Chilly walked into the last room of the Mausoleum only to find the penguins were still arrayed inside. They appeared to have formed two camps. One around NickXenix, and the other around Quaesitor Mortem. The two who were still arguing with each other.
The moment he stepped beyond the threshold, NickXenix rushed over to him.
“Thanks for the chapter! Hello lost traveler. I am NickXenix, Admirer Of Starfire.”
“Hey there, I thought you were the Kobold Librarian?” Chilly replied.
“Would you like to know about our lord and saviour, Aurelion Sol, The Star Forger?”
“Well, uhm...” Chilly instinctively raised his hands palm up from years of dodging religious proselytizers at his university.
“We invite you to the greatest and biggest Starfire fireworks party spanning all of Runeterra. The event starts at Targon.” NickXenix looked eagerly up to him, practically begging him to say yes.
“Fireworks?” Chilly cocked his head in confusion. “Wait a second...where have I heard those names before?”
Quaesitor Mortem pushed its way out from the other penguins with a cross expression. “Liar! You and I very well know that the Star Forger doesn't let anybody near them. Besides, Runeterra was removed from the Atlas decades ago precisely because of beings like Sol.”
Chilly glanced between the two penguins in consternation. It seemed like they were talking about...an event of some sort. Or a god. It was kind of hard to follow the conversation. If it was an event, then there didn’t seem to be a way for him to get to it. Wherever it was. Plus fireworks weren’t really his jam.
Making an effort not to disturb the penguins, he sidled around the arguing duo and made his way to the large double doors.
“I’m just gonna...” Chilly gestured to the double doors awkwardly. “try and clear out the Undead Parish...if y’all don’t have any suggestions?”
The penguins continued to argue among themselves with various bystanders cheering the dynamic duo on with fervor. Chilly noticed a single small penguin sitting by his side looking up at him then at the door then back at him eagerly.
Chilly smiled. “Alright, I’m going in. Wish me luck.”
The penguin hopped up and down in excitement. Then adopted a warlike expression and jabbed Realm Walker at the double doors.
Cute.
Chilly chuckled and grabbed the door handle. With a grunt, he leaned back and strained. The door slowly swung outwards, dragging against the ground and making a rough grinding sound. He paused when the door had opened just enough to let him pass.
Just as he stopped pulling, a dark realization came to him. If the dungeon reset while he was on the other side, then the two Weeping Angel statues would prevent the door from opening from the other side.
Chilly pushed away the thought and glanced once more at the penguins. They were still conversing extensively among themselves, so he took a deep breath and rushed through the open door.
Flechettes whizzed through the air and slammed into his exposed body. Chilly grunted but continued on. He raced into the center of the first walkway and in a snap decision decided to turn left.
Chilly skidded to the left. The two skeleton minions from before were gone, so he had the walkway to himself.
His feet pounded over the stone floor as he struggled to keep his balance from the constant barrage of needle like projectiles slamming into him from the right.
Chilly jumped over a section of floor which had fallen into the bottomless abyss just as a heavy force slammed into him from the right.
Chilly spun with the momentum of the massive dart, but somehow managed to keep his feet under him. He ducked his head as another wave of flechettes raced towards him-
-but still managed to get nailed by two particularly industrious darts.
Chilly leapt through the open archway and rolled to his feet to find himself in a medium sized square room.
“Safe!” He crowed, just as he noticed two ghouls swiveling in place to stare at him. “Uh, oh.”
Putrid Ghoul
Level: 2
Life: 162
Armor
Fire Resistance
Cold Resistance
Lightning Resistance
Chaos Resistance
31
2
3
2
1
Putrid Ghoul
Level: 3
Life: 210
Armor
Fire Resistance
Cold Resistance
Lightning Resistance
Chaos Resistance
37
6
9
8
2
Chilly raced along the edge of the room, and leapt over an ornate chest-The ghouls charged silently. Their dessicated feet clicking unpleasantly on the cold stone floor.
Chilly immediately dodged to the left, trying to buy time for his life regeneration to kick in.
Silver Strongbox
----------------------------------------
ilevel: 4
-that was innocently sitting near the back of the room. The ghouls shambled after him.
Despite their near dead appearance they were incredibly fast. Chilly reached the far corner of the room only to find himself cornered. Judging that his life had recovered sufficiently, Chilly turned and began channeling Incinerate.
Fire washed over the two rabid ghouls. Licking over their dead flesh and turning their limited clothes to cinders.
The ghouls leapt at him with claws extended, crashing into him and roughly shoving him against the stone wall.
Chilly grunted, and did his best to interpose his shield between himself and the ghouls. It didn’t do anything tangible but the thought was what counted. The level two ghoul smoldered under the fires of Incinerate. Parts of its skin igniting and falling to the floor in a beautiful display of embers.
The ghouls simultaneously reared back and distended their grotesque jaws. Then they lunged forwards and impaled Chilly on a half dozen overly long teeth.
Chilly gurgled as he felt one of the teeth rip through his throat and scrape against the back of his spine. Wide eyed and trembling he aimed Incinerate at the ghoul’s skulls. The first ghoul succumbed to the fire, as its skull seemed to melt from within. Purple miasma erupted from its corpse bathing both Chilly and the other ghoul in the foul air.
With the level two ghouls' teeth still jammed in his chest, Chilly desperately shoved the level three ghoul off of him, only to get a swipe to the face.
Chilly retargeted Incinerate onto the level three ghoul. Fire flowed around the undead and chewed hungrily on its exposed flesh. Skin burned and bones cracked as the ghoul stumbled back, only for its legs to give out after a step. It collapsed to the floor where its remains smoldered darkly. A wave of purple miasma erupted from its dead corpse.
Chilly hyperventilated as adrenaline coursed through his veins. He hobbled out of the desecrated ground and hid against the far corner of the room. Now that the battle was over, it had suddenly become extremely quiet.
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Chilly eyed the door to the room and the ornamental treasure chest with equal levels of suspicion. Thoughts of mimics and hordes of skeletons pouring through the gap terrorized his mind as he waited in tense horror for his lifepool to recover.
The silence was suddenly disturbed by an ominous chanting. Deep and guttural. The words caused goosebumps to erupt all over his skin. Booming and echoing as if the sound came from a large speaker. His hairs stood on end as alien speech resounded through the Undead Parish.
A pulse of power flooded through the door. Purple energy crackled through the room in a wave. Chilly hunkered down but didn’t actually think that it would hurt him. None of the waves that he had encountered up until now had hurt him.
He was correct. The energy flooded into the room and seemed to be drawn to the two dead ghouls. Chilly watched in horror as their remains absorbed the fallow energy.
The ash twitched to life, reconstituting and merging to form bones and flesh.
Eyes wide, Chilly immediately stumbled out of his corner and channeled Incinerate at the rising ghouls. Fire cascaded over the rising undead. Black flesh regained its dull grey color before immediately charring and glowing orange-white under the barrage of flame.
Three seconds later two waves of purple miasma flooded the room, filling it to the brim. Luckily, Chilly had recovered to full, and had long since grown beyond the paltry degeneration of desecrated ground.
Chilly immediately rushed to the door but saw no undead racing to his position. The two undead that he had kited into the Mausoleum hadn’t miraculously appeared and neither were the rest of the skeletons running towards him.
His theory on their level of aggression seemed to be incorrect.
Chilly glanced back at the two piles of ashes. He needed to get the remains away from here, else they come back to haunt him. Either in the Mausoleum, or if his hunch was correct, he could chuck them down into the void.
Chilly waited patiently for the desecrated ground to fade. He scanned the main chamber through his doorway intently. Periodically he dodged an errant flechette as he tried to figure out the attack patterns for the rest of the undead in the area.
The Bone Turrets would fire three flechettes rapidly before pausing briefly then repeating. They didn’t move, or scan the room. Focusing entirely on him and his hiding spot in the corner. They could rotate slightly, as evidenced by the fact that they could hit him in front of the Mausoleum’s doors and in the corner. However their physical frame made it look like they couldn’t rotate much. It was possible that approaching a turret from behind would result in a trivial kill.
The skeleton warriors on the other hand were much less interesting. They stood there and stared menacingly at Chilly, nothing else. They were clearly aware that he was there, and even more clearly intent on his expeditious destruction. Somehow though, they were incapable of actually navigating towards him to achieve their hearts desire.
The Bone Mage at the back of the Undead Parish was most interesting. He sat on his throne, and calmly observed his subjects. Every once in a while he would raise a bony hand and a thick spike of bone would materialize above it. A moment later it would launch towards Chilly’s hiding spot. Chilly always ducked back into the room whenever this happened in order to avoid the projectile.
That wasn’t all the Bone Mage did however. Just as the desecrated ground began to fade, the Bone Mage stood up from its chair. It grabbed a staff leaning against the side of its throne, which Chilly immediately tried to identify.
Bone Mage
Level: 4
Disappointed, Chilly watched the Bone Mage lift the not-an-item staff high into the air and begin an accursed - if familiar - chant. Purple energy flowed along the length of the shaft and collected into a dense sphere at its tip. A second later a wave of purple energy blasted across the room, visibly revitalizing the existing undead.
Chilly turned towards the two Putrid Ghouls that were slowly reconstituting and bathed them in fire. The recovery time for the undead took several long seconds. More than enough to completely destroy a level two or three undead.
Once more two waves of purple miasma flooded the chamber.
It seemed that he had found the source of the undead’s reanimation.
He walked over to the piles of ash, and kneeled beside them with a sigh.
“Where's a dustpan when you need it...” Chilly grimaced.
Suddenly a cowbell rang brightly and clearly. Chilly spun around but relaxed when he saw NickXenix walk into the room. The penguin’s Realm Walker had transformed into a bell which the penguin was shaking vigorously above its head.
“Come one, come all to the greatest Starfire party of the century! Front seats reserved only for Dragons! Premium seats available for Celestials!”
Chilly cautiously watched the penguin make a round of the room before it exited in a puff of smoke.
Chilly turned towards a quiet penguin at his side. “You think I could borrow Realm Walker for a second?”
The penguin looked mortified, and sprinted out of the room in a panic.
“Just...need a dustpan! Chilly called after it, then sighed. His breath caused the purple miasma of desecrated ground to swirl hypnotically.
Without thinking too hard about what he was doing, Chilly grabbed two handfuls of dead ghoul and made his way to the door. He peeked outside-
-only to turn his head to the side as a flechette glanced off his helmet.
He quickly ran out of the safety of the side room and rushed to the side of the walkway. Two more flechettes whizzed through the air.
An endless dark void greeted him, as he tossed the two handfuls of dust down into its hungry depths.
Chilly grunted as a massive missile made of bone smashed into his stomach and knocked him onto his ass.
Falling to his back only made it easier for further darts to find their mark.
Chilly stumbled to his feet and covered his head as he raced back to the safety of the side room.
Purple miasma enveloped him, cutting his regeneration with a sickening sensation. He looked at the ever so slightly diminished piles of ash.
“One down, a hundred to go?” Chilly sighed.
----------------------------------------
Turned out it only took four trips to prevent the ghoul’s reanimation. In between waiting for his life to regenerate Chilly kicked the dust to the doorway. There he could burn down the ghouls while leaving a space in the rear of the room free of the desecrated ground that they spawned. After several trips into the constant barrage of bone needles, the wave of purple energy that the Bone Mage released no longer reanimated the ghouls. Their remains staying lifeless under the unearthly power.
Clearly the spell required that the undead not be too separated from the rest of its remains. Or perhaps there was a limit to the number of reanimations a single corpse could endure. Whatever the case, Chilly was done touching the ash.
Next time, he would bring a helmet or something to carry the ash.
There was one other thing that he had been ignoring up until now. Busy as he was with the constantly reanimating ghouls, Chilly had elected to avoid thinking too hard about the ornate chest sitting primly at the back of the room.
Too many memories of mimics and other such monsters filled his psyche every time he even considered opening the chest. Still, chests contained loot. More specifically armor. Perhaps even jewelry. All things that he desperately needed.
Chilly identified the chest again.
Silver Strongbox
----------------------------------------
ilevel: 4
It didn’t say mimic. And it didn’t give any other indications that it was actually a monster.
Cautiously, Chilly approached. He experimentally poked the strongbox with his short staff.
Nothing happened.
Reassured that the chest probably wasn’t alive, he carefully went to lift the lid of the box. THe moment he touched its surface, hidden locks clicked shut as silver smoke billowed out of invisible holes in the chest. Chilly immediately covered his mouth and backed up as far as he could go.
He flared Incinerate as a reflex, but neither the chest nor the smoke seemed to react to the skill. The silver smoke flowed into a ball in front of the chest. It began to swirl dramatically spinning faster and faster all the while growing taller until it touched the ceiling.
Abruptly, the silver smoke was pulled inwards in a flash, coalescing to form a silver ghostly humanoid in full plate armor and a warhammer held loosely in its right hand.
Silver Strongbox Guardian
Level: 4
The guardian turned to Chilly. Its body already wreathed in fires of Incinerate. With a roar, it raised its warhammer and leapt. Chilly tried to dodge, but the ghostly apparition moved far faster than it should have. The warhammer slammed into Chilly’s clavicle with a resounding clang.
Chilly fell backwards onto his ass. His head bounced against the stone floor only vaguely protected by his helmet, as he desperately maintained Incinerate trained on the level four ghost.
The ghost stomped heavily onto Chilly’s chest, preventing him from moving. Then it raised its warhammer high above its head and brought it down viscously onto Chilly’s skull.
GONG
Stars whirled around his vision as his helmet rang like a bell.
GONG
Chilly vaguely saw bits of ghostly matter disintegrate as Incinerate washed over and through the ghost.
GONG
“Tickets! Tickets! Fifty percent off! One time offer!” a penguin's voice filtered hazily through the ringing in his ears.
GONG
The weight on his chest suddenly dissipated causing him to flop to the side and curl up into a tight ball.
You have slain a level 4 Silver Strongbox Guardian!
----------------------------------------
You receive 1 experience!
The pain rapidly faded into the background. His regeneration rapidly took care of the beat down that he had just been through.
Several seconds later Chilly groggily sat up. The ghost was gone, leaving the room empty except for several idling penguins. He had won.
A solid click sounded from the strongbox in the corner. It drew his gaze and he watched the lid slowly creak open. A pale silver light emanating from the inside.
A slow grin lit up Chilly’s face as he scrambled to his feet. Briefly he paused, patting himself down to make sure he wasn’t missing any body parts. Then he walked over to the chest. His grin solidified as no signs of dizziness manifested.
Amidst the incandescent silver light that the chest was emitting sat an iron helmet with a pale yellow outline.
Iron Barbute
Rare
Helmet
iLevel: 4
9 armor
19 life
10 armor
1.1 life regeneration
6 shock resistance
Chilly immediately pulled off his own helmet, and stuck the new rare helmet onto his head. He grinned at his stats, then smiled at his spare helmet.
“Eyy! I got a bucket for the undead ash now!”
Gregory “Chilly” Morhuil
Level
Exp
Skill Points
Spec
4
1/4
2
Fire
Life
Life Regeneration
218/218
17.46
Armor
Fire
Cold
Lightning
Chaos
88
46.81%
0
0.00%
0
0.00%
0
0.00%
0
0.00%
Incinerate
Helmet:
Iron Barbute
Vitality
Body Armor:
Iron Plate Vest
Summon Bone Giant
Pants:
Iron Pants
Mass Revive Undead
Boots:
Iron Greaves
???
Gloves:
Iron Gauntlets
???
Jewelry:
???
Mainhand:
Skull of the Bone Giant
???
Offhand:
Iron Kite Shield