>

Chilly looked at the popup in front of him in surprise. A second later, it was followed by another one.

Experience attribution? He wondered. Presumably in this party experience would get sent to the person who dealt the killing blow. That seemed fine, though it did bring up what other options there were. Was it possible to power-level people with this? That would be...interesting.

Chilly moved to accept the invite request when a panicked penguin appeared midair right before him, then unceremoniously flopped onto the snow.

Chilly paused and watched the penguin right itself. This was good. The penguin was bound to have some insight regarding the party system.

Mr. Mofy brushed the excess snow off its flippers, then turned to Chilly with a grave expression.

“E,” the penguin intoned solemnly.

“E?” Chilly asked.

“E?” Chaeli muttered, off to the side.

“E,” Mr. Mofy confirmed.

“Right, E.” Chilly said, instinctively patting his thighs and chest for a pen and paper. “Hey, Chaeli? Could you write down the letter E? It’s going to be important for later.”

“The letter...E?”

“Yes, or just remember it. That should be fine too.” Chilly said, then accepted the request.

, Generic Human>

Chilly scowled at the message. It felt a little...on the nose.

“Let’s...go?” Chaeli pulled his attention away, and he saw her standing with an armored heel on the first step leading up into Kellington’s Boughs. Near her thigh he noticed a faint distortion of disturbed light. The illusion.

“Right,” Chilly said then paused, not exactly sure what he was supposed to do with the helmet full of dirt.

A penguin manifested at his side dressed in what looked like ratty wooden pirate clothes. An off-kilter hat was balanced precariously on the penguin’s beak, also made of wood.

“You’ve got a jar of dirt!” Nobody danced a merry jig in front of Chaeli who stood oblivious above the penguin. “You’ve got a jar of dirt! And guess what’s inside it?”

Chilly looked dubiously at the helmet. Was there something inside it?

Another penguin appeared hugging Chaeli’s leg; Realm Walker converted into a strap that secured the diminutive penguin to the pristine armor. With one flipper it held on, then smacked Nobody as the other penguin passed by.

“Thanks for the chapter!” parmesan the penguin admonished. Nobody’s hat flipped off its head, a look of panic overwhelming it. In a flash, Nobody vanished in a puff of rapidly dissipating black smoke.

Right, Chilly had also forgotten to greet the penguins in a while. “Thanks for the...” he trailed off, as he caught sight of Chaeli. She was covered in a half dozen penguins climbing all over her like she was a jungle gym.

Chaeli cocked her head, and the penguin sitting on top of her head laughed uproariously as it struggled to hold on with Realm Walker wrapped around Chaeli’s head like a garrote.

“Thanks for what?” Chaeli asked curiously.

“She's trying to help ground you,” the penguin hanging on tight said knowingly. “Maybe you are crazy...”

“Nothing...” Chilly said, “You’ve just got a penguin on your head.”

“What!” Chaeli jumped, swatting at the penguin who literally liquified and reformed as it dodged her blows while laughing maniacally.

Another penguin had managed to cling to Chaeli’s helmet and whispered in her ear. “Do you hear them? The whispers of Madness?”

Chaeli froze, and slowly followed Chilly’s gaze towards the penguin on her shoulder.

Chilly stepped forwards. “Come on guys, stop harassing her. She’s a friend.”

Mr. Stupid hopped up on Chaeli and shot Chilly a look, then shrugged. “At least they're not from tables.”

“You’ve got a point there,” Chilly acknowledged.

“...are you messing with me?” Chaeli said. “You’re messing with me, right? There aren’t any penguins on me are there?”

“Nope, you’re covered in ‘em,” Chilly replied.

A penguin pole vaulted off the snow, and ninja-kicked Dr. FunkMD off of Chaeli’s head, who immediately vanished in a puff of black smoke. Karan then imperiously transformed Realm Walker into a flag and planted it into Chaeli’s head.

“I am Groot.” Karan declared.

“No, shoo,” Chilly said, moving forwards and shooing off the penguin. Chaeli started backing away from him, clearly thinking he was crazy, but stopped as her heel clacked sharply against the first stair leading to Kellington’s Bough. “You are not groot. Neither is she. I thought we established that she is a Warforged.”

“I am Groot!” Karan argued.

“Thanks for the chapter to you too, now leave the poor girl alone. I think she is going to get a heart attack.”

Karan obliged, “I am Groot,” it said one more time, before vanishing in a puff of black smoke.

Chaeli sat down on the stairs, watching him with an amazed expression, “You are really crazy, dude.”

“I told you before, I’m not crazy. The penguins are really there. I have proof.” Chilly brushed off her concern, as he shooed the rest of the penguins once more to stand on the ground and leave the poor girl alone. Chaeli didn’t respond and just watched him, waving at the penguins, like it was the most fascinating thing she had seen in her entire life.

There was one penguin sitting in Chaeli’s lap who was more stubborn than the rest.

“Mr. Runaway,” Chilly put his hands on his hips, staring the penguin down.

“Thanks for the chapter.”

Chaeli hesitantly covered her lap as she looked up at Chilly with uncertainty.

“Thanks for the chapter, yourself. Now scram.” Chilly told the penguin sternly.

Mr. Runaway snuggled into Chaeli’s oblivious embrace, then opened one twinkling eye. “From the moment I understood the weakness of my flesh, it disgusted me. I craved the strength and certainty of steel. I aspired to the purity of the blessed machine.”

“Can you...” Chaeli crossed her legs much to Mr. Runaways delight, as a deeper brown colored her face and the little twigs on her head trembled.

“One second Chaeli,” Chilly frowned. “Mr. Runaway, that...sounds like a quote. Are you...you’re saying that she’s like a machine?”

Mr. Runaway grinned.

“Wait! Chaeli, do you have a heart?” Chilly lifted his gaze towards her face, which was now a deep brown and she was looking away from him. That was odd, had he done something wrong?

“I-I-I d-don’t. N-no.” Chaeli stammered, “no Warforged does.”

Mr. Runaway vanished in a puff of black smoke. Chilly looked at the smoke while Chaeli squirmed behind it, which caused him to frown up at her in confusion. Not sure what was going on with her, he decided to change the subject.

“You mind if I clean up real quick before we head out?”

“N-not at all.” Chaeli stammered as she looked down and away.

He looked around and found the deepest snowdrift in the area and jumped inside. Starfire Aegis quickly turned it into a hot tub, which he delighted in. His muscles melted into puddles, as the caked-on filth from days of struggle flaked away. He didn’t have soap, but before too long much of the stink that had clung to him tenaciously had dissolved into the now soiled water.

The pool of water eventually drained into the surrounding snow. Chilly stood with a satisfied groan as sheets of water emptied from his armor which he hadn’t taken off. He lunged forwards and caught a stray essence that popped out, and carefully tucked it back in between his belly and the plate vest.

Ahh, muuch better.

Luckily, Chaeli had recovered from whatever had bothered her, and was waiting for him impatiently with her azure helmet covering her expression.

They ascended Kellington’s Boughs with significantly more effort than Chilly had required before. Going up was, as usual, much more difficult than going down but it allowed the two to get to know each other some more before they risked their lives together in the coming battles.

“You're so slow!” Chaeli said for the fifth time.

“It's just...there's just... A lot of stairs,” Chilly huffed. It was patently unfair. Chaeli had infinite energy. Constantly bouncing around, and sprinting up the stairs with the ease of youth, then running back down and urging him to keep up, only to be disappointed and run ahead once more.

“Don't you have a movement skill?” She asked impatiently, “You should have totally gotten one by now.”

She demonstrated by using her own movement skill; her entire body blurring as she accelerated to eye-searing speeds for a fraction of a second, before slowing back down to a more reasonable pace.

“I do,” Chilly said, leaning up against the side of the massive white tree trunk to catch his breath. “Though it’s not as great at climbing stairs as yours is.”

“How can it not? Use it! She bounced around him, “Come on, It’ll be fun. I wanna see!”

Chili shot her a glance. The penguin’s words echoed in his mind. Warforged. A machine. Infinite energy. Made of wood instead of flesh. It all coalesced into a single revelation. She - and her entire race - were designed for war. For living in the trenches and battling day in and day out. It explained her excess of energy, and he wouldn’t be surprised if she was physically incapable of getting depressed or traumatized from injury. Hell, it wouldn’t shock him if she didn’t need to eat and could sustain herself purely on the sun’s energy.

He put it out of his mind and began to cast Flame Dash. It was a good idea; they would anyway need to become familiar with each other’s skillsets before the fights ahead.

He vanished in a burst of bright fire only to appear further up the stairs. He turned around and spread his hands in a ta-da gesture. Chaeli turned to him, silent for the first time since he had met her.

“Wow.” She said, subdued. “You actually managed to get a true teleportation ability. Those are rare. Bet the cooldown is high, right? What is it? It’s high isn’t it?”

Chilly scratched behind his ear, “I can use it roughly every 4 seconds-ish. Though it can move me about twice as far as I just showed.”

“Shame,” Chaeli said, “Pretty awesome that you can’t be chained down, but I still prefer what I’ve got. Check it out!”

Chaeli blurred forwards as she activated her skill. Before she fully slowed, she flashed again, blasting past Chilly. He spun around but couldn’t turn his body fast enough to keep her in his vision. By the time he had managed to fully turn around, she was two dozen steps up the staircase and looking down at him, though her - no doubt gloating - expression was hidden by the full-face helmet.

Chilly raised an eyebrow, “Damn, you can chain the skill?”

“Yup! Three times in a row before I’ve got to use it on cooldown. Wanna race to the top?”

“Nope.”

Chaeli pouted, “you're no fun.”

Chilly snorted, there was no way he would be able to hold a candle to her speed. “Enough dawdling, let's get on with it. The sooner we can help my friend the better.”

They continued to slowly climb the stairs. Chilly was the slowpoke, but used the time to get to know Chaeli better. He asked her many questions in order to learn more, but also to keep her occupied, because she seemed like the type of person who would vanish on him if he bored her too much.

It turned out that parties were a lot more useful than he had initially thought. With Chaeli in his party, he would be able to reallocate his skill point into Star Fuel and the questing strands of superheated plasma would ignore Chaeli despite her proximity. It was frustrating that Star Fuel burned so indiscriminately, but Chaeli explained that being in a party labeled team members ‘allies’ so abilities which referenced ‘enemies’ wouldn’t target them. While speaking, she nodded appreciatively at the consecrated ground below Chilly’s feet that he had practically relegated to the background by now.

It didn’t work for area of effect skills, however. Incinerate would still damage Chaeli because it hurt everything in its path, regardless of friend or foe.

Apparently, there wasn’t a way to add a dead body to the party, which was a damn shame. He would still have to burn through Essences of Regret whenever he went hunting, to avoid losing good meat. According to Chaeli, the reason why Star Fuel targeted dead bodies and not, for example, the wall, was because dead bodies can have after-death effects that can be ended by destroying the body.

They continued to talk about each of their capabilities. Chilly shared his abilities, and gave a brief summary of what each could do, and what he had used them for in the past. Chaeli was particularly excited about Unity of Purpose; a Vitality augment that granted 50% of the regeneration to allies.

Chaeli then shared what she could do. At level fourteen she had two more abilities then Chilly so it took a little longer but after the second ability Chilly figured out her build. She was basically a scout mixed with an assassin. She had several abilities to hide from enemies, increase her perception, and speed. Her primary damage-dealing ability was an assassinate style ability, where she did maximum damage when dealing damage from behind an enemy. In addition, she had a rather interesting ability that made her deal more damage based on how fast she was moving at the time of impact.

She briefly demonstrated, and Chilly found himself in the center of a tornado of blades as Chaeli ran around him and poked him with her blades. His regeneration worked overtime, but it was clear that she could overwhelm it if she chose. She stopped before he was really injured, and he was pleasantly surprised when he saw her miserably rubbing at burns caused from Starfire Aegis retaliation. It was reassuring that even if he couldn’t keep up with her to aim Incinerate, he would still be able to deal damage back with Starfire Aegis.

As they continued to talk, the conversation eventually devolved into theory crafting of future skills and interesting builds. Chaeli was a lot smarter than Chilly had originally given her credit for. Her excitable nature belied quite a deep knowledge regarding...well, everything related to skills and the dungeon. It made sense since she’d been here longer and had a whole town of friends, but it still surprised him.

When they reached the top of the stairs, Chaeli surprised him again.

“Lightning elemental above,” She hopped from foot to foot as he struggled over the last of the stairs. “Does only at most 240 lightning damage per attack. How’s your resistance?”

Chilly huffed and squinted up into the canopy.

“You can tell...how much damage they deal?”

“Only their strongest ability, but it’s usually pretty accurate. How much resistance do you got?”

“Nada. Wow, that’s a super useful ability.”

“Mhmm. Let’s go, it won’t attack us unless we continue climbing.”

Chilly nodded, and they turned off the stairs towards Sooty’s Hell. He once again marveled at the vista spread out beneath him as he walked behind Chaeli’s armored form. Before too long, they stepped into the gloom of the tunnels. Chilly provided the light, and they continued on into air dense with ash, soon both acquiring the ‘covered in ash’ ailment. Chaeli seemed more put out by the reduction in movement speed that it inflicted than the additional damage that they would take. Chilly wasn’t so confident, last time he’d killed Sooty before fighting. He had barely succeeded in those fights, and he hoped that Sooty would allow them to kill him again, to get rid of the ash in the air.

Somehow he didn’t really think the smith would be amenable.

“Wanna kill the guardian first? Wait, how much experience do you have banked up?”

“I’ve got five out of ten but--”

“Great, then let’s take out the side areas first so that you can get a level up before we kill the guardian.”

“When you say guardian, are you talking about the headless ash man in front of Hellbringer’s doors?”

“Yeah. Have you fought him before? Gar-Khan said he was a doozy to challenge without a full party, but he is only level 12 so that shouldn’t be too hard for us.”

“Hold on, Chaeli. Why would we kill the guardian?”

“What? What do you mean? We gotta kill it to enter the Hellbringer’s doors.”

“Are you sure? He seems pretty friendly, we could just ask him to open them up.”

“...friendly?”

“Yeah...ok. I have a feeling that you don’t believe me. Here, we are coming around the bend, I’ll show you what I mean. Sooty is pretty chill.”

They entered the main chamber of Sooty’s Hell and were greeted by the three geysers of lava happily burbling away in the three corners of the room.

“Ahoy there Sooty!” Chilly called down, waving his hand cheerfully. “I brought a friend.”

Sooty paused his hammering and glanced up. [Welcome back my friend. I am gladdened to see you have found another young adventurer to aid you in your quest.]

Chilly jogged down and paused just out of Star Fuel’s range.

Poidude waved in translation.

“Cool,” Chilly said. “Sooty, Chaeli. Chaeli, hey, are you coming down?”

Chaeli hesitantly shuffled down into the main chamber, though she didn’t say anything.

“Anyway, we are just here to finish up. Chaeli will help me take down the rest of the sub-bosses and then the Hellbringer. We wanted to ask you if we could go past the door without killing you, and also could we kill you for experience and so that there isn’t ash in the air?”

[I would be glad to open up the door for you once the three lieutenants are defeated. I will however not provide you with more experience, since if you succeed I will be dead and not be able to benefit from having my head returned to me.]

“Door open after sub-bosses.” Noomplet translated, pointing at Sooty.

“He alive when you do,” Peregrine added, pointing at Sooty.

Chaos Child looked between the two, then also pointed at Sooty with both flippers emphatically.

“Hola!” the new arrival chirped, slapping chaos child on the back. The poor penguin stumbled and lost its grip on Realm Walker, only to devolve into a shifting cloud of smoke.

Chilly turned to Chaeli. “Yup, he will let us through to the Hellbringer after we kill the three lieutenants. No need to fight him now.”

Chaeli stepped up, still wary of the ashen smith. “How can you...understand him? He isn’t saying anything.”

[There are many paths to communication, child.] Sooty signed.

“He speaks sign language.” Chilly said, guessing what Sooty signed, “I don’t know it but the penguins help me translate. That is why I am hell-bent on killing the Hellbringer. After the boss dies then we can return Sooty his head and we can have a proper conversation.”

“The penguins...translate,” Chaeli muttered to herself, still clearly disbelieving.

“Yeah,” Chilly said, “Anyway, Sooty, we’re going to head out. Just wanted to stop by and say hello.”

[Hello to you too my friend. I look forward to your next visit.] Sooty signed.

Poidude the penguin waved in translation. Chilly grinned.

“Cool. Come on Chaeli. We’ve got monsters to kill!”