Chilly went flying, rotating once in the air before crashing down. He shook the stars out of his eyes and got to his feet just as the purple runes faded from the Bone Giant’s sword and a cage of bone spears erupted around him.

“What kinda-”

Chilly leaped to the side, dodging the bone giant's wide swing, and backpedaled rapidly out of range of the followup lunge.

“-stupid ass-”

Incinerate flared as the skeleton crouched down then leapt into the air.

“-summoning skill-”

Chilly dodge rolled out of the way of the monumental crash, careful to stay out of range of the followup slash. Incinerate lit up the arena as the skeleton struggled to remove his sword from the ground.

“-makes minions-”

Chilly ducked underneath the wide swing, but wasn’t fast enough to dodge the brutal thrust.

Chilly coughed, recovering quickly and dashing through the purple miasma and out of range of the skeleton’s landing zone. Incinerate bloomed across the space once more. Flames licked hungrily over the Giant’s bones. Cracks began to spider web across the surface, as Incinerate slowly but steadily ate away at its health bar.

“-hostile to their-”

He ducked under another wide swing and thrust, managing to sneak in Incinerate between the telegraphed attacks. Now his third time fighting this particular monster, he had practically memorized its relatively simple attack patterns.

“-summoner!” Chilly finished with a huff.

Not long after, the desecrated ground faded away and the Bone Giant crashed to the floor. Defeated.

Chilly wiped the sweat off his forehead and plopped down, breathing heavily to catch his breath. The optimal fighting pattern against the Bone Giant necessitated lots of running.

“Thanks for the chapter.” A distinctly japanese accented voice trilled. Chilly tilted his head to the side and saw a small penguin beside him.

AgShogun

???

“Thanks for the chapter.” Chilly replied. “Can you believe this? I mean honestly, what does it take to get an army of minions to clear this dungeon for me?”

The penguin nodded sagely, seemingly considering his words carefully. “Why don't you burn the corpses first so they don't rise in the first place.”

Chilly frowned as he reoriented his brain to understand what the penguin was saying. “You mean the bunch of level 1 ghouls? Uhm, yeah. I suppose? Huh. I hadn’t thought of that.”

“Before the spell,” the penguin continued, “they are easily destroyed.”

“Yeah, that makes sense. Could try that next time.”

The penguin considered the distinctly cruciform Realm Walker in his hand for a moment with distaste. “The Tables are coming. Fear their surfaces.”

Chilly opened his mouth. Then closed it with a snap. “Right, thanks for the warning.”

“Thank you for the chapter.” The penguin said, then dropped Realm Walker in a puff of smoke.

“Thanks for the chapter.”

Chilly mulled over the penguin's words. One penguin warning him that tables were dangerous could be a fluke. Two though was a pattern. Tables were dangerous in this world. How? Irrelevant. Probably a curse that instantly killed him or something. Regardless.

Avoid at all costs.

Anyway,

At least there was one good thing about the staff.

Incinerate

Unleash a beam of fire that burns enemies that it touches. The beam dissipates after 5.3m

Deals 67.1 Fire damage per second

Channeling

Even if he couldn’t use any of the summoning skills the staff still gave him a significant boost to fire damage. 7% increased fire damage roughly equated to 4 additional damage per second.

Equipping the staff meant losing the increased area from his torch, which was a trade he was willing to make. Five meters of range on Incinerate was good enough for the relatively tight spaces of the Mausoleum. The increase to damage was worth more at the moment.

It also provided increased physical damage and added cold damage to attacks, which implied some interesting symmetries about possible mods. For one, it was likely that increased damage for all damage types existed. The other thing was that if there was added cold damage to attacks, there might also be added cold damage to...skills? That would behave like increased fire damage in a way, which was something else that he could look for when upgrading his gear.

Also, if he could stack enough damage to attacks it might become worth it to wack things.

Basic Attack

11-16 Physical damage

6 Cold damage

Not nearly enough currently.

The other thing that the staff revealed was the difference between magic and rare gear. Normal - or Common - gear had zero additional modifiers. Magic had 1 or 2, while Rare had up to 4 or maybe more. Obviously getting all rare gear was a priority, with the slight problem that none of his existing essences would work in creating rare gear.

Essence of Iron

Rerolls modifiers on magic - or lower - quality equipment with a single guaranteed resistance modifier.

Essence of Azurite was similar. Both would only create magic gear. That meant that he would need to find an essence that could affect rare equipment. If one existed.

Speaking of Essences. Chilly levered himself to his feet and scoured the room for the tiny objects. Unfortunately, none of the summoned beings had dropped any. He found no essences in any of the multitude of dead ghouls or in the remains of the Bone Giant. A deeply annoying state of affairs, since if he had, then it would have made farming for essences trivial with Mass Revive Undead.

He did find essences in the goblin’s corpse. Two in fact.

The first was a red marble. Glasslike, and faintly foggy, without any of those pretty swirls that glass marbles back at home had.

Unknown Essence

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

The other was a black crystal with sharp jagged edges.

Unknown Essence

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

Chilly accidentally cut his finger with the black glass, and watched in amusement as his flesh knit together instantly. His health bar had barely budged.

Chilly pocketed the two new essences and did one last round of the room. No new developments caught his eye so he returned to the Shrine to identify the new essences.

Essence of Garnet

Rerolls modifiers on magic - or lower - quality equipment with a single guaranteed elemental modifier.

Essence of Obsidian

Rerolls modifiers on magic - or lower - quality equipment with a single guaranteed ailment modifier.

“Ailment?” Chilly muttered to the penguin watching him work. “What do you suppose that is?”

“Thanks for the chapter.” The penguin said.

Quaesitor Mortem

???

“Oh, hi,” Chilly said, “I didn’t notice you were you.”

“Have you noticed that you haven't gotten hungry or even had the need to go to the restroom?” The penguin questioned quizzically.

“I...guess I haven’t. Though I think it’s still early days. I’ve only slept once and I haven’t eaten anything to uh...get pooped out. You know?”

Quaesitor Mortem shrugged, and dropped Realm Walker in a puff of smoke.

“Well, let’s hope the faint tickling in the back of my throat is just crypt dust. Finding food and water here would be...hard.” Chilly said to the air. “I think I won’t use any of these essences. See what you penguins have to say about them before I just start randomly enchanting things.”

Chilly packed up the essences.

“See you mister ghost!” Chilly called out to the guardian. The Guardian ignored him, so he left. The trip to the Bone Giant room was uneventful. None of the ghouls had risen up, and he didn’t get adventurous and venture past the cursed table. When he arrived he made a beeline to the small exit at the far end of the room.

He entered slowly, keeping his torch high and eyes alert. The hallway was short. Barely a couple of meters which almost immediately split off to the left and right. Chilly stepped slowly into the unknown and peeked down the first left hand turn.

Incinerate’s flame revealed a short hallway that opened up to a medium sized crypt with two ornate sarcophagi arrayed side by side. Ignoring that turn for now, Chilly continued on and peeked into the other turn.

A decrepit office greeted him. Small and obviously a dead end. Chilly decided to explore this part first. He entered cautiously, but no undead jump scared him.

A wooden desk stood front and center in the room, though its condition left something to be desired. The surface finish was peeling, with lots of structural damage to the basic wood itself.

Along the walls were dozens of shelves full of what used to be books and papers but had long since been taken over by the everpresent black mold.

There was no chair.

Chilly chewed his lip, then leaned down to whisper to a passing penguin. “Do desks count as tables?”

Suddenly a scuffling sound came from behind him. Immediately, Chilly spun around and lit up the hallway with Incinerate. A half second later, a wild eyed penguin rushed through the flames.

NickXenix

???

Chilly kept the fire burning hot in case something had followed the Kobold Scholar.

“Thanks for the Chapter!” The penguin practically shouted. He wildly glanced behind him, then straightened his crest with a trembling flipper.

“Mortal Gregory Chilly Morhuil,” it intoned, eyes slightly too wide, “You are the only hope for your home plane.”

That gave Chilly pause, and his hand with Incinerate sagged a little.

Suddenly the sound of running flippers could be heard coming from the hallway. The Kobold Scholar twisted in horror, then turned rapidly to Chilly in a panic.

“The System Integration is coming!” It cried just as a penguin with a burning beard burst through the fires of Incinerate and grappled with the Kobold Scholar. In moments the other penguin had subdued the Kobold Scholar, and began dragging it back down the hallway.

“The System Integration is coming,” the kobold scholar screamed shrilly, “It's coming, and there's no stopping it!”

The penguin with the burning beard dragged the kobold scholar out of sight. In the distance the Kobold Scholar’s faint voice resonated with ominous portents. “You are the only hoooope!”

Chilly stood there for several minutes just staring. Eventually he dropped Incinerate and leaned against the wall and scratched at his growing stubble.

“Score.” He pumped his fist. “Heroes always get the girls.”

Chilly turned his virgin ass to consider his current problem. The dilapidated desk.

“Desks definitely count as tables.” He surmised unhappily, then summoned Incinerate and flooded the room with fire.

A couple seconds later, Incinerate petered out and Chilly peered through the noxious smoke billowing out of the office. The room was utterly destroyed. Soot covered the walls. The desk was completely gone, and smoldering piles of ash lined the room where the shelves and their contents had burned.

Where the desk had once stood, among the ashes sat a little glittering ring.

Iron Ring

Common

Jewelry

ilevel: 1

5 armor

Dimensional Essence Vault

Dimensional Essence Vault

Allows storage of up to units of essence in a connected dimensional space

“Hell no. It's cursed.” Chilly deduced firmly, and put the ring out of his mind.

He turned back down the way he had come from and cautiously entered the room with the two ornate sarcophagi. While all the sarcophagi up until this point had been ornate, sporting intricate carvings and expensive stone, these particular sarcophagi had gold and silver inlay. In addition, the room that they were housed in was larger, and obviously crafted for royalty.

Or at least, the very very wealthy.

On the far side of the room to the left there was an archway leading to a T-intersection that blocked further sightlines.

Chilly carefully walked to the archway and peeked through. The left hallway immediately terminated in a sharp right turn while the right hallway was more interesting. Halfway along, two doorways led left and right into darkness, but ahead, the hallway terminated in a prison door that was barred shut.

Locked Iron Door

Level: 12

Life: 951

Armor

312

Fire Resistance

248

Cold Resistance

136

Lightning Resistance

87

Chaos Resistance

31

No undead were present on either the left or the right hallways.

Chilly retreated back into the ornate room. A door! Finally. He would be able to perhaps explore beyond the Mausoleum. Perhaps even...the surface!

The first step would be to defeat the two ornate sarcophagi.

Chilly retreated as far as he could while remaining within 5 meters. Then without further ado, he unleashed Incinerate.

Fire arced across the space. The flames reflected off the lid to the first sarcophagus. Soot developed rapidly as cracks spread rapidly across the surface.

Two seconds later, the lid shattered inwards, revealing a desiccated ghoul covered in once expensive finery rising slowly out of its resting place like a mummy from a movie.

Royal Ghoul

Level: 3

Chilly raised his eyebrows, but maintained his spell.

A rough growl emanated out of the ghoul. Purple swirls manifested around the undead's forearm which detonated a moment later launching a blob of fast moving purple goo at Chilly’s face.

He tried to dodge, but the projectile moved too fast.

Chilly winced as the goo vanished past his helmet with an acidic sizzle. Nausea welled up inside of him as the chaos damage wreaked havoc on his health pool. Immediately however, his life regeneration revved into action, cleansing his injury of the viscous liquid.

Chilly shook the excess liquid out of his helmet's eye slits and held steady.

The Royal Ghoul didn’t bother getting out of its sarcophagus. Simply absorbing the stream of fire while collecting another mass of purple energy.

Chilly canceled Incinerate and dodge rolled to the side just as the ghoul fired again.

The second purple missile smashed into his side, moving far too fast for Chilly’s mundane dodge to avoid.

Gritting his teeth, Chilly rolled to his feet.

Fire raced towards the royal ghoul scalding its dead flesh. Smoke rose up, tainting the space with the scent of burning hair. The ghoul ignored the damage, summoning another pulse of purple energy which detonated and slammed into Chilly’s chest.

Chilly winced, as his stomach rebelled. But he managed to control it and stayed steady as finally the ghoul collapsed in a pile of ash.

“Bloody chaos damage.” Chilly groaned, but in barely ten seconds his life shot back to full and the horrid nausea faded. He walked over to the sarcophagus with the dead Royal Ghoul and peered inside. After sifting through the dust, he picked up an emerald green marble.

Unknown Essence

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

He pocketed it, then gave the other sarcophagus a look of distaste. With a grimace he opened fire. Once again a Royal Ghoul emerged.

Royal Ghoul

Level: 2

Life: 138

This time, instead of bothering to dodge, Chilly just stood there, holding his arm out as flames ate hungrily at the undead.

The ghoul keeled over.

Chilly waved the putrid smoke away. He looted the corpse which yielded a red Essence of Garnet. The rest of the sarcophagus was empty. Apparently these hoity toity rich bois didn’t bother getting buried with all their goodies. All that was in either of the sarcophagi were the clothes that the ghouls were wearing on their backs. Clothes that Chilly didn’t particularly want to grave rob. For one they were burned to high heaven. For another, they didn’t register as equipment so there wouldn’t be a benefit even if he did bother using them.

Also eww.

Metal armor taken off the dead was one thing. But fabric? Nuh uh.

Chilly left the disappointing room behind. The hallway was plain and he immediately turned right, but paused at the intersection. The left room was relatively large with 8 sarcophagi, while the one on the right was smaller with only 4.

He gave each room a long look to make sure nothing would pop out at him, then passed them on his way to the door. Carefully he grasped the bars and peered through. The space beyond the door was interesting. While the stone construction was still evident, there was obvious ice crystals coating the floor and walls. Ice that appeared to get thicker farther into the gloom.

Locked

Fascinating.

Just to be sure, he shook the bars, but they just rattled without opening up. He inspected the doors hinges but was disappointed when he saw that the door was clearly embedded deep into the stone itself. He wouldn’t be able to just chip away at the surrounding stone to dislodge the door the same way he did with the door in the Shrine.

This door was also significantly higher level than the current zone. Level 12 was twice that of the door between the Shrine and the Mausoleum. Assuming the level differential was identical, that would imply that whatever was beyond was roughly level 9.

Just a tad beyond his level.

Chilly turned to go when suddenly a howling wind blasted from behind him and chilled him to the bone. Shivering, he rushed forwards and took shelter in one of the adjacent crypts all while desperately protecting his torch which flickered madly under the frozen flurry.

Several long moments later, the wind stopped.

Counting to ten, Chilly poked his head back into the hallway but saw nothing had changed. The wind had simply come and gone. A gust.

At least now he knew where the wind in the Shrine was likely coming from.

Chilly turned to the eight sarcophagi in the room with him, and considered skipping them. The only reason to fight them would be to collect more essences, since the monsters inside wouldn’t grant experience.

Assuming of course that there were just regular ghouls inside of the sarcophagi.

Chilly considered for a moment but eventually decided to clear the area. More essences now meant more choice down the road. A good thing by his estimation.

Chilly burned down each of the sarcophagi. First the lid would crack open and fall down on a struggling ghoul. The ghouls were all between level 1 and 3, so no experience was had. No danger was had either. With 84 armor and 212 health the ghoul’s physical attacks could barely outpace his regeneration. Not to mention he wasn’t stupid enough to trigger the ghouls all at once. Not when he didn’t have a long hallway to burn them down in.

All in all, the massacre netted him two more Essences of Azurite, an Essence of Iron, and one more green marble whose name and purpose he had yet to divine. He did the same with the adjoining room, burning down the 4 ghouls in sarcophagi for another Essence of Iron and an Essence of Garnet all of which he stashed in his slowly overflowing pockets.

There were also various bits of equipment in the sarcophagi. Ranging from helmets to axes, Chilly ignored them all. For some odd reason, they were all common and level 1, which made them useless to him. At least, his current gear was far superior.

It didn’t totally matter anyway. He could just come here later and collect the gear. Worst case, the dungeon would reset again and he would have to kill the ghouls again. An easy task.

Chilly backtracked until he reached the passageway to the ornate room. He passed by and peeked around the ninety degree bend. Incinerate’s long distance light illuminated a ghoul shambling slowly away from him. Along the right side of the long hallway were three alcoves. The tunnel ended abruptly in a left hand turn off in the distance past the wandering ghoul.

Putrid Ghoul

Level: 2

Life: 183

25

0

0

0

0

Chilly took an extra moment to confirm that the ghoul was alone before opening fire. Several seconds later, he was striding out of desecrated ground as he peered inside the first of the alcoves on the right.

A claw to the face greeted him.

Putrid Ghoul

Level: 2

Life: 144

25

0

0

0

0

Chilly grimaced and held the ghouls gnashing teeth away from his own as Incinerate lit the undead up like a christmas tree.

(AN: Merry Christmas Peeps!)

The ghoul clawed him for dear life-

-but barely a second later, it fell apart into a pile of ashes. Chilly leaned down and collected an Essence of Iron sitting among the ash. A quick glance into the broken sarcophagus revealed a pair of level 1 boots which he promptly ignored.

Back in the hallway, Chilly advanced until the next alcove. This time the ghoul didn’t jump out at him and he managed to burn it down where it stood. No essence dropped and the sarcophagus itself was empty so Chilly continued.

“What does it take to get a non-cursed ring in this place?” Chilly hummed a song softly to himself as he advanced on the next alcove.

Surprisingly this alcove was empty of undead, though Chilly methodically destroyed the lid to the sarcophagus anyway. No undead inside either which was mildly surprising, but no jewelry which was annoying.

Chilly left the room, and continued. He peered around the sharp left turn only to see another hallway. Relatively long, with three alcoves on the right. What was different was that after the alcoves the room opened up revealing a familiar Angel statue staring imposingly at a cursed table.

Chilly methodically cleaned out the three alcoves and pocketed another Essence of Azurite, before he paused before the cursed table. Now that he was closer he could tell that it was the same room that he had passed by before. It had four exits, two of which were very familiar.

“Cool, a shortcut.” Chilly told the penguin at his side. Not that he would ever use it, since doing so meant practically touching the table.

He continued straight, to the last exit he had yet to explore. The passageway continued for a short way before turning right once more. Peeking around the bend revealed a small room with a large double door guarded by two Weeping Angels.

Weeping Angel (x2)

Level: 3

Life: 200, 235

Wood Door (x2)

Level: 9

Life: 643

121

38

82

98

21

It did look like he would need to fight the angels to progress. Unlike the angels he had encountered previously these angels were directly barring his path. From the looks of things, it would be physically impossible to open the doors without first moving at least one of the angels.

Chilly shrugged, and prepared to fight. Weeping angels dealt physical damage. Alone, they were no threat to him. Regardless, he retreated as much as he could while still maintaining line of sight, then unleashed Incinerate.

Fire coursed across the room and washed over the first of the weeping Angels. It rumbled to life, old stone groaning as it shifted its joints for the first time in ages. The Angel stepped forwards and slammed its sword into the ground. A wave of stone spikes accelerated towards Chilly’s.

He canceled Incinerate for a moment, and jumped as high as he could over the spikes. They scraped the bottom of his feet as they passed, but thankfully did not budge his health bar. He landed gracefully, and immediately resumed channeling.

The angel took a big step forwards and thrust with its greatsword.

Not anticipating the new maneuver, Chilly took it in the gut. Sputtering, he fell back as Incinerate’s flames petered out. He recovered quickly however. The extremely low amount of pain that the blow inflicted upon him was not nearly enough to cause him to flinch.

He straightened, only to be forced to jump another wave of spikes. When he landed he channeled Incinerate with a passion. Fire licked along the statues surface, propagating cracks and painting the white marble black.

The Weeping Angel took another ponderous step forwards. This time as it moved, its sword came smashing down in a cruel overhand chop. Chilly flattened himself against the near wall, but the Weeping Angel twisted its blade at the last possible moment.

Chilly caught the blow with his shoulder and heard something pop. Ducking out from under the heavy weapon, he was subjected to the distinctly uncomfortable sensation of his shoulder wetly popping back into its socket.

Wincing, Chilly retreated around the bend and waited for the Weeping Angel to follow.

He didn’t have to wait long. Despite the monster’s ponderous nature, it made it around the corner relatively quickly. Not fast enough though, to prevent Chilly from making some distance.

Chilly flooded the hallway with fire once more as he watched the monster's movements carefully for an attack. By now it looked very damaged.

The Weeping Angel lifted its sword high, and slammed it into the ground. Another wave of spikes raced down the hallway. Prepared, and with more distance now, Chilly easily crested the wave and immediately resumed channeling.

The angel took a step, but collapsed upon putting its foot down. Stone cracked as the beautiful sculpture shattered into a hundred marble shards.

Chilly didn’t spend long focusing on the artistic tragedy, instead focusing on the steady burn of Incinerate as the true form of the Weeping Angel revealed itself.

The muscles bound skeleton shook off the remaining pieces of masonry, causing its loosely bound muscles to flap grotesquely. It screeched, then bounded forwards on all fours before leaping for Chilly’s throat. Chilly narrowed his eyes and caught the rampaging beast on his shield. His other hand aimed Incinerate into the beast’s open jaws.

The true form of the Weeping Angel struggled savagely, but couldn’t survive long under Incinerate’s purifying flame. Not long after, the disgusting undead fell to ash.

Chilly waited patiently for the scant seconds it took to regenerate to full health before going to inspect the pile of masonry. He pulled out an Essence of Regret, which he pocketed before advancing back into the room.

The other Angel stood placidly before the second of the large doors.

With one angel down, one door was uncovered. Chilly carefully walked past the second Weeping Angel and grabbed the handle of the wooden door. While he did this he kept an eye on the remaining Angel, but it didn’t stir.

With a mighty tug, he dragged the door open. It was so heavy that it elicited a grinding sound as it scraped over the stone floor. When he had gotten it open enough for him to sneak past, he dropped the handle and he poked his head through the gap.

You have entered the Undead Parish