Adventures in Undertaking

Warning: Mild gameplay spoilers follow for Death Stranding up to about midway into chapter 5.

After the second boss battle in Death Stranding, the protagonist (Sam) finally gets access to proper firearms.  No more having to fend off would-be thieves with fists, stun bombs, decoy luggage cases, and that weird-looking bola launcher.  Now the tables have turned, I though.  Normally, I avoid the MULEs (literal cargo cultists who harry Sam whenever he intrudes on their territory).  However, I had an order to carry out; six stolen parcels that needed to be recovered from a MULE base.  Not a problem, I confidently proclaimed.  I have a freshly printed assault rife at my disposal if things get hot.

Things got hot pretty quickly.  The MULE base was on flat ground with little in the way of places to hide.  A patrol truck full of MULEs spotted me when I tried to sneak in...so I opened fire.  Now, I should mention that I was playing Death Stranding with a 5.1 surround sound system...and said system (for whatever reason) was set to a high volume for ambient sounds (like gunfire), but low for the center voice channel.  Die-Hardman was saying something to me over the com, but I couldn't hear him above the roar of automatic weapons fire.  No time to read subtitles either...too busy shooting MULEs.  By the time the dust settled there were 13 dead MULEs and BB-28 (Sam's Bridge Baby) throwing a fit.  Apparently the little guy isn't a fan of mass murder.  So, basically BB-28 went catatonic.  Nothing I can't fix later, I said to myself as I leisurely gathered up the packages I needed to complete the order.  It was only then that the I realized all those dead bodies had to be disposed of.  Otherwise, they would become ghosts ("BTs") and potentially unwanted explosions ("voidouts").  Well, crap...I guess I got to clean up this mess, I muttered.  I didn't know where the crematorium was on the second, larger map.  After looking it up on the internet though, I realized that it was beyond an area I had been avoiding because it was crawling with BTs.

I went through the tedious task of putting six of the thirteen corpses in body bags and loaded them into a requisitioned MULE truck.  Bodies are heavy and floppy which makes carrying them a pain even with a power skeleton attached to Sam's legs.  Eventually, I headed out only to quickly realize I wasn't going to make it to my destination without BB-28's help.  I needed the Bridge Baby's ghost-sensing ability to slip past that BT infested area.  Only one option available; rest in a private room.  As it turns out, people working in distribution centers don't approve of me parking a truck full of corpses out front while I take a rest inside their facility.  To be precise, it came out to minus one-thousand likes...ouch!  On the plus side though, they did dispose of those six bodies that were in the truck.  I still had seven more (getting riper by the minute).  Better get to it now that BB-28 is back in action, I declared.

I drove the (then) empty MULE truck back to the camp and bagged up the other seven bodies, loaded up six of them, and left the last one behind.  With BB-28's assistance, I managed to avoid the BTs for the most part...had to floor the truck around a final pair waiting in ambush.  The ghosts were out of the way, but I had a new problem - timefall.  It was raining hard and these junky MULE trucks have open tops that don't protect cargo from degradation.  Those containers I had taken back from the MULEs were rusting real bad.  So, I parked the truck, jumped out, and zapped everything in the back with a repair spray.  No sooner had I taken care of that problem than I realized I had yet another - I was almost out of juice.  The battery indicator for the truck was in the red.  "Almost run dry," Sam said (echoing my own thoughts at the time).  I managed to feather the accelerator enough to limp truck, bodies and cargo out of the rain before stalling on a uphill.  Suddenly, I have (what I thought was) a brilliant idea.  I'll just set up a charging station using a spare PPC that I have attached to my suit...except I'm off the grid...CRAP!

Here is an excerpt of my train of thought at this particular juncture:

Well...the crematorium isn't exactly far, but it isn't all that close either when you got six bodies to deliver and can only haul them one at a time on foot.  By the time I've ferried each of them to the incinerator the one I left behind at the camp will certainly have popped....unless...I have one of those floating carriers in the truck and much to my surprise it can accommodate two corpses.  With a third on my back, that means I only have to make two trips instead of six.  

Even so, it was hard going.  I somehow managed to wear out two pairs of boots, but I made both round trips and dispose of all six bodies.  On my way back from the the second trip I noticed the MULE truck has partially auto-recharged it's battery so I used it to limp back through BT territory.  The battery died again soon after though, so I ditched it and grabbed an abandoned reverse trike.  Racing back to the camp, I snatched up the last corpse and took it to the crematorium.  All told, it took about one full hour of real-world time.  Before I left the area, I decide to hook up the local shelter to the network...and low-and-behold what do they give me?...blueprints for a non-lethal assault rife...

Well, time to get that rusted out MULE truck recharged so I can drive the cargo stowed in the back to the distribution center and complete the order that started this mess to begin with...oh...and good thing there aren't really any cops in Death Stranding because some guy hauling a bunch of dead bodies in back of an open truck isn't exactly a good look even if you claim to be a de facto undertaker.