Start the Game (Galactogon: Book #1)

by Vasily Mahanenko

  “Personally, I saw no point in it,” the girl piped up first again. I made a point to remember her name, Eunice…some kind of ancient name. “If you want to be the best, you can’t get distracted by other trifles. Besides, I had my hands full with Draanmir’s constantly evolving world.”

  “I agree,” Constantine finally spoke up. There’s truth in the observation that a long time spent playing as one particular class leaves its mark on the player—leaning back in his chair, Constantine had practically dissolved in it, as though he was unconsciously trying to seem less conspicuous. Then, it struck me: In Draanmir, he must’ve been a Thief, a Rogue, an Assassin, a Ninja…The title may vary game to game, but the idea remains the same—stealth multiplied by surprise. Interesting…and who was Eunice then? “I had no time to study anything that didn’t seem useful to me.”

  I simply shrugged my shoulders, demonstrating that they wouldn’t hear anything novel from me and I didn’t much feel like repeating things.

  “In that case, let me explain the gist of our proposal,” the President began. “Perhaps you are familiar with the immortal short story by Mark Twain called ‘The £1,000,000 Bank Note?’”

  Having received three nods to the affirmative, the head of our nation went on:

  “Excellent. That makes my explanation much easier. My friend and I,” the President nodded at the mogul beside him, “recently encountered a disagreement between us. Namely, I believe that it is impossible to achieve anything in his game without investing real money. He, on the other hand, claims the opposite—despite the fact that the media has already christened his project ‘a cash vacuum,’ which pumps the players for their last few coppers.”

  “You want us to establish ourselves in the game without any investment?” the girl popped up again.

  “Patience, my dear,” the mogul cracked a smile which, to be honest, made me cringe and try my best to dissolve into my chair too. Noticing that the girl’s reaction was similar, I made a mental note never to butt into the conversations of the almighty of this world. Not good for your health that…

  “As mentioned,” the mogul went on, “we did not see eye to eye. And, because any mention of real people who had reached the apex of the game without investing a single real coin, was contested, we decided to conduct an experiment. To that end—”

  “Ahem,” the President coughed, drawing attention to himself. “I thought we agreed that I would be the one to outline the challenge? If you go on, you’ll pile on a bunch of limitations and then good luck finding a way out. And so! We have created a planet in Galactogon and on this planet we have hidden a single, unique item. Your task is to start playing from the very beginning, find this planet and, as a final touch, pick up this particular item. I should tell you right away that no one will be able to pick up this item without having the right skillset, but whoever does will receive a check in the sum of one billion pounds sterling.”

  “What’s the catch?” this time, I couldn’t help but blurt out. No one simply gives away presents like this—so logically, now should come the information that would put an end to any hope of winning this prize of prizes. One billion pounds is…well, it’s everything! It would guarantee a carefree old age for my great-great-grandchildren. It was definitely worth fighting over.

  “There is no catch, as such. The planet’s location is known only to a select few of the game’s locals—that’s what we call non-player characters (or NPCs) in Galactogon. You will have to figure out who they are on your own. But even this is not the main thing. All three of you will start the game in specific circumstances. One of you will start without a credit in your pocket, just like all new players. Here, I must note that buying credits with real money is strictly forbidden and is grounds for disqualification. Another one of you will receive a monthly salary equivalent to a senior researcher’s monthly salary. This will be credited to your in-game account. The third player will also receive monthly payments to their game account, but these will be equivalent to a senior researcher’s annual salary. You can spend your funds as you see fit…Well, I mean the two of you that will have such funds. For all three of you though, the only objective is to reach the planet with the billion-pound check. We’ll cast dice to determine who will play what role.”

  “But that can’t be all the conditions, right?” I asked, understanding perfectly well that a player with unlimited money would be in the winning position from the get-go. In which case, how could such an experiment be considered objective?

  “Yes, there are several further conditions. The player with the annual salary—or as we will call him, the unlimited player—can only play the game no more than four hours a day. One minute more and he will be disqualified. The semi-limited player can only play eight hours, while the third has no time limitations whatsoever and can play all he wants.”

  “Why would two individuals as famous as you decide to bet on three ordinary players?” I asked the question that probably should have been asked at the very beginning of the conversation. “I mean, something could happen to us. We could become depressed…or even, I don’t know…come down with something serious and be unable to go on.”

  “This is precisely why there aren’t just the three of you,” the President smiled. “There are altogether twelve players, distributed evenly across the game’s twelve empires: Three professional gamers who specialize in Galactogon; three professional gamers who don’t know anything about the game (that’s you three); three ordinary, as you call them, users who are merely familiar with Galactogon; and a further three ordinary users who have absolutely no experience with games at all. That’s twelve players, who shall tomorrow set out in search of our little scroll.”

  “What type of interface can we use to play?” Constantine asked.

  “Despite the fact that your question is somewhat over my head, I will attempt a response,” smiled the mogul. “You may play the game either in Third Person mode—that is, with a VR headset—or through the First Person somatic interface—that is, with a gaming capsule. I should mention that the game does not have…but no, you will discover the rest on your own. Now, I have a question for you. Do you agree with our proposed terms and do you agree to this job? By our calculations, the search could last several years, so we are prepared to offer you a monthly stipend in an amount that is, again, commensurate with that of a senior researcher. We don’t want you to be worried about money during your quest. There are no strings attached to this—you can spend all two years lying around on your couch for all we care. All you have to do is make that first, initial log-in. That is, you must be in-game tomorrow by 6pm. The only limitation is that there can be no alliances or teamwork among the participants to the wager. Each one of you has to play for himself or herself alone. There are many empires in Galactogon and you will be starting your games in ones that are at war with each other. As I already mentioned, there are twelve of them altogether. If you are willing to set out on this journey and agree to all our terms, please place your palm on the screen.”

  A hologram of the contract materialized before our eyes. Getting comfortable and entirely forgetting the others’ presence, I began to meticulously peruse the document. Regardless what piles of gold were glinting in the distance, it was mandatory to familiarize myself with my rights and obligations. Without that, forget it.

  “I was sure that you would all agree,” the mogul said with satisfaction as soon as all three of us had signed the contract. “In that case, let’s cast the dice. Eunice, as the only lady, we will allow you to roll the dice first…”

  Eunice rolled a 17, Constantine a 12 and Alexis (me, that is) a 9. Two 2s and a 5 isn’t the luckiest throw and it put me firmly in the rearguard…Welp! No unlimited game for me, I guess.

  “And so we have determined the order of selection. Eunice, which of the three games types do you choose?”

  “Unlimited.”

  “Affirmed. Constantine?”

  “The second—the semi-limited.”

  “
Affirmed. And you, Alexis, will play the limited game type then. Affirmed. In that case,” the President got up from his chair, leading us by example to stand up as well, “tomorrow morning all three of you will be visited by technicians who will install specialized Galactogon capsules and VR headsets. The game itself commences tomorrow precisely at six in the evening. Tonight you will be accommodated here in the palace. We want to ensure that you will set up your characters without any preliminary research. After that, no help is bad help, pardon the tautology. But not yet. Oh! One more thing: Please notify all your relatives that you will be unavailable until tomorrow evening. We don’t want them to worry needlessly. All incoming calls are blocked in the palace. Best of luck to all of you and thank you for participating in our little experiment!”

  “Please follow me,” the steward from before appeared beside us. “I will take you to your chambers.”

  “Guys, since we’ll be locked up here together for the next day, I propose we celebrate the sad, sad passing of our respective game worlds,” I offered at our communal dinner. Thank god that the Masters had not forbidden us this essential tradition—odd, seeing as we had been accommodated in different rooms, even different floors, to prevent any chance of our interacting. They were a strange bunch, these Masters…A game, after all, is just a game—it shouldn’t have any effect on real life! The fact that we might hate each other in the virtual world didn’t mean that we should feel the same about each other in reality. I mean, this was like kindergarten!

  “Agreed,” Constantine upheld my proposal. “While we’re at it, let’s pool anything we know about Galactogon. It’s silly to compete in real life—there’s more than enough of that in-game.”

  Now didn’t I say that men are a sufficiently reasonable bunch..?

  “Oh no,” Eunice instantly cut him off. “I don’t see any point in sharing knowledge that could help me win…But I’m always down to hang out…Can I get some wine?”

  “And you and I will get into some scotch, okay?” Constantine glanced at me slyly. Hah! He thought he’d found himself a chump!

  “Of course! If we’re going to celebrate, than palace single-malt is the only proper way!”

  (Three hours later.)

  “…Hic! And then we came flying in on griffons when everyone was expecting an assault from the ground. Why, we darkened the skies!”

  “…Alex, what class do you think is better—a Pal or an Assassin? Wanna bet I’d get you? I would show up with decoys and then…”

  “…I was an officer in the toppest clan in all of Draanmir! Why, the newbs would send me tribute daily…”

  “…All men are scum! You simply can’t be trusted! Hic! Unreliable, unfair, weak…”

  “…Tss! You’ll wake him up! Hold onto me! Alright, leave him here—someone’ll pick him up in the morning…Wanna come over to my place?”

  “WHAT?! I am a respectable woman!…It’s my place or no place!”

  I can’t see a thing—I hope this is it…At last, my own palatial chamber…”

  “Orders, Master?” asked my smart home upon my return.

  “Block all calls. For the next several days, I don’t exist. Make me dinner for tomorrow, the standard plate. And look up everything that has anything to do with the game Galactogon.”

  “It shall be done. Please note that you have missed your morning workout, which may negatively—”

  “Turn off nagging-wife mode,” I interrupted the program. “Get to work.”

  The specialized Galactogon cocoon—delivered as promised by the Masters—both stunned me and inspired my curiosity. The humongous box, stylized to look like a spaceship, occupied basically half of the room I dedicated to my gaming bells and whistles. Furthermore, the cocoon was a 2-in-1 monster of a device, including not only the gaming capsule but also the VR headset. Knowing that I simply wouldn’t forgive myself later for starting the game in Third Person mode, I got into the spaceship cabin and closed the lid. A wonderful design! Regardless of how the experiment turned out, I would be asking them to let me keep this wonder.

  A screen unfurled before my eyes and images began to flash upon it, submerging the player in a specific state—full immersion…

  Welcome to Galactogon!

  Character generation complete! Starting empire selected! Please choose your starting occupation …

  Okay…If I understand correctly, my character, just like the Empire, has already been chosen for me. Alright, that just means I’ll have less to fret over. As I understand it, I’ve been assigned to the Qualian Empire. At the moment, I don’t know what this means, so no point in bashing my head against it. Onwards—name. I’ve already been assigned one…Mmmkay…From here on out, I will be called “Surgeon.” I’ll have to see how many Surgeons there are running around this game already—as I understand it, in Galactogon, names don’t have to be unique…But surely, someone else has picked this one already? Weird, I wonder how the mail and notification system works then…I mean, there must be some unique identifier!

  Fine, I’ll figure that out later too. Since it’s asking me to pick an occupation, let’s do that. What do we have?

  …Marine, Engineer, Navigator, Gunner, Harvester, Scientist, Ship Commander…

  I’ll be damned! More than fifty classes, each of which has its own rank and skill-tree! Now I see why those two dear fogeys didn’t want to give us a chance to study the FAQs. I hate doing it, but it looks like I’ll have to choose randomly—the strengths and weaknesses of this or that class are utterly unknown to me. I always thought that Galactogon was just about some kids flying around in spaceships, but here I see that a commander is just one of many possible jobs! Tough choice this…

  Not wanting to be too smart for my own good, I chose the one that I’d heard the most about.

  You have chosen to develop as a Ship Commander.

  Please note that you may change your character’s occupation after you have graduated from basic training.

  Have a good game!

  A flash of light and I merged with my character…Hello, Surgeon!

  Chapter 1

  Getting to know Galactogon

  Welcome, recruit!

  The Qualian Empire has entrusted you with a great responsibility! Strive to be the best, purchase upgrades for your ship and…

  A huge, semitransparent sheet appeared before my eyes, telling me how wonderful and carefree life for players in the empire was; however, I instantly waved it away. I hadn’t the slightest interest in working for the Qualians and the word “purchase” made me instantly lose any and all interest in the text. The main thing for me at the moment was to play through the tutorial and then flee back to reality—where my educational resources awaited me.

  The starting point for new players in Galactogon was not particularly astounding—a landing platform with a spaceship, from which the new recruits emerged. Who we were and how we appeared in this world wasn’t important. A player stepping out onto the training planet of any empire became any ordinary recruit without any specific allegiance. At least that’s what the helpful notification bobbing before my eyes told me. Kind of dumb, that…About two hundred yards ahead of me stood a large building in the direction of which, along sun-soaked pavement, trudged a stream of new recruits. Hardly had I gotten a good look at this building when a window popped up titled “Allocation Center.”

  And this window provided me with my first few tips about the game:

  First—that each in-game item has its own attributes. For example, the allocation center had a Durability stat expressed as a percentage. There was probably some setting to show the absolute value in units, but for now this would do for me. And, it should be said that Durability was not the most interesting attribute of the building. More than anything else, I was happy to see among the attributes the line: “Building class: N/A.” From this first window ran a line to point number two:

  Objects in the game have their own levels, which meant that, logically, players did too. To make sure, I ope
ned my character menu and…Oh boy. This was just getting better and better…What stood out most was the utter lack of stats and slots for clothes. In fact, the menu had nothing at all in it besides a brief description of the character’s history (dating from my emergence from the spaceship) and a separate tab for inventory. That’s all! Aside from that, this little panel, which to a Runlustian was the end-all-be-all, contained nothing at all! Though that’s not true—there was also a 3-D projection of the character, which I could rotate from side to side and even use to correct my default posture—as well as a line which read 0.0 GC. Unless I was mistaken, this was an image of myself and a counter for how many Galactogon Credits I had.

  Third—an object’s or item’s attributes will automatically pop up when you look at the object long enough. This was a bad thing. Looking closely at the players marching dutifully to the allocation center, I managed to confirm my hunch—extended attention indeed showed me the stats of nine recruits, utterly obscuring my field of view. What was worse was that none of the players’ stats told me anything useful—just their names and occupations. And yet, this one panel took up a vast amount of space. Opening my notebook, I made a note to myself to look in the game settings for a way to turn off the attributes pop-ups. When I needed them, I would open the attributes panel myself.

  Fourth—when in the somatic interface…

  “What’s the holdup?” someone yelled behind me and—rudely interrupting my contemplation of life, the universe and everything—landed a vicious kick to the small of my back, sending me flying several yards forward…