The beginning of their dungeon had improved, if Graverra did say so herself. Really, she had planned to walk it for herself, eventually. Even with the crystal ball and the fact that she had been getting better at the whole ‘just do it because you’re a dungeon core’ thing, she didn’t think it would be quite the same. Now, of course, she had to contend with the nagging little thought that this would be awfully mortal of her. She’s too angry to do much with the thought though, besides note to herself that they really ought to invest in one of those regeneration pylons so as not to scare the poor adventurers off.

Stomping her way down the dungeon’s first bit of passageway, Graverra feels a sense of déjà vu. At least now it wasn’t the most basic of walls and flooring - some stone had been replaced by globules of ruby red flesh, or spattered with what was either a particular type of moss or blood stains. She couldn’t quite remember. Still, there was enough momentary sense of a repeat that she wouldn’t be surprised if the hallways started to go on endlessly again. He’d just blame the waste of mana on her again, anyway.

As if on cue, Hecrux’s voice sounds through the hallway. “Graverra, what is it you think you’re doing?”

“I’m upset with you.” Graverra huffs as she comes to the first set of stairs. So he wasn’t about to stick her back in an endless hallway… Good.

“Well, I can see that.”

“I’m upset with you and you won’t leave me alone and I want you out of my head.”

“That’s not how it works.”

“Well gosh, if only I knew all these fun little details of being a dungeon core…” Graverra pauses at the top of the stairs, not sure if their trap would still affect her and then, if it might, not sure what skills she might have left at her disposal. Maybe that was the real reason cores weren’t encouraged to roam…

“I did tell you walking through your own dungeon was ill advised.” Now she can’t even be sure if it’s because he did tell her this before, or because he knows she’s debating the trap in front of her.

Graverra growls to herself and summons her grimoire to hand. She still had to have some stats…

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

Graverra huffs and physically begins flipping pages. Maybe her old stat sheet was just… there. If she really had caused some weird hybrid thing to happen…

Core Avatar - Graverra Graeme, Bride of the Dungeon Core

Health: 400/400

Mana: 7̶̤̫̟̤̍̒͒̍0̸͉̦͉̃0̴̤̥̝̊/̷͉͋͠7̵͍̻͎̻̃͗̓0̷̻̇̔̔̚0̶͕͖̀̐0̶̬̭̒͝

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

Stamina: 400/400

Skills Slotted

[empty] | [empty] | [empty] | [empty] | [empty]

Equipment Slotted

[empty] | [empty] | [empty] | [empty] | [empty]

Cryptmother’s Scythe

Buffs

[empty]

*Warning - Core Combat inadvisable at this tier*

Well, dodge-rolling through something wasn’t exactly combat. And if stamina was still on the table…

It feels like rolling over a tar trap, just wetter somehow. Graverra full body shivers on the other side, sitting crouched for a moment even though she had avoided truly getting stuck.

“Ha.” She still isn’t talking to Hecrux and there really wasn’t any reason either of them had doubted it would work… but it was nice to know it did. Most wouldn’t know it was there their first run, and even after a second, they still had to spend the energy to try to avoid it.

“Graverra…”

She gets back up to her feet and brushes herself off. Still not talking to him, though she no longer storms down the halls now. What she does is call to hand her scythe… Or what she had hoped would still be hers.

Her hand isn’t filled with the polished black wood of her last one, instead it is just one impressively long bone, the blade also seemingly made of an oddly shaped and sharpened scapula and held together with sinew.

“Oh, okay…” She sighs at it as she gives it a little test wave. She guesses she can’t really be too mad at it… Especially if she could trick it out later. And she had just previously assumed her ability to even summon one was long gone. It was just too bad her old skills weren’t still slotted.

“You aren’t going to actually run your own dungeon. Alone.”

There’s a defiant little tilt to Graverra’s chin as she answers. “Maybe.”

“You’re going to go in there and fight the two dogs you named?”

She doesn’t stop walking, but her face falls back down into a frown. “… No.” Of course she’d dismembered plenty of other ‘cute’ animals, but innocent most of them most certainly were not. Moggiard and Dralzekk had been built to kill… but she’d been the one to build them. It was different.

“And I thought you said the dungeon wouldn’t hurt its core, anyway.”

“It can’t hurt the primary core…” It doesn’t sound like a threat. It sounds more like he’s just internalized the information while relaying it to her.

Still, that gets Graverra to pause and look up - they never actually did anything with the tunnels’ ceilings… She might have to mess with that later - even if the looking part she knows is pointless. “Excuse me?”

“If the primary core wanted, they could tell the dungeon to act hostile towards the secondary core, but the dungeon cannot behave that way regarding the primary core.” It still sounds more like he’s reading it off a page, but Graverra’s grip around her scythe tightens and the rest of her tenses the longer the sentence goes.

“But the primary core wouldn’t want to do that, now would they?” She singsongs through gritted teeth. He wouldn’t… Even if she had just threatened to leave him if she could.

“The primary core wishes the secondary core would return to her chambers, where she will be left alone if that’s what she really wants…”

“Will I? Will I be left alone? Completely alone?”

“If that’s what you want.”

Not quite the answer she had been fishing for. Graverra stomps her foot before continuing on. “Why are you reading my mind without telling me?!”

“It just happens.”

“Well then, why can’t I read yours?” There was a snide comment to be made about whether or not he even had one, but she wasn’t quite that angry anymore. Really, it would have saved them this entire argument, so why he wouldn’t just explain how it worked now? Graverra has no idea.

“Have you ever tried?”

No… But that wasn’t the point. The point was, she shouldn’t have to think of these things first. It wasn’t her fault, and it was bordering on counter productive now.

A sigh echoes through the tunnel as Graverra steps out onto the top of the split staircase leading down into the courtyard. “You’re being ridiculous, Graverra.”

“I’m sorry, darling, I must be feeling awfully mortal at the moment.” She jogs down the left staircase. The courtyard isn’t lit particularly well - just torches, though she thinks she was on to something with the gas-lamp idea - the flickering lights gaining a red cast from fleshwarping they’d used. It probably wasn’t a bad thing for when she wasn’t the one running through.

Another sigh follows her into the center of the courtyard. “She was going to pick on someone, no matter what!”

“So you just decided it better be me!”

“And this proves what? All you’re doing is wasting our time, which is probably exactly what she wants.”

That felt off. Why would she want them to fail? If she were in charge of all this… Maybe it was just easier to think like that at the moment, but once again Hecrux clearly knew something she didn’t and he really ought to just tell her by now. “If only I knew someone who knew these kinds of things and could warn me…”

Graverra circles the fountain, for the moment not caring if she really was wasting so much time because clearly it was getting under his skin. Without the horrible slime in there, she decides they should still let it run. Working as quick as she can for fear he’d stop her, Graverra swaps out her scythe for the grimoire - already turned to the appropriate menu. A second later, viscous red bubbles over the fountain’s peak.

Hecrux groans. “You’re going to attract vampires with that.”

She wasn’t sure that was such a terrible thing, all things considered. “And we have a fire trap in the study…”

“We said no more fine tuning until we’d fleshed out our mobs.”

They had. And maybe if she just stopped and went along with the plan, she would calm down again. But Graverra can’t help one more petty jab. “Don’t you mean defenders?”

“You cannot still be upset about that!”

“I’m sorry, do cores not get upset?” He certainly sounded upset. Too upset even to speak for a moment.

It almost seemed like he’d begun using her own tactics against her, but then, “Very well, then. If that’s how you want it to be…”

There had to still be blood in her own system, because Graverra feels herself pale. “… How I want what to be?”

No answer.

“Hecrux?” She steps away from the fountain, again looking up as if that helped her voice carry. Really, she didn’t even have to talk anymore at this point. If he already knew what she was thinking. What she was afraid this meant… “This is awfully emotional of you, you know?”

No answer.

Graverra rolls her eyes. She guesses this is what she’d asked for, anyway. She turns to start towards the balcony stairs and up into their “castle”, but the overgrowth to her right rustles. The left growls.

“You said-“ She doesn’t have time to finish reminding him, the right planter begins growling as well. With a shrill yelp, Graverra drops her grimoire and summons back her scythe. She’s still not going to fight her own dogs, but she is going to sprint down the tunnel leading in to the crypt.

The barking and gnashing of teeth starts then, but Graverra doesn’t look back. She’s lucky she checked for stamina earlier.

“Bad dogs!” She knows it probably isn’t going to work, but in the off chance they might respond to the fact she is still technically a dungeon core, even if she isn’t the primary core. “Go home! Sit! Leave me alone!”

She doesn’t stop until she slides through the threshold of the crypt, falling over the first casket to catch her breath. The dogs stop on the other side, snuffling around like they’d suddenly lost her.

“Go! Home!” She knows, though, that the only reason they turn tail is their already set boundaries. Still, Graverra waits until she no longer hears them out in the tunnel before getting back to her feet. It doesn’t hurt her stamina to regenerate, either.

“And this solves what exactly, Hecrux?” She goes right back to yelling into thin air as she weaves through the caskets. Probably now was about the time she should have been summoning a door back to her chambers, but while she was down here… looking wasn’t supposed to hurt. They had done an alright job with the place. If she were still an adventurer, she could just see herself taking the time to check everywhere for loot. This many places to hide it was just too tempting. She guesses that had been the point…

Just as reaches the center of the room, a back-breaking force knocks her to the ground and the air out of her lungs. The homunculus. Right. Not that she’d forgotten it, Hecrux had made it for her after all. She just hadn’t planned on having to fight it. Ever.