Andrew Duell
September 17, 2022 8:38 AM
Intermediate Charms - A blast from the past by Andrew Duell
Andrew wasn't really sure what made him volunteer to come in and teach an Alumni class, much less what made him tell the staff that he could do whatever class they thought best. In theory, this was to show the students how the things they were learning would be applicable in their lives after they graduated. Which meant that whatever he did teach, he should be able to related it to his current line of work. He had some thoughts on what he could do, and then he was informed he would be teaching an Intermediate Charms class, and had to rethink some things. Most of the things he was working with dealt with at least the Advanced level students.So, he tried to think back on what he had learned in his Sonora days in his intermediate classes. Having failed that, he dug around and eventually found his old school notebooks. There wasn't much he directly recalled about his charms classes, other that ol' Professor McKindy's pink bubble tophat that he always wore. His notes helped figure some things out there, and he found an interesting lesson from his fourth year that could work.
He was attired as any proper wizard professor should be; decent looking slacks, a button-down shirt, heavy leather boots, a white lab coat, goggles perched on his forehead and his steampunk themed wizard hat. Nothing overtly ridiculous like a pink bubble tophat.
Once the class was ready to begin, and Professor Wright did his normal start of class stuff, he strolled to the front of the class and gave them all a grin. "Hello all, I'm Mr. Duell and will be your alumni teacher for the day. And yes, before you ask, if any of you know her, Valentine is my daughter." From the way she talked, he assumed some of the students here would know her. Unfortunately she was in the advanced classes now, so this was the most he could do to embarrass her, as was his fatherly duty. "My job today is to show you a little bit of how what your are learning in school might get used out in the 'real world' once you graduate." He most definitely pronounced the quote marks in that sentence. "What I have for you today comes from a class I had in my fourth year, about..." He paused a moment for dramatic effect, and to do some quick math, "twenty-eight years ago." An involuntary grimace sped swiftly across his expression. That was a while ago.
"Anyway," He continued on, "I work with spell development, particularly in relation to Muggle artifacts. Now most of that is a bit advanced for this class, there is an aspect of that which we can explore today and will be more broadly applicable to you. That aspect is security." He paused for just a moment. "Tell me, how do you keep things safe that you don't want out to the wider population just yet?" He allowed the students to make some suggestions, once they hit upon locking spells he pounced upon it.
"Yes! The wizard's primary way of securing things is the locking spell which can vary in strength. However there are always other spells to get around them, aren't there?" Again he paused so the students could volunteer information or just nod along if they were still paying attention. "So long ago, someone developed the Exaudio spell." As he spoke the word, a piece of chalk wrote the word on the blackboard behind him. "If you have a basic locking spell on an item already, this charm will allow you to layer a spoken phrase on top of that lock that is keyed to your voice alone." He waved his wand and a small box floated into his hand.
"I wasn't quite sure where you were with locking spells, so these have all been pre-charmed with various basic lock protection spells. Now your task for today is to add on the voice charm that will allow you access, but no one else." To demonstrate he waved his wand in sine graph wave with a curlicue at the end and pronounced the spell name, immediately after that he spoke his name. There was a bright flash of silver around the lock and then it returned to normal as if nothing had happened. "Now the lock charm is secured behind the voice charm. If I try to open the box without the undoing the voice lock," He inserted a small key into the box's lock and turned it. Immediately a flock of small yellow birds appeared and began to assault him. "Gah!" he exclaimed in surprise as he waved his wand about banishing and swatting the birds away. In a few moments they were gone.
"Sorry about that," he looked at the box in his hand suspiciously, "I thought I'd gotten one of the sparking locks. Oh well." He shrugged and looked back at the class, "Anyway the basic lock charm can't be dealt with until the voice spell has been released, so an intruder can't even start to removed it until they know your password and can speak it in your voice. It's not foolproof, but it's a nice extra layer of protection. Team up with someone and see if you can get your boxes locked down, and then trade them around to make sure they work properly. Have fun and if you need any help Professor Wright and I are both here."
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Andrew Duell
Intermediate Charms - A blast from the past
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