Chapter 9: “An Outing”
Rare wanted to leave the cave with the girls and explore.
But first, the four of them were filthy, so everyone went down to the underground lake to wash up. They only had plain water, so there was no way to get really clean down to the cuticles, but they could at least wash off most of the dirt. They were so dirty that the color of their washed hair barely changed compared to before, but after some patient, spirited scrubbing, it was at least evident under torchlight that they had each different colored hair.
Kerry’s hair was probably a bright reddish-brown. Maybe like a copper red. In a well-lit area, it would surely shine brilliantly. Though Rare couldn’t say if she’d ever get the chance to see it. Riley’s hair was sepia-colored, something close to an olive-brown. In the cave, it was the least eye-catching color. Remy had the brightest-colored hair. Yellow ochre… might not be the most flattering image, but once her cuticles were healed, it might be a nice, deep blonde. Marion’s hair took the most work to clean. It felt like she could scrub forever and dirt would continue to slough off, but it was also apparently just a brown color. It was much darker than Riley’s.
She wanted to find some kind of hair-cleaning oil or chemical to get them even cleaner, but for now, this was all she could do. Scissors would be nice too, so she could cut it, try to untangle it a bit, and generally just tidy them up, but she’d just have to settle for this kind of wild, disheveled look for the time being.
They may be leaving, but since the cave was now her personal area, only Rare and her followers were allowed to enter it. No need to leave someone at home.
This meant that the cave could no longer be randomly chosen as a starting location for a new player. Rare certainly hadn’t intended to completely take over one of the monster race’s random spawn points. But then again, considering the size of the continent, there must be countless caves like this out there, so even if the number of spawn points went down by one, it’s not like suddenly new players couldn’t start a new game or anything.
It was dark outside the cave, enough that it was hard to see anything right in front of you. It must be way past sundown. Something Rare welcomed. She didn’t have to worry about sunburn, and either way she wouldn’t be able to see too far in front of her anyway. It appeared that the moon was out, but the dense trees completely covered the sky, so no moonlight could get through. She could hear the high-pitched cries of some faraway animal. There must be a lot of nocturnal beasts.
“Kerry, are you familiar with this forest?”
“Nah, we haven’t been in this area that long, so I don’t know much. We only just found that cave earlier this morning.”