#also the very notion of forbidden spells is ill fitting for this world

[apprentice-alwyn]

So I read the new Asra Tale “The Lost Spell” on Dorian and uh....that was...Not Great.

There were a lot of issues and I ended up thinking about what I would have done differently/how I would change the story while still trying to stick to more or less the core concept of it, and I figured I would share those musings here.

First things first, I would have made this story a more...personal one for Asra and MC involving Asra’s past and his parents. A story where Asra and MC are trying to retrieve something that was lost to his parents...I would have made this story not about a missing spell, but instead about lost alchemical research. Alchemy being the field of expertise for Asra’s parents, blending science and magic, and a field that Asra himself is most likely more unfamiliar with. (You could still make reference to this material/lost alchemical research being relevant to the current efforts to fix Vesuvia’s water system with a mention of how it could have been helpful I dunno)

This ends up being what leads Asra and MC to seek out The Magician for help  after digging for information in the palace records and library havent turned up anything and Asra’s attempts to track via magic havent been fruitful. Thus leading to the hint that what they seek can be found in Asra’s memories.

Instead of skipping straight to being told where to go to find the information, it could have been fun to have Asra and MC searching through the pools in Asra’s gate to find the right memory, giving us fragmentary moments from Asra’s past to witness as a result. Perhaps moments from, for example, when Asra and MC first met, a memory of Asra’s time on the streets with Muriel, the argument Asra and MC had during the plague, etc...until eventually they come across the memory they are looking for...one that is so old as to have been long forgotten by Asra, something a little raw and bittersweet...a memory from when Asra was a small child before he was separated from his parents. In this memory they find the alchemical research they had been searching for in the Alnazar home.

I dunno something along those lines could have been nice, while sticking to the idea of searching for some lost knowledge/magic.