Despite its somewhat rocky beginnings, the second semester continued to advance largely without a hitch. Much to the delight of my mining instructor Merve, the earth variant of Gloves of the Arcanist -- Miner’s Mitts -- continued to score me the occasional gem, and I liked to think that her stance on me was softening after seeing me put in real work. Wood wise, the carving portion of the class came and went, and I was now well on my way to making some sturdy (if somewhat plain) wooden chairs. Flithus and I continued leveling my skills, and Warram and I continued stabbing each other.

To say that things went perfectly without a snag, however, wouldn’t have been entirely accurate. Mainly, that was due to a single person.

And presently, said person was on fire.

“Look! Watch! Behold my greatness!” Nella cackled in a concerningly movie-villain-like fashion, her class skills turning her into a human flamethrower. While she was fairly eye-catching at the moment, her target was perhaps a stranger sight still. A massive lake of lumpy and unnaturally wriggling molten metal lay before her, bearing the brunt of her attack.

“Impressive fire power, Fiery Fist Woman; however, this was not what we discussed previously!” Alara bent down as she yelled out, lightly slapping a metal slime that was rolling her way. Its mass instantly decreased, and she unceremoniously lobbed it into the growing molten lake.

While we were all doing fine, she was right, too. This was not what we’d discussed.

With parties chosen and our dungeon delving class in full swing, we’d at last begun the meat of the class: actual dungeon delving.

Or, at least sort of. Our instructor stood off to the side, both to evaluate our fight and to step in if necessary. Much like in our initial non-party delves, a host of dungeon perks were at play, most of which kept us safe at the cost of experience and loot. By the end of the class, we’d be delving all by our lonesomes, but before then, we had to prove that wouldn’t get ourselves killed.

And so, just like any reasonable party would, we’d briefly talked about team strategies before going into the dungeon. For the metal slimes, it was simple: Alara would lessen the mass of as many of them as she could. After being significantly lightened, a metal slime’s threat level was on par with a very angry dodgeball.

While she was doing that, I’d be in plate armor, keeping any slimes that Alara missed away from the others and killing a few of them with my mana weapons. Oachin would lay down a few pools of some viscous potions that would essentially act as glue traps, and Emin would be enhancing us with a host of stamina and regeneration buffs. Normally, he would have taken on a more hands-on approach, but the metal slimes didn’t count as “alive” enough for his skills to work on them.

Once we were all good and safe, then and only then would Nella come into play, melting the crap out of all of them. Fire and magic damage were about the only ways to beat the slimes, and she had both of those things in spades.

Needless to say, that wasn’t quite how things had turned out.

“Your way was boring!” Nella shouted through the crackling of the fire. “Look how much faster this is! Emin, move all your buffs to me; I want to burn brighter!”

To her credit, it was. Before the rest of us had gotten a chance to do anything, she’d been off, straight into the throng of slimes. Fast and fiery steps had kept her from getting bowled over as she’d started superheating them and creating the start of her slag pile.

I kicked at one of the slimes that had gotten past her, punting it into the fire. Had I been lower-leveled, the move probably would have broken my ankle, but between my plate armor and my stats, the slimes were nothing more than very shiny soccer balls.

“In fact, I can make it even faster. Behold!” The stream of fire shooting out from her hands abruptly winked out, replaced with a blindingly bright marble-sized ball. From the looks of it, it was less of a conventional fireball and more like a miniature sun, and I would have truly hated to have been one of those slimes right then.

“Wait, don’t!” To my rear, Emin yelled louder than I’d ever heard him get before, pure panic lacing his words.

But it was too late.

Greatly resistant to heat, Nella leapt into the center of the molten lake, thrusting her hand forward in a palm strike. The tiny marble moved with her strike, connecting with the slag, seeming to do absolutely nothing for a second before all at once-

BOOM.

Red-hot liquid metal went flying through the room, every speck moving as if fired from a gun.

Immediately afterwards, two ear-curdling screams filled the space.

With the exception of the instructor, not one of us had been spared from the splatter. Nella seemed entirely unbothered by the heat; Alara was bearing it stoically as the slag melted through her flesh; and I was essentially untouched, my armor stopping the liquid before it could get to my skin.

Though farther back, the other two weren’t as lucky.

Drops of the metal splashed into their limbs, their torsos, their faces, carving through cloth and leather and flesh alike. Each wound cauterized instantly, but even without any blood, they looked straight out of a horror movie as skin melted in real time.

Emin was the first to recover, his screams cutting off as he used his class skills to shut off his nerves. He tried to call out to Oachin, but even before the words were half out, a notification popped up for all five of us.

Your instructor has marked your run as a failure. Dungeon deactivating…

In a single instant, the scattered metal vanished, and the worst of Emin and Oachin’s wounds disappeared along with them. Save for some possible psychological scars, the two appeared unharmed.

“Not a good showing! I’m calling it early. I’d suggest you five work on your teamwork a bit more before our next session.” Her arms crossed, our instructor addressed us with a disapproving frown, her eyes seeming to linger on one of us in particular.

It was something of a shock, then, when Nella opted to open her mouth.

“What do you mean ‘failure’? Sure the metal went a bit farther than I expected, but we had it! Everyone gets hurt a little in a dungeon! Oachie was about to heal us all!” Not bothering to wait for an answer, she directed her verbal tirade elsewhere. “And you two!” she said, angling towards me and Alara. “It wouldn’t have been an issue if you’d been standing in front of them. Plus,” she continued, swiveling towards Emin. “You! You know I use fire attacks. Why weren’t you buffing the others with heat resistance like you did in our fight!”

Despite having been healed, Oachin let out a pained groan, the rest of our party too stunned to respond. Our instructor, however, had no such reservations.

“If you think I’m stepping in, think again. Resolving party drama is part of delving. Work it out before next time, or I’ll fail you again! Now, dismissed!”

Your instructor has ended the dungeon session. Teleporting out in 5… 4…

The timer ticked down, and all five of us appeared at once in front of the settlement’s dungeon portal, our instructor nowhere to be seen.

Man. We have a lot of training to do, don’t we? I wasn’t sure exactly how we were supposed to get our party on track after something like that.

“Can you believe the nerve of some people? Honestly!” Nella spun about, trying to spot wherever the instructor might have gone, but ultimately failing.

It was exceedingly clear to me, however, that Emin could not believe “some people,” as she’d put it. The normally shy researcher looked ready to erupt, and he likely would have had Alara not draped her arms around both him and Nella, smushing the three of them together.

“I know what our problem is! It is that we do not trust each other. There is no teamwork when there is no team, yes? So we shall solve our problem! Come. Let us have a night out.”

Not really the angle I was expecting, to be honest. And not really the angle that I thought would fix things for us.

Nella seemed to share that sentiment.

“We don’t need a night out, we just need people to listen more to me! It’s not a big deal. The instructor was being ridiculous, and we’ll get it next time. I’m going home.”

Alara’s grip on the fiery fighter tightened, locking her in place.

“That is an odd way to say ‘I am excited to bond with my party members,’ FFW! Come!”

Nella tried to pull herself away, going so far as to activate a movement skill, but it was useless. The moment she even started to show signs of escaping, Alara activated her class skill, greatly increasing Nella’s mass and rooting her in place.

Right when I thought things were going to come to blows, Oachin intervened, placing a hand on his sister’s shoulder.

“All right. Come on Nell. We’re going to be working with everyone here for the rest of the semester. One night out couldn’t hurt, right?”

With even her brother against her, the Rising Star seemed to deflate, mumbling under her breath.

“Fine. I guess.”

At a volume that could wake the dead, Alara boomed out. “Good! Then come. I know where we will go!”

With a heavy thunk, Alara slammed a bottle of murky amber liquid down on the bar table before taking a seat on the accompanying booth. Given her strength and her regulation thereof, I was half convinced either the bottle or the table would break, but miraculously they held.

“Here is how we will begin our training!” Perhaps her volume would have been appropriate had the bar been packed and lively, but it was early yet. As it was, the Adventure District bar we’d navigated to was nearly empty.

This, of course, did nothing to convince anyone of Alara’s bonding plan’s success. Nella in particular looked ready to dart, which was likely why her brother had shoved her into the innermost booth seat against the wall, blocking off her escape.

Alara soon followed the bottle up with a deck of cards which she placed beside the booze. On spotting the cards, Nella scoffed.

“This is your big plan? We play some card games and it makes us all best friends? How is this supposed to help us run a dunge-”

Completely ignoring the aggravated Rising Star, Alara barreled onwards. “Stage one! Cards. But with a novel twist!” Having no desire to accidentally bend the cards, she absentmindedly handed the deck over to Emin to shuffle. “Whoever does the best each round gets to assign a drink! And whoever does the worst each round must share an embarrassing story!”

Nella opened her mouth to protest, but a firm nudge from Oachin preemptively silenced her.

“Good! Let us play then!” The cards were dealt in short order, and we began.

It was a fast-paced game that involved scoring tricks, and ultimately, it was one I was less familiar with. Still, one feature stood out fairly quickly -- with some effort, it was possible to team up on someone.

Given the debacle in the dungeon, we collectively reached the natural conclusion.

“Fiery Fist Woman, you have been bested! We await your story! And PPG, you are the victor! Who will you choose to drink?”

Gambling has reached level 4!

Without pause, I poured a drink and slid it across the table to Nella. She gave it a tentative sniff, her face welling up with disgust. With four pairs of eyes boring into her, though, she reluctantly accepted the drink and knocked it back.

Immediately, she coughed and hacked. “What is this? Is this really what people drink outside of the Noble District? You must all have double digit Poison Resistance with swill this bad.” Once she recovered, however, she drew herself up, attempting to look high and mighty. “Unfortunately, that will be all. To tell an embarrassing story, I would need to have done something embarrassing. Sadly for your little bonding plan, I haven’t.”

I gave it an even fifty fifty odds on whether she actually believed that or if she was just trying to worm her way out of answering.

Thankfully, it didn’t matter.

To her side, her brother ever so slightly curled his lips upward.

“If you’re having trouble, I could always help you out. What about that time right after you got your class where you kept accidentally burning your hair off? You used to carry an entire stash of hair-growth potions back then, just so no one would ever see you bald.”

Aghast and utterly betrayed, Nella openly gaped at her brother. “Oachie!” Thankfully, her momentary embarrassment paled in comparison to her desire for vengeance, and only a moment later, a knowing smile graced her lips. “If that’s how it is, you better hope you don’t lose, because I have some good ones.”

With Nella having suddenly grown far more invested in the card game, the next round began.

For a few more rounds, we continued to bully Nella -- while she managed to keep herself from losing, she was always the person the winner selected to drink -- but once we’d vented some of our dungeon frustration, we laid off. Soon both the drinks and the stories were flowing, leading to equal parts laughter and painful cringing.

Given my abnormal Luck and my Gambling skill, I was almost never in last place, which was a relief. I didn’t have too many non-Earth stories to tell.

The single time I did lose, I told them about my date with Nadja and how I’d thought we were just hanging out as friends. For whatever reason, Emin found it particularly amusing, laughing far harder than felt necessary.

Oachin had once given a crush a potion that he’d made, and he’d mis-brewed it so badly, he’d given his crush diarrhea for three days. Emin had starred in a play back in his childhood acting days and had forgotten his lines so badly during one of the performances that he started crying on stage. After getting her class, Alara had spent a solid year accidentally breaking off door handles whenever she’d open doors.

Even Nella got into it by the end, and not just to get back at her brother. After enough coaxing, she finally told us a story about her brief foray into cooking. As a rule, nobles weren’t big on cooking, but with her flames, she’d thought she’d be a natural born chef.

After serving her family members several dishes charred beyond recognition, she’d been kindly asked to find a different hobby.

All in all, it felt like something of a success. When at last the game came to its end, I felt that I knew each of them a bit better than I had at the start.

Plus, I was also kind of buzzed.

With how little I’d been losing, the others made sure to assign their drinks to me whenever they could. It didn’t stop me from kicking their asses, but it did mean I had to suffer through a considerable amount of the potent liquor Alara had bought us.

Far from ending the night there, however, Alara shot to her feet with a grin.

“Good! We have vanquished stage one! Now. Stage two!” Doing her best to physically drag four people at once, she rushed us out the door.

“Torture! You want us to bond over torture?” Nella slammed her hands to her ears, making a valiant attempt to block out the noise filling the new bar we’d arrived at. Lacking any open hands to swat Alara away, she was thus unable to avoid getting captured in a crushing side hug.

“It is music! I thought nobles enjoyed music, no?”

And it was music. Not particularly good music -- something I could agree with Nella on -- but there was an effort being made, at least?

In something of a shocking revelation to me, it appeared that Earth was not the only planet with karaoke bars. Our card games had taken long enough for us to progress into proper drinking hours, and the divey establishment we found ourselves in was now filled with a host of patrons. As we were still in the Adventure District, they were uniformly of a rowdier sort.

Alara forcibly rotated the fiery fist fighter towards the stage, using her free hand to point at the bulky warrior who was drunkenly stumbling his way through a drinking song. “He has good spirit! I like him! But if you do not think he sounds pleasant, you are always welcome to take his place, FFW!”

Nella spluttered at this, jerking herself away from Alara with a look of horror. “You don’t expect me to go up there and sing to a bar full of drunk adventurers, do you? That’s… it’s… beneath me! It’s ridiculous!”

Alara merely laughed, slapping the noble on her back and causing her to stagger. “I see you require more liquid courage before you are brave enough to perform for us, FFW. I will go order us a round of drinks to fix this! In the meantime, which of us is brave enough to conquer the stage first?”

Silence reigned -- or not actual silence considering the surrounding din, but certainly we were all silent -- as the four of us nervously glanced at one another. I was usually up for Alara’s drunken revelries, and I was still feeling a pretty powerful buzz, but I was a shower singer at best.

“Uh. I… I could. I mean. If they know any of the songs I like, at least.” Emin furiously scratched at the back of his head, surprising me by taking the initiative.

“Excellent! You are the bravest among us, DPM! I look forward to your singing.” With that, the two of them departed into the crowd, Emin to queue his song and Alara to fetch us more to drink.

In no time at all, each of us was holding a large tankard of ale, save for Emin who was presently center stage. With my enhanced Perception, I could see the individual drops of sweat form and bead up on his skin. Despite lacking a mic, some skills were in play to amplify his voice evenly across the room, and before the band began, he addressed us.

“This… this one goes out to the Lady Nella’Larin… whose ass I kicked in a duel and who’s too chicken to come up here and sing herself.”

Despite not knowing Nella, the bar immediately cheered at the jab, but for those of us who knew Emin, we were stunned into silence.

Emin actually just said that? I know he’s kind of a lightweight, so it’s not like he’s sober, but who would have thought he had it in him?

Our collective stupefaction broke, however, as Alara started to roar with laughter loud enough to drown out the rest of the room.

“A good backbone, DPM! You tell her!”

Nella was the next to regain her senses, failing to raise her voice above the crowd while rushing forward towards the stage. A fast grab from Alara was all it took to restrain her, however, and over her protests, the band began to play.

It was a jaunty tune, livelier than I ever pictured someone like Emin listening to. The intro played out, he opened his mouth to jump in, and-

Oh. He can actually sing.

No wonder he’d volunteered. And in retrospect, perhaps I should have expected it. He was, after all, a former theater kid despite how bizarre that still felt to me.

On hearing his voice, Nella stopped struggling against Alara’s grip. Instead, she mumbled beneath her breath, her words almost getting lost between the music and the crowd.

“So he can sing. Big deal. It’s not like I can’t do that too.” She hastily downed her drink, and before the song was even over, she pushed Alara’s hand off of her and approached the stage.

The music died down, the bar clapped and hooted in applause, and the very moment Emin stepped off the stage, Nella jumped on. Her empty tankard was still clutched in one hand, and she seemed entirely uncaring of the fact that she’d just stolen some poor guy’s slot.

“Rejoice!” she cried out. “For I, Nella’Larin -- acclaimed fighter and notable non-chicken -- will now grace this establishment with my voice!

As it turned out, Nella’s boasts weren’t just for show. While a (not very) small part of me had been hoping to see her crash and burn, she turned out to be an incredible singer. Combined with her arresting looks and amusingly abrasive personality, she quickly became a crowd favorite, and it wasn’t the last time of the night we got to hear her sing.

In fact, after a few more drinks on both of their parts, Nella even forced Emin onto the stage for a duet. Of course, she phrased it as a “challenge” so she could definitively show us that she was the better singer, but still. Never had I wished for a camera more than I had in that moment.

Alara sang a single time, and while I loved her deeply as a friend, once was more than enough. After her performance assured him that he couldn’t possibly be the worst singer in the bar, Oachin followed her.

Despite constant needling, I was the only one who managed to escape the call of the stage. The only reason I managed to get away with that was the simple fact that I didn’t know a single song that the band could play. Alara demanded that I sing them something Yekkish, but considering I had no idea what that would sound like, I managed to refuse despite the rampant peer pressure.

And so it was that hours later, we stumbled out of the bar, good and well and drunk.

The sun had already set, and I was expecting our night to be over, but no sooner had I thought that than a new destination was supplied to us.

Shockingly, however, it wasn’t Alara who suggested it.

“They loved me! Hah, they really loved me in there, right? Hey! Oachie! Hey! You know what we should do? The lake house. We should go to the lake house now!” She tugged on her brother’s sleeve, and in return, he stared at her like she’d grown a second head.

“Nell, you never want to go to the lakehouse. We haven’t done that in, I don’t know, years.”

She pouted, the expression looking somewhat comical on a woman well into her twenties. “Well that’s because I never have anyone to go to the lake house with. But they’ll come!”

Seeming to decide that that was the end of the conversation, she fished around in a pouch at her side, extracting a rough, multifaceted blue gem.

A recall gem, I realized.

Before anyone could so much as lift a finger, she leapt to the center of the group and activated it. The world grew transparent, and a moment later, all five of us shot off into the distance.

When things settled down, gone was the karaoke bar and the streets of Sylum. In their place was a scenic lake view, ringed by picturesque trees and a palatial mansion. The moon hung high in the sky, casting the entire scene in soft light, and a cool, wet breeze rushed by us.

“Welcome to the lake- Ow, ow ow!” Nella’s warm welcome was interrupted by Oachin grabbing onto her ear and pulling.

“Generally you ask someone for permission before teleporting them far away.” Not letting go of her ear, he turned to us sheepishly. “Sorry about that. She can be a bit overzealous when she drinks this much. We can send you all back to Sylum if you’d like.”

Emin looked like he was about to agree to just that, but fueled by enthusiasm, Alara was much faster.

“No! It was well done! I enjoy lakes! And I enjoy houses!”

Well, I guess that cements things. Ultimately, I wasn’t too worried considering that I had a recall gem of my own. Although, hell, I wish I had an empty lake house just sitting around for me to teleport to.

“Good!” Nella tugged Oachin’s hand from her ear, not looking chastised in the least bit. “Then you will follow me! I’ll show you what there is to do here.”

And if some of us perhaps a bit more warily than others, we did just that.

Despite the lazy, idyllic scene, our time by the lake was the busiest we’d been all day. A fire pit was lit. Idle stories were told. And after swearing that the lake was jam-packed with different species of fish, Oachin managed to drag Emin off for some fishing.

He must have been telling the truth, too, as in short order, the two managed to rack up quite the bounty. They were insistent on throwing the fish over the fire, but between two nobles, a bookworm, and the spoiled niece of a chamber head, none of them were remotely good at cooking.

With no small share of eye rolling, I accepted the task. I summoned up my kitchen knives, and while I hadn’t actually ever scaled a fish before, I did my best. I still had a few spices and herbs that I’d collected from the forest of Emer’Thalis, and I tossed them onto the fishes liberally.

If not the most gourmet of meals, everyone seemed to enjoy it nonetheless. And apparently the system did too.

Cooking has reached level 10!

Congratulations! You have reached the Initiate rank in Cooking.

Based on your actions, you have received an augment for your skill.

Augment of Companionship

+5 to Cooking when preparing food for those you personally know.

Note! This skill is not considered class-aligned. Further skill progress will be slowed down greatly.

Combined with the boost from Hot Plate Hands, I was working with a pretty respectable cooking level now.

From there, the night got a bit blurrier, which might have had to do with Emin telling the others about my ability to conjure moonshine. An already tipsy night got a few stages tipsier after that, and a sort of tension that I hadn’t realized we were all holding finally faded away.

At one point, Oachin took Emin aside, and I heard them geeking out over potions and skills. By the end of it, both of them were practically jumping around excitedly.

“Exactly! And if you were to brew some potions of fast growth, you could lay down a wall of plants inside the dungeon. Imagine how versatile that would be if I was able to use all my skills on them! It’d be… It’d be epic!”

While the boys tittered and giggled and gabbed, Alara and Nella were engaged in the much more womanly pursuit of punching things. Numerous explosions sounded out as they each showed off their various skills, discussing possible ways to collaborate and set up combos for one another.

Nella even grabbed Emin for a while, walking around the lake with him to grill him about different types of buffs he should prepare for our next run. Before they got out of ear range, I heard her mention the word “fire” at least ten times.

Bit by bit, evening turned to night, and the night grew longer. Even through the various layers of booze keeping us going, however, I could sense that we were all (save perhaps for Alara) nearing the end of our energy reserves.

At last, Nella ushered us back to the fire pit, and I expected her to tell us it was time to leave or that the night was ending.

It was thus perhaps the most shocking element of the day when she did something else entirely.

She drew herself up, placed her hands firmly against her hips, and practically shouted over the flames between all of us.

“I would like to say… I apologize! I think I messed up in the dungeon today. And I didn’t listen and blamed all of you instead. But even if I’m incredibly powerful and talented and good at card games and a noble and the best singer here, you three are okay too! And so. I’m sorry. And it won’t happen again.”

Her apology hung in the air for a second, and just ever-so-slightly, I caught her mask slipping. In that moment, she seemed far, far more vulnerable than I’d imagined she was capable of, waiting for acceptance that she wasn’t sure was coming.

But of course, it came rather quickly.

“Good!” Alara bellowed. Doing her best to round the fire pit and pull all five of us into a crushing hug, she continued on. “You are forgiven! And I officially declare this bonding trip a success! We have conquered teamwork!”

All of us objected as our bones were nearly ground to dust under the power of her hug, but once we accepted there was no escape, we endured it for a while longer.

And as it turned out, the night didn’t fully end there. Newly emboldened, Nella invited us to crash inside the lake house for the night. It was somewhat spur of the moment, but in the spirit of camaraderie, we accepted, each of us spending the night in one of the many rooms of the mansion on silky noble sheets.

When we awoke the next morning, it was to rampant, raging hangovers. Beneath them, however, was a readiness -- an eagerness, even.

Next time we ran the dungeon, I had a feeling we wouldn’t fail.