The concept of the adventuring party was coined specifically for the exploration of Dungeons. Even though those dangerous structures attract the brave and foolhardy alike, that is not to say that they are one and the same. The prospect of wealth and fame brings those who know how to get things done.

  Anyone entering a dungeon will bring forth its wrath, with more people intruding within its confines bringing about a more forceful response. That is why parties are recommended to be between three and five members in size. More than that would trigger an overwhelming assault while fewer would leave too much of a burden on each member.

  Raw strength is not all that an adventuring party must worry about, however. The monsters within a dungeon are capable of basic tactics such as ambush and flanking, and a party composition tailored to fighting against such guerilla threats must be carefully considered.

  That’s not to mention the traps that occasionally appear in Dungeons as well. Pitfalls, poison gas, and in some cases, giant falling boulders speak of powerful engineers, yet there is never any creature within a dungeon intelligent enough to build it themselves.

  Never in the many centuries that dungeons have been delved has the true mastermind behind Dungeon traps ever shown themselves, so there is thankfully little reason to dwell on that idea. But it is oddities like these that inspired the creation of the standards which everyone follows. Keep safe, and like the minds who came up with these standards, stay sharp.

  -Excerpt from “Dungeoneering: A Primer” by Almidus Goldring, dungeon scholar and one-time adventurer

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  “This dungeon raid’s going to be a cinch! Besides, we want to get everyones’ attention!” exclaimed an excited voice at the back of the cave.

  Clang

  “Hey, what was that for?!” said the same voice even more loudly.

  “Be quiet! Getting everything’s attention is their job, not ours! We’re just here to scout.” This voice was higher pitched, yet its words were whispered in a low and harsh growl.

  “You mean you’re here to scout,” pouted the first voice, brought down to an equally soft whisper.

  Click didn’t understand what those words meant, on account of not even knowing what words were, but the spider had definitely never heard anything like them before. There wasn’t a discernable pattern to the sounds, like a series of barks, chirps, or clicks that held simple meaning. The series of differing vowels and multitude of consonants held a terrible complexity to them that Click didn’t even know where to begin parsing them. The only thing the spider was able to understand was that it gave them a very bad feeling.

  And that wasn’t all. The intruders triggered the Dungeon Raid message the monsters of the cavern were all too familiar with, but the feeling of urgency that came with the notification mixed with the euphoric feeling from completing the previous raid to create an incredibly disorienting mix.

  Oh yeah, and to top it all off, there was also one other annoying message.

  [Level requirement achieved for evolution]

  [Choices available: Dungeon Spider Army Commander, Dungeon Spider Mimicry Commander, Alpha Dungeon Spider Commander]

  [Please select a choice-]

  The [Spider Commander] didn’t want to make a choice! At least not before fully assessing the situation, but the hypocrite of a System wasn’t letting Click have a choice themself.

  Fine! Show me the choices! The spider internally screamed as they tried to make sense of the menus that appeared before them.

  [Listing result (1/3): Advanced Class Overview]

  Dungeon Spider Army Commander

Type	Prerequisite
Species	Dungeon Spider Commander
Intelligence	> 30
Skill: Command Subordinates	> 20

Attribute	Base	Per Level
Health Points	15	3
Body	8	2
Intellect	15	5
Soul	8	4

Skill Name	Description
Venom Gland	Secrete a toxic substance from your mandibles that can harm lesser creatures.
Silk Spinning	Secrete a sticky string that can ensnare weaker creatures.
Command Subordinates	Command subordinate members of your organization. They will follow your will as if it were an instinct.
Observation	Obtain System information about a target.
One Army, One Being	Only one Skill check is used in System interactions with a designated group.

  The numbers looked fine to Click, in that they were bigger than their current evolution. More health to not die from an attack, more body to more quickly move into position and run away. Intellect was always nice to help make smarter decisions, and soul? Well, bigger numbers were always better when they were your own.

  But the new Skill, [One Army, One Being], had Click pause while they tried to make sense of it. The first that popped up in the spider’s mind when they read the words “System interactions” were outsider attacks based on Skills, such as venom. Would poisoning one of the spiders of a group poison them all?

  Click stumbled while trying to think about it more, and caught their balance before they hit their head against a massive pebble. The adrenaline that flowed through them at the near injury brought back enough focus to come to an epiphany. Click’s own Skills would only need to be cast once to affect an entire group!

  [Command Subordinates] could control a few dozen of Click’s brethren, but with groups of four or five spiders each, the Skill would be able to affect that many times of spiders with a single cast! So much of its limited fuel could be saved, and Click would be able to enforce a more fine-tuned control over their troops.

  A foreign pressure exerted itself over Click, and urged them to take this Class. It felt like an instinct, but it didn’t come from the spider’s mind or body. It felt a lot like the Dungeon Raid call.

  Still, the [Spider commander] was curious about the other choices, and urged the System to display the next choice.

  Before the menu could pop up, a series of howls erupted from the back of the cave, followed by quickening footsteps.

  “Yarric, please do not provoke the hounds. We still need to scout.” This voice was also higher pitched and utterly serene, but sounded slightly different. It likely belonged to another person.

  “What are you talking about, I’m still right behind you!” said the deeper voice.

  “We don’t have to be looking directly at you to know you’re going to throw that rock in your hand at them,” the first higher-pitched voice retorted. “You’re only supposed to fight if they come to us, not the other way around. Besides, we’ve still got the rest of the floor to scout. ”

  A small thud echoed out from the trio, the sound of a stone falling to the ground.

  “Damn rogues, and this sneaking crap,” the deeper voice mumbled.

  The three continued ever closer to Click and the spider tribe.

  [Listing result (2/3): Advanced Class Overview]

  Alpha Dungeon Spider Commander

Type	Prerequisite
Species	Dungeon Spider Commander
Intelligence	> 50
Skill: Command Subordinates	> 20

Attribute	Base	Per Level
Health Points	25	5
Body	10	4
Intellect	15	5
Soul	8	4

Skill Name	Description
Venom Gland	Secrete a toxic substance from your mandibles that can harm lesser creatures.
Silk Spinning	Secrete a sticky string that can ensnare weaker creatures.
Command Subordinates	Command subordinate members of your organization. They will follow your will as if it were an instinct.
Observation	Obtain System information about a target.
Pack Tactics	Instinctively understand the desires of the rest of the pack and share complex information with them.

  The numbers were even bigger this time! And that Skill, Pack Tactics. Ever since Click saw the [Alpha Dungeon Hound] using it, the spider wanted it for themselves. And here was a perfect opportunity to finally obtain it. But, one little word in the series of menus left a particularly sour taste in the [Spider Commander]’s mouth.

  Alpha. The sounds that made up the word were all lost to the relatively mute spider, but the meaning remained. The top, the best, the peak. It was also the title that the [Alpha Hunter] went by. That idiot.

  Click shivered in rage slightly, and the sudden emotion pulled them out of their haze enough to better consider the choice. Or rather, it helped the spider remember why they hated the moniker of [Alpha]. Associations to arrogance and idiocy made the [Spider Commander] call for the next option.

  “Woah, what’s that over there? Are those spider webs? They’re taking up at least fifty square feet of the wall!”

  “Don’t make stuff up, there’s no way there’ll be that much webbing here. This is supposed to be a low-leveled dungeon! It’s probably- …woah.”

  “We ought to report this to the raid leader.”

  “Or maybe we should take it down so it won’t get in their way? Come on, that thing is huge! Let’s burn it to the ground!”

  “Only you would charge into a fight against something you don’t know anything about. How about we save the ass-whooping until after we take a closer look, hmm?”

  [Listing result (3/3): Advanced Class Overview]

  Dungeon Spider Mimicry Commander

Type	Prerequisite
Species	Dungeon Spider Commander
Intelligence	> 25
Skill: Command Subordinates	> 20

Attribute	Base	Per Level
Health Points	15	3
Body	7	2
Intellect	12	5
Soul	8	3

Skill Name	Description
Venom Gland	Secrete a toxic substance from your mandibles that can harm lesser creatures.
Silk Spinning	Secrete a sticky string that can ensnare weaker creatures.
Command Subordinates	Command subordinate members of your organization. They will follow your will as if it were an instinct.
Observation	Obtain System information about a target.
Camouflage	Change color to match with the surroundings.

  The numbers weren’t as good, overall, but [Camouflage] looked interesting. It would be a good way to hide from enemies, and better command troops.

  The footsteps were getting closer, and a bright, orange light came from their position. The source of the glow came into Click’s view first as a flame stuck out from behind a rock. A stick appeared below it, that was held in the left hand of the intruder in the front. All three of them looked over to the web, and even with how foreign their species was, Click could instinctively identify the horror on their faces as they reached for their weapons.

  Panic filled the [Spider Commander]’s heart as they realized they didn’t have any time left to choose. There was a battle coming, and they would need power. Click gave into the foreign instinct and selected.

  [Evolution choice selected: Dungeon Spider Army Commander]

  [Beginning Evolution…]

  Click found it surprising that the transformation didn’t take very long, and even more surprising that they ended up mostly the same, albeit the pattern on their thorax had gained an extra color, a swirl of red to accompany the jagged lines of yellow. But that wasn’t what surprised Click the most. It was the fact that none of the intruders even noticed the spider’s change, or even the fact that they were right in front of the group.

  The diminutive leader scurried back to the safety of the white pillars on flailing legs, not even bothering to properly articulate their Skill’s instructions as they headed up the webbing.

  [Command Subordinates] [Command Subordinates] [Command Subordinates]! To me!

  The spider mentally screamed out their Skill several more times until all two hundred something spiders were gathered within their web, gazing down at the three challengers.

  “Uh, are they supposed to do that? Dammit, this was supposed to be a scouting mission, not a fight!” exclaimed one of the intruders in the back. She was swaddled in a padded chest piece and pants made of something that looked like the hairless skin of the predators, but her hands were wrapped in reflective gray gauntlets. One of which was idly scratching at her upper lip.

  “Unlike you, I’m thanking the gods for giving me a fight! It was getting boring just following you two.” The person next to her followed her gaze and almost jumped back when he saw the almost one thousand eyes staring back at him. His armor matched the color and sheen of the woman’s gloves, but was patterned in a scale-like formation compared to her interlocking plates.

  “I would expect dungeon spiders to try to run in and kill us, but this behavior seems… strange. I do wonder what they’re thinking,” replied the woman holding the torch. Everything she wore, even the cowl that concealed her face, was made of a similar hairless skin-like material but dyed black that seemed to blend in with the shadows. Which was too bad, as her torch banished any such hiding places nearby. “But they’re watching… waiting for us to make a move.”

  Click kept all eight of their eyes on the trio, not daring to look away. They were definitely talking about something, maybe about whether to attack? But with the dizziness Click and the rest of the tribe felt, attacking now would be inopportune.

  “Come on, you can’t seriously be thinking that [Dungeon Spiders] think?” asked the scale-armor clad man. “Maybe it’s just Raid Sickness that has them acting up? We should probably torch this whole thing before they jump at us.”

  The woman with the gauntlets seemed to snap out of whatever trance she was in and replied. “Then what’s the deal with their web?! That thing has to have been made with teamwork.”

  “Well, whatever the answer to that conundrum is, they’re not trying to pick a fight, and they’d be a pain if they did. So the best course of action would be to keep moving.”

  The man pouted. “Yeah, but-”

  “Our job is to just scout the first floor and yours is to guard us. We would be of little use in fighting a swarm, and we have responsibilities beyond that. Now come along, we still have a job to do.”

  The shadow-clad leader walked away and the gauntleted woman followed behind. The scale-mail armored man looked between the rest of his team and the mega web, and let out a sigh before following in the others’ wake.

  Click felt a wave of relief wash over them. But that didn’t last long when their command Skill began to slip. Using it to control every available spider took too much System energy, and now that it and the dizziness were beginning to wane, the [Spider Commander] wouldn’t be able to keep their tribe under control for much longer.

  If only there was a way to make using this easier… wait. I’m an idiot, and I’m not even an [Alpha]!

  Stress and dizziness made Click completely forget about their evolution, and the brand new Skill they had acquired.

  Time to put it to use. [One Army, One Being]!

  A group of four spiders fell under its effect. They didn’t come to attention or show any outward sign of falling under the effects of the Skill, but Click knew they had become a sort of singular target.

  [Skill level up! One Army, One Being (2)]

  [One Army, One Being] [One Army, One Being] [One Army, One Being]...

  [Skill level up! One Army, One Being (3)]

  A group of five fell under its effects this time.

  [Skill level up! One Army, One Being (4)]

  Then a group of six.

  [Skill level up! One Army, One Being (5)]

  …

  Somehow, the Skill wasn’t tiring. Whatever System-ordained resource [One Army, One Being] utilized, it wasn’t as costly as [Command Subordinates]. And they didn’t even draw from the same pool, so when the [Spider Commander] took control of the entire tribe, it took almost a sixth of the energy as before.

  Maybe this was the right evolutionary choice after all?

  “Well, Yarric, it appears you will finally get your wish,” said the woman with the torch. She pointed forwards towards the [Alpha Dungeon Hound] who had begun to summon up its still dizzy pack that it directed towards the intruders.

  “Welp, we can’t have that,” replied the other lady, who pulled out a small, long implement that shined just like her gloves. She flipped it in the air just above her hand, caught it on the shiny side, and threw it with a casual flick. The long instrument sailed through the air and embedded itself into the [Alpha Dungeon Hound]. The predator didn’t even let out a shriek, as the blade pierced its throat. It only collapsed, and the rest of its pack chose to flee.

  “Oh come on, that was my kill!” exclaimed the armored man. “You owe me an actual fight with something now!”

  The predator killer continued forward. “Calm down, you’ve wasted enough time that the monsters will probably get over their Raid Sickness before we finish.”

  Click paled as he watched the three casually move on. If they were able to instantly spot a powerful leader like that, maybe the spider should’ve become a Mimicry Commander?