If Emma had been given more of a choice over the skills offered to her, she would have picked up a night vision skill before the tutorial ended. The forest path was dark enough that she could barely see three feet in front of her. They didn’t dare use Britt’s light runes, given the constantly shifting shadows in the trees and occasional growls and snarls from the monsters that stalked them.

  Emma’s only comfort lay in the knowledge that the path was warded against such creatures. The wards weren’t visible, but the effect was quite apparent any time one of the shadows attacked them, only to be repelled by the invisible walls that formed an arched tunnel above the path.

  “I’m never leaving the city again,” Nathan whispered, flinching away from the giant crow-like creature that scratched furiously at the wards.

  “How much of a beating do you think those shields can take?” Andrea whispered to Britt.

  “This is way above my level,” Britt said. “I’m still experimenting with basic soundproofing. Wards that physically repel things are in book two.”

  “How long do we have until we reach the city, then?” Andrea asked Emma as if she might have the answer.

  “If we follow the path, we’ll get there eventually,” Emma said, refusing to give in to the panic that begged her to run back to the city at a full sprint. Emma had never been much of an athlete. Even with her new stats, running would leave her exhausted and unable to defend herself if anything did manage to break through the barrier.

  They walked in silence for several minutes, breathing a collective sigh when the crow finally lost interest. The other monsters weren’t as active in their assaults. They stalked Emma and her friends from the trees, waiting for an opportunity to strike.

  Emma stopped in her tracks, causing Nathan to run straight into her back. She managed to stay upright, but she had to take a step forward to do so.

  They untangled themselves, Nathan looking annoyed.

  “Why did you stop?” he asked in a tight whisper.

  Emma pointed at the path ahead of them. It branched in two directions. There was no visible distinction between the paths that Emma could make out in the moonlit forest.

  “There wasn’t a fork on the way here,” Andrea said nervously. “Did we take a wrong turn?”

  “We haven’t turned since the beach,” Britt said. “We’ve just been following the same straight path.”

  “Well, the yellow brick road is leading two directions now,” Nathan said. “Which way do we go?”

  Emma didn’t have an answer. She didn’t remember any turns on the way to the beach either, but she had been so focused on her footing, it wasn’t impossible that she just missed it. Also, Britt was right. They had come straight there from the beach; no turns, no forks, not so much as a slight curve in the road.

  Taking the wrong path could get all three of them killed, but they couldn’t just stay out all night. Even if they did, there was no guarantee that anyone would come rescue them, considering the attitude of the gate guard from earlier that night.

  First, they had to establish that both paths were safe.

  Emma pulled two rations out of her Inventory.

  “Midnight snack?” Britt asked, one eyebrow raised.

  “Or last meal,” Nathan said pessimistically.

  Emma ignored them. She tossed one of the rations onto the left path, getting it as far past the fork as she could.

  Several monsters swarmed out of the woods, angrily clawing at the wards as they tried to get close to the morsel that had been so rudely tossed in front of them.

  Emma nodded to herself and tossed the second ration to the right.

  She clapped a hand over her mouth as monsters swarmed the food, clawing and biting at each other to get there first. Nothing stopped them as they covered the path in a writhing mass of spitting shadows.

  “I guess that settles that,” Nathan said, unable to tear his gaze away from the gruesome melee.

  They took the left path, hurrying to get away from the screeching horde.

  “Safety inspectors would be all over that!” Andrea snapped. “What’s the point of having wards if half of them don’t work?”

  “The half that do?” Nathan said. “Half a roof is better than no roof at all.”

  “We’ll just have to test every fork,” Emma said. “If both paths are warded, we’ll vote on it.”

  “Democracy for the win,” Britt said dryly.

  They continued on, but there were no more forks in the road. The path wound through the forest, twisting around trees and running through small creeks.

  “There’s no way this is the right path,” Andrea said, grimacing as they sloshed through another stretch of water. “My feet didn’t get wet on the way here.”

  “It’s not like we can go back and take the other one,” Britt said. “Unless you want to end up monster chow.”

  Emma trudged on in silence, her worry growing with each step. The path was still warded, which was a good sign, but Andrea was right. There was no way that the path they were currently on was leading to the city. Was it leading to the caves? She had heard mention of them from some of the residents of the city, but everyone seemed to think they were unsurvivable for anyone under Level 200. Why would there be a plain warded path all the way there?

  Emma wished she had some way to gauge how long they had been walking. It felt like hours, but it couldn’t have been. The nights on Lapis were surprisingly short, lasting only a few hours from dusk to dawn. Emma had mentioned the phenomenon to one of the other residents of Lapis, and they told her that it was unique to the island. The majority of Ember had longer nights and shorter days.

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  What made Lapis different then?

  “Emma, watch out!” Britt grabbed her arm, dragging Emma back from the giant hole that sat in the middle of the path.

  Emma had almost walked right into it.

  “Well, that’s a pain in the ass,” Nathan said, kneeling next to the ten foot hole. “How the heck are we supposed to get across?”

  Britt wordlessly pulled her broom out of her Inventory and wiggled it smugly.

  “Right,” Nathan said. “Forgot you could fly.”

  “We’ll have to take it in shifts,” Britt said. “My broom can reliably hold two people at a time, three if we’re desperate, as we noticed when—” She cut herself off, changing what she was going to say. “On the day we got to Lapis. Who wants to go first.”

  “Andrea first,” Emma said. “Then Nathan. I’ll go last.”

  “Why me first?” Andrea asked, looking uncertainly at the hole.

  “You’re lighter than Nathan and me,” Emma said. “If the broom has trouble with the two of you, come back and we’ll come up with a new plan.”

  Andrea nodded reluctantly and hopped on the broom behind Britt without further complaint.

  They traversed the hole without difficulty. Before landing on the other side, Britt threw one of her rations to make sure the wards were still in place. Strangely, nothing popped out of the woods to try to attack the ration. Emma couldn’t see much of what was going on, but she assumed that the wards were either still active or there were less monsters in this area.

  Either way, this was good news for them.

  Britt came back for Nathan, her broom dipping slightly but holding his weight just fine. She deposited him on the other side, seemingly amused by the panicked way he clutched the wood.

  Then Britt came back for Emma.

  “Need any help getting on?” Britt asked.

  Emma shook her head, climbing on the broom saddle-style behind Britt. It wasn’t a comfortable position, but it seemed more stable than side saddle.

  “This thing needs a seat,” Emma muttered.

  “I’m hoping to try the spell on a carpet next,” Britt said.

  The ride was quick, but Emma spent most of it with her eyes squeezed tight. She didn’t like heights and the quick glance she had taken when she almost fell into the hole told her it was too dark to see the bottom.

  She sighed with relief when her feet hit the cold hard ground.

  “Is it a sinkhole, do you think?” Nathan said, still curiously examining the hole.

  “The edges are too clean,” Andrea said. “This looks man-made.”

  “What good would a giant hole in the middle of the woods do?” Nathan asked.

  “Monster trap?” Britt suggested, stowing her broom in her Inventory. “Whatever it is, I don’t—”

  Emma’s stomach lurched as the ground fell out beneath her feet, sending her and the others plummeting into the hole they had just outwitted.

  A scream tore from her throat, destroying the put-together-leader image that she tried so hard to display at all times. The others joined in, making her feel a little less foolish.

  Not that it mattered. She was plummeting to her death.

  Emma’s body spun around in an uncontrolled descent. Pain erupted on her ankle where she collided with something hard, and judging by the sudden shout, she was pretty sure it was Nathan.

  The terrifying tumble ended as quickly as it began, but instead of the cold, unforgiving stone that Emma had been expecting, she landed on a soft spongy substance, bouncing into the air several feet before coming back down.

  She bounced a few times until all of her momentum was spent.

  She was alive?

  Emma healed her ankle, looking for the others. Nathan tended to a bump on his head that was probably caused by Emma’s ankle. Andrea rubbed her backside as she tried to stand on the spongy floor and Britt looked dazed but unhurt.

  “Well, that sucked,” Nathan said, standing up. He wobbled a little but managed to keep his footing. Emma followed suit, helping Britt to her feet.

  “At least we’re alive,” Andrea said, though she didn’t look too sure about that fact.

  “I think it’s safe to say this isn’t a monster trap,” Nathan said. “Don’t know anyone who would make a trap with cushions on the bottom.”

  “What do we do now?” Britt asked.

  “Can you fly us out of here on your broom?” Emma suggested.

  Britt shook her head. “Still working on the up and down bit. The runes for forward is easier.”

  Andrea frowned. “You mean if you and I had sunk into the hole we wouldn’t have been able to come back up?”

  “We ended up in the hole anyway,” Britt pointed out.

  “That’s not the—”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Emma said, stopping the potential argument. “If we can’t go up, we need to find a way out.”

  Britt pulled one of her lights out of her Inventory and lit it. Emma didn’t object. Traveling through the moonlit woods on a predetermined path was one thing, traveling through unknown tunnels in the dark was a recipe for disaster.

  Emma took the light when Britt passed it to her and examined the walls of the hole. They were in a cavern of some sort, with several tunnels opening up around the edge.

  “That’s a lot of choices,” Nathan said. “Are we voting on it?”

  “Unless you have a better idea,” Emma said.

  After spending a few minutes examining each tunnel, they ended up picking one at random. There were no clear indications as to which tunnels were safe, so there was no point agonizing over it.

  Emma led the way, with the others following single file behind her.

  Despite the damp and creepy atmosphere of the tunnels, they didn’t run into any monsters. At first, Emma thought this might be the caves she’d heard about after all, but she didn’t remember anyone mentioning that they were underground and despite walking for over an hour, they didn’t meet a single living thing.

  Emma wasn’t claustrophobic, but the tunnels tested the limits of her comfort as she squeezed between narrow spaces and crawled on her hands and knees for long stretches. She breathed a sigh of relief when the tunnel finally opened up into a giant cavern.

  That is, until she realized it was the cavern they had fallen into in the first place.

  “Seriously?” Nathan said, noticing the same thing Emma had. “We just did all that walking for nothing?”

  Frustration flared in Emma’s chest, but she stamped it down. There was still work to do.

  Emma took a pen out of her pocket and marked the exit with an ‘X’. “From now on, we mark every tunnel we enter or exit.”

  “Should we split up?” Andrea suggested. “Cover more ground?”

  “Are you nuts?” Nathan snapped. “Haven’t you ever seen a horror movie?”

  “We’re not splitting up,” Emma agreed. “We have no way to communicate. Whoever finds the right tunnel would have to come back here and wait for the others to return. And if there are multiple tunnels leading out, we would have wasted time regrouping.”

  “We can’t just keep walking all night,” Nathan complained. “My feet are ready to fall off.”

  “Do you have any better ideas?” Andrea asked, folding her arms.

  “Hey guys,” Britt said, trying to get their attention from a few feet away.

  “We could wait here until morning,” Nathan said. “Or try to climb out.”

  “Guys,” Britt repeated.

  “Climb on what?” Andrea asked incredulously. “We’re in a dome. I don’t recall you being bit by any radioactive spiders since we got here.”

  “Guys!”

  “What?!” Britt and Nathan snapped in unison.

  Britt pointed to something on the wall next to one of the tunnels. “Was this here before?”

  Emma walked over, examining the symbol on the wall. “Not that I remember,” she said, running her fingers over it. The stone was raised and slightly discolored. Emma pushed on the symbol and it retracted into the wall.

  The cave shuddered.

  “What did you do?” Nathan asked, panic in his voice.

  Emma pulled Britt away from the tunnel exit just before a slab of stone appeared, sealing it closed. The rest of the tunnels followed suit, cutting off their escape from the cavern.

  “Everyone to the center!” Emma shouted, sprinting toward the spongy ground where they had fallen. The hole in the ceiling would provide some measure of safety if the walls started caving in on them.

  They stood back to back, keeping each other balanced and upright as the floor bucked and jerked beneath their feet.

  The walls didn’t cave in. Instead, a large wooden cabin rose out of the ground. It came to a halt, shuddering as it snapped into place.

  The cavern stopped shaking.

  They waited in silence, attention locked on the new structure. Was this some sort of secret lair? Was it an illusion?

  “Did we just find a waypoint or a bonus level?” Nathan asked, making Emma jump despite his hushed tone.

  “The first one, I think,” Emma said. “But get your weapons out, just in case.”

  Preparing for a fight, they cautiously approached the cabin.

  The Stubborn Light of a Dying Flame!

  Vanessa Br?uer