Assuming Grimworld had cycles of day and night that were similar to those of Earth, then it was after mid-day when Marcus climbed a dune and saw the sea. A line of silver was drawn straight and thin under a whiteness that only became azure blue far above the horizon. The sea was several kilometres away, across an exposed terrain of dunes and mud and clusters of grasses.

Breathing heavily, Sina joined him. ‘Oh no. I thought we were closer. I’m so thirsty.’

‘We don’t have to reach the sea though, we can turn here.’

‘All right. Let’s do that then.’

They tramped along the top of the dune, the treeline of the forest on their left and the sea in the distance to their right. The waves were too far away for Marcus to hear them, nor could he hear the cries of the sea birds that were evident, diving and wheeling in large numbers. Those birds would have eggs somewhere, but probably in cliffsides that were hard to access.

‘How many hours would you guess we’ve been walking?’ Sina had drawn alongside, a light breeze lifting her black tresses so that he couldn’t see her eyes.

‘Four?’ Marcus offered and Sina nodded thoughtfully.

‘And would you say that the sun has crossed the sky to about the same degree as it would have in four hours on Earth?’

He could feel the star around which Grimworld orbited warming his head. ‘I would. I was thinking that myself.’

‘How long then, do you think we have before dark?’

There was anxiety in her question. An understandable anxiety. Were these suits equipped with lights? ‘Six or seven hours, don’t you think?’

‘I agree, that was my assessment. Six hours.’

They walked on in silence. Then the princess asked, ‘do you know what I’ll miss the most?’

‘Servants?’ Marcus answered as a joke, but he immediately regretted the quip.

‘Mine was a rhetorical question, to which no response is necessary other than an enquiry as to learn my answer. It certainly did not call for a mean-spirited response by someone who doesn’t know me at all and has no grounds for making assumptions about me.’

‘Mea Culpa.’ Marcus threw open his arms. ‘You are right. It’s just with the sun and the sea air and my youthful body, I’m in great form. I was trying to be funny.’

She said nothing. Nor did she look anywhere but directly ahead.

‘What will you miss, Sina?’

‘Music.’

Marcus was relieved when she spoke. Her voice was natural, not angry. ‘Music?’

‘It’s my passion. I couldn’t care less about sports. Literature I will miss somewhat. Cinema too. But music. We don’t have Bach here; every day back on Earth I played his music for practice.’

The sincere look of loss in her eyes affected Marcus and for a moment punctuated his own high spirits. He reached across and patted her arm. ‘I once read an anthropology book that said early humans, because they lived in relative freedom and were not slaves to their work, probably produced a dozen Mozarts with every generation. Perhaps there is music here, amazing music.’

‘Were these early humans cannibals and slavers?’ she asked scornfully.

‘Ahh, probably not.’

After walking for another an hour it seemed to Marcus that it was likely that they would find a river soon, for looking towards the sea, Marcus made note of the darker tone of the mud and an increase in the number of wader birds out in that direction. He did not, however, comment on this in case he was mistaken. There was no need to raise Sina’s hopes only to dash them if he was wrong.

Just a few minutes after that thought, Marcus crested a slight rise and looked down from a grassy bank to a stream that ran from the forest to the sea in long, sinuous loops. It had been hidden by the gully it had made. The water was shallow and about a metre wide. A screen opened.

Congratulations! You have completed the Quest: Discover Clean Water

You have obtained a source of drinking water.

Reward: refresh your thirst.

‘Did you see that?

‘Thank God. Is it safe?’ Made clumsy by her suit, the princess slid down the bank, gathering a long streak of mud along her leg, which made Marcus consider the value of mud as camouflage. Their suits were bright white and easily seen from a long distance.

‘I have a quest complete message. It’s safe.’

She was standing in the flow of the stream now, looking at the cheerful, bright ripples on the water but unable to drink as her gloves were too awkward to bring the water to her mouth. Casting about for something he could fashion into a cup – a hollow log? – Marcus stopped searching when he noticed her unfastened a glove. Rinsing it in the stream, the princess filled the glove with water and then was able to use it to pour the water into her mouth.

Marcus blinked and a shiver ran through his body. There was something profoundly beautiful about this moment. Sunlight; drops of water, each a glittering universe. A smile. Pleasure. Intense relief. Closed eyes with a stray drop of water on an eyelash. Above all, the most perfect human face he’d ever seen. Even as the moment changed and she bent to dip her glove into the steam again, Marcus knew that somehow he would sculpt that face and catch that exact expression, that moment of gratification when a desperate thirst is slaked with clean, cool water.

Quest: Create Sculpture

Create a sculpture of satiated thirst.

Requirements: 1 unit of timber; whittling tool; artistry 1; crafting 1.

Reward: a work of art whose value is related to relevant skills.

The planet was listening.

‘Princess?’

‘Yes Marcus?’

‘I think we should stop here and build a camp. We have water, which is the main resource we need. There’s the forest nearby for wood and perhaps berries…’

‘And the sea, for fish,’ she finished for him. ‘All right. And what about safety? Predators?’

After a pause, Marcus said, ‘They might come to the stream to drink,’ he looked around. ‘Let’s move away to those bushes?’ he pointed upstream, in the direction of the forest, to an area of dense green foliage.

‘All right.’ The far bank of the stream was a little less steep and Sina scrambled up it. Thirsty himself, Marcus copied her strategy of using a glove to catch the water and after drinking his fill with immense satisfaction, climbed up beside her.

When they reached the bushes, Marcus was pleased to see that there were areas of space between them that were sufficient for a lean to. Rather like a patch of rhododendron on Earth, the bushes were tall and extensive, but if you pushed through the branches, you could find regions that were free of the green branches and rubbery leaves.

‘Now what?’ he wondered.

‘If you open your construction screen and select “lean to” you get an overlay.’

Although uncertain what she meant by overlay, Marcus found the construction menu, which had just two options in it: lean-to shelter and storage area. Having selected the lean-to, a red outline of a shelter appeared in front of his vision and he discovered he could move it around with his eyes. But then what?

‘I anticipate that it will turn green when we have a suitable location,’ as if intuiting his question the princess spoke aloud, although she was clearly distracted by her own attempts to place the outline in one of the clearings.

‘Perhaps we need the timber mentioned in the quest box?’ Marcus gave up and flicked the red lean-to away. He’d tried all the available places nearby.

‘Of course; come on.’ Sina strode firmly out of the thicket and into the line of trees nearby. There were plenty of fallen branches and soon they were returning with four long logs over their shoulders. It took five trips though, before Sina gave up. ‘This should be enough. We are missing something.’ There was a distant look in her eyes, one that Marcus was beginning to recognise as meaning she was looking at menus. ‘I think the problem is that neither of us have the Construction skill. How did you get the Foraging skill?’

‘I was watching a bird as it found a berry.’

‘Let’s try making something.’

This made sense to Marcus. ‘What?’

‘A tee-pee?’

‘All right. That’ll be hard work though. I’m going to get out of this suit.’

Soon the two of them were standing in the sun, wearing just grey flannel long-johns. A sense that it was glorious to be alive filled Marcus and part of that feeling was stimulated by the presence of Sina, whose slender figure was radiating beauty. This joie de vivre was not spoiled by their repeated failures to raise a central pole for a tent. In fact, as the timber toppled once again from the shallow hole they had dug with sticks, spraying up dirt, he laughed.

‘I’ve an idea,’ said Sina, ‘let’s tie three poles together at the top and raise them to make a pyramid shape.’ This time, after careful preparation, their structure remained in place. And after reinforcing it and then carefully drawing Sina’s parachute over the frame, they had a tent that provided a cool shade.

More than that, Sina shouted with delight: ‘I have it, Marcus! I have discovered Construction one!’

‘Are you sure you don’t do high-fives?’

‘Well, just this once.’

They touched palms and Sina laughed cheerfully. ‘Now, I can begin the lean-to and storage area.’

‘Wait, can we keep going with tents until I obtain the Construction skill?’ asked Marcus.

‘Very well. I wonder whether I obtained the skill first because of my superior intelligence? Or because I thought of the idea of using three poles?’

Marcus stared at her and the princess blushed. ‘I mean…’

‘It’s fine. My sense of this planet is that the originality of your idea will have earned you that reward. I believe it was my intuition, not chance, that earned me the foraging increase.’

‘We could put up another tent with your parachute and if the acquisition of new skills arises randomly or is in some way based on our intelligence scores, there is surely an excellent prospect of you obtaining Construction.’

‘Right so,’ Marcus set to work, pulling one end of a long pole towards another.

A short while later, they had built a second tent and were sitting in the shade beneath Marcus’s parachute. He had not gained the Construction skill and was sucking his lower lip as he thought about this puzzle. Repeating the same building idea was as unproductive, in terms of gaining skills, as copying a work of art. It seemed he would have to come up with an original building idea.

‘We’re going to build a fence,’ he announced.

‘Oh?’ The princess looked across at him and after a long pause said, ‘do please guide me in how to do this.’

Standing up, Marcus gave her a smile. ‘This way.’

By digging a shallow line with sticks and then planting a row of stakes and binding them with vine, they made a tolerable fence, even if it was wobbly and liable to fall under the lightest of touches.

‘Well?’ Sina asked him, sweat on her brow and neck.

‘I have gained the Construction skill, level one,’ Marcus replied proudly. ‘Now let’s see about the lean-to.’

‘I have it green! I’m going to say “yes”.’

Opening up his construction box, Marcus found that he too could select lean-to, place his red outline over a patch of nearby ground, and see it turn green.

Do you wish to begin construction of a lean-to?

Yes / No

‘Oh!’ Sina called and a moment later, having chosen yes, Marcus understood why. His body lurched forward and his hands reached for a large log. Yet that initiative hadn’t come from him! Panicked, he halted his involuntary motions.

Construction paused. Resume / Abandon.

Warning: you may lose construction materials if you abandon a project that is underway.

This new sub-menu had appeared within the construction menu. Curious now, rather than afraid, Marcus selected ‘resume’. He stopped and started the construction several times. This was extraordinary and like nothing at all he’d ever experienced in his whole life. Perhaps someone sleepwalking or under hypnosis could act as if they had skills that they did not know when fully conscious, but this was different. Here, he was an observer to the actions of his own body. And unlike a sleepwalker, he was conscious of being able to intervene and stop the movements of his limbs at any time.

‘Marcus?’ The princess was bent over, faced away from him, threading a vine-like plant through rows of sticks which were leaning against a long, central pole. She had made a lot more progress on her lean-to than he had.

‘Here, Sina.’

‘This is a strange experience, yet one that is surprisingly satisfying. Before today my most challenging construction was a Lego princess tower.’ Looking at her hands, she stood up. ‘There, quest complete.’

‘I was learning about how my body responds to this command, so I’m a little behind you.’

‘I have roughened my hands. Which does not seem so disastrous as it would have back home. Given that we lack moisturiser, it is perhaps just as well that I feel a certain pride in having generated the callouses of a manual worker.’

‘Perhaps it is.’ But for the fact he was allowing his body complete autonomy to carry through the task of building a lean-to, Marcus would have shaken his head. A few minutes more of efficient movements and actions of his body around the construction and a quest complete box appeared.

Congratulations! You have completed the Quest: Lean-To Shelter

You have a place to sleep that will result in the refreshment of fatigue.

‘Quest finished.’

‘Good. What next?’ asked Sina.

‘Spears. We need spears.’