There are epic quests. There are heroic stands. There are desperate battles against nature, beast, and Craig.
And then there is repacking the cart.
This weeks - Theme Song – Building a fort, sung by Myles in the key of E.
Life is complicated,
things don't go as planned
Craig acts in ways that I don't understand
It all came crashing down through no fault of my own
Think it's time I build a fort all by myself alone
I tried to fit in and they told me I could not
The outside world is overrated by a lot
I might as well just run and hide until I'm fully grown
Here I go, I'll build a fort all by myself alone
Did we mention Dave and Myles were in the scouts?
Because if you ever wondered what happens when two former scouts are given access to a survival crafting game and a beast of burden with limited inventory slots, the answer is: spreadsheets in human form.
To quote John Wayne —
"Slap some bacon on a biscuit and let's go! We're burnin' daylight!" — yelled Dave.
The cart was packed. It wasn’t getting any lighter. The Buffalo who had to pull the cart nodded its head in agreement, radiating the weary patience of an animal that has seen too much.
“Are you sure we can’t fit more stuff on the cart?” asked Myles.
The Buffalo gave Myles the stink-eye.
“It’s full,” said Dave. “Let's go home. I want to build stuff, and I miss MoJo (the cat).”
“How do you burn Daylight?” asked Craig.
“It’s an expression,” replied Dave. “Like the Day isn’t getting any younger. It means we should go already.”
“How old is the day?” asked Craig, clearly attempting to distract Dave while he tried to sneak his animal head collection onto the cart.
“What if we had more pouches? Would that let us carry more stuff?” asked Myles, who clearly knows how to distract Dave.
Dave paused.
His eyes lit up.
“Yes, yes, YES!!!!! That will work. Quickly unpack the Anvil, some iron to make nails, and lots of leather,” he commanded Myles as he rushed to the crafting bench to make an advanced textile workbench.
Moments later, it was built and deployed, and Dave was chuckling like a madman as he crafted pouches and stitched leather with the manic energy of a frontier haberdasher possessed by the spirit of logistics.
The Buffalo redirected its stink-eye at Dave.
Myles took the bags to the cart and filled them. Soon, the Buffalo had a third of its slots free, and Dave had loaded the cart with everything that wasn’t nailed down.
Dave did not notice that Craig had successfully snuck his trophies on board.
Just like those safe-harbour statements that movies have, saying "No animals were harmed in the making of the movie," we should point out …
Oh wait.
Many, many digital animals were harmed in the making of this episode.
Craig’s new nickname is The Butcher.
Icarus had added a new feature in the latest build: you put the dead animal on the skinning bench, and it just starts working.
Amazing. Naturally, we had to try it out.
Craig noted that the bench did not yield trophies (animal heads); somehow, the head collection kept growing.
It’s a mystery we may never solve.
“Finally,” said Dave, “let’s go already, before Myles starts checking lists.”
“Has anyone seen Zaph?” asked Myles.
Zaph, it turns out, had started another operation to repair a spacecraft whilst Dave and Craig argued over cart space allocation.
“Zaph come in – where are you?” Myles asked over the radio.
“Pssht, bssht, fizz – you are breaking up – fizz, pssht – Come again … over!!” Zaph replied.
“Very funny,” said Myles, looking at the map. “I installed a tracking device in your saddle, so the question is rhetorical: why are you at the other end of the map?”
“Just checking what we must do to complete the ‘Repair Spacecraft’ mission,” Zaph replied.
“Mission, what Mission?” asked Dave, giving Myles the stink-eye.
“Calm down,” said Myles. “We can get two missions done in the time it takes you to pack the cart.”
Dave and the Buffalo doubled down on giving Myles the stink-eye.
“It’s simple,” said Zaph:
• Repair the navigation thingy
• Find a thingy
• Refuel the spacecraft with a full can of Biofuel
“But where would we even find a can of Biofuel?” queried Craig.
“ON THE CART!!” said Dave, unhappy that no one had noticed we had carried a can of biofuel to the other end of the map for no apparent reason.
He is the living embodiment of the scout motto: Be Prepared.
Zaph built a hut while waiting for us to catch up.
Craig built a thatch roof over the firepits so the rain wouldn’t put them out, then spent an hour trying to work out how to upgrade them to wood — because Zaph asked why they were thatch.
It turns out, you have to use the same size piece, Craig, when upgrading. The game doesn’t let you upgrade half-size thatch pieces with full-size wood pieces.
Some lessons must be learned through suffering.
We used our smelted copper ingots to repair the thingy, and Dave refuelled the spacecraft, putting the empty can back on the cart.
“Has anyone seen the anvil?” asked Myles.
“It should be on the cart where you would have repacked it after making nails,” Dave replied.
Queue — silence from Myles.
Forts Are the New Thing
One last task to do: recover a space thingy to finish fixing the spacecraft.
Only one problem.
The space thingy was a chew toy for a named Cougar.
Even Zaph feared getting too close to this one.
We huddled up.
“Hedgehogs,” declared Myles.
“Not a chance,” said Zaph. “This is a problem even hedgehogs can’t solve.”
So Myles did some research and learned how to build fortified walls.
First you put up a wall.
Then you attach large sections of spikes that make hedgehogs look like children’s toys.
Finally, you put a walkway behind the wall so you can stand on that to shoot over it like a medieval IT department defending its server racks.
We packed five sections of wall, spikes, and ramp on the Buffalo.
The Buffalo looked downtrodden and pierced Myles with its saddest stink-eye yet.
We approached the location.
Craig felled trees.
Zaph constructed a hut for medical triage (respawn).
Dave and Myles put out hedgehogs.
Then we crept the hedgehogs forward, advancing into Cougar territory.
The fortified wall was so new and shiny Myles didn’t want to deploy it.
At least that’s what we think after the fifth time we requested the wall to be deployed, and he ignored us.
It worked.
The cougar attacked, got stuck on hedgehogs and wall, got stuck in a crack, then vanished.
Whilst Zaph searched frantically for the missing Cougar, Craig wandered around and asked, “What’s this chest?”
“What Chest?” said Dave from where he was looting it.
Zaph rode back to repair the spacecraft, while we broke down the fortifications and packed them on the Buffalo.
“Oops,” said Zaph, “I accidently triggered the countdown.”
As the spacecraft systems rebooted.
1%, 2%, … 5%.
All the flashing lights and countdown announcements attracted wolves and bears that attacked the spacecraft.
We rushed back to help defend the poor shiny metal thing from getting scratch marks.
Myles and Dave helped Zaph shoot wolves.
Craig ran around skinning them.
A named bear ate Zaph whilst Dave was moving the Buffalo out of danger.
Dave packed wolves on the Buffalo trying to stay ahead of Craig.
Finally, the spacecraft launched.
Another successful mission brought to you by the four musketeers (stooges).
“That was fun, let’s do another mission,” declared Myles. “Break out the contact beacon thingy, Dave.”
Dave and the Buffalo traded looks.
“I don’t pack equipment that distracts us from going home,” declared Dave, as he wandered off to mine ore. “It’s back at the lake house.”
Myles gave Dave the stink-eye.
Zaph rode back to the lakehouse, whilst Dave mined and smelted, Craig skinned wolves, and Myles muttered under his breath.
“Mission successful — take that ChatGPT with your whiny predictions of failure.”
Zaph, of course, kicked off another mission instead of bringing back the boards.
“<Expletive deleted>,” exclaimed Dave as a resource drop pod crashed through the roof of the hut, crushing Myles.
The new mission: Something stinks on Icarus.
“What’s that smell?” asked Craig.
“He who smelt it dealt it!” replied Zaph.
“It wasn’t me,” declared Craig.
We will leave it to you, the discerning reader, to decide.
And yes, this mission stinks.
Go kill a creature wandering around location A, spreading poisonous gas.
Head to location B and take a sample from a toxic plant.
Then off to location C to collect a dangerous, broken chemical weapon.
I mean, what could possibly go wrong?
Whilst deploying Hedgehogs and fortified walls for the stinky bear, Craig was over-encumbered, and the bear smacked him.
Luckily Zaph distracted the bear and led it onto the hedgehogs before dying heroically.
Craig bled out while we killed the bear.
The rest of the mission was a walk in the park.
Where the park is a swamp.
And the box is atop a hill that requires—
“What is next?” asked Zaph.
“We are heading home as Dave misses his cat,” replied Myles.
Myles and Zaph headed off.
Dave built a new anvil because Myles was going to need one, and packed the mission board on the Buffalo, and some more leather and bone, and the rest of the ingots.
He checked the map.
The guys were already halfway through the snow, and he hadn’t left yet.
Time to go!!
Craig waited for Dave at the snow hut — melting water, keeping the fire burning, setting up a light so Dave could find his way in the dark.
Everyone needs a Craig in their group.
Meanwhile — back at the house
Myles and Zaph got home, where Zaph built a 6-storey tower to see if they could spot Dave.
After recovering from Hypothermia, Dave and Craig finally returned to the house.
Zaph logged to avoid unpacking.
Myles and Dave unloaded the cart while Craig mined stone and felled trees, to constant calls from Dave for more raw materials.
Dave asked for someone to go to the automated mine, refuel it and bring back the platinum.
Myles volunteered.
He arrived at the automated mine, grabbed the platinum and called Dave to let him know how much ore he had.
Dave was happy.
“Next, refuel the mine, please,” he instructed Myles.
It goes without saying that Myles had forgotten the fuel can and had to make another trip.
Myles learnt how to craft lamps, and Dave added a cooking station to make animal fat to fuel them.
Myles upgraded the mission board so we can take encrypted Operations.
Craig built a trophy bench, then stuck animal heads up all over the house.
Dave converted Zaph’s wooden bridge to stone, then built a Barn.
An enormous stone structure.
With a cat door.
And a pitched roof.
“What do you think?” he asked Myles and Craig.
“It’s bigger than our house,” said Myles.
“Oh,” said Dave. “I guess I can build an extension.”
He rubbed his hands together.
“More stone, Craig.”
And that’s a wrap.
We leave our intrepid heroes discussing if the extension should go from the house to the cliff, or out on the river.
Did we achieve anything this week?
It feels like we did.
We built many wood cabins, slaughtered everything that moved, completed 2 operations, returned home safely, unpacked the cart, built a barn, learnt some stuff, and upgraded the bridge.
- Dave achieved – Something in my eye (Use stink-eye repeatedly), Check it Out (Make your buddies pretend to like the new house extension you built)
- Myles achieved – Herding Cats (no explanation required), Hedgehogs are so yesterday (research and build a fortified wall), bag it (pack ten bags)
- Craig achieved – Seriously! (Eaten by a bear whilst too encumbered to walk), I learnt nothing (Get frustrated upgrading the roof)
- Zaph achieved – Crushed it (Squash another player with a resource pod), Fully Ramped! (built a ramp up a cliff to recover a mission objective)
And of course, we will be back next week to do it again as we try the new encrypted missions
Welcome to the new barn...
