>>5934240You have to admit: As much as you hate to admit it, the Archmage’s parting gift to you is perfect. The staff is a classic implement of magecraft, older and more storied than even the wand. It is a multipurpose tool: social, magical, and martial. It is sceptre of office, a storage device for excess energies to power additional spellcasting, and a focus for ranged battle-magic; in a pinch, it is even a suitable cudgel, and a walking-stick for the aged! Every mage alive appreciates a good staff. And this? This is a GOOD staff.
The Archmage’s gift is a special implement, made specially for… Well, not you, but someone. It is one-of-a-kind, clearly the beloved and ancient treasure of a bygone era’s elite magus. Hewn from the oak of a lightning-struck tree, charred in a zigzagging pattern down the centre and nearly split in twain, but bound by metal bands of orichalcum-infused iron. It is uniquely charged with properties which augment your elementalism, with its various branches serving in aggregate as a sort of WAND as well, storing SPECIFIC spells: <Magic Missile>, <Stabilize>, and also the very force of the bolt which struck the old tree: <Lightning Bolt>! Since your early days, electrical magic was the subset of Elementalism which most spoke to you. Did the Archmage KNOW that, somehow?
Izzy catches you admiring it again, and smiles.
“Mother is trying,” she says. “Ever since the first ritual, with the three of us, she’s been… Really trying. I can tell.”
You regard her skeptically, but force a smile, because Izirina’s owns mile is genuine. SHE wasn’t in the office to hear Archmage Theresa Henzler treating her like a tool, referring to Izirina as a false heir, speaking of her with scorn. If she had, what would she think? Then again… Maybe treating people as especially-useful tools is the closest thing that frightening woman GETS to affection? After all, she treated you much the same way, but was plainly eager to regain your fealty, and then she provided you THIS beauty…
“Well, a free staff’s a free staff,” Pearce notes, drumming his fingers on his own. “Should’ve asked for one for myself.”
“What’s wrong with yours?” Costella asks, eyeing it. “It’s quite nice.”
“Well, it’s not exactly what it seems,” Pearce remarks enigmatically, his gaze drifting to the Thief.
“Keeping secrets,” the Thief remarks.
Pearce says nothing, though his moustache shifts slightly as he scrunches up his face.
“Wise,” the Thief adds, with a small nod of his head.
