1

The sun was barely over the horizon when Damon stepped out of his hut and saw Harper by the fire. She sat alone, staring into the woods. Her red enchanter’s cape lay a few feet away, near the edge of the camp. A thick fog had risen from the ground and, in the distance, he could hear the waves crashing to the south. The orc general walked to the fire and sat beside her.

She gazed at him. “Another early bird.”

He nodded. “Where’s Zack?”

“I relieved him about an hour ago.”

Damon studied her expression. The mage looked troubled.

“Everything alright?” he asked.

She glanced at him briefly, then turned back to where she was looking. “I dreamed of Miguel last night.” Her blue eyes stayed focused on the woods.

Damon grunted quietly.

Harper picked up a branch and threw it into the fire. “You know, I want to feel sorry for myself… for us,” she muttered, changing the topic. “I want to hate the world… for being stuck here.” She turned back to him. “But I don’t feel anything. I feel dead inside, like I’m devoid of emotion”—she laughed—“in a place that supposedly intensifies our emotions.”

Damon placed his hand briefly on her bare shoulder, the one area of her body which was exposed to the elements. That section of her armor had been burned away during battle, before it had been transformed into steel. “Well, we’ve been through a lot,” he suggested. “Maybe you’re just suffering from a shock to the system.”

She smiled at him, and her freckled cheek dimpled.

They became lost in their own thoughts, but soon heard a small animal scurry through the underbrush to their left, just beyond the camp. Neither of them looked to see what it was.

“Have you made a decision about Silo and Lorenzo?” she asked.

The orc general sighed but didn’t answer. Instead, he took a deep breath and savored the smell of the wood burning. “You know Silo from the gaming tournaments…”

She laughed. “Not really.”

He persisted. “Do you think he’s enough of an asset even if he’s a pain in the ass?”

Harper lowered her head and looked at him in a way that said, You’re really going to pass off this decision to me? Then she considered the question for a few minutes as they stared into the distance. Finally, she answered, “Keep him. He’s a good player.”

Damon grunted, satisfied with her judgment.

“What about Lorenzo?” she asked.

The orc general leaned back against the dirt. “If I’m not sending the one guy, I won’t send the other.”

Although her back was to him now, Harper scoffed. “Zack won’t be happy about that.”

“Eh, he won’t be the only one.”

She turned to face him, and her shoulder-length brown hair fell to one side. “Are you doing this because it’s the easier option?”

The orc general grinned. “No comment.”

2

They were quiet again, laying side by side on the dry leaves, staring at the brightening sky. Above them, the fog was burning away. Damon had a disconcerting impulse to turn over and kiss her. He pushed the thought away. “I want you to dictate the stat-allocation strategies for each member again.”

Her steel armor creaked as she propped up on one elbow and looked down at him. “I couldn’t be bothered. Let them decide where to put the points.”

Damon wasn’t surprised by her response, but he had already thought of the perfect comeback. “You really want Kylah to make those decisions all by herself?”

The mage’s eyes widened then she couldn’t help but grin, knowing she was being played. “You fucker,” she exclaimed.

Damon started laughing, and Harper slapped him on the chest. She shook her head and stood up. “We should get the others—” A loud roar echoed through the camp, startling the two veterans. A heavy thump followed it. Then another.

“Get everyone up,” Damon said as he brandished his sword, but Harper had already sprinted to the other huts.

3

Damon walked to the edge of the woods, following the sound, which was coming from the north. In the dissipating morning fog and through the columns of the trees, he saw dirt spray up from the ground. Eighty yards away, the forest floor bulged, and a pink appendage poked out of the earth. He recognized it immediately. It looked exactly like the flesh the goblins had been roasting. The one that had split in two and was corrupted by the glitch.

His teammates gathered around him as the creature continued to pull itself from the earth. He saw a gigantic rabbit’s foot wedge against the edge of the hole. Then the head rose, scanned the forest, and found the camp. The monster roared like a lion. What was once another of the realms’ common garden-variety rabbits was now an abomination of pink, writhing flesh. Bits of gray fur still clung to its misshapen body. Twisted limbs grew from its malevolent frame.

The monster squeezed out of the hole, then sat for a moment, perched on the displaced mound of soil. Even from a distance, Damon recognized the glitch splotches that infected its skin. Intense beams of light shot out from the rabbit, illuminating the shadowy forest. One of its hind legs appeared to have been amputated. Beside him, Zack noticed the missing appendage. “How the hell did those little squirts manage to hack that leg off?”

Damon shook his head. The rabbit was as big as a two-story house. How the four-foot-high goblins could even attack that behemoth was beyond his comprehension.

The monster roared and started lumbering toward the camp. As it advanced, it toppled age-old trees. It bashed into one and its front paw fell off, thumping to the ground. Blood shot out from the creature’s cavity, only to be replaced by the black-and-white glitch, which appeared to swell into the space from within the monster.

“We can’t let that thing get close to us,” the orc general warned as he continued to focus on the shambling beast. “I want the hunters and mages to use their aerial weapons.” He turned and looked for Harper. From the middle of the team’s formation, she nodded at him. “Orcs and healers, step aside,” Damon commanded. “Clear their path.”

4

Walking to the front, Harper picked out the team’s mages. “I’d like to use Fire Bullet, but for now, the mob is too far. So, we’ll have to employ spells that have a range of a hundred meters or more.” She nodded at Sierra. “I want you to use Mana Flash.” She looked at Kylah. “I want you to cast Earth Tangle. That will hopefully slow down the mob.” She spotted Vlad. “I want you to use—”

“He’ll have to figure it out on his own,” Jordan interrupted. “That creature is bearing down on us.”

She turned around in time to see the enormous rabbit topple another redwood, which fell toward the teammates. They skirted the tree as its top edge landed at their feet.

“Fire!” Harper shouted.

While the hunters launched their arrows and spears, Sierra’s Mana Flash blasted a red energy wave that struck the beast. Her Creature Description details appeared.

J]c!_R`~b!

HP: ###

MP: #

STRENGTH: ##

CONSTITUTION: ##

DEXTERITY: 8

INTELLIGENCE: #

WISDOM: #

XP: ###

DESCRIPTION: !;

“What the fuck?” she exclaimed.

“Never mind,” Harper said. “Just keep shooting.”

Only twenty meters away now, the gigantic, deformed rabbit was slowed down as Kylah’s tangle spell took effect. Vines and brambles shot up from the earth, clutching the creature’s lower extremities. It screeched and wobbled as it attempted to break free of the earthly bounds. The hunters fired more projectiles, and Harper felt an intense heat brush past her head. An instant later, she watched a fully charged Fire Bullet blast into the monster’s torso, spraying its degraded flesh onto the trees and ground. More glitches pushed forward from the wounds. Harper touched the top of her hair. It was hot. She turned around and saw Vlad looking embarrassed. “Watch where the hell you’re shooting!” she yelled at the burly mage.

Sierra wielded another Mana Flash. The red energy ripped through the rabbit’s body, severing it in two. Its lower half slumped onto the forest floor, but the top half of the monster crawled toward them. Up close, they could see the perversion of its creation as more limbs grew from its twitching pink frame. It lurched toward them and growled.

Madison stepped to the front of the group. With no fanfare, the Alabama orc raised his hammer and slammed its colossal marble head into the beast. Flesh splattered in every direction, coating the adjacent trees. The Creature Description details blinked away along with the life of the tortured animal.

5

Jackson stepped alongside his friend from Montgomery. “Now, aah got even more reason to call ya Hammer,” he muttered without a trace of humor.

Madison smiled, then looked at Sierra. “I’m sorry. I wanted you to get the kill with that fancy spell of yours”—he shook his head—“but that thing was getting way too close.”

She shrugged and nodded to Jackson. “Why does he call you Hammer?”

The soft-spoken orc laughed. “I guess mainly because of my last name, Hayes, but it was something that caught on with the SeaBees.”

Harper walked over to him. “Well, Hammer, you did a good job. How many experience points did you get from that thing?”

He took a moment to look through his menu screen. “A window came up after I killed it, but I pushed it away.” He paused as he checked his status. “It says I got 95 XP.”

Harper grunted. “Then you must be at level 4.”

The Alabama orc chuckled. “How d’you know that?”

She smiled. “You go up a level for every 25 XP… at least until you reach level 50, then it gets harder to level up.” She glanced at the teammates who were assembled around the carcass of the rabbit. She counted nineteen members, including herself. Someone was missing. Then it struck her. “Where’s Emma?” she asked worriedly.