People used to fear magic.

It was seen as a tool of the divines, unpredictable and tumultuous. The signs could be predicted, of course, but by then it may well have been too late to avoid the outcome. It commanded attention wherever it appeared, but even in those days there was a distinction made between High Magics and Low Magics.

Low Magics were more predictable. Dangerous and uncontrollable, perhaps, but the rules it obeyed were more obvious. While wild magic surges may have been deadly, they were rare and could be avoided by not spending overmuch time in the lands prone to them.

It did not take a particularly long time before the very first mages learned to utilize the Low Magics, summoning it with staff and wand to provide light, to bless their food, and ward against the creatures of the night.

From there, the first artificers learned how they might use Low Magic in their crafting endeavors. While they were unable to create any weapons which carried magic with them past their creation, such mage-forged blades were harder, stronger, sharper, and more powerful than anything created in a mundane manner.

And so, low magic was tamed. Mages developed their understanding of it, mastering it and bending it to their will for transportation, warfare, and countless other disciplines. Alchemists utilized it to enhance their potions, artificers created better and better weapons, and low magic was captured in mage-wrought cages to illuminate cities and houses alike.

However, even as Low Magics were tamed, High Magics remained a mystery. Its appearance frequently spawned wild magic storms of Low Magics, it commanded its attention by its very nature, and was completely and utterly unpredictable, yet feared by all.

It was, in a word, magic.

Gods wielded it as a weapon, for it came from their domain. It was said to strike down heretics, and was often deadly, to creatures and plants alike. Those who did survive were changed. The scars it left were utterly unique, and recognizable on a corpse unlike anything else. Trees which died to magic may be left standing as a twisted and hollow shell of their former self. Frequently, even the ground itself could react to magic, white sand turning black as it sought to expel its corruptive touch and becoming an ugly, twisted and sharp thing.

But other times, when certain rocks were exposed to magic, they were changed. They possessed a pull which lesser rocks and metals bowed to, which seemed to defy all known laws of how things moved and were acted upon.

These were the first magical metals, and their presence was confusing. It was impossible to work them without them breaking, yet when shaped in the proper manner they could be used to extract iron arrowheads from bodies, or in time it was found they could be used in divination artefacts to unerringly know the way to travel.

No culture escaped the presence of High Magic, and all feared its touch. Superstitions arose as to how to avoid falling to High Magic, be they mundane methods to avoid its actual impact or simply ways in which one could avoid the notice of the gods, to prevent their judgment.

Even as the Low Magics were tamed and mastered, High Magics remained a complete and utter mystery. But then, a small ritual- perhaps one of the very first- was developed. Certain stones, and the processed resin of some trees, could produce the smallest sparks of High Magic. It was a simple ritual, certainly making nothing actually usable, it was nothing more than a minor party trick for novice mages to boast of, to teach and to awe. But, it was the first time people managed to, in whatever small way, use High Magic with their own hands. It was the start, the first sparks of something great.

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In time, this minor working was expanded, the first sparks carefully fanned and fed by generations of mages working in concert. Ritual devices were created, that would repeat the ritual of High Magics, to create a larger spell. Metals were first believed to be antithetical to High Magic, the cold iron destroying the workings of mana. However, in time it was found to be much the reverse. Metals attempted to amplify and expand the reach of High Magic, but the primitive High Magic spells of the time could not handle such strength, flailing and fizzling aimlessly instead of becoming amplified and channeled to grand effect.

Then, a breakthrough.

Alchemists learned of a way in which they were capable of calling upon High Magic through their reagents, creating it within a potion bottle for the minor tricks they knew how to utilize it. It was far from the heavens-shattering spells which the gods worked, yet this smaller High Magic was useful in its own way.

First, they used it to create light. Low Magic had been utilized for illumination for centuries, yet it was suboptimal in many ways. The magic had a tendency to flare out of control, to damage it surroundings, and was incredibly pollutant for any with the appropriate senses. So, High Magic was tamed and turned into light.

That was but the beginning.

They used it to create golems. None have as of yet awoken to self-awareness, yet it is surely inevitable. These golems were feared and despised, then accepted and relied upon, used to build ever-higher into the heavens and used by craftsmen to achieve a level of output and quality long thought unimaginable.

They used it to create wonders. High Magic was used to transmute water into fuel, to gild the lily, to fuse metals into a single whole.

They used it to revive the dead, to restore life to dead limbs, to divine the internals of the body without harm to the patient. At first, this was done by utilizing strange lights to see through all things, but in time they mastered the ability to utilize high magic itself to peer into the impossible.

They used it to scry across the world, creating ever-smaller magic mirrors capable of seeing ever more sights. The magic mirrors became more sophisticated, and they were used to connect such wildly disparate locales in such fantastic manners they became something else entirely.

And it was made into an Akash. A world-spanning field of magic, maintained by massive runestones of Low Magic-processed stones yet brimming with High Magic. Not merely inscribed with runes upon the surface, these runestones are massive and impossibly complex. Each stone is comprised of dozens of individual and independent sections capable of separate maintenance and use, and they all contain a motive spirit of sorts, brought to life by High Magic and speaking a language incomprehensible to mere mortals at such speeds as to be utterly maddening. It is only through several layers of abstraction through magical languages wherein these spirits may be instructed, changed, or spoken to.

These motive spirits are beings of magic, of impossible memory and incomprehensible methods. They communicate with one another to retrieve nigh any piece of information in existence and return it to the one asking in fractions of a second. Global networks of runestones correspond and collaborate with every passing moment, passing matters of grave import directly to the eyes and ears of the one requesting it and none other, the response itself enchanted to be resistant to tampering or eavesdropping, impossible to comprehend yet aware of its own being enough to know if one has attempted to intercept it.

Today it is taken for granted that one may call upon the magic of the gods, generated by mage-wrought substances developed by an alchemist, feeding a non-sapient being of pure magic and which lives within a portable runestone, capable of requesting any information in existence from anywhere in the world and expecting a response within fractions of a second.

It is taken for granted that they will not wont for as much power as they could ever use, to empower their comfort enchantments, to turn night into day, to clean their homes and cook their food. And all of this was done for them, so few comprehending the mysteries and innumerable hours spent by mages, by alchemists, by artificers, to give them the ability to work nigh any spell they choose, whenever they wish.

People used to fear magic.