Project Overworld

- "Ah, it's been quite some time since I last visited here." Keith remarked while taking a look at the lush landscape surrounding him. A few years earlier, he really did spend a lot of time searching for the perfect place to establish onto and his old base was built in a really interesting forest.

Back when Spacol was still freshly founded, and Keith started recruiting new members into the company, this huge amount of reflexion turned as foreseeing as they did not lack in any resource at any point. There were a few ponds of water here and there from which they collected a bit of water thanks to the tropical climate of this area. On tope of that, Keith did install several rainwater collection systems on top of his base's roof and thanks to the frequent cloudy weather they never really ran out of this resource. It proved really useful for the large amount of machines that needed water-cooling and for their own essential needs.

As for the other materials, it was pretty much the same and this Earth base was entirely self-sufficient, not even requiring a lot of human intervention. Though, Keith came down here from time to time for various reason and always found something to repair and improve, so it was not completely free from human intervention, in the end. However, this much investment into this base has proven really useful for the six Spacol members as they got busy building a space station and, later on, a base on the Moon. They were supplied with materials every week and Keith could not be more glad about that fact.

In any case, the young man was finally back after several months spent on the natural satellite and it required quite a bit of time for him to re-adapt to the Earth's atmosphere. He was now used to walk around in a spacesuit and make huge hops towards his destination. It was not that confusing, since he was still living on the Earth back in the 'real world', but still felt kind of strange. In fact, he did surprise himself trying to hop around from time to time on his way to work, especially on the morning whenever he was not yet fully awake.

'Alright, I should have a lot do to, let's not waste any more time around here.' Keith motivated himself. The reason he was back on Earth was for a really precise event he had to organize for. His way back there was not something to be worth mentioned, as he mostly stayed away from the game for several days straight.

Actually, the way back to the planet was a lot faster than launching all the way to the Moon. This was mostly due to the fact a spacecraft require a lot less fuel to lift off from the natural satellite so Keith did not have to stop over at the Spacol Space Station and refuel in any way. On top of that, the huge attraction force of the planet helped any travel towards it by towing the spacecraft over its surface.

Thus, Keith simply let the few computers of his rocket calculate the best trajectories and, without knowing it, he made it all the way back to the Earth in under five days.

Now that he was there, the real journey began for the young man. He only had over one month and a half to prepare for the next recruitement session and restore the huge arena he did build in the past. He could not give a proper estimate over the quantity of work he had to accomplish because he had not been inspecting this place for a little while, but he thought that the overall structure should still be intact. In fact, he did install a few automated turrets around here and if someone ever broke in they would have been shot instantly. That was why, most of the damage made by protestors must have been dealt to the exterior walls, or at least those were Keith's thoughts.

Upon getting closer, it seemed like the nature had taken back its place and huge trees blocked off the way to the arena. After twining around the forest for a bit, Keith finally reached his building and noted the extant of the damage.

'Mhhh... Not too bad.' He meditated while going around the arena. Apart from a few holes left in the walls and the large amount of vines that installed there, he thought that it should not require that much time to restore this place. As for making the area more accessible, he still had a few vehicle left in his base which were designed to clear off trees like they were ordinary plants so he did not really worry about it.

In the end, the preparation should be done in the alloted time and the event should be taking place as expected.

Thus, Keith started his long and laborious at restoring the arean which would be hosting the second ever 'Spacol recruitement event'.

_______________

'Who could be calling at such an hour?' Keith wondered as his phone was ringing inside his jeans' pocket. 'Huh? I did not expect such a person to be contacting me.' His eyebrows moved about in surprise after seeing the name shown on screen.

- "Yes, what is it about?" He started off while answering the call.

On the other end of the line, a familiar feminine voice greeted him : "Keith, nice talking to you again! I wanted to take some news from you and Spacol."

- "Oh, we're doing quite well at the moment. The foundations of our Moon base are done and the greenhouses are producing enough oxygen for our needs. We recently decided to recruit new engineers into the company and we intend to fasten the pace at which we produce rockets so we can start building a factory to excavate the ice buried under the two poles of the satellite. Anyways, I'm much more interested in the latest invention of Yggdrasil, how is it going for you all?" Keith inquired.

- "Mhhh. That's precisely what I'm concerned about." Amber voiced. "You must have heard about the technical difficulties Advanced Simulations is going through, right?"

The atmosphere turned gloomy between the two as they both understood the implications.

- "Yeah, that's kind of unfortunate for our favorite game to be endangered to such an extant..." The young man replied. "However, I do intend to push Project Overworld to its limits by building as much stuff as we can."

- "That's good to hear. I was concerned you would be losing interest in the game and trying to find other solutions before its end. In any case, I wanted to tell you we started slowing down the production of computer and other resource-consuming devices so this game could last just a bit longer. You see, since our time within this game is running out, I'm much more interested in helping the Human cause than thinking about the latest enjoyements our population could be experiencing." She explained.

- "I see. I don't know if Spacol could achieve much during the next few months or so, but we should at least be producing some substantial results." Keith affirmed. "So, I'm guessing you wanted to help Spacol out, is that right?"

- "You guessed it. Our small rivalry amounts to nothing if Project Overworld happened to be reset entirely, so I'm willing to furnish some resources to your company without letting the large population know about it. I'm not really confident people will be welcoming the news peacefully so the least I can do is maintaining a facade of being interested in the technological improvements of our cities."

- "Oh? So are you going against your own citizen, in that case?" Keith teased her.

- "Yeah, pretty much." She expressed in a monotone voice.

'Seems like her mind has been preoccupied with these problems quite a lot. She seems a bit depressed that Project Overworld is nearing its end.' Keith realized. He himself was kind of sad before the eventuality to lose all of his progress, but he could not do anything about it except going forward with his plans.

However, it became even more complicated since the NASA was counting on this simulation to run a few tests and produce prototypes for their next spacecrafts. Keith imagined the spacial organization would be asking 'Advanced Simulation' to let them join a private server or something so Keith was not that concerned about it, but it certainly was something bitter to experience.

'I guess she could be helping the NASA out, if the servers are not down by that point.' Keith meditated.

- "Well, I hope to hear about you soon. See you, Amber." Keith said.

- "Yeah, do let me know what types of resources you would need, be it human or material."

- "Well, we shouldn't be needing any more people than the ones I'm currently trying to recruit, but I'll sure be interested in some petroleum."

- "Haha, no doubt about that. Farewell, Keith." She told him before hanging up the call.

'Well, I should be focusing back on my current projects for the time being. We don't have a lot of time left, after all.' Keith motivated himself before diving back inside Project Overworld.