The chilling northern winds cut through my fluffy coat and seemed to freeze my soul. I pulled my jacket tighter around me and pulled the top lip of my scarf up over my nose. It was a cold day in late January, and I was standing at the very front of an absurdly long line. Constant murmurs of new gameplay, nerdy debates over starting class optimization, and the ever present cries of ‘Girl Gamer’ echoed around me.

  “Cass,” a familiar voice called, “the doors are opening!”

  I looked over at my cousin Caleb and smiled. He stood six feet tall and had a rather bulky physique, but he was just as much of a video game nerd as I was on the inside. It also helped having him with me to keep the other nerds at bay. Few men were confident enough to mess with Caleb just to talk to some less-than-average girl like me. I genuinely felt no interest in any of those slobs and geeks. My OTP was, and will always be, Ezekial from the game Firelands Saga.

  The doors to the Etnia Online store opened, as Caleb had pointed out, and an employee walked out. She wore a very classy suit with a low-cut business-style skirt. Her hair was tied back in a ponytail and her face was shaped like a heart due to the way her bangs pulled back from her forehead.

  “Welcome all!” The woman cried out, her voice booming, “We from Etnia Online would like to thank you all for coming out for the release of Eternal, our newest Virtual Reality MMORPG!”

  The crowd behind us erupted in cheers, and I couldn’t help but join in. The air felt charged with energy, and I couldn’t help feeling excited.

  “We will take players into the store five at a time so they can be fitted with the virtual headsets and have their Firelands Saga accounts linked up. As many of you have guessed, those who have played Firelands Saga before will receive random gifts based upon their items, levels, and time played. This is, of course, to reward repeat customers. Our company has always listened to our consumers and rewarded them for their loyalty. You stay with Etnia Online and Etnia Online will stay with you!”

  Again a huge cheer erupted from the crowd. I cheered too. Everyone here was dedicated enough to show up and wait in line on release day… In January! Obviously we were all repeat customers of the company. It’d be strange if anyone here hadn’t played Firelands Saga.

  “Now then, will the first five in line follow me inside. We ask the rest of you to be patient. Our doors will be open 24 hours a day for the next three days in order to ensure everyone who showed up gets their copy of Eternal!”

  I couldn’t hide the excitement on my face as Caleb and I walked towards the door to the store. It certainly paid to set up camping equipment three days ahead of time.

  Aside from Caleb and I, three other people came with us. They weren’t strangers, since they had been waiting in line almost as long as we had, but we didn’t know them well. One was a tall lanky man with a terrible scraggly beard; his name was Jacob. Another was a fat man who met all of the classic tropes and memes: neckbeard, fedora, and covered in dust and crumbs; he even wore a trench coat. Neckbeard never gave out his real name, only his in game tag from Firelands Saga: Gandalf1845420. The final was, surprisingly, not all that bad looking. He was blonde and had a bit of a gut, but he certainly wasn’t fat. He was a bit shorter than Caleb, but had a baby face. He said his name was Marc, with a ‘C’.

  Once inside the building, the five of us were brought to a strange room filled with weird machines that resembled tanning beds. The woman walked up to each of us and asked for our Firelands Saga gamertags. She had us answer our security questions to make sure no one tried to game the system and use someone else’s account.

  The woman walked to each of the pod-like beds and entered our account information into them.

  “You all need to lie down in the scanners, now, and the system will scan your brainwaves and a screen will pop up asking you to pick your free gifts in Eternal and then create your first character. Each pod is linked up to your Firelands Saga accounts now, so step in anytime. You each have 20 minutes to create your first character. If you are unsatisfied with your character, you have 30 days to come back and recreate them. If you go past this 30 day period, you will have to buy a new account for Eternia in order to create a new character...”

  The long winded explanation continued for several minutes, and I stopped listening halfway. Instead I turned to Caleb and smiled.

  “Caleb, I heard you can start as non-humans. Let’s make monster characters,” I whispered, my voice filled with glee. Unfortunately, I was a bit too loud in all my excitement and the other three who came in also heard me.

  “That’s a good idea,” Neckbeard replied, “I think I’ll make a monster character too. Playing as a human has gotten boring.

  “Hey, yeah. Let’s all make monster characters,” said Jacob.

  “I’m down for it,” replied Marc.

  “You sure, Cass?” Caleb asked me, “I kind of wanted to make a Paladin or a Priest.”

  “Bah,” I retorted, “Caleb you always play the healer. Why don’t you go for a DPS character this time instead. Let me pick the healer class.”

  “Of course the girl will play the support,” mumbled the neckbeard under his breath. I felt a vein pop out from my forehead.

  “Fuck you,” I said, my voice laced with venom, “I’ll make a DPS assassin character just so I can repeatedly kill you in game.”

  The neckbeard looked at me with a shit-eating grin. “I’ll kick your ass in game, scrub. One ‘v’ one me anytime.” I wanted to punch him.

  “That’s enough squabbling, get in your pods,” said the woman in charge of us, her face framed with anger over her ignored speech.

  I climbed into my scanner pod mumbling curses about the fat neckbeard under my breath. Caleb laughed as he climbed into his. The neckbeard stayed quiet and kept that awful grin on his face as he got into his.

  Once inside the pod, strange blue lights filled my world and I felt my mind literally leave my body. It was a sensation unlike anything I ever experienced.

  A blue screen popped. Up.

  My bad mood immediately dissipated. Etnia leaked the Gift system months ago in order to respark interest in their dying game Firelands Saga. Gifts were, basically, cheats. They were usually passive abilities that gave huge unnatural bonuses to players. Players could, of course, buy gifts with real money, but they were limited to buying only one that way.

  Some gifts would give discounts on all weapons bought, others would give increase damage percentages on melee attacks. They tended to vary wildly, but one thing was common among them: they were all ridiculously broken.

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  Looking at the screen I laughed. Taking a ‘Random’ option appealed to my inner gambler, but I was uncertain about it. I hovered over all the options, looking at the racial features, but nothing unusual popped up. I wished I could see the class benefits to all the options, but that was the price I’d pay for being one of the first few to get in the game: I’d have no way to min-max my build since Etnia gave out very little information about the game’s inner workings. Given a few weeks or months online guides would pop up all over the place, of course, but I wasn’t willing to wait that long to get in game and get grinding.

  Having five gifts meant I could go for broke on the race choice and still have a few left over. I refused to pick any of the lower tiered random choices outright, fearing what they could end up giving me. Heavens know I wouldn’t enjoy playing as a slime or goblin. This wasn’t some weird web novel, after all, and those options would be unfavorable.

  I had originally wanted to play a monster, but after neckbeard’s intrusion I didn’t want that anymore. I looked over the choices one last time before selecting Apostle Human. Since it cost two gifts, it would surely be a powerful class. I still had three gifts left, too, so I knew they wouldn’t go to waste.

  Once I selected my race, the window changed and a character model appeared in front of me. It was like looking into a mirror. The scanner must have recorded my body image and used that as the ‘base’ option. Of course I wasn’t going to play a VRMMORPG as my normal average self. I quickly edited my appearance, giving myself a bit more of a graceful form. I gave myself a full two inches of height, lowered my weight by at least 15 lbs, and buffed up the chest area a bit. I figured if I was going to play an assassin, as was my current plan in order to haunt and murder neckbeard repeatedly, I’d better make myself look the part.

  I changed my dirty brown hair to a chic black and I increased the curve of my face, giving me the look of a deadly seductress. Once I locked in my character’s appearance a new screen popped up.

  I didn’t even wait. I selected the class ‘Ninja’ without any hesitation. I totally didn’t have any thoughts of an orange-colored magic using knucklehead when I made my choice! How dare you accuse me of that!

  Oh? Wait, don’t I still have a Gift leftov…

  I was stuck. I looked at the list and went through all the options, aghast at how broken each one seemed. Three in particular caught my interest: The Penetrator, The Iron Gut, and The Burst. Without knowing how armor effects damage, choosing between The Penetrator and The Burst was basically impossible. Though, since both options were there, it was safe to assume Penetrator would help vs heavily armored opponents, but be weaker against those who use stamina to tank damage.

  The Endless was also a valuable choice too. As was The Voiceless, since that immediately informed me that casting spells involves incantations, something I’d probably be awful at. Knowing my memory, I’d never remember how to use a single spell… Then again, as a Ninja, how many spells would I need to know anyways?

  In the end, I decided on The Penetrator. Armored foes could be difficult to beat, and if I was looking for one shot kills it’d be easier if I didn’t need to even take their armor into consideration.

  A bright flash of light overtook me and I soon found myself in a small waiting room. Looking down on my body I couldn’t help but smile; I was currently in my freshly created avatar. For some reason my character was donning kunoichi garb already and I had a katana on my left hip. Basically, I looked like a badass.

  Looking around the room I quickly noticed I wasn’t alone. Next to me was a tall blond woman wearing shining armor. She had a holy aura around her…

  “So you did go with healer after all, Caleb,” I said to my genderbending cousin.

  “I picked Knight and Priest, so I’m more like a front line tank that heals herself,” Caleb replied, his voice sounding girlier than my own. “And please, you know when we’re in game to call me Sylvia or Sylvanas.”

  “Sorry, Sylvanas,” I replied with a smirk. Of course I wasn’t about to judge my cousin. Everyone in the world had their quirks. He always claimed he wasn’t transgendered, but he just enjoyed being treated like a woman whenever he played video games. I suppose maybe it’s like a sliding scale rather than a binary choice? Eh, who am I to judge anyways. If he wants to be a woman in game, I could care less. He’s still my cousin, after all.

  “Oy, you guys picked humans!?” Asked the neckbeard. “Lame! I thought we were pickin’ monsters.”

  The neckbeard looked to be a troll or ogre of some kind. He stood seven feet tall and his avatar was ripped. It had muscles on its muscles. A giant hammer was hanging from his back and his green skinned monstrosity wore only a loin cloth for clothes.

  A flash of light appeared in the far corner of the room and the tall man, Jacob, walked out from it. His avatar was identical to his original person, with the exception of the cat ears and tail. He carried a gnarled wooden staff in his hands.

  Marc was the last person to appear in the waiting room. His character was, oddly, not even humanoid.

  “I thought we were picking monsters,” Marc whined. He looked adorable, considering he rolled a Random Monster and got ‘Siberian Hound’, a dog-like animal. The rest of us laughed, of course, at his luck… I secretly wanted to hug him. He looked really fluffy.

  We sat in the waiting room for another ten minutes without anything happening.

  “Why’s it taking so long?” I asked aloud....

  As if to answer me, a piercing sensation of pain surged in my head. I clearly wasn’t alone, since everyone else in the room also collapsed to their knees.

  “Something’s wrong!” Echoed the voice of the woman who escorted us into the building.

  “What’s. Going. On?” I asked, pausing between words due to the pain.

  Then, as if it were made of paper, the world tore in front of me and the dull roar of static filled my ears.

  Everything went black.