“How much have you spent already?” Even as Graverra asked, the number brought itself to her mind.

Primary Core Mana Reserves: -220

“Wait, how are you allowed to do that?” He had been using fleshwarping, hadn’t he? Was that just the System’s new quirky way of allowing for that?

Hecrux explained plainly as ever, “It comes out of your’s.”

“And how is that fair?” Graverra itched to check her own reserves then, but she wouldn’t know the difference. She hadn’t quite gotten all hers back yet.

“I am the primary core.”

Graverra ground her teeth as she considered how to argue with that. That made sense, technically, but it still didn’t feel very nice.

“And now you may do your finessing. There are some of those twisty iron things that might look nice for the stairs and get metallurgy progressing.”

Graverra growled. The vague sense she already had of the changes were nice, though they would need finessing, and if she had to hazard a guess, that meant she’d need more skills to be leveled up, which she knew they would get to eventually, but...

Primary Core Status: Inactive

“Hey!” Graverra reached over and smacked the dungeon core’s heart shaped avatar. Just because Hecrux blew his load without her didn’t mean she planned to do the same.

Primary Core Status: Active

“Yes, Graverra?” Hecrux blinked like he had actually managed to fall asleep in those few seconds.

Graverra frowned up at him. Was it even worth it to try and make him think for himself? “You aren’t going to show me what you did?”

“You can see for yourself.”

“Well, yeah…” But Graverra wasn’t sure she wanted to drag the crystal ball into his lair just for it to get mocked. Although if he insisted on going inactive... “But it’d be like a gesture.”

“I already have you,” Hecrux stated. “I don’t need to do that anymore.”

Graverra sighed hard, then unstuck herself from the floor. It had been a good thing she hadn’t brought any of her stuff in there yet. “Yeah, you do. But you can forget it now, moment passed.”

“Graverra…” Hecrux almost sounded as though he were whining, but not enough for Graverra’s standards.

“No. Go back to sleep or whatever. I’ll go work on the crypt.” She didn’t stomp off back to her chambers, but she might have closed the door a little hard.

“How goes the dungeon build- That bad, huh?” Capo greeted her almost the same as before, only to change his tune at the sound of Graverra’s frustrated scream.

“It’s fine!” She snapped on her way to her bed for a pillow to continue screaming into. It was fine. Hecrux wasn’t even mad at her. He had already said what he had been working on—the entrance to her castle. He’d built her a crypt too. She should be happy.

When she’d finished her second scream, Graverra climbed into bed and hugged the pillow to her chest.

“It is fine.” She mumbled over the top of the pillow. “I know we’re not really married, and he doesn’t even really like me, and you’re both just humoring my silly little mortal brain.”

Capo hummed sympathetically. “Well, you’ve got more brains going for you than I do. And you’ve got all that dungeon core recall now; you can’t stay stupid forever.”

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

“Oh yeah?” Graverra narrowed her eyes at the skull. It still felt backhanded. “I’m not the primary core.”

It made sense, technically. Hecrux had been there first. It was his dungeon. She hadn’t wanted her own dungeon; she just wanted to help make this one better. But she still wasn’t even sure she was doing that.

“He’s had more practice.” Capo offered. “And now maybe all those books won’t melt your brains! Could always start that dungeon tutorial thing since he’s out."

Graverra hummed as she weighed her options. She really should just do the dungeon tutorial without him, but she’d forgotten about all those books he’d offered her at the start. She summoned her grimoire onto the bed; no need to summon an entire library. And there, that had to be a much more core-like thought. It would be efficient at least.

Letting her grimoire fall open in her lap, it defaulted to the dungeon map. Hecrux’s work on the supposed entrance to the castle caught her eye immediately.

A new set of steps lead up out of the courtyard to the barebones of a terrace and castle entrance. The fleshwarping made perfect sense now; behind the pillars holding up the terrace, Graverra recognized the map’s shorthand for flesh, the same way it peeked out from between the stones in the hallway. It wasn’t a bad idea, though Graverra wondered how the dogs felt about it, and if all that had cost all of Hecrux’s mana pool even with fleshwarping, she shuddered to think what it would be without.

Graverra looked up towards the crystal ball beside Capo and traced her scrying sigil in the air. She wouldn’t have been able to do that before. Scrying had been hard enough.

The image of the new staircase and terrace filled the sphere; Graverra was pleased to see it did at least have the façade of a castle, even if they hadn’t built out any rooms yet. It looked right. Almost how she’d imagined. She hoped that meant their spellcrafting had gone up. That felt in line with that illusory ceiling stuff.

"Well, that’s not nothing.” Capo sounded truly impressed.

Graverra hummed and looked back down at her grimoire. She didn’t want to be impressed by Hecrux, not when he wasn’t there. Not when he didn’t seem to want to impress her anymore.

And although he was right, wrought iron railing probably would look nice, Graverra chose to make it out of bones and saw to her lighting concerns while she was at it.

Place ‘Bone Railing’ for 400 mana?

Place 4x ‘Iron Braziers’ 100 mana?

[Y] / N

“You really want me spending two thousand mana on bits and pieces?” She grumbled as she rested her chin in her hand. The crypt. She had planned to work on the crypt. Except she didn’t know what mobs Hecrux might want down there, and they were only going to be allowed four more. And did that include a dungeon boss? She hadn’t seen anything about that. Or maybe she had?

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

The warning filled her head, not the pages of her grimoire. Graverra guessed that made sense... That was where the worrying was happening.

“I thought dungeon cores just knew everything.” She said, still glum as ever, before switching over to an impression of what Hecrux had told her earlier. “You just do; you’re a dungeon core.”

“He doesn’t sound like that.”

"Yes, he does; you just haven’t heard him in... a while.” The dungeon timer threatens to come to the forefront of Graverra’s mind, but she shakes her head to dismiss it. The numbers meant nothing to her—not the timer, not the mana, not even the skill lines or any other rankings—but if she thought too hard about that, then she’d really start spiraling. “I wish he’d just tell me what he wants.”

"No, you don’t.”

Graverra huffed. She didn’t want Capo to be right now either. What had happened to these maddening secrets of the universe she was supposed to be burdened with? She flipped the page in her grimoire before looking up at the bed canopy above her. She knew she didn’t have to, but it still felt right.

“Alright, dungeon… System… Where’s all that mind-blowing knowledge I was promised? And don’t you dare tell me to just finish all that initial dungeon training!” If that had been all Hecrux had really been tempting her with... She wasn’t sure which one of them to be more disappointed in.

A list of books and authors began to fill the page of her grimoire, then the other. Graverra felt a knot of worry begin to tie in her chest. What if she still couldn’t do this, even as a dungeon core?

“A Beginner’s Primer on the Fundamentals of Magic, I swear I read that.” Graverra scowled at the first suggestion. As if she didn’t know that. Most of it. Still, she kept listing. “Power Theorem, I think they make wizards read that. Gods and Other Abstract Concepts... The Grey of Solitude... An Anthology of Madness... Do you think Hecrux read any of these?”

Capo wobbled on the table as he shook his head. “He was just putting it in terms you could understand.”

“Ha.” And how well that had worked out. “Oh, Malfunctions of Magic and Other Curious Things, that sounds like us.”

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Cost: 750 Mana

The book landed beside Graverra’s grimoire with a thud at just the same time as Hecrux went active again.