Cordyceps Seventeen
Cordyceps Seventeen
“A wand is made of three parts,” Cain said as he turned to the blackboard. Reaching up, he tugged on the first of a set of rings connected to a spring roller and pulled it down. I was expecting a map for a moment, or a white sheet for a projector, but instead there was a detailed diagram of a wand.
There were several images, taken from different angles with a few cutaways to the side, all carefully labelled.
“Those parts are the core, the shaft, and the handle. Take notes, please.”
I scrambled along with the others to do just that.
“The core of a wand is the part unseen. It’s usually--though not always, but the exceptions are rare enough not to matter for firsties--entirely encased within the handle and shaft. A core is always magical. It can be a type of wood, a byproduct from a magical creature, or even a magical metal or crystal. Now, the shaft--”
Cain paused mid-speech as he noticed that my hand was raised.
“Yes? Uh... Gunther?”
“Sorry,” I said. “But could you give us examples? I’m curious.”
He considered it for a moment, then nodded. “Fine. But no more interruptions. Some common wand-core materials are goblin blooded pulp for temporary wands. Mage blood can work as well. The bones of nearly any magical creature. Most magical plants will work as cores as well. Over three-quarters of our wands have cores sourced from alchemists. It’s just the best, cheapest way to make a core. Things like unicorn horns can be used too, but not on the kinds of wands made by Firsties. In fact, just don’t keep your hopes up for that kind of rare material until you’re in your final years.”
He glanced at me as if to see if I was happy, and I nodded my head quickly while making notes.
Magical plants, huh? Well, I happened to have no lack of magical fungi. Could I use that as a wand core? Would it last very long? The way Cain talked about it, some of these plant-based things didn’t last very long to begin with, which I supposed was normal for something made by a beginner.
“A wand’s shaft is this part right over here.” Cain whipped out a wand from his pocket. It was a short thing, maybe a foot long, with a thicker handle and a stubby wooden point. “The shaft is usually made from a different material from both the core and the handle, to prevent magical interference between the different parts. The shaft directs the magic being poured into the wand, and will sometimes have inscriptions on it to create a specific spell when used.”
He flipped his wand around, holding it by the end.
“The handle, on the other hand, is usually made of a very non-magical material.” His looked almost like it was made of rubber. “The less magical the better, except for a small place where the user can come into contact with the shaft. Mine is here, where my thumb rests. Others had contact points near their index, or as a ring near the top. That’s a matter of the wand-user’s comfort more than anything, and it’s one of the few places with wand making where what you pick really doesn’t matter in the grand-scheme of things.”
He reached up and pulled down another sheet over the blackboard. This one was split horizontally, with the top half labelled ‘casting wands’ and the bottom labelled ‘freeform wands.’
“Nearly all wands fall into these two categories. This wand of mine is a casting wand. It lets me do this.”
And in so doing, Cain turned his wand towards us and narrowed his eyes.
I was out of my seat and diving away in a split second.
I landed roughly on the ground, then rolled around to see... that he had just sprayed a mist over the others and was now looking at me, on the floor, with an eyebrow quirked.
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“This is a misting spell. It pulls water from the air and sprays it out. You use it on plants to keep them watered,” Cain explained while I carefully stood up.
I refused to be embarrassed. That could have been anything and I had no real way of knowing. Better looking like an idiot sometimes than being dead once.
“I can’t cast that spell myself. Well, I probably could, it’s hardly the most difficult of magics, and the cost of the permit for it is relatively small at a few shilling. But with the inscription added to the wand, it’s significantly easier to cast. Are you comfortable again, Gunther?”
“Yes. Sorry for the second interruption.”
“Hmm,” was his only reply. “Must be awful, being afraid of getting a little wet. In any case, this wand knows one spell, and without an incantation, it can take my mana and cast that spell. There’s still some work on my part, but very little. A freeform wand, on the other hand, doesn’t do that. It acts as a receptacle and amplifier. Some more complex spells require a certain build-up of magic to be cast. Most mages can’t hold that much magic in themselves, so they pour it into their wands while their reserves grow, then once they and their wand have enough... boom! A new spell is cast.”
He flipped his wand around and tucked it away.
“Freeform wands have other uses. They can concentrate magic better, can amplify or magnify it, and can change one kind of magic into another. If you have any slightly-magical skills that mention using a specific kind of magic then you’ll know what I mean. Something like... [Firestarting {Common}] which a lot of people have, is obviously fire magic. A magic-user who wants to cast a water spell might have a wand that’s going to more easily turn their magic into that kind. It’s complicated, and not something you firsties need to worry about much. Questions about the basics?”
Simon, the other Dragon in the class, raised his hand. “Do wands need to be wand-shaped?”
“A freeform wand, almost always. They sometimes need to be wiggled and moved in a specific way. So wand-users like them to all be similar. But a casting wand like what I have can have nearly any form.”
Cain made a ‘one moment’ gesture, then moved across the room.
He was a surprisingly good teacher for a non-professor. I didn’t sense that he had any active teaching skills, but he did care about the subject and that carried through in his teaching.
He returned with what looked like a very ornate sword’s hilt, only its ‘blade’ was curved around so that the point was near the knuckles, and the blade was made of wood. “This was a project of mine from fifth year,” he said. He frowned and a small shield of glowing light appeared around the handle as a sort of half-dome. It flickered, then died. “It... wasn’t perfect,” he admitted.
The boys chuckled, and Cain smiled, placing the strange wand down on a desk. “So yes, as long as the handle is well designed and the core is intact, and you have a shaft that accounts for the spell inscriptions, you can have a strange shape. But mostly the shape of the handle determines the rest. The wand is a very natural shape to lay things out in, so we tend to use that. I have seen some others in the class make magical mugs, or a knife and even an umbrella. Canes are popular. You’ll see plenty of gentlemen on the roads with canes. Keep an eye out for the handles and you might notice that they’re actually wands. Usually with some sort of self-defence spell worked into them.”
That was good to know.
“Or they have a passively-active [Clean Air] spell at work,” Cain continued.
That was also good to know.
My target, Blackwood, raised his hand next. “What’s the curriculum like in the club?”
“Well, today’s all lessons. We’ll go into a bit more depth. Next class, you’ll be making a very basic wand with some materials we have. Cheap stuff. Don’t expect to make anything too fantastic, but it’s a good way to learn how to do it. We usually start with a [Mist] spell wand, or an [Eraser] spell, which is really useful.”
I could see a lot of potential in all of this, but it depended on something rather important, so I raised my hand next. Cain nodded to me. “How do you get spells to add to a wand?”
“At the Academy, there’s a small licence-agreement that lets students pick from a variety of {Common} and a few {Uncommon} spells. The latter for sixth and seventh years only, of course. Out of school, or if you want to try something beyond our grimoire, you need to get a licence to purchase spells, then buy them. It’s a bit of a hassle, but it’s only a dozen pounds to expedite the process.”
So basically unaffordable for the common person. Got it. “Thanks,” I said.
Still, this had potential. I was a little glad I’d gotten railroaded into this class after all.
***