Take Me Away, Dark Lord!

With a sharp CRACK of displaced air, a figure tumbled out of a swirling blue portal, landing somewhat ungracefully on the marble balcony.

It was a man in his mid-thirties, dressed in the heavy, formal, highly decorated robes of a Senior Tower Envoy.

He possessed a receding hairline, a deeply ingrained expression of chronic, ulcer-inducing stress, and he was currently clutching a glowing, magical clipboard against his chest as if it were a shield.

”Grandmaster Roan!” the envoy gasped, frantically adjusting his crooked spectacles, scrambling to his feet.

Roan did not turn around.

He merely sighed, the tragic, romantic atmosphere instantly ruined.

”Elias,” Roan drawled, his voice dropping into a tone of supreme, lazy aristocratic boredom. ”I specifically instructed the teleportation relay operators that I was not to be disturbed while enduring the Emperor’s abysmal wine selection. Did you trip and fall into a portal array, or are you intentionally attempting to give me a migraine?”

Elias, the Grandmaster’s long-suffering personal aide, practically vibrated with panic. He rushed forward, bowing so deeply he nearly hit his head on the balustrade.

”A thousand apologies, Grandmaster!” Elias wept, his voice cracking. ”But the situation at Aethelgard is critical! The Elder Council is on the verge of a cardiac event! You must return to the Tower shortly after the banquet concludes!”

Roan finally turned around, leaning his back against the railing, crossing his arms.

He looked at his panicked subordinate with an expression of mild, detached amusement.

”Let me guess,” Roan mused, a wicked glint returning to his pitch-black eyes. ”Orion set the alchemy labs on fire again? Or did he successfully transmute Elder Vane’s spellbook into a biting badger?”

”Worse!” Elias shrieked, waving his glowing clipboard. ”The seismographs! Grandmaster, three days ago, the planetary leylines recorded a massive mana explosion right here in the Imperial Capital! The signature was pure, Supreme-tier! It dwarfed our entire faculty! The Elders are terrified that an unregistered, god-tier anomaly is wandering the Capital! They demand you return to lead a tactical scouting expedition before the Imperial Court gets to them first!”

Roan blinked.

He processed the information.

A Supreme-tier mana explosion in the Capital. Three days ago?

Roan’s brilliant, fast intellect immediately cross-referenced the data.

He thought about the terrifying, dense, suffocating dark aura he had sensed lingering around Kaelus, and the faint, deep reservoir of dormant magic he had sensed hiding within the man. He remembered the rumors of the Archduke who had conveniently arrived in the Capital three days ago.

Roan’s lips slowly, gradually curved upward.

It was not a gentle smile.

It was a slow, predatory, utterly maniacal grin that spread across his handsome face, revealing a flash of sharp white teeth. It was the smile of an apex trickster who had just realized the board was set for the greatest game of his life.

Elias stopped waving his clipboard.

The envoy took a slow, terrified step backward.

Elias knew that smile.

The entire Mage Tower knew that smile.

It was the legendary ”Grandmaster Roan is about to do something incredibly entertaining for himself and incredibly devastating for everyone else” smile.

It usually preceded massive property damage, the rewriting of fundamental laws of physics, and years of bureaucratic apologies.

”G-Grandmaster?” Elias whimpered, clutching his clipboard like a security blanket. ”Why... why are you smiling like that? Please stop smiling like that. My heart cannot take it.”

”Elias, my devoted, stressed little friend,” Roan purred, his voice dropping into a silky, terrifying hum of absolute delight.

He stepped forward, placing a hand on the envoy’s trembling shoulder. ”Tell the Elder Council they may cease their hyperventilating. Tell them to cancel the scouting expedition.”

”Cancel it?!” Elias gasped. ”But the anomaly! The Supreme-tier threat!”

”I have already found the source of the mana explosion,” Roan lied flawlessly, his black eyes glittering with unholy mischief.

Elias’s jaw dropped. ”You... you found them? In the middle of the Imperial Banquet?! Who is it?! Is it a rogue Archmage? An ancient lich hiding in the catacombs?!”

”It is a matter of the highest, most delicate classification,” Roan stated, assuming a tone of grave, academic seriousness that was entirely, entirely fraudulent. ”The situation is far more complex than a simple rogue mage. I cannot simply drag this entity back to the Tower. It requires tact. It requires some observation before I can confirm it completely. It requires... specialized diplomacy.”

Roan removed his hand from Elias’s shoulder, turning back to gaze out over the glittering lights of the Capital.

”Therefore,” Roan announced, waving his hand dismissively. ”I shall not be returning to Aethelgard tonight. In fact, I shall be extending my stay in the Capital for the foreseeable future. Inform the Elders they are to manage the Tower in my absence. If Orion attempts to overthrow the faculty, tell Vane to bribe him with the restricted grimoires.”

”Extend your stay?!” Elias shrieked, almost dropping his clipboard to the marble floor. ”But Grandmaster! The budget! The upcoming elemental examinations! You cannot simply abandon the Tower just to chase after a mystery!”

”I am the Grandmaster, Elias. I can do whatever I please,” Roan countered smoothly, his tone brokering no argument. ”Besides, I must make some... special preparations. The entity in question is heavily guarded by a particularly cute little watchdog. If I am to conduct a proper, thorough investigation of this ’anomaly,’ I must devise a method of infiltration that does not result in my immediate decapitation.”

Elias stared at the Archmage.

He saw the manic, joyful, chaotic gleam in Roan’s pitch-black eyes.

”You are going to ruin someone’s life, aren’t you?” Elias whispered, a profound, tragic certainty in his voice. ”You have found a new target for your boredom, and you are going to systematically dismantle their sanity under the guise of an investigation.”

Roan threw his head back and laughed, a bright, ringing, entirely unapologetic sound that echoed across the balcony.

”Ruin is such a harsh word, Elias,” Roan chuckled, brushing a speck of imaginary dust from his immaculate black evening coat.