Rhadamanthes
(#30114429)
Level 1 Imperial
Familiar
Disoriented Spirit
Click or tap to view this dragon in Predict Morphology.
Energy: 50/50
This dragon’s natural inborn element is Ice.
Male Imperial
This dragon is hibernating.
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Personal Style
Apparel
Skin
Scene
Measurements
Length
21.43 m
Wingspan
18.81 m
Weight
8877.81 kg
Genetics
Orca
Giraffe
Giraffe
Orca
Saturn
Saturn
Ice
Gembond
Gembond
Hatchday
Breed
Eye Type
Level 1 Imperial
EXP: 0 / 245
STR
6
AGI
6
DEF
6
QCK
5
INT
8
VIT
8
MND
6
Biography
NOT FOR SALE, TRADE, OR LENDING
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Ex libris awaicu Capable of siphoning energy from living beings, this hatchling was born with a fatal touch. Prolonged physical contact with this dragon causes anything living to slowly wither and die. He keeps his scales wrapped in many layers of bandages and cloth to prevent unintended casualties. While he can survive solely on the energy he pulls from other living creatures, this dragon rarely uses his abilities. |
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Rhadamanthes
{ RA - da - MAN - theez } Nicknames: Rhad, Rod ♥ a birthday gift from awaicu 
╭━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╮ Stardust, Stardeath (written by Disillusionist) ♫ Akiko Shikata - Kuroto ♫ ╰━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╯ |
The gods of Sornieth are mighty, but they are not eternal. There exist beings in this universe that are older than the gods.
But they are not gods. They are far removed from dragonkind. And it would probably not be accurate to say that they are alive.
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As the universe created various planets, it also shrugged off bits of star-stuff, leftover energies. And so, while the gods of Sornieth waged their war upon each other, the star-stuff dug itself deep into the ground. It lay there, and for many centuries it was quiet.
But the planet of Sornieth continued to shake. The gods fought with each other and then slumbered, and in the Second Age a new people took control of the world. They employed titanic enchantments and raised vast factories, stirring up the magic of the planet. Corrupting it. Changing it.
The leftover star-stuff, deep in the earth, stirred uneasily. It slowly devolved into a miasma. Pwdre ser. Star rot.
Then the Arcanist awoke, and thus the Eleven deities were complete. Dragonkind was born. These new creatures went to war against the Beastclans and the Shade, and sorcery shook the planet once more.
So many long centuries of magic, chaos, corruption....They filtered down through the rocks and dug deep into the planet's heart. Miles beneath the earth, the astral miasma roused itself. A creeping mass of energy, not really alive, and unable to die. It was raw energy, but like fire, it was filled with the need to consume. And what it needed to consume was life.
It shrank away from the planet's fiery heart and crept up to the surface. Oozing through fissures, seeping through cracks, its amorphous tendrils encountered strange new objects. Some of these it passed by. Others it devoured. Magic still clung to some of these objects, and so the star rot began to change until it became a gelatinous mass with razor-sharp claws and teeth, pilfered from the skeletons of long-dead dragons. Tatters of cloth and flesh clung to it, tangled with the bones it had absorbed.
It was indeed a creature of horror -- but not a malicious one. In its fledgling mind flickered distant glimpses of memory: an endless blackness and shattering light. Noise, bedlam...The fiery rush of chaos, of stars being born, and of worlds being built. And best of all: the endless emptiness, freedom in every direction. The creature did not know why it was down here in the darkness of the world. But it knew that it did not belong. So it would keep searching and devouring until it regained that endless freedom and chaotic joy.
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At last there came a time when the star-creature was close enough to the surface for it to encounter living drakes. These dragons were underground for various purposes: they were miners or geologists, or else they had simply chosen to live away from the light. Many of them fled before they encountered the creature, for it fouled water sources, withered vegetation, and killed the tiny beasts and insects simply by being near. The carcasses piled up until a horrendous stench pervaded the caverns. Those who fled these befouled homes were fortunate, but one Imperial was not so lucky.
He was a sorcerer who had been sent to investigate these strange goings-on. In his arrogance, he only harrumphed at the other dragons' complaints; he thought the problem had been caused by nothing more than a ruptured sewage pipe. He bridled at being sent to check what he wrote off as a simple sanitation problem. And so he was woefully unprepared for what he found.
He was overtaken by the star-beast's magic. Even before the sorcerer spied the beast, it knew he was there, and its invisible, insidious touch laid itself upon him and slowly peeled the life from his bones. Deep in the darkness, the sorcerer felt weakness overtake him. He thrashed uselessly, scrabbling at the earthen walls. And he let out a pathetic moan as he beheld the miasmic creature for the first time: a shambling heap of gelatinous flesh, bones bobbing in its translucent mass. He saw it quite clearly, for it emitted an unearthly glow. A creature not of this world, neither mortal nor divine.
The sorcerer was mighty, but he knew he could not stand against this fiend. He cursed himself, groaning inwardly, regretting his arrogance. The creature began to devour him. It consumed his body...his brains...his magic...his soul....
"Rhadamanthes."
The creature opened its eyes....Yes, it now had eyes. And perhaps more significantly, it now had a name.
"Rhadamanthes. That is...my name."
To be precise, it had been the Imperial sorcerer's name. But the sorcerer was dead now, swallowed up by the beast he'd been sent to destroy. It might have been because Rhadamanthes was the first living drake the star-beast had swallowed, and one brimming full of magic besides: the creature had absorbed not just his magical strength, but also bits of his memories and personality. Its form had changed, too. Antlers now sprouted from its head, and it walked on four short, strong legs. Its tail dragged behind it, leaving an ephemeral film.
But its...his body was still translucent, gelatinous. The unspeakable remains of his meals could still be seen floating inside him. Not that he cared.
Rhadamanthes the sorcerer had come from the surface. Rhadamanthes the star-beast now followed these thoughts. He dragged himself slowly through the abandoned lairs, crawling up to the surface. Up to the sky. Searching for the heavens and his home.
The star-beast was not deterred. Its form was not solid; it simply turned and oozed through one of the larger cracks. It bored through the earth until it found another network of shafts and tunnels. A dragon mine.
The miners began to catch glimpses of it: In the dark mine, it glowed faintly, and its eyes were as pale and smooth as the moon. The antlers crowning its head were black, but they glittered as if bound in stars.
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It was the size of an Imperial, but it could not rightly be called one. The miners whispered of it, calling it a "celestial stag" for its antlers and the way its body glittered and shone. They worked in teams, and they always outnumbered the celestial stag -- until one day, when they fled in panic from the creature and one of them, a new worker, got separated from his gang. He fled deeper into the tunnels, the celestial stag following behind.
It cornered him in a cavern, and there, it spoke to him. If any of Rhadamanthes' old colleagues had heard it, they would have recognized his voice, but distorted, stretched out and made distant, as if it were crackling to them from a distant star.
"Where?" it rasped to the miner. Its eyes shone, white and luminous, as cold and uncaring as the moon. As the miner stared at it, it continued, "Where...is...the sky?"
The miner's teeth chattered. He pointed upwards with a claw. He stammered to the beast, telling it the sky was above the earth, and the star-beast entreated him to show it the way. "I will follow you," it rasped to him.
And follow him it did. But the miner's efforts were all for naught, for he had become hopelessly turned around in his wild flight through the dark. Nothing was familiar, and his fellows wouldn't answer his calls. Eventually he had to admit that he didn't know where to go. He prostrated himself before the terrible creature, begging it to let him go. Rhadamanthes, meanwhile, was thinking. In his half-formed mind, nebulous thoughts were congealing: "Dragon does not know the way to sky. Dragon is useless. Dragon can still be useful -- one more way...
"Kill dragon."
Rhadamanthes inflicted a horrid wound upon the miner. The poor dragon leaped away, howling in pain as his wing was shredded. Rhadamanthes advanced, slashing at him with heavy-bladed claws. Eventually the dragon died, and the celestial stag bent his head and ate the miner's flesh.
A faint memory flickered in his mind: Once upon a time, he had killed a great sorcerer with a thought. Why had he tormented this poor drake so?
And he thought: "Cannot answer if dead. Keep them alive...for a longer time. Death comes slowly. More time to answer...is more time to think. More time to show me...the way."
At last the mine, too, was closed off. The shafts were pulled down and the entrances sealed by both earth and magic. Rhadamanthes was crushed under several tons of rock. He had by then eaten many other dragons, and they had changed him so that he was no longer amorphous. He had gained substance and become solid -- he could no longer ooze through rocks.
He could not die, and so he spent the long years twisting and wriggling, trying to free himself. Above him, the mine was abandoned and forgotten. Tales of the celestial stag became obscure footnotes in history, the deaths chalked up to pestilence, poisoning, or infighting among the victims. The world continued to turn.
And one day, as it turned, it began to shake. Tectonic plates trembling and brushing up against each other -- tiny movements with titanic results. Sornieth was rocked by an earthquake, and the rocks encasing Rhadamanthes broke apart. At last, he was free.
And he had been pushed to the surface; he could feel it. He was closer to the sky! He crawled up and up and up; in his excitement, he let his magic run loose. Animals, burrowing nearby, all died. The trees above him began to shrivel. The beasts began to flee.
As birds ascended the sky, shrieking and cawing, nearby dragons took notice. The Disillusionists poked their heads out of their lair. They were relatively new to the Hewn City and had heard the strangest stories about it; they were also jumpy because a recent earthquake had shaken their clan -- in more ways than one. The flight of the birds and beasts was not a good sign.
"They are afraid," said Makeda. Her golden eyes were wide with terror. "They say that death is coming from beneath the ground. And there is no stopping it."
The Disillusionists bridled at this. They hadn't been here long and weren't about to be chased out by another earthquake.
But it wasn't an earthquake: Rhadamanthes had reached the surface. At long last, he felt the cool air on his face and saw the vastness of the sky. A noise of triumph burst from his maw: not a roar, but a spectral howl. It was so low it could barely be heard, but the Disillusionists all felt it. They trembled as it shook their very bones. They all watched in horror as the nearby trees withered suddenly, leaves and branches falling like rain. More birds filled the skies. Some of them were too slow, and they dropped in mid-flight. They joined the corpses of land-beasts that had been unable to flee in time. A foul smell began to fill the air.
Rhadamanthes crawled up out of the darkness, singing his chilling song. In the noonday sun, he didn't shine, he burned. It was almost too bright to look at him -- but his skeleton was seen, dimly outlined, as he shambled towards the Disillusionists' lair: he would ascend that immense structure and from there, he would climb back up into the sky. Somehow.
The Disillusionists rallied. They attacked from a distance, hurling bolts of energy, stone, and steel. These all broke over Rhadamanthes without effect or stuck harmlessly in his glowing skin. Meanwhile, the mages and leaders conferred quickly. Polosim the terraformer could open the earth, make it swallow the creature again -- but the beast had clearly survived in the darkness and would survive for a thousand years more if need be. If it were dropped back into the earth, it would simply crawl out again, and the nightmare would continue.
Jubilant's own Arcane spells hadn't had any effect. He did have some other tricks left, but they would take too long to cast. The beast was closing in quickly. "Prepare to abandon the lair," he advised the others. "We have one last option -- but if she doesn't work, then that's it for us, I'm afraid."
It was Lady Veritas who gave the next order: "Prepare the genius locus!"
A Guardian stood on either side of it. The white lady was as still as marble, her frills raised. Her mate bent his head, almost bowing to the statue. He spoke in a soft whisper: "Can you help us?"
With the creak of moving stone, the statue turned its head. It looked at Rhadamanthes with shining kunzite eyes.
She broke apart in a shower of gleaming indigo dust. It swirled apart, forming beating wings, a lashing tail. The Guardians retreated back into their lair and barred the door as the two Imperial-shaped entities closed in on each other.
Rhadamanthes reocgnized her as an enemy. He was now so close to his goal; nothing would stand in his way! He'd give it everything he had. Only...
Nothing seemed to be working. The shadowy Imperial pushed him back and back, driving him away from the lair. He bent his will upon her, trying to leech the energy from her heart. Something was burning inside her -- it was a heart, but it was not a living one. He struck with his claws; they sank into dust and rebounded harmlessly. No blood flowed from the shadow-beast.
He, too, had one final option: to consume her, body and soul. He hadn't consumed anyone since his namesake, but he would attempt to do so again. And so he reached out and attempted to leech away the dragon's very mind and soul....
The strangest thing was that she let him have it.
Rhadamanthes froze. Images flashed through his mind: the statue had been created by a skilled artisan and polished with gentle hands. Her previous owner had woken her up by whispering in her ear: "You will go to a new clan. Be their guardian and their shield. Let their nature become yours, and thus you will truly become a part of their clan."
And her new clan had treated her well. The adults had handled her with care; the hatchlings had played with her. They had cared for her. They had loved her. And she had loved them back.
Let their nature become yours.
They had had to leave her in darkness every night. But they had always brought her candles and spoken tenderly to her. The hatchlings had grown, but the statue had remained a part of the clan. Watching them with kunzite eyes. Growing with them. Becoming a part of the clan.
Let their nature become yours.
She had learned everything they'd had to offer. They loved life, and they loved each other. Some members were troublesome and others were just plain annoying, but still they were cared for. They remained a part of the clan. They relied on each other and protected each other. She would protect them too. As she was doing right here, right now.
Let her nature...become yours.
There was nothing more Rhadamanthes could take, but that was because his mind was now full. And his heart -- suddenly he had a heart. It didn't beat; it burned. It made his soul ache; he cried out at the thought of what he'd been about to do to these innocent dragons and their clan. And so many others...He had tortured them and taken their lives. What had he been?
What was he becoming?
The shadowy Imperial closed in on him -- and then her wings were around him, cradling him gently. "It's all right," she crooned. "Everyone gets tired. We all need to sleep sometime."
He began to grow sleepy. His eyes clouded over -- still as pale as the moon, but no longer empty or cold.
"Go to sleep, go to sleep." The Imperial enveloped him in a gentle darkness. "There, now...It's all right. I will be here. And the sun will still be there in the morning."
The mad desire to reach the heavens left him. He could look at the sky every day and rejoice because it was there. Instead, he was now painfully aware of the dragons who surrounded him. Shalimar had glimpsed their minds and souls and passed the information on to Rhadamanthes when he'd tried to consume her. He now knew their natures, and he understood them. And thus, he could no longer hate them.
He was not really made of flesh and blood. As before, weapons and magic did not have any effect on him. He could be cut, but the thick, milky white ichor welled up for only a second before the wound closed up again. Probably the only thing that hadn't changed was his ability to leech the life from other beings. It had grown weaker since his failure to consume Shalimar, but it was still there. He could no longer kill with a thought -- just a touch. To protect those around him, he wrapped himself in layers of cloth. He looked like a mummy when he finally presented himself to the clan leaders, a few days after he'd attacked them.
He had fallen unconscious in front of the lair. The Disillusionists had watched as the stolen energy had flowed out of him, turning the grass and trees green again. His body had gradually solidified and become opaque, pale scales glittering in the sunlight. He had acquired a distinctly Imperial shape. No one would call him a "stag" now.
They questioned him cautiously. Rhadamanthes could see the fear in their eyes. His newfound emotions stabbed keenly into his newly-ignited heart, and he spoke humbly, almost tearfully. He was a fallen star -- he used the analogy he thought they'd understand best. He'd been hurled deep into the earth and had struggled to reach the sky. Other creatures had nourished him -- he had taken their lives with impunity. But he had been radically changed by the recent encounter, and he no longer wished to threaten anyone.
Still, it was difficult for them to trust him. So they put him back in the darkness, in the caverns beneath their lair. Rhadamanthes still glowed like the moon, and the Disillusionists shivered and turned away from him.
Only one didn't -- Shalimar the genius locus, now set down here to guard him. She had previously been kept in one of the high rooms, through the windows of which she could see the sky. Rhadamanthes apologized for this. He did not like the idea that the sky had been taken away from someone because of him.
She replied in her sweet and breathy voice, "Silly thing. The sky is always there. It can't be taken away from anyone."
Rhadamanthes mulled this over. It dawned on him, as slowly and as gloriously as the rising sun, that she was right. They were on a planet, floating in the vastness of space...Indeed, the heavens were all around them. Nothing had ever been taken from him. He bowed his head in contrition as he finally accepted this.
There was no need for him to go back up into the heavens because he was already there. And the darkness didn't seem so bad anymore. Like Shalimar, he would get used to it. Maybe later, after some time, he would also become a part of the clan.
~ The End
Credits & Notes:
• Coding and dividers made by me.
• Additional reading: "We're made of star stuff." | The Celestial Stag | Star rot
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