Sylvie was standing next to Emily and Resti, They were all standing in front of the women huddle behind them, looking towards the hatch leading down into the workshop they were using as their current home.

She had finally felt safe, it being a long time since she last felt at ease like this. Despite the potential danger they were in at the moment. The moment that all the adventurers that had bought her of the slavers that capturer her and killed her brother had been defeated by Lurk. She had given up and ready to break down due to her probable fate of becoming a toy to the goblins.

But that did not happen, instead, the goblin Lurk treated her with kindness and understanding, even saving other people who had suffered under the goblins. The sheer shock of suddenly being saved by someone, let alone a goblin had made her happier than she had ever felt. The constant pressure of the collar forcing her will, all the commands that the dark elf had placed on her, constantly pushing her forward regardless of what she wanted.

But now the collars effects and the commands were all but gone. Only the general feeling of knowing that Lurk was the current master was all the collar inforced on her. But she was more than happy to listen to this feeling. Lurk had made her happy and safe, broken her hopelessness she had been feeling for months now.

He never forced her to do anything, even clearing all the commands she had received. He did ask her a lot of questions but told her she was not forced to answer about the collars and how the dark elf had used them. He was mostly interested in the design and workings of it, studying the runes on the collars intently as well as all the other runes inside the workshop he could find.

He even helped her learn a new spell to remove pain with her holy magic, he had other spells to teach her but her max mana did not allow her to learn them. His own mana was clearly superior as the spells he had learned were advanced and costly. When she informed him of her low mana but high recharge of said mana. She was expecting him to be disappointed, even her own family and her village elders were a little disappointed if not directly at her but at the misfortune of the mana fault she had.

Lurk did not seem to care, he was just curious. He had spent a lot of time asking her about how she had learned magic, she would tell of her time with her elder in her village as he would describe runes she should picture internally and form before her using her mana. Once the proper sequence of mana shaped runes had formed an effect would occur. Lurk seemed to know the runes being mentioned. But he himself had learned differently. Simply by using imagination and forcing mana into shape and function.

Sylvie could not even imagine how much mana that would cost, she would never be able to do that, let alone picture how a body could heal itself or light formed out of nothing. She had to be lectured how to picture this in her head. Lurk knew somethings he said, but could not really go into detail.

The adventurers would use her for spot healing until she suffered mana collapse but she would recover fast from it, but it was always a horrible sensation to collapse from it only to get back up and once more experience it. Normally spellcasters would do their best to avoid this since it gave them splitting headaches and made them feel horrible, she had no choice and was forced to heal if the adventurers had received many wounds.

Lurk when he heard about it simply nodded, he tried to examine her by touching her, as he said he had the ability to see peoples abilities and disabilities sometimes. Which caused a fireball to fly out from where Resti was, causing him to dodge right into Sylvie, both of them collapsing on the ground. Sylvie was stunned at the time but when she saw the wide eyes in Lurks face as he was lying down on top of her she smiled for some reason, causing Lurk to be even more flustered as he quickly got up apologizing to her.

Apparently, that counted as enough "touching" but he could not see any external influence and guessed it might be a natural trait. He thought he might be able to change it, but he began being extremely flustered when he was talking about it. Sylvie insisted that if he could change it she would do anything!. He was stunned and seemed to be struggling internally with something but in the end he said, he would think about it, as Resti was once more looming over them with fireballs in both her hands the topic moved onto something else.

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Sala had grinned when seeing this and gave Sylvie a gentle elbow nudge saying she was doing a good job. Sylvie was unsure what Sala had meant at the time, mostly because of her not holding the control rod at the time, so she could not understand her goblin-speak.

Sala was kind enough to her, but Sala seemed to struggle with Resti's aggressive nature towards Lurk, but mostly over how much Resti seemed to care about Lurks actions as much as Sala did. To the detriment of Lurks hair or head from getting blazed or bonked. She could tell it was not anything serious that the both of them threw at him, and it made her giggle.

Lurk was always kind to them and the women, helping them to be as comfy as they could. He made them clothes and arranged tasks for them if they wanted to help him, he even punished a goblin for suddenly grabbing at a woman. The women that had been stored were warming up to him and helping with the requests. Some of the hurt women were more il at ease, but when Lurk gave them the option of what they wanted to do with their goblin offspring inside them, asking them if they would consider giving birth to them, or he if he should spare them the experience. They warmed up to him a bit more.

But the ones with Emily were still a hard shut off group, Emily herself was apparently a fighter, Lurk having given her some armor from one of the adventurers after he fitted it to her. Sylvie did not like seeing Emily in Alex's armor as it gave her bad memories. But Emily was still projecting cold intent. Even now as they were standing here watching the hatch, Sylvie could sense that Emily was looking at the goblins more than watching the entryway.

Sylvie could understand her a little, She was the same way towards the adventurers. The way they mocked her, discounted her as useless or not even as a thinking being... And when the dark elf would at night make her do things to please him... She could understand Emily's feelings. But Lurk was doing his best, even trusting her with a weapon and armor. Sylvie could see when Emily looked at Lurk she was afraid, but she was also perplexed seeing Lurks responses and talks with the women and how he acted with Sala.

Sala... She was clearly the mother to Lurks child, Sylvie could see how Lurk and Sala cared for each other, though Sala was a bit clumsy at expressing it. She too was confused at times. But when they slept Sylvie was sleeping closer to Lurks "room", a small storeroom they had hung a piece of cloth down to block vision but not the sounds... And she could hear the two of them enjoying each other. Which caused her cheeks to flush and body to warm up.

She was really thankful for Lurk saving her for her hell, and he was kind towards her. He even looked nice despite him being a short goblin but with a normal looking body and kind face... Sylvie had slapped her cheeks briefly to knock her thoughts out of her head, and focus back at guarding the hatch.

When Sala suddenly collapsed in pain in front of them over by the hatch. Aurk helped her over to the room, asking her something as he got a punch in response. He simply seemed to understand and go back to guarding the hatch.

Resti was the first to voice her worry and wanted to go help Sala, Resti herself also gave her support with her meager healing she could assist Sala not be in too much pain. They came in giving her some help in sitting upright. Resti had some knowledge apparently from her village in women giving birth. After getting Sala to pick up the Control rod they could communicate easier since the collars prohibited slaves from picking up or touching the rod in any way.

But knowledge of how normal birthings happened did not really apply here with Sala, she was in pain, but it went very fast compared to what was expected by Resti, Sala smiled getting the pained numbed by Sylvie, she even thanked Sylvie which seemed to surprise her when she did.

The goblin baby came out but its skin was slightly darker and its forehead had two small blunt bumps, not quite horns but it looked like the beginnings of them. Resti and Sylvie were amazed and Sala beamed proudly proclaiming she had given birth to an evolved goblin grinning proudly.

The baby looked around curiously, hissing at them as Resti picked her up causing Resti to be a bit shocked. But she gently picked it up making the baby look odd for a moment as if it was expecting something else. Sala was also acting weird looking at Resti holding the baby.

"She is kind of cute," said Resti smiling at Sala, handing her over to Sala that accepted her into her arms looking at the baby confused. Sala was acting weird looking at the baby as if she did not know what to do. They heard a commotion from outside and Resti pulled open the cover from the door out into the main room. Calling out to Lurk.

"Its a girl!" as she smiled at him, he looked inside being stunned. Sylvie looked intently at him as he was unsure how to act too. but he made his way over to them, sitting down, he smiled happily when holding the girl. Giving Sala a kiss, which made Sylvie's heart jump a bit. Even Resti seemed affected by the happy looking scene in front of them.

Sylvie smiled at Lurk and Sala, the goblins looking inside, the one named Aurk nodding to Lurk with a grin. Sylvie noticed Emily in the background looking conflicted. Even she had been affected by the happy looking scene occurring...

But Sylvie was smiling, but she was also feeling something else... Jealous at the happy scene...