Perhaps I'm putting the cart before the horse here, but I tried writing this medium-length short story partly to begin fleshing out a magic system for the world I've been building.

Based on the story alone, what impressions do you have about this magic system? I'll leave some excerpts below for those who don't want to read the whole thing, and at the bottom of this post I'll provide a spoilered explainer for the system as it stands now.

Major caveat: I wrote this story to a set word limit, and laying out the magic system wasn't the main focus of the story, but I did want this to be one key feature of the setting.

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Excerpt 1: A demonstration of sympathetic magic in my world, within word limits

There was ample distance between Marasher and the explosion, but he felt its heat singing the hairs on his arms and prickling his skin anyway. Still, he came out mostly unscathed...

It was an impressive feat of sympathetic magic, Marasher admitted to himself as he simultaneously dodged flying debris, ignored bewitchments trying to enter his mind like powerful intrusive thoughts, and studied the dimensions of the room, all while planning his next steps. Making fireballs erupt out of nowhere was simply the stuff of legends, but finding something dangerously volatile in one’s environment and manipulating it with magical force was quite feasible. Black powder was difficult to manipulate through sympathy, however, as powder formulations varied so greatly from one batch to the next. Marasher was impressed that one of those University mages had managed to link his party’s black powder cache with a similar enough substance they had on hand. He could hardly believe their luck.

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Excerpt 2: Anti-magic measures through manipulating the flow of magical force

But he had to focus, even as his ears rang from the explosion. The best way to level the playing field, he figured, was by causing a magical anticyclone, something like a high-pressure zone but for the invisible magical force that existed all around them. A successful anticyclone would redirect much of the magical force around them outward, making spellcraft nearly impossible in most of the chamber. Marasher had to be precise, though, in hopes of shaping an anticyclone that would impede the other mages without making himself useless. The only other way he could make himself useful in a combat situation was with his saber or his camping knife, and frankly, he wasn’t much good with either one...

Marasher tried to control his breathing and refocus on his task. He traced a perfect circle in the air as he sucked in his breath, then carefully traced several lines within the circle to configure the dimensions and function of his spell. He tried to ignore the firefight ensuing around him as a single mistake could be costly, likely making his spell useless or generating some unintended and potentially disastrous effect.

“Marasher! You said now!” Kalam shouted in his best commander’s voice.

Marasher pivoted as carefully and quickly as possible from his cover, keeping his left hand suspended where his invisible spell circle was, then let out a sharp, exhaling whistle as he traced one final line through it.

Marasher felt a vaguely electric, lightly prickly sensation wash over him. The sensation was rather subdued, as if the force had flooded in from a good distance, thankfully.

The other side of the chamber was quiet at first, and then filled with synchronized groans and gasps. Clearly the mages in hiding had had some spellcraft of their own in the works, but Marasher managed to foil them.

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Magic system explainer: The system I have in the makings here is a hard magic system in which spellcraft consists of causing a movement or disturbance in the magical force permeating the world, a.k.a. a "spell," by means of a sympathetic link between a spell's target and a spell agent (an object or other focus that is superficially or strongly similar to the spell's target). The most "primitive" magical practices in this setting mainly operated through sympathy alone, but advances in magic since then have led to the use of geometry and acoustics to strengthen these sympathetic connections. Additionally, this world's mages have made recent breakthroughs in ways to manipulate magical force directly.