"Okay seriously, let go!" Soze shouted. Yang had carried him nearly thirty feet and it was drawing stares and playful laughter from those around them.

Yang could barely contain her own laughter at the frustrations of the smaller player.

"Al-alright," she said as she finally let go, just letting him fall to the ground.

Soze easily landed on his feet despite the suddenness of the drop. He took a moment to straighten out his clothes, glaring at her with the fury and embarrassment of someone who had been publicly shamed. "Did you really have to do that?"

"I kinda did it without thinking, but it was funny as hell."

"You are a child."

"I'm eighteen."

"A child."

"Whatever," she said grinning. "Honestly I'm surprised you're not more mad about it."

Soze raised an eyebrow at that. "Why would I?"

"I mean," Yang rubbed the back of her head sheepishly, "with your height I thought you would've dealt with enough short jokes by now. Like I said I did it without thinking and was going to apologize but then you seemed to be taking it alright."

Soze's expression changed to an amused smile. "Well, thank you for your concern, but I was actually six foot three in reality."

"What?!" Yang was struggling to imagine Soze as being that tall. She had met plenty of people taller than her in reality, either at school or at karaoke bars, and even when they spoke they always felt a little imposing or authoritative like a tiger. Soze never gave off that kind of presence, instead giving her the feeling of a small, conniving creature like a weasel.

Yang then realized that there was another problem with what he had just told her.

"Why would you change it that much?! How did you even function for the first few weeks?"

Designing a player avatar in Virtual Reality wasn't the same as it was in traditional video games. In older games what you looked like was purely aesthetic, everything the player was capable of was defined by invisible hitboxes, collision algorithms, and premade animations.

That was no longer the case in VR. Players now directly controlled their avatars through thought, as if they were controlling their own bodies, and if your body didn't match up with your avatar it could be difficult to adjust.

If a person who was thin and gangly in reality tried to use a big and muscular avatar, they would often find themselves bumping into things because they unconsciously miscalculate how wide their body is. Adjusting one's body weight changed your center of gravity and could mess with your sense of balance.

Changing your height meant not only changing the proportions of your body but also changing your perception. If the ground looks farther away because you've added or lost a few inches of height you may unconsciously change how you step, causing you to trip. Your arms would also be a different length so grabbing things quickly becomes almost impossible.

Yang knew these things from experience. Back in middle school, she had once designed an avatar that was taller and with different...proportions... and it had made moving quickly almost impossible. With both her height and center of gravity altered she had become too clumsy to even beat the game's first enemy. This is why she was stunned to find out that Soze was able to move so well despite the massive shift in his body shape.

Soze simply shrugged at Yang's astonishment. "Honestly I almost always play games at the shortest height possible, so I'm more or less used to it at this point."

"Okay, but why?"

"It's not like in reality where being bigger makes you stronger, so playing RPGs with a smaller body just means a smaller target. I guess I can't use larger weapons but I prefer range and stealth anyway, so it's a win-win for me."

"I guess that makes sense," she said, the shock of the situation finally fading. "Still it's weird trying to imagine you being that tall."

With him being so short his avatar seemed almost child-like at times, so much so that it was easier to think of him as a cute underclassman from school than a grown man more than a decade older than anyone in their group. She tried to imagine his avatar as over six feet tall and suddenly her mind with images of western movie stars with golden tans and blinding white smiles.

Yang was pulled from her thoughts as she heard loud shouts in the distance, coming from the direction of the Workshop. The voices didn't sound panicked, but whatever was happening demanded further investigation.

"Seems like whatever they had been working on last night was a success," Soze said. "Let's go check it out."

"Right."

~~~~~

The walk to the Workshop took only a few minutes, and when they arrived the area was a flurry of activity. Over a dozen crafters were running back and forth, primarily around a large structure in the center of the Workshop that was being constructed from mud mixed with dead grass. The creation was a tall cylinder with a bulky bottom that had four openings. Lined up with the openings were four shallow pits that were having small walls built around them like they were bowls being made directly out of the ground.

Off to the side were a few players that Soze recognized from last night, all of them either looked exhausted or were actually asleep.

It didn't take long to find Rika, as they appeared to be coordinating whatever was happening while making small adjustments to the structure.

"Out of the way!"

Before Soze or Yang could call out to Rika a group of three players carrying a clay pot filled with water shouted out from behind them. Letting them through, the trio ran over to another pit off to the side of the area and poured some of the water into it. Satisfied with the amount in the hole, the three then set down the pot and began mixing the water and dirt into mud before handing that mud to some of the other crafters who were carrying dead grass.

"Boss, we got another pot!"

"Alright," Rika responded without looking. "That should be the last we need-HEY!" they shouted. One of the players that was making a wall around one of the surrounding pit jumped. "That rim needs to be thicker."

"It'll never dry if it's that thick!"

"We need to make it an airtight seal, that'll break the moment we try to tie the leather to it!"

"But-"

"Just do it!" a few of the nearby players yelled. The offending crafter jumped again before grabbing another handful of mud to thicken the rim.

"Are we interrupting something?" Yang asked.

"A little," Rika said while giving the structure a look over. "You guys still need me or can you finish from here?"

"We might need you in a minute."

"Alright, I'll be going on a food run." They then cupped their hands over their mouth to address the whole area. "Keep up the good work everybody, we're almost there!" the crafters responded with an indecipherable mix of celebratory shouts. Rika turned to Soze and Yang. "Come on, I'll need extra hands to get enough for everyone and we can talk on the way."

"Sounds good," Soze said as the three left the Workshop. "So what is all of that?"

"That was a bloomery, or at least it's going to be."

"For those of us with normal educations?" Yang asked.

"We've spent the last week separating the iron from the ant carapaces from the expedition, and after a few guys spent all night processing some of what Loran dropped off last night I decided we have enough to try making our first ingot. That's what the bloomery's for."

"Wait didn't I hear someone say that you needed a kiln for that."

"Maybe? But they were very wrong, or at the very least got their names mixed up(1). What we're going to do is fill the tower at the center with iron and charcoal, once the fires get hot enough the metal and carbon will go through the necessary chemical reactions as it melts and collects at the bottom and forms a bloom. Break that open and we'll have a solid chunk of iron that we can start working with."

"And the pits around it?"

"Bellows to pump air. With four of them and enough people working in shifts it won't even be difficult to maintain the right temperature, just time consuming."

"So does this mean we'll be getting iron equipment soon?" Yang asked, sounding hopeful.

"Ha, you wish," Rika laughed, giving Yang a half-hearted shove. "Before we can even consider making combat equipment we need to make metalworking tools. Making them from scratch like this going to be next to impossible, especially since we're skipping steps."

Soze looked at Rika, concerned. "Why are you guys skipping something? If you need more time to do this the right way then-"

"No no, it's nothing like that," they dismissed. "The problem is we're trying to go from the stone age to the iron age while skipping the bronze age. Bronze has a much lower melting point and would be easier to work without tools instead of iron. Trying to shape iron when all you have is wood and stone is next to impossible."

Soze raised an eyebrow skeptically. "Can you do it?"

"Probably, but it'll be a pain in the ass."

"Then we don't really have much of a choice. We got lucky enough finding a steady source of iron, finding another type of metal anytime soon isn't going to happen."

The three walked into the Kitchen, and a few minutes later they walked out with lunch for the crafting team. Yang carried a pot filled with drinking water, Rika had a smaller pot filled with a stew that didn't look great but smelled wonderful, and Soze was bringing the bowls, cups, and spoons. Soze also had a small sack of assorted jerky slung over his shoulder since, according to Rika, many of the crafters were likely to pass on normal food in favor of having some dried meat to chew on while they worked.

"So what exactly is the problem with trying to work iron without bronze?" Yang asked, curious.

"In order to make our first set of tools we need to heat metal to the melting point, and iron has a melting point of over 1500 degrees Celsius. Trying to use wooden tools around something that hot will turn them into useless charcoal in a matter of seconds."

"That fast?!" Soze and Yang exclaimed.

Rika shrugged. "I'm exaggerating a little bit, but the tools will lose their structural integrity roughly within that timeframe. We need to be careful when working with molten iron for obvious reasons but our tools won't give us that much time. At this point the plan is going to involve getting the molten metal out of the heat with wood and then using thick leather gloves to handle the rest."

Yang took a quick breath as she realized there was no way leather gloves would be able to stop all of the heat. "And you're sure no one will get hurt from this?"

"Nope, but we don't have any other options. If we want out of the stone age, we either wait or we bite the bullet."

"What about that sword that Loran brought back?" Yang asked.

"Sword?" Rika looked at Yang like they had no idea what she was talking about before they suddenly remembered. "Oh yeah, he did bring back something like that."

"Couldn't you use that instead of the wood?"

"Sort of? But we would probably need..." Rika suddenly stopped walking, their eyes vacant.

"Rika?"

Rika held up the pot they were carrying and banged their head against it, not hard enough to risk breaking the ceramic but enough that it probably hurt. "I'm a fucking idiot. It has been over a week and I'm still not getting it."

"Hey, easy with the pot," Yang said. "Now what are you not getting?"

"We don't have any of the tools we would need to modify the blade," Rika said as they continued walking, slightly faster now, "but someone with high STR could probably do it with some mild heating and a stone hammer. I'd still prefer making an actual set of tongs but this should be enough to avoid the leather glove plan."

"Then go with that instead," said Soze. "Honestly, we've had three people get crippled on the expedition, the last thing we need is someone losing a hand from molten iron."

"Agreed."

"...So," Yang began, "I know you said it would be a while, but how long do you think it'll be until you can start making weapons?"

"A couple weeks at least," they said without missing a beat.

"Seriously?"

"Yeah. It'll take a day or two for the bloomery to finish drying, then it'll take a whole day to smelt the iron. Once that's done we'll need to practically tear down the bloomery to get the iron out, so we'll need to start over on construction." Rika shrugged. "Even if we assume that we make no mistakes along the way, the whole process will probably take half a week, and that's with the whole crafting team being hyped up and itching to play with the new toys."

"This is bullshit," Yang grumbled.

"Well I'm sorry I can't just snap my fingers and make items appear."

"Ignore her," Soze said. "If we're going to do this we need to do it right, take all the time you need."

"Thank you, I was planning on it."

(1) Apparently I need to do better research.