Hey! Character crisis.
I've always been a great believer in letting the character have their way. Sometimes, they can make life difficult for us poor players (and our DM's). I've been in games where characters in a party have parted ways for various reasons - to take up a cause the others have no interest in, to take time to think, or to settle down in a place they have found calls to them. But in my experience, these are often some of the best moments in a game.
Anyway, the long and the short of it is, I think you should let Zook do as he feels he needs to. Lets play it out and see what happens. I'm sure we can work around any metagame wrinkles (like needing a new character in a hurry) that it causes.
thotd.