Fuck, I couldn't just stand around and let these people get attacked by wolves, could I? What kind of person would that make me? One of them was just a kid. I started making my way closer to their camp, being careful not to let them see me. The boy had woken up from the howls and had moved up next to the older man. The man had drawn his bow and was looking intently into the woods, fortunately not in the direction I was in. I hid behind a fairly large tree and waited to see what would happen.

Everything was quiet for a while and I was just beginning to think that the wolves had wandered off or something when there was a *Thwack* followed by a pained yelp from the treeline, I couldn't see anything but the man fired off another two arrows, both of which seemed to find their targets as more yelps and dull thuds began to sound in the forest. Suddenly, a group of three large grey wolf-like creature leapt out of the treeline and charged towards the pair. They looked almost exactly like wolves from earth except that these ones had an extra pair of legs sticking out of the sides of their bodies. They stood at least 5 feet high and were about 10 feet long, foamy spittle leaked from between vicious looking fangs as they snarled.

One of them barely managed to avoid being hit by an arrow and the three slowed and began to circle the pair. The man continued firing but his arrows were dodged by a hairsbreadth each time. He frowned as he dropped his bow to draw his sword and curled one arm protectively behind him around the boy. One of the wolves had circled around to just in front of the tree I was hiding behind and I decided to take this moment to help. Using all the speed I could muster, I leapt at the wolf and wrapped it in a bear hug, squeezing as tightly as I could. My sheer weight was enough that I knocked it to the ground and I held it there.

I had thought that with what I considered my frankly ridiculous strength that I would be able to easily squish it but a combination of my arms barely being able to reach around the wolf and a surprising amount of toughness on the wolfs part it took a great deal of effort before I heard a loud crunching noise as the creature's spine broke.

Lesser warg lvl 11 defeated

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You have reached level 5 traits are now available for purchase with evolution points

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I blinked the notification away and shoved the corpse off of me, I looked over to the man and the boy to see if they were ok to see a sword pointed in my direction. The two decapitated wolves behind him spoke of what had happened and he didn't seem particularly afraid. He also didn't look like he was going to attack me though, merely holding a defensive stance. I slowly got to my feet and raised my hands up into the air.

The man suddenly shouted out into the forest.

"You can come out, whoever you are. Tell your golem to keep its distance and we can keep this civil. You have my thanks for your assistance."

I looked at the man and took a step back. This seemed to mollify him and he let his sword drop to his side. He looked around into the woods expectantly, clearly waiting for whoever my owner was to come out. I had no idea what to do in this situation, I had no master so there was no-one going to step out of these woods, would the man turn hostile if no-one showed up? Would he see through me as an unbound golem?

After a minute of too the man spoke again but this time in a more muttering voice, speaking more to himself and the boy than to a hypothetical hidden master.

"Suit yourself then ya rude bugger. Mages are a queer sort lad you get used to 'em pulling this kind of thing from time t' time. Better to just let 'em be all mysterious." he clapped the boy, who was still standing with the man between him and me, on the shoulder and turned back to me "Off with ya then, no use standing there like an ornament unless ya fancy giving me a hand haulin' these?" He nodded to the wolves and then to the wagon before shooting a sceptical look at me and my somewhat diminutive size.

I was pretty sure I could reach the wagon to help put the wolves into it if I wanted to so I just turned and began to walk along the road. I made sure I was out of sight and hid off to the side of the road again to wait till morning. I was quite pleased, my first interaction with people hadn't resulted in my untimely death, though I'd have been pretty upset if he killed me after I'd tried to save their lives. In hindsight, that guy definitely didn't need my help at all and I don't know why I thought he would. This was their world and they were doing this journey with just the two of them so they must have been confident in handling whatever was out here.

I needed to remember that the people here were likely far more competent at this sort of thing than the people back home would be and probably than I am too. I had absolutely no doubts that that man would have been the end of me. I considered this a life lesson and resolved to just trail behind the duo for the rest of the journey, no matter what happened from now on.

Now, whilst I was waiting I should check out what that notification had meant. about traits. I opened my character screen.

Race: Golem core (Lesser) (Flawed) Master: Unbound Core Stats: Soul Stats: Body Stats: Core Rank: F Level: 6 Resistance: 1 Control: 10 Strength: 7 Soul Rank: A- Evolution points: 30 Toughness: 1 Intelligence: 10 Toughness: 15 Body Rank: D Traits: 0 Magical perception: 1 Wisdom: 10 Dexterity: 3 A golem core, enchanted by a novice enchanter and animated by a mediocre mage it is weak and fragile. Inhabited by the soul of a sapient creature (human, non-native) it has tremendous potential for growth. Inhabiting a crude cast iron body. Health: 10/10 Mana: 100/100 Health: 148/150 Health regen: 1/hour Mana regen: 1/min Health regen: N/A Mana: N/A Mana regen: N/A Stamina: N/A Stamina regen: N/A

I now had enough evolution points to fix my core but I wanted to look at traits first. With some mental effort, I brought up a list which contained dozens and dozens of options. Each one had a different cost associated but none cost more than 20 points. They seemed to be small things that would be nice but not particularly powerful. There was one that would let me use mana to roll my core around when I was without a body, there was one that would let very slightly affect the density of materials I controlled. Things like that.

I was going to have to spend quite a bit of time going through the list to see if there was anything there that I wanted but my cursory inspection of the list didn't leave me with anything that really jumped out at me so I closed out of it and opened the evolution points menu.

Evolution Points Name: Cost: Description: Full restore 2 Restore health, mana, and stamina of body, core, and soul and heal all injuries. Boost 2 Boost mana, health, or stamina by 100% for 1 hour (can be extended by 30 minutes per extra point) Improve statistic 5 Increase one statistic of choice by 1 Learn Random spell 10 Learn a random rank F spell Learn Random Skill 10 Become proficient in a random activity Receive random trait 15 Receive a random trait. Possible to obtain traits that are not purchasable. Fix core 20 Remove (Flawed) status from core Improve core 50 Improve core from (Lesser) to (Average) Evolve N/A Evolve from your current form

I noted the new addition, that would have to be something else to consider when I was thinking about traits. Still, I knew what I wanted, I willed myself to choose the fix core option. It disappeared from the list and there was a sound like glass shattering. There was a strange wrongness that filled me as my core began to shift. A liquid seeped out of my core and rapidly began to harden. My core twisted and then started shrinking, It became denser and I could tell that the myriad cracks that had been throughout my core had gone.

I could suddenly see more, my senses had grown by a foot in every direction and I could see things with even more detail than before. I could see the microscopic bug that filled the soil around me. It wasn't at the point where I could see individual cells but I was sure that I would get there. Be a living microscope. My core felt tougher too and I checked out my character sheet.

Race: Golem core (Lesser) Master: Unbound Core Stats: Soul Stats: Body Stats: Core Rank: F+ Level: 6 Resistance: 3 Control: 10 Strength: 7 Soul Rank: A- Evolution points: 10 Toughness: 3 Intelligence: 10 Toughness: 15 Body Rank: D Traits: 0 Magical perception: 3 Wisdom: 10 Dexterity: 3 A golem core, enchanted by a novice enchanter and animated by a mediocre mage it is weak and fragile. It has been improved somewhat through evolution. Inhabited by the soul of a sapient creature (human, non-native) it has tremendous potential for growth. Inhabiting a crude cast iron body. Health: 30/30 Mana: 100/100 Health: 148/150 Health regen: 3/hour Mana regen: 1/min Health regen: N/A Mana: N/A Mana regen: N/A Stamina: N/A Stamina regen:

N/A

It was nice seeing that the flawed status had gone and my core stats had improved by 2 points each which made it cheaper than improving each one individually would have been and I was sure this would come with some more benefits. Like hopefully now I would be able to use my mana less inefficiently. With warm feelings I settled in for the night and got some sleep.