5 Minute Freewrite - Prompt: Callous

He watched silently from the safety of his Circle as the group scattered and scrambled to escape the growing cloud of dark magic billowing out of the portal they had opened. They looked to be young men, barely more than children in the eyes of the Conclave, and they foolishly had tampered with forbidden magic. And while his colleagues would have helped these students, he merely observed. They may call him callous, cruel, perhaps even evil, but they wouldn’t understand. Couldn’t understand.

These students needed to experience the consequences of their actions. There was no easy power in this world, no swift path to success. The path to power, the way to achieving their goals had to be built gradually through their struggles and pain. Any promises made by the Unseen were nothing more than traps designed to prey upon the weak. This one was no different.

So as the cloud began to envelope the students and their bodies hardened into twisted statues, he simply watched. This was the cost of their greed.

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