Magical Progress Marches On

20260704

Prompt from Eiiri’s Prompt Foundry, “Pride 2 Disability Boogaloo”.

“Humph!” Professor Bloodwort scoffed, leaning on his cane and glaring around the almost empty lecture theatre. “Young mages these days have no dedication.”
“Hm?” Professor Gentian paused packing up his lecture notes to shoot the older teacher a bemused glance.
“A bit of rain and suddenly most of them don’t even bother to show up to class!”
Gentian eyed him, then mildly said “…Pimpernel issued a severe storm warning and explicitly told students who commute from outside the school bastion to stay home.”
“Pah! Since when do mages bow to the weather??” Bloodwort flapped his hand in disgust. “The lackadaisical excuses for students you get these days, looking for any excuse to play bunk…”
“Actually, everyone attended. Just mostly via the scry network.” Gentian nodded upwards, at the swirling black crystal imbedded into an arcane gold focus which took up most of the ceiling above the lecturer’s pulpit. “Useful tool, isn’t it?”
“I don’t touch the damned thing.” Bloodwort growled. “Free licence for students to slack off, that’s all it is. Set their slate running and walk away. Can you believe the dean wants that to count towards attendance credits?? Over my dead body!”
“Oh, well… I just stopped giving attendance credits at all.” Gentian shrugged. “And she hasn’t said anything yet.”
“What?” Bloodwort stared incredulously at him. “You don’t give attendance credits?”
“Well, I agree with you that it didn’t seem right for people who attend in person to get the same credits as those who simply tap into the scry, then when I was trying to figure out how to balance it I decided it was simply too much faff. I just reallocated those credits across all the other brackets and that’s worked well so far.”
“For now, perhaps.” Bloodwort said warningly. “You’ll see students dropping out like flies by the end of the year.”
“Er…” Gentian coughed and politely said “I stopped giving attendance credits two years ago.”
“What?”
“No real change to attendance numbers so far. Though, steadily more students are attending via the scry-”
“Pretending to attend, you mean.”
Gentian eyed him, then shrugged. “Pretending very well.”
“Our once-proud pedagogy reduced to training people to shirk.” Bloodwort grumbled. “Once this lot hit the real world, we’re all doomed.”
“Oh, come now, it’s simply a matter of the world changing. I’m sure any number of them will scoff at the fact our generation were bribed to attend classes.”
“Bribed?” Bloodwort said sharply, his brows bristling.
“That’s basically what attendance credits do, isn’t it?” Gentian argued placidly. “Reward someone just for showing up, without them having to prove any kind of competency.”
“Humph. It wouldn’t be necessary if the feckless young fools would take their studies seriously in the first place!”
Gentian considered reiterating his prior points, then resignedly decided not to bother. If nothing else, Bloodwort’s students had filed in and were taking their seats, and he wouldn’t want to delay their lecture - especially since many of them would need to get home before the storm hit.
So he gathered his notes and walked out of the lecture hall. Through the heavy oak doors which used to be a struggle to open, particularly at this damp time of year, and now simply needed a touch on the enchanted brass panel to swing smoothly, without resistance. A measure which had been necessary to let Pimpernel keep teaching once her joints went, but which now anyone would sorely miss.
Just like the lifts which had been fitted into the centre of all the spiral staircases. Goodness, hard to believe he once struggled up and down three flights of stairs to teach! You had to leave an extra ten minutes between classes. Twenty if the rooms were in different quadrants. Whereas these days you could easily get from one side of the school to the other in five.
As Gentian stepped off the lift there was a porter waiting, with a floating trolley piled with equipment. Another expense which had more than paid for itself with time saved, fewer things broken, and fewer people throwing their backs out!
Funny. It wasn’t that he disagreed about the world getting ‘softer’, he just… didn’t see why that was a problem. Surely the pursuit of magic had always been about bettering mortals’ fragile and often unpleasant state in the natural order?
He idly wondered if mages long past had grumbled about everyone having magnifying manacles to help read old manuscripts, or using pens rather than quills, or glowing crystals rather than guttering torches. The thought was both amusing and far too easy to imagine.
“Back in my day you only used magnification once your eyes were going, not simply to make studying less painful!”
Frankly, Gentian was all for making sure everyone had what they needed, especially when someone else getting what they needed made his life more convenient.
Thunder rumbled in the distance. He was glad to know his students were all safe at home. And hopefully able to focus on their studies, without needing to worry about when the weather would let up or if they’d be able to fight their way back through it.
While a rising tide lifted all boats, battering rain always hit the youngest trees hardest.

Prompt was “Curb-cut effect”.