Despite the fact that I was tempted to, I did not skip sleep again that night. As excited as I was to finally get to work on a proper arcane focus, something beyond just a basic staff or book with the bare essentials, I did not want to push my limits too far. So far I hadn't seen any real effects from relying on my wake-up spell, but I also wasn't willing to put that to the test with the current situation. I had plenty of time to test its potency and long-term side effects when the Docks weren't about to explode.
I spent the rest of the night working on my design, planning out exactly what I wanted from my staff. By and large, staff and staves were the primary weapons of the warrior mage. They added power, strength, and resiliency to spells, while also leaving plenty of room for whatever little enchantments you could want. There were other options, of course, things like wands, crystal spheres, gloves, and plenty in between.
Different arcane focuses had different draws and uses, with some, like wands, built for detail and finesse over power and brute force. I might still make a wand for myself at some point, since it went well with healing, but for now, I couldn't deny that a staff worked better for my current needs. Not to mention that many of the negative aspects of each arcane focus could also be mitigated if you were willing to spend an extra bit of money and go through some hard work.
By around eleven PM, I was done with the design, and I decided to call it a night. I tore out a shopping list from my notebook and stored it in my coat pocket before heading to my living area and crawling into bed. Sleep came easily, and I woke up the following morning feeling rested. I was tempted to wash the remaining normal morning fatigue away with a wake-up spell, but ultimately settled for a steaming cup of mocha coffee, prepared by a joint effort of Kali and Alya.
"Okay, today's overall goal is to start and hopefully finish my staff," I said, drying my hair from my shower. "I have to go heal in a few hours, but I'm not needed for patrols today since it's Sunday, and they offered to cover the full day and into the night. I want to spend the next few hours looking for the wood for my staff, then I can go heal."
"Is yew not an appropriate wood?" Alya asked. "The tree in which you made your first staff and your spell book has plenty more branches."
"I have a spell now that should locate wood that is more suitable for me, so I'm going to give that a shot," I responded, shrugging after a moment. "But who knows, we may end up back there. The druidcraft spell did latch on to it pretty hard as being the most powerful tree in the forest."
Once I was ready, I teleported deep into the woods, appearing at the furthest point I had been so far. I quickly cast the locate spell, this one specifically from my arcane focus creation subject rather than the druidcraft spell I had used to find the yew tree for my first staff.
The spell was long enough that even with a quick cast, I still had to chant three words before three repeating arcane symbols began to circle by my feet, before small paths of light began to stretch from the circle, reaching out into the forest around me. Most of them were weak and faded, but one of them stood out, clearly visible even in the early morning sun.
"Looks like we found a hit," I said with a smile, healing off to follow the lightly glowing trail through the undergrowth.
"Is there no way to tell the distance?" Alya asked, floating through the forest alongside me in her partially corporeal form.
"Nope, save that it's inside the maximum radius of the spell, which is five miles," I admitted woefully. "If we don't reach it by the time we need to go heal, I can just teleport back later."
My walk soon turned into a jog as I made my way quickly through the woods, jumping over fallen trees and through thorn bushes as if they weren't even there. Between my protective cloak and my own hardiness, I probably could have walked through the fallen trees as well, but it was easier just to jump over them.
After about forty-five minutes of jogging, I arrived at my destination. At first, I thought the spell was pointing to a large group of oaks that had taken over a decent chunk of the forest. They were old and gnarled, each at least a hundred and fifty years old, judging by the width of their bases. As I got closer, I realized my spell was pointing further into the large cluster. I followed it between the large trees, and after a few rows of oaks, I finally spotted it. A single towering mahogany tree growing straight and tall despite its difficult placement. Its canopy was well above the oaks, meaning the tree was thriving, and judging from its width, it was a good fifty years younger than them, too.
I silently approached the tree, pressing my hand against its side and checking its health. When I was sure it would survive losing one of its larger branches, I cast a few spells to support it, helping it set down thick roots and basically just giving it an all-around health boost. If this tree was so compatible with me, I wanted it to be around for as long as possible.
When I was done giving it a check and general boost, I carefully separated a large branch from the tree, catching it easily and sealing the damaged connection. When I was sure the tree was fine, I inspected the branch. It was almost two meters long, as thick as my arm along the base, and had plenty of wood for a staff, plus plenty extra, which I would no doubt out to use, as a wood that was in tune with your magic was always a valuable thing to have.
After taking a good look around, I teleported back home from the mahogany tree. I carried my branch to the ritual platform, where I carefully cut the branch down to two meters long, storing the extras away. I then stabilized the branch with various druidcraft spells, compressing it down as much as possible and shaping it into a coil, just as I had my first one. Thankfully, living wood staffs were not uncommon, especially those who specialized in nature magic. I didn't, my druidcraft was all I had so far, but I couldn't deny that having a staff I could control the shape of was extremely practical and well worth the extra maintenance required to keep it alive.
When I was done messing around with it, I hooked the coiled length of wood back to the same hook I had kept my previous staff on. With the compression and the coil, it was hardly visible under my cloak, which was just a bonus since I was more concerned about the convenience than hiding it.
With everything set, I teleported to the hospital, leaving Troy home but taking one of my brass golems with me. I wanted to get people used to seeing them around me, and taking one of them as a "bodyguard" while I was walking around the hospital was as good a place as any to start.
It didn't take long for me to finish healing at the hospital, and while the PRT wasn't ecstatic about my metal golem following me around, they didn't complain. When I was done, I left to go on a quick shopping trip, spending a massive amount of money before finally teleporting back home. I had a long day ahead of me, and I couldn't wait to get started.
The process for making a real arcane focus, not the fill-in, basic, standard kind I had made my spellbook into, was by and large up to the person making it. I now knew quite a few specialized enchants, rituals, crafting techniques, and potions, all of which had to do with various different types and styles of arcane focus.
For example, if I was some style of fire mage, the first thing I would do to a wooden focus was to make it fireproof. I could soak it in a specialized potion, which would bind to the wood, strengthening and sealing it from fire. Or I could ritualize it to be impervious to fire. Or I could cap the end with some sort of heat-dispersing metal, perhaps copper. All of these options were possible and viable, but somewhere better than others, depending on the circumstance. If I already had a bunch of rituals planned for the staff, it might be better to get the fire resistance from somewhere else, as each subsequent ritual would get more and more complicated.
Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.
Unfortunately, because of my knowledge, skill, and pre-existing setup, I knew I would be leaning on rituals a bit before using enchantments to finalize the staff's more specific functions.
There was also the matter of cost. Arcane materials weren't cheap, usually, so I needed money and or resources to get my hands on what I needed. Thankfully, I was already starting to accumulate a good chunk of money through my healing, despite a serious pay cut while I was covering for Panacea.
Step one of making my arcane focus was to ritualize the crap out of the ingredients for the staff. I wanted everything to be as magically in tune and tough as possible before we even started adding functions and affinities. In total, there were around eight items that needed to be reinforced and ritualized, working my blood, gold, silver, several precious stones, and several other ingredients into each. I was burning money with each step, but the further I went, the happier I was to throw more into the blaze, as I had already blown completely past my original staff and was now working at a whole new level of power.
When the process was done, I began weaving enchantments into the staff. The process was the same as I had used on my spellbook, weaving floating runes around the staff, before sealing them in place by "burning" a chunk of silver. Each enchantment took up a chunk of the staff's space, slowly filling in the large wooden weapon.
The last process was a final sealing ritual, which protected the previous rituals and enchantments from my own magic, solidifying and sealing them in place. An iron cap was the keystone of the sealing ritual, and should I want to work on the staff again, removing the cap would allow me to. When the sealing ritual finally burned out, I walked to the center of the ritual platform, looking down at my finished product.
It was a seven-foot-tall staff of mahogany with an amethyst crystal cluster at the end. The mahogany was polished to a shine, with a dual spiraling inset of copper that started at the iron cap and continued to the grip, turned solid with knurled lines before returning to the spiral, all the way to the amethyst. Just above the grip, the staff bent out slightly, continuing on before correcting and pulling back in, ending straight at the end. Along the bend were six half-quarter size loops, a two-inch strap of leather tied to each. At the end of each strap were three pieces of fulgurite and three polished pieces of clear quartz. Each one of the stones could contain a single spell for on-the-spot use, with the fulgurite specifically designed to hold lighting spells.
The final part was the Amethyst tip, which sat in the crook of two branches of mahogany, one reaching higher than the other, both of them almost cupping the large gem without touching it. The amethyst itself was set into the staff with a base of gold, which continued up into the gem to create lines and inclusions of the expensive metal.
Of course, there was more to the staff than just what you could see. Both the amethyst and the mahogany were treated to cast lightning and healing spells as easily as breathing. Fulgurite and several other materials went into making my basic to intermediate lightning spells cost next to nothing, while my healing magic was buffed in effectiveness by the gold and amethyst. Perhaps the most impressive part was the core of woven gold and silver, ritualized to respond to my mana and my will, that lay buried in the wooden shaft. This would allow a measure of finesse from a usually over-powering focus.
Of course, there were also enchantments running around every inch of the wood as well. Like my book, I could pull the staff to myself. If I pulled hard enough, it would drain my mana to teleport to my side. Beyond that, I crammed every quality of life and ease of use enchantment I could find. It was self-cleaning and self-repairing to a degree, could float in place, and could respond to simple commands. I could cast a simple persistent spell through it and leave it floating in place, using mana stored in the amethyst to maintain the spell for me.
It was a behemoth of a staff and, so far, was probably my greatest creation yet. Really, in all honesty, it had turned out significantly better than I could have ever predicted. Kali had been a massive help, poking and prodding each enchantment and ritual I did, the effects stacking as I layered each one on top of the other.
After a moment, I reach out with my mind, feeling my mana curl and coil inside me before giving the staff a mental pull. A purple spark of lightning arced across the staff, snapping and hissing before the entire seven-foot construct swirled and popped, appearing beside me with a crack of thunder, the same purple spark heralding its appearance. I reached out and grabbed it, a rush of energy flowing into me, whooshing through like I was standing at ground zero of a winter microburst. My hair ruffled as my magic thrummed, settling just under my skin like a partially concealed but still very much live wire.
"Holy shit!" I nearly shouted, taking a physical step back, reeling from the contact.
With a giddy grin, I spun, swiping the staff, instantly casting an ice spell of my own design. A ray of frost flew from the end of my staff, slamming into a nearby stone. Normally, with my own hands or with my spellbook, the blast of icy magic would have been just enough to freeze a couple cups of water. Now, with my staff, I could only watch as the entire stone was covered in crystalized frost, the rock creaking under the sudden shift in temperature.
I couldn't help but laugh before turning around and jabbing the staff forward, this time a blast of focused water launching across the compound. It barely arced until it eventually slammed into the dirt, digging a furrow into it. I spun again, this time calling forth fire, a sphere of bright, dancing flames launching out and exploding against a distant tree. I spun the staff around over my head, bringing it down and blasting the tree with water to douse the crackling flames.
Finally, I turned again, aiming at a distant stone. I jabbed the staff forward and cast my wordless spark of electricity. This time, however, rather than just letting the mana flow through normal, I pushed, feeding the almost instinctual spell to its max, the staff holding it all together. A column of electrical energy lanced out from the staff and slammed into a boulder, cracking a huge chunk of it away and sending shards of stone careening into the woods, cutting through leaves and branches. I could see the stone was cherry red at the sight of impact, slowly cooling down as I watched.
In one last test, despite not having a specific target, I raised the staff and brought it down, the iron cap slamming into the dirt. The staff glowed gold as I cast a simple healing spell at a level of potency I had never achieved before. The whole clearing glowed gold, almost blinding me, until the spell faded and bright golden light faded to nothing.
The compound was uncomfortably dark for a moment after the light faded before I could feel Kali flick on the glowing light vials, and everything was bright again.