We joined Ugark in the alcove. There was another thaumaturge and a Cleric sitting at a table. They had a small pot of water boiling above a flame of nitor with a can of tea already brewing.

The other thaumaturge was a human woman as was the Cleric. The latter had taken off her mask and I could see she was much younger than expected, maybe in her late thirties. They were chatting about a project involving silverwood and aura but quieted as we approached. The Cleric nodded at the old man.

“Join us”, she said with a welcoming gesture, “We could use some more input.”

The thaumaturge smiled at Alex and me with a slightly creepy expression.

Ugark laughed.

“That’s true. Let me introduce my friends: These are Alexandra and Fio. Two people who helped me out a lot. Well, mostly Fio helped Alex and me at the same time. This is Kiara, my friend and companion in searching for Truth.”

The thaumaturge nodded, her smile turning normal.

“Thanks for having us”, I said, “Is that green tea?”

“Yes. Let me get you a… cup? Bowl?”, the ork asked.

“A bowl would be best.”

“A cup for me”, Alex said.

Ugark walked off to a shelf to get the utensils.

“Very well”, the old man sighed, “What are you having trouble with?”

The female Cleric turned to him.

“So, we are working on something that detects aura and vis with a little more detail than the thaumometer. For now, we have tried manipulating an arcane eye to detect vis, which works somewhat. Finding a way to display the information is still difficult. For aura, though, we have not managed anything. We were thinking of utilizing silverwood as a sort of antenna and storing the information in an artefact made from gold and brass. But we’re still in the theory stage.”

“I see. That seems a difficult challenge but it would help us quite significantly. Talk me through the details.”

As she started to lay out her ideas, Ugark came back with our cups and my bowl. He poured tea for us before we started listening in on the conversation.

“… so the aura would then be trapped in some kind of matrix. I would need to test a few basic shapes to design something that works the way we want but I’m confident I can do it.”

There was a pause as the old man sunk into his thoughts. I decided to ask a question that I was wondering about.

“What even is aura, specifically?”

The woman blinked.

“It’s the… well… how can I explain that? A sort of thing that is everywhere but nowhere. It holds together the fabric of the world on its most base level.”

“Really? As far as I understand aura is what the aspect auram represents which is any non-essentia magic. So, anything that doesn’t have a physical form. Which includes vis, flux, warp, and some forms of taint.”

“No, that is not quite what it is. As far as I am aware, aura is a specific field of energy that is concentrated around nodes, especially. I believe it comes from the Beyond, or the Empty as some call it, and is what forms nodes if concentrated enough. It is everywhere but only some places have enough to form an aura node. That’s why they’re called ‘aura’ nodes, in fact.”

“Oh. So it’s like that…”

“What did you figure out, Fio?”, Alex asked.

“You know, my shadows”, I extended a tendril as demonstration, “have a little bit of auram in them. They’re made from the vis coming from my soul. Auram is also in the water blades Vivi likes to make or in your bolts. It’s always just a tiny bit. But it clearly comes from the soul.”

“So you’re saying aura is a result of souls interacting with the world?”

“Yes. And where enough people do things, especially magical things, nodes form.”

“Then how would you suggest we find it?”, the woman asked, “Should we try to detect spiritus?”

“No. That’s the actual soul. It would help to find the source, maybe, but with the way nodes pop up randomly all over the place it should be obvious aura moves after being brought into the world. I believe you should pay attention to nodes. What happens when they form, and what happens when they break? That kind of stuff.”

“I see. There was a group working on that on the upper levels, correct?”

The old man nodded.

“I will tell them to send their findings to you.”

“Wait, we’re just taking that for true?”, Kiara asked, “Shouldn’t we try to confirm it?”

“Both Fio and Alexandra are dwarves, by law. They can be trusted.”

She stared at us.

“They don’t look much like dwarves”, she said.

“Here”, Alex said and pulled out her mask.

“What am I supposed to do with that?”

“It shows my allegiance with their people. Look at this engraving.”

“Apprentice, I trust them to speak the truth”, the old man said, “Will you trust me on this?”

“For what it’s worth, Fio is a better thaumaturge than me”, Ugark added.

“Seriously? You took part in building advanced golems!”

“Said golem is sitting here”, Alex said deadpan.

“But… Fine. If everyone is on board, I will go along with it. For what reason were they brought here, anyway?”

The Cleric cleared his throat.

“That is not for you to know. At least not yet. The council has agreed they may aid our purpose. In unison, I might add.”

That made the female Cleric perk up.

“There is never unison. We are scientists!”

“And yet, there was. Both of them will add perspectives we can not have ourselves. That was our conclusion.”

Ugark snorted.

“Yeah, definitely. Did you know Fio killed my old master by dropping on him?”

“Is that so?”

For the first time, the female Cleric eyed me with suspicion.

“You weren’t even there, Ugark”, Alex snorted, “I stood only a few metres away.”

I sighed.

“He was leading an army to threaten my friends. Freeing Alex was a coincidence, I only later learned she was sapient. And I had made an agreement with Ugark the night before. The boy was too scared to free himself.”

“Hey, I’m sitting right here!”, the ork complained.

“Well, that does sound more reasonable than I expected”, the woman said.

“Will you be joining us for a little, Fio?”, Ugark asked, “You can have the quarters next to mine, I think?”

The old man nodded.

“Or you can come back tomorrow morning”, he said.

“I’m a little interested in how you work”, I said, “What do you think, Alex?”

“We can stay for the night. Can you have someone send a message to our guest residence?”

The Cleric nodded.

“I will leave you to it, then. Tomorrow, I will show you the reason for the Crimson Church’s existence.”

He turned and left.

“That sounded rather fatalistic”, I murmured.

“He is right, though”, Ugark laughed, “We’ve got some pretty big problems.”

“Leave that for tomorrow”, the remaining Cleric said, “It is better to see than hear.”

The thaumaturges nodded.

Soon, the tea was cleaned up and everyone moved to their workbenches. I noticed Ugark and Kiara were carrying greatwood wands while the Cleric had one made from silverwood. She made us join her and started explaining the details of their project.

“For the time being, Ugark is working on the vis detection. He is trying to find a way to display the information in a readable way. Kiara was assisting me in my attempt to find some more details about aura. With your help just now, we have a new approach. Do you have a Thaumonomicon? Ah, what am I…”

Before she could continue, I opened my storage and pulled out my important supplies. Namely, the Thaumonomicon and my wand. The latter was still full of vis.

“Oh. I see. Well, I suggest we take your idea and try to find an entry originating from it. Alexandra, you can take Ugark’s.”

“I’m more interested in the displaying of information”, Alex said, “I think I’ll join him. We might need a Thaumonomicon for reference, as well.”

“I see. Do that, then. We will work towards the aura detector.”

Kiara and the Cleric turned to their tomes and started paging through while taking the occasional notes. Instead of simply joining them, I decided to think about the problem myself, first. I had made a detector system to serve as an alarm when I escorted the dwarves to Gobburgh over a year ago. It had also been based on an arcane eye as well as an ear. Those were simply for seeing and hearing anything that might try to sneak up. The really important part was the last addition. It had detected the magic of any possible intruder to find someone hiding with their Skills. Looking back, I was not sure if it spotted vis, essence or maybe even aura.

It was probably a few days' trip to get it from the goblin village so I would have to find the time to leave. If I wanted to get it. We already had an arcane eye here. Making another ear would not be too difficult and from there I only needed some thaumium to do the last part. Though maybe I could make it without the base and design a completely new device. I took out some paper and started taking notes.

I would likely need a brain to process the information. Brass wiring might be able to do the same but I was not planning to make a room-sized machine. I still needed some brass to move information, though. Then, of course, the thaumium. A single bar was all I needed. A greatwood base to hold excess vis and an empty crystal to react to signals. I made some simple sketches of how everything would interact before asking the Cleric for materials. She wanted to see what I found, first, and I showed her my idea.

“How did you come up with this in such a short time?”, she asked.

“I made something similar a while ago. It was using an arcane ear and eye as a base and had this thaumium device connected to both. It was supposed to detect ‘magic’ but thinking about it, it might just be detecting aura. I want to figure out what it actually does.”

“That… is sensible. Kiara, show her to the storeroom, would you? And I would like to see you craft, Fio.”