Malfunctions of Magic and Other Curious Things by Aelrindel Daeydark still sat on Graverra’s bed when she slammed the door behind her. She did not pick up the stupid, stupid book; she face-planted onto the bed and screamed.
The book sat there even still when she had finished, which was a small relief considering the state of her mana reserves.
Secondary Core Mana Reserves: 530
“When I figure out how to steal your mana…” She grumbled into the mattress. The fact that she hadn’t needed to pull out her grimoire to check — that it had worked like it used to, when she could just feel it — startled her back up to a sit.
“Ha!” She laughed pointedly at the door between herself and the primary core. It wouldn’t matter; Hecrux was inactive again. The only way to get his attention was to incorrectly spend large sums of mana, it turned out.
“What did you do?” Capo’s voice startled her.
“Oh! I didn’t have to use my grimoire to check on my mana reserves.”
“No, I meant in there, er- Out there? With the boss.”
“Oh.” Graverra frowned as she thought about how to explain it. It wouldn’t have killed the skull to just be happy for her. And the fight was still embarrassing, even if it was only Capo that had asked. “I’m keeping the book.”
“Well, I can see that.”
“Well, what else? He doesn’t want me to have it, and he doesn’t want to tell me why he doesn’t want me to have it, so…” Graverra looked over at the book again. It was pretty, embossed leather that had been dyed blue, with silver rubbed over the raised decor…. But it was thick too. And what was she going to do, sit there and actually read the whole thing? Graverra didn’t mind reading, but memorizing theory — and untangling what it all meant before she could commit it to memory — had always given her trouble.
Graverra summoned her grimoire beside the other book. It was bigger than Malfunctions and a little thicker too — but that was because of all the things she was supposed to fill it with; nobody expected a necromancer to be able to recall everything off the top of her head. The rituals could be very intricate sometimes.
Worry threaded its way between Graverra’s ribs and tied a noose around her heart. Dungeon cores recalled everything off the top of their heads though, and they didn’t even have actual physical heads or brains to make use of. And if Graverra wasn’t really a dungeon core after all, what did that make her instead?
“I think you still have to open them.” Capo advised.
“Huh?”
“I think you still have to open books in order for them to work.”
Graverra scowled at the skull. He couldn’t have known what she had just been thinking, but it was rotten timing all the same. “I know that. I just don’t know why he doesn’t want me to know things. He should want me to know things, right? I’d stop wasting his time needing things explained or discussing things…”
She tried willing Malfunctions of Magic to open, but her grimoire flopped open instead. When she leaned over it, the system prompt reminding her about the dungeon tutorial spread over the page. Why wouldn’t he just let her do that?
“Maybe I will.” Graverra grumbled at the prompt, but rather than accept the start of the tutorial, she pulled up the dungeon stats. Just to check.
Dungeon - Name Undecided (Pewter—7)
Location: Undetermined
Theme: Undecided | Specialization: Undecided
Total Mana Reserves: 2,105 (7.5%/hr)
Mobs: 3/7 [See Further Mobs Info]
Traps: 1/4 [See Further Traps Info]
Puzzles: [Unlocked at Copper Tier]
Questlines: [Unlocked at Gold Tier]
[See Dungeon Layout]
Dungeon Will Be Placed In... [328:23:05]
Watching the dungeon timer’s seconds tick by tightened the noose on Graverra’s anxiety. It shouldn’t have, she still didn’t have any real frame of reference for how long things were taking or should be taking… Maybe that was the point? Another one of those things Estremon implemented to try and slow them down and confuse them and make Hecrux regret ever adding Graverra to the dungeon at all.
Which still didn’t make a lick of sense to Graverra. Why would Estremon want them to fail — or even just Hecrux to fail — if she was the one overseeing them? Why didn’t Hecrux want to explain that or anything any more than he already had? Why didn’t anyone want to tell her anything?!
“Do you know the big awful secret?” Graverra asked Capo without looking at him. She still stared at her books, weighing which to continue on with. She didn’t expect Capo to have a real answer.
“I’m not sure that there is one, mistress.”
Graverra narrowed her eyes at the skull. Even if she had been expecting a non-answer, it didn’t mean she couldn’t be dissatisfied with the one she got. “I think you know more than you tell me.”
Capo wobbled on the table in his usual shrugging motion. “Can’t know what I don’t know, mistress.”
“Exactly!” Graverra slapped the bedspread. Neither could she. And if Hecrux wouldn’t tell her what she didn’t know, then she would just have to be allowed to do it herself. She looked down at the two books again and sighed. There really wasn’t any guarantee this Malfunctions of Magic would have anything truly useful for her. She’d just gotten caught up in the fact that she had been denied it and for very little reason.
The dungeon timer continued to tick down on the pages of Graverra’s grimoire. Only by seconds, but were those really so necessary to count? Timers didn’t use to have such exact numbers when they were for rituals or even just waiting for her own mana to regenerate. It was unnerving now and overwhelming. Graverra flipped a page back to the dungeon tutorial prompt.
“What do you think my chances are of finishing the tutorial before Hecrux can notice?” She asked Capo again, not expecting much of an answer. The skull might fulfill his purpose as a companion well enough, but he had turned out to be a lot less useful to her than Graverra had hoped.
“Pretty slim, if he doesn’t even want you reading some book.”
Graverra growled to herself—even if she knew Capo was right, she didn’t have to like the answer—and shut her grimoire, dismissing it for the time being. If anything, at least reading a physical book, the way annoying, useless mortals gained their information, might curb this feeling of wasted time. There weren’t usually dungeon timers in books about arcane theory or otherwise.
✨ 💀 ✨
Necromancy had never required much reading. Some of that, Graverra was sure, was due to the fact that it was a younger class—although it was fairly well agreed upon that Berserker was the oldest and that had never required any sort of reading until the wizards all decided they were worth studying—but more than that, necromancy just made sense to her.
Graverra guessed there were probably plenty of people who needed it explained to them; some of them were probably even necromancers themselves, but Graverra wouldn’t be the one to explain it. Two could play at the ‘just intuit it’ game, although she doubted Hecrux was terribly interested in the actual craft of it all anyway. He had his Fleshwarping.
But if she ever did try and explain it to Hecrux, or anyone else, she certainly wouldn’t have chosen sewing as her metaphor of choice.
While universally, mana has been conceptualized and manifested in crystalline form, the metaphor of a more fibrous substance lends itself to a much more robust language. Even if a masonry comparison was made, stone has never been so malleable as thread. Furthermore, it is this author and magic user’s opinion that many of the supposed inexplainabilities do in fact make sense and much more of it when viewed through this metaphor. It is as though we have determined to darn socks with chisels…
Malfunctions of Magic’s preface went on about the similarities between mana-based casting and various fiber crafts ranging from spinning wool, weaving fabrics, knitting, knot tying, and again, sewing. Which made enough sense, she guessed, but if you had to start your big magic theory book by explaining some other mundane craft…
Graverra tried to locate a table of contents or an index but came up short. She began skimming chapter titles then; there was only so much to be gleaned when they were called things like ‘pockets’ and ‘patches,’ but Mana Madness, written in the bold, ornate script of a chapter heading, was sobering enough to read. Graverra knew what that was, but it was something that happened to wizards or especially greedy warlocks and witches. Necromancers weren’t in any danger of it… But were dungeon cores?
“What do you know about mana madness, Capo?” She called over to the skull.
“Well, from context clues-” Not the answer Graverra had been looking for; she tuned the rest of it out. She also doubted reading Malfunctions’ description of it would get them anywhere; Aelrindel Daeydark sure did love their fiber crafts.
A caster’s talisman or focus is merely a tool for the manipulation of the ephemeral weave of mana all around us. A needle with which to pull thread or knot yarn. While the author understands the need for the divine conduit theory in the case of divine casters, it still serves to prove this point: that a caster’s calculated pool of mana is only an estimate of however much they can handle working with at any given time. To hold even the lowest of levels' worth of raw arcana in that way would be ruinous to any mere mortal. It would drive them mad.
Mana madness. Too much power, not enough… everything else. Necromancers were different, though; at least that’s what Graverra had been told. They could get by on the shells of used arcana. Or were resurrecting the mana itself, depending on who you asked. But dungeon cores… Graverra really didn’t know the first thing about dungeon cores.
“If only there was someone with experience in dungeon cores who could just tell me all this himself…” Graverra meant to be muttering about Hecrux but realized as soon as she’d said it, if she was really a dungeon core, she would have known that and all the other things Hecrux had tried to show her before, wouldn’t she?
“The boss is going mad now?” Capo asked. “I thought he already was.”
“There is that, isn’t there?” Graverra scowled harder as she tried to quickly finish out the chapter. Hecrux’s title was ‘Mad, Bad, and Dangerous to Know’ and he hadn’t been very forthcoming with an explanation for it. Hers made sense, ‘Bride of the Dungeon Core.’ As a regular old mortal, you got a title for accomplishing something big. Or you paid for one, but those were always easy to pick out and usually a racket.
As previously touched on, the purpose of a dungeon’s core is not to hoard mana like a dragon but more than likely a means of metering it out into the material plane. As sudden influxes in mana have an adverse effect on the average caster or vessel, it is not such a large leap to imagine the effect it may also have upon a dungeon’s core, only on a much larger scale. But if a dungeon and its core are meant to act as a patch in the veil, then it should be safe to believe most are well equipped to handle the fluctuations a planar rift might incur.
Great. Now Aelrindel was previously touching on things. And Hecrux could so go mad — or madder — with power, which meant so could she, right? And he was so just using her for the mana, which still wasn’t such a surprise, but it just would have been nice… And now apparently her sham marriage was supposed to be keeping the fabrics of the universe tied together. Great.
