…Until it caught on fire and sank.
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The Doclopedia #1,570
A Tale Of Six Wands: The Wand Of Blasting
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Good Morning, Tenna! Let me take that bag of gold from you. You look most lovely today. Come along, the breakfast is all laid out.
Prindeep, that was a breakfast fit for the gods. If you would assemble a selection of fruits and cheeses for lunch later, along with a bottle of that Sherinkan wine, you can then go about your errands, and take your time, old friend. We shall be quite fine here.
Now, concerning the Wand of Blasting, I can tell you that it took an entire two months to make after we collected all of the pieces. One such piece was the under tongue muscle from a recently killed dragon. Fortunately, my assistant Raloe, was able to join a large military effort against a Black Dragon in the Yellow Marshes of Jal. Despite losing half their forces, the military prevailed and Ranoe returned unscathed with the muscle.
During that same time, I myself went far up on Mount Drestox to obtain a squink. They are a common enough animal up there, but the musk they can emit is among the most noxious things you could ever smell. I used a sleep wand to knock out a big male the size of a small cat, then carefully moved him into a glass vessel with a stopper that allows air in and out, but not smells.
The final hard to get piece was a piece of solidified lightning. Oh, yes, I assure you that such a thing exists. It is incredibly rare and very expensive, but we managed to locate a piece about 6 inches long in far Banagalanda. Even using a Wand of Distant Teleportation, it took a week to get there and another week to return. No doubt that is why my other assistant, Murgin, now avoids teleportation if she can.
Once those and other components were assembled, I began my work. The basis of the wand needed strength, so I naturally used a 17 inch rod if steel. That rod was prepared over the course of a few days to receive the other items, no small feat, I assure you. Just keeping the steel hot and at a very high pressure is fraught with danger.
Once the steel was ready, the lightning and squink musk were introduced to the vessel and the pressure was increased. Two days later, we released the pressure and removed the steel. After dipping it into a bath of rare herbs and minerals for several minutes. Finally, we wrapped it with thins strips of the dragon tongue muscle before curing the whole thing in heated sand. Five days later, the Wand of Blasting was ready.
History tells us how effective it was, with clouds of noxious gas causing the giants to flee or collapse with sickness, while great blasts of lightning shattered their defenses. To this day, the last remaining giants, now living in the far north, tremble in fear when the Wand of Blasting is mentioned.
My greatest offensive wand? Well, perhaps, although I did once create a Wand of Storms that was terrifying in it’s destructive power. I often wonder what happened to it.
But now today’s tale is done and I find myself eager to continue our discussion from yesterday concerning Third Dynasty High Elven art. If you could perhaps fetch the fruit and cheese, I will uncork the wine and we shall while away a pleasant afternoon.
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The Doclopedia #1,571
A Tale Of Six Wands: The Wand Of Deception
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Welcome, Tenna. I must apologize for keeping you so late yesterday, but our conversation was delightful and I must thnk you for dancing with an old man. It had been many years since my last dance.
Oh, please, you flatter me too much. It was easy to regain my dancing skills with so lovely a partner. Now, since we both slept in this morning, I shall take that bag and we can, if you wish, have a light snack. Once again, Prindeep must be off on errands, but his nephew Ranja will be here to serve our lunch.
The third Wand of Glory was a Wand of Deception. Now, such wands are most often used by thieves, spies, and one can only assume, politicians. They can give power to lies or help one avoid the notice of the weak minded. They are, if truth be known, always in the top 10% of wands sold. Such is human nature, I suppose.
Making such a wand is normally a fairly quick and easy thing. One gathers the components, none of which are particularly exotic, then builds the wand in under three days. After that it is merely a question of pricing it to meet the local demand. Oh, no. We seldom price them under 500 moons. It tends to get us the better sort of lying deceiver.
The Wand of Deception, however, needed to be vastly stronger that the ordinary type. Additionally, it needed to be oriented toward the clouding of weak and not so weak minds, rather than aiding in outright falsehoods. For this, a few very rare components were needed.
That is why I sent Murgin and a squad of Forest Women elite warriors into the Cursed City of Walnak, some 500 miles northeast of here. There, after no few harrowing adventures involving assorted creatures and the undead, she retrieved the vessel containing the ashes of one Fillarn the Trickster, a true king, and later demi-god, among thieves.
I sent Ranoe on a mission no less dangerous, but not to his physical self. He had to travel to far southern Jal and convince the Great Seductress to give up just a few of her tears. Her price was far too high at first, but he had something from her innocent girlhood to trade along with a small fortune in gold. This softened her heart enough to allow him to collect her tears. I suspect there was also some sexual offering he had to make, but he has never spoken of it and it is none of my business.
My own quest took me first to the wretched city of Valoski, a true hive of scum and villainy. After four miserable days of searching, during which I purposely started a massive gang war to keep all the criminals occupied, I found the heart of the Old Dark One. Amazingly, the shopkeeper sold it to me at a very good price. Possibly he did not know what it was, but more likely he was getting ready to flee the increasingly deadly city, as so many were.
On my return from Veloski, I stopped in the Forest of the Gnomes to purchase a solid silver tube that looked as though it was made of lead. While there, I was invited to watch the testing of several gnomish inventions, which I did from a safe distance. Talented, if oft overreaching, those Gnomish inventors.
Once all the components were gathered, we prepared my workshop for the final assembly. A Freezing Fire was prepared and the silver tube was put into it standing upright. Into that went the heart, now ground fine and mixed with certain rare herbs. A short time later, the ashes went in, along with the tears that had been mixed with unclean water.
Five days passed, during which at least two of us watched over it, but never looked directly at it. On the morning of the sixth dat, we replaced the Freezing Fire with Hot Ice and began another five day watch. When that ended, the Wand of Deception was finished. It looked like nothing so much as a dented old bit of lead pipe. Of course, the fact that it allowed General Bexallin to lead 1,000 warriors 200 miles behind enemy lines attests to the power of it’s enchantment. The Giants never knew what hit them.
Ah, lunch is ready! Let us enjoy it, for I am afraid I have errands of my own to tend to this afternoon. Still, I will miss our chats, so I wonder if you might do me the honor of coming to dinner tonight? You mentioned liking lamb pockets, and Prindeep is a master of all lamb dishes.
You will? I am filled with joy. Well then, a bite of lunch now and dinner at, shall we say, seventh bell tonight? Lovely! Now, do try that smoked whitefish, my dear.
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