The Fizz-Pop Jetpack

Remember strapping two pop bottles to your back, red and gold paper streamers for flames, and running round the garden making the rocket noise? Rill the Otter does. In his Make-Believe Workshop that game becomes real: you build a jetpack, fall over on the first try, laugh, try again, and then fly free over the whole archipelago, all the way up to where the clouds begin.

The quest: The Fizz-Pop Jetpack

"When I was a pup I was a rocket-otter all summer. The bottles never lifted me an inch. But here, I know where the Skyfizz bubbles."

The beacon on Gull Stack, a sheer sea stack off the ferry harbour, went dark in a storm. The ferry captains sail home at night by guesswork, and nobody can climb the stack. Rill has an idea.

1. Talk to Rill (from level 20, after the Sky Rower). Rill tells one story at a time, so finish the one he is telling first.
2. Bottles from the beach. Old pop bottles have washed up on three shores near the village. Rill marks them on your map. Pick up 6: it's a beach clean-up too.
3. Mira's old satchel. Ask Mira, kindly, if you may borrow her old school satchel. She sewed the patch on the flap herself.
4. Follow the bubbles. A fizzing creek runs uphill from the workshop. Where the bubbles start, there's a Fizz Spring.
5. Bottle the Skyfizz. Set your bottles in the spring with E. They fill together in 15 s. Skyfizz wants to go up, so watch out: one bottle floats away and you'll have to catch it.
6. Build the Fizz-Pop Jetpack at a Workbench: the 6 Skyfizz bottles, Mira's satchel, 2 rope, 2 copper ingots for the pot-lid fins, 2 cloth, 1 red petal for the streamer flames and 1 resin.
7. The first hop. Strap it on and lift off... and the pack spins you round and sits you down. Rill owns up straight away: he put the fins on backwards. You fix them together. The second try lifts: hover for 3 seconds.
8. Light the way home. Fly out to Gull Stack and light the beacon with E.

Rill is honest about it, too: real bottles could never lift anyone. In real life we launch bottle rockets from the ground with a grown-up, and nobody ever rides one. Skyfizz is a wonder of our islands: a sky-blue fizz that wants to go up.

The proud moment: with the beacon shining behind you, the jetpack flies you home across the water at sunset, streamers snapping, a trail of sky-blue bubbles behind. You land on the harbour pier, Rill comes over, and the ferry sounds its horn in thanks.

How to fly

Hold the jetpack and press use to strap it on. It stays on your back while you walk; press use again on the ground to take it off. It only lights under open sky.

The fizz. Each bottle holds 15 seconds of thrust, and the copper tank holds 6 bottles: about 90 seconds of climbing, hovering and boosting. Gliding and diving cost nothing. The meter of little bottles over your belt shows what's left, and your height over the sea while you fly. An empty tank never drops you: the fins glide you down.

Refills. Every realm has one to three Fizz Springs on its hilltops. Get close to one and it goes on your map; land right in it with the pack on and the tank fills, free. Bring empty pop bottles and the spring fills them for later: with the jetpack on, use a Skyfizz bottle to pour it into the tank, even in the air. (Two empties come from 1 glass at a workbench.)

The limits

• The Cloud Shelf. From 180 m over the sea the climb weakens, and at 220 m the fizz goes flat in the cold. True story: the air cools about 6.5 °C for every kilometre you climb.
• Squall winds turn you back from areas more than 10 levels above yours, and from Braveheart Basin. Walking and boats are still the way into those.
• No fizz in caves, the Duck Mines, the Dragon Tower or a guardian's arena: the pack only glides there.
• No weapons in the air. Nobody fights from out of reach. A hit in the air shakes out 6 seconds of fizz.
• One flyer per pack, and everyone around sees your jetpack, its streamers and its bubble trail.

Bigger tanks and colours

Tanks and looks are crafted, never sold.

Colours for the bottles' fizz, the satchel and the streamers come from petals and a scrap of cloth at a workbench: Classic (yellow petals), Sea Blue (blue petals), Plum (violet petals) and Fern (big leaves). Hold the colour kit and press use.

Where next

Find the first Fizz Spring above the village, then fly out to Gull Stack after dark and see the beacon you lit shining for the ferries. More of Rill's make-believe: Make-believe proud moments, Rill's water rides. Other ways to travel: Getting around, and animal friends and Harbours and boatkeepers. How far you can see from up high: Graphics settings.