She shoved once more on the bubble wall, Ben taking the cue and joining. Another second later, Tag had fallen down once more.

  “Just keep in step!” Chloe shouted, hand scrubbing down her face in frustration.

  “What does that even mean?” Tag replied, once more rolling around like an upside-down tortoise. “I’m trying to keep in step!”

  “Okay, how about this?” Chloe said, taking a deep breath. “Tag and Jesepiah—”

  “Call me ‘Jessie,’” Jesepiah interrupted.

  “What?”

  “My little Tag calls me Jessie. I like it. Call me Jessie.”

  Ben, Gideon, and Chloe exchanged looks.

  “Okay…” Chloe continued. “Tag and…Jessie, you hop out of the bubble and go from behind. You’re both stronger than us. You push the bubble, we’ll do our thing, and we’ll be steaming along before we know it.”

  “Was that a pun?” Gideon asked.

  “What?”

  “Steaming?”

  Chloe realized what she had said and let out a small laugh. “Is it too late to say yes?”

  “We’re not going out there.” Tag grunted, pulled to his feet by Jesepiah. “We can’t go back into that heat.”

  “How about this,” Chloe said, looking for a compromise. “You guys push for as long as you can, then, when you need a break, hop back inside for a bit. As long as you keep your legs moving, we should be able to maintain momentum, and then you can jump out again if we need another boost.”

  “Like jumpstarting a car?” Ben asked.

  Chloe thought about it, unsure how to tell the others she knew nothing about cars. That she had had her own chauffeur for the better part of her waking life, and even the mention of learning to drive had filled her mother and sister with horror.

  “Sure,” Chloe said, hoping the uncertainty she felt didn’t come through. “Just like that.”

  Tag and Jesepiah finally agreed, squeezing out of the bubble and wincing as the heat struck them full-force. They began to push, and the others started their run. The bubble began to move, picking up speed as it wove down the tunnel.

  “Woo!” Ben exclaimed, his smile stretching from ear-to-ear. “Oh, yeah!”

  The bubble began to accelerate. Volcaworms popped out of the ceiling, curious at their passing, stabbing their heads toward the bubble. Chloe looked up as she ran, spotting a small floating bar above the bubble, which looked to be depleting with every stab of a volcaworm and every jagged piece of floor or ceiling.

  “Is that a health bar?” Chloe asked, already panting from the running.

  Gideon stared ahead determinedly, all of his focus bent on not falling over. “No idea. What’s it look like?”

  Ben looked up. “Oh, yeah. What’s it for?”

  “I think it’s for the bubble,” Chloe replied, then shouted in alarm as she heard water splashing and sensed Tag and Jesepiah had come into the bubble again.

  “How is it out there?” Chloe called back.

  Tag puffed his cheeks, arms pumping by his side as his tiny legs worked their hardest to continue the run. Standing in the center of the bubble was easier, he found, since he didn’t have to worry about his hands on the bubble’s front wall and could just pretend he was on a treadmill.

  “Scalding,” Jesepiah, managed, the only one of the two with enough spare air to talk. “Hotter than you can imagine.”

  “Oh, great.” Chloe’s eyes darted nervously to the health bar on the bubble. It had already worked its way down to half.

  How much farther was there to go?

  The floor dropped suddenly, sloping down at a rapidly increasing angle. The group yelled in surprise, and their bodies were suspended in the air momentarily before the bubble crashed back to the floor.

  The tunnel began to widen, the jagged walls passing in a fuzzy blur. All Chloe could see were the wavy outlines of the corridor ahead, small cracks and fissures of lava appearing as they ran onward.

  “We need to stop!” Chloe shouted. “I have a bad feeling!”

  Rolling around like bingo balls in their cage, Chloe and Ben tried their best to get to their feet. Ben managed for a second before Jesepiah bowled into him. Chloe managed for a little longer before Gideon’s legs caught hers.

  “Barrel-roll the opposite way,” Chloe urged. “Anything. Do anything to slow us down.”

  Something bright red and orange was fast approaching, the bubble hurtling toward it. They began to roll and push and try to work the bubble’s momentum into the opposite direction, and the bubble slowed ever so slightly.

  “Oh no,” Jesepiah said, pointing ahead.

  They all tried to fight against the bubble to get a look, cries of anguish filling the cool sphere as the tunnel opened up into a large cavern, the ball traveling along a thin road that dropped suddenly into the lake of lava that now flowed around them. Above them, they could see the sky, black smoke billowing upward in plumes.

  “We need to stop this, or we really are going to be on fire!” Chloe shouted. “Gid, can we pop the bubble? Use our magic? What can we do?”

  Gideon, who was too busy doing a perfect reenactment of a pair of pants in a washing machine, cried. “I…don’t…know!”

  The drop approached fast, and the health bar was now agonizingly close to zero. They collectively closed their eyes as they felt the floor fall away beneath them in a twenty-foot drop into the fire below.

  Tag clung to Jesepiah, tears in his eyes. Chloe screamed so hard her voice went hoarse. Tag, Gideon, and Ben joined in, accidentally harmonizing their cries of anguish.

  They plummeted toward the fire, their stomachs in their mouths. One final volcaworm, a thick bastard with the longest body Chloe had seen yet, jabbed the bubble. The health bar hit zero, and there came a rush of the hottest air they’d ever felt before their bodies hit the lava, limbs disappearing beneath the molten rock…

  Where a strange thing happened.

  Chapter Five

  Chloe’s eyes were shut so tight she wondered if she’d ever open them again. The last image had burned a permanent ghost into her eyelids—a lake of lava, her friends half-submerged. She regretted asking Mia and Demetri to turn her pain sensors back up as the heat pricked her skin and she continued to sink.

  Well, maybe not so much sink. Chloe fell.

  Fell.

  It was as if she were dropping through water. The lava was nowhere near as viscous or hot as she would have thought. Not only that, but as she traveled deeper, the heat subsided. The lava didn’t even touch her health bar. She just…fell.

  And fell.

  And fell…

  And then there was nothing. Chloe fell through air, crying out in surprise as her feet suddenly hit solid ground. She heard the others land with thuds around her and feared to open her eyes, worried she’d simply see a series of charred corpses around her, a strange trick of the lava above.

  But that wasn’t what happened at all.

  “Ouch!” Tag exclaimed, massaging his head. A few pieces of his beard were black and noticeably thinner. “What in the name of Sam Hill was that!”

  Chloe looked up at the ceiling. An impossibility of nature. The ceiling was lava—bubbling, roiling lava, as if the world had been inverted and they were hanging like bats while looking at the inside of the volcano.

  “I’m getting very tired of being disorientated by this game,” Gideon said, standing up and cracking his back. His robe had twisted around him and he sorted it out, patting the dirt and muck off his trousers. “Seriously, can’t they just stick with the conventions of usual games.”

  “Would you rather have died?” Ben asked.

  “Who says we didn’t?” Tag replied. “Who says we haven’t died, and this is hell?”

  Ben considered that.

  “No,” Chloe said. “This isn’t hell. This was a test.”

  The others looked at her curiously.

  “Don’t you get it? Where’s the best place to hide a piece of mythical armor? Beneath the lava. Where’s the worst thing to put the armor in? Lava. It’d melt. So why not set up a trick area of lava through which people can transport down into the caves below? The armor would be safe forever, right?”

  Gideon nodded, impressed. “That’s some clever thinking right there.”

  “They don’t call me Chloe McBrainyclogs for nothing.”

  “Who doesn’t?” Tag asked.

  Chloe rolled her eyes. “Never mind.”

  Chloe, it’s close, KieraFreya said. I can feel it.

  Me too, Chloe replied, feeling that familiar tingling buzz that now worked its way around her armor. The powerful vibration indicated that something was nearby, calling out to the other pieces.

  “Which way now, then?” Gideon asked, turning to each of the several tunnel entrances that surrounded them. The small circular area of cave looked like the hub of a bike wheel with spokes radiating off it.

  Jesepiah counted each of the entrances. “Five in total.”

  “Five?” Tag said. “There are five of us!”

  “That can’t be a coincidence,” Chloe added. “What would they need five entrances for?”

  Ben strutted toward one of the tunnels. “Don’t know.” He stepped on over the threshold, looking back at them all. He shrugged. “Seems safe to me.”

  Chloe began to walk toward Ben, the others following. “Okay, here’s the plan. No splitting up, okay? We tackle this together. As a team. That’s how we’re strongest.” She raised her arms. “Go Team Dagger Skull!”

  The others paused behind her. “No.”

  Chloe dropped her hands. “Okay, I tried.”

  She was only a few feet from Ben when the tunnel suddenly slammed closed, as if the rock had clapped its hands together.

  “What? No. Ben!” Chloe shouted, beating on the door with her fist. “Ben? Can you hear me?”

  “Loud and clear!” Ben called back. “Looks like your ‘no splitting up’ plan has failed, though.”

  Chloe scratched her head. “Can you see a way out? A lever? Anything that might help you get free?”

  Ben was quiet for a while before he answered, “No. There’s nothing. Only this way forward, which has somehow miraculously been lit by torches. I think that’s a sign.”

  “Maybe one of these other tunnels leads to where Ben is?” Gideon suggested, now standing by the entrance next to Ben’s.

  “Get away from there,” Chloe snapped. “We don’t want to lose you, too. Come on, everyone. Stay together. Ben, stay there. We’re coming for you.”

  Chloe moved over to join Gideon and the four remaining adventurers lined up, ready to move onward and tackle the tunnels together. But as their feet neared the threshold, the door slammed shut.

  Chloe experimented, sending everyone but herself back. The doorway opened, and she invited Gideon to stand with her. The minute he was by her side, the door closed.

  “Ah, man,” Chloe complained. “It’s not a coincidence.”

  “What did she say?” Ben called.

  “She said it’s not a coincidence after all!” Jessie shouted back.

  Chloe turned to face the others. “Looks like this is part of the adventure, guys. As much as I hate this, we need to split up. Everyone take a tunnel.”

  “You’re not serious?” Gideon asked, a terrified look on his face. “We’re traveling…alone?”

  Chloe steeled her expression and addressed the room, four adventurers in front of their doors, one already behind one. “That’s right. We’ve come here to complete a quest. We’ve fallen through fire, tackled the heat, and traveled dozens of miles to do this. We’re not backing down now, just because this game is choosing to separate us. We’re stronger than this, and if we’re going to become an official party, we need to be as strong alone as we are together.”

  “What if we get lost?” Gideon asked. “What if we die?”

  Chloe tapped her temple. “We’ve got a messaging system, haven’t we?”

  Tag protested. “What about Jessie? She can’t communicate with us. She’s the weakest of us all. What if she doesn’t make it?”

  Jessie’s face turned red, her cheeks inflating, her fists shaking beside her. “Weak? You’re calling me weak? Well, if that’s how it’s going to be, I better show you just how weak I am!”

  She turned on her heel and stormed into her tunnel, the entrance immediately closing around her.

  “Nice one.” Ben’s voice was muffled through the rock

  Chloe let out a surprised chuckle and drew her sword. “I did not see that coming. Anyway, let’s buckle up ladies and gentlemen. We’ve got some armor to claim.”

  With that, Chloe advanced into her tunnel, and her door slammed shut behind her.

  To begin with, all went black. Chloe became aware of the sudden silence. She could hear only her breathing and the blood pulsing through her body.

  Torches sprang into bright red flame all around her to light the way. She took a deep breath and walked onward, her mind still with the others, hoping against hope they’d make their own ways out of their tunnels. Her curiosity was on high alert as she wondered what fresh horrors would be ahead of her.

  The tunnel took a sharp left before yawning into something that looked like it belonged in an optical illusion. The world fell away, the lights illuminating the edges of a cavern of unknown proportions. The farthest walls nowhere in sight, and there was no ceiling to speak of. The floor so far below in the darkness that Chloe wondered if she wasn’t standing on the edge of space.

  “Don’t be stupid. How could this be space? You traveled into a volcano,” KieraFreya snarked.

  “Then how is this even possible?”

  Chloe was aware of a light appearing behind her like an approaching train. She shielded her eyes, mouth open, fearing for her death until the lights dimmed and Chloe saw the ethereal form of the shaman beside her.

  “Anything is possible if you perceive it to be so. The lava was not lava, after all.”

  “Great. Thanks, Sir Points-Out-the-Obvious-a-Lot.” Chloe sighed, allowing her heart to slow down.

  She followed the path, which extended out into the gaping void. The path looked very delicate, a splinter of rock with no discernible support. Would it truly hold her weight while she walked? Would running be possible here? How far did this cave stretch?

  Chloe felt like she was in a dream. Soon enough, she saw several other pathways above and below her and tiny figures walking along their length, as cautious as she. She called and waved to the others, but they could not hear her. All were too focused on their own journeys.

  “Was that even them?” Chloe asked.

  “Don’t trust anything you see,” KieraFreya responded.

  Chloe walked for what seemed like hours before she eventually found the farthest cave wall, or at least the farthest cave wall in her estimation. When she reached it, she hugged the walls, surprised by how much she had missed not walking on a shoestring over the endless pit.

  “You know, in my former life, I would never have dreamed I could cross that,” Chloe remarked. “I had something of a fear of heights back home.”

  “What made you conquer this?” KieraFreya said.

  Chloe shrugged. “Hard to say. I guess I just wanted to see my friends again. That and the fact that they’re fighting for me makes it all somehow go away.”

  “That’s sweet.”

  “Thanks.”

  “I wish I could throw up.”

  Chloe glared at her bracers.

  The tunnel was much the same as the others. Chloe followed its snaking length, only now aware of the lack of volcaworms. The holes were still in the rock, but the creatures were nowhere to be seen.

  Strange, she thought. Is this a trial based on patience rather than strength?

  As if in answer to her question, as Chloe neared the top of the stairs, she saw a bronze door up ahead. There were a series of etchings and marks around the door, with a phrase carved into the middle.

  The more you have of it, the less you see.

  “Oh, crap,” Chloe said, realizing what she was looking at.

  “What’s that?” KieraFreya asked.

  “A riddle.” She scratched her head. “Father threw these at me when I was a little girl. Used to like to test my intellect by making me think outside the box. Y’know, whenever he actually had a spare ten minutes at breakfast to spend with me.”

  “So, you should be great at these, then?”

  Chloe shook her head. “Unfortunately, no. That’s another thing I let my parents down on. Sure, I could burp the alphabet by the time I was six years old, but unless I’d heard the riddle before, there was no way I was ever going to please him.”

  KieraFreya, who realized that this was one of the first times Chloe had ever spoken to her about her father out loud, said, “He sounds like an interesting man. Someone who used to keep you in line.”

  “Oh, he certainly did that.”

  “He’ll have to teach me how someday.”

  “Hey!” Chloe said, raising a finger at her bracers. “If you’re not careful, that darkness inside you is going to spread. And then where would the world…”

  She trailed off, hearing a strange clicking noise. A crack appeared down the center of the door, and it began to swing open of its own accord.

  “Erm, what happened?”

  “What did you say?” KieraFreya asked.

  The shaman chuckled behind them, floating through the air with his legs folded once more. “You answered the riddle, of course.”

  “Wait, you knew the answer? Why didn’t you tell me?”

  The shaman opened his arms wide as if offering a gift. “You knew the answer all along. Even if it hadn’t had been an accident, you know what it is that blocks your sight. The more of it there is…”

  A metaphorical lightbulb went off above Chloe’s head. “Darkness! Damn. That was a lucky guess.” She patted her breastplate. “Thanks, KF. If it wasn’t for you, we’d have been stuck here a lot longer.”

  “Oh, no,” KieraFreya said dryly. “It’s not like I’m already stuck to you permanently and this journey isn’t going on foreverrrr…”

  “Shut up,” Chloe said, rolling her eyes.