I shook my head at Eric as he began yet another of his antics, moving across the room in a strange shuffle, arms waving over his head. Wherever he had come from, that place must be odd indeed, if he was representative of its people.

I moved after him, past the feasting Blood Beetle, and further into the room. While this current floor was no great danger, especially at this point, it was undoubtedly still wiser to move down to the safe room to rest, rather than stay here and risk an unnecessary patrol.

A flash of light made me jump in surprise, a hand going for my enchantments while Eric let out a loud birdlike squeak. The light soon receded leaving two strange cylindrical enclosures behind, each reaching from floor to ceiling and spanning the width of my shoulders.

I moved closer carefully, while the wiser idea might be to just move past and leave this floor, I was far too curious to do so.

I found that on each of the enclosures there was a symbol at about head height. They were not anything I had seen before, but on closer inspection they appeared somewhat similar to heraldry.

The one on the left was a depiction of odd gray flames, or mayhap some kind of strange appendages, giving a sense of a writhing mass. This was set against a black triangle on top of a dark red rectangle.

The other had several books in a pile, each depicted with painstaking detail. There were also several scrolls, some leaning against the pile, while others lay haphazardly around it. On top of the pile of books stood a strange creature. Its body was a large eyeball, tilted slightly as if in confusion, with two long spindly legs holding it up. All of this was set on a circular black field, against a white oval.

I stepped back and looked from one depiction to the other. The strange flames felt somehow sinister, whereas the legged eyeball struck me as, for lack of a better word, cute. I stared back in surprise at the eye, had it just blinked?

I leaned in closer to it, but I did not get very far before the whole pillar shattered into flickering lights, falling to the ground as colorful snow, and slowly fading away as it reached the floor. Left behind was a single stack of what appeared to be coins, reaching about a meter in height.

You have defeated a Dungeon Guardian! You gain 7 Experience!

You have defeated the first floor of the Deep! Collect your reward!

I shook my head at the low Experience rewarded, as I took in the stacked coins. Picking up the top one, I noted that it was made out of bronze. Further, it lacked many of the features that would, to my mind, qualify it as a coin. It was quite thick, and large enough to cover the palm of my hand, it was also completely smooth, with neither design nor flaw.

I tossed the disk from hand to hand, thinking. It seemed as if I had just been awarded a solution to my resource problem, at least in part. As this was a material I had never used before, I could expect a lot of failures when learning to enchant it. I crouched down and began to count the disks, and soon found that there were fifty of them in the stack.

I figured that the best idea now was to move down to the safe room and get to enchanting. I looked up to see Eric bouncing around the room with a robe on, and the second light cylinder was missing, leading me to conclude that Eric had been rewarded as well.

It was sadly quite clear that I could not put all the disks in the satchel I had my enchantments in without making a complete mess of things. With some curiosity I dropped a disk into the Adventurer's Satchel and watched it pass the rim to bounce off a tiny apple, with seemingly no effect. As nothing unforeseen had occurred I began to swiftly stack disks into the Adventurer's Satchel, keeping them away from the miniaturized food as best I could manage.

The pile of coins ended up being surprisingly small, and I experimentally lifted the satchel, and could not notice any real change to its weight. It was in fact considerably lighter than the other I wore.

I looked around for the Golem, finding it still at the entrance to the room. Its posture, while still as straight and upright as ever, was somewhat strange. If the idea had not been rather absurd I would have thought the Golem was sulking. I shook my head, thankfully it had not been awarded any Experience in the previous fight, which in and of itself might be worth the use of the Copper coins of Ice Lance.

I glanced over at Eric and his antics. Seeing him half undressed, I turned for the archway to the second floor. I shook my head, wishing I could unsee what I had just seen.

As I begun to descend, my Golem caught up to me and we strode abreast down the stairs. Judging by the shuffling and grumbling from behind us, Eric was doing his best to follow, with at least moderate success.

You have entered the second floor of the Deep!

The safe room on the second floor looked very different from the first, but once again the transition from one floor to the other had eluded me.

I took in the decently sized cave we descended into, the wall to our right was partially missing, showing water flowing from above to be lost somewhere far below. The floor of the room was completely smooth, making a sharp contrast to the jagged and uneven walls and ceiling. The behavior of the light had once more changed and was now much dimmer, giving just barely enough light to see the whole room. The door to our left appeared to be solid metal, making yet another contrast.

I turned to watch the stairs, while I expected them to match the new setting, I still wanted to confirm. True to my expectations, behind me rose a stone stairway with smooth steps going upward, framed by uneven stone walls. There were occasional rivulets of water running down the walls. Curiously though, there was no water flowing down the stairs, making me wonder where the water went, as there were no visible gaps between the uneven walls and the stairs.

A throbbing began at my temples as I tried to make sense of what I was seeing. There was something wrong in what was before me, but I could not put my finger on what it was.

It was not until the Golem joined me in staring up the stairs that I pulled myself away from the strange phenomenon. There was something about the transitioning between floors that kept nagging at me, I felt as if there was something obvious I was missing.

Turning back to the safe room, I saw that Eric had apparently moved past me when I was lost in my contemplation. Currently he was leaning out through the missing part of the wall, giving off short and loud shouts that echoed strangely down into cavernous depths. Shaking my head I moved to the side, sat down, and began to bring out the bronze disks.

I hesitated before I began enchanting. While it was true that I wanted to get as many useful enchantments as possible out of the disks I had, I was not quite sure how to go about that. As it seemed I was quite ignorant on this matter, I finally decided to use Ice Lance.

I failed my enchantments eight times in a row, making me quite frustrated. Closing my eyes and breathing slowly, I thought carefully on what had gone wrong. Keeping my points of failure in mind, I tried once more, and was finally successful.

Bronze disk of Ice Lance

Throws a sharp lance of ice at a target.

Damage: 50

Quality: Masterwork

You have made a discovery!

You have discovered how to create a Bronze disk of Ice Lance !

Experience gained: 198

Congratulations! You have advanced the Skill: Enchanting!

The result was better than I had expected and the increase in skill was welcome.

Enchanting, tier 2

You have begun to be able to strengthen your enchantments.

Skill: 6/10

Effect: 2% increase to enchantment strength per skill level.

The damage the Bronze disk of Ice Lance did was somewhat of a surprise. While copper had been quite a bit better than iron, having bronze be an increase of the same magnitude was interesting. I had no idea what might be the cause, so far I did not even have a theory on what materials might be better than others. Metals seemed to be better than stone, which in turn was better than acorns.

Considering the process of enchanting though, it seemed quite clear that material was of far more importance than the spell used. The difficulty of enchanting dropped as my understanding of the material improved, which was also indicated by the Experience reward disappearing. Perhaps then, I should focus even less on the structure and more on the material, and the wave-like shape the Mana took.

I created the spell structure for Ice Lance, holding it as if I was beginning to cast a spell. I could feel something from the spell structure, while it was not quite reaching out, there was a clear sense of it being incomplete. This was the point at which I would flood the structure with Mana in order to finish casting the spell; instead I tried to help the structure along, and connect it to the bronze disk. Rather than succeeding, the disk exploded into white dust.

Frowning I began anew, but instead of helping the structure connect, I tried to draw on the bronze disk, forcing it to meet the spell structure, rather than the other way around. There was a sense of resonance, before the spell structure snapped into place and the enchantment stabilized.

Bronze disk of Ice Lance

Throws a sharp lance of ice at a target.

Damage: 51

Quality: Masterwork

You have created a Bronze disk of Ice Lance!

Experience gained: 18

Congratulations! You have advanced the Skill: Enchanting!

Congratulations! You have advanced the Skill: Enchanting!

The dual skill increase made it clear I was on to something here, it also gave me reason to think that my ideas about casting were in fact correct. It did indeed seem to be the case that when I casted a spell I was enchanting without a material.

So in a way it was not that my spells were many times more expensive compared to Mages and Clerics, it was that I replaced the access to a material with additional Mana. Now I wanted to know why that increased the cost to five times, was that just an arbitrary number? I did not know the answer, but it made me wonder if the cost of a spell cast by a Mage had something to do with the size of a spell structure. With a shrug I put this line of questioning aside, as something not even remotely relevant.

I had 39 more disks left, and the best idea was probably to make most of them into Ice Lance enchants. I still had a few Copper beads of Acid Splash and a fair few Iron beads of Minor Shield and Heal. It was also dubious if Minor Shield and Minor Heal would benefit much from being enchanted on bronze.

After another eleven disks, I had succeeded twice, and the last of those gave another skill increase. While I could make successful enchantments without it, it seemed as if the skill improvements were tied to my ability to affect the resonance between a spell structure and a material.

I still had another twenty-eight disks remaining and wondered if I could complete the Enchanting skill once more before I ran out. I was quite curious what would happen when I did.

After another sixteen failures and four successes, I found out.

Congratulations! You have completed the Skill: Enchanting!

Congratulations! You have advanced the tier of the Skill: Enchanting!

Congratulations! You have advanced the tier of the Ability: Enchant!

Congratulations! You have been awarded a level!

Congratulations! You have advanced to level 11!

You have unallocated Attributes!

Enchant, rank 2

You can enchant objects with the Magic you know. Partial conversion is possible.

Cost: Variable.

Cast Time: Variable, Intentional

Range: Touch

Upkeep: Variable

Enchanting, tier 3

Your conversion efficiency is increased.

Skill: 1/20

Effect: 1.5% increase to enchantment conversion effect per skill level.

I reeled from the onslaught of information as I tried to parse it. I had gained a level in all of that, but I had not received any Experience.

Status.

Ewynne

Age: 18

Level: 11

Experience: 1564/12000

Race: Aberration

Class: Enchantress

Strength: 4

Dexterity: 10

Agility: 8

Constitution: 20

Endurance: 8

Intelligence: 21

Wisdom: 19

Willpower: 24

Perfection: 14

Charisma: 12

Health: 298/320

Mana: 471/640 (13/minute)

Stamina: 80/80 (28/minute)

Unallocated Attributes: 4

As I retained my Experience, I concluded that I had been granted a whole level for some reason. This had not happened when I advanced the tier my skill the last time, so perhaps it was due to the increase in Ability rank. Further, I had gained four Attributes instead of the three I had received every level so far. Did that have anything to do with my Golem perhaps, or was it something else?

There was something strange here I could not put my finger on.

"What did you mean by that?" I was startled out of my musings as Eric spoke, both he and my Golem sat crouched, looking at me.

"Mean by what?" I wondered if I had been distracted enough to speak out loud, an idea that made me more than a bit uncomfortable.

"You said, 'we agree to not tell an untruth'," Eric replied with an expression that seemed to be worried, which I was not quite sure how to react to. I had no memory of saying anything like what he claimed, so I decided to just shrug it off. I needed to allocate my Attributes, and understand my new Skill and Ability, but Eric interrupted me once again.

"Wait, before you start making cake frosting out of bronze again, you gotta see this!" Seeing that he had my attention, Eric drew a knife and slashed down the arm of his robe, causing a multitude of blue sparks to fly away from the impacted area. The blade was kept from touching skin or robe by swirls of Mana, which flowed out in intricate patterns as the blade came down.

"Look! My robe has a shield on it!"

I looked at where the knife had failed to make impact and studied how the swirls of Mana moved within the robe. It was all contained and not interacting with the ambient Mana in any way, making me shake my head. "You do realize it does not recharge, yes?"

Eric froze and stared down at his robe for a moment, before looking back at me, eyes wide, "Crap?"