Richard slumped forward at the polished wooden desk, idly tracing the faint runic inscriptions etched into its surface. Across the class, Meredith's voice droned in a distant, monotonous hum—more a fixture of the room than a living person.
A few rows ahead, some of his classmates tapped their quills against notebooks or fiddled with the edges of their robes, stifling yawns.
"…and that, class," Meredith said, her tone as flat as ever, "is precisely why the weakest Fireball spell suffers from unpredictability at longer ranges. The magical matrix becomes unstable if rushed—even the smallest slip in chanting can make your Fireball fizzle at long range or detonate right at your fingertips."
She paused, giving an air of finality to her lecture.
