Please place 1 Basic Dungeon Tile

“No.”

Please place 1 Basic Dungeon Tile

“No!”

Please place 1 Basic Dungeon Tile

“Oh my gods, do you realize how many stupid dungeon tiles I have already helped place?” Given the last three prompts, Graverra doesn’t really expect an answer but she does give an exasperated huff and look up at the canopy above her. She had hoped the system would take into account the fact that they had placed an awful lot of tiles by now, sort of like the way it knew she was already very familiar with the concept of core avatars.

The reading had, shockingly, actually been useful. If Graverra were feeling generous she might say this was what Hecrux had wished she’d been a bit more aware of. That up to a point, tiles considered prefabricated were easier on their mana reserves, but any level of customization wound up nulling any attempt at saving mana. But even then, starting from absolute scratch for anything beyond a handful of tiles could absolutely wipe out their current reserves with only a small room.

Careful consideration should be taken about the type and placement of dungeon tiles. Optimizing the use of your mana is the key to your dungeon’s success! Your completion of this training and allotted building time should not be taken lightly.

The reminder only served to heighten Graverra’s anxiety over the subject. At this rate, if Hecrux had already at least done the normal training when he was a single dungeon core, she could very much imagine how one would get so touchy over mana.

“Which is why I would rather not place anything unnecessary…” She singsongs through gritted teeth.

“Now what’re we working on?” Capo calls from the table.

“I have reached the hands on portion of initial dungeon training, it seems.” Graverra continues scowling at her grimoire, still trying to find some sort of loophole. If anyone was going to find it, she figured there was a high enough chance it might be her.

In Advanced Tile Placement there came the solution of merging, though by the way it began cross referencing with crafting skill lines and then not allowing her to read ahead, Graverra was lead to believe this was something unique to their situation. Something Hecrux wouldn’t have known if he continues to refuse to do this dungeon training song and dance.

From what she is able to gather, it seems the happy medium between affordable and bland or a few prohibitively expensive but unique tiles is to begin with the bland and then somehow merge them with later set dressings. There is still an upfront cost, of which the hypotheticals made Graverra swear she had gained some sort of psychic damage condition, but after that, because it was considered prefabricated as far as the system was concerned, it began to cost a bit less.

And as much as she wished the system would learn to take no for an answer, Graverra supposes that could still be a failsafe if she has to explain where an extra tile came from… And where even more mana went.

“Fine. Hang on…” Graverra reaches over the footboard of the bed to pull the mirror closer. Despite reading through that entire chapter on Dungeon Cores, there had yet to be any practical guide to just intuiting it all in your head without visual aid. Knowing now that she could pull from sources outside the dungeon and system though… Graverra made a note to herself to follow up on that later.

She wishes someone beside Capo had been there to give her some credit, because pulling up Hecrux’s little hallway to nowhere went rather quickly, all things considered. There’s still a bit of a strain on her stamina, only made noticeable by the fact that her health was barely above half still, but she plops down the basic dungeon tile quickly and braces for the incurring drop in mana.

Achievement! - Back To Basics

Please place 6x6 Basic Dungeon Tiles

“I think you’re forget- You know what, I shouldn’t be questioning the system, now should I?”

“What’s it doing now?”

“I think… Whatever it asks me to place during training doesn’t actually cost us anything.” There is an impulse to see what else she can get away with, but that is quickly curbed by the fact it didn’t matter how many tiles she hoped to will into existence, only the 6x6 were placed. Graverra’s bottom lip sticks out in a pout momentarily, but really, she knows she can’t complain.

“You know what they say about gift horses…” Capo calls idly.

“Actually, I’m more familiar with the dead ones.” Although gathering up the pieces to summon one and then hanging on to it all until fifteenth level had been a bit of a chore. Not to mention the fact that if summoning a companion was more or less outlawed in every major city, probably riding in on a zombified mount wouldn’t go so well either…

“One less thing to worry about.” Graverra mumbles to herself, trying to ignore the fact that all she’d really done was make herself miss the simplicity of being just a necromancer. At least she’d been halfway decent at that. What did she know about running a whole dungeon anyway? Even the training wasn’t making complete sense…

Graverra shakes her head as if to fling off the thought.

Walls, Advanced Walls, Ceilings - Visible and Invisible, all follow a similar pattern. There’s the advice to group your preferred wall and tile combinations, which reads like it might fall under that future crafting chapter. That even if one plotted to have a dungeon appear as though it were out of doors and not the stereotypical cavernous maze, a dungeon core was still responsible of it’s airspace.

Lower tier dungeon cores with high hopes need not fret! The use of invisible ceilings will put a tidy cap on your domain, while still looking the part of an expansive sky. Flight via mount, magic, or other means will simply meet your invisible barrier and be quickly returned to the ground floor.

The system droned on about the proper use of traps in a ceiling, referencing future chapters on traps themselves, and genuinely did seem something to consider… But first Graverra had their own ceilings to worry about.

Hecrux had chosen some cavernous stalactite style ceilings for almost everything, sans the crypt and the insides of the would be castle. It wasn’t exactly befitting of a courtyard…

It’s a fight to convince the system to let her focus in on the courtyard rather than her required 6x6 nothing room, but with a bit of a headrush she gets there in the end. Only to be met with warning…

You cannot manage your domain during Initial Dungeon Training

Please complete Initial Dungeon Training

“The dungeon training is already making me manage my domain!” She growls, but then cringes as she feels her focus being snapped back to the little nothing room.

“Mistress, you’re glowing now.”

“Huh?” Turning to look at the skull backfires somehow. Her vision doubles and swims around until it finally focuses back to just one skull on one table.

“Your eyes were doing that thing his does.”

“They were?!” Despite the previous dizziness, Graverra whips her head back around to face the mirror. Still the same icy blue she wasn’t allowed to change… Maybe brighter? Capo wouldn’t have said it if he didn’t mean it. “I guess since I had to fight so hard with the system…”

She definitely feels it in her stamina now; To a point where if she were a regular old adventurer she’d start thinking about food, or at least a quick potion.

Graverra flops back into her pillows with a sigh. “This is exhausting. Why is this so exhausting?”

“Well I guess if everyone could make a dungeon…”

Graverra hums doubtfully. It really was more of a rhetorical question anyway. “Do you think if I kept my stamina, then he has stamina too?”

“I think you both got a little scrambled together there, with the whole mutual heart eating soul binding whatever.”

“Then why doesn’t he eat anything? Now I’m just hungry… I haven’t- I haven’t eaten anything in a week.” She supposed if her stamina wasn’t going up and down the way it did before, she didn’t need to… But if all this dungeon core business did this to her and Hecrux had been the one doing the brunt of it before…

“I guess that’s why he knocks out harder than you, just lets the mana cover it. He’s a dungeon core, I think they have a bit of a limited palette.”

Graverra growls again. “But when I have to take to my bed for… a bit.” She wasn’t going to pull up the timer, she’d just incur another status effect about it.

Core Avatar - Graverra Graeme, Bride of the Dungeon Core

Health: 211/400

Mana: 7̶̤̫̟̤̍̒͒̍0̸͉̦͉̃0̴̤̥̝̊/̷͉͋͠7̵͍̻͎̻̃͗̓0̷̻̇̔̔̚0̶͕͖̀̐0̶̬̭̒͝

Mana Reserves: 3,000 (7% / 1hr)

Stamina: 315/400

“Well…” Beside the use of stamina, which she knew would eventually come back at a more regular rate, nothing had gotten worse. “Let’s furnish this little broom closet then, shall we?”

Graverra considers just laying there and intuiting the rest of the information straight into her head… But that seemed liable to burn stamina faster and technically Hecrux never said he didn’t use books. He had known to summon a library at least…

Though she knows it’s a bit pathetic, she arranges herself, her pillows, and her grimoire back in a more reading while laying down friendly orientation. What was the point of all this if she wasn’t going to relish it all anyway?

Environment begins easy enough. She already understands themes, arguably better than certain cores might. Adventurers chose their themes, could change them under certain circumstances, or buy them in others. A dungeon core could do all those for it’s own dungeon, but not itself. It seemed even though she had been presented with a list, that was limited for her and might be limited even further for Hecrux. Even then, a change cost mana. To a point it seemed one might forfeit an entire recoupment period just to change it. And even in choosing a theme for the dungeon, that seemed to be restricted by their own themes.

After reading the word theme a few dozen times, Graverra was happy to write the both of them off as perfectly well matched in that department and not fret any further about what happened if the dungeon wandered too astray from feeling grotesque.

Pylons begin the drain again, though since in the eyes of the system she had chosen a theme, it did limit her choices considerably. Ominous this, dripping that… Graverra quickly settles on one in particular,

Place Pylon, Sound Effect - ‘Distant heart thumping’

Maybe it didn’t fit that particular room… But it gives her a wry smile as she focuses in on the room after the pylon’s placement.

The system demands more, of course. There seems to be a pylon for every sensory effect one could imagine and evidently the only way to be sure she’ll know how to use them is to cram them all into the same 6x6 room.

“It’s not really a broom closet, is it?” Capo asks after she refers to it as such once again.

“Hm? No… It’s just… I guess this is why all baby dungeons look the way they do.” Graverra decides she has a new respect for Hecrux’s ingenuity in kidnapping her. Even if he hadn’t meant to in the beginning… She certainly would have done plenty to not be cosmically judged based on her ability to pull together such a basic space.

She might even resolve to tell him as much… but first she has to decide how in the universe she planned to work the concept of ‘liquids’ into the room.

It isn’t very exciting, in the end. After arranging her allotted plants, rocks, and other set dressings… Well, first, Graverra is certain her stamina is beginning to dip into the hundreds after all that decision making and object shuffling. She considers getting up for the mirror, but even then it seemed like a wash before and she had been lamenting her inability to do it before… This was just practice. But one little puddle of ‘tainted’ water gets placed off to the right of the room’s entrance.

“Do you think the system will let me have piranhas?” Graverra yawns as she wills the grimoire to move on to Non Combative Creatures. After Capo’s noncommittal noises, the answer turns out to be no. All the better as she would have liked her piranhas to have some bite to them…

Place ‘Misshapen Black Goldfish’?

“Close enough…” Graverra grumbles and rolls onto her back. That was the end of a chapter at least. As much as she hates not being able to finish in one sitting… She currently hates the idea of remaining conscious even more. “Before I forget, remind me later to fix the ceilings.”

“Of course, mistress.”

“And if he gets up first, don’t let him touch it. I’m not done yet…”

“I think we all know that’s your very scary broom closet, mistress.”

Graverra grunts, not sure if that was supposed to be funny or an insult to her work. “You can tell him to start merging tiles, but I don't think he actually knows how to do that… So, actually, just don’t tell him anything. Tell him-“

“Goodnight, Graverra.”

Graverra hums her disapproval, but her eyes are already closed.