Andy dashed for the broken-down POI. He ran as fast as his legs and weighty suit and backpack would allow. There wasn’t a moment to lose. If that sun came up, his suit would start heating up and he had no way of cooling it down this time. He needed to find some kind of usable shelter before that happened.

Andy reached the broken apart complex. Most of it was torn apart by what appeared to be some kind of former explosion. He climbed up an elevated floor that appeared to be made up of large iron plated cubes that reached all the way into the ground. Or at least what was left of the floor.

The sun had already reached the complex, the first rays of golden death peaking between warped exposed metal girders and frames.

Andy looked around to find any part of the base that was still intact enough to hold atmosphere. He spotted two rooms side by side. The one on the left was dark like the rest of the base, however, the one on the right actually somehow had power!

Andy ran up to the sealed door of the room. It appeared to be some kind of bedroom. The door on the bedroom, unlike its neighbour, was powered and could be opened via touch panel. The inside of the room was illuminated by a single light. It also had an LCD screen mounted on the wall that appeared to be showing the room’s current temperature and pressure. It read: twenty three degrees celcius and 100kpa.

There was also a locker present in the room. It may very well hold food and drink supplies. That was another problem he had. His health was still draining from hydration loss. If he didn’t deal with that at the same time, he would not survive till the next night in the first place.

He wanted to enter the lit bedroom, he could just open the electronic door and mind out of the way while the 50kpa difference sorted itself out, before entering. But he would firstly be stuck in the same position he was in right now, in that he could not open his helmet to drink.

The other thing was the pressure and temperature caught his eye. He knew from similar space games that 100kpa is an ideal pressure for human breathing, provided of course you had a decent gas makeup. That, and twenty three degrees was an ideal comfort temperature for most humans. This strongly suggested a few things.

First, is that the atmosphere inside that room was perfect for human breathing, probably even a similar makeup to that of earth, it had clearly been set up that way.

Second, was that the dead player had not raided that room, there could be some supplies inside. The player would have needed an airlock to enter there without upsetting the atmosphere. Andy did not believe there was enough of a base left standing here to have all the equipment and setup needed to recover and maintain the atmosphere inside this one room, so it had to have ultimately been left untouched. Also the damage to the base looked old and unlikely to have occurred after the player left.

He needed to get in that room and fast. He would also need to hope that there was some water in there. No. He couldn’t rely just on that slim chance. He had to quickly take a look around for supplies before that even.

The sun had already risen and the temperature inside his suit had already started climbing.

The destroyed base was fairly large, so Andy focused his search on the immediate area. In the meanwhile he thought about his problem.

It’s such a pity he didn’t have more time to work with. If he could have just used the neighbouring room to wait out the daylight. Based on the fact that the lit bedroom was holding a constant temperature so easily, despite the condition of the base, it strongly suggested that external atmospheric heat in this game did not transfer easily through walls or doors.

This in turn meant that if could have sealed himself in the empty room, with the current atmospheric temperature sitting at two hundred and three degrees celsius, then he could have just waited in the room for the day to pass as the temperature in the room would not have changed as long as the door was closed. Andy had already checked and he could use the crowbar to force a door closed just as he could open one.

But with his super low health, there was currently no such option, which was rather frustrating.

Andy noticed a part of the base with two doors barely standing. That had likely been the airlock entrance before it blew up or whatever.

He found an intact wall that had a closed cabinet. Opening it revealed what appeared to be some construction supplies. Picking up each in turn, his hud described them:

“6 x Iron wall frames”

“4 x Iron construction frames”

“8 x Iron sheets”

“2 x Plastic sheets”

“11 x Glass sheets”

“Welding torch (67%)”

“Electric screwdriver (34%)”

“Water bottle (0%)”

“Water bottle (83%)”

“Water bottle (100%)”

Jackpot! On so many levels… Jackpot!

Andy couldn’t really understand why the player had left so much stuff behind, especially supplies like water, but that was a concern for another time.

He had life saving water supplies. Now he just had to figure out how to drink it!

The sun was heating him up too much now, he was out of time, whatever he was going to do, he needed to do it now! Or this was the end of the road for him.

Andy tried his best not to panic and to come up with a solution. He still needed to get in that room and keep the atmosphere intact. He could try opening and closing the electronic door quickly. But firstly, the pressure difference would throw him around, which was really dangerous and secondly he wasn’t even sure how fast the door could be opened and closed. It was almost guaranteed that no matter how quickly he acted, too much of the external atmosphere would get into the bedroom for it to be viable.

Andy considered the items in the locker. When he had picked up the wall frames, his hud had overlaid a sort of 3D grid. Most likely placement options. He picked one up again and examined the instructions more carefully.

“6 x Iron wall frames: To place, hold in one hand, with a powered electric screwdriver in the other hand. Point frame at target location for confirmation. Point electric screwdriver at location to execute placement.”

Andy grabbed the screwdriver and frames and tested it out. He saw the square grid show up on the floor and space above it. Each wall frame was square and seemed to be the exact same size as the door to the room, well when placed anyway. In his hand they were actually quite a bit smaller and lighter. Game logic.

He adjusted the frame he was holding out until it lined up next to the bedroom door, at a right angle to it. Then he pointed the screwdriver at the same location. He saw the outline of the placed frame slowly materialise and once finished it disappeared out of his hand and became an actual fixed wall frame.

Cool. But it was just a frame at this point. Not a complete wall. He then grabbed ahold of one of the iron sheets:

“8 x Iron sheets: To place, hold in one hand, with a fueled, ignited blow torch in the other hand. Point sheet at target location for confirmation. Point blowtorch at location to weld in place.”

Andy pointed the sheet at his new wall frame, saw it snap into place, then pointed the blowtorch at it. But nothing happened.

Examining the blowtorch, he saw it had an on/off button. Pointing it away from himself and everything else, he turned it on. It immediately ignited with a blue white flame coming from the nozzle. Perfect.

He tried placing the sheet one more time, this time with success. Examining it, it now looked indistinguishable from one of the bedroom walls. Meaning, it was probably airtight.

Andy quickly set to work. He clipped both the screwdriver and the blowtorch to his toolbelt, then proceeded to drag two more wall frames and sheets over to the bedroom door.

The suit’s temperature was already sitting at forty degrees celsius, so he had to work quickly.

He placed the other two frames around the entrance to the bedroom door, creating a sealed off one size ‘block’ space in front of it. He then welded them all up with sheets, effectively sealing the block off from the outside atmospherically. He was now trapped in a 1x1x1 block space with a two hundred and seventy nine degrees celsius atmosphere, sitting in front of the bedroom door.

He hoped against all odds that when he opened the door and the atmosphere in the block entered the bedroom that no doubt contained at least twenty percent oxygen, that it didn’t go boom. But he had hope. When the atmosphere entered his suit through the tear in small amounts originally, it did not ignite. Granted the room likely had far, far lower levels of O2 than his suit does, but he still thought it would work.

The bedroom was also quite spacious. It was four by three blocks in size, with what looked like a second row of four by three blocks of space above it, partially concealed by some kind of rubberised roof grating panels. That’s at least twenty four blocks versus his one poisonous block. It should be enough to handle the temperature difference and disperse enough of the toxins to be manageable, even at the higher 150kpa pressure.

Andy held his breath and hit the open button on the doors console. He braced himself as the door opened rather quickly. He was forced to stumble forward with the rapidly shifting air pressure, but it wasn’t too bad and he quickly regained his balance.

Andy waited a couple of seconds for the gases to normalize. The pressure sensor on both his suit and the bedroom wall confirmed the resting room air pressure was at 102kpa, with the temperature sitting at a nasty thirty eight degrees celsius. But it had worked!

He quickly unlocked his visor and brought one of the water bottles to his mouth. He quickly sealed the visor once more and flushed his suit once to get rid of the lingering toxins. He only lost one percent of health throughout the process, proving that the toxic atmosphere had dispersed enough to only be a minor problem.

If only he could revel in the moment of victory.

Unfortunately Andy still had a host of problems. For one, this little stunt could only be repeated another one or two times. Both the temperature and toxin levels would build up and cost him likely exponentially increasing amounts of health, assuming at some point it didn’t just outright kill him.

He was also very close to running out of oxygen and had spoiled the oxygen in this room already with toxins. Andy doubted he would be able to vent his suit again anyway, there just wasn’t enough oxygen left.

On top of that, where was he going to get more food and water supplies?

Truly he had his work cut out for him. But for now, he could for the first time ever, take a breather and appreciate the early morning sun, through the bedroom’s small window, without it actively trying to kill him.