Challenge #03814-J162: All Due Caution

To stay in this city, all strong magic users had to wear an amulet that suppressed their magic as far as it could go without being life-threatening to the magic user. Why? To protect the magic user from the unstable energy of this place, which was still healing from a massive series of storms that had only recently, that is within one human lifetime, had been quelled. -- Anon Guest

They said it was the last strike of the Xenophobia Wars that caused the thaumonado centered on Taurfall. It had been raging for centuries since. The area and the blasted lands around it remained a place for people to point to as an example of how not to do war on each other.

Taurfall used to be an enormous city. A place that used to be a wonder of the world. Following the thaumonado, it fell like the magnificent tower that gave it its present name.

It had been a place of wild magic for most of a millennium. Until forty-three years ago.

The thaumonado is still in living memory. Those with a natural gift of magic who still live there cling to their null-magic amulets, charms, and other accessories. Only the very young make mock of such habits.

"It's dipped out before," warned the retired Abomination Hunter, Durant Frostwyrl. "When I was a kid, it went quiet for ten years. People threw away their wards. They laughed at those who kept them. And then when it came back..." a moment of silence, staring into bad memories. "I had to hunt and kill five of my friends."

There were still Abomination Hunters in Taurfall. They all swore it was better to not know what the Abominations started their lives as.

Once something got hit by wild magic, it would never be the same again. It would never be recognisable as what it once was.

Taurfall still had a thriving anti-magic charm industry. Those who remembered made them with a seemingly feverish drive.

Just in case the thaumonado came back.

[Photo by Dominik Kiss on Unsplash]

If you like my stories, please Check out my blog and Follow me. Or share them with your friends!

[70 remaining prompts] Please don't send any more prompts for now. Thank you.

Support me on Patreon / Buy me a Ko-fi

Check out the other stuff I'm selling