Spacebound Chronicles

Chapter 11: Across the Stars

Carol’s old gaming rig had arrived in Scott’s apartment three days after the tournament, Hello Kitty stickers and everything, putting an end to his cybercafé days and finally sending everything spiraling across the stars and out of control.

Regular sleep became a distant dream, and yet Scott felt more energy through his days and nights than ever. Now, without the pressing issue of an impending contest, he no longer left work earlier, having comfortably settled into the new increased rhythm brought forth by the previous weeks. When he got home from work, there was no more TV or couch naps, only noodles and a deep dive into Fantasy Stars.

Almost religiously, Scott would play every single night, even if just for an hour when he had to do overtime or when Tony dragged him into a happy hour. Either way, even the shortest sessions proved exhilarating in their own manners.

Sometimes, Joey would join and guide his evolution. He had now been formerly introduced to Snorri Gian, Joey’s Top 500 character, whose Scott’s clandestine playtime with remained a secret.

Together, Logan Spacebound and Snorri Gian had entirely unutilized class instructors as the alien took the cyborg human for countless stealth training sessions into the sewers of Winner City. Sometimes they went for agility practices in the forest, when an army of vicious lizards would chase Logan for hours. Ultimately, the goal was to avoid the lizards for as long as possible, but sooner or later the critters always won, forcing Snorri to intervene.

No matter how many lizards piled over poor Logan, it never took Snorri more than three seconds to decimate them with his venomous daggers, legendary plasma SMG and Dark Matter grenades. Scott almost felt sorry for those beasts.

Those training sessions usually ran late into the night, and twice they caused Scott to miss the subway the morning after. That had led to the decision of dusting off his bike to prevent a third occurrence. After being forced to pedal to work in a couple of occasions, he learned his bike route was, in fact, faster than the subway one. That granted him a little extra time in bed in the morning, which meant a little extra time in the game the night before.

Therefore, unless the sky was coming down in rain, Scott would pedal.

By the time Logan Spacebound reached level 45, he could have sworn the avatar was growing stronger, more muscular. The realization came during his first transit into another planet, Orthis, to look for a shipwreck filled with loot Snorri had heard about. Joey was too busy to bother with such a low level event but had arranged Logan passage onboard a high grade star cruise. During the trip, Logan had, for the first time, stood shirtless in front of a mirror.

That sight, of a muscular fictional cyborg with a silver forearm, made Scott freeze on his gaming couch. In spite of the mechanic eye and broader jawline, that was Scott’s face, his human eye, nose and lips, inserted in an Olympic body. The image haunted Scott for three full days, especially when he looked down in the shower. Eventually, Scott settled with the fact he did not care about achieving Logan’s peak performance shape.

He would be happy with much less of an improvement.

And the money saved on subway tickets could very well go into groceries to eternally replace the cups of noodle with eggs and salad. His weekends too could accommodate morning runs.

When Joey couldn’t play or was off with Snorri running elite missions that could change the galaxy’s fate, Scott sometimes played alone. Most times, he made new friends. Some of those new friends kept in touch. Most friends vanished after a night of swamp exploration, arena fighting or interplanetary deliveries.

Out of the long-term companions, some stood out. There was Rato Reco, the rodent humanoid rogue he had met in the Battle of the Bards event, and from there broke into a fortress together. There was Ybor, who sold Logan an upgraded canon for his artificial hand and taught him the basics of weapons crafting.

Another friend was none other than Carol’s Karyn Voidex herself. They had never actually met in the game or joined forces to save the universe in any way, but when Scott logged in with her old rig for the first time, an in-game private message awaited Logan Spacebound.

“Hope you like the gift,” the message read. “With any luck it will make you better at dodging fireballs for our rematch. Xoxo, Karyn Voidex.”

He had answered in polite thanks, and she replied asking what he had been up to. He told about his increased workload, to which she replied: “in the game, dumbass”. That back-and-forth was their only kind of contact, and, even if at a slow pace, that never really stopped. Day after day, they would send each other brief stories of their recent adventures with an eventual screenshot to prove none of that was ‘bullpotty’, as she liked to say.

There was also Potathunder, who kept showing up at the most random of occasions. Sometimes he asked about Jude, who Joey rarely ever used anymore. Once he brought up the Chimeras, asking if Logan had heard news about them but being oddly evasive when the question flipped on him.

As he learned more about the game, he mostly dismissed the secret group he had seen as role-players taking it too far. The only indications he had that there could be more to the story than that was Potathunder’s awkward suspicion towards their mention.

Scott sometimes felt wary of Snorri’s sudden disappearances and Joey’s half-witted explanations for them, but he could understand there simply were things in the life of a level 240 character that did not concern a level 47.

Once, on the rare occasion Joey played as Jude rather than his alien superspy alter ego, at a time they were both at level 20, they had had the chance to discuss the exact nature of the Top 500. It casted a much needed light over that topic.

They had been both hired by another player to herd an escaped creature to his crafting shop in Winner City. The pay was good, almost like an NPC given quest, which got them suspicious about the assignment. Why wouldn’t the shopkeeper, whose level was superior to theirs, do it himself?

As they found the thing near Winner City sea docks, all was made clear. A hairy snail the size of car, its shell spiraling into various colors depending to its mood and surroundings. It made no motion to resist capture, but it moved so insufferably slowly that they could not help but wonder how it even managed to escape to begin with. It took them about three hours to walk it back to the store. During that time, Logan guided the thing along the proper path with a stick while Jude gunned down any wild aliens that threatened the hairy slug.

That son of a gun had been way too clear about the snail needing to be alive.

“Joe, I’ve been thinking…” Logan Spacebound said, poking the hairy snail’s butt.

“Jude,” she corrected. Joey hated using their actual names around other players, and apparently wanted to play it careful even here at the seemingly empty beach.

“Right, whatever. I’ve been meaning to ask…”

“No, I won’t kiss you,” Jude snarked while shooting a crab-like alien.

“Will you shut up and let me speak? I’ve been meaning to ask about the Top 500. Are you really one of them?”

“Nope,” she shot the same creature again to be sure. “But Snorri is.”

“So, you are!”

“Snorri is.”

“Okay, and what does that mean? Like… I know that means he’s good, but what do you get for being there?”

They marched silently for another moment, at the snail’s pace, then Jude finally answered.

“This game is more concerned with its story than anything else, and it was designed so that player choices could indeed direct the game’s events and shape world. Or rather, worlds. So, say, if we kill the Mayor of Winner City, they won’t just respawn and be done with it, there would be consequences,” Jude explained.

“Is that really something we can do?” Logan asked.

“Not with these characters, no. That requires someone with way higher level, but at the end of the day it’s possible. Every character can make key choices and they would have consequences, and the game sets up mechanisms to ensure you think carefully about what you’ll do.”

“Permadeath,” Logan grunted.

“Exactly! If we were to kill the Mayor of Winner City, we would be looking at permadeath whenever we stepped in Solar League territory or fought Solar League aligned players and creatures,” Jude shot a Sandsnake. “Makes sense?”

“Sure, but what about the Top 500?”

“They have the means to promote wider, more important changes,” she said. “Think of them as the galactic elite. Once part of the T-500, what you say and do can influence public opinion and trigger galaxywide protests or shift opinions. You can also assume leadership of large guilds and smaller NPC factions, like mercenary companies, religious organizations, tribes, gangs, businesses…”

“In other words,” Logan mused, “create small armies.”

“That’s one option. You could also use those positions to research new technologies, stockpile money, manipulate masses, build fleets…

“Another funny benefit is having your personal starship so you can go anywhere without depending on regular space-lines. Good for flying under the radar, traveling faster and a nice place to call home and invite friends. Another thing about the Top 500 is that they are the only ones who can access certain areas, kill certain characters and use certain unique items.”

“And how do you get to be one of them?”

“First you have to get past level 20. Way past,” she looked at him over her shoulder and the color-shifting snail shell. “But when you’re strong enough, there are five ways to get in, granted each player can only have one character in there and be registered in a databank.

“First and most simple, one hundred spots are reserved for the one hundred most powerful character. Measured in raw power and skill.

“Another hundred spots are dedicated to the players that cause the largest impact on the game as a whole. That’s how Snorri got in, but even I don’t understand exactly how they calculate impact.”

“What did he do?” Logan asked.

“He placed a bomb in a car that killed a police officer,” Jude said, smiling. “An old T-500 player framed a politician for that and rigged a planetary election. Since Snorri was the start of it all, the algorithm picked him.

“Anyway, you can also get in by popularity. The one hundred highest Reputation Scores are selected, and every now and then there is a direct player vote for it,” that explanation brought Potathunder to mind. “Those are like the celebrities. Bards, socialites or real-life vloggers, mostly.

“Then there is dev’s choice, when the game moderators themselves watch players that keep a low profile but play well and give them the chance to reach the Top 500. Some even say they keep an eye on the Top 500 themselves to try and recruit additions to their creative team.

“And last but not least, there are one hundred spots for invites by the Top 500 themselves. Whenever one of these spots open, one of the current Top 500 gets to invite someone else in.”

“And how does a spot open?” Logan asked.

“Two ways,” she spoke quietly, darkly. “If some character is inactive…

“Or if they die.”