On waking, Sina felt aches in her legs, a powerful thirst, and a strong craving for fish. Yet she was not at all miserable, far from it. Despite all the stiffness and the difficulties of life on Grimworld she felt happy. This was a place to live in the moment. Her Instagram account, so long the focus of her thoughts, no longer seemed to have any importance whatsoever. Her old concern with her digital community was meaningless; she remembered it only as if a dream.

Back on Earth, Sina had a fifteen-minute morning yoga routine to energize herself for the day ahead and that was a feature of her old life that was transferable to this one. She worked her way through the poses, trying to focus on her breathing and not the massive ‘to do’ list that the system menus of planet Grimworld were stacking up: cat-cow; downward dog; pigeon; chaturanga; upward dog; downward dog again; and crescent.

Only after a wash, a cold drink, and a breakfast of nuts and berries did Sina turn her attention to the planet’s menus. First, she must check on the Otaxel. Good, it was still on the map and not too far away in the direction of the sea. Although there were dozens of construction options for Sina to look at, she still felt her priority was to try to complete the pet quest. So picking up her spear and the bag of jerky, she set off towards the green dot on her map.

Less than an hour’s jog and she reached the point at which the creature should have been visible. But where was it? Oh! A silent, sudden motion and the Otaxel stood up from where it had been lying among some wild grains growing just below the top of a dune.

Close up the beast was huge; powerful muscles shaped the curves of its shoulders and hips. The monster’s teeth were large and sharp, easily capable of savaging her. Terrified, despite her earlier faith in the quest, Sina ran back several steps while the Otaxel watched her with unblinking black eyes. It gave a snort and sniffed the wind.

‘Here, Otso, here!’ Feeling around in her bag, Sina pulled out a strip of jerky and waved it before her. The name Otso had just issued from her without any kind of planning; the Otaxel was as big as a bear so it was a good Finnish word for him. Should she throw the meat? But then it would land on the sand and while that probably didn’t matter to the Otaxel – Otso – throwing food in the dirt didn’t seem right. Instead, she placed the strip of meat on a clump of grass nearby and backed off, then backed off some more. Eventually, the beast sauntered forward, explored the jerky with its strange mouth-tendrils, and with a quick darting motion, ate it.

‘Good boy Otso!’ cried Sina, delighted the monster was willing to eat her offering. ‘Want another?’ And she laid down another strip of jerky to the same effect. The third time, however, the Otaxel didn’t even look at the meat. Instead, it raised its head high and then bounded away northwards, leaving Sina feeling disappointed. Checking the menu, her quest was still active, but nothing had changed. Should she follow the creature? That seemed pointless. Feeling a breeze from the sea that was almost cold for once, Sina decided to go back to the base and work on her various crafting projects. Perhaps in the evening she would go look for Otso again, in the hope he was hungry enough to take her food once more.

After her run back to the base, Sina sat down and studied her system menus carefully. There were dozens of items of furniture that were now available options for her to build. Perhaps she should build a chair? Or at least a stool? That would be a real comfort. A bed was an attractive build too. Yet the information on the higher level menu for the base implied there were more basic tasks that she should make her priority. A cascade of greyed out options were available as submenus under each of Residences, Industrial Buildings, Energy Sources and Agricultural Lands. It seemed significant, for example, that defensive features became available once she had built a residence: stockades, trenches, towers, spike traps…

It was a shame that princesses weren’t expected to play online games as the experience of having done so would be a help on this planet. Sina felt that there might be very serious consequences to making a mistake here, mainly because of the importance of using her time effectively. Warned about predators, already witness to slavers (and cannibals?), it was only a matter of time before some new threat arose. What good would it do her to have a lovely house full of furniture if some monster was just going to come and eat her? Or some violent tribe arrive and assault her. She felt stress too, whenever she thought of Marcus. Every hour that passed was an hour in which he was living as a slave. One day, Sina would journey south and try to rescue him. But that day seemed very far off.

It was clear that timber was needed for pretty much everything she could build, so obtaining more couldn’t be a mistake. Assigning herself the task of cutting down trees and hauling the timber to the stockpile, Sina experienced the peculiar sensation of feeling herself walk to the forest with her tools and yet her body was moving without conscious volition. She had 7 units of timber and a basic hut cost 25. Once she had that much timber in hand, she would then decide whether to build the residence or something else.

The fact that her body efficiently set about sawing, inserting wedges and hammering, allowed Sina time to mull over her menu options. Up until now, she had relied on the cover of the bushes to protect her from those who would eat or enslave her. If she built the basic hut, her residence would be visible so she would have to move quickly to create the defences that were on offer. The alternative was continue to hide in the lean-to and do what? Some farming buildings were available and under zones, both ‘Industrial and ‘Agricultural’ were options. Selecting Industrial, a square, grey, semi-transparent layer appeared over her normal vision. It was like looking through a smear of suncream on a pair of sunglasses. As with the Stockpile zone, she could move the Industrial overlay to different parts of the landscape. But perhaps because of all the tress around her, it never turned green.

After the next log had been hauled to the stockpile (bringing the number of units of timber to 16), Sina interrupted her body’s motions and tried again to explore her zones. There were regions around her where the grey ‘Industrial’ zone turned green, these were flat regions especially towards the east, near the forest. Interesting. It made sense in terms of minimising travel that workshops were close to a source of raw material. Now that she had dragged heavy logs all the way to the stockpile, she could see the value – in terms of time and calorie expenditure – of keeping travel between tasks to a minimum. In fact…

Choosing ‘Stockpile’, Sina was delighted to find that the overlay to her vision also turned green near the forest. It seemed that she could have more than one stockpile! Keeping the zone menu open she returned to the trees then marked out a small stockpile right beside a large beech tree that was at the forest edge. Letting her body take over once more, it cut away the surface vegetation with the edge of the spade and stamped down the earth below. If she was going to end up building workshops over by the forest, there was no point lugging heavy branches and tree trunks all the way over to the main stockpile and then back to here.

By late afternoon, Sina had her total of 25 timber. It was decision time. As she weighed up her options she studied her hands. It was incredible how rough they were and how the nails were all worn short. Several cuts and half-a-dozen callouses made her palms and fingers quite ugly, though she was in no pain. This, she realised, was what it was to have the hands of a labourer. Carpenters and plasterers and other tradespeople didn’t post their latest fingernail designs on Instagram. It might freak her followers out and she would probably lose hundreds of them, but Sina resolved that when she got back to Earth, she would cut her nails and take up a practical hobby like boat building. She had been paying attention to how her body used the tools and could imagine making a series of ‘How To’ TikToks. Wouldn’t that be fun! How to make a boat for rowing around the islands, starting from nothing but a few trees and your tools. Twenty instalments by Princess Sina Koskina.

A cold wind brought a heavy shower with it and that made up Sina’s mind. She ran deeper into the forest to where a cluster of pines gave her shelter. In the morning she would begin work on the hut and hope to also have time to build a small stockade around it before sunset. There was no point starting now though, as she probably wouldn’t complete the hut before dark, let alone a defensive wall.

It wasn’t easy to sleep on her own, without the reassurance that Marcus was on watch. And that night, Sina was troubled by the increasing noise of the wind, which grew to a pitch that she could no longer hear the beasts of the forest. Fierce gusts caused the bushes all around her to sway and groan. The moon and stars were hidden by rain-filled cloud and the ground turned to mud as rain came hammering down in sudden, heavy downpours. From the direction of the stockpile, she could hear the constant rippling of the parachute as it fought with the wind. No matter that she had tied it to the thickest stems of the bushes, Sina was anxious the rope or thin material would tear and the parachute would be lost.

Sleep in the wet and groaning lean-to came intermittently, if it came at all. Perhaps now and again Sina had slipped into a fragment of a dream. But she was always being called back to her miserable circumstances on Grimworld by the shriek of the wind. Towards dawn, the storm diminished and at last Sina fell into a proper sleep a part of her mind aware and relieved that the parachute had survived the night.

She opened her eyes to see a new system announcement.

Shipwreck

The wreckage of a ship has been washed up on the shore near your base. All local tribes have been alerted. First come, first serve.

Reward: variable equipment. 1 new tribesperson.

MAP

Opening the map showed Sina a new dot, this one turquoise. It was close! Unless the Red Moon Tribe or the Ark Andulan happened to have people in the vicinity, she was going to be at least a full day ahead of them. It was obvious she must follow this quest. And that reward: 1 new tribesperson. Someone had survived the shipwreck then? Someone who might be willing to join her. The idea of company again filled her with energy and she ran to the stream to wash and drink. She’d need the parachute to fill with whatever useful flotsam was resting on the beach. Back at the stockpile, however, she found the parachute’s creases were filled with water from the storm and the cords had been pulled so tight, it was impossible to untie them. All too aware that she must hurry, Sina eventually gave up on the knots and cut two large squares and some cord from one edge of the parachute, to serve as sacks. Then she grabbed a bag of jerky and her spear and began to jog towards the sea.

The day was cold and grey, with the northerly wind still strong. Her body soon warmed up though and twice Sina paused to take a drink from the stream she was following eastwards. When she crested the last dune to see the beach, it was the sea that first drew her attention. Sina knew the sea well, but at home in Finland she had never seen waves so massive. Enormous deep-green rollers, streaked with white foam, swept across the sea to pound against the shore with a deep thunder. The elemental force of the ocean on display was breathtaking. Even a modern ship from Earth would have struggled to crest these mighty waves rather than be rolled over by them.

According to the map, the wreck was some distance south of her, so she took a line across the wide expanse of shore and soon realised where her goal was. Seagulls were swirling around what seemed to be a rock formation but which soon resolved itself to be piles of cordage; seaweed-covered clumps of mishappen timber, and muddy sailcloth. Walking faster and faster, Sina could now see that as well as the large items of wreckage, the beach was strewn with all kinds of debris for several kilometres. The violence of the storm was written here in the complete disintegration of a once solid ship. And then there were bodies. Four that she could see.

If it had not been for the quest menu referring to the reward of a new member of the community, Sina would not have gone close to the half-buried, pallid remains of the sailors. When she did, it wasn’t necessary to touch any of them though, to know that they were dead.

The grim evidence of what must have been a horrendous night, in which many sailors had drowned, tempered the excitement that Sina had been feeling at the sight of a wealth of items and materials that would be extremely helpful to her. Feeling a mixture of sorrow and determination and still walking towards the biggest items of wreckage, Sina made a mental note of the location of planks with metal nails visible in them; thick lengths of sodden rope (useful but probably too heavy to bother with); a metal lantern; a wooden bucket (yes! As well as being a means of containing water, she could fill it with useful items for the journey back); a metal pot, with a bent handle but still useful looking; broken glass; an intact bottle of what might be wine; shattered barrels with twisted metal hoops; a pully; an iron bar; a heavy mallet; a dagger; a copper bolt… no end of potentially useful items everywhere she looked.

First though, was there a survivor? If so, there was one particularly large piece of wreckage that might acting as a shelter: a section of deck about five metres wide and upside down, leaning on its own rail. Ducking below the splintered timbers into the darkness, Sina called out, ‘Hello, is anyone there?’

A flash, a hint of a breeze, and a massive bang that left her ears ringing.

As Sina jerked away, a man’s voice said, ‘you won’t make a slave out of me. I’d rather die. And take some of you with me. So sod off!’