With the room back to herself, Graverra supposes she should do what she’d said… Still, she lingers at the door a moment. First, to see if she’d get any sort of response from the other side, but when that obviously isn’t happening, she flicks her attention to her health in hopes that Hecrux’s necklace had actually done something.

Graverra Graeme, Bride of the Dungeon Core

209 / 400

“Well, at least it’s not completely broken.” Graverra’s voice raises an octave. She feels on the verge of tears. One measly point of health after all this time and it had probably needed the necklace’s boost to do it at all. Her health might be halved for the rest of her life at this rate.

Back in her blanket cocoon, Graverra props the grimoire up again to be read while she lounged. If it were anything like training for a class there would probably be tasks to complete, but how she might manage to do that contained in her chambers - and maybe hopefully without Hecrux catching on - Graverra has no idea.

“Dungeon, what would have happened if we forgot to do this whole training thing?”

Initial Training Recommended To Be Completed Before Dungeon Placement For Optimal Performance

“Yeah, yeah.” Too bad there wasn’t anyone with an actual personality to explain these things to her. Graverra huffs, wanting to go and ask Hecrux why he hadn’t done any of this already. He was supposed to be the primary core, after all. “What’s ‘Optimal Performance’ supposed to look like anyway?”

Begin Dungeon Building Tutorial?

Y/N

Graverra sighs. “I think we have the building part down pretty well. Can’t I just skip ahead to, I don’t know, the care and keeping of your already mostly built dungeon so your dungeon core husband can stop treating you like a complete ditz and your pseudo mother-in-law doesn’t regret letting you live?”

1. Dungeon Cores

1.1 Core Responsibilities

1.2 Core Avatars

1.3 Core Companions

1.4 Dungeon Core Advancement

2. Building

2.1 Tile Types and Their Purposes

2.2 Tile Placement

2.3 Advanced Tile Placement

2.4 Wall Types and Their Purposes

2.5 Wall Placement

2.6 Advanced Wall Placement

2.7 Ceilings, Visible

2.8 Ceilings, Invisible

3. Environment

3.1 Dungeon Themes

3.2 The use and placement of environmental pylons

3.3 Plants, rocks, and other set dressings

3.4 Liquids

3.5 Non Combative Creatures

4. Defenders

4.1 Basic Classifications

4.2 Damages and Resistances

4.3 Actions

4.4 Leveling Your Defenders for Success

5 Chests, Drops, and Other Rewards

6. Skills, Crafting, and Cultivating

6.1 Advancing Dungeon Skills

6.2 Using Your Skills to Personalize Your Dungeon via Crafting

6.2.1 Your Known Crafting Recipes

6.3 Cultivating Unique Defenders and Dungeon Flora

6.3.1 Your Cultivated Genetic Codes

7. Dungeon Bosses [Conditions not yet met ]

8. Puzzles [Unlocked at Copper Tier]

9. Questlines [Unlocked at Electrum Tier ]

10. Dungeon Economy [Unlocked at Gold Tier ]

11. Guild or Faction Hosting [Unlocked at Platinum Tier ]

“Oh… This is so much worse than class permits.” Graverra skims over the table of contents as it scrolls over the page. She almost couldn’t blame Hecrux for not wanting to explain it all to her, that itself seemed like it could take a week. But around where it began talking about skills things started to look a little familiar.

Skill lines, obviously, because that was how classes worked. Crafting was typically reserved for higher levels and people with the coin for supplies, so, not something Graverra had much experience with except in the case of necromancy. She remembers according to the dungeon’s system that now fell under cultivation, which had some interesting implications, but still probably worked similar enough. Gather up the right stuff, appropriate skill lines, and enough mana and she’d be raising the dead in no time.

Graverra’s mood dips again as she remembers just how far she’d gotten as a regular, not dungeon core wed, necromancer. If there hadn’t been any skills slotted for her before, she guesses her personal minion summoning abilities were long gone.

“Dungeon, can’t you just tell me what a core companion is?” At this point she wondered if that was what she actually was… Perhaps Estremon had made a mistake and she was never even meant to have secondary core powers.

Upon a dungeon core’s creation a core companion may be summoned to provide companionship to the core during it’s long, solitary existence. A core companion provides a sounding board for the dungeon core’s plans, as well as emotional support through any necessary adjustment periods in becoming a dungeon core.

Graverra scowls at her grimoire. That didn’t sound like what happened to her… Even if they were clearly a very unconventional dungeon. “Do secondary cores get companions?”

A secondary core should not require its own companion. A secondary core may act as a companion for the primary core if the primary core’s emotional and intellectual needs are not being met by a simple companion.

“Fine. Did Hecrux ever have a core companion?” That felt like something he should have told her beforehand… Or at least something she might have noticed on her own. She cant imagine he would have, though. He hadn’t been the one crying about being lonely, he’d just wanted the mana. That she was probably wasting right now anyway.

Core Records Cannot Be Accessed At This Time

“And let me guess, I cannot manage my domain while enemies are nearby…”

Initial Training Recommended To Be Completed Before Dungeon Placement For Optimal Performance

Begin Dungeon Building Tutorial?

Y/N

Graverra whines. Even with the last five subjects locked, that was so much. Who knew how much time it would take, not to mention the fact that it probably would use some mana, assuming she still had access to that… “Are we sure I have to do the whole thing?”

Initial Training Recommended To Be Completed Before Dungeon Placement For Optimal Performance

“Oh, but dungeon, I already know you so well.” Graverra sighs as she sits back up to finally accept the tutorial’s prompting. “I knew you were going to say that.”

Welcome new core!

No matter the circumstances that brought you here, you have been tasked with the noble and necessary task of managing a dungeon. Through these instructions you will be given the information necessary for building, theming, and filling your dungeon to ultimate success. Although you may not have chosen this purpose for yourself, the Coalition of Core Keepers wants you and your dungeon to thrive.

Pulling Secondary Core Specific Training…

“Oh, boo! I’m the one who’s going to be relaying all this information to the primary core anyway!” What she really wanted was to know more about this whole ‘circumstances that brought you here’ thing. She already knew how she became a core and up until that point just expected they were made, not brought.

As a dungeon’s secondary core, your responsibilities may range from all the same actions as your primary core to more specific tasks delegated to you by your primary core. If you have been placed as a secondary core, it is not a judgement of your worth! Through this training you’ll become equipped with everything you need to support your primary core for optimal dungeon performance…

Graverra skims the rest of the way through the systems advice to secondary cores and their responsibilities. Maybe the system did have a personality and it was downright patronizing. Communicate, work together, your roll in the dungeon is just as vital as anyone else’s… Blah, blah, blah. “That’s what we were doing! And now he’s touching things without me!”

She scrolls a little faster towards the bottom, delighted to find the little box she has to tick to move on doesn’t seem to care how long that might have taken her.

Core Responsibilities - Complete!

Core Avatars - Complete!

She guesses just by virtue of the fact they both had their avatars squared away meant the system knew they had some idea of what they were doing. She still tries to find any section pertaining to things like slotting skills or health, but all she finds is a similar stern warning that a dungeon core ought to stay out of the way of adventurers until reaching a high enough level that a stat sheet could be assigned and customized for combat.

Some adventurers have taken to the idea of breaching a core’s lair. While it is feasible for a high leveled individual to achieve this, it is generally discouraged by the Coalition and most gods. Removing a core from its dungeon disrupts the delicate ecosystem it has created for itself and there by the various systems - ecological, financial, societal, etc. - near by.

In the event a dungeon core is simply damaged by some such attempt on their life, a keeper may choose to intervene and offer their assistance and care to the injured core. If the assigned keeper chooses not to intervene and the core has not unlocked any abilities, built any pylons, or cultivated any defenders that might offer assistance, a core will eventually regain its health and stamina over time. If an injured core is left to its own devices it should not fret over abandonment! Dungeon cores that have been left to heal over time show some resilience over their coddled peers.

“Oh don’t tell me that.” Graverra sneers. If that meant that as their keeper or watcher or whatever she called herself then Estremon knew… Graverra was doomed to live with half her health for whatever small eternity simply letting nature heal itself might be. “You know it’s probably just spite that makes them that way? I’m probably going to be the meanest, most resilient secondary core you’ve ever had to watch over.”

Though when she phrased it that way, Graverra hopes the mind reading started and ended with primary and secondary cores.

“Which you could have covered and then maybe I wouldn’t have to be so upset about it.” She grumbles to her grimoire, at the same time having to acknowledge that perhaps the whole section on secondary cores did mention it, she’d just chosen to skip over it. “He still didn’t let me read any of this beforehand, so it doesn’t count.”

Core Companions - Inaccessible To Secondary Core

Core Companions - Complete

“Hey!” First, there definitely was a bias against secondary cores. What was she supposed to do if her primary core wasn’t ‘emotionally supportive’? Or whatever the phrasing had been. Maybe she would have benefited from one. Not to mention the fact that kind of contradicted previous complaints being so emotional because a real core would never…

But then it went and marked itself complete.

“Fine then. Dungeon, show me the core companion, if it exists…” Graverra looks up to the mirror, expecting it to work like her crystal ball showing her one of the mobs. Instead, there’s a slight rattling noise as Capo is deposited back on his usual perch.

“You!”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa! Graverra, mistress, you know I’m rooting for you in all this, but it’s gonna be a hard sell blaming me for your relational issues.”

“I’m not blaming you. You are his companion though, aren’t you?” That might explain a few things.

“Am I?” Or not. Though the system never said the companion had to be very intelligent.

“Oh.” Graverra’s shoulders droop with the disappointment anyway. She looks back at the grimoire and attempts to strong arm - strong mind? - Her way into the rest of the information about core companions, but it only makes the grimoire flutter in distress.

“You working on something over there?”

“Initial training recommended to be completed before dungeon placement for optimal performance.” The dungeon didn’t have a voice of it’s own, but Graverra thinks she does a fine job mocking its tone anyway. “I thought it was all supposed to just happen. I guess the dungeon still thinks I’m the secondary core, so that’s good, but look at this!” Graverra holds the grimoire up for the skull to see the table of contents.

Capo hisses in sympathy at the reading list. “That’s good though, he was starting to get a little worried you might stay mad at him forever.”

“I am still mad at him.”

“System thinks so long as you’re still upset you’re in combat.”

“Well you know maybe the system knows it’s probably a bad idea being in the same room as the core that just tried to kill me.”

“I wasn’t trying to kill you.” Hecrux’s voice bursts into the room as if he’d mean to hold it back but this had been the final straw. “I was hoping to scare you.”

She wants to tell him it didn’t work, but it did. And given the fact that he had been clearly listening to her this entire time, if not still in her head, he probably already knew.

“You should have let me slot skills.” Graverra snips anyway. Even if Hecrux hadn’t been aiming to kill her outright, it wasn’t fair. “And I have no real armor anymore.”

“That green tutu was protecting you?” Capo asks, but besides the withering glare from Graverra, is ignored.

“Next time.” The dungeon core almost sounds wistful, and there’s a beat where she believes him, but he had to be in her head because the next thing he does is laugh. “There’s not going to be a next time.”

“I know.” Graverra’s tone takes up the small, miserable quality it had before because he was right there wouldn’t be a next time because she had been impulsive which was just a prime example of how she had over complicated plenty of other things, which meant he was right.

Their collective silence stretches on to a point Graverra wonders if she’s been left back to her own devices. After trying to get the skull’s attention to say something without saying anything herself and then realizing that without eyes it was impossible to tell where Capo was actually looking… If he had any sort of regular vision at all, Graverra moves to prop her grimoire back up for more reading.

It’s then that the dungeon core clears its non existent throat and tries again, “How are you feeling?”

“Dungeon cores don’t have feelings.” Graverra grumbles back, still pretending as though she’s about to start reading again. Even if she had learned that wasn’t quite true and really, Hecrux being emotionally stunted enough to require a companion and a secondary core made a lot of sense to her now, Graverra reserved the right to continue being bitter about it.

“That’s not what I said or meant and you know it.” Hecrux snaps, but resettles a moment later. “The system doesn’t appear to know what to do with you behaving like an adventurer. And it won’t let me give you back your core privileges, I’ve been trying.”

Graverra tries not to be too warmed over by the fact that he had been trying to fix that for her, lest he is listening to her thoughts. “So, I broke it again.”

“More like you broke yourself. As you are now well aware, the dungeon is working just fine.”

“Now it is. After you fixed it. Without me.” Granted, she doesn’t know exactly what he did… but that wasn’t the point. The point was he’d done it without her.

“I… fiddled with some things. You could come out here and I could show you…?”

“That’s okay. I’m working on the whole intuiting thing. You know, like a core.”

“You could still come out here.”

“It’s probably better if I just stay in bed for now.” She can’t be sure, but Graverra thinks she can now reliably intuit the fact that she hasn’t gained any health back since the last time she checked.

“I could… I could come in there?”

“To do what? Hover ominously? You wouldn’t even fit in here…” If she were in a better mood this might have been where she began hinting at the benefits of a more humanoid avatar. Or flip back to the Core Avatar section and see about changing that herself. It was only fair after he’d done it once.

“What- What are you doing in there, then?”

“Don’t you know?” But even she realizes that asking that if he really were making an effort to give her space was counter productive at best. She quickly follows up as if she’d never said it. “You never did ‘Initial Dungeon Training’, so I’m going to.”

“Yes I did.” He sounds defensive.

Graverra shrugs. “Well, the system says you didn’t.”

“I suppose it reset for you and all the… changes.”

Graverra hums in simple acknowledgement of the statement. She had been right, they had the concept of tile placement down just fine, but skipping over sections wasn’t very conducive to ignoring someone.

“You could read it to me?”

Graverra halts her skimming to frown.

“It just sounded like something you might enjoy.”

“I might.” She’s reluctant to admit, but if their arguing was what was really slowing down her ability to heal… Then this was just practical and not at all because she forgave him yet. “Do you think you could fit in here?”

“I might.”