Villain

There is no rest for the wicked.

Calave recalled the words the Guildmaster Lazav had told him once. He was being senselessly beaten by a pair of Boros officers. It was an odd time to become sentimental, looking death in the eyes. But Calave was an understanding man; he did not fear death.

Quite simply, the world needs villains.

Lazav would go on. The words echoing in his mind mirroring the echoes of his femur being broken in this basement chamber. Calave had been caught trying to steal evidence from a Boros holding facility. Someone had been arrested, and the Calave had been tasked with wiping his slate clean. He wasn't doing too well.

The world that is Ravnica exists in between the black and the white. There needs to be men and women capable and willing to make tough decisions for the good of us all.
Calave was a bit surprised by the turn of events. The Boros were zealous to be sure, but there was normally a procedure for this sort of thing. Sure someone could be expected to be roughed up, but you usually had to do something pretty heinous to be murdered in Boros custody. Calave had underestimated how high guild tensions were running these days because of that fat purple twit.
The officers handling him were out for his blood. It was bothersome, but Calave was going to die here.

There are too many moving pieces these days. The lines have been drawn in the sand. The Guilds fear showing weakness to one another, fear of showing compromise, so nothing gets done. That's what we are for; we compromise them.
We get things done.

A tingly numb feeling was beginning to cascade throughout Calave's body. He couldn't feel anything below his left knee and a glance confirmed that very little below there would have worked anymore anyway. If Calave still possessed the capacity to sigh, 
Not only would his higher ups be tasked with covering up his compromised position, but they would have to send a cleaner to remove the evidence, a wiper to change the minds of anyone involved, a mole would have to figure out where they would move the evidence to, and another attempt at the evidence would be made.
Life would be so much simpler if the Guilds actually made an effort at compromise, even if it wasn't public. They could keep up appearances, but it was no well-kept secret that all 10 pieces were necessary for the maintenance of this strange machine that Ravnica had become.

When the Guilds fail to look eye to eye, we see.
One of the soldiers backhanded Calave so harshly the vision in his remaining eye blurred as though looking through a particularly dirty window.

When communication breaks down, we speak.
A punch to Calave's jaw. What little feeling remained suggested that it was broken, hanging from his face like a faulty marionette.

When no one else makes is willing to do a bad thing for a good reason, we endure.
Calave fell forward. He brought himself to his knees, and then saw a blade spurt out of his chest. The numbness overcame him. His vision failed. His breathe halted.
Darkness.

And then a light.
Calave stared.
In the distance there was a light, obscured as through some sort of opaque lens.
A fish swam by, Calave figured they had ditched his body in an aqueduct or something similar.
Calave tensed, searching for feeling.
What luck, none of his limbs had been severed, this would make this simple.
He brought his hands before his face.
He counted the bones in his hand. Phalanges. Metacarpals. Hamate. Pistiform. Nothing appeared to be missing.
Calave stood up and undid a crick in his neck.

It was going to be a chore sneaking back in through the undoubtedly tighter security.
But such was the way of things.
There was no rest for the wicked.

Glorious

Sedemir fell to the ground clutching his chest. Correction: What was left of his chest. An sizable portion of it had been rather unceremoniously removed from him; rather, it had removed itself. His various cytoplasmic grafts had torn themselves off his body. He heaved, breathing was difficult. He was missing a lung and one of his hearts. It was only by the marvels of Simic biomancy that he had survived the ravages of Simic biomancy.
His sight was failing him, not because of his missing eye, but rather the blood loss and the not insignificant part of his brain that had left him. But he faintly heard some great and terrible beast rampaging in the distance. ‘The Eksperiment must have been successful’ he thought to himself ‘he looked down at the pool of fluids leaking from his mutilated form ‘not quite how I might have imagined it…’ The rest of his senses began to fail him. He rolled over on his back. He could not feel three of his arms and either of his legs below the knee, when he tried to breathe out of his gills he choked and blood spat out instead. This was Master Vig’s greatest work evidentially; birthing a guild of butchered cripples.


Despair and rage began to overwhelm the usually stoic vedalken mage. ‘How could he do this. To me? To all of us?’ he thought, speech was beyond question at the present. ‘How is this, any of this, what you promised?’ He choked on rage and blood ‘The years of service and dedication. The trials and experiments and surgeries. Crafting my body into a more appropriate form for your grand plans, and this is what I receive for my tribute?!’ Sedemir’s blood pressure was inching him ever closer to death. He gurgled a curse through his agony “YOU’VE RUINED ME!”


Sedemir’s sight gave out. As did his hearing, his touch, his taste and smell, and his other 37 senses. They gave way to madness. Colors swirled around him into smells that tasted unlike anything he had ever heard. Everything. Nothing. Nowhere. Anywhere. Too much. All at once. Sensory overload. And then nothing. Sedemir fell hard on his back. “What in the hell?!” Sedemir turned to see who had suddenly joined him. A human man, in simple leather tatters, a look of shock plastered across his face. With what he had left, Sedemir cast the strongest stasis spell he could manage upon the man, and lept upon his frozen form as it fell backwards, stiff as a statue.


He cast a similar, though less dramatic spell upon himself, and held his remaining arm up to his remaining eye. He concentrated as hard as he could, channeling mana with all his might. His fingers elongated into blades. Transpecies organ transplants were tricky, especially without a proper lab, but Sedemir would not allow himself to be a victim of Momir’s deception. He got to work, removing organs from his patient and suturing them into place upon himself best he could. Doing this upon himself, in his condition, was beyond excruciating; but nothing he couldn’t handle.


After some amount of effort, Sedemir had himself a full body of organs again. He had managed to replace two of his missing arms and both of his legs. As luck would have it, his patient was of a similar build. The ham-looking flesh stood in stark contrast to his own turquoise hide, but pride meant nothing before his own survival. He fixed everything but his brain, he didn’t dare mix that with someone else. He would simply have to culture new tissue and program the missing data with what he had written in his logs.


He stood, tenderly upon his new legs. Human flesh was so unappealing looking. It resembled ham. Sedemir was not fond of ham. He wiggled his hammy toes and twisted his face in disgust. He looked at the grass between his toes and. Grass? It just dawned on him that he was most certainly not in the Simic science hall he had been in when his organs had revolted against him. He looked around. Very few buildings anywhere around, lots of rolling sandy hills, with tufts of grass growing upon rocks, simple stone huts with red banners flapping in the breeze. Sedemir did not get out of the lab as much as perhaps should have, but he was no fool. This was not Ravnica. It was simply not possible to stand anywhere on Ravnica and not see a skyscraper piercing the horizon in some direction. What had happened to him? How had he come here? Who was the man who had saved his life?


He looked down at the man who had saved his life. Correction: The remains of the man who had saved his life. He was still under the lingering effects of Sedemir’s stasis spell, but it was beginning to fade. Blood ever-so-slowly oozed from his body like tree sap. If at all possible, Sedemir would have attempted to save his life in return, he did not enjoy being indebted to another, but it did not seem possible. Without his lab or proper materials he did not have that which would be necessary to replace what he had taken, and he needed it more. A noble sacrifice. Sedemir applied an enzyme to the corpse. Nothing would be left in an hour but fillings and belt buckles.


Sedemir gazed upon the puddle that used to be the man who had saved his life. ‘What now?’ he thought to himself ‘What does a man do when everything he has ever built has become torn down? Pick up the pieces? Start over?’ What was the point, so much had been lost.’ He clenched his fists. ‘No.’ He had worked too hard to be an annotation on Momir’s journal. He would carry on. No longer a parasite to someone else’s vision, but the progenitor to his own. And it would be glorious.

behind the scenes of the Mad Doctor

So it's been a while since my last post, and since my last article was more about flavor than design, I thought I should spend some time talking about the designs themselves.

Let's get started!
http://hairlessthoctar.blogspot.com/2012/04/mad-doctor.html

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPgFXEV6F_cme_wEB-u-nQjw7Zas-cizd7jNyd7V-2Ptu6xXTPW5agryBKzONf1pofi6mrpIOa-RaVfGnYlvVxKG6ViAC1sciWzM1Q8MNRj0Wqm5vPfJdSuTqPmxMNo4atEA92w7YK-qw/s1600/Avacynian+Scribe.jpg
Avacynian Scribe was simple enough.
White is the best weenie color and every color has access to cantrips.
As a designer I'm also on something of a crusade to get card draw in all five colors to some degree. It's just such an enormous and ubiquitous part of the game, that I don't really think it's fair to certain colors to have a monopoly on it.

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhL2RcgUNYog0bpA1tCeYwdtjWby9mcgspIPrSUCLsy76-DKukUpPlWwgmYEc17RBCrCaH7dZYwQjla7be1dx6F1OELQ_5X8v6YMIcyoIOC4gtQdMkElHSGHYaIVOyZD0BS_3qT-n4uFbI/s1600/Geralf+the+Stitcher.jpg
Geralf the Stitcher was a super easy design.
"All creatures are skaabs"
Bam. Done.
I will admit that 3 is probably way too low a CMC for such a powerful effect.
It should probably be at least 4, or have a heavier color weight.

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjHWSl0jte4xRxo3RaFp5msTklsloIdk0jwldFVAC9El-Rnl3e9XgD67cdIk7myO39zhoLNeOY_kwl7z6aDS9ChOfd155oFR3BSLPVnYtVQxdTJpdtEpd-umkVs98r6N4Ku-HkDarRLcY/s1600/Gisa+the+Ghoulcaller.jpg
Since my original article went up, Avacyn Restored has come out.
In the set, Gisa is featured on a number of flavor texts, each time going by the moniker "Gisa the Mad".
That's the least of my problems.
I came up with design having totally forgotten that Coffin Queen is a thing. Which is weird because that card is super cool (and something that is sore need for a reprint).
In light of that, I'm rather disappointed in myself.
Coffin Queen has a pretty unique functionality, and I feel that it is fairly costed, and not necessarily an effect that needs to exist in plurality.
At some point, once I've written enough articles, I plan to do a "What would I do today?" article here I go over old card designs with what I've learned and say how I would do them differently.
By then, I plan to have something more satisfying.

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjd7p_qXECFXkzn8z31HspQavEW-H4p4YQI-QDy_CKV_86-G6uLu0R6wgnSTeA4c_yGVnL38RAyWyjXCcM5wyZGMBP3R3co84LYxhTdtmvzSBAYU3qIB00GwJxxy8c3g9o6mM0cnZt2wjk/s1600/Alchemist.jpg
Alchemist.
I'm not sure it's a design that 'needs' to exist, but It was one I was interested in exploring.

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlaaLvkynp5-jjxTLV2thAhEenXEydeU-oPze1JJvWlNP9nTxPNpmAmeTrHI1P8rQW7BrcunDY4pKuhEVQYG3ms3CpC00JFpfOk7juX1f10HkT6sFvLZgXGFd2d6rkQPdItUahyocB3_Q/s1600/Treacherous+Alchemy.jpg
Treacherous Alchemy.
In my first article I mentioned how I feel that restriction free tutoring feels more blue than black to me. To that end, I felt I should do a blue equivalent of the current default tutor, Diabolic Tutor. But I didn't want to do a straight reprint of Diabolic, that would be boring.
So, since blue tends to favor working at instant speed, I made it work at instant speed, but have the infrequently used "top of the library" clause so that the power level is comparable to the slower but "into your hand" effect of Diabolic.
I'd love to see how the two would compare in the real.

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOWiEXBqnZ9iIHlsshxGuP88mdctePFmzXS9XSTzTc1_-z246HMu6APm0BTy2x_nd2-2PYl_L3AKnA4_Oq72Dj95O2zmFxqkWHxHJOX4YPYvvNTDAthzJBaw2wR41_mHjBm3fY8wNeR4Q/s1600/Bewitching+Wall.jpg
Bewitching Wall.
I think Gomazoa is neat.
So I made another.

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvkhP2EX3mL2O7zyTUpnYcAtsEVcp1c7rnp2g1PIaIDruUPb40uuC_sii0QtnPCHGDIbCLVvCh84k0yF0LNw8yaxgJzxmTvORAr1DiftITS33tKmpbfRw6Da6XZ5Vw_UqHfI3COesUnBc/s1600/Geistflame+Lantern.jpg
Geistflame Lantern.
As a proponent of fatties, I enjoy manarocks.
I did this as a a bottom up of a mana rock that cares about creatures dying, since that's a pretty ubiquitous effect in Innistrad.
I'm not sure the last ability needs to remove the counters AND sac though, the card is crazy wordy as is.

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAfoOFGUhEC6fJzr1u0ODMNOuGyoltIiZsYarKagTy5F-UdF0QWuMbd0d-4d6RIkhyyjT3L6X8a8IxMml1W37Whl8ppuI6femJsPvY-wM-BYIVXeY3uaDQ_O901mzp4g0txiE5NkoZHfE/s1600/Open+Sewer.jpg
Open Sewer
Rats of Rath intrigues me.
So I wanted to see what other effects in the same vein I could explore.
This is what I came up with.
I came up with some designs that I think are more interesting and/or powerful, but this was by far the most straightforward design. Going with the simplest execution of a design is a skill that I think more would be Magic designers need to embrace.

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrN1b9kF0-Pj1oRfEdd_kPl7r2oH1b2CeAXmObLMbahI1JMtQDhwPegvLHRvQuIsV6vgD1i7U_rPVd5qy1A3ZL0UIjY5G1ByjzqpONkG3fhEFSLI05JkjtrGH5WWDVGrs3uKNJ4SZOm7g/s1600/Nothing+is+Scarier.jpg
Nothing is Scarier.
Black has a sort of neat relationship with enchantments. It (and red) are allowed to have very powerful, very aggressively costed enchantments with bad downsides. Why is this? Because red and black are the only two colors that lack the capacity to interact with non-aura enchantments on the battlefield. Because of this, they can't offset the bad downsides of their enchantments (oh say, Phyrexian Arena) by destroying them later the same way that green or white or blue could.
So here's a "nothing can block" effect.
I just realized that this kind of mimics cards like Razorjaw Oni.
Cool beans.

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaH1XognJa2dRQ8RFGVk4BxPKllI1b33pdk-yhX523bKoutv86mWwV6mPUTOPG9-wTpO8-1AoOqfIweAdSjG9tA86hQn9QuEik19M6q5FiWz1x1sREHbVaTrJnuTi9Lvp3x2jvmPuDxlM/s1600/Reflection.jpg
Reflection is the top-downsiest card I've ever made. Nuff said.

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWl-6bAUBpeLszD-MG3MNEzuMFtRbAWUwjAI_brcOfPfobSYpNcSb2jfPQJCQejWowu2uVvlxF64P73s5DeohGHfe9mnwIuNqUs4SmzYywtC_y1ss-5WeEtsxyQIPKC3lDjG5rn1voHgQ/s1600/Pickled+Brain.jpg
Pickled Brain
We have Mind Stone and we have Dreamstone Hedron. Why no effect in between?

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2D7vShLPoOan77hp0Vsa67kX-Z0A3jrvD7sntpm1JfYkzcDNEWr2VZMnAy_8qmtM3AeNt-LH50mej2kcPGWh_JWoLBTGD1qv1uyVGKmJN1EgMq0NmFra8uOXdW3OD3xSsx3NekDe6PYs/s1600/Sewer+Mutant.jpg
Sewer Mutant.
I saw Artful Dodge and decided to top down design a thing like what was in the art.

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigDQQ85VdEzx5bdMZ_PvP5XqLdkFHlNFs2koKO2u9DAuEv5m4etPH-lextwk5icdF2P5UCGDRSPdh2T3AyjGVWPD9L7ik6p8bDsheTiiJYdTbBUzEhOBoHB6MkBIqDttdNnvy7e-h9biM/s1600/Tesla+Coil.jpg
Tesla Coil.
Everything is Chain Lightning.
Let's get it!

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgP-url1vIwz1e2MGM3pBo7EWqItaMaKRI_dMOW_16jkn2EoTj4ndj-XSWDYFG5HqkRVsqpaIIG0K1AELwtMOWM406A-lUPyi6QmWRw6nF55SMUzAbtxm8xT41zRPnrTyh_Xxs1emU1Ptw/s1600/Mitosis.jpg
Mitosis.
This is the card that started it all.
I thought of this card, and immediately thought of a mad scientist testing the effect on himself.
So I decided to try and write a story around it.
I'd love to hear what you thought of the story and the designs it brought forth!

The Mad Doctor

Disclaimer: This article contains custom card designs. If you are a Wizards of the Coast employee you have my full permission to use any designs or ideas within this article without my explicit written consent or prior knowledge, or without giving me any sort of credit. I love this game and I want to help it in any way I can.

The Mad Doctor

Mikail was nervous. He had never strayed this far out of his village before, especially for such a peculiar request. Mikail enjoyed something of a privilege position in his home village. He was a church-sanctioned scribe, which meant he commanded a level of admiration and respect similar to that of a mayor, but without the hassle of being attacked by werewolves or vampires, or that of a Cathar, again, without the hassle of being attacked by werewolves or vampires. Villagers would come to him with their problems and trifles, and he would often know how to solve them, or, worse case, someone else who could. Life for him was about as good as it got for a human on Innistrad, which was saying something.

               He had been assigned to the village of Silber about a year and a half ago. It was a rather unremarkable village for the most part, which made it rather remarkable, really. Many villages throughout Innistrad usually had all manner of problems. Roving vampire packs, werewolf hordes, vengeful haints. Mikail had heard stories of a pair of sibling corpse-raisers the next county over waging a war with one another. 

 

                Silber had none of those problems. About six months into his charge, Mikail found out why. Up on the top of the hill was an opulent manor. Living in that manor, was an alchemist of some renown; named Regulus. Now normally, alchemy, especially on the quantity and quality performed by Regulus, was frowned upon and persecuted by the church as an act of extreme heresy. But no one in the remote village of Silber had ever bothered to report Regulus. 

                For you see, Regulus was rather unique among Innistrad’s alchemists. He apparently had no grand aspirations of domination of all he purveyed. He did not attempt to raise the dead, or craft monsters out of livestock, or find some sort of perversion of life that would make one immortal. Since Regulus had appeared in the village of Silber, all of his efforts had been towards finding and erecting wards and repellants towards the various fiends that had plagued all of Innistrad since time before anyone could remember. And what’s more, they all worked. 

                He provided them with wards and enchantments and repellants to the beasts that lurked beyond their village’s walls. He built sewer systems (without anyone noticing somehow…) and a series of lanterns throughout the village perpetually fueled by geistflames. He purified the local wells of plagues and curses. He made the crops grow larger and bloom regularly and made the soil and livestock more fertile and all manner of miraculous things. 

                And for these reasons, the people of Silber had grown to tolerate Regulus, and ignore some of his more eccentric qualities. Whenever all of the nails had been removed from a building overnight, or all of the local sheep sheared of their wool, or every third leaf plucked from an apple tree, the villagers accepted that as a ‘payment’ of sorts to the loony on the hill that was their eccentric guardian angel.

                At first, Mikail was mortified. A heretic taking away faith from Avacyn! What’s more he was being sheltered by the entire village. He had quickly resolved to inform his higher ups of these transgressions, but the mayor had asked to see him privately. He explained the situation, that it was not out of a lack of faith that they tolerated Regulus, but more a matter of pragmatism. His methods worked.” How could the wellbeing of the village by a heresy?”, he asked Mikail. “Surely Avacyn would want her children to be safe. Who is he hurting by helping us?” Mikail thought long and hard about what was said to him, and decided to relent. He decided that so long as Regulus kept his antics ‘harmless’ that he would have no need to get the Cathars involved in a witch hunt in Silber.

                This reputation of Regulus as a wacky loner had made what had transpired all the more startling to Mikail. A week ago, while he prepared his monthly report to Thraben, he heard a knock on his door. Company at this hour was unheard of, and the months of Regulus’ safety had not tempered his suspicions, so he readied his finest silver blade, and answered the door.

                Before him stood no one at all. At his feet their lay a small ornate scroll “Dearest Mikail” printed upon it in an impossibly, almost sickeningly so, elaborate cursive font. He heard the pitter-patter of movement, and out of the corner of his eye he saw… something… dive into the nearest sewer grate. 

                Wary about the weirdness that had just transpired, he kicked the parcel behind him into his home, shut the door, and locked it behind him. He set to work, attempting every manner of curse-breaking and disenchanting upon the letter. Once he was thoroughly convinced it would not release a demon, or make his eyes rot into sludge, he opened the letter.

                “Dearest Mikail Gunderson.

                I request the honor of your visitation one week from now, on the 14^th eve of the Hunter’s Moon, Ava 718. History shall be made, and you shall bear witness to it!

                Your brother in Avacyn,

                Regulus Gandolfus SilversteinVon Elric the Third, Esquire.”

                As far as Mikail was aware, Regulus had never before made direct contact with any villager since his coming to Silber almost five years ago; so such directness as this was quite unprecedented. Mikail’s curiosity got the better of him, and decided to agree to the request.

                The week passed without incident, and Mikail found himself upon the stoop of Regulus’ manor. He knocked. He could hear the echo reverberate beyond the door. About ten seconds passed before he heard the locks and tumblers inside the door click and creak, and slowly the door opened inward. Mikail peered inside. He could see no one there, the door had apparently opened of its own accord somehow. Beyond the threshold was darkness stretching as far as he could see. 

                Curiosity overcame Mikail and he ventured inside. Suddenly, countless lanterns burst into flame, in every color imaginable, bathing the room in a veritable rainbow of light. He was standing in a grand foyer. He found himself gawking at all the elaborate decorations until he peered up. There were twin staircases on either side of the room. They joined together at the top, leading to a balcony. On that balcony there was a double door, left ever so slightly ajar, and beyond that he could see a sinister glow, completely unlike that of the lanterns in the room. It had an otherworldliness to it that not even the literally otherworldly geistflames could hope to match.

                Mikail was now face to face with a long, seemingly endless hallway. As he walked through the hallway, he passed by all number of bizarre and macabre decorations. Suits of armor in twisted, grotesque poses, portraits of people with the faces torn off, pots of long-dead flowers. He caught sight of a mirror and paused to look at it. As he inspected his uniform in the mirror, suddenly his reflection made a lunging motion towards him. He instinctively jumped back and drew his dagger to defend himself, but the reflection went no further; despite its obvious supernatural status, it did not attempt to breech the mirror, it just doubled over pointing and laughing at Mikail’s reaction. Whatever kind of man Regulus was, he had unique taste in decorations.  Mikail ignored the reflection, which was now performing some sort of lewd dance, and kept walking. He reached the end of the corridor and came upon a heavy set of wrought-iron doors, left ajar, the otherworldly glow pouring out. With the light, he could hear heavy grinding mechanical sounds.

                He walked through the door and found himself in a room that was beyond his ability to describe. It reminded him of a ward at the primary clinic he had seen in Thraben, but wrong somehow. There were tables covered with beakers and bottles of many shapes and sizes bubbling with fluids in as many colors as the lanterns in the foyer. He wondered if they were somehow related. The wall was covered in spinning gears and wires flowing with electricity. There were tables with straps on them  far sturdier than could ever theoretically be needed to hold a person. The one at the end of the table had a zombie on it with a variety of implements sticking out of it. There were rows and rows of shelves with jars stuffed full of things unrecognizable. In one corner of the room he saw a tank full of the creatures he had seen jump into the sewer. 

                While he was inspecting the bizarre room, an ungodly explosion happened somewhere beyond his perception. He turned towards the blast just in time to catch witness to a man flung hard onto the table of beakers, collapsing the table legs and making a mess of the fluids in them. Though he was stunned by the sheer bizarreness of what he was seeing, Mikail quickly came to his senses and rushed to help the man.

                He flipped the man over onto his back. He was wearing a white coat with a heavy leather smock. He had thick leather heavily worn gloves on his hands. As he inspected the man, he looked towards his face and noticed he had come to, and was staring intently at Mikail. The man had a strong chin and high set sunken cheeks. A thin pointed nose lay between heavily sunken eyes with deep bags, this man did not look as though he slept much. His hair was short, jet black, and slicked back as though with some sort of oil. His eyes were a cold, stony gray color. He blinked twice slowly before a look of comprehension dawned on him.
                “Was that today? Oh goodness gracious, where are my manners.”
                The man pulled himself to his feet far faster than logic would dictate should be possible for a person who was just caught in such an explosion.

                The man took off the heavy smock and gloves and threw them onto what was left of the beaker table. He dusted himself off, bent his neck sharply to one side, then other, producing loud disctinctive popping noises as he did so. He offered his hand.
                “You must be master Gunderson. Regulus Gandolfus SilversteinVon Elric the Third, Esquire at your service!” he said with the most unearthly amount of cheer Mikail had ever heard from any person.

                Once again, Mikail was left speechless. This was easily the most surreal day he had ever lived or would likely ever live. He came to his senses and shook Regulus’ hand. “Charmed”

                “I must apologize,” Regulus quipped “Confession; I tend to lose myself in my work. So rude of me to forget you were coming. I’m glad to see you found the place easily enough. Come! Tea!”

                Regulus gestured Mikail over to a corner of the lab that had not (yet) been decimated by any manner of explosion, structural collapse, or corrosive fluid; and began pouring what he could only hope was tea out of one of the beakers into a pair of heavily cracked teacups. Mikail lightly sniffed at his cup. He glanced up; Regulus has gulped his down in a single motion. Mikail, against all better judgment, thought it safe enough, and took a sip. It was far better than he would have expected.

                “So…” Mikail said slowly, “What exactly am I hear for?”
                Regulus quickly glanced up, as though he had only just realized Mikail was there, and stared blankly at him for a not insignificant amount of time. “Ah yes! That!”
                He sprang to his feet. “Mikail, my good man, you are here as my guest, to bear witness to legend!” Mikail could only stare. Regulus, sensing he was losing his captive audience, continued. “I should elaborate. You see, I’ve been waaaaaatching yooooou.” Mikail backed his chair up involuntarily “Oh don’t take it that way, you silly~ I watch everyone in the village, but you were something of a special case. When I first came to this miserable little town, I was quite ecstatic, the grasp of the church did not extend so far out into the boondocks, so I was quite capable of doing my god’s work without intervention, but then you showed up. I was quite fearful you would go and spoil my fun, but you’re not like the other church goers! You have a proper grasp of things! You can see the big picture! You knew I wasn’t a threat, so you didn’t report me; I like that!!!” Regulus grinned wide. He had a lot of teeth.

That piqued Mikail’s interest. “Why do you say you’re not a threat?”

“Because I’m not! I’m not like most of my contemporaries. I am not so bold as to wage war against Avacyn’s followers, or at least their sensibilities. I know what buttons not to push. What’s more I have a sense of self-preservation; I know that if the church were to become aware of my capabilities, they would spoil all my fun, and I can’t have that. There’s still lots of interesting things I can do without resorting to making monsters or raising the dead. And that’s why you’re here! You’re different! If there’s anyone who can appreciate what will unfurl tonight in that village, it is you!” Mikail backed up further.

Regulus walked over to another one of the machines, put a beaker underneath a spout, and began twisting some knobs and pulling levers. The machine lurched to life. “Whether or not the church appreciates or even understands it, I would not consider myself their enemy. No, I would consider myself an ally!” The machine began making all manner of horrid screeching noises as it struggled to do whatever it was trying to do. “I have a vested interest in fending off the forces of the night that blight this world.”
                “Why is that?” Mikail querrried?
                “The same reason as anyone who lives upon this earth; the monsters want to kill me. And I can’t have that, living is far too much fun~” The machine spewed out a neon blue liquid into the beaker. It let off a low glow, the same color glow Mikail had seen from the hallway. Regulus quickly downed the fluid.

“GYAAAAAAAAAAH, taste like crap!!!”

Regulus smacked his lips. “You’ve seen my work, you know that I am capable of fending off these wretched creatures. But what happens after that? What if the Church gets suspicious, or the monsters get to me? Or I get old and die? Or I’m caught in some sort of horrible explosion brought about by my own intompitence?” Regulus was ever-so-subtly starting to glow the same color as the liquid.

“About that…”

“I don’t want to die, Mikail. Blessed Sleep or no, I would much rather be alive you see. So I’ve been hard at work, coming up with a contingency plan. And you know what?” That toothy smile again. “I’ve found it.”

Regulus walked over to a tall structure that had a tarp strewn over it and yanked it off. It appeared to be a guillotine with the stocks removed from it. Mikail stood up sharply, he didn’t know what was about to happen but he didn’t think he would like it, whatever it was.

“Tonight!” He pointed sharply at Mikail. “I walk where angels tread!”
                He walked underneath the guillotine so he just under the middle of it, and put his hand on the lever.

“Don’t do i-“ Regulus threw the lever. Before Mikail could even blink the blade descended faster than lightning and split Regulus down the middle, like a knife through warm butter. The expression on each side of Regulus’ face froze, and the two halves went limp and slumped over. Mikail was left numb, the weirdness was getting to him, he wasn’t sure how much more he could take.

The two halves of the mad scientist just lay there, unmoving. Mikail waited. Waited. Waited. Nothing. He began to wonder to himself. What will happen to all of Regulus’ wards and enchantments now that he was dead? Were they autonomous, or did Regulus have to provide them with upkeep to sustain their functionality? Now that Regulus was dead, should he let the church know about the goings on in the town of Silber? If Regulus loved life as much as he said he did, why would he do something so obviously suicidal?

“Owwwww!!!” Mikail jumped back, and looked over towards Regulus. The shredded side of him was glowing blue, and out of that glow a half of a man grew out of it, returning Regulus to a whole shape of a man again. He stood up and marveled at what he did, poking his fingers together, and twiddling his ear on the side that had been regrown. Sensing that what had just happened must surely be beyond rational thought to even the most well-adjusted of men, he smile and turned towards Mikail. He opened his mouth as if to speak.

“See! Nothing to worry about!” Regulus face froze. That voice had not come from him. He saw that Mikail’s gaze lay behind him and pivoted on the spot. He saw a second Regulus, or rather his other half, in the process of regrowing, standing up from the other side of the guillotine blade. He stood fully formed and looked towards Mikail “I knew exactly what I was dooooo-“ He saw the first Regulus standing before him. They stood there, staring at themselves as though they had never seen a mirror for the first time.  

After what seemed like an eternity to Mikail “That was unexpected.” They said in unity. That toothy grin began to creep over both of their faces. “You see Mikail” The first Regulus said “You have bore witness to greatness!” He turned back towards Mikail. “With this” chimed in the second Regulus “my fun will be never-ending…”