The Zen Cloaker

The party has made it back to town, worn but triumphant over their scouring the catacombs for clues and further dangers to the populace. As they start off to attend to their own business, Zarku pulls Ninfant aside with a proposition.

"If you have a moment... I overheard you mentioning that you were in the market for magical protection." He smiles, a crooked Varisian grin. "You know, I'm a bit of a craftsman when it comes to the arcane. Perhaps I could put something together for you, simply at the cost of the components. All I'd ask is to get a bit of instruction on that strange language I hear you speak when you perform your strange prayers, and when threatened sufficiently."

"Why, I'd quite love to help you learn the other tongue," Ninfant says in his odd, high-pitched drawl. "It's more than a fair trade, I'd wager."

As he begins to lead Zarku down to the Goblin Stomp Stables, the wizard exclaims, "Most excellent! You quite startled me while we had trapped that foul little beast in with the zombie pits with this unfamiliar tongue of yours... but I'm not one to be bothered by ignorance. It doesn't suit me, you see. Quite a pleasant arrangement then, quite equitable! Your lore of other realms, for my talents in imbuement. Very good!"

As Zarku follows Ninfant off to the stables, he holds a furled bit of rice paper up in his hands. His pace is erratic, with pauses where he'll use a wall as a writing surface and with small bits of jogging to not slow the halfling down. In between his note-taking, which ends up appearing as a mish-mash of shopping list and linguistic notation, he explains excitedly, "My studies have taught me there is no one way of creating a lasting enchantment, and the best ways are those personal to the one who will benefit from it. And in this case, I will even have you perform the final 'knot' so to speak to tie the enchantment. It requires an incantation I recognized you using in battle, a minor orison used make a target more resilient."

Upon arrival, Ninfant navigates to where a dark-furred riding mastiff lies chained in a far corner, saddlebags hanging from large hooks on the nearby wall.

"Good boy, Cujo," he whispers, rubbing the beast's head, then, pulls out what appears to be a round, wrinkled sheet of leather about three feet across with small ivory hooks along its edge.

"Go-shu leigathoarth n'uggo 'bthnk-canorh, sth-pho thuah," he says, showing it to Zarku. "The corpse of a cloaker, an heirloom passed down from my great-grandmother. Lhathug mo'saaotho clarut.  It should make a good basis for the cloak itself."

Zarku, absorbing the language for a moment, then squints and lays one hand upon the well preserved corpse and concentrates and lets out three precise arcane syllables. A faint crackling fills the air, and lines of dark energy surround the deceased aberration. At first there seems to be some sort of negative reaction, but with wavering lines of power the organic material soaks in the magic. "This will do... this will do nicely. It will need to be specially prepared to absorb a warding effect, as it is not in this creature's nature to protect. But whatever memories of life that linger in the body after the soul has gone has little hold here - time has made this heirloom of yours into a quality component."

A small bout of shopping is then led by the wizard, as he has Ninfant purchase a variety of rare funghi from the well stocked herbalist shop The Pillbugs Pantry. He explains he is using that as "a base", which will be made into a coating to treat the flesh of the corpse and enhance its ability to hold onto the magic. Then with some amount of vanity, he has strange little man pick out materials for the clasp for the crafting's focal point as well as exotic fibers of the preferred color to weave in stabilizing runes.

When they have settled on the proper components for the crafting, Zarku grills Ninfant in more of the grammar and vocabulary of this new language. He is an amazing student, creating mnemonic devices to remember the lore and anticipating parts of the language. He does get disgruntled at times at mistakes he makes, assumptions based on structures from other languages he knows that don't apply to this otherworldly tongue. He makes special attention to get the alphabet right. When teacher and student start suffering from burn out, he turns to the crafting process, refining the fungal reagents and the "thread" he'll be using, as well as etching intricate and tiny symbols into the clasp.

When all is said and done, the cloak looks somewhat unremarkable. The alien organism that it once was naturally appeared to be a garment, so it took little work to magically sculpt the corpse into something suitable. Zarku drapes what seems like a length of oiled leather, bearing a faint earthen smell with a hint of spice, over Ninfant's shoulders, clicking his tongue as he fiddles with the device at the halfling's throat. It's centerpiece is a two-part sphere of rare darkwood from the Forest of Spirits in Minkai, the insides of both halves etched with characters in the tongue of that land. When the wizard brings the two pieces together, each connected to a fine chain of blackened and oiled steel, the whole garment shivers as if alive for a moment before lying still. Then, with a few melodic syllables precisely uttered, the material stretches suddenly – thinning in places as a solid hood grows about the wearer's head in a billowing fashion.

A moment of silence is had, before Zarku lets his voice fill his room near the top floor of the Rusty Dragon that has become his workshop. "The time has come to put your final blessing upon this piece. Doing so will complete the enchantment, and draw forth what protective magic I was abile to instill in this heirloom of yours. Whenever you are ready, please call upon your orison." The young eager looks eager but also nervous, as if he were an expectant father waiting for word of his child's safe arrival into this world.

Ninfant adjusts the cloak about his shoulders, then begins to draw some sort of invisible mandalas in the air with his hand. He begins a brief chant, his voice dropping several octaves and seeming to come from across a great distance...

"nnn'ftaghu

nnn'lloig

nnn'bthnk"

The cloak seems to shudders and ripples as strange, twisting runes begin to form as a shimmering wetness on the surface. They appear almost like the trails of some thousand invisible slugs, slowly crawling across the surface to write words that disappear almost as soon as their finished.

Zarku recognizes them as the Aklo script from his lessons with Ninfant, but they seem to contain meanings that Ninfant did not teach. His quick mind is able to piece together what appears to be some sort of mathematical formulae or metaphysical diagram, but it is gone before he can decipher it completely.

"Thanks, friend," Ninfant says, smiling up a Zarku. His voice has returned to its normal pitch. "I dare say, it's mighty comfortable--was that part of the enchantment as well?"

Zarku is a bit stunned, by the creepy mystical ooze that Ninfant's final touch causes as well by the fact that he had finished his first permanent magical enchantment. As he verifies the success of the process with a simple cantrip, he becomes flush with a strange sort of pride. This is not just his creation, this is a collaboration between his own eccentric form of wizardry and Ninfant's otherworldly powers - no easy feat. It was weird, to feel so disturbed by something he himself had engineered.

His voice carries a tinge of wry humor to it. "Comfortable you say? Well that's the trick... I had worn it myself earlier in the imbuement process to see if I could get a feel for it. And I can assure you, I did not find the faint almost comprehensible whispers that filled my ears or the crawling sensation down my spine at all pleasant. I've found that certain magics provide different sensations to different people. I'm pleased to hear that it agrees with you... to be honest, the whole piece leaves me a bit confused when I try to focus my mind on it..."

Shrugging his shoulders, he claps the cloaked shoulder of Ninfant solidly. "Regardless, thank you both for the privilege of learning this strange language of yours, as well as giving me a chance to practice my art. Now, lets just hope the next bizarre beast that tries to spit acid in your face, dominate your mind, or cause your blood to boil finds a challenge in bypassing this little piece of arcana!"

The wizard pauses a moment, raises an index finger in the air, and utters slowly, "Or rather... Ddei-keggort elarlat hoaz l'nazsacaubha."

It's unpolished, and will take some refinement for the Aklo to come out smoothly from his lips, but its clear enough to Ninfant that he is being bid to  'be spared the horrors that cannot be unseen.'