It didn’t take long for Chilly’s curiosity to get the better of him. The cave once more illuminated by the flames of Incinerate, he crawled over to the remains of the skeleton. It was just a pile of ashes with three pieces of equipment laying innocently on top.

A sword, helmet and chestplate.

A rather odd combination of equipment, but who was he to judge the undead. The only time he had ever held a sword in his life was when he had reached behind the display case of a museum for the hell of it. They had kicked him out for that, but honestly. Whose fault was it that any schmuck could come by and touch the ancient sword from the fifth century?

Refocusing on the loot, three information panels popped into existence before him.

Iron Sword

One handed sword

Common

iLevel: 1

32-43 physical damage

Iron Barbute

Helmet

Magic

iLevel: 1

4 armor

9 life

Iron Plate Vest

Body Armor

Common

iLevel: 1

6 armor

Chilly gingerly picked up the helmet, and shook off the loose bone ash that had gotten inside. Unlike the other two pieces, the helmet had a faint blue glow to it. A blue ephemeral outline, that made the item pop out to his sight. It gave the helmet a magical quality, as if it was possessed by some magical spirit.

Chilly glanced once more at the helmet's description and chuckled slightly. Then with careful determination he set the helmet back down beside its brethren and stepped back to his nook against the far wall.

The encounter with the skeleton frightened him badly. It really drove home the fact that, despite the very game-like interface, he really could die if he just messed around. Or at least, it felt that way. Obviously, he had no desire to experiment with the existence of a respawn system. It didn’t seem conducive to his long term health. Certain results of that experiment specifically.

For now, it would be most beneficial to be careful and to make an honest effort to understand the limits of the situation.

Chilly pulled up his character sheet. Starting off small, he probed his life. Conveniently, the system provided a little blue popup of additional information.

Life: Life - also known as health, vitality, and/or constitution - is the quantity determining the physical fitness of a creature. Death occurs when a creature attains zero life. Can be acquired through levels, skills, equipment, and various buffs found in the world.

You currently have 96/116 life.

“Alright, fairly understandable. Also explains why I gained sixteen health points after I hit level two.” Chilly murmured to himself, then moved on to the question that he really wanted to know the answer to.

Life regeneration. There wasn’t a particular section on his character sheet about life regeneration, but simply probing the idea seemed to be enough for the system.

Life Regeneration - also known as recovery - is the quantity of life recovered naturally over time. Life regeneration is generally positive and is affected by life recovery rate the same as Life Leech and Life recovery on hit. Can be acquired through equipment, skills, and various buffs in the world.

You currently have 0.00 life regeneration.

Chilly glanced at the pile of gear next to him. “Right, so this skeleton didn’t have any life regeneration on his gear either, so that’s a bust. Let’s check out skills.”

Chilly navigated the menu, and focused on the first triple question mark underneath Incinerate

This skill is locked until level 3

He scrolled down each of the other question marks though each one was locked having increasingly larger level requirements at odd intervals. Then he probed Incinerate.

Incinerate

Unleash a beam of fire that burns enemies that it touches. The beam dissipates after 5.1m.

Deals 33 Fire damage per second

Channeling

Augments available

“It gained three damage per second.” Chilly narrowed his eyes, then focused on the text all the way on the bottom.

Augments available.

Choose an Augment for Incinerate. Costs 1 skill point.

Maximum 1 Augment.

Empowered Flames

The flames become ever hotter. Grants 30% more incinerate damage

Ignition

Enemies burnt by incinerate catch fire dealing 35% additional fire damage over 4 seconds

Embered Heart

Ashes resonate with the power of Incinerate granting 100% more ash effect

Chaotic Flames

Incinerate bolsters the flames within you granting your spells 12% more damage over time

Massive

Amount of flames is increased raising the range of Incinerate by 3m

Scorching Ray

The flames of Incinerate leave lasting scars, inflicting scorch on enemies burned by the flames

Chilly rubbed his chin thoughtfully. After a moment of deliberation probed scorch for further information.

Scorch

Debuff

You take 20% more fire damage

“You as in...the person inflicted by scorch.” Chilly murmured, “That means...Scorching ray is just better than Chaotic flames. Why would I ever choose that over the others. That’s not even mentioning Empowered Flames or Ignition, which seem busted comparatively.”

Chilly probed ash for further information.

Ash

Debuff

You take 15% more fire damage

You are slowed by 20%

Chilly chewed his lip as he considered. Empowered Flames was simple. It just granted a flat damage increase. The other glaring option was Ignition. It provided a larger damage increase relatively, but did that damage over four seconds. Depending on the actual mechanics it might be a worrisome upgrade. If even the briefest exposure to Incinerate initiated the four second burn then it might allow him to adopt hit and run tactics.

Somehow, it didn’t seem that way. Channeling didn’t start and stop all that quickly to begin with, and there was still the darkness issue to contend with.

Additionally, the only fight that Chilly took part in lasted barely a couple seconds. Not nearly long enough for Ignition to deal it's full damage. If future fights would be of similar duration, then he would be sacrificing a large amount of damage every engagement.

Just as he was about to make a decision, a penguin popped into existence not two feet in front of him.

“Gah!” Chilly yelped, aiming Incinerate at the penguin.

The flames passed harmlessly through the penguin. This didn’t at all phase the penguin who seemed almost to enjoy the searing hot flames.

Slowly, Chilly calmed, and pointed the flames of Incinerate once more onto the ceiling.

The penguin seemed to approve and hopped up and down on its little feet and gestured emphatically with its wooden sword.

“Uhm, hi?”

The penguin waved its flipper happily, then hopped up and down once more, this time gesturing more aggressively with Realm Walker towards the status screen floating before Chilly.

“Yes, that’s my status screen?” Chilly asked, then shook his head in consternation, “I’m talking to a penguin...”

The penguin paused its jumping, looking furious. Realm Walker swished through the air and rested onto Chilly’s collarbone threateningly. Chilly immediately raised both hands up into the air, causing the light in the cave to flicker wildly.

“Ok, sure. Smart penguin. Yeah. So...what?”

The penguin resumed its insistent gesturing to the status screen.

“You want me to choose an augment?”

The penguin shook his head vigorously and pointed at itself.

“You want you to choose an augment.” Chilly stated dryly.

The penguin nodded its head vigorously. Quite a feat considering it didn’t really have a neck.

“Well, sucks. It’s my augment.” Chilly returned curtly, turning back towards the status screen.

The penguin flailed indignantly, to which Chilly just laughed. “Kidding, kidding. Which one do you think would be good? I personally think Empowered Flames is pretty cool.”

The penguin nodded agreeably, then jabbed Realm Walker twice, wiggled its wings, and hopped into the air.

“I’m going to be honest, mate. I haven't got a clue what you just said.” Chilly replied wryly.

The penguin stomped its foot unhappily. Then it stared at Chilly intently and jabbed Realm Walker twice.

“Two. I get that.” Chilly nodded along. The penguin bobbed its head in agreement.

“So, you want me to choose Ignition?” Chilly said, noting the Ignition was the second item on the list of augments.

The penguin drooped. Then shook its head sadly.

“Not Ignition. Got it. But wait. What’s wrong with Empowered Flames?”

The penguin made a retching motion.

“Alright hold up. It clearly has the highest damage of all the augments. How can it possibly be bad?”

The penguin shrugged, then seemed to think for a moment before it placed its free flipper next to its cheeks and closed its eyes. Its chest rose slightly as it took in a deep breath then let it out.

Chilly intuited that all that was missing from the pantomime was floating Z’s and a snoring sound.

“It's boring?” he said incredulously.

The penguin nodded emphatically, ecstatic that its message was understood.

“Pfff,” Chilly waved away the silly penguin. “No thanks, I choose life.”

Without further ado, Chilly willed his choice into being and the interface responded, dinging brightly as Empowered Flames lit up and Incinerate’s information panel replaced the augment panel.

The flames that roiled up from Chilly’s hand this entire time to provide light changed their quality ever so slightly. Becoming denser, and slightly more yellow in color.

The penguin threw its flippers up theatrically, tossing up Realm Walker into the air in the process. A look of ohnowhatdidido came over the penguin, before it disappeared as if it was never there.

“Huh,” Chilly chuckled. Briefly he waved his hand where the penguin was just standing to confirm, but indeed the penguin was no more.

“What a weird world.” He said, before he then turned his attention to the status window.

Incinerate

Unleash a beam of fire that burns enemies that it touches. The beam dissipates after 5.1m.

Deals 42 Fire damage per second

Channeling

“I guess it rounds down.” Chilly noted idly, after doing a bit of mental maths in his head. He then dismissed the window, satisfied that his one vector of attack was nearly fifty percent more powerful than it was before the level and augment. Hopefully that meant that any future baddies wouldn’t last long enough to give him a personal introduction to their pointy bits.

“Now the gear.” Chilly said with no small amount of trepidation as he looked at the pile of ashy equipment. He stayed that way for several moments, just considering.

“It's always cursed. I’m in a weird skeleton dungeon thing, there is no way that it isn’t cursed. Especially the glowly helmet. No way it ain’t cursed.”

Chilly squinted suspiciously at the innocent glowing helmet. “I mean honestly. You came off of an animated skeleton. Definitely cursed.”

A shiver ran down his spine as he came to a realization. “Probably shouldn’t have touched it earlier. Well, I suppose that I know it's safe to touch now.”

Carefully, Chilly picked up the helmet, idly noting the various dings and dents that covered the once shiny metal. The faint blue glow that seemed to outline the object did not all comfort him.

“Are you cursed?” Chilly asked rhetorically.

Curse: A debuff that temporarily reduces one or more of the stats of a creature. Curses can be acquired through skills, equipment and various buffs found in the world.

“Bloody hell. It's basically telling me it's cursed.” Chilly muttered. He tossed the helmet up into the air and caught it, weighing the risk. “I mean, it could bypass the temporary part, by just reapplying the mind control.”

“Getting taken over by some evil spirit and being enslaved for perpetuity,” Chilly said, catching the helmet with his left hand. Then he tossed the helmet back into the air.

“Sword in skull.” Chilly caught the helmet in his right hand. He narrowed his eyes in deep contemplation.

“Hmm,”

“Itty bitty chance at being taken over by an evil spirit and being forced to guard this dungeon place forever until my flesh falls off and I become a skeleton.” Chilly moved the helmet to his left hand once more.

“Axe in skull.” Chilly shivered. “That settles it.”

Without giving himself time to regret the decision, Chilly scrunched his eyes closed, lifted the helmet, and plopped it onto his head.

A couple moments passed.

“Hey, would you look at that! I’m not evil!” Chilly smiled. “But my god, this thing needs some padding.”

He reached inside the helmet, and wiggled his ear into a more comfortable position.

With less debating, Chilly strapped on the chest plate, and picked up the sword. He shivered violently as the cold metal touched his bare skin. With some measure of excitement he pulled up his character sheet only to be greeted by another mystery.

Gregory “Chilly” Morhuil

Level: 2

Experience: 0/2

Unspent Skill Points: 1

Specialization: Fire

Life: 96/125

Armor

Fire

Cold

Lightning

Chaos

10 (9.09%)

0

0

0

0

Incinerate :

???:

???:

???:

???:

???:

???:

???:

Helmet: Iron Barbute

Body Armor: Iron Plate Vest

Weapon: Iron Sword

Chilly sighed, “Ok what do those two armor values mean”

Armor: Reduces physical damage taken from all sources. The first number on the character sheet refers to the amount of armor any given creature has, and the second refers to the reduction in damage expected from having that much armor.

Chilly took off the chest piece. His armor read 4 and 3.85%. Then he put it back on and took off his helmet. His armor read 6 and 5.66%.

“So slightly less percent damage reduction than the amount of armor. It also seems to be less percent reduction the more armor I have. I’ll suss out the formula sometime. For now it doesn’t totally matter. More is better as they say.”

Not much else he could do at the moment, he replaced all his newfound gear. As he was doing so he noticed a glint of silver coming from the pile of bone ash. A blip of fright passed over him and he directed Incinerate at the ash. In a moment all the ash blew away revealing a single silver coin sitting innocuously on the stone floor.

Unknown Essence

Take this to a crafting bench to learn of its properties!

“No way it's not cursed,” Chilly muttered suspiciously, then shook his head in chagrin, “Who am I kidding.”

Chilly pocketed the unknown essence thing into a nook in his chest piece and turned towards the far end of the tunnel. The unexplored bit. With, perhaps, more skeletons. And other evil things. Maybe. Hopefully not.

That may or may not want to stab him.

Psyching himself up, Chilly began the careful stutter step required to move down the tunnel safely. Relatively quickly he arrived at the place where the first skeleton had been standing. He moved beyond that, noticing how the tunnel walls grew narrower, but somehow more refined. As if the stone had been worked to some degree to get it smooth and wide enough for traversal. The walls of the tunnel even had small grooves carved into them giving the impression of brickwork.

Then he saw them. Two shadow cloaked figures who blocked the tunnel by standing perfectly still one in front of the other. Chilly watched them for a moment. If he hadn’t fought the previous skeleton he might have believed that they were statues instead of undead.

Carefully, he brought the empowered beam of Incinerate a little bit closer to them, trying to get light to shine more clearly upon his would-be adversaries.

Skeleton Warrior

Level: 1

Life: 84

Skeleton Warrior

Level: 1

Life: 106

Chilly noted that the system was providing him additional information on the skeleton's life. If the numbers were accurate it meant that this pair would fall in two and three seconds respectively. Hopefully that would be fast enough to prevent them from harming him.

The skeleton in the back wore a chest piece and had a small hatchet while the one in the front had a bow and oddly a pair of boots. They were both facing the other way.

Chilly confirmed his retreat, checked his armor, affirmed his junk's position, looked over his character sheet and then took in a deep, shuddering breath. Nothing more he could do.

As quickly as he could, Chilly trained the beam of fire onto the skeletons.

The reaction was instantaneous.

The skeleton carrying the bow rotated around his waist and fired a snapshot.

Chilly’s eyes bulged as he sank to the floor without really registering why. His arm aiming incinerate sagged, but with a focused effort of will he managed to maintain his aim with Incinerate.

The second skeleton went berserk. It charged Chilly, without any regard for obstacles, or for that matter the archer skeleton that stood before it. They collided with a crash and the nails-on-chalkboard grind of bones on bone. They both tumbled to the stone floor in a mess of steadily charring bones.

Chilly adjusted his aim, and let out an animalistic scream.

The two undead attempted to get up, but couldn’t as their bones interlocked. Pelvis wrapped around ribs, the skeletons struggled helplessly, every motion further interlocking their bones.

Then one of the skeletons fell to ash, his body unable to withstand the heat of Chilly’s upgraded spell.

Axe in hand, the skeleton rose ominously to its feet. Eyes glowing with inner fire, and blackened bones, it took a single step.

And promptly fell to dust.

The axe and breastplate clattered noisily to the floor.

Chilly whimpered softly and fell completely onto his ass. With trembling fingers he probed the arrow that had embedded itself through the breastplate and into his stomach. The arrow was covered in dust with ragged white fletching.

He wrapped both hands around the shaft and with a preemptive scream ripped the arrow out of his intestines. Belatedly he remembered first aid lessons from long ago and realized that he should have left the arrow inside, but oddly, the wound didn’t bleed. In fact the wound looked completely devoid of blood, as if no blood vessel was severed by the arrowhead.

He stared in morbid fascination at his pulsing intestines.

“You know...” Chilly said weakly. “I didn’t know...intestines...would look so slimy.”

Then he turned to the side, retching horribly.