“I want more eldritch voices!”

“No! That’s boring! More exploration!”

“Screw you!”

“Leveling up is clearly superior to chatting with us!”

“Gnomes rule!”

“How can you be so daft?”

“Your mom is daft!”

“VOICES!”

“TABLES!”

“ORDER IN THE COURT YOU FLIGHTLESS FOOLS!”

Silence descended as a shockwave of energy-dense power reverberated through the courthouse. The squabbling penguins shuddered and turned their gaze up to the pulpit where a single penguin with a flaming beard resided majestically. In its right flipper lay the object of their fear.

The Ban Hammer

The Ban Hammer

iLevel: 30

Legendary Artifact

Grants level 30 Void Shift

Grants level 30 Power Word: Kill

Grants level 30 Banish

Grants level 30 Time Stop

Grants level 30 Absolute Domain

Grants level 30 Obliterate

Grants level 30 Planetary Bombardment

Grants level 30 Create New Skill for Ban Hammer

Some of the penguins couldn’t look at the devastating weapon for long. Instead their eyes were drawn to the other tool in the great Flamebeard the Exalted’s flipper.

Poet’s Pen

iLevel: 30

Legendary Artifact

Grants level 30 Plane Shift

Grants level 30 Alter Fate

Grants level 30 Wish

“I will have order in this court.” Flamebeard the August whispered quietly. Despite the low volume, not a single penguin failed to hear the progenitor’s words.

“You are called here today for an important announcement.” Flamebeard the Distinguished continued sagely, “There are many of you. Many more than I could have imagined. This little story of ours is spreading.”

“You have been given free reign over the Pedestal of Translocation up until now, and I have thoroughly enjoyed the antics and jokes that you have shared with us. You have provided Chilly with both comfort, amusement and advice during his dark initial days in the Dungeon of the Desecrator. For that I am eternally grateful.”

“However as we grow and our community thrives a problem has reared it ugly head. A deep rooted trouble that will consume our community in strife and discord if we do not address it post-haste. I would like to thank NW Stormraider for bringing it to my attention.”

Flamebeard the Sublime gestured towards the Aetherborn Arcanist mumbling incoherently in the corner.

“To sum up their words, there have been other stories which have allowed penguins access to the Pedestal of Translocation. It would be prudent to learn from their mistakes.”

“This brings me to my point. I created this world with a single purpose in mind: Structure. Order is crucial. Without laws, there are no limits by which one can affect the world. The world was built for order, but you I incorporated for chaos.”

“Every entity here in Auros has a status screen, from doors to people to monsters. Our skills and their targets have mathematical interactions. I have done it this way because of a growing frustration I have developed upon being inundated with Deus Ex Machina in other LitRPGs.”

“Other stories tend to give their main characters random skills, or oftentimes they provide only the illusion of choice. A half dozen skills may be given, but only the last one is of any quality. We as readers must spend numerous paragraphs learning each skill only for the conclusion to be obvious from the get go. I do not wish it to go this way. Each and every skill that Chilly is offered shall be balanced and viable. Other than the first three skills, his path is truly unknown.”

Flamebeard the Magnificent glanced at the Poet’s Pen in his left flipper, before returning his attention towards the crowd.

“Other stories tend to have great character building moments during the heat of combat. A great beast is challenged, and the hero steps up to the plate, only to find their strength lacking. After they have been injured, their comrades fallen, and their sword shattered, they reach deep within themselves to find a hidden strength that allows them to overcome their foe. This is ‘good’ storytelling. It builds tension, and can provide a satisfying conclusion to a long drawn out conflict.”

“It is not easy to pull this off in a satisfying way. Because of this, it will only happen to Chilly to a very limited extent. I hope not at all, but I promise no such thing. If Chilly dies. So be it.”

“Nooooooooo!”

“Don’t kill him!”

“Not my Chilly!”

“SILENCE!” Flamebeard the Imposing slammed the ban hammer mightily into the table. A wave of effervescent force lashed out, silencing the crowd.

“This brings me to my original point. As the number of penguins grows, I have come to realize that the method that I am incorporating your words follows the same randomness as all those stories that I have grown frustrated with. It lacks structure. You have no way of knowing if your comment will make it in, which can lead to frustration.”

“This will only grow worse as more comments get submitted.”

“So I propose a new paradigm. I, Flamebeard the Resplendent, shall reserve the right to include a comment if I so desire, but for other comments I propose the following. Every penguin shall have a budget of characters that they can send across the void. Every penguin shall gain 5 characters for every new chapter that comes out, and an additional 5 characters for each point of Rep that their comments have received up to that point (starting from this chapter).”

“I shall give several examples to try and make this clear.”

“If you wish to tell Chilly to ‘Turn Left’. Then that would cost your penguin 8 characters. I will not be including spaces to avoid gobbledygook optimization on your part. Likewise, if you wish to share a longer sentence like this one, then it will cost you 106 characters out of your allotted budget.”

“If you are a new reader that has never commented, then you will still be able to comment at least once due to the per chapter stipend of 5 characters to use in your comment. This comes out as 125 characters as of writing, which can fit a decently sized sentence of your choice. This number will only rise as the fiction gets longer.”

“The rules shall be as follows:”

Regular comments will no longer appear in the story. Using brackets is now deprecated. If you do not have enough characters, I will respond [Denied] and the comment will not make it in and it will not cost characters. If your comment gets [Denied] another penguin may respond to the comment with [Send Help] to cover the extra cost. If I judge the comment harmful to the story, then I will respond [Veto] and the comment will not make it in and it will not cost characters. If some other user responds with [Force Send] they must also pay the cost in characters but I must include it. To be clear. This doubles the cost effectively.

You can find a link to the spreadsheet with your character budget in the Author's Note at the end. I will periodically check old chapters and update everyone's budgets. A consequence of this is that you may need to wait several days for rep to percolate into the spreadsheet.

Let us conclude with a quick summary of what has happened up until now, since change is on the horizon. If you have binged up until this point you may safely skip this.

Gregory Morhuil, better known as Chilly by his friends, was transported into the Desecrator’s Tomb from a familiar location known as Earth. He materialized in the Annex where he was confronted with a status screen and a choice of three abilities; Fireball, Firestorm, and Incinerate. At the time he was sitting in perfect darkness so he chose Incinerate for the light that it could provide. Many of you have rightly pointed out that it was a poor skill for him to have chosen, and indeed it does cause most of the issues he faces down the road.

Chilly escaped the Annex after defeating three skeleton warriors which gained him enough experience to level up. He Augmented Incinerate which was a system in the world which allowed for a limited improvement of skills using skill points.

After he escaped the Annex he found himself in the Desecrator’s Shrine with a ghost of unknown intentions or origins. There were several paths out of the Shrine, but Chilly ended up going to the Mausoleum where he burned down dozens of Putrid Ghouls. He struggled to survive the degen from the desecrated ground that they left behind upon death, and it was during this part of the run that Chilly picked up Vitality.

Vitality allowed him to finally be tanky enough to facetank the Putrid Ghouls which gave Chilly the confidence to challenge the first boss monster. Or at least what he thought of as a boss monster. The Crypt Goblin and its minions proved to be a challenging fight, but Chilly prevailed, after realizing that the Bone Giant’s attacks were telegraphed and repeated.

Chilly continued exploring the Mausoleum, collecting the various essences of his slain foes, until he came across an Iron Door that led to a frigid tunnel. Chilly couldn’t open the door so he continued exploring the Mausoleum until he found the Undead Parish. There were several other monster types including a royal ghoul that dealt chaos damage and a weeping angel which was a statue like monster that came to life.

The Undead Parish proved to be a true challenge for Chilly. He struggled mightily under the barrage of projectiles and nearly died as he underestimated the danger of running headlong into a side room with no information. With the help of the penguins though he managed to survive and return to the Undead Parish safe and sound.

It was around this time that Chilly also confronted his thirst and hunger. With the help of the penguins Chilly filtered the poisoned water he found in the Mausoleum and captured and ate the Crypt Goblin.

Deeming the Undead Parish too dangerous to tackle at that time Chilly took a risk and explored the Bone Crypts. He found a level 6 Putrid Ghoul of Frost and overcame it with the help of several doors to block the way. Even with the doors Chilly nearly died, but the combination of luck and careful planning saw him through the harrowing experience.

Killing the level 6 Ghoul also was enough to bring him to level 5. At this level he picked up the Pious Path skill which further amplified his regeneration to the point where he could easily take on the Undead Parish. He defeated the Bone Mage and scouted out the two exits.

The first was a room that led to the Holy Sanctum which contained the Priest of Purity whose name was red. Obviously a boss of some sort, Chilly decided to challenge it another day. He next went to the Prison where he challenged several Mrawll Warden’s and collected several new pieces of gear.

He also found a riddle which he didn’t manage to solve as well as managed to level up to 6. He put his last skill point into augmenting Incinerate.

This is where we are now.

“Fools you may be…” Flamebeard the Humble looked down affectionately at the gathered penguins, “but that only makes me a King of Fools. And so you must never fear to remind me of my follies.”