For the rest of the night, I kept watch and patrolled up and down the hallway with the door to the teacher’s lounge opened. I wouldn’t have been able to sleep, even if I’d tried. My mind was in turmoil with self-doubts, self-incrimination, and worry over how Isabella was going to react in the morning. It’s a good thing that I heal as quickly as I do in this new world; otherwise I would’ve chewed my lip completely off by the time the sun rose and Isabella started to stretch awake.

Groggily she stretched and looked around sleepily, and then Isabella jumped half up all at once. “Oh no! What happened to Brand!” My mind blanked again for a moment wondering how she’d even known anything had happened, as she came running over and tossed herself into my arms. I held her tight, expecting her to burst into tears again, but she surprised me when she didn’t.

“Drake,” she asked, “what happened?”

“To be honest, I don’t know.” She seemed to be holding up better than I’d expected, so I simply told her the truth. “Last night while you were sleeping there was a sudden notification that she had died. I went out and looked around, and everything around here seemed normal to me. It wasn’t until I crawled past the barricade that I noticed anything different.”

Taking a deep breath to calm myself, I finally finished by telling her, “There’s a blood trail which leads down into the darkness of the first tunnel on the left. I thought about going to check it out, but I wanted to make certain you were OK here first.”

Isabella slowly nodded as she took in and digested what I’d told her. She’d felt that same intense fear from the first tunnel and had been there with me and experienced it for herself. Finally, she pushed herself away from me and asked, “So what are we waiting on now? Let’s go see what happened.”

Calmly, she walked into the bathroom for a few moments and then came back out. “Give me a moment to go recharge my magic fully from the girls, and then I’ll be ready.” Steadily she walked out the room and down the hallway while I followed behind.

“You’re taking this better than what I’d honestly expected,” I told her.

“I’ve had more experience seeing the tombstone in the party window than you have. I’ve seen half a dozen pop-ups telling me you were slain, but you always come back.” Walking into the room with the two “weak ones”, Isabella looked over her shoulder and smiled at me. “I feel like as long as they’re still in the party window, there’s some way to save them. This world has become so much like a game, it’s not even funny anymore – but one thing about most games is that they have a way to revive a fallen comrade. We just need to find it.

“I don’t think of Brandr as being ‘dead and gone’. She’s just ‘gone until we can bring her back’. It’s as simple as that.” Turning back to focus on the girls before her, Isabella started roughly feeding on one of them. To be honest, I can’t even think what the girl’s name is right now; it’s Flibi or Lucy, but I don’t know which one. I guess I really hadn’t been spending enough time trying to take care of them either. It’s no wonder why they’re not getting better.

As Isabella fed on one girl, the other one healed her several times in the row while I stood and waited. After a few moments, Isabella turned and walked over to where I was waiting. “I’m ready now,” she told me matter of factly, with flaming lightning dancing down her hair and through her eyes. “I’m as charged as I’ve ever been, and I’m ready to find whatever did this to Brand. I might get angry and blow her up or something, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to let someone else do it.”

“Well,” she paused for a moment as she was heading to the door, “I’d let you blow her up or kill her or whatever – but not anyone else!” She stomped her foot lightly, and somehow my heart felt a little lighter. I might not understand the girls all the time, but I don’t think I could make it without them.

Feeling lighter and more confident than I had just a few hours before, I marched past Isabella and slapped her firmly across the ass as I passed by. “Then let’s go and kick somethings ass. If there’s a way to bring Brandr back, we’ll find it – right after we grind whatever hurt her into dust! “

“Not IF,” Isabella corrected me. “There IS a way to bring her back. We just have to look until we find it. It’s not an IF…”

“It’s a when,” I finished for her, and she nodded.

Brandr might be gone – for now – but she was still part of our party, and I was going to believe like Isabella: As long as she remained a part of our party, there was still a way to save her. We just had to find it…

Right after we destroyed whatever it was that had killed her!

With fresh determination in my steps, I led the way back down the hall and towards the darkness.