A Warlock's Wish
written by vividpast starts off with Merlin and the roundtable capturing a magical creature, a djinn to be more precise.
However, something went wrong and he's transported to a world where Camelot is home to thousands of magic-users. King Uther is nowhere to be found, Arthur is a prince again, and Queen Ygraine sits on the throne.
Merlin plans to get back to his own reality, to his own Camelot. To do that, however, he must have access to information that is inside a shielded castle protected by powerful sorcerers. The only way in is to participate in the Apprentice Exam and be an apprentice to a magic-user included in Camelot's court. Should be easy . . . right?
Conspiracies are afoot and Merlin just knows that, somehow, he is or will be involved. Just his luck.
A Warlock's Wish provides examples of:
- Bigger on the Inside: Merlin finds this out the hard way when he accidentally wishes himself in the Djinn's lamp. Even though he's well aware he's in a magical creatures domain, he's still stunned at how huge it is on the inside. The Djinn, meanwhile, is even states it's not even completely sure how the lamp operates and goes as far as to compare it to the Tardis much to Merlin's utter confusion.
- Doomed Hometown: Magical Camelot is surrounded by a barrier that protects the city and it's said to be the work of hundreds of sorcerers and mages at Queen Ygraine's command. No one can hope to damage it and you need a talisman in order to get in. Most impressive yet, the badge has to be specially made for each person. In other words, even if a thief steals it hoping to sneak in, it'll still deny him entry way. Merlin himself admitted how useful the barrier was and realized how much easier his job of protecting Arthur would have been if his Camelot also possessed one.
- Fish out of Water: As much as Merlin tries to blend in and stay unnoticed... that quickly becomes impossible as time goes on as Merlin doesn't have a clue how society with magic functions and it soon becomes blatantly obvious. It also does not help a bit that Merlin doesn’t realize exactly how overpowered he truly is since he never had a good measure for his magic until now.
- Gender Bender: Magical Camelot is seem as a lot more open minded about being gender fluid as seen with Thomas Collin's kid who regularly changes out their gender with a spell whenever they feel like it.
- The Genie Knows Jack Nicholson: The djinn, being a powerful magical creature and all, is well aware of the fact that there are countless different dimensions that exist in the universe and regularly references them much to the utter confusion of Merlin. It uses that knowledge to send people whose wishes it can't grant to other worlds where they can live it out there.
- Losing Your Head: When King Arthur orginally approached the djinn, it asked what wish he wanted granted. However, it took what Arthur response quite litterly- it's head on a platter- and granted his wish. It failed to mention that since it's a supernatural creature and all, doing such an act to itself wouldn't kill it since didn't have a problem still talking all while spitting out blood from it's mouth.
- Muggle Born of Mages: It completely shocks Merlin to discover that Thomas Collin unlike his child and his mother Mary didn't possess a single ounce of magic. Something that puts a really foul taste in Merlin's mouth considering that's what he was executed for orginally in his own world. No wonder Mary was so upset and mad with grief over her son's death.
- Repression Never Ends Well: Due to the Ban on Magic back in his own world, Merlin has developed a bad habit of repressing his magic in order to protect himself. However, in doing so, his magic tends to lash out when he's sick or emotionally compromised since he's not regularly preforming harmless magic tricks to release it on occasion.
- Spared by the Adaptation: Lancelot, it seems, never met his end when it came to sacrificing himself in Arthur's place. This is changed by
Word of God mostly because they didn't want Merlin to have too much angst in meeting Lancelot's counterpart with everything he already has to go through. - Trapped in Another World: The whole premise is started after Merlin is sent to another world by a djinn and he spends the entire time trying to secretly find a way back to his Camelot while blending into a world where magic was never outlawed in the first place. Unsurprisingly, both are easier said then done.
- Willfully Weak: Merlin appears like this at first glance to most magic users in the very beginning because he's been unknownly restraining his magic due to the persecution on magic in his world. Even to those who use scinncræfte crystals, a magical instrument which can perceive how strong a magic user is, would only be able to detect that he'd barely have enough magic to light a candle.
- Worldbuilding: A big portion of this story is dedicated to Merlin learning first hand how Camelot would function if magic would be part of it's everyday life. A lot about magic has been forgotten over the years during the purge as can be seen here:
- For one, there are different types of magic users that specialize in certain areas of their respective abilities. Sorcerers are very good at manipulating water, fire, air, earth, lightning, metal, or some other naturally occurring anomaly. Meanwhile, Mages prefer arcane types of magic like mixing potions, healing flesh wounds, scrying for information, and the like. Being called a Warlock, on the other hand, is considered a slur in magical Camelot. The true meaning has been long forgotten but it orginally referred to someone who was born with magic.
