I placed the band at the bottom of the weapon around my wrist. Then I fastened the leather strap. Gave it a good wag to make sure it was secure. After practicing a few stabs, I was confident that it would stay on during combat.

"You look at your stats?" Finley said. My Oracle was still on, so I took a peek at my numbers. I didn't remember them all, but I noticed my Strength stat went up by two.

"Yep. Got a few points in Strength. As expected."

"Good. And you see the map, right?"

"You talking about the square right here?" I pointed to a black block to the side of the screen.

"Yep. Nuru will update it for us the further we get into the dungeon. Even has color coded dots for each of us."

"That's handy."

"It is. We couldn't get through these Gauntlets without her."

"Aww, you're too kind, Finley," Nuru said, her voice somewhat muffled, like she was talking through a radio while going through a tunnel.

"Yeah, you can ask the lass questions, too. I'm sure she'd be more than willing to answer whatever she can. Even give you some advice if you come across a difficult decision. But like I mentioned, she doesn’t have access to information that we don’t. So don't bother asking her where a key might be or which door to enter through next if no one in our party has been through them already."

"Okay. I think I get it. Nuru, you wouldn't be upset if I closed my Oracle, would you? As much as I like talking to you, it's hard to stay focused with this bright pink filter inches from my face."

"Of course! Just bring it up if you need me again!"

I waved my fingers and the screen vanished into thin air. I blinked a few times to rest my eyes. With my vision back to normal I met up with the rest of my party.

"Can we head out now?" Brandon said with his hand on the wooden door.

"Go ahead Brandon," Finley said as he rolled his eyes to the back of his head. "Let me guess, you're going to take off on your own?"

"You know it." He opened the door and went into the next room. Finley stayed at the exit, waiting for me. "The goal of the game is to get the treasure and get out."

"That simple, huh?" I crossed my arms and peered through the doorway. Brandon was already long gone, presumably in another part of the dungeon.

"It's harder than it sounds, lad. We've got monsters to deal with. Traps, too. And not to mention that the longer we're in here, the harder it gets. The enemies get fiercer, as well as all sorts of modifiers to keep the dungeon as difficult as possible."

"Like what?"

"Every fifteen minutes, a magical spell is cast across the dungeon. After the first fifteen minutes, the monsters get a buff. You'll hear some horns blaring, meaning that our enemies just got more difficult to deal with. Everyone calls it a Curse."

I waved my hands again. I remembered seeing a timer on the Oracle. Once it came up, I looked at the ticker towards the top right.

"4:02."

"Yeah. We got just over ten minutes. Normally I couldn't tell you what buff the monsters are gonna get since the other Guild's Dungeon Master is the one that picks from a pool to be randomly selected. But since its the tutorial, you'll see the same one every time. This first one is called Marauder's Lament."

"That doesn't sound good," I replied as I poised my claw to protect my chest. "I wouldn't really consider myself a marauder, at least not by choice."

"It's just to make it sound more exciting for the viewers. All that means is that every time you open a chest, all the enemies you've killed in that room will come back to life once you take whatever was in there. But we've still got ten minutes to get looting done before we have to worry about killing the same enemies over and over again."

"Okay. I'll keep that in mind."

"Don't worry. If you ever have trouble remembering what a specific curse does, just check the Oracle. It'll have all the information you'll need."

I nodded my head and took another step towards the door. "Don't want to waste any more time."

Finley stepped into the adjacent hallway first while I stayed right behind him. "Like we've all said lad, this is just the tutorial. No need to be too scared. You've got me on your side. As a Cleric, I've got access to all sorts of spells that'll keep you alive and kicking."

"I appreciate you sticking with me." I stepped inside the hallway and took a look around. More gray walls, except this time they formed a long corridor. I looked down and saw shattered bones lying across the ground.

"Are those from previous Dungeon Runners?" I said as calmly as I could while pointing at what looked to be a severed arm. The marrow was cracked and split, like someone smashed it with a hammer.

"Nah. Just your standard undead enemy. Very common monster type for Guilds to use in their dungeons. All it requires is a few corpses. They can be reanimated over and over through necromancy, cutting down on costs. That's why we use them for our tutorial, although our Dungeon Master prefers to use wild animals whenever a team has to go through one of our Gauntlets."

I was glad I was summoned for this guild. I'm not fighting wild bears up close.

"That means Brandon did all this." I kicked a skull to the side and watched it tumble towards the other side of the wall.

"Yep. I was hoping he'd at least save a few of the early enemies for you to get a few Experience Points early on, but looks like he's in a real rush to get this dungeon over with." We walked over the obliterated bones left by our teammate until we reached the other side of the corridor. Right before the next door was a wooden chest left wide open.

"Looks like he got the loot too," I said with disappointment.

"He might be hogging all the XP, but I doubt he'd be selfish enough to grab all the items too. My guess is that there was a key in there needed to open the door up."

"Wouldn't you know for certain? You've said you've done this tutorial plenty of times before."

After peering into the empty chest, Finley looked at me again. "I have. But the layout of the rooms and location of chests and other drops changes, as well as traps. The only thing I can predict are the two Curses and the one Blessing we'll get every fifteen minutes." He waved his hands in front of his eyes and brought up the Oracle again. Through the transparent screen, I saw that the map had been filled up with a few more rooms, including the corridor we were standing in. "Good news is he's on a sperate path right now. That means we can focus on getting you acquainted with how the Gauntlet works."

"So what's next then?"

Finley dismissed the Oracle's screen and pushed open the door ahead. "We're going to go through on our own path. Brandon took the left path through the dungeon. We'll be keeping straight." The Irishman rushed through the door and I kept pace, darting through right behind him. Together, we entered another long corridor with more skeletal remains scattered across the ground. I crunched a few bones beneath my foot, not noticing the slain monsters on the ground.

"There," Finley said as he pointed straight ahead. "Just go through that door. That part of the dungeon hasn't been explored yet."

I obeyed in silence. We both ran through the hall, stepping on cracked and smashed bones until we came to an identical door on the other side of the hall. I took one look behind me before we advanced into the next room. A hall to our right was left wide open, presumably by Brandon trying to speedrun through my tutorial session.

"Pay close attention, Conrad," Finley whispered to me. I turned forward, my eyes opening wide when I saw how serious Finley's face became. "There's a real risk of you getting hurt in the room up ahead. I suggest you stay close to me and try not to act too brazen."

I nodded. "Aye, captain."

Managed to get Finley to smirk. "Good. Now, I'm a Cleric, but I don't have access to any healing spells at the moment. Try to play it safe until I come across a chest that gives me something to heal us with. Understood?"

"Crystal clear."