As I stood in front of the cavernous entrance of the Steelsilk Grotto, memories of my youth washed by me — memories of a better time, when my only enemies were mindless monsters.

Despite the overwhelming sense of nostalgia, Steelsilk Grotto had never been one of my party’s delving targets — it was spoken of in hushed tones, and only the most experienced adventurers ever tried their luck with it. It was a good thing it was a stable dungeon — the monsters stuck to their caverns, uninterested in expanding their territory and attacking mortal settlements — because if the Steelsilk Grotto were to require regular subjugation like most dungeons, it would likely turn into the greatest adventurer tomb of all time.

But, thankfully for us, our party consisted of two bona fide Heroes, as well as two experienced, even if retired, adventurers.

Hopefully, the fact that I would only be using my two weakest Aspects, and that Leon would be our archer despite having never held a bow before today, would not impede us too much. After all, we couldn’t make it too easy for the Heroes — and I was actually excited to be back into a combat mage role.

My first time around had been… pretty awkward, so to speak. Mind and Soul do not a good combat mage make. Fate wasn’t exactly useful in a straight fight, either, but Dimension had quite a bit of potential, and by the time we arrived at the dungeon I had gotten the hang of using it for basic gravity manipulation.

“This entrance does not inspire me with confidence,” Shiro said warily, as he glanced at the ‘Warning: Extremely Hazardous Dungeon’ and ‘Do Not Enter: Certain Death Ahead’ signs plastered around the entrance.

“No need to worry,” I said, waving away his concerns, “We picked a perfectly appropriate dungeon for you two to train. Plus, you have Leon and me here so it shouldn’t go too badly,” I explained.

“Yeah, about that…” Sarah said, giving Leon a look-over as he strung his bow — which was taking longer than expected on account of him never having had to do it before.

“Okay, that’s done,” Leon declared as he rose from his squat, bowstring finally adequately taut. He handed over his backpack to our porter, a squat little wight who looked ready to tip over from all the luggage. “I’m ready. Does anyone have any questions before we get going?”

Shiro shook his head while Sarah just shrugged. “Nah, I’m guessing all there is to it is pretty much just ‘Go in, kill things, don’t die,’” she said.

“More or less. Alright, let us begin,” I announced, as we made our way through the maw of the grotto.

It took less than two minutes for us to meet our first ambush.

Leon and I both knew what to expect, but we’d kept our silence for the pair of Heroes’ benefit. Both of them had been properly wary, keeping their focus sharp and looking out for any potential traps or monsters hiding ahead, but unfortunately for them, they failed at one of the most basic adventuring rules in the book.

Always look up.

With a flash of razor-sharp wires, the meter-long Adolescent Steelsilk Spider dropped down right on top of Shiro, who had been taking point, and in the split second it had taken him to react to the sudden attack, the Spider had already sunk its mandibles into his right forearm.

Despite his early focus, the suddenness of the ambush broke his concentration, and he flailed his arm wildly, trying to get the mutated Spider to unlatch. As he took a step back, his left shoulder ran into the Spider’s web, which sliced cleanly into his unprotected flesh.

Either because of a patch of good thinking, or more likely, because of simple panic, Shiro froze, which kept him from getting carved up by the web that had descended around him.

The Spider did not waste any time, however, and began shooting strands of steel silk through the boy’s abdomen.

If he had been alone, the Spider would probably have won the bout and earned itself a good snack as a prize. Unfortunately for the Spider, however, Shiro had backup with him.

Sarah’s sword sliced cleanly through the Spider, causing it to panic and release its hold on its prey’s arm, and nearly falling down before shooting a strand of silk toward the ceiling in an attempt to retreat. The sword’s arc, however, continued to slice through the web surrounding Shiro, before finally returning to cut off the Spider’s escape path. It fell to the ground with a thud, landing on its back before flipping over on its legs, clicking its mandibles menacingly towards Sarah.

Suddenly freed from his razor-string prison, Shiro braced himself and stomped down on the Spider, causing it to explode in a shower of gore and metal, and leaving a small crack in the stone floor.

“Fuck, that hurts,” he wheezed out before sliding down to the floor in pain.

Sarah crouched next to the boy, looking over his injuries. His right arm had been mangled pretty hard, and his stomach was full of thin steel spikes that had gone all the way through. Sarah tried to pull on them gently, yet eliciting a hiss of pain from the boy.

“You should pull them from the other side, instead. They’re serrated, it’s gonna hurt like hell if you try to pull them from the entry wound,” Leon supplied helpfully.

She turned to look at us, eyes full of accusation. “Why didn’t you help at all? He could have died!”

Leon snorted. “You had it well in hand. If it got really dangerous, we’d have intervened.”

“Indeed,” I agreed. “Also, you needed to learn a very important lesson, and this was the best way to get it to stick.”

She looked skeptical. “And what lesson is that?”

“What is the name of this dungeon?” Leon asked.

“Steelsilk Grotto? What’s that got to do with anything?” Shiro inquired, confusion mixing in with the pain.

“Does the name not tell you anything?” the older man continued with the line of questions.

“Oh. Silk. Spiders,” Sarah concluded.

“And where do Spiders build their webs?” I added finally.

“Ceilings,” Shiro finished with a grimace.

They finally looked up and saw what Leon and I had spotted from the very beginning — the entire ceiling was covered by an elaborate web of steel.

“You did well keeping a lookout and even checking for traps — many novice adventurers lose their lives to that — but you came in completely unprepared, and you didn’t use all the information you had at your disposal.” Leon summarized. “If it had been just the two of you, and if Sarah’s reflexes hadn’t been as quick as they were, you would have died.”

“You were also lucky it was just the one. Steelsilk Spiders are usually not solitary — they’re swarmers.” I added, then turned to Sarah, who was still pulling the last wires from Shiro’s back. “Good job on freeing Shiro first instead of trying to finish off the Spider,” I congratulated her. “That was good thinking — it’s safer to have all your allies capable of acting instead of just trying to confirm a kill.”

“What now, then?” Sarah asked.

“What do you mean?” I asked, genuinely confused.

“Well, Shiro’s wounded pretty badly, so…”

Leon laughed. “Adventurers always get wounded, and besides, he should heal up pretty quickly.”

“What, you didn’t think we’d just stop after a single measly spider, did you?” I asked, quite amused, and clapped my hands. “Now, get moving, we have a lot of this dungeon to cover,” I spurred them on, “and since Leon’s the only one who needs sleep here, we’re not stopping until he says so.”

Leon’s eyes glinted mischievously. “And that’s not gonna be anytime soon.”

Now that they knew what to look out for, they were much better prepared for the next fights. Our next encounter was another solitary Steelsilk Spider, and Shiro was able to spot it before it had wised up to our presence.

“Can you shoot it from here?” Shiro whispered towards Leon as we snuck towards the Spider.

“I can certainly give it a try,” the old knight said. He nocked an arrow, raised his bow towards the ceiling, and after several breaths, released the arrow towards the Spider.

It flew wide, missing by almost two meters, and hit the web, causing a violent tremor that woke the Spider up.

At least, he had the grace to look embarrassed. “What did you expect? It’s my first time using a bow.”

Any further banter was cut short by the Spider dropping down in an attempt to get a strike at Sarah in, an attempt that was easily thwarted with the pair properly on guard.

A couple of sword strikes and punches later, the Spider was lying dead on the ground.

“Maybe this dungeon isn’t—” Shiro started, but was suddenly interrupted when Sarah rushed to put her hand over his mouth.

“Don’t fucking say that!” she whisper-shouted at the boy, and he grimaced, chagrined.

“Sorry,” he replied quietly.

Leon looked at me quizzically, and I simply shrugged. They had their own odd quirks and trying to make heads or tails of most of them was an exercise in futility. Leon rolled his eyes, shaking his head with a smile.

I motioned for the two heroes to continue forth, and we advanced deeper into the dungeon.

As we progressed through the tunnel, we kept encountering more solitary Spiders. Only one was able to get the drop on our group — it had been a less common Veiled Steelsilk Spider, a variant that could go invisible. Even so, the pair had little trouble dispatching them as they were, two against one.

That would change, and soon, but it was good that they were learning to fight together as a group and getting used to small unit tactics.

In all, it took about twenty encounters until the Spiders finally started appearing in groups. Here lay the danger of the Steelsilk Grotto — the monsters inside it were very good at fighting together, and unlike the majority of monsters, they seemed to use actual tactics instead of attacking mindlessly.

The first pair of Spiders was a wake-up call for Sarah and Shiro, and it marked the point in our delve where Leon and I couldn’t sit back and just watch anymore.

When fighting alone, Steelsilk Spiders were largely defenseless, relying on their pre-woven web to ensnare and wound their prey. In a group, they would fight to relieve the pressure off each other, taking turns to grab their enemies’ attention while the other wove fresh webs around their opponents. This resulted in an awkward battlefield full of traps, where one needed to watch their movements very carefully lest they accidentally decapitate themselves on a strategically placed wire.

For that reason, despite the Heroes having caught the Spiders off guard, in our first fight against a pair, Shiro nearly lost his arm when trying to finish off a seemingly wounded Spider.

The next few fights became increasingly difficult as the number of spiders grew. After finally getting some practice in, Leon began hitting his shots, which helped take the pressure off our front liners. I assumed a more supporting role, using Dimension to Slow the Spiders while Hasting our party, as well as buffing Leon with Fate to help his arrows strike true.

Oddly, the number of Spiders in a group seemed to cap out at five, which was a blessing for us because we were barely handling them as it was.

The Spiders seemed to largely shrug off the effects of the Slow, likely because of how suffused with magic they were, and despite Shiro and Sarah moving at double speed, the Spiders were simply fast — fast enough to pose a threat, anyway. I could see Leon occasionally patting his sword as if making sure it was still there, and I could sympathize — I was also beginning to wonder how much longer we could continue to gimp ourselves.

Eventually, the Spiders began tapering off, the groups abruptly becoming both smaller while the time between each encounter grew. We were approaching something significant, I could tell. I could feel the excitement bubbling inside me, the wonder of plunging into the unknown, and judging by the bare hint of a smile I could see on Leon’s face, he was mirroring my sentiments.

Surely enough, a few minutes later we finally reached the end of this snaking tunnel, as it gave way to a large, open cavern. The sun’s rays breached through the ceiling in one of the corners, blanketing the walls with a warm evening glow.

I looked up, immediately spotting the sole inhabitant of this cavern — a single Steelsilk Spider, a good six meters long and with mandibles better described as tusks.

It looked like we had found our first dungeon boss.