Chapter 10

After the dark of the forest and the lava caves, the players squinted and blinked in the sunlight of a cloudless sky. They were at the top of a snowcapped mountain peak, with no volcano in sight. Snow-covered mountains stretched away from them in all directions. Still sweaty from the Fire Level, the players shivered in the brisk wind.

D4rkHunter pointed across an impossibly deep chasm to another mountain peak. “I think we’re supposed to go there,” he said.

Em3ra1d could see a dark shadow on the mountainside that looked to be some sort of cave. A long and narrow stone bridge crossed the vast space without any support pillars. There were no handrails or guide ropes either.

It was the only way across.

A strong wind battered them and Em3ra1d’s Mage cloak billowed out behind her. She looked at the cave in the distance and then at the bridge again. It was barely wide enough for two people to walk across at the same time.

She looked down into the chasm beneath the bridge. She couldn’t see the bottom. She was intensely aware of the empty space, of the nothingness that stood between her at this dizzying height and the ground far below.

Her heart thrashed against her rib cage, and the breath snagged in her throat. She breathed in wheezing, panicked gasps, her mind clouding with terror.

She heard everyone’s voices as if from a long way off.

“Em? What’s happening?” D4rkHunter asked.

“What’s wrong with her?” Rox_Ur_Sox asked. “Is she okay?”

Em3ra1d shook violently. She couldn’t stop gasping for air long enough to answer, even if her brain had been able to string together clear thoughts. Her heart felt like it was trying to crawl right out of her skin. Every muscle was painfully tight.

“I think she’s having a panic attack,” she heard E1_Kapitan explain to the others. He knelt down beside her but continued to give her some space. “Look, Em, I’m not going to tell you to calm down, but I want to you to take some deep breaths for me, okay?”

Em3ra1d managed to nod. She attempted a couple of long, shaky breaths.

“Good,” E1_Kapitan said. “We don’t have to start the level until you’re absolutely ready. Until then, just remember that we’re here for you.”

“We’re so close to the end,” D4rkHunter added. “Just one more level and the Boss Battle, and then we can get out of here. We’re going to help you get through this, Em.”

Even Rox_Ur_Sox chimed in. “You’re pretty decent for a n00b, I guess,” she said with a small smirk, kneeling in front of Em3ra1d. “And the world could always use more girl gamers.”

Em3ra1d felt a small laugh cut through her panic, and her muscles relaxed slightly. Her chest gradually loosened, and she began to breathe more easily. “Thanks, guys,” she said with a weak smile.

Rox_Ur_Sox helped Em3ra1d to her feet. “I know you can do this. At the rate you’re picking this stuff up, you’ll be a better gamer than me before you know it.”

Em3ra1d raised an eyebrow. “Seriously?”

Rox_Ur_Sox jabbed a thumb over her shoulder at E1_Kapitan and D4rkHunter. “Or at least better than those guys,” she said in a stage whisper. She dodged a playful shoulder punch from E1_Kapitan as D4rkHunter shouted, “Hey!”

Rox_Ur_Sox shrugged, unapologetic, and Em3ra1d laughed again with the others.

“Are we good to go?” D4rkHunter asked. “Just remind yourself that it’s only a video game.”

“Yeah, but I’ve already died twice,” Em3ra1d said. “If I die a third time, I’ll be trapped here forever. So it’s almost as bad as a real bottomless pit, except my avatar would pixelate before I splatted at the bottom . . . I hope.”

“We’ll go first, and you can crawl,” E1_Kapitan said. “No judgment if you crawl. We’ll handle fighting whatever monster shows up. You can attack it with spells from your safe crawling position, with a nice low center of gravity.”

Em3ra1d appreciated his light-hearted approach, but she knew that she had no choice in the matter. They could stand on this ledge in the freezing cold as long as they liked, but that would never win them the game. There was only one way forward, just like she had told Rox_Ur_Sox back in the Fire Level. If the other three players could face their fears, then so could she.

They started across. The bridge was a little wider than it had looked, but not by much. Em3ra1d didn’t crawl, but she stayed in the exact center of the bridge, her spell book tucked in her robe and her hands out for balance. The wind whistled around her.

At first, Em3ra1d had been thankful that it was a solid stone bridge. She had always hated the idea of those swaying bridges in action movies, with fraying ropes and gaps between the boards. But at least those bridges had some sort of handrails. Em3ra1d would give anything now for a bridge with handrails.

She had the feeling that if she even looked at the edges of the bridge too long, she would somehow be pulled over the side. She reminded herself that she had about two feet of space on either side of her and focused on taking deep, even breaths. They were halfway there.

A rumbling sound like thunder filled the air. The wind picked up, howling around them. Boulders broke loose from the mountains on either side of the chasm and started swirling together in a vortex.

The floating rocks came together to form a huge shape—some sort of giant, with a head and arms attached to its bulky torso and legs that stretched down into the chasm below the bridge.