I really missed my “Falconvale” “Nothing is Free” challenge, and I really wanted to get a new traditional “Nothing is Free” challenge going (rules on Mod the Sims here) – as opposed to my “Spectres”  challenge, which is combined with an Apocalypse challenge. Plus, I had just gotten the Island Paradise expansion, so the thought of building my own Island Paradise had plenty of merit. Coming up with a story for such a world wasn’t a real stretch of imagination, either… a castaway was completely obvious. So.. Castaway Shores was born. I gutted the town, and “fished” around for an appropriate starting lot, which took some doing.. originally, I picked a land-locked one, but that seemed like a stupid idea, so I moved him to a beachy lot.

My founding character is a guy, named Micah McCloud. His traits are: Loves to Swim, Loner, Handy, Excitable, and Eco-Friendly. His favorite music is Island Life, he loves Grilled Salmon, and he likes the color red. With all that being said, that’s pretty much all you need to know to start reading!

I always wanted to go back to this, in fact, I think I still have the file. But I just don’t play Sims 3 anymore. Maybe someday.

Chapter 1.1 < | > Chapter 1.3

Day Four, Micah McCloud’s Adventure Journal

The fourth day dawned bright and early, and with the return of the sun, I felt my spirits rise. I pulled the mirror out of the outhouse, and set it up behind it on a board. Why I would need a mirror.. I don’t know.. but for now, it worked to help me shave with the unfamiliar straight razor from the toolkit. I had no desire to end up looking like some scruffy island reject, and some self-care seemed definitely the order of the morning. I caught up on my journal, had a breakfast of my last anchovy, and set out to fish some more up.

However, as I was heading to my boat, I was thoroughly startled by the ringing of my cell phone. Scrambling for my pocket, I fumbled with the buttons, and, shaking, I whispered a scratchy “Hello?” Unfortunately, I was just in time to hear the click of the other party hanging up. Disappointed, but curious, I put the phone back into my pocket and headed out fishing. I didn’t fish for too long due to the rain starting back up, but I did catch some more anchovies and a jellyfish.

When I came back to what I was now thinking of as “my” beach, I ate a soggy and slightly burnt fishy breakfast, then set out to upgrade my bathroom. The handiness manual had outlined the way to make it clean itself, so I followed the directions scrupulously. Before long, I had a self-cleaning bathroom.. what a luxury!

Then, I studied a cookbook until I learned cooking – perhaps now I wouldn’t burn my fish for dinner. With the rain still coming down, the darkness seemed lonely, so I studied the stars and once again looked for any ships on the horizon. Feeling lonely, I crawled exhaustedly into my tent, and fell into a sound sleep.

Day Five, Micah McCloud’s Adventure Journal

I woke to MORE rain, and had a lonely soggy anchovy for breakfast… but at least it wasn’t burnt this time! With some extra driftwood, I built myself a makeshift couch, coffee table, chess board and chair.

Ooh.. a rock!

Then, the rain suddenly cleared, and I took my bike out to explore the island a bit more. I found a gem, a rock, and a flower. I also managed to explore all the roads, and once again marveled at the perfectly laid out, albeit empty village.

Exploring the island

An idea to build a town here slowly started growing in my brain. I wondered who owned the island, and how to buy it. I was loving the island life, and college didn’t hold any appeal for me anymore, so I thought perhaps my savings to pay for that could go towards this land I’d found. The island was beautiful, and would make a nice place for a town.

Shark!

Knowing my food supply was low, I saved enough daylight time to fish, and .. yay! .. I caught a nice-sized tuna. A large shark visiting my beach convinced me to head back in early.

Learning Charisma

Once I got back home, I studied a charisma manual in the darkening evening, and once the sun went down, I searched the galaxy.  I’d all but given up on ships, so the stars were what I studied. One of them appeared to be moving… towards me…

Sparkly lights…

Help! I’m being kidnapped!

Home again.. with a friend?

… Uhhh… aliens! Once they left, I went to bed, exhausted.

Day Six, Micah McCloud’s Adventure Journal

After last night’s adventure, I slept in, and the sun was well on it’s way across the sky before I managed to wake up. I had roasted tuna for breakfast.. what a treat! I was raining.. AGAIN.. what a day. Then, exploring my beach, I discovered what looked to be a fossilized shark tooth to add to my collection.

Chatting with Fransica

Then, suddenly, my phone started ringing. I was less surprised this time, and quickly answered it with a scratchy “Hello?” I turned out to be Fransica, from college, trying to get a hold of me. How the phone worked way out here, I’ll never know, but we chatted for quite a while. She promised to notify the proper authorities, and do some research on the island I’d landed on. I hoped I wouldn’t have to leave my new island, but there was nothing to be done one way or the other, now. The cat was definitely out of the bag.

After we hung up, I checked my phone battery, and saw it still had plenty of time left (thank goodness for the long life battery I had!), then decided to spend some time playing chess. I also tinkered with the bathroom some more, but didn’t upgrade it or anything.

Struck by lightning!

Once it got dark, I looked for stars again.. and suddenly, I was struck by lightning! Deciding this was the last straw for the day, I cleaned myself up in the bathroom, and went to bed in my tent.

Chapter 1.1 < | > Chapter 1.3

Introduction < | > Chapter 1.2

Day One, Micah McCloud’s Adventure Journal

I wake up, groggy and waterlogged. … And covered in sand. What happened? Where am I? Sitting up, I look around slowly, shaking my head. Slowly, the horror of the previous night returns..

I was on a cruise ship, traveling with some other freshmen from college.. a late spring break trip. We’d looked forward to it for what seems like forever. The trip had been awesome, the views of the tropical islands were picturesque, and the fact that the “cruise ship” seemed a little ratty hadn’t bothered any of us. There were lifeboats and survival kits, right? Nothing ever happened other than the completely ordinary on these trips, anyway, right? … Apparently, that wasn’t quite right. In the middle of the fourth night out, the engines started shuddering violently, and then just stopped. I could hear crewmen yelling in panic in a language I didn’t know, and they were running everywhere. In the panic, nobody seemed sure what to do. They weren’t seeming to attempt to launch the lifeboats, so I assumed things were still alright. It all seemed very exciting – something we could tell everyone back at the University about when we got home. Then, there was a horrible crash. Without engines and rudder, we must have hit something! The front of the ship tipped dangerously forward, and everyone on the front of the boat was thrown into the ocean. I ran quickly towards the back of the boat, and laboriously lowered a rowboat I’d noticed hiding well away from the other lifeboats. Fires were breaking out all over the boat, and the screams echoed in the night. By the time I got the boat to the water, I still hadn’t seen anyone else in the back of the ship where I was, so I simply shimmied down the side of the ship into the boat and cut the lines with my pocketknife. I remembered something about the suction a sinking ship caused, so I quickly rowed away. My arms, unused to the punishment, quickly became tired, and I had to take a break. By the time I got back to where I thought the ship had sunk, all I could find were some floating boxes.. and what appeared to be a floating outhouse..?! I lashed it to the back of the boat loosely so I could tow it, but let it go if it started sinking. Who knows what I’d find on the islands I could see in the distance. In the night, there were no lights on the islands, so I wasn’t all that hopeful about finding any civilization. Arms burning, I just kept rowing. I vaguely remembered landing on shore somewhere near dawn.. and then..??

Concerned, I looked around, and to my relief saw that in my exhaustion I had managed to remember to lash the rowboat to a tree before falling asleep on the sand. Determined to not let the dire situation I seemed to be in get me down, I got up and wandered over to the boat to see what might have been stashed in the emergency kit inside.

After a few hours of labor, I’d thoroughly catalogued what I had available. Some bottled water was a welcome sight, as well as a fire starting kit. My boat was still in fairly good condition, and what I had towed in turned out to actually be an “all-in-one” outhouse – which seemed like a luxury on this island. I’d cleaned it out of the water, and set it up on the beach. There had also been a tent in good condition, some candles, a fishing pole, quite a bit of rope, a hammer and nails in a small box of other random tools and a spyglass/telescope – all were welcome sights. There were even some well-packed books and paint and paper! First things first – I set up my tent, and scrounged around the beach for some rocks to make a fire pit. I dug for some sand grubs to bait the fishing pole, then set out in my boat to catch dinner.

Anchovies in the rain.. my first dinner.

By the time I got back with a few anchovies, it was pouring rain. Figures, right? .. Just what I needed. I managed to get a fire going, and ate my first meal in my new home. Exhausted, I fell into my tent, and slept surprisingly soundly.

Day Two, Micah McCloud’s Adventure Journal

After another anchovy breakfast, I did some scrounging in the area around my home. I found some other crates that had washed up, as well as some random driftwood, boards, and a partially wrecked lifeboat. One other odd thing I found is what appears to be an old-fashioned icebox of sorts. I took the time to drag all of this back to my camp, and set about making some more furniture for myself. I ended up with a nice coffee table and bench, a chair for my fire pit, and the boat turned nicely into a rain-proof bookshelf. Sorting through my books, I found a handiness manual, a book on logic, a cookbook, some novels, and a blank journal! Thankful for the pen I’d found in the tool box, I set about starting to write my adventures. After catching up on that, I rigged up some candles in a piece of driftwood, and a string of lights for reading at my bench. I also secured the spyglass to a metal pole I found to serve as a makeshift telescope.

Boning up on my handiness

Then, feeling like I could use a break, I sat down on my new bench and studied the handiness manual for a while.

It had been a busy day, and night was quickly falling, so I ate yet another dinner of roasted anchovies, and then peered through the telescope in the near-dark, hoping to see the lights of a ship off shore.

Searching for ships

I came up completely empty, and ended up simply watching the starts for a bit until exhaustion took over and I went back to my tent for a well-deserved sleep.

Day Three, Micah McCloud’s Adventure Journal

Breakfast was more anchovies, then I set about putting together an easel for painting. I rigged a small portion of the sail canvas I had scrounged the day before, I tried my hand at painting the beautiful vista before me.

Painting, day three

Needless to say, with no previous painting experience, it didn’t turn out so well. Then the rain began again, so I decided I’d go jogging to warm up..  and to get a better feel of the size and layout of the island I was on.

Strangely enough, all of the lots seem to have mailboxes and trashcans, and there are roads in good condition… a lot of them. There seems to have been plans at one time to colonize this island – but what happened to them, I don’t know. There certainly are no other people that I’ve met, and the only buildings seem to be abandoned ports scattered around the outside of the island.

Jogging in the rain.. how else to stay warm?

There are more islands in the distance, as well, which may tell more of the story.. but that will have to be saved for another day. In my investigations of my new island, I found an abandoned bicycle in one of the port sheds, as well as a Nautilus shell and a space rock on one of the beaches. Grateful for the bike, I headed back home in the coming dark, ate another lonely meal, and retired to my tent.

Introduction < | > Chapter 1.2

So, I decided to begin a new Nothing is Free challenge since my first one got too buggy to continue, and I really miss it. First, I wanted this to be based on the Island Paradise world, so I cleaned the world out completely (which takes forever), and got things ready to go. The challenge will be published as a story/journal with pictures, so everyone will be able to enjoy seeing how it grows.   (Mod The Sims – The “Nothing Is Free” Challenge)   The basic premise of the challenge is to build a city from nothing – a completely blank, unpopulated world.  From there, you have to build the town and populate it yourself – nothing is free, everything requires work.  I’ve already started the challenge .. and what I’ve done is already written, just needs some final proofreading before posting. 🙂