I awoke to a smell that was becoming far too familiar. I sat up and scowled at the goblin. The goblin stared back, frozen with his eyes wide like a deer in the headlights. He was carrying his own shit in a dustpan. I sighed and cupped my face in my hands. Cleaning up after himself was an improvement, at least, but how was I supposed to explain that the shit wasn’t supposed to be there in the first place? I felt a pressure building up and realized there was at least one more thing I could try.

The goblin stared at me as I shit in the toilet, and he looked both confused and horrified. I hoped he understood enough to copy this because I was more uncomfortable than the last time I had been forced to attend my stepmother’s annual Christmas party, and I never wanted to do this again. I shooed him away and mourned the loss of the sacred bathroom ritual of browsing the internet on my phone.

We feasted on Mac and Cheese once more, although my little friend made no more progress on dropping his accent as he spoke the name. He spat out each syllable as he forced out the sounds that his mouth had never uttered before last night. He looked a bit better and stronger, although the infection still filled me with worry.

As I stared at my attempts to patch up his face, the name “Scarface” came to mind, but I immediately dismissed it. I was not going to name this intelligent creature that might just learn English eventually after his deformity. I remembered how adorable he had been as he tried his best to say “Mac and Cheese” for food, and an answer came to me immediately.

“Chez,” I said as I stared into his eyes.

He looked up at me and tilted his head to his right. Before pointing down at his bowl, “Mak - End - Cheeze,”

I shook my head, pointed at the bowl, and said, “Mac and Cheese,” before pointing at him and saying, “Chez.”

He repeated what I had done. He pointed at the food, saying its name, and then pointed to himself and said, “Chez,” it took him a few moments before he pointed at himself again, and said, “Chez,” softly before looking up at me wide eyed and a disturbingly massive grin on his face, “Chez!” he shouted with delight.

I smiled and nodded. My pet had a name, and he liked it.

Chez was whimpering as I stood in front of the stairwell door. I was determined not to waste this trip now that I had already messed up and was well above the parts of the stairwell that showed signs of heavy goblin traffic, “It’s only six floors,” I sighed as I remembered how my body had handled my last bout of spontaneous exercise. The aches and pains had mostly faded, and my body was ready to try again.

I tried to explain to the goblin that he could stay here, but it was entirely beyond his comprehension. When I pushed him away and moved towards the door, he panicked and started crying. So I let him follow me and he started whimpering at the door. I sighed, but just kept walking. He would either follow me or not.

I slowly trudged up the steps, maintaining a steady pace. There would be no running today. At least there wouldn’t be as long as I didn’t run into a horde of choleric goblins. By the time I made it to the next floor, Chez had scrambled after me and caught up. This time, everything went according to plan. I locked each door as I slipped past. When I reached floor 58 I heard squealing and screaming below, but it was distant so I kept moving. At floor 60, the stairwell ended.

I was curious. Despite living here for years, I didn’t have the slightest clue what penthouse suites would look like. Before I locked the door, I tried the handle, but it was already locked. I supposed it made sense that the penthouse suites would stay locked so the common rabble wouldn’t be able to disturb them. I put the key in the lock and tried to turn it, but it refused to turn. It required a different key.

I sighed. That was the end of that. I wasn’t going to be able to break through the door any time soon. I began the trudge back down to floor 54 with my little buddy, and we made good time. I debated moving on to the other side, to wrap that up today, but I didn’t want to push myself. I could do it. It wouldn’t be anything like my terrified flight before unless I ran into more goblins and had to run for my life. Until I improved my endurance, it was best to tackle one obstacle at a time.

I had downtime. The floor was clear of goblins. Well, clear of hostile goblins, I thought as I pet Chez on his head. The floor was secure, and nothing was getting in. I had more food than I could eat any time soon. Everything was in order. It was time to do what I did best. Grind.

With the exception of the time I set aside for cleaning to prevent the spread of rot and disease, I had been rushing from one thing to another or paralyzed with doubt and indecision ever since I had awoken to this changed world. I finally had plenty of time and no immediate needs.

A single item in desperate need of improvement stood out above all others, my endurance. I wasn’t willing to push myself in a dangerous situation where I could be ambushed at any time, but here, even if I collapsed, I would be safe, and the empty hallway would make for a decent jogging track. I started to run, only to stop when I heard a whimper behind me.

Chez was limping along, but in his wounded and ill state, the stairs had been a bit too much exertion. I made him sit down in one of the corners of the hall, and retrieved his blankets. I got him water and some of the healthier snacks from the offering pile and the rooms I had searched and managed to get him lying down comfortably.

“Stay,” I said firmly, while holding both my hands, palms out, as people usually did when they wanted someone to stop. I turned and started running, only to hear Chez groan, whimper, and scramble to his feet to chase after me.

“No!” I yelled, hoping that being firm was the correct method here. I walked back and pointed at his bed with a scowl on my face, “Lay down!”

He ducked his head, cringed, and slowly crawled onto his pile of blankets, watching to make sure that was what I wanted him to do. Once he was settled, I smiled, “Good boy,” It took a few more rounds of him getting up when I ran away and me correcting him the only way I knew how, but eventually, he stayed down long enough for me to reach the end of the hall, and I ran back. I could see the goblin relax as I came back to him again, before turning and jogging down the hall again.

Soon, I was ready to bring his stay training to the next level so I wouldn’t have to keep turning around. I stopped at the end of the hall where he could still see me, said, “Stay,” and then hid behind the wall. I counted to ten and came back, and he was still on his bed, although he was extremely worried. This goblin was far smarter than my dog had been. I started jogging again, going a bit further down the hallway out of his sight each time before doubling back, and Chez slowly stopped panicking when I went out of his sight. Now that he was relaxed, I pushed all the way through and ran a full circuit around the floor. Chez was startled when I came out the other side instead of doubling back the way I had been, but that was all. I stopped to take a break and smiled to myself. That was the furthest I had run since P.E. in high school. Those back and forth runs down the hall had added up, and I had taught Chez to stay in one lesson.

After resting for a few minutes, I started running again. This time I went straight to laps from the start, and Chez had completely relaxed. Now the little goblin seemed to be confused and curious, wondering what the hell I was doing. I managed to push myself for about ten laps before I got a stitch in my side that put an end to my efforts. Given the size of the building, ten laps were more than I had expected to be able to do, but I had just gained two points in endurance.

As I leaned against the wall, panting, I was disappointed that I hadn’t gained another level. The first point that had brought me to four hadn’t seemed too hard to obtain, but I had been exerting myself while cleaning for a few days, and I had been entirely sedentary in my life before that point. The second point had come very soon after when I pushed myself far beyond my limits while running for my life, and that gave me some hope.

Every game I had ever played had diminishing returns on the amount of time required to improve a level, skill, or stat. If pushing my limits would allow me to reduce the time between stat increases, I would get stronger faster and have more time to improve other traits. All I had to do was push through the pain. I breathed deeply in and out and pushed myself off the wall. The stitch in my side had barely started to fade, and I had to wince at the sudden throb as I started jogging again.

“Fuck,” I groaned as I collapsed. That hadn’t worked at all. My legs were shaking, I had thrown up the remnants of my glorious breakfast, and I still hadn’t gained a level. It was hard to guess whether I was wrong and pushing my limits didn’t matter, or that the threshold for level six was simply too high for a single day’s efforts to meet.

I had two options, push myself past my limits again tomorrow or stop trying to cut corners and exercise normally. Quitting wasn’t an option. Endurance was far too vital. Dying because I got too tired after a short fight and couldn’t continue fighting or run away would be a pathetic end.

I was too weak to get up and had nothing else to do so I got as comfortable as the hallway carpet would allow and settled in for a nap. I still hadn’t made a decision by the time sleep claimed me.