Project Overworld

Having collected all he could carry for now, Keith went back up to his place. He couldn't wait to refine his iron ores into tools. He had already started to create a furnace outside his base to melt at high temperature, but he needed some more preparations.

First things first, he made a few round trips to the river to fill some wooden buckets with water.

Then, he brought a few rocks to completely close his furnace so that it will retain the warmth.

After that, he chose the flattest rock he could find and carried it over the furnace to improvised some sort of a table that he will be using to work the metal.

In the meantime, he started a fire in his furnace. The whole operation took a few hours, so much that Keith put an end to the fire because he had inquiries to attend to in real life. Plus he didn't want the smoke to attract Amber to his secret furnace, as she should be coming soon to deliver resources.

This time, Keith had prepared two spears for Amber, in hope she will be satisfied for a while.

Amber forgot to bring the usual resources to the caveman. She connected just a few minutes ago and packed all the resources she could find in the guild's stocks. She was now on her way to Keith's base, hoping he didn't take offense to this hindrance.

However when she arrived, a sign was intended for her at the entrance of the cave explaining he would not be playing for several hours. With a slight relief, she went towards the exchange area and took the two spears laying there. She then discharged all the resources she was carrying and went for a little inspection.

The base did get upgraded since last time she visited. Keith created several wooden crates to store resources in an organized way and he excavated parts of the walls to get a bigger and more comfortable interior. A bed was laying in a corner, but Keith's body was nowhere to be found.

In Project Overworld, similar to other survival games, the player's avatar can be killed and his inventory looted while he is disconnected, so you needed to protect it by building strong defenses or by hiding yourself before disconnecting.

'He must not trust me. Eh, I guess I would hide myself too. After all, his base isn't the most hidden place I could think of.' Amber thought.

She searched in the crates for something out of the ordinary, but she left empty-handed. 'Either he isn't that well developed, or he keeps his precious resources in his inventory.'

Back at home, she found Alan striding around the camp with a grave expression.

- "What are you doing?" She inquired.

- "Things have degenerated back at the spawn. Large groups started fighting each other, leading other smaller ones to move to safer places. Some of them have moved not too far away from our position, and we're not yet sure whether they will attack us or not."

- "Wow, that sounds bothering. Will we have to leave too?"

- "No. If they attack us, we will fight back and chase them to somewhere else. For now, let's just focus on our project. Oh, and tell Keith he should make more weapons from now on. And of better quality as well."

- "Yeah, I thought so too. He'll be disconnected for a while though, he made a sign saying he would not play for the day."

- "We're not that short on time." He replied with a small grin. "But whenever he comes back he will have to work a lot harder than before."

'I can finally play again.'

After a whole day without connecting to the game, Keith was eager to refine the metal he was about to melt.

In real life, it was about two in the morning, when people usually sleep.

In the game, darkness welcomed him. He hid his avatar in a small cave a few hundred foots away from his main base. After Amber visited the cave he was in, he felt like he needed more security.

Coming out of his hideout, the daylight dazzled him for a few seconds. After his eyes adapted to the luminosity, he rushed towards his furnace.

He started a weak fire to warm it up, and during that time he went to collect the resource Amber brought to him. This time, there was a lot of resources piled up because he haven't connected for a while. He was low on food and wood, so that relieved him.

He then patiently waited for his furnace to warm up and passed the next two hours forging his first tools made out of metal with a sturdy rock. He had made a lot of useful tools like a forging hammer, study pliers, sharp scissors and secateurs, as well as a new pickaxe because he had broke all of his previous ones. But he was really tired and it was late into the night in the real life, so decided to call it a day and went to sleep.