War preparations

'Finally done...' Keith thought while looking at the steel door he just molded in one night. He had prepared everything he would need for this Wednesday evening and started pouring buckets of molten steel into the wooden frame he had built during the past few weeks.

The hinges were quite imperfect and the door sometimes blocked itself up with the lock, but overall Keith was satisfied about this new line of defense between his base and the rest of the world. In the meantime, he started mass-producing basic rifles for the New Dawn guild which were a real hassle to reload. He intentionaly made them worse than he could have made them because he did not want his 'allies' to turn on him and force him to join their guild.

For now, he still had a quite substantial advantage because his own rifle had gone through several upgrades. First, he added a small compartment on top of its canon which would let a bullet through after the trigger has been pulled. Thanks to this, he only had to resupply his gun with black powder after each shot so the total reloading time had been almost cut in half.

Afterwards, he also improved its stability and a few other details on the interior of the canon so that the bullets would lose a bit less power because of the friction.

Overall, this weapon was still pretty rudimentary but it gave him and extra edge over other players. If he was to be involved into a gunfight, he would be able to keep his distances and snipe people from afar. Because his own rifle was better than those of the New Dawn, they would not be able to fight back as long as they did not sneak upon him.

After his steel door has been finished, Keith spend another couple of days on the lock itself. He needed something really sturdy so it could fend off an assault for several minutes and let him time to react. In fact, he has also started the construction of a small tunnel leading to a neighboring cave system so he could flee if his base was to be attacked at some point.

However, for the same reason he could not expand his base by much for now, Keith had to put a stop on this tunnel plan because it would be requiring several months just to finish it. In the end, he decided to focus entirely on his project of building a steam generator.

Amber came by a few times, asking if he could start the construction of a canon. Since he just finished his steel door, he had a hard time convincing her that he had not the knowledge to do so. In fact, Keith did not want to spend a lot of his free time on the construction of a six-foot-long, twelve-inches-wide full iron weapon. Instead, he did manage to negotiat with her that he would be building another type of defensive contraption : a balista. This one should be a lot more manageable for Keith to create and he would not be losing his much appreciated iron ores as much.

All in all, his cooperation with the New Dawn guild was more fructuous than he initially expected. He did gain a lot of resources in the process while being kind of 'protected' because other players did not dare to venture onto their territory.

However, what worried him a lot was the purpose of all the weapons they wanted Keith to work on. They did not bother asking him for some tools anymore and focused solely on equipping themselves with rifles, canons and other ranged contraptions. This made him wonder what they were going up against that they needed so much preparations.

'Whatever they fight against, I hope they come off ahead. It'd be kind of a dire situation for me to be in if the New Dawn guild was to be eliminated from the surface of this planet.' Keith meditated.

_______________

Alan was going back and forth nervously in his office.

Recently, Amber has been coming back from Keith's base with lots of rifles and ammunitions for his subordinates to equip themselves with. Some of the Pioneers guild scouts were seen near the New Dawn territory and Alan started planning for a war, as a result.

His own scouts were forced to proceed more carefully so not to be uncovered while the entirety of their guild prepared themselves as best as they could. Not only did they start building a large enclosing wall on top of the hill they were established onto, but most of their engineers focused on reproducing the types of ammunition Keith developed for them and also managed to create a few more rifles.

During this time, a part of their guild members continued researching for resources everywhere and supply them with their most important needs. Those were, for the most part, iron and sturdy stones.

In fact, Alan assembled a team of building of around ten members with the elaboration of walls all around their base. Their job also consisted in erecting long towers that people could be using as a defensive position. Since their ennemies were mostly equipped with bows and arrows, having the height advantage would be a huge game-changer in a potential battle.

Unfortunately, they were really pressed by time. Not only did the walls they started building collapse a few times during the last few weeks, but they were also lacking in resources. For that purpose, Alan assigned another team of people to the refinement of stone. Their goals would be to produce square rocks that could easily be stacked upon themselves to make a sturdy wall.

Going out of his office, Alan immediately went into the direction of the stone-cutting district.

- "How are they doing?" Alan asked to one of his officers.

- "They are learning really fast. They are currently experimenting with a wall, would you like to take a look?"

- "Bring me to them."

After witnessing the beginning of their work, Alan was reassured. It seemed like the result was a lot sturdier than the previous iterations of walls they had tried to assemble for so long. For now, though, the wall only was a few feet tall and wide. This would not be sufficient to repel an attack of several thousands players at once.

In fact, since the Pioneers also started building rams, such walls could easily be disposed of as of now. However, the team that has been taking care of the wall construction up until now came with a few solutions to reinforce a wall. First, they put a paste made out of crushed pebbles and plants between each rock that was supposed to strengthen adhesion between them.

Then, they also started creating wooden frames that they would be putting behind their walls to use the ground as a fulcrum. This would be reinforcing the overall structure and prevent whole sections of the wall from falling at once. Individual rocks could still be destroyed, but Alan was quite satisfied about everyone's work.

With this construction going, he was feeling quite a bit relieved. If everything went uneventful, they would most certainly be done with most of the walls in a month-time. Going back into his office, Alan focused back onto the battle plans he has been working on for the past couple of days.

'We only need a few canons and balistas that Keith has promised to us, and we should be able to fend off any attacks for a while. Let's just hope they don't have strategical geniuses within their ranks.' He concluded.

_______________

Finishing the design of a ballista on paper during his time at the university, Keith started taking care of the real deal inside the game. He was kind of curious how a defensive weapon like that could fare in a real battle, so he was actually quite motivated by this project.

In any case, this would change a lot from the current projects he has been working on that required so much metal resources. He still had a steam generator to construct but he had quite a bit of time before him. Since a war would certainly be inevitable between the largest guilds of Project Overworld, he prefered helping the New Dawn with defending themselves so he would be much safer.

Afterwards, he would have the leisure to do whatever he wanted. That was why, he did not hesitated for long before focusing on the creation of a ballista.

It did take him a few hours just to build the base of the weapon. However, the more Keith dove into it the faster he began assembling everything. The structure was made out of wood anyways, so he would not lose a lot of his own resources in the process. Only after he realized it was late into the night, did he disconnect from the game.

'This game is so much fun.' He meditated while going for a shower. 'I should focus on making plans for my generator, tomorrow at the university.' He concluded before going to bed.