Magic for magic's sake is for hopeless idealists and fools. Hone your magic as a weapon to reshape the world to your will, and one day all will remember your deeds forevermore. That was Carlos. Carlos Tizzani was reckless, yet brilliant in his own way, and my old mentor of ten years. I am eternally grateful to him for skipping lessons in the useless spells, of which there are many, in favor of spells that would injure or impress. Often, he would let me help him with his pet project, a sort of weather machine. My apprenticeship was cut short when one morning, probably around two months ago, I was eating breakfast in the break room, Carlos was in the lab and the machine exploded. Carlos died in the ensuing conflagration. I realized later that I had forgotten to recalibrate the second fulmination dissipator the previous evening. Sorry, Carlos. It was an honest mistake.

I did not get far in our small village when I was confronted by old enemies of the Tizzani family. It didn't matter to them that I was not a Tizzani, but taken in by one for an apprenticeship. They sent me someplace far away, in chains. I was passed from slaver to slaver, and my health deteriorated under beatings, deprivation of food and water, and exhaustion. I lost track of time, but it couldn't have been more than a few weeks, as my skin is still tan and my hair hasn't grown by that much. After failing yet again to be bought at an auction block in the drow city I now know as Traensyr, I was being transported to Fort Mur when the slaver caravan was ambushed, all I heard were screams and disgusting splortches. I escaped and by a stroke of luck ended up here in Sanctuary.

In the absence of a mentor, I became more enfranchised with the idea of more fervently following my patron deity, the Storm Lord. It was Carlos's favored god and by willing extension my own. As a slave I often muttered feverish prayers to Him to deliver me from my captors, when I was sure they weren't listening. Within my first few hours in Sanctuary, I zapped a half-orc female for wishing Tyr bless me with intelligence. A half-orc. Tyr. Blessing ME with intelligence! I am probably more cunning than her by magnitudes. The nerve. A tremor shook Upper Sanctuary as I finished my cantrip. I wet myself and drank an invisibility potion. Then rational thought prevailed over reflex and I realized it was a good omen, from none other than Talos. I am truly destined for great things should I play my cards right. I have also, finally found a new mentor.

The Zakharan has finally traded me his rods of wonder. I am currently in the process of embedding them onto my person, perhaps in my forearms. Then I will look for a way to link them to my lifeforce, that they may trigger on hapless infidels in the case of my untimely demise. A fail-safe mechanism, while always recommended by Carlos, is a waste of my time and resources. Testing is tricky as these rods are both rare and potentially dangerous. I hope they work as they will obviously be beyond my control once I reach the afterworld.

I require more rods. Probability dictates the more of them I wire correctly to myself, the more likely one of them will wreak calamity when detonated. Perhaps this plan is impossible to accomplish in the way I intend. No matter. I have many more and I am not prepared to waste valuable minutes on hopeless causes.