John Umland
July 13, 2016 7:14 PM
Testing, testing.... by John Umland
John didn’t feel tired, exactly, as he finally reached a door leading out of the school, but he yawned as he went out into the cold air of a very early, very gloomy Saturday morning in winter. Nerves had kept him up half the night and the need to fine-tune things had delayed bedtime for a few nights before that, so he suspected he had only a few hours before he started looking like he’d had a lobotomy even if he didn’t get rained on first. Perfect conditions - or at least as perfect as conditions for such a thing could get; there was, he had discovered in recent weeks, no really appropriate time to do it, the thing he was about to do being a slightly strange thing to do even by his standards - he thought, to go outside and duel an umbrella.It was, all things considered, probably not the brightest idea to wear one’s best coat to complete such a task, but by the time John thought of that, he was already halfway to the Gardens and had seen just enough people stirring about that he couldn’t convince himself he had time to go back to his room to change. It was possible he would show Clark at least something related to what he was doing later, but right now, solitude was of the utmost importance, which was why he had been awake since the crack of dawn and had left the common room the minute the clock had informed him that curfew was over, looking, in his good black coat Julian had bought him for Christmas and carrying a large black umbrella, a little like he was going to court instead of going to quite probably cause some property damage.
There was never, he thought irritably, enough time; the urgency of the project kept making him worry that he had gotten sloppy somewhere along the line without even realizing it. He had spent the entire first half of the year working out the theory of what he wanted to build, but he’d had to rush construction of his prototype, cramming it into the nights of just two weeks, because he hadn’t been able to get supplies until midterm and had had to finish the prototype before the artificial weather made wearing a coat (hopefully successfully charmed to incorporate some shielding charms) and carrying an umbrella outside bizarre, attention-getting things to do. He’d lost even more time, too, lurking in the Gardens on other mornings to figure out roughly where he could expect Professor Xavier and the Pecaris to be this early so he could go somewhere else and then in waiting for two cloudy mornings, one to observe in and one to go conduct his experiment in, the need for cloudy weather being the one major downside to choosing an umbrella as the vehicle for his tinkering. He knew it was all important, but it was also time-consuming, and he just couldn’t stop thinking about how little time he had before midsummer, after which he would be stuck without any means of doing anything until September.
It was still winter now, though, and he knew he had really made good time with his prototype, particularly since he had only struck upon the idea of applying all the theory to such an item over midterm. While he'd been at home he had spotted a book on one of the shelves that he had first read when he was very young, a book about a family who’d traveled to a magical land where the middle brother had, lacking many other resources, used the umbrella he’d grabbed in passing on his way out of the house as a parachute, shield, grappling hook, symbol of authority, weapon (John admittedly thought that was probably the least realistic use it had been put to in that book, but supposed sharpening the tip could allow even the most mundane umbrella to function as a sort of crude stabbing weapon, plus it could whack someone in the face or be opened at a strategic moment to knock someone off-balance in a precarious situation), and, once, as a means of keeping water off his head. A bare minimum of experimentation had proven to John that a certain amount of fantasy had been involved in said book, but magic could correct some of the faults his local Bargain Mart brought to the noble art of umbrella manufacture and anyway, that memory had just been the catalyst to his decision to work on an umbrella. His objective was to add one unusual function to an ordinary object; enhancing its normal functions to maximize its utility would come later. Finding the usually-isolated-on-Saturday-mornings clearing he had pre-selected, he opened his umbrella and put it on the ground so its handle was pointed toward a wall of shrubbery (no need to risk someone walking in at exactly the wrong moment no matter how unlikely it was) and its unfolded canopy faced him like a shield.
From one pocket, John withdrew a tiny potted plant. A tap of his wand reversed the Shrinking Spell on it and restored the plant to its normal size. He placed the plant behind the umbrella and, wishing he had thought to enchant a hat to act as a helmet and brought along his dragonhide gloves, he pointed his wand toward the potted plant and muttered a simple jinx, which promptly came ricocheting back at him.
With a strangled yelp, John ducked just in time, allowing the shrubbery wall behind him to take the charge. Once he was sure he hadn't started a fire, he straightened up slowly and, gathering himself together after that nasty little surprise, tried a simple charm instead. The charm also rebounded, though his reaction was more subdued since this time he had been cautious enough to get out of the way as soon as he spoke the word. The Summoning Charm had the same result. He frowned at plant and umbrella alike, but closed the umbrella and moved on to Test Two, which was to just prop the closed umbrella up against the potted plant, making sure it touched actual plant instead of just the pot, and see what happened when he cast his spells again.
The result was asterisk-shaped burn marks all around the plant, but no perceptible change to the plant itself. John wiped a trace of sweat from his brow as he fumbled in one of his pockets for his notebook and began scribbling notes.
Obviously there were some kinks that were going to have to be worked out. He wanted spells cast to dissipate without any visible result, not rebound back on the caster, and he’d thought he’d set up that result with the runes now carved into the pole of the umbrella, but clearly something had not worked quite the way John had expected it to work. He was going to have to work through several more tests to figure out exactly which addition to the umbrella wasn’t working properly and how to fix it. Overall, though, he was more optimistic than not. Just a few adjustments needed to be made and then he’d be back on track to capturing a gnome, teaching it a new word, shoving a Truth Potion down its throat, and using it to complete this line of experimentation. He was still a little irked, though, that this meant he wasn’t going to return to enjoying a leisurely life of only working when he felt like it as soon as he’d hoped. The things he did for….
…Well, some good reason, anyway. Whatever it was, though, he was too invested now to give it up because of one setback, even had that setback been larger than this one. He finished up his observations on the tests he’d just done and went to re-check the runes on the umbrella pole. He was close, he had to be. Just a little tweaking and he’d be back on track.
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John Umland
Testing, testing....
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John Umland
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