Although humans cannot use magic without runes, they can become quite proficient conduits for power. A wizard and a farmer, when possessing the same runes, do not produce the same results, the former far outshines the former.
This made some farmers pretty upset. For years they had ranted to their cows and sheep about how wizards were just snooty uppity types with shiny rocks. Yet, faced with this revelation, there was no denying that a farmer and a wizard simply weren’t equals in disguise.
One farmer wanted to level the playing field and brought in a local witch who was had a grudge against the snooty men in blue robes.
Between the two of them, they found a way to improve a person’s connection to the magic within them via a magical potion. Those who drank it cast spells more efficiently and with greater skill than they ever could before.
The farmer wanted to use this new advantage to put the wizards in their place, raze down the tower and claim magic a tool of the people. Unfortunately, the witch saw a different future, one that sparkled with glittering gold coins.
She died happily, wealthier than she had ever dreamed, surrounded by adoring young suiters who wanted a piece of her inheritance. The farmer died after being trampled to death by cows that were tired of his grumbling.