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

So, they couldn’t just skip around like that.

Graverra’s heart sunk as the System’s message printed across the page. The dungeon core - Hecrux, now - wasn’t going to like that.

The core blinked, once, then made that thoughtful growling noise of his. “Very well then…”

Graverra didn’t wait. She pressed in on the beginning of this dungeon training like she would any other prompt in her grimoire.

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.

“Wanna bet?” Graverra grumbled down at the book, although the information also filled her head. It felt like seeing double, but that was easier to field now that she was seated.

Especially when the speed of information seemed attached to her over eager husband’s ability to parse information much faster than her. Her vision swam again as Hecrux finished out the chapter for the both of them. Maybe she picked out a sentence or two for herself, but… Hecrux had been right not to try earlier, this felt very much like something that would have fried her silly little mortal brain.

1. Dungeon Cores - Completed!

“I did know all that already.” Hecrux explained, but he sounded a lot less sullen than moments ago.

“Good for you.” Graverra still felt the need to rest her head on the table. If she wasn’t actually going to be allowed to read anything… She guessed lying there worked too. “I’ll take your word for it.”

That’s what she’d been doing anyway, wasn’t it? Under threat of death, sure, but… It’d worked out so far. They’d get to something she could actually do eventually. They had to. He’d already said he’d like to watch her work.

Pulling Secondary Core Specific Training…

The dungeon core rumbled again. So maybe he hadn’t read everything-everything.

Graverra sat up and put her arms defensively over her grimoire while willing the information to project itself there, sort of like scrying—although that was usually as wizard’s spell. She probably couldn’t keep him from it entirely, but this felt like something she actually wanted to read.

“Let me finish this.” She fixed him with a stern look before looking back down at her grimoire.

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…

Her stern look sunk quickly to an outright scowl. Beyond the encouraging veneer, the rest of the passage—as much as she could skim quickly—was just downright patronizing. Communicate, work together, your roll in the dungeon is just as vital as anyone else’s… Blah, blah, blah. It sounded like what you told someone when you wanted them to play support in a party. And she’d heard that before. A lot.

“Did you read this before?” Graverra hoped not. There was a horrible theory she’d rather not think about beginning to worm its way into her head. Maybe Estremon hadn’t wanted this for him, but he’d known. He’d known and now that he had her she was going to be equipped with everything she needed to support her primary core. Graverra mimed gagging at her own thought. If Hecrux noticed, he didn’t react.

“I don’t have to read.” He answered her question like it was a point of pride.

Graverra slumped back over her grimoire as she huffed. He was really going to make her work for things, huh? “Fine then. When you… intuited all this information before, did you know all this stuff about secondary cores?”

“I did’t have one, so the information wasn’t useful to me.”

“Ahuh…” That wasn’t an answer. “But you knew they were a thing? I mean, like, you could have just lead with that, you know?”

“I’m not sure that I did.”

“Hecrux.”

“Graverra.” He squinted back at her, but still didn’t seem to get it. “Is there something you’re not understanding? Should I-”

“No.” Graverra pointedly flipped the next page, scanned it for any relevant information — She was just as important! She shouldn’t worry! Where would anyone be without support? Barf. — Then flipped the page again to finish out the chapter.

Stolen story; please report.

1.1 Secondary Cores - Complete!

“That was much faster.” He meant it to be encouraging, she felt, but…

Graverra slouched harder in her seat. This wasn’t right.

1.2 Core Responsibilities - Complete!

1.3 Core Avatars - Complete!

Graverra jumped back up in her seat at the System’s announcements. Two! At once! Despite the fact that they were achievements and that did come with a rush of good feelings all on its own, there was such a thing as too much of a good thing. And she was definitely starting to feel it.

“Hey!” She slammed her grimoire closed as if that might stop him. “You don’t think I might’ve wanted to read that?”

“It’s in our collective consciousness now.”

“Our-” Graverra nearly got the question out before the answer came to her like a prompt from the System in her head and with a little zap to it.

The primary and secondary core share all knowledge and experience presented to them. This typically allows for a more beneficial division of tasks as well as accelerated skills acquisition. However, paired cores may find difficulty navigating the influx of information. Cores found to have strong wills or difficult personalities are not good candidates for pairing for this reason.

“Okay. Well.” Did Hecrux have any say in how much information got flashed? Did he mean for her to see the part about strong wills and difficult personalities? Graverra worried her bottom lip. She was certainly having difficulty navigating the influx of information… “It’s not working right, right now. I have to be allowed to read.”

“You’re already satisfied with your avatar.”

“I meant more about the responsibilities thing? Kind of sounds like something a dungeon core might like to know before she starts working on a dungeon…” She still got to do that, didn’t she?

The dungeon core blinked at her, as if the answer was obvious. “We are to build and maintain a dungeon.”

Graverra slow blinked in return, hard, as she weighed her options. He’d already said Estremon thought she might slow him down. She definitely didn’t want that. “I guess I’ll take your word for it then.”

“You’re upset.”

The statement of it made her want to argue. But that’s what they already had been doing, wasn’t it? That’s what Estremon wanted.

“You’re moving too fast.”

“That was the point of this arrangement. I advanced quicker than I would have on my own, and I didn’t have to kill you.”

“So… now you want me to just sit here while you do everything yourself?”

“You were having trouble standing earlier.”

“I mean,” Graverra said emphatically. This was getting worse than explaining necromancy to a paladin. “If you do everything for me, then… what’s left? Like, what’s the point of me?”

“I would think you might be happy to have all your needs met now. It didn’t sound as though your previous companions took care of you very well. The point of you is to be my secondary core.”

“Well, no, they didn’t. I guess. But-” The idea that he wanted to take care of her — that somebody had noticed — threatened to derail her. Maybe being taken care of should have been enough. “But if I wanted to be sidelined to play support, I could have just stayed with them.”

“No you couldn’t have. I would have had to kill you.”

“But like,” Graverra worked up the courage to ask her most pressing question. Maybe it was better if she just didn’t know. Being delusional had already gotten her through plenty before. “You won’t now, right?”

Hecrux took a moment to think it over. At least, Graverra thought that was what he was doing, maybe he was just interfacing with the System again. Without her.

“It seems you were correct, if I lose you, I’ll lose what you’ve gained me as well.”

But what had happened to wanting her? What had happened to being invaluable? Fine, their arrangement hadn’t been based on anything but mana and her silly little want to not die, but… He’d still gone and called her his wife.

Better than the cheap heals whore… She thought to herself bitterly. It had made sense in Valerae’s case, she was a vampire after all, but the way Branimir needed her one minute then begged her to reclass the next had already caused her to snap on more than one occasion. This was better. Still not ideal, but she could make this work. They weren’t even finished with training yet.

1.4 Core Companions - Complete!

The achievement flashed in Graverra’s head, completely halting her reflections. “Wait, wait, what was that? You know, I really think if it has anything to do with me, I should probably be allowed to read it.”

“It wasn’t about you. It was about the skull. Capo.”

“Oh. He kind of had me believing he was a mob…” Graverra guessed it really didn’t matter either way then. Hecrux had already gone and made Capo, although she hated to think she’d actually gone and replaced the skull. She’d really been considering getting him a complete skeleton somehow. “Did you kill him?”

“I think it would be more of an unmaking, but no, I told you. He’s in storage.”

“Should we let him out?”

“I don’t have any need of him, I have you.”

Graverra grimaced in lieu of a smile. That didn’t feel like such a flattering thing at the moment. Maybe now she understood the reason Capo wanted to set them up like this… And it had worked. Stupid skull.

“Are you really ‘Mad, Bad, and Dangerous to know’?” That question just slipped out. She should have asked before, when she first saw the theme.

“I thought we had moved on from themes.”

Graverra cocked her head as she studied the core. If she ever convinced him to take a more human form it was over for him. She’d read him like a book. “You ever notice how you don’t even answer my questions half the time?”

“You ask a lot of questions.”

“Well, yeah, but-” Graverra’s grimoire flopped open of its own accord. Or maybe that had been Hecrux’s accord.

“If you are’t going to at least try to intuit any of this, then perhaps I should just let you read.”

“Oh, how gracious of you.” Graverra grumbled. The pages filled with an explanation of how a dungeon core advanced its ranking. It didn’t appear to work quite the same as a class’s levels; Although thanks to her, they now used a number in addition to the metals system she had seen before.

“You’re still mad at me.”

“I’m not mad at you.” She wanted, maybe, to ask how the achievements system had been for him before she showed up. Since it did reference skills again, but promised they would be getting to that in due time. Still, it seemed their dungeon’s theme operated like a class, while their specialization operated like a theme… And that wasn’t going to get confusing for her later at all.

“You have no reason to be. I’ve successfully made you a dungeon core, as was our agreement.” The dungeon core continued, and while he spoke also tried again to set his beloved dungeon theme…

Set Dungeon Theme: Grotesque

Graverra growled to herself, torn between asking if maybe they might consider something else and her reading. It made her wonder if he understood that slowed her reading down even more, but at least it didn’t feel quite so upsetting to her when the System agreed with him.

“You’re right, Hecrux.” When she smiled at him this time it was entirely false. Sickly sweet. “I’m very lucky.”