Isabella cried in my arms for several long minutes while I simply tried to comfort her. After a while, she settled down somewhat and just nuzzled up against me. I sent a thought to Brandr, “Brand, could you make certain that it still seems clear from here to the barricade? And make certain that Jello-Muncher is still out of the way. I’d like to get back to our room for a while so we can sort everything out, heal, and then decide how to proceed from here.”

“And these?” Brandr pointed towards the females huddled in front of her.

“I think they’ll be fine,” I replied. “They don’t seem harmful. We’ll take them back and put them in the empty rooms near where we stayed. In fact, if you want to grab a couple of them and drag them off with you, you might be able to set them in that room all the way near the stairs. It had a goblin in it earlier, and it’ll be a good test to see if they’ll stay where we put them or if they’ll wander off the first time they think they’re alone.

“Don’t show them our room,” I cautioned her. “Just show them to that room and then try to point them into using it. If they stay and can learn to follow orders, we might be able to let them live and use them. Perhaps they can grow mushrooms there. Or maybe they can be taught to cook, clean, do our laundry and all. Any chore they can do for us, frees up a little extra time which we can use to explore and clear these tunnels, or which we can use to train ourselves and grow stronger. We don’t want to be the last group of survivors to clear their level. I think that would be a terrible idea.”

Nodding, Brandr tapped two of the females with her sword and made them jump. Eyes wide with fright, they looked up and whimpered at her. Since she couldn’t speak to tell them what to do, she just nudged them and slowly walked towards the guard rooms and the hallway back. The two looked at each other nervously, and as Brandr got to the hall she turned back and stomped her foot to get their attention. As they looked towards her, she motioned for them to follow with her hands, and once they seemed to understand her intent they scurried to catch up to her. Slowly they walked into the darkness and disappeared while Isabella silently nuzzled in my arms.

This new world seemed like a living contradiction of time to me. Things were moving so slowly, and yet there wasn’t enough time to do what I wanted to do in a day. There were the goblin corpses back in the lounge that I wanted to harvest to get my skills up in, and here today we killed many more. I wanted time to practice and learn some about fighting from Brandr, and Isabella needed to learn the rest of those spells in her book, just in case something came up and it was somehow lost or destroyed. But just to learn four more spells would be four whole days’ time!

And now we had the goblins to somehow deal with, and the two girls in the other room that I didn’t even want to think about if I could avoid it. How could we help them? Without cheat points, they could never be mended, but we couldn’t afford to put them in our party. If Isabella had thought that we could do that, I’d simply always refuse to let them join. I wanted to help them, but I had to take care of the rest of us as well.

No matter how high one’s wishes are, they still have to take care of themselves first. If you’re a family who can’t afford to put food on your table, you can’t donate your last chicken leg to feed the neighbor’s kid. We were in a situation like that. We didn’t know if there was a limit to the number of people you could have in a party, and we had to keep our group with people we could trust and depend on. These girls weren’t trustable. What if they got stronger and then decided that they simply wanted to die? Or that they simply wanted everyone and everything else to die? What if they got their minds back and then refused to work with any man ever again? Or with Brandr? She did turn some ‘fruit makers’ away without helping them previously. I’m not going to ask, but what if it was these girls?

They couldn’t talk to us currently, and we had no way of knowing what they might decide to do or become in the future. Groups are permanent, unbreakable teams. If we can’t work with them, then we’d just be screwing ourselves in the long run, and this world already had too many problems for that.

And, we really couldn’t afford to drag goblins to them and let them kill them, just to level them up so we could try and fix them. If we could do that, then we’d want to kill those goblins for ourselves. All of us still needed levels and strength to grow and survive. We weren’t so strong that we could afford to give our precious experience and levels away as charity.

All we could really do is move the girls out of the dark, into a room with some light (preferable not with me in it), and then try and wash, feed, and take care of them as much as possible. For now, they were nothing more than broken goblin breeding-machines/fruit-makers. We didn’t make them like that – I’m afraid this world did that – and we couldn’t unmake them from the way they were now.

We’ll take them. Take care of them. Feed them and bathe them and let them enjoy the light on their skin and face once more. We won’t let the goblins hurt them anymore; no more beatings or spikes or torture. We’ll take care of them, as best as we can; much like how we would have taken care of them in the old world. And the rest will be up to them. Stats can improve over time, and lower stats can improve faster than higher ones. Unless they had some sort of disadvantage like Isabella’s reduction in her race’s strength, then they might recover slowly. And, if they did have some sort of disadvantage which kept them from recovering, then they’re just screwed.

We aren’t gods, and we can’t save everyone. All we can do is the best we can do. If those girl-things were going to get better, it’d be up to them. Honestly, I didn’t hold out much hope for them with the names of destiny which they’d been given, but for now we’d try and nurture them and see if there’s any hope. We’ll do all we can, but they’ll have to remain out of our party. Isabella might be disappointed in me for refusing to let them join, but I just don’t think we can afford to let them drag us down, and we can’t be certain if they’d even want to live or work with us in the future. Heal first, and then maybe – MAYBE – sometime in the future they can join us. Just not now.

Having finally made up my mind, I gently stroked the hair out of Isabella’s tear swollen face. She nuzzled lightly against me, and I wasn’t certain if she was still awake or if she’d cried herself to sleep. I’d been trying to work on a surprise for her, but when the hell was I ever going to find time to actually do anything? We were going so slow in clearing our floor – almost a month, and we’ve just now cleared one wing almost – and yet still there simply wasn’t enough time to do everything that needed to be done.

Why the hell couldn’t life be like a story? Wake up, smack a few heads, PESTO! Leveled up, learned skills, gained magic, became able to defeat the world! Even when we found something like a skill book, it took weeks to try and learn from it and gain the basic abilities in it! Heck, I haven’t even managed to find myself a class yet. Learning and growing took time, but this world didn’t want to give you anything like that. It just wanted to kill, eat, or screw the hell out of you until you were no more.

I couldn’t help but hold my head and almost cry. You’d think defeating the goblins on this wing would make me happy, but it didn’t. I couldn’t see it as progress forward. I simply saw it as more to worry over now. What to do with the goblins? The girls?

Taking the time to try and organize my thoughts while Brandr was gone, Isabella was asleep (or almost asleep), and the goblins were behaving themselves, I tried to decide on what to do next. First, I suppose we needed to get these goblins out of here and down to the corner which we’d set for ourselves. At least we had roof access, and the rooms there were on the edge of the building and had windows. I didn’t want to stay here, surrounded by the dark, even if we had the mushrooms. Fungus light couldn’t compare to the healing power of the sunlight. People weren’t made to live endlessly in the dark.

Once we had the goblins settled into the rooms near the exit, and knew they weren’t going to run off and be a problem for us, we’d finish exploring and clearing this wing of all troubles. Jello-Muncher needed to die. He seemed like some extremely powerful opponent compared to everything else, and his experience might be enough to push me out of this level. And, who knows what’s in the center of the bastard! What if he had some sort of skill book which I could start studying and learning from?

After that, Brandr could spend a few days checking the tunnels more thoroughly for anything that might be in them. Isabella could use the time to try and learn the last of those spells in her book. She might not be able to master them to make them exceptionally useful , but she’d have them in case something happened. And, I could use that time to try and carve up the goblin corpses for my harvesting skills, and If all went well, I could finally give Izzy the surprise I’d been thinking on.

Move the goblins and the girls, and see if the change in scenery and some sunlight might help them.

Defeat Jello-Muncher and see what loot we can get from it.

Let Brandr hide and search the wing here, while Isabella and I improved our skills.

And then, move on and try and clear the rest of the floor one wing at a time.

Even though we were still in a rush not to be the last survivors to clear our floor, we had to make certain not to rush ahead so blindly that we stumbled and perished.

We’d cleared the goblin menace here today. Rescued the two girls, and captured us a work force. That wasn’t too bad of an accomplishment, actually.