I could not do it. I could not upgrade my Skill. Not in this time-constrained manner, under this much pressure. There was simply too much to figure out in the finer details. Even though there were no numbers to go by. In that case, [Maths] might have shown to be useful, but thaumaturgy was all feelings as far as I had experienced it. It was all natural, at a much more base level than the principles of maths could describe. Or maybe it was the other way around? The numbers I knew were too simple to describe the complex reality that existed inside and outside this world? Truly, a philosophical question I did not have the time for.

The four rings and wand were easy to carry, a single shadow tendril strong enough to hold them all. The foci as well, no problem. The book, however, was simply too large. I was just under half a metre tall and if stood upright, this book would reach just under my chin. It was truly massive, even the width doubling my own. At least the weight was far less than it should be considering all the pages you could access. I had expected much more from my experience in the ork’s library.

All this let me carry it fine with my shadows, it was far lighter than a fully grown bear after all, but when I stood outside the tent and tried to take off, my shadows faltered. The tendril holding the book lagged behind my movement and once reaching their maximum range dissipated, dropping the tome into the grass with a soft thump. I tried again, this time accelerating the book beforehand and taking off after it. That was my intention at least, but after reaching a speed far slower than my flight, it slipped through the tendrils. They were just not solid enough to hold onto the mass at such a speed. I watched the book tumble through the air and flip through a few pages before landing cover up in some bushes.

Great. That might actually work. Hiding it somewhere near the ground. There was enough vegetation nearby. It took a few minutes of search, but I soon found a suitable place. I planned to come back once the Circle meeting was over. Thinking about it, why did I not just walk out of here, book in shadows? After getting some distance, it would be easy to work on a storage Skill.

As I started to extend my darkness towards the tome, I found the reason why. My ears picked up slow steps carefully making their way through the forest. I would at least need to know if any thaumaturges were on the move. And if any golems were around. Which I found out very soon, as a magical flame lit up maybe twenty metres away in a tent and someone stepped out. An ork wearing typical thaumaturge robes stretched his arms and yawned before tasting the air. He looked around sleepily, pointing a wand as if it was a flashlight. Which it basically was with the focus he had put on it. Behind, two golems scuttled out of the tent, empty eyes scanning the surroundings, small crossbows in hand. Why did all golems have crossbows?

My stupidity was made clear to me when the cone of light pointed directly at me. I should have been long gone. Why was I thinking so slowly? The ork raised his eyebrows and spoke a word under his breath. Instantly, the golems turned to me and pointed their crossbows forwards. Before the bolts left their weapons, I was already in the air. Instincts guided me to use my new Skill. It felt weird for a second to flap my wings not for gaining height or to accelerate but to strike. As if I was trying to create a storm to shoot at my enemies.

The most present thought in my mind was the Thaumonomicon. If it had been something else, a silent kill and escape might have been possible, but with this, the closest aspect I had access to was void and eldritch. I felt the void mana go into my feathers and realized it would remove parts of reality. This would certainly kill my target, but it would also create a lot of noise when the world repaired itself. Even if it was just air snapping back into place. So I pushed towards alienis. The essence of eldritch. Thaumaturges say taint is the worst thing magic can do to reality. They are insane. They have been turned insane by researching matters not fit for real minds. Subjects alien to this world, topics of eldritch nature.

Purple feathers formed as my wings swung forward. This was a dark purple with streaks of black going through it. A small part of void essence had found its way into my attack. Sharp edges formed facing towards my target. Then they detached. I could not call it throwing them forward. They move not like arrows or spears, as I had expected. The void feathers would have, my instincts told me. Instead, the magical attack shifted in an unpredictable pattern, weaving from side to side, in and out of reality. The orks eyes widened with interest. I felt a tug of [Identify] form. Then, my attack hit.

First, a golden shield formed around the ork. It stood strong and shiny in the dark of night, illuminating the scene as if a floodlight and sounding out with a clear ringing. Then, the feathers were suddenly inside. One of them sprouted out of the orks forehead, another from his side. One even stuck into the back of his knee, an impossible angle for mundane projectiles, or anything following any coherent laws of physics. Then the feathers dissipated, seeming to absorb into my target’s body. No wounds, no blood. Was my attack a failure?

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The ork seemed to think the same. He started laughing and grinned, once more setting to [Identify] me, before bending over and vomiting purple. Some of it was gaseous, some liquid, most somewhere in between. Eyes wide, he went to his knees. For once, I saw what true madness looked like. His pupils were tiny, eyelids pulled back so far, they seemed to have fully disappeared. His mouth stood open a small bit, short heaved breaths going in and out rapidly. His nostrils stretched and contracted with the same rhythm. The ork dug his fingers into his legs, soon starting to break his fingernails on the enchanted cloth. He swayed back and forth with increasing frequency while muttering incoherent mumbling. The golems stood behind, lifeless eyes turned to a sinister gleam. Had I hit them too?

Just as I thought that a familiar mist fell over the area. An eldritch guardian? It was to be expected with this many thaumaturges but I thought the timing too weird to be a coincidence. I was proven correct moments later when skittering and hissing reached my ears. Mind spiders, as I had seen them in my soul, had formed out of thin air and rushed about the trees. Even more, the ork started to scream, clearly audible even through the fog. I retreated quickly, finding a hiding spot up in the trees. A spider sat down next to me and cuddled her body up to my feathers. I ignored it. I knew they would not harm me.

Through the fog, more and more noise was audible. Orks woke up and stormed out of their tents, shooting their magic at anything that moved. Complete chaos broke out. I sharpened my senses and saw there were still feathers around. They felt like mine, they seemed part of my Skill, and yet they had their own minds. Looking closely, they originated from the ork I had hit first. The golems had shot him and he was lying on the ground, bleeding out slowly, but still very much alive. A few spiders were bringing their legs into his body and pulled out purple threads, similar to those I had seen in my soul. On some of them, my eldritch feathers had gotten stuck. They were quickly separated and mindlessly discarded by the spiders. Only, there were far more than I had shot out.

Purple streaks flew throughout the fog. I could focus and sense their position as well as their immediate surroundings. One flew past an eldritch guardian busy crushing an orks head with his armoured hands. It shot into the ork and the guardian let go, looking for a new target. I lost sight of it soon after until spiders started digging out more feathers from the body. Like that, madness and death spread throughout the camp. Orks fell to guardians or spiders after having their defences overwhelmed or went mad through my feathers. Golems turned on their controllers and backstabbed them. And further outside, civilians stood watching the spectacle. The fog reached up to the end of the grove and no eldritch creature left it. A few of my feathers were flung out, mostly on accident, by a spider. Through those, I sensed the uneasy people watching and listening to the thaumaturges scream for their lives.

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It took until dawn broke for the last life to die. The only living beings left in the grove were me and the plants. Anything else had been fed on by spiders or crushed by guardians. The spider that was still hugging me waved goodbye and stepped into me. I felt it go along the edge of my soul into the Empty beyond reality. It was weird and slightly scary, but I was confident it did not want to harm me.

I surveyed the destruction. Mangled bodies lay on the ground spread out far and wide between the trees. An orchestra of madness and enlightenment had robbed these souls of their lives. In between, crushed tents stood, furniture peeking out through the canvas here and there. Golems, formerly unliving, had turned to mad intelligence, before finally shutting down. I had watched one of the mind spiders jump through a mad golem and the body fell over right after. A purple feather was in the spider's fangs which it promptly discarded. Strangely, no remnants of my own attack were actually visible, besides the purple vomit from my first target. The ones flying outside had touched some orks, none of them thaumaturges, but dissipated quickly and only knocked them out. I was certain there would be some lasting damages but not actual death. Maybe these would be the new thaumaturges?

Throughout all this, I expected to get a ton of notifications. I did not get a single one. Was it because there were witnesses watching the spectacle? No, that could not be it. None of them had seen me. Nobody knew who killed all of them. Or rather, everyone thought the Circle was massacred by eldritch monsters. Which was precisely what happened.

I decided to stay in the forest for a while longer. While I could have just flown away, anything surviving this mess would surely be blamed as a perpetrator. It would be wise to leave only once it was night and I could escape unnoticed. So I picked up my Thaumonomicon and retreated to the centre of the area. The node. Before, I had felt plant and tree aspects from it, as well as some earth and air. A fitting combination. Now there was a very distinct feeling of alienis mana from it as well. It almost surpassed the previously primary tree mana. Real events could apparently affect nodes. Maybe I could make use of this knowledge one day. Though the nature of the eldritch aspect made it much easier to latch onto a gateway to the Empty, which nodes were according to what I had read.

Now, I had a whole day of time to waste. I was very confident from the looks the spectators had, they would not disturb me. I could spend all that time to finally figure out this stupid storage Skill.