The dungeon core does not fit in Graverra’s chambers, in the end. It turns out simply ‘bamf’-ing into another room is not at all simple nor something available to either of them at their current tier.

“Why can’t you just squish the walls around like before?” It was a genuine question. Making her fall in and out of his lair hadn’t been a problem in the past. She’d summoned her own door just before this mess… If she were able, Graverra might have just done it herself.

“I was the only core making decisions about mana at that point in time, darling.” She thinks his use of the pet name must - in his mind at least - mean some attempt at not turning this into another argument, but her own insecurity over the delay and the over complicating of things was still too fresh. “We’re back in a bit of a recouping period, remember?”

That did it. Even if Hecrux hadn’t meant it that way. Even if she was supposed to stop arguing, if not because she really didn’t want to be fighting with him, then at least for the sake of gaining back any control of the dungeon. “Well, I didn’t make the door between us strictly human sized while refusing to use a more practical avatar.”

Hecrux sighs. Subconsciously, Graverra thinks she’s glad he didn’t seem to take the bait, but…

“And how has this more practical avatar been working out for you as of late?”

Graverra scoffs. “That wasn’t even the problem!” That wasn’t supposed to backfire on her like that. Granted, she wasn’t supposed to be arguing anymore, but it was the principle of the thing now that he’d gone and brought it up. “I could have been a big, fleshy, blob too and it still wouldn’t have mattered because I had no skills!”

“Don’t listen to him, Mistress, he likes your current avatar just fine.” The reassurance from Capo only serves to cause Graverra to pause. That was good to know… Though maybe more actionable when she wasn’t still so angry with him, or at least when he had an equally as impractical avatar to match.

“That’s still not the point!” Hecrux’s voice raises quickly as the skull’s comment seems to strike a nerve there as well. “Did it even occur to you, Graverra, that dungeons are built with an entire party in mind? Even with your previous arsenal, you would not be able to clear a dungeon of any size by yourself. If you had been just a necromancer you would have died down there. ”

“… Yes.” The stern tone chills her. Even though he had just previously said he hadn’t intended to kill her, the severity of it all and the fact that he felt it too hits her almost as hard as being flattened by the homunculus. Hecrux had already said something about the system being the thing to not give her all her core permissions back, not him. What if she’d done all that and he wasn’t able to save her?

Graverra begins to nervously twirl a strand of white hair as she pushes that and a few other thoughts aside. “But Bran and Val and me ran plenty of stuff we shouldn’t have. And you didn’t have me there to explain things to you so I didn’t think you were aware of party composition and such.” Technically, she guessed she’d never really gotten the real adventuring party experience either, but she’d still had more than him. Which maybe meant she should have known better. “And you said they wouldn’t attack me!”

“So long as the system still thinks you’re my secondary core.”

“But I am!” She gestures towards her still open grimoire as if that might prove it. The ‘Initial Dungeon Training’ at least still thought she was, that had to count for something.

Hecrux is silent for a moment, to the point she thinks he must be checking in on something within the system she doesn’t currently have access to. She returns to where she’d left off in the training manual while she waits, beginning to skim over dungeon advancement. Nothing felt particularly dire there… She already had the concept of XP and tiers down just fine. Dungeons earned XP through the obvious means, an adventurer being injured and/or ultimately dying within the dungeon’s domain and the fulfillment of achievements set by the ever benevolent Coalition of Core Keepers. Those seemed to be a bit of a moving target, but that made sense based on Estremon’s behavior. Less obvious, to Graverra at least, were things like time a party spent in the dungeon or the various metrics being thrown around in regards to trap or defender placement.

“Well,” Hecrux returns his attention to the room. “You no longer seem to be in combat.”

“That’s good.” There’s still a lilt to Graverra’s voice looking for some reassurance. He certainly didn’t sound any happier.

The dungeon core hums an affirmative, but he still sounds disappointed. “You’re still not gaining your health back very quickly.”

“Well, you did say there wasn’t going to be a next time.” Graverra forces a laugh and tries to quickly feel out her health without looking down at the grimoire.

Graverra Graeme, Bride of the Dungeon Core

210 / 400

At least it was still going up. “I’ll just take it easy for a bit and-“

“The system will start diverting mana to heal you now that it recognizes you as the secondary core again. Unless you were interested in petitioning for-“

“No!” They absolutely would not be letting Estremon know her stupid little check in had done so much damage. “Maybe- Maybe if I finish this quickly it’ll sort of kickstart things? Sometimes you get a little bonus like that after class permits. Mine was mana, even.”

“Perhaps.” He still sounded doubtful. Maybe even distracted. Like he was doing things without her…

“Didn’t you still want to help? You don’t have to be in here, you could just… listen.”

“I think it may be best for me to go inactive, to speed up your recovery.”

“But-“

“While you’re reading, you may want to refresh yourself on the use of mana for cores. Evidently it works very differently for mortals.”

Really, when she thought about it now, he hadn’t used that word about her in a while. It was only being reminded of the way he’d said it when Estremon came to call that had set it all off again… And now she’d gone and made it into a self fulfilling prophecy.

“Hecrux?” Graverra half expects for him to have gone inactive in the time it took to muster up the courage to ask anything.

“Yes, Graverra?”

“You are still upset with me, aren’t you?”

The dungeon core sighs and again she wonders if she’ll get much more of a response before he goes inactive. “I suppose it’s like Capo was trying to say; Dungeon cores are going to behave as a dungeon core. You can’t help your nature.”

Graverra’s expression begins to fall. “But I am a core now.”

“Finish your reading, darling. Rest well.”

Graverra can’t help a little sniffling as she returns to her way of laying swaddled in her blankets and reading at the same time. If ever there were a time to cry about all this though, she thinks she’s earned it. Maybe by her own doing, but still.

“Oh,” Capo clucks sympathetically from across the room. “Don’t take it too personally, Mistress. He gets moody about mana sometimes. Thought you would have noticed by now, given…” She feels the skull would have been gesturing about the room if he were able. “How’d you think I wound up laying out in a pointless hall? Cost of pulling me up startled him so much I guess he just couldn’t stand to look at me.”

For as much as she felt she deserved the chance to wallow, Graverra is still curious enough about her core companion theory to settle herself again. “You remember being made?”

“More or less. Erring on the side of less. Wasn’t as, uh, dramatic as your whole thing.”

“But you were one of the first things, weren’t you? Did he already have that tunnel built or did he make you, get upset, build a tunnel… There were lights in there too, weren’t there? And he had to have had one of those ambient pylon things, at least by the time I fell in, because I remember dripping I think? How long do you think you existed before then?”

“Easy!” But the skull at least still sounds good humored. Honestly, she should have asked these things sooner, but with the focus on building she’d forgotten she hardly knew a thing about the dungeon core before her arrival. Beside maybe a few ominous hints at something he wasn’t willing to clarify. As if she was just supposed to intuit even more things. “If you think your passage of time’s been warped, imagine just turning up here one day from nothing else. Maybe there was a bit of a pause, before I got the metaphorical boot. He was… disoriented, I guess. Didn’t seem to be taking to the whole core thing as well as you.”

“Oh,” There is still a little spite left in her. “But I thought he just intuited everything, like a dungeon core.”

Capo rattles on the table as if to shrug. “If he was so good at it to begin with what would he need you for?”

“You’re the one who said he was moody about mana.” Graverra begins to pout again. If she let herself dwell on it too long she knows she’ll be right back at the conclusion that she had just been a cheap and easy way to boost the dungeon’s mana. Hecrux didn’t really want any of her insights, in fact he may very well be pleased she was finally confined to her chambers and unable to meddle with anything. That’s about when the tears begin to threaten again.

Capo doesn’t seem anywhere near as concerned, but he is quick to start speaking again once the crying starts. “You’ll both take a rest and feel silly about it in the morning. Hells, you’ll have a whole tutorial over him. Then who’ll know what a core is or isn’t to do?”

“I offered to read it to him too.” Graverra’s lip still quivers and then redoubles as she remembers that really, even if she did learn more than him, he’d just go ahead and read it out of her own mind anyway.

“I know you did. If you want to throw me at him again I’ll remind him as much.”

The offer does help. A little. “Maybe later.”

Drying her eyes on the corner of a blanket, Graverra settles back in to her reading. Though she fights with her own pettiness for a moment, she coerces the system to begin pulling anything it can tell her about mana before returning to the training proper.