You'll need to ask for the book ingame, you've just been unlucky and there was no DM online.
As for the staff, there is a simple solution. If you want it to be a simple walking stick, that looks like a staff, with no enchantments, then you can modify a lesser gemsetting tool to look any way you like. It will won't cost you almost anything and the modification DC should be easy enough, as I assume you are a wizard.