Author's Note: I'll write better versions of all this later. Right now, I'm just spewing it out as it comes to me. So please, pardon the crappy presentation of these ideas. Suggestions, criticism, praise, hate-fueled flames--anything and everything is appreciated.
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Every word of this is true. Anyone who says differently is a damn liar.
There was a time when spell-chuckers didn't need to scream out gibberish while flailing and throwing bat shit to make magic. There was a time when magic was not merely magic, but the Art. There was a time when magic was real.
What happened? The Grey Hags, that's what.
The first of their number had a brain like a maze and spoke only in puzzles. She saw the ivory towers of Man that broke the sky and bridges that linked the stars--and her withered heart grew heavy with envy and greed.
And so she sat before her loom and weaved trick after trick, deceit after deceit--until the Truth was smothered beneath the webs of her lies. And so did her lie spread, like an infectious disease; and so did many come to believe its false truth.
'Magic,' she lied, 'Must be studied and understood. Mages shall speak in numbers and learn runes; they shall study tomes thick with dust to master the Art. Magic does not govern the Multiverse; the Multiverse governs magic.'
And so did she make a Maze out of magic, much like her mind; and so did the ivory towers crumble and the bridges fall. And now we all must study, study, study--for the Truth has been smothered, and even now begins to flicker and die.
But she was clever, oh yes--very clever. For the Maze of Magic had in it many trap-doors and secret passageways--passages she herself built for her sisters. And that is why the Grey Hags know the short-cuts--the trap-doors, the trick hallways, the illusionary walls--that gives them their vile edge. Because Magic is a Maze, and they are its Keepers.
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In the beginning, Magic was real--and the Multiverse suffered.
Can you imagine it, berk? Do you want to? Anyone could cast magic. Any thought you had--any idea, any concept--and with enough will, it could become real.
The Multiverse was engulfed in the sheer mayhem of it all. New races would pop out of a mage's skull. Magical battles swallowed up entire planes. A single man could raise and burn a city.
At last, three brave sisters rose above the shrieking din of destruction and enchantment. Through sheer force of will and cleverness alone, they threw magic into a cage.
That's right. They Mazed Magic itself.
No longer could casters invoke destructive power with a mere thought. No more would cities fall before the might of a single man. Now, to reach the power of True Magic, you had to traverse a maze--one filled with words and equations, runes and math. To wield magic, you had to study--and study hard.
And what did they get for their troubles? For turning a churning sea of tumultuous violence into something sensible and sane? The Powers that Be cursed the sisters--and twisted their forms into hideous, puzzle-obsessed monsters. Forever more, they would traverse the maze of magic, learning its hidden traps and passageways, gathering together its secrets--always looking, consciously or otherwise, to undo the sin that had twisted their souls and withered their hearts.
And that's how the Grey Hags came to be.
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Do you want to know the dark of it? The real dark of it?
All Grey Hags are the same person.
She was a witch--a spell-caster of unsurmountable power. Her cleverness knew no limits and her magic no bounds. But she was old, and dying--as all things beneath the Spire are want to do.
But she had a plan.
Her last act was to craft a spell so vile, so villainous, and so terrifying that it would forever more blanket the lower planes in perpetual night. She poured herself into it--every ounce of her corrupted, twisted, withered little soul--until she herself became nothing but a dried husk, sitting before a freshly scribed spell with the ink still drying.
When cast, the spell did nothing.
But when a mage memorized it--committing such an obviously mighty, unidentifiable spell to memory--it would take hold of them. Transform them. It would take hold of the portion of their mind where it lurked, whispering things to them--short-cuts. Tricks and traps to power. Ways to become more powerful.
In time, the spell-caster would become twisted and mishapen, taking the hag's form. And eventually, she would become one of the Grey Hags--a child of the First.
Often, powerful mages succumbed to the spell's might, seeking power and discovering buried texts speaking of it. Other hags would help--knowingly or unknowingly perpetuating the spell, rescribing it, spreading it, speaking of it in whispering tones to inspire others to believe it a great and terrible secret of the hags.
And when the time comes, the First will return and take hold of her children's twisted minds. And when that day comes, I'll be taking those vacation days I'm owed to go visit Mount Celestia.
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Thats the kind of speculation that'd get a basher mazed!