After dinner Stella retreated to her room to do her homework even though she rather would’ve done anything else. While she liked school, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday were the absolute worst days of the week, with all of them having math and physics. It fried Stella’s brain to a crisp.

After all the brain wrangling calculations, Stella decided she deserved to rest. Her brain didn’t want to function properly anymore. She got to her computer and logged in on Argent Night. She had barely clicked through all the notifications, when she already received a message.

[GeminiWarrior]: Fancy seeing you here. You haven’t been online all day. I was wondering if you’ll come

[Spica]: Well you see, I have other things to do as well. Can’t spend all my hours gaming.

[GeminiWarrior]: Are you calling me a no-life gamer? :o

[Spica]: What? No, I didn’t mean it like that.

[Spica]: It’s just that I’ve been busy.

[Spica]: I don’t care if you’re on a computer all day. It’s none of my business.

[GeminiWarrior]: Lol, no need to panic. I wasn’t upset :D

[Spica]: I didn’t panic…. :<

[Spica]: But you were waiting for me to come online, or…?

[GeminiWarrior]: … Maybe a little bit. Because I dunno if it’s safe for me to walk around alone after what happened last time. :)

[Spica]: Poor you. I can come protect you. Where are you?

[GeminiWarrior]: Casmera meadow. Go out of the town’s east gate and you get there pretty fast.

[Spica]: Yeah, I know the place. I’ll be there in a sec.

Stella directed her character in the right direction with a smile on her face. She had played on the website for a while but hadn’t met anyone to talk or play with. She exchanged a few words with other people every now and then, but nothing more came out of it. It was rare if she talked with the same person on two different days.

She noticed GeminiWarrior’s character on the edge of the field and jogged closer. GeminiWarrior emoted a hello, and with a smile Stella replied to it. 

[GeminiWarrior]: So, what’s kept you busy?

[Spica]: School stuff. I’ll probably be pretty busy for the rest of the week.

[GeminiWarrior]: You won’t be here all week? :(

[Spica]: I might pop up sometimes. Depends how tired I am.

[Spica]: Don’t you have any school stuff to worry about? Or work. I don’t know what you do.

[GeminiWarrior]: School. I’m in high school

[Spica]: Same.

[GeminiWarrior]: Cool. And I don’t have exams in near future. So nothing to worry about

[Spica]: Nice attitude…

[GeminiWarrior]: I’ll study when they’re closer. No need to worry 

[Spica]: Right… Do you have new armor?

Now that their characters were closer, Stella could see that GeminiWarrior’s outfit was different from before.

[GeminiWarrior]: Yeah! Gives me +200 defense. No more surprise attacks from bears :D

[Spica]: Nice. Mine is almost as good then.

[GeminiWarrior]: What? That skimpy outfit? Don’t make me laugh

Spica’s armor —if one could even call it that— consisted of a metal plated bikini top and harem-style pants with a low enough waist to show the character’s hip bones (which “for some reason” were more defined on female than male characters). Somehow it gave her +170 on defense as well as boosts on her speed and magic. 

[Spica]: It’s not my fault female characters are overly sexualized. This gives me +170 defense.

[GeminiWarrior]: You’re lying. That won’t protect you from anything

[Spica]: You want to bet?

[GeminiWarrior]: Sure. There’s some trolls in the woods

[Spica]: Lead the way.

Stella followed GeminiWarrior into the dark woods. It didn’t take them long to find a group of trolls guarding a cave entrance. They noticed the approaching adventurers and stalked towards them while brandishing their wooden clubs. The situation was three against two for the trolls which did concern Stella a bit, but she wasn’t a coward. But as she soon noticed, the trolls weren’t idiots either. Two of them headed towards her character while one decided to attack GeminiWarrior. Stella had hoped the exact opposite would happen. Gemini should’ve had more aggro than her, but apparently these guys didn’t care about that.

Stella tried her best to keep Spica out of the trolls’ attack range and shoot them with spells, but she quickly realized the trolls were highly resistant to magic. Her fireballs basically bounced off the beasts’ hides. Stella cursed under her breath and used a lightning spell which luckily paralyzed one of the two trolls. However, the other one hit her character square in the chest, cutting almost a third of her health in one hit.

“What the hell”, Stella muttered to herself as she kicked the troll before dashing away.

GeminiWarrior had managed to defeat his troll and headed to help Stella.

Stella dodged the enemy’s attacks and tried to chip away at the trolls’ health, but she got hit a couple times which dropped her HP dangerously.

GeminiWarrior caught up, and with a few swings of his sword, wiped out the two trolls.

[GeminiWarrior]: Who saved who now? :D

[Spica]: I already whittled down their HP. You did the easy part.

[GeminiWarrior]: Yeah right. You were so in trouble. You’re almost dead

[Spica]: No, I’m not :< And it’s not my fault my base defenses are equal to a wet paper bag.

[Spica]: Not to mention they all resisted my magic.

[GeminiWarrior]: Really? I had no idea :O

[Spica]: … You did.

[GeminiWarrior]: Nooo...

[Spica]: You hecking did! You tricked me :<

[GeminiWarrior]: Only a little bit :P But I won our bet

[Spica]: Bets don’t  count if you’re a dirty cheater. 

[GeminiWarrior]: I didn’t cheat! I just made the odds slightly better for myself

[Spica]: Pretty sure that counts as cheating.

[GeminiWarrior]: Nah, I don’t think so. I won, so I’ll get a reward

[Spica]: What reward? We didn’t talk about rewards.

[GeminiWarrior]: But we made a bet :(

[Spica]: Fine…

[GeminiWarrior]: Cool. Okay. I’ll just ask a question. Are you actually a girl?

The question made Stella’s shoulders tense. She had met too many guys who turned into jerks after they realized they were playing with a girl.

[Spica]: Why do you ask?

[GeminiWarrior]: A lot of guys play with female avatars, and you can never be sure. So I wanted to ask

[Spica]: Yeah I’m a girl. I assume you're also telling the truth about being in high school.

[GeminiWarrior]: Yeah

[Spica]: Cool

[GeminiWarrior]: Cool

The silence stretched between them.

[GeminiWarrior]: Okay I definitely made things awkward. Sorry. I hope you don’t think I’m weird

[Spica]: No, no. It’s a normal thing to ask. I’ve just met a few unpleasant guys.

[Spica]: So I’m a bit cautious about the question.

[GeminiWarrior]: Makes sense. Sorry if I made you uncomfortable. If it makes you feel better, I think it’s cool that girls play games

[Spica]: Thanks :)

Knowing that did make her feel better. GeminiWarrior didn’t seem like a jerk from their interactions, but it was still nice to get confirmation.

“Stella, could you come down here?” Marisa’s voice came from downstairs.

Stella sighed, and glanced at the clock. It was quite late already.

“Yeah in a second!” she yelled back

[Spica]: Sorry, but I gotta go.

[GeminiWarrior]: :( Bye

[Spica]: Bye

Stella logged off and turned off her computer before heading downstairs. Stella was happy she had someone to play with, and that the person was around the same age as her, if she believed Gemini. He seemed like an honest guy and did have some of the awkwardness of a teenage boy. It made Stella relax. No worry about playing with some weird middle-aged man.