Out of the three of them, Graverra had been the one to need to be revived more than a handful of times. There had been plenty of debate as to why, but seeing as their threesome and oh so eagerly moved on to being a twosome, Graverra most definitely did not put stock in those opinions. It was mortifying enough to have gone down at all. It didn’t need to be immediately followed by a lecture on what she should have done better.

Sitting up with a gasp, Graverra instinctually braces herself for more of the same. She’s grateful her thoughts no longer project outwards without effort to stop them; Perfectly able to conjure up a barrage of I told you sos all by herself.

Graverra freezes, then cocks her head as she glances around her. She was alone. Completely alone and in a foreign room, tucked into a foreign bed. Immediately after that registers she goes to feel her face, squishing her cheeks between her palms before dragging her hands down her throat and pulling away with an affronted gasp as she feels the unevenness of a scar at the beginning of her chest.

She throws back the covers - for the moment ignoring the suspicious fact she is in an awfully luxurious bed - sliding off the bed and moving towards the full-length mirror nearby as if she already had known it was there. She didn’t. She didn’t have any memory of this place or, more importantly, where her clothes had gotten to and was about to begin that frantic line of questioning when the mirror lit up with a prompt similar to what she’d find in her grimoire.

Customize Core 66.5 ’s Avatar?

[Y] / N

After which followed more options than Graverra had thought allowed, and that was just what she could do to a humanoid form. She waves through options of skin tone, muscle mass, eye color, hair style… everything, until the choices begin to take less of a humanoid shape. Some choices - horns, wings, tails, hooves, a third eye even - were still allowed, but the further it stayed from a human form she found with a big red [RESTRICTED] pasted over them.

Graverra hums, still flicking through choices as she mumbles to herself, “And what’s with the .5? What am I? Not a whole core?”

By no doing of her own, as far as she could tell, the information on the mirror changed.

Core 66.5 (SECONDARY)

Class: Dungeon

Location: Undetermined

Core Rank: 147th

Mana Reserves: 3,000 (7% / 1hr)

Dungeon: Unnamed

[See Further Dungeon Info]

“Secondary?!” It wasn’t as though she had forgotten the events that had transpired just before this, but Graverra was certainly making more of an effort to remember the conversation now. She had hoped even if she were sharing the dungeon with her core, she might still be considered one herself with whatever liberties that was supposed to come with. Still, at least this probably meant she hadn’t been stuffed into a dungeon all on her own… She hoped. The fact that this was all the interaction she’d had since waking up, in a completely unfamiliar setting… Nothing was even made of flesh, even if the sheets on the bed were a particularly bloody shade of red silk. The walls were stone. The mirror was some fancy bit of ironwork on the frame, maybe gothic in nature, but not exactly something that screams built by a dungeon core with an affinity for the naturally grotesque…

Graverra attempts to see further dungeon info, but is met with a warning.

Unable To Process Request While In Customization Mode

Please Finish Customizing Core Avatar

“Fine.” She grumbles and returns to the customization screen. It really isn’t such an imposition… She’s always had a running list of things to change once she could afford them as an adventurer. Her first order of business, though, is dealing with the scar running down her sternum. Graverra shudders at the idea of the details of how it got there.

Especially once she finds the list labeled Unalterable Attributes.

Chest Tear - [LOCKED]

Shock of White x2 - [LOCKED]

Mana Blue Irises - [LOCKED]

Base Form; Humanoid - [LOCKED]

Graverra growls in frustration at the first item listed, but it turns to another shocked gasp at the second. She peers beyond the list, focusing on the actual mirror and her own hair.

Starting around either temple, two thick streaks of white lay tucked among the rest of her curls.

“Oh, come on!” She tugs both of them forward as she leans into the mirror. “That’s such a cliche!” She tended not to fight anything that might fall into the undead, necrotic, or otherwise lich-y categories - her own skills didn’t do quite as much against them, obviously but she couldn’t begin to count the number of necromancer adjacent mobs, bosses, or just other adventurers who had played into the trope.

“Core! If I find out this was you!” She decided he would, though, with the motifs she’d seen him working with before.

The fact that there’s no response to her screeching as Graverra falling back on the anxiety of being left alone. She hurries back to the beginning of the customizations, still happy to adjust what she can but eager to see what else she has access to and if it is still the same dungeon after all.

For all her complaints before, Graverra still opts to make sure her skin is now a perfectly ghostly pale - but definitely not the disgusting translucent Valerea got sometimes - offset by perfectly airbrushed blush in the appropriate places, as well as the best smokey eye she’d ever been able to find. Most things still available to her were of a tier she might never had afforded outside making a deal with a dungeon core. There are no mechanical properties attached to any of the armor or clothing offered to her, but they still look like the highest tiered gear and then some.

Equipped: Strexhin’s Sacrifice (Robes)

Equipped: Bone Tyrant’s Regalia (Armor Set)

Graverra doubts the armor will do much of anything if it doesn’t clearly state it, but the bedazzled set of ribs as a chest piece and skulls as paldrons seems fitting and doesn’t cover up too much of the robes. Like most clothing meant for mages, the robes aren’t really robes, though the skirt is much longer than Graverra’s previous set of robes. She thinks the slit up either side and the cut outs above her hips make up for it a bit. For once she’s a bit frustrated by the plunging neckline and the way it shows off her new scar, but she guesses if that really were the core’s choice, then he might appreciate it at least.

While she’s on the subject of working with these changes, she darkens her hair so that the white stands out more, then begins the search for a suitable substitute for her original mage’s hat. None are quite right, but she eventually settles on one overlaid with spiderwebs and pearls.

If this had been her grimoire, her next move would have been to customize her scythe, but scrolling through her options again, Graverra can’t find a space for it. In fact, she should have been able to decide the look of her grimoire too.

Confirm Customization Of Core 66.5 ’s Avatar?

(This can be changed with the use of mana)

[Y] / N

Absolutely, she would revisit this at some point, but for now, she needed to try to summon her grimoire.

Rather than appearing in Graverra’s hands, the tome drops with a thud onto a table in the room she hadn’t noticed before. Or maybe it just hadn’t been there… Either way, Graverra frowns at it a second before going to open the book.

Welcome New Core!

Achievement - Customized Core Avatar!

Achievement - Set Up Core’s Chambers!

Achievement - Build Entrance!

Achievement - Summon First Mob!

Achievement - Expand Dungeon!

Achievement - Regenerated Mana!

Achievement - Demolished Unnecessary Expansion!

Achievement - Dealt Damage!

Graverra shrieks and nearly shuts the grimoire again as she’s accosted by achievements. She quickly begins banishing them, sure she can go through and read them at her own pace later, just like she used to. Of the ones she read, most of them certainly weren’t by her doing…

Core 66.5 (SECONDARY)

Class: Dungeon

Location: Undetermined

Core Rank: 147th

Mana Reserves: 3,000 (7% / 1hr)

Dungeon: Unnamed

[See Further Dungeon Info]

Core Avatar - ‘Graverra Graeme’

Appearance: Drethiaq Necromancer

Theme: Bride of the Dungeon Core

She means to continue on to Further Dungeon Info, but pauses again to grumble, “Why am I secondary?!”

The grimoire’s page flips for her and more text begins to fill the page.

In rare instances, a dungeon, delve, or maze may require the maintenance of two cores. Due to the nature of such locations, one will always maintain a primary core - The core that originated with the dungeon, delve, or maze.

“Well, fine… I guess he was here first. That means he’s still here… right?” She waits expectantly for the grimoire to answer her like before… But it doesn’t. With a small ‘hmph’ she rephrases her question. “Where is this dungeon’s primary core?”

The page flips again, and a map fills in. A tiny map, that at first only shows the dungeon entrance - just as basic as she’d left it - but after that filled itself in, two other rooms appeared in the top of the page, seemingly unconnected to the dungeon’s entrance, but connected to each other.

Primary Core’s Lair - Secondary Core’s Chambers

“Well now, why does he get a lair? Maybe I wanted a lair?”

Remodel Secondary Core’s Chambers?

Cost: 500 Mana

Y / [N]

“Oh! No! No, no, no.” Graverra shuts the grimoire and picks it up to carry with her on her way out of her chambers and into the lair. Maybe she was going to have to be a little more careful about what she said… If the entire dungeon was listening to her now, which admittedly already was a marvellous feeling. Before she made any major changes though - because she absolutely would - she felt it might be best to touch bases with the ‘primary’ core. Not that she felt he had any more right to the dungeon than she did after this entire ordeal.