"Where do I come from? Why, wouldn't you like to know?" Zakarias plucked at the bright strings of his lyre, like the wind might pluck a leaf from a branch in the dead of an autumn chill. Then his fingers danced across the strings, light and airy, as if fresh snow fell from on high. "I come from the most beautiful land of all, past the bright star, just to the left of the autumn moon. You would know it when you see it, I am sure." The towering jester, hidden behind his pale mask and its twisted expression, strummed his lyre, gentle as a breeze across spring grass. His bells jingled softly. "There we sang and danced, loved and cheered all throughout the years." He plucked louder then, his long fingers picked firmly as the cadence jumped hot and steady, like the unforgiving summer sun. "And now I am here," his sweet tone took on a sinister twist as the lyre twanged sour. HIs eyes narrowed, knife thin. "In this pisshole of a town, surrounded by you mindless lot," from behind his mask he growled a happy growl. "But don't you worry., fair townsfolk," and there were many townsfolk gathered around the table upon which he sat.

They stood stunned. A mass of them, too many for the tavern to hold with any room for comfort. Their eyes were wide and pregnant with a fear born from shapeless horrors, not there in that room.

A sweet run of strums across the strings set the tempo frantic and off kilter. "Zakarias will remember you," he said in a voice that was sing and song. When he strummed his lyre again with a heavy hand, one man behind the bar grabbed up a bottle of spirits, and stuffed it with an old bar rag that hung out the other end.

"Kill them with fire!" Shouted the man behind the bar, blood curdling in his throat as he set the rag aflame with a nearby candle. He tossed it against the wall. It exploded in a wash of gold and hungry red.

"That's right!" Zakarias exclaimed happily. "You burned my home, just like that." He stood upon the table, his golden bells a jingle as he surveyed the masses, whose screams rang out, high and shrill and full of fear. "And I will forever remember your sweet deathknell songs!" He exclaimed, eyes bright with glee, hands outstretched as if to accept their praise for his performance. “And your stink!” He flourished his hands and bowed. "Just as I remember theirs,” he said, voice a wrathful growl that trembled in his throat.

The tavern crackled and burned as bright golden fires crept up the walls and ate old greasy wood, ravenous. All of the villagers, so tightly packed, tried to run. Bulled each other over, trampled friend and neighbor underfoot. But none knew where to find the door.

"Farewell, fair people of Manz," he exclaimed once more, and blew a kiss, then two before he bowed low to them, as if their shouts were a plea for encore. He let all the sounds sink into him as he breathed in hot smoke filled breaths, ecstatic behind his mask. He popped straight up, seemed to bounce, like some child’s toy let loose from his box. “Until next time we meet!” He said as he strode, quick and easily for the door.