I look up at the tree Leda chose. It’s huge. It’s not super tall, but it’s still tall enough to contend with the evergreens in the area despite being a leaf-tree, and thick enough that I can’t wrap my arms around it. I spawn in my human puppet. Nope, still too short. But it’s pretty close.

Scale this up, say, three times and it wouldn’t look out of place as the ‘town hall’ of an elven tree village. I’m definitely not cutting down yggdrasil here. Let’s see if I can extract only some wood. From a branch, a thick one. That way I won’t kill the entire tree if I fuck up.

I lift myself up to one of the branches, one that is thicker than my arm. Here I am, trying to magically extract part of the tree to not harm it, with pointy ears and shabby clothes (I mean I made them myself). Have I become an elf now? Let’s sing while I do it. … Can’t think of anything to sing so I’ll just hum the Zelda theme.

And there, wood extracted. Enough for three wands. I drop back down on the ground.

Leda looks at the hovering wood. “How do you do that?”

“Do what?”

“Take tree from the tree.”

“Take wood from the tree? [Mana Crafting: Wood Shaping]. It’s pretty easy, but use a fallen tree if you’re gonna practice.” I tell her the basics of the ability, demonstrating enough for her to get the ability.

This big tree, though… I feel like it would be suited for elves to dance around. I sweep the surroundings with my mana. Only Leda, and-

“Holy shit!” I exclaim at the sudden flying tree. And then, just as suddenly as it appeared, it stops in the air and Leda turns to it, apparently practicing [ - : Wood Shaping]… I forget just how monstrous her mana range is sometimes.

With my heart calming down after that unexpected SURPRISE TREE, I try to get my thoughts back to where they were. Uh, tree, elf, dance. I wonder if dancing and channeling mana will get me some neat ability? Nature magic, perhaps? First off, let’s get the puppet covered up. Waistband + cloth in front of crotch = good enough.

Next, let’s make her more elfish. Pointy ears, check. Longer, check. Uhh, blonde hair? Nah, let’s make it as dark as mine (which is about as dark as it can get without being black). Shoulder length… a little longer. Good. ‘Fair’ skin? Maybe I should make it darker, for the lolz, no let’s make it pale, almost white. Ooh, eerie! She looks less ‘tree elf’ and more like some sorta snow elf. Frost elf? Let’s call it that.

Hmm, let’s take a picture of the puppet in front of the tree. I wanna upload it and see how the internet reacts. Hmm, I still have a DeviantArt account. Wow, haven’t really used that since I signed up to comment on the art of that one person… And post those poems. Maybe I should take those down.

Whatever. I can think about that later. Actually, it could be fun to upload images of a bunch of forms and puppets. Keep them all female and create an account named ‘monster girl enthusiast’ or something, see what the internet thinks… Later. The image has been taken. I do another mana-sweep. Still only us here. All right, let’s do this elf dance. No one will know.

But nothing happened. Well, I kinda expected that. Even though Leda joined in. She seems to have learned [Mana Crafting : Wood Shaping] too. Let’s finish the wands then. For the two that will be used by my uh, well, customers, I make the wood cover the cores with no flourish or patterns, and imbue it with Flow of Water. For the last I have plans…

I melt the core again, then mix in a crushed mana crystal. Will the uneven structure make it weaker? I guess I’ll find out. As it starts cooling I insert a small mana crystal in the base of the rod, then let it cool. When it’s done I cover it with wood, pulling it in a spiral for looks and to see if it has any effect. [Twisted Wand], complete!

I test the wand with a few {mana spikes}. Hmm, it does handle differently. The crushed mana crystal seems to slow mana down a bit, but also lets the wand channel more mana at once. A decent tradeoff. The mana crystal at the end, almost completely covered in wood but with some spots peeking out among the root-like pattern holding it in place, would let me store some mana, though not enough to do more than cast a simple spell.

As for the spiral pattern… The mana is channeled through the core, so no real difference? Wait, can I force the magic to be channeled through the wood? Huh, that’s interesting. The spirals make the path from one end to the other longer than if it were straight. If I had made the core slow down mana a bit more or straightened the spirals, the speed with which mana moves through the core and ‘shell’ would be very close.

Wouldn’t that make mana flow through the entire wand instead of just the core? That might be bad, but if I for example gave the core more resistance, could I cast essentially two spells on top of each other? Some spinning thing around a {mana spike} for example? Let’s see if I can do that as it currently is. Hm, no. If I straighten the wood a little bit… It works… But it feels awkward and I might as well cast two different spells at once.

Oh well. I guess I can make one of the videos I’ve been planning now. Let’s see, what can I make a topic… Make a sorta-kinda ad for the wand or wands in general, maybe explain for wands work? Well, how they’re made. Let’s also show off as many different kinds of magic as well. Other topics…

A character or persona introduction of the frost elf puppet? Elf-chan? Too forced. Elfie? Yuch. Either way, let’s leave out the fact that she’s a puppet and technically me. Part of me? I am her? Ah, philosophical questions. Let’s make it flashy and somewhat cheesy. Also, let’s make it youtube friendly, which means she needs some more clothes than that.

Using the tree turned into a camera stand I hit the record button on my phone. If I’m going to keep making videos I should probably get a proper camera. It would need to be rather tough, but also portable enough and preferably water resistant.

“All right, let’s do this.” I say from behind the phone. I don’t intend to have my main body in the video at all. It seems a bit silly when I think about it, but I don’t want to be on video. With my ‘real’ body, at least. I should probably also edit out that first bit. Or maybe it works well. I’ll see.

“Hello, internet!” I say from my narrator position. “Today I’m presenting to you: the frost elf girl!”

The elf jumps down from her obscured position in the tree, wearing one of my T-shirts which reaches down to her thighs. Her front is covered by two triangular bits of cloth, partially layered over each other. I can’t really see it from here, but there is a sheet covering her butt as well. Fairly simple, covers what needs to be covered, and I can have the puppet move without having to edit in black boxes everywhere.

“Heya.” She says, waving.

“Why don’t you show us [Magic Archery]?” I grab the bow from where I put it when preparing, throwing it to the puppet. Through things like these I realise just how complex many daily actions are. Accurately throwing and catching moving objects… I’m not sure any other animal can do that.

I have the puppet first take a pose, drawing the bow, then conjure a simple arrow, enchanting it to leave a sort of trail through the air. “Leda, is there anyone nearby?”

I’ve told her to stay out of frame, so she’s watching with a mix of curiosity and boredom “No.”

“All right, you can shoot then. Leda is- well, if this video does well I’ll make a video for her.”

“I can be on the computer?”

“Haha, if you want.”

“I want!”

I smile at her, then turn to the puppet. “Let’s get back on track. How about you shoot-” I make an illusory target in front of a nearby tree. “-that.”

All right, I have enough footage to make a decent medium length video. The puppet would also be fun to play around with. Elf magic archer, running around in the forest… Come winter I should learn some magic for frost or ice or snow and stuff. Man, magic will make roleplaying and LARP amazing…

Which reminds me, I still want to find a way to have magic battles in a safe way. Like airsoft or paintball, but for magic battles instead of firefights. I also have to make a plan for the tutoring on flying, whether or not they manage to learn what I told them to or not. Good to be prepared.

For practicing flying, I suppose races can train both speed and maneuverability. Tag would work in three dimensions, too. Ball games could work. Hm, I should look into making floating hoops. They don’t even need to be physical, an illusion projected from the ground should work fine.

For now, let’s head to the Water Temple and make a video there, then head back and edit the videos. I can do other stuff while they render and upload. What was it that I needed to do again…

The day after I’m a bit late because it started raining so I couldn’t go fast without getting wet, but they don’t seem to mind.

Though, Silje seems like she’s been waiting impatiently “I saw the video you posted! Where did you find a real elf? And what’s up with that forest?”

“Uh, I posted two videos, actually. That video was shot in the northern forest, actually, there’s a part of it that is highly magical. As f-”

“What about the elf?”

“Don’t cut me off. I was about to say- Well it’s sorta supposed to be a secret. The frost elf is just a character I made up. I have plans for other characters as well.”

“Characters?”

“Yeah, well… Do you know about cosplaying?” That’s a yes. “It’s kinda like that, except the elf is a puppet.”

I summon her, to demonstrate. “The same ability that lets me shapeshift also lets me transform into a completely different form, or as I found out, control that form in addition to my main form.”

Tom stares at part of her with a complicated expression. “There’s nothing there…”

“Oh yeah, I didn’t wanna have to censor the video if I moved her around and the clothes didn’t cover her, so I made it so there’d be nothing to censor.”

He turns his stare to me. “But you could give her a pussy?”

“I could. But she’d need some clothes first.” I unsummon her. “Anyway, moving on. I brought some things to help you practice.”

I hand them each a wand, telling them I’ll take them back when I’m done tutoring them. I do mention that I made them and can teach them how to make their own wands, or some other focus. I am about to elaborate on that when Silje chants “Wingardium leviosa.” and successfully lifts the wooden doll I put on the table.

I give the two of them a moment to play around with the wands, explaining that wands are directional focus and makes aiming spells much easier, but is less useful if you for example want to cast magic on yourself. With that done, it’s time for the test of Control.

The test itself is simple: Control the wooden doll to make it stand up, walk a few steps, clap, and finally lie back down. I also make a demonstration, and note that they are free to either use the built-in control enchantment or magic of their own choice.

I start them off with the built-in enchantment, and as expected they have trouble even making it stand up. Silje does better with [Force Magic], but the movements are awkward and I have to stop her before she breaks it.

“Don’t worry, I made it, and even then it was hard the first couple times. You can try whenever you want, but for now I want to see if you’ve improved and give you some tips.”

Halfway through the day I they have both learned to form mana links. I also taught them [Illusion Magic], since making illusions is a relatively harmless way to practice fine control. Very easy to see if you’re doing well too, and we ended up playing a game where you try to make an illusion and the others try to guess the word.

During lunch they watched my video on the water temple, and got themselves yet another goal to reach for. I’ll bring them there if they find a way to breathe underwater for thirty minutes, though the exact method is up to them. For that one I won’t tell them the methods I’ve figured out.

Shortly after lunch I think they’re ready to try my levitation tests, though with increasing rain none of us particularly want to be outside. Instead I end up giving them more theoretical lessons, starting with how physics work with magic (as far as I understand it), leading into the very relevant topic of aerodynamics, kept somewhat simple since they’ll have to learn by doing anyway.

Apparently lessons on safety are boring, but I quell the complaints by saying I won’t let them fly unless I think they’re reasonably safe. I can go over it now, or when they’re ready to fly. They chose now. A wise choice, since I’ll try to get them airborne tomorrow (if it doesn’t rain).