2 Base Setup

A meandering river ran in between the two hills, just large enough that it could not be crossed without getting soaked up to the waist. On the other side of the shore, where the lanscape was at its steepest, Keith saw some recesses within the rocky walls.

'I guess I could find some caves around here.' He meditated. In any case, this place was perfect for him to establish onto. Not only was it quite well hidden because one could not spot the river from the top of the hill, but the closest forest was only around one mile away from there.

However, he was only around a dozen miles away from the world spawnpoint, and he knew this place would be discovered sooner than later. 'Well, no point in continuing for now anyways. I should be making some weapons instead so I can defend myself.' Keith decided. He would wasting too much time not choosing to settle there. Who knew if he could come across such a perfect spot anywhere else on the continent? Thus, after rummaging for a while around both shores of the river, Keith finally spotted what he was looking for.

'A cave!' He thought. Although its entrance was quite narrow, it led to a pretty comfy interior. The ceiling was about eight feet high and the whole cave should be around two hundred square feet in total.

However, he realized that he should be cleaning up this place before even thinking about settling in there. The gound was really rough, and large rocks protruded here and there. The whole floor was also quite uneven, and it would become quite a hassle in the future when he would be building some structure, but for now he only needed a place to live in.

After gathering most of the dangerous rocks in a corner of the room, Keith started picking up some which would be helpful to build some tools with.

Crafting in Project Overworld worked really similar to real life, but it was ease by the game thanks to the 'System'. Albeit a user would be controling his avatar most of the time, the 'System' was some sort of an artificial intelligence at its beginnings which would be helping a player to control their avatar with more precision during the crafting processes.

The result was quite... hazardous most of the time. The problem with this system was that it needed to read the player's intentions more so than intercepting the motion signals of their brain. Fortunately, this 'System' could be deactivated in the options of the game and Keith did just that for the moment.

In any case, a lot more processes were facilitated by the game itself. Sharpening some rock would not be breaking it, most of the time, and plants drying under the sun would almost never turn out to be unusable. In fact, the laws of physics of this game were a bit less complicated than the real world, making everything a lot faster.

On top of that, every player had access to a personal inventory able carry about half a ton of materials. Their avatar were also naturally strong, and every player may be lifting some heavy rocks off the ground without so much of a problem. It was not that unreal of a feat, but their strength should be on par with a bodybuilder without having the inconveniance of moving some huge biceps around.

Crafting some rudimentary tools seemed pretty straight-forward to Keith anyways. He only needed to sharpen some sturdy rock, such as a flint, and use it to peel some bark off the trees. Afterwards, the bark could be used to make a rope, thanks to its soft parts, before being used to tie the rock onto a stick. Alternatively, he would also be collecting a few sorts of plants and have them dry up under the sun before twining them altogether to make a rope.

The result would be pretty similar in both cases. Keith also threw some study rocks on top of some other ones so he could be collecting the debris to make more tools. One could say it was similar to prehistoric survival.

Though, after realizing that his tools were would not last long because their rope would detach easily, he decided that he would be using flints directly.

After arranging his base as best he could, Keith quickly progressed through amassing tons of various resources. He went around the area to collect plants that he could be using in some ways or the other, he cut off a lot of bark from the trees of a nearby forest and also collected lots of berries so he could keep his character alive.

Dying from hunger would be really unfortunate for him as of now. He would have to run back here all the way from the spawn area while being constantly under the risk of being attacked by another player. This would essentially ruin his lead.

As for his water needs, his base was fortunately settled right next to a river. For now, Keith estimated that he was off to a good start. The next step for him would be to try and dig up various metals so he could start refining them into more powerful tools. He knew approximately how to refine some low quality metals which had low melting temperatures by heating them over a fire. As for the other ones, he would see once he got to that point.

_______________

A few miles away from where Keith was trying to establish, Amber was waiting for the return of the scouts. She and some of her friends gathered altogether since the start of the server, forming a guild named 'New Dawn'. A few dozen other people decided on joining them after a recruitment session, and they all envisioned the project of founding a prosperous civilization.

Though, they were not the only ones who started organizing a guild, and certainly not the most ambitious ones at that.

This honor solely went to the guild 'Pioneers', counting over a hundred people within their ranks already. It has only been eight to nine hours since the start of the game, but they planned on conquering the whole server and establish a flourishing guild.

With around thirty players in total, the New Dawn guild to which Amber belonged was much smaller than the Pionners. In their case, after staying around the spawn for some time so they could be gathering some resources while making themselves known to the other players and hopefully recruit some of them, they decided to move away from the overpopulated spawn in order to focus on their own project.

They walked for quite some time before deciding that they went far enough from the spawn area.They were currently on top of a hill that would quite easy to defend in the future. Or at least, that was what Alan, the guildmaster of New Dawn, thought. He thus decided to assign some of their newly recruited members to the role of scouts and sent them searching for essential resources and a perfect place to settle onto.

As for the remaining members of the New Dawn, they had been gathering resources for a while waiting for the scouts to accomplish their job.

- "Pfft..." Amber breathed out. "They are taking so much time." She complained in a hushed voice.

Alan, who seemed to have overhear what she mumbled to herself, declared :

- "They are searching for a place to start building our base onto. It must certainly take some time to find such a spot."

- "I know, but why would we need to be entrusting this job to those newly recruited members? Also, why are we not monitoring the region on our own?" Amber got angry at his comment.

- "If we want to set up a luxurious city just as we had imagined, we must start trusting each other as soon as possible. Now, if you want to do the scouting by yourself, fine, go ahead." He replied.

Not wanting to argue with her leader any further, she got up from gathering herbs and walked away to explore the area. 

'Jeez, why does Alan always have to be cold-hearted like that?' Amber thought. She has known him for quite some time as he has always been the leader of the 'White wolves', a pretty large guild in a fantasy game she has been playing for over a year now.

Not really paying attention to the landscape, she continued walking around aimlessly while thinking about the future. Since she was so bored of waiting the scouts to return, she did not have anything else to do anyways.

After walking through the ever-changing landscape for about an hour, she eventually spotted the sound of a river in the distance. 'Where is it coming from?' She raised her head at this unexpected encounter. Amber started going down the hill at best she could and finally made her way to the water spot.

Since her avatar was thristy, she decided take the opportunity and drink some water.

'That's quite a nice place to live in, isn't it?' She meditated while straightening back up. 'This game is so soothing...' However, to her surprise, another player was looking at her from the other side of the river.

Without uttering a single word, the man started walking in her direction, menacingly.