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When Jim needed to think, he retreated to his office. There, surrounded by books he had never read and official office items (not to mention that freaking awesome portrait of him on the wall), he felt extra smart and fully prepared to plot against bad guys and try new spells. When Jim wanted to relax, he summoned the unicorn Andohar and went somewhere far away from everyone. Clouds were good places to relax alone. I mean, chilling on clouds was like chilling on cotton candy that didn’t make your hands sticky. It was awesome. Oh, and there is a unicorn to take him there, so win-win. However, when Jim needed to process pain... let’s just say there was no place for that. Jim was pretty annoyed that he had gotten the death curse. What a cock block. His complexion was shot, and he was pretty sure he smelled, well, not his finest. Ladies would not be lining up for a piece of that Darkmagic fun-time while he was like this! Oh, and he could die for realsies. That might be a bummer. However, he escalated to full-blown ticked-off when he heard Omin made a clone of him. Why was that necessary? How did Omin get his DNA anyway? What did Omin think he was going to do with two Jims? Was Omin harboring some kinky side? “Yeah, probably... repressed cleric and all,” Jim thought. For this reason, Jim plotted (in his very official looking office, of course) to put Omin through the ringer in a battle royale with limited resources and no armor. Let the big, bad war cleric worry about death for once, right? No dice... with Morgaen, Viari, and that awful witch Strix there to help, Omin hardly had to left a finger. During the royale, Jim had decided that maybe a clone of him wasn’t the worst idea. After all, Omin was a smart guy, and he had never intentionally hurt Jim, right? Besides not letting him have a franchise, that is. That was rude, but who was Jim kidding? It would just interfere with his magic show schedule. Another wizard might allow for more rest and fewer demands from Omin, but Jim needed to establish who was the more important Jim. He wasn't taking crap from some newbie wizard, no matter how attractive he was. "I could look at my hot body from all sorts of angles," he smiled. In any event, maybe he and Omin just needed to talk about things. He approached Omin on the field of littered bodies and sub-par equipment after he (well, they) won the battle royale. He looked at Omin in the eyes and said that Omin should kill him and keep the clone. Of course, Jim didn’t mean that. He had it all figured out. Once Omin played the well-crafted game Jim had organized and saw the look of “sincerity” on Jim’s face, Omin would not be able to resist telling Jim what an amazing wizard he was. He might even play that best friend card that Jim secretly hoped for. After all, no mere clone could replace Jim. The pride radiating from Omin would be so intense that even Strix would admit Jim’s superiority. Yeah, this was gonna be sweet. But after saying his prepared words, Jim could not believe what happened next. Omin began to admit the truth. He was going to throw Jim over the side of the airship and keep his clone. A clone he had made with all of Jim’s attributes that Omin liked, and none of the ones he didn’t. The clone would serve Omin well, with no agenda of its own. The clone would not even try to sleep with Omin’s sister... what a waste! Finally, Omin confessed that, somewhere along the way, he had decided to keep Jim Prime, death curse and all. Still locking eyes with Omin as he heard these things, Jim saw his biggest fear: he was expendable in Omin's eyes. These were no warm eyes of a friend or wide eyes of a proud individual, just the phoned-in look of a con artist. After everything....every battle, every death, every sacrifice... he was nothing more to Omin than an employee. Outwardly, Jim celebrated Omin’s decision to keep him on board and alive. Inwardly, Jim struggled to process what he had just heard. Omin had admitted to Jim's face that he considered tossing him aside like garbage. In fact, Omin was way too casual about it. He admitted it in front of the rest of the team... oh, and thousands of that dead guy's 'witch' subscribers. Awkward. So he decided on a cloud for the location of his sorely needed time of reflection. Mostly because Omin couldn’t come walking in. Wait, could Omin fly? Nah, Tymora gave Omin a lot of things, Jim thought, but cloud-crashing probably wasn’t one of them. Jim leaned against Andohar in the field of puffy white. “He thinks he’s so smart now that he has Strix,” Jim thought out loud, hoping from constructive feedback from the unicorn. “He could probably still get a hold of K’thriss if he needed to. That guy was cool, but weird.” No feedback came. He sat in silence for some time, replaying Omin's words in his ears. In his newly distraught state, Jim began to go through all the reasons Omin didn’t need him anymore... Well, that didn’t take long. Not need Jim? Omin was a fool! He was Jim Effing Darkmagic, of the New Hampshire Darkmagics! Was some clone going to replace Jim? No! Was some clone going to sell out arenas as far away as the Underdark? No! Did a clone have that je ne sais quoi that Jim had? Or the magic prowess? Or the good looks? Okay, that death curse had done a number on his pores, but he could get some moisturizer or something. So the answer was still no. Jim stood up, empowered. He was Jim Darkmagic, and Jim Darkmagic was about to put Omin Dran on notice: Start recognizing Jim’s contributions or Omin could scramble to find a new wizard. With that, Jim came to a conclusion. In fact, he had never been so sure of anything in his entire life: Jim didn't need Omin, the wizard decided. Omin needed Jim.