The day after Beatrice's party made their departure a new group arrived in front of the dungeon door. Four individuals, all in their early twenties though the similarities largely ended there. In the lead was a human male clad in heavy leather armor and equipped with a modest shield and sword, while next to him walked a drider woman, equipped with little more than a few modesty-preserving sashes across her torso, a satchel and a wooden staff. Bringing up the rear were something of an odd pair, a man and a woman each standing about four feet tall with the pointed ears found on elves but the stocky frame common to dwarves. The man was equipped with the robes and staff of a cleric, while the woman carried the twin daggers and light crossbow often found with rogues. Through if the group's equipment had perhaps one thing in common, it's that all of it looked like it would barely survive the week. The leader's shield had gouges torn out of its wood, the cleric's robe was dirty and torn, the rogue's crossbow looked as if it would snap after a few more bolts, and the drider needed to constantly adjust her sashes to ensure they actually stayed as modesty-preserving as they were intended to be, given their threadbare nature.

Taking in all of this, Doorman gives the group a pitying glance as they walk up to him. "Morning there. Welcome to Worthy Dungeon, although I must say, do you feel ready for the challenges you'll meet inside? I'll be honest, it looks like you lot could use a trip to a tailor first. And a trip to a weaponsmith. And a bath."

The man in front rolls his eyes. "Yeah, yeah, we know. That's us, The Godsdamn Fuckin' Miserables, sorriest party in the southern Rainlands. Continuing our usual streak of bad luck to come all the way out here, just to find out the new dungeon is already so tough it'll probably eat the lot of us if we go past the first floor."

Doorman isn't usually one for extended conversations, but the guardian finds himself with an odd bit of morbid curiosity following the man's attitude. "You bunch really call yourselves that?"

The drider sighs. "We don't usually include the middle adjectives, but it more or less fits. We've challenged six dungeons across the country so far and have yet to successfully complete a single floor in any of them. We've managed to earn a few levels anyhow, but if it weren't for the fact that the twins here have rich parents, we'd be short almost as many limbs for the trouble."

"You sure you want to go through with this, then? Not to question your career choice, but it doesn't sound like this is the one for you." The four share glances between each other, but the shorter man answers for them.

"We've all got our reasons. And til we're dead, we'll keep trying, damn it."

Doorman sighs. "Very well. Then answer me this riddle: how many steps did it take to climb here from the bottom of the mountain?"

The drider groans. "Way too fucking many..."

Doorman nods. "That answer is correct."

The eyes of the party collectively widen, but a smile crosses the drider's face as she whoops and raises her staff into the air. "Woo! I got the riddle! Go me!" Her cheering halts as the lifting of her arms is followed by the falling of her sashes, giving Doorman quite the consolation prize for having his riddle defeated. " - Gods, damn, fuckin', shit - " The rest of the party blushes and turns aside as the drider fixes her wardrobe malfunction, and the man in front clears his throat.

"A-hum...good work, Slinz. Maybe the rest of the floor will go as quick, huh?"

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FIFTEEN MINUTES LATER

The man yells as his sword is driven into the heart of the monstrous rabbit at his feet, ending its inhuman laughter for good. He stabs it a few more times for good measure before looking around in confusion. "Was...was that it? Was that the entire floor?"

The shorter woman points to a newly-appeared treasure chest on the far side of the chamber. "You tell me, Bank. I'd ask if that was a boss's loot chest, but then I guess none of us have actually seen one before, huh?"

Her fraternal twin chuckles. "Heh, guess we finally broke the streak, huh Nalaney?" He pauses for a moment before laughing again. "Oh my gods! It's so obvious in hindsight!"

Bank looks back at him as he wipes off his sword. "What is, Nalaff?"

"We were pranked! All that shit down in the camp about how this brand-new dungeon was an Initiate-eater and all that shit! They were fucking pranking us, man! Obviously a month-old dungeon ain't gonna be that tough! Though I gotta say, this was still even easier than I'd expect for that."

Slinz rubs her chin. "It honestly is pretty odd. We walk in, set off a few dart traps, and the flying monster-birds just dive right in front of all of the darts for us. Then we get to the next room and that blobby thing in the center sets off its own trap and kills itself? Actually, I could maybe see why they're not telling anyone about that. If everyone knew how easy the dungeon was, there'd be parties lining up all the way down the mountain."

Nalaff nods and continues. "And the skeletons in the maze were all turned around and watching the wrong fuckin' way! Then this here freaky rabbit thing taking a jump at us and tripping so bad it almost cuts it own throat? This is...man, I don't know. Is it possible, y'think, for a dungeon to have like...brain damage?"

He's quickly shushed by his sister. "Don't insult the freakin' dungeon, numbnuts! It's probably just giving us an easy mode because it's taking pity on us or something!"

Bank walks into the cavern at the far side of the chamber and glances at the infamous moving platform beyond it. "So...does anyone want to see if they were bullshitting about the second floor, too?"

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FIFTEEN MINUTES LATER

"What the hells!?" The slime boss shouts in surprise as her right arm is blown off by her own fireball attack. It's the third time so far this fight where one of her attacks has backfired on her, the first knocking her wand from her grasp, while a lightning attack somehow gravitated towards the potion bottles on her own vest and destroyed most of them. "What did you lot do to me!?"

The Guard shouts in some surprise of his own as he swings at the slime. "How did you do that, Slinz?"

"I didn't do that! But I am ready now, step back!" The drider aims her staff at the boss, firing off a Light Beam, a laser-like attack that does circular damage with around a two-inch radius. That is, most of the time. To the drider's shock, a four-foot-wide blast of light emerges from her staff, instantly disintegrating the slime and leaving a scorched circle on the cavern wall behind where she was standing. "I...what?"

The group has no answers, standing around her with similarly dropped jaws. Nalaff looks at his own staff with a bit of newly-found caution. "...Okay, the dungeon doing weird things to its own monsters is one thing. But how could the dungeon have powered up one of us?"

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

Nalaney's eyes light up with a sudden jolt of recognition. "Wait! That was a Double Crit! Slinz just got a Double Crit!"

The drider doesn't seem to be any less confused by the information. "A what, now?"

The woman rolls her eyes. "C'mon, you're a Mage, you know about crits, right? That about one in a hundred times, a spell might come out extra powerful, cause of random fluctuations in the local mana or whatever it is they say does it?"

"Yeah, duh. I don't think I've ever gotten one of those, though..."

"Well, I've heard that there's Double Crits too. One in ten thousand chance."

Slinz's eyes go wide. "I got a one in ten thousand chance? And friggin' one-shot a dungeon boss? Holy shit!" The drider whoops and gives each of her companions a high-five in turn, while carefully holding on to her outfit with the other hand. Once they finish they move on to the floor safe room and its treasure chest, and find themselves presented with a choice.

The leader Bank is the one to ask the question out loud. "So...do we want to try out that third floor?" Most of the party's enthusiasm melts away at that point, however.

Nalaff shakes his head. "Word is no one's even seen the third floor yet. The Association might've been pranking us on the difficulty, but they wouldn't fuck around with info like that. We've already gotten way further today than we should've hoped for, we should probably stop here. Hells, we run the first two floors a few times and we'll probably be qualified for Advanced by the end of the week. Especially if the Association is still claiming this is supposed to be hard."

Bank nods in agreement. "Yeah, sounds good. Let's head out, take a break, divvy up the loot we got on this run, and try a second run this afternoon, huh?"

The rest of the group nods along. "Agreed."

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SIX HOURS LATER

Nalaney gasps as she grabs at the wounds on her left arm, blood drenching her outfit. "Dammit, Nalaff, get over here already!" As Bank stabs the corpse of the rabbit boss once more for good measure, her brother rushes over.

"Sorry, sorry, it's just...do you think Slinz is alright?" He gestures at the drider behind him as he begins to summon his healing energies for the badly-sliced arm.

"Whhhhhhhhyyyyyy aaaaaaarrrrreeeee yyyoooooouuuuu alllllll soooooo fassssssstttt nooooooww..." Nalaney sighs as the Mage very slowly tilts her head.

"It's a damn weapon effect, it will wear off eventually. You're the Mage, why am I the one explaining - ow!"

"Sorry, it's just - you gotta keep the cloth out of the wound before it heals, remember? Ugh, that run was so much worse."

Bank nods as he moves to check on the treasure chest. "Yeah, the whole floor was. Stuff was actually fighting like you'd expect now, and that boss seemed a lot faster this time, right? If the dungeon really was going Easy Mode, it seems to have taken off that handicap. ...Though we did still clear the floor, which is better than usual, anyhow."

"-ooorrrr vooooiiiicccesss sooooouunndd alllllll fuuunn - ah! Fuck!" Slinz nearly stumbles as the slow enchantment from her injuries wears off, though at least the boss was unable to draw blood from her thick skin. "Dammit! Okay, that was kind of funny after the fight was over, but that coulda been really damn lethal. After that thing hit me I could barely even see it move anymore, let alone hit it. Ugh. So what did we get, Bank?"

The Guard narrows his eyes as he holds up another quartet of necklaces. "More luck charms, one for each of us. Really one-note, this one. Can we even use multiple?"

Slinz nods. "As long as the accessories are compatible, yeah. Like, if you tried wearing a necklace that improved your muscles and one that improved your mind, the mana flows would entangle and send the energy to the wrong organs, which can get you sick. Wearing multiple of the same kind is fine, though I've heard that two items don't work as well as a single one that's rated as twice as good."

"Better than nothing. ...Well, I hate to say it, but maybe we should write off the second floor on this run. Either the dungeon toughened up or we're still tired from this morning or something. Want to go do some shopping, then try again tomorrow morning and see how it goes?" As he passes out the necklaces, the group nods in agreement.

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THE NEXT MORNING

"AHHHHH! DIE! DIE! DIE!" Bank swings relentlessly at the monstrous rabbit, blood splattering against his brand new shield. He's hardly the only one covered in blood, as all four members of the team are sporting a number of claw marks across their bodies, and both Slinz and Nalaff are nearly paralyzed by slow effects. Fortunately, with a lucky shot from Nalaney's recently-repaired crossbow, the boss was temporarily pinned down allowing the Guard to finish it off for a third time. Still, despite their victory, no one finds anything to laugh about on this run. "I...how...how did this floor get so much harder?"

Checking that Slinz and her brother are in no immediate danger, Nalaney falls to the ground and attempts to catch her breath. "I don't know. I don't know. It doesn't make sense! We've all got better gear now! We all got better armor, Slinz hasn't popped out a tit the entire morning, your sword is like twice as good at the old one! Yet everything's like three times tougher to kill!"

Nalaff finally emerges from his slowdown, and gets to healing the rest of the party. "There's gotta be a trick to this dungeon, or something. You saw how everyone looked at us last night when we said they were pranking us, right? I'm getting the feeling it really wasn't like that when everyone else ran the place. The dungeon is pretty new, still...did we somehow trigger something to swing things one way or the other?"

Bank sighs. "Hells if I know. ...Oh, look, more rabbit's feet charms. Gods, if this is how it's getting with us being twice as lucky, imagine how bad it'd be if we didn't have the stuff we looted and bought yesterday? Do we wanna try one more run this afternoon, see if, uh...the third charm's the charm?"

The group collectively winces at their most recent injuries, but still riding rather high on the successes of the previous day, they agree for one more round.

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EIGHT HOURS LATER

"...Fuck. This. Shit." Bank stares morosely at the boss arena before them, bloodied by the wounds he'd taken even getting this far. His brand-new shield was sliced in half due to the giant blade trap in the first hallway, and most of his hair was missing thanks to an acid slime that had gotten into his helmet - though honestly, he was supremely lucky it hadn't gone for his eyes or mouth. Nalaney's crossbow was broken from all the bolts she'd fired at ambushing skeletons, and Nalaff was exhausted from having to heal the two broken legs Slinz had received when the water slime managed to pull her into the path of a falling rock trap. And those were only the worst of the troubles they'd faced so far - almost every minor monster they'd fought on the floor had extracted at least one minor wound or bit of equipment damage before falling.

Slinz agrees. "...Yeah. I gotta be honest, guys. If we go in there this time I don't think all of us are coming back out."

The twins nod along, and Nalaff grumbles. "Ugh. We really need to check in with the Field Agent and figure out what the hells is going on here. Cause it sure as fuck ain't normal."

Nalaney meanwhile grabs for the coins in the consolation prize box, triggering the closure of the door to the boss arena. "Least the dungeon's nice enough to give us something for the trouble. On the bright side, maybe these last few runs will be enough to qualify Nalaff and I for Advanced? Maybe by time we come back here, shit will make more sense."

Bank grunts, shaking his head. "Somehow I doubt it. But yeah, let's get the fuck out of here."

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As Xenia and Guy watch the party leave for the fourth time, the dungeon master poses a question. "So...do you think the Challengers are ever gonna figure out the whole luck thing?"

"Well, I'm sure eventually. Luck is a rather abstract, rarely-modified trait, however. An individual can improve their strength and agility through training, and their intelligence and wisdom through study and experience. But by default all mortals are born with the same luck, and generally only have it modified through the influence of powerful entities such as the gods. A curse may diminish luck, a blessing may increase it. As dungeons are created by the gods, you have the ability to create luck-increasing enchanted objects, but as I understand it that's actually a rather rare ability. It's quite difficult for a mortal enchanter to reproduce even a relatively minor effect through similar means, which I'm sure means most of the time they would rather focus on something with more concrete benefits."

Xenia considers the implications of that for a moment. "So it's not something they've got a lot of experience with modifying and playing around with, huh? But those guys had to have had the worst luck in the world for their first run to go like it did, right? So, y'know...how?"

The guide considers the options. "Well, we have no way of detecting for certain. But my guess would be is that the group was cursed - either collectively, or one of them badly enough to impact the entire party."

"Huh, sucks to be them, then. Wonder if they'll come back for a fifth run sometime?"

"If they do, we can only hope that they do so with their entire collection of good-luck charms equipped, I'd say. Otherwise, who knows how unstoppable they could be inside here after they improve their skills?"

Xenia sucks in a breath. "Yeah, let's hope..."