Dungeon - Name Undecided, Will Be Placed In [149:20:11]

Primary Core Status: Inactive

Graverra Graeme, Bride of the Dungeon Core

220 / 400

The information is all pulled to the forefront of Graverra’s mind at the same time she launches herself up into wakefulness.

“That’s not even how- How that… works…” Her last argument dies on her lips as she looks, wide eyed, around her own bedroom. In a dungeon that hadn’t been placed without her and a dungeon core that remained blissfully inactive, for now.

“Bad dream?” Capo calls from the table. It’s oddly comforting.

With the way she’d slept before, Graverra hadn’t thought dungeon cores were allowed to do that. Have dreams. They didn’t seem like the sort of thing any supposed Keepers would deem ‘optimal’ for one, especially if she was being allowed to have stress nightmares.

“Awful.” Graverra throws a blanket over her head and pulls it tighter around her face before flopping over again. “I over slept the dungeon being placed and we got set in Oxymn- And I don’t care if we end up in Drethi! I didn’t start that! You wanna know the last time I was home? Because it was like years ago. And really, if we’re taking suggestions, I can think of better places for a dungeon, but anyway…”

She glances over to the grimoire, still open due to the fact that she’d simply passed out beside it. “I don’t suppose you’re going to make figuring out this whole placement thing easy for me, are you?”

Please complete Initial Dungeon Training

“Yeah, that’s what I thought.” Graverra huffs at the book before taking another moment to ground herself in the fact she was no longer in the middle of a nightmare. “We were at the base of some volcano and everything was on fire immediately because you think bone and wet, nasty flesh is maybe a little resistant to that sort of damage but boy, let me tell you, it is not. And Estremon thought it was funny and blamed it all on me and I told her well did you warn us about the volcano because that seems like an oversight on your part, and… And the only thing that made it was that stupid slime. And the goldfish. Oh!”

Rename ‘Misshapen Black Goldfish’: Bubbles

No, it isn’t the most original of names, but it seemed better than letting the poor thing sit nameless forever because it was just a decoration at this point.

“You don’t think anyone’s going to confuse him for a defender, do you?” She could probably bring him back, but that would cost mana. And if they got to a point where she needed a resurrection pylon just to keep the non-combat creatures alive… They probably had some more pressing matters to attend to first.

“The fish? He doesn’t even have teeth, does he?” The skull strains to see over to Graverra’s makeshift work station at the foot of her bed. “I don’t know, mistress, you’re the only dungeon delver I’ve ever known.”

“Well, some of them are just plain mean.” Graverra frowns as she calls to mind a specific group. Not Bran and Val. Graverra had been lucky enough to only burn through a handful of unfortunately mismatched parties before those two… And even they had been all different kinds of mismatched.

Graverra scoops up her grimoire to move to the table, dropping it there with a large enough thud to set the skull rattling. Before settling in, she moves the mirror closer as well. Physically. Which doesn’t strain her stamina much at all. She thinks that’s a good sign, probably. Good enough that laying in bed versus sitting at her table didn’t seem like too terribly much of a difference. She hasn’t even checked if that boosted anything anyway.

Maybe, as she focuses the mirror in on the goldfish - half to show off to Capo and half just to have in the background while she worked - Graverra thinks she’s more aware of the steady tug of the not quite but about to be used mana needed to maintain the visualization in the mirror. Or maybe that was still the halved health talking.

“That’s not even a whole fish. Well…” Capo chuckles at his implied pun. In addition to the hump in it’s back, the poor thing was missing a suspiciously bite shaped portion of its underside; Allowing for some rib to be exposed and entails to drag. Ironically, the magic used to make that whole situation work had cost more than if she’d left in a regular goldfish… But it wasn’t her mana, so she wasn’t going to complain too hard.

“But how ever else are we going to know for certain that I know the particulars of non-combat creature placement?” Graverra means to be facetious as she flips back open her grimoire, but all she really manages is the beginning of a thought spiral about who got the information that they had or hadn’t finished any dungeon training, or achievements for that matter, and would it single her out specifically in this case, or did any accomplishment between the two of them just register as the dungeon. They still had to name the dungeon.

Graverra hunches forward with a small huff as she finishes pulling up where she left off.

4. Defenders

At first glance, Graverra assumes this is another section she can easily gloss over. Obviously, she’d been in combat before, she’d helped create the dogs, and summon her own companion even before this dungeon core stuff. There’s a small pang of guilt over that - She had meant to summon her little bone fiend by now, though she isn’t quite sure how she would have done that yet without access to her class skills. And she wasn’t about to go confusing the system again about whether or not she was or wasn’t a dungeon core.

“Watch my only options be rats, lizards, or slimes…” She grumbles, tempted to just skip ahead to the prompt to place one such thing, but the bit about classifications stands out to her as different than she assumed.

There wasn’t so much a list of types as there were a bunching of descriptors that could overlap with a sliding scale of how much of one attribute one might need for that to become the defender’s primary descriptor. In a lot of ways it was just themes - in fact, some places still referred to it as themes, leading Graverra to believe this was one of those blends of class functions and core functions.

Through merging defenders, unique descriptors may emerge. Once unlocked and recorded in a dungeon’s genetics codes, reuse of the descriptor becomes as accessible as any other descriptor as well as the likelihood of it’s re-occurrence in future bred defenders.

“Oops…” Graverra recalls Hecrux’s disdain for the idea of breeding their own defenders. She supposes it looks a bit tedious, but like the idea of tile merging wound up spending less mana in the long run. If he really had such a problem with it, he could always leave it up to her…

Damages and resistances as well as actions remained thankfully standard. The damages and resistances part usually coincided with descriptors, nothing could be truly resistant to anything - not at this level anyway - and the same old warning that if one were going to go all in on say, necrotic damage, then they had only to hope that the parties running their dungeon weren’t completely comprised of classes resistant to that type of damage. Or, that an entire party of radiant based casters didn’t just steam roll the entire thing.

Unnamed Dungeon’s Mobs

Moggiard

‘Mastiff Defender (Undead)’

Dralzekk

‘Mastiff Defender (Undead)’

Ravaging Homunculus (Undead)

Damages Dealt: Physical

Resistances: Necrotic

Health: 500

Pack Tactics

Damages Dealt: Physical

Resistances: Necrotic

Health: 500

Pack Tactics

Damages Dealt: Physical

Resistances: Necrotic

Health: 800

Sloughed Slime

(Conditional)

Damages Dealt: Acid, Poison

Immunities: Acid, Poison

Resistances: Physical

Health: 300

Split

Please place 1 defender

“Right.” The table fills in over the page in her grimoire the same instance as the request fills her head. Maybe it wouldn’t cost her mana, but it would still take up space in the dungeon. Graverra whines as she worries her bottom lip. She supposes there’s only one way to find that out, but still.

As she had suspected, the options presented to her were severely limited; more so than the non-combative creatures. It made sense, if this was technically the first thing a brand new dungeon core was supposed to complete and gave her a clean enough slate to see about alternative ways of leveling their defenders. It seemed she wasn’t going to be allowed to touch things like feats until the system read her as beyond level one.

The ‘Basic Spider’ jogs her memory and she quickly begins seeking out the necessary adjustments to recreate the bone spider Hecrux had sent after her in the very beginning. As a bonus, she could always try and pass it off as the same spider if Hecrux did notice. She’d still rather he didn’t; Graverra holds her breath, already cringing as she places the bone spider in the practice room. Something she again wishes somebody beside Capo could see and praise her for, considering how difficult that amount of mental dungeon management had been for her before.

‘Spider Defender (Bones)’ - Cost: — Mana

Type: Arachnid (Bones)

Theme:

XP Granted: 25

Loot Dropped:

Damages Dealt: Physical

Actions: Sprint, Dodge, Jump, Bite

Resistance: Necrotic

Health: 50

Place ‘Spider Defender (Bones)’ ?

[Y]/N

“Graverra?” Hecrux throwing his voice into the room sounds hesitant at least, not angry. “I thought you were resting.”

“And he’s noticed…” Graverra sighs before he’s even finished speaking. “Somebody has to finish the training… And it’s fine and I have a plan and don’t look at it yet! It’s not done.”

The image of the goldfish in the mirror flickers as she’s distracted by the idea of hiding it all from Hecrux somehow.

Graverra Graeme, Bride of the Dungeon Core

225 / 400

Graverra is aware of the fact that her health had been pulled without her being the one to pull it. She scowls. “You could have just asked.”

“Usually you don’t notice.” There’s a hesitation to his voice as if he can’t decide which option was better.

Graverra decides to ignore it, for now. If Hecrux hadn’t actually wanted her figuring out how to do things like a real dungeon core, then… Then the rest of that thought wouldn’t let her ignore it.

“It seems to be coming back quicker, at least.” She hopes he doesn’t intend to pull up the timer next, because it will only send her crawling back to bed due to stress.

He doesn’t, for now, but when he speaks it’s still a bit awkward. “The training seems to be going well…”

“Mhm.” Graverra gives a small nod. “I think I’ll have to use a bit of mana to finish this the way I want.”

“I suppose that’s alright,” There’s an argument in there for later about who should be allowed to allow whom to do what… But, later. “Although maybe if you allowed me to help…”

“If I let you help then it wont be a surprise.” That was silly of her, but still… It was more impressive - in her mind - if he didn’t have to watch her struggle through it.

“In that case, I regret to have to remind you that as the primary core…”

“You already know everything.”

“Dungeon core’s gonna dungeon…” Capo’s singsong only furrows Graverra’s brow further.

“Maybe not the finer details, but… It’s a bit difficult to sneak an entire room into one’s domain.”

“Fine.” Graverra still has to pout about it a little, though she guesses if everything felt about the same as having her health pulled up without her say so… She must be awfully grating. “I’m still not going to tell you what I have planned in the end. Unless…?”

“Your thoughts are still entirely your own.”

“Thank you.” Graverra fidgets in her chair as things fall back to silence yet again. Now with the nagging anxiety that it will only end like the last time… With Hecrux finding some new reason to be bothered by her and leave her alone again.

“All I really have left is two more… well, maybe three chapters.” She begins answering her own worries out loud. “Do you think we get a boss defender before we’re placed? I’m sure that’s a lot of mana to have taken care of, so it would be nice if this covered it… The others are tier locked so I figure I won’t be allowed to read those yet. And if that means it doesn’t register as completed I’m going to- I don’t know what I’ll do, but it won’t be pretty.” It was just the sort of moving target the system seemed to enjoy though. “Did you finish all the way the first time or did I interrupt?”

“You did interrupt.” But he doesn’t sound upset.

“And that’s why you could keep building the same hall over and over and over again, and- oh! Look! I’ve improved the spider.” She guesses if he already knew the spider was there, she might as well show it off. The mirror’s image jumps to the bone spider - Graverra wishes she could say without much thought, but maybe if he really wasn’t in her head it still looked that way - skittering over it’s predetermined path.

“Bossman’s was cuter.” Capo chimes in.

“It was meant to be endearing.” Hecrux agrees.

“It was!” Graverra dreads the idea that this is what backfires on her now. “But are we trying to entrap more necromancers or build a dungeon?”

“I don’t recall trapping you. Coming to a mutual agreement however…”

“Well,” Graverra’s voice already sounds strained from having to keep a slue of emotions in check. She didn’t want to feel trapped or imply that’s what Hecrux’s intent had even been. She believed he hadn’t planned for her to fall into the dungeon any more than she had and it wasn’t as though any new information was going to change that, but… “Now you’re going to mutually agree with me over whatever we’re asked to place for Chests, Drops, and Other Rewards.”

What they’re asked to place turns out to be a bust, in terms of exciting and engaging parts of Initial Dungeon Training to keep your dungeon core husband from being in such a sour mood still. For one, since the bone spider was just a baby, it could only drop a small bit of bonemeal or venom.

“I think if we let it fight the dogs it might level a little faster, before we’re placed.” Graverra explains while simultaneously renewing her worry over having to explain the involvement in defenders at least one of them would have to maintain. “Though we actually would benefit from it staying like this with my plans for later.”

“You’re beginning to frighten me, darling.”

Graverra’s eyes narrow, both at this continued tone and the pet name… But it was still better than not talking. “Oh, hush.” She could play mean and snippy too, if that’s who they were going to be now. “It won’t do too much damage… I don’t think.”

Another doubtful hum from Hecrux fills the room, but they could burn that bridge when they got there. Graverra continues through the chapter; Another easy one, considering they already had the experience of assigning drops to the other defenders and she wasn’t a complete stranger to the other side of clearing a dungeon.

Place 1 Basic Chest?

[Y] / N

Rather than fighting it, Graverra lets the system decide what goes in it. She already had plans for later anyway.

“Capo, remind me to move that later. And make it better.”

“Yes, mistress.”

“Better how?” Hecrux sounds genuinely curious and amicable again. “The drops are plenty for now.”

“Maybe, but if the training has one in it’s stupid little broom closet of horror…” That felt like something they could get penalized for, or miss out on some dungeon specific achievement.“Shouldn’t we have actual rewards?”

“What sort of rewards did you get for level appropriate dungeons?”

Graverra sneers at the words ‘level appropriate’. Nothing she had done before has been level appropriate. That had been one of the areas she thought they got along best. “Is it so wrong of me to want more?”

“I suppose that’s why you’re here…”

“Well if we want to get pedantic about it I’m here because you’re impatient and thought I was easy.”

“You have been anything but, I assure you.”

Graverra considers apologizing, but even she knows that’s stupid. It was better to just move on.

6. Skills, Crafting, and Cultivating

“What?” Hecrux isn’t ready to though… Or she’s being too obvious. “The way you said it before, easy is a bad thing.”

“It is… Sometimes. Sometimes maybe I just want to be told ‘Good girl, Graverra’, ‘Thank you, Graverra’, or I don’t know how about ‘I see you’re really trying very hard, Graverra’.” She lays forward over her grimoire and the table as she speaks. Maybe she needed to go inactive for a bit before the last couple chapters…

It seems they’re about to be plunged into another round of tense silence again when Hecrux finally formulates a response.

“You are exactly as challenging as I’d hoped you would be, Graverra.”

Graverra’s face gets stuck somewhere between a renewed frown and a smile, to the point she feels the need to hide it, buried in her grimoire. Not the answer she had been wanting, but still maybe good.