To Miss the Mark

-[X] Craft something
--[X] What? (12 food, 6 water, 2 regular oxygen tanks, 4 copper wires.)
-[X] Explore a nearby location..
--[X] [further out from our base]
-[X] Gather resources from a known location x2
--[X] Where? [Where we explore]

---

The crafting was your first focus when you woke up, calmly crafting things together so they were in more useful forms for you. The fish got a bit drier and less hydrating, but more nutritious overall, and you had water to handle the dehydration. It was infected water, which you knew from the game, but that was fairly unimportant. You did wonder if perhaps you should get some more stuff crafted soon, but for now you were still focusing on gathering resources and scouting out the area. After all, it was certainly different from the game. Hardly a one to one parallel. Given the days and nights were longer than a few minutes each, and you had to sleep... that made sense.

Still, you got some food made to eat while exploring and then made the oxygen tanks, finishing a bit after the sun had risen. Clipping the first into place, and the second into the strange inventory that the PDA had, you clipped the PDA to your belt and dove back into the water. It was significantly easier to explore now, the oxygen tanks giving you much more time below the surface before you had to surface and refill them. And since you could refill them both at once, it was actually less time overall than the game would've led you to believe.

You noticed a few boxes with broken, unusable devices in them that your PDA didn't have in its crafting recipe section, bits and pieces of tech that would be incredibly useful if you could scan them in. It was something to think about. Still, as before, your focus today was figuring out your location and the nearby resources that were available. And maybe making a knife so you didn't have to keep ripping the Creepvine fibers off with brute strength, or punching the rocks that contained the resources you needed. It wasn't painful, really, or harmful long-term, just a minor hassle and annoyance. Luckily, the rest of your day was interesting enough to put such thoughts out of your mind.

Thanks to being able to swim longer, your swimming skill started climbing at a greater speed, and that led to a number of offshoots that unlocked. You couldn't use them yet, given you didn't have the skill slots for it, but you could feel your system shifting and growing in your mind, the improvements something you'd be able to access during your next testing of the system. For now... you had, probably, a few weeks or months to successfully cure yourself and escape the planet. At least, if things followed the lore from the game. So, you focused on exploring. Which led you from the creepvine into some sandy valley-like area that had bloody-red grasslike stuff across a decent chunk of it. There was a wreck nearby, and what looked like a vent that led deeper into a cave system. It was warmer near the entrance, and you managed to gather some quartz from the sand and grass.

Beyond that, you also found even more copper and titanium, and even a few bits of silver and a chunk of gold. You barely made it back home before dark, less exhausted than the last time and noticing that the tanks had lasted you slightly longer at the end than the start, telling you that your swimming skill was reducing the strain swimming was putting on your body while also improving your speed and familiarity with it. Checking on your Survival skill while you finished crafting everything you'd planned to make left you curious. Survival was at level 7, while Swimming had reached 12. Part of that was excess Experience going into developing and unlocking skills related to the two you already had, refining the current skills while also trying to refine those unused skills as much as possible while you weren't in that strange space outside of reality.

As you finished your crafting, you sighed, considering whether to check the wreckage or not. You could find useful materials and new techs, but until you could scan them into your PDA that wouldn't do much good... you'd had to skip over the boxes you found earlier, but eventually you'd both want, and NEED that tech to really make any progress. After all, it took a decent chunk of time to travel between areas, and getting a seamoth- or even just a seaglide- would be so incredibly useful for traveling around faster and gathering more materials in every trip. But... that would require getting more and more valuable materials, so... really, it depended on getting those starting resources. It was going to be a slog, wasn't it?

---

Due to your Swimming Skill reaching 10+, you have increased ability to cover longer distances, reflected in higher AP per day (+1). In future worlds, AP will have different mechanisms for increasing, but some skills will always have AP-relevant functions. Due to survival reaching 5+, You will always succeed in finding resources if you look for them.

Skills will have narrative impacts that can, at certain level breakpoints, impact gameplay or mechanics. I will roll every time a relevant action is selected to determine how much the skill increases by, if at all. This will likely change as the Quest continues and your and my systems are stress tested. Here in Subnautica, for example, every action involves swimming and Survival, currently. Later on, with Sea-moths and Cyclopes and PRAWN suits getting more involved, that may change.

You have 4 5 AP. Any option can be selected multiple times, unless stated otherwise.

[X] Please select two or more activities for what your day will look like.
-[X] Gather resources from a known location
--[X] Where? [Write in]
-[X] Explore a nearby location..
--[X] [Write in, or leave blank and I'll pick something]
-[X] Craft something
--[X] What? [If you have the supplies, I'll let you make anything you want within reason; this can craft multiple objects at once.]

Your Radio has alerted you to the presence of other lifepods in your surrounding area, and the danger of the exploding core of the Aurora.
-[X] You would like to go on an expedition to a site...
--[X] A nearby Lifepod
--[X] A distant Lifepod (Costs 2 AP)
--[X] The Aurora (Costs 2 AP, Radiation Hazards)

Sorry for how long it took to get to this point.

---

It was a simple thing to work on collecting more basic materials. Still, at least you had some useful things. It was getting annoying going without a scanner, but you were usually too busy getting distracted with other things, and you kept missing the Acid mushrooms. Those were going to be a priority from now on for certain. You were falling way behind, and it was your own fault. A bit of basic gathering later today and you'd be picking up speed on actually getting this thing moving where it was needed. For now, you had some crafting to do.

You settled in and crafted the food you'd be snacking on throughout the day to keep your energy up, alongside some water to replace what you'd be using. Then you threw together a Compass, which would make keeping track of your position easier, and make finding resources more reliable in the future. That helped. You had other projects in mind, but those could wait for tonight before you slept. The sun was rising, so you snatched up your tanks and supplies and clambered up and out into the water. Right now, you had two main goals- exploring, and resource collection. You started by gathering from the area around you- you snatched a ton of nearby creepvine seed clusters, dropping them off at the nearby pod for an hour or two before you set off to find more stuff. You intentionally avoided any other resources for now- you'd made a mess of ignoring the clusters, so you'd just snatch some extra stuff before you left the other area you needed to get to. For now, that meant the Grassy Plateau South and West of here.

Refilling your oxygen tanks was easy- they'd been designed to interface with gasses in the atmosphere, swapping CO2 for a healthy mix of more useable air, and doing so automatically. If you had better technical skills, it may have been possible to build a tank that could filter the air from the water itself, but that wasn't in your wheelhouse. Still... it gave you an idea- as you moved- that you planned to implement later tonight. For now, you dove as you reached the plateau, the suit protecting you from any sunburns you may have had. You sank down quick enough as you swam, and found yourself staring at the tops of the rock formations there... eyes widening as you realized what was there. Acid Mushrooms.

You swam over quickly and started dumping them into the mildly stifling annoyance that was the limited space of your PDA. Once you were nearly full, you looked around and gathered a few other resources, snatching up some more quartz and a few interesting bits and bobs. Then you were on your way back, with way more time than you'd planned on having. You grabbed a bit more from the Creepvine on the way, holding a pair of seeds in your hands. As you clambered up into the pod, you dumped everything, stretching and blinking down at your surprisingly muscled form. Your body was adapting quickly thanks to the swimming Skill. That, plus your Stats passively improving, was doing wonders for you. Still, as you glanced over your own sheet, you realized you needed to do a touch of book-keeping. The automatic systems were working in the background, and performing admirably, but you had barely kept aware of your stats. What use was it if you didn't pay attention? You'd have to start actually looking at them and thinking about them more.

Like with the mushrooms and seed pods, it was an oversight that was rather foolish on your part, but hey. You'd do better. For now, you emptied your inventory and listened to your radio, hearing about something not far from here. Glancing at your compass and PDA, with a touch of mental math it was... towards the Aurora. Not in the area you believed the radiation was contained but-... the radiation. In the game, that had been there constantly as a game mechanic. But here, the cores hadn't blown up yet. You weren't sure how long you had, but the radiation leak shouldn't be nearyly as bad as in the game... if you were fast enough, maybe you could prevent the engines from exploding at all... You couldn't have long, a few days to a week at most, but... it was possible.

For now, you snatched up your needed supplies- food, water, the scanner and knife you crafted the second you got back- and prepped your tanks. Then you dove in, beginning to head towards the likely sunk lifepod. After all, it wasn't like you were exactly likely to find other living survivors. This was Subnautica, after all... and, as you passed through some safe shallows to your North, you eventually reached a spot where you found the life pod. It was floating above the water... the right way up.

You rushed closer, clambering up and banging on the top, yanking it open and looking inside to find... a man. He stood frozen, staring up at you with wide, shocked eyes. He was fairly plain, his own suit hanging in a distinctly masculine manner as looked stunned to see you. You grinned at him, sort of shocked and not really certain how to feel about your luck. How... how was this going to work? You started to chuckle, your face flushed as you both relaxed and just... processed for a bit. It seemed you weren't alone...

---

So. I gave you a Knife and Scanner free of resource costs thanks to realizing I messed up your ability to make them by ignoring incredibly easily accessed resources that were common where you had gathered from previously. So hopefully that makes up for it! You discovered a new zone on this expedition, and you found a friend. Which is a bit of a problem- good and bad stuff. He doesn't have skills, and he has his own priorities. He'll listen to you, but he won't give you much of his AP to use. Still, he'll be helpful, most likely. In future worlds, you'll need to roll to make allies and such. However this time, in this world? Survival trumps that. As long as no one is too awful, he'll be your ally in getting off of this world.

Let's see how you guys handle Mark.
You have 5 AP. Any option can be selected multiple times, unless stated otherwise.

[X] Please select two or more activities for what your day will look like.
-[X] Gather resources from a known location
--[X] Where? [Write in]
-[X] Explore a nearby location..
--[X] [Write in, or leave blank and I'll pick something]
-[X] Craft something
--[X] What? [If you have the supplies, I'll let you make anything you want within reason; this can craft multiple objects at once.]

Your Radio has alerted you to the presence of other lifepods in your surrounding area, and the danger of the exploding core of the Aurora.
-[X] You would like to go on an expedition to a site...
--[X] A distant Lifepod (Costs 2 AP)
--[X] The Aurora (Costs 2 AP, Radiation Hazards)

You have met someone new! Right now he's not feeling too confident about his survival, since he was just a janitor with a bit of engineering experience, but now that you're here, he's feeling more confident about doing better than just surviving until rescue can arrive. He has no major supplies and was about to finally go exploring for fish to eat and a source of water before you stopped by. With your explanations of his area as the 'safest area on the planet', he'll go swimming more often. What will you have him do?
1 Mark AP.
-[X] Gather from the Shallows
-[X] Explore some new area
-[X] Do something with you
--[X] What will he do with you? {Please select an option for him to help you with}


Feel free to ask if you have any questions or need any help.

Voting is open for the next 24 Hours.

I'll be listing any sources that can help with future crafting projects here. Such as Wiki's, cited sources, and any recipes made by myself for the Quest. Starting with the first world, Subnautica:

---

You had a very long, awkward conversation with Mark, figuring out that he was a janitor, but had a love of cooking that left him heart-broken at the lack of cookware and heat-sources on the planet. Instead, all the cooking had to be done by the fabricator, which he claimed left the fish tasting artificial and bitter. You hadn't noticed anything, but then... this was the first time you could remember being in a body, so maybe there were a few other issues with your taste buds and he was right. Hopefully that wouldn't impact your reactions in the future too heavily... Still, while you were there, you built yourself a flashlight for the road and double checked his supplies. You took a fire hydrant to replace the one you used, and a few flares in case you needed his help.

Still. You had goals and plans, and Mark was a reliable and trustworthy companion for the moment. You tried not to get too friendly- you were certain you'd be leaving him behind when all was said and done, and the idea of leaving behind a friend was... unsettling. Rather than risk getting too close with him, you had him gather in the area around his life pod. Given he felt safest there, he didn't complain too much. He just got to work. You gave him pointers on how to catch the fish around the area, and he no longer needed to worry about feeding himself, or keeping himself hydrated, which severely reduced the amount of time he wasted, and improved his ability to gather other materials.

He made some jokes, got you talking about what you'd found, and described his own experiences. He warned you about the freakish exploding fish that lived in the cave areas, and gave you the sulfur he'd collected from his various run-ins with them. Which mostly involved throwing a live fish from his PDA storage in the path of the oncoming thing and watching them both explode. The blood had washed off, but he apparently had had a nightmare about it that night. You explained your own foolish ignoring of the acid mushrooms and seed clusters. He suggested you get a knife when you could to collect the leaves more effectively. He even got a few First Aid Kits from you.

You yourself snagged some Table coral while you were in the area, along with more acid 'shrooms and a few bits of copper and titanium. You left after that though, hurrying along to stumble across an odd group of creatures. You didn't exactly have a sense of danger from them, but you did get a bit too close and find them release some odd spores. You recognized a defensive measure when you saw it, so you snagged what you could and ran before seeing the ones you hadn't caught burst around them. More basic resources later, and you were on your way, having compared your and his PDA's and found a recipe you didn't have. Mostly just some chairs and other such things, but importantly... you got a bed from him. An actual bed. Neither of you had slept in an actual bed in days... Well, you couldn't remember ever sleeping in an actual bed, but you HAD woken up in one.

Finally leaving the man- finding you'd spent far more time than you'd wanted with him, and grown closer than intended- you headed back to your own lifepod, and finished up your construction there. Then you headed South. There, you saw another safe shallows, but you didn't enter it. Still, you made a note of the Southern safe shallows, and followed the ground as it slipped down into a dip that showed off an underwater forest of giant glowing mushrooms. It was beautiful, and dominated by primarily one massive tree-like mushroom. There were a few shark-like creatures in the area, but they seemed more focused on the more plentiful prey near the rest of the mushrooms... still... you did find something.

Easily the most important thing, now you'd gotten your scanner, was the Wreck at the top of the mushroom. You quickly topped up your air tanks and started the long, painful process of beginning to scan what you could without dying. Given the frequency of how you'd let your oxygen run out sometimes half a minute before reaching the surface, you felt awful about it. But... well. You got some results. Annoyingly plentiful results. Heading back to your pod, you dragged yourself in and emptied everything, just... breathing for a minute.

Then you dove back under the water and started gathering again. You cautiously explored a few caves and felt incredibly lucky to find a few bits of gold and some silver, alongside yet more copper, titanium, and... an oddly mesmerizing fish... that you scanned, after it tried to take a bite out of your hand. you felt a niggle in your mind as you felt something new unlock in your system, something that made your eyes water. You moved cautiously and stumbled across a few stalker teeth as you left the caves, heading for the lifepod and managing to slip in before anything caught sight of you as you finished your crafting and then collapsed to the ground, your suit keeping you pleasantly warm as you groaned and mentally processed your system again, manually running through things before letting yourself drift off to sleep.

---

With the latest Survival upgrade, you no longer need to micromanage food and water. It will handle itself, and you will be assumed to have plenty for yourself, as well as some extra that you share with Mark.

You have 5 AP. Any option can be selected multiple times, unless stated otherwise.

[X] Please select two or more activities for what your day will look like.
-[X] Gather resources from a known location
--[X] Where? [Write in]
-[X] Explore a nearby location..
--[X] [Write in, or leave blank and I'll pick something]
-[X] Craft something
--[X] What? [If you have the supplies, I'll let you make anything you want within reason; this can craft multiple objects at once.]

Your Radio has alerted you to the presence of other lifepods in your surrounding area, and the danger of the exploding core of the Aurora.
-[X] You would like to go on an expedition to a site...
--[X] A wreck {Select which biome you'll look at}
--[X] A distant Lifepod (Costs 2 AP)
--[X] The Aurora (Costs 2 AP, Radiation Hazards)

Mark can now handle his own hunting, and is feeling more attached to you. What will you have him do?
2 Mark AP.
-[X] Gather from the Shallows
-[X] Explore some new area
-[X] Do something with you
--[X] What will he do with you? {Please select an option for him to help you with}
-[X] Teach him a part of a skill
--[X] {What skill?}