I found a...strange man.

--Excerpt from Chaeli’s scout report

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 Starving

Drinking 300 ml of water purges 1 stack of Dehydrated

Chilly leaned over as a penguin reached up to his ear to whisper something.

Abowden

Level: 15

Herald of Wisdom

???

“Ok, sounds good, just give me a second.” Chilly said, and levered himself off the deeply uncomfortable throne. He kicked at the ashes of the Bone Mage, and pulled out a single Essence of Obsidian and a rusty iron key.

Banded Iron Key

Opens Banded Iron Door

Chilly snorted and pocketed them both.

He then made his way down to the last yet to be explored room in the Undead Parish and peeked inside.

Putrid Ghoul (x2)

Level: 3

Life: 177, 183

Armor

Fire Resistance

Cold Resistance

Lightning Resistance

Chaos Resistance

26

5

6

6

1

He stepped into the room causing the two undead to predictably lock on to him. They charged as he flooded the room with Incinerate. Several seconds later Chilly stood over two smoking piles of ash and was one Essence of Azurite richer.

Spoiler :

Chilly looked around the room. It was empty as usual, except for a single door on the far end.

Banded Iron Door

Level: 9

Life: 675

Armor

Fire Resistance

Cold Resistance

Lightning Resistance

Chaos Resistance

145

56

70

63

17

“How convenient.” Chilly and the nearby penguins chuckled. “Might as well see what’s behind it right?”

Chilly walked over and stuck his newly acquired banded iron key into the banded iron door. It fit perfectly. The key turned smoothly, eliciting a heavy ker-chunk as a hidden mechanism within the door rotated. Chilly grabbed the handle and pushed.

Surprisingly the space beyond was lit. He stepped forwards as he scanned the area for dangers. Just as he did so, a system prompt popped up.

You have entered the Holy Sanctum

Proceed with caution

Chilly stilled at that. This was the first time the system had explicitly warned him upon entering a new area. It was also red. Red was the bad color.

“What do you suppose that’s about?” Chilly whispered to a nearby penguin.

“As the fiend falls, a faint hope blossoms.” a penguin at his side said.

Sermiser

Level: 8

“Hmm, indeed, red is super scary,” Chilly replied absentmindedly, “Either it's a super high level zone, or the door will lock behind me or something.”

Chilly very carefully took a step back such that he was standing outside the threshold of the new area.

You have entered the Undead Parish

He still wanted to see what was behind the door though, so with no small amount of trepidation, Chilly pushed the door open as far as it would go and craned his neck to see what lay beyond.

The Holy Sanctum was enormous. Easily as big if not bigger than the Undead Parish and the Mausoleum combined. Four giant pillars arranged in a square formation supported a vaulting ceiling. Light emitting crystals poked out of the ceiling and bathed the large hall in a flat blue light that eschewed shadows in favor of a flat cast. It truly drained the life from the room.

Unlike the Undead Parish, the Holy Sanctum was practically - but not completely - empty. Right between the rear two pillars stood a large skeleton who was dwarfed by the two pillars.

Priest of PurityLevel: 5

“More red,” Chilly whispered to the penguins. “That’s bad right?”

A penguin craned its little neck and began to waddle into the room. Chilly jerked and rushed to place a hand in front of the reckless penguin.

“Woaw there little one. It's got a red name. Even I know that means you don’t mess with it. Who knows if it can wack you even in your ghostly form.”

The penguin seemed to consider that tidbit of wisdom then shrugged and backed off.

Behind it, Abowden the penguin tapped its foot impatiently as it stared at him accusingly.

“I know, I’m going. I’m going.” Chilly grumbled as he turned back.

He passed by the Bone Mage’s thone and the door to The Prison, but ignored them both. The insistent penguin at his side would have no detours.

Except...

Chilly paused at the crafting lectern. With the battle over it, it was the perfect opportunity to test out the device. Any of his level two pieces of gear were viable candidates. Basically that was his body armor, boots, gauntlets, and his kite shield. His plate vest and gauntlets had increased vitality effect on them which appealed to him for some reason, so he was loath to risk that mod. That left his boots and kite shield.

Really not much of a question. Shields were cooler.

Chilly unstrapped his kite shield and plopped it down on the crafting lectern. It barely fit on the tiny thing.

A chill ran up Chilly’s spine as he realized that a lectern could conceivably be considered a table. He jumped back and stared at the lectern suspiciously.

The tapping from the side resumed as the penguins grew impatient. Chilly threw them a resigned look, then decided to risk it. The penguins didn’t seem scared and they probably would warn him if the lectern would curse him irrevocably.

He approached cautiously, and laid his hand on the kite shield.

Use Crafting Lectern (level) on Iron Kite Shield ?

Yes

Chilly watched from a step away as bits of light flowed from the lectern and into the shield. A fraction of a second later a new information box popped up.

Iron Kite Shield

Magic

Offhand

iLevel: 4

9 armor

9 life

6 armor

It seemed as if literally the only thing that changed was that the level of the item increased from two to four. He was wrong to worry that it would brick his items. Though there wasn’t a real benefit to the higher level unless he went back to the crafting bench and used an essence on it.

At his side a penguin tapped its foot impatiently.

“Sheesh, I’m coming.” Chilly muttered as he hurriedly strapped the shield to his left arm.

He half walked, half ran after the fickle penguin. They quickly passed through the Undead Parish and entered the Mausoleum. After passing the cursed table the long way around they paused at the office room that Chilly had burnt to a cinder indiscriminately.

Chilly eyed the room suspiciously. In particular the glint of silver peeking out from the piles of dark ash in the center of the room.

“You sure it won’t kill me or something?” Chilly asked the penguin.

The penguin sighed and pointed at the ring insistently.

Chilly hesitated. “I see that you aren’t entering the room.”

The penguin’s eyes narrowed.

“Righty-ho.” Chilly yelped and quick-stepped into the room. That look had reminded him way too much of his mom. Gingerly he reached down, and with a wince, picked up the ring.

Iron Ring

Normal

Jewelry

iLevel: 1

5 armor

Dimensional Essence Vault

Chilly sagged in relief.

“Phew,” he said, “That was a close one. Imagine if the desk had still been here. I would have been toast.”

The penguin rolled its eyes as if to say that his concerns were valid but they were losing daylight.

Torchlight...whatever.

Chilly followed after the penguin as it simply turned around and left.

“Come on man, slow down. I-we just achieved something pretty great. Sure I’m dehydrated and stuff but we can take it slow! You know! Enjoy the journey!”

Chilly paused as another penguin materialized before him.

Luminatira

Level: 9

“Thanks for the chapter!” Luminatira said mischievously.

“Thanks for the chapter,” Chilly replied politely, he glanced briefly over the penguins shoulder at the retreating back of Abowden, “Are you here for another joke?”

“Don't worry Chilly, none of the others like my jokes either. But I'm just trying to keep your mental health up here, so have heart!”

Luminatira paused dramatically for effect

“...for the undead have lost theirs!”

Chilly chuckled unintentionally at the actually pretty clever joke. Then he left the laughter well up and burst out freely as he let the humor drain him of the stress he had been carrying.

“Hey, that's pretty good. Do you have any more of those?” Chilly smiled genuinely.

Luminatira grinned and bowed mockingly before gesturing towards the impatient Abowden and vanishing in a puff of smoke.

“Right, I’m coming!” Chilly called, then raced to catch up to the diminutive penguin.

The penguin took him back to the Shrine where it pointed insistently at his stash.

“A helmet right?” Chilly said, going over to the chest and rummaging through the space.

The penguin frowned.

“Two. Right. Silly me.” Chilly emerged with two iron barbutes of varying levels and held them out proudly. “Now what?”

“Remember, finer sand at the bottom, coarser sand in the middle, and pebbles on top! You can separate the layers with cloth, all you need is a container with a hole in the bottom.” The penguin said.

“Right sand.” Chilly said. “Now where can I get some sand?”

The Mausoleum probably had stones that he could use, though it didn’t really have sand. At best he could scrape some mortar from in between the stone flagons and use that but somehow that didn’t sound right. Mortar wasn’t sand. The Annex on the other hand was a more cavey style cave. If he remembered correctly the stone there had been much more degraded. To the point where he would hesitantly call it sand.

Spoiler : (AN: On the contrary, mortar probably would work as a filter material. But what do I know. If you’re curious you can google it)

He climbed the ladder to the Annex, ignoring the hole where he had ripped the trapdoor out to use as a shield against the level six Putrid Ghoul of Frost. He had slain the three skeletons before when he had retrieved the trapdoor just so that they wouldn’t surprise him while he was working, so the trip deeper into the Annex was a breeze. He entered the main chamber and smiled as he saw dusty pebbles and loose sand piled up against the walls.

Abowden and the other penguins smiled encouragingly at his side.

Chilly shoveled some fine sand into one of the helmets, while he filled the other with larger pieces. In no time at all he had two filled helmets with what he would generously consider dirt.

“I’ve got a jar of dirt. I’ve got a jar of dirt.” Chilly chuckled to himself, then turned to Abowden. “Now what?”

“Remember, finer sand at the bottom, coarser sand in the middle, and pebbles on top! You can separate the layers with cloth, all you need is a container with a hole in the bottom.” The penguin repeated verbatim.

“Cloth...” Chilly chewed his lip thoughtfully.

He hadn’t really come across any cloth. Well that wasn’t strictly true. The ghouls were wearing rags that did fall under that category. The problem now was that they were all dead and burned. Sure he could go back to the Bone Pits and wrangle a shirt from a Putrid Ghoul, but that was scary.

Unless...

Chilly dropped off the helmets at the crafting bench in the Shrine and walked into the Mausoleum. Instead of turning left as he usually did, he turned right into the crypt with the four sarcophagi. The one with the single sarcophagus that was full of detritus.

“Aha!” Chilly exclaimed as he pulled out a dusty old rag from the pile of detritus. Then he sagged slightly, “I’m not sure that this is going to be sanitary...”

“If you are worried about infection, or you need sterile water for some reason, you can boil it over the campfire in a helmet.” Abowden the penguin supplied helpfully.

“Even this?” Chilly grimaced at the filthy rag.

The penguin seemed unsure for a second then continued valiantly. “Remember that place that was damp and had puddles all over the place? That's your water source! you might not even need to filter it, just boiling and straining with a cloth could be enough.”

“Could.” Chilly said slowly. Tasting the word.

Shaking his head at what he was about to do, Chilly went back and grabbed an Iron Plate Vest since he was out of helmets. The gauntlet had too many holes in it to hold water, and there was no way he was putting water he was about to drink inside an old boot. He walked back into the Mausoleum and headed over to the room with the mold.

He paused at the entrance and gave the penguin another questioning glance.

All the penguins that had followed him here nodded at him encouragingly.

With a sigh, he took several steps into the room. The smell of mold grew stronger. So strong that after a moment, Chilly felt a twinge of pain in his nose and the back of his throat.

You have been poisoned by Fusarium Toxin

Chilly immediately jumped back out into the hallway and stared nervously at his health bar. It stayed static, only a little icon suggesting that anything was wrong. Nervously he stared at the little icon and the little one beside the icon as he counted seconds.

Fifteen seconds later the icon disappeared along with the faint - almost imperceptible - sense of taking chaos damage.

You are no longer poisoned

“You could have warned me.” Chilly accused the penguins.

Abowden tapped its little foot impatiently and gave him an incredulous look.

“Oh, come one! Just because it doesn’t deal a lot of damage, doesn’t mean I wouldn’t like some warning before I step into what basically amounts to a cloud of poisonous gas. Wait. I just had an idea.”

The penguins leaned in excitedly.

“No, You didn’t tell me about the poison, so I’m not telling you about my secret.” Chilly stuck his tongue out at the penguins.

The penguins sagged collectively. Several seemed so sad that they immediately dropped Realm Walker and disappeared into puffs of smoke.

Serves them right. It was rude not to share something that could harm a friend. They were friends right?

Chilly considered the moldy room. Now that he knew it was poisoned he needed to categorise it. He stepped into the room, and winced as the poison counter ticked up by one. He counted seconds, and about four seconds later, the counter ticked up to two. Simultaneously the sense of taking damage increased.

Still it was far less than his current regeneration so Chilly hunkered down and continued counting seconds. At eight seconds, the poison counter ticked to 3, and again at twelve. Though something strange happened at fifteen seconds. The counter ticked down to three, then a second later jumped back up to four. It continued doing this as Chilly tried to understand what was happening.

Clearly the Fusarium Toxin was...expiring. Or it had a duration. And after fifteen seconds give or take the first stack of poison finished only to be replaced by a fresh stack of poison from the air.

Basically, whatever the poison was doing, it stacked up to a maximum of four in this case, and however much damage it dealt it wasn’t enough to overcome his regeneration. Chilly waited for four stacks of the toxin and glanced at his regeneration.

So four stacks cut his regeneration to roughly two thirds. Pretty bad if he got caught in an extended fight in this stuff, but not awful. By this point he couldn’t really remember but it seemed on par with the desecrated ground that he no longer needed to worry about due to Pious Path.

Chilly knelt down and observed the puddle of water. It was brackish and black. Completely opaque, even when he flared Incinerate for additional light.

Hesitantly, Chilly glanced back at the penguins, but reluctantly turned back when they just nodded at him encouragingly. For some suspicious reason, none of the penguins were entering the room itself. Whatever the case. This water was clearly just as poisonous as the air. Probably more. Much more.

Chilly sighed, and pulled out the plate vest and gingerly began to scoop up disgusting black water with bits of black stuff floating inside. He gulped but continued filling the plate vest until he had a respectable amount of liquid. He stared at the swirling black water in disgust but pushed that thought to the back of his mind as he carefully stood up.

It wouldn’t do to spill the water onto the ground. No matter how disgusting.

Chilly gingerly made his way back to the Shrine and maneuvered the bulky chest piece past the ruined hole of the door. He walked to the campfire and carefully placed the plate vest to the side.

“Yo, Abowden, remind me again.” Chilly waved at the penguin.

“Remember, finer sand at the bottom, coarser sand in the middle, and pebbles on top! You can separate the layers with cloth, all you need is a container with a hole in the bottom.” The penguin recited. It seemed almost resigned at Chilly’s complete lack of memory.

“Thanks,” Chilly cheerily replied, “Man, It’s like having my own personal virtual assistant.”

Chilly flinched back as several penguins scowled darkly at him.

“I guess I’m not paying you so...you aren’t assistants. And uh. Right. I suppose you are ancient eldritch creatures underneath that cute penguin disguise.”

Chilly cleared his throat, and shallowly bowed his head.

“I deeply apologize for my semantic blunder. It was merely a slip of the tongue. Friends?”

The penguins seemed slightly mollified at that, so Chilly returned to the task at hand.

He dumped most of the sand from the first helmet onto the ground then ripped a piece off the questionable cloth and placed it inside the partially full helmet. He scattered some larger bits of sand on top of that, and placed another torn piece of cloth to separate the layers. Finally he capped out the helmet with the largest stones.

“Am I supposed to put the water in the helmet while it's on the campfire?” Chilly asked the penguins. They looked among each other but didn’t seem to know.

“Probably not,” Chilly muttered.

He shook most of the dust and rock bits out of the spare helmet then placed the remaining cloth over the top. He held the cloth as tightly as he could and poured the brackish water into the helmet. Once he took the fabric off the top, the water looked a little better. Marginally.

“Here goes nothing.” Chilly said, “Wait shit.”

He caught himself before he added the water to the filter and instead placed the helmet full of slightly less brackish water over the fire. And waited.

And waited.

He was tempted to use Incinerate, but from experience he already knew that the magical fire of the skill would be able to destroy the helmet. Plus, he had no way of controlling the intensity of Incinerate, which might lead to all the water boiling off before he could pass it through the impromptu sand filter.

Eventually the water came to a soft boil. He went to grab the helmet but hesitated as he considered what he could use to hold the hot metal. Then he giggled as he thought of just picking it up. A glance at his regeneration and the fact that he could recover from getting disemboweled made him consider the thought more seriously.

Why wouldn't it work?

He reached over the campfire and picked up the helmet.

Searing flesh resounded through the shrine. It smelled like bacon.

Chilly giggled again as he felt no pain from the severe burn. In fact, it didn’t even perceivably move his life total.

He sat down cross legged and held the sand filter helmet between his feet to stabilize it as he gingerly poured the boiling water onto the larger rocks on top. As he finished he dropped the empty helmet and picked up the filter helmet, careful to make sure that the eye holes were facing upwards.

“Moment of truth. That black water stuff was definitely poisoned like the air. Let’s see if this filtering worked.”

Chilly tipped the helmet and placed his mouth on the eye hole.

...

No water came out.

Chilly frowned as he sucked a bit until a teensie bit of water made its way through. After barely a thimbleful, he lowered the helmet, as he watched and waited for a system message informing him of his imminent demise.

A minute later, when no ominous system message popped up, Chilly grinned happily and tipped the filter back up to his mouth. It took several good long minutes for the water to drain through, and he was sure that he lost a good chunk of it to the sand itself, but he had gotten water!

>

“Score,” Chilly whispered hoarsely as he spat out bits of sand that had gotten through the cloth. “My sincere thanks dear penguins. I couldn’t have done it without you.”

Abowden the penguin wiped its forehead in a pantomime of extreme effort then gratefully dropped Realm Walker in a puff of smoke.