Chilly leaned down and picked up the silver pair of pants. As he did so a heavy weight fell out from within the right pant leg and slammed into the floor with a muted thump.

Chilly immediately dropped the pants and jumped back.

Several penguins who had come closer after the conclusion of the fight fell over giggling at his startled reaction.

He threw them a sour look, then slowly approached the pants again. He pinched the edge of the pant leg and dragged it to the side. It resisted his pull for a moment then released, snapping towards his hand and revealing the object that had fallen from within the pant leg earlier.

It was a glowing semi-transparent octahedron.

Chilly cautiously stepped forwards with several penguins to get a closer look.

All the penguins simultaneously screamed and jumped back.

A jolt of fear rushed through him, as he mirrored their motion and his heart accelerated to match. He fell back, eyes frantically searching for danger as every penguin in the vicinity fell over laughing once again.

“That’s just rude, guys.” Chilly put his arms on his hips in disappointment. Some penguins covered their beaks in shame. Those that didn’t got a particularly stinky glare from Chilly.

One penguin tapped its foot thoughtfully, then raised its eyebrow as it gestured towards the glowing soul fragment.

“I mean it has to be safe,” Chilly replied, intuiting the intention of the silent penguin. “This is one of the seven soul fragments that the system informed us about in the beginning. Don’t you remember?”

A good half the penguins seemed confused, but belatedly nodded their assent when they noticed their fellows agree with Chilly’s assessment.

Chilly stepped forward once again, throwing the penguins an annoyed look as he did so then picked it up. It was unreasonably heavy. Heavier than steel. As dense as Tungsten maybe. Perhaps even heavier. The small octahedron easily weighed fifteen kilos, and it fit neatly into the palm of his hand. Honestly, without the rough outer shell Chilly might not have been able to even lift the magical object.

As soon as he touched the octahedron, a shimmer passed over it. He winced, as his experience with magical objects hadn’t been stellar up until this point, and held his arm out as far as it would go.

The outer casing of the octahedron cracked, releasing a viscous opaque liquid onto his palm. The liquid shimmered with silver sparkles then slowly absorbed into his skin.

You have gained the Blessing Of Purity

10% increased movement speed

Before Chilly could even react to the first system message, another one popped up, obstructing the first one.

You acquired the one of seven keys to the Desecrator’s Chambers

You have earned the ire of Fel Nacharis, the Desecrator

Chilly stood there frozen for a couple seconds just in case another system message would pop up. When none did, he leaned down and picked up the silver pants. The two unknown essences were absorbed by his ring.

Experimentally he tried moving around, and promptly slapped himself in the face. The increased movement speed affected all of his movements, and would take some time to get used to. The effect was marginal but noticeable. He suspected that he would get used to the new speed boost before long. He would likely find anything without the speed boost slow by comparison.

Chilly chuckled lightly to himself then turned to the penguins.

“Alright folks. We got one of the seven keys. What now?”

The penguins exploded into motion. A small portion raced back towards the door to the Undead Parish. An obscene number frantically pointed towards the dark pit in the floor, several even going so far as to jump inside. Those penguins that did, vanished from sight within seconds of falling. Lastly, a couple of penguins raced towards a door that Chilly hadn’t noticed on the far side of the room.

“No way in hell am I jumping,” Chilly told the penguins flippantly as he walked past them. A bunch deflated, but a few were more stubborn and seemed to take that as a personal challenge. They gestured extravagantly as they mimed out how safe it would be, and how awesome it would be to explore the dark pit. They finished their pantomime by jumping into the pit to demonstrate the activities safety. Chilly wasn’t fooled however. Penguins might as well be the most powerful force in all the universe. It would be trivial for them to survive a fall like that, and any evil eldritch horrors that may or may not exist down in the abyss probably would run away from them. Alternatively they would adopt the horrors as pets, depending on their mood.

Instead, Chilly walked over to the mystery door that several penguins were advocating for silently.

“I think I’ll take a peek at the next zone, then maybe head back to the shrine and see if I can’t craft up these pants.”

A penguin cocked his head at Chilly skeptically.

“Are they better? I’m not sure about that. Twenty some movement speed could be better than ten armor, but who knows. I think it would definitely help with dodging things.” Chilly chuckled wryly, “Though I guess that hasn’t been my game plan up till now, has it?”

The penguins continued to pester Chilly to jump into the abyss, but he ignored them. The door was just plain wood and opened easily into a long winding tunnel. Chilly cautiously stepped through as a wave of penguins rushed past his feet to explore the new area. Surprisingly, no system notification popped up which meant that he was still technically in the Holy Sanctum.

Chilly walked down the hallway for several minutes. The air gradually became hotter. An intense heat that was reminiscent of standing beside an open oven. Chilly subconsciously wiped his forehead, but no sweat beaded on his brow. Possibly a side effect of his high fire resistance.

In addition to the heat, he started noticing floating embers flying through the air. He initially avoided them, but as he got deeper it became impossible as the air became choked with them. The moment he touched the first ember a system window popped up informing him of his mistake.

You are covered in Ash

Debuff

15% increased fire damage taken

15% slow

The slow was annoying but manageable considering his recent blessing. The increased fire damage taken was worrying. He was reasonably durable, but was not so arrogant as to believe that taking 15% more damage wouldn’t be dangerous.

Still he forged on. He had yet to see an enemy, and would have plenty of time to assess the situation once he encountered one.

It wasn’t too long before he took a step and a system message appeared before him.

You have entered Sooty’s Hell

Chilly frowned in confusion as the tunnel he was in looked uniform on either end. Shrugging, he continued to walk down the hallway, occasionally conversing with the penguins about his thoughts and what may be hidden on the other end. Soon the tunnel changed, from raw stone to a much more sinister black rock that looked partially melted. In the back of Chilly’s mind, it tickled a memory from eighth grade geology about lava tubes.

The tunnel ended in a large cavern. By this point the air was sweltering, and Chilly had no doubt that he was well and truly within the fire biome of this dungeon. Or...perhaps lava biome. In the large chamber that he found himself looking into there were three large lava geysers that spewed hot roiling magma out of the ground. They filled the air with fumes that obscured the ceiling though provided enough illumination such that the rest of the room was well and truly visible. On the left, there was a large gate with a dozen decapitated skulls hanging off of chains serving as a doorknob or door knocker. On the other side of the room there were two tunnels that continued on.

On the right side however, there was something interesting. Beside the smallest of the three lava geysers was set up a small forge. A portable anvil, and several other blacksmith implements lay scattered across the black ground. At the anvil was a humanoid banging adroitly at a glowing piece of forge iron. The humanoid had pure black chalky skin that seemed to shed just a little bit of ash to the floor whenever he swung his hammer. Before the flakes of ash could reach the floor however they ignited and flew into the air. Lazily making their way towards one of the three outgoing tunnels. The very same embers that had covered Chilly in ash.

A closer look at the black humanoid revealed further interesting features. It was headless for one. A heavy iron collar attached to where its head should have sprouted. A chain was attached to the side of the collar and snaked its way across the ground towards the large gate on the left side of the room.

In addition, the system recognized the headless man as an entity.

Guardian of Hellbringer’s Domain

iLevel: 12

The Guardian paused its incessant hammering for a brief moment and stuck the bar of iron it was crafting into the lava geyser. A couple seconds later it pulled out the now white hot bar and resumed smashing it with its forge hammer.

Chilly watched for several minutes, and came to the conclusion that the Guardian wasn’t actually making anything. It was simply banging away at the ingot without making any progress towards a result. Well...That wasn’t exactly true. It was producing copious quantities of the black ash with every swing. Not that that had anything to do with smithing, but whatever.

“What do you say?” Chilly whispered to the nearby penguins. “Go in guns blazing or what?”

A familiar penguin stepped forwards.

“We bring fire,” It intoned.

Chilly furrowed his brow in concern, “Ah, Mr. Xenix, it's been a while. How have you been? Not too crazy lately, right?”

The penguin looked down at Chilly imperiously. A truly difficult feat considering its diminutive stature. “Sing fire!”

“I’ve been meaning to tell you to chill about the tab-” Chilly started but was cutoff as NickXenix suddenly raised both flippers up high and screamed with a manic look in his eyes.

“SCREAM FIRE AND FORGIVE!”

“Woah there dude. No need for screaming. We will take out the tables all in good time. I promise, my dude. It's all good.” Chilly frantically tried to calm the mad penguin down.

Mr. Xenix the penguin manically grabbed Realm Walker with both hands and jabbed it aggressively towards the large chamber then back at Chilly.

“Uh,” Chilly started, as he tried to parse what the penguin was saying.

Mr. Xenix sighed and tossed Realm Walker over his shoulder as if he couldn’t be bothered to deal with Chilly anymore. The sword flipped once in the air before both it and the penguin vanished in a puff of rapidly dissipating smoke.

Chilly frowned at the afterimage for a minute. He was worried for Mr. Xenix. Truly. Being crazy was ok. Everyone loved the crazy uncle. But going so far that your eyes started to bug out was to far. He couldn’t get Mr. Xenix to stay still long enough to have a discussion, but perhaps another penguin could do it.

Chilly waved over a nearby penguin.

“Hey Mr. Chi- ahem Chaos. Mr. Chaos. Could you help Mr. Xenix collect his marbles? I would appreciate it.”

Mr. Chaos clasped its chin thoughtfully, then nodded.

“You burn with hope, good.”

“And you don’t? Come on Mr. Chaos, Mr. Xenix needs our help! You’re a penguin. You can help Mr. Xenix where I cannot.”

Mr. Chaos nodded, then dropped Realm Walker in a puff of smoke.

Chilly stared after the cloud of smoke that melded with the ash in the air near perfectly before it faded away. Mr. Xenix was a little bit loopy, but that didn’t mean what he said was nonsense. Bringing fire and singing fire seemed like more crazy nonsense, or actually. Those were things that he was already doing with Incinerate and Starfire Aegis. The screaming fire part was a little more loopy but in the same vein. The last part though, was different. Mr. Xenix had said forgive. Forgive who?

Chilly’s gaze panned over to the perpetually working ash...golem...smith.

Or perhaps a better question was: forgive what?

Chilly cautiously entered the cavern proper. Doing this was risky, but he trusted the penguins. They had shown that they were on his side. He avoided the large lava geysers and approached the Guardian.

“Uh, hello?” Chilly called out, his hand raised in awkward greeting. His knees were bent, and he was prepared to run away at the first sign of danger. Just because he trusted the penguins didn’t mean that he wouldn’t be careful. A level twelve enemy was nothing to scoff at.

The ashen Guardian paused in its smithing and turned to Chilly. It was really hard to tell without a head, but it didn’t seem aggressive at the very least.

The Guardian put down its hammer and gestured rapidly with both hands towards Chilly. It then paused expectantly.

Spoiler :

“Is that...a spell or something?” Chilly replied, just a little confused at the rapid fire gestures.

The Guardian gestured rapidly once again, this time incorporating a large hand motion into the sequence of moves.

Spoiler :

Chilly scratched his head. “I’m going to be honest with you dude, but I have no clue what you are trying to convey.”

The Guardian slumped, but then seemed to remember something and gestured a third time this time significantly slower.

Spoiler :

“I mean, I’ve been getting better at figuring out what people want to convey without them saying anything but I don’t really understand.”

The Guardian tilted its upper body in confusion.

“Oh, right. Well I have these penguins following me. They often struggle with speaking because they have to cross the Astral Sea to even manifest in this world. They are super helpful, but they can’t speak a lot of the time.”

The Guardian looked around the chamber, then shrugged its shoulders with exaggerated movements, followed by a rapid fire set of hand gestures.

Spoiler :

“Oh, can you not see them? There are a half dozen here right now. It’s a shame, but I suppose they can show and hide themselves to whoever they choose.”

The guardian gestured with its hands, then paused and bobbed its entire upper body up and down.

Spoiler :

“I’ll take that as a yes. Anyway, it's nice to meet a friendly face. Or...Hmm. Sorry, was that rude?”

The Guardian gestured rapidly, then shook its entire upper body.

Spoiler :

“What did happen to your head, if you don’t mind me asking? Is it one of the heads chained to that big door over there?”

The Guardian turned to the door, then gestured rapidly with its hands in response.

Spoiler :

“Hmm,” Chilly murmured, “This is a problem. I don’t suppose you are using sign language of some sort?”

The Guardian bobbed its upper body in excitement and shot a rapid fire response that Chilly could barely follow; unfortunately the Blessing of Purity did not speed up his higher faculties.

Spoiler :

“Oh, you are? Lovely!” Chilly smiled, “I don’t understand it, but maybe you could teach me or...wait”

Chilly raised a hand to tell the ashen Guardian to wait a moment as he knelt down beside a nearby penguin.

“Hey, Mr. Penguin. You wouldn’t happen to understand sign language would you?”

The penguin crossed its flippers in indignation.

“What do you mean what kind? Regular kind. What other kinds are there?”

The penguin tapped its foot.

“Alright whatever, can you understand what the Guardian is saying over there?”

The penguin looked insulted as it nodded its head.

“Sheesh, dude, I was just checking. Could you translate for me then?”

The penguin frowned, then pointed to its beak and shook its head sadly.

“You can’t speak? Right. Damn. Could you get a different penguin to come over and translate for me?”

The penguin thought for a second, then ran off into the large cavern in search of a penguin.

The ashen Guardian tapped Chilly on the shoulder and made a shrugging motion.

“Hold up there big guy. I’m trying to get a translator so that we can talk properly.”

The ashen Guardian crossed its arms but seemed willing to wait patiently for whatever it was that Chilly had done. As it stood there waiting, it shook itself and a wave of smoldering ash fell off its shoulders and began drifting in the air. Chilly gave him a look, but didn’t comment on the odd behavior.