Compiled and commented by Albert Weaver
"Magic was not made for us to understand. But some of us try anyway."
- Professor Alia Drey, Principles of the Unseen, Present
If Illusion messes with what you perceive, Metamagic messes with what is. It's the study of how magic behaves - the skeleton behind the fire, the rules behind the glow.
Metamagic casters don't summon storms or lift boulders. They end spells. Shut down enchantments mid-cast and leave enemy mages blinking at dead wands. It's not flashy, but it rewrites the script.
***
[Excerpt – Anti-Caster Unit Debrief, Lisbon Shield Division]
OFFICER: "She looked like any street witch. Then our telekinetic's arm just... dropped. Spell gone. No resistance. Like flipping a switch."
SUPERVISOR: "And her own mana?"
OFFICER: "Still full. Said she borrowed ours. We didn't even notice the siphon."
***
Adept Metamancers can strip mana from objects, people, even entire rooms - rendering spellcasters powerless. With training, they can trace the shape of magic mid-flight, identify the school, counter it on the fly. That's why they end up in labs and interrogation rooms. And war zones.
Police departments use them to break enchantments on suspects. Border guards use them to scan travelers for latent spells. And some governments - quietly - employ them to erase magical footprints.
But Metamagic doesn't explain everything. The deeper you go, the weirder it gets.
***
[Excerpt – Lecture Notes, Vassa Academy of Arcane Theory]
"Mana patterns sometimes change when observed. We've logged spells that behave differently depending on the caster's mood. This isn't physics - it's something older, messier. Maybe alive."
***
Albert once interviewed a retired mage hunter who had spent years unraveling spells left behind after arcane duels.
"Some magic doesn't want to be unmade," the man said. "It flinches. Like you're hurting it."
Albert wrote one last line before closing the file:
If other branches ask "what can we do with magic?" - Metamagic whispers with a smile, "No, you don't".