The sinister lodestone was not complicated to make and so we were ready rather quickly. It was getting late by that point and instead of having everyone work through the night, I and Alex went down into the mine on our own. The tunnel extended from a seemingly random spot in the village cave not even directly on a wall. There was a small hut a few steps away from the path that formerly led down into the valley in which a hallway sloped downwards. The ground was even and slippery other than at the edges where stairs had been cut into the rock. I knew from the dwarves they planned to build a rail system to move ores more easily.

“They got pretty far, huh?”, I mused.

“Yup”, Alex answered, “Lothar has been catching up the main tunnel with the ore deposits while teaching a few goblins. I think they started on a cave system down below that can be used as storage or even living space. Reminds me of an anthill.”

“Already thinking about expansion? They’re going fast.”

We started making our way down, Alex holding onto the lodestone. The item appeared like a piece of rock at first glance. Only my advanced senses could make out a soft glow of black around it. It was not the clean and deep black of my own shadows but a somewhat dirtied one as if a child had tried to mix every type of watercolour hoping for a rainbow. Instead, they found despair in a filthy tone nobody wanted.

The aura had a slight wobble to it as we walked down the curved tunnel. After something that felt like ten minutes, the incongruence stabilized to one side creating something that looked a little like a rotten egg. At least it did not smell.

We looked at each other and made to follow the small end. It led us along a wall and eventually right into a side tunnel. I made sure to remember the sign carved into the wall: C-03. What their naming convention was slipped past me and I was not too interested at that point. All I needed was to be able to tell the others where to go.

Entering the new path led us into a slightly smaller tunnel. It was only three metres wide instead of the nearly five of the main one. The height had also been lowered to just about two metres. Every ten metres there was a doorway on each side. I could make out fixtures for proper doors but not one had been installed yet. The rooms were wide and empty to be used for whatever was needed. They were numbered as well with four digits starting at 03-01 and going up. One side had even numbers, the other odd.

It took until 03-28 that we noticed the aura around the lodestone turning sharper into something resembling an arrow. That meant we were getting closer. Depending on the size of the node the lodestone would react at different distances though. We likely still had a few hundred metres to go. Alongside the sharper point, the arrow also started turning. As we reached the end at 03-40, we found it show somewhere between a 30° and 45° angle towards the wall. It was almost perfectly parallel to the ground so we knew the height at least.

Tracing back, we remembered the direction and found we had to backtrack a little. With how the main tunnel was turning a little just going up one made us be almost on track. The node was a little below us and judging from the angle at least a few hundred metres away.

The next morning, we got the diggers to the spot and showed them our findings. They were unable to see the aura until it had turned into a clear arrow and even then it was rather faint. For now, the decision was made to simply extend the tunnel that was a little higher up. It was marked B-07 for some reason. When I finally got to ask Lothar what their system was, he laughed.

“Right. It wouldn’t make sense for someone like ya. The letters are quality. Better tunnel, better letter. A is what I make, the goblins are mostly making B and some C quality from those just starting out. D ‘s very rare. Ya can see the difference if ya look at the walls and ground. Ceiling too, ’s just far away.”

“And then you add numbers?”

“Yep. Odds left, evens right. We use the system for storage and miner quarters. There’s lots of small things to figure out but basically, nobody would live in anything less than B.”

“I didn’t see too much of a difference. I’ll have to take a closer look.”

It turned out an A tunnel was perfectly smooth and stable. A B tunnel was a little less smooth but still stable. When it came to C, I could understand why people would not want to live there. It was hard to notice but there were a few places here and there with water leaking through the rock. It would get very damp after a few weeks. Not a comfortable home.

While I had been observing the halls, the dwarves and goblins had started on the new tunnel. Most of it was done by Lothar and Horg, the dwarf guiding the goblin and cleaning up any of the smaller issues left behind. Behind them, half a dozen greenskins were carrying the broken rocks away and into a different side tunnel. They had started to use one as storage close to the village. From there, they could use the material for building or carry it outside and drop it somewhere on the mountainside.

I observed the work for a bit before finding Alex. There were some things regarding nodes and taint I wanted to discuss with her. Thanks to our [Telepathy], nobody could listen in at least.

“What have you found so far?”, I asked.

The golem turned to me from her Thaumonomicon.

“There’s not much. Hungry nodes themselves are either outside what I can learn or not researched all that much. I’ve found a bit more about taint though.”

“What is there about hungry nodes for you?”

“They’re eating material to turn into essence in the beyond. That’s only one theory, though. I’m not sure I trust it.”

“Then you found the same thing I did. I think it’s the truth. That’s just how the Thaumonomicon feels… The research we find is never fully wrong. At most it’s incomplete.”

“Yes, but still.”

“I haven’t found the time to look into taint all that much. I think we could work on that.”

Alex nodded and we turned to the book. She showed me the page she was reading right now and I found she had progressed almost as far as I had. Which was just about the basic information.

“So, taint is a side effect of flux but also an aspect, right?”, Alex summarized.

“That’s how I understand it as well. It’s destruction and magic combined. Flux is basically ‘used up’ vis, as far as I know.”

“Reminds me a bit of conservation of energy.”

“In what way?”

“Rather than getting destroyed, vis gets turned into something else. It needs a different process to become usable again. That one seems to happen in the Empty.”

“I see. I don’t think it happens in the Empty, though. Tainted nodes are a thing, right?”

“And they spew out tainted vis, not pure taint. Maybe they’re just too wide?”, Alex wondered.

“Wouldn’t that result in oversized nodes?”

“Possibly…”

“I’m thinking nodes are the process that turns flux into vis. Or essence into vis. Wait… That makes sense but now I’m confused…”

“No, no, I can see it. We don’t know what the Empty actually looks like…”

“I do.”

“Okay, what it’s made of.”

I nodded at her unmoving gaze.

“So, let’s go from our side. We get vis from nodes. Vis turns into essence to… form reality? Is that right?”

“Sounds good to me. As a theory, at least. Maybe alter reality is a better expression.”

“Okay. Some vis is then used for magic getting turned to flux in the process.”

“Part of that is souls having direct access to the Empty. Wait…”

“No! Let’s finish this train of thought before adding more stuff.”

“Right. So, vis gets used, turns into flux, then goes back to the Empty. That works because the Empty is everywhere and nowhere. So there are no nodes needed for the dispersal of flux.”

“I would not sign off on that last sentence. Too much speculation. And we can easily prove it by creating a noticeable amount of flux.”

“Okay. We are in agreement that there’s flux going into the empty, right?”

“Yes.”

“Then it gets turned into vis again through some kind of process, potentially because of nodes. Or nodes are a side-effect.”

Alex sighed mentally.

“This is getting a little much. Let’s write it down somewhere.”

We took the time to collect our thoughts. In the end, the list was pretty simple.

Empty has flux.

Flux gets turned into vis and moved into reality.

Vis gets used and turns into flux.

Flux goes back into empty.

That was a good basic theory to start with. The question we really wanted to look into was understanding how flux and taint were correlated. That would let us place taint somewhere in this framework and let us know which part to further research to understand how to cleanse taint. The broken magic was still supposed to be our focus but we had gotten a bit sidetracked with setting a common basis.

“So what’s taint exactly? And what does it do to the world?”, I asked the question we wanted to figure out.

That led to Alex and I reading for another few hours. We were making some progress but the dwarves called me down every once in a while to check their progress with the sinister lodestone. They had started to slope the tunnel slightly and were making rapid progress. We might just get there before noon the next day at this speed. The dwarves really were amazing diggers. Apparently, there was even an iron vein not too far in that Harra had not noticed originally. It was small but iron was a rarity still in the goblin village. They would surely make good use of it.