The process of filling the dungeon with mobs isn’t quite as complex as Graverra had feared… Or she’s just missing something. Either was plausible.

It is less similar to placing objects, her only real point of reference beside avatar customization, which it bears a bit more resemblance to, if one wanted to create something from scratch.

First a base and an actual physical appearance - there was a small menagerie worth to choose from, even at their tier, and that was just the animalistic types. Ghosts, gasts, and ghouls were all on the metaphorical table, along with some basic forms of imps and hellspawn. Although slimes were listed, Graverra felt quite strongly about writing those off… Unless Hecrux could convince her otherwise, she supposed. As far as humanoids were concerned, Graverra was pleasantly surprised to find those were limited to the undead variety - skeletons, zombies, and a few shades between.

After that came a theme which - similar to Hecrux’s explanation - informed most of the mob’s behavior, though these prescribed to a list of their own, unless one wanted to spend the extra mana.

What probably would eat up most of her time, thankfully in this instance, was reading through the lists and lists of action and attack options. Similar to an adventurer’s build, Graverra could already see herself picking through the different combinations, terrified of the perfect set of skills eluding her, only to be pointed out later when changing it would be a headache.

“Which do you think undead stuff falls under? Unless that’s just necromancy…” Graverra asks as she skims through the physical appearance options again. It was possible to build an avatar that perfectly resembled any number of ‘normal’ animals which she guessed fit the requirements for that animal husbandry thing, even if they were augmented by certain defenses or attributes, but push it too far and it appeared to sway into the monster taming skill. Things built of bone were cheaper than a more fleshed out creature, but they denoted a more limited range of options in the future. Then again, due to the necromancy skill line being advanced to seven, they were afforded a few higher end options. Looking over a grosser style of mob as well, Graverra notes the fleshwarper stuff grants them about the same level of options.

“Seems like a mix, maybe? Looks a little more complex than one or another.” Capo suggests.

“Do you remember what you were when you were a mob?”

“I’m not a-“ It’s still interesting to her just how hurt the skull can sound. “All I know is I’m type: skeleton… or I was. Stick me on a body! That’ll knock a good a good eighty or so off the mana, won’t it?”

Graverra hesitates a moment before answering. “Hecrux says I shouldn’t spend anything on you right now. I will eventually! Or I have a different idea, but it should still wait.”

“We’re really going with that name, huh?”

Graverra crosses her arms and gives Capo a quizzical look. “He picked it himself.”

“Huh… Still! You gonna start taking orders from him now? What happened to making him work for it?”

“I have made more work for him! This whole skills thing didn’t used to exist, that’s my fault. And I’d really rather not upset him anymore than I have to. I don’t think cores get to revive. Not that anyone was here to revive me before…”

“Girlie, I don’t think cores get to kill other cores, especially not when they’re all bound together like the two of you.”

“Well… That’s good to know.” Graverra almost feels better before remembering who she’s talking to. “What do you even know about how cores work?”

“Admittedly, not a lot. All I know is if you’re a core now you’re basically god, er, goddess of the dungeon, and you can’t kill a god, can you?”

“Well…” Gods had been banished before, in the lore, but that wasn’t quite the same as dying. And Graverra supposes even if she got herself banished, Hecrux would lose everything she’d brought to the table… And Estremon would probably assign her to a different dungeon… “Alright so he won’t kill me, but I’d still rather not upset him more than I have to right now. We have a whole dungeon to build, and he’s very keyed up about being efficient about it.”

“I could be efficient…” The skull grumbles.

“Actually…” Graverra navigates back to a list of pre-generated mobs, suggested based on their dungeon’s tier and theme. There were already two humanoid skeletons, one built entirely and one that cut off at the torso to drag itself around by its hands.

‘Basic Skeleton Defender’ - Cost: 850 Mana

Type: Skeleton

Theme: Mindless Thrall

XP Granted: 150

Loot Dropped:

Damages Dealt: Physical

Actions: Sprint, Dodge, Claw, Punch

Resistance: None

Health: 150

‘Crawling Skeleton Defender’ - Cost: 800 Mana

Type: Skeleton

Theme: Mindless Thrall

XP Granted: 150

Loot Dropped:

Damages Dealt: Physical

Actions: Crawl, Grapple, Bite, Claw

Resistance: None

Health: 100

“Even if your skull knocks off a few mana… Even zombies get necrotic resistance and a higher health.” Graverra pulls a cringing smile. She doesn’t really want to disparage the skull, but he really wouldn’t be very useful to them like that. Not yet. “I can’t even give anything equipment or anything yet, we don’t have the skill lines for it.”

“Oof… And I’d rather not be mindless, if it’s all the same to everyone else.”

“I think it may cost more to keep your personality intact this way,” In truth, she’d still rather save Capo for her brief experiment in the future. “Though I can’t see too much about that right now. We don’t get those until…” Graverra pauses, rather than asking the dungeon for the answer, trying to will the information into her head to practice further. “Dungeon Tier Silver.”

“When’s that?”

“You know… I don’t think we’re allowed to see our XP as a dungeon… Or maybe we don’t gain it until adventurers start dying?” Though Graverra tries calling it up in her mind’s- or core’s eye, all she finds is more information on mob XP. “I guess that’s for the best, one less set of numbers to worry about…”

Graverra lounges over her grimoire. Though she’s not physically tired again, this was a lot to balance. And she’d thought assigning skill points as an adventurer had been a headache… After she had her moment’s sulk, she sits back up and sends the skeleton stat blocks away. She didn’t have to pull up the clock to know they really hadn’t wasted much time at all.

“Is this how he did it before? Just spent all his mana and slept it off?”

The skull wobbles on the table surface. She guesses to mean a shrug. “I didn’t get summoned into the core room. I just sat in the entryway. We talked some to wait out his regen, but lower mana cap, faster regen… You know how it is.”

If this was how the beginning stages of a dungeon went, then yes, she guessed she understood the want for company, even more than before. So why didn’t he feel that way still?

Graverra keeps picking through the pre-generated mobs. If their cap was seven, for now, it made sense to fill them as quickly as they could and spend the rest of their regeneration cycles to continue building them up… Or maybe spend it all on one enormous one now? And they would probably still be building other rooms… which would need mobs. Graverra nearly plants her face back into her grimoire. Maybe she should just wait for Hecrux…

“What’s the matter, girlie? Second thoughts?”

“No, it’s just… A lot.” This suddenly feels reminiscent of her meltdown from before.

“Honeymoon over already, huh?”

Graverra rolls her eyes, but her tone gets a hint more miserable. “I know we’re not really married and everyone is just humoring my silly little adventurer brain.”

Somehow, Capo clucks sympathetically. “Well, you’ve got more smarts going for you than I do. Hells, you got all that dungeon core recall now. You can’t be stupid forever.”

It still felt backhanded, but it was the thought that counted… At least that’s what Graverra was choosing to go with. “I guess I can start looking at traps now…”

With a huff, Graverra pulls up their timer, expecting not much time to have passed at all, but…

Dungeon Will Be Placed In… [344:17:03]

Secondary Core Mana Reserves: 2,460 (7.5% / 1hr)

“Ha! I told him that rock was worth it!” Graverra’s attention zooms to the mana she had recovered before looking at the clock. “Really?! That didn’t feel like two hours…”

“Times funky when you’re a dungeon core, I think. Bossman’s sense of time never seemed right to me, anyway. Yours sure ain’t any better.”

“How long do you think it’s been? I mean, since I fell down here?” Actually, at this point she isn’t sure down is even the right direction, but that’s not important now, anyway.

“Well, time still worked right when you first showed up… Once you kicked me back to storage though, who’s to say!”

Graverra isn’t sure why this calls to mind her ex-party… But she wonders how long it had been for them… How long they might have missed her or looked for her… What they might think of her now?

“Hey, if you go all inactive on me, I’d rather you make it look like you’re sleeping.” Capo startles her back to the present. “You look a little creepy with your eyes all glossed over, mistress.”

“Creepy’s what we’re aiming for, isn’t it?” She smiles at the use of her new title. Because she had one now. So Valerea and Branimir could suck it. “Well, if that’s how long mobs took, traps should kill the rest of our time…”