Magic was capable of anything, but there were limitations to it. One rule was that the more powerful the spell, the greater the cost - and greater the consequences of misuse. Experienced and trained mages knew that magic itself seemed to be like a sentient being, insidious and powerful unto itself, and it would use any excuse to plot against those that wielded it - the so called law of 'Inexcusabiles Insidias'.
Those in training, however, were often prone to arrogance, to thinking they were the masters and mistresses of the magic. Youth brought confidence but lacked experience, and manifested often as vanity and arrogance. And magic was somewhat spiteful to those who did not show it respect. It found a way to trick you into paying heavy prices for your errors...
As a number of Aspirant Witches at the Roanriglog Academy were about to find out.
Corda was the ringleader of the plan, a human witch who knew she was beautiful, and made ample use of it. The blonde teen had one small problem however, or rather, two small problems. Her chest wasn't quite up to her desires. And so she'd sought a way to enhance her assets, having come across a spell promising 'a transfiguration into perfection' in a dusty tome in the forbidden section of the school library.
And so she'd quickly assembled a group of seven others to form a circle around her, and prepared to cast the spell in the dorm room she shared four others.
The seven were a varied bunch, three humans, one dwarf, two elves, and an orc. The humans were Frida, Zoura, and Naria. Frida was a brunette and friend of Corda, so had been happy to help. Zoura, a bespectacled redhead, had simply been interested in seeing how a new spell worked. Naria, however, had been somewhat pressured into it, being the roommate of Corda, Frida, and Batul, the Orc Shamaness in Training. The raven-haired White Witch was not pleased to be forced into what felt to her very much like dark magic.
The dwarf was Galren, and what the red-haired lacked in height was made up for in enthusiasm like much of her species. The elves, a pair of twins called Alene and Alena were both as willowy-tall as their species was stereotyped - but thanks to a little creative magic, their hair was not the usual golden flowing locks that human poets obsessed over, but rather, red and blue respectively, turning purple when they were beside each other.
Batul, however, as an Orc was a large lady, her species naturally more muscular and taller than her peers. And in her case, she suffered from the exact opposite problem as her human friend - her assets were TOO large. A combat shamaness like she wanted to be would suffer from an oversized chest, and so, she saw a way to correct the problem in what Corda had found.
Corda initiated the chanting, runes painted on the floor in red dust and charcoal glowing, the stench of ozone rising, as mana flowed. The other seven stood silent, but nervous, as they lent their magic to Corda, letting her cast it on herself and them.
None realised magic had already taken revenge on Corda. What she hadn't realised was the 'perfection' in question had been that in the eyes of a mad wizard who had thought preserving beauty was important. As in, freezing it forever. His tome should not have even been in the forbidden section, but magic found ways to trick those who vainly sought to squander what it had to offer.
It soon became apparent to the others, though, for Corda began to glow, still chanting the spell... until she fell silent, and a burst of energy washed out from her.
Before the startled eyes of the seven, they watched the pretty young blonde witch change, pink flesh and golden hair turning grey, the energies washing over her body and causing her red nightdress to flap and tear as ghostly winds flowed.
Naria panicked, and tried to flee - but in the process, broke the circle. The spell was then unleashed fully, washing out over the entire dormitory, the protective runes installed for just such a reason mostly containing it - except for one unforseen weak spot.
The adjacent dorm, a year below the other, had one room by the weak spot. Three human witches were here, a brunette named Pela, a blonde named Enoka, and Hyza, a black haired witch training in defensive magics.
It was that training that would be how others would learn of the mishap in the adjacent dorm, the magics spilling through, Hyza throwing up a shield on sheer instinct, even as her chatting friends sitting on the bed beside the wall were bathed in the escaping magics.
Hyza stared in horror as her two friends, still in uniform, froze stiff, and turned grey. The spell was weakened by distance, so the destructive washing of magic did not shred their green and gold blouses, nor harm their grey skirts, but the pair were transformed into stone before the eyes of their friend. Their lively conversation was silenced as the pair became nothing more than inanimate stone.
Hyza felt like she too had been turned to stone for a second or two, before she eventually managed to scream and bolt from the room, as Enoka's stone form, close to the edge of the bed, slid off and her head landed on the carpet, still gaining a small crack on her face. Not that it made any difference - after all, the witch was gone. All that had fallen was inert stone.
Tutors arrived soon after, entering the dorm that had been the epicentre of the spell - or trying. As ill luck would have it, of the thirty witches inside, one had in fact been at the door. Halate, an aspiring warrior-witch, had been about to head out for late night training when the magic was unleashed, and mid-stride, had frozen and petrified. Her statue had stumbled forward and shattered against the door, meaning that the tutors would have to push hard against the doorstop her remains had become.
Her chainmail armour had resisted much of the destructive wave, distance and the inherent strength of the metal helping, but the leather of her breechcloth and underarmour had been torn - still, it held most of her torso together as a result even when the tutors forced the door.
When they did so, less restrained parts of her would skitter into two others standing nearby, causing more damage as they caused a domino effect. Mylene and Durgat, a human and orc respectively, had still been in uniform, now shredded and riven with holes like a swarm of moths had descended upon the petrified pair. Durgat, tall for an orc, had toppled over and her arm had come off, while Mylene's fall snapped the statue she'd become at the waist.
Sitting in a chair reading was a dwarf, Gilda. Her book was in tatters, as was her uniform, her braided locks of red now grey and lifeless. Standing beside her had been Daena, an elf who had been doing a one-handed handstand, part of her efforts as a Dancer-Mage... and rather unfortunate for her as the spells effects meant she had toppled over onto Gilda, her snapped-off leg having gouged a harsh crack down the dwarf.
A human by the name of Lyna had been 'helping' Daena by trying to ape her poses, the elf simply ignoring the teasing, especially as Lyna was more prone to simply collapsing in a heap. She had been in the midst of one such heap when petrified, her ragged uniform around her still-apparently giggling form, locked in stone forever.
The other sixteen girls in the dorm had met their own stony fates. Two fortunate witches that had taken an early night, Gene and Jessika, were now slumbering stone forever, largely intact, even if their nightgowns and bedsheets were now rags. Another pair in another room had been in the midst of a potion-brewing, Elenwe and Kilia, an elf and human respectively, now sat cross-legged, petrified, fully nude, and crumbling as a result of their potion overheating and spewing forth corrosive gas that had first obliterated what remained of their uniforms and then attacked the stone they had become.
It would take some time, but they determined six witches of the cheerleading team had been in one room, exploiting the tall ceilings of the bedrooms to practice their pyramid. All six had been human, and the collapse of the petrified pyramid had left Ada, Amarra, Fayne, Laela, Tressa, and Yve as little more than piles of human-shaped rubble and ragged cheerleader uniforms.
The last four victims had been Urda, the were-leopard, petrified in her leopard form having been practising shapeshifting. Ifalna the Wood-Nymph stood amongst her small garden, the plants there now as lifeless and stone as she was. Olivia had been petrified in the shower, the warm waters still flowing down her petrified form, luck having prevented her from toppling over. Ryanthonia, the last victim, had been building a house of cards out of boredom in her dorm room. It ironically still stood. She did not, having somehow toppled over and decapitated her statue on her bed, the severed stone head with a frozen expression of concentration.
And as for the circle where the mess had begun. Six stood in stone, expressions of fear and shock locked in, their robes shredded, their bodies cracked and crumbling from close proximity. One however had been almost completely destroyed, petrifying and falling as she fled. Naria's remains were scattered all the way to the door. And in the midst of the broken circle stood one perfect statue, rendered completely naked, smiling serenely. Corda was now perfect, to the definitions of the wizard that had wrote the spell. Not to her own, of course. For the unlucky witch remained as flat chested as ever, and would stay so forever. A statue, just like the other thirty-one that had been caught in the overspill of the spell.
And as irony would have it, the tragedy could have been contained to a mere eight had Naria not ran... or had the Academy bothered to place runes of containment around every dorm room.
Magic had once again plotted against those who wielded it. It was not the first time, nor would it be the last...