A wizard’s staff was one of the most iconic tools a wizard could carry.

And there was a good reason for that.

Versatile, powerful, expensive to craft, requiring a high degree of skill in alchemy and lots of mana to make, wizard’s staffs served as not only tools and weapons, but as status symbols. In both Alex’s first year potions course and magic theory, he’d learned that in ancient times almost all wealthy wizards carried a staff to show off their riches and power, just as many wealthy merchants wore an overabundance of jewellery.

In modern day Generasi, wizards showed off their wealth and skill in other ways, and so the days of a staff being in every archmage’s hand when they went out for a stroll had long passed, but such a magical device was perfect for Alex.

Staffs could be crafted so that their magics could be used through simple mana manipulation, which would allow him to use spells without potion equivalents.

Call Through Ice, Mana to Life, Life to Mana, Warp Flesh, Corpse Puppet and several summoning spells were among those he wanted to build into his staff, so he’d already started drawing diagrams for it.

Once he gained enough power and experience destroying dungeons with his expedition mates, his plan was to take on a dungeon with Claygon, Theresa and Brutus to try and get his hands on more dungeon core remains to power the staff. It’d make the perfect power source, like it had for Claygon’s golem core. As for the materials to make the staff from, he was hoping to use some type of metal and maybe Aeld wood, from Gwyllain. If he was careful with the alchemy, he might be able to give the staff additional powers by using both materials in the right way.

He tapped his pen on his notebook. “But, I’ll have to get them first.”

Alex was sitting under a tree—beside Claygon—after his first class in second-year summoning, which was being taught by Professor Mangal. He was going over his class notes, focusing on the list of spells they’d be learning over the semester.

There’d be spells that summoned small elementals from the elemental planes of fire, water, air and earth, a spell that summoned a hellhound, and two of each student’s own preference: one to summon a demon, and one to summon a celestial.

There was a type of celestial spider Alex wanted to summon: its natural gifts of venom and silk could be handy for combat, trapping enemies, and constructing things. As for the sort of demon he wanted to conjure…he’d have to think about that one since he couldn’t summon what he really wanted: which was a Tiashiva. The thought of conjuring up old Burn-Saw and forcing him to spill his secrets put a smile on Alex’s face, and even if that wasn’t very likely, summoning one who knew him by conjuring others from the same species would increase his chances of getting a lead on him.

But Tiashivas couldn’t be conjured by second-tier summoning spells, so he’d have to settle for a demon a first-tier spell could summon, and just be patient.

And speaking of being patient.

“Not yet, eh?” he said to Claygon, noting the position of the sun then looking around. There was no sign of who he was waiting for, so he opened the notebook with his progress on Mana to Life in it:

75%.

“Good,” Alex said, shifting the book aside. In the grass beside it lay a piece of rope with several complex knots running along its length that he’d put aside for the time being.

Professor Hak’s pointers were helping his progress with Mana to Life, and her extra readings had also given him new ideas on how to tackle potential problems that might come up with other blood magic spells.

“Might as well get some practice in while I’m waiting.”

Alex took a steadying breath then fell into himself, focusing on running through the spell array for Mana to Life. After casting, re-casting and cutting the spell hundreds of times, he was now on the path to a pretty solid understanding of much of its magic circuit. As he was carefully focusing his mind through The Mark’s interference, he couldn’t help but appreciate the circuit: it really was an elegant construction.

Then again—since he was forced to pay the strictest attention to the details of every magic circuit of every single spell he learned since arriving at Generasi—he’d come to realise that they were all elegant in their own way. In a sense, he had the Mark of the Fool to thank: he probably would never have paid so much attention to the specifics of his spells’ magic circuits without it.

‘Maybe I can even construct my own spell arrays and magic circuits one day,’ he thought, as he took a short break between castings to drink water and do some push ups to give his mind a rest. ‘And craft my own spells. Imagine that: ‘Roth’s Ultimate…something.’ I’ll think about names later.’

Anyway, such detailed spellcraft would have to wait until he could learn to master The Mark’s interference. Still, he’d love to invent a few spells just to see what he could come up with.

Ideas for the future.

For now, he continued focusing on casting Life to Mana, going through the spell array over and over again, progressing a little further each time. Over time, it had grown much easier to handle The Mark’s interference, so much easier that he couldn’t imagine ever learning the spell array for such a finicky spell a year ago.

His excitement over future plans almost ruined his concentration, so he acknowledged the excitement, left it aside, then regained focus until…

“Hey!” a familiar voice cried.

Thundar was heading across the grass towards Alex.

The minotaur’s books were in a basket hanging below a pair of forceballs floating beside his broad shoulder, and Alex couldn’t help but feel a tickle of pride at another friend adopting his lazy-Er, efficient way of transporting books.

“How was illusion class?” Alex asked.

“Good.” The minotaur flopped down beside him. “Get this, we’re finally learning invisibility.”

“Ooooo, that’s awesome.”

“Oh yeah. We’re also learning a spell that can throw your voice, one that makes a bunch of illusionary duplicates at the same time, and one that makes a better disguise.”

“A better disguise?” Alex said.

“Oh yeah, you remember this one, right?” Thundar cast an illusion spell over himself.

There was a surge of mana as illusion magic washed over him: the colour of his fur changed, his horns twisted into another shape, and the structure of his bovine face shifted.

In a matter of heartbeats, Alex was looking at a completely different minotaur.

“Disguise Self,” Alex named the spell. “I remember why you don’t use it much. It’s not super useful unless you just want to disguise yourself as another minotaur, since it can’t change your overall shape and size.”

“Exactly.” Thundar dismissed the illusion. “The spell’d be a hell of a lot better if I was a human, elf or something that looked a bit more…generic. Not that humans are generic or anything like that,” Thundar added quickly.

“Naw, that’s okay. We are pretty generic,” Alex said. “We just have the basic properties of humanoids that make us the thinking, endurance predators we are: we’ve got dexterous hands, we walk upright, we have forward pointing eyes, a brain…well, some of us have brains. There’s this guy in my blood magic class who I’m like 50% sure is missing at least half of his.”

“Hah, I think he’s got lots of copies of himself running around. Anyway, the point is that this year, we’re gonna be learning a second-tier disguise spell that creates an illusion strong enough to disguise body structure.”

“Wow,” Alex said. “That’s gonna be real handy.”

“But, you and I won’t need all that fancy shit for what we’re about to do, so let’s get to it,” Thundar said. “Disguise Self is a tricky spell, but I think we can break it down into a more simple version that just hides a birthmark, scar or anything like that.”

‘Like a god-given Mark,’ Alex thought as Thundar gave him a meaningful look.

“Something quick and easy…sounds good to me.”

“Exactly. Even a little kid or someone with half a brain could cast it.”

“Then it’d really be perfect for me,” Alex laughed.

“Damn, you said it before I could,” Thundar clapped him on the back.

Together, Thundar and Alex began to draw out the spell array on sheets of paper, breaking down its magic circuit’s structure. The spell’s magic circuit had a complex elegance to it that caused Alex both a bit of frustration, and genuine admiration.

The array had the basics needed for any illusion: it created magic that bent and twisted light into the image of something that didn’t actually exist. Disguise Self’s circuit had an additional complexity: it also needed to record the proportions and anatomy of the casting wizard, and then drape an image over them that matched their every movement.

The tricky part was making sure that the illusionary disguise didn’t distort, twist, or change as the wizard moved.

“Okay, so the thing with illusions,” Thundar explained. “Is that any old hedge wizard’s gonna be able to disguise something that doesn’t move. It’s like trying to hide someone in the woods: put a cloak over them, paint it green and tell them to keep still, and they’ll disappear into the underbrush. Easy enough…but when they start moving…”

He waited.

“It gets a lot harder to hide them,” Alex said. “Theresa told me that’s something hunters have to watch out for when they’re in the woods. A green cloak might hide you if you keep still—especially if you’re far away from whatever you’re hiding from—but the moment you move, you change the shadows around you as well as your shape. It’s a lot easier to pick you out even from a distance then.”

“Yeah, illusions work like that,” Thundar said. “You drape an illusion over anything that can move, like yourself for example, and you gotta make sure you’re keeping the image from bunching up in the wrong places, moving wrong, or slipping.”

“Right,” Alex said.

“But since we’re only covering up a patch of skin, it’ll be a hell of a lot easier: we won’t have to worry about covering up big movements, or matching the shape of limbs and stuff. The only thing the spell’s really gonna have to do is match your skin tone, elasticity, and any shadows that fall on it. That means we can really strip the spell array down to its basics, and focus on making the image perfect.”

“Yeah,” Alex said. “I suppose it could be tempting to just go; ‘well the ‘scar’ is going to be under a shirt most of the time, so it’s not a big deal if it’s not perfect’.”

“As Baelin would say: ‘always plan for the worst’, ” Thundar quoted the ancient wizard. “When we’re done, the illusion’ll actually replicate the pores on your skin. You can take your shirt off anytime or anywhere, and be just fine.”

“Thanks,” Alex said. “Maybe I could actually go swimming.”

“Hmmm.” Thundar paused. “Might be a good idea to take some extra steps too. One thing they teach you in illusions is to back up magic with a mundane disguise if you can. Like make-up under an illusionary disguise, for example.”

“That’s not a bad idea,” Alex said. “I’d thought about using make-up to hide the ‘scar’…but make-up could run.”

“Yeah, good point,” the minotaur said. “It’d look pretty suspicious if make-up started running from under your illusionary patch. …hey wait a minute, that’s not half bad as names go. This spell’s called Disguise Self, but it’s gonna be so custom that it doesn’t make sense to call it that anymore. So, what about ‘Illusionary Patch’? It’s an illusion that covers a specific area, like a patch in a cloak. I think it sounds pretty good.”

“Hmmm, I was already thinking of a name for it, though,” Alex said.

Thundar gave him a grim look. “ ‘Kay. What kinda name were you thinking about, Alex?”

“Localised Illusionary Flesh Alterer,” Alex said proudly. “It says precisely what it is, since-”

Thundar held out a hand, like he was trying to ward off evil. “Alex…no. Just no. This is why we don’t let you name things.”

“You all just don’t have good taste,” Alex sniffed.

“Yeeeeah, if everyone around you ‘doesn’t have good taste’, y’ever think it might be you who doesn’t have it?”

“Let’s just get into the spell.”

“Wait…are you sulking?”

“I am not! I’m just getting focused!”

“Riiiight…” Thundar rolled his eyes. “But before we do, I just gotta ask. What is this?”

The minotaur picked up the piece of rope that was tied together in a series of complex knots.

“Oh that? Rope practice,” Alex said. “I’m thinking about learning how to use rope like a lasso. It’d be good for catching opponents, tripping them up, and stuff like that.”

“Not a bad idea.” The minotaur held up the rope, examining the knots closely. “My father uses lassoes to catch deer and buffalo. I didn’t pay…too much attention when he was teaching me about it, but I can teach you what I know.”

Alex brightened, forgetting his earlier sulking. “Really? That’d be awesome, man. I’d owe you a beer.”

“And I’ll make sure you make good on that promise…” Thundar said, then paused. His expression grew sly as he dangled the knotted rope in front of Alex. “So…this is for combat right? All this rope? All these knots? I mean, I know her parents are gone now.”

Alex blinked. “What’re you talking about? Whose parents?”

Thundar’s grin grew wide, and his eyes shone in victory. “I’m just sayin’ that maybe this whole ‘lasso’ thing is some kinda ploy. Maybe you and Theresa are using this rope for-”

“Thundar!” Alex cried, his face turning beet red.

The minotaur’s laugh roared over campus.