Cohost writing prompt: @make-up-a-wizard — wizard who was so focused on being able to shoot beams that they didn't think of all the repercussions
"You unspeakable little ballsack," the Dean says. "Do you have any idea what the consequences of this are?"
Prester coughs wetly and twitches in the direction of the Green Drop mage who is only nearly finished reattaching Prester's arm.
The Dean sneers. "If you think that trifling lab injury is worthy of the title consequence, Magistrino, then reconsider your commitment to the pursuit of the magical arts. No. You have created a hazard which the minds of this noble institution are at a loss to dismantle, and the Board would have us turn to external specialists."
"I know where I went wrong," Prester says. "I can—"
"We all know where you went wrong, Magistrino Prester," the Dean snaps. "You defined a pure geometrical line, and you didn't bother to think hard enough about what that means."
Which is perfectly true; Prester's devastatingly clever application of pure shearing force, expressed as existing within a locus of fixed radius of a line, with the line's origin at his palm and its direction set by projecting its negative extent back along his forearm, has been rather overshadowed by an excitement to test too excessively hasty to think through all the details. Such as the fact that a pure geometrical line is of infinite extent — including in the negative axial direction (hence the arm). Such as matters of duration, outside of continuous conscious control, which Prester rather lost along with the limb — a rotation of metereothaumistry students are blasting fog across the path of his wretched beam, keeping some fraction of its hazardous, invisibly cutting, length visible.
"I can—"
"The Board," the Dean says, leaning close, voice dropping murderously, "have already sent word to that crackpot raised-by-wolves philistine, the Many-Angled. You will do absolutely nothing, Prester; she's already coming to tie your silly little line into a bracelet, or whatever absurd perverse travesty we're now to accept as part of the art."
Even shocky and in pain, Prester thinks better of saying that study of the Many-Angled's publications had been some inspiration.
"You mathematicians disgust me," the Dean adds in a hiss, eyes bulging.