Gary woke up to a galaxy of stars and planets whizzing past. The view ahead of him looked like the viewing screen of a spacecraft, complete with its own HUD highlighted in vivid orange. A large blue-green planet with a ring around it sat at the center of the screen, while stars all around flew past, giving the impression that he was moving at incredible speed.
“Greeting, hunter,” a female voice said, entering his mind without having to first pass through his ears. “You will shortly be landing in Artemis, but before you make contact, you will need to define some features of your echo.”
A male figure showed up on the screen in front of Gary. The man was tall, handsome, and had the kind of physique you only got by spending every waking moment at the gym. He wore a simple loin cloth that looked like it was made from leather, and he stared straight ahead with vacant gray eyes.
Gary found that he could turn the figure left and right, and also zoom in, just by willing it with his mind. It should have been unsettling. Gary felt no physical sense of his own body, but for some reason that wasn’t alarming at all. It felt perfectly natural, as though he’d always been this way, just a floating intelligence connected to the HUD and the display in front of him.
“Please select your preferred physical parameters,” the female voice said.
Though he had no face with which to show it, Gary smiled. This was familiar territory. Character design 101. Unlike the host of characters he’d assembled in his years of gaming, however, this time Gary knew exactly what he was building.
This wasn’t the time for experimentation or goofing around. He’d already mapped out years ago exactly who his hunter character would be, from its physical characteristics to the name he would take for himself.
He selected long black hair, held back in a loose ponytail. Blue eyes, a short-cropped beard, with no scars or tattoos of any kind. He narrowed the avatar’s face a little, decreased the broadness of his echo’s shoulders, and selected simple green and black hunting armor.
Rather than going into the game with a host of unique or quirky physical characteristics, Gary intended to arrive as more or less a blank slate. His echo would be strong, agile, fast, but relatively plain in appearance.
Thousands of hours watching live and pre-recorded hunts had taught Gary that players who tried to enter the game in an ostentatious fashion tended to fizzle out quickly. Those that started with humble beginnings and slowly built a reputation, however, did much better in the long run. They garnered better sponsorship deals, picked up hardcore fans, and generally had an easier go of life in Artemis than those who tried too hard too early.
Of course, there was another reason for his character’s plain appearance. Stealth was the key. That’s what Gary had realized over the years, examining blow by blow replays of some of the biggest hunts in Artemis history.
The big, brawny Paladin type figures were always first into the fray, slamming with shields and maces, channeling etheric power to shield themselves from harm while they battered monsters again and again, maintaining aggro while other figures peppered the beast from nearby.
The Paladins were the great heroes of Artemis, fan favorites that always hogged the limelight. But Gary had seen the stats. He knew that the top hunters were never Paladins.
Those chunky, armor-plated goons spent all their time soaking up damage, but they rarely struck the killing blow. What’s more, rumor had it, most of their ether was spent on repairing gear and healing from injury, not to mention restocking potions, recharging weapons, and armor enchantments, and acquiring new and better rings and amulets.
Rogues though, they were a different matter entirely. They could swoop in at the last minute and do insane amounts of damage, striking the final blow and earning significantly more ether for their trouble.
They typically spent next to nothing on gear after a fight unless it was to upgrade and prepare for the next battle. Rouges could also channel spare either into damage output, hit and crit chance, and other stats that only made them more effective hunters.
What made the rogue class even more appealing was their survivability. If shit went bad, they could vanish in an instant, dropping all aggro and running until they were out of danger. It might not have been the most heroic class, but in terms of kill rate, ether farming capacity, and DPS, you just couldn’t beat them.
Sorcerers could outmatch rogues for burst damage and the best mages had a host of different charms and spells to get them quickly out of trouble if a fight went south. The difference was that they had to use ether to power their spells, which made the sorcerer class extremely expensive to manage. That didn’t mean that a player couldn’t shred as a mage, but it would generally take two or three times as long to reach peak levels of damage with a sorcerer than it did with a rogue.
More importantly, from Gary’s perspective, he hated spell casters. Killing monsters using magic in a game which was predominantly about tracking, hunting, and facing down monstrous beasts just seemed kind of pointless. He wanted to feel the arrow slip from his fingers or the dagger plunge into his enemy.
He didn’t want to be twisting his fingers and conjuring demonic imps to fight for him or shoot fire from his hands while he stood behind a shimmering etheric shield. Somehow, that just felt like cheating.
It was too easy, too removed from the action. He knew a lot of people would disagree with that assessment, but Gary had decided a long time ago that the archer rogue was his best and most profitable choice in class.
He locked in the physical parameters of his echo and the screen shifted. There were no weapons to choose from, but Gary presumed that weapons selection would happen once he was on planet. The first chance he got, Gary would get his hands on a bow and start practicing. He’d snag a pair of daggers as well, but he planned on doing most of his fighting from a distance where possible.
Having locked in the appearance of his echo, the screen popped up a name request. Gary filled out the name without hesitation, letters appearing in front of him as he mentally spoke the name.
GIDEON BLACKTHORN
The HUD showed acceptance of the name and then brought up an array of different classes. Gideon immediately picked the rogue class and a panel showed up asking what existing skills he brought to the role, suggesting a list of beneficial abilities.
Survival Skills
Healing
Archery
Martial Arts (specify)
Cookery
Leadership/Tactics
Melee Weaponry
Medium to High Fitness
Other
Gideon read the list a few times, noting the absence of ‘burger flipping’ or ‘gaming’ on the list. He considered adding something to the ‘other’ category but then thought better of it. There was no point trying to trick the system, better to just be honest with where he was currently at.
Within minutes he’d be on Artemis and he’d rather start at zero and work his way up than lie about his current skill level and enter the Great Game at too high a level, forcing him to fight enemies far above his actual capacities. That was a fast path to getting your ass handed to you early on and then having to work off the resulting ether deficit while you struggled to grow your skills and reach a level where you weren’t one shot by every creature imaginable.
He selected the cookery skill, feeling even a little guilty about that, and then moved on to the next section. A short video played with a man in a gray suit wearing a cheesy smile standing next to Gideon’s echo, Gideon Blackthorn. The echo stood with a vacant expression like a clothing store mannequin.
“You may have heard about resurrection,” the man said, standing up and walking around Gideon’s body. “But before you land on Artemis, there are a few things you should know. First, echoes aren’t cheap. No sir, they cost a significant amount of money and resources. That’s why, when you first step out onto the fields of Artemis, you’ll be given only two echoes. The first one you’ll inhabit and the second is a backup just in case something untoward should happen.”
The viewscreen shifted, showing a hunter being decapitated by the claw of a werewolf-like creature. It then rapidly switched to footage of a tall, female hunter being stuck through with a hundred bone darts, her body shaking as blood poured from countless wounds. A stocky hunter with a large horned helmet jumped over a ledge and reached desperately for the other side of the hillside path, plunging into a cavernous drop, hands flailing.
Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
“There are a million different ways to die on Artemis,”
the man in the gray suit continued. “Only a few of those relate to monster battles. A great deal of the flora and fauna on Artemis is harmful to your echoes.”
More footage popped up on the screen showing a bright purple, cactus-like plant with sharp nettles that shot out at a passing hunter, piercing their leather armor, and driving them to their knees. The camera zoomed in on the hunter, a bearded brute with thick scars running down both cheeks. The big man’s eyes widened as he fell to the ground, his head swelling unnaturally, purple blotches blooming all over his face.
The flailing hunter clawed at his own face as the skin continued to swell like a balloon. His body popped, bursting open, and sending gore skyward as bones and organs were caught at the moment of expulsion, and held in place by a thick knot of purple goo.
Another young, female hunter with a spear slung to her back was walking happily along an ordinary-looking forest trail. She stepped into an innocuous puddle of black oil, at which point bony hands jutted upward from the dark liquid, clamping onto her ankles, and dragging her down into the dark screaming and trying desperately to claw her way through of the mire.
The screen shifted back to a view of the man in the gray suit standing beside Gideon’s echo.
“So, as you can see, having a backup is always a good idea.”
A duplicate of Gideon appeared next to the figure, completely identical to the first echo. The man in the gray suit motioned to the pair with a smile.
“We understand that mistakes can happen, particularly in your first few weeks on Atemis, so every new player gets a backup echo. But, if you die a second time without having purchased another echo, I’m afraid your time at Artemis will be over. You’ll be sent back to earth in the next transit window. New echoes can of course be purchased whenever you wish, but again they do cost a significant amount of resources, so expect to be working for some time just to secure another echo or two.”
A note appeared on the screen as the vision of the man in the gray suit and Gideon’s echoes froze.
The Atemis Ministry does provide limited loan assistance in the event that your starting echoes are killed within the first month on planet. Loans will be repaid with interest and personal ether stores capped at 20% of the usual rate during the term of the loan. Other terms and conditions apply.
Gideon had barely enough time to finish reading before the message faded away and the host began speaking again.
“You echoes will of course maintain the current look and feel of your character. So, there’s no need to worry about a missing scar or tattoo. Your echo’s appearance, however, will revert to how it was prior to the fight which killed you. For example, if you lost and ear during the battle where you died, that ear would not be missing in your replacement echo. If, however, you lost and ear, killed the monster, and then died shortly after from lingering venom effects or some other cause of death, your echo would retain the loss.”
The Gideon echoes doubled and quadrupled; each new figure announced with a comical popping sound.
“Most players like to have four or five echoes in the bank, so that they don’t have to waste time grinding for resources instead of tracking their prey. So, invest time and gather as much ether as you can, to make sure you’ve got plenty of echoes saved up. It’s especially important to ensure that you’ve got adequate echoes in store when hunting any creatures above gamma level.”
The echoes vanished and the man in the gray suit stood in the center of the screen, one hand held out to the side.
“Now, it’s time to introduce you to Bullseye,” a little cartoonish bullet figure appeared in the palm of his hand.
The bullet was drawn in lines of orange light, like the rest of the HUD. It wore a broad, cartoonish smile, had big eyes, and thin arms ending in hands with four fingers.
“Bullseye will be your guide to all things Artemis. He’ll advise you on rules of the Great Hunt, potential dangers, rewards, monster stats, inventory items, gear ratings, map details, and a whole lot more.”
The little bullet waived excitedly.
“Howdy, friend,” it chirped in a too-high voice with an overdone old west accent. “Well, I’m just as pleased as a pig in a puddle to meet y’all, and I can’t wait to…”
Gideon turned on the mute feature, silencing the little bullet as it continued its rambling, old timey speech. He was prepared for the little imp, having read up extensively on message boards and streaming hubs focused on the Great Game and all things Artemis.
Almost everyone who had returned from the planet had insisted that Bullseye was a constant source of annoyance and of very little practical value during the hunt. Its helpful hints and tips were woefully outdated and even prone to get you killed if you followed them too closely.
The Ministry hadn’t substantially updated the program since its inception thirty years earlier and, despite scathing feedback from survivors and fans alike, they insisted on keeping the annoying guide in operation.
After a minute or so the man in the gray suit disappeared, leaving Bullseye hanging in midair beside a large, holographic panel with the name Gideon Blackthorn written up top and a series of figures hanging below. Intuitively, Gideon navigated to the personalization settings for the mascot and unticked the ‘helpful hints’ item. He then scrolled further down the menu and switched off Bullseye’s folksy, old went accent, selecting the ‘English Butler’ voice preference instead.
The little mascot didn’t change physically, but when Gideon switched off the mute function, he spoke in a rich, deep, English accent, his entire demeanor less cartoonish and with a good deal more gravitas.
“Your character card, sir,” he said as Gideon scanned the information on the page.
ECHO PROFILE
Name: Gideon Blackthorn
Class: Rogue
Level: 1
Ether: 0
Guild: NA
Class: Rogue
Preferred Title: NA
CORE ATTRIBUTES
Constitution: 1
Strength: 1
Agility: 1
Intelligence: 1
Wisdom: 1
Etheric Aptitude: 0
SKILLS
NA
ACHIVEMENTS
NA
GEAR
Head: Tattered Forest Hood
Chest: Tattered Forest Tunic
Legs: Tattered Forest Pants
Hands: Tattered Forest Gloves
Feet: Tattered Forest Boots
Neck: NA
Ring 1: NA
Ring 2: NA
Tattoo: NA
Main Melee Weapon: NA
Secondary Melee Weapon: NA
Range Weapon: NA
His stats were expectedly underwhelming, and Gideon didn’t feel daunted in the slightest on seeing how feeble they looked. He’d won the lottery after all.
He was actually being sent to Atemis to take part in the Great Hunt. He’d already decided to make the most of every single aspect of the adventure, gathering skills and abilities, learning crafts, buying and selling loot, and becoming the best damned hunter he could be.
In the beginning, he wouldn’t take any chances. No fighting overpowered enemies or trying risky challenges. He would grind, and farm, and build up enough ether to buy at least three more echoes before venturing out and beginning to make his mark on Artemis.
It would take time and patience, but Gideon had been waiting for this chance for his entire life, and he wasn’t about to blow it. He’d be smart and he’d take his time. He’d learn from anyone willing to teach him something new, and he’d stay out of the limelight, at least in the beginning.
Gideon could let other players peacock around and try to level up as quicky as possible. He was in it for the long haul. That meant building a solid enough foundation that when he finally launched, it would be something spectacular to witness.
Light flashed in front of his eyes as static blasted through his ears. He tried to raise his hands, to shield his eyes, but he couldn’t move. The disturbance was over in a moment. Gideon’s ears were ringing as Bullseye flickered in and out of focus ahead of him.
“Goodness,” the AI said, his voice sounding like it had passed through an old AM radio. “That was unexpected.”
“What is it? What happened?”
Once more, static cut through the air, a deafening hiss that speared right into Gideon’s brain, bringing with it a stab of pain. Bullseye vanished and the starship view suddenly shifted, showing plain gray metallic walls with several cameras stationed in the corner of the ceiling.
“What the fuck is this?!” Gideon blurted, desperately trying to move but unable to access his new body.
Bullseye returned, flickering in and out of focus and clearly disturbed by what was going on. Gideon was about to pepper the little AI avatar with questions when his surroundings changed again, returning to the starship view while Bullseye’s avatar stabilized.
“It seems,” the little AI said, “that we have turned around.”
“What the hell do you mean turned around?” Gideon spat. “You mean we’re heading back to earth?”
Bullseye nodded. “Yes, sir. That is precisely what I mean.”
“Why?
“It seems, sir that the planet is under attack. All flights to Artemis have been turned back or delayed and all echoes have been called to military service. We will dock at the lunar base, and you will be taken by shuttle to earth as quickly as possible.”
Gideon blinked. Well, he didn’t actually blink, but that part of his brain that automatically managed that kind of thing simulated blinking.
“Wait. Military service? You’re joking right?”
“I’m afraid not, sir. I have attempted to on occasion, but unfortunately my programing does not allow for humor. It was removed a few months after my initiation as players found it too grating.”
“Just tell me what this military service stuff is about. Have I been drafted or something?”
“Indeed you have, sir. As per article Zeta12-34 of the Great Hunt contract, in times of planetary crisis the Ministry reserves the right to direct all active echoes to military service.”
Gideon felt like he was going to throw up. That was impossible in his current state, of course, but it didn’t help lessen the churning in his imagined stomach.
“Even now, all active echoes on Artemis are being instructed to board transit vessels so that they can return to earth and assist in the planet’s defense.”
“Defense against what?”
“I do not know sir. That information has not been made readily available. The Ministry has simply instructed this vessel to return to earth with due haste where you will be sent to fight the enemy.”
“What? I haven’t even learned anything yet! I don’t know how to fight or use the ether or anything like that.”
Bullseye frowned, shaking his head.
“You do yourself a disservice, sir. You have a great wealth of knowledge in matters of military strategy, combat, and the Great Hunt itself.”
“NO! That’s all games and shit! I’ve watched a ton of Hunt feeds and replays, but that’s not the same as actually fighting a damned enemy. Besides, I don’t even know who the enemy is, or what they can do!”
The lights flickered again, and Gideon felt his consciousness began to slip away.
“Relax, sir. You are being prepared for the final transition. When you awake you will be on the lunar base. I’m sure someone will be there to meet you and advise as to the next steps we are to take.”
“We?” Gideon said weakly, struggling to focus.
“Of course, sir. I will accompany you as your personal guide and assistant. It will be just as it was supposed to be on Artemis, except now we will be fighting together on earth.”
“Shi…”
Darkness swallowed Gideon.
