“Congratulations. You pass.” The gray-haired dungeon delving instructor stood against the reflective metallic walls of the dungeon, delivering her verdict with not even a fraction of the excitement it deserved.

But that was fine. Whatever excitement she lacked, the five of us more than made up for. Standing about the burnt and bubbling metallic sludge that had moments ago been a dungeon sub-boss, we let out a collective cheer. Both Nella and Alara went one step farther, butting up against us and demanding high fives. Only serving to prolong our mini celebration, a notification popped up to confirm our victory.

Congratulations! You have been granted student access to the Sylum Metal Dungeon. While you have student access, future dungeon runs will be free.

In truth, despite my previous optimism after our night out of bonding, we had not managed to pass our dungeon evaluation the next time around. We’d done much better, but there was a reason they didn’t just throw five new people into dungeons without supervision and hope for the best. Sure, I’d already run two dungeons before, but in both cases, that had been as an addition to an already established party.

And so, we’d messed up.

On a few occasions, Alara had tried to increase the mass of our enemies in hopes of arresting their movement. Sometimes, it worked. Sometimes, it just made them significantly stronger as they used their greater mass to pummel us. On the flip side, decreasing the masses of some enemies had turned sluggish, oaf-like golems into frighteningly faster foes.

Nella’s firepower was great against metallic enemies. Usually. She was much better about listening now, but our idea to melt one of the dungeon’s golems had ended up in a very angry, half-melted golem that splattered us with molten metal with each punch. Needless to say, we hadn’t tried that again.

Whenever we came across living enemies -- we’d seen wolves, porcupines, an armadillo, and some urchins of all things, all of them imbued with metal in some way -- Emin’s powers would come into play. Unfortunately, the same sticky sap he’d used in our duel against Nella was a two-way weapon, and Nella and Alara had ended up nearly glued together by the end of one of our fights.

The final straw that had us fail our previous run was during our fight against the aforementioned wolves. Taking Emin’s suggestions to heart, Oachin had brewed a potion which caused dense shrubbery to rapidly sprout from the soil. He’d been using it to great effect to build barrier walls, with Emin using his skills to strengthen them in a number of ways.

Against metal slimes, it worked incredibly well, keeping our two more fragile members safe. Against enemies that could jump? Not so much.

A few wolves had peeled off from us and jumped over the barrier to where Oachin and Emin were standing, and with the shrubbery blocking our line of sight of the low-to-the-ground enemies, we weren’t able to use ranged attacks to help. By the time we jumped over the barrier ourselves, the instructor was already there.

The failure notification followed immediately after.

Our current attempt, however, was the run directly afterwards, and just like the old adage went, the third time was the charm. Say what you would about our collective inexperience, but once we did something stupid, we didn’t repeat that mistake again. This time around, we’d burned through the dungeon (often literally) with speed, and the only real damage we’d taken had been easily patched up with the help of Oachin’s skills.

It’s not a perfect party composition, but it’s not bad, is it?

Already, I was looking forward to delving the dungeon for real if for no other reason than I wanted to put my Perception to good use. I’d already been using it to some degree -- I was our de facto trap finder after all. Given that we didn’t have a dedicated rogue, I was also slowly learning how to disarm the traps as well, netting me the brand new skill Trap Disarmament.

Even with my low skill, we hadn’t had much trouble: We’d all thoroughly read up on what types of traps to expect, and they were all metallic in nature. There wasn’t a single one on the first floor that could puncture my plate armor when it was enhanced by Arcane Armory and Overload Armor, making failure a very low-stress possibility.

What I did not get to use, however, was Detect Secret. Even with its dungeon-related augment, it stayed silent the entire time, an unpleasant side-effect of the student perks that were in play. Now that we’d passed our evaluation, I was ready to see if I could find some secret rooms the next time around.

Intent on crushing my dreams, the instructor held up a hand as if to ward away our enthusiasm.

“But! It took you three tries to get this far, and the boss is considerably harder. And if I’m being completely honest with you all, if any of you die in the dungeon, most of your families have the power to make my life absolutely miserable. Firing me is the nicest thing they’d do. So don’t make a fuss at me, but you’re not getting completely unfettered access yet.”

The drop in our moods was immediate and palpable. Quicker to take offense than the rest of us, it was Nella who started to argue first.

“What do you mean we’re not getting full access? We passed!” Seemingly summoned by her displeasure, flames flickered across her fingertips.

Rather than respond verbally, the instructor must have done something on her end, as we were all pushed a new notification.

Your student access to the Sylum Metal Dungeon has been modified. You have been placed into a trial access period.

In trial access dungeon runs, any fatal damage you would suffer will instead end the dungeon run. Experience for these runs will be greatly lessened. Loot, resources, and dungeon secrets will not be present.

To graduate from trial access, you must complete five dungeon runs in a row without activating your lifelines.

“The notification you just received should say it all. If you’re thinking of arguing, don’t. If you ever activate the lifelines, you’ll thank me, and if you don’t end up needing them, then it’s just five runs. That being said -- good job. You all passed considerably faster than most of your classmates.” Realizing that the compliment wouldn’t be enough to assuage Nella, the instructor’s next word was her last. “Dismissed!”

Just as had happened the first time, we were instantly teleported out of the dungeon, and also just like last time, the instructor was nowhere to be seen.

Nella started to curse, only stopping when her brother patted her on the shoulder.

“It’s not so bad, is it? We can do five runs easily. In fact, I’m still feeling pretty fired up, and it’s not like the dungeon here has a recharge timer. We could knock one of the five out right now, couldn’t we? None of us knew how long this would take, so we should all have a few more hours blocked off, right?”

His words were met with a shrug and a handful of nods, and instantly one could see as an inner fire lit within Nella. It was paired with an outer fire as her hands became wreathed in flames as well. She pumped one into the air, the motion punctuated by the woosh of the fire.

“And then we can do it again! And again! We could knock out all five runs in one night, couldn’t we? Great idea, Oachie!”

A shared look between the rest of us made it clear what we all thought of that idea. Well, except for Alara. She seemed equally pleased by the idea of five consecutive dungeon runs, but I was certain the rest of us would be backing out well beforehand.

Still, it was with heightened spirits that, as a party, we turned about and went back into the dungeon portal.

Welcome to the Sylum Metal Dungeon. You have been granted trial student access.

Current trial completion status: 0/5

Good luck!

Heat Resistance has reached level 4!

Chill has reached level 8!

You have defeated Metal Slime x24. Based on your contribution and the penalties for your trial student access, you have been granted +48xp.

Man. That really is some crappy experience. Only two per slime?

I stood by the side of a pit of molten metal surrounded by fiercely burning shrubbery. It was our go-to method with any smaller monsters that couldn’t jump. Oachin would build a semi-circle of plant life, which we would lead the enemies into. Once they were within, he’d complete the circle. Emin strengthened them and made them fire resistant, and then Nella would go to town.

The result was a roaring bonfire and a ring of bushes that looked oddly biblical as they burned without being consumed. It likely would have been unpleasantly hot -- and probably was for most of the others -- but casting Chill had long since become reflexive for me. I chained together cast after cast of it without a second thought, my Heat Resistance only having to put in a marginal level of work.

If perhaps some of us were getting sweaty, we ended our first fight of our fourth run without a single scratch.

Without any fanfare, on we went, deeper into the dungeon.

By now, we’d worked out a rough playbook of sorts. That was the small non-jumper strategy. Large, blunt-force enemies went to Alara. Not only could she alter the force behind their blows, but she could also increase her own mass, not budging an inch from attacks that would have sent the rest of us flying. She seemed to find it endlessly amusing to trade blows with metal golems over twice her height.

Swarms of enemies usually went to Nella. The most horrifying room was filled with tons of miniature metal spiders, each with sharp sword-like appendages.

Without fail, all of them were burned with extreme prejudice.

Most of the ranged enemies or enemies with slashing attacks went to me. In one such room, a host of what looked like sea urchins clung to every visible inch of the metal walls. They were stationary foes, but the fact that they could launch their sharp, needle-like spines made them particularly troublesome.

That is, troublesome if you didn’t have a set of magically reinforced plate armor. Clearing the room was more an act of cleaning than actual combat, as I lazily walked to each of the urchins and scraped them off the wall. Dozens of clinks resounded through the room as each of the many projectile spines pinged off my armor ineffectually.

Heavy Armor has reached level 8!

The rest of the dungeon was, as expected, largely smooth sailing. The only truly difficult part was the dungeon sub-boss -- something I hadn’t encountered before, but which was apparently fairly common in a lot of dungeons. It awaited us halfway through the dungeon, and it was what we’d had to kill to pass our evaluation.

On the face of it, it was a bit ridiculous. It was pretty much just a large, metal sphere. Granted the high and mighty name of King Metal Slime, its main power was basically just rolling around.

Silly sounding, until you saw how big it was. Failing to move out of the way in time was a one-way ticket to whatever afterlife they sent flattened ghosts to.

As a bonus mechanic, hitting it with enough physical damage would cause it to pinch off any damaged areas, turning them all into smaller metal slimes.

To make matters worse, the floor in the sub-boss room was also metal. It would have been nice just to dig a ditch and have the slime get stuck, but we had no such luck.

Here, Alara was the MVP. She stood in front of us, planting her feet firmly to the ground and increasing her mass to the maximum. Whenever the giant sub-boss rolled our way, she struck.

Between her prodigious Strength and her ability to decrease the slime’s mass, she was able to send it ricocheting backwards like an oversized pinball.

I spent the entirety of the fight shooting frost arrows at the boss, whittling down both its speed and health. Emin kept our resources topped off with regeneration buffs. Oachin liberally doused the slime with a corrosion potion which worked away at its exterior. Nella burnt up any of the smaller slimes whenever Alara’s punches broke them off of the sub-boss.

It was a fairly long and tiring affair, but not once did I feel particularly afraid.

The second half of the dungeon, despite us not having explored it yet, proved to be much the same as the first, and without any secrets or exciting loot to sidetrack us, we made our way to the main boss in short order.

It was here that our collective ratio of nervousness to excitement tipped from one side to the other. Though I wouldn’t dare voice such a thought with Nella around, I found myself silently glad for our student lifeline.

Because how could I not be a little worried? Standing there in the narrow silver hallway, all five of us gazed into the final room. Unlike had been true in Drawgin’s dungeon, the boss wasn’t one who only appeared once we entered. It was waiting there, plainly visible for all to see.

And it was big.