My palace building story (Olympics Conclude)

[potterr]

So there I was landing on an alien planet with just my wits, cunning and a spacesuit that seriously chaffs when walking.
It was a new part of the world I've visited and died on soooooooo, soooooo many times before. I landed inside what appeared to a collapsed volcano, and I was eager to explore, find exotics, make my fortune and build myself a palace worthy of a headless space faring King (I lost my head several updates ago, don't ask how I eat).
I climbed out of my pod and looked around, BEAR!!! I ran, my legs going faster that ever before, for a few seconds that is before I run out of breath. I'm seriously out of shape here, maybe spacesuits aren't designed to run in, and I'm really going to need some soothing cream in the nether regions after this.
As I catch my breath I wonder "why aren't I dead yet? Where did the bear go?". Turns out it was a deer, I laughed, suspiciously eyeing the treeline just in case there are any of those serial killers in fur coats.

I start walking and find a nice lake, it looks beautiful, Deer's drinking from it, fish swimming in it the sun glinting off it, I feel at peace. So time to start gathering twigs and rocks, bit of crafting later and hey presto! one fully functional axe.
It starts to drizzle, so bit of twig fiddling later and I now have a pickaxe, pride oozes from every pore, I'm like some kind of headless genius. Quickly I start hollowing out a big rock, this drizzle seems to be sapping my health "I'm Melting, melting, Ohhhhh, what a world, what a world." I yell. My makeshift stone tent is complete so i move in and sit and watch the rain. BEAR!!!...... no my mistake again just another deer, my heart is racing, my head is, well I'm not quite sure where it is but wherever it's at it's pounding.
I need food, so a bit more fiddling with sticks and Bob's your uncle, a fully functioning bow (and not one for my hair as that's still on my head wherever that may be, oh I miss my head).
I line my bow up, the deer in my sights and let my stone arrow fly, the deer goes down, the arrow going straight through it's eye. Odd as I'm sure I was aiming at it's backside, what are these stones made from? I try again, fire, the deer runs, the arrow ends up straight through it's eye again. Not only am I a genius I'm a real life Oliver Queen.
Damn, lost the bodies in the undergrowth.
Another deer strolls by, I close my eyes (I know hard to do when you're cranally challenged but go with it), stone arrow flies, down it goes, arrow through the eye, I just can't miss.
BEAR!!!!

no, just my imagination, I'll need to get the inside of this spacesuit dry cleaned when I get back, it's feeling a bit squelchy now. I'm starting to wonder if this caldera actually has any bears. I turn around and just nip to the toilet, after all that's when bears attack normally, it's guaranteed on this world. Several minutes later and...I'm still alive!! it's a miracle oooooorrrr maybe they're terrified of my god like skills with 2 sticks and some string made from ferns.
I'm the top of the food chain here, thoughts start popping into my head, which if I knew where it was would be very useful, so alas back to banging stones together.
It's getting dark, quick bit of work with a couple of sticks, more fern string and 4 stones to fashion a blade (I know, you only have 1 blade in a knife so why 4 stones?, I mess up 3 of them OK? every time, every time...).
The deer is skinned, I have leather, fur and 4 venison steaks, although I'm puzzled, the deer was sooo much bigger than the 4 venison steaks I have in my pockets. Back to my stone tent, I realise if I hollow out a bit more I can put a bedroll down, and a campfire! So I do, good job my spacesuit can filter out all the smoke, sitting in a tiny nearly enclosed space with a fire in it it totally safe, totally.
I drift off to sleep, my last venison steak cooking on the fire, it's only 8pm, I'm getting old. I wake up after a good 11 hours sleep, my steak isn't quite done yet, oooo that's going to be sooooooo tender, 11 hours of cooking and all.
I eat my 4 steaks, they only just fill me up, that's a whole deer. Am I going to have to slaughter a rangale of Cervidae every time I feel a bit peckish?

Time to start building my palace. I cut a tree down, it takes just seconds with my stone axe (what are these stone made from, Diamonds?), another tree goes down, and another and another and one more, all the wood stuffed in my spacesuit pockets. Who needs a TARDIS, I AM THE TARDIS.
20 chunks of wood and some more fern string later and ta da!!...a floor, 10 mins later and I have a temporary wood cabin overlooking the lake. My life is great here.
I could do with a stronger building here, I want to build some heavy machinery and it's just going to fall through the wood floor.
4 hours later, and I've built a stone furnace, explored every cave and gathered every bit of iron I could possibly find (dozens of node's bigger than me all stuffed into my TARDIS pockets). I love my spacesuit, still chaffs a bit and the smell is starting to make me feel ill now.
Yes I know I'm nasally challenged but it's like I can still feel it like some kind of ghost part of my head, which is also some kind of ghost part of my body...wait am I dead? Like some kind of chicken that doesn't know it been decapitated and is running round trying to figure out how on earth it's going to build a biofuel generator to power some lights so that it can work through the night making nails when there's no Iron left.

After a few more "Bear" sightings, needless slaughter of more Deer pretending to be Bears, and I've built a table. Not just any table but a super duper table that I can build great huge stone frames on, how they hold together with 4 strips of leather and 12 nails I'll never know.
The stone frame gets squirrelled into my magic pockets and off I go to search for somewhere to build THE GREATEST gaff anyone has ever seen on this planet.
Turns out it was just 2 steps away from my cabin.
With some careful positioning, measuring and pondering the stone frame goes into the ground, I'm not quite sure where the displaced earth has gone, maybe it's been transformed into worms or frogs. Although that would be witchcraft, which isn't as easy as you may think. Turning an annoying 70KG neighbour into a 22g frog has it's problems... where does the remaining 69.978 KG of mass go?

Success, I've now got a stone floor, although it's now dawning on me that a small stone floor is not the palace I have in my head.
Time to start harvesting stone. Then trees. Then genocide of the indigenous Deer population for their hides, and now I'm stuck. I need nails, but I mined out all the iron to be able to build the table that I must use to build the stone floor that's held together by some old skin and a dozen nails. Maybe I missed a node in the cave over there.
Back I go into the gloom, luckily I filled the cave with more torches than Lewes Bonfire night so I can see everything, and something magical has happened. Iron nodes have suddenly appeared where there were none before, this world is truly wonderfully magical. A bus full of Iron ends up in my pockets and off I go ready to make my palace, keeping my eye out for Icarus's version of Turkmenistan Gates of Hell, as, well, witchcraft and all that.

I start building, and building some more, gathering, mining, murdering the locals and stuffing them into my pockets...I wonder if I can fit my spacecraft in there too.
Many hours, days, weeks pass and I'm amazed, I'm still alive, there are no predators here, the locals are friendly (always poking their heads through my solid stone walls to say hello), life is good.
I manage to finish, what I call, stage 1 of my palace, I'm going to class it as a boat house for my dinghy.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2717860604

I will endeavour to build my palace, it may take years, I may find my head while doing so but I shall be back with pictures of it in all it's glory.

[4N9S1K5]

ñ

[potterr]

Having taken a short holiday (six inches under Supraland) I decide it's time to get back to building my masterpiece of a new home. I remembered an old French place called the Palace Of Versailles, I'm going to build a better one, right here on Icarus, all by myself, only more rustic.

So to start with, I mine stone for days, great huge boulders, dozens and dozens of them and stuff them into my hastily made wardrobe. Amazingly there's space for another 3 times as much as I put in there. Its almost as if it's bigger on the inside than the outside, I wonder how that could be? Maybe the outside of the wardrobe exists here on Icarus and the inside exists in a warehouse back on Earth. Maybe it 's an entire warehouse and they are connected by stable wormholes...it hurts my head thinking of it (which is still missing from several weeks ago, so my headless body doesn't feel the pain and carries on ignorant of my head cries of distress).

Anyway back to building, I need more leather, lots more leather, by my calculations I need to wipe the entire deer species of the face of the planet to build my palace. I like a challenge...
As luck would have it, on the island in the lake I spot a deer. I do my usual, crouch down, line up my shot, close my eyes and let my arrow fly...straight through the eye again, I just can't miss.
The deer goes down, and off I go to collect my bounty. But, as I approach my prize, knife in hand, my eyes widen. The horror.... the deer must have broken it's back in the fall. Its back legs are straight through it's head, front legs twisted in the most horrific way and head twisted looking at me (well with one eye anyway, the other has an arrow in it).
As I stand there wondering just how such a thing could happen, I'm suddenly aware of Bambi standing next to me. It looks at the deer carnage before me, that used to be it's whole world, then looks at me (possibly confused as to how I'm staring back with no head) and bleats as if to say "what's happened to mummy?".
I'm mortified, I'm a monster, I've orphaned Bambi and Bambi is just standing there looking bewildered, what to do, what to do.
So I look round and check no-one is looking, coast is clear, no-one saw anything, I look back at Bambi, knife still in hand, it bleats again in the most heart wrenching way, it must know what's going to happen.....

Off I go and leg it behind a big rock, hoping, no praying a passing rabbit will take Bambi under it's paw and teach it everything it knows.
I take the long way home, no looking back, letting nature take it's course, contemplating just what I've done and telling myself Bambi will survive, it'll be OK.

As I approach my boat house, the sun starting to set, I glimpse across the lake, Bambi and Thumper are next to each other, I'm hoping they're getting along.
Back to the building and gathering leather then, this time I'm just going for the Stags.
Many, many days later, hours of toiling, mining, hiding in caves from the lethal rain and I finally manage to build....the floor. I'm well proud. 216 stone foundations built, I only needed to fill my magic pockets up a few times, but I have this nagging feeling I'm missing something.
Walls, that's it, I knew there was something else to this building palaces lark.
Weeks pass, most of it hiding form the lethal rain, my boathouse firepit has cooked more meat than that those old Earth food selling places with the gold arches... I heard about them when I was younger, went out of business after they started selling rat burgers. I mean everyone knows no-one wants anything other than Rat-onna-stick (especially with ketchup and no green wobbly bits), they really cut their own throats there.

I finally finished the walls and roof, the nearby forest has gone the way of the Dodo, there's no rock in sight and I've crafted more nails than Naglfar is made of. It's a masterpiece, there's floors, a massive roof, good solid walls and windows. No wait, there's no windows, just holes in the walls, I watch as a Chamois jumps through one into the grand hall.
This will never do, I can't have the local royalty sitting down to some bread and jam only to have the local mountain goats jump onto the table and bleat their distaste of the huge building now in the way of their daily stroll. Windows and doors are definitely needed. It's got to be grand, so I'll use actual glass here. I set off in search of silica to build my windows.
Days later (it rained a lot), I return with 10 times my mass in silica in my magic pockets, there's not even any sign I've got anything in my pockets, no bulges the size of elephants, nothing. They're amazing, except I just can't seem to get whole deer in them though...very odd.

My furnace burns day and night and eventually I end up with enough glass to cover the surface of the planet (give or take a few biomes). I've got wood for the frames and I'm ready to build hundreds of windows and some awesome glass doors. That'll make the place look well smart! Or as us palace owning people say in our posh parlance "The fenestration is truly resplendent".... I own a palace now, I can be as posh as I want.

At this point I realise I don't know how to make a door. It's never been high on my list of things to learn really...knife, bow, bedding, fur coat, goat steaks, posh glass door for a palace. Its just way down on the list. I also realise I don't have any of those mysterious blue points that seem to appear every now and then when I cut a the occasional tree down. They are really weird, they just seem to let me know something I didn't before. It's like they're some kind of teaching module that kind of just puts information in my head....I wonder if they can teach me kung fu? or even how to fly...Is this actually air I'm breathing now? Woah.

So I need to better myself to get more of these blue point things, quickest way I know how is to bang rocks together so back to mining stone then. A few breaks for some nicely roasted venison, I could really do with something to eat with, I've got a knife although I was taught not to put knives in my mouth so a fork maybe or a spoon. No wait.... there is no spoon.
After what seems like a lifetime, those blue point things magically appear in front of me. I used to get orange ones too, they seem to have long gone, pity really they seemed to make me run faster.
I use a blue point, woah... I know Kung Fu. I want to test it out and hit a tree, bam, bam owww, it hurts. I don't know kung fu. But! strangely I now know how to build a door. 30 doors later and it's done. Pity it's a grey colour but I can work out how to paint it later. No palace is complete though without gardens, but that's another story...

As I stand admiring my handiwork, I look sideways and find a stag standing next to me admiring it too. It looks familiar, is it? could it be?... it is!, it's Bambi. He's grown a lot, a fine figure of a specimen, standing proud and tall. Out comes the bow, down goes Bambi, more leather gathered for building the ha-ha in the garden, thank you Bambi.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2729842866

[the1truEmperor]

ah your building in the outpost. there are no enemies, bad storms and the nodes do quite frequently refill. in the regular game, there are cave worms to bother you too.

[mystickneon]

Good stuff :)

[johndai]

Nice story, luv the building.

[potterr]

So, the garden then. It needs to be big, every palace should have a garden the size of a small country, I mean how else can you show your wealth other than setting aside huge areas of land to grow the odd flower on. I've got a planet that no-one else seems to be on, I've not seen another sole around, it's mine, all mine!!! So I've plenty of space to build.
Anyway, gardens... I have an idea of what every palace garden needs in my head, it's well thought out, perfectly suited to Icarus' environment and just looks absolutely stunning. Now if I could find my head I could use that idea to work from, as it is I have no clue where it's gone so I'm going to build something else... with fairy lights, and statues of ladies with wardrobe malfunctions carrying jugs....everywhere!

So first off, I'm now sick of venison and boiled goat, vegetables would be a welcome change, but I've not found any yet, so I need to start looking for some. Many days pass and I've scoured the whole caldera and found no vegetables, I did get my hopes up when I thought I saw a potato, turns out it was just a rock. That would have been fun biting down on that with my teeth. Although something a bit weird happens every now and then, I go to sleep and wake up back on the space station. No idea how I get there, but I can look at the mirror and see my complete lack of head, I'm sure people on the station must be commenting about it behind my back.
Anyway something even weirder happens with my equipment, I take down my well earned supper-duper pickaxe and leave it in a box, but when I find myself back on the station my pickaxe is there again, so I take it back down. Only to find my Pickaxe is still in the box in my palace. Who's pickaxe have I got then?
The workshop now seems to have seed packets and backpacks available....oooooo I can plant stuff and carry more things around, I like that.
But I wonder, does this strange phenomenon work on these new seeds and things?
Turns out it does....I stand in my palace with a big grin on my face (which I'm pretty sure is in a river somewhere or else a Bear keeps peeing on it as it always feels wet). I can exploit this phenomenon.... So after many overnight abductions by the Icarus Mining Corp I now have a backpack...full of backpacks. With the exception of the first one the rest are all free, I can now make some cash from this. Although before I do, I'm angry, I've been robbed!!! Every time I get abducted I come back down to the planet, some bugger has pinched part of my palace. First the doors, then the steps, and now in their latest heist they have defied the actual laws of physics. I mean how, how, how is Icarus able to defy gravity:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2731635841

It's like I'm on another planet or something.
I need to make some cash so I can afford to repair my pride and joy, so I set a table in my palace forecourt, put a few backpacks on it and wait for some passers by to buy them.

Time passes, I wait, and wait and wait some more. To pass the time I start naming the trees, I only get to "Ashtray" before realising that's a boys name, and I don't know if the trees are male or female. So I stick with more traditional names like "Tree #1". "Tree #2", "Tree with Deer wee up it", that kind of more appropriate naming standard. No-one can complain then.
Hold up, I may have my first customer. It appears to be a relative of Bambi. So I stay where I am, no-one wants a salesperson hovering over them. Bambi's cousin, I decide to call him "Turnip", as that's a good strong boys name, looks at the backpacks and snorts. I take that as a "pfff, not interested" attitude, so now is the time to make my sales pitch. I go rushing over so as to not lose my sale. Turnip see's me and legs it. Hold on was he trying to pinch my magically created bags?? Is Turnip the palace thief? I don't have time to ponder, I make chase, but don't have to go far, he's run head first into my Palace's east wing wall.
He's still running, head through the wall, like he's worked out how to phase his body through solid matter but only up to his shoulders. Although I can talk, I've learnt to walk, see, eat and soooo many other things without a head on my shoulders. Icarus is truly a magical world. But it's full of thieves, murderers (those evil rabbits) and Polar bears with x-ray vision.
In the old days, what did they used to do to people stealing stuff from shops? I know they shot them, no questions asked. I don't have a gun yet so out comes the bow, 62 arrows later and he appears to have got the message that crime doesn't pay. He actually seemed to be dead after the first arrow but I had to be sure he wasn't going to run off still. I search the no good dirty thief's bloody body, which appears to be hanging from the wall like a stags head trophy only with the rest of the stag attached the other side of the wall. No bag...hmmmm, maybe he stashed it somewhere in the fully open solid stone courtyard of my palace in the dozen steps between my stall and the wall. I look, I see stone, no bag, I check my table. Erm, all bags accounted for, what have I done! I've just murdered my first and only customer for suspected shoplifting when all he did was get scared by a headless salesperson with an aggressive sales pitch.
A few mins later and there's no body, even the blood splatters have magically disappeared. No one saw, nothing happened, but on the plus side I now have more leather and tonight's steak dinner. I start to wonder why more shops didn't adopt this approach, you don't need money then to buy food, just eat your customers, massive savings in your shopping bills.
However I know what you're thinking. turning Turnip into a hanging pin cushion may have been an bit, just a bit, of an over reaction, it was warranted though. That thief is out there somewhere, and I will find them.
So from now on I'm going to be more suspicious of everything. Anything that comes near my palace goes on an unexpected holiday, leaving a hastily written wooden sign saying they fancy a break and don't expect them back anytime soon... or ever. And I get a rather fetching fur coat, everyone wins.

I'm thinking, selling backpacks to the locals is not going to be very profitable, so it's back to the garden landscaping. Hard landscaping first, which means more stone foundations, more stone, more leather, more wood and nails, back to banging rocks together. Weeks pass and I've now built another 400 stone foundations, good solid stone, really strong and sturdy. So I'm not sure how there are berry bushes growing out of them, waving in the breeze, and a rabbit running round inside one. I suppose they have a vicious streak a mile wide and nasty big pointy teeth....
With the hard landscaping done, albeit with psychotic rabbits eating their way through the stone, I admire the vast area of beautiful rock that is now my back garden, only to notice the locals....
There are loads of them, all of which have learned how to phase through walls like Turnip did, but again, just up to their shoulders. I'm getting popular here, my loyal subjects just can't get enough of me.
No hang on, they seem to be clustered round the bathroom, the dirty so and so's waiting for me to get into my bath. That will never do, so I shoo the riff raff away and lie in wait for when they return.
Sitting on my porcelain throne, not calling for Ruth this time (Turnip did not agree with my stomach), I wonder just how did a deer walk off with a massive stone foundation, then remember I can carry 100 of them in my back pocket and think nothing more of it.
A head pops through the wall, the voyeurs are back and I'm ready. An arrow through the head of each one and I've now got a good old fashioned mogul's luxury bathroom, complete with arrow studded dead things hanging from the walls. I'm really getting the hang of this posh person lark.
A few days pass and I realise that the soft landscaping for the garden is going to take quite some time to do. Partly because I can only get hold of sweetcorn from those money grabbing so and so's back on the space station and partly, despite being the wealthiest person on Icarus, I can't actually afford to even buy a carrot.
Damn, looks like I'm going to have to go back to missions for the abductors for a bit. Gather some cash to do my planting plan later.

[wendybeks]

I really like to read your stories. Please continue.

[horus666]

Cool buildings. As you have quite huge outposts, do you realise any "missing" windows or stuff? I spent days for building some cool things and from one day to another my windows first floor are missing...

[potterr]

Yep, things do keep disappearing. Whenever I get abducted and have to travel back to the planet. while I'm gone someone/something has pinched a wall or a door or window or a solid stone foundation which is stacked in between 3 or 4 foundations. Amazingly leaving heavy stone blocks floating in the air.
I've petitioned the bosses to provide security cameras so I can see who/what it is that's stealing bits of my palace. I'm suspecting they won't though.
I've even looked round the whole area to see if I can see any windows stashed in a cave somewhere, So far I've not found anything, I'm starting to suspect that the rabbits with the "Nasty Big Pointy Teeth" are actually eating them.
I caught Peter here eyeing one up one day, I think he may have eaten one while I was away.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2730800004

[potterr]

So after a few days of being off planet I arrive back and find that nature has gone crazy. There's sweetcorn spilling out of the flowerbeds, growing through the stone foundations of my formal gardens. My palace has also been ravaged by gorse bushes and pumpkins. It's like the world has been updated somehow, but quite frankly it's embarrassing. Imagine inviting a visiting King and having to apologise for the gorse bush blocking the doorway and having to enter the palace by the open window the rabbits ate. I would just die of embarrassment. And there's no way I could even show them the bathroom, what with the tree growing out of the bath.
A good tidy up, a bit of remodelling to free the rabbit slowly eating it's way through the west wings foundations, a break for some nicely roasted Lapin and the place looks good again (I still haven't fully furnished it yet though).
I go out to have a look at my "work in progress" gardens and find that Rudolf the deer has got stuck in my raised beds.
This gives me an idea...

Could I get more trapped in there? After many days I've managed to corral a few of the natives. This is wonderful, I'm well on my way to building Icarus' first Petting Zoo in my palace grounds. That really shows the local nobility how important I am now, and the kids will love them, I can sell them diced goat to feed to the deer, they'll love that. It's so therapeutic watching them, I could do it all day.
However I've more rock to gather, so I head off for a while and come back with half a mountain in my pockets only to find utter heart breaking devastation.
All the animals in my petting zoo are dead! Now there's no predators in this area, as far as I know...I eye the horizon in case a bear has camouflaged itself as a tree....or a rock. I fire a few arrows into a suspicious looking bush. Nothing, no yelps of pain, or serial killer coming for me, I think we're safe, we'll I'm safe, the zoo exhibits not so much.
I suspect it may have been because I didn't feed them.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2741559627
However, waste not want not, a few wording changes on the sign and we now have Icarus' first open air natural history exhibit. No feeding required.

I'll remember to feed them next time and give them some juicy cooked venison steaks with a side of sweetcorn. That should keep them going.
Or....maybe they were board to death? Could that be it? I need to make them some entertainment, something that will keep them occupied, not scare them and allow visitors to watch at the same time.
So off to the mines again then, I need lots of iron ore for this.
After some time and my pockets now full with enough Iron to build an 18 wheeler lorry with, I'm back at the palace. Someones stolen the exhibit's content. My deer skeletons are gone, those damn rabbits. Not to worry, when I'm done I'll have the best exhibit ever, no-one would want to see those mouldy old bones anyway then.
I set to work, rocks, rocks, rocks, wood, more rocks and some nails, a lot of nails. Next the local deer population (which never ever seems to run out, kind of odd that) needs to be culled, I need leather.
Several deer trophies later (I'm running out of places to put them), and enough leather to open a global luxury leather sofa shop and I can now get to work. 5 minutes later and I've built over 100 stone foundations and stuffed them into my pockets and backpack. I start to wonder why my backpack can't hold as much as my pockets can seeing as proportionally my backpack is way bigger than my pockets but only holds 1/4 of the amount of stuff. Must be an inferior dimensional transcendentalism product than my pockets are.
So with enough base pieces to build a football stadium on in my pockets I set off to the palace gardens. I need to clear a bit of space to build on, out comes the axe down go 20 trees, and a deer pretending to be a log. I've now got a good space to build the base on.

A trip back to my workshop (previously the boat house) to start with the next phase and I find a deer phased through the wall. Quick head-shot and it's down, and up, and down and round and transforming into a monster from hell! Batman it's not, Batdeer is now here!
We're allllllll gonnnnaaaa dieeeeee!
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2743806841

So after hiding behind a tree for several minutes I come to the conclusion it's dead, it hasn't moved, it's just hanging there in the sky looking at me. OK, erm, how to skin it then.... I find a leg, or wing, possibly a straw tongue thing to suck my brains out with, who knows...and so i start skinning.
Oh my, it's even worse now, the stuff of nightmares, I'm never going to sleep again, never, ever, ever, ever again. The sight is burned into my eyes...no wait my eyes are in my head somewhere else, they never really saw it, erm, what did see it? It hurt's my head, or maybe that's a bear chewing my skull somewhere. Either way I didn't really see it, all's good. If that's what I need to tell myself to sleep at night....
I photograph the decaying corpse of BatDeer anyway, you know as a keepsake, maybe I'll get it enlarged and hang it over the fireplace.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2743808161

Back to the task at hand, glass and lots of it. I realise I need epoxy resin, which comes from tree sap, which comes from trees, which appears that I need almost an entire tree to produce a couple of packets of. I wonder where the empty packets come from, they just seem to appear.
The nearby forest is destroyed, I'm not worried about deforestation here, the trees will just regrown overnight. Amazing planet this.
Many days later, the magical mines stripped of Iron nodes, over and over and over and over and over again. With more glass than that old Burj Khalifa building (boy did that turn out bad, who'd have thought building on sand could go so wrong) I build my glass walls.
Hundreds of them.
With the walls in my pocket I set off to my new exhibits base. Would you look at that, there's some deer already there ready and waiting to be enslaved and fed their wild family members.
Bum, they've run off.
Anyway the walls go up, it's done, and a bonus concrete viewing platform put up as well. It's Icarus' second petting zoo, which not only entertains the visitors but provides the exhibits plenty of entertainment in finding their water bowl. Now just to try and lure some deer in.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2746498514

After many days I decide this hasn't gone to plan, the nosy deer don't want to go through the open doorway (so I can seal them in afterwards), they want to try and phase through the glass walls themselves.
I think a rethink is in order......

[Shamm]

I don't have a medal, but if I had a medal, I'd give it you. Write a book please!

[potterr]

Returning to my Workshop after an off planet abduction by the bosses, I find someone has stolen one of my beautifully crafted cupboards, in particular the one with all my gold in.
I feel violated, hundreds and hundreds of bars of gold that took sooooooo long to mine, smelt and carefully stuff into a wardrobe smaller than the mass of gold. Gone! All gone.
I'm enraged, I need to hunt down the culprit and bring them to justice. So first off a quick scan of the horizon, no sign of anything moving with a wardrobe on it's back. I need to go higher, so up I go onto the roof of my palace. I can see for miles up here...is that, could it be? is that a Pub over there? I can see the pub from here! Hmm, no my mistake it's a deer stuck in a rock with it's head poking out. I got my hopes up there, thought it was the Stags Head beckoning me. I scan the horizon a bit more, on the lookout for other pubs, the "Unruly Pig", "The Cat & Custard Pot" and "The Drunken Duck", sadly I see none. And there's no sign of any rabbit dragging a cupboard with 800 bars of gold in it either.
The anger has built up, not just the missing gold but the disappointment of not sitting by the fire with a pint of "Icarus Best" in the pub. I fire all my arrows randomly to let off steam, they fly everywhere, unexpectedly one goes through a window on the west wings second floor. Straight out a window on the other side and straight through the eye of a passing goat. I just can't miss, even when I'm not trying. Sadly the goat didn't have any of my gold on it, bum. I wonder if I could experiment with shooting an arrow through loads of windows and bring down a deer. It could be a new sport, "Trick Shot Animal Slaughter". A great one to get the kids into, wholesome family fun.
I trudge round my palace grounds, feeling depressed about the loss of my retirement plan, how will I pay the gardeners to keep the hedges trimmed and weed out the gorse bushes from the kitchens floor?

But something unexpected happens...I meet Nigel. Nigel is a deer, Nigel is also not very clever, in fact it would be more appropriate to say, Nigel is very, very stupid.
Nigel has found his way into the petting zoo. I thought this was brilliant at first, the first self volunteered occupant of the petting zoo, it wouldn't be long before I would have a whole herd in there. All thoughts of stolen bullion gone from my head.
I seal him in, drop a few goat steaks in a corner and a water-skin made from one of his cousins and go up to the top of the viewing platform to watch the entertainment. After an hour I realise Nigel isn't very entertaining. He's just runs up and down one side of the zoo wall phasing his head through the glass. Up and down, up and down trying to pass through solid glass walls, in the mistaken belief that if you don't succeed the first time there's every chance you will on the 372nd time. Like watching a single player game of tennis with no ball and the player somehow thinks running back and forth along the net is how you play.
I wonder just how long it will take Nigel to turn round and navigate the thrilling entertainment of the petting zoo. I think I'll need some snacks for this.
So some roasted corn, a bottle of wine and a few steaks and back to the viewing platform. Nigel is still going back and forth, seemingly oblivious to the fact that there's food and drink behind him. I settle down to watch and wait for realisation to dawn in Nigel of the joy and wonderment of his new found environment.
2 days later and this sadly hasn't happened. He's still going up and down one side of the glass cage attempting to phase through it.
Nigel must have landed on his head as a baby. Probably a few times.
Something dawns on me after watching Nigel trying his best to pass his body through solid matter in a corner for a few minutes. I realise I can restrict Nigel's access more by putting up a wall behind him. So I do that, but not to be cruel or anything like that, obviously... I wondered if it was possible to tame and ride Nigel across the vast open spaces of Icarus like a horse. We could be like The Lone Ranger and Silver, Lancelot and Beric, Atreyu and Artax, Shrek and Donkey...no wait that ones not right.
We would be "The Headless Spaceman and Nigel" !! Roaming the planet Icarus is search of wrong doers, fighting the crimes of Barney the Bubbly Boar, Calum the Cuddly Cougar, Gentle Edward the Elephant, Wallace the Cave Worm and "The Mad Indestructible Psycho Killer - Ripper the Polar Bear" and his number one lieutenant "Benny the Bad Bear". I may need an army for those two...some rocket launchers, laser rifles, a battalion of tanks and enough ammunition to fill a drop-ship with.
Then after vanquishing our foes we'd head back to the palace for a well earned cup of tea and biscuits and a goat steak for Nigel. But first, Nigel needs taming like they used to do with those wild horses at rodeos. I climb into Nigel's, now cramped, cage. He's spooked and attempts to climb out of the cage standing on his back legs. Although he appears to forget what he's doing after a while and just stands there. Now's my chance, I try and climb on his back...and slide off. I try again, and again and again. This is not going to plan, he needs to be on all fours not pretending to be human. He needs some disapline, I shout "Nigel, drop and give me 20!" in an attempt to sound authoritarian and scare him into obeying. However all that happens is the wolf gnawing on my head, wherever my head is, runs off scared that their chew toy is now yelling at them.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2755767227

I think I may have to give up on Nigel and just let him get used to his new environment in his own time.
I figure now is probably a good time to finish off building the rest of the Petting Zoo. So I set about making a small adventure playground for the zoo resident. A big extension to the base goes in first, more glass walls and then I remove the old walls to open the space up a bit. Nigel runs free into the new space, he seems happy for a moment till he gets to the wall, then back to his odd game of tennis. Back and forth, back and forth.
Still, time to start building the adventure playground, complete with seesaw. For this I'll need more wood. So off I go for a stroll and quick deforestation session. I come back with a small forest in my back pocket only to find, no Nigel. He's escaped, but how, there's no exit, and he spent many, many days failing to phase through the glass walls. How did he get out? I wonder if the bosses abducted him too, will he come down in a drop-ship in a few days time? I'll have to wait and see.
Kind of seems a bit pointless now building an adventure playground for Nigel when Nigel is no more. I carry on anyway as I'm sure one of his cousins will somehow magically appear in the zoo at a later date.
Seesaw first, it's got to be big to fit a deer on, unfortunately after a few tries I realise physics in Icarus seem a tad off and I've effectively made a large ramp, there's no up and down to it pivoting off a central beam. It's just up, fall or jump off the end and break your leg. Still that could be fun, Nigel might like that, if he ever comes back.
So the climbing frame goes up, I realise I haven't quite left enough room for the massive structure I had in mind, so for the time being I'm going to have to just do a bit. When Nigel finally comes back I'll extend it some more, I start to wonder if he is trying to phase through the windows on the space station into open space...he may never come back.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2755767674

While I was building the petting zoo it dawned on me that it was an Olympic year. I start to think, wouldn't it be good to have the first Icarus Olympics, I'm sure I can set that up. I start to panic though, I don't have much time to build the Olympic facilities, what am I going to do for the opening ceremony? Where can I build the stadium? Why are there no bikes here? And how on Icarus am I going to play a football tournament by myself with a complete lack of balls available on the planet.
Lots to do, lots to prepare, soooo much stone to gather, oh and I've still got to find the bugger that stole my gold.

[potterr]

It's Olympics time! I've spent many, many, many weeks mining, mining, erm, mining and practising trick shots from the front courtyard, through my palace windows taking down deer's in the formal gardens. Just call me "The Headless Archer".
Thousands of tons of concrete have been made in my little cement mixer
Sadly Nigel has not returned from hie escape/abduction by the bosses. I worry about him, wandering the halls of the space station, partially phasing through the walls and exposing his head to open space (I envy him having a head, I miss mine), freezing it solid and...no it's too much to think about.
So back to the anticipation, the excitement, the wonder and amazement of the first Icarus Olympic games.

The opening ceremony goes without a hitch, all of Icarus' teams parade round the stadium, myself included, in fact just myself as no-one else turned up.
I had spent the day before running round the Caldera my Palace is in, holding the Olympic torch, greeting the locals, who didn't seem to get the idea and ran away into the nearest wall. Not to worry it's all new to them, next Olympics they will be lining the wooded pathways cheering me on.
Being the only person in the torch relay it took a bit of time, what with only being able to run for a few seconds without needing to lean against a rock and get my breath back.
But still I manage a full lap and arrive at the stadium to the, er, startled rabbit that found it's way in. In a slight change to normal proceedings I light the Olympic Cauldron/Goat first through some cleverly arranged windows, the crowd, er Rabbit cheers/looks on in bewilderment. Now's it's time for the cultural performances, I do a bit of a choreographed dance with my bow and arrows, demonstrating a tradition of firing arrows wildly in all directions. 2 deer drop dead outside the stadium, arrows through their eyes. I didn't even know they were there.

Due to a lack of silver and any knowledge of making Bronze, the medals are now Gold, Titanium and Copper, and they're not so much medals more like ingots.

Now on with the events:

High Diving

The first event and I'm very nervous, it's long way up to the diving board. I start to climb to the dizzying heights of the top board, I get to the top, somehow slip and fall to the bottom again. Owww, sprained my ankle there. 30 seconds later and it's all fine again. No idea how I fell off there, I'll put it down to nerves. Back up to the top again and this time I don't plummet to by death and instead I gingerly walk to the end of the diving board and peer over. It's a long way down. The crowd appear to be taking their seats, or more trying to jump over them, hard to tell really.
I take my position ready for my 305B dive (reverse 2 1/2 somersaults in pike position). The crowd are, erm, trying to escape, maybe to just get a better view from a distance without having to stare up so much, yes that's it. I jump.
Part way down I realise no matter how much I try I can't actually do a roll, bum. I land in the water feet first, having successfully performed the "Spaceman falling to their death with 25 (yes 25) wild arm movements in the terror position". I surface and the crowd are, er, gone... maybe there's something amazing going on in the main stadium. I climb out and take my position as all the judges. For lack of cardboard numbers, the wooded sign comes out and its: 1, 1.5, 2, 2, 2.5, 9. The judge giving the 9 must have either been asleep or biased. That's a sure Gold Medal win there.
I wait for the other participants to take their dive... wind whistles through the empty stands, the sun starts to go down. Due to failing light and other participants losing their way to the pool, the medals are then awarded.
In Gold position it's... Me, I award myself the medal to cheers, in the distance, possibly a bear maybe, or maybe I'm just imagining it.
A goat walks into the empty pool area, our eyes meet. It bleats at me as if to say "well done" and runs off. Onto the next event then.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2758240191

Synchronised Swimming (solo)

Taking full use of the excellent facilities provided by the Icarus Olympic committee the synchronised swimming begins. I take my place in the pool with my partner.... well you have to use your imagination here, it's still just me. We wait for the music to start before preforming our well choreographed performance. Sometime later I realise that there is no PA system, however a deer wanders into the pool area and screeches at me, er us. It will have to do, not really a good beat to it but for lack of any recorded music a live baritone singer will suffice.
We move in perfect harmony, imaginary me and me working as one spaceman in a pool. I take full advantage of being able to breath underwater (maybe something to do with my head being out of the water, in a wolves den somewhere maybe) and our entire performance is done below the surface.
After what seems like ages, we surface and notice the live band/deer have left and the audience has grown by 2 rabbits. I get out of the pool and take my place with the other judges, which took a while as there weren't any, but out comes the scoring sign again and the judges make their decision. It's a unanimous 9, 9, 9, 9, 9, 9, 9, 9 score, I/we are all set to win yet another Gold Medal. I wait for the 2 rabbits (that I assume are rival athletes) to take their positions in the pool ready for their performance. After a few minutes they haven't moved, in my current role as judge I go over to remind them they need to get into the pool. My headless form appears to startle them and they run, right into the pool, good, we can now begin.
At the same time the band/deer appears again and starts to play/screech. Flopsey and Mopsey the rabbits take a leaf out of my book and appear to be doing their performance underwater. The judge(s) watch for a few minutes, the rabbits performance isn't too thrilling, in fact they seem to just be sitting on the bottom of the pool not moving. Sadly, due to a lack of actual performance the rabbits are disqualified.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2762968180

Sailing

It's back to the water again to enjoy the majestic sea on board the finest boat Icarus has ever seen in the sailing event (Lovingly called Y722 being 1 better than that other one).
Due to a lack of actual sea and the finest boat missing sails and the minor inconvenience of it being fixed to a lake bed via timber posts we will have to adjust the rules a bit.
The aim now in the event is to remain berthed at the dock and relax on the deck with a nice bottle of wine. The first participant to fall off the boat drunk is the gold medal winner. Just like how the rich bosses did back on earth, yacht's aren't for sailing they're for getting drunk on.
The starters pistol goes, I settle down to the first bottle of wine. It's gone in seconds, just poured down my neck hole, it's so much quicker to drink when you don't have a head with that pesky tongue getting in the way.
The next bottle comes out and down it goes, bottle after bottle and now I'm very clearly in the lead, and yet I'm feeling no ill effects of all this wine....I like this. Next crate please!
After sometime I am declared the winner, by myself, AKA the judges. I manage to climb out of the pile of bottles and walk in a very straight line (only 6 course corrections) to the podium... and past it. I realise my blunder and blame a nearby rabbit for moving the podium, no-one noticed, good. What was I doing again. Ah right, kebab time.
No, there was something else.
Not to worry, this puddle looks a good place to have a kip. The next event can wait a bit.
Where's my left shoe? And my head! wheres my head? I must have left it on the boat. It can wait till morning, or Monday.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2763019603

[Moiralarr]

.

[potterr]

After a lovely sleep in a soggy bed/puddle, a quick dip in the pool to refresh myself and I'm ready to face the remaining events.

100m sprint

The main sports stadium looks superb, especially seeing as I've not worked out how to build curves on Icarus.
So the first event in the stadium is the 100m sprint. The stadium isn't quite big enough to easily fit 100m in so the starting block is one wall and the finish line is the wall the other side of the stadium. It may hurt a bit trying to cross the finish line but it's a small price to pay for a Gold Medal.
I take my place at the wall ready for the starters pistol, only to remember I'd left it back in the workshop. A quick trip and I'm back ready to start the race.
BANG, and...no-one moves, in fact as I stand at the edge of the track holding the starter pistol I notice there are no athletes ready to run. Ah, the only competitor is standing watching the race from the side. A quick dash to the start line and off I go. I run, run as fast as my legs will carry me, the finish line/concrete wall is in sight. But I start to slow down, a red message appears in front of me, "STAMINA DEPLETED"! What on Icarus is that? am I being sabotaged, some kind of race fixing?
A deer runs past me and crosses the finish line, head straight through the concrete wall/finish line, it looks painful...I plod slowly to the end and collapse against the wall. I'm gutted, second place... second place....I trained for soooo long, running, running, and more running, carrying car sized boulders in my backpack to build up strength. I even built the track so I know where the perfect lines are on it. But I still just came second in a competition with just one competitor. My rival, we'll call him Bob as, with his head in a wall, he's unable to tell me his real name, is clearly the better athlete here. I go to congratulate him being the honourable sportsman I am, he appears to be stuck though, so being the helpful chap I am I get out my pickaxe and start to chip away at the wall Bob is in.
A slight miscalculation or 3 of my aim and unfortunately Bob is now dead. Its truly a tragedy, he was clearly an up and coming sprinter with such a career in running ahead of him, pickaxed down in his prime. Sadly that means the Gold Medal goes to me then. It seems unfair but I'm sure that's what Bob would have wanted.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2769069382

High Jump

The crowds favourite, the good old high jump. Who will impale themselves with a pole? Which competitor will break their neck on landing? Will the pole break and the competitor bash their head into the ground?
The crowd/small rabbit are eager to see.
I take my place, wooden beam in hand, I run, I see my stamina bar drop rapidly but I'm at the jump. I stop and carefully place the wooden beam down and attempt to climb up it. It's too high up. So a bit of thought is needed here. I run out the stadium, cut a few trees down and come back.
To help me get onto my pole (wooden beam) I build a ramp up to it. This is great I can get onto it now. Trouble is it's still 4 lengths too short for me to jump over. Back out to the trees I go, a few ramps built later and I have now built a ramp up to the High Jump top bar. I jump over it and suddenly realise there is no safety mat below...bum.
One broken leg later, a sit by the lake for 5 mins to let it fully heal and on to round 2. The same happens, another wait, a large snack of 4 deer to build my health back up and we're on to the final round. Up I go, over I go and...seriously this must be the most dangerous sport ever, guaranteed to break bones.
I hobble over to the podium and climb up, slowly. Another gold for me, and possibly some psychiatric help too.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2769096962

Archery

The next event is one that, due to not having any archery targets on Icarus, required some clever negotiations with the locals to encourage them to be targets. Such jolly good sports.
So first up we start with the 50m deer shot. I take my time, line up the shot and....fire. Perfect 10, straight through the deer's eye, incredible really seeing as the targets head was inside a wall. The old target is removed, butchered, cooked and eaten, I pay respects for his sacrifice to the sport. Now comes the task of coaxing the next target in.
A few days pass and eventually we reach round 2, the 75m goat shot. I take careful aim, a deer gallops past me, I lose concentration and release the arrow, it flies way over the safety walls and straight through the head of an eager young deer on their way to see the Canoeing. We'll pretend that didn't happen, what me? Bow and arrow. don't know what you're talking about.
I wait a bit for it's mother to disappear into the distance before resuming the competition. Another perfect 10, a tasty snack and memorial service and another challenging time guiding the next "willing" target into the range.
We're now onto the final shot, the 100m rabbit shot. I feel the difficulty curve here is somewhat steep but it's the Olympics, you have to be top of your game to take part. Cottentail is waiting for the proudest moment in her life helping me achieve another gold medal. She looks at me as if to say "good luck". I feel the eyes of the world watching, I steady my breath, but I start to struggle doing that. Am I too nervous to take the shot? no I'm almost out of that blue rock stuff. So a quick dash to gather some more and stuff it in my spacesuit and I feel great again.
Back at the range I find Cottentail has wandered off and is now down by the lake, oh well, I fire anyway...what a shot! Cottentail's finest moment arrived and together we scored another perfect 10. Another gold and the crowd goes wild, or more accurately has always been wild but now they are running in all directions celebrating. After a minute or two I come to the conclusion they may not be coming back.
Still the next event awaits me.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2769067388

Canoeing

Next up, another water sport, Canoeing. The course is laid out and is a gruelling mile long course from the top lake to the bottom lake. Including a waterfall, small but still difficult to navigate.
Like the sailing, things don't seem to actually float very well on Icarus (must be something in the water). So in order to complete the course, participants will need to dismantle and rebuild their canoes at no more than 10m intervals along the river in order to progress. Convoluted I know, but a thrilling sport to watch none the less.
At this point in the games the starter has given up with the starting pistol and participants go when the feel like it. So while at the starting point and after a snack of wine, beer, a pumpkin and some more wine I set off. My canoe is quickly dismantled, carted a few meters down river, and quickly rebuilt. Turns out it's backwards so it's dismantled and rebuilt again. Some energy giving berries to keep me going and time to quickly dismantle the canoe again.
Some time passes and I've been doing the mile long course for over an hour now, but the end is in sight. Just 2 more rebuilds and I'm there. There's no sign of my fellow athletes behind me, I must be doing really well.
Whats this? One of the crown is swimming out towards me, is it after an autograph? Now? Such bad timing, where are the officials keeping the crowd in order? My fan swims up to me, bleets and quickly swims away. What was that all about? was that some kind of delay tactic, I look around, no sign of my competitors. Was it just that my fan was overwhelmed with emotion and couldn't face asking for an autograph? I've got time, so I hastily craft a wooden signpost and sign it "The Headless Spaceman", I can still see my fan shaking the water of it's fur in the distance. How do I get the autograph over to it? I know I'll fire it over on an arrow, my fan would love that.
While attempting to balance the signpost on an arrow I accidentally release the bowstring. The arrow flys away and the signpost falls to the bottom of the river, damn, how am I going to get that out?
I needn't have bothered, upon looking up my fan has now gone, I should have been quicker.
I continue, and finally reach the finish line, a goat with an arrow through it's head floats past, poor fellow, the locals round here are really quite ruthless.
The judges now score my canoeing performance, so I quickly craft another signpost and write the judges scores on it. Its 7.5, 7.5, 8, 8, 8.5, 11. I'm confused how I get 11 out of 10, although the judge explains it's due to dedication to my fans while still competing. I'm chuffed. We wait a while for other competitors to finish. This doesn't happen, maybe their canoe's sank. So yet another Gold Medal for me.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2769069800

Gymnastics

The final event is Gymnastics, back to the stadium I go. First up the floor event.
I jump, I dance, I run, I crash into a wall, this is not my best event.... Then its onto the Balance Beam. Again needing to make a little ramp here to get onto it as Icarus' gravity must be much stronger than earths here, it's so hard to jump high. Up on the balance beam, it dawns on me that my space suit is super tight and won't allow me to do hand stands, or rolls, or well anything like that. So I'm just going to, erm, balance instead.
30 Minutes of balancing later, the sum starts to set, time for the Rings. Now my space suit doesn't seem to let me grip things very well, and no-where can I find a blueprint for a ring so we're going to use our imagination here. I jump high up onto the rings, I spin, swing (at one point going right over the top), balance, hang by my feet, do a full plank just using one ring and do a triple somersault to dismount. Or at least that's what the judges believed happen, as I stood there eating corn, judging myself doing all the these amazing moves while at the same time writing out another score signpost. The scores are in at its, 7, 7, 7, 8 ,8 ,8.5, a good solid score. I watch as a rabbit runs into the stadium, it looks up at the beam, then the rings and then at me as if to say "Yeah right" and off it goes. So looks like I win gold again.


https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2769069110

On my way to the podium I notice a deer standing on the second place stand, I name it Sebastian Doe and for lack of anyone else around, Doe is awarded the second place Titanium medal. The crowd/trapped rabbit cheer/looks on bewildered, hard to tell really.


https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2769097196

The games are over for this year, but due to the overwhelming crowds and participation of the summer games, the organiser decides that there should be a winter games as well.
However before that, while building the high diving board I wonder just how high I can make a tower and ladder, could I actually build Icarus' first space elevator? All the way back up to the space station?
I will have to try.