We finished our next prototype by the end of the day. It had a double mesh of thaumium slightly offset to put the intersections of the second behind the gaps of the first. They were connected at multiple points to keep a steady distance. Mana welding made even complicated constructs like this a breeze.

The ingots I made were much larger than what I had brought with me. The orks had probably made smaller versions to either keep flux low or to make more money off it. Either way, I had a good amount of thaumium. If this concept worked properly, we should be able to make six scrubbers, one for every dwarf on the frontline.

The tests took another day. The magic I and Vivi shot at it was caught in the double mesh most of the time. Rapid shots, as I could do with my feathers, would easily overwhelm the capacity, though. It took us trying a bunch of converters and crystal adaptors before we found a usable configuration. We ended up with a set of converters drawing in the mana from the thaumium and turning it into the primal aspects. Those could be easily stored in crystal form only would we need a large number of empty crystals to constantly replace the full ones. Instead, we guided the primals into a reservoir that would be turning them into essence. Luckily we still had a week because said reservoir would need to be redesigned for a portable size.

The original design used in the workshop to turn the dwarves’ vis into metal essence for welding was about twice as large as a dwarf. A lot of that was converters which we had already cut down on but the container itself was about as large as a dwarf. We also needed six containers for the separate aspects. Water could be a lot smaller since we would use it to power a water crystal producing liquid to use as a base for the essence. I decided to take a chance and browsed through the Thaumonomicon once more. Specifically, warded jars as a method of holding essence. They were something I remembered from the ork’s mansion. Usually, thaumaturges would use them to power an infusion altar.

I quickly found what I was looking for. The so-called ‘void jar’. A container that would use the pressure of being overfilled to push the excess essence into the void. It would take a strong lid with a one-way valve and a magical bottom infused with void and destruction. Or rather, the whole jar, walls included, should be infused. I spent two days coming up with a design that would be portable and still fulfil the functions necessary. The construction was not too difficult. Riggard had prepared valves and a simple essence converter in the meantime so we only had to put everything together after I infused the jars with my inner vis. I wondered how someone without my aspects would do this?

We had another week and five more devices to make. But first, Riggard wanted to name it. After some back and forth and horrendous ideas such as ‘portable scrubber’, we settled upon the name: vis interceptor. It was not ready for warp or taint and produced more flux than it cleaned up but for the hunt, this would be a great help. Captain was impressed as well. He wanted to buy them off us rather than borrow them for the fight. When he heard the price of one vis coin per interceptor, he decided on renting instead. For the one battle, we decided on ten gold per, making a total of sixty. Riggard gave me thirty-five telling me to forward ten to Vivi. She had helped a lot with testing and earned something for herself. Some might say I got ripped off but the thaumium was still mine, for now. If Riggard planned to keep it he would have to buy it off me in the future.

The next week was spent working around the clock to actually finish all six of the interceptors. We managed with almost one day to spare but better early than not getting it done. That gave me enough time to see about absorbing some thaumium for my metal form.

I stood in the attic of Safrah’s home, Vivi in front of me watching intently. Two thaumium bars lay in front of me on the wooden floor. My body was in its metal and glass form, steel in my talons and brass running through my feathers in thin lines. I sensed the gold inside me, ready to be used. What would thaumium do to me? What would I be able to do with it?

Carefully, a few tendrils of darkness picked up the first ingot. I moved the metal close to my body, preparing my senses to sense how it changed me. The purple clicked against my shining feathers. Nothing happened. For a whole five minutes, at least, I simply stood there observing as the metal touched my body. No mana flowed, no connection was established. Was I supposed to do it manually? Then, without a warning, a large patch of my chest feathers turned purple, the ingot disappearing and my shadow tendrils crashing into each other. I had not seen a thing. The metal was not reacting one moment and perfectly fused the next. It honestly scared me a little.

My senses turned inwards. The new material had spread deep into my core. The purple surface of my chest denoted the width and from there the thaumium had sunk over halfway into me. There were a few empty places that would normally be my organs. I figured with the second ingot I would be able to make my metal form be a quarter thaumium. Before jumping to that, I had to figure out what it did. Guiding the mana within my body was something I had gotten used to over my still comparably short life. The power flowed at my will. Guiding the metal was similar, though it had felt very sluggish with steel, iron and brass and only slightly better with gold. Thaumium though… It behaved almost like mana, just that it was physically there. Any resistance to the material being moved around I could easily attribute to the iron in its way having to be repositioned. Actually filling it with mana, the thaumium reacted even more. A small glow shone off it relaying the aspect I had it filled with through colour.

Vivi had stepped closer and lowered her head to sniff the purple material. She pulled a face when I had eldritch mana going into it then closed her eyes in contentment when I replaced it with air, then earth. Going to void she shied back again. I wanted to know if it actually did anything other than glow so I had Vivi pick up a small rock and throw it at me. Multiple times. She used her water claws to form some sort of shovel so there was quite some force behind it. Still, the thaumium did not scratch. The steel held as well but any other material was scratched or even dented in the case of gold. The important part, though, was a disappointment. The thaumium reacted the same no matter what mana I filled it with. So we tried a magical attack. First, Vivi used water, then poison. The metal absorbed a part of the mana if I had not filled it already. That much was easy to figure out and somewhat expected. It was not a viable defence in a drawn-out fight since it created a lot of flux and would overcharge me before long but it might be useful for the occasional retaliation strike.

The interesting happened when I filled the thaumium with earth mana and Vivi struck it with her normal water claws. The claws should have been deflected like before but instead, they were absorbed and the aspects fused, filling me with life mana. It created a huge amount of flux making us stop the experiments but on the upside, the life mana did not go to waste. It was mine just like the earth mana from before and I could reabsorb it, which I promptly did. My soul took in the new energy and found it agreeable. I knew instinctively it was different from my mana. I had no infinite fount of it like with the energy I had absorbed while improving my mana enrichment. Instead, I only had what was there and using it up would mean just that. I looked for a moment but I found no sign of a limit for this new storage. It was on the outside of reality where my soul was and bound to it but there was no real space there meaning my soul and its storage could extend infinitely. Most likely.

This was very useful. I had to find a way to fill up that part with mana not of my aspects without overloading on flux this quickly. It was a first step but I could already see the potential. Maybe I just had to take it slower?

I shared my findings with Vivi and she was very interested in figuring it out for herself as well. I told her to be careful. The Empty was nothing for the weak-minded.

I waited for a few hours to let a lot of the flux fall off before trying to shape my thaumium parts into a different shape. It was almost like a combination of gold and brass. Easy to form and somewhat stable. This would definitely let me make cutting edge feathers on the fly. Hehehe!

The few hours of time I spent making a bit more thaumium. I ended up with a total of seven ingots lacking more dirt to finish changing the last eight iron. This much should be able to change my body completely. With the upcoming fight, I was not sure if I wanted to go all out. The no-doubt magical attacks the Monstrosity would throw at us could knock me out of commission really quickly if I absorbed all the mana. It was time for another small experiment. I made to shift all my thaumium into my wing from its tip as far down as possible. Then I took the bit of steel I had and shifted it to form a thin coat around the purple metal. I made sure it was just thick enough to not let the thaumium shine through. Vivi helped me again for the next step with another water claw. She struck my wing and… nothing happened. Nothing magical at least. Her water claw shatter some of the glass making up the inside of my feathers and knocked my wing down but the mana did not interact with my body at all. This was it!

I immediately rushed to the smith and got myself a couple more ingots of steel. Coming back home I made to absorb all the thaumium I had made and found once it started replacing the gold and brass, the metal was shed in the form of feathers. It was almost like I was moulting in high speed. The gold and brass feathers with glass windows in them clicked on the ground one by one as I absorbed more and more thaumium. I wondered why it did not happen with iron? Maybe the metal was too close to its essence and turned into my mana instead?

Either way, once I was fully made of thaumium I started carefully absorbing the steel. It fused reluctantly but once part of my body I could easily move it by shaping the thaumium around it. It took me about two hours of shifting and absorbing steel before I looked much like before. My body was a silver-grey shining hunk of metal with my feathers looking like a fine wire-mesh holding glass in place. Only, if someone could see inside they would find only the distinct purple of thaumium. This gave me a protective layer against absorbing magic when I did not want to but also let me easily shape my body. I just had to be careful not to puncture the steel layer when I did not want to.

A few thaumium feathers now crowned the pile of my moult. They looked kind of pretty. Vivi had been watching me again for the last hour or so and her eyes were glued to them.

“Do you want those?”, I asked.

She nodded rapidly.

“Go ahead”

On my word, she moved in and carefully started carrying my shed feathers downstairs. I wondered what she had planned for them? No matter. Tomorrow, we would hunt. And Vivi would get her major node.