Pt. 2: The Maker
Zarbaltr was a wretched creature. He wasn’t necessarily wicked in the traditional sense of the word, just unpleasant in a variety of ways. The words bitter, calloused, tired, and hollow would all be more accurate descriptions than evil. In some ways, these qualities can be just as dangerous as “evil” when it comes to a high proficiency with magic arts, however. Petty irritation can lend itself to some pretty awful concoctions when supported by an abundance of time, which is exactly what the sorcerer had to work with.
If Zarbaltr ever had love in his heart, he had had centuries to lose track of it. At this point, he had even fallen out of love with his craft. So proficient was he with magic that he no longer thought about it; it just came naturally and without much attention, similar to breathing. Enhanced by access to potent magical insights, his life had stretched far beyond its natural limits and he had watched the passing of friends and enemies too numerous for his cluttered mind to keep track of. He’d given up on maintaining pleasant relationships long long ago and focused now on antagonizing people out of sheer boredom and apathy.
He’d thought about ending his life and moving on to whatever comes next many times but ego always got in the way. The paradox he lived in was very clear to him but was one of the greatest puzzles of his life: he was at once deeply self loathing and incredibly narcissistic.
On the one hand, he was never as great as he wanted to be. Oh, he was great… a legend, even, in his day. One might have called him a celebrity if that term had any meaning, as he was among the “who’s who” of higher beings in the land. He was called on for guidance from renowned wizards and sorcerers, and asked to do feats that saved entire communities from the savagery of neighbors and merciless onslaught of nature many times. But, he was never the best. He was perhaps among the most accessible of the elite but not the most sought after. Arrogance and veiled insecurity made him difficult to deal with. His air of being “put upon” made him less desirable to reach out to, which fueled his insecurity of not being the top pick, thus creating a vicious cycle that burrowed him into the depths of resentment.
On the other hand, he saw himself as a genius with a gift too precious to be squandered in suicide. In some strange way he was able to separate himself from his gift just enough to see himself as the bearer of it rather than the source. If he were the brilliant steward of this ability, how could he even dream of letting the power leave his grasp? It was better, he thought, to squirrel his knowledge away until he was needed again than to lose it completely. Who knows if he would have even made himself available were he needed, though. It’s likely that he would see that as a perfect opportunity to punish the world for not valuing him enough to see past his obvious unpleasant qualities.
His status had evaporated, however, as his reclusive tendencies grew more and more severe over time. He had become more of a myth than a legend. If people spoke of him, which they rarely did these days, they spoke of him in the past tense because, for all they knew, he was long dead.
As someone with lots of time and little conscience, spying on people through scrying mirrors was an almost constant pastime. His incredibly invasive hobby mostly served to fuel his resentment, feeding him poison in an endless drip. He watched young wizards rise to fame and old wizards become gods. Fury suckled on the white hot acid of his envy. There was one figure in particular that he had become obsessed with, his fascination took the form of a confusing kind of hatred and he couldn’t get enough of it. This young man Bhaltazar had such a knack for his craft that he’d barely emerged from the womb before people called him a prodigy. This drove Zarbaltr mad. He would bellow and curse, spitting meaningless words into the dark hallways of his cavernous estate. His rage bounced recklessly through stone archways and collided into statues of fantastic creatures that lurked in dark corners of once opulent corridors. He would eventually collapse in his chair, his throat raw. Clarity would always come when the energy of his anger was replaced by the vastness of his loneliness. No matter how many times he repeated this ritual there was never a thought to how he could improve his life. He only ever thought about how to ruin someone else’s.
It came to him in a dream one night. Zarbaltr had always the most vivid dreams. Sometimes he would awaken screaming, his face clawed bloody by his own fingernails. Other times he would rise believing his life had shifted for the better and though he quickly found that to not be the case, he would feel a lingering residue of that sensation throughout the day. In this dream, however, he had discover the perfect way to make a nightmare a reality for Bhaltazar. For the first time in a long time Zarbaltr felt enthusiastic about a project. He knew he would need to do some research to pull off such a complex attack. Maybe “attack” was a strong word. Perhaps prank was more reasonable. It was a practical joke that could possibly hurt a little. His goal wasn’t to kill the young wizard, not that he would be bothered if that happened accidentally, it was mostly to scare and inconvenience him in a humorous way. It was also intended to show the deep well of Zarbaltr’s power, for, as far as he know, no one had attempted a maneuver quite like this before…