Start the Game (Galactogon: Book #1) by Vasily Mahanenko

likely a local, had turned to me in the dungeons of the Training Sector with a request to let another Empire know that some kind of KRIEG or something had been completed. Moreover, I had to relay this message to some guy named Rrgord. Relations between these two empires were not strained—just the opposite: Officially, the Precians were allied with the Qualians, which made encountering one of them in prison all the more strange. Another notable thing about Galactogon ’s missions was that they had to be completed in-game. Even if, in real life, I asked some player familiar with Rrgord to pass on the message to this local—nothing would happen. Rrgord would simply not hear the messenger, even if he yelled it right into his ear and posted signs all around him. This was just another limitation in the game…And again, this was all under the assumption that this was a mission and not some ordinary request…Life in Galactogon sure was complicated.
    I memorized the correct sequence to the question “Where are you?” and switched back into the somatic interface where I continued my train of thought.
    Let’s assume this is a mission. Getting to the planet in question isn’t too hard, especially with a ship. The main thing is not to get pulverized by the planetary defenses—about ten class-A orbital stations and one Legendary-class Grand Arbiter. A Grand Arbiter is the apex of battle power in Galactogon . These ships are off limits to players, and each Empire only has about one thousand of them. They are used to combat piracy in the systems under imperial control. Not a single Grand Arbiter has ever been destroyed during the game’s history. Many players have tried, organizing and launching raids targeted specifically at these ships. As such, more than ten thousand ships have challenged one Grand Arbiter before, and only a meager hundred managed to escape the meat grinder that the locals arranged for them.
    But now I’ve gone and gotten distracted again…If this is indeed a mission, then I’ve received it in a very unconventional place. I doubt that players frequently find their way to these solitary cells. According to the guide the beard sent me, I was supposed to be thrown into a general holding cell where I was to approach some guard with a special insignia on his sleeve. But now…Switching again to Third Person mode, I told Stan to scan all Qualian forums for information about the prison in the training sector. I needed to know whether someone has been here or not…
    My mysterious neighbor was no longer responding to the interrogative “Where are you?” which I went on tapping out at minute-long intervals. Having foisted on me the responsibility of passing on the danger warning, it seemed that he really had turned up his toes (or whatever it is that Precians have). Speaking of which, there was no guarantee that he was a Precian at all—he could just as easily have been a Qualian or some a citizen of some other Empire…But here I was thinking about utterly pointless things again…What I needed to figure out at the moment was whether I was ready to wait 20 days in this solitary cell, indefinitely putting off my search for the billion, or risk it and give into my great desire to fulfill this mission I’d stumbled across. If this Rrgord was a person of any note, then he could probably help my search quite a bit…Maybe he could even tell me where the planet I needed was.
    It’s decided then!
    Switching out once more, I told Stan to yank me out of Galactogon only in the event of an emergency. Then, reentering the somatic interface again, I lay down right there on the floor and went to sleep. Twenty days of utter calm and solitude was not a bad price to pay for a chance to escape the utter bottom of the game’s social pyramid…Well, that or find myself in even deeper difficulties…

 
     
     
     
    Chapter 2
     
    The Training Sector
     
     
     
    Lying as comfortably on my mattress as my cell’s cold, hard floor