The Villain Professor's Second Chance

The final meeting flickered across my vision with the clarity of fresh blood on snow. No battlefield, no spells—just a stone-walled chamber lit by a single brazi­er. We sat across a table that stank of embalming salts. The quest's last layer had not been a fight but a conversation, and that alone should have warned me how important it was.

He wore youth like a borrowed cloak: lean shoulders, unlined skin, eyes too sharp for someone who looked barely twenty. Time had not forgiven him; it had simply looped him backward for one last monologue.

"Be careful, Draven. Search for my corpse."

Eight words, delivered in the tone of a scholar noting a footnote. Yet each word was a weight, and I felt them settling in the marrow of my bones.

His old body—some mythical grail stuffed with necromantic runes even I hadn't predicted—was out there. A vault of techniques. A trap for fools. Perhaps both.

I could still hear the low crackle of the brazier, smell the formaldehyde lurking beneath the sweet incense he'd burned to keep deathflies away. He had stared at me like a mirror that might break if he breathed too hard.

"I was trying to return to it," he'd said, voice stripped of vanity. "But time tangled my threads. I borrowed this body. Now it's yours to find."

Borrowed, he'd said—as casually as someone might borrow a cloak from a rack. I wondered if the soul that originally owned that vessel had noticed the eviction. Probably. Kyrion didn't do gentle.

His final warning had carried a tone I seldom heard in anyone: respect tinged with resignation. Guard the realm. Strengthen your kingdom. Understand what's coming. Even now, a complete model of his intent eluded me. Too many unknown variables. And I despise unknowns.

In the digital prototype—the game I once penned to keep my boredom from devouring me—Kyrion had never revealed these lines. They were not in the script. Which meant the world had begun writing itself, using rules outside the original code. That amused me more than it should. A sandbox that tries to outgrow its designer? Good. It will make the inevitable pruning more instructive.

I closed my eyes for three measured breaths, letting the tactile memory of the pens' orbital hum fade, letting the city's distant bells bleed into focus. On the third breath, strategy crystallized.

The Necromancer Clone would track the body. He understood my necrotic cyphers intimately and shared Kyrion's academic arrogance—an advantage when deciphering old rituals. He would need two squads: one research team, one disposable dig crew. The diggers would likely die; I would plan a polite eulogy if any survived long enough to care.

The Professor Clone would remain at MTU. His veneer of approachable brilliance allowed him to guide bright students into my net while keeping suspicious deans convinced they were in on some grand scholarly prank. He would ensure the forthcoming Symposium maintained just enough controversy to attract political predators—predators that I could then chain or skin.

And the auction… the Drakhan Auction would arrive soon. Coins, relics, whispers. A feeding ground where greed did my work for me. I pictured gilded nobles pawing at crates they couldn't pronounce, each more anxious to impress the room than to verify authenticity. The perfect place to seed future debts and ignite rivalries. Contingency Omega would account for sabotage, hostage scenarios, and at least one act of divine retribution. I anticipated all three.

I approached the window, brushing aside the heavy drapery. Cold glass greeted my fingertips, thin morning frost spider-webbing the pane. The sun crested just above the eastern ridge, painting the spires in molten brass. From this vantage the city appeared serene—a clockwork vista of rooftops, banners, and stone bridges arcing across mist-veiled canals. But I saw the boiling subtext: micro-tremors of resentment in workers recently taxed, the mercenary band licking wounds after my quiet reprimand, and beneath it all the dungeon core humming like a heart ready for war.

"The Symposium. The Auction. The devil's coffins. The fractured clock," I murmured, each noun a chess piece. "Soon."

Behind me the grandfather timepiece struck seven—three soft chimes, one decisive strike. Perfect. The knock on the door followed, precisely when calculated: Alfred's rhythm, two knuckles, slight pause, then second set—a courteous request rather than intrusion.

I pivoted, cloak swishing around my ankles. The latch clicked.

"Enter, Alfred."

The door eased open with practiced silence. Alfred, immaculate as ever, stepped in, his silver-trimmed uniform pristine.

"My lord, the carriage is prepared."

"Thank you, Alfred. Inform the Assistant Professor yuli I will arrive shortly at the Magic Tower University. And… prepare contingency Omega. The auction will not be smooth."

"Of course, my lord."

He bowed and exited without needing further instruction.

I gathered Noctgrave and the other pens, fitting each into the velvet‑lined sockets of my travel case. The latches locked with a soft metallic sigh, the kind of sound that promised finality. A lesser mage would carry a staff; I preferred artillery disguised as stationery.

A quick sweep of the room followed. Ward crystals? Stable. Fire‑runes in the hearth? Banked but warm enough to fool any heat‑seeker. I allowed my gaze to linger on the empty teacup at the corner of the desk—a relic from some forgotten dawn when I'd paused long enough to indulge jasmine leaves. The memory felt almost alien. Efficiency leaves little room for ceremony, yet ceremony anchors the mind. I slid the cup into a pocket dimension; superstition, perhaps, but a battlefield is built on habits.

Movement outside the window caught my eye: a flock of messenger gulls veering as a single shape as they approached the upper airspace wards. Good. The lattice recognized them as benign and allowed passage. A more aggressive pattern would have triggered the sky‑palisade and filled the morning with ash and feathers. That, in turn, would have summoned the city's Complaints Guild. Paperwork is the only weapon I dread.

Alfred's polished stride faded down the corridor, each footfall measured to avoid creaking boards. He would descend two flights, adjust the carriage's stabilizer glyphs, brief the driver, then post a silent signal to the Shadow Guard on the outer wall. A ripple of readiness would follow through the estate—one I had cultivated through reward and terror in equal measure. It pleased me that the machine ran smoothly even when I was absent. Systems, once perfected, should be self‑healing.

I crossed to the wardrobe and selected a travel cloak of storm‑grey wool, its inner lining threaded with a dispersion charm to scatter low‑grade scrying. The clasp bore the crest of House Drakhan: a quill crossing a serpent. I traced the serpent's coils—an old reminder that words, properly applied, bite harder than steel. As the fabric settled across my shoulders the weight felt right, like armor made of intent.

A thought brushed my mind—one of the Professor Clone's observations about student morale. They had grown bold in my absence, hosting unsanctioned dueling rings in the tower's atrium. I would address that before afternoon lectures: a live demonstration of rune inversion should remind them why arrogance is best left to professionals.

Another data‑pulse: the Strategist Clone noted increased trade between rival merchant houses, facilitated by an unknown third party. Likely a Syndicate probe. I templated three responses: economic pressure through tariff manipulation, targeted misinformation to seed distrust, or a surgical strike on the brokers' safehouse. Decision deferred until I could confirm the auction guest list; no sense wasting a crisis when it might be leveraged later.

My eyes drifted to the far corner where a half‑finished mural lay hidden behind a sheet. I tugged the cover aside for only a heartbeat. Crimson and cerulean lines curved across the plaster, forming the beginnings of a grand sealing sigil meant for the dungeon core. Even incomplete, the pattern hummed like a sleeping dragon. I lowered the sheet. Soon.

A final inventory rolled across my inner HUD: pens secured, lecture materials encoded in the psy‑crystal hovering above my right cuff, pocket watch synced to the manor's primary chronoline. I clenched my fist once; the air rippled. Noctgrave responded with a satisfied murmur from its case, sensing the latent tension. Patience, I reminded it again. We write history when the ink is ripe, not before.

I stepped toward the threshold, boots whispering over the rug's silver filigree. Halfway, I paused—not doubt, just calibration. My reflection glanced at me from a wall mirror: pale eyes, sharper than glass; hair pulled back, a single streak of white testament to a temporal misfire years ago. Some claim the mark makes me look distinguished. I know better: it is a warning label.

Outside, the carriage bells chimed twice—Alfred's signal that all was ready. In response, the manor's perimeter wards contracted, sealing every window with a shimmer no bystander would notice. Anyone foolish enough to try entry while I was gone would find themselves converted to soot before their first scream.

Satisfied, I laid a hand on the doorknob, cool brass grounding my focus. The corridor beyond stretched into calculated symmetry—tall arched windows on the left, framed portraits on the right. Each painting bore stasis enchantments to trap intruders in illusion loops. I commissioned them from a mad artist who thought he was painting dreamscapes. He never realized his canvases were prisons; sometimes art must be repurposed.

One breath in—tasting cedar‑oil polish and distant kitchen spices—one breath out.

The storm wasn't approaching.

It was here.

I allowed myself one final whisper, a promise and a warning stitched into a single thread.

"Let's see who's ready to bleed for the future."