Winner!

Next thing I knew I was getting shot in the face with confetti by the green eyed man.

"W-wait? I actually won? I won the grand prize?" I stammered in disbelief. I quickly wiped the confetti off.

The Green eyed man nodded enthusiastically. "What do you know about Exordium Online?" He asked as he pulled a giant golden bag out from underneath the table.

"Besides the fact my boyfriend cheated on me with someone from the game…"

Of course, I don't say this, instead opting to say: "Not much really."

"Well! Let me tell you a little about it," he smiled, putting the golden bag on the table. "It's the first successful VRMMORPG of our time. It has advanced AI that are constantly evolving. You can do just about anything you want to do in the world of Exordium Online. The system reads your inner desires and allows you to choose your starting class from several classes. It's quite amazing really."

Hearing him talk the game up made me really want to try the game out, but I'd honestly rather give it to my three younger siblings to play. They would probably get more of a kick out of it then I would…probably.

"May I offer some advice when you start playing?" the green eyed man asked.

"Sure," I nodded. I'll just relay the information to them.

"I suggest starting in Fiole Town. Also, the grand prize also comes with a SSR item of your choice for each copy. I would wait to use the code until you decide what class you want to be. It would be quite terrible to choose an item for a class you were unable to pick," he said.

"Thanks for the info."

"You seem like you're in a much better mood now," he smiled.

"Oh, uh, yeah…" I laughed nervously. Was I really that easy to read?

"Anywho, I do hope you enjoy your time playing Exordium Online," he said.

"Thanks!"

—

I asked my three siblings via text if they wanted a copy of Exordium Online.

[CLOVER:] No thxx ty u anyway. dont have x 4 games rn.

[LIAM:] OH! Yeahhhhh! I wanna play it!

[CLOVER: dont u hve exams 2 study 4

[LIAM: DETAILS]

[QUINN:] Yes, please. I would like to try it. Thank you very much.

I hadn't expected Clover to say no and found myself with an extra copy.

[ME:] Do you want to play together then

[LIAM:] YEAH! We can just play it together for fun!

[QUINN:] Sure.

The two of them came to visit me a couple of hours later.

Liam, the older of the two boys at the age of 17, was super ecstatic. He threw himself at me almost as soon as I opened the door. "Thank you, Flo!" He shouted.

Quintus, the younger boy at the age of 13, had his usual neutral look on his face. "Thank you, Florence."

You could tell immediately that Liam and Quinn were brothers. Unlike me, their older sister who had orange hair, they both had chestnut colored hair. Even the sibling that didn't want to play had chestnut colored hair. People often joked that I was either adopted or my mother had an affair to which I'd tell them to shut up. It stopped being funny after the 30th time. We all had a couple things in common though. We all had freckles and we all had dark brown eyes. Liam and Clover, who were twins, looked the most alike.

"The guy who I won these from said we should start from some place called Fiole Town," I explained. I also relayed the information about the SSR codes.

"Can't wait to play this with you guys," Liam cheered, "To be honest, I didn't think you would want to play it. I mean, didn't Scott not like you playing games or something stupid?"

I gritted my teeth. "We broke up."

Liam and Quinn looked extremely surprised about this.

"That's all I'm saying," I said, turning my back to them.

"A-Anyway," Quinn stammered, trying to change the subject, "I wonder what kind of class choices I'll get. I hope that I get something cool."

"Me too! I want to be a ninja or something!" Liam said.

"You're too noisy to be a ninja," I laughed. Quinn nodded his head in agreement.

"Whatever," Liam grumbled.

"As soon as you guys make it home, let's play together, alright? I do have to work tomorrow so it'll only be for a little bit," I told them.

The two boys readily agreed and were immediately out the door.

—

While my brothers were on their way home I decided to read up on Exordium Online. Apparently the game had come out of left field. No one even knew who the creators of it were.

There was even a prize to whoever defeated the final boss of the game; the Demon King. The game had already been out for a few months, so that wasn't even something I cared about. High ranking players were probably well on their way through the game and it was only a matter of time before someone won.

After my brothers made it home, I put the headset on and started the initial configuration. I found myself sitting on a chair in a dimly lit room. To be honest it looked like a dungeon. Suddenly a light purple screen appeared in front of me.

It asked for general information such as my first and last name, my birthdate, and email. It also wanted to know if I opted in for events going on within the game.

After I finished entering in all of my information, my surroundings faded off into purple-blue pixels. I found myself standing in the middle of a flower field with a mirror in front of me. It was probably the prettiest thing I'd ever seen.

The purple-blue screen popped up in front of me once again.

[WOULD YOU LIKE TO MAKE CHANGES TO YOUR AVATAR? YES/NO?]

Without even the slightest bit of hesitation, I hit [YES].

The screen changed to a character creation menu. I was presented with various sliders.

I changed my height from 5'11" to 5'4". I kept my hair orange, but made it short. I left the freckles as well. I always had a soft spot for my freckles. I changed my eyes to a light green color. I was able to select a few cosmetic accessories so I chose to put a bandage on my nose. I changed some minor stuff too on my face, like my nose, eye shape, and eyebrows. I didn't want to be easily recognizable as me in the rare chance that I did run into Scott and his new girlfriend- not that I knew what their in game characters looked like in the first place. Better safe than sorry though.

I ignored the options to change from Human to one of the various other races like demonfolk, plantfolk, elf, catfolk, dwarf, etc.

When I was all done with that I hit [FINISHED]. It asked me if I was sure and I was. I probably spent a little too much time messing around with my character's appearance.

The purple-blue screen then asked for a name.

I entered the name Lucky since I was feeling extremely lucky. I expected it to be rejected but it wasn't.

The field faded away as soon as my name was accepted.

I found myself sitting at a table in what looked like an adventurer guild from any typical RPG. The place was devoid of anyone else, however.

On the table in front of me there were five flyers. I grabbed the one closest to me and began to read off of it.

[CLASS: BRAWLER]

[A dps class that specializes in hand to hand combat. They have very low DEF, but high AGI and STR.]

It sounded like a class I would like, but not something I would choose for a VRMMO. I put it back and grabbed another flier.

[CLASS: DEFENDER]

[A tank designed to specifically protect party members. They get stronger the more damage their party members take.]

I tossed that one back immediately. I didn't wanna make my brothers get slapped around by monsters to get stronger. Still the system had probably suggested this for a reason.

The next flier I picked up was:

[CLASS: ARCHER]

[A dps that uses a bow and arrow in combat. They are generally weak, but hitting weak points does 3x damage.]

I left that one by my side in case the last two didn't strike my fancy.

[CLASS: CLERIC]

[A healer that focuses on tending to the wounds of their teammates. At higher levels they learn REVIVE, making them indispensable allies.]

"That sounds pretty cool too. Might go for this one…"

I grabbed the last flier.

[CLASS: ALCHEMIST]

[A hybrid class that can provide support or deal damage. They use various concoctions to help out their allies.]

"Whoa! Whoa! Whoa!" I said aloud to myself. "This one sounds like it'd be fun."

I looked between Alchemist, Archer, and Cleric.

Alchemist was the obvious choice. When the prompt came up asking me if I wanted to accept, I agreed.

I noticed my clothes changed once I selected Alchemist. I was now wearing a puffy dark blue green long sleeve dress that reached down to my knees. It had frills on the sleeves and the hem of the dress. My shoes had been replaced with dark brown boots that reached partway up my shin. I was also now equipped with light brown messenger bag that looked a little too big for me.

In short, the dress was ugly.

"Yeah, as soon as I'm able, I'm getting rid of this…"

Then a window popped up asking which town I wanted to start in. It had a list of the towns/cities you could choose from in order of highest pop to lowest. I expected Fiole Town to be at least somewhere in the middle.

It was dead last.

"...That guy did say to start here right?"

I hesitantly clicked on Fiole Town. The green-eyed guy probably told us to start there for a reason.

[GAME START? YES/NO.]

I hit yes.

[PLEASE ENJOY YOUR TIME IN EXORDIUM ONLINE!]

Suddenly everything exploded into a bright white which caused me to shield my face.