Nathan doesn't relent. "Or! We can do it the most effective way. Let's enter the monster party event."

Cody looks like he's constipated. Olivia closes her eyes and rests a palm against her forehead. Mags gasps.

Aileen looks like she's seen a ghost. "The monster party event? But I'm only level thirty-seven."

"And I'm only level twenty," I say. I have no idea what they're talking about, and why the reaction from the other members is so strong. I can only assume that entering the monster party event must take some serious skill.

"And the four of us captains are higher level than the usual participants," Nathan says. "We'll balance each other out."

"Does Josiah even know what the monster party event is?" Cody just won't give up.

"He'll know soon enough," Nathan says, winking at me. My ears flush. "Basically, the monster party event happens in a natural, random arena that we can find through going through any portal. It happens every Sunday morning. Usually, the group size for entrants is six. Perfect for us. Basically, the event happens as hundreds of mobs of the same type rampage toward the participants. The group that slays the most monsters gains a huge reward—tons of experience and gold. Even if you don't win, you still get to keep all the experience from the monsters you've slain."

I imagine being overcome by a thousand slimes. Or worse, hogs or witches. "I... do you think I'm ready?"

Nathan's nothing but encouraging as he places a hand on my shoulder. "You defeated the hog king all by yourself. I have no doubt that you're ready for a monster party."

"So... this Sunday?" Olivia exudes nothing but business.

Cody's silent. He's fuming, I can tell. His ears bloom red and he brushes through his hair angrily.

"Yup," Mags answers for her leader. "Until then, let's help Aileen and Josiah gain some levels. We'll need to be as strong as possible to win the event."

The room erupts into lively discussion. Everyone's planning on which bosses to defeat first. For a few minutes, I just watch and admire the way the pros in the game are passionate about playing Starlia. I haven't seen anything like it. This tops every high school club in terms of life and vigor. These people aren't here to play around, despite playing a video game.

The groups start to funnel out of the room. Some of the guys clap Nathan against his back, and the others send winks and cheers his way. He's obviously very loved. He's kind of my hero. I thank Aileen for leading us to the slime king's lair, and God for bringing him there.

"I have some family things to deal with," Olivia says, quietly, when the room is empty except for our team. "I'll log on tomorrow." She disappears without further ado, pixelating and then leaving empty space in her wake.

"I vote to go with Aileen," Mags says. "Girl power."

"I'm following along," says Cody—he probably wants nothing to do with me.

Nathan raises a brow in amusement. "That leaves me with Josiah. Jokes on you guys, I'm with the real MVP of the guild."

Cody rolls his eyes. Aileen gives me a short hug, and I'm thankful for the physical comfort even though it's my brain being tricked that my friend is pressed against me. I'll probably never get used to the realness of the VRS. No wonder people spend the majority of the day online. With games like Starlia, the horror of the real world can be put on the sidelines.

Once Nathan and I are alone, he turns toward me with a hesitant smile. "Can we talk?"

I nod even though nervousness steals my breath. Could I have done something wrong? Am I just a hopeless bard who doesn't deserve his time, and he's going to break the news to me in private?

Whatever he has to say, I'll have to face it eventually. I follow my guild leader out of the conference room and into the third floor. He leads me to his room. I enter the space—completely personalized to my guild leader's liking. There's a blue loveseat in the corner, a bed with blue sheets, blue curtains, and star-shaped lights emitting a similar sheen. No doubt about his favorite color. The tone relaxes me. He gestures for me to sit on the loveseat, and Nathan takes the corner of his bed.

"What did you want to talk about?" I ask.

Nathan, for the first time, allows hesitation to show in front of me. "I want to ask you how you're holding up. You're the only bard in this guild, and you are kind of being bullied by one of my captains."

I release a long breath. So Nathan isn't going to fire me. He's just concerned, like the good guild leader he is.

"I'm fine," I say. I hope the crack in my voice doesn't betray me.

Nathan leans back, his hands on his bed holding him up. "Really? You aren't bothered at all by Cody?"

I relax a bit, knowing that I don't need to put my guard up. Despite being in charge of one of the most powerful guilds, the power hasn't gone to Nathan's head. He still cares about each member, and he's proving it to me right now. "He's a little mean, I guess."

He laughs. "Understatement of the year. Well, I suppose I need to give you some backstory. Cody was actually the first person I met in the game. We were both beta testers, and he saved my ass several times with his healing abilities."

"Whose idea was it to start a guild?" I ask, my curiosity tickled.

His eyebrows knit together. "It was his idea. We settled on who would be the leader with a duel. I beat him, and I guess he's always been bitter about only becoming the general."

I nod. Suddenly, I want to know more about my guild leader. I realize that besides knowing him as an optimistic and skilled player, I don't have much of a grasp on who he is. "Nathan, what made you want to play Starlia?"

My guild leader looks up to his ceiling. Glow-in-the-dark stars make this room reminiscent of the 90s. "To be honest, it's an escape."

I nod, remembering my first thoughts upon entering the game. I was stunned at how big the game world is. When I took a walk around Star Town, I became enamored with how much I could do and see. Starlia truly invented a phenomenal escape.

"Why did you have to escape?" I ask.

Nathan pauses. For a second I wonder if he'll answer me or change the subject. He decides to entertain me. "Besides the world falling apart at the seams, my mother recently passed away. She was driving when an earthquake struck Oregon. She smashed into the side of a building. It was pretty instant."

I can relate to having a family member die from a natural disaster. After all, it was a hurricane that stole my father away from me. "I'm sorry."

"Starlia came out a day after she passed." Nathan smiles, but a bitterness lingers there. "I started the game without thinking too much about it. Soon enough, I was obsessed. My father began to yell at me for wasting all my time. Soon enough, he gave up. I guess he accepted that playing Starlia is my idea of mourning."

"Playing a game as mourning," I say. "I've never thought about gaming in that sense before."
"It was how I became one of the best players," Nathan says. "I could forget about how my mother died if I invested into becoming a powerful mage. As I became respected in the world of Starlia, I could forget how I was missing a part of me."

"Do you think your mom would be proud?" I swallow a lump in my throat when Nathan turns his gaze toward me. "Being one of the best players in Starlia, I mean."

Nathan gets a faraway look in his eyes. "I think she'd be insanely proud of me. She was always the supportive one—my dad is harder on me. When I was obsessed with science, she'd praise me for building exploding volcanoes and making my own custom light bulbs. I guess becoming a mage fulfilled all my science fantasies. Being able to summon lightning? That's more than an inventor can dream of."

"So you've graduated from high school?" I ask, drawn into Nathan's real life.

"I just graduated this year," Nathan says. "I'm eighteen now. My dad wants me to apply for college right now, but I told him I'm taking a gap year to pursue pro status in Starlia. He's pretty pissed."

I breathe through my teeth. "I bet. Video gaming instead of college? Sounds like an Asian parent's worst nightmare."

He grins. "You're Chinese too, aren't you?"

I mumble a greeting in Mandarin, some of the only words I know. "Yup."

"Let's go out for dinner sometime," Nathan says. "In real life. I could order food for us, I know Mandarin and Cantonese."

"Wow, bragging as a trilingual," I say. "I can't relate."

Nathan lets out a hearty laugh. "I like your humor. Sarcasm looks good on you."

There are a thousand more questions I want to ask him. He's interesting in the same way Aileen was when I first met her. This guy is someone I want to invest in. I don't have many close friends, but if Nathan Lum became one of them, I'd be insanely proud of myself. Nathan looks like a guy who has a hundred friends and knows the middle name and birthday of every one of them.

"I guess we should head out," I say instead. There will be other conversations, I tell myself, more opportunities to go deeper. "There are monsters to kill and levels to gain."

Hey reader! Thank you so much for joining #StandaloneSaturdays in 2024! Let's give it our all the rest of the year and keep pressing on.