The silence that followed the explosion was heavier than the blast itself. It was a vacuum, a ringing void where the roar of the furnace had been just seconds before. The air shimmered with residual heat, distorting the room like a mirage. The smell was atrocious—ozone, sulphur, and the sickeningly sweet scent of cooked meat.

  "JOSH!"

  Bhel’s voice cracked, a sound of raw panic that cut through the ringing in Brett’s ears. The dwarf was already moving, scrambling over the cooling slag, ignoring the heat radiating from the floorstones.

  Brett pushed himself up from the floor. His mana was gone, his head was spinning, but his eyes locked onto the centre of the crater that had been the forge. Shakily, his head turned to focus on where Bhel had just run to. Finally, he saw his best friend, lying there very still.

  Josh was a heap of smoking metal and charred cloth. He was face down, his body curled up at the side of the healer. Carcan was at his side, her face a mask of soot and tears, dragging her broken ankle along the floor as she moved to heal Josh.

  "He’s not moving!" Carcan screamed, grabbing her staff. She ignored her own injury as best she could. A flash of white light erupted from her hands and staff. It washed over Josh’s prone form. For a second, the angry red blisters on his exposed neck seemed to settle. But then, the light flickered and died.

  "His health..." she stammered, her interface open. She could see the party frames. Josh’s bar was a sliver of red, pulsating critically. It jumped up by 5% as her spell hit, then immediately ticked back down. 4%... 3%...

  "He’s still cooking inside his armour!" Bhel roared, reaching them. He grabbed Josh’s pauldron to roll him over, but hissed and snatched his hand back. The metal was white-hot. "I can't touch him!"

  "Heal him again!" Brett shouted, stumbling forward.

  "I am!" Carcan sobbed, casting Heal after Heal. "The mana is going in, but the damage... the damage is constant! It’s outpacing my regeneration!"

  Brett dropped to his knees beside the tank. The heat coming off Josh was intense enough to singe his eyebrows. He looked closely at the backplate. The Master’s death hadn't just been an explosion of shrapnel; the heat had liquefied the metal. A thick, glowing sludge of molten iron and magical alloys was plastered across Josh's own armour and eating through to the skin.

  It wasn't just a wound. It was a continuous thermal lance boring into his spine.

  "The slag!" Brett realised, horror dawning on him. "It’s still burning him! The metal is still active! We have to get it off!"

  "We need water!" Bhel looked around frantically. "We need to cool it!"

  "No!" Brett grabbed the dwarf’s arm. "Steam expands. It’ll boil the flesh right off his bones. We have to remove it physically."

  Brett didn't hesitate. He didn't look for a tool. He didn't check his own health bar. He was a Fire Elementalist; he was built for manipulating heat, though usually from a distance. Now, he had to touch the source.

  He reached out with his bare hands and grabbed the edge of the molten sludge pooling in the divot of Josh’s lower back.

  SSSZZZT.

  The sound of his own skin blistering was instant. Brett screamed, a high, ragged sound, but he didn't let go. He dug his fingers into the semi-liquid metal, feeling it sear through his calluses, through the dermis, down to the muscle.

  "Get it off him!" Brett roared through the pain, hauling a handful of the glowing slag away and flinging it aside.

  Bhel saw what the mage was doing. The dwarf growled, wrapping his hands in his heavy cloak, and grabbed the warped edges of Josh’s backplate.

  "On three!" Bhel bellowed. "One! Two! THREE!"

  Bhel pulled up with dwarven strength, ripping the leather straps that had fused to the skin. Brett scooped violently, using his forearms to sweep the bulk of the burning material away from the exposed flesh.

  The metal came away with a sickening, wet tearing sound.

  Josh convulsed. A guttural groan escaped his clenched teeth, and his body arched off the floor.

  "Carcan! NOW!" Brett screamed, falling back. He looked at his hands. They were ruined: red, raw, and covered in blisters the size of coins. He couldn't feel his fingertips.

  Carcan poured everything she had left into a healing spell. A column of golden light smashed into Josh, sealing the catastrophic wounds on his back. The health bar stopped ticking down. It hovered at 5%, then slowly, agonisingly, ticked up to 6%.

  After a minute, her body sagged. "Stabilised," Carcan whispered, slumping forward until her forehead rested on the cool stone. "He’s stabilised."

  For a long moment, the only sound in the room was the heavy, wet breathing of four traumatised adventurers. The adrenaline crash hit them all at once. Carcan didn't stop, though. Her hands glowed with a softer, persistent green light now, knitting the raw flesh on Josh's back, soothing the angry red burns that framed the area where the metal had been ripped away.

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  Josh lay motionless for a long time, his breathing ragged and shallow. Every few seconds, an involuntary tremor would rack his massive frame, a lingering echo of the nerve damage he had sustained.

  "Just breathe, big guy," Brett whispered, cradling his own ruined hands against his chest. "You earn a minute to nap."

  Perberos approached Carcan, placing his hand on her shoulder. "You need to stop healing him; he’s stable for now, and will heal more. You need to heal your leg, along with Brett and Bhel’s hands."

  Carcan turned her head, anger flashing in her eyes for a moment before she realised the rogue was right. Josh’s health had stopped dipping now, and there was no way she could walk out of there with her broken ankle. At that moment, like a dam breaking, pain flooded her body, and she quickly started to heal herself.

  Minutes dragged by. The heat in the room began to dissipate, escaping through the shattered ceiling of the furnace. The angry red glow of the lava gutters dimmed to a dull, cooling grey.

  Then, a sound broke the silence. A low, guttural groan.

  Josh shifted. His boots scraped against the stone. He tried to push himself up, his arms trembling violently under his own weight. Bhel moved to help him, but Josh shook his head slightly, gritting his teeth. He needed to do this.

  With a noise that was half-growl, half-whimper, Josh rolled onto his side. He squeezed his eyes shut as the movement pulled at the fresh, tender skin on his back, but he forced himself up into a sitting position. He looked like a wreck: soot-stained, bare-chested where his armour had been torn off and his clothes melted, his face a mask of exhaustion.

  He blinked, his eyes clearing as he looked at his friends. He spat a mouthful of blood onto the floor and tried to roll his shoulders. He winced, expecting the sharp, tearing pain of raw burns to incapacitate him. It hurt—it hurt a lot—but it was a dull, throbbing ache rather than the sharp agony of dying.

  "I’m alive," Josh rasped. His voice sounded like gravel grinding in a mixer. No one was sure if it was a question or a statement.

  "Barely," Carcan said, wiping a mixture of soot and tears from her face. She reached out and checked his pulse, her fingers lingering on his wrist. "Your heart rate is still through the roof. Do not move too fast."

  "We're alive," Bhel corrected, sitting back on his haunches and letting out a long, shuddering breath. "Though I don't know how."

  They sat there for a while longer, the adrenaline slowly draining away to leave behind a bone-deep weariness. They drank water in silence, passing a skin around. They bandaged Brett's hands with strips of clean cloth from Carcan's pack. They checked their gear, most of which was scorched or dented.

  Eventually, the shaking in Josh's limbs subsided. He flexed his hands, testing the grip strength. He rotated his neck; stiff, painful, but functional.

  "Okay," Josh grunted, placing a hand on his knee and pushing himself to his feet. He swayed for a second, Bhel’s hand hovering ready to catch him, but he found his balance. He stood tall, eyeing the ruined remains of his heavy plate on the ground, before scooping it up and storing it, hoping that maybe it could be repaired.

  "I can move," Josh said, nodding to the others. "I'm good to go."

  Bhel stood up slowly, his joints popping. He looked at the centre of the room where the boss loot lay, and then further back, where the air was beginning to ripple and tear. With a sound like a heavy iron gate being slammed shut, the Dungeon Chest materialised. It was a massive, iron-bound trunk, but as Bhel’s eyes swept over it, his shoulders slumped further. In their first run, the chest had been a masterpiece. This one was plain, utilitarian iron, its surface pitted and dull. It was the mark of a "Repeated Descent", the dungeon’s way of acknowledging they had already claimed its greatest treasures.

  "Check the drops," Josh groaned as he took a step, his eyes cracked open just a sliver as he focused on walking. "Don't... don't let the items dissipate. I get the impression we’ll need to buy me some new gear."

  Bhel grunted and limped toward the centre of the crater. He picked up the first item: a heavy, crystalline gear that pulsed with a rhythmic, mechanical heartbeat.

  "‘Core of the Overseer,’" Bhel read aloud, his voice flat. "If memory serves it’s a Tier 4 crafting component. High demand for Siege-Engineers, should fetch us a decent sum." He tossed it into his satchel with a dismissive clatter.

  The second item was a pair of heavy leather gloves reinforced with brass knuckles. Bhel turned them over in his hands. They were designed for a Brawler or a Fire-Mage hybrid, offering a decent boost to fire resistance and a chance to proc a small explosion on a successful melee strike. In any other circumstances, they would have been a cause for celebration, a solid upgrade worth a chunk of gold. Here, in the wake of nearly losing Josh, they felt like a consolation prize.

  Finally, he picked up a small, obsidian-handled dagger. Its blade was translucent, flickering with a faint purple light. Perberos, who had been standing in the shadows of the pillars, stepped forward. He didn't speak, but his eyes were fixed on the weapon. Bhel handed it over without a word, the elf admiring the blade.

  Inside the chest, they did not find the same level of wealth as last time. The blacksmiths of the town would not be singing their praises today, nor would Josh be getting his armour repaired for free. There was a meagre pile of iron and cobalt in the chest, along with a pile of coins and gems. It wasn’t a poor reward, in truth it would keep them supplied for several weeks. But, it wasn’t the windfall they’d wanted.

  "Let's get out of this oven," Bhel muttered, shouldering the pack. "I need a pint of ale and a week of sleep."

  They turned away from the ruin of the Smelter, limping towards the exit portal, leaving the silent, broken factory behind them.

  Carcan, who had been silent, clutching her staff so hard her knuckles were white, suddenly gasped. She wasn't looking at the exit; she was looking at the air in front of her face. A soft, chime-like sound echoed through the chamber, a sound that usually brought jubilation, but here felt almost jarring against the silence.

  "Everyone," she said, her voice trembling. "Check your messages."

  Bhel tapped the empty air, and his system interface flickered into existence. A massive, shimmering banner was draped across his field of vision, pulsing with a triumphant light that felt almost insulting given their current misery.

  [You have levelled up, reaching Level 19!]

  "Nineteen," Bhel muttered. He felt the sudden surge of the system-rebound, the rush of new vitality, the sharpening of his peripheral vision, and the warmth of new attribute points settling into his soul-pool. Around the room, the others were experiencing the same thing. Brett’s mana pool suddenly surged, the blue bar filling that bit quicker. Perberos’s movements became even more fluid, his silhouette blurring slightly.

  "One step closer," Josh breathed, feeling the strength return to his battered limbs as the level-up wash cleared the worst of his fatigue. He looked at his own level-up notification and let out a dry, rasping laugh that turned into a cough. "Nineteen... that’s... that’s good. It means I have more health now. I might be able to tank the next one of those explosions without giving you all a heart attack!"

  "There shouldn't be a 'next one'!" Carcan snapped, her eyes flashing with anger. "We almost lost you, Josh. For what? Some cobalt and a pair of gloves? No. You’d best not do anything stupid like that in the future."

  The party walked a few steps towards the exit before Brett sniggered. "We all know there’s no chance of him not doing anything stupid in the future. That’s just who he is," he said, looking at his friend and smiling. "He’ll do whatever he needs to to keep us safe. No matter how stupid it is."

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