Zorko’s Arcane Appraisals

The Combo Meal of Lost Time

---

The orb hovered quietly.

Zorko adjusted his robe for the third time in as many minutes, brushing imaginary lint from the hem with sweeping, theatrical strokes. Behind him, the clearing shimmered with golden-hour light, the kind that made shadows long and memories unreliable. Trees encircled the space like patient, judgmental elders. Somewhere distant, a bird called out. No one responded.

Zorko cleared his throat.

"Welcome, dear viewers… to a very special edition of Zorko’s Arcane Appraisals. Today, we stand at the nexus of rarity, reverence, and ring-based revelry. For it is here, in this precise and wildly symbolic glade, that I have been promised an object of unparalleled provenance."

He swept an arm across the empty air. "The Watcher’s Ring. One of the few. The proud. The... entirely absent."

He dropped the arm slowly. The orb tilted slightly, as if unsure whether to zoom in on the excitement or the disappointment.

Zorko paced, careful not to wrinkle the grass. "They were supposed to meet me here. A proud holder of the Ring. The very mint-born talisman of attention itself. I was going to touch history. Describe it. Possibly overdescribe it."

He stopped beside a stump and gently sat down. The theatrics faded, not all at once, but like the end of a parade where the last float is a guy sweeping. "I had a monologue prepared," Zorko muttered, half to the orb, half to the woods. "Not just a monologue. An entire theory. I was going to tie ring utility to metaphysical scarcity. Use the phrase glyphs of gaze. I even practiced my hand poses."

The orb followed silently.

He stared into the distance. "Do you ever wonder," he said quietly to the orb, "if any of this matters? If people are watching? Or if they’re just too polite to tell you you’ve gone on one appraisal too many?"

A leaf drifted past. The orb didn’t respond.

Zorko sat straighter, a little too fast. "I mean, I’m not lonely. I’m a respected dream master. I command robes. I once debated a sentient scroll into retirement. I’m not—"

Chime.

It was soft. Barely a whisper of a sound. But it cut through the air like a thread through cloth.

Zorko froze. His hood turned slightly. The orb whirred in place.

Behind him, just off the path where sunlight bled into fog, stood a figure.

Cloaked in green, hood deep red, glowing eyes blinking gently beneath the shadow of his cowl. In one hand: a small golden bell. In the other: a waxy paper sack.

Magus Wazir tilted his head. "You rang?"

Zorko did not rise immediately. He simply stared at Wazir as if trying to decide whether this was a hallucination, a prank, or a divine intervention sponsored by poor scheduling.

Wazir stepped lightly into the clearing, the faintest crunch of grass beneath his boots. He moved like someone who knew the path even when it didn't exist.

Zorko finally stood, brushing off his robes with deliberate nonchalance. "I… did not expect you."

Wazir gave a slight shrug, as if to say no one ever does. Zorko gestured vaguely. "There was to be a ring. A relic. A historical cornerstone of arcane intent."

Wazir held up the bag. "Fries?" he said, like it was the answer to a riddle Zorko hadn’t asked yet.

Zorko looked at the bag as though it were glowing with chaotic potential. It did not glow. But the smell wafting from it was deeply nostalgic, faintly alarming, and slightly buttery.

Zorko narrowed his eyes. "Is that…?" Wazir nodded solemnly. "McWazir’s."

Zorko blinked. "I thought those were a meme. Or a haunting. Or a tax write-off." Wazir opened the bag and pulled out a long, improbably crisp fry. "They can be many things."

Zorko stepped forward, peering into the bag like it might rearrange itself into something sacred. "Are these from the original location?"

Wazir handed him one without ceremony. "Still warm." Zorko accepted it as if it were a wand fragment or a phoenix talon. He sniffed. Then paused. "Are these… cursed?"

Wazir’s glowing eyes blinked slowly. "Only if you fear flavor."

Zorko hesitated, then took a small, reverent bite. Silence.

Then a second bite.

His shoulders relaxed, almost involuntarily. "I feel," he whispered, "emotionally hydrated."

Wazir handed him the waxed cup. "Soda?"

Zorko accepted it without protest, sipping cautiously. The carbonation whispered secrets up his nose. "…I think this just reminded me of an ex I never had."

Wazir settled onto the stump, crossing one leg calmly over the other. He began to unwrap a fry bundle with the focus of someone reading a sacred scroll.

Zorko looked down at his half-eaten fry. "I was supposed to be appraising something monumental today." Wazir nodded, chewing thoughtfully. "I had metaphors." Another nod. "I was going to matter." Wazir swallowed. "You still do."

Zorko’s lip twitched. The orb floated a little closer. Wazir took a sip of soda and looked at him gently. "Sometimes, the appraisal isn’t of the object." He offered Zorko another fry. "Sometimes, it’s of the moment."

Zorko squared his shoulders. He took a deliberate step back from the stump, straightened his robes with theatrical precision, and held his phoenix feather aloft. "I… am still on the clock."

Wazir said nothing, contentedly dipping a fry into a packet labeled Temporal Sauce (Mild).

Zorko turned to the orb, now re-centered and pulsing softly. "Viewers, what we have before us is no ordinary nourishment. This," he gestured grandly at the half-crumpled bag of McWazir’s, "is an artifact of cultural magic, deep-fried memory, and questionable legality."

He drew a circle in the air, glyphs lighting briefly around the soda cup. "Observe the carbonation field, still intact despite non-refrigerated storage. That suggests preservation magic, possibly necrocarbonation."

The soda fizzed. Zorko recoiled slightly. "It just burped at me." Wazir nodded. "It remembers its last owner."

Zorko blinked, visibly unnerved, but continued. "Now, the fries. Golden rods of edible entropy. Too uniform to be natural. Too nostalgic to be real. They smell like summer, guilt, and… rental horses."

He picked one up with two fingers and began rotating it. "Their structural integrity is unnerving. They bend, but they do not break." He licked it once. "Salted with something more than sodium. Possibly memory dust."

Wazir, watching serenely, said, "Combo Number One. Value meal of the soul." Zorko spun to him. "Value? This is emotionally manipulative food-based relicry."

He gestured wildly. "You arrive in my time of existential instability, with a bag of corporatized enchantments, and now I’m appraising a combo meal that may or may not be haunted by nostalgia sprites."

Wazir blinked. "You’re welcome." Zorko paused. Then quietly sipped the soda again.

The fizz whispered something affirming. Zorko coughed, as if clearing away vulnerability. "I—uh—yes. So. Clearly we are dealing with an emotionally weaponized artifact."

He raised a finger. "But the true mystery lies in the packaging."

He held up the fry wrapper. A logo shimmered faintly on the side—a bell, stylized and glowing slightly blue. Zorko squinted. "That is either fast food branding or a summoning sigil." Wazir, without looking, replied, "Both."

Zorko dropped the wrapper like it might bite him. "This isn’t a meal," he whispered. "It’s a beacon."

Zorko knelt before the bag again, turning the McWazir’s soda cup slowly in his hands like it held a swirling storm. The orb zoomed in with careful reverence. "This logo," he muttered, "this bell—it’s a glyph. A sigil. A mnemonic anchor for… something larger. A call to comfort. Or conquest."

A shadow passed over the clearing.

There was no summoning circle this time. No glyph ignition. Just the quiet whump of displaced air and the soft, resigned sigh of a man materializing into nonsense.

Uvlius appeared next to a half-crushed fry wrapper. He didn’t move. Didn’t blink. He just looked down at Zorko and said flatly: "You’re appraising fast food."

Zorko looked up, half-defensive, half-fry-dazed. "It’s enchanted." Uvlius sniffed. "It’s fried."

Zorko rose to full height, brushing grass from his robes. "You’re late." "I wasn’t invited." Zorko opened his mouth. Closed it. Sipped his soda again.

Uvlius glanced at the orb. "You’re seriously filming this." Zorko gestured at the meal. "Wazir brought it." Uvlius turned to see Wazir seated quietly, sipping soda through a curly straw he had absolutely not had earlier. He frowned. "Of course he did."

Zorko stepped in. "He appeared when I needed guidance." Uvlius picked up a fry with two fingers like it was a cursed toothpick. "And this is the form that guidance took?" Zorko nodded. "You don’t feel the… comfort radiating off of it?" Uvlius turned to Wazir. "Did you franchise yourself?" Wazir shrugged. "Brand recognition is powerful magic."

Uvlius stared a beat longer. Then dropped the fry. He turned to Zorko. "This isn’t an artifact. It’s a therapy session in grease form. Mild enchantment. Heavy sodium. And," he said, gesturing toward the glowing soda, "some kind of spiritual sweetener I absolutely do not want to analyze."

Zorko looked down at the cup. "But it’s helping." Uvlius sighed. "So does tea. You don’t see me filming a three-part special on the Oracle of Chamomile."

He hovered two inches toward the woods. "I’m leaving now," he muttered. "Before the ketchup gets ideas."

And with that, Uvlius vanished in a blink of smoke and disdain.

Wazir raised his cup in salute to the empty space.

Zorko looked back at the orb, holding up the crinkled bag like it was Exhibit A in a deeply personal trial. "…It still matters."

The clearing was quiet again. The orb hovered low, as if it too were full.

Zorko sat cross-legged in the grass, the McWazir’s bag resting between him and Wazir like a campfire. The fries were mostly gone. The soda was half-fizzed. The sense of emptiness? Lessened.

Zorko looked into the orb. His glowing eyes were calm now, if slightly sugar-glazed. "Viewers," he said, "we did not appraise a ring today. We did not catalogue a relic. We did not even identify a clear source of enchantment."

He held up the crumpled soda cup. "This cup is absurd. This branding is suspect. The fries may or may not whisper if you hold them close enough."

Wazir did not deny this.

"But I was not abandoned today," Zorko continued. "Not really. I was… met. Not with the object I expected, but with the moment I needed."

He looked over at Wazir, who was gently crafting a tiny spiral in the grass using the last uneaten fry.

"I have appraised demon mirrors. Singing blades. Creatures that refused to be creatures. But this—" He lifted the paper bag, now empty, carefully folding it like parchment. "This is a reminder. That even when no one shows up, someone still might arrive."

The orb blinked.

Zorko rose to his feet. He brushed off his robes one final time. His hood tilted upward, catching a last beam of late golden light.

He turned to Wazir. "Thank you for bringing enough." Wazir stood as well. He offered no bow, no farewell, just the softest ring of his little bell.

The sound echoed, gentle and unhurried.

Zorko looked back at the orb. "Final appraisal: two gold in raw materials, seventeen in temporal seasoning, and one perfect silence that told me I wasn’t alone." He paused. "And that’s the sort of artifact I’d wait for. Every time."

He raised his feather. The orb gave a soft ping.

As Zorko and Wazir walked together out of frame, one in red, one in green, the bag shimmered faintly on the stump. A breeze picked up. Somewhere in the trees, the bell rang again.

Entered by: 0x6424…79B4