Magic done improperly by a person very new to it can go very wrong. Fortunately, a very kind wizard helps fix the mess and gently teach proper safety. -- Anon Guest
Magic is everywhere. Many find it as natural as breathing, but there are those who can learn to harness it via education and skill. Teachers find those with magic in their bones, usually before a great upset causes trouble for them. Or for anyone around them.
But for those who choose to learn... there's not always a ready source of formal education. This leads to what sages refer to as Interesting Times.
In extreme circumstances, the result is a Wild Magic wasteland. Places where gravity operates under its own rules, floating islands are an everyday occurrence, and M. C. Escher may well have been an entirely rational architect. Places where monsters are born in otherwise normal circumstances. Places where nightmares become flesh, and we're not talking about the one where you have to give a speech in your underwear.
It's vitally necessary to find independent student Wizards before they become a danger to everything within a very, very wide radius.
Nobody wants a repeat of the Singing Brick Plague of Karniij Vale.
It does experienced Wizards well to seek out libraries in any settlement, regardless of the size of the settlement, the library, or the Wizard. All to prevent another Carnivorous Forest.
If anything of that sort was going to crop up, it was going to happen in a hamlet like Scrapie Hills. A place where the library was four books in the leader's house, at that. Or, as Wraithvine discovered, several volumes of forgotten lore that the student in question had managed to excavate from a long-buried former settlement.
She taught herself Ancient Elven to interpret the runes she found. Or so she believed. She was so proud of herself to give what she believed to be a warm welcome to hir when ze found her.
"Honour in the door owned many house," she said in badly mangled Ancient Elven. "I have looking many picture words of story. I am humbling Butterfly. It is delighting."
Wraithvine did not often indulge in divination, but ze could clearly see the consequences of leaving this student to her own devices. There may even be another species of animal-folk as a result. If everyone was lucky.
"You have made a very good start," Wraithvine said, exaggerating the truth to the snapping point. "If you would allow me, I would teach you further."
"Real lessons in Ancient Elven from THE Ancient Elf?" She nearly fell over herself to get a fresh notebook. "Yes please? Can we start now? Do I need to do handwriting practice? Do you need to review my progress so far?"
"First things first," allowed Wraithvine. "May I see your original sources?"
Oh sweet gods... they were all experimental journals from the Imploded Empire. Honestly, it was a lucky thing she was so bad at Ancient Elven. Something would have exploded months ago if she was any better.
[Photo by Marie Bellando Mitjans on Unsplash]
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