He has invested almost entirely into life regeneration. Likely a symptom of the madness.

--Excerpt from Chaeli’s scout report

CONSUME

Chilly jerked as a whispered voice tickled the back of his ear. Several penguins looked at him oddly but then returned to their aimless wandering. He shivered as what felt like two tentacles wrapped around his waist before vanishing without a trace.

Chilly nervously scanned the room, and then slowly backed away even further from the remains of the two cursed tables.

A penguin sauntered over with a fire in its eyes.

“Sit down Bob.” the penguin declared imperiously.

Chilly glanced to either side. “Me? I’m not Bob. My name is Greg. But everyone calls me Chilly.”

“I’m not happy Bob. NOT HAPPY!” the penguin declared furiously, “Ask me why.”

“Wh-”

“TABLES!” Poidude the penguin screeched as it gestured at the burnt husks of the two torture devices.

“Huh,” Chilly huffed. He had no idea where the penguin was going with that, but if it was mad at tables, then he could sympathize. “I know right. I am also not happy. What is wrong with the people of this world! Just think. Every single one of these tables must have been made by someone.”

The penguins around nodded emphatically.

“Unless, there is a table out there that makes tables.” Another penguin in the back called out.

“What if the chairs are in on it?”

“No way, it's the silverware!”

“Exactly!” Chilly cried, “There is a conspiracy in this world. To make evil tables and scatter them around. It's a tragedy!”

“Not all tables are evil though,” A small voice in the back mumbled. All the penguins turned towards the voice in hostility.

“That might just be so,” Chilly nodded sadly, “but unfortunately that just makes it worse. It breeds a false sense of trust and gets people to lower their guard when they eventually encounter an evil table. Just imagine, a poor kid not learning to fear tables because their dining table just so happens to be inanimate. Then they meet an evil table, and wham, its all over.”

“Like that one!” another penguin cried, pointing at the burnt timbers.

“Like that one!” Chilly confirmed grimly.

HUNGER

Chilly jerked again. The voice sounded exactly like how he would sound if he was trying too hard to mimic an evil monster. Deep and scratchy. It would be funny in an over dramatic way if he had heard it back on earth. Here though, there was a chance that there were evil monsters that could enter his mind and speak to him directly in that voice.

“What was that?” Chilly said nervously.

ASSIMILATE

Several penguins cocked their heads at him, in confusion.

“There it was again.” Chilly said, nervously getting to his feet. He had been sitting on the ground and resting after the previous encounter. “What are you!”

THE GREATER COLLECTIVE

Chilly shuddered, then leaned down to a particularly confused looking penguin. It was so distraught that it looked close to tears.

“I am hearing a voice in my head, so I’m calling out to see if it shows itself.” Chilly explained in a whisper to the clueless penguin. “It's a textbook anti-possession strategy. If it comes out, then I probably don’t have a parasite.”

The penguin mouthed the word parasite slowly, as if tasting it.

“You know, like Venom.” Chilly said as he made a scary face.

Sudden understanding lit up the confused penguins face, and it nodded at him eagerly.

Chilly frowned, the penguin seemed as if it wanted him to get a parasite. Ehh, probably not. It was too cute to be evil like that.

WELCOME. THE GREAT BEYOND.

“No, not welcome!” Chilly cried, He summoned Incinerate. “I’ve got fire. Your kind doesn’t like fire.”

ANSWER OUR CALL. YOUNG HOST CHILLY. LET US IN.

Chilly felt goosebumps rise all over his arms as he registered the words. He had read too many stories where something like this had happened. For some reason, he couldn’t recall what he was supposed to do now.

“No no! We can't have any of that!” Another penguin shoved its way to the front of the crowd.

“My saviour,” Chilly whispered in relief.

“This one is not for us to take!” Mr. Xenix proclaimed as it rushed forwards to stop before Chilly. It began to mutter in a strange language as occult runes began to glow along the length of Realm Walker. Abruptly NickXenix raised its sword and brought it down so that the very tip was touching Chilly on his nose.

Chilly sneezed.

All the penguins cheered, as NickXenix stepped back with a deeply satisfied look on his face.

“...Thanks,” Chilly said honestly, as he rubbed his nose. The sword hadn’t actually touched him but if anything got that close to his nose it made it itch. “That was close, almost got eaten.”

NickXenix cleared its throat and opened its mouth a few times. Unfortunately no sound came out.

“You have that voice thing again, Mr. Xenix.” Chilly informed the ancient penguin patiently.

The penguin grimaced but continued on regardless, “As I was saying, it’s time for you to answer...”

All the penguins paused dramatically. The tension built as Chilly leaned forwards in anticipation.

“Are benches tables?” Mr. Xenix wobbled its eyebrows suggestively.

Every penguin gasped in unison.

Chilly flinched back as he considered the horrifying possibilities.

“Nah, couldn’t be.” A nameless penguin in the back said flippantly.

Mr. Xenix the penguin spun around, its eyes bugging out and its sword raised.

“HERETIC!”

With a warcry, Mr. Xenix charged the other penguin. It hopped up in surprise and sprinted out of the room. A moment later, Mr. Xenix vanished around the bend with bloodlust in its eyes.

Chilly followed them with his eyes, but decided not to intervene. Penguin matters were best handled by a penguin after all. Not that he could do anything anyway. The penguins were ghosts to him.

He turned to the remaining penguins.

“We must mount an inquisition.” he said somberly.

Whispers erupted among the penguins.

“If we see a table it is our duty to destroy it. Whether it be evil or mundane.” Chilly continued, he lifted his fist as he grew more impassioned. “There can be no more ‘incidents’ like what happened here today. No more shall people be ambushed by tables. No longer shall life be lost needlessly to such a stationary foe.”

The penguins burst out in cheers, clapping and jumping up and down as they waved their various incarnations of Realm Walker enthusiastically through the air.

Chilly nodded his head firmly as he brought the beam of Incinerate on the mostly destroyed remains of the two tables. Fire ignited the smoldering ashes causing a plume of black smoke to billow out of the corpse.

The penguins' adulations grew louder as what little remained of the fated enemy was utterly and totally destroyed by the cleansing flame.

Chilly raised his fist high into the air as the applause peaked.

“Let’s do this.” He said, and strode towards the far exit of the room.

As he was confidently marching. A glint of silver caught his eye. He slowed and saw that one of the Mrawll Warden’s had been caught in his flagrant use of Incinerate. The body had burnt down to a crisp. A round circle of blackened flesh was utterly missing from the corpse, while the rest of it was severely damaged to the point that it looked more like the remains of a campfire than a corpse.

That wasn’t the interesting part though. The result of the complete destruction of the corpse was that among the ashes lay a small silver coin that caught the light from Pious Path as Chilly passed.

Essence of Steel

Chilly hoovered up the essence and considered the other bodies thoughtfully. He had found out how to gain essences from these monsters after all.

Chilly stumbled out of the black billowing smoke, as he coughed up a lung. The idea had sounded good on paper, but there really wasn’t all that much space for the smoke to go once it had been created by Incinerate.

Still he had managed to collect another Essence of Emerald from the corpses. Not precisely what he was looking for, but he had a suspicion that the Essence of Steel had come from the level 5 Mrawll Warden. He didn’t have enough evidence yet, but it would make sense if the rarer essences only dropped from level five or above foes.

“Now we are going,” Chilly said belatedly to the penguins.

He stepped deeper into the tunnels, and it wasn’t too long before he was confronted with a choice. He could go left or straight.

A penguin leaned against the wall along the straight path.

Chilly smiled at the cuddly name.

“I really like undead ya’know?” it said thoughtfully.

“Why do you say that?” Chilly replied as he considered the choices. He had forgotten how many turns he had gone through by this point and was mostly hoping that the penguins were keeping track for him.

“Cheap labor, some don’t need to eat or sleep or breathe- it’s pretty helpful when you're trying to construct a Utopian society.” the penguin with the fuzzy name replied.

Chilly raised his eyebrows at that. “That is true. Back on earth something similar is happening with robots. The trick is to make sure that the robots or undead don’t kill us as they make our lives better.”

That Which Shall Hug You walked up to Chilly and opened its flippers wide and gave Chilly a warm hug. Chilly smiled and leaned down to reciprocate the gesture.

“And, well,” the cuddly penguin continued. Its voice slightly muffled as it clung tenaciously to Chilly’s leg. “If they try to eat your citizens you can just turn them into undead too! Problem solved.”

Chilly leaned back and frowned. “What kinda utopian society do you have up there?” Chilly cried incredulously.

The penguin ended the hug and gave its flippers a disappointed look. As if the penguin form had somehow diminished the quality of the hug. Chilly tried to comfort the penguin by patting it on the head, but it immediately vanished in a puff of smoke.

Chilly marked the wall with his staff and turned left. The path continued for a couple of meters before it abruptly turned left and ended. At the end of the dead end sat a crafting lectern.

Crafting Lectern

Level: 5

Change the level of an item to 5

Uses remaining: 1

“Huh,” Chilly said, as he began looking over his gear. His plate vest was the last piece of gear that was level two. Ideally, it would be best to find an Iron Plate Vest that had a high implicit armor mod. Something higher than 8. But realistically it didn’t super matter. Worst case he could come back here during the next dungeon reset.

Chilly pulled off his plate vest and a moment later he was the proud owner of a Magic level 5 Plate Vest. It did sort of make finding the level 5 plate vest from before a little redundant right now though.

Chilly still lugged it along regardless. Who knew when it would be useful.

Chilly backed out of the dead end and continued along. The path snaked along, making seeing ahead difficult, but eventually he came to another intersection. As was customary by now, Chilly marked the wall and turned left. The passageway narrowed before he found a level 5 Silver Strongbox sitting at the end.

Chilly peeked around the bend and found that like before, the path had created a small loop. He confirmed that there were no monsters and returned to the strongbox and triggered it. Smoke burst out and coalesced to form a knightly guardian with a mace and shield.

Several seconds later it collapsed and Chilly lamented that the guardians never dropped any essences. The chest however didn’t disappoint.

Black Steel Buckler

Rare

Offhand

iLevel: 5

11 fire resistance

25 life

1.61 life regeneration

4.5% increased armor

4 fire resistance

Chilly lifted out the shield and examined it curiously. It was round and small with a bulge in the center that would accommodate his fist when he held it. It reminded him of those old dueling bucklers from renaissance europe. The metal however, was definitely not something that was common back on earth. It felt denser than regular iron, and had a black sheen that wasn’t simply forge scale.

Chilly dropped his current shield to the ground and tried on the new one. It did increase his life marginally to 419, but reduced his armor. Really it was a wash as to whether the shield was better than his current one.

Suddenly he got an idea. He carefully placed the staff on the ground and tried to equip both his old Iron Kite Shield and his new Black Steel Buckler.

A slow grin spread across his face as the stats from both shields settled into him.

Chilly let out an exultant laugh as he pulled up his status

Gregory “Chilly” Morhuil

Level

Exp

Skill Points

Spec

6

0/6

0

Fire

Life

Life Regeneration

446/446

96.2

Armor

Fire

Cold

Lightning

Chaos

88

46.81%

19

15.97%

5

4.76%

0

0.00%

0

0.00%

Incinerate

Helmet:

Iron Barbute

Vitality

Body Armor:

Iron Plate Vest

Pious Path

Pants:

Iron Pants

???

Boots:

Iron Greaves

???

Gloves:

Hide Gauntlets

???

Jewelry:

Iron Ring

???

Mainhand:

Iron Kite Shield

???

Offhand:

Black Steel Buckler

Incinerate

Unleash a beam of fire that burns enemies that it touches. The beam dissipates after 5.5m

Deals 98.5 Fire damage per second

Ignites enemies for 34.5 Fire damage per second

Channeling

He did lose a bit of damage on Incinerate, but it was negligible compared to the massive amount of life the new shield granted. And life was life regeneration as the penguins had so eloquently put it all those days ago.

Chilly briefly wondered at the odd naming scheme of the items. Offhand implied not his main hand, but it did allow him to use two offhands. Presumably he would be allowed to use two weapons simultaneously for the most damage. The weapons in this world hadn’t impressed him yet, but maybe he just hadn’t found an impressive weapon yet.

Chilly shrugged, as he tied his old staff to his belt.

A penguin looked curiously at the staff hanging between Chilly’s legs and with barely restrained mirth waved at Chilly to get his attention.

“Hi there,” Chilly said, “Thanks for the chapter.”

“Spartan hoplites were definitely not slaves.” the penguin interjected knowledgeably.

Chilly frowned as he tried to process what the penguin said, “Hey! You can read minds? I thought that to myself!”

Srayan the penguin gave him a disparaging look as it continued, “They were free quasi nobles, who oppressed the helots in their territory. They worried a lot more about helot uprisings than they did about invasions, and this system was their main weakness.”

“Huh, then what are the slave warriors that I was thinking about?”

Another penguin butted in excitedly. “Age of empires has prepared me for this moment!”

“Eyo!” Chilly went to high five the penguin excitedly, “I was just going to say that. About all I know comes from that game.”

Srayan looked between Chilly and the other penguin. It mouthed ‘Age of Empires’ quietly to itself as if it couldn’t believe what it had just heard. Then it shrugged its diminutive shoulders.

“The only elite soldiers who were also slaves, that I can think of, were the Mamelukes.” Srayan replied.

“Mamluks? Aren’t those the camel riding guys who threw scimitars?” Chilly replied thoughtfully.

A muscle twitched under Srayan’s eye as he intentionally ignored the inane comment. “Obviously, there might have been ‘trash’ slave-soldiers used by many armies to soak up initial damage but only the Mamelukes were good enough to be considered a terrifying force in battle at their height.”

“That’s kinda like what happened to Kaladin in the Way of Kings.” Chilly whispered to Poidude quietly. The small penguin’s eyes glittered happily as it nodded emphatically.

“They were one of the few forces that defeated Mongol Orta in battle.” continued the Srayan. It seemed determined to ignore the illiteracy that the two were displaying.

“What’s an Orta?” the other penguin asked innocently. Chilly nodded along as he too had never heard of the term.

“The mongol horde?” Srayan’s eyes narrowed at the two.

“Ahh!” the penguin and Chilly said in unison. “They’re the dudes who had the Mangudai right?”

Srayan slumped as all life seemed to leave him at the injustice.

Chilly laughed heartily, as he attempted to pat the penguin on the back. “I’m just messing with you. Though that doesn’t answer the original question. Why did I remember slave soldiers being the answer to the riddle earlier?”

Srayan seemed to gain just a bit of life as he looked at Chilly wanly. “The Mamelukes fought for Arab civilisations, a similar elite soldier cadre called Janissaries fought for the Ottoman Turks, who seem to have copied the idea from the earlier Arab groups.”

“The Janissaries! Of course!” Poidude the penguin cried. “Gunpowder units.”

Chilly snapped his fingers several times, “No, I’m pretty sure the slaves I’m remembering were Roman or Greek or something. Don’t give me that look Srayan, the Greeks were basically the same thing as the Romans.”

Srayan’s mouth opened and closed soundlessly several times. Chilly thought that the penguin was suffering the poor connection issues that seemed to plague Mr. Xenix but then Srayan just fell over backwards in a dead faint.

“What’d I say?” Chilly asked Poidude. The other penguin shuffled over to inspect the other penguin curiously, then shrugged at Chilly.

“Huh,” Chilly said, “Should you...you know, take their sword or something so that they go back?”

Poidude kicked Realm Walker out of Srayan’s flipper and the other penguin vanished in a puff of smoke.

“He is in a better place now,” Chilly said solemnly.

The other penguin nodded along, before it abruptly jumped up into the air and pointed forwards with its sword.

“Sure, let’s keep exploring.” Chilly replied as he got up, “It's going to keep bugging me. Maybe it was the gladiators? Were those slaves? Bloody hell, I miss google.”