The next morning, I met with the group. Fredreck introduced everyone to me, now that we would spend a few weeks together. The five besides him were two women and three men. Harra and Smia were the names of the female dwarves with the others going by Lothar, Redrick and Hedreck. Everyone’s last name was Gurrin, of course. They all had slightly different specializations related to mining.

Fredreck was the oldest by quite a bit, even surpassing Captain Dor by over 20 years. Lothar had a little over 60 years and was specialized in tunnel boring. He had repeatedly torn through ores recently thus having been assigned to the quarry to practice his precision. The others were all around 40 years old. Smia seemed the most important to bring along, to me at least. She was the only one who had a forging Class for crafting and repairing basic tools. Apparently, she had started with an apprentice mining Class and then swapped professions. That had allowed her to easily gain a mining general Skill and still be considered a Gurrin.

I was sure I would forget most of that if it was not for us staying together for the next while. I could already see them discussing their craft until late into the night.

We made to get supplies after that. The dwarves gladly took my offer to carry the bulk of their food and larger tools. Despite that, they still wanted to have a few things on hand and everyone ended up with a decently-sized pack. Water was the biggest issue but there were devices for miners to refine something drinkable from thin air. These artefacts would normally cost a pretty penny but everyone already had one, provided by their Clan. We would still take stops near springs and rivers whenever possible to avoid using too much vis on those. Apparently, the dwarves needed at least a small vis crystal per day to live solely off the artificial spring, as the artefact was called.

Their tools luckily did not include pickaxes since I already had brought a lot to the goblin village. Smia had a pile of smithing and forging implements, though. There were tongs, hammers, a few casts for ingots and a set of channels to guide liquid metal into the casts. The dwarves were confident they could build a forge and bloomery from stone and clay. I decided to trust the experts.

Everyone also had some basic weaponry and sturdy clothes. I took a change for each of them into my storage to use after the journey. In addition to that, the dwarves carried tents, some rope and other basics, like a firestarter. That was once more an artefact using ignis crystals to produce a small flame. It looked much like a lighter from my old world, one of those with a long tip to ignite candles in deep glasses. They made sure to carry some flint and steel, just in case. Vis crystals were not infinite, after all.

With all the magical tools they carried, it was expected some wildlife would trouble us sensing valuable prey. That was where I would be needed. The group could fight at a basic level using axes and hammers but nobody actually had a combat or scouting Class. That turned out to be the main part of their preparation. The group joined the new guard recruits to touch up their skills a little. I used that time to visit Riggard and use his workshop to create something to take some of the work off my mind. Warding stones.

The artificer was welcoming and nearly roped me into helping with his work. He was still busy with the large version of the vis interceptor. It was done on a basic level but did not really work without a large amount of thaumium. He had made enough but the device was much too expensive to be worth using. That was why he tried to reduce and adjust the amount and positioning of the material to save on production costs. He said something about getting it down below 10 vis coins material value. I was not sure anyone would be willing to buy that but then again, I had little to no idea how the dwarven economy worked.

An apprentice of Riggard showed me to an area in the workshop I could use for the next few days. It was filled with practice works leftover from training which were shoved aside unceremoniously. Soon, I got to work.

The original design in the Thaumonomicon was made for paving stones to improve travelling speed. I had no idea how that would work and mostly ignored it. The version I had in mind would block off any threats while the dwarves rested. I needed to make them portable so I could place them every night and pick them up in the morning. That was not too difficult. I simply had to have some vis crystals on hand to kickstart them every evening or use my personal energy. The difficult part was deciding what to block from crossing over. There was also the risk of aerial attacks which might pass over the barrier.

I got to work making a list of what would be a threat and how I could stop it. Monsters and animals were the biggest issues. They were also a big problem to stop since I shared a lot of aspects with them. Simply stopping beasts or movement would prevent me and even the dwarves from moving through. If there was a sapient animal out to get the dwarves, they might use tools or magic to attack from afar. That would be another thing to stop. A bear could just push over a tree and flatten the resting dwarves or even break the circle. And how could I protect against attacks from below?

Maybe warding stones were not the solution. I opened the Thaumonomicon and looked for other options. There had to be something I could do to protect everyone without having to stay up and alert every night. I did not trust the miners to be able to properly guard a camp.

It took a while to find something with potential. The first idea, making something similar to the barrier protecting the ork mansion, was quickly discarded. That required a long-term setup which was decidedly immobile and would take days to get ready for a single location. I kept looking and found a focus of warding. Similar to my excavation focus, it would normally be used in conjunction with a wand. This one could turn an area or material impervious for anyone and everything until the vis ran out. Sadly, I needed a specific item to use as its core, similar to the emerald for the other focus. It was called ‘star shard’ and something I had never heard of before. There was not even much detail on it elsewhere in the Thaumonomicon. I could only find it to be a glowing white and yellow shard of crystal shaped like a star. Nothing on its origin and not even any details on the aspects it had. At least I learned it should be about the size of a child’s fist. I assumed that to be an ork child or possibly a human child. The author did not specify.

I decided to try and look in the dwarven library for any hints at it. The librarian I asked about it remembered reading about something similar. It took an hour to find the corresponding book and when we did, I was a little disappointed. It was titled Mythical Materials – Of Creations Beyond Mortals. I found the passage subtitled Star Crystal – An Artificer’s Dream and started reading.

The star crystal is mentioned in legends of old. Not dwarven legends, human legends. Without Trade Town, we would have likely never learned of it. It is said to be an object about the size of a human child’s fist, which is a little smaller than a dwarven adult’s. Its colours are white and yellow and it glows without ever dimming. The human legend says the star crystal, or star shard as some call it, was one day found in the middle of a devastated wasteland. Craters and gravel covered the ground all around and in a clean indent, the shape of a hemisphere the material in question hovered.

Now, how come a human legend would be an artificer’s dream? Very simply, the star crystal is said to permanently emit a high level of vis without any negative side effects. The Paladins tell a tale of war for the energies emitted by the star crystal which ended with their organization’s founding. The thaumaturges of that time had spread a wide layer of flux and taint in the human lands in their bid for what appeared to be an infinite energy source. The Paladins in turn started to clean up the mess and forbade any and all humans from practising the devastating craft. Since then, humans have outlawed thaumaturgy for it begets greed and destruction.

To return to the topic at hand, we know preciously little about the star crystal. Where it came from or what it is, why it was found hovering in a devastated wasteland or what happened to said wasteland. I could only assume that any artificer worth their brass would sell their lives just for a chance to experiment with such a mysteriously magical object. Sadly, we are likely to never see another one, if it even exists. And if we see one, I hope it is not on dwarven soil for the destruction potentially brought by its creation is not something I would wish on the Dwarven Hills.

That was quite interesting, if true. Sadly, it helped very little with my current predicament. At least I could say with a certain level of certainty that the star crystal, or star shard, really existed. Thaumaturges were often slightly insane but they never wrote down lies in the Thaumonomicon. It was simply impossible with the way the magical tome spread information. There was something in the back of my mind telling me every entry had to be true.

I thanked the librarian and returned to my search for a barrier of sorts. Maybe something simpler would be enough. An alarm system, potentially? I could have it triggered by movement, magic and weapon. Those three aspects should cover any threat to the dwarves. Again, I had little to help against threats from underneath. That could be solved by making the alarm a full sphere with the ability to permeate solid matter.

I got to work using a set of thaumaturgical artefacts as a baseline. The arcane sensory suite, including an ear and eye, was able to react to its surroundings. I quickly realized taste and smell would be relatively useless and touch difficult to realize. Still, I needed something to perceive aspects and not one of the traditional five senses. Digging a little deeper, I found a sinister lodestone. It was a sort of compass guiding one to nodes with negative aspects. They were not quite tainting the land but something like undeath, death, weapon, destruction and others on that line could make it harder for life to sustain near it. It was made by combining exactly the arcane ear and eye with the specific aspects one wanted to look for as well as a bunch of auram and sensus.

I was a little curious why the Thaumonomicon only had a sinister lodestone specialized in finding ‘evil’ but at least I could adjust the device to fit my needs. I would also have to connect an actual alarm to it but that was not too difficult either.

For now, it was time to get crafting.