“Alright!” Graverra dropped her grimoire on top of the blanket she had summoned for herself with a bounce thanks to the fleshy floor beneath it. It had cost mana, technically, and probably more than it needed to with Graverra’s specifications—black crushed velvet, with delicate silver stitching to create spiderwebs and silver fringe—but it was still such a nothing amount of mana that she’d made it back before Hecrux had a chance to say anything.

“I’ve done some reading.” To Graverra’s delight, her grimoire fell open to the exact page she had been thinking of. It had always done that, technically, but there were hundreds more to pull from now.

The dungeon core leaned in as best he could. “So it would seem.” He might have even sounded impressed. Perhaps the rest had fixed that for Graverra already.

“We don’t have to tame our own mobs. And I didn’t do any without you; I just looked. And I didn’t actually read the chapter on any of that either because, well, you know.” Graverra shrugged at just the same time the chapter heading and reminder that Initial Training Recommended To Be Completed Before Dungeon Placement For Optimal Performance printed itself in place of the mobs she had saved for them. “But it can’t be that different from what you were doing before... I don’t think. Estremon really must have had to borrow a lot from the whole adventurer skill line thing, because the name doesn’t even make sense. It’s not like I had to go taming anything. Unless I wanted to, but that’s different. It works like basic necromancy, at any rate, but we don’t have to go hunting down our own components, which is really nice, actually.”

Graverra looked up from her grimoire, hoping the little dig at Estremon and the reminder that it could be worse put Hecrux and herself on more of the same page.

He still glowered down at the page, like he did actually need to read it. “I suppose it is nice, if you’ve made sense of it all.”

“Yes, I did.” Graverra sat up straighter and with a prideful tilt to her chin. “I’d also like to take this opportunity to note that I saved us nearly two hours of regeneration time already.”

“Noted and appreciated.” But the inflection in his voice still wasn’t the warmest. “I take all this to mean you have thoughts about what we’re doing next?”

“Well,” Of course she did, but Graverra still felt overwhelmed by all the possibilities, not to mention what happened if they didn’t agree on something. Even with Capo’s assurance she wasn’t altogether disposable, the idea weighed heavily on her ability to make decisions. “That depends, doesn’t it? Should we just go one room at a time? Or should we do the whole thing and then fill it? I didn’t really see a limit on stuff like that.

“We should have been limited by our natural progression as a dungeon.”

Graverra couldn’t tell if Hecrux was thinking it, but she was; what if they spread themselves too thin? It felt like saving up skill points to try and unlock everything at once; if they didn’t focus in on something, they’d just be mediocre at everything. And then yell at her for it because she’d put points in damage dealing and healing and was never enough with either.

“Right… So, how big’s a level seven dungeon supposed to be?” Graverra had never been through one in its entirety. A level five once, but Branimir had to carry her out afterwards because nobody wanted to wait on her to recover.

It was common knowledge that you didn’t try clearing dungeons at your level or higher, especially when you couldn’t keep a whole party together. The party before Branimir and Valerae had liked to try for right at their own level, and Graverra still had some suspicions about what might have happened to her had she not walked back out of that one before reaching the end.

Hecrux didn’t even have to think about it. “Big enough to fit seven mobs and four traps.”

Graverra nodded. Maybe that was a bit of a stupid question. She just didn’t want to mess this up. She couldn’t walk back out of this one or ask anyone to carry her out. It needed to work and work well, and she needed to be the one to do it.

“I did look at traps too. We seem to be a lot more beholden to certain skill lines with those, but! Because of your whole... flesh... thing... We can build some very nasty variations on a sand trap, and if we really do some work, it can do that awful smothering thing you tried to do to me.”

“I would think a necromancer would appreciate that sort of thing.”

“I do.” Graverra forced a smile. “When it’s not happening to me.”

“You were being uncooperative.” He stated it like a fact.

“And what if I’m uncooperative now?” It was more like Graverra wondered aloud than really meant to ask it, but at that point... She looked up at the dungeon core as she crossed her arms and doubled down. “What are you going to do then?”

“You won't be.” Another fact. “You have been much better behaved since you’ve become a core.”

Graverra frowned. That hadn’t been the answer she wanted. Even if he believed it. Especially if he believed it.

“You have not been any less moody, however.” Hecrux’s eye narrowed, but it was more mischievous than annoyed.

“Me?!” Graverra still fell for it. “You just had to take a fifteen-hour nap to feel better!”

“Thirteen, dearest.” He really did seem to be in a much better mood with all this teasing. “You fixed that for us.”

Graverra shook her head. “You don’t mean that. You’re still mad at me.”

“No, I’m not.” It should have been a comfort that he said it with that same assurance as before, but it wasn’t enough for Graverra.

“I overcomplicated everything. You just wanted extra mana, and now I have to explain skill lines, and I don’t even think I get them most of the time either, so I get it; I’d be disappointed in me too. And- And you haven’t even looked at what I did to the courtyard, have you?”

“We have a courtyard?” The corners of Hecrux’s eye crinkled again. But even with the tell, Graverra felt her stomach turn summersaults. “I know we have a courtyard now. I didn’t foresee these minor complications, but you have already attempted to solve them for us. And we did establish I wasn’t the best at aesthetics. Although I can’t say I see how a courtyard falls in line with our theme...”

There it was. He wasn’t upset, but he certainly wasn’t happy either. Not with her, just at her expense.

“Yeah, well,” As much as Graverra had been anticipating that little fault in her plans, she still hadn’t come up with a good answer. The System hadn’t told her no and would probably just change their theme if they got too off base. It was fine. “The flesh trap will be.”

Graverra wasted no time pulling up the dungeon map on one page and the lists of prewritten recipes and components on the other. It turned out sand traps were beyond simple: sand, water, and an extra bit of mana to maintain a sinking spell. If that didn’t at least get their spellcraft skill line started... Graverra didn’t know what she would do, but she wasn’t going to be happy.

Place ‘Sand Trap (Basic)’ for 1,000 mana?

Replace ‘sand’ and ‘water’ with ‘festering flesh’ -500 mana

Graverra watched the System pencil in the idea of the trap at the top of the steps before the tunnel turned and let out into the courtyard. It probably wouldn’t look right in person, but she guessed they probably weren’t supposed to have anything so well hidden it couldn’t be avoided at this point. It wasn’t like a sand trap looked any more natural...

“In the future, I think we should be able to make it do something like acid damage, but I can’t tell yet if that’s alchemy or just more fleshwarping.” Graverra frowned as she remembered her past arguments with Val and Bran over who should have been the one to level alchemy. Now Graverra almost wished she had. It might have given them a head start, like her necromancy. “It still gives anyone who gets stuck in it the slowed condition once they’re out, though, so we have that.”

“Oh,” Hecrux’s singular eye widened, but he wasn’t looking at the dungeon map. It stung a little, realizing he was doing that intuiting thing she still hadn’t gotten a handle on. “That is very gross.”

Taking that as his approval of the trap, Graverra confirmed its placement. The heady feeling of spending so much mana at once was still there, but for once, it wasn’t draining. It was like downing an enhancement potion in one go. Exhilarating.

Graverra frowned. Was she just getting better at this, or was something wrong?

Secondary Core Mana Reserves: 3,500 (7.5% / 1hr)

! Warning - Mana Reserves Above Mana Cap!

“That… That made us mana?”

“You replaced the floor tiles with something that ultimately cost less.” Hecrux explained, but he didn’t sound anywhere near as excited as Graverra thought that should make him. “That is clever. You should be careful about going over your limit like that, though. I was warned against it once.”

Graverra felt there must have been a story there but chose not to press it for the time being. There is undeniably something off about the whole thing. “Then I guess I’d better spend that before I try my next trick.”

“Oh?”

Graverra shook her head. Not now. It felt like more of a show idea and less like one that could simply be told. “It sounds like we should finish the courtyard first.”

“I still fail to see how a courtyard falls in line with being grotesque.”

“This one will be, trust me. Here, look at these.” Graverra replaced the trap menus with the one for mobs. ‘Guard Dog’ was already a pre-generated bundle of components, and from there, pulling out things that made it living and replacing them with the usual necromantic components was easy.

‘Mastiff (Undead)’ - Cost: 1,150 Mana

Canine (Undead) | Loyal Protector

Damages Dealt: Physical | Resistances: Necrotic

Health: 500 | EXP Granted: 225

Pack Tactics - Canine mobs benefit from the presence of other canine mobs. When attacking the same target, they gain a bonus to damages and chances to critically hit

“We get two? Maybe three? And, again, once I get alchemy unlocked, we can get them to do acid damage, I think? They should be able to do necrotic damage, not just be resistant to it, but maybe that’s beyond our level right now? Or our necromancy skill...” Graverra scowled down at the prospective stat sheet. Zaehlenne had gotten necrotic damage when Graverra had been level five, so if the dungeon was level seven... but if they had to worry about leveling these things with skill lines. This was liable to drive Graverra mad too.

Hecrux leaned in closer, until Graverra could feel his somehow simultaneously clammy and warm flesh on her bare shoulder. He didn’t have to read; he’d already bragged about that, so he must have been trying to play along for her sake.

“I suppose they’re suitably decrepit for your purposes.” He admitted after Graverra had allowed for the dungeon map to pencil in two undead guard dogs. He could probably get a better feel for them than her, but at the same time, their being suitable for her purposes—not the both of theirs—felt concerning. “What does the fountain do?”

“Oh.” She’d thought he’d be able to just know, even if she hadn’t been able to get the water working. “Nothing, yet. Apparently we have to have a whole waterworks system in place first, which we will need anyway for a moat, but... not really necessary right now.”

“We could put a slime in it.”

Graverra couldn’t convince herself quickly enough to not give a less visceral reaction. “Absolutely not.”

“Why not? That’s a perfect place to have a slime.”

"No, it isn’t.”

“Of course it is.” The dungeon core insisted, but he was enjoying this. Or the idea of the slime itself. “Someone walks in, they admire the fountain as is its usual purpose, and then a slime sucks the life out of them.”

Graverra shook her head. “Nobody’s going to actually stop and look at the fountain. I was an adventurer, I would know.” She was lying. It probably would happen how he described it; she knew that.

“I could make it cost nothing. I could make it with fleshwarping.”

Graverra ground her teeth. That was a fair point and proof he had been listening and liked her ideas. And technically, maybe, it would pair nicely with her plans for fleshwarping other parts of the dungeon.

“Fine. One slime. But when I make water features work, it goes.”

Hecrux nodded enthusiastically, but something told her they would be arguing about where to rehome it in the near future.