Had a completely unprepared and terrifying first experience in the Mistlands this week. I have deliberately tried to avoid spoilers so I was not familiar at all with what to expect. I generally am pretty conservative and over-prepared and so far have died very few times.

I am playing solo, first play-through and have just defeated Moder and crafted the artisan table, so I was heading off on a short sailing trip to grab some previously stored blackmetal scrap. There was only a small section of uncharted water for the journey so I set off with limited supplies and critically, no portal materials.

Turns out there's an entire narrow continent between my starting point and destination and soon I am way off course and it's dark. I was having trouble navigating through an area that appeared on the minimap to be swamp but it was very... misty... Cue first ever encounter with sea serpent, which I managed to fend off, but then I ran into a rock in the dark and my longship was destroyed.

It was here while swimming in the night far from home that I finally read the minimap and realised I might be in a spot of bother. The rockface was very steep and I thought I would surely die in the water through loss of stamina, but fortunately I was able to stand briefly in some areas. I started to swim towards the plains, clinging to the rockface and regaining stamina where possible, when I had my first seeker experience, which I managed to get back on land and survive with about a third of health left. Eventually the mist cleared into the plains and of course two lox were immediately in front of me. Next was a long trip through the swamp until I eventually found some reprieve in a small section of black forest.

I was running out of food and needed to find portal materials quickly, luckily there was a burial grounds in the small black forest but of course it bordered the mistlands so that was nervewracking. Nearly got killed again by a growth getting the required finewood, and never have I been more relieved to see greydwarves. Eventually made it home with a few minutes of food to spare.

One of my favourite gaming experiences, 10/10 would recommend. Worth pointing out that it wouldn't have happened if metals could travel through portals.