plot bunny
Mar. 28th, 2019 09:47 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
deird1One of the many (many) narratives I've had at the back of my head is one where magic used to be possible, slowly stopped being possible, but is now gradually becoming possible again (sort of like Shadowrun, but much less dramatically).
It occurred to me the other day that, if you had people passing magical techniques down in the hopes that they'd one day become possible, you'd have a whole bunch of people who were extremely well trained in how to do high-level spells without having any of the safety precautions or common sense that comes from having screwed up the low-level spells.
Much in the same way that you learn your vegetable chopping techniques as a by-product of having accidentally chopped your fingers, and your egg-cracking techniques as a by-product of having accidentally dumped most of an egg shell into your cake batter.
So, there would be apprentices, in their early days of screwing up low-level spells, saying "Master... do you think we should maybe draw a salt circle before..." and their masters cheerfully dismissing this as unnecessary, before accidentally setting fire to the curtains and dying everyone's skin bright blue and saying "...right. So, next time we might... draw a salt circle. Yep."
It occurred to me the other day that, if you had people passing magical techniques down in the hopes that they'd one day become possible, you'd have a whole bunch of people who were extremely well trained in how to do high-level spells without having any of the safety precautions or common sense that comes from having screwed up the low-level spells.
Much in the same way that you learn your vegetable chopping techniques as a by-product of having accidentally chopped your fingers, and your egg-cracking techniques as a by-product of having accidentally dumped most of an egg shell into your cake batter.
So, there would be apprentices, in their early days of screwing up low-level spells, saying "Master... do you think we should maybe draw a salt circle before..." and their masters cheerfully dismissing this as unnecessary, before accidentally setting fire to the curtains and dying everyone's skin bright blue and saying "...right. So, next time we might... draw a salt circle. Yep."