Syn and I found ourselves at a point where we’d just about upgraded everything we wanted in terms of planning for taking on the second boss, the Elder. It was just a matter of trying to find where he was. We had a mark on our map, so we knew the location, but had never explored further north.

We decided to make an expedition in that direction… only to discover land didn’t actually stretch all the way up there. We were met with the shoreline to the north (and discovered that Mountain was only a little mountain location on the map and not an entire zone). This prompted an exploration session in which we followed the shoreline down to see what the perimeter of our island looked like.

We quickly came to the conclusion that the Elder was on another island somewhere else and that we’d need to build a larger boat to make it up there. And so, I journeyed back to Meadows Base and began to work on what I call the “Boat House.” I did some research on how to set up a dock so that boats don’t just float off on the ocean, and that seems to have worked overall.

This also gave me a chance to play around with building a bit more. Up until now, Syn and Amoon had done most of the structure building. I spent a good chunk of the play session building the Boat House, getting docks ready for a boat, while Syn decided to go back to the Forest Base and expand on it.

I was happy with how the Boat House turned out – it was just a little location on the coastal rocks right outside our Meadows Base. But I got to explore nice big windows and decorating with furniture – that sort of stuff.

Building the docks were a little more tricky because building on a rock near water is not quite as straightforward as building on dry land (which isn’t always straightforward, either). But finally, once I had the docks set up, I built us a bigger boat.

Not long after that, Amoon logged in to join us, and because he’s had some experience sailing in his solo play, we decided it was time to set sail and at least explore the area nearer to the Elder. We brought materials to make a portal – oh, yes, we’d made a portal system between the two bases at that point – and intended to create an outpost on the Elder’s island.

Sailing for the first time in Valheim is quite an experience, even if you’re not the one controlling the boat. We crossed over into open ocean for a little while, but most of the sailing was in the shallows. Nighttime ocean sailing was a bit tense and adventurous feeling.

We docked in a little bay once we reached the opposite shore and began to explore the area. It was only a little way in when we hit our first Swamp. I believe it was night time, so it wasn’t the best time to be exploring the area.

We skirted the swamp for a bit, travelling through black forest and fighting things off. Eventually, we came a bit too close to the swamp and creatures called draugr took interest in us. Our adventure nearly came to an abrupt end at that point as the draugr scored a kill on Syn and Amoon. I managed to survive the onslaught and was able to sneak over to Amoon’s gravestone to loot the items he was carrying to create a portal.

I did that, and they were able to come through the portal and loot their stones. We then broke down the portal for the materials and decided the best course of action was to go back to the boat and sail further around the island if possible… rather than try to push east through the swamp.

Sailing around the island, we discovered swap reached a larger area than we realized…

But we were able to find a Meadows on the coast almost directly south of the Elder’s location. So we docked, built a little portal outpost on the south coast and called it a night.