Dune: The Awakening – Dave and the Agave of Madness

 

They say the desert reveals who you really are. For Dave, it revealed a man willing to cross half a planet on a dodgy bike, risking worms, warlords, and warranty voids—for mood lighting.

It began, innocently enough, with a minor garage upgrade. Dave, standing atop our recently refurbished base, admired his architectural triumph: “You can now fit two buggies.” Naturally, this revelation led to the spontaneous crafting of a second buggy to confirm said claim. It fit. Barely. The trikes were promptly evicted to make room, and a second storey was hastily slapped onto the garage like a badly written sequel. Dave’s bedroom was sacrificed for a new ramp. Safety barriers were added, mainly to stop Craig driving into the power generators—again.

But the pièce de résistance? Lighting. Specifically, those glowing CHOAM ceiling panels everyone else seemed to have. Our place looked like a bunker-themed cave rave hosted by a mole. Dave’s IKEA manual, tragically, had nothing on “desert chic.” So he did the unthinkable: he asked for directions.

“A trader west of the barrier sells the plans,” said a suspiciously chill drifter.

Dave nodded, sprinted to his bike, and packed supplies like a man going on a milk run: water, fuel, and a bit of Solaris cash. Myles, performing his sacred Mentat duty of maintenance, warned, “I haven’t serviced that bike yet.”

Dave dismissed him. “It’s fine.”

It was not fine.

🚨Desert Odyssey, Chapter One: Worm, Meet Dave

He passed Thor’s Hammer, zipped past the spaceship wreck, and hit the borderlands at full throttle—at which point the planet’s ecosystem attempted to murder him. A sandworm the size of optimism in a Zaph strategy meeting rose from the dunes. Dave screamed, swerved, and barely reached rocky safety.

He detoured north, skirted cliffs, and days later stumbled into the fabled trading post, panting, sunburnt, and bug-eyed. He bought the CHOAM lighting instructions and, broke but victorious, caught a thopter ride home.

Then he read the instructions.

“Requires: Salvaged metal – check.
Agave seeds – 5 per light.”

Dave blinked. “Wait—seeds?”

The guide helpfully noted: Agave grows near cacti.

Cacti? We’d never seen a cactus. Just bones, rocks, and Craig’s abandoned quest markers. Dave returned to the Anvil, bribed a trader with spice beer, and was told, “Go west. Far west.”

🚨Desert Odyssey, Chapter Two: Agave or Bust

Dave prepped again. “Just collecting flowers!” he called as he left.

“Get plant fibre!” shouted Zaph.

“Get evil black rocks!” added Craig.

“Let me service your bike!” begged Myles.

“No time!” Dave roared, vanishing in a cloud of overconfidence and unserviced treads.

He flew to the Pinnacle post, leapt on his barely-functional bike (now blinking red like it was having a heart attack), and tore westward. He picked up fibre. He mined black rocks. He explored cactus-filled valleys teeming with scavengers and glow panels mocking him from other players’ bases. He looted. He climbed. He grapple-jumped and faceplanted. He waited through entire moon cycles hoping agave would bloom.

Nothing.

Finally, in a cactus grove surrounded by corpses and broken dreams, he found it: one agave plant. Five seeds. One light.

“ARE YOU @#%&ING KIDDING ME!?” echoed across the sands.

🚨Desert Odyssey, Final Chapter: The Return of the Lightbearer

Dust-choked and sun-fried, Dave eventually staggered into the Crossroads outpost, pack overflowing with goods and bitterness. He didn’t even wait for pleasantries—just slapped Solaris into the pilot’s hand. “Fly. Anvil. Now.”

Back at base, Friday night arrived.

We gathered to admire his labours.

Myles: “The entrance is too narrow. I can’t get the buggy through.”
Craig: “Where’s the bike park?”
Zaph: “Where’s my supersuit? Where’s anything? Why are the crafting stations gone?”
Dave: sobbing in the buggy storage bay

Salvation came in the form of ornithopter licenses. Zaph trained Myles in an adrenaline-fueled certification run over Haga Rift—Zaph weaving through crevasses like a Fremen pod-racing ace. Myles invoked the God-Emperor and banned Zaph from stunt-flying forever.

We returned to our warlike duties:

• Slaver extermination (10 required, we overachieved).

• Strategic sniping (Zaph), head ducking (Slavers), and terrain-crawling (Dave).

• Looting every chest en route to help our friends (also Dave).

• Zaph getting bored and flying off solo to get murdered (Zaph).

In the final showdown, we split our approach: Dave on foot, Zaph sniping from the south, Craig and Myles pulling a dramatic rooftop landing that alerted every single enemy in the base. Dave got pinned. Zaph couldn’t see him. It all went sideways until Dave finally shot his captor and squirrel-looted his way into the fight.

Zaph died. Dave ran back. Craig was possibly redecorating. Myles was swearing.

Somehow, we won. We handed in missions. Raided labs. Explored caves. Lied to a stoned Harkonnen. Made progress toward becoming Swordmasters of Atreides.

Next week, we journey westward—toward the wreck of the Pallas.

Probably via cactus.

Probably looking for lights.

Probably driven by Dave.

---

Agave count: 20. Number of functioning lights: 4.

Number of times Dave was told to service his bike: infinite.

Dune: The “What Is Dave Doing Now?” Episode

 

Dune: The “What Is Dave Doing Now?” Episode

A cautionary tale of open doors, opportunistic scavenging, and ignoring storm warnings like a true professional.

It was a quiet Saturday afternoon when Myles, against his better judgment, logged into Dune to “just check on the base.” What he expected: minor landscaping. What he found: The patio had collapsed into a retirement home for half-broken chairs, the BBQ area looked like it had hosted a small war, and the bridge had more holes than Zaph’s alibi for not attending planning meetings.

Sighing, Myles did one last sweep before logging off—until he noticed something troubling. Dave was online.

“Dave… what are you doing?” he messaged, already bracing for impact.

“Thank the God-Emperor of Dune that you are here!” Dave replied, which is never a good sign. “I was just off mining aluminium—what with the 50% tariff from Trumpenstein, you can’t just leave it lying around—and I found this base with an open door, so naturally I wandered in…”

“Get. To. The. Point.” said Myles, invoking the ancient Rite of Interruption.

“No power, all crates open, lots of stuff. I claimed the buggy. It’s fully loaded. So much stuff. GET HERE ASAP,” came the fevered response.

Myles, now concerned this was either a trap or a rerun of the infamous Goat Cheese Incident from Enshrouded, sprinted to the Anvil to catch a ride to the Pinnacle. Dave, ever the multitasker, had also summoned Zaph. “There’s an Ornithopter up for grabs,” Dave added. No further persuasion required. Zaph was in.

Zaph logged in, skipped every safety protocol known to man, and flew the thopter to the base, promptly loading it to maximum capacity. Just as he was about to leave, Craig logged in—sensing loot disturbance in the Force—and was furious he hadn’t been invited to the party.

Dave, determined to secure their claim before some desert bureaucrat noticed, sprinted to Arrakein to pay taxes. Myles, now driving the buggy like he was being chased by a sandworm, navigated back home under Dave’s helpful advice like, “Don’t go left. Or right. Maybe… just keep going straight?”

Craig, naturally, climbed on top of the ornithopter and rode it back clinging between the wings like a knock-off desert Batman. No seatbelt. No plan. Just Craig.

Back at base, everyone unpacked their stolen bounty into shiny new storage containers, rearranged like a particularly aggressive episode of Dune Decorators. Myles and Zaph logged off. They had seen enough.

But Dave and Craig? Oh no. They went back.

Like true hoarders with no concept of limits, they did a second trip to retrieve the most precious of all resources: industrial lubricant. Once there, Dave got That Look. The one that says: “I’ve had an idea.”

“We can’t leave all this machinery lying around!” he declared, and before Craig could ask what machinery, Dave was already disassembling the entire enemy base like a caffeine-addled IKEA employee. Crates, refiners, crafting stations—nothing was safe. They loaded their haul into the buggy, their backpacks, and Craig’s trike, which he parked creatively on a collapsed roof beam.

They wiped the place down, scrubbed for DNA, and unclaimed the territory. Let the desert cover their tracks.

Then began what Dave called “inventory optimisation” and everyone else called “an unholy weekend of menu navigation.” Bigger crates. Colour-coded boxes. Silicone blocks and welding torches. A flight deck was added for the thopter. A power room. Extra cisterns. His bedroom? Gone. Merged with Craig’s. His reason? “It’s more efficient this way.” Craig’s personal chest was relocated to an undisclosed location, which Craig insists he’ll remember. He won’t.

Garage upgrades followed. Bikes now park on a raised platform. The buggy has a workshop bay. There’s a new ramp. Honestly, it’s probably Council-approved.

And then, Dave took to the skies.

He repaired the ornithopter, topped off the tank, and headed south to a suspiciously Thor-shaped plateau. “I wonder if you can land on that?” he pondered aloud.

You can. He did.

There was even a wrecked ornithopter at the top (presumably one of Craig’s earlier experiments in vertical flight). Dave, naturally, whipped out his salvage tool. But then: doom.

A sandstorm alert. Not the friendly kind that gives you a countdown and a gentle warning. No, this was Death Imminent, You Idiot level.

Dave panicked. Tried to stow the thopter. Remembered he already had a bike stored. Cue existential dread.

He jumped in and flew blind through the storm, radar dead, vision gone, the wings turning from healthy yellow to sad red. Myles was going to murder him.

Somehow, the storm passed without total annihilation. Dave limped home, duct-taped the wings back on, and resolved to lie. “It always had 80% health,” he rehearsed.

But alas, dear reader… he forgot to erase the black box flight logs.

Then again, maybe Myles won’t check. Maybe Craig will remember to pack ammunition. Maybe Zaph will teach Craig how to fly.

Maybe.

But this is Dune. Anything is possible.
(Or should that be - This is Dave, Anything is possible!)