I found a spot on the side of the valley to observe the ork town and got some rest. It would most likely take some time for the orks to find what happened to the thaumaturge. Still, I wanted to make sure nothing went wrong after my initial success.

When morning came around, there was a bit of a commotion on the edge of the buildings. The night patrol came in and the day patrol got to work. Some orks were taking reports and an especially big one gave orders here and there. I paid little attention to their buzzing and instead kept an eye on the town square.

For a few more hours, everything was normal. Orks went about their business. A few goblins snuck around the village but they were looking starved and beaten. These were the ones that did not want to or could not escape. Around noon, the big guy who gave orders earlier entered the house opposite the thaumaturge’s. He stayed inside only for a few minutes before crossing the plaza and knocking on the magically warded door. Nothing happened. Just as I knew would happen, nobody opened up. What I did not expect was the boss ork not caring in the slightest and simply standing there for a full hour, only knocking twice more in all that time. He must be used to being dismissed.

This went on for another while until with the tenth or eleventh knock, the door simply swung open. The boss ork froze, dumbstruck by what was going on. I was confused as well. Had this one not bound his wards to a node? Why was there no more energy protecting the building?

I was hesitant to fly down in broad daylight. Even if they might take me as wildlife, boldly entering a city would give the game away. My decision to check the details was quickly taken from me as boss ork stormed out of the building. He started bellowing orders for everyone to move to him and bring the goblins. I had a sinking feeling but there was not much I could do about this anymore.

With trepidation, I watched as the boss informed the town of the thaumaturge’s demise. He blamed the goblins. Because of course, he would. Within moments, the last dozen of them were bodies in a pile. I clicked my tongue. Maybe I could have prevented this but there was no way I could have predicted their reaction. Within minutes, the orks were armed and storming out of town. The patrols perked up, looking at the incoming horde of almost a hundred hulking greenskins. Soon, every ork was running through the wilderness north and south of the buildings and searching for something to kill. I kept observing silently from above, no longer sitting on the mountainside but flying.

The frenzied orks kept running around and killing everything they could get their weapons on. Even well through the night, they did not stop. For hours on end, their roaring and stomping sounded through the valley. Only late into the next morning did the first ones start to collapse. Not a single one had made it to the goblin cave.

The warriors were exhausting themselves to the last drags of energy. I was tempted to start taking out the defenceless bodies sleeping in the wilderness but by the time the last ones collapsed, the first was up and awake once more. At least the rush seemed to be over for the time being. They started collecting their kills and some of them set up campfires to prepare food on the spot.

When the sun started to set once more, the last orks made their way back into town. No more patrols were around and with that, the threat to the goblins was over. I made my way back up the tunnel and found the guards twitchy. One of them just barely averted his spear. I found Roguk sitting behind the barrier with a grumpy expression. He greeted me with a grunt and waved me over. While I formed a connection, the goblin started to complain about the commotion I had caused.

“That was not really what we expected, Fio. The noise kept us up through the day, you know? All that hollering coming up the tunnel was just annoying. What were they even doing?”

“I killed the thaumaturge. Then some boss guy got them riled up and the lot started hacking at anything that moved in the valley.”

“Couldn’t you have stopped them? I barely made any progress with my project! I can’t get to it when I’m this tired! All the guards are on edge. It’s madness!”

“Then go get some sleep? It’s over now. They went back to their town. I’ll get some food and go back out to keep an eye on their movement but I expect nothing more to come of this.”

The alchemist let out a long sigh.

“Really? After all this madness? This is how it ends?”

I nodded.

The faces of the surrounding goblins started to look more and more worried with everything he said.

“Maybe relay what I said to the other?”, I prompted.

“Good idea.”

After a short explanation, the village started to calm down. When Roguk told the others of what I had done, they started to come over and thank or praise me. I enjoyed the attention for a bit but it quickly got overwhelming. I caught myself a rodent and soon was outside again.

Nothing happened for another week. The orks seemed to have completely forgotten their rush and simply moved on with their everyday lives. I had spotted a party of scouts leave southwards on the second day but nothing had come of that quite yet. The thaumaturge’s house was left alone. They even had someone standing guard to make sure no trespassing happened. That did not stop me from going in at night and checking on the golems. They all had deactivated, along with every ward in the building.

I took a closer look at the unmoving figures and found the wood cracking in places. They had wax seals on their hips just like every other one I had seen before. Those were peeling off as well. I saw energy congregating around the seals when looking a little closer. This pushed them away from the attached body. On the iron golems, it had little effect. The wax simply fell off. The wood, though, reacted by starting to break. I tried removing one of the seals on a wooden golem and got shocked by a surge of flux. Moments later, the wood crumbled. Even the wax dried out and turned into little pieces. Maybe a specific tool could help but that was out of my reach right now.

I decided to bag the iron golems anyway. They would be reactivated just fine with a new seal. I just had to read up on them a little more. The old seals had turned mundane and would only suffice as a base for new ones. Soon, I had two dozen iron bodies in my storage, ready to be utilized.

My next stop was the lab. It was a single large room filled with a plethora of workbenches. Most of them had tools and raw materials in several states of processing stacked on top. There was iron, wood, clay, and on the other end, I even spotted some glass. Blueprints and drawings were scattered in between showing concepts for golems and seals with some slightly confusing magical explanations. Reading one in a little more detail revealed the thaumaturge had been researching new methods of creating the little helpers. Automated, self-replicating methods. Nothing I would engage on. All the plans went into my stomach and dissolved into mana.

The material was a little too much for me to bring in one trip so I left it be for now. The real treasure was a new Thaumonomicon and the device standing next to the workbench with the glass on it. On the bottom, I could see what was a crucible. It was heated by a flame of nitor in a little compartment within the ground. But the inside was not accessible. Instead, a towering and definitely magical construction was placed on top. I had not read anything about this. A quick scan showed me it had the aspects of machine, alchemy and magic. Was it something to automatically utilize the cauldron without the whole mess of boiling water and throwing things inside? I could certainly see it.

Sadly, the thing was heavily dismantled. The front was only loosely held in place by some wooden clamps and removing them showed a butchered inside. Pipes, brass, gold, wood and thaumium pieces hang loosely on the few leftover strands of iron that had not been removed yet. I would have to read up on crucible usage and this device soon. Whatever it did, it had to be very useful. I only needed to figure out how it worked.

With that out of the way, I looked for books. I had to. Every room was scanned to the last corner and every wall checked for secret passageways. There were… very few. Most of them seemed to be from the previous thaumaturge. They were research manuals that had been transcribed from the Thaumonomicon and extended with personal observations. These might be useful for when I would look into golems. There was also a lot of stuff about wand foci. Nothing I had not read yet but a few scribbled notes had some interesting ideas. My most recent victim’s predecessor seemed to have focused on aura research. He was looking into a way to draw vis from normal surroundings instead of only nodes. I was a little sceptical as to how that would be possible but if it was the implications were big. Depending on how bad flux pollution would get from utilizing it.

That was everything I found in the building. Taking my spoils with me, I ascended into the night once again only to be caught off guard by a notification.

~ding~ Requirements fulfilled! For stealing from a guarded home you have unlocked the [Thief] class. Only one class can be equipped at this time. Do you wish to replace your current class with [Thief]? Note, all progress will be lost in your current class.

A [Thief]? It made some sense. But only now? Had I not stolen from other thaumaturges before? Or was that not enough for the system to recognize my actions as such? Obviously, I did not take the Class. Even if I had a spot open, [Thaumaturge] would be a better option. Or [Hunter]. Was it [Goblin Hunter]? Yes. As I thought about the Class names, the system showed me the notifications from when I had unlocked them. Maybe it would be a smart idea to start swapping them around a little if I ever got a second slot.