The dungeon core doesn’t rise to Graverra’s challenge, at least not in that moment. She stands there, arms still crossed, for as long as she can stand it. He could have at least sent the door again. Or acknowledged her at all.

Graverra scoffs when it becomes obvious her pouting is fruitless again and with her free hand sends another withering bolt down the tunnel - both out of frustration and the fact that she’d recouped enough mana for one.

“It’s not going to work you know!” She shouts upwards. “I’m not going to let myself regenerate anything, and then how are you going to feel when I die and you get nothing out of it?” She wasn’t actually going to let herself die - And she still wasn’t 100% certain where they stood on the whether the core wanted her dead now front, but she wasn’t about to give him the chance now. It seemed a perfectly reasonable plan to Graverra… At least until she heard her bolt fizzle out against a suspiciously nearby wall.

“Wha — Hey!” She peers down the hallway first then jogs over to its apparent end. “Did you just send me back to the beginning of this thing?!”

She summons her scythe and taps at the wall with the blunt end. It wasn’t like she was expecting it to really be a false wall or anything, but she had fallen in there to begin with. Maybe this core just made bad walls. Maybe she could simply walk out still… The end of her scythe thunks against solid stone.

“Well, what’s that going to accomplish?” She stomps both her foot and the end of her scythe on the ground, scowling up at the ceiling. “You’ve hardly got any dungeon to run. I told you this.”

Clearly, this core was not a very good listener.

“He probably wore himself out generating all that hallway before, and the door, and almost smothering you…” Capo lists, still held in Graverra’s other hand. “Entrance doesn’t cost anything to keep up.”

“Poor baby…” Graverra rolls her eyes, affixes Capo back to his perch on the brim of her hat, and begins her march once again down the singular, boring hall. A thought had struck her after Capo’s list.

Much like before, nothing about the scenery is particularly remarkable - just your average tunnel with some rubble and support beams to sell the bit. This time, Graverra feels entitled enough to think about how she might improve on it.

“If the dungeon core can make itself look however it likes and the beginning of the dungeon expends nothing to maintain, how come this one is so… bland?”

Capo sighs, “You know girlie, that wooing thing could probably stand to go both ways.”

“At least I’m trying to understand him!” As she continues stomping, Graverra reaches the point she had before encountered the single, useless rat that couldn’t even really be called properly undead. At the same moment, she wonders if that would trigger again, the familiar hiss sounds from just ahead.

“What’s his plan here, anyway?” She keeps the conversation going, all while readying her scythe to bat away the rat. It bounds into view right on target, practically begging to be obliterated, which Graverra, of course, obliges. “Undead? Just really gross stuff? Did he always plan on trying to attract necromancers? Which, by the way, isn’t going to work if I’m doing necrotic based damage and the dungeon’s damage is already necrotic based. That’s like, basic science.”

This time when the rat dies, the puff of mana it drops is quickly syphoned into the adornments on Graverra’s scythe. From there, she regains only a couple of health and a bit of mana, but the entire exchange reminds her she’s meant to be wasting as much mana as she can for now.

“Well gosh, girlie, if only there had been a way to get all these questions answered…”

Graverra frowns as she sends her withering blast down the tunnel ahead of them. “I don’t think I like this tone you’re starting to develop, Capo. Who’s side are you on, anyway? I’m at least-”

Something else hisses from further up the hall, but it isn’t the tiny little squeak of another rat. The rattling of bones follows and soon, out of the dark ahead of her, a large spider - seemingly made entirely of bones - charges towards her.

“Well, that’s not how spiders work…” Graverra mumbles and readies her scythe again.

“Oh, this guy gets legs and I don’t?” Capo scoffs.

While she’s distracted, the bone spider launches itself forward with another hiss and clamps down on Graverra’s foot. She shrieks, because it does hurt, beginning to chip away at her health.

Still, rather than stomping it into the ground, Graverra shakes it off, sending the spider a ways back down the hall.

“I thought you said he was running out of mana!”

“Well, if he re-allotted it all from those halls he had to keep building and you did kill that rat before…”

The bones rattle again. And again the spider comes skittering towards her.

Graverra dodges, then bats the spider back up the hall again.

It skitters back and raises its fangs… again.

“You gonna kill it, or…?”

“No.” Graverra uses the flat of her scythe’s blade now to bat the spider back up the hallway. It’s impossible collection of bones rattles, but it shakes itself off and simply begins the process again. “I’m not going to give him the satisfaction. If he doesn’t want me dead, then he shouldn’t have sent a mob. He should just re-summon his silly little door and let me talk to him!”

“He’s a dungeon core, girlie. Mobs might be just about the only thing he knows for sure. Woulda been nice if he learned them before making me…”

Graverra can’t help but laugh as she dodges the bone spider yet again and sends it hissing away from her to reset.

“He probably just figured you’d get some more of everything back with your freaky reaper magic.”

Graverra frowns, about to explain a few things about how her scythe worked and necromancy in general, but this causes her to miss her mark on dodging the bone spider again and instead gets another foot full of venom.

“Or he’s trying to kill me and take my mana!” She shrieks and sends the spider back again. “He should just summon the door and talk to me!”

“Or he knows exactly what you’re trying to do and is gonna help the both of you out. You get a lil something for killing it. He gets enough to call the door back…”

“Well,” Graverra rolls away from the incoming spider and again it’s smacked away from her. “Then he shouldn’t have wasted it on the spider in the first place.”

Capo grumbles something about her being a piece of work, but it’s drowned out by the sound of an achievement.

[Achievement Unlocked: Toying With Your Food]

Remain in combat with an enemy without doing lethal damage

“Huh.” Graverra pauses momentarily, despite her track record of getting distracted. “I didn’t know that was a thing.”

The bone spider doesn’t crawl back as quickly this time, taking a while longer to right itself after being knocked away, and Graverra thinks she hears it sigh.

“Aw, are you getting tired, little guy?”

The spider moves forward sluggishly and stops at Graverra’s feet.

“Yeah… Me too.” She considers her own stamina, which was certainly much lower after all that dodging and blocking… She wouldn’t be regenerating anything efficiently any time soon and that included her health. And after the hits she had taken earlier…

Graverra kneels down in front of the bone spider. “Do you promise not to bite me?”

The spider rattles its bones, but does nothing else that could be considered threatening, so Graverra takes it as invitation enough to extend her hand to it. Oddly cat-like, the bone spider arches up into her hand, allowing itself to be petted.

Graverra giggles, sitting down fully now on the tunnel floor and allowing for the bone spider to crawl up into her lap.

[Ą̸̯̤͛̐͂c̶̭̃h̵̘̪̐̄͝͠ḯ̴͈͠ę̴̢̗́̄́̅v̴̢̹̼́̽e̵̼̪͇̙͋̑m̴̝͙̫̘͒͒́ȩ̸͔̞͌n̷̖̳̤̠̅t̷͔̭̫͇̀̀̊̚ ̵͙̜̀Ṳ̶͎̗͂̕͠n̴̰̫͒̃̽ḽ̷̜̭̏̊̀̚o̷̭̿́͐͝c̷͇̫̊̂̏͝ͅk̸̤̏̋ḙ̷͙̂͝d̷̖̤̳͘͜:̷̮̭̉̍̀͗ ̷̣̱͐͒̃Ṡ̴̪͇̹̻̀̓̾p̷̧͇͖͒͑i̴̝̮̓̅͜͝d̸̜͔̯́e̶̝̱̼̿̉ṟ̵̨͍̍̂̔͠ͅ]

“How come I didn’t achieve anything from you, Capo?” She asks, still petting the spider as it seems to have drifted off to sleep. If spiders could sleep, or more specifically spiders made of bone.

“Probably because I’m what you call a ‘basic skull’, thanks for the reminder. And I think you’ll notice that ain’t a regular achievement.”

“I noticed that, yes.” She hadn’t been about to question it, however.

“I think the bossman made it up just for you.”

“Well…” Graverra sighs, because that would be an awfully sweet gesture if it were true. She guesses maybe the spider in and of its self could have been a gesture too… Like Capo had suggested.

Adjusting her hold on the bone spider, she hunkers down against the nearest wall. She doubts she’ll be able to sleep - which without potions or food would be the quickest way to regain her health - if everything around her still registered as an enemy nearby, but there wasn’t much else to do but rest now. “He still should have conserved his mana to re-summon the door, if he really just wants to talk. How am I supposed to know that the spider made of bones isn’t here to kill me? Why’s summoning one door so hard? He doesn’t have to make it a fancy door. Just let me in and don’t smother me. Just because I wanted to think about it didn’t mean I was going to say no. If I were going to ask someone to spend the rest of her life making a dungeon with me, I’d probably be thrilled she was the type to stop and think about things.”

“Mhmm…” She ignores the fact that Capo seems to no longer be listening.

“And you know,” Graverra yawns before starting again. “You both can’t get mad at me for having ideas. That’s why I’m here, right? I would have thought about giving you a body and everything… I have been a necromancer for a while now…” She continues sinking down against the tunnel wall, hat slouching down over her face.

“Goodnight, Graverra.”