1

“Holy shit, man. You’re a fucking blonde.” Jordan gaped, then started grinning.

Zack stared impatiently at the Grimalkin hunter as he continued to paw at his scalp furiously. “What the hell are you talking about?” he shouted, but as he continued to scratch, he suddenly felt bunches of loose hair tangle around and through his fingers.

All at once, his scalp started feeling very warm—too warm.

“What the hell?” he cried as he felt the feathery tickle of hair fall onto his shoulders, underneath his armor. He grabbed a snatch of it and pulled it in front of his eyes, vaguely thinking, I shouldn’t be able to do this.

Zack became speechless. His jaw dropped open like a trapdoor. “Platinum fucking blonde,” he gasped as he gazed at his long, new hair. He looked to his teammates in disbelief. Without exception, they stared at him with wide eyes and gaped mouths. “Tell me this isn’t what I’m seeing,” he pleaded, but they were too stunned to speak.

Finally, Angie found the words. “It must have been the Epiphany cloud,” she marveled. “The glitch. Your hair is as long and blonde as the Diggers’.”

Zack stared back at her, dumbfounded. The itching on his scalp finally subsided as the hair stopped growing just past his shoulders. “Is… is my beard blonde too?”

Angie shook her head, grinning. “No. You’re a two-tone now.” She laughed. “You look like you’re wearing a cheap wig.”

Zack pushed the long blonde hair back from his shoulders. “But what—what about Silo?” He pointed at the other orc, whose hair remained jet black and short. “He touched the same cloud I did.”

Angie shrugged. “Maybe his hairdo comes in later,” she quipped, and some of the teammates chuckled.

Zack walked to a large puddle near the east side of the room, knelt, and stared into the relatively clear water. It did look like he was wearing a wig. The light color of his hair contrasted against his dark orc skin. It dangled downward toward the puddle and in his periphery, he could see the edges of the strands around his face.

“Fuck this!” He scowled at Rachel. “Hand me your short sword.”

The healer hesitated for a moment then handed him the blade. Zack stretched his hair and started sawing through it. He cut a patch of blonde hair away and threw it into the water. He grunted approvingly and began cutting away another strip. But the itching was back now, and he could feel his hair growing again.

He stopped, not knowing what to do next. He handed the sword back, and gaped at his fellow Marine. “But Angie…”

She smiled and shook her head. “Guess you should’ve listened to Harper.”

Vlad walked up to the blonde-haired orc and patted him on the bum. “I tink you look very krasivaya—um… beautiful,” the Russian mocked. “Vatchya doin’ tonight, Blondie?”

2

“I’m okay,” Harper groaned, but she wasn’t convincing anyone. The queen ant had ripped away some of the steel scales from the front of her armor. Below the twisted metal was a six-inch gash across her chest. Blood still flowed from the injury in considerable amounts.

Behind them, the queen had stopped moving but was still alive. It squealed a scratchy clarion call and more smaller ants scurried out of the tunnels and wall. But after battling the queen and the soldiers, these five-inch mobs didn’t scare the three women huddled amidst the eggs. Sierra launched Fire Scorch and burned them away instantly. The queen screeched a sound that was full of despair and awkwardly tried to scramble over the eggs. One of its legs snapped and it fell onto its side. It attempted to regain its footing, then appeared to give up.

As they focused their healing spells on Harper, Damon shouted from what seemed miles away. “Are you okay in there?”

Harper and Sierra couldn’t muster the strength to shout back, so Thao answered. “Yes, but we need some time to regroup.” The orc general replied something affirmative-sounding but they couldn’t quite make it out. The Grimalkin hunter turned back to the girls and gestured to the immobilized queen ant. “So, who wants to take down the mother?”

Sierra shrugged. “Who needs the points?”

They checked their stats and realized they had all received massive level-ups. “Maybe we should save the kill for someone who needs the XP,” Thao suggested, and they agreed.

After countless Mana Heal spells, the three women felt somewhat recovered. Harper’s wound finally closed, leaving a nasty pink scar bulging across her chest. She had also sustained some deep wounds across her leg. Thao’s left arm was shredded, and Sierra had the most wounds of the three, but they were mostly superficial.

When they had regained enough strength, the women lined up against the sand embankment and burned away the eggs that covered the floor, avoiding the queen. It screeched again but didn’t attempt to intervene.

“Stingy queen,” Sierra joked halfheartedly. “We’re not getting any points from the eggs.”

After the mobs and eggs were incinerated, the girls noticed that the charred remains and ashes were being washed away by water that still flowed under the entire ant nest.

“That must be coming from the eastern spillage,” Harper said.

Soon, enough of the carnage was removed to enable them to see sections of the stone floor.

“No mud,” Sierra whispered excitedly. They smiled at each other, knowing the implications of what they were seeing.

Harper walked to one of the tunnels and shouted huskily to Damon, “Are you seeing black ashes in the water overflow?” She waited, and then, as she expected, the orc general confirmed it. She asked him to try pounding the sand embankment again.

After a few moments, he yelled back, “Hey, the barrier is gone.”

The veteran mage grinned broadly. “Get another orc or two up there with you and start bashing away,” she yelled. “If we can shovel the sand into the lower room, we might be able to stop for the night.”

3

It took an hour to empty the room. Initially, the orcs had a hard breaking into the hard, compacted sand, but as they chipped away, increasingly larger clumps of it broke away. On the other side, Harper, Sierra, and Thao used their Boulder spells to help clear their end, then resorted to Dirt Squall to blow the sand toward the hole in the floor.

When they were done, the teammates sighed with relief at the sight of the mud-free floor. The clear water that had flowed down through the lower floors continued to pour in through cracks in the limestone ceiling.

Harper led the group as they moved their light orbs closer to the waterfall. “That’s far enough from the wall for us to use”—she grinned widely—“as a shower.”

A ripple of understanding flowed through the teammates, who were plastered with grime.

“Damn. It’s going to be nice to get this crud off,” Damon grunted appreciatively. He turned to observe the reactions of the members and spotted Zack for the first time since he’d entered the room. He lost it at the sight of the orc’s long, blonde hair, laughing uproariously.

“Yeah, yeah, what a fucking laugh riot,” the blonde Marine muttered, waiting until his friend was done. He unwittingly brushed his hair back from his shoulder, and that got the general going again. Damon knelt, then lay on the cold limestone floor as he clutched at his belly, wheezing. “Man, oh, man! I hope that hair stays with you permanently if we ever get home.”

Zack grunted. “Home? I wouldn’t count on that.”

4

The teammates turned off their buff spells. After going over each member’s stats, Harper decided that Zahra should take out the queen. The giant ant lay on the floor near the wall, barely moving.

“Just target its head with your Boulder spell,” Harper suggested.

Zahra raised her eyebrows apprehensively, then slowly approached the queen. She queued up the spell and glanced back at Harper, who swung her arm in a throwing motion. The healer mimicked the movement and slammed the round rock into the monster’s head. Shards of the ant’s exoskeleton boomeranged from the impact and its body fell limp. Above them, the face sculpture’s mouth opened, providing access to the next floor.

As the team settled for the night, Zack and Damon started a fire with the wood they’d stored in their inventory. Once the room warmed up, the women asked Angie to return their bras to them, which she did—with the exception of two members.

“Sierra, your bra went down with Jackson,” she said regretfully, then turned to Rachel. “And yours looks like this.” A bloody heap of canvas dangled from the veteran’s fingers. “Remember? You used this to compact Damon’s eyebrow injury on the first floor.”

The blonde zoologist brought her hand to her mouth. “I don’t even remember that,” she gasped. Armando walked up to her and placed his arm on her shoulders. She looked at him, perplexed.

Angie shrugged. “That’s okay. I’ve seen this before,” she consoled. “It’s the stress… the trauma. It can fuck with your memory.” She carefully handed the clothing to the healer and nodded toward the waterfall. “I guess now you can get it cleaned.”

With the fire warming the room slightly, the members made their way to the shower of water descending on the east side of the circular room. Angie went first, letting the cold water wash away the gunk on her splint mail. Then she unequipped her equipment and washed her skin and underwear.

The veteran trembled. “This water is freezing.”

“That ain’t gonna stop us,” Damon commented, then walked to the waterfall. “I wanna be next.” He winked at Angie and whispered, “I can warm you up once I get out.”

She smiled appreciatively and stepped out from under the downpour. She wiped her hands down her body, trying to squeegee the water from her skin. Wringing her underwear with her hands while trying not to reveal anything, she sat close to the fire. She wrapped her canvas blanket around her body. Although her legs got hot quickly, the icy chill of the dank environment drew goosebumps along her back despite the coverage.

After a few minutes where Damon unwittingly amused the teammates while humming in the shower, he walked to the fire and wrapped his massive body around his lady. She pulled back the blanket and allowed her skin to press against his, then glanced up at him gratefully.

As the other members sauntered individually and in pairs to the shower, Damon leaned in and kissed Angie’s neck. She moaned softly. They gazed at each other, trying to suppress their desires, but it had been too long since they were together. “You know, it’ll be a lot colder on the floor below,” the orc general murmured to Angie, “but the muddy floor is covered with all that sand now. Have we ever done it on a beach?”

She passed a look at the team members, who were all trying to ignore their intimacy. Some were engaged in conversations, while others had suddenly become acutely interested in the walls. She turned back to him and said, “You know we’ve done it on a beach.” She gave him a flirtatious look. “But that shouldn’t stop us now.”

5

While the veteran pair apologetically excused themselves like teenagers ducking out of a party early, Rachel and Armando sat close to each other, staring into the coals of the fire. They glanced occasionally at Sierra, who, under the glow of the light orbs, was showering in the nude. She had gone in without her lost bra and soon discarded her canvas underwear.

As Armando inched closer to Rachel, he caught her looking at Sierra. “You shouldn’t be doing that.”

She glanced at him with a mischievous smile. “Neither should you. Besides, I doubt it’s bothering her.”

Armando chuckled as he placed his hand on the small of her back. “She’s a bold one, alright.”

Rachel leaned into him and ran a hand through her long hair, but her fingers got snagged. She glanced at Armando.

“It’s the blood in your hair,” he told her. “You’ve got a hell of a streak going there.”

The healer pulled her hand back with an expression of disgust. “Ugh, I’m going next,” she muttered.

They sat quietly for a few minutes, slowly taking in their surroundings. The face sculpture in the ceiling had opened when the last ant was vanquished and its turquoise eyes shone down into the room, a seeming counterpoint to the warm glow of the fire.

Half the team had cleaned themselves and gone to sleep in a very tight column to conserve heat. The other half—Armando, Rachel, Jordan, Silo, Zahra, and Hammer—waited for Sierra, who seemed to be reveling in the shower despite its frigid temperature. Rachel could see that the others appeared far away and lost in their thoughts. She was certain of what some of those ruminations were about, but she sympathized for Hammer the most. He stared vacantly into the flames with a stunned expression. Even the spectacle of Sierra’s body, opposite the fire, didn’t wrench him from his lost daze.

In the flickering light, Rachel was sure she could see a gleam in his eye. “Are you okay, Hammer?” she asked, knowing the question was absurd.

He looked up at her like he’d been startled from a dream. “Um… um, yeah,” he mumbled, then fell back into his daze.

Rachel glanced at Armando, and he subtly nodded. The cloud of sadness hanging over the group became oppressive and, suddenly, she wanted to cry. “Hammer, it… it’s going to be…” the healer stammered as she struggled for words. “We… we—”

“Hammer!” Sierra yelled from the other side of the room. The Alabama orc didn’t look up. “Madison, hey, Madison!” she shouted again, and that got him to gaze over at her. “Get your ass over here and warm me up.” The sleeping teammates stirred in their huddle. “Come on, Madison. I’m freezing!”

He glanced over at Armando and Rachel, seemingly looking for guidance or approval.

“Go on, Hammer,” Armando told him. “She needs your help.”

The southerner hesitated for a moment, then staggered to his feet and shambled toward the cascading waters.

6

Sierra was cold and knew a walk back to the fire would do the trick. She had planned to do just that, but every time she looked over at the members, Hammer always had the same expression. He looked like a lost soul. To the former physical trainer, the man appeared to have lost his will to live. It was written all over his face.

“He’s going to get himself killed that way,” the Grimalkin mage whispered to herself.

She cared about Hammer, but the drive to protect a teammate was what drove her to reach out to him. He was in the path of danger and Sierra wanted to knock him out of his apathy. So, she jumped the gun on what had been a slow-burning interest between them. Initially, he didn’t respond, but then she resorted to his given name and that seemed to break through his malaise.

Now she watched him through the shimmering layers of descending water as he moved toward her at a turtle’s pace. His eyes still had that blank, dead look, but he kept coming. As he walked through the silver sheets of water, the liquid splashed against his battle armor, washing away some of the grime and mud.

“Clean yourself off,” she told him, and he rubbed his large hands against the stone veneer that covered his battle armor.

She helped him and, after a few seconds, told the orc to unequip the armor. He did and she turned her back to him.

“Come here,” she said, and he trudged forward.

Sierra grabbed his hands and wrapped them around her body. She watched as lines of dirt traveled like tributaries down her blue-furred body. As she pressed his muscular arms against her chest, he leaned his head down, settling it on her shoulder. And he held her tightly.

After a few seconds, he did warm her after all.

They stayed under the water for a long period. Pressed against her back, Sierra could feel his chest expand and contract, his body relaxing with every second. But his head stayed on her shoulder as the cold water bounced against their skin. He stayed like that for many more minutes, then Hammer lifted his head and squeezed her again.

“Thank you,” he croaked, and she nodded. They turned and walked back to the fire together.

7

Harper was the last one to get cleaned and make her way to the column of sleeping teammates. As she walked across the cold stone floor, Angie ascended through the opening in the floor, followed by Damon.

The veteran mage raised her eyebrow and asked, “How was it?” They grinned at her. Damon grunted self-consciously. Harper chuckled. “So, I guess we’ll talk about points and levels tomorrow?” she prodded.

“Uh, yes. We still have time tomorrow,” the orc general mumbled.

Dripping wet, Harper started walking toward the sleeping group, then stopped and returned to the couple. “Sierra and Hammer had a moment tonight,” she said, then paused and reflected. “I think she’s going to make us stronger.”

She walked away from the lovers without waiting for their reply.