On our last session, we’d started to build a new base on the multi-biome island where Yagluth resides. We ran across a deserted village and used that as a foundation for our new base.

As of this weekend, we’ve upgraded the walls to stone and now have a nice little tame wolf pack multiplying within it to help with defense. With that all squared away, our next step was to see what we could find on the plains.

I headed out for some solo exploration of the nearest plains while Syn finished up the base. This covered the length of a peninsula, and I was able to locate a couple of Fuling camps for later. Fulings are tough customers, so to get an entire camp swarming you is extremely dangerous. Especially if some of those are one star Fulings.

Syn came up with a great idea, though – spikes and decoys.

Taking a page out of our 7D2D experience, we turned raiding camps into a mini-tower defense event. She’d build a workbench with some spikes and walls around it, then we’d rush into the camp and pull a group back down towards the structure.

Interestingly, the Fulings almost always were more interested in our structure than us… until they destroyed them, of course. So we had a little time to pick them off while they were beating on spikes and workbenches. They also took damage from the spikes, so that was a bonus.

We’d repair whatever spikes made it through, replace the structures that were destroyed, then do it again until we got the camp population to a point we could come in and clean up.

On one such run, I rushed to the top of the camp where I found a farms of both barley and flax. I stole away with as much of that as I could… and we were in business!

Just as I thought, the flax makes thread which was the missing link for our next set of gear. Funny enough, the armor doesn’t require black metal, but rather more iron. So, we did take a couple-day detour into the Swamps where we’d marked tons of crypts for iron runs.

However, we needed lots and lots of flax. And it only grows in the plains biomes, so it was time to set up a new farm. We learned really quickly that growing barley and flax unprotected in the plains is a terrible idea. Fulings can and will attack the growing plants, just as they did structures.

This means that we had to fence in our farm for protection… so the next project was a nice big stone-walled farm.

Now that we have barley, I was able to put my new windmill to use making flour. This was something I was excitedly waiting for because flour plus cooked fish turns into fish wraps!

I’ve set up a little cooking station next to the windmill – rain or shine, fish wraps are in the makes!

This also gives me an excuse to fish again in game. When we’re not out raiding camps, I’m finding places to fish along the shores. We have plenty of cash for bait, and barley is growing in the farm, so it’s my turn to have fun while providing for our needs.

We were able to craft our first new padded armor from the flax we’ve been growing, and in successfully taking down both Fuling camps, we got a bit more bold.

The Lox have been a terror to us since the first time we ran across them. So, armed with frost and poison arrows, we decided to see what we could do against them. We found that as long as we stayed divided up, we were able to take the Lox down one at a time by ranged kiting.

After that, we started hunting the plains for Lox, pretty much taking down every one we could find. I scored a new Lox hide cloak and we added a new Lox hide rug in our main camp. Not to mention meat, which we still need to cook.

We have lots of upgrades to make – I got a new blackmetal sword, too. But gear-wise, we’re waiting for the flax to grow and weave before we can upgrade more. Luckily, the padded gear only seems to require iron for further upgrades. We have tons of iron stashed away at this point, and the ability to get even more if we need it.

So, for now, we’re sitting pretty as we continue to explore the plains and work on gearing up for the last boss fight!