The Pact Insidious

[*dogo]

Basic Information
Name: Yskandar Ghalib
Aliases:
Gender: Male
Race: Human
Age: Mid 30's
Profession: Wizard, Planewalker, Merchant, Magical Wand Maker
Languages: Common, Infernal, Abyssal, Draconic, Elven (Elven was a stupid misclick, should have been Celestial ><)
Accent: Zakharan, with long L's and pronounced vowels, particularly the A's

Physical Information
Height: 1.68m
Weight: 80kg
Body build: Chubby
Skin type: Rough skin, with flaky signs of dehydration on his fingers and toes
Hair style: Wavy hair that is tied in a ponytail
Scars: Thighs - one Necromantic rune on each. Left forearm - 3 Draconic runes. Right forearm - 3 Infernal runes
Tattoos: In the triangle formed by nipples and bellybutton he has an inverted 5-point star tattoo, two hands featured inside, a dark skinned one and a fair skinned one, fingers entwined, drops of blood falling from them
Colouring:

[b]Hair:[/b] Black [b]Eyes:[/b] Black [b]Skin:[/b] Dark [/li]

Mental Information
Alignment: Lawful Evil
Philosophy: "I will have back what the Fates stole from me. She will be by my side. Power in life is worth damnation in the afterlife"
Deity/Beliefs: Zann The Learned, Temple of the Ten Thousand Gods
Personality:

[u]Greedy[/u] [i]Whatever wealth and riches he can obtain are worth the effort.[/i] [u]Secretive[/u] [i]Tells as little of his intentions as possible, but makes some traits very clear to make others even more obscure.[/i] [u]Lovelorn[/u] [i]The most dangerous flaw in a Binder, he loves that which he bound.[/i] [/li]

Additional Information
Gear: A short, curved, ritual dagger kept inside his robes.
Jewelry: One ring for each finger, many with small gems on them. Golden hoop earrrings on each ear.
Habbits/hobbies: Smoking, tailoring.
General Health: Good health
Favorite Drink: Wine
Weaknesses: Greedy, can be boastful, and believes himself more powerful/in control than he possibly is.

[*dogo]

Yskandar was the only son to the Ghalibs, a boy destined to inherit the then profitable carpet making and selling business they had for 4 generations in Huzuz the Golden, the city of delights, seat of power of Zakhara, where the Grand Caliph holds his court. When young his parents hired the best teachers to instruct Yskandar in the subjects he would need to run the family business as well as arts, dancing, and the study of magic, when the boy showed aptitude for it in an examination performed by a Jann who was his father's regular customer.

All in all he had a very comfortable, albeit busy, life all the way to his early teens, but the Fates had other plans in stock for him. As he was nearing his 15th summer his father announced proudly that the secretary to the Caliph had agreed to show the Master of the Enlightened Throne their carpets, as he was building one more wing for his harem. Having your carpets in the house of The Worthy of the Gods meant unfathomable prestige and great riches to the Ghalibs, but it was not to be so. A rival managed to sneak a specially made carpet into the cargo that was sent for The Confidant of the Genies' appreciation. A carpet that featured the figure of a naked woman dancing for The Scourge of the Unbelievers, and she didnt have the mandatory wedding ring pictured. Shame soon fell upon the house and business of the Ghalibs.

Yskandar's parents took their own lives soon after selling all of their stock for a pittance, and giving him the money to settle what debts he could and salvage some honor for himself if possible. It was not enough. Ingi, the Jann wizard, offered to buy Yskandar as a slave, settling the remaining debts as a price for his freedom.

Yskandar Ghalib, then a 15 year old disgraced child of the Fates, accepted it. And then, he met Tisiphone.

[*dogo]

The first few months of his slavery were uneventful at most. He was taught the preferences of his new master, how to deal with the house servants (he being the most educated of them all), meal times, how to dress himself and address visitors. Ingi was apparently very wealthy, but entertained very little and only very privately, reserving the topmost floor of his small 6-story tower for such events. Servants were never allowed in, particularly into Ingi's study on the same floor, only coming in after the guests were gone to clean up. Ingi only entertained males. There was never any noise during those events, and Yskandar knew it could be only be magical silence, given his training.

Training which Ingi continued to give him, slowly, but surely. As the first year went by Yskandar was already responsible for the Alarm spells on the house grounds and tower, but the study was still obviously off limits. It was a good feeling, that of power and magic, and well worth the occasional punishment for delaying his other duties to spend some more time over the tomes Ingi gave him to study and practice.

But power corrupts, and the promise of more power was always one locked door away. It was his third year in service when Ingi took a trip and left the house in Yskandar's charge for two weeks. Two weeks in which Yskandar was determined to advance his studies at his own pace, not his master's.

Maybe because he was the only servant trained in magic in the household, Ingi probably didnt have the strongest of defenses on the door of his study, still Yskandar was at that time already very aware that he might be turned to ash at any moment, and probably would, but it was like something was compelling him, beckoning him.

He cast a dispel and closed his eyes as he touched the doorknob, sweat running down his face, all his body tense and feeling for the slightest hint of remaining magic.

He felt none, and the door opened to reveal much of what he expected to see. Shelves and shelves of books, decanters and components, wands and skins and horns of beasts he could only imagine.

And on the far end of the study, deprived of any clothing, laying exhausted and looking broken, she looked into his eyes from the arcane circle that contained her. Tisiphone. Erinyes.

She extended her arm across the floor to the edge of the circle, pleading him to approach. As he did, he heard her outside his head for the first time.

"Ys..kandar...talk to...me..."

He lost his heart right there and then. His soul would take a little longer.

[*dogo]

Even tho she asked it herself, the Erinyes couldnt speak much at all in the first day. She seemed to have fainted just after saying Yskandar's name, shaking severely and throwing up what looked like the half-digested remains of a black pudding.

As Yskandar finally managed to take his eyes off her, he found his master's notepad, and written on it the plans to break the Erinyes as he had broken other devils and demons in the same way, which was evidenced by the back page of the notepad with a number of names crossed. The last wasnt crossed yet tho, and thus Yskandar realized he was before Tisiphone, Erinyes.

The plan was a masterpiece of arcane ingenuity, and Yskandar probably lost the first slice of his soul just by admiring it as much as he did. A circle drawn in such a way as to not allow the devil's resistance to spells to break, followed by Assay Resistance and an immediate cast of Geas, the order being to fetch a simple feather from a previous victim which lay in a drawer in his desk, and obviously outside the reach of the trapped Erinyes. As the days progressed, and the effects of the unfulfilled Geas built up, castings of Curse to reduce the devil's considerable force of personality to almost nothing. The grand finalle would then take place probably as Ingi returned from his business trip. A very one-sided bargain in which he would just ask the Erinyes to serve him in exchange from the removal of the Curses and Geas, and that she would by that time be unable to refuse.

So this is what true power looks like, Yskandar thought as he watched the Erinyes have yet another violent shaking fit and he shivered, all of his soul asking for more of this knowledge.