Chilly desperately dragged himself toward the steadily dispersing remains of the two skeletons.

Bone Bow

Bow

Common

iLevel: 1

28-41 physical damage

Iron Axe

One handed axe

Common

iLevel: 1

24-51 physical damage

Leather Boots

Boots

Magic

iLevel: 1

5 armor

6 armor

Iron Plate Vest

Body armor

Common

iLevel: 1

8 armor

Chilly scanned the information boxes but didn’t find life regeneration anywhere. With trembling fingers he shifted aside the gear and the ash to reveal another small tarnished silver coin and a strange deep blue crystal.

Unknown Essence

Take this to a crafting bench to learn of its properties!

Unknown Essence

Take this to a crafting bench to learn of its properties!

“Damn it,” Chilly flopped down onto his back with a pained whimper.

The pain slowly faded into the background. It didn’t disappear so much as he got used to the deep throbbing coming from his abdomen. Slowly, his breathing regulated and he managed to focus on something other than the pain.

“The hole in the breastplate is just...gone.” Chilly muttered to himself as he stared down at his pristine armor. Rusty and almost falling apart sure, but with no new holes in it. He leaned his head back against the cool stone. “Armor in this game is bloody cosmetic.”

Chilly brought up his character sheet and probed experience for more information. It was still sitting pretty at zero out of two experience. Troubling. He had been banking on gaining another level from this encounter since that would have placed him at level three and would have given him access to another skill. A skill that could presumably give him a chance at recovering his health.

Experience: Experience - also known as XP or EXP - is the quantity required to progress to the next level. Experience can be acquired by slaying creatures of equal or higher level and provides increasing rewards the greater the level disparity. There are no known ways of losing experience.

You have 0/2 experience

Chilly lay on the floor of the tunnel for some time. Getting used to the feeling of a hole in his stomach and coming to terms with the implications of the innocuous blue box floating in his vision.

In order to get to level two. He would need to slay two level two creatures.

The level one skeletons were already difficult enough.

Eventually he got up, and collected the gear from the skeletons. After swapping his chest, and putting on the boots, his armor increased to 23 and 18.70% mitigation. Nearly twice as much mitigation as he had before but somehow it didn’t feel nearly enough to Chilly. He wouldn’t be satisfied until he had 100% mitigation. However much armor that would take.

With a pained look at the pile of unwieldy equipment lying on the stone floor, he began the slow trek down the tunnel. There was no reason to turn back. There was nothing but a dead end the way he had come with the slight risk of the first skeleton having reanimated in the time he had spent here. At least, reanimation was something that the undead were known for. Chilly distinctly hoped that reanimation wasn’t a trope that he would have to deal with in this strange game world.

Chilly made sure to disperse the bone ash as much as he could with his new boots as he passed. Hey, no reason to leave it all up to fate.

As for the way forward. Hopefully there would be an exit of some sort. Preferably a convenient door to the surface. With lots of green pastures and butterflies. Maybe some peach trees, you know? And no undead. Definitely not.

Speaking of undead. If he found another skeleton down this tunnel, well...He didn’t know what he would do. Fight it obviously, but his health was getting dangerously low, and hobbling around while clutching his stomach didn’t seem like the most conducive manner of winning a fight. If the skeleton didn’t carry a ranged weapon then it could conceivably be an easy fight. Unless it was level two and doubled its health or some other nonsense. Maybe he could slow it down with a rock or something. Maybe throw the useless bow at it.

The bow was annoyingly lacking arrows for some reason. Even the arrow that had shish kebabbed him was nowhere to be found. He swore he hadn’t thrown the arrow far, but it clearly wasn’t anywhere in the tunnel at the moment. Phantom Arrow, or something equally pretentious. Would be a nifty skill, though shooting out a pillar of flame was most definitely more cool. Cooler.

Not that a bow would be helpful. He needed a hand free for both light, and a considerable amount of his damage.

Luckily, the tunnel soon ended. A rough wooden scaffolding barred the end of the tunnel with a thick trapdoor right in the middle. A faint light peeked in between the loosely fitted planks. A soft flickering orange.

Candle light.

Excited, Chilly hobbled over to the trapdoor and fumbled with the iron ring.

Wooden Trapdoor

Level: 4

Life: 256

Armor

41

Fire Resistance

8

Cold Resistance

12

Lightning Resistance

15

Chaos Resistance

3

He idly noted down the information box, then gave the trapdoor a hefty tug. With an almighty creak, the ancient mechanism swung about its flaky red hinges and slammed open with a puff of white dust.

Candle light flooded into Chilly’s tunnel as a wide grin bloomed on his face. A stubby ladder led down into the first place with light since Chilly arrived in this world. A faint survival instinct prevented him from just jumping down. Instead, he stuck his head down into the new area.

You have entered the Desecrator’s Shrine

The cavern was large comparatively, roughly the size of a congregation hall. Right in the center of the area there was a campfire burning cheerily surrounded by three stone benches. Beyond that there was a nook in the cavern wall which housed what appeared to be a workshop. A large flat work table predominated the area, with a suspiciously clean chest sitting beside it. No chair though. Whoever had set up the area was clearly progressive and was aware of the dangers of sitting for long hours every day.

To the right, there was an altar of some sort. Seven empty stone plinths extended from the floor around a stone block at least three times his size and easily a hundred times his weight. Behind the massive altar stood a massive, nearly ten meter tall, ornate door with the skull of some large elephant embedded in it. Like a macabre door knocker for giants.

The entire chamber was filled with candles. The waxy sticks were mainly attached to the walls, though some hung from chains illuminating the craggy roof. A faint few littered the walking area. Some were lit. Most were not.

The chamber wasn’t totally devoid of life. Or in this case unlife. A single solitary ghost was floating sedately from candle to candle, lighting them with a candle that it shielded protectively with a single ghostly limb. His body was ephemeral and a ghostly semi transparent blue.

Guardian of the Desecrator’s Shrine

iLevel: 16

Chilly thought for a moment, before deciding that he had to risk descending into the cavern. It was either that or starve back in the tunnel. Also, who knew. Maybe the Guardian was a friendly ghost. Like Casper.

With stiff motions, Chilly descended down the ladder and carefully alighted on the stone brick floor of the new area. Ready to bolt, he watched the ghost.

“...Seven-hundred and fourteen...seven hundred and fifteen...” the ghost rasped quietly. Another two candles burst to light.

Without an obvious response from the ghost, Chilly crept over to the campfire, holding his hands spread out in front of the warm flames. An involuntary shiver ran over him, as the pervasive chill of the underground was chased away by the cheery flames. Chilly sighed, his tightly wound shoulders loosening, as he sank down into a crouch. A sense of peace washed over him. As if, everything was going to be alright.

“Seven-hundred and thirty two, seven hundred and thirty three...” the ghost's rasping voice came faintly from the corner, knocking Chilly out of his reverie.

He shot the ghost a look, but decided to let it be for now. There was no telling if it would become aggressive if he got close to it. The skeletons from before had. Though now that he thought about it, he had kinda set them on fire, so yeah...a wash really.

“Would be really strange if the undead in this dungeon are all nice.” Chilly whispered to himself as he made his way over to the crafting nook in the corner. If they were only gits because he attacked first that would suck. Would make this whole endeavor much simpler, though. Safer to test that theory with a lesser undead. Maybe a level one skeleton. With no weapons, preferably. And uh, chained to a wall if at all possible. Please and thank you. Amen.

Regardless, a level sixteen guardian of the crypt was just a wee bit higher than he was ready to deal with.

Plus it sounded like a boss monster.

Crafting Bench

Allows the use of Essences on equipment

To use: Touch an essence with an unequipped piece of equipment.

Chilly gave the chest beside the crafting bench a stink eye but the system didn’t have anything special to say about it. No generic identification, nor monster classification. Nothing.

Still several feet away, Chilly paused. It would suck if the chest was a mimic.

Chilly reared back and threw his sword at the chest. With a solid thunk the old iron lodged itself into the heavy wood. The sword vibrated briefly before settling.

No giant purple tongue and gnashing teeth came out for breakfast. Good enough for him. Chilly shrugged and retrieved his sword, popping open the lid.

The chest was empty.

Chilly chuckled quietly then tried to feel for a false bottom in the chest. Or any other secret compartment, really. It seemed odd for a chest to be sitting so primly without a single item in it, but alas, no such secret compartment could be found. It really was just a solid wood chest. A missed opportunity really.

Chilly turned to the crafting bench, spreading his three ill gotten essences on its surface.

You have discovered a new Essence!

Essence of Iron.

Rerolls modifiers on magic - or lower - quality equipment with a single guaranteed resistance modifier.

You have discovered a new Essence!

Essence of Azurite

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

Chilly slowly unstrapped his breastplate and set it down on the crafting bench. With cautious fingers, he picked up the blue crystalline essence of Azurite and gently placed it on top of the rusted iron. The blue crystal rippled then turned to liquid, dripping around and then seeping into the breastplate. With no further fanfare, a blue info box popped into existence.

Iron Plate Vest

Body armor

Magic

iLevel: 1

8 armor

0.45 life regeneration per second

“Not life?” Chilly smiled incredulously. He brushed the two essences of iron to the side and equipped the now magic plate vest.

A wash of cool relief spread from his core to his extremities.

Chilly let out a sigh of relief as his health pool finally began to tick upwards. The dull nauseating pain in his gut steadily faded leaving his mind clear. Chilly reached underneath the plate vest, and placed a furtive hand onto the arrow wound, only to recoil slightly at the feeling of flesh knitting itself together in real time.

Barely two minutes later, his stomach was completely healed.

“Well would you look at that...” Chilly murmured, running a hand over his smooth stomach.

Suddenly a frigid wind smelling of death and decay blasted through the cavern. Chilly fell to his knees with a cry. The candles flickered violently, before the wind snuffed out their flames one by one. In moments the cavern was thrust into stygian darkness as the howling wind faded, leaving behind a slick, metallic aftertaste that seemed to crawl up his nose.

“One...” a disappointed rasping growl slithered past the diminishing wind as a single candle burst into flame, providing but a modicum of light to the large cavern. It trembled fitfully in the wind, though it refused to go out.

Instead of continuing to light the other candles, the ghost turned towards the unlit campfire. It floated over, getting uncomfortably close to Chilly in the process. It paused, staring into the cold embers with hollow eyes.

“Two...” The campfire erupted in cheerful yellow flames. With deliberate grace, the ghost turned, completely ignoring Chilly and returning to the tiny candle holding back the darkness. It arrived, placing its skeletal limb onto the candle directly to the side of the lit candle.

“Three...” It rasped, continuing down the line of candles.

Chilly slowly lowered his trembling hand from his racing heart, and carefully rose from his fearful crouch. His gaze settled on a deep fissure in the far wall, around which a small cloud of dust was slowly settling.

The wind had come from that crack. It implied that the dungeon continued onwards. Or downwards in this case. The wind had smelled of death, not butterflies and pollen. Whatever lay beyond the rift in the wall was not the escape from the undead that Chilly was searching for. It was not anything Chilly was interested in.

The seven plinths on the far wall however just might be. He distinctly remembered the first blue info box that he had seen. It had mentioned collecting seven soul fragments, and these plinths were too much of a coincidence not to be related in some regard. Of course he could be wrong, but that was the working theory for now.

Dungeons in stories did love the number seven. And three when they were feeling lenient.

Now that he was in a relatively safe space with a cheerful campfire and at full health, it was a perfect opportunity to reflect a little about the situation.

Still no additional evidence on how he got here. Random isekai was still the current working theory.

The soul fragments the ‘system’ - for lack of a better word - had mentioned sounded a whole lot like a phylactery from popular media. An object that held a piece of the soul of a lich. It would make a lot of sense if the Desecrator was a lich. And perhaps even more sense if the Desecrator was guarding the exit to the surface world behind the giant elephant skull doors.

That implied that Chilly had to kill the Desecrator to escape. Or sneak past. Sneaking past sounded much more better. Let’s do that.

If the Guardian was a good measure then the Desecrator itself should be around level sixteen, perhaps higher. Most definitely higher. Seemed an odd number for the level of the final boss of a dungeon, but in reality it didn’t actually mean anything. It could just mean that this was a beginners dungeon and that the surface world was much more hostile than this dungeon. Or at least higher leveled.

A max level of a hundred would make sense. Or seventy. If there even was a max level.

Presumably children are born at level one, so maybe dungeons like this are used to power level them...

Chilly shook his head vigorously.

There were several ways out of this cavern. This...Shrine of the Desecrator. The way he had come led back to the Annex and the dead end. The giant elephant door presumably led out but Chilly wasn’t willing to approach them in case that triggered the Guardian in some way. Also it was most likely locked until the seven phylacteries were collected.

The death smelling crack was another exit. It descended almost immediately into darkness and did not look appealing at all. Somehow, the cold temperature of the wind just made the thought of exploring in that direction even less appealing than it already was.

A penguin appeared from nowhere and gave the Shrine a cursory glance. While carrying no emotion, it somehow made Chilly feel like he was forgetting to do something. Then as fast as it had appeared, the penguin vanished in a puff of smoke. Chilly glanced at the spot in askance before resuming his analysis.

That left the last doorway. It stood in an out of the way corner of the Shrine. Shrouded in darkness, but not entirely obscured. A quick flash of Incinerate revealed a small dark wood doorway with iron bars where a glass window would normally appear in a modern door. The bars made it look like the doorway led to a prison. Or a dungeon, in this case. The rest of it that is.

That door seemed the better option. A prison-like area was infinitely more appealing than the existential dread that the death crack exuded. There was no telling what horrors existed that way. A prison however. Most likely just more skeletons. Nice friendly non-dangerous skeletons perhaps. Even better, they likely would be stuck behind bars which would make killing them for experience trivial.

Or trying to talk to them. It was worth a perfunctory shot. At the very least.

Chilly made his way over to the prison door. Surprisingly a blue box appeared.

Wood Door

Level: 6

Life: 407

Armor

66

Fire Resistance

16

Cold Resistance

35

Lightning Resistance

42

Chaos Resistance

9

Chilly analyzed the blue box carefully then peeked through the bars in the door. A hallway that almost immediately terminated in a T-intersection greeted his view. Chilly grabbed the handle and carefully pushed open the heavy wood door. Surprisingly, it was unlocked, but did provide no small amount of resistance as it swung open reluctantly on rusted hinges.

Nothing came to greet him, so after a ponderous moment he carefully took a single step forward.

You have entered the Mausoleum!

“So not a prison...bummer.” Chilly smiled and stepped deeper into the tomb.