Chilly was pulled out of his doze by the Bone Mage’s dreaded chanting. Reluctantly, he got to his feet as a purple wave washed through the room. He considered for a fraction of a second before rushing across from the exit to stand beside the far wall.

Just as he got there, the first of the ghoul’s shambled through the doorway. It seemed aimless, and confused. Not the dreaded killing machien that he was used to encountering. Regardless, Chilly raised his shield and staff, Incinerate’s flames blossoming into existence and rushing hungrily towards the ghoul.

The first ghoul - a level two - twitched as fire enveloped it. Its manner changed immediately as fire charred its desiccated frame. Cinders fell from its form wherever the flames licked, creating a corona of glowing stars.

The ghoul turned towards him and screeched.

You have been Hindered

Chilly hunkered down as the skill infused sound washed over him and inhibited his movements. It was almost comforting in a way. Nostalgic.

The ghoul’s jaws distended hideously. It leapt and galloped forwards on all fours. In two bounds it slammed into Chilly just as its friends shambled out of the doorway behind it. The ghoul scrambled wildy with its claws, clinging to Chilly like a leach.

Chilly grinned as just a bare hint of pain bypassed his regeneration. He adjusted his aim to also encompass the three other ghouls joining the party. The fire flowed over and around the first ghoul. Leaving it a smoldering wreck as the intense flames overwhelmed it's minimal life pool. It collapsed, bursting like an overripe melon and desecrating the ground.

The other ghouls screeched, refreshing the Hinder debuff and charging at him through the flames. Feet pounded as they crashed through the remains of the first ghoul. Cinders flying haphazardly into the air like a display of fireworks.

(AN: Happy new years!)

Then they were upon him. Claws tore and teeth flashed as the three ghouls surrounded him.

Chilly hunkered down behind his shield, making sure that Incinerate overlapped with each of the ghouls as much as possible. The ghouls pushed at him, and at each other, desperate to get even one inch closer in their mindless aggression. The weight forced him back but the wall to his rear supported him and prevented him from falling.

Another ghoul succumbed to the flames. Purple miasma intensified as the undead's on death effect stacked. The death of their brethren didn’t faze the other ghouls. Rather it seemed to delight them that there was one less thing in the way between them and their prey.

More claws flashed, as Chilly absorbed the ghouls relentless assault.

The last of the level two ghouls succumbed. Ashes swirling upwards from its corpse and choking the air around the last remaining ghoul. It was in a bad state. Cinders burned merrily all over its skin. Soot-stained cracks were present all over its body as the superheated air dried its flesh.

Heedless of its own mortality, the ghoul opened its elongated maw, and snapped it closed over his forearm. It shook its head like a rabid dog, tearing skin through the iron gauntlets and completely messing up Chilly’s aim.

Chilly dismissed Incinerate and resummoned the fire skill with his shield hand. With a calculated movement he shoved his palm into the ghouls face. Hellish light erupted into the ghouls skull as it collapsed into a pile of smoldering cinders. The level four Incinerate was simply too much for the underleveled undead.

Chilly stood in the desecrated ground for a moment before he leaned down and scooped up the ghoul ash into his spare helmet. He calmly walked out of the desecrated ground and waited for his health regenerate at the entranceway to the second exit. The one with the wide pit into the void.

Chilly stepped past the threshold and was immediately bombarded by a rain of splinters.

He ignored the two pinpricks on his shoulder and chest as he rushed to the edge and upended the helmet. The ash drifted lazily into the pit as Chilly retreated back to safety. He walked into the desecrated ground again, careless of the paltry degen, and collected another helmet full. Despite the chaos damage over time, his life had recovered completely by the time he had reached the doorway once more.

Without delay he dashed to the edge of the pit and dumped the contents of his impromptu bucket, only taking minor damage in the process. With the added efficiency of the helmet he managed to disperse the four ghoul’s remains in only a couple of trips. By the time the desecrated ground faded away, little remained of the four undead. Certainly not enough to reanimate.

Chilly stood in the center of the room with a dirty helmet in hand, as he pondered the events that had brought him here. He had been incredibly lucky to survive his last encounter. So lucky that the penguins had been there to guide him to safety. Unexpectedly lucky that there were only four low level ghouls in this chamber, instead of a half dozen boss level creatures.

To his reckoning, his near death stemmed from two separate mistakes.

The first was getting into a situation where retreat was not an option. The rain of projectiles that the Bone Turrets unleashed was far more insidious a threat than he had initially believed. Essentially draining his health pool between encounters, which not only made the fights more difficult, but also cut off his path of retreat. Since the Bone Turrets were capable of dealing more than half his health during the short run between safe points, choosing to run back would have placed his life in the hands of the dice.

That was his second mistake. By running towards the side room without any intel, he had assumed that not only could he overcome the challenge, but do so with a large chunk of his life missing. He hadn’t thought deeply on how dangerous entering a battle at half health was. Even a single level four enemy would have been able to defeat him at half health. It was sheer dumb luck that there had only been low health and low damage ghouls in the room. Not to say ghouls weren’t dangerous, simply that he had killed so many that his perception of their lethality had rather diminished.

Amusingly, the ghouls' were at their most dangerous after they died. The desecrated ground that the ghouls emitted upon death was not to be underestimated. In fact it probably dealt more damage to him overall than the ghoul’s claws. Yes, he could now recover enough health that it no longer reduced his life pool, but it meant that he had significantly less recovery during fights.

Recovery that was essential for victory.

Essentially it meant that the strategy of running around in circles to regenerate was pointless. The occasional hit he would take from running past any enemies meant that it was better to simply stand still and hope that Incinerate could kill the undead faster than they could kill him.

‘Hope’. A ridiculous term when dealing with life and death.

Ironically, his choice of Incinerate was biting him the ass. Either of the other two spells that he had been offered at level one would have allowed him to kite more effectively, thereby increasing the effective amount of health he could field during a fight.

“Thanks for the chapter.” a penguin said.

Chilly jerked, getting forcefully ejected from his internal contemplations.

Quaesitor Mortem

???

“Thank you for the chapter.” Chilly replied earnestly.

Quaesitor Mortem nodded amicably, before disappearing in a puff of smoke.

Chilly stared at the dissipating smoke as he considered his problem.

There really was only one thing to do. Continuing to challenge the Undead Parish as is, was abject suicide. From what he had seen the following walkway would have him tanking three level three Bone Turrets simultaneously with two level two skeletons. Not to mention the Bone Mage at the end of the hall.

An utter impossibility.

He could try to whittle away at the Turrets and skeletons. The skeletons shouldn’t be that difficult to get rid of, simply by kiting them back to the safe spot and disposing of them there. The turrets on the other hand were not so simple.

It was all the Bone Mage’s fault, and its revivify spell. If it wasn’t able to revive its fellow undead then the level would be trivial. From what he had seen, Incinerate would actually be able to reach the far Bone Turret from right outside of the safe spot. That meant that he could theoretically burn it down while popping in and out from cover. The problem was that if he did that. He would only have thirty seconds thereabout to actually achieve anything before the Bone Mage revived the Turret since he had no way of distancing or destroying the remains.

Any damage he did to the turrets would therefore be transient.

That ruled that option out.

Alternatively he could make his way back to the left side of the room and hop the gap. But that ran into the same issues that had nearly got him killed earlier. He had no way of knowing whether he could actually overcome the undead in the middle room on the left. Especially after already taking some damage from the projectiles.

Possible of course. But a gamble. One that he was less and less willing to make.

Really there was only one option. Wait for three dungeon resets and kill the level four Silver Strongbox Guardian each time until he hit level five. Doing this was relatively safe, and getting to level five would provide him with massive bonuses to life, life regeneration, and incinerate damage. That wasn’t even considering the loot he would get from the silver strongbox which was sure to improve his stats even further.

Perhaps there were other options, but at the moment, Chilly did not see them.

With that decided and his health full, Chilly collected a single sad Essence of Iron from the first time he had killed the ghouls, then ran over to the Mausoleum. The run was traumatic as usual, bringing him down to nearly half health before he dodged behind the safety of the large wooden doors.

The Mausoleum’s entrance hall was devoid of penguins. The argument from before had apparently concluded. Only a Weeping Angel and the ruined remains of another Weeping Angel occupied the room. Chilly considered the intact Weeping Angel, but quickly decided to kill it. The fight was short and not particularly dangerous and netted him an Essence of Regret which he promptly pocketed.

If he was going to grind to level five he might as well do it right.

He returned to the Shrine of the Desecrator and unloaded his essences. He cleaned his bucket helmet the best he could, then with nothing better to do he lay down on the bench beside the campfire and went to sleep. It had been a really long short day.

Just as he put his head down he jerked back awake, and took his lit torch and crammed it among the rest of the gear in his stash. Double checking the the torch wasn’t lighting anything on fire, Chilly returned to the bench satisfied that everything was in order. In moments, he was asleep.

Chilly awoke with a shudder as freezing wind extinguished the campfire and chilled him to the bone. Now that this had happened once before, Chilly remained slightly more calm as he waited for the ghost to bring light to the stygian chamber.

He didn’t have to wait long. With the long suffering patience of the long dead, the ghost lit first one, then two candles before it made its way over to light the campfire. Chilly gave the ghost space, and went over to his stash to check on the torch.

He grinned as he removed the still lit torch from the wooden chest, ignoring the little voice in his head that the torch should have died from lack of oxygen in the tightly sealed box. He made his way over to the Mausoleum-

You have entered the Mausoleum.

-and walked down the dark hallway until he made it to the intersection. He looked right and saw the four sarcophagi undamaged. Then he looked left and saw a level two Putrid Ghoul charging at him full tilt.

He lifted his shield up high as his grin grew wider.

Clearing out the Mausoleum didn’t take all too long. Killing all the ghouls was trivial since they tended to be alone or in very small packs. The Weeping Angels also didn’t pose much of a threat. Chilly tackled them one at a time since he could, not seeing the purpose of increasing the danger. The two royal ghouls were annoying, damaging him far more than they should have since they dealt chaos damage, but in the end he managed to take them down without too much fuss.

The main chamber with the shrine and the crypt goblin took the longest. It was the most difficult area in the Mausoleum by far and the one with the most oddball mechanics. Still, he had done the fight enough that it didn’t intimidate him too much. He did change up his strategy slightly. At the suggestion of one of the penguins, he instead worked to destroy the dead ghoul bodies before killing the crypt goblin. It worked marvelously, preventing the horde from rising and trivializing the Bone Giant fight since he could gun it down while it was still animating.

It did mean that he had to tank the crypt goblins chaos damage dealing skulls for longer than he was truly comfortable with.

Still the new strategy was superior and was actually safer in the long run. He had truly optimized the fight.

He netted a total of six additional Essences of Iron and Azurite, one Garnet, two Regret, two Obsidian, and one Emerald, from the undead in the Mausoleum. The emerald he immediately used on a spare level two Iron Plate Vest.

Iron Plate Vest

Magic

Body Armor

iLevel: 2

8 armor

12 life

24% increased vitality effect

Replacing his current body armor increased his life to 227 and his life regeneration to 22.44, but dropped his armor to 79. Overall an upgrade in his opinion.

After that he entered the Undead Parish and lured the first two skeletons out into the Mausoleum where he killed them indiscriminately. He collected a single essence of Azurite from them, and left their remains outside the dominion of the Bone Mage. Then he ran through the hail of bone splinters and into the left side room.

He had lost a good amount of life from the bone flechettes, but with his added life and regeneration, taking care of the two putrid ghouls in the chamber was a walk in the park. He waited for his life to recover before scooping up the remains and taking a brief stint into the main chamber to dispose of the ashes.

Once the desecrated ground dissipated and he was at full health, Chilly triggered the silver strongbox. Once again the Silver Strongbox Guardian manifested and charged him. This time, Chilly didn’t let himself get knocked over and took care of it more cleanly and with a far less rattled noggin.

You have slain a level 4 Silver Strongbox Guardian!

You receive 1 experience!

The strongbox opened revealing a pair of rare level four Iron Pants.

Iron Pants

Rare

Pants

iLevel: 4

10 armor

18 life

4% increased armor

1.22 life regeneration

19 hinder resistance

A disappointment. His pants were one of his gear pieces that he had enchanted with increased vitality effect. A mod that he valued far more highly than hinder resistance and increased armor. Despite that he did put on the pants, just to see how it would affect his stats.

235 life, 22.05 life regeneration, and 86 armor. Much to his surprise the rare pants were superior to his existing pair. Sure they provided a smidgen less life regeneration, but the boost to life and armor was invaluable.

Chuckling, Chilly smiled at how wrong his assumption was. He threw his old pair of pants over his shoulder and made his way back to the Mausoleum. Unfortunately the pants didn’t work so great as a shield against the flechettes.

When he entered the Mausoleum he was greeted with a nasty surprise. Out of nowhere his stomach gurgled and the back of his throat burned as if he hadn’t consumed any form of sustenance for days.

You are Starving

Debuff

Gain 1 stack of Starving every 6 hours up to a maximum of 10

Lose 0.3% of current life per second as physical damage per stack of Starving

You are Weakened at 10 stacks of Starving

Eating 100 grams of food purges 1 stack of Starving

You are Dehydrated

Debuff

Gain 1 stack of Dehydrated every 6 hours up to a maximum of 10

Lose 1% of maximum life per second as physical damage per stack of Dehydrated

You are Brittle at 10 stacks of Dehydrated

Drinking 300 ml of water purges 1 stack of Dehydrated

Chilly stared in dismay at the two messages.

There was no food in the dungeon. It was literally a grave for the dead. The dead did not require nourishment.

Moreover, it completely ruined his plan. He could no longer wait another two sleep cycles in order to level up. In two sleep cycles he would have at the very least six stacks of each debuff. Losing 6% of his maximum life per second would gut his regeneration. The additional 1.8% of current health was not as bad, but it was still damage that he could not afford taking. He would have to find some other way.

Chilly unfroze from staring at the messages, and pulled up his character sheet. He scanned through the entries and zeroed in on his life regeneration.

20.41>

Chilly rapidly did some mental maths. 22.05 minus 20.41 was 1.64. Since he was at full health he should be taking 1.3% of his maximum life per second. 1% of his maximum life was 2.35 which was already above 1.64. 1.3% was even further beyond that.

Chilly sighed a breath of relief. The degens got reduced by armor. He supposed he should have expected that since they did say that it was physical damage over time, but it was still a relief to confirm it.

That gave him a significant buffer. Instead of taking 7.8% of his life per second at six stacks, it would be more akin to half of that. Still bad. Catastrophic really, but it wouldn’t kill him. He was sitting at slightly under 10% life regeneration currently, so losing three or four percent was not the end of the world.

Chilly paced back to the Shrine, his mind working a mile a minute. He had cleared out the Mausoleum in its entirety. Besides no level four monsters spawned there regardless. Delving deeper into the Undead Parish and hoping for two more level four monsters was possible. Likely even considering the Bone Mage was level four. The issue was that it was unspeakably dangerous.

There were no more places to explore. No more areas that he could travel to in order ot acquire water and food. The iron door in the Mausoleum that led to god knows what frozen biome was locked. He could try destroying it...

He could try destroying it.

Chilly froze in his frantic pacing and rushed over to the Iron Door. A hint of panic in his motions, he unleashed Incinerate at the Iron Door. Flames licked out from his outstretched staff, and enveloped the cold iron with a gentle touch. Dark soot collected along the iron bars as Chilly stared at the doors health bar with growing trepidation.

After a solid minute of launching fire at the stubborn door, Chilly gave up. He didn’t have enough damage to overwhelm the door's natural regeneration. Ironic. Since it was composed of lifeless iron that - as far as Chilly knew - didn’t have any ‘natural’ functions to enact the regeneration with.

A door, but as impassable as a solid wall to him.

Chilly slumped back to the Shrine in despair. He flopped down beside the campfire and stared at the cheery flames.

“There are no other places to go...” Chilly whispered quietly to himself.

Suddenly a penguin popped into existence before him.

Sure Ruse User

???

“Thanks for the chapter!” the penguin waved its flipper happily.

Chilly nodded back, “Thanks for the chapter. Can you-”

Sure Ruse User held up a single finger in a wait a second motion.

“Let me try my last theory...” The penguin said. It hunched over, mumbling some fel incantation towards its toes. Suddenly it jumped high into the air, both flippers waving wildly and causing Realm Walker to oscillate dangerously over the campfire.

Chilly leaned back, more out of instinct than any real fear. The penguins and he did not exist on the same plane. They couldn’t harm him.

The penguin gesticulated passionately for an awkward minute, before it abruptly stopped. Both flippers held out in a ‘tada!’ motion.

Chilly hesitated, not sure how to react as suddenly a heavy whistling wind burst into the room. The temperature plummeted as all the candles flickered dangerously before one by one the wind snuffed them out. Chilly shivered and hunkered down, his eyes opened wide to try and capture even the faintest speck of light in the stygian darkness. Naturally his gaze settled on the glowing ghost.

A couple seconds of misery passed to the sound of howling winds.

Then silence.

The ghost lit the first candle. Then the second. In no time the Shrine was once more lit.

Chilly however did not pay the light too much notice. He looked towards the crack in the far wall. The crack by which the wind had arrived from. Hesitantly, he walked over to the fissure. A hand on the wall unveiled frighteningly cold stone.

Full of trepidation, but with a hint of hope, Chilly stepped into the crack.

You have entered The Bone Pits.