Zarku's Workshop

Zarku Frallino is enchanted by the artistry in bestowing magic upon objects. Here are tales of his crafting and experiments in the arcane arts, mostly done between the make-shift lab in his room within the Rusty Dragon, in Brodert Quink's private library, and on the road.

Spells Within Shells
The pearls were beautiful in their perfect simplicity. On the surface was the elegant way in which they would catch the light, almost seem alive in the glow of sun or torch. But when an ordered mind, one capable of imprinting spell-forms into the fortress of ones higher thought processes, would look within the glistening depths... a flood of the essence of magic itself pours forth. Memory is heightened precisely, the complex forms summoned earlier in the day blooming once more to awareness.

Zarku marveled at the power in a simple trick of memory he had created. He could hardly fathom what a pearl of a higher circle of magic would feel like when embraced.

A Key Turns
Normally it's the eyes, blood red and pulsing with malevolence that stays with the survivors or slayers of demons. Not so for Zarku, for the first sight of the goblin-wolf abomination was on a spectrum beyond the visible. The scene plays out in his nightmares, his turning of complex key and with Bador throwing open the ornate doors deep within the Thasillonian complex. A seemingly empty room, lit by the candles burning with the telltale hum of magic, with a giant Sihedron rune emblazened on the far wall. All set the scene for Zarku, as he directed eyes that appeared solid black forward as his incantation and gestures brought a second layer of reality into focus. Initially it was just a presence, and then as his focus was refined, he could taste something foul in the back of his mouth. It shouldn't have given anything away, just the aura of magic to shroud mundane sight, but the presence radiated in a way he had never before experienced in his training as a wizard.

Soon a scroll in his hands bled light and consumed itself, and his sight confirmed the reality of the situation and the soon-to-be near death experience for him and his companions. But it was always the feeling of the spell-form, before his unaided eyes had seen the beast, that haunts him. As if the creatures innate power had a taste, a pervosity in the way the raw fibers of magic were woven into the visual deception of absence. It was what drove him this day to set the last of the rare demonology tomes to the spell-powered brazier.

The cloth band rested on a stand of magically neutral wood imported from the Forest of Spirits in Minkai. It wasnt much to look at, fine black spun fibers with a key design woven in the center in a bright golden color. Yet it was commissioned of celestial sheep wool dipped in the a brew of silver dust used in binding rituals crossed with the foul, lifeless soil imported from the pits of the Abyss. Streaming into it was the essence of last grimoire of the set sacrificed for this purpose, sanctification and corruption with everything in between represented.

Last was the focus of it all, a crystalline shard pulsing to the rhythms of Zarku's thought patterns. This part of the process wasn't clear afterwards - for the sensation of the final enchantment was a cross between being absorbed by the crystal and the world itself being enveloped in the facets and then shattering him in a world of emptiness. Regardless of perceptions, he knew the crystal had merged with the band using himself as the conduit.

When he came back to consciousness, he found the process was finished and the band was firmly tied just below his hairline. In his mind was the psychic imprint of a cacophanous battle of epic proportions, wings and halos against horns and fangs. With it, was knowledge. Names, strengths, and weaknesses. Images from the burned tomes were etched in his mind. And his thoughts ... he felt them leaping from topic to topic, but not before revealing insights before missed.

His focal point was that fabric key, a symbol of majestic order, that he prayed would allow him to keep his beloved Standpoint and the greater world safe. For while he did not don the robes of the clergy, still he loved the spirit of civilization in harmony, the guardianship of life and ideals. Abadar was not seen as a god of kindness, but Zarku saw him as such, believed in a greater purpose through his worship of the entity. And so it was that mark he chose to represent his greater awakening of power within him, the fires of his mind burning bright.

The Seven Deadly Virtues
It was a chill within his very spirit that Zarku felt as he delved into the secrets of the seven pointed star rune wrested off the unconscious form of the demon-touched aasimar. While the powers it bestowed were benign, life preserving, the secrets woven into the artifact of ancient arcana did not thrill him as he thought they might.

The records the ideal Thassilon he sought to revive were few and far between. Instead, he read of and witnessed powers tied not to the original Virtues of those who led the empire, but the vices - the Sins. It made him remember his former hero, the departed Father Ezakien Tobyn who fostered the malign entity who bore this symbol. A man who was so fierce in his ethics and his desire to not break societal standards that he would flood a fragile young woman with shame that transformed into madness. A good man whose pride spawned monsters. The acceptance and love he had shown Zarku was in direct conflict with how he treated his adopted daughter. She was touched by a higher order than mortals, so in his own weakness he expected her to attain a type of a perfection he himself could never claim.

Zarku wondered, as he stood with the high priest's replacement, if such "good intentions" caused the fall of the empire. Whatever it was, the young wizard was convinced that the sins of the past could be purified. The taint of Sin magics could be repelled through a properly applied channeling of Virtue. And while he saw himself far from perfect, he never gave up trying - and he knew that if he could sustain this effort that he would be capable of changing the world for the better.

In a circle of silver dust, consecrated by Desna's priest and imbued with raw arcana, stood Zarku and an odd merchants scale. It did not measure weight, but was attuned to magical bonds - alchemical silver and cold forged iron platters bearing his wooden amulet with its fire etched Minkain symbol of "void" paired with the Sin-born Sihedron rune medallion. They stood with the wooden device somehow heavier than that of the metal.

With divine entreaties coupled with a magical force of will, the scales began to tip. Zarku felt himself growing lighter, his worn wooden amulet withdrawing from him. He then sensed the rune medallion, specially prepared, seeking him out with tendrils of magic. The fleeing bond left the wizard emptier and emptier, yet through the ritual he lured the essence of the medallion to merge with the spirit of his power. It was painful, as if the points of the star cut into him cruelly - yet Zarku kept his focus. Each point was tied to one of the terrible Sins that destroyed the empire, yet he focused on their polar opposites. It was a monumental battle of wills played out in miniature, but with the help of Father Zantus' pure heart guiding the process, the metaphysically sharp edges slightly softened.

Zarku breathed in the budding connection, while exhaling the painful sharpness of the discordant magics inherent in the medallion. The power of the sins that were used in its construction felt like an oppressive weight in his chest, and as he struggled with it Father Zantus began chanting louder and waved his aspergillum with more forceful motions. He funneled the strength of his will, his desire to change the world for the better, into melding himself to this new medallion while the bond of his former focus grew weaker and weaker. Yet before the connection died, he threw the bulk of his intellectual might into purification - letting the shallowness and hate of its creators depart one vessel and enter another.

The wooden amulet shuddered as the scales tipped, the Sihedron rune medallion beginning to glow with the connection being built and the negative energies funneled out of it. At last as the process finished Zarku collapsed, taking in shuddering gasping breaths. With the priest's help, he came to his feet, and stumbled to where the void symbol smoked and radiated a cruel magical aura. Grasping the rune to his breast, he cast out his hands and let out a great shout bolstered by his arcane power, and the former focus item shattered into powerless shards of wood. "It's a start," he whispered, his face radiant despite the pain that still grasped at him. "Now it is up to me to prove the powers of Light are stronger than those of Darkness."

He passed out completely then, clutching the rune to his chest and at last succumbing to exhaustion.