“She ain't coming.” Chilly grouched.

He was sitting beside the pile of loot that he had collected from clearing out the fire biome. The penguins milled around him, looking rather annoyed at the situation.

A disgruntled penguin stepped up, pointing at the large skull-adorned gate to the Hellbringer’s domain. “Burrrn. Cleanse the world with flame.”

“Let’s not be hasty,” Chilly chided. “Chaeli is an important member of this team.”

Mr. Warmage raised a single brow.

“Alright, the only other member of this team. That doesn’t mean she isn’t important. I would much rather take on the Hellbringer with her, especially since my build is less than focused on solo play.”

Mr. Warmage sighed and waved a defeated flipper in Chilly’s direction.

“Besides, that door looks far beefier than the one in the Holy Sanctum. Not sure I’ll be able to get out if it closes behind me.”

Silence descended as he considered what to do. The most obvious route was simply to go and try to find her. He knew where she had gone, so at worst he can simply go to Teluria and try to find tracks or something. Maybe she left a note.

Alternatively, he could just...leave. Chaeli was absent. Maybe she abandoned him. Maybe she died. Either way, she was missing in action. He could try and challenge the Hellbringer, but that seemed sketchy for any number of reasons. The alternative was to just continue exploring and leveling without her. If she showed up later, then great. Otherwise, he didn’t really lose out on much.

That being said, an actual town would be really nice to visit. Beds, people, food. Maybe they had even set up a mob farm that he could grind for levels.

“Welp!” Chilly slapped his thighs and got up. “I guess we are going to Teluria. Now the question is, how do I get there? Teluria itself is on top of a mountain on the other side of Mirror Lake. I won’t be able to cross it without waking the Leviathans but I could just walk around the lake, though I don’t believe that the beach extended all the way around. Could you guys see if there is another path that leads to Teluria?”

The penguins looked among themselves, then a few ran off into the tunnels.

“Great,” Chilly said. “While you do that, I’m going to clear out this zone again, get a bit more gear and see if I can’t craft myself some cold resistance gear.”

Each time he fought the sub-bosses of the fire biome it became easier to anticipate their strategies, and he grew faster and more efficient at collecting the loot they dropped. He returned after the quick excursion with his helmet full of essences and three new items which were summarily added to the existing pile.

Chilly scanned his haul.

Aredrite Plate Vest

Normal

Body Armor

iLevel: 11

34 cold resistance

Living Steel Kite Shield

Normal

Offhand

iLevel: 11

152 life

Electrum Axe

Normal

Mainhand

iLevel: 11

92-112 physical damage

68-83 lightning damage

Steel Plate Vest

Normal

Body Armor

iLevel: 11

44 armor

Steel Tassets

Normal

Pants

iLevel: 11

40 armor

It was a decent haul. The Living Steel Shield was the best item by far. It perfectly replaced his old level five iron shield and was Living Steel to boot. The other Aredrite Plate Vest would also slot neatly into his chest slot and would help prepare him for the cold biome. The axe, on the other hand, was a dud. Chilly was never going to be attacking anything physically and without a skill to increase the base damage of the weapon it was pointless regardless.

The two Steel items were good, but not necessarily better than what he had on now. He might change his current Mantle pants for the Steel since he was unlikely to encounter fire damage in the cold biome.

The last item was different. It was made of a ghostly blue shifting metal whose surface looked like what renderings of galaxies did back on earth. It looked rare. It felt rare. But...the stats were underwhelming at best.

Etherium Boots

Normal

Boots

iLevel: 11

10 chaos resistance

Chilly chewed his lip as he studied the new pair of boots he had fished out of the lava in the Kiln of the Undying Flame. Ten chaos resistance was a paltry sum. Barely any resistance at all. If not for the fact that this was the first time he had encountered a single mod that granted chaos resistance, he would have chalked it up as a low leveled item. If it was this hard to get chaos resistance, then it was honestly better to just stack health and hope for the best.

Either way, it really showed that he should have taken the chaos specialization when he had first spawned in this dungeon.

Chilly shook his head and brought the new shield and new plate vest to Sooty’s Anvil. After politely requesting some time on the crafting bench, Chilly began crafting the new gear. He decided to try just raw essence crafting without any resonators.

He began with the three Jade Essences that he had looted, mostly from Blackrock Mountain. The first green gem fused with the Living Steel Kite Shield and he brought up the result.

Living Steel Kite Shield

Rare

Offhand

iLevel: 11

152 life

76 life

22% increased Flame Dash effect

28 armor

36 weaken resistance

Flame Dash? That was...suboptimal to say the least. It would reduce the cooldown and cast time, and increase the range by a bit, but it was perhaps the worst skill to improve.

He tried again.

Living Steel Kite Shield

Rare

Offhand

iLevel: 11

152 life

96 life

9.56% increased life regeneration

17% increased Smoldering Embers effect

24 fire resistance

A low roll but it was passable for now. Unfortunately it had fire resistance instead of cold or armor. It would work well when taking on the Hellbringer but for finding Chaeli it was imperfect. Regardless, it would do for now.

Chilly put the shield to the side, and put the Aredrite Plate Vest onto the anvil, then infused it with his last Essence of Jade.

Aredrite Plate Vest

Rare

Body Armor

iLevel: 11

34 cold resistance

87 life

42 chill resistance

12 sap resistance

25% increased Incinerate effect

Chilly snorted. This was probably the worst item he had ever made. Incinerate was fine to have increased effect on, but it wasn’t amazing. Ideally, he would like Vitality, Pious Path, or Smoldering Embers. Chains of Subjugation would also be fine since it basically worked better than Incinerate effect just because much of his damage was spread out across several skills.

The other mods were terrible as well. Chill and sap were likely to be bad ailments, but realistically, regular mods would be better. He had never been chilled or sapped before, and while it was possible that he would encounter something that could chill him in the cold biome, sap seemed like a dead mod.

Now that he was out of Jade, he would start just throwing regular rare essences at the item. It took him several tries of swapping between Arcanite and Steel essences but eventually, he settled on this:

Aredrite Plate Vest

Rare

Body Armor

iLevel: 11

34 cold resistance

82 life

9.98% increased life

10.04% increased life regeneration

19 cold resistance

The magnitudes of the mods seemed a little low, but overall it was four mods that all would directly help him in the future.

He shucked off his current plate vest and shield and tried on the two new items.

Gregory “Chilly” Morhuil

Level

Exp

Skill Points

Spec

14

0/14

0

Fire

Life

Life Regeneration

2107/2107

704.58

Armor

Fire

Cold

Lightning

Chaos

149

59.84%

339

77.22%

71

41.52%

62

38.27%

0

0.00%

Incinerate

Helmet:

Living Steel Helmet

Vitality

Body Armor:

Aredrite Plate Vest

Pious Path

Pants:

Mantle Tassets

Starfire Aegis

Boots:

Steel Boots

Flame Dash

Gloves:

Mantle Gauntlets

Chains of Subjugation

Jewelry:

Iron Ring

Smoldering Embers

Mainhand:

Living Steel Kite Shield

???

Offhand:

Electrum Kite Shield

Spoiler : (AN: :( I found an error in the Mantle Tassets (that he just took off). They were not providing the 30 fire res from the implicit. It's fixed now, but his fire res should be 339 not whatever it was last time)

Chilly grinned. He finally had a complete set of level eleven armor - except for his ring - and broke the two thousand life mark. Frustratingly, his armor had decreased from 158, and his fire resistance had increased once again even though he didn’t need more resistance there. Luckily, cold resistance had increased to a tolerable amount. It was still half his armor, but at least it would be able to block some damage.

Chilly glanced at his pile of essences. He still had a couple more rare ones left. Enough for one more craft. His pants that Chaeli crafted him were good, but were focused on providing fire resistance. He didn’t have any Aredrite armor to work with, but the Steel Tassets he had found would work well enough for now. Physical damage did seem to be the most common damage type in the dungeon anyway.

He took another glance at his low armor and decided to go for it.

After using up basically all of his essences he settled on this:

Steel Tassets

Rare

Pants

iLevel: 11

40 armor

85 life

14.25% increased life

30 armor

8.79% increased armor

Gregory “Chilly” Morhuil

Level

Exp

Skill Points

Spec

14

0/14

0

Fire

Life

Life Regeneration

2351/2351

728.79

Armor

Fire

Cold

Lightning

Chaos

205

67.21%

299

74.94%

53

34.64%

62

38.27%

0

0.00%

Incinerate

Helmet:

Living Steel Helmet

Vitality

Body Armor:

Aredrite Plate Vest

Pious Path

Pants:

Steel Tassets

Starfire Aegis

Boots:

Steel Boots

Flame Dash

Gloves:

Mantle Gauntlets

Chains of Subjugation

Jewelry:

Iron Ring

Smoldering Embers

Mainhand:

Living Steel Kite Shield

???

Offhand:

Electrum Kite Shield

Chilly growled in frustration. His armor and life were up, but his cold resistance was down. It would have to do. The increase to his life was significant enough that it should counteract his low cold resistance.

He looked over the rest of his gear but didn’t see anything that could be changed out cheaply. Besides, he was out of crafting components.

Around the chamber, the penguins had returned from their scouting expedition. Many looked tired and dropped their swords the moment they arrived, but a few remained and waited for Chilly expectantly.

Chilly turned to the penguin who had stepped forwards first. Mr. Xenix cleared its throat.

“Smoldering embers,

Ashen wings.

Penguin whisperer,

Hear us sing.”

Mr. Xenix and the rest of the penguins of the scouting part exploded into clouds of rapidly dissipating black smoke. A faint drum beat echoed through the lava filled chamber. It reflected off the walls, steadily growing stronger and more distinct until it eventually resolved itself into a painfully familiar song.

Old RuneScape Soundtrack: Barbarianism

Chilly mouth dropped as he turned toward the source of the song. An incredulous laugh escaped his lips as he quickly collected the rest of his Regrets, and began to follow the soundtrack.

“Music!” Chilly crowed, accelerating to a jog towards Kellington’s Boughs. “You guys are the best!”

The ash in the air coalesced into a smiling penguin face with stars for eyes. It winked, then vanished among the rest of Sooty’s ash.

Several hours later Chilly stood at the edge of Mirror Lake with a pained expression. The muscle beneath his eye periodically twitched.

“All I’m saying is that you can change the music every once in a while.”

The same song had been playing on repeat since he had left Sooty’s Hell. It was awesome at first. Then faded into the background, but after the twentieth playthrough, it had begun to grate on his ears.

“Any other song,” Chilly said. “I’ll even settle for pop.”

He followed the music down the coast of Mirror Lake. Sand got into his boots, and the beach steadily grew narrower until he was hiking over rocks. Before the terrain could get impossibly rough, the source of the music veered over to the entrance of a dark tunnel bored into the slate-gray rock. Chilly paused in front of the dark opening and peered inside.

“Please, I’m begging you.”

Consecrated ground spread into the tunnel and faintly illuminated the tunnel walls. They were ribbed, like an adult to- ahem earthworm had dug its way into the mountainside. If that was actually the case, then the worm was enormous. Easily three meters in diameter and likely dozens of meters long.

Where the digested earth had gone, Chilly did not know.

“At least lower the volume,” Chilly asked. The incessant music diminished and he let out a sigh of relief as he stepped into the tunnel.

Chilly cracked his neck and began to walk cautiously into the dark, making absolutely sure that he was advancing slower than the large circle of consecrated ground that seeped deep into the surrounding stone. He slipped past embers and around glowing crucifixes floating in the air as he followed the music deeper into the dark, twisting hole in the earth.

A part of him lamented the loss of the sky. Even if the sky only looked dull and gray over Mirror Lake, it was better than being underground again.

The tunnel sloped down, and he quickly noticed the surrounding stone give way to opaque, deep-blue ice, so hard that even slamming his shield into it didn’t leave a scratch in the deep ridges along the walls. The temperature dropped and his breath billowed out in a thick whiite plume every time he released a breath. Covered as he was in a cape of liquid plasma, he didn’t especially feel the cold.

Ahead, the tunnel veered left, then right, then back to the left like a freshman after happy hour. He shook his head and muttered darkly to himself about proper tunnel design before continuing deeper.

He came upon a segment of the tunnel that was different from the rest. Instead of hard blue ice. There was a flaky, pale, leathery substance stuck to the outer walls. He carefully approached and saw that a couple of meters down the tunnel, the material sagged from the ceiling and created a low point.

He reached out and touched the pale material, and rubbed it in between his fingers.

“This is snakeskin.” Chilly murmured, looking down the tunnel. “Really, really big snakeskin.”

A rumble shook ice shards from the ceiling and dislodged more of the enormous snakeskin.

Chilly crouched down, skittering back up the tunnel a couple of paces as his eyes scanned the dark. His sightline ahead was obscured by the droopy snakeskin, while the rear was obscured by the curving of the tunnel.

His eyes narrowed, as he prepared to Flame Dash out of the way of whatever was causing the earth to shake.

The rumbling ceased, but Chilly stayed crouched, not trusting the sudden stillness any farther than he could throw it.

The faint sound of penguin song continued to play up ahead, leading him deeper and presumably to another route to Teluria.

Ice screamed as the rumbling resumed. On instinct, Chilly vanished in a flare of bright fire and reappeared farther up the tunnel. He turned to see a streamer of superheated plasma erupt from his cape and rush to engulf a tunnel-sized wall of azure scales that flashed by in the position that he had just vacated. Smoldering embers chased the wall of scales, flaring occasionally and leaving scores of black soot that bled bright and clear fluid.

Chilly’s eyes widened and he channeled Incinerate. Before the fire could properly reach the Wyrm, however, the scales abruptly vanished.

Chilly rushed forwards and saw a forked tail vanishing down a fresh tunnel. The screaming of tortured ice faded into the distance as Chilly stood on the ledge looking down.

“Giant snake that can tunnel through ice.” Chilly surmised, crouching down. The rear end of the snakeskin was utterly destroyed by the passing of the Wyrm, and since the Wyrm had been traveling from the top left of the tunnel towards the bottom right, there was now a three-meter wide gap that he would have to jump to get to the other side.

“The tunnel doesn’t match the Wyrm,” he muttered as he examined the two tunnels. The first was ridged like an earthworm had passed through, while the tunnel created by the Wyrm was smooth with long deep grooves running lengthwise along the ceiling. Likely from spikes along the dorsal ridge of the beast.

He glanced down the path that the Wyrm had gone. Noting that it had vanished behind a bend in the opaque ice. He could chase after the Wyrm down the tunnel it had dug, and get rid of it, though it was moving rather fast, or he could continue along the way he was already going and hope it left him alone. Up until now, he had only moved on after he had killed any monster in his way. It allowed for a clear path towards safety and was overall a more safe approach. The issue here was that the snake-Wyrm-thing had just left after it had redecorated the tunnel.

The sound of tortured ice screamed faintly in the distance, growing closer.

Or not.

Chilly waited for the sound to reach a crescendo and abused Second Wind to vanish instantly out of the way of the giant Wyrm, launched a Chain at the beast, and began channeling Incinerate even before he had fully materialized.

Chains, Fire, Plasma, and embers choked the surface of the Wyrm's blue scales. A pained roar joined the sounds of ice breaking as the wall of scales flashed by.

Spoiler :

Chilly stumbled back as three distinct objects slammed into his stomach and shoulders. He glanced down and saw several meter-long shards of ice being forcefully ejected from his abdomen by his regeneration.

Weak, he grinned and looked up, only to find the Wyrm had passed. A second later, the Chain of Subjugation that had wrapped around the beast snapped and dissipated into motes of red and black.

The ice groaned around him as cracks developed all across the ceiling. With three tunnels intersecting at the same location, the surrounding ice was no longer strong enough to support the colossal weight of the mountain.

Chilly’s eyes widened as he heard a horrifying creak emanating from behind him. He spun, only to freeze as a chunk of ice the size of a Frost Bison dislodged from the ceiling and slammed down with an earthshaking crash. He stumbled, then cast Flame Dash over the newly created holes in the floor, to retreat deeper down the tunnel.

No matter how weak the Wyrm’s ice shard attack was, if it brought the mountain down on him, there was no way he would survive.

Eyes wide and arms pumping, he sprinted towards the siren call of the penguin’s song as the structural integrity of the mountain waned. In the distance, he heard the distinct pop and crackle of a Wyrm tunneling coming from both below him and to his left.