Fourteen mana nodes are scattered across the world. Bonding with one — melding — permanently raises your maximum mana, and the bond stays with your character. Most sit in the open and only need the walk; a handful have to be unlocked, and one of those is the Underworld brazier puzzle.
Melding
Stand within three squares of a node and use it. Each node can be melded once. The gain is three points of maximum mana plus one for every ten points of Mysticism above five — three at low Mysticism, eight at fifty. Ask in game and you will be told which nodes your aura is connected with.
The nodes
Node attacks
The Xeochicatl pull themselves out of the ground and drain a node. Seven nodes can be attacked at all — Under the Shadow of the Sentinel, Upstairs in Castle Victoria, The Badlands, A Deep, Dark, Spooky, Icky Cave, Seafarer’s Peak, The Dreaded Caves of Ice and Martyr’s Battleground — and only the first six are ever picked at random. An attack needs a decent crowd online before it starts.
If the defenders drive them off the node is saved. If not it is drained, and everyone bonded to it loses that mana for several days. There is also a small chance the drain severs your link entirely, in which case you have to go back and meld again once the node returns.