling statistical discipline. This did not include the weeds, the miscellaneous organic debris or the sponges, which were, as usual, stored in Craig’s cupboard.
Nobody had instructed Craig to maintain a strategic sponge reserve. Nobody had even suggested that sponges might be useful. Nevertheless, there they remained, carefully preserved beside whatever other objects Craig had decided would become essential moments after everyone else threw them away.
This was our final night on Icarus.
After seven months and roughly 600 hours, the campaign was coming to an end. There would be one final mission, one last return to Winchester, one final group photograph and, provided nobody did anything catastrophically stupid, a quiet departure from the planet.
This was, in retrospect, an ambitious agenda.
Myles kicked off the final mission in the Great Hunt. While he and Zaph ran around the landscape carrying a scanner and attempting to triangulate the source of the disturbance, Dave and Craig remained at Winchester to manage the catering operation.
They collected fish.
They filleted fish.
They steamed fish.
They grilled fish.
They salted fish.
They put fish in the fridge until we were ready to leave.
Had the mission required defeating the enemy through omega-3 saturation, we were already overprepared.
The rest of the supplies were distributed according to the group’s established tactical doctrine, which was less a doctrine and more a collection of dangerous objects entrusted to the people most likely to misuse them.
Zaph took the grenades manufactured the previous week.
Myles grabbed the hedgehogs, because somebody had to carry the large sharpened defensive obstacles and apparently that somebody was the medic.
Dave packed the automated turrets.
Craig harvested the coffee, watered the crops and packed his house on the hill for redeployment. This was the house he had spent several weeks constructing in the manner of a man who believed zoning regulations were a personal insult. It sat above Winchester like a monument to unrestricted planning approval.
Dave made ammunition.
More specifically, Dave cooked up a fresh batch of barely stable volatile substance and dipped bullets into it to manufacture explosive rounds.
There are gunsmiths who carefully measure propellant, inspect cartridge tolerances and observe recognised principles of ammunition safety.
Dave marinated the bullets in boom sauce.
And with that, the group was ready for the final mission.
Here Is How It Ends — Earthquake
The mission appeared simple.
It had a clear objective.
The required equipment had been supplied.
This should have worried us immediately.
Our task was to track down the source of the quarrite disturbance. Myles and Zaph moved through the region with the scanner, taking readings from different positions and gradually narrowing the search area.
For once, the device did not make a noise that annoyed every living creature within several kilometres.
This represented significant technological progress.
After much scanning, repositioning, muttering and staring at coloured indicators, the location was triangulated in the desert. It was close to the old zebra rescue house and almost directly on top of our titanium mine.
Of course it was.
After months of travelling across hostile biomes, establishing industrial infrastructure and constructing shelters in places no sensible planning authority would approve, the final threat had decided to live beneath one of our existing properties.
Dave and Craig loaded the prepared fish and headed out to join Myles and Zaph.
Craig had manufactured three orbital beacons because Myles had become tired of abandoning temporary houses that we were never going to use again.
This was a reasonable concern. Across seven months, the group had built a small planetary portfolio of redundant real estate: huts, cabins, bunkers, emergency shelters, mining outposts and at least one building whose primary purpose seemed to be proving that Craig could put a roof there.
The orbital beacons meant the latest buildings could be redeployed rather than left behind as another archaeological puzzle for future prospectors.
The group converged at the titanium mine, where Craig began assembling our final house.
It was the twelfth house we had built.
Twelve.
Not counting partial structures, defensive shacks, mining shelters or anything Craig described as “temporary” before adding three storeys and a balcony.
Beds were installed. Equipment was unloaded. A stable was built for the animals. Everything was put in place for what should have been a straightforward strike against the source of the disturbance.
Then, almost immediately after setting out, we were ambushed by an ancient shade worm.
This was Icarus offering a small farewell gift.
The worm attacked with the enthusiasm of a creature that had spent several geological eras waiting specifically for us. We dealt with it, restored some dignity to the expedition and continued toward the mission site.
What followed became known as:
Operation SNAFU
The mission was renamed to reflect reality.
Step 1 — Enter the Cave
We entered the cave.
It was an instanced cave.
That can’t be good.
The entrance sealed the group away from the ordinary world and placed us inside a private combat arena designed exclusively for whatever fresh indignity the developers had prepared.
No passing wildlife.
No outside assistance.
No convenient escape route.
Just four ageing gamers, several hundred fish and enough explosive ammunition to concern an international monitoring agency.
Step 2 — Locate the Enemy
We found it.
At the far end of the cavern sat a huge unstable Quarrite.
It was big.
It was mean.
It was heavily armoured.
Not looking good.
The creature resembled a mineral deposit that had become angry about mining royalties. Thick plates of stone protected its body. Its bulk filled the cavern, and every movement suggested that the cave had been constructed around it rather than the other way around.
The scanner had technically succeeded.
There is no achievement for wishing it hadn’t.
Step 3 — Prepare
We established defensive positions.
Multiple rows of hedgehogs were deployed across the cavern floor, their sharpened timbers positioned to stop or at least inconvenience anything attempting to charge through them.
Two automated turrets were placed behind the barriers.
Fallback positions were identified.
Lines of fire were considered.
Ammunition was loaded.
The group looked across the fortifications with the misplaced confidence of people who had mistaken owning equipment for understanding the encounter.
How naïve we were.
Step 4 — Annoy the Boss
Zaph shot it to get its attention.
This was a sensible division of labour. If something absolutely had to be annoyed, it was best done from a distance by the man most likely to hit a vulnerable spot.
Our good ole sniper lad, master of the one-shot kill, lined up the target and fired.
The shot barely nicked its armour.
That can’t be good.
The Quarrite slowly turned.
It had noticed us.
Step 5 — Die a Lot
The unstable Quarrite growled.
The cave shook.
Then it rolled towards us.
Not lumbered.
Not charged.
Rolled.
The creature tucked itself into an armoured mass, gathered speed and came down the cavern like an avalanche that had read our medical records.
Then it leapt into the air and pounced.
The hedgehogs, turrets and defensive positions abruptly became less of a fortification and more of an elaborate diagram showing where we had once hoped to stand.
We opened fire.
Dave’s explosive bullets detonated across the creature’s armour.
Zaph fired grenades.
The turrets hammered away.
Fragments of armour cracked and scattered across the cavern. For a moment, the plan appeared to be working. We stripped away sections of its protection and chipped a little health from the enormous bar hovering above it.
Then the Quarrite rolled over us.
Half our health vanished.
The creature reversed to finish the job.
People dropped like noobs while whoever remained upright sprinted around trying to revive the fallen.
Myles would pull someone back to their feet, only to watch another body collapse nearby. Craig would begin reviving someone and then discover that the enormous rolling rock monster had returned. Dave would stand up, fire several explosive rounds and immediately attract every hostile object in the cave.
The Quarrite eventually returned to its lair to repair its armour.
This should have provided a pause.
Instead, cave worms spawned and killed us before we could heal.
Rocks crashed from the ceiling.
The cavern floor became a moving exhibition of bodies, medical symbols, dropped weapons and people shouting directions that nobody could follow because they were dead.
We died repeatedly.
Yet somehow there was always one person still running around, avoiding the boss, dodging worms, escaping falling rocks and attempting to pick everyone else back up.
It was less like a battle and more like a particularly violent workplace first-aid course.
Step 6 — Total Party Wipe
The boss apparently became annoyed that the process was taking so long.
It rolled out to finish the job.
The hedgehogs splintered beneath it.
The turrets were destroyed.
The fallback positions turned out to be merely positions we fell back and died in.
Total party wipe.
Dave respawned outside the cave.
It was dark.
He had no equipment, no weapons and no obvious indication of where the cave entrance was. He fumbled around the landscape in his envirosuit, searching through the darkness for the entrance while everyone else remained scattered across the cavern floor.
Eventually, Dave found his way back inside and picked someone up.
That person revived another.
Then another.
Soon the whole group was standing again.
We healed.
We reloaded.
We prepared to resume the fight, having learned several valuable lessons that we immediately declined to apply.
Steps 7, 8, 9, 10 and 11 — Total Party Wipe
Because that never gets old.
There is a reason the military invented the acronym BOHICA.
The boss rolled out to demonstrate exactly why.
We wiped.
Then we got up again.
We wiped again.
Then we got up again.
Over and over and over.
Every attempt followed the same general pattern.
The group would recover its equipment.
Someone would revive the final body.
Food would be consumed.
Weapons would be reloaded.
A plan would be proposed.
The Quarrite would emerge, fold itself into an armoured sphere and convert the plan into a collection of emergency markers.
We would damage its armour.
The worms would appear.
Rocks would fall.
Someone would shout that the boss was returning to heal.
Someone else would shout that they were down.
Craig would announce that he was also down, usually in a location that required crossing the entire arena.
Zaph would continue firing because admitting the situation was hopeless would have been tactically inefficient.
Then the last standing member would disappear beneath several tonnes of furious geology.
Total party wipe.
Respawn.
Repeat.
We got knocked down.
We got back up.
The Quarrite, regrettably, was entirely capable of keeping us down. It simply preferred not to, because watching us stand up again gave it something to do.
Step 12 — Myles Swears
There is a threshold in every mission.
Below that threshold, Myles remains the reluctant adult in the room. He checks supplies, maps routes, coordinates movement and asks the group not to detonate explosives near critical infrastructure.
Above that threshold, the careful language disappears.
When the fecal matter hits the rotary impellor device, Myles starts cussing like there is no tomorrow.
The boss had taken so long to defeat that it had not merely repaired its armour.
It had healed back to full health.
Full.
Health.
Every grenade, explosive round, poison cloud, turret burst and desperate act of battlefield medicine had been converted into a lengthy warm-up exercise.
The Quarrite emerged from its hidey hole refreshed, restored and presumably pleased with the service.
Myles expressed his thoughts on this development with a precision and intensity not normally associated with cartography.
Step 13 — Change Tactic
The existing plan was clearly not working.
Dodging the boss, fighting cave worms and avoiding falling rocks while the Quarrite retreated to repair itself had produced little beyond an impressive collection of death markers.
We needed a new plan.
Dave and Zaph advanced, hunting for the creature’s hidey hole.
They found it.
Instead of waiting for the boss to return to the open cavern, they followed it inside and unleashed the full can of whoop arse.
This removed several of the creature’s advantages.
It could no longer roll across the entire arena.
It could not retreat far enough to repair in peace.
It also placed Dave and Zaph inside a cramped stone chamber with a furious armoured monster, which was not so much a plan as a different category of emergency.
Step 14 — Surround the Sucker
Myles and Craig advanced to the entrance of the hidey hole.
Their job was to wait outside and shoot the Quarrite when it emerged.
For a few moments, the tactic showed promise.
Dave and Zaph attacked from within.
Myles and Craig covered the exit.
The boss was trapped between two groups, neither of which had enough health, ammunition or sound judgement to be there.
Step 15 — Group Up for the Final Kill
Myles and Craig joined Dave and Zaph inside the hidey spot.
Now all four players, the boss, several explosions and a large quantity of questionable ammunition occupied the same confined space.
There was gunfire.
There were explosions.
There was screaming.
There was dying.
There was running.
There was dodging.
There was more dying.
All the good stuff.
The hidey hole became a cramped storm of muzzle flashes, poison damage, grenade detonations and people trying to revive one another while standing directly beneath the enemy.
The boss’s health finally began to fall.
Slowly.
Painfully.
But undeniably.
Steps 16 and 17 — Total Party Wipe
Because again, that never gets old.
Dave respawned outside the cave.
It was still dark.
It was as though time had stopped while we were inside the instanced cavern fighting the boss. Our lives had flickered before our eyes in seconds, although several of those lives had flickered more than once.
Dave stood outside with no gear, wearing only his envirosuit.
He fumbled through the darkness until he located the cave entrance.
Then he made his way through the cavern, still unarmed, navigating past the wreckage of our fortifications and toward the hidey hole.
He reached his body.
He grabbed his gear.
He picked someone up.
That person helped revive another.
The group reconstructed itself one casualty at a time.
Then it was on again.
Dave swapped to poison arrows.
Purple damage numbers began popping off the boss.
Good times.
Its health bar barely moved.
Still, the numbers were purple, and at this stage any visual indication that the creature recognised our existence counted as progress.
Step 18 — We Came, We Saw, We Kicked Its Arse
In the military, there is a saying: if you aren’t prepared to call a strike on yourself, you aren’t prepared to win.
Myles and Craig were down.
The boss was on its last legs.
Dave and Zaph remained standing as the Quarrite prepared one final pounce.
It launched itself at them.
Zaph dropped a grenade.
The explosion killed Dave.
It killed Zaph.
It killed the boss.
There are victories achieved through superior tactics, careful coordination and disciplined execution.
Then there are victories in which the final surviving combatant throws an explosive at his own feet and ensures that absolutely nobody walks away.
The Quarrite died.
The group died.
The mission was complete.
Technically.
Step 19 — Roll Credits
With the mission accomplished, the commander appeared on comms to congratulate us for a job well done.
There was nobody alive to take the call.
Had there been, we would have told him a few unpleasant truths.
The reward was 500 Ren.
Five hundred.
For that.
We had died enough times to establish a small religion around resurrection. We had consumed industrial quantities of food, destroyed turrets, shattered hedgehogs, fired expensive ammunition and surrendered several years of collective life expectancy.
Five hundred Ren.
Someone needs to take some dev’s out in a dark alley and discuss risk-reward ratios.
Step 20 — Dave Respawns
Dave respawned outside the cave.
He had no gear.
Still, the boss was dead, so at least the cave should have been safe to enter.
Right?
Right.
The cave was locked.
The boss would respawn in 60 minutes.
“WTF!!!” exclaimed Dave. “I want my gear.”
The game had congratulated us, issued the reward and then placed Dave’s entire inventory behind a locked door containing a monster scheduled for resurrection.
Zaph noted that it was our final night on Icarus, so technically we did not need our gear anymore.
This was logically correct.
Dave did not find it emotionally useful.
Without gear, however, we would not survive the journey back to Winchester for the final photographs. The planet did not care that the campaign was over. Wolves, worms and other creatures would continue attacking until the closing credits had been formally acknowledged.
Step 21 — Everyone Respawns
Zaph appeared outside the cave with Dave.
Myles and Craig respawned inside.
They gathered the scattered equipment and began lugging it back toward the exit.
Weapons.
Armour.
Ammunition.
Tools.
Food.
Everything that had fallen from four bodies during the final detonation had to be collected and carried out.
They missed Dave’s gear.
Outside, the remaining equipment was redistributed.
Dave, still annoyed about his missing belongings, attempted to enter the cave one final time.
The entrance still would not open.
However, the game now allowed him to reclaim his gear.
Why it had not provided this option earlier remained one of the many mysteries of Icarus, alongside why bears can open doors and why Craig still had a cupboard full of sponges.
Step 22 — Return Home
We ran back to the titanium mine house.
There, we collected the remaining supplies, mounted our animals and prepared for the final journey to Winchester.
The plan was simple.
Ride home.
Take photographs.
Have a cold one.
Leave the planet.
Craig immediately attempted to improve the transport arrangements.
He tried to convince Myles to borrow Zaph’s mount, “Mr Speedy”, and leave Zaph with Patch.
Patch was loyal, dependable and capable of reaching a respectable pace provided the destination was downhill and nobody was in a hurry.
Myles, too loyal for his own good, declined and rode Patch.
Craig, never one to give up on a bad idea, borrowed Mr Speedy.
This left Zaph to follow on Crossing.
The group set off across the landscape in a convoy organised according to the ancient principle that Craig gets the fastest vehicle and everyone else discovers the consequences later.
There Is Still Money to Be Made in Coffee
Before leaving, we harvested the coffee crop.
Myles took it to sell.
The coffee produced 905 Ren.
The final boss battle, with its repeated deaths, destroyed equipment, expended ammunition and hour-long lockout, had paid 500 Ren.
The coffee paid 905.
Clearly, we had been focused on other priorities than coffee.
Seven months of combat, exploration, mining, construction and planetary survival could apparently have been replaced by opening a moderately successful café.
The Quarrite had required explosives.
Coffee required watering.
Coffee won.
Final Photos
The group returned to Winchester and climbed onto the roof for the final photograph.
This was the settlement we had built, expanded, rebuilt, fortified and accidentally damaged across hundreds of hours. It held workshops, storage rooms, farms, bedrooms, power systems, beer, supplies and enough accumulated objects to furnish a regional hardware chain.
Before the photograph could be taken, Dave noticed that the wind turbines were not working.
He fixed them.
He blamed Craig for shoddy workmanship.
This was an important final act of maintenance. No campaign should end until Dave has repaired something Craig had previously declared finished.
The group assembled on the roof.
The animals were positioned.
The cameras were aligned.
For one brief moment, Winchester stood complete beneath the alien sky, its turbines turning, its greenhouse intact and its cupboards safely indoors.
Then we began moving the drop-pods.
What Goes Up Comes Down in the Same Spot
With the photographs finished, Dave decided to reposition his drop-pod onto the large vacant stone section built the previous week.
The platform had been constructed specifically for this purpose.
There was ample space.
Dave tossed a recall beacon square in the middle.
His drop-pod rose gracefully into the sky on a pillar of flame.
It reached altitude.
It repositioned.
Then it descended nearby and crushed part of the greenhouse.
Specifically, it crushed the part Craig had repaired that night.
This was unfortunate, but it did establish that the orbital relocation system treated aiming as a suggestion.
Craig was next.
He tossed his beacon onto the house.
His drop-ship rose gracefully into the sky.
It hovered above Winchester.
Then it descended onto the house.
The impact crushed our personal cupboards.
It also destroyed the fridge full of beer.
Dave shot Craig.
There was no discussion.
No inquiry.
No attempt at mediation.
The fridge had contained the beer, Craig had summoned a spacecraft onto it, and Dave applied the established disciplinary procedure.
Zaph wanted in on the action.
He tossed a beacon onto the house.
His drop-pod was located on the other side of the planet, which should have made the exercise safer.
On the other side of Icarus, the pod rose into the sky on a pillar of fire.
It crossed the planet.
It descended onto the house.
The impact crushed our cement mixer and biofuel supply.
Myles was not impressed.
In the space of a few minutes, the group had transformed Winchester from a functioning settlement into a case study for restricting orbital access near residential buildings.
The greenhouse was damaged.
The cupboards were crushed.
The cement mixer was gone.
The biofuel supply was gone.
The fridge full of beer was gone.
The only remaining source of cold beer was now the space station.
Dave climbed into his drop-pod and departed.
The timing was understandable.
Tonight’s Campfire Song — By Dave
With the original performance adjusted into a legally distinct farewell anthem for four men who had spent 600 hours discovering that gravity, geology and Craig were all hostile game mechanics:
Six hundred hours beneath alien skies,
Building twelve houses of questionable size.
We mined every mountain and poisoned each round,
Then a furious boulder knocked everyone down.
Did Icarus matter? Of course, until late,
When the beer met a drop-pod and suffered its fate.
The mission paid five hundred; the coffee paid more,
And Craig parked a spacecraft where we kept the cold store.
So raise what remains of the drinks we once knew,
To the worms, bears and mammoths that repeatedly slew.
We fell, we respawned, and returned to the fight,
Mostly because Dave left his gear there that night.
The planet may keep every turret and spear,
The cupboards are flattened, the greenhouse unclear.
But coffee survives, so the future looks bright—
Unless Craig moves the drop-pods again before flight.
Did We Learn or Achieve Anything This Week?
We learnt how to unleash the full can of whoop arse.
This required finding the boss’s hidey hole, following it inside and compressing four players, one armoured monstrosity and several explosive devices into a space designed for none of them.
We learnt how to destroy a house using drop-pods.
Not one drop-pod.
Three.
Dave struck the greenhouse.
Craig destroyed the cupboards and the beer fridge.
Zaph travelled halfway around the planet to eliminate the cement mixer and biofuel.
This was not accidental damage. This was a coordinated orbital redevelopment programme.
We learnt that when all else fails — throw grenades.
If the grenade kills the boss, Dave, Zaph and anyone else nearby, the mission system still regards the objective as complete.
We learnt there are a lot of achievements in Icarus that we didn’t achieve.
Seventy-five percent of them.
After 600 hours.
This suggested either an extraordinarily generous quantity of content or a group that had spent too much time constructing houses, moving cupboards and storing sponges.
Probably both.
We learnt that in space, no one can hear you scream about the lack of cold beer.
But at least there is coffee.
We learnt that we can spend seven months playing the same game.
Seven months of expeditions, machinery, farming, mining, animal rescue, house construction, orbital logistics and repeatedly asking where Craig had gone.
And despite the damage, the deaths and the insultingly small payment, we did achieve something.
All four of us earned:
Fault Line — Defeat the Quarrite
And:
Hero of the Mines — Complete the Quarrite campaign
The Great Hunt was complete.
The Quarrite was dead.
The coffee had been sold.
Winchester was partially flattened.
Dave had escaped to the space station in search of cold beer.
There was nothing left to do but leave Icarus behind.
Tune in next week to see if the Crypt Creeps can survive Sons of the Forest.
