“Oh, so this guy gets legs and I don’t?” Capo scoffed.

The bone spider launched itself forward with a hiss, clearing the blade of the scythe and clamped its fangs down on Graverra’s foot.

Hit! Graverra Greame - 2 piercing, 2 poison (repeating)

Graverra shrieked, poison beginning to chip away at her already low health. Still, rather than stomping it into the ground, Graverra shook it off and bat the spider back down the hall.

“I thought you said he was running out of mana!”

“Well, if he re-allotted it all from those halls, he had to keep building and you did just kill that rat…”

The bones rattled again, and the spider came skittering towards her.

Graverra dodged, then knocked the spider down the hall again.

It skittered back, raised its fangs again…

“You gonna kill it, or…?”

“No.” Graverra pushed the spider back with the flat of the scythe’s blade. Its awkward collection of bones jumbled together with the sweep, but it just shook itself and began the process again. “I’m not going to give him the satisfaction. If he doesn’t want me dead, then he shouldn’t send mobs. He should just re-summon his silly little door and let me talk to him!”

“He’s a dungeon core, girlie. Mobs might be just about the only thing he knows for sure. Woulda been nice if he learned them before making me…”

Graverra couldn’t help a bitter laugh as she dodges the bone spider before sending it away again for the cycle to reset.

“Maybe he thinks you’ll get stuff back from it with your freaky reaper magic?”

Graverra opened her mouth, about to explain a few things about how her scythe worked and necromancy in general, but this caused her to miss her mark on dodging the bone spider and instead got her another foot full of venom.

Hit! Graverra Greame - 2 piercing, 2 poison (repeating)

“Or!” She howled and sent the spider back again. “He’s trying to kill me and take all my mana!”

“Or he’s trying to help the both of you out. You get something back for killing it, he gets enough to call back the door…”

“Well,” Graverra rolled away from the incoming spider, gaining back some distance to keep swatting at it with her scythe. “Then he shouldn’t have wasted it on the spider in the first place.”

Capo grumbled something about her being a piece of work, but it was drowned out by the sound of an achievement.

Achievement! - Toying With Your Food

Remain in combat with an enemy without doing lethal damage

“Huh.” Graverra paused. “I didn’t know that was a thing.”

“See!” Capo said, as if that furthered his case. Graverra doubted the dungeon core even knew how achievements worked, if her stats and gear were enough to impress him.

The bone spider didn’t crawl back as quickly this time, more sluggish with the way it shakes its bones back in order. Graverra even thought she heard it sigh.

“Getting tired, little guy?”

The spider didn’t skitter, but meandered forward to stop at Graverra’s feet. No fangs bared.

“Yeah, me too.” She considered her own stamina; With all that dodging and blocking… She wouldn’t be regenerating anything efficiently any time soon. Including her health. And with the hits she had taken earlier…

Graverra knelt down in front of the bone spider. “Do you promise not to bite me again?”

The spider rattled its bones, but nothing in that read to Graverra as threatening. She took it as invitation enough to extend her hand to it. Oddly cat-like, the bone spider arched up into her hand, allowing itself to be pet.

Graverra giggled and sat down on the tunnel floor, allowing for the bone spider to crawl up into her lap.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

Ą̸̯̤͛̐͂c̶̭̃h̵̘̪̐̄͝͠ḯ̴͈͠ę̴̢̗́̄́̅v̴̢̹̼́̽e̵̼̪͇̙͋̑m̴̝͙̫̘͒͒́ȩ̸͔̞͌n̷̖̳̤̠̅t! -:̷̮̭̉̍̀͗ ̷̣̱͐͒̃Ṡ̴̪͇̹̻̀̓̾p̷̧͇͖͒͑i̴̝̮̓̅͜͝d̸̜͔̯́e̶̝̱̼̿̉ṟ̵̨͍̍̂̔͠ͅ

“How come I didn’t get an achievement for you, Capo?” She asked, still petting the spider as it seemed to drift off to sleep. If spiders could sleep, or more specifically, spiders made of bone. Zaehlenne, though not a spider, tended not to be allowed to exist long enough for Graverra to ever really figure it out.

“Probably because I’m what you called a ‘basic skull’. Thanks for the reminder, by the way. And you might notice that ain’t a regular achievement.”

“I did notice that, yes.”

“I think the boss made it up just for you.”

“Well…” Graverra sighed, because that would be an awfully sweet gesture, if true. But it still could have just been coincidence. How would either of them be able to tell? “How come a basic skull knows so much about how dungeon cores work? I mean, like, I get it. But why’d you jump straight to wingman?”

The skull didn’t answer immediately, nearly prompting Graverra to pull him from her hat just to see if he was alright, but after a beat he does speak up again, “I just know stuff, I guess. And I think you decrease my being left out in the dark by a lot, so long as you keep him happy…”

“Hm.” Graverra growled at the thought. Adjusting her hold on the bone spider, she hunkered down against the nearest wall. She doubted she’d be able to sleep - which, without potions or food would have been the quickest way to regain anything - if everything around her still registered as an enemy being nearby, but there isn’t much else to do but rest.

“He still should have just conserved his mana to re-summon the door if he really wanted to talk. How was I supposed to know that a spider made of bones isn’t here to try to kill me? Why’s summoning a door even so hard? He doesn’t have to make it, like, a fancy door. Just let me in and don’t smother me.” She kept up a huffy monologue while settling in. “And just because I want to think about something doesn’t mean I’m going to say no. If I was going to ask someone to spend the rest of her life making a dungeon with me, I’d probably be thrilled she was the type to stop and think about things.”

“Mhmm.”

Graverra chose to ignore the fact that Capo seemed to be no longer listening.

“And you know,” she yawned before starting again. “You both can’t get mad at me for having ideas. That’s why I’m here, right? I would have thought about giving you a body. I’ve been a necromancer for a while now, so I would know…” She continued to sink down against the tunnel wall, the brim of her hat slouching down over her face.

“Goodnight, Graverra.”

✨ 💀 ✨

Graverra woke with a start.

She hadn’t meant to fall asleep, obviously. She hadn’t even thought she could while still trapped in the dungeon. Admittedly though, not feeling bone weary and hurt was much more preferable, but that also meant her mana must have restored some too.

Graverra sat bolt upright at the thought, the bone spider clattering off her lap with a distressed chittering sound. An ethereal cloak of sparkling, sickly green fell over her shoulders from thin air as she cast Grave Shroud. She had never been very good with the more stealthy skills, but Valerae had encouraged her to at least try a little harder, so, begrudgingly, Graverra had slotted the skill.

“Graverra, sweetie…” Capo spoke delicately. “I don’t think those kinds of things work against dungeon cores when you’re still inside them.”

The phrasing wrung a frown out of her.

“Besides, if he was gonna kill you and take all your mana, he could’ve done it by now. He left you something.”

“Why didn’t you wake me up?!” Graverra searched around her for whatever it was, but came up short.

“Around your neck.”

Graverra’s eyes widened as she reached to feel around her neck. So he really could have killed her… And Capo would have let him.

Unequip ‘Regenerative Necklace (Health)’

[Y] / N

Graverra unclasped the necklace and held it out in front of her to inspect. She recognized it as a simple trinket; The sort of thing that could be looted from any number of basic dungeons and at her level had already been replaceable by stronger buffs. It did though look unique… Still only made of pewter, but rather than the usual plain little circular pendant, it was shaped more like an anatomically correct heart. Not well, given the nature of the material and amount of buff, but… She guessed that was kind of sweet. An attempt at least.

Graverra plucked off the note attached to it first, but before reading can’t help herself from commenting, “I would have gotten it back anyway…”

Note:

You did say sleeping on it would be fair. Please don’t make me kill you :(

P.S. You may keep the necklace no matter what you decide, though I’m still not able to create very useful loot and I don’t think it will make a difference.

Graverra sighed as she reequipped the necklace. It was a nice gesture, but reminding her that she really didn’t have a choice in this put a bit of a damper on it.

“Thank you, dungeon core, for the gifts.” She spoke up to the ceiling. “I’m still not sure if the bone spider was supposed to be a gift or sent to kill me and you just had to bail, but I guess thank you for not killing me in my sleep and stealing all my mana.”

She paused there in case the dungeon core planned to respond. The bone spider took the opportunity to climb back into her lap and beg for pets, which she obliged as she continued to talk at the dungeon core.

“I have been thinking about it, obviously, but I think you owe me some explanations first. I mean, what sort of girl would I be if I just said yes to the first core that made me an offer?”

Sure, another core was unlikely to make that kind of offer… But if it had happened to her once, then maybe it could happen again. Maybe she ought to be holding out for more. Or at least make the dungeon core think that might be an option, so he had better continue to shape up.

“You are going to have to talk to me, you know? I’m not just going to say yes after one piece of jewelry.”

The dungeon rumbled like the dungeon core’s room had when she last upset him. Graverra yelped, not even certain what to brace herself for. A door? Some new, worse mob? Another tentacle?

She got her answer by way of falling backwards through the wall behind her.

“There you go, girlie, he’s got you head over heels now.” Despite tumbling in with her, Capo chuckled from his place on the brim of Graverra’s hat.