Graverra bounced down the hallway with a high-pitched squeal after every impact. She guessed that was fair and accomplished the feat of not dying, but…

“Ow.” Graverra groaned once she’d stopped bouncing, rubbing her poor behind as she crawled over to rest against the wall. The same wall she’d passed for hours before.

With a whimper, she summoned back her grimoire just to check…

Graverra Greame

Human - Drethiaq, Necromancer

Level - 7 | EXP. - 33%

Health: 185/400 | Stamina: 125/400 | Mana: 25/700

So that had hurt. But twenty-five measly mana couldn’t have been worth the effort of killing her over now. And it certainly wasn’t going to regenerate quickly. Even with the buffs from her gear, her stamina had gotten too low.

Graverra flipped more pages until she pulled up the one that listed her party members. Just Branimir and Valerae. They had all tried to keep a proper fourth before. Well, if Graverra was being honest, Branimir had tried. Branimir belonged to a real guild; An entire order of paladins. Why he still went out adventuring with herself and Valerae, Graverra had never been in a position to question. She didn’t want to go through the ordeal of seeking out a tank ever again.

Next to either of their names sat their current locations. The same one, of course, and not at all where Graverra had left them. They had gone on without her. They weren’t even looking for her, clearly. The only two people in the world who even knew what had happened to her and they weren’t going to even try to rescue her.

Fine, even if they did, she would act like she didn’t want that, but that was their whole thing. They didn’t work; Not on paper and not in action, but they still were there for each other… That had been the point. She’d thought that had been the point.

Graverra shut the grimoire and hugged it to her chest again. No Zaehlenne. No party. And she’d just turned down a proposal from a dungeon core.

“… And I mean, I may just be a skull without a body, but what’re you gonna get out there that you couldn’t get in here? You heard the core. It’d be like your own little world down here.”

Graverra got the feeling that she had zoned out of a telling off from the skull affixed to her hat.

“Capo, how long have I been down here?” She asked, still committed to feeling sorry for herself. They had just… left her. Sure, some of her acknowledged that maybe there hadn’t been anything to do, and that she knew she would be truly mortified to be rescued from this ordeal at all, but… They had left her.

“Oh, gee. I don’t know, girlie.”

“I’m going to get hungry now…” Graverra rest her chin on the edge of her grimoire, making her sound extra miserable. Technically, she already was; Eating would get her stamina to regenerate much faster than simply sitting there, though she could eventually gain it all back by just doing that. If actual hunger pain didn’t get her first.

“That’s too bad.” The skull wriggled above her in his sort of shrugging motion.

Graverra’s frown hardened. “Are you upset with me?”

“You shoulda said yes.”

“He killed my cat!” Sure, Bran had done it half a dozen times, but he at least hadn’t pretended to like her first.

“You can just summon her again.”

“No! No, I can’t just summon her again, because I am out of mana!” And if she got enough of it back, did that just mean the dungeon core would kill her now? She hadn’t even actually said no, she’d just wanted a chance to think about it. That felt reasonable, considering the scope of the offer.

“And I thought the boss was a diva when that happened…”

“Oh, what difference does any of this make to you?” Fine, maybe without her, Capo would still be sitting all alone for who knew how long until the dungeon core had mustered up enough mana, or confidence, or whatever to open his doors to some lower level adventurers, but that just meant the skull should have been grateful to her anyway.

“What difference does it make to you? I saw that roster, girlie. Two party members? Is that all you have to get back to? And I might not know much, but I know what they say about you adventuring types; There’s no way you’ve got a family back out there either. No title, no guild…”

“Stop it!” Graverra slammed her grimoire down so hard it unsummons itself. “I know, okay? But how come I have to stoke some unreleased dungeon core’s ego? I didn’t ask to fall in here!”

“And you can’t get out alive now, might as well make the best of it. It’s just the facts, girlie. He’s got a good offer going; Who needs a guild when you’ve got a dungeon full of fiends? Title, mana, power… Companionship. I mean, you saw that tentacle.”

Graverra felt her cheeks go red. That was definitely not part of her considerations.

“What’re you holding out for?”

“I don’t know.” The perks that came with something like a marriage pact had never been enough to turn Graverra’s head before - or maybe she would have by now, if she could have turned some high leveled heads of her own - but it still was the closest thing she had to compare to the dungeon core’s offer. And now even the skull trying to set them up was doing it.

Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

“You’re right, okay? My party doesn’t like me, we’re all just such losers we can’t convince anyone else to stick around. And casters can’t get anywhere without a tank, and the only reason to keep a caster around is if she just shuts up and heals everyone, forget what her actual class is, cause she doesn’t want to go it alone, and this one’s not so bad, all he does is try and convince you and the vampire to reclass as soon as possible to something more respectable, so…” Graverra shrugged. They’d needed each other. She’d liked that. She’d liked feeling needed. But evidently they didn’t feel like they needed her anymore.

“I was arguing with them when I fell in here and-” Her voice lifted as if she was trying not to cry. Because she was trying not to cry. Even if she hated it when Branimir teased her about lower stamina score meaning she didn’t have the energy to deal with her emotions properly, it probably was true…

“And I’m not a necromancer because it’s new or edgy! Although I do look really good in all this, so I can see why a dungeon core would let me fall in here in the first place, but… But it’s just a cat! Beast master whatevers can drag a whole circus around with them, but Oh! No Graverra, your’s doesn’t have soft tissue! Just worry about making the rest of us not die, like that’s not a waste of your potential.”

“Well,” There was no possible way the skull had been able to keep up with her ranting, even Graverra knew that. But she did appreciate the attempt. “Wouldn’t the dungeon core’s offer fix all of that?”

“Kind of. I don’t know.” Graverra sniffled and dabbed a tear away with the lace of her fingerless gloves. “I just want it to be for the right reasons, you know?”

“Graverra… I don’t know what to tell you. I’m just a skull. I was probably summoned into existence moments before you fell in here. I think I might like a body, maybe a weapon or something, and I think the only way I’m gonna get either of those things is if the boss gets more mana and maybe I do him a favor here with you. I hate to tell you this, girlie, but I just don’t think it has to be that complicated.”

“Well, see!” That struck a nerve. Graverra isn’t sure which one; The being used by a skull, of all things, or the fact that she was still being expected to just agree to all this, no questions, or maybe she was still just mad at her party. “That shows exactly what you know. How could you possibly understand anything when you’re just a stupid skull!”

Unequip ’Capo (Basic Skull)’ as a companion?

[Y]/N

Graverra held the skull out in front of her. She didn’t want to do anything to him… She didn’t think… But this was half Capo’s fault for talking up the dungeon core so much, anyway. He’d gotten her all confused.

“What do you want, Graverra?” Capo asked. He glimmered again with the promise of EXP and mana. For a horrible moment, she did consider crushing the skull right then and there. Seeing if that would finally let her port out of there and back to her party…

But they had left her. And suppose it didn’t even let her back out again. Then she’d have no one. No party, no cat, no stupid skull…

And Graverra did feel for the skull; Wanting a body, being abandoned so soon after being summoned… If she had summoned him, she would have at least given him that much.

“I don’t know… Is being wooed first so much to ask? I mean, what kind of girl just says yes to the first dungeon core that offers her anything?”

“An alive one.” Capo mumbled first, despite the lack of lips, then, “He’s a dungeon core, girlie. I think the answer to that is gonna have to be yes, you’re asking a lot. He really should’ve just killed you. I think that’s a good sign though! It means he doesn’t really want to, probably.”

“Well, he’s going to have to do something. Do you hear me, dungeon core?” She crossed her arms, Capo still held in one hand, like she’d just made some kind of point.

The dungeon core did not rise to Graverra’s challenge, at least not in that moment. She stood there, arms still crossed, for as long as she could stand it. The least he could have done was send the door again. Or acknowledge her at all.

“It’s not going to work, you know!” She shouted upwards again. “I’m not going to let myself regenerate anything, and then how are you going to feel when I let myself die and you get nothing out of it?” She wouldn’t actually let herself die, if she could help it. Nor did she really know if he needed to be the one to kill her, or if just dying in the dungeon sufficed… She guessed it probably did offer him something, otherwise how did all the other dungeons who’s cores she hadn’t physically fought with get anything out of it? And did he still even want her dead? Capo probably had a point about that…

But she wasn’t about to give him the incentive of her whole pool of mana either way.

Graverra Greame cast Withering Bolt!

The sound of her Withering Bolt hits suspiciously near-by, hardly echoing back at her and stopping that train of thought completely.

“Wha - Hey!” Graverrs peered down the hallway first, then - after reequipping Capo - jogged over to the apparent end. “Did you just send me back to the beginning of this thing?”

She summoned her scythe and tapped at the wall with the blunt end. It wasn’t like she expected it to really be a false wall or anything, but she had fallen through one to begin with. Maybe the dungeon core just made bad walls. Maybe she could just walk out…

The end of her scythe rapped against solid stone.

“Well, what’s that supposed to accomplish?” She stopped both a foot and the end of her scythe, scowling up at the ceiling. “You don’t have any dungeon for me to run! I told you this!”

Clearly, the dungeon core was not a good listener.

“He probably wore himself out generating all that hallway before, and the door, and the almost smothering you…” Capo listed. “Entrance doesn’t cost anything to keep up.”

“Poor baby…” Graverra rolled her eyes and began her march once again down the singular, boring hall. Maybe if she were the one to keep him worm out, he would relent.

Much like before, nothing about the scenery was particularly remarkable - just your average tunnel with some rubble and support beams to sell the bit. This time though, Graverra felt entitled enough to begin thinking about how she might improve upon it. Because she still might.

“If the dungeon core can make itself look however it likes and the beginning of the dungeon expends nothing to maintain, how come this one is so… bland?”

Capo sighed. “You know girlie, that wooing thing could maybe stand to go both ways.”

“At least I’m trying to understand him!” Graverra had nearly reached the point she had encountered the single, useless rat that couldn’t even be called properly undead. Just as she began to wonder if it would trigger again, the familiar hissing sounded from just ahead.

“What’s his plan here, anyway?” She kept the conversation going while readying her scythe. It scurried into view right on target, practically begging to be obliterated, which Graverra of course obliged.

Hit! Rat - 6 Slashing

“Undead? Just really gross stuff? Did he always plan on trying to attract necromancers? Which, by the way, isn’t going to work if I’m doing necrotic based damage and the dungeon’s damage is already necrotic based. That’s like, the golden rule of damage types.”

This time, when the rat died the puff of EXP it dropped was quickly syphoned into the adornments on Graverra’s scythe. It only regained her a couple of health and a bit of mana, but for the moment the less she got back, the better.

“Well gosh, girlie, if only there had been a way to get all these questions answered…”

Graverra frowned as she sent another Withering Blast down the tunnel ahead of them. It took a bit longer to hear it fizzle out, but it still hit a wall in the end. “I don’t think I like this tone you’re developing, Capo. And I was going to! But you two-”

Something else hissed from further up the hall, but it wasn’t the same as the rat’s. The rattling of bones followed and soon after that, out of the dark ahead of her, a large spider made entirely of bones charged towards her.

“Well, that’s not how spiders work…” Graverra mumbled and readied her scythe again.