>>5135375But you are prepared to make a quick turnaround. You have much more salt in your grip than you would need for five or six chained casts – let alone the two that you have planned, and you already have two fuel nodules in your left hand, waiting to go. Judging that you will only get the opportunity here to use one of them, you drop one while you use your thumb and forefinger to rip the almost depleted fuel nodule out of the wands’ fuel socket while you watch the fleeing guard. As you glance down at the plucked nodule, Strange-Staining activates, but you know as it was just used for a typical cast that it should not be communicably Strange, and you let it drop to the ground as well. You cram the fresh one in and take a deep breath, before stepping out of your cover, pointing the wand directly at the fleeing guard’s head and reaching much deeper into the wand to perform your first overcast with it.
Three chained overcasts produce a little more heat in the wand, a little more coldness and numbness in your arm, but substantially more smoke and fumes from the depleted salt than seven chained casts – though perhaps that has to do with you oversalting the wand than any increased strain in the spell. Either way, you send the final guard sprawling. After sparing a glance at the other three guards, and checking to make sure that there are no more coming, you remove the second fuel nodule. Without even looking at it, you know that because you used this nodule for overcasting, this one is going to be Strange in the Second Degree – in other words, communicable. Worse than that, you will be communicable as well, though thanks to your natural stability, not anywhere near as long as this nodule will. The important thing is to not get the wand Strange. If the wand becomes Strange, then it will become unusable – at least for a Witchlet*.
Luckily, even after being depleted by the spell, the salt on the handle of the wand is still an effect barrier against the transmission of Strangeness. Moving quickly, as it is only a matter of seconds before the guards begin to come to, you pull your left glove on, take the shaft of the wand in your left hand, use your right hand – which is just as Strange as the nodule, so you do not have to worry about one contaminating the other – to pull the near-depleted fuel out. You slip the ounce-nodule in your pocket-jerkin, which as it is in direct contact with your skin, will become Strange anyway, and not your Spotted Cloak, as it is not in direct contact with your skin, and with any luck will not become Strange. Using your left hand, you stuff the wand in Spotted Cloak, and then pull your other glove on while trying to keep the salt still in your hand – partly to protect at least some of the glove against the Strangeness, and partly to not leave any salt behind. You doubt that anyone would notice, but with the Inquisition sniffing around it pays to be careful.
