Graverra fidgets on her fleshy throne. For all her talk before, she really hadn’t been able to organize her thoughts much between the first time they’d been formally introduced. Maybe that was the place to start…

“Is there something I can call you beside dungeon core?”

The dungeon core blinks, seeming to consider it for a moment. “I don’t think I have a name yet.”

Graverra perks up, gripping the edge of the seat as she leans forward a little. “Can I name you?”

“Maybe hold off on that one, Bossman.” Capo suggests.

“Hey!”

“Well, you see what she named me, don’t you? I may be just a basic skull, but I know what a bad pun is.”

The dungeon core’s single eye squints a little as he chuckles. “I think I have to agree with… Capo? For the time being. Surely you have more pressing questions than that?”

“Of course I do.” Graverra sits back in the throne and crosses her arm. “I still don’t know how you intend for this to work.”

“Your essence would merge with my core. I would have access to your level of power and mana, among other things. You would have access to all that I have as a dungeon core.”

Graverra’s brow furrows. She wants to ask about what ‘other things’ might mean, but she’s quickly distracted by another question, “What do you have access to as a dungeon core?”

“Well,” The core squints again as if to smile. “I have little outside experience, but I don’t believe most plain old adventurers and dungeon delvers are out here willing things into existence on quite the same scale as a dungeon core.”

“That’s the other thing. Adventurers don’t just become dungeon cores… do they?” She’d never heard of it at any rate. Graverra had never been the type to read into these things. Neither had Branimir, but Valerea had the history and purposes of certain dungeons memorized. At the very least, when she’d talked Graverra’s ear off about them, it certainly felt like a recitation.

Dungeons were a means to an end - more XP, more mana, more power. She guesses it really wouldn’t be very different in this regard…

“They don’t just fall down into unfinished ones either, but here you are.”

“If you suck the soul out of me, or essence, or whatever, does that mean I die?” Graverra is genuinely frightened for a moment before distracting herself again. “Do I get to keep my body or are we going to have to share… that? I understand it’s very thematic for what I guess you were trying to go for here, but if I had to have one…”

“I don’t think you outright die…” The dungeon core takes her moment of thought to cut in, but even he doesn’t sound particularly sure of himself. “You would keep your body, I believe. I’d really like for you to keep your body.”

At this, Graverra smiles coyly.

“I may ask for you to remain in here with me, though. Cores of my ranking tend to forego something like that, partially for our own ease and budgeting of resources, but you humans are often so very frail…”

That sounds much less like a compliment to Graverra’s ears. She uncrosses her legs and sits a little straighter. Just because they were getting along now and maybe would continue to do so didn’t mean she was about to completely let her guard down. It could still be a trap… Even if she isn’t entirely sure what to do in that case. For all she knew, glitching into a buggy dungeon already made her technically dead.

“Is seven a very good ranking for a dungeon?” She asks next. Assuming that was some of the reason for wanting her, beside the extra mana, she guessed the dungeon core had said he’d take on her level as well.

“Well, it’ll sure beat zero, huh Bossman?” Capo feels the need to interject. The core’s single eye glares up at the skull.

“Yes,” Somehow it sounds like the dungeon core speaks through gritted teeth. “It would certainly speed things along for me.”

Graverra tries giving the core an empathetic look, but she’s not so sure it works. “And you’d expect me to keep grinding it out for you too? I mean, there’s a reason we all have to level, isn’t there?”

The dungeon core sighs. “It is a bit of an exploit, yes… But you can’t blame me, can you? Why would I want to simply kill someone like you when I could try to spend the rest of eternity building something together?”

Graverra twirls a curl around her finger as she thinks about that. She guesses that is awfully considerate of him. Maybe he was better at this wooing thing than she’d been giving him credit for…

“Forever?” She still has to ask. Though wouldn’t that make her functionally immortal? People agreed to worse for less… “You hardly know me…”

“What a wonderful way to get to know someone.”

Capo snorts from above, but Graverra is already on to her next thought. “If it doesn’t kill me first. You didn’t sound very certain before.”

The room rumbles as the dungeon core growls, frustrated. Some of the sinew holding the throne together thread up and over Graverra’s wrists and around her ankles. She yelps, about to repeat their last interaction, but the dungeon core keeps speaking.

“I think it will hurt an awful lot if you say no. I have to say, I’m curious now. I think I’d like to try, regardless.”

So maybe pumping him full of Withering Blasts again would just force the issue. Graverra struggles against her bonds, anyway. “I’m just trying to understand! I’ve never been a dungeon core before. I don’t know how this works!”

“Then let me teach you.” The dungeon core’s eye widens, and she thinks the valves and muscles of his heart body pump a little faster.

The sinewy restraints slither back to where they came from and slowly the rest of the throne melts back into the floor until Graverra is left standing again.

The rest of the fleshy room ripples with magic and the walls are soon replaced on all sides by the over stuffed shelves of a library. Graverra can’t help but gasp; It was an impressive display of magic, even if a little negated by the fact that he was a core. Of course, he could do more than the average person. She could do that… if she said yes.

“Doesn’t that cost mana?” She asks, some because she can be an excellent student if she puts her mind to it, but also because the fear of being bled out for mana and left for dead hasn’t completely left her mind.

“A bit, but I’m trying to show this to you in terms you can understand.”

Graverra’s nose crinkles as she thinks about taking offense to that. In an effort to keep the peace, though, she simply plucks one tome from the shelf and begins to read.

The words filter onto the page as she does, leading Graverra to wonder if maybe the rest of the bookcases were made just for show. She won’t ask and she guesses she doesn’t mind, considering it is still in service of trying to impress her.

The text itself is boring. Starting all the way back at the basics of mana and what it can do and can’t do and where it comes from… With maybe a little extra technicality on how a dungeon core can use it in ways the average adventurer couldn’t. That didn’t quite explain how one went about merging souls with one. Or if that was even possible. And at the rate the words were showing up on the pages, Graverra guessed it would be a good long while before they got to that through reading.

“You had to read all these to be a core?”

“Well, it’s more just there for me to access when I need it, but it’s a lot to keep straight.”

“I’ll say…” Graverra flips a few more pages before returning the book to the shelf. This was honestly far more technical information than she realized she wanted. And besides, facts and numbers weren’t going to sway her opinion by much. “Is that how come you’re so-“ bad at this, she wants to ask, but that still isn’t very nice… even if it’s true. “Have you always been a dungeon core?”

“I think I was something before…” The dungeon core looks down in thought. “But I don’t quite remember.”

“How long have you been a dungeon core then?”

“Oh, something like a couple of days.”

“A couple days?!” Graverra sputters.

“I’ve been given about a week to get my wits about me with all this stuff, but you’ve been rather distracting…”

“Oh, well…” Graverra blushes, but she isn’t sorry. It wasn’t her fault if she were so attractive, or that she had fallen down there to begin with.

“But the skull is right. It’s lonesome work and I can’t imagine watching low level scrubs wander in and out for years and years while I build up power is going to be any fix for that at all…”

“I guess I can understand that…” There wasn’t any fun in grinding alone, that’s why she’d had Bran and Val… And if they weren’t going to worry about her now and she also likely wasn’t getting out of this one alive…

Graverra returns to a few feet in front of the dungeon core, like she had been before, then decides she may as well get used to being closer and takes a few more steps. “You promise you’ll be gentle about it?”

“As gentle as I can be.”

She guesses that will have to do. “And I’ll be allowed to build things out as I see fit? Within our budget, of course.”

“I think I’d like nothing more than to watch you work.”

There was probably something to be said about her having to do all the work, but they could argue about that later. When killing her might be a little harder.

“Alright, dungeon core, I will merge with you and be your partner.”