I arrived at the cave to nothing new showing up. Alex was still reading the Thaumonomicon. Something about nodes and aura. I was half-sure she already knew more than me about the basics. The only advantage I had was my practical experience and a ready-to-use workshop.

I decided to take a little rest. There was not much to do right now in the village. I just wanted to confirm the effectiveness of the lamps before flying back to Serrington.

The next morning, a few sprouts were starting to break through the dirt. Most of them were barely more than a centimetre tall but it was quite promising. I observed carefully for almost an hour and it was almost possible to watch them grow. The magic flowing through the area was also looking stable without much in the way of flux. I decided to spend the day setting up some experiments before leaving.

The thing I had planned was what I had thought of the day before. I wanted to see the results of making a vis relay with a magically conductive material. My choice fell on gold, for now. It was much easier to get than thaumium and a better conductor than brass.

I quickly made one and set it up on the ceiling next to the energized node. It looked like this was another long-term experiment, though. I showed Roguk what I made and asked him to check on it regularly. If there were any issues, he could break the relay which would create a small surge of flux but otherwise be safe. I was somewhat hoping this would be a way to force vis crystals to grow. I decided to make three more and set them up in different materials. A mound of dirt, a piece of wood and a pane of glass were what I chose.

After I was done, I checked back on the potatoes. They looked to be growing splendidly, with most of them reaching ten or even twenty centimetres high and showing plenty of leaves. At this rate, they might actually be done in a week.

Chef approached me as I was watching a leaf grow in fast-forward.

“So, it’s workin’, huh? How long do ya think it’s gonna take?”

“A week, give or take.”

“You gonna stay ‘til then, or?”

“No. I will be leaving tomorrow morning. Or maybe tonight?”

“Mhm. How do we tell them are ready?”

“They’ll grow tall and then bloom. When the blossoms have turned into green bulbs, there will be a bunch of potatoes. Usually, harvest is when the top of the plant is dead. Just keep an eye on the leaves.”

“Sounds easy. Good.”

I nodded.

“Easy-to-farm plants and very nutritious.”

“What about the other stuff?”

“The wheat? I recommend you wait for me to come back. You’ll need some ways to process it before you can make proper food.”

“Aight. So taters only, for now.”

I looked over the field again. With how large this was a harvest might be able to feed the village for a whole day. This looked very promising. If they really took one week to grow, the goblins would be self-sufficient with seven fields. Three could be set up already and the fourth hall was almost halfway done. And that was not even counting the hunters bringing in meat from the white forest.

“I’ll set up the next two lamps. You should be fine for a while, right? How long are your current stores going to last?”

Chef put a hand to his chin.

“Probably… two weeks? Maybe three if we’re careful.”

“With the potatoes, you should last a while longer. I’ll come back in three weeks at the latest. That’s probably enough for the next two halls to finish.”

“Good.”

At that moment, big brother walked up.

“Hey, Fio. We running low on dirt. Can you help out a little?”

“Dirt? That’s the hold-up?”

“Aye. Not that we ain’t have enough, we just can’t carry it fast enough.”

“I just told Chef I’m back in three weeks. I want to get two more halls running, then. You think you can do that?”

Big brother scratched the side of his nose.

“Maybe? No idea…”

I clicked my tongue in amusement.

“Just try. If you don’t make it, I’ll help you then.”

“Kay. When you leaving?”

“I think in the evening. I can make it to Borsdown by evening tomorrow then and get some rest.”

He grunted in answer and got back to hacking at the stone. Chef also left to do his thing. I found Alex sitting next to her node with the Thaumonomicon and approached her.

“Hey, you good?”, I sent.

“Mm? Ah. Yes. I’m good.”

“Any problems with the node?”

“Not really, no. I’m looking into the details but this stuff is disappointingly vague…”

She gestured at the tome in front of her. Looking at the golem next to a book the size of her body complaining about vague writing was amusing.

“That’s just what thaumaturgy is. You can start doing some more detailed research if you want.”

“I’m doing that. I think my specific sensory suite is capable of producing results where others have failed or given up before me.”

“Yes. Do that”, I laughed, “I’m gonna leave for a while, again.”

Alex looked down at the Thaumonomicon and then back up at me.

“You can keep it”, I sent, “I’ll make a new one for myself.”

“Right. That’s possible”, she shook her head, “Thanks. For everything.”

“No worries. Don’t lose yourself in research. Communication isn’t easy without being able to speak but it’s possible.”

“I’ll… try.”

“I could make a supersensory matrix for you but… I’d rather learn actual [Telepathy] and teach that. This thing just creates too much flux.”

The golem looked at the magic crystal held to my chest with shadows.

“Yeah. It’s not all that great.”

“Hey! It was my first artefact!”

She tilted her head.

“I guess it’s decent, then?”

“Hey!”

I decked her with a wing, which naturally did not faze the thaumium golem. We started laughing a few moments later, the sound only audible to our souls. The goblins that saw us must have wondered why we were convulsing. Our memories made our bodies move as we remembered from our previous lives.

We took a while to settle down and spent another hour or two talking magic after that. It turned out our knowledge of the basics was pretty even and we discussed some ideas to put more usable numbers to thaumaturgy. Some sort of measure for vis, flux and maybe even essentia would be very useful for both crafting and safety purposes. That was not for me to develop, though. I was not too good at science, even if my [Maths] Skill was decently levelled. I would let Alex get some groundwork laid out and be there for feedback and double-checking.

Come evening, I said my goodbyes to the goblins after one last shared dinner. I took off to Borsdown right after.

Enjoying the air rushing through my feathers, I thought about what to do the next week or two. I wanted to spend some time with Nymph and visit the fox and beaver, Foxy and Brilda. Other than that, maybe I could work on collecting some useful nodes for my workshop? With the orks making new plans, hopefully, I had a windfall of unexpected free time. It was not easy to just do something else.

I flew non-stop through the night, making it to my workshop shortly after dawn. There, I dropped off some materials I would not immediately need and picked up some more salis mundus to make a new Thaumonomicon for myself. I was slightly curious if it would have any major differences to the one I picked up from that ork idiot.

The second part of my flight was uneventful as well and I soon arrived at the window into Vivi’s attic. Or my attic, rather. The two never really used it, keeping it free for when I wanted to drop by. It would still take some time to get used to ‘having’ a house.

My friends heard me come in since I did not use [Sneak] and soon we were sat around the coffee table drinking tea and talking about this and that.

Vivi had made some progress with her carving and decided on a pose for her own statue. She was waiting for a blacksmith to bring her a prototype from steel now which she would then slowly grind into the final version. The merchant I had made a challenge with was supposed to come by some time next month, which Safrah reminded me of. She was planning to work some experiments with the vis crystals he would bring. The most exciting thing, for her, was some sort of spinning wheel to weave vis into threads. I had not even seen a hint of that in the Thaumonomicon so I was curious what it was for but all she could tell me was that it sounded interesting. Apparently, she saw much less detail in the entries. Somehow.

I had them bring their tome over and looked for it myself. Safrah asked me repeatedly to not tell her about the details and Vivi did not want to know either so I just read it for myself. The infused cloth, as it was called, was commonly used for specialized crafting using a single aspect. If one wore a full set of one pure aspect, they could draw on the vis in their clothes for their work. The clothes also replenished themselves after some time and thus were reusable. It sounded quite useful for some applications, especially if one had little of a specific aspect available but enough to make a full set of infused robes. I was looking forward to what Safrah would come up with.

After I was done reading, I closed the Thaumonomicon and gave it back to the dwarf. She carefully looked up the entry I had just checked on before sighing in relief. The things I had just read were no longer there. I decided to steal a glance and truly, only the first few paragraphs about the creation of the spinning wheel and how to use it were there. The only reason I could think of was that I had seen the Empty and thus my mind was much deeper into the truth of reality. I wanted to avoid calling myself warped but that was essentially it and this was the first time I had such obvious evidence in front of my eyes.

There was no use in despairing over being different, though, so I simply ignored it. Just hanging out with my friends was enough to quickly take my mind off things as well. Tomorrow, it was back to Serrington and taking Nymph out into the city. Maybe. She might not be ready immediately when I arrived.