That had hurt. That had really hurt. If dungeon cores were supposed to be under emotional, unfeeling monsters, then why had that hurt so much?
Graverra Graeme, Bride of the Dungeon Core
375/400
It took too long for the air to return to Graverra’s lungs; she was sure of it. By the time she got back to her feet, she’d just be knocked right back down, and with no one to pull aggro, it was going to be rinse and repeat until she was pummeled literally into the ground.
The sarcophagi on either side of her shook as the giant fist struck down again, but lying flat on the ground, it couldn’t quite reach her. Thank Strexhin, because she certainly hadn’t been thinking about that when she’d placed them, and Graverra doubted Hecrux had thought about that sort of thing when creating the homunculus.
When the homunculus lifted its fist, Graverra popped back to her feet and slunk further down the aisle between coffins. The homunculus retreated as well, stuffing itself back into the coffin it had emerged from.
“Okay,” Graverra called into the darkness, calling back the scythe even though she still had no plans to actually engage with the thing. “Point made. I don’t want to die, and you don’t want to kill me.”
That was what Hecrux had said, once. Why wouldn’t he still mean it?
The homunculus reemerged from another of the open sarcophagi, a row closer to her and to the left.
Hit! Ravaging Homunculus - 6 Slashing
Graverra lashed out on reflex. There was no way she could take this thing by herself. She wasn’t even doing whole damage, but of course the homunculus would be resistant to necrotic damage. Graverra grumbled to herself as she weighed her options; she couldn’t summon back the door for herself, Hecrux wasn’t answering her, but this was what he wanted after all… Graverra had to dodge-roll again before finishing her list, further into the crypt.
Hit! Ravaging Homunculus - 6 Slashing
“You know,” She huffed after hopping back to her feet and taking another slash at the homunculus from its other side. “If I die, my mana goes with me anyway. You said that too!”
If she couldn’t manage her domain before, then summoning the homunculus’s stats now seemed completely out of the question. She hadn’t seen it before, but it couldn’t be so impossibly high… It was still her dungeon; they were the same level.
Graverra dodged a ham-fisted punch, only to be bowled over by the second.
Graverra Graeme, Bride of the Dungeon Core
350/400
Graverra took the opportunity to remain safe on the ground. Maybe if she just waited it out… She’d never tried that before, in any dungeon she’d been in before. But she’d thought about doing that when she’d first fallen in this one, and look where that had gotten her…
“If you kill me down here, Estremon will have been right about you!” Graverra rolled on her back to shout up at the ceiling. That had to still get to him. She hoped. And anyway, even if Estremon wanted them fighting, wouldn’t one of them killing the other spoil her fun? Or maybe that was only if Graverra managed to kill Hecrux…
The homunculus dipped back into its coffin, popping up further away the next time. Maybe that was meant to be her chance to make a break for it?
Graverra got back to her feet and began to creep back towards the crypt’s entrance. The hulk of patchwork flesh and limbs dropped back under the crypt again, hurrying her further along. It erupted to Graverra’s right. She skittered left, certain that she had figured out the homunculus’s reach.
Instead of being driven into the ground by the massive fist, misshapen fingers snatched her off her feet and squeezed tight. Ribs cracked—the gilded set over top of her dress or the ones inside her body, Graverra couldn’t be sure in the moment. Sufficiently squeezed, the homunculus dropped her on top of the closest casket, the lingering effects of the grapple not allowing Graverra to roll off and back to the safety of the aisle. Not until after she was crushed flat one more time.
Graverra Graeme, Bride of the Dungeon Core
275/400
Graverra whimpered from where she’d slid to the ground. Maybe if she just lay there until she regenerated some health. If she even could… With no healing skills slotted, it would take hours. And she wasn’t doing any kind of damage that could help heal her—if her scythe even still did that. She had healing spells, of course, stored away for when Branimir wore her down. He couldn’t heal off of doing necrotic damage like Valerae and herself —which, in Graverra’s opinion, served him right when he ate shit from flustering her so bad that she forgot it would kill him, not heal. They had managed to revive him, eventually, but that was why she had the spell in the first place.
Summoning her grimoire, Graverra rolled over so that she could still use it lying down.
You cannot manage skills while enemies are nearby
Graverra let her forehead fall against her grimoire. She had expected as much, but what else was there to do?
The strange sound of skin oozing out from between stone sounded from the casket beside her. Graverra rolled, not wanting to learn if the homunculus could now grab between caskets. The following fist only clipped her, but it was getting to the point where damage was damage.
Graverra Graeme, Bride of the Dungeon Core
265/400
She wouldn’t make it back to the entrance like that; her stamina wouldn’t carry her sprinting from the middle of the crypts all the way through the courtyard, which meant she would be fighting the dogs after all.
Graverra pushed herself back up to kneeling — her knees were scraped and bloodied, but at least the fishnets hadn’t torn; maybe her dungeon core clothes had buffs after all — and looked around to reassess the room. There had only been one way in and out when Hecrux had first built the crypt, but she definitely didn’t remember either of them placing the rickety ladder leaned up against the back wall. It could have led somewhere; Graverra couldn’t see the top of it. If she had placed it, it would have led somewhere. And if Hecrux was reading her mind, yet still trying to build without her based on that…
The moment the homunculus returned to its casket, Graverra sprinted to the back of the crypt. Even halfway up the ladder, all she could really see was the black of the cavernous ceiling, but that could be alright… She could just sit up there, out of sight and range of the homunculus, and find some way to get Hecrux to at least speak to her again, and then-
Graverra’s searching hand hit the rough boards of a trapdoor. Exactly what she had been hoping for. It had to have gone up into the castle. Probably the wine cellar. Although now she knew, thanks to Malfunctions of Magic, mismatched doorways like this worked something like a teleportation spell and would wind up costing them mana when used. She wondered if Hecrux had known that when he placed it.
On the other side of the trapdoor, Graverra slumped against the nearest wall to catch her breath. The wine cellar wall. Racks of barrels towered over her, casting heavy shadows with distant torchlight. It was hard not to be impressed, even more so than just seeing schematics on a page. Hecrux had just willed an entire wine cellar into existence on a whim. That was the sort of thing a person worked their entire life towards, not to mention that if coin meant anything to them, this would have gone and set the average person up for life.
“I think that you might think that because I’m annoyed about you just doing everything for me, it means I don’t appreciate all this stuff.” Graverra hoped that even if he had stopped talking to her, Hecrux was still listening. “I’m so beat up and tired now I might just agree to… what? Just sitting there and looking pretty? If you let me back in, but just so you know, I wasn’t unappreciative before; I just wanted to help you.”
A barrel creaked and groaned to her left. Graverra felt herself grow paler and held her breath to listen better. Something gurgled then.
“Don’t you dare.”
No answer from Hecrux, still. Unless the redoubled rattling of the wine barrel was supposed to mean something.
“No! No, I am not fighting your horrible slime!” He had told her he’d moved it there, she remembered now. “You know what? Fine! Kill me about it! Reset your whole stupid dungeon and spend the rest of forever alone and miserable, because I bet if I die, then Capo goes with me, and he won’t want to be your companion anymore anyway, because you killed me. And you won’t have anything half so good as any of this because-”
The Sloughed Slime finally burst through its barrel to wetly fall onto the stone floor and begin oozing towards Graverra.
“Because it would be a stupid slime, wouldn’t it?” Graverra blinked back tears. That should have worked. Why hadn’t that worked? And if Hecrux was still reading her thoughts even now, then this was just unnecessarily cruel. “No, you know what? At least let me climb back down to the crypt. If I have to, I’d rather-”
Graverra opened the trapdoor beside her and began to lower herself over the edge. Her feet couldn’t find the ladder rungs, though, no matter the wild flailing.
The slime lunged. Ladder or not, Graverra let go. At least maybe the fall damage would help speed this along.
