That hurt. That really hurt. If cores were supposed to be some unfeeling, no nonsense entity, then why did that still hurt so much?

Graverra Graeme, Bride of the Dungeon Core

385/400

It takes too long for the air to return to Graverra’s lungs, she’s sure of it. By the time she gets back to her feet she’ll just get knocked right back off them and with no one else to pull agro it was just going to be rinse and repeat until she was pummeled entirely into the ground.

The sarcophagi on either side of her shake as the giant fist strikes down again, but laying as flat as she is it can’t quite reach her. That was actually kind of smart…

When the homunculus lifts its fist, Graverra pops up back to her feet and slinks further down the aisle between coffins. The homunculus retreats as well, stuffing itself back down into the coffin it had popped out of.

“Okay…” She calls into the darkness, gripping her scythe at the ready in case the answer comes from the mob again and not Hecrux. “Point made. I’m just your silly little secondary core. I should be ever so grateful to have you not explaining things that are too complex for my dumb mortal brain.” She had meant to actually apologize… sort of, but it just got away from her.

The homunculus reemerges from an open sarcophagus, a row closer to her and to the left. Graverra shrieks and lashes out on reflex. There was no way she could take this thing by herself.

Hit! Ravaging Homunculus - 6 Slashing + 2 Necrotic

This was chip damage, and it wasn’t even whole damage with necrotic barely in play. Graverra growls to herself as she weighs her options; try to summon back a door before getting walloped again, cry and beg Hecrux to stop - which was probably exactly what he wanted, so entirely out of the question… She has to dodge-roll again before finishing her list, further into the crypt.

Hit! Ravaging Homunculus - 6 Slashing + 2 Necrotic

“You know,” She huffs and takes another slash at the homunculus. “If you’re so worried about us wasting time… This is going to take forever.”

Trying to summon the homunculus’s stats to her head right now seemed like a recipe for disaster, but she at least can recall roughly how much damage it should take to bring it down; 700? 800? Something like that. Awhile. It was going to take a while and Hecrux would know that best of all at this point. Maybe that was his point. She narrowly misses another ham fisted punch just from that pause to think. It’s the other one that catches her.

Graverra Graeme, Bride of the Dungeon Core

373/400

Graverra takes the opportunity to remain safe on the ground. Maybe if she just waited it out… Or summoned some kind of trapdoor into her chambers. But that felt like letting him win.

“If you kill me down here, she wins!” Graverra rolls onto her back and shouts up at the ceiling. Actually, they never had defined the terms of that - one of them dying for real. Even if Estremon wanted them fighting - which Graverra still wasn’t sure why to begin with - wouldn’t one of them killing the other spoil her fun? Hecrux would have to start all over without her, if he even got to at all. At least, she thinks…

The homunculus dips back into its track of tunnels, popping up further away this time. Maybe that was meant to be her break. Maybe he was listening after all… He wouldn’t really want her dead… would he?

Graverra gets back to her feet and begins creeping back towards the entrance. The hulk of flesh drops back under the crypt again, hurrying her further along. As it pops up on her right, she skitters left certain that by now she’s figured out the range on this thing’s attack… but not its reach.

Rather than being driven down into the ground by the rotting fist, fat misshapen fingers snatch her off her feet and squeeze her tight. Was that the gilded ribcage over her dress or the one inside her body? The homunculus drops her on top a closet casket, the lingering effects of the grapple not allowing her to roll off and back to the safety of the aisle. Not until after she’s crushed flat one more time.

Graverra Graeme, Bride of the Dungeon Core

274 / 400

Graverra whimpers from where she’d slid off the coffin and back onto the floor. If Hecrux hadn’t made his point before… maybe now he had. Maybe. She always had the option of just laying there until he grew bored. Or regenerated some health.

The only rate of recovery she’d seen earlier was for mana and that was going to be useless with no heals slotted - which of course she rarely did as a whole adventurer before, because she wasn’t a healer and the one time they had tried to pressure her into the role she’d forgotten that Branimir didn’t actually regain anything from necrotic damage like Valerea and herself, so it served him right when he ate shit from it (they revived him, of course). This was why they put stat buffs in armor… None of which she actually had anymore. This was all cosmetic.

You cannot manage skills while enemies are nearby

Graverra’s growl sounds more like another whimper. “It’s my dungeon too!”

“You’re the one who didn’t think she was being treated like a dungeon core.”

“So that gave you permission to do it more?!” She guesses if he’s speaking to her again then maybe they could consider this a draw, but when she tries conjuring herself that trapdoor she thought of before she’s met with similar resistance.

You cannot manage your domain while enemies are nearby

“Oh, so at least we agree it’s still my domain…”

“It could be, if you choose to behave like a dungeon core…”

“That’s the point, Hecrux! You won’t let me!”

“At least we agree someone has to let you do things…”

All Graverra can respond with is a high-pitched growl. If she were feeling charitable, maybe she could concede that technically the only reason she was a core was because of him… But it was still his responsibility to explain things to her. And let her take the credit when she actually did something right for once.

Nothing had regenerated during their little shouting match. Graverra was back to feeling too angry to sit still, though. All she knew in the moment was that the homunculus wasn’t in her immediate vicinity and if Hecrux was really going to let it hit her for standing up…

The strange sound of skin oozing out from between stone sounds before she can see it. Graverra dodges just in time to be clipped rather than hit entirely, but this was getting to a point where damage was damage…

Graverra Graeme, Bride of the Dungeon Core

268 / 400

She wouldn’t make it back to the entrance like this, not to mention he would probably take some weird glee in sicking her own dogs on her again. The rickety ladder up to the wine cellar however… The moment the homunculus returns to its system of tunnels, Graverra sprints to back of the crypt and uses the last bit of stamina after that to climb.

On the other side of the cellar’s trapdoor, Graverra slumps against the cellar wall to catch her breath. Maybe if she gives it a moment, she can access her core abilities again, or at least her skills.

The creaking of a wine barrel sounds off to her left. Graverra grows a shade paler and holds her breath to listen better. She thinks she can hear a faint gurgling then.

“Don’t you dare.”

No answer, of course. Unless the redoubled rattling of the wine barrel was supposed to mean something.

“No! No, I am not fighting your slime!” She’d forgotten it was in there, but she guessed that meant it would work as they intended in the future. If she ever got there. “If you’re going to kill me, just go ahead and get it over with!”

He wouldn’t, though… She was almost sure of it. She had better be sure of it because proving her point this way really only worked under those specific circumstances. And besides even that, if he was still reading her thoughts, he could have at least granted her the dignity of letting her have this out. If he wanted her to beg, he’d have to hit a little harder. “Because it would just have to be a stupid slime, wouldn’t it? No, you know what? At least let me climb back down to the crypt. If I have to, I’d rather-“

She opens the trapdoor, planning to do exactly that, but there are no ladder rungs under her feet like she’d expected. Something like gravity pulls her in before she can think to resist, and she falls onto her own silken bed with a startled yelp.