Novel idea follow-up
My laptop has a slightly disturbing tendency to go unusably pear-shaped, although fortunately I have a restore CD handy, but that still means I lose all my data, so as to ensure I have something I can refer to later, here are my random thoughts involving it.
I'm still thinking of going with this massive magic effect having a terrible effect on the world, with one idea that's gripped me recently being a young boy/man, lost in the woods in the middle of winter through his own hubris/stupidity and on the brink of freezing to death, manages to tap into the power and through his incredible disbelief at what he's gotten himself into creates an idealized alternate self, which ends up rising up to greater and greater positions in the world, basically an anti-christ type figure. Meanwhile, the incredible power required to sustain such a thing has created a growing "apathy zone", in which any and all feelings are drained in order to sustain the effect. (Which has the ironic result of preventing him from being rescued, as no one in the area can bring themselves to care about his predicament one way or another any more). Most likely towards the end the characters realize what's going on and try to venture into the heart of the maelstrom to set things right, having to fight against both the motivation-draining effects and the alternate self, who understandably doesn't want to cease to exist.
I'm still thinking of going with this massive magic effect having a terrible effect on the world, with one idea that's gripped me recently being a young boy/man, lost in the woods in the middle of winter through his own hubris/stupidity and on the brink of freezing to death, manages to tap into the power and through his incredible disbelief at what he's gotten himself into creates an idealized alternate self, which ends up rising up to greater and greater positions in the world, basically an anti-christ type figure. Meanwhile, the incredible power required to sustain such a thing has created a growing "apathy zone", in which any and all feelings are drained in order to sustain the effect. (Which has the ironic result of preventing him from being rescued, as no one in the area can bring themselves to care about his predicament one way or another any more). Most likely towards the end the characters realize what's going on and try to venture into the heart of the maelstrom to set things right, having to fight against both the motivation-draining effects and the alternate self, who understandably doesn't want to cease to exist.