Kim was starting to feel like her old self. Mostly. Whatever had happened to her had left her feeling weak and more helpless than she could ever remember being in the past. She'd been able to build her strength back up, though she didn't really mind being waited on by Elin. In fact, she actually found she enjoyed it a little.
Although, she wondered if she should do that to Elin as well sometime. After all, Elin was the one who'd taken care of her, especially when it came to keeping clean. In addition to taking care of Heather and Sonya. Kim didn't complain about that, although she wouldn't deny that she felt a little jealous about it. Elin should focus her attention primarily on her, but at the same time, Elin was her own person and Kim would be fine if Elin wanted a dalliance with someone else from time to time, as long as she came back to her each time. Or at least while they were in the same world.
The tranquility she'd started to feel disappeared when she learned about the goblins being able to leave that dungeon. While she'd gotten her strength back, she didn't like the idea of those goblins out there. With what she knew they'd done to Heather and Sonya, she wasn't about to let anything remotely like that happen to Elin. Which meant that she was going to talk to Jonas about devising a defense to fight those goblins, a plan to enter the dungeon, and complete that challenge. Not only for the sake of having completed another challenge, but to make sure that those goblins wouldn't be able to get Elin to do whatever unholy things they would do to her.
If anything was going to happen to Elin like that in any manner, it was going to be after she was dead or after they were back on their own worlds where Kim wouldn't be able to reach her, let along know what was going on for her.
Regardless of what they did, Kim was confident that they were going to need to improve their stats, which meant increase their levels, upgrade their equipment, if possible, replace what needed to be replaced, like her armor, and learn what they could about the surrounding area.
She couldn't be sure if her suggestion to the others about leveling up would be taken to heart, but she knew what she needed to do herself. She just wished she had looked into this during the time when she was regaining her strength, rather than just laying around and being useless.
Though, she idly wondered what might be different if Heather and Sonya woke up. After all, she didn't really know all of what Sonya was capable of and with Heather, it would always be useful to have another healer. Especially if it came down to a pitched battle in the village.
Elmo was leading them up the stairs to the room where Heather and Sonya were resting, and while Kim tried to keep worries of Elmo wanting to try something with Heather and Sonya catatonic, like they seemed to be most of the time, out of her mind, she couldn't help but see images of Elmo doing things to them that disgusted her.
However, she merely focused on gripping her sword's hilt tighter and keeping her mouth shut. If she said anything about that, she was confident that it would affect Elin more than Elmo. Especially if she was just imagining things.
"Are you okay, Kim?" Elin whispered to her as they neared the top of the stairs.
"I'll be alright," Kim whispered back, not fully convinced of that herself, but not wanting to worry Elin more than she was.
As they reached the door to the room, Elmo opened it unceremoniously and Kim felt an urge to slap him for just entering the room where he knew the girls slept without knocking or checking to see if they were up and about themselves. They weren't, but Kim wanted to emphasize to the kid that just barging in was a mistake in and of itself. Yet, again, she knew Elmo probably wouldn't be as affected by anything she could say than Elin would be. However, that didn't stop her from smacking him upside the head as she passed him by.
"What was that for?" Elmo complained.
"For entering a girl's room without checking to see if they weren't decent," Kim replied, not looking at him.
"We all know that they're not going to be out of their beds," Elmo whined.
"And what if they had woken up on their own while we were on our way up?" Kim challenged. "We don't know why they're like this in the first place, so why should we think that they couldn't wake up without warning on their own?"
Elmo smirked at Kim, making her want to pummel his face in. "If they were up, we'd at least hear the floorboards squeaking," Elmo answered. "Haven't you noticed that? Even downstairs they squeak almost everywhere."
Kim shook her head in annoyance. She hadn't noticed that, but she still didn't think that it was a point that he should place all of his bets on. After all, they could have just been standing in place rather than walking around. Although, she doubted mentioning that would help her case any.
"So, what were you thinking of doing?" Jonas asked. "I'm sure they heard the announcement, so if you thought of just telling them about the goblins, then I'm sure that they're already as aware of that as they could be."
"Well, we could just tell them what we plan on doing about it," Elmo replied.
"What did we decide on?" Kim asked sarcastically. "I thought we've only mentioned suggestions at the moment. After all, these two aren't awake yet and we haven't even discussed any of what had been suggested. Aside from seeing if we can get these two to wake up, that is."
"Elin, have you checked to see if there was any status problems for them?" Elmo asked as he looked at the two women who, aside from their open and staring eyes, looked like they could be sleeping. "I mean, that could be something that's causing this."
"No, I haven't," Elin answered. "But I'll check anyway." Elin then looked at Sonya and took a deep breath. "Assess."
Kim watched as Elin cast her spell and waited for her to review whatever she learned. Though, she felt alarmed herself when Elin apparently saw something that alarmed her.
"She has a status called 'Horror,'" Elin said, her tone sounding uncertain. "It seems that it attaches to a memory or something and will keep them like this with only one time waking up from it before they go back to being like this." Elin paused as she sighed, then looked at Kim. "So if Owen hadn't blocked their memories then they'd have gone back to being like this once they fell asleep or something after they had finished screaming."
"Can you dispel it?" Jonas asked. "I mean, is it like the status condition I had that I'd also passed on to Elmo? Or is it something that you can't treat?"
Elin shook her head. "No, I can use my spell treat the condition," Elin answered. "Just let me check Heather to make sure she has the same condition. You know as much as I do about what status conditions there are in this world."
"Just cast the spell," Jonas directed, clearly not interested in idle conversation at the moment.
Kim felt an urge smack Jonas upside the head with that remark, but couldn't deny that he had a point. Every moment they wasted with something trivial was another moment the goblins technically were that much closer.
"Assess," Elin said as she turned her focus to Heather. A moment after she cast the spell, her eyes widened in surprised and let out a small, "Oh my."
"What is it this time?" Elmo asked.
"She's pregnant," Elin said, sounding a little horrified herself.
"What do you mean 'pregnant,' Elin?" Kim asked, looking at Heather. Nothing looked different, but that didn't necessarily mean anything in regards to pregnancy.
"Just that," Elin answered. "I don't know details, but she is pregnant."
"Just dispel the Horror status and we can discuss her pregnancy after that," Jonas said, looking unperturbed about that news.
"Alright, Treat," Elin said, first looking at Heather, then she turned to Sonya. "Treat."
Kim wasn't sure what to expect to happen, but was relieved when Sonya and Heather seemed to wake up moments after Elin's spell was cast.
"What's going on?" Sonya asked the same moment Heather asked, "How'd we get here?"
"This might take a bit of explaining, but we've been here a couple weeks and both of you have pretty much been kinda catatonic this entire time," Kim answered bluntly. "Elin just learned about what had been keeping you like that, so we were just now able to remove what status was keeping you like that."
"Why do I feel like my stomach is larger?" Heather asked, looking under the blanket that lay on top of her.
"About that," Elin said, looking uneasy. "When I checked you for status effects that let me know about what kept you as you had been, I, uh, I learned you're pregnant." Elin said the last bit in a rush, her expression screaming 'awkward.'
Heather stared at Elin in surprise, clearly not fully comprehending what she'd just been told. Not that Kim could blame her. She knew she herself would have issues with that. Yet, whatever Heather decided to do about it, they had other business to attend to.