I considered for a moment if I should read about how you were supposed to drain nodes usually. With how much time I had spent reading already, I decided against it. Maybe if I did not understand this stabilizer and it changed how I could interact with the node, I would go back to the book. For now, I made my way across the room. I kept my distance from the centre and flew around the pillars. As I landed in front of the supposedly major node, I took a closer look at the contraption beneath it.

It was a four-sided pyramid. The tip was flattened and from each of the sides small rectangular cuboids stood out. The whole thing was made from a simple grey stone with the cuboids having gold trimming around their edges. There was a soft milky-white barrier surrounding the actual node in a sphere. It originated directly from the cuboids and seemingly went through the rest of the pyramid where there were none. Inside, the node. It felt not much bigger than what I had seen before.

Different from my assumptions the barrier did not actually drain any mana, or vis, from the node. Instead, it simply contained and seemingly reflected it wherever the energy tried to leave. The aspects of this node were mainly metal and earth. Order and crystal were only about half as strong. If this node was actually larger than the one I had gained my medium mana enrichment from then the shield had to weaken its effect on the world considerably.

Curious, I edged closer. My eyes searched the shield and pedestal for any additional effects or symbols. I found none. The whole thing seemed to be contained perfectly. Touching it with my shadows showed no reaction. At the same time, I was unable to get through the shield. My wing was only slowed down as if reaching into molasses. The parts that reached into the shield felt partially cut off and I found myself unable to create shadows or bring any mana at all onto the other side of the barrier. This was frustrating.

At least I felt the node’s mana being bounced around inside and realized it was truly way more than I had experienced before. Did all the estates have a major node like this? It would definitely be worth checking them out. If I could find a way to get through the stabilizer.

I tried a few more things but [Strong Grip] could not find any purchase and [Surprise Attack] did not even trigger. This was not actually a target after all. [Aerial Combat] and [Intimidating Screech] were not silent enough for me to risk using them right now, not with a book to explain my problems right on the other side of the room. And [Eldritch Shift] was needed to escape in an emergency so I shied away from activating it. Speaking of, I was hungry. A bit of food would go a long way to restoring my mana more quickly.

It was too dangerous to pilfer from the pantry so I stuck with reading my hunger away for now. Soon I would have to get something though. It took a moment to find the chapter on vis enrichment, only because thinking about mana enrichment did not work at all. The tome was apparently biased towards using proper wording. Ugh.

The contents were however rather plain. It took a tool to safely absorb small amounts of mana from a node. A wand. And then you had to combine it with a lot of control, read Wisdom, to actually get it safely into your body. Using crystals was another possibility, but those were dangerous as well as difficult to process and gave reduced power. You could apparently only get to half the node’s strength without a direct connection.

So, a wand. Smart me had left my wand outside. I had however found wands on the top floor. Sadly there was not a single one lying around in the workshop. The ork probably kept his on him at all times. I deliberated going up to fetch one or coming back tomorrow and decided on a different plan of action: More reading! Maybe I could find something about the stabilizer.

Before I could get to it, I heard the ork move again. This was my signal to leave. I flew upstairs after closing the tome and returned to the double door. I wanted to leave for a bit and get some food, then return and try reading the other books in this library. Maybe something interesting would come up. Though I was hoping for more than history books on ork culture.

It was past midnight when I returned to the mansion after a successful hunt and a bit of rest. This time I had my wand with me and was ready to tackle the node again. I shifted back into the building, carefully making sure to avoid all the traps. The ork was working again, or rather, still. I had no problems making it back into the library without being noticed. [Sneak] really was amazing since its Breakthrough.

This time I was able to read the titles of most books. Some were in a different language than Ordugh apparently, mostly the really old ones on the third floor. I picked a few of those and took a look at the letters. Since I had not seen them yesterday in the magic tome I probably had to know about the language. I spent an hour looking at indecipherable writing before switching to the books I could read.

There were a lot of books and I quickly found there was no order to their placement in the third floor. The second had them grouped by topic at least. There was history, economics, politics, maths, a few novels or maybe legends was more appropriate. This looked very much like a normal human library. A private one, befitting the medieval structures and culture I had seen, but very normal. I found nothing on blood sacrifices or shamanistic rituals. Those things were probably in the magic tome if they existed.

The titles themselves spoke of a tribal culture. Origins of the mountain tribes, Goblins and their uses, War of the valleys. When looking through the books themselves I found a much more civilized notion than they suggested. It felt more like city-states similar to medieval Europe with many towns and cities lorded over by thaumaturges instead of actual lords and some trade and conflicts between them. I found mentions of other species as well. Predominantly goblins. There were actual goblin tribes located in secluded valleys with their own powerful thaumaturges. A few conflicts had led to an unstable cease-fire with the occasional skirmish between patrols.

Humans were mentioned as well, though only as distant enemies. Occasionally a few would find their way into ork lands and get wiped out or chased away. From the descriptions, they appeared to be bandits or refugees. Dirty, ragged, poor and most of the time weak. Those words were used to describe the people finding their way into the valleys from the north.

There were two more races with apparent sapience. The fantasy staple, dwarfs, had settlements far to the west. They had come into conflict with the orks a few times but mostly stuck to their keeps. The peaks were lower in those areas and the well equipped dwarfs far better at defending their land than invading the high passes leading to the ork valleys.

The other race was to the south. The mountains dropped as well but the ground in between was replaced by an ocean. Sheer cliff-faces dropped straight into saltwater and the orks had no interest in conquering such lands. Instead, there lived a people called aequor. They had a smaller build, similar to goblins but between their arms and torso, strong membranes spread. Those could be used to glide between the cliffs and swim very fast. They even had long tails to help manoeuvrer through both fluids. Their skin was covered in feather-like scales, long and sharp. This race was very interesting and I definitely wanted to see them at least once. According to the book The Unlivable South they had no thaumaturges. That hopefully made it a lot safer to visit them.

In the east, the mountains turned into a luscious forest, the same I had seen before going into the valleys. There were many dangerous monsters hiding deep in the woods so the orks had not explored it very far. It was apparently used by some elite fighters to train but still had a high death rate of over 50%. Definitely something for me to check out once I got a bit stronger.

The history of the tribes was a boring read I only skimmed, nothing interesting catching my attention. Economics and maths were very simple, compared to what I knew already. The book on war depicted simple strategies like chokepoints, traps and assassination. The war took place almost 500 years ago, so that might have changed by now. It looked to be mostly a civil war cutting the valleys into their current tribal structures.

On politics, I found a few interesting things. Thaumaturges kept control of the towns and villages through their students to get deliveries of materials whenever needed. Most of the chiefs actually ruling towns took a hands-off approach and had the guard keep order so they could focus on their research. There was a meeting of all thaumaturges of a tribe once a year to discuss the development of new resources and potential threats. The large valley I found myself in right now held three different tribes that were on decent terms. They had at least no conflicts within the last 20 years according to the book I read. The valleys going off to the side generally held their own, smaller, tribes. These were often pressured by the larger ones to trade resources for chump change.

The big shots, the really strong orks that would give lots of experience, all sat in their mansions doing research. Aside from the stronger fighters diving into the eastern forest. This was a good reference point of where to hunt for levels. I was looking at people like food again, huh? Not quite literally, but still. Was it really so bad? If I took out the leaders maybe the orks would learn they were not the strongest and treat the goblins a little better? I just needed to reduce my bloodthirst.

It was late at night now, dawn was approaching fast. The ork thaumaturge was getting tired as well and went to sleep. It was finally time for me to figure out how to drain this node and increase my mana enrichment.

I glided down to the node again, wand in my beak. I pointed the wand forwards. Nothing. I touched it onto the shield. Nothing. I hopped around and tried in different spots. Nothing. Nothing happened. I tried to force my will onto the magic and draw energy into myself. It did not work. This was frustrating.

I flew over to the magic tome. This time I pulled up the information on nodes again. There was something about a stabilizer? What was that? Looking for it brought me to a new chapter. Something about infusion. I read it, skimmed it, really. That seemed to be enough. Another page turned and I was reading about the stabilizer. This time I was a bit more attentive. Not too much though. What I got was, the cuboids were actually separate and putting them in would start the stabilizing process. So, pulling them out would stop it? Good enough for me.

Only, it was not trivial to move the cuboids. They were half inside, half outside the barrier. My shadows, for all their usefulness, were unable to find purchase. I had to use my talons. It was difficult to get a hold of them due to the curvature of the barrier. I was very grateful for [Sneak] muffling my wingbeats since I had to frantically flap them to keep myself close enough to get a grip on the cuboid. After much struggle, I finally got it. My talons grabbed onto the stone and my wingbeats pulled me back. It took a lot of shoving and pulling before it finally loosened and I fell backwards onto the ground. The stone sat in front of me as I stood up, a hole where it was before in the pyramid. The barrier was weakened but still there. I repeated the same struggle for the other three cuboids until finally, I got access to the node.

As the barrier dropped, mana flowed into the room. As if a dam broke, energy poured into the room. Metal, crystal, order and earth filled the space in between reality and shifted parts of what existed to behave differently. The energy mostly bounced off my body with only a small part flowing into me. It felt like I was touching a minor node even though I stood at least two metres away from this one. As I felt my shadows extend and slowly move towards the source of power, a door banged in the hallway. Hurried steps and another bang. I glanced towards the double door. The ork thaumaturge stood in the doorway, mouth gaping. I spared him a glance. He was shivering and breathing heavily, a soft golden glow blocking the flow of mana from reaching his body. He took a step forwards and hesitated.

“Ah, what? An owl? What… is going on?” He spoke between heaving breaths. “How are you alive?”

I felt energy invade some private part of myself, the telltale sign of [Identify].

“Sapient? Medium vis enriched? What? It’s not even a year old. How?”

I rolled my head and returned my attention to the node. My shadows extended towards it, the last few centimetres snapping closed with a bang not audible in reality. Energy flowed into me. Mana. Vis. Order and earth, crystal and metal. I connected my shadow tendrils to a flowing blanket of darkness covering all of my body. Everywhere at the same time was filled with new concepts. I made sure to keep a tight grip on the mana, guiding it into my inner gate as much as possible. Flux built up rapidly but the stream of power was so strong it ripped parts of it out of my body and pushed it into my soul. This was bad. I should have been more careful. Was this how I would die the second time? Warped and twisted by too much magic? My own greed destroying both my body and soul?

I did not remember how long I stood there, draining the node. I kept as much focus as I could to keep control of myself. And then, a bang. Abruptly, the energy cut off. Dust sparkling white and green, silver and cyan, floated through the air when I opened my eyes. The node, gone. The stabilizer had shifted from pure stone to a wavy pattern of steel, glass and rock. Behind me, the ork sat on the ground. His magical tome lying off to the side and quill in hand. He was writing furiously on a pile of paper, feeding the filled sheets directly into the book. His head held a pair of glasses through which he stared at me and where his node was. Light fell through the curtain behind the node’s former position, now partially turned to glass. It reflected off the mage’s glasses as my consciousness started to wane. My body started to sway, my eyelids growing heavy.

The ork noticed my state.

“You, do you understand me?” he asked. Demanded, almost.

Yes. I nodded. Then as the world tipped over, everything turned dark.