Left in the dust

The young man loaded his rifle and shot in the direction of a practice target. His concern was clearly visible on his face as he was constantly checking the surroundings of his base in case some other players showed up around here.

Keith was not fully resolved to take part in a fight against other people. The fact was, he would never be on the winning side of the story for various reasons.

First of all, he was in the defending position. He was the one to be in constant warry of players invading his lands and a group of them could easily sneak in while he was working on improving the defenses of his base, or away from the game.

Second of all, he was alone. Not a single friend to help him out with the scouting and even though he estimated that he had a huge technological advance compared to your average player, he could never be so sure about the equipment of the attacking force.

Finally, the real reason why he became so frustrated was because he had to put a hold in his plans. The player who got impaled by his steel pikes trap could be the most friendly in the world. There was no certainty about the numbers of their group either, and for all Keith knew this player could also be a lone wolf.

In any case, the fact was that someone was rummaging around the area, and it was the most disturbing thing that could have happened to him. He could not simply wait and check the intentions of this player because they could also be coming back with some of their friends and a stack of explosives, annihilating all of his progress in one go. The possibility was not zero and Keith had to prepare for the worst.

Thus, for the following hours Keith made sure to prepare for an incoming battle while packing up as many resources as he could. His goal was to ultimately flee this place and find somewhere he could be safe but for the time being he could not resolve to leave all of his machines behind. Even of he died and his bed got destroyed, Keith would lose almost as much progress as he would if he left right now. Although the car he used to flee his first base was ready to go, he could not embark a lot of resources with him on this thing. He would have to part with his drilling machine, both of his generators as well as the few other devices he started the construction of.

'I'll hold my position for as long as I need to! They'll never set foot in my base while I'm still alive!' The young man decided in his mind.

_______________

- "Want to have another go?" One of the teammates of Eric asked.

The latter did not respond immediately but ultimately nodded at this proposition. His real intentions differed a bit from his friends but their goal was pretty much the same. They had to make sure about the fact another group of player installed themselves in the area before them.

Afterwards, since they were not the warlike type they would have to find another place to go. However, since this area was really nice and had all the natural resources they would need for their survival they could not simply leave at once, not after all the distance they had traveled.

'What was the probability we'd find another group of player at this exact place?' Eric raged in his mind. The man was a lot grumpier than he should have been. He did not lost a lot of things upon dying, after all. However, the humiliation of falling for the most obvious trap in the world made him angry at himself and at the players who set up such traps.

This time, Eric would go with three of his friends while the others would be taking care of their camp in their absence.

- "Have a safe one!" The last two members of their group wished them good luck in their investigation.

The travel all the way back to the hill was a really silent one. Nobody dared to talk because of how concerning the piece of news Eric brought them back was.

After a long walk, one of the youngest member of the group, Kevin, could not hold himself back from asking in a low voice : "What do you think their equipment looks like?" A woman of the name Leyla glared straight at him telling him to shut up.

- "We're entering their territory, stop talking."

Afterwards nothing could break the silence anymore, other than squealing of grass being trodden on. This was a really serious operation and they could not let themselves be distracted by pointless questions. They went on this trip to discover everything about the group of players who killed Eric, after all.

Finally, after a few dozen of minutes Eric told them to stop and went ahead to check on the situation of that trap he fell into.

'It's still there, hmpf? Those players must be pretty active because they replaced that leaf carpet.' He thought. The man warned his team about the existence of those traps without revealing that it was the reason why he died, several hours ago.

Progressing more carefully, the four players stopped at regular interval to check where the trap could have been installed. Finally, after another couple dozen of minutes the group arrived at a breath-taking scenery. A large lake stretched towards the horizon and trees were happily growing in the area. Other than that, the two big mountains they could see from all the way back to their camp were taking root around this enclave.

However, the majesty of nature was not the real scene that surprised the group of friends. In fact, the foundations of a large mansion could be seen from all the way up there and it seemed to be a really good piece of art. It looked like one of these peaceful houses installed near peaceful places by rich people. It was nowhere near finished but given enough time it would be a really good place to live in.

Kevin, who dared to talk during the travel opened his mouth again and asked : "How many players do you think building this thing requires?"

This time, Leyla did not tell him to shut up and instead carefully looked around the area.

'Strange... There doesn't seem to be any more traps set up around here...' The more she thought about it, the less this whole situation made sense. Her instincts told her to leave this place at once and she hurriedly expressed her concerns to her allies : "Wait, what if the building itself was a trap so people could sneak behind us? Ready your weap..." Just as she started yelling at her comrades, several shots were fired in their direction.

From the initial attack, two of them instantly died. The young player, who was still amazed by this scenary, could not even react to the shot that was aimed at him while Eric got hit right in the face after looking in the direction of the attacker.

'Shit!' He raged. It was the second time he got killed by this group of player and he grew really frustrated about that.

When he respawned back at his bed, he was greeted by his comrades whom had also died by the player's shots. They were all flabbergasted by this experience and it took a few minutes for them to clear their mind.

  - "That's impossible." Kevin, who had died first, expressed.

  - "You died too, right? Didn't you see that man shooting like a madman?" His close friend whom had died third replied.

- "I did... But how is that possible? Did he just elimate the four of us within a few seconds? Does that mean they had a semi-automatic rifle or something like that?"

- "It could be." Eric nodded. "Some of them could have also hidden behind covers. We did not have a good sight of them in the situation we were in.

However, Leyla was pretty certain about what she had seen back then. She clearly was able to see the man who shot them down using his elaborate rifle.

- "Well, I guess we shouldn't try and invade their territory again. We're not even sure if that person was a lone wolf or just a scout. Maybe they got more developed weapon down there." She explained while remembering of the good-looking base they had seen back then. She could not fathom a way a lone player would have built such an elaborate house for himself. There had to be more people in his group and this was even more concerning regarding the fact they got slaughtered by only one of them.

After an awkward silence between the group, Kevin finally asked : "Why don't we go back and make sure of it? We don't have anything to lose except time."

However, Leyla calmly explained to the young man : "This wouldn't be a great idea. They could easily track us down by following the path we'd followed up that hill before coming our camp. Afterwards it would be impossible for us to defend out beds and they'd eliminate us in seconds. Let's just play it safe, we can't afford to go back to the World Spawnpoint after all." She calmly explained her thoughts. After those wise words, the group of friends started packing their tools up and left this place swiftly.