The Grand Alchemist Guild Hall loomed like a wizard's ego—pointy, overdecorated, and clearly compensating for something. Inside, beneath floating chandeliers and over a thousand mildly haunted potion bottles, Walter The White stood confidently in the middle of the Tribunal Chamber.
He wore his finest robes: white, with unnecessarily many belts, one of which held a teacup. His beard was freshly enchanted to shimmer like moonlight, and his staff glowed ominously, mostly because he spilled glowing ink on it last night.
He smirked. Today was the day.
Today, they would finally recognize his genius.
"Walter The White," boomed High Alchemist Burocrat, the head of the guild and a man whose beard had its own pension plan. "Do you know why you've been summoned?"
"Yes," Walter declared proudly. "To honor me! For breaking the boundaries of alchemy! For pushing the magical sciences to new heights! For—"
"You're being fired."
"…What."
"You're fired," Burocrat repeated, sipping tea with the smugness of someone who exclusively uses potions to sweeten it. "Effective immediately."
Walter blinked. Then blinked again. Then pulled a scroll from his sleeve labeled "Speech: In Case of Promotion," and awkwardly stuffed it back into his pants.
"There must be a mistake," he said. "What about my Potions of Instant Regeneration?"
"Illegal," said a tribunal member. "Causes people to regrow extra limbs. We now have a man with three butts. He's suing."
"Okay, but the Potion of Infinite Energy?"
"You made a toddler run across three kingdoms in under an hour."
"That kid was a prodigy!"
"He's still running."
Walter waved his arms, his robe sleeves flapping like panicked pigeons. "I'm a pioneer! An innovator! You can't just toss me out because I'm too good at potion making!"
A different tribunal member, this one with a monocle embedded directly into his forehead, stood up. "Walter, every single potion you've made has been banned by the Council of Magic. You invented a hair growth serum that made people grow hair on their souls. Do you even know what that means? Our clerics had to shave spirits."
"It was avant-garde!"
"It was a war crime!"
Walter huffed. "Fine! You want safe potions? Here's a sample I brewed last night: the Potion of Peaceful Reflection. One sip, and you contemplate life without causing any harm!"
He uncorked the vial and splashed it on the floor. A puff of lavender smoke rose.
Then the floor screamed in existential dread and turned into a pool of philosophical goo.
A silence fell over the room. Somewhere, someone's tea kettle exploded in fear.
"…okay," Walter admitted. "That one still needs work."
"GET OUT," they all shouted in unison, blasting him with the Standard Guild Boot-Out Spell™, which flung him from the chamber and into the street with the grace of a potato launched from a cannon.
Several Minutes and One Cracked Staff Later…
Walter sat in the gutter, surrounded by the few belongings he managed to keep: a half-burned grimoire, a jar labeled "Frog Thoughts (Do Not Open)," and a loaf of cursed bread that kept whispering racial slurs at elves.
Rain began to fall, because of course it did.
A small child walked by and threw a coin at him. "Poor mad wizard," the kid said, then paused. "Wait, weren't you the guy who made the potion that made my dog speak seventeen languages?"
"Yes!" Walter beamed.
"He keeps insulting my grandma in Ancient Goblin."
The child ran.
Walter sighed, slumping against a barrel labeled Explosively Unstable – Do Not Sit Near Sad People. He ignored it.
"I don't get it," he muttered. "Why won't anyone buy my potions? I can brew miracles! I made a potion that lets you skip awkward conversations by turning into mist!"
That one should have sold.
His stomach rumbled, and his coin purse was emptier than a necromancer's conscience.
"…Fine," he said aloud to no one in particular. "If the world doesn't want my potions legally… then it can buy them illegally."
Thunder cracked.
A lightning bolt struck a nearby outhouse.
Walter took that as a sign.
He pulled out a crumpled recipe from his coat: Experimental Resurrection Brew #23 – Now with Less Soul Theft.
"Let's start with a test run," he muttered, already dragging a stolen cauldron into his shack. "What's the worst that could happen?"
Meanwhile, in the Graveyard
The ground trembled. Bones clattered. A skeletal hand burst from the dirt, holding a piece of paper.
It read: "Back taxes unpaid – Final Notice."
A second hand emerged. Then a skull.
The skeleton sat up, dusted off its ribs, looked around… and sneezed.
Then it spoke.
"…Aw hell. Not again."