To my mind, the most sensible thing to do when faced with an offer to sacrifice Attributes — was not to.

As the thought crossed my mind an oppressive feeling came over me, strongly enough to make me stagger to the nearest wall, assaulted by nausea. I had the strange and unpleasant sensation of not having enough room inside my own skull, as I tried and failed to draw breath.

When the oppressive feeling finally abated I gasped for air. Apparently, ignoring the choices the Order gave was not an option.

I stayed against the wall as I considered my alternatives, clearly they were all bad.

On a whim I stretched my mind towards the Golem, feeling for its presence. It still felt so small and frail, a flickering pinprick in a sea of darkness, so unlike its solid physical form. With a frustrated sigh, I made my choice.

The pain hit me hard enough that for a moment everything went dark, thankfully I still had the nearby support to keep me on my feet. I blinked fervently to chase away the spots that danced across my returning vision, to little avail.

You have lost one Intelligence!

Your Golem has gained four Intelligence!

Sentience, rank 2

The second step of awareness.

Effect: The ability to deduce basic concepts. Limited memory and perception. Basic idea of self.

I was almost glad for the distraction the Order provided from the pain, as I took in the information before me. I wondered if there was a difference in the quality of Attributes, I had lost one but the Golem had gained four.

I recalled that according to 'The Balance of Attributes' there might be something to that idea. On the other hand the Scribe which I had bought my spells from afterward had scoffed at what was written, calling the author an idiot. Now I had just observed an interaction that gave credence to what the book had stated, but it had clearly and obviously been wrong about spell structures, where the Scribe had been in the right.

Putting the question of Attributes aside I frowned at the Sentience Trait. I thought it rather obvious that the Golem had achieved what this Trait described some time ago. But perhaps there was a question of degrees to qualify for a Trait, rather than a simple has or has not. That raised a new and interesting question though: where was the line between what people achieved on their own and the Traits, Attributes, and Abilities the Order provided?

Was the Order, at least in part, taking credit for things that happened naturally?

Considering my recent experiences I decided that this might not be the most constructive or safe line of thinking.

"... doing? What is wrong! Why are you not answering? Where are you hurt?! I should have helped! This is all my fault!"

Eric was performing a rather ridiculous dance around where I leaned against the wall, his rapid fire words coming in a quiet but high-pitched voice. No doubt he was loathe to attract the attention of any other patrols while I was so out of it.

"I am fine, mostly." I did not sound fine, but trying was surely half the battle.

Eric nodded doubtfully, with another strange expression momentarily flitting across his face, before he imperiously pointed towards the corner before us and snapped his fingers.

A disgusting wet squelch preceded Eric's summoned beetle as it left the room with the rats, its maw still churning around pieces of flesh as it skittered forward to disappear around the corner. Eric followed, grumbling things under his breath I could not quite make out, or if he said what I thought I heard, his grasp on anatomy was sorely lacking.

My Golem strode after Eric and the beetle, leaving smeared red footprints behind. With a slight shudder in disgust I navigated past the dead rats and followed, wondering at the seeming lack of reaction the Golem had displayed at its increased Intelligence and Trait rank.

Around the corner lay another hallway akin to the one before, fading into gloomy darkness in the distance.

I looked upward with interest, the tenth floor had been uniformly lit, with hardly even any shadows. This was not so here, though I had not taken note of it before. It seemed as if the light was centered on us but fell off in the distance. What might be the purpose of such a thing? Was there necessarily one? How much direct control did the Order have over Dungeons? How did they differ from the rest of the world? So many questions.

Eric drew my attention by opening a new door, and letting the beetle scurry through. It seemed as if the bug could manage quite well on its own. As I was in no hurry to let my Golem gain more levels, I held back and let the critter deal with the room.

Putting the sounds of fighting aside, I resumed my study of the Golem. I was not sure what I was looking for nor could I spot anything of note. It seemed just as before, whatever that meant. It was not as if its behavior had been constant or predictable to begin with, how would I know what was due to the change in Trait and Intelligence? If anything, it seemed vigilant, which might be something.

Eric came out of the room with both arms in the air, shouting something about hairy genitals on rodents. I rubbed my forehead and wondered if the levels I would get out of this were worth his presence. But then again, if I could delay the Golem from gaining levels and putting me through the pain that had still not faded completely, perhaps he did have value.

Eric stopped running and grabbed his head, freezing in mid-motion, only his eyes twitching slightly as I could hear a loud splat from the room he had just vacated.

I approached him, trying to ascertain what was wrong. I could not spot any injuries and so I had no idea what to do with him. Deciding instead to investigate the noise, I moved past him to look inside the room. What I found was much like the first room; a gory mess of rat corpses, though sans the bug.

I moved back with a sigh, sat down, and fished another apple out of my Adventurer's Satchel. The Golem joined me against the wall as we waited to see what would happen with Eric and I took the time to study him further.

He stood close to my height, putting him at about a meter and a half, with a satchel slung over one shoulder. He wore what looked to be a nightshirt which was torn, dirty, and bloody. While his feet were bare, he thankfully had pants on, made of some kind of leather and of considerably better quality and condition than the shirt. His skin was a strange gray color, not only different in pigmentation but its texture also appeared quite inhuman. His eyes were a bit too large for his face, with both the iris and sclera being a deep almost luminescent red, while the face in question was oddly asymmetrical. His teeth left some to be desired, poking out from between partially closed lips, standing crooked and yellowed.

All in all, he was ugly.

It took a few minutes, but he eventually drew a gasping breath, blinking wide eyes at me, "What is Perfection?"

**

It took quite some time to go over what I knew of Attributes, of which Eric had received two unallocated, and then for him to tell me of his Abilities. While his Drain Life might be powerful someday, for now it was only a liability. But it made me curious what exactly Life was in this context, as we both lacked that in our Status.

I suggested he would be best served by increasing his Intelligence so that he could maintain his Blood Beetle for longer, as his Mana regeneration would be almost as high as its upkeep at thirteen and fifteen respectively.

Apparently he had received Mental Focus when he advanced to level two, though its Attribute distribution with one Wisdom, two Willpower, and three Intelligence appeared slightly different from my own. Though, I had never seen the initial state of the Trait so perhaps I was mistaken.

I did my best to keep my Golem away from the fighting as we moved through the floor, with partial success. My plan only failed once, when another patrol came upon us as Eric was resting and regaining his Mana. My Golem all but singlehandedly pulped the attackers, gaining 90 Experience.

We continued, Eric's bug clearing several rooms until we eventually reached a set of double doors at the end of a hallway. It appeared we had reached the final room of this floor.

Eric was quite hesitant to challenge the floor guardian, preferring to stay and clear more rooms.

"We need to move down further, working our way towards the fourth floor," I declared firmly, hoping to cut the debate short.

While it might be true that Eric would gain enough Experience to make it worth it for him to stay on the first floor longer, it was also true that he had been doing most of the fighting alone. We should have no difficulties going deeper if we worked together, and hopefully it would not take me hundreds of encounters to gain a level then.

The only way I could think of to manage the downside of my Golem was to gain levels myself, but I might have to accept that I would lose another eight or nine Attributes before we reached an equilibrium. I winced at the thought of the pain that would entail, unfortunately I had no ideas on how to avoid that horrible experience, but at least I might offset the lost Attributes.

Ignoring Eric's further spluttering I opened the doors to see an empty room, at the far end of which stood an archway with stairs leading deeper.

"This is a trap." I nodded slowly at Eric's comment as he moved up aside me.

As if on cue the both of us leaned into the room and looked up.

An enormous web spanned across the room, threads as thick as a finger, and on the far side in a corner I could see and abundance of red eyes.

A giant spider. Wonderful.

I fished out my remaining Stones of Fire Burst, as Eric snapped his finger and the Blood Beetle scuttled past us and into the room.

In response, the giant spider began to move at a deliberate pace, seemingly focused on me and Eric and ignoring the bug. This was confirmed as when it reached a point above the Blood Beetle it kept moving.

Deciding that I wanted to limit the spiders ability to get to us I threw one of the enchanted stones upwards and activated it, setting the nearest part of the web on fire.

I had expected the fire to spread, but other than the part of the web immediately above us shriveling up and falling to the floor, nothing much happened and the flames soon petered out. It did have more of an effect on the spider though, as it began to rush across its web.

As it closed in I kept judging the distance, the web was not very high up and so I should be able to use the Stones of Fire Burst before long.

Once I judged it near enough I threw my remaining two Stones of Fire Burst as hard as I could and then delayed activating them for as long as I dared, to achieve as much of a reach as possible.

One of the spells hit the web under the spider, while the other hit its head, covering its eyes in writhing flames.

In the end it was the spell that missed the spider that proved to be the most effective, as the burning web underneath it gave way, causing it to slam to the ground.

I fished out a handful of the Copper coins of Ice Lance and used them, causing five jagged shards to rush through the air towards the sprawled monstrosity.

All of my attacks sank deep into the creatures flesh, and I could see and hear the Blood Beetle clamp down on the spider from behind, its maw tearing through flesh.

The floor guardian twitched its legs weakly before perishing with a final shudder. It might have been wasteful to use five of the coins against a spider that could not have been more than level three or four, despite its size. I was somewhat worried at my finite resources, as we had three whole floors left to go.

Eric walked slowly into the room, before spinning to face me, a strange expression on his face.

"That was awesome!"