Robin's journey proved to be more treacherous than he thought.

The mountain path beneath his feet was covered in rocks that were loose and slippery. The space between mountain and ledge was very narrow, and he feared that any enemies he might encounter would easily throw him over if he wasn't careful.

The sky above him was blue and bright and hot sunshine warmed him, but as he climbed higher, the air grew cooler. He hoisted his pack up further on his shoulder, allowing some of the heat he'd collected there to reach the rest of his back, and he kept moving. All the while he hoped that his friends would be alright.

Robin had a lot of faith in his team. They were a group of extremely talented superheroes. He knew that one day they'd be on the same level as the Avengers or the Justice League, and sometimes he couldn't help but beam with pride thinking that he would have been the one to help them get there.

Still, there was a part of him that did get a little anxious when the team had to split up on missions. Just because he knew how capable they were, that didn't mean he didn't worry about them when they were out of his sight.

Above all today, Raven had been out of his sight the longest. He feared for her health and he feared for her emotional state, but there was nothing he could do about that now. He couldn't control everything.

When he was young he really believed that he could, that he could be everywhere at once and make sure things ran smoothly the way that he needed them to. He knew better now.

The only thing that he could do now to help Raven was to face this monster at the top of this mountain and win.

The path before him was getting thinner and thinner with each yard he traveled. The slow pace he was keeping and the narrow path was putting him on edge. He wanted to move faster.

Robin thought briefly about using his grappling hook to gain some ground, but figured that if all the rocks on this mountain were that loose, he'd better not chance it. The traction up there would be less than twenty percent, he surmised, and frankly, he didn't like the idea of sliding right off of the mountain just because he was impatient.

Robin sighed and kept going, allowing his feet to take him farther and farther up the mountain, one step at a time. Nothing had challenged him yet, and for a little while he wondered if this was some big joke.

Vultures appeared in the sky and began to circle the air to his left, giving him the feeling that he was much higher than he thought he was.

Their eyes said: hungry.

He resisted throwing a stone at one of them and kept climbing. Eventually, the small path came to a point where he could no longer walk at an incline, but instead would have to actually turn to his right, grip the mountain rock, and start climbing.

Robin was not deterred. He grinned even. The stone here was stronger, less smooth and slippery, but easier to grip. He almost showed off as his acrobatic skills helped him scale the wall with ease. When he reached the top he had a slight spring in his step, the adrenaline of the climb and the height encouraging him to stay positive. The change in path gave him hope that the way ahead would actually start leading him somewhere.

Robin was surprised, and a little disappointed, that he'd taken what seemed to be the easy direction at the crossroads. Sure it was physically exhausting, he couldn't fly and therefore was forced to keep climbing, keep going, but nothing was happening.

He was frustrated. Was his challenge to climb this mountain into purgatory? Was there even anything up at the top?

There will be, he told himself. I just have to keep going.

And going.

Up, higher and higher.

The air was getting thinner; even colder now. Robin's breathing came in pants and he raised his arms above his head to help fill his lungs. Winds around him ruffled his hair and echoed off of the rocks, sending a chilling whisper in his direction. It was like screeching; taunting him.

Robin, vigilant as ever, caught sight of a wooden chest in a rocky outcrop. He scaled the rock with some difficulty and then popped open the chest with his sword hilt. Mercifully the chest held supplies inside it.

He almost cried out in happiness when he found a map of the mountain and a thick coat that came down to his calves. It was made of wool with sheepskin still sewn into the construction, and while that did bother him a little bit, he wore it anyway. The wind was finally not cutting him like glass, but the weight of the coat did make it more difficult to keep climbing.

The map told him that he was going in the wrong direction, which frustrated him even more, and instead of following the path he turned to the side, scaling a more treacherous route toward an open cave.

The kind of cave that held monsters inside it.

Once or twice he slipped and slid backward a little bit. He tensed his muscles to help keep him upright and not slide right off of the mountain. The shrubbery around him was brittle and the roots came right out of the ground, so there was no using them for grip. He frowned, still panting, and of course kept going.

Robin's gloves were letting him down, slipping and losing grip. He took off the gloves, and his bare hands grew red and cracked with the cold and dry air. The wind whipped at his warm jacket, making him fear that it would act as a parasail and pull him down, or even over the ledge. Once or twice it pulled him to the right, making him sweat with anxiety. His sword was feeling, for the first time, incredibly heavy. Almost burdensome.

All he could think of doing was to tear off the sword, the coat, his pack; everything. Just throw it down the ravine and never look at it again. He was so tired.

So tired.

When Robin finally made it to the plateau with the cave entrance gaping at him, he collapsed. He lay there, wishing he could throw himself off the mountain. For a moment he rolled to the ledge, staring down at the impossibility of the fall. The clouds obscured the ground below, and he knew that if he fell it would all be over quickly.

Frowning at the morbidity of his thoughts, he pulled out his journal to check on his stats. Next to his name, a small symbol flashed with purple ink. It was an "A" circled within a small sun. He checked the key for the journal.

Next to the same symbol was the term: 'afflicted'.

"Afflicted? With what?"

He continued reading:

Players can be afflicted with curses, hexes, poisons and confusions. They may alter their health, state of mind, or impede their attacks. To remove an affliction, a player can kill the creature or sorcerer that cast the curse, hex, venom or confusion and/or drink a potion, depending on the severity.

Robin grit his teeth, thinking about the gloves he'd taken off earlier. He thought about the urge to throw all of his supplies down a gorge. To throw himself down the gorge!

He'd been cursed with some fatigue spell, and now that he lay there more knowledgeable about it, he could do something to fix it.

In his pack he sluggishly searched for an antidote. He worried that he would need something specific to get rid of the curse, but decided anything was worth a shot.

He finally stumbled upon an orange-yellow one that reminded him of Starfire. It was shining and bright and beautiful. On the label it read "Drink Me", but in fine print below that it read: "I'm good for curing curses", followed by a winky face.

Robin rolled his eyes and drank it. It burned like hot fire, pulling the curse from his body. It wove into and out of his bloodstream, tugging on his senses and his muscles, burning away any tainted thoughts or feelings. Revitalizing the fatigue that had plagued him. He tried not to scream, knowing there could be a monster just within earshot.

As he lay there, panting, he began to feel tingling in his limbs. His breathing came easier, he felt less heavy, and his shoulders relaxed. The cold wasn't as biting, and the air didn't feel quite so thin. Robin closed his eyes in relief and took a deep breath.

As if on cue, as villains always tend to be, a hissing came from within the cave. Robin knew better than to blame it on the gusty wind. He dreaded the fight he knew was going to come, for even though he was no longer afflicted, the altitude and the treacherous terrain would no doubt work against him.

He grit his teeth, pulled himself from where he lay, stood, and readied his sword.

...

Cyborg whistled to himself as he followed a charming gravel path that wove its way through tall grass.

Rather than walk, the great big Titan actually skipped a little. He still felt bad that he got the easy end of the stick, but it almost felt like a relaxing vacation from the Hellish night they had had before. He almost sat down for a bit to catch some "zzz's" but he knew that it would be no help to anyone if he didn't defeat the bunny rabbit at the end of this flowery rabbit hole.

The more he skipped along the path, the taller the grass got. It was up to his waist, then his shoulders, and now, above his head. He frowned.

"Wow, that escalated quickly," he commented to no one.

When he turned around to backtrack and get a better look at his surroundings, he found the path to be blocked by equally tall grasses, as if he'd never been there before. As if a maze had closed up behind him.

Now he was almost grimacing.

"I don't like the looks of this."

Around him, birds chirped cheerily, and grasshoppers perched and hopped from tall stalk to stalk. He could smell wildflowers and almost sneezed at the overwhelming sensations you usually got inside a greenhouse.

Cyborg stretched his arms over his head and thought about how the sun was shining and warm. He cracked his knuckles. There was no way that this place could be as amazing as it seemed, and he was waiting for the other foot to fall. The axe on his shoulder weighed heavy with every step, and the path before him was almost certainly leading him to danger. Everything seemed so peaceful, but the skin on his neck prickled.

He kept going, there was no other option. The flowery field became a labyrinth of grasshoppers and voles that scurried in his path. He started to feel the heat of the sun for real now. It was less pleasant and more uncomfortable.

He touched his metal arm to the skin on his face and grimaced at the heat. The axe weighed heavier and heavier the farther he got, and finally he felt himself slowing down. Cyborg frowned at the grass walls around him, down at the little mushrooms that littered the path. He cursed internally at the cute little grasshoppers and blue birds and suddenly wondered if he were going insane.

Finally, he came to a fork in the road.

The left road was dark and rotting, as if autumn had suddenly appeared and left summer far behind it. Dead brown, red and yellow leaves fluttered toward him on the back of an eerie wind.

The right road was bright and cheery, like it had been all this time. A small bunny rabbit happily cleaned its little face with fluffy paws, twitching its ears in delight when a gentle breeze came from behind it. It wrinkled its nose jokingly toward Cyborg and acted as if it wanted to lead him down the summer path.

"Oh yeah," Cyborg frowned down at the bunny. "Like I'm gonna go follow you, Peter Rabbit, down your Hellish nightmare of a rabbit hole. Nah. Don't think so."

Cyborg shook his head and stomped down the deep, dark scary lane. The colder breeze washed over him and cooled his metal and skin.

He didn't turn around and he didn't regret his choice, though, because the bunny rabbit had been purple with bright, green eyes.

"He must think I'm an idiot." He really wished his friends were here to laugh about that obvious trap. "Follow the Purple Rabbit, Cyborg! Yeah, right."

The deep, dark scary path turned out to be a true maze. Corn, instead of grass, grew on his left and right; a late summer harvest.

Instead of closing up behind him, Cyborg was actually able to turn around, go left, go right, whatever he needed to solve the maze, but there was no longer an entrance. He could only hope that there was an exit.

First he went left, but it was a dead end with a spooky-ass scarecrow waiting for him in a small clearing, so he backtracked and then went right. That led him to another right, a left, two more lefts and one final right before he emerged into what could only be described as a corn-maze-arena.

There was no outlet and no more paths to take but for the one behind him. In the center of the arena was a single rock formation beneath a grassy knoll, and a large, autumnal tree grew atop it. Cyborg narrowed his eyes, knowing that this was probably a nice little trap.

He pulled the axe from his back and held it close, scanning the rest of the clearing, but it was all corn and yellowed grass. There were a few grasshoppers left, prancing this way and that around his ankles. Cyborg caught one and glanced at it. It was also purple.

"Sorry, little buddy," he apologized before whipping the grasshopper hard into the open mouth of the cave. Expecting there to be repercussions, he was surprised when nothing happened.

The sun was setting, and the moon was just rising a little over the corn fields. Of course it had to be full, and of course it had to look like an orange-red harvest moon. A blood moon.

Cyborg shivered at the now colder winds picking up to kiss his sun-warmed skin, and he wished that something would come out of the cave to fight him. The waiting was killing him.

Instead, it came from the corn.

A musty, deep smell came to Cyborg on a gentle breeze. The light rustling of the cornfield made him edgy, but so far he hadn't seen anything. He turned this way and that, knowing that his back was always going to be facing the corn or the open arena. He suddenly realized how exposed he was.

It was a miracle, really, that the big Titan was able to turn just in time, axe shielding him, when a great, big lion-like creature burst from the corn. It had been stalking him for some time, only now just hungry enough under the light of the moon to strike. Blocked by the axe on its first attempt to maul the metal man, the lion retreated a few steps and circled him. Cyborg was panting from the initial shock of being hunted. His adrenaline told him to run like Hell, but his trained mind was telling him to make a plan and watch his back.

The lion was oddly colored, but shaped like a regular male lion: large, maned and vicious-looking, but its fur was all black. Dark silver eyes narrowed in on Cyborg, ready to attack, and saber-toothed teeth elongated out of its mouth, sharp and foreboding. If the moon went behind a cloud, the lion would practically disappear, and Cyborg would be dead.

The only bright feature on the lion was a small white tip to its tail. It bobbed and toyed with Cyborg as the lion wove in and out of the corn, out of sight. First the tail was here, then there. Then he thought he saw it, but it was just a grasshopper shining in the moonlight.

Cyborg tried using his robot eye to scan for heat signatures, but to no avail. The game wouldn't allow him to tap into his regular equipment. No, he had an axe and bonuses from his "marauder/berserker" status - but he couldn't use much else.

He shook off the fear, trying not to be too spooked by a little white tail fluff. Cyborg tried to imagine it was just like training with Beast Boy, who was good at being quiet when he had soft tiger paws. He calmed his breathing and his heart, trying to let his ears take him in the right direction. If the game wouldn't let him use his own tech to help him win, he'd do it himself.

He grinned, something was to his right. His back was to the cave, so the lion must have circled the arena, attempting to flank him. It pounced, claws outstretched, and Cyborg opened his eyes.

"GHAA!" he cried, throwing the large cat backward with the flat edge of his double-edged axe. It made a loud 'oomph' sound, and fell to the ground before retreating back into the cornfield.

"Booyah!" Cyborg whooped and hollered. "Come get me, kitty!"