Graverra scrunched her eyes shut, tensing against the restraints in anticipation of whatever soul-rending was surely about to happen. She could smell it even - the way large amounts of mana being used smelled almost like petrichor or heated metal.

But the only thing she felt next was the restraints slithering away, back into the chair.

Graverra opened one eye, then the other. Besides being obliterated, she hadn’t known what to expect. What she found was that two of the walls in the dungeon core’s lair had changed from their odd, muscular state, into floor to ceiling bookshelves.

“Oh.” She remembered to breathe, just one breath, before falling into adrenaline fueled laughter. At herself. She wouldn’t have dared laugh at the dungeon core, especially after that. “I thought - Wow.”

It was an impressive display of magic, even if a little negated by the fact that he was a dungeon core, not a regular caster. Of course, he could do more than the average person. And she could do that too… if she said yes. Maybe that was some of the point.

Graverra slouched further down in the chair, hat coming down to cover her face as she really caught her breath this time.

“There you go, boss. I think you blew her mind.”

That snapped Graverra the rest of the way out of it. She sat up and adjusted her hat, giving Capo a flick to the temple, before stepping out towards the bookshelves. “Doesn’t all that cost mana?”

“Some,” the dungeon core answered, intently watching as she walked past him and nearer to the shelves. “But I’m trying to show you in terms you can understand. I don’t believe you would enjoy if I imparted the knowledge in other ways.”

Graverra’s nose crinkled as she thought about taking offense to that, but he was probably right and the fear of being bled out for mana and left for dead hadn’t completely left her mind either.

“You had to read all these to be a core?” She asked, still marveling at the amount of books. Did he expect her to read all of these? Right now? Just that was liable to break her brain. There was a good reason she hadn’t tried to be a wizard after all.

“Well, it’s more just there for me to access when I need it, but it’s a lot to keep straight.”

“I’ll bet…” Graverra ran her finger over a row of books, then plucked a tome from the shelf. “Is that how come you’re so- “ bad at this? She wanted to ask, but thought better of it at the last second. “Have you always been a dungeon core?”

“Maybe not.” The dungeon core looked down in thought. “But I don’t remember.”

“How long have you been a dungeon core, then?”

“A little over one hundred hours now.”

“That’s - That’s not even a week.”

“I hope not. I’ve been given a week to get my wits about me, but you’ve been rather distracting.”

“Oh, well…” Graverra blushed and busied herself with opening the book to read, but she wasn’t really sorry. It wasn’t her fault if she was so attractive, or that she had fallen down there to begin with.

“The skull was right. It’s lonesome work and I can’t imagine watching low level scrubs wander in and out for years and years while I build up power is going to be any fix for that at all.”

Graverra felt an honest pang of sympathy for the dungeon core. At least she had the means to try and fix her own loneliness, but if not for her then he would have been stuck all alone, wouldn’t he?

Words filtered onto the page as she opened the book she’d pulled, leading Graverra to wonder if maybe the rest of the books were there just for show. She wasn’t going to ask and she guessed she didn’t mind, considering it was still in service of trying to impress her.

The problem was she couldn’t read any of it. The glyphs looked familiar, at least, they felt like they should look familiar, but they weren’t. The harder she focused on any one spot, the more they swam and swapped places with one another, one supposed word bleeding into the next.

“Uh,” Graverra debated just running with it. She felt she’d gotten pretty good with faking it. But this had been about getting her questions answered… “I can’t read this.”

“Of course you can.” The dungeon core didn’t sound so much offended as confused, the impression of his brow furrowing. “It’s the same as how you cast your spells.”

“You’re probably thinking of wizards.” She could at least read their spell books though, she’d done it before. But if this was any indication of the amount and type of things a dungeon core had to remember, she guessed she could let the confusion slide. “What was that other way of getting me the information?”

“I believe it would, as the skull said, blow your mind.”

“Oh. Well.” It didn’t sound good when he said it like that. Graverra shut the book just to hug it to her chest like her grimoire.

“She’ll just know it all when you suck the soul out of her, right, boss?”

When, not if. Graverra understood the reality of the situation, she really did, but this had been the last illusion of choice she’d had to cling to. This was just going to happen now, wasn’t it?

“That doesn’t answer her questions now.” The dungeon core said. And Graverra did appreciate the consideration, really. “If I don’t answer her questions-”

“You promise you’ll be gentle about it?” Graverra blurted out the question. Something about the inevitability and the being talked over, or around, put her back on edge. It wasn’t like she’d been handed all the facts about becoming a necromancer. Or joining a party.

“As gentle as I can be.”

She guessed that would have to do. What was the alternative? Just dying? “And I’ll be allowed to build things out as I see fit? Within reason, of course.”

“I think I’d like nothing more than to watch you work.”

There was probably something to be said about her having to do all the work, but they could argue about that later. If this worked, they were about to have a lot of later. And if this didn’t… It wasn’t like there was anyone to miss her anyway.

“Alright, dungeon core, I will merge with you and be your partner.”

The dungeon core’s heart thumped harder. The fleshy bookshelves he had summoned merged back in on themselves with a disgusting wet sound.

Graverra’s own heart hammered in her chest, hardly daring to breathe in anticipation of… She still wasn’t sure what, but it would be a life altering decision one way or another. She felt she had the right to be a little nervous.

“Now what?” She broke the moment’s silence.

“Well,” The dungeon core blinked as if startled back to the present from a thought. “I take a moment to regenerate from the books…”

Capo chuckled from above, “I don’t think he was planning to get this far.”

Both Graverra and the dungeon core scowled, but for different reasons.

“You don’t have a plan for this?” Graverra crossed her arms as she asked. The suspicion that this was still just some kind of trick returned to mind, but plain old ignorance could kill her just as easily.

“Well.” The dungeon core grit through non-existent teeth. The rest of the room tensed with his reluctance as well. “This isn’t usually how cores work. I think I told you that.”

“And what if there’s a reason for that?” She’d just agreed to it, sure, and really had no other option here, but…

“It should work.” The dungeon core’s single blue eye seemed to glow brighter with the force of his enthusiasm. “Maybe if you had read a little more…”

Graverra frowned. It wasn’t as if she didn’t try. She just physically could not read whatever text had been on those pages. “Why can’t you just explain it to me? Like, I know, mind melting whatever, but…”

If he couldn’t explain it to her, was it even worth doing?

“I tried to the best of my abilities. It’s difficult when you’re…” The dungeon core looked over Graverra like he might find whatever word he was missing.

Graverra frowned all the harder and took up a warning tone. “The woman you chose to help build your dungeon.”

“Chose is a bit of a strong word.” Capo chimed in again.

“It will work.” The room rumbled with the core’s frustration, or maybe still excitement. “I’ve thought about this for some time now.”

“How long is that?”

“Roughly twenty-four hours.”

“So…” Graverra did the math about it. The answer really didn’t help any theories about this being calculated. “Since I fell in here.”

“Not the exact moment, but I wouldn’t have had cause to think about it before that.”

Graverra sighed. This didn’t mean anything. It didn’t matter. She’d just said yes and either way she wasn’t getting out of there, but… “You’ll still have to tell me what to do and stuff.”

“Of course. Although I think we’ll fare better if you don’t question it.”

“Right.” Graverra blinked hard. There was a familiar feeling. Shut up, Graverra, leave it to the people - or cores - who actually know what they’re doing. And why shouldn’t he? He was the dungeon core after all.

“Even though the vast majority of cores choose to avoid a humanoid form, they still have what you might consider a soul. As a mortal, you also have a heart and soul. We merge the two together, and…” There was an implied shrug after the explanation.

“I understand that part.” Graverra tried not to sound too annoyed. It wasn’t like he knew what she did or didn’t know, or maybe even very many details outside of his experience as a dungeon core. “It’s just the specifics that are a little harder to wrap my silly little human head around.”

She took to twirling one of her curls again, somewhere between meaning it as a dig at his previous implications and genuine bait to try to explain things better.

The dungeon core’s eye was suddenly unable to continue looking directly at her. Graverra frowned, picking up on the idea that he clearly didn’t think she’d like whatever he said next.

“You’re going to have to consume a piece of me. My heart.”

“Excuse me?”

“How else are you going to get my essence inside of you?”

Graverra cleared her throat while the skull affixed to her hat snickered. She would not be answering that and was already mortified to think of Capo doing so on her behalf.

“You know, just because I’m a necromancer…” Sure, some rituals could get a little grizzly and most spell components could get a bit messy… But they weren’t cannibals. Most of them.

The core’s eye narrowed as if to scowl. “I’m not sure what that has to do with anything.”

So maybe he wasn’t hazing her… Others would have. Had. Apparently, half the fun of having a necromancer in the party was asking her to entertain them with the bizarre and mildly humiliating.

“You kept saying stuff about souls and essence and stuff, so…” Graverra’s eyes widened as she gave it another thought. Because if he was being serious, this was beyond ridiculous. And there went her nervous laughter… “I just- I thought it would have to do with some kind of transference ritual, you know? Or binding, I guess. Maybe both.”

“I do not know.”

But since he didn’t stop her from expanding upon that… “If I wanted to stick somethings soul in another something, that would be a transference ritual. It’s pretty easy on small stuff, if their soul gets preserved right and I have all the right components. Just skeletons are the easiest, that’s all my fiend is. She’s not like, a specific soul, though… and obviously I’ll be able to do it on more complicated things later…” Graverra grit the last word through her teeth. An old point of contention, but the dungeon core wasn’t the one bothering her about it. If this worked, later would be a lot sooner. “But we’re not trying to move your soul, so-”

“Oh, I’ll have to have a part of your’s too.”

“My what?” Graverra laughed. Her question was more of a reaction than anything else. She knew the answer, of course. She didn’t like it.

“Your heart. I have to have it.”

“Right.” That should have only sounded ominous, she knew it, but… No one had ever had to have anything about her before. At least, not that anyone had ever expressed to her and that window of opportunity was quickly closing. “And that won’t really kill me, because- because it’s kind of like binding. And a marriage pact never killed anyone.”

Graverra laughed again. That’s what she was going to tell herself, at least. It was still the closest thing to what they were doing that she could wrap her head around and in the moment it really didn’t matter to her how he thought about it. He wanted her, she had something to offer, good enough.

“Not if we do it right.” The dungeon core’s tone suggested he thought that was a comforting thing to say.

Graverra whimpered still, biting her lip as she took another moment to think about it. Maybe she should ask for more details on how exactly they planned to go about this exchange, but then maybe she didn’t want to know at all. And at the end of the day, what really changed? Either she tried, or she just let the core kill her and get on with his life.

“You’re not having second thoughts, are you, girlie?” Capo chuckled.

The dungeon core squinted at her, maybe sympathetically. “You did already say yes.”

“I… I know.” Graverra twirled her hair around her finger some more. “I mean, I did. I did say yes. And I don’t want you to have to kill me, so…”

He didn’t want to either. He’d said as much. Trusting that would just have to do.

“Alright.” Graverra took a final steadying breath and reached up to adjust her hat. “Me first, right?”

Somehow that made the most sense to her. And then she got to be the one to do the hurting first. Sure, the core had said he would be gentle, but that didn’t seem very in his control if swapping heart chunks was how it had to be done.

The core nodded. Graverra took another step closer, the soles of her boots having to peel away from the fleshy floor after standing in one place for so long.

“Wait, wait, wait!”

Capo’s interruption nearly lead to Graverra tripping forward. “What?!”

“Hat off first. Ya know, just in case…”

“In case of what?” The pitch of her voice went up, as did Graverra’s heart rate. They both knew something she didn’t, that was just typical of these situations.

“Wouldn’t want to get it all bloody, would you?” The nervousness in his laugh still gave Graverra pause… But even still, she certainly didn’t need the skull’s commentary through the rest of this.

“Will it make a difference?” She wonders aloud, then continued to explain. Maybe the core would know. “It has a buff on it for mana regeneration.”

The core’s eye widened. “I think the hat stays then.”

Graverra nearly laughed again. It was for mana. Of course it stayed.

“But what about me? I don’t want-” Capo cut off mid-sentence. Ceased to exist.

Graverra gasped, looking to the dungeon core for an explanation.

“I’ve only sent him back to where I placed him to begin with. If you’d like him back after we’ve finished, you can summon him back yourself.”

Graverra nodded. She would summon him back, later, because she would still be alive to do so. That’s what that meant.