Chilly returned to the Annex briefly to collect the various weapons he left behind. He didn’t particularly know why he was collecting them. They were all useless to him for one reason or another. Either because he couldn’t use them - the bow had no arrows - or there was no reason to since his sword was sufficient. Primarily he did it because he worked for those weapons. Even if they are useless at the moment, it would be a shame to leave them behind.

He stashed them in the chest beside the crafting bench in the Shrine. It had plenty of room.

Going gathering was also a perfect opportunity to test out the torch. It was amazing. Instead of the stutter step that plunged him into frightful darkness, he could now walk continuously with no interruptions. Needless to say, it didn’t take long to explore the Annex.

As he did this, he noted the penguins were getting more numerous. Earlier they would only show up sporadically, and alone. Now however it seemed that there was always a constant presence of penguins somewhere in the vicinity. Sometimes even two or three at a time.

Mostly the penguins just followed him around, though a fair few seemed to lose interest with depressing speed. Those penguins instead chose to investigate seemingly random aspects of the environment. That or they would drop their swords with a huff and disappear in a cloud of smoke.

Most worryingly, when he sat in the Shrine after stashing the weapons, some of the bored penguins took a keen interest in the Guardian. This frightened Chilly so bad, he dashed to the Mausoleum and watched the resulting interaction behind the dubious safety of prison bars.

Luckily, the Guardian didn’t seem to mind. Or notice the penguins at all, instead opting to float about the cavern and light its endless candles while muttering. That didn’t stop the penguins from trying though. Chilly returned to the Shrine after one particularly industrious penguin proved that no amount of slashing with Realm Walker would draw the attention of the Guardian.

The penguin’s shenanigans were as amusing as they were frightening. It wouldn’t do to get smited by proxy by a silly penguin that was - as far as Chilly could tell - immortal. None of the penguins reacted to Incinerate. Oh, they definitely oohed and ahhed at the pretty flames, but seemed entirely unaffected when the fire was directed at them. At best, they seemed amused to see the inside of a fiery tornado.

Immortality - or more accurately intangibility - was nifty, but there was something else about the penguins that bothered him. Every single one of them resisted his identification ability. No matter how he focused, the system refused to bring up a status screen describing them. Odd. Especially since the first penguin he had seen had elicited a blue box upon inspection.

That is. All resisted his identification. All except one.

Chilly was taking a well deserved rest on the stone benches surrounding the campfire in the Shrine when another penguin approached him. He idly glanced at the sword toting fowl, but did a double take when an information box popped into existence.

Quaesitor Mortem

???

“Quaesitor mortem...” Chilly sounded out the unfamiliar Latin.

“Like the new table!” the penguin chirped in a high pitched voice. “Thanks for the chapter!”

“What? Wait, you can talk!” Chilly cried, jumping to his feet in surprise.

The penguin gave him a gainful salute with Realm Walker and began shuffling away. Its business complete.

“Wait up!” Chilly cried after the retreating penguin. “What do you mean table? And what chapter?”

The penguin ignored Chilly and continued to waddle away, Realm Walker swinging in its right flipper. Chilly dodged around the campfire and rushed after the penguin. He reached for the penguin's shoulder to get it to turn around, but in a show of unnatural grace, the penguin dodged around his grasping hand and leapt back to make distance between them.

Chilly stumbled but caught himself before he fell. Then he straightened, giving the penguin an imploring look.

“Please?” Chilly asked, his hands open in supplication.

The penguin seemed to consider, then with a mischievous grin, winked, and dropped Realm Walker. A second later, both it and the sword vanished in a swirling eddy of rapidly disintegrating smoke.

“Damn.” Chilly muttered. He returned to his seat by the campfire, feeling dejected.

That cinched it. The penguins could speak. At least some of them could. Perhaps most didn’t speak because it was somehow expensive to transmit the message across the...wherever the penguins hailed from. It would explain why the penguins remained silent, but implied that there was a very good reason for this particular message to be sent.

As far as Chilly knew, what the penguin had said was gobbledygook.

Chilly shook his head. “It’s important. It has to be.” he said quietly as he stared deep into the flames. The penguins were a little strange, staring at him and interested in rocks. But they seemed mostly harmless. Sure they had a sword, that they would sometimes point at him, but it was made of wood. And they were penguins.

Also, if he was being honest with himself. He needed all the help that he could get.

So what was the message. It had three parts. The penguin’s name, the mention of the new table, and the gratefulness for a chapter.

Starting with the name it was obviously Latin. Mortem meant death, but quaesitor wasn’t a word that he was familiar with. Quasars were super massive stars in the sky back on earth. Or were they black holes? Regardless they were bright objects. So...bright death? Dying bright? May you have a shining death?

That sounded wrong. The ‘itor’ suffix made him think of occupation. Like the person who does something. That would make it something like ‘the person who brings bright death’. Or ‘the person who dies brightly’. Still sounded odd.

Maybe bright was the wrong translation. Quasi meant ‘maybe’, or ‘sort-of’, or ‘a question’. Like tofu was a quasi meat. Hmm, not the best analogy. Either way, that would mean that the penguin's name translated to ‘the one who might die’. ‘The one who might be dead’? That was dark, but didn’t seem right either.

What if the name meant ‘the one who questions death’?

“The one who interrogates death...” Chilly said aloud, hoping that it would spark something. “Interrogates, examines, investigates. ‘The one who investigates death’. That would mean...”

It would mean that the penguin was some sort of detective. A police investigator that had come to send him a message about his death. To warn him. A Herald.

“So what is it that I should be avoiding...”

The penguin had said ‘Like the new table’. That could mean that it appreciates a new table, but if Chilly’s translation of the penguins name was correct then there was some other intention here.

What if the message was cut off? Like the message was originally longer. For example: ‘You will die on a slab of stone, like the new table in the Mausoleum’. Not really enough information to know for sure. But definitely possible.

Regardless, if that was true then the second part of the message didn’t refer to a chapter in a book. Instead it must refer to a religious chapter. He was in a mausoleum after all. It wouldn’t surprise him if the undead here were part of - or once part of - a religious chapter. Hell, he had already found several sarcophagi with obviously religious carvings on them. Perhaps the Desecrator had formed its own religion.

“So...” Chilly chewed his lip, “death, or danger might come from religion and or tables.”

Suddenly, Chilly’s eyes were drawn to the large stone altar surrounded by the seven stone plinths. A shiver ran through him. Carefully, he sidled a little bit farther away from the presumably dangerous altar.

“Welp!” Chilly slapped his thighs and got up, gathering his sword and torch. “Enough of that. Tables are dangerous. Got it. Let’s head out.”

Chilly made his way to the Mausoleum. This time, he walked confidently down the first hallway, torch in hand. He made it to the intersection and peeked around the bend. The crypt to the right was still looted and empty of undead. Likewise with the hallway to the left.

Chilly turned left, and continued walking. This time making a conscious effort to silence his steps. The undead had shown no indication that they responded to sound, but there was no need to be foolish.

Chilly held the torch extended as far forward as he could. It didn’t blind him like a normal torch would have, but instead granted him an extra half meter of light in front of him. Two and a half meters of light was really not that much for a long straight hallway.

Chilly paused after several steps. In the Annex with its tight corridors and where he had known that all the undead were dead, the light radius had seemed sufficient. Now though, with a long dark hallway in front of him, it didn’t feel nearly good enough.

Reluctantly, he flared Incinerate. Light bloomed revealing that the hallway ended abruptly with a sharp right turn. Chilly quickly made his way over to the turn and peeked around the corner. Once again he frowned and flared Incinerate, pointing at the ceiling.

Another long hallway greeted him. This time however, staggered alcoves were visible on either side of the hallway. Three alcoves on the right and two on the left were faintly visible through the gloom.

Chilly dismissed Incinerate and carefully made his way over to the first alcove on the right and peeked inside.

Putrid Ghoul

iLevel: 2

Life: 162

With a start, he recoiled, hiding behind the corner. The ghoul was standing in the room. Perfectly still and watching the far wall with the rapture of the dead. Behind the ghoul lay a sarcophagus, broken on the ground. The far wall contained a small deep alcove that could presumably fit the stone coffin.

Chilly backed away several more steps, considering. This time he didn’t have a long hallway to burn the ghoul down as it charged him. It was perhaps the worst possible configuration. In order to begin combat he would have to be practically on top of it.

Chilly chewed his lip thoughtfully before retreating back to the T-intersection. He considered the Shrine with the candles for a moment before dismissing the idea as ridiculous. Instead he walked over to the small room with four sarcophagi and rummaged around until he found several broken off pieces of stone that would work as projectiles.

“Work fast, but don’t hurry...” Chilly murmured to himself. His hands were trembling at the thought of another confrontation.

He made his way back to where the ghoul was and placed the stones down on the ground.

“Ok, so the plan is to throw a stone in there and get it to come out. Then burn it down as it charges.” Chilly affirmed to the penguin who had curiously started investigating the stones. Chilly gave the hallway before him a doubtful look. It was shorter than the one he had used previously. “What do you think, little guy?”

The penguin gave him a curious look, before returning to its inspection of the rocks.

“Hmm. How about we wait a minute, and if neither of us have a better idea then we go for it.” Chilly told the oblivious penguin. “Realm Walker’s description does say there is a time delay.”

A minute later, neither the penguin nor Chilly came up with a better plan. Chilly hefted the baseball sized stone and after a moment of deliberation tossed it into the alcove.

The stone clattered deafeningly before settling. No ghoul emerged.

“I’m an idiot.” Chilly muttered to the penguin. “What if it's not hostile? I could just walk past.”

The penguin didn’t offer much of a response.

“You’re right. This isn’t a great place to test it out.” Chilly replied, “Besides its level two so killing it would give me a level.”

The penguin turned to inspect a different rock.

“Ok, I hear ya.” Chilly nodded, then picked up the stone. With significantly more gumption he chucked the stone into the alcove.

The rock ricocheted off the wall and crashed into the alcove, then with a meaty thump it clattered to the ground. From his position down the hall, Chilly couldn’t see the ghoul, but he was positive that the stone had hit.

Even so, the ghoul did not deign to leave its room.

“No way, that definitely hit.” Chilly scowled.

The penguin, done with its rock investigation, dropped Realm Walker and disappeared in a puff of smoke. Instead, Chilly turned to the other penguin who was standing beside him, holding its own version of Realm Walker on its shoulder like a baseball bat.

“Unless the stone didn’t deal damage...What do you think?”

The penguin shrugged its shoulders, noncommittally.

Chilly picked up another of the rocks and considered it. Then he took off one of his boots - which made him lose the item's bonuses - and dropped the rock on his big toe.

He preemptively winced, but paused at the sensory dissonance. He felt the stone hit his toe. He heard the sound of the stone hitting his toe. But he didn’t feel the pain of the stone hitting his toe.

The penguin clapped its flippers in excitement.

“You like that?” Chilly smiled, then picked up the rock with no small amount of consternation.

Chilly raised his arm over his head, double checked that his health regen was still at 0.45, and then with deliberate force, threw the rock as hard as he could at his toe.

The rock smashed into his foot, and with a crack splintered into pieces, showering him and his surroundings in stone dust.

Still no pain.

The penguin bounced up and down, rejoicing in the carnage of the stone.

“Huh, it doesn’t deal damage.” Chilly said, staring at the remains of the stone. “There goes that plan.”

The penguin raised its sword and waved it around its head. Then it marched over to the defeated rock and proudly planted Realm Walker on its destroyed corpse.

“You’re saying just go in there and fight it?” Chilly said doubtfully.

To that, the penguin dropped Realm Walker, disappearing in a puff of rapidly fading smoke.

“Not inspiring a whole lot of confidence, brother” Chilly quietly said to the smoke. He glanced at his sword, but dismissed throwing it. There was no way he would hit the ghoul from around the bend.

The problem was Incinerate. It didn’t allow him to retreat while using it. That essentially meant that the coming fight would be him standing there like an idiot while the ghoul wailed on him. Sure the ghoul would be getting burned in the process but it seemed like a stupid plan. Especially since he had less health than the undead.

But wait. Did he though? If the ghoul only deals physical damage then it would need to get past his armor which means that instead of having 133 life, he would have...170-ish effective health. But that was assuming that the ghoul only dealt physical damage, and that was without mentioning the desecrated ground that would engulf him after the zombie was slain.

Assuming he stayed in the desecrated ground for a conservative 2 seconds after the kill. That would mean that he would need at least...fifteen-ish health in order to survive. That means that he actually only has 118 health to spare which would be...150-ish disposable health for the fight. Considering that the ghoul had 162 health that means he would lose.

Assuming they dealt the same amount of damage to each other.

“Let’s hope the 30% more damage from Empowered Flames is enough to tip the scales...”

Backing out was the other option, but the alternatives weren’t great. The crack in the Shrine led to god knows where, and perhaps confronting the guardian were possible. Though neither option was that great and had the same risks as just confronting the level two ghoul.

Chilly shook his head to clear his thoughts. They were not helpful.

“Forwards or starve. Level three better be worth it.”

Fatalistically, he trudged over to the entrance to the alcove and peeked in. The ghoul was standing in the same position as it was before. He took one more step, fully revealing his body.

The ghoul reacted instantly, turning around and snarling. Its jaw distended, tendons popping as the joint stretched beyond what a human skeleton could accommodate.

Chilly grimly stepped within stabbing range of the ghoul and brought both the torch and the sword down in a cruel overhand chop, then immediately flared Incinerate. The ghoul recoiled as steel and flames assaulted it. Then with the tenacity of the undead, it recovered and lunged.

Teeth clamped shut over Chilly forearm. With a pained yelp he dropped the torch. It clattered to the floor. Instinctively he tried to retreat, but the channeling slow prevented him from moving.

The ghoul clawed at his face-

-gouging out chunks of flesh. Chilly screamed, falling to the floor as he topped over backwards half paralyzed due to Incinerate. Despite that, he focused with everything he had on maintaining the spell.

The flakes of burning skin sloughed off the ghoul as it followed him down to the floor. As it slammed down, it unleashed an unearthly screech.

You have been Hindered

His breath wooshed out of his lungs, stunning him. Fire raced down his stomach and upper thighs as the ghoul’s inhuman claws racked across him.

Shredded flesh mixed with falling ash as both combatants fell apart to their mutual assault. Skin entirely gone, the ghoul looked more skeleton than zombie. Patches of glowing hot coals covered its body, as Incinerate’s flames feasted upon its flesh.

The ghoul, on its last final hit points, released Chilly’s forearm, only to lunge forward and embed the disgusting teeth into his pectoral.

A cold chill of fear raced up Chilly’s spine as the ghoul disintegrated-

You have slain a level 2 Putrid Ghoul!

You receive 1 experience!

Congratulations! You have leveled up!

You are now Level 3

Will your status screen open to allocate your points.

-into a wave of purple miasma. Engulfing him entirely.

Chilly choked, blood welling up in the back of his throat-

-as he bucked the remains of the ghoul off of him.

Scrambling onto his stomach, he threw his intact arm forwards, grasping at anything that would give him leverage. His limbs felt sluggish, moving far slower than he wished them to.

With desperate strength, he jammed his fingers into the seam between two tiles and pulled. His fingernails ripped against the broken tiles. Blood slicked the floor, but he was already looking for another hold.

He miraculously got one of his legs underneath him. With an almighty heave, he lurched through the entranceway. He grabbed the wall and forced himself across the threshold.

He caught himself against the far wall-

-and stumbled to the side and out of the circle of light, where blessedly, the purple miasma ended.

Chilly crashed to the floor, his legs kicking, as panic controlled his actions. Darkness surrounded him as he desperately scrambled away from the alcove. His back scraped against the rough floor, but he didn’t care. There was only one thing in his mind. Escape.

His retreat was abruptly halted as his back collided with the stone wall. Curling up into a small ball, Chilly let out a pained groan. He clutched his savaged arm protectively, as tears and blood mixed on his face.

Several meters ahead the bubble of light illuminated the purple miasma rising sickeningly up from the floor. Chilly watched the miasma from the darkness. Waiting for his wounds to heal. Waiting in agony.