I didn't end up creating a lightsaber that day of course. Fire isn't plasma, even if it did contain it in parts, and there were other problems as well, but I was sure I could get there in time. What did end up happening though was that me and Lys put our heads together and managed to cobble together a plasma torch, or a plasma cutter, or whatever you might call it. One of those things that metalworkers use to cut metal back home. I knew the basic principle on how they were put together and that was enough for Lys to work out the rest. It didn't even need any gas.
Lys had been both ecstatic and infuriated at me in equal parts. She was ecstatic over having something that could cut through most metal like butter, it even worked on untreated Orchicalium, which made certain parts of her work a whole lot easier. She was infuriated that I hadn't thought to mention this glorious timesaving device to her sooner. I now have a large purple bruise on my shoulder where she vigorously expressed her displeasure at my lack of prudence. I just have one thing to say to that; fucking ow!
I was kinda happy at the development though. Mostly because I remember a youtube video from back home where a bunch of crazy guys built an actual lightsaber in their garage. Well, it hadn't been an "actual" lightsaber. it had been an oversized propane power bunsen burner. It didn't detract much from how cool it was. It would probably take some serious tweaking of spells and some good old fashion dwarven engineering to get anywhere but I think we would be able to get there eventually.
There were a few big challenges on the engineering parts too of course. Me and Lys would have to somehow create a laminar flow nozzle if I wanted a nice clean beam. And that was the easy part. Next, I would have to somehow bend the plasma into what is essentially a loop. This can be done by creating a powerful and precise magnetic fields to contain the plasma. This should also give it that semi-solid thing it has going on that lets it clash with an object and other lightsabers. I think. I'm a bit iffy on that part. Also, I have no idea how to manage it. I'd been playing around with magnetic field when I designed my little plasma cannons, but molding plasma on that level was some nextgen shit. We'd been brainstorming solutions and come up with a few possible paths that might work, time would tell.
I was seriously tempted to bring out Ravenclaw's Gem to try to bootstrap something, but the gem still scared me silly. What Rowena had told me about what might have been the cause of her sudden illness after her daughter had stolen the stone. An illness that the healers of the time hadn't encountered before, or since. I'd been immediately reminded of my father, who had suddenly contracted a whole slew of neurological issues that had turned him from a fiercely intelligent and competent man into a catatonic vegetable in the span of five years! I'd seen him regress mentally backward from adult to childhood after that happened. It was to date the most horrifying thing I'd ever seen and the reason why I hadn't made extensive use of the gem so far.
The only reason why I hadn't outright destroyed it was that Rowena had been clear-minded up to the end, it had been the rest of her body that had been failing. Not quite as horrifying as having your brain cooked by an intelligence-enhancing gem. Well, there might have been some brain boiling going on since the brain controls the body, so... yeah. But I'd felt brave enough to use it a few times in quick bursts and with lengthy periods between uses to minimize any cumulative damage that gem might be causing. I really wanted to get my brain scanned while I was using it to see what it did and if there was any danger, but that kinda technology wouldn't be easily available for decades.
I could be patient, I had to be. In the meantime, I'd use it sparingly while keeping a close eye on how I was feeling.
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Back home, when it came to the strength of wizarding magic, most considered it fairly weaksauce. Oh, most would deny it to the high heavens, and then go and write stories where they would add all kinds of new magic shit just to amp things up, to make it more impressive. That kind of stuff really grinds my gears, to quote Peter Griffin. They aren't entirely wrong though. it is pretty weak, that is if you only measure it in terms of how much shit it can fuck up at any one time. That's all they care about, for the most part, blowing shit up. Wow, how impressive!
Fucking meatheads.
Yeah, wizarding magic ain't all that impressive in the shooty bang bang sense. It's mostly limited to one target at a time unless the wizard knows his shit, or gets really creative, like me. It's not what it is for. I don't know if Rowling knew what she created, if she planned it like this in her head, or if she just tossed whatever she needed into the story and ran with it. My money is on the latter. But that doesn't detract from the fact that she created something truly unique when it comes to magic.
See, the magic of this world is not made to be a weapon even if it can be used as such. No, the magic here is a tool, in fact, it is all the fucking tools. And tools are used to make things. That's the strength of this world's magic, the creation of things. I know what you are thinking; so what? It's not like the magic of other worlds can't be used to create things. Sure, true enough. But it is the ease with which it can do it that makes it so truly unique. With the right spells, you can create virtually anything you can imagine, and it can be done without all that much effort. At least in terms of what a normal person would see it. With it, four people built a castle that could house thousands. And they did it basically overnight if you compared it to how long it would normally take anyone to build something like Hogwarts.
A thought struck me. What is a wizard without a tower? Not much of a wizard that's what. I think I'm a pretty good wizard. But I don't have a tower. And I think that is just a crying shame. So what is an enterprising wizard to do?
Build your own of course. And that was why I was across the lake from Hogwarts. As it turns out the quarry where the Founders broke the stone for their castle was located rather close by, only a mile and change on foot, and even closer than that on a broom. I imagined they cut the stones and levitated them across the lake, it would have been fairly simple for wizards of their caliber. They might have used portkeys as well, that might have been even easier. Or maybe they used a portal, like at Kings Cross station. They are strictly short-range but I think one could cover the distance.
I'm many things, but an architect I'm not. Fortunately for me, so long as you don't build a thing too big, you don't need to be. Also, I'm a real deft hand at LEGO. It was Paddy who had given me the idea when we made something to hold Puck once we had caught him. If you liquefied something and placed it in some kind of container and then canceled the transfiguration the material that was liquefied would take the shape of the container it was in. A useful little bit of information if you wanted to make things. Lys had helped me put together a series of big molds for a set of different pieces. Surprisingly I didn't need all that many molds. Only three in all. Two for the different kinds of shapes for the foundation and then one more for the rest of the tower. I would have to construct the top manually, that would be the most time-consuming part.
Of course, being who I am this would not be any normal kind of tower. Anyone could build a normal tower, I wanted something a bit different. Something unique.
I wanted mine to fly.
I'm not sure any architect has ever attempted anything like that before so I had to be creative. As I mentioned, I'm not an architect, but I figured that I needed some kind of foundation for the tower to sit on. It a bit of a misnomer since I wanted the tower to fly, but even though I was going to cheat like a motherfucker in making the tower stable I still wanted something besides magic to hold it up should some of the spells fail, for whatever reason. My solution was to go into the Room of Requirement and gather up a large amount of steel and then fuse it together to form an enormous pillar. The damn thing was about half a meter in diameter and over ten meters long. At each end was a cap in the shape of a giant cone making the whole thing look like one of those Marching band baton twirlers they were always tossing around. The damn thing probably weighed several tons, and I was able to move it almost effortlessly.
Ain't magic grand?
I'd used the room to create a passageway to the quarry so I could carry the giant baton there without anyone the wiser.
I'd been experimenting with the Protean, actually, I'd never really stopped experimenting with the Protean, it was such a useful spell. Anyway, I'd discovered an interesting little quirk of the spell. Size doesn't matter. A bit trite but there you go. So long as the shape and material were the same the spell would work as normal. It was kinda terrifying if you think about it. It kinda makes me wonder if I could use it to create a voodoo doll. Though I'd have to make it out of flesh for it to work, supposedly. It was a bit too morbid for me.
I chuckled quietly to myself as I twirled the smaller mirror to the giant pillar between my fingers before grasping it fully and concentrating. At my mind command, the giant steel construct floated off the ground and righted itself to float serenely about four feet of the ground. The same spell that the school used to float candles during certain festivities allowed it to remain in position once I released it. I was rather proud of myself for having remembered to add that little spell to the enchanter's wheel.
Once that was done I assembled the molds, which I'd moved to the quarry beforehand before moving them closer to the quarry wall for easier access. Now, like almost everything else wizards had of course developed spells that allowed for mining, shaping stone and related things. There were spells for breaking rocks, spells for detecting gold and gems, spells for fusing rock together to shore up tunnels, and such. They didn't see any use around my parts in this day an age and I had to go digging through a lot of dusty old tomes stowed away in rarely visited sections of the library to find them in the first place. The mining and treasure-finding parts might not be immediately useful for constructing my tower but I nevertheless took the time to learn them because I thought it was kinda cool to be able to do it. Okay, I admit that it was partly because I wanted to be able to one day create a dwarven-style underground hall like in the Lord of the Rings. Sue me, I'm a nerd and proud of it.
I was a bit surprised to find that they didn't use the spells for finding gold and gems though. At least until I found out that it was just easier to get stuff of the muggles. It always seemed to come down to that. As I worked I considered the feasibility of creating some sort of compass for finding materials. The detection spells were strictly short-range, you had to be almost right on top of the stuff before you got anything out of it. It was a universal problem when it came to those sorts of spells, unfortunately. But if you were to combine it with the Protean, which had no limit on the range, as far as I'd been able to test anyhow, then you were cooking with oil. Theoretically, you would just need to have a pure sample of what you were looking for and you'd be in business.
I decided to have another talk with Lys once I was done out here. I bet the dwarves would have a happy little trouser accident at the mere thought of something like what I had in mind.