I’ve observed a deep attachment to a particular Iron Barbute that he has filled with dirt. It is unclear why he has done so, but it seems like the dirt itself is what holds significance to him. Offering dirt as a gift may be a cheap and easy way of gaining his favor.

--Excerpt from Chaeli’s scout report

Chilly stalked through the Mausoleum filthy and in a bad mood. Ghouls periodically jumped at him out from around corners and tore into his flesh and armor with wild abandon. He withstood the attacks, mildly disappointed as he channeled Incinerate and their bodies crumbled to ash far too quickly.

He collected their essences but his heart was not in it. He wanted a fight. Or perhaps, that wasn’t entirely true. What he wanted was to feel like he was making progress. Acquiring food had demoralized him greatly. Not only because he was terrible at it, but it had reminded him that he was not cut out for killing the living.

Undead on the other hand. That was something that he was good at.

Chilly tore through the low level undead in the Mausoleum, hoovering up their essences and making a beeline for the Undead Parish. It was time to challenge slightly more exalted foes.

Just as he reached the large double doors a penguin materialized right before him.

Sermiser

Level: 8

???

“The requirements of survival cannot be met on an empty stomach. Trust me, it's a real rookie mistake.” the penguin said sagely.

Chilly paused in his relentless charge and nodded to the tiny penguin.

“Thanks for the chapter, and the advice.” Chilly replied quietly.

The penguin nodded back to him, and vanished in a puff of smoke.

Chilly took stock of his essence gains before turning towards the Undead Parish.

Dimensional Essence Vault

Essence of Iron

20

Essence of Azurite

18

Essence of Garnet

4

Essence of Regret

6

Essence of Emerald

3

Essence of Obsidian

3

Essence of Steel

1

You have entered the Undead Parish

Chilly ducked back into the Mausoleum as the two skeletons guarding the first walkway charged recklessly after him. He absorbed their wild sword swings behind the safety of the two large wooden doors. With the calm proficiency of practice he unleashed Incinerate and watched the long dead bones crumble and crack.

Spoiler : Spoiler : (AN: would you like to see the enemy's life?)

Chilly kicked the remains to the side as he collected an Essence of Iron from the remains. The ring really made it convenient to collect the essences and he no longer needed to worry about losing an essence to a hole in his pocket.

Chilly confidently stepped out into the Undead Parish once more. He jogged calmly under the hail of bone shards to the side room.

Spoiler :

He stumbled into the side room and shook off the darts that had gotten stuck in his armor. The two Putrid Ghouls in the side room immediately perked up and charged him. Despite his reduced life he stood his ground and blasted them both with a concentrated ray of fire.

Spoiler :

The ghouls eventually burst into clouds of miasma that were quickly overtaken and consumed by the glowing light of Pious Path. Chilly reached down and rapidly shoved their remains into a helmet which he upended over the void. He then walked calmly over to the Silver Strongbox and after waiting a half second for his life to recover fully he triggered the device.

Silver smoke burst out of the box heralding the arrival of the level four strongbox guardian. Once this fight had been difficult, but no more. Chilly still took several hits though. The longer he spent in this dungeon the more he was getting a feel for the enemies. The strongbox guardian for example seemed resilient to fire. Or at the very least tended to have a larger life pool. Perhaps after he had slain some more he would get access to their resistances to confirm that theory.

Spoiler :

After only two solid hits with its warhammer, the guardian dissipated into silver smoke that rose and vanished against the ceiling. Chilly confidently approached the silver strongbox and looked inside.

Iron Greaves

Rare

Boots

iLevel: 4

9 armor

18 life

15 knockback resistance

3.1% increased fire resistance

4% of damage from hits recouped as life over 4 seconds

Chilly raised his eyebrow at the odd mod combinations. Percent fire resistance was completely useless since he didn’t have any fire resistance to begin with but the other two were very interesting. His current boots gave him 17 armor and 8 life. So switching to these boots would mean that he would lose 8 armor in favor of 10 more life and the dubious benefits of the other mods.

Chilly shucked off his current boots and pulled on the new boots. They fit perfectly.

A quick glance at his stats revealed that there was an increase in fighting power, but he would take a deeper look later. After he had crafted his new ring, and his shield.

He leaned down and collected an Essence of Garnet from the ghouls, then jogged back out into the hail of projectiles. He immediately felt the difference the new boots made. Where before when the projectiles had imparted their momentum onto him he had stumbled and been forced to take small strides lest he fall. That was especially true with the Bone Mage’s larger projectile. Now though, the momentum of each projectile seemed to lose a part of its vigor as it slammed into him. With less likelihood of being shoved around, Chilly progressed with much more confidence.

Chilly jumped over the gap to the second platform with a growing grin on his face. The dried blood and viscera still covered him, but he was doing something that he was good at, and it showed.

Spoiler :

Chilly ducked into the side room and immediately opened fire on the three Putrid Ghouls in the room. They charged him, but his instantaneous response meant that he managed to get a full second of unmolested dps in before the ghouls managed to surround him. They clawed and bit at him desperately but couldn’t even come close to overcoming his regeneration.

Spoiler :

The moment the ghouls fell and they burst into clouds of purple miasma, Chilly turned and opened fire on the two level two skeletons that had just made it through the doorway. The two undead struggled through the flames and swung their swords at him, but quickly fell as their bones cracked and their skulls shattered.

Spoiler :

A wave of purple energy followed by chanting filled the hall as Chilly kicked and shoved the remains so that they were all lined up so that he could unleash Incinerate on all of them at once. It was a near thing but he managed to arrange things such that none of the undead managed to rise before he was able to destroy them once more.

Once all the bits and pieces stopped twitching Chilly shoveled as much of the black gunk out and into the void. He took a couple flechettes to the face in the process but he barely noticed.

Chilly returned to the room and collected an Essence of Azurite from the two skeletons, and an Essence of Obsidian from the three ghouls. Or at least where they had fallen. Their actual remains were somewhere down in the abyss. Probably still falling.

He calmly straightened his ragged, but perfectly serviceable armor, then walked over to the lectern.

Crafting Lectern

Level: 4

Change the level of an item to 4

Uses remaining: 1

Chilly smiled happily as he confirmed that the dungeon reset had even reset the crafting lectern. He pulled his iron ring off and immediately felt a profound loss as the awareness of all his essences vanished from his consciousness. He ignored the sensation and placed the level one normal ring onto the crafting lectern.

He hesitated as the thought that the lectern might delete his accumulated essences crossed his mind. He decided to err on the side of caution, and pulled the ring back on. Then he dumped all but one Essence of Iron onto the floor. Then he put the ring back onto the crafting lectern and activated it.

A brief flash of light illuminated the area as the ring leveled up.

Chilly pulled the ring back on and confirmed that the Essence of Iron had not been destroyed for whatever reason. Satisfied, Chilly collected the rest of the essences at his feet, and considered what to do next.

He could fully clear the zone. Might be satisfying. Though there were no more goodies to collect. Except for dropped essences of course. Alternatively he could go back to the Shrine, craft up his two items, and come back and see just how much stronger he had become.

That sounded more fun. After that he could go to the Prison and take out the Mrawll Warden he had seen in the first room.

Chilly ducked out of the side room and jumped the gap, then calmly jogged to the Mausoleum’s entrance. The projectiles still hit him, and they were still capable of slowly chunking his life, but since they were so predictable he never felt truly in danger.

Spoiler :

Chilly jogged through the Mausoleum and made his way to the Shrine. He went to the crafting bench and unlimbered his shield. He put it on the crafting bench as he considered what essence to use on the item.

Before he could really map out the options, a penguin walked up to him with a mischievous glint in its eyes.

NickXenix

Level: 18

???

“Thanks for the chapter,” it said as a form of greeting.

Chilly nodded back, “What was that thing you did to me last time, NickXenix?”

The penguin’s starry eyes glinted in amusement. “A choice has been given, the stars above have descended to follow your journey. Whenever next to you, or silently behind. May the stars guide you.”

“I...don’t get it.” Chilly replied. “Could you not speak in riddles?”

“You mentioned disliking a firework party, in your mind anyways, so how about just three?” NickXenix laughed maniacally, “You'll see what I meant, soon.”

The penguin waddled away and vanished in a cloud of smoke. Chilly sighed as he considered the penguin's words. At the very least, it didn’t seem like whatever was going to happen soonTM was going to be bad. Would probably even help him. Hopefully

Whatever. He would handle it when it happened.

Chilly refocused on his shield and ring.

He had five options. Each of the essences guaranteed a different modifier. Life, resistance, elemental, skill, and ailment. Life was the best. Skill was also useful. While resistance, elemental and ailment were of lesser importance. Sure, he was getting hindered relatively consistently, but getting resistance to the slow was not a high priority. His basic combat style revolved around not moving after all.

The unfortunate part was that because the shield was only of magic rarity he could only have two mods. Life was a must. While the second one could be either armor, or increased effect of one of his skills.

The recoup life after taking a hit was interesting as well, though it was kind of hard to tell how effective it was. In theory if he got hit for a hundred damage that would mean he would recover 4 life over the next four seconds. Basically 1 extra life regeneration per second which was not all that amazing. Not amazing, especially since he was only getting hit for twenties and thirties right now.

Chilly looked at the penguins but they didn’t seem to have any opinions on what to do.

One particular penguin though stepped up and looked at the crafting bench seriously.

Lord zevo

Level: 3

“Tables are dangerous.” It said calmly.

CHilly looked at the crafting bench then back at the penguin. Then he flinched back from the crafting bench as his heart leapt into his throat. Was the crafting bench a table? Had it cursed him already? But wait. It hadn’t harmed him up until now. No curses, spikes or other devilish machinations. So perhaps it wasn’t evil. Although...it kinda did look like a table.

Chilly hesitated, but then carefully approached the crafting bench. “I think...” Chilly started, then cleared his throat. “I think this is a bench not a table. So I should be fine right?”

The penguin shrugged its shoulders before vanishing into a puff of rapidly dissipating smoke.

Chilly took that as a yes, but still put his hand over his heart to still its frantic beating. He pulled off his ring and used the Essence of Steel on it.

His reasoning was simple. He was going to use the Essence of Steel on at least one of his items. He didn’t know if there was a difference between shields and rings, but rings were definitely rarer so it was possible that the ring would get some special modifier that would be significantly better than anything he could get on the shield.

Iron Ring

Rare

Jewelry

iLevel: 4

5 armor

17 life

9 armor

4% increased hinder effect

3 fire resistance

Chilly sighed, but put on the ring anyway. With two useless mods he might as well have used an Essence of Iron on it. He had no way to hinder things at the moment and fire resistance while nice on paper was useless because he was not fighting anything that dealt fire damage.

Not to be deterred, Chilly turned to his shield and used an essence of iron on it.

Iron Kite Shield

Magic

Offhand

iLevel: 4

9 armor

11 armor

3% increased armor

Chilly squinted at the item. No life. He supposed he had used an Essence of Iron not an essence of Azurite but still. Double armor mods were nice, but life was better.

“Man,” Chilly whispered to himself, “What am I doing, I should have used the emerald essences.”

Chilly shook his head and refocused. He had already figured out what the two best mods were. Life and armor or increased effect of vitality.

Chilly checked his essence vault-

-and saw that he had a decent amount of Emerald essences remaining. He pulled one out and tossed it onto the shield.

Iron Kite Shield

Magic

Offhand

iLevel: 4

9 armor

29% Increased effect of Consecrated Ground

2% increased armor

Chilly chewed his lip. Increased effect of Consecrated Ground was new, but he supposed that he had received the skill recently. It probably was very helpful for his regeneration. He pulled on the new shield to test it out.

68.10>

Good, but he could do better. It would be nice to get life on the shield. He tossed another essence on to it.

Iron Kite Shield

Magic

Offhand

iLevel: 4

9 armor

19% increased vitality effect

4% of damage from hits recouped as life over 4 seconds

67.01>

That was worse than before. Chilly tossed the last essence up into the air as he thought about using it as well. Worst case he would switch to using Azurites or Iron’s on the shield until he had armor and life, then just farm some more emeralds next time there was a reset. Chilly shrugged and used the last essence on the shield.

Iron Kite Shield

Magic

Offhand

iLevel: 4

9 armor

22% Increased effect of Consecrated Ground

21 life

72.41>

Chilly grinned. He put on his ring as well and pulled up his full status.

Gregory “Chilly” Morhuil

Level

Exp

Skill Points

Spec

5

1/5

0

Fire

Life

Life Regeneration

348/348

77.18

Armor

Fire

Cold

Lightning

Chaos

86

46.24%

3

2.91%

0

0.00%

0

0.00%

0

0.00%

Incinerate

Helmet:

Iron Barbute

Vitality

Body Armor:

Iron Plate Vest

Pious Path

Pants:

Iron Pants

Summon Bone Giant

Boots:

Iron Greaves

Mass Revive Undead

Gloves:

Iron Gauntlets

???

Jewelry:

Iron Ring

???

Mainhand:

Skull of the Bone Giant

???

Offhand:

Iron Kite Shield

Almost 50 more life and 17 more life regenerated per second. Plus the dubiously effective 4% of damage recouped as life. That mod granted a tiny amount of life regeneration but every little bit helped.

He had also finally rounded out his armor set. With the Iron ring and Shield he was only missing two pieces of gear that weren’t level four. Three pieces if he counted his staff. The primary benefit that he had noticed between level 2 and level 4 gear was that the life mod was significantly higher. Oddly the armor mod was roughly the same, and he didn't have enough data points to figure out the patterns for any of the other pieces of gear.

He had also gotten his first taste of a non-armor resistance. Not that he had seen anything that dealt fire damage, but eventually he would and the extra resilience would be appreciated.

Armor of course would be better right now, but this was good enough for now.

Straightening up, Chilly brought up his essence vault and took stock.

Dimensional Essence Vault

Essence of Iron

19

Essence of Azurite

19

Essence of Garnet

5

Essence of Regret

6

Essence of Emerald

0

Essence of Obsidian

4

Essence of Steel

0

He had used up all his emeralds, and his only steel essence, but had a decent amount of the rest of them. It was time to go back out and get more.

Chilly limbered up, then jogged back into the Mausoleum. The way he saw it, the faster he cleared the dungeon, the sooner he would have access to a bath and good food and water. Also he would level up and get better and stronger skills which was always a plus.

You have entered the Undead Parish

Chilly stood before the four undead. Three bone turrets pelted him with bone flechettes as the Bone Mage launched heavier duty projectiles at him at longer intervals. His new stats however made it almost trivial to tank them all at the same time.

Spoiler :

Chilly laughed as he walked leisurely to the right hand room. He popped in and opened fire on the four ghouls inside. Before they could even reach him he was at full health. He laughed again as their sharp claws tore into him, only for the wounds to seal up near instantly.

Spoiler :

He panned the flame of Incinerate over the ghouls and one by one they fell. Fire overwhelmed them as the golden light of Pious Path destroyed their post death effluvient with righteous efficiency. Ironically, the four ghouls were more dangerous than the three Bone Turrets combined with the Bone Mage. Even though the latter was ranged, they simply didn’t deal as much damage as the former once they managed to sink their claws in.

He collected a Garnet and Iron essences from the ghouls before moving on.

Chilly sauntered into the next room and goaded the two skeletons guarding the second walkway with a quick flash of Incinerate. They charged him predictably, which allowed him to burn them down before they even got within striking range. He quickly leaned down and collected an Essence of Iron.

Grinning at how easy it was. Chilly jogged over to the centrally located Bone Turret. Under the concentrated attention of all four undead, he channeled Incinerate and watched as the Bone Turret cracked and crumbled. A few choice kicks saw the majority of the turret's remains falling into the void.

He collected an Essence of Emerald with a grin and jogged onwards. Now that there were only three long ranged enemies, it was trivial to tank them indefinitely. With his newly acquired knockback resistance it made the journey almost pleasant, since the projectiles didn’t shove him around as much.

Spoiler :

He popped into the side room and gave the smooth wall a suspicious glance. He wasn’t planning on getting near it today, but perhaps another day. He made his way to the other door, and before he had even arrived his life was recovered fully. He looked out the doorway and idly burned down the two rushing skeletons.

Then he walked out and channeled Incinerate at the closest Bone Turret. Fire consumed it rapidly as its bone cracked and crumbled. He hopped onto its platform and kicked the remains off the edge, though he failed to find an essence that he could add to his collection.

He shrugged and continued. He didn’t even bother to desecrate the resistance shrine as he took care of the other Bone turret and made his way to the other side room.

The ghouls there were just as easily taken care of as all the ones that came before and he walked out to face the Bone Mage for the second time.

The conclusion was even more one sided than it had been before. He didn’t have the resistance shrine this time to buff his defense, but the large increase in life and life regeneration made it so that the Bone Storm that the Mage summoned barely tickled him.

After a brief and rather anticlimactic exchange Chilly sifted through the skeleton’s remains and pulled out an Essence of Obsidian. He absorbed it into the vault and stared at the path of destruction that he had wrought.

Ash floated lazily through the air as bits of bone and flesh smoked slightly in mounds around the room.

A penguin puttered by.

Sure Ruse User

Level: 11

???

“...Log 1d20-b of SRU nearing the BH of Despair...” the penguin spoke in a monotone voice.

Chilly listened to the penguin with only half an ear. It seemed like an unintentional transmission of some sort. It seemed odd that the penguins would make a mistake like that, but who was he to judge. It did confirm that the penguins were a space faring race of some sort. Something to keep in mind.

“When I eventually face that boss over there,” Chilly murmured to himself, “I should run in right after desecrating the resistance shrine. Should give me 60 seconds where I am tankier than normal.”

Chilly turned his gaze over to the other doorway. The one that led to the prison. He wasn’t planning on taking on the Priest of Purity just yet. Resistance Shrine or not. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t make use of the increased armor to test out the new zone.

Chilly grinned as he made his way over to the resistance shrine.

Yes

Power flooded into Chilly as he absorbed the shrine's effects. He immediately ran over to the prison’s door and wrenched it open.

Mrawll Warden

Level: 4

Chilly dashed forwards until he was within Incinerate range of the Mrawll Warden and began to channel. Fire arced forwards and bathed the stitched abomination with cleansing fire. The Mrawll did not like that at all. It roared fearsomely as it lumbered to its feet. With surprising alacrity, it dashed forwards through the flames with its club held high. Chilly continued to fire out flames that quickly scarred the large monster’s thick hide and rapidly drained its health.

The Mrawll Warden levered its club over its head and slammed it down onto Chilly. Chilly hunkered down and raised his shoulders to absorb the blow.

Spoiler :

Chilly’s eyes bugged out as the weapon smashed him completely into the floor. He bounced off the hard ground once before settling. He groaned and rolled to his feet as he witnessed the giant monstrosity raise its club high into the air for a second blow. He quickly resummoned Incinerate and watched as the brilliant flames engulfed the monstrous tyrant.

The Mrawll Warden slammed its club down once more. This time Chilly tried to dodge, but the giant monster flicked its wrist causing the giant club to shift and slam into him with what was possibly more force than before.

Chilly crashed into the ground, feeling much like a punching bag. He felt several bones in his spine pop out of position. A second later, a horrific tingling spread through his abdomen and lower legs as one of his vertebrae popped back into position.

Spoiler :

Chilly winced and repressed the urge to throw up. He rolled back to his feet and trained Incinerate on the Mrawll Warden. The monster was looking haggard. Its flesh was blackened with noxious smoke rising from the heavy stitches arranged along its body. Disgusting mucus oozed out of open sores that sizzled under the ministrations of Chilly’s fire.

The Warden lifted its enormous club ponderously over its head once more. Chilly gritted his teeth and stared it down as the weapon accelerated down towards him. At the last possible moment he hopped backwards and out of range of the attack. The club slammed into the ground releasing a shockwave that burst outwards from the location of impact. Despite the club itself missing him entirely, his life took the hit.

Spoiler :

Chilly stumbled in shock from the first area of effect attack that he had experienced. Despite what his mind was telling him should have happened his body was telling him that he had been hit by the concussive blow. He struggled with the competing bits of information as torn ligaments and burst blood vessels repaired themselves at ungodly rates.

Resolving to understand what had just happened later, Chilly raised a hand and summoned Incinerate. Fire raced outwards and licked at the Warden’s already charred flesh with open hunger. Loose flaps of flesh ignited, and shriveled as the fire consumed the creature from the outside in.

The Warden roared futilely, as it raised its club one final time, but before it could land the hit, it stumbled and fell to its knees. A moment later it crashed face first into the stone floor and went still. Its club crashed to the floor a moment later still chained to the abominations wrist.

Chilly panted roughly as he dropped Incinerate. The Warden’s body was illuminated faintly by the consecrated ground spread beneath its form. He carefully approached the charred pile of meat and gingerly poked it. There was no response.

“Damn,” Chilly muttered as he rolled his shoulder and stretched his back. He was still feeling the aftershocks of his spine being stretched far beyond its capacity.

“That thing hits like a truck.”