The beginnings of a map sprawled across the pages of Graverra’s grimoire. The dungeon remained untitled — she really wondered when they would get to that — and her chambers and the core’s lair still lay on their own off to the top righthand corner, but otherwise, the grids sat empty. Not even the simple entrance from before.

Hecrux leaned forward to peer at the map. Graverra hadn’t expected him to care for it, let alone acknowledge it… But she appreciated the visual aid.

The dungeon core groaned at it in dread. “This again?”

“Hm?” Graverra looked up at him for an explanation. At just the same time the System went ringing in her head again.

Please place 1 Basic Dungeon Tile

Graverra scowled down at her grimoire again. She felt compelled to do what the System asked, but no idea how that actually worked. Was there some chunk of text being kept from her again?

“Let me.” She snapped at Hecrux. She did think to ask him how one placed a Basic Dungeon Tile but if she could just figure it out real quick… Maybe that would impress him. Maybe he’d think her capable of more.

It couldn’t be so different from casting her spells, though. Graverra braced herself against the table and tried to focus in on one of the map’s squares as if it were a grave. Maybe she could just will something to come up…

The impression of penciled in details filled in one of the squares, looking suspiciously similar to the entrance she had fallen into before. And still so basic.

“Do we have to be some kind of cave?” She chanced asking even though she didn’t feel that her tile had finished.

“Not forever. I wasn’t able to afford the necessary enchantments for an illusory ceiling, though.”

Did he mean every dungeon she’d ever cleared had been one big illusion? The heady feeling of a sustained spell kept her from following down that rabbit trail, but the tile finished itself soon after, filling over the penciled concept with ink and asking Graverra for final confirmation.

Construct 1 Basic Dungeon Segment?

[Y] / N

Graverra looked at Hecrux. “Did I do it?”

Yes, Graverra, he was supposed to say. You did it wonderfully and I’m so happy to have you now as my partner.

He didn’t, though. Hecrux squinted at her as if puzzled. “Don’t you feel it?”

Graverra looked down at herself, like that might find her where ever she was supposed to be feeling this. “It just felt like casting a spell… You can feel the whole dungeon? Like, all the time?”

“Of course I can. I’m a dungeon core.”

Anxiety hit Graverra squarely in the chest. What did it mean if she couldn’t feel it? She was a dungeon core too, now wasn’t she? And why hadn’t that impressed him?!

Achievement! - Back To Basics

Masonry Skill Line Unlocked

One Skill Point Allotted to Masonry

Hecrux growled at the System’s messages. Graverra could just guess which ones. She wondered if he even got a rush from achievements like she did, or was that just another fun carry over from having a class.

“That’s a good thing though, isn’t it? Like, yay we unlocked it?” She needed it to be a good thing. If she didn’t cause something good to happen soon she feared what his limits might be.

“We’re beholden to your crafting system as an adventurer.” He continued to grumble.

Graverra tried to pull back up the chapter on skills and crafting they had nearly read, but the System had only a warning to give her.

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

She guessed that meant they would get to it when they got to it.

“Well, I couldn’t even touch masonry before.” Furnishing skills were the ones you focused on when you had made it as an adventurer; After all your combat skills had maxed, your armoring, provisioning, probably even alchemy, got filled out before you worried about furnishing. You had to be able to afford somewhere to furnish to begin with. As far as Graverra was concerned, this was a luxury she’d never be able to afford on her own. She just wished he could see it that way… “I bet we get to do neat stuff with it. You know, after we get some more points, which, if one little tile got us one point…”

“I don’t care about stones.”

“Well. I want a castle.” Graverra declared. He probably didn’t care about what she wanted at the moment, but she didn’t care about that. He’d promised they could build a world just for the two of them after all. If it was her world, even only in part, she wanted a castle. She had done some thinking about it before. “So we’re going to need stones, and- and iron working, and a moat! We could fill it with piranhas and alligators… And a shark! Those have actual skeletons, you know?”

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“I am familiar with the concept of fish, yes, Graverra.”

“Just checking.” She flashed a sheepish smile and resettled in her chair. She’d started to get a little animated there… And she didn’t need him any more annoyed with her than he already was. “I mean, you did have some idea of what you were going to do with my mana, didn’t you?”

“Would you like me to show you?” Hecrux turned the grimoire around to face him. Odd, considering the fuss that had just been made about her needing it still, but Graverra wasn’t about to point that out.

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

The warning flashed yet again as Hecrux tried to ignore the System’s prompts, but this time he just… pushed through.

Graverra sputtered, half shocked, half scoffing at the idea that he could have just done this the entire time. He didn’t have to get on her case about it.

From the entrance she’d drawn, a hallway began to pencil itself in, angling downward and taking a few jagged turns before it let out into not so much a proper room as a pause in the descent - presumably to house their first mob. Graverra kept her mouth shut about the fact that it was just hallways again, tunnels even, but the System’s prompt for confirmation startled her into speaking up.

Construct 30 Basic Dungeon Segments for 750 mana?

Y / N

“Seven hundred and fifty?!” She lurched forward to be sure she read that number right. “That’s- That’s like all I used to have…” And a little extra. All for one boring hallway… “Can you change things after you’ve placed them or does it cost?”

The impression of Hecrux’s brow raised, curious. “It depends on what it is.”

“Are you open to suggestions?”

“That depends on what it is.”

“Well, that ceiling stuff probably costs a lot, huh? So I won’t complain that we’re tunneling again… But you might be interested to know that it’s way more annoying to go upstairs than downstairs. If I’m going downstairs, then I can kind of see what’s coming, but if I’m going up, it’s not like I can see over the top of it. It’s also really annoying in heels, but… That one’s my fault.”

“That is clever…” Hecrux returned to his usual furrowed brow. The directional indicators changed before Graverra’s eyes, then solidified with ink as Hecrux confirmed his plans.

Construct 30 Basic Dungeon Segments for 750 mana?

[Y] / N

Graverra held her breath the moment after the ‘Dungeon Segments’ were placed, in case that might help her feel them the way Hecrux implied he did. She didn’t. She didn’t think she did, at least.

“How do we see it all, though?” Even if she ever felt like part of the dungeon, or like the dungeon was part of her, or however that was supposed to work, Graverra didn’t think it would satisfy her want to see it all.

Hecrux looked between her and the grimoire. “It’s right in front of you.”

“No, but like, the way someone walking through the dungeon is going to see it.”

“I don’t think that’s necessary.”

“But how are we going to know if it works? Or what it even looks like? I mean, basic? If that’s all you were working with before, then trust me, it isn’t going to impress anyone. ”

Hecrux sighed, and one side of the map filled in with a list similar to the kind Graverra had seen during avatar customization.

Place ‘Desecrated Archway’ for 250 mana?

[Y] / N

Warning! - Archway should not lead to nowhere

“Very well then.” Hecrux huffed even louder. Behind the list, a proper—albeit basic—room began to pencil itself in at the end of Hecrux’s hallway, allowing for the archway to be drawn next.

Place 100 Basic Dungeon Segments + ‘Desecrated Archway’ for 2,250 mana?

[Y] / N

Maybe she felt it now. Graverra’s eyes widened at the final count of mana. If she’d thought spending her entire level seven pool’s worth of mana had been something… And for more basic dungeon segments of all things.

“And- And then we make the hallway match, right?” She hesitated to ask.

Another grumble sounded from the dungeon core and another prompt from the System filled the page of Graverra’s grimoire.

Replace 30 Basic Dungeon Segments with 30 Desecrated Dungeon Segments for 1,000 mana?

[Y] / N

Graverra squinted hard at the tiles being redrawn on the map. She really wished she could actually see them, but they did at least seem to have more detail to them; better stonework, though crumbling most likely thanks to the whole ‘desecrated’ thing, maybe some ivy or something growing over them?

“Much better.” She nodded once the inking had finished. Having seen the cost now, Graverra understood better the dungeon core’s reluctance to build much beyond the basics, but that’s what she was there for, wasn’t it?

“You’ll have to finish any more set dressing, my reserves are spent.”

“Thank you.” Part of her felt she should have been more upset that he had given up like that, but Graverra’s eyes lit up at the prospect of being allowed to build things for herself. She eagerly turned the page in her grimoire to better be able to read the list of dungeon accouterments.

The ivy—at least, she hoped it was ivy or this was going to look silly—had given Graverra ideas. She was going to make the first room their courtyard. No, it didn’t quite make sense with their technically still being underground, but Hecrux had mentioned illusory ceilings as a sort of fix for that, and they had to start building up skills somehow.

Replace 100 Basic Dungeon Segments with 100 Desecrated Dungeon Segments for 2,000 mana?

[Y]/N

Graverra confirmed the decision before she could get too in her head about the numbers, or Hecrux could try and talk her out of it. She still cringed the seconds before the change started to take effect, but this time she definitely felt it. Maybe that was the trick, since their reserves were separate.

One Skill Point Allotted to Masonry

“There, see!” Graverra slapped the page of her grimoire with the back of her hand. She had really been hoping that might happen. “We’ll build up skills easy.”

But when she looked up to Hecrux, she found nothing but a slowly beating heart, eye closed, asleep. Graverra huffed to herself. Of course he would be asleep when she’d actually done something… But then he’d just tell her he didn’t care about plants either. And she guessed if this little bit of decorating had started to drain her, using his entire reserve probably really took it out of a core.

“Well, if you aren’t going to be awake to tell me no…”

Rename ‘Room 1’ to ‘Courtyard’