The Izzet League

“Izzet League members are required to wear their hard hats from this point,” read the sign on the door of the Izzet generatorium where Vinri did her experiments. “Everyone else can zzztttt off!!!” was scrawled beneath it in paint.

Usually, Vinri scoffed at the suggestion that she might forget her safety gear, but after the day she’d had, she appreciated the reminder.

She wasn’t actually wearing a hard hat. Only chumps wore hard hats. Instead, she tapped the lenses of her mizzium goggles, tightened the straps of her electro-proofed apron and gloves, and checked for rogue sparks on her shock-resistant coveralls.

Except she wasn’t wearing her shock-resistant coveralls. She was wearing her ordinary clothes.

Vinri let out a groan as she realised what had happened. During her workday, she’d been spat on by a Gruul shaman, pelted with mud by a troupe of Rakdos goblins, and chased through a sewer by some zombies from a Golgari necromancer. None of them had listened to her explanation that her job as a staticaster was essential to the city.

When she’d finally stepped into her apartment for a quick bite, she’d been covered in filth. So Vinri had quickly changed clothes before going to her lab at the generatorium, apparently forgetting to put on her spare coveralls.

Vinri hesitated only a second before opening the door and stepping inside. She spent all day slaving away at menial tasks for the guild so she could have access to some weirds for her experiments, and if she went home to change, she would lose the rest of the evening. There was no way she was going to skip working on her experiments after today.

The generatorium was practically empty, most researchers did their experiments at a more reasonable time of day. Only Bilkix’s laboratory produced the loud banging and occasional small explosions typical of Izzet engineering. Theoretically, Vinri could ask Bilkix for a spare set of coveralls, but he was an absolute ass, so that wasn’t an option. Besides, she would never fit into the goblin’s coveralls. Without saying a word to Bilkix, she headed to her own lab on the other side of the building.

Five gelectrodes turned their bulbous heads towards Vinri as she opened the door, blue lightning sparked where they touched. Finally, Vinri's luck had turned. Usually, at this time of day, the generatorium had barely enough energy to produce three weirds. Now she had five jostling for space in the glass enclosure. Maybe today, she would finally succeed in her plan to fuse multiple gelectrodes.

Vinri practically skipped to her control desk and turned on all the sensors and pumps. With a loud clunk, she flipped the main voltastic regulator and smiled as a promising hum vibrated through the room. A hum of this volume was a good sign, and the static gauge was indeed showing a high reading.

Vinri’s previous attempts to merge weirds had failed because the saltwater vacuoles that made up their bodies lost too much charge during the merging process, causing the gelectrode to collapse. This wasn’t disastrous, most of the remaining energy could be repurposed to form new gelectrodes, and it wasn’t as if the weirds that had exploded were sentient. Only the upper echelons of the guilds were capable of creating sentient weirds. Still, it wasn’t ideal. But with this much static energy, she was bound to succeed.

She quickly checked the salinity level of the water tanks and lowered the static conductor rod into the weird enclosure by turning a giant wheel on her desk. The weirds congregated around it, drawn to the metals at the core of the rod. Finally, she knocked twice on the charm engraved on the side of the water tank—it couldn't hurt—and pulled the activation lever.

Nothing happened.

Ah, yes. She had forgotten to flick the safety switch. Vinri's hand hovered above the switch before she remembered she wasn't wearing coveralls. Not that this was going to stop her. Vinri couldn't suppress a maniacal laugh as she flicked the safety switch.

Vinri's lab disintegrated.

Lightning bolts blasted through the room. Sensors shattered. Equipment exploded. Machinery melted. But Vinri didn't notice any of it, because she was engulfed in searing heat.