Two Tales of Blizzards and Caves


Nervous Pete

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So I started another game recently, this time in Pleasant Valley as Sophe Harlow, a lass stranded out there in a Voyageur-shaped predicament. It's my first time on the map and I was lucky enough to spawn inside the farmhouse. There is a bear that wanders through a nearby field on occasion, but I've managed to avoid him thus far. Meanwhile a pack of hungry wolves roam the field beyond the car. I'm ten days in, surviving on a dozen rifle rounds and waiting for the deer gut to cure so I can make some rabbit snares. It was a tough start though, very little food and until I found the rifle I was nearly starving to death, surviving on cans of pop and beef jerky and risking mouldy candy bars found in abandoned cars. 

Then I found the signal cabin by the radio tower. The sight of it had greeted me every morning when I stepped out onto the front porch, atop a hill in the distance. One day, desperation for food forced me out to try and find this cabin. And I was glad I did, another rifle, ammunition, peanut butter, tools, a fire-starter, comfy beds. I was in heaven! A couple of wolves on the prowl on the valley floor, but aside from that none too shabby. And wallowing in my cromulent success I got over-confident and almost killed myself...

I was out a wandering and found a rope dangling over the edge of a cliff. Looking down over the edge I saw a bear shuffling about. I knew I couldn't explore down there with the bear around, so I took a shot at it with my rifle. There was a hit and it howled and ran away. I waited. Started a fire to keep myself warm (it was around noon, but a nippy day) and looked out to see the bear hobbling through trees in the distance. Eventually it returned to the foot of the cliff and died from blood loss. 

Elated and giddy with the thought of a bearskin bed-roll I decided to descend. But then I realised that I had a backpack full of wood and wouldn't be able to lug much in the way of harvested meat from the corpse. So I dropped the four big fir logs I had with me and went down. I got the hide alright, and the guts, but after chopping off two bear steaks a blizzard began to whip up around me. I figured I'd climb back up the rope and get back to the cabin, that I might just be able to make it. But I was tired from the meat-hacking and my bag weighed too much, I hadn't the stamina to climb high enough and I decided against risking the ascent and slid back to the valley floor. But now the wind was really picking up. Visibility was dropping fast - and so was the temperature! I cast around and found the bear cave. Perfect! I went inside and rolled out my bedroll. It was approaching night now. I curled up and went to sleep.

And almost died. The temperature had dropped hugely! Although out of the wind the ambient temperature was minus 22. I lit a fire and to my horror found I only had enough wood to last an hour and a half. I desperately prayed for the blizzard to lift, but no dice. With half an hour of fire left I took out my lantern and plunged outside into the howling storm. I remembered a big fir tree branch and attempted to hack it pieces. But the cold was so piercing I was numb within minutes, and had to flee back to the cave. In my panic sprinting through the howling darkness I tripped and sprained my ankle. Now I was in serious trouble. Limping back into the cave I warmed up a little next to the fire before it died and pondered trying the bedroll again, but if I climbed in I knew I would fall asleep and die. So I pushed back out again, limping to the left this time. Mercifully I found five or six loose sticks of wood and some reishi mushrooms sticking out of a tree stump. I limped back to the cave, teeth chattering, and fixed another fire. Soon I had a nice hot cup of reishi tea - the natural pain killer of champions - and I was feeling somewhat warmer. I held back with a few sticks and climbed into the bedroll and slept an hour. Woke up chilled near to the core, lit the fire again and repeated the process. Soon it was dawn, though one could barely tell with the thick, howling snow whipping past the cave mouth. On the verge of hypothermia, I berated myself for not climbing down with that wood on my back. If I had, I would be able to sit out the blizzard - and naturally these storms can last a day sometimes. 

It was with the greatest feeling of relief I'd ever experienced in a game then, that the storm suddenly let up. I was still fairly freezing, but I picked up the bear pelt and guts, and hobbled my way back to the farmhouse which - now the snow had cleared - I could see from a nearby little crest, a scant half mile away. Fifteen minutes later I was safely back indoors, shovelling firewood into the stove and thinking to myself...

Man, this really is one of the best games I've ever played...

 

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Now I'm up to day 26, and I feel I've learned so many valuable lessons. I was living reasonably comfortably on rabbit at the farmhouse, but I was down to ten bullets and I was concerned that I had no back up plan if the rabbit supply failed. I also had five arrows to hand but no maple for a bow, and I am ashamed to say that I became dangerously obsessed with getting one. So, weighing the pros and cons, I decided to strike out up over Heartbreak Bridge and take the road to the Pleasant Valley outbuildings. It was there that I encountered a bear. I fired two shots and missed, a third possibly struck but at that point I was too busy diving back into the building from the enraged fellow to take the time to enquire as to his health. I waited two hours hoping he'd bleed out and I could finally get the second pelt I needed for the bedroll. I cautiously snuck outside and there was no hide nor hair of him. Nor any blood spots. A thorough search revealed nothing in the environs so I figured I must have clipped him. But so shaken was I, so fast and hard was the adrenaline pumping, that the howl of a distant wolf made me accidentally loose off a round from the rifle. I was now down to six bullets. And I was getting peckish.

Fortunately I managed to bag a deer just before night. Five bullets now, and I was taking the hide off the poor soul when a blizzard rolled in. I ran back inside, starved for the best part of seven hours and awoke to the now peaceful dark and early hours of the pre-dawn. By a campfire I grabbed the steaks and figured to myself, 'Y'know, Sophe - you're not too smart. You need to save these bullets for emergencies. And you're no nearer to getting your bow. This red barn has never brought you luck, bad things have always gone down at these outbuildings, it's time to move on.' So when it was morning I elected to head on up the road over Contemplation Bridge and strike out to the woods between there and the Rural Crossroads, to the West. I hit the rural store first, stocked up on pop and a coffee and found some first aid I'd missed earlier on. It was still midday and I spent a good few hours wandering the slopes of the wood until I suddenly came upon a cave. Outside were mushrooms, rabbits and a dead deer. Inside - oh, treasures! A new bedroll and a good novel. I figured I'd skin and cut out the steaks from the deer first... but then of a sudden I held back. Wait. I've heard this song before. I re-sheathed my hunting knife and immediately started chopping fir branches instead. I assembled a pile of six, a good thick bundle of sticks, and an extra cedar log and placed them inside the cave. I then started work on the deer, lighting a small additional campfire to thaw the body out a little.

And so, as I was whipping the hide off the beast, I suddenly saw the temperature drop, heard the wind begin to howl and I smiled grimly to myself. I returned inside the cave and waited. The air grew chill and the screaming pitch of the wind increased in volume outside, a grey churning mass of whipping snow outside. I started a fire and - with the big pile of fir wood to hand - cracked open the novel. The rest of the night was spent in hospitable glee, alternately digging into the book and sleeping a couple of hours at a time. An hour before dawn, the wind dropped and I walked to the mouth of the cave. The sky was a tawny smoky orange, the colour of dying leaves, and a gentle snow fell. I stood there, quietly freezing in the minus eight, rubbing my rabbit skin mittens together gently. I felt a great sense of serenity, of acceptance of the world. The sun began to rise over distant peaks, the cold air lost some of its edge and I decided to head out to see if I could finally find my white whale - the maple sapling. 

 

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And within half an hour of exploring around the clefts and dells and hillocks of the wood, there it was! I was so shaking with joy, I had trouble harvesting it. I went back to the cave, slung the two bedrolls on my back. I decided to leave a quanity of wood in the cave for future emergencies in case I ever wanted it as a way-station, and I struck back to the outbuildings. There I nipped in to grab the deer steaks in the metal tool box, and immediately headed out along the road back to the farm. I was slowly - very slowly - freezing, dog-tired and hungry but I had a big grin on my face. Still, all the while I kept my eyes on the fields and woods to the sides of the road, checking for wolves. Stepping over Heartbreak Bridge felt like a triumphant homecoming to my traditional stomping grounds. Beside the fence, just beyond the bridge by the abandoned car I found to my further edification that two rabbits lay in my snares. I cut their meat and slung it on to my now dangerously encumbered back. And so I trudged back to the farmhouse, my beloved home. As I approached the door a blizzard began to kick in but I didn't care, I knew I had firewood ready by the stove. I set my pelts down on the floor beside the kitchen table, and the maple sapling down on the coffee table beside the cured birch. I then got to work frying steaks. The smell was delicious, the taste of the juicy flesh even more so. Sated, I realised I was about ready to collapse from exhaustion and so, lantern in hand, I ascended the stairs to bed. 

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Day twenty-six out there in Pleasant Valley. And the best day I've ever experienced in game... perhaps in any game. I really feel like I am out there, drawing sharp breath on a cold winter's day, crunching snow underfoot.


 

 

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Excellent read. First time I ever came across the word "cromulent". Cassell's dictionary from 1978 does not know it, and neither does the very modern-day internet translation machine linguee. But if such a distinguished gentleman as the author is using it, then it must exist. So I shall add it to my inventory as a synonym for "extraordinary". Can't wait to apply it myself. But I digress. So, Nervous Pete... shall make a mental note and remember that name...

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an amazing read. i truly know the feel of staring into death's face in the middle of a -35 degree celsius white-out myself. my worst experience, was the time that i was taking shelter in one of the small sheds in PV after a hunting trip. wind kept blowing through a crack in the wall and blowing out my fire. on stalker mode and freezing to death, i eventually had to just grab up my supplies and push straight through the blizzard, in vaguely the direction i thought the farmhouse was in. i was at 10 percent condition by the time i made it to the farmhouse, and it sure as heck didnt help that my big bro was in the background like "you're gonna die. you're gonna freeze to death. might as well just lie down in the snow and give up, you're not gonna make it." the whole time xD

well i made it. never underestimate my determination to survive in those situations, at all costs ;)

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