A check for a billion credits. The prize seemed lost forever and here it glittered again with all its colors, drawing the couple like a magnet. The pirates, the Uldans, the Zatrathi-none of it mattered now. The final goal was so close. All they had to do was reach out and grasp it.
Alas, fortune refuses to land in Surgeon’s hand just like that, without a fight. Fortune only comes to those who can prove themselves. Will Alexis and Eunice find their inner strength and go to the end-or will the obstacles in their way force them to give up their search? After all, the most important thing is to find the planet with the prize. And yet faced with an entire galaxy, where do they even start?

More Barliona adventures from the bestselling author of the Way of the Shaman LitRPG series!
Reality is cruel. The rising level of technological development has led to a rising level of unemployment. They’re laying off everybody, from teachers to technical servicemen. What’s the point of holding onto a person if they can be replaced by an advanced mechanism?
But what are the people to do? How are they to live? Where are they to get money from? There is only one answer-Barliona. The official government project is gathering steam, luring more and more people into its net. Who knows how people will behave when they lose everything?
Brody West is one such person. Unlike most, he doesn’t lose heart. A professional project manager with thirty years in the business simply cannot do that. He has a goal, and a clear understanding of how to achieve it. Nobody can get in his way-not the new class, not the strange friend, and not the unexpected foes.

Every player in Barliona has heard of the Gray Lands-the land of the dead. Few have managed to travel there and speak with the heroes and villains of old. And of this minuscule number, only one bard has managed to bring the souls of the dead back to the world of the living: The Bard of Shadow. Now it is up to her to determine the future of her race. Shall the Biota race become full-fledged members of Barliona or will they oppose all that lives?

More Barliona adventures from the bestselling author of the Way of the Shaman LitRPG series!
To make a clan does not necessarily mean to make it successful. First you have to walk the hard path from the foundations of your castle to victory in interclan conflicts. Only then will you be recognized. Only then can you be listed among the location’s top clans.
Your adversaries, however, will not be sitting around twiddling their thumbs. No dominant clan needs yet another wannabe competitor. Or its two founders. Which is why Kvalen and Eradani are being hunted down. Bugles sound as players sharpen swords and draw arrows. Bring on the show!
Just one thing-have the contestants accounted for all the factors involved in such a dubious undertaking? For in this equation not all the variables are known.

There are whole anthologies of stories out there about what humankind does when a game enters their world. But what about when they’re living in one where a game arrived thousands of years before? What if they’re the survivors of a bloody struggle, having fought for and earned their place on the planet?
Tailyn Vlashich was a young nobody far away from all those grander issues. All he cared about was one thing: making his way through a harsh world where the emperor, evil foes, and an impartial god held sway. And the god, of course, demanded nothing less than that all things were done in accordance with its divine will.

Not long ago, Daniel Mahan, known to everyone as Shaman Mahan, thought that he had taken his sixth and final step in the Barliona gameworld.
Yet life has other ideas.
The Corporation decides to resurrect the Lord of Shadow and his entire host. The Corporation’s CEO personally pushes the reset button. Geranika and his Dragon of Shadow spring back to life as, meanwhile, the Corporation makes an offer the Shaman can’t refuse.

Is there anything better than a quiet life? Well, there’s a quiet life surrounded by people you care about, people who love you in return, of course. But Tailyn Vlashich knew nothing of the kind. His parents had died years before, the townspeople stayed well away from the god’s favorite, and his guardian just wanted to be rid of him. That was the setting when Tailyn was again placed on the road to uncertainty, beset by terrifying lixes, and hounded by a harsh trainer it was impossible to please. All he can do is bear up and keep pushing forward in the hopes that his wishes will be granted. As legend has it, somewhere ahead lies the Forest of Desire, a place capable of bringing to life one’s every wish. For example, returning Valia Levor, Tailyn’s betrothed, who was kidnapped. Oh, and does anyone know why Forian Tarn still isn’t back from his trip?

Vasily Mahanenko’s new LitRPG series set in the universe of his World of the Changed!
Modern times. Genius physicist Artyom Kuchaev found himself facing the darker side of the world we live in. Integrity is met with a laugh, the rat race instead full of people out to grab whatever they can. Where big money is on the line, no betrayal, even of loved ones, is a bridge too far. But Artyom couldn’t bring himself to conform. Instead, he decided to make a change in himself if not in the world around him. His work, surroundings, country . . .
However, the world wasn’t ready to let the genius go. It was benefiting too much from him. In one moment, everything was turned upside down: Artyom’s freedom was exchanged for prison, his noisy colleagues for morose cellmates, and his spacious labs for tiny offices in a restricted research institute. All that remained was his drive to make the world a better place. And that just left the tiny detail of how to actually make that happen.

What could be better than space adventures? Captain Surgeon knows the answer to this question-space piracy! Loot, pillage, plunder, and sell all the lucre-that’s the motto of the Galactogon pirates, and Surgeon is doing his best to join their number.
But what is to be done when the enigmatic Uldans do not want to leave our swashbuckler in peace and keep laying new mysteries in his path, distracting him from his main goal? How does one become a formidable buccaneer, the scourge of Galactogon’s countless star systems, when an indomitable alien invasion is razing empires all across the galaxy?
Time and time again, the game hands Captain Surgeon the Black Spot and time and time again he refuses to take it. It looks like he will have to work extra hard to realize his dreams of piracy and find the answers to all these mysteries . . .

These were dark times for Tailyn Vlashich, the twelve-year-old alchemist. He’d been banished from the empire. The academy had summarily dismissed him. A deadly killer had been dispatched to hunt him. He’d been dropped all the way down to level one. But while there weren’t many adults who would have been able to cope with the litany of problems Tailyn was facing, they weren’t him. And he had help-two mentors, his girl, and a friend. Not only that, but there was an ancient journal hidden somewhere in the academy dean’s office that held the secret to the location of the dragon’s blood. It was time to drop by and get their hands on it. All they had to do was clear one small hurdle: how were they going to get into the planet’s most heavily guarded building?

Let’s go! A new, ultramodern mobile game, and the release is just two days away. Be the best, save the planet! Who’s going to fight back the monster invasion if you don’t? Prerelease already available, no text alerts or payment required.
World of the Changed completely modified human consciousness. The incredible graphics that worked even on the simplest of phones. The intuitive interface that made the game accessible for absolutely anyone. The aggressive marketing campaign that put news about the game on every TV, every phone, every tablet. By the time the launch was a few days away, an entire army of fans was out there waiting for just one thing: Hour X. That was what the mysterious developers were calling the release time.
But did anyone have a clue what Hour X would unleash on them? Were they ready to pay the price the game demanded? Mark Derwin, a student, was just one of many to have no idea what kind of fate awaited him in the game. All he cared about was jumping into the prerelease as soon as it came out.

The World of the Changed, still going strong! A sister kidnapped, a powerful enemy right around the corner, and Earth under the thumb of the monsters. What else is it going to take to become a true hero and save humanity? The only problem is that Mark Derwin has bigger problems, focused as he is on finding Squirrel, his sister. And he has to make sure she’s still the same person she always was rather than a chunk of noa. He’s prepared to do anything, go to any lengths to make that happen, including working with the game. But not with the game owner. Mark has quite the litany of questions for that character.

Earth was never the same after World of the Changed. Humanity was reduced to two camps: monsters thirsting to kill, and players doing everything they could to survive. The squabbles people had spent their time on before? Gone. If you wanted to live to see another sunrise, you had to work with everyone you could, from other players to game functions.
Mark Derwin, the most advanced player through the initial period of the game, knew all too well that his level was no advantage. Far from it-the game owner didn’t tolerate anyone who got too far ahead. The only thing the owner wanted was for Earthlings to disappear without a trace, giving up their resources to be extracted. But not everyone was willing to bend the knee before alien intelligence. In fact, some had begun to fight back against the game.

The Game is in turmoil.
All the players’ strength and resources are invested in preparing for Restart: only twenty percent of the players will make it to the next era. Murders are becoming commonplace; bribes and nepotism are at their height. Betrayal is becoming an inherent part of everyday interactions. The Game has spread its perfidious influence to the farthest corners of the Universe, affecting every sentient being.
Will the Dark Judge reach the right verdict? Will he follow the ideals of his class to the end, or will he reject them, becoming an ordinary player? Yaropolk must make a fateful choice: he is the Guide. The one who will launch the Restart.

The adventures of the Shaman continue!
Daniel Mahan, the legendary Shaman of the Barliona game world, has served his sentence in virtual reality. Eleven months of adventures and battles in exchange for eight years in prison isn’t a bad trade-off. And yet Barliona refuses to relinquish its grip on the Shaman so easily, erasing the boundary between his two realities. It turns out that it’s not so simple to leave the capsule-the Way must be completed . . .

Twelve players set off through the online world of Galactogon, lured by the game owners’ promise of an enormous payoff. The question is, who will survive to tell the tale? Which of the twelve is a potential hero-or a traitor in the making? Which of them will defend the weak, and who will become the ultimate evil overlord?
A knight or a coward? Each of the twelve will have to choose his or her path. Each will keep a poker face. But if the billion-pound prize calls your name, you can’t conceal your choice. And you will do everything to lay your hands on it.

Barliona: a virtual world jam-packed with monsters, battles-and, predictably, players. Millions of them come to Barliona, looking forward to the things they can’t get in real life: elves and magic, dragons and princesses, and unforgettable combat. The game has become so popular that players now choose to spend months online without returning home. In Barliona, anything goes: You can assault fellow players, level up, become a mythical hero, a wizard, or a legendary thief. The only rule that attempted to regulate the game demanded that no player be allowed to feel actual pain.
But there’s an exception to every rule. For a certain bunch of players, Barliona has become their personal hell. They are criminals sent to Barliona to serve their time. They aren’t in it for the dragons’ gold or the abundant loot. All they want is to survive the virtual inferno. They face the ultimate survival quest.

What are you supposed to do when the whole world joins forces against you? Give up, find some hole to duck into, and beg for your life to be spared? But even despite how obvious the answer to that question might be, many an adult had been dashed on the rocks twelve-year-old Tailyn Vlashich was supposed to climb. Ahead of him lay a secret laboratory belonging to the ancients; behind was a horde headed by his sworn enemy. But through it all, Tailyn had those who loved him, those who believed in him, and that support was enough to carry him to the ends of the earth.
There was just one question left to answer: who was the Absorber? And what did he want with Tailyn?

The Magic Academy . . . an institution shrouded in mystery and secrets. People from all over the different empires want nothing more than to enroll, get their hands on the knowledge stored there, become those most respected in the world-mages. Tailyn Vlashich was one of the lucky few admitted without going through the entrance exams. And once inside, he had training, the arena, lessons, and an interesting take on what had happened three thousand years to look forward to, all capped off by a dynamic labyrinth that came with a chance to sit down with the provost. After all, that’s who holds the key to the secret of the dragon’s blood.
But how are you supposed to find time to study when your mentor has a problem he can’t handle on his own? Once again, Tailyn faces a road very much unlike the noisy halls of the academy, life itself reprising its role as his trusty teacher.

What does it feel like to have the whole world know they owe you their salvation? Is it pride? Basking in self-admiration? A realization of your own greatness against the backdrop of anonymity shared by everyone else? There are lots of possibilities, only none of them describes what actually happened. Instead of becoming the savior, Leg Ondo was made a mockery. The being governing the planet forbade his totems and chosen people to disclose information about the battle between the demons and dragons. And that left the world confused. What did the Brown Bear clan do to deserve the avalanche of goodies that came pouring down on it? Should they be knocked off the pedestal they so recently climbed atop?
But even that would be manageable if it weren’t for one thing: the multilevel competition designed to bring the three empires closer together. How did Leg Ondo possibly get himself involved this time?

Is it easy to survive in the game world? You could say yes, if you didn’t know what the additional conditions were. They are unusual: it’s the real world in which you have lived all your life. The enemy, craving to destroy you. Your own class who couldn’t care less about you. Are you still sure that survival is easy? Then welcome to The Game! It will prove you wrong.

Zul’var’s altar is no more. In one fell swoop, it was destroyed, Leg Ondo lost his shot at becoming a full-fledged wizard, and Liara Slick disappeared without a trace. The emperor is doing everything he can to impede the upstart clan’s growth. A mysterious wizard following Bashorg is filling Brown Bear lands with terrifying demons. And then there’s the academy and final exams. With so much to do, giving up would be the logical move, only Leg Ondo isn’t one to throw up his hands when the going gets rough. The stage is set for the Brown Terror to teach his enemies the meaning of fear.

Death had only ever been a small misunderstanding for the high mage. After his seventh reincarnation, he’d begun thinking of it differently, viewing it as nothing more than a slight hiccup in his plans.
But he’d forgotten one thing: when those plans get in the way of those higher up the ladder, punishment is soon to follow. And one more death brought faint consolation.
Sent to another world, he found himself in a stranger’s body, though the worst part was that he was left with only the memories he’d built since his previous reincarnation. All the mage had learned before that point was gone. Finding himself in that challenging situation, his dilemma was between carving out his place in the sun and throwing up his hands in despair.
But giving in wasn’t an option for Leg Ondo. The Brown Bear clan brooked no cowards. If fighting was the way to go, it was a fight to the death, to the last drop of blood. Most importantly, the new world needed to be explored and understood, the local iteration of magic in particular. Let nobody ever say that the youngest of the Bears was unworthy!

Mahan’s ready for new adventures-just as the gaming world of Barliona thought it was about to reenter its old comfortable rut. The winds of the Dark Forest have finally died down; Altameda has recognized its new owner while Geranika is nursing new schemes of global destruction.
Would Mahan be happy with this predictable old life? We think not! New storylines, new monsters, new dungeons, and a new status: Our High Shaman hates the daily grind! He wants a new apprentice? Then he’d better find someone who has no right to summon Spirits. A new ship? It’s going to be one of a kind! A new love? Well, we’ll have to see, won’t we?

A product of the latest technologies, Barliona is a virtual world brimming with fun and entertainment. The government has become the guarantor for the in-game currency, allowing its free circulation. As a result, the population floods Barliona in pursuit of easy money.
It doesn’t take long for the game developers to discover a source of free labor: real-world prison convicts. While their bodies are locked in special auto-maintenance virtual capsules, the prisoners’ minds are released into Barliona’s vitual mines.
Dmitry Mahan has been through it all. Sentenced to eight years hard labor, he now struggles with an unpopular class-the Shaman-and an equally unpopular profession of a Jeweler. His fight for survival becomes anything but virtual.

What can a game clan accomplish without a castle? The answer is obvious: nothing. Therefore, the main objective of any leader in a game world is to acquire a base of operations. Finding himself in exactly this position, High Shaman Mahan, leader of the Legends of Barliona, accepts an offer from the Emperor and the Dark Lord to vanquish the army of Phantoms that has inhabited Altameda, the phantom castle.
However, this seemingly ordinary quest sets in motion such a momentous chain of events that the Shaman can do nothing but resort to his intuition and act on instinct. After all, a player who is being hunted by the three top clans of the continent at once, can do little else . . .

Surviving in a tough situation is not always the best option; sometimes dying is much better than staying alive. The Academy showed Paladin Yaropolk what makes the world go round: pragmatism and personal gain. Restart was set in motion, but it only makes players more frantic. Now everyone plays only for himself. Yaropolk faces the same dilemma: be like all of them, or keep his humanity and be known as an odd duck. Because there is only one rule in this world: kill or be killed . . .

Barliona is back! Old world, new heroes!
What would happen if a professional rock musician joined a virtual MMO in search of inspiration among its gameworld? What would happen if she decided to play as a biota bard, a brand-new race of humanoid flora as well as a new class? Whatever would happen, it would surely be fun . . .

The virtual world of Barliona is a place of rest and entertainment-but not for everyone. It has become a survival arena for Daniel Mahan after he was sentenced to eight years in its virtual jail. Mahan has been through it all: the back-breaking work in the mines, betrayal by other prisoners, and finally, the retrial which has released him into Barliona’s common world. What more could one want? Mahan could have kept a low profile and enjoyed relative freedom while serving the rest of his time. But being a Shaman, he can’t help himself. Soon he’s a clan leader, taking fifty of the continent’s top players to claim the secrets of the Dark Forest.

His initiation complete, Leg knew he had to prove himself worthy of the gift his totem had given him. The boy was facing a long and difficult journey to dangerous lands. Meanwhile, those with eyes set on ruling the Northern Empire were also making their move. But what was most important to Leg? His personal advancement or the integrity of the empire? Of course, it was possible the two priorities were inseparable, especially since a true wizard had been introduced to the world.

This fast-paced collection of novellas and short stories from leading Russian LitRPG authors sheds new light on their signature worlds. You’re in Game! features works by Vasily Mahanenko, Andrei Livadny, Alexey Osadchuk, Michael Atamanov, Pavel Kornev, and Andrew Novak. Expect your favorite heroes to play second fiddle to an array of new main characters, once-minor plot lines to lead you in unexpected directions, and familiar story events to take surprising new turns.