Prudus Explains Magic: A Wizard’s Staff
“Look at this sword! This craftsmanship is remarkable! You won’t find anything quite like this anywhere else in the world!”
“No, look here! Take a look at the gravure! Style like this is unparalleled!”
The blacksmiths around Prudus were shouting to get the attention of the parties knight, who was walking right behind him. They would have to find other buyers though, for Viribus had already found what he desired.
“This longsword is perfect for me! This length, this weight — “
He was talking about the advantages of this weapon for the past hour, ever since he acquired it at one of the most prominent stores in the middle of the big marketplace. Terastias marketplace was said to be the biggest on the whole continent of Gie. If you couldn’t find the goods your heart desired here you just weren’t searching in the right row of stands.
“Yes, yes. It’s very nice, Vir.”
Lathraia wouldn’t have said this with a small smile on her face if she hadn’t found her weapons of choice before. She was up before most of the party had been awake and secured the best daggers for her. As a rogue she loved to test her weapons privately and so the rest of the party found her when the sun was already high up in the sky, buying the weapons she had tested since dawn in a bunker designed specifically to accommodate potential buyers from different stores that specialised in the weapons of choice for most rogues.
She may not talk as much about weapons as Viribus, but it still took her half an hour to make sure that everyone knew how perfectly balanced they were.
The other members of the party found their weapons of choice, too. A big, bulky club with special iron bands that were supposed to increase the damage dealt by brute force of the party’s Orc, Stultus. A longbow with arrows that were supposedly able to fly farther and much more precisely than the older ones for the party’s ranger, Taceta.
Just one of them was missing.
“So, Prudus, where do you want to go?” Lathraia asked, trying to steer the “conversation” away from Viribus’ longsword.
Everybody looked up from their weapons, to the front of their little group where Prudus was leading the way.
“For the moment, dear Lathraia, we are going away from the center.”
It was a beautiful day. Just yesterday they cleared a big dungeon of Ogres and Goblins. The loot was shared as it always was and now everybody wanted to spend their hard-earned gold. The sun was shining and the craftsmen showing their weapons were screaming to get the attention of the group that was obviously used to adventuring.
Everywhere something was sparkling from the reflected sun. Weapons in all sizes and variations. From practical to ornamental. From the highest quality to the worst junk. You could find everything.
“What we searching?”
Stultus was not a man of eloquence.
“A staff, obviously. Though I am curious, too. What exactly are you looking for in a staff, Prudus?”
Taceta was a bit clearer in the way she articulated, though her knowledge of the arcane was lacking, just like Stultus’. Prudus was waiting for a few moments, enjoying the warm sun on his face, with a small smile as they were going farther away from the center.
“We, my friends, are looking for something that can withstand the magic flowing through my veins.”
“Not understand…” poor Stultus exclaimed.
“You see, my friend, magic is very powerful. But it is very hard to control this incredible power. The human body is not made for the control of magic and cannot withstand the tax it puts on the user for too long. That is why you need a staff that fits the user’s requirements so that you are not hurting yourself or other creatures around you that were not intended to be the target of your magic.”
It was obvious that Stultus wanted to ask what exactly this means, but Viribus had a far more pressing question.
“So, what does it look like?”
“That is a good question, my friend. A very good question and I cannot possibly tell you.”
Now everyone in the group had an expression on their face that spoke volumes about their confusion. Knowing that he would be able to tell them a few things about the workings of magic made Prudus smile a bit brighter as the stands with weapons were slowly making place for an assortment of different stands. The spices were filling the air with a mixture that was new and fascinating to Prudus while he continued his slow walk even slower than before.
It would allow him to tell them everything they need to know about this topic for their little quest for a suitable wand, even if they preferred to go fast, talk fast and get to the next bar fast.
“You are probably not used to this, but there is nothing I could tell you to describe what exactly we are looking for. I can only give you some general information about what is important when deciding which staff is right for you, my dear friends. Think about it like this: you can describe a few things that might tell even a novice a thing or two about what you are searching for.
A sword should obviously not have any big dents if you want to fight on the frontline as a knight.
A dagger that is not able to cut a piece of bread is worthless to a rogue.
A longbow needs a bowstring.
A club should be heavy.”
Stultus was nodding heavily at that statement.
“Most of these things are simple to describe and some of them are quite easy to figure out, even for the uneducated.”
For a moment Stultus seemed offended. For an Orc, who was basically just muscles and a little bit of brain dedicated to deciding what creature to club to death, he could be quite sensitive at times, but Taceta signalled him in a way only the two of them really understood that it was not directed at him. Normally elfs and orcs hated each other, but for some reasons Stultus had been a friend to Taceta, a wood elf, and Lathraia, a half-elf, for a long time and the three of them understood in each other often without any words. Which was important thinking about Stultus’s limited vocabulary.
“But there are a lot of things only someone with a lot of experience can tell. You have handled weapons similar to the ones you are holding for most of your life already. There are little details about how heavy a weapon should be and how the weight should be distributed, to give just a little example. Fighting with a club weighing only half a pound probably wouldn’t even cross your mind.”
Again, Stultus nodded as he understood. Everyone else had a little smirk on their face at his joyous expression and the birds chirping enhanced the relaxed atmosphere. The group was far enough to hear them sing again and it was far less crowded than mere minutes before.
“Furthermore you know what feels right and what feels wrong when holding a weapon in your hands. Even if a blacksmith told you that he created his masterpiece, you would still weigh it in your hands to see if it feels right. A kind of bond between you and the weapon. It is the same with a staff. Just more extreme.”
“What do you mean by that?”
Prudus glanced at Viribus who asked this question and continued with his explanations.
“You see, my friend, a staff has a few properties that every single one of you could see and gauge.”
Now they were at a few stands that offered staffs and other seemingly magical items, mixed in between stands with food, stands with expensive dyes and the spices that were filling the air with exciting promises of adventures in foreign lands.
At the first magical stand Prudus stopped and inspected the staff that was offered there. The old woman on the other side of the stand was watching him with a gleam in her eyes that showed how much she hoped this adventurer may leave a part of his loot at her stand.
It was an extraordinary staff. Expensive wood, carved with lots of different symbols and gems in different forms were adorning the top of the staff.
The whole party was astonished. They didn’t expect to find something like this so far away from the rest of all the prominent weapon stands.
“Now, my friends, we come to your first lesson in the appraisal of staves is the wood.”
Prudus was showing the staff to the rest of the party, tapping on the wood.
“This one is very hard. What would you say — is hard wood better than soft wood?”
Stultus immediately exclaimed “Yes! Hard better! Always better.” to which Prudus answered
“That’s what you may think, but it is not the case.
Hard wood is good for a mage if you need to be able to hit someone on the head with it. But not if you want to use magic.
The problem is that the powerful magic in a wizard that I was referring to earlier needs to be let out. Using hard wood can pose a problem for powerful mages, as it doesn’t let enough magical energy through. If you are too powerful and you are using a staff made of hard wood you run into the problem that your magical energy starts building up and the staff acts as a dam.
If you are using magic you are really just directing the magic through your hands into the staff and towards whatever is the target of your magic.
That is also why you need some kind of gem in a staff.”
Prudus was pointing at the gems at the top of the staff, showing each one to each party member.
“The gem is the where the energy will exit the staff. And the gem is also the part of the gem feeling the recoil.”
“I have never seen any recoil when you were throwing around Fireballs.”
“That is correct, my dear Lathraia. That’s because I would never cast a spell without any gem to direct the energy through. It would probably kill me.”
“Then how is the gem not breaking? You threw four Fireballs at that Goblin Boss in the middle of the dungeon yesterday and your old staff is still in perfect condition.”
Lathraia pointed at the old staff strapped to the back of Prudus. It had a few carvings and a small yellow gem at the top. It was quite plain when compared with the one Prudus was holding at that moment.
“As I’ve told you before, humans are just not built to use magic in any form. We are incredibly weak creatures.”
This time Stultus earned a darker glance from Viribus when he was nodding, though Lathraia and Taceta were smiling a bit.
“A gem on the other hand can hardly be destroyed by magical energy going through it. Instead a gem will take the energy directed at it and direct it at the target the wizard intends for the spell. The gem is what gives the magical energy its manifestation. Even gems are created through the use of magic. The nature converts magical energy that strayed from their original targets into gems you can find in the earth.
Once the magical energy takes shape, for example in the form of a Fireball, you can destroy a gem. But for pure magical energy gems act as a magical outlet.
This is also why you should try to destroy the gem in an enemy wizards staff when trying to kill him. He won’t have an outlet. The wood of the staff will not help him much if he is still the one who needs to give the magical energy its manifestation.
But if you are using hard wood, the gem doesn’t really help after a certain point for any really powerful wizard. The magical energy cannot get to the gem quickly enough and builds up, until the staff can’t hold it any longer. At that point the staff will break and the wizard will most likely lose control, leading to the energy in the staff being released in an uncontrolled manner and the wizard becoming the one to manifest the magical energy.
This also happens if you use other material for your staff. In theory every once-living material, such as bones and wood, can be used for a staff, but only wood works well and is explored enough that you can be reasonably sure not to kill yourself in the process of casting magic. Some people like to experiment though and some creatures are stronger than humans, so you will sometimes see creatures with magical abilities who wield other kinds of weapons, such as a staff made from the bones of their enemies. The effects of these materials are mostly unexplored and therefore you should be especially careful when encountering someone wielding a staff like that.”
“It seems like your weapon is far more dangerous than ours are.”
“You are not quite right with that assessment, dear Viribus. Imagine yourself with Taceta’s bow — it’s not unimaginable that you would accidentally hit one of your companions in the process of dealing with a weapon not suited to your needs. Or imagine our dear Stultus wielding Lathraia’s daggers. It’s not unimaginable that the weapons would break, leading to Stultus hurting himself.”
“Puny butter knives no good.”
That earned him a very dark expression from Lathraia.
Prudus was placing the staff back to where it was before, leaving the stand owner with a sad look on her face.
At the next stand there was a staff without any carvings. The wood seemed to be different, but again there were many gems at the top.
“This one is different from the one before. The wood is far softer. This is bad if you want to hit someone, as the staff might easily break, but as I have such good friends who prefer fighting in the front I am not too worried about finding myself in hand-to-hand combat soon.”
Everyone looked quite proud at this, except for one of them.
“And with the ranged support from our dear Taceta there really is nothing I have to fear when it comes to a physical confrontation.”
Everyone looked quite proud at this.
“The soft wood of this staff is far better than the hard wood of the last one. But there are a few problems with the gems. There are too many.”
“Many gems problem?”
“Yes, dear Stultus, many gems are a big problem. If you are not careful the smaller ones might break. I’ve said before that gems normally can survive near indefinitely, but these ones are too small and mainly for decoration. The uneducated eye can’t see it, but they are arranged in a pattern that is specifically not meant for combat. While you could potentially use this staff to cast magic it is quite dangerous to do so.”
Prudus put this staff back, too, leaving a slightly embarassed stand owner.
At the next stand he picked another one up — it had a few carvings, a single gem and the wood seemed to be quite soft.
“This one perfect?”
“It does look quite interesting, dear Stultus. Let me see…”
Prudus held the staff in his hand.
“Now we come to the properties that you will never be able to gauge if you are not an expert who has been using this kind of weapon for most of his life. This staff does have a good wood and it does have a single good gem, but it has been mainly used for wind related magic.”
“What do you mean?” Lathraia asked.
“Well, my dear Lathraia, there are different kinds of magic. Most wizards focus on one or maybe two schools of magic to which they are therefore basically limited and the staff of their choice gets used to this kind of magic.”
“I thought it’s only undirected energy as long as it’s in the staff?”
While Lathraia and Taceta were very interested in the current topic Stultus and Viribus seemed to have lost some of their interest now that it was nothing visible anymore. Their interest wandered off towards the different kinds of sweets that were sold on the stand next to the one they were currently standing in front of.
“You are right — and wrong at the same time. What you don’t know is that magical energy has to be used with a certain signature — a kind of wave — when you want to use certain magic. Therefore a user of wind magic will always direct the magical energy in the form of wind-related energy and this usage pattern gets carved deep into the wood.”
“I hate to ask, but: what kind of magic user are you? I’ve seen you use everything I’ve ever heard of and more.”
“That is correct, my dear Lathraia. I am very powerful, which is why I need a staff made of soft wood with a single big gem at the top and no discernible usage pattern. Extremely rare, especially the last condition, which is impossible to gauge when you are not a powerful wizard yourself.”
Prudus ignored the next stands and went towards a very small stand that was in the shadow of a few pillars.
A small, hooded figure was standing behind the stand. On the old wood that made up the area that was meant to present the wares you could only see one single item — a very simple staff of seeminly soft wood with a beautiful blood red gem deeply integrated into the top of the staff, as if the wood had grown around the gem.
Prudus’s eyes started to sparkle when he came close. He picked up the staff and an expression of extraordinary joy filled his face. For a moment he closed his eyes and his smile widened. He turned around to the rest of the party.
“My friends, I have found what I was searching for. With this incredible weapon I will be able to wipe out masses of our enemies from afar. I am counting on all of you to keep the pesky minions of evil away from me until I can unleash the wrath of nature in all of our future adventures.”
Taceta was shaking her head with a smile on her face, Lathraia was rolling her eyes with a similar expression on her face. Viribus and Stultus just came back with bags full of sweets, their faces already stuffed and not able to express how happy they were for Prudus, who found the weapon of his search.
A weapon none of them would have picked as they didn’t know what was important when choosing a staff for a wizard.
Prudus turned around to talk with the owner of the stand and pay him or her handsomely for this extraordinary weapon that would allow him to fully utilize his powers.
But the stand owner was gone without a trace, leaving only his staff, whose blood red orb was faintly glowing, in the hands of our delighted Prudus.
