Back from the Brink - Laughing in the face of death

[Gracia_WolfSlayer]

I thought it'd be fun to share our stories of your most daring return from the edge of disaster! The condition meter was red, your survivor was staggering, but somehow you managed to bring yourself back.

(I didn't see any recent threads about the specifically, but if I missed it please direct me to it!)

Mine happened today!

So I had just made my way back to CH after forging my first set of tools and arrow heads. With a mostly empty stomach, but a skip in my step I stopped at the Qounset to craft a few arrows as I eat my last remaining cattails. I've got around 70% condition and no food so I decide to get back out to the Ravine and the ML while the weather was passable. I avoid the high roads and the main road in favor of the longer route on ice for the longer sight lines on wolves. The sun is starting to dip and the cold encroaching, so I decide to play it safe and spend the night in the fishing village. I could spare a little condition sleeping with a empty stomach after all. 

<howl directly to my right!> NO! A wolf comes sprinting from behind the rocks the line the docks! I swing my bow around but my shot goes high and the wolf has me. I strike with my newly crafted hatchet in desperation as I see my condition plummet. But I shake him off and immediately run for the cabins, slamming the door. There's blood everywhere as I shakily bandage myself. My condition is now around 20%. I have no food, no tea and a blizzard is heralding the start of the night. What could I do but sleep? I sleep most of the night and awaken to an aurora, so no risking outside just yet. I pass some time sharpening my tools and breaking down furniture until my condition is dangerously low. It's only just after dawn, the coldest of hours, but I HAVE to risk it. If I can make it to the river head maybe I'll score a rabbit, or better yet some cattails.

I head out, luckily no wolves this time, and I make it to the river head, no cattails. The air is blisteringly cold and I spot the bear up the hill along the stream, so no chance sneaking further up for cattails. But there's a rabbit, and I'm a crack shot! I grab my salvation and sprint back to the cabin, hypothermia nipping at my heals. With numb fingers I attempt a fire. 85% chance, but nothing. My condition is making me nervous as the cold has it dropping fast with every failed attempt at the %$*%&% fire!

It lights! I slap the two nice sized rabbit steaks down. The air is so cold that not even the fire could protect me, and my condition goes red. I stagger inside to wait for the meat to cook. 19 minutes... I sway, luckily warm enough now that my health isn't dropping like a rock, but I'm still starving so it's still going down. I'm now down to 5% condition. I risk a peak outside and hurray! It's cooked! I grab them quickly and step back inside and inhale my prize. My condition finally stops plummeting. I have some prepared birch bark, so I make a quick cup of tea and drink it down before taking a well earned nap. I only risk 4 hours due to my still low calories.

I awake with 15% condition. The weather has cleared and we're in the sweet spot of the day where my clothes actually protect me from the cold. So I head for the Ravine via the river.

The Bear was gone, so I was able to harvest a bounty of cattails and 4 more bunnies. I cook them and a ravaged deer steak at the Rabbit Grove cabin and sleep the night. I have come Back from the Brink!

 

Hope you guys liked my story! Thought I'd have some fun and make it a bit of a short story. I was so proud of this! I've NEVER brought a survivor back from condition in the red. Now I'm in ML hunting deer on easy street. I've broken my Loper record now at 35 days and show no signs of slowing down!.

[darkscaryforest]

Wow that's pretty impressive. Good with the quick thinking to save your save Sometimes everything that can go wrong does and you get stuck in a hole and have to claw your way out!

[PurpleWolf13]

I very recently had a close encounter with death in my Stalker save. So I'm in Mountain Town and one day I went to the clearing that is between Milton Park and the cave leading to Mystery Lake. I ended up having to spend a little time in the clearing, had to take a nap. I left to go home to Paradise Meadows Farm at night.

Had to use the climbing rope and that drains a lot of energy so that got me pretty tired. Was getting cold as well. I was on the road path right next to Paradise Meadows Farm and got attacked by a wolf.

Things probably would have gone better if I didn't try to defend myself with my Revolver, should have used my Hunting Knife or Hatchet. As I was trying to smack the attacking wolf with my gun, I saw my condition going down and my struggle bar not going up and that gave myself a mini heart convulsion. 

The wolf gave up and I was left in a bad way. I had one bandage, managed to patch up one of my Blood Loss wounds but still had one in effect. So I hobbled over to the house on the farm and got in.

At this point, my condition was in the red, the heart was beating and death music playing. I treated my infection risk and pain, but had no bandages in my medicine supply. So I quickly tore down the towel and turned the cloth into bandages.

My condition was still scarily low, so I cooked myself up something to eat, drank and took a nap, for fear of dying somehow if I slept too long. I survived!

 

[PrincessAutumn]

Oh man that's epic! I think that's when The Long Dark is the most fun is when you're close to death and you take that one step that saves your life or you are miserably lost in a blizzard, frostbite and hypothermia starts to set in and you stumble upon a lucky interior shelter. 

I have many close to death moments but I think my most memorable is when I was in Pleasant Valley, I wanted to go to the crash site because I had heard that it was a loot rich area. I started at the farmstead and it was a beautiful clear day. I ended up going to Three Strikes Farmstead and I don't like to look at maps until absolutely necessary because otherwise it just takes the challenge out of the game.

So I'm wandering and I have no idea where I am and it starts snowing and Pleasant Valley is like "Lost are we? Here, this should help" and throws an instant blizzard at me. I'm on the river somewhere and I take shelter under a rock outcropping and pass time at 1 hour increments to see if the blizzard would go away. Nope, wind changed direction and I had to move. By now I had Hypothermia risk and Frostbite risk. I'm walking in some random direction thinking this is it, if I don't find shelter then I'm dead meat period.

Hypothermia risk was near 50 percent chance at this point and I just happen to get back to the farmstead where I started! I can't remember what my condition was but man, what luck! 

[TiffTastic]

I just returned to this game after a nearly one year hiatus. I’m particularly proud of my current play through, as my last one I had the misfortune of spawning in BR and immediately finding the revolver and a bunch of ammo in the hunting lodge. Misfortune? Yeah. See, I’d never had the revolver before, it didn’t exist the last time I played. So I went outside and immediately capped the two wolves camping outside the lodge. Thought “wow, this thing is great! And I have like 10 more bullets!” So I then come upon the moose by that bridge coming off the lodge bluff. Ok, yay, let’s shoot the moose....

 

I have no idea if the revolver kills the moose ever. What I do know is this: you could shoot that darn moose 6 times, mostly in the face as it charges, and it WILL NEVER DIE. So, 5 days in, I get stomped by the moose 3 times. No idea how I lived. Had somewhere around 5% health.  But I did get away finally. Safety was then the shed, if I somehow could get through the moat of wolves that shed has. Good thing I had 4 bullets left, as I needed them to clear the wolves in the BR shed yard. After my health was back I even lured one to kill a deer for me. So I had food. Healed up and got better gear for a couple weeks, then survived an ammo-less run from BR to the camp office. Did it with 3 flares and no stops, and a wolf pursuing me from just before the rockslide all the way through the Muskeg (obviously it was more than one wolf, at one point there were 3 around me in FM just before the train cars) .

I’m now 50-60 days in tho, and one game day ago finally found enough rose hips to heal the third broken ribs. Think maybe this is the most fun I’ve had on a play through, as it was a genuine challenge the whole way so far. Difficulty is custom using stalker as the base. 

[Dr. S.]

This happened a while ago, so I don't remember all the details, but I once survived three attacks by a bear and a wolf struggle, all in short order.

I was in the cave by Stairstep Lake in HRV when a bear came in. I shot him but didn't kill him, so he mauled me. I crawled around the corner into the back of the cave to apply bandages. After I applied the bandages I heard a wolf nearby. He came around the corner and attacked me too. I applied more bandages. Then the bear came back around the corner and mauled me again. At this point I was out of bandages, so I had to craft some more. I also used at least one stim shot to recover some condition. Then the bear came back again for another mauling. (I guess he couldn't find his way out of the cave!) I applied more bandages. At this point I was at about 5% condition, so I wobbled back into the main part of the cave and laid down on my bedroll to sleep, bear or no bear. I think about 50% of my clothing was ruined.

The next morning I woke up to find a bear carcass in the cave, so at least I got the last laugh.

[ManicManiac]

@Gracia_WolfSlayer

Well done.    And a fine chronicling of your adventure.

Also to those who've added their close calls as well.  It's wonderful to read these.

Edited September 13, 2020 by ManicManiac