I spent the next day getting some more rest with my friends. We had nothing special planned but I talked to Safrah for a few hours about her ideas on elemental weave. We figured out the general direction could go two ways. Either she would make something to help resist magic or it would help use magic. I was a little curious what a spider would have to say about these ideas. The conversation with Selene would hopefully be positive enough to bring up the topic.

At some point, I took a few minutes to collect all the metal I could bring along as well as some glass and quartz for myself. I had barely spent 10 gold, much less than four major vis crystals were worth. Then again, the spiders had no real method to get to ores or process them. The heat alone would probably ruin their nest. At least if it was filled with webs as much as the entrance.

The next morning, I put away the copy of Safrah’s research notes and took off. Within a few hours, the hungry node was back in view. The goblins had stabilized their camp a little bit and as soon as I started to lower myself, the panther showed his form. Her form? I never really checked and the voice was more of a feline growl. It mattered little to me.

Jaka walked out of her hut, the biggest and only one that looked somewhat complete. She had goggles on her head, pulled back to her forehead. In her hand, I spotted a wand topped by a focus. If my guess was right that was a lightning focus so quite the dangerous weapon. On the other wing, the wand was close to empty. It might at most fire off three or four shots.

I landed within a respectful distance and walked over the last bit of distance.

“You again?”, the goblin scoffed, “Already found a solution?”

“No. You need a Thaumonomicon, right?”

“So?”

“Here.”

I dropped the tome from my pocket space. The panther and goblin froze.

“The fuck was that?”, Jaka muttered.

“You can have it. I just want you to look into how to close hungry nodes.”

“I’ll… try. It will take a while.”

“No worries. I’m going to do my own research and drop by every once in a while to compare notes or conduct experiments.”

The panther nodded.

“Be careful.”

“I will. Goodbye.”

The goblin stumbled forwards.

“Wait! I need to fill my wand. Can you help me?”

I folded my wings again.

“Fine. Just a little. Give it here.”

For a moment it looked like she did not want to give it away the way the wand pressed into her chest. Then, with a prod from the panther, she stepped forwards and gingerly held the wand out. I reached for it with a shadow tendril, slowly as not to aggravate Kmika, and pushed some of my vis forwards. It was made from greatwood with gold caps and as such rather high quality for such a backwater place. I equally filled it with air, earth, order and destruction. Water and fire were not freely available to me. When I was about two thirds to the maximum capacity, I stopped and returned the wand.

“That’s all I can give. I need some for myself”, I said.

I only dipped into about a quarter of my reserves but was uncomfortable giving any more.

“This is good. Yes. Thank you.”

“Where did you find greatwood?”, I asked.

“I didn’t. This was a gift from a friend.”

“I see. Thank you.”

I sent another farewell as I spread my wings. The odd duo looked after my ascent for a bit but soon I spread my [Sgiathan Dorcha] and shot out of sight.

When I got to my workshop, I decided to clean it up a little. I had not been here in almost two months and dust had settled everywhere. That was quickly solved with a thorough application of shadows infused with a little bit of void. After only half an hour, everything looked as if new. I was rather proud of my speed-cleaning.

I dropped off my personal resources before moving on. Spring was basically over at this point and Stormbringer might come by at any point. Still, I was in luck and made it back to the spider colony before the storm pulled close.

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It took a minute of hooting to have Selene step to the edge of the webs. Some smaller spiders sat close and watched. I could only barely make them out in the darkness of their cave.

“You return”, she sent.

“Yes. I have what you asked for.”

“Show me.”

Selene flinched back and hissed as I opened my storage portal. She even half lifted a leg with shadows collecting around its tip. They looked similar to my own on first impression but I quickly realized a detail mine did not have. The spider’s darkness was formed of web-like tendrils interwoven to build a stable mass. It felt much more physical and a little less malleable than my own. In addition, there was a sense of stability that made me think her shadows would last for much longer after being separated. I was not interested in getting caught in those.

When the Thaumonomicon dropped onto the ground, she calmed down a little. The pile of metals following after made her click her mandibles a few times. After I stepped back, a horde of me-sized spiders came forward from the webs and quickly carried their loot inside. The Thaumonomicon was brought before its new owner.

After flipping through a few pages, Selene turned to me once more.

“Appreciation”, she sent.

“You’re welcome.”

At the same moment, a dozen more spiders brought four bundles of silk forward. They were not as large as I expected but handled with utmost care.

“Payment”, was the comment.

I bobbed my head and carefully opened up one of the cocoons with a talon. The major crystal looked to be a centimetre or two larger than large-sized medium crystals. The difference came from the density of vis. The one in front of me right then had at least five times the energy of what the dwarves commonly used for their artificing.

“Satisfied?”, came a question.

“Yes. These are great”, I sent. Before Selene could turn around and leave, I continued, “I have one more thing.”

Eight deep black eyes focused on me.

“My friend is working on elemental weave. She is a beginner in thaumaturgy. Will you take a look at her notes?”

The spider froze in thought. After almost five minutes, a mandible twitched and she finally gave me an answer.

“I pay?”

I blinked.

“No. She wants help. I don’t have the time to look into her work. I have to research hungry nodes.”

That made her hiss. The first time since I met the spider that was once human, she felt truly aggressive.

“Careful. Dangerous.”

“Do you know about hungry nodes?”

“Devour. Flee. They are indestructible.”

“I see. Thank you for the warning. I need to find a solution in a few centuries or the Dwarven Hills might get consumed.”

Selene rubbed her front legs over her eyes.

“How large?”, she sent with a sigh.

“It’s rather new. Was still medium two days ago. The crater is about 100 metres in diameter.”

That made Selene lay down. She clicked with her mandibles a few times and two spiders brought an oversized cockroach for her to snack on. While the food dissolved and the spider slurped up the liquid protein, she carefully tried to explain what she knew.

“Hungry nodes. And tainted. Worst. Hungry node eats world. Tainted vomits magic. Tainted is stronger than hungry. Can’t eat when vomiting.”

“So, if I could create taint around the hungry node, it would turn into a tainted node and no longer devour the world?”

“Yes. But taint.”

“Yeah. How would I clean that mess up? It even spreads farther than the destruction.”

Selene nodded.

“Also, get. Very hard. Very dangerous.”

“Getting taint is hard? Have you ever seen it?”

“Once. Paladins came. Crusade.”

“A… crusade against taint?”

“Yes. They failed.”

“What happened then?”

“I ran.”

We fell silent. That was a lot of information to take in. The human lands had a tainted place? Had they managed to clean it up? I needed to visit them and find out. If I could figure out a way to clean it, I could work on a way to create it. That should then let me turn hungry nodes into normal ones with one extra step. The destruction from the negative magic was not much of a problem when most of the place had been eaten by the Empty anyway.

“When was that?”, I asked.

All of a sudden, Selene stood up, her snack finished.

“Enough talk. Farewell.”

I blinked.

“Can I come visit sometimes?”

While she hesitated I pulled out Safrah’s notes from my storage.

“At least to discuss this?”

Selene turned back for a moment, a thread of spider silk collecting the paper. She gave it a quick once over before looking back at me.

“Not soon.”

I bobbed my head.

“After Stormbringer”, I said, “Okay?”

“Much after.”

And with that, I was alone again. I had not gotten the chance to talk to her about starting up trade with the goblins but I also did not expect the village to be ready for anything like that within the next half year.

I had a direction now, at least: Learn some more about taint and figure out how to clean it up. Research called. And exploration called. There had to be some place with taint on this world. Selene had seen it and the Thaumonomicon talked about it. And from what I remembered it spread dozens of times faster than a hungry node’s influence. If there was no method to clean it up, we would live in a much different world right now. I only had to find it.