“It isn’t as if they can take any more from me.” Hecrux murmured from the other end of Graverra’s scrying ritual. He said it so quietly, so forlornly, that Graverra wondered if Estremon had even heard him say it. Of course she would, though, and she would—Graverra could only assume—know what he meant by it too. But Graverra didn’t.
Graverra shifted in her seat at the foot of her bed. She still shouldn’t go out there. She’d miss whatever elaborating Hecrux did do. If any.
Estremon ‘tsk’d in response. “Why, you poor thing! Only your own little pocket dimension to manage, now with even more ill-gotten gains. What a cruel and unusual punishment…”
“Ha!” Graverra exclaimed at the mention of pocket dimensions. Technically, that hadn’t been something she and Hecrux had argued about before—it had even been part of his initial offer, hadn’t it? A world of their own…—but all the same it was nice to be right about something.
The punishment part, though, even the bit about ill-gotten gains, Graverra didn’t want to be right about. She didn’t even understand it.
Hecrux only growled in response to being teased. That was, unfortunately for Graverra, more like it. She sighed. How was she supposed to ask about this later? He should have told her by now. Arguably it wasn’t very fair of him to leave that out of his proposal. Graverra at least would have mentioned if she had any outstanding warrants…
There was an odd stretch of silence after that, as if Estremon expected something further from him. Graverra frowned at the impression of her again. She may not have known what Hecrux was being punished for, but whatever it was, Graverra felt he had every right to be upset over it.
Estremon sighed. The mirror overlayed with the dungeon’s main stat sheet again. “If I had known you only wanted to borrow against her mana, I could have made this easier for you. I would have preferred that. The council might have actually understood that.”
Graverra’s heart began to sink. The overdrafting of their mana had only been possible because of her? Had Hecrux known that before adding her to the dungeon? What if he agreed with Estremon now that things could be easier for him? That Graverra had overcomplicated everything and slowed him down.
“That isn’t the only reason I wanted her.” Hecrux at least sounded perturbed by the idea. But even if it did stay her dread, Graverra couldn’t let herself try and imagine what his other reasons might be. It would only disappoint her when it turned out to be less than true.
“Please.” Estremon scoffed. “It’s a clever enough story to keep her believing, but what use do you have for a trophy wife? Why, you aren’t even human anymore.”
Graverra clenched her jaw. Even if Estremon couldn’t hear any snide remarks, Capo would, and then he might tell Hecrux. And she did know. She knew they weren’t really married and that Hecrux didn’t love her—if he was even capable of that type of emotion at all—and it hadn’t driven Graverra insane. A little crazy, maybe, but the entire situation was ridiculous. Estremon herself never let an opportunity to remind them of this fact pass. In the two times Graverra had heard her speak, and this second time had been quite illuminating,
But what did Estremon mean he wasn’t human anymore?!
Graverra growled and set Capo aside on the bed. Maybe Hecrux wouldn’t be happy to see her, but he and Estremon owed her a few thousand explanations.
“Uhm, mistress?”
“What?!” Graverra spun back around even though there really wasn’t a way for the skull to stop her.
“Maybe you should let the boss handle this one.”
Graverra crossed her arms. “Why should I? All he’s done is lie and manipulate me and- And he doesn’t love me.” He wasn’t even human anymore. He probably wasn’t capable of such a thing to begin with. Not that Graverra had believed it before—she hadn’t—but it had been nice enough when she could still pretend.
The sound of Estremon’s surprise drew Graverra’s attention back to the mirror. “You dirty cheat! She can’t even manage the dungeon anymore.”
Graverra opened her mouth, about to tell Capo that, see, Hecrux had so taken away her dungeon core privileges, all that using the skull as a messenger had meant nothing. He didn’t want her helping; he probably didn’t want her at all.
But Hecrux denied it still. “That wasn’t my doing.”
“Please.” Estremon might not have been buying it, but Graverra felt an awful pinprick of hope hearing Hecrux maintain the answer even when there was no reason to maintain the lie. That meant he wasn’t lying, didn’t it? “Let me hand her over now and be done with it. You’ve had your fun.”
“No.” Hecrux said firm as ever, but there was an underlying urgency to it now.
“What do you mean, no? You’ll still be allowed to keep the levels and the mana, but there’s nothing else to wring out of her after that. Use her to clear this new bit of debt, and then-“
“I said no!” What Graverra could see of the lair rumbled the way it did when Hecrux was especially agitated. It made her wonder what he might be able to do to Estremon if pressed.
Estremon scoffed. She sounded shocked by being interrupted at all, let alone shouted at. “Look at what having her just a week has done to you! Did you really think you were going to be allowed this forever?”
“That’s what I promised her.”
“Well,” Estremon huffed. Something in that had flustered her as well, even if Hecrux hadn’t shouted it. “Of all the things, that certainly wasn’t yours to promise her, now was it?”
Hecrux growled.
Graverra still couldn’t piece it together, but there was something scathing in that question. Something that Hecrux knew he couldn’t defend himself from. She turned away from the mirror, back to the door between them. Maybe he didn’t love her, but he had still defended her from Estremon. Maybe she could now do the same.
Estremon shrieked in stereo, now able to be heard through the mirror and on the other side of the door. Graverra would have frowned—had Hecrux said something more and she’d missed it?—but her vision faded at just the same time, lightheadedness forcing her to lean forward against the door.
Graverra blinked hard. It probably wasn’t what allowed her to see straight again, but her vision did return quickly. Just in time for another system’s message to take a stab at her aching head.
The Watcher, Estremon, requests entrance. Allow?
Y/[N]
The Watcher, Estremon, requests entrance. Allow?
Y/[N]
The Watcher, Estremon, requests entrance. Allow?
Y/[N]
…
The request repeated in rapid succession. Graverra was glad Hecrux seemed to have a handle on it. She worried again that it had been her fault, letting Estremon in by sheer bad luck and rotten timing. She was gladder still that they could keep Estremon out at all. Why hadn’t he just denied her request in the first place?
The messages stopped as suddenly as they had started. Graverra breathed a little easier. At least, she got one good, steadying breath in before Capo spoke up again.
“Uh, Mistress? You might want to see this, quickly.”
Graverra darted back to her bedside, assuming there would be something changed in Hecrux’s lair, but a system message that hadn’t been sent to cross her mind printed over the mirror.
The Coalition of Core Keepers Has Considered Your Repayment
In repayment for 7,000,000 mana, the Coalition of Core Keepers has decided-
“No, wait!” Graverra reached out to the mirror and closed her fist, as if she could grab the message and keep it there. Why was that number so big? Hecrux hadn’t spent that much; he couldn’t have possibly. Not on the dungeon. And had she seen her own name there, or had Estremon just gotten in her head? Maybe that was the point. Maybe she had sent it that way on purpose. Maybe it was just another attempt to get between them.
“Graverra?”
Hecrux’s voice projected into her room, not just through the scrying ritual, launching Graverra into action and back into bed. Her grimoire and Capo bounced and rolled over the mattress while she leaned over the footboard to smudge out some of the runes and kill the scrying ritual.
“Yes?” She shouted back, even though she probably didn’t need to. She hadn’t needed to when they’d spoken like this in the past. Graverra sat back and flipped the pages in her grimoire back to the beginning of the dungeon tutorial. The welcome message reprinted itself across the page, but not in the mirror. Back to normal. “I’m- I’m doing the dungeon tutorial. Did it bother you?”
“Oh. That was you? I mean,” Hecrux cleared his throat. “Thank you. No, it hasn’t disturbed me. I need to speak with you.”
Graverra sighed as turning another page brought up the secondary core-specific training. She could try again in a moment; she just needed it to look like she really had been in the middle of something. Of course she wanted to speak with him—he owed her even more explanations now—but it felt too ominous now. Graverra needed more time. She needed to think.
“I’m a little busy at the moment. I want- I want to make sure I really get this right, you know?” That wasn’t even a lie. Now more than ever, she had to find a way to make this up to him. To be worth keeping. “Aren’t you tired? I mean, I hope you aren’t just sitting around, waiting on me.”
“No. Of course not.” But Hecrux sounded distracted. Was he looking at her stats? How far had she actually gotten with the dungeon tutorial? Why couldn’t she feel that now? “When you next find yourself at a decent stopping point. Soon, please.”
“Soon.” Graverra agreed. “Hey, Hecrux? I love you.”
Primary Core Status: Inactive
