The madman has found me. How? It should not be possible.

--Excerpt from Chaeli’s scout report

Chilly squinted into the smoke billowing out of the side tunnel. He glanced down at his ring and brought up the list of his essences.

Dimensional Essence Vault

Essence of Iron

20

Essence of Azurite

20

Essence of Garnet

7

Essence of Regret

7

Essence of Emerald

3

Essence of Obsidian

6

Essence of Steel

1

Unknown Essence

1

Essence Resonator

5

Burning up the five Mrawll had netted him an additional Essence of Emerald, Regret, and an Unknown Essence that looked like a perfectly spherical light blue marble. Chilly held the new essence against the light of consecrated ground and just watched the light catch on the marble's surface. It was rather beautiful.

Chilly stretched to get some of the kinks out of his back then appraised the room. The stone tables stuck out to him. They hadn’t attacked yet, but that didn’t mean they weren’t secretly planning his demise.

He unleashed Incinerate idly at the nearest table, and prepared for the worst. When no attack was inbound, he looked around and spotted a red gem lying on the ground. He squatted down to get a closer look while maintaining Incinerate on the potentially evil tables.

Soul Crystal

Empowers Undead

Chilly raised his eyes at the description, but refused to touch the crystal. Essences were one thing. Something with a sinister name like a ‘Soul crystal’ was not something he was willing to risk touching. What if it took his soul? Yikes.

He straightened and stopped channeling Incinerate. The table which had withstood the flames looked the same as before. Untouched by the intense flames.

Chilly frowned and blasted each of the other tables with Incinerate for a good thirty seconds each. Each refused to crack, or break. In fact it was as if the tables ignored the fire completely.

It was like they were mocking him.

No matter, he would simply avoid the tables for now, and come back when he was higher level. They were sure to react once he was able to deal a thousand plus damage per second. Or maybe it was a stranger requirement, like the right ratio of physical and chaos damage.

Chilly put it out of his mind as he approached the iron prison door on the right side of the room.

Iron Door

Level: 10

Life: 742

Armor

Fire Resistance

Cold Resistance

Lightning Resistance

Chaos Resistance

230

173

95

60

22

Chilly looked through the bars and saw the square hallway rapidly morph into a raw stone tunnel of a cave. Pools of water collected all over the floor, which allowed for life to flourish. Dozens of species of bioluminescent moss and lichen grew out of the damp pools, bringing light to the dark tunnel. Instead of providing a steady glow, the plants pulsed gently, making the walls flash hypnotically with effervescent patterns.

“Man, that’s gorgeous,” Chilly whispered reverently. Several penguins at his side nodded solemnly as they too stared past the bars. “It's obviously a new area, though I don’t see any monsters at the moment. Should be safe to explore for just a bit.”

The penguins nodded eagerly, and Chilly gently pushed the Iron Door open. Ironically it wasn’t locked but it did creak loudly as it swung open on its hinges. Chilly carefully stepped forwards.

You have entered the Flooded Depths

“Flooded depths, huh,” Chilly said. He watched the effervescent moss suspiciously for several seconds before he took a step back into the Prison.

You have entered the Prison

A penguin hopped up and down before him, then cocked its head curiously.

“I’m,” Chilly started, “...not sure. It doesn’t feel right. I’m tired right now, and that moss is freaking me out a little. I think it would be better to go back to the Shrine, take a powernap, and come back here. Besides we haven’t even cleared out the Prison yet. There are probably a bunch of chests that still need to be looted.”

Another penguin lifted Realm Walker up high.

“The dungeon reset is a consideration, you’re right. But what is the worst case? I have to clear out the Prison again? Sure it will take some time, but all the chest will reset, and I will get more essences in the process.”

A third penguin tapped its foot, then gestured.

“Well, sure. I could get stuck in a loop where I am constantly too tired to continue after clearing a zone, but I think it only gets easier from here. The Mrawll can’t really kill me unless I fight two Warden’s simultaneously and I’m not going to do that soo...”

The second penguin seemed to remember something, then gestured emphatically towards the far wall. Chilly grimaced, and closed the iron door with a clang.

“I’d rather not. I’d prefer to fight that Priest of Purity when I’m a little higher level. If it is like a raid boss from the games at home, then it could take up to forty people to fight it. That’s like. A little more than I can match at the moment.”

The penguin sagged sadly, but nodded its understanding.

“Now if I could somehow ensure that the door won’t close behind me then I would be a little more confident in tackling the boss. Being able to run is important.”

Chilly stretched again, and rubbed his eyes. He felt like he could explore a little longer before heading back. He went to the other side of the room and carefully walked into the first hallway. Like all the hallways before, it twisted randomly which made it difficult to understand what direction he was traveling in. Before too long, the hallway ended in a t-intersection.

Chilly looked in both directions, and did a double take as he saw the mess hall room on the left side. He passed a right turn as he approached and stepped into the large room. Yup, there was that iron door leading to the Flooded Depths on the side.

Chilly marked the walls, and turned back to the tunnel. He paused at the side passageway, and turned in. The new hallway continued for a long while but eventually opened into a small circular chamber. A single level 5 Mrawll Warden sat dejectedly in the center, guarding a black obelisk looking object tucked in the back corner.

Obelisk of the Divine

Rerolls the implicit modifiers on an item

Uses remaining: 1

Chilly entered the room, and took care of the Warden. It was relatively easy, and practically rote by this point. He refrained from turning it to ash to collect any essences since he still wanted to be able to breathe. He approached the obelisk thoughtfully, as he looked over his gear. The object looked similar to the crafting lectern that he had found previously, though it served a different purpose.

Of all his gear, his ring had the lowest implicit armor value at 5. Perhaps jewelry had lower values in general or the ring itself was an unlucky drop. Regardless, Chilly touched the Iron Ring to the obelisk and watched as the stone cracked and collapsed into dust. A quick glance at the ring revealed the changes.

Iron Ring

Rare

Jewelry

iLevel: 4

8 armor

Dimensional Essence Vault

17 life

9 armor

4 increased hinder effect

3 fire resistance

From 5 to 8. Not bad. Not groundbreaking. He would take it. Chilly nodded in satisfaction and turned towards the Mrawll corpse. A minute of concentrated channeling later, Chilly escaped the smoke clogged room one Essence of Steel richer.

Chilly retreated down the tunnel and marked the wall leading back the way he came as a dead end and turned left. He walked through the wide twisting hallway until a little alcove on the right caught his attention. He looked inside and smiled at the unexpected surprise.

Crafting Lectern

Level: 5

Change the level of an item to 5

Uses remaining: 1

Chilly looked through his gear, and considered using the lectern on his ring, but decided against it. It was a rare item, which essentially meant that he didn’t have many options of crafting it at the moment. It would be far better to upgrade his magic Iron Kite Shield to level five since he would be able to use his large quantity of essences to make it the best possible item that it could be.

His experience with the rare Iron Plate Vest he had found in a silver strongbox showed that rare items weren’t necessarily better than magic items. Just that they had more mods on them. That necessarily meant that they could be superior, but realistically it just meant that there could be more garbage mods that didn’t do all that much for him.

Chilly upgraded his shield to level five and moved on. The tunnel continued and opened up to another torture room. Two level four Wardens, a level three Keeper, a level four Mage, and two evil torture tables of indeterminate level.

Chilly frowned at the two tables darkly. It was not too long ago that very similar tables had ambushed him right after a tough fight. He had felt so impassioned against these vile creations that he had monologued the penguins into a literal holy crusade.

Still...there was no point.

The tables were evil, sure. But the dungeon reset would just bring them back. Struggling here and now was sort of pointless. Until he could figure out a way of stopping the reset, any monsters he killed would just be back. That basically meant that if he didn’t get something tangible from killing the monsters, it would be better to just retreat.

“All I’ll get are essences.” Chilly muttured, as he considered.

A penguin approached and stood at his side.

“Thanks for the chapter,” Chilly said quietly. It was always prudent to be polite after all.

The small penguin considered the contents of the room ponderously, before turning to Chilly and gesturing with Realm Walker. “You are not the spark of some new story but the embers of a thousand stories like yours.”

“Embers...” Chilly murmured, “I like that. So what you are saying is that I should bank those embers and get stronger. No need to be a spark and burn out quickly.”

Chaos Child seemed to smile up at him.

“But remember...” Suddenly the penguin shuddered as a crack developed in Realm Walker. Black smoke billowed out of the crack as a wave of energy seemed to cause the penguins form to ripple. Chilly raised a hand to try and help, worry evident on his face.

Chaos Child though just seemed a little annoyed. It waved merrily at Chilly then deliberately dropped Realm Walker. The wooden sword stopped shaking, as it turned to smoke.

Chilly frowned at the spot for a second. “Must have run out of power or something.”

He shrugged and turned away from the room. The penguin’s advice was good. Even if it seemed like it had wanted to offer more of it.

Chilly returned back along the way he had come until he reached the Undead Parish. Instead of immediately turning towards the Shrine he took a slight detour towards the Holy Sanctum on a whim. He opened the heavy door and looked inside without actually stepping in.

Priest of Purity

Level: 6

“Wait a second,” Chilly frowned. He squinted at the little pop up, but it refused to change. He distinctly remembered that the boss had been level 5 last time he had checked. It had inexplicably leveled up in the interim.

“That’s not good is it...” Chilly muttered as he continued to stare at the red named monster.

A penguin peered inside, then gave Chilly a questioning look.

“Couldn't have been the dungeon reset, little one.” Chilly replied, absently. “At least, I’m pretty sure that there wasn’t a reset since we last checked on this bad boy.”

The penguin shrugged.

“It just leveled randomly? Nah, I don’t believe that.”

The penguin tapped its foot and gestured broadly.

“You’re saying that the boss leveled because I ignored it?” Chilly chewed on his lip, “possible, I hope not.”

The penguin nodded emphatically.

Chilly sighed, “Well, we have to test this.”

Chilly closed the door in resignation. It would suck if the boss leveled up again, but this was crucial information. To make sure that he was being as equal as possible, Chilly retreated towards the Prison until the message box popped up before returning to the boss' door.

“Moment of truth...” Chilly muttered and pulled open the door.

Priest of Purity

Level: 6

“So it's not leaving it that causes the level up.” Chilly surmised. “But what gives then. The only other thing that happened since I was here was...I leveled up.”

Chilly pulled up his status sheet as realization flooded over him. The boss was at level five when he had been level five. And now that he had leveled up in the Prison, the boss had mimicked him.

“It's got a level matching system.” Chilly murmured to himself.

The nearby penguin shook its head.

“Ok, sure, we don’t know that, but come on it makes sense.”

The penguin gave him a skeptical look.

“What, you're saying I should level up and check again if it went to level 7?”

The penguin nodded.

Chilly frowned at the boss as he thought about it. It was a little hypocritical, but he would have been pretty surprised if the boss had leveled up when he had left it and come back. It was honestly the only reason that he had decided to so easily test out the theory. Leveling up seemed like a much more likely mechanic, and he was hesitant to test it out.

All of his instincts were telling him that the boss would get tougher faster, then Chilly himself would grow.

“How about we wait for some other penguins to share their thoughts.” Chilly eventually decided, then gave the penguin at his side a pointed look. “Perhaps ones that are willing to speak.”

The penguin looked affronted, and tossed Realm Walker to the floor. Chilly chuckled lightly at the little one's anger, as he watched it dissipate into a cloud of smoke.

Chilly returned to the Shrine and headed immediately over to the crafting bench. He took off his Plate Vest and Iron Kite Shield and placed them on the worn bench.

The goal here would be to get new pieces of gear with life and increased vitality effect with a high roll. Increased effect of consecrated ground would also work, but it was inferior. As a fallback, once he ran out of Emerald Essences, then he could fish for gear with life and armor.

He could try using the Resonators, but given that these were magic items, it didn’t seem particularly worth it. Sure he was leaving it up to chance that the second mod is life, but that mod seemed common enough that it was a gamble that was fairly likely to pan out.

Chilly pulled out an Emerald essence out of his ring and used it on the Plate Vest.

Iron Plate Vest

Magic

Body Armor

iLevel: 5

8 armor

28% increased vitality effect

3% of damage from hits recouped as life over 4 seconds

Chilly winced. So close. That was the highest increased vitality effect that he had seen up until now, but the second mod left much to be desired. It was practically useless. 3% of damage taken recouped sounded nice but it equated to around 0.75 flat life regeneration per 100 damage that he took. Compared to his nearly 100 flat life regeneration that was nothing.

Perhaps it wasn’t awful. Chilly put on the item and sighed in disappointment.

That was less than what he had before.

Chilly took out his second to last Emerald essence, and used it on the Plate Vest.

Iron Plate Vest

Magic

Body Armor

iLevel: 5

8 armor

26 life

16% increased vitality effect

Chilly grunted in annoyance. Better, but it had practically taken him back to what he had before. At this rate it didn’t seem worth it to use his last Emerald essence on the plate vest.

Feeling self conscious at the horde of penguins leaning over his shoulder. Chilly put the Plate Vest to the side, and took out the kite shield.

Iron Kite Shield

Magic

Offhand

iLevel: 5

9 armor

24 life

30% increased vitality effect

“Booyah!” Chilly smiled as he put on the shield.

“Finally broke one hundred life regenerated per second.” Chilly laughed, as the penguins behind him cheered.

It was nice that his kite shield was now very good, but that didn’t mean that Chilly was done. He still had two Steel essences and that one unknown essence that had dropped for him in the Prison.

Essence of Arcanite

Rerolls modifiers on rare - or lower - quality equipment with a single guaranteed life modifier.

Chilly nodded. That was as he was expecting. Basically it was the essence of Azurite, but it worked on rare items. He had one of these and two Steel essences which essentially gave him three tries if he wasn’t going to use the Essence Resonators.

He was still dissatisfied with his chest piece, so Chilly pulled out the rare level five plate vest he had found in the Prison, and plonked it down on the crafting bench. He pulled out the Arcanite Essence and fused it with the solid metal.

Iron Plate Vest

Rare

Body Armor

iLevel: 5

5 armor

22 life

4.6% increased life

1.4 life regeneration

10 armor

Chilly raised an eyebrow at the new item, and put it on.

488>

100.06>

99>

“Damn,” Chilly muttered as he looked at the numbers. “There is like nothing better than vitality effect.”

Even with four mods that he considered pretty good, the new item wasn’t all that much better than his existing magic chest piece with a scuffed increased vitality effect mod.

“I think two point something added life regeneration per second is better than eight armor.” Chilly said after a moment. The penguins around him stepped back in consideration. Some nodded ecstatically, while others frowned and a few shook their heads strongly.

“Hold up!” Chilly raised his hands to placate the crowd. “Let me explain. I think that eight armor does actually make me tankier against physical hits, but it only works against physical hits. Now that would be fine, except physical isn’t the only damage type out there. That frost ghoul in the Bone Pits was scary strong, and I have a feeling that the Flooded Depths will have at least some cold damage considering the environs.”

“Also I like this chest plate. It’s been with me since the beginning and there is something to be said for magic gear over rare. They are easier to craft for one. Uh...” Chilly tapped his finger as he tried to think of other reasons.

“Ok, look, that is basically the only reason, but just imagine. The dungeon is going to reset soon, and I’ll be able to farm more Emerald Essences from the Mausoleum and the Undead parish. I can use those on this plate vest immediately, instead of having to switch out gear.”

A penguin hopped up and down.

“Ok, so that is a fair point. Who else is in favor of finding a full set of gear that has perfect or near perfect implicit modifiers and crafting that?”

The penguins immediately erupted in intense but silent conversation. More than half of them immediately dropped Realm Walker and returned back to their home realm. Presumably to discuss among themselves what Chilly should do.