Wands 2.0

Moving past the cake golem that I would eventually have to throw out, I decided to move to my next project; improving my equipment.

First on my list was looking through the notes that I don't remember writing. Most of it was written in a language I only recognized from the book I first came to Orario with, past that was a few recipes.

I managed to decipher some of the scripts I had written resulting in some interesting findings.

"By infusing magic into metal I managed to create Thaumium. It is a worthy discovery, but the time has come to leave thaumium to amateurs and dabblers."

"A strange and half-remembered dream had given me the urge to try something… different. What if I infuse metal with more than just magic, but with the very essence where magic is drawn from: Darkness and the Void that dwells between the stars."

This led to an interesting discovery by soaking seeds in alienis (alien), tenebrae (darkness), and vacuos (void) essentia, upon doing so created a seed of void. It was a dark purplish black sphere that seemed rather inert on its own.

This void seed wasn't a metal on its own but by further processing the void seed with metallum (metal) essentia it turns into an even more interesting metal.

The resulting metal is disturbingly slick and warm to the touch. It is almost as soft as gold making it easy to work with, but when struck it becomes as hard as thaumium and sometimes even harder!

More impressively all but the most devastating damage soon repairs itself as the metal slowly flows back into place.

The only downside is that it isn't as easy to enchant as thaumium, but still compares favorably to mundane materials like iron.

Care needs to be taken when handling the metal; being harmed by it seems to temporarily sap the strength of living beings.

I decided to name it Void Metal, because it is a pitch-black metal, and because I swear that when I look at it something is looking back at me.

With new material in hand I decided to make a better wand, my first thoughts were to make a wand out of Void Metal, but my current wand wasn't up to the task so I decided to use what Dandle Dorf had said and make a wand out of silverwood and thaumium.

Thaumium wand caps on their own aren't sufficient, they need to be infused with additional magical energy to make them usable. Luckily this process isn't hard, some salis mundus, and some auram (aura), and potentia (energy) essentia in the infusion crafter seemed to do the trick.

The silverwood rod was much harder to make, simply carving a rod out of silverwood didn't work as silverwood itself was too far attuned with one side of the primal aspects. Infusing the rod with a primal shard of every type and a balanced shard while using primal essentia seemed to even things out.

The new wand was far better than anything I had crafted before.

For comparison the first wand I made the Iron Capped Wooden Wand, it could hold 25 units of vis, and using it cost 10% more vis.

The Gold Banded Greatwood Wand held 50 units of vis and didn't use that 10% extra vis.

The Thaumium Bossed Silverwood Wand however held 100 units of vis and had a 10% discount while using it!

Using this new wand I decided to further improve my wand!

Going back to my original idea of using Void Metal but now with a better wand. At first the thought of using Void Metal seemed counterintuitive since it seems to be highly resistant to magic, but counterintuitive is where I live now.

Oh boy did my gamble pay off. The metal itself may be resistant to magic, but it channels with surprising ease! The magic does seem strange somehow, but its probably just my imagination.

The Void Metal wand caps did have to be charged, which was a very similar process as the thaumium one just with more of everything.

During the process of making another silverwood rod I blacked out, but when I woke up there were 2 rods and a new focus, one rod made of silverwood and one made of ice.

The rod made of ice stored slightly more vis than a greatwood rod sitting at 75 but what made it worthwhile was that Aqua vis inside the wand slowly accumulated over time.

Putting the ice rod aside I made the improved wand with Void Metal.

The Void Aspected Silverwood Wand held 100 vis like the previous one but it had a 20% discount when using it.

The focus that I 'created' was madness to say the least. The focus seemed wildly dangerous and only a lunatic would actually use it anywhere.

So I decided to go out and test this focus to see its features. I made my way to a small training field where foci and other weapons could be tested.

"You sure you should use that? You were giggling the entire time while making that." Taint asked

"I don't remember that, plus I'm sure it will be fine! What could go wrong?" I responded

"You know you just jinxed yourself, right?" Taint replied

I took out the focus and equipped it onto my wand. The focus itself was a small sphere that violently changed colors, it also hummed quite erratically as well. I pointed the wand at one of the targets and channeled vis into it.

Upon casting the focus a bright iridescent orb shot out of the wand the orb traveled at varying speeds and curved before impacting the ground with a large explosion. I tested the focus a few more times, and stopped after the orb turned around and almost hit me.

Despite the close call and the numerous eyes directed at me, I made my way back to my lab. The focus I am calling Primal shoots out an orb of raw primal energy. Granted the orb it creates is quite devastating, but its path of travel is erratic at best and downright malicious at worst!

The orb's speed and direction and cost are all random. At times the orb moved at a snail's pace and moved in a straight path, other times it moved at speeds I couldn't ever react to but swerved constantly.

It does beg further study however, the orb shows some interesting dimensional properties and it exhibits energy patterns I have only seen in Wisps and aura nodes.

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Word Count: 1095

Suggestions and power stones are always welcomed!