Nacht
(#23602233)
Level 15 Wildclaw
Twinkle
Enchanting Goblin
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Energy: 0/50
This dragon’s natural inborn element is Ice.
Male Wildclaw
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Personal Style
Apparel
Skin
Scene
Measurements
Length
6.04 m
Wingspan
5.91 m
Weight
502.42 kg
Genetics
White
Poison
Poison
White
Toxin
Toxin
White
Underbelly
Underbelly
Hatchday
Breed
Eye Type
Level 15 Wildclaw
EXP: 6203 / 60881
STR
53
AGI
8
DEF
5
QCK
41
INT
5
VIT
25
MND
5
Biography
Nacht came to the arcane flight chasing rumors. They had heard of the scholars of this flight, hiding in their libraries to scribble away at notes until their claws had worn into bones and toying with mysteries that were better left untouched, and felt that it was a place that they could advance. From what they had seen in the first few days, there was only disappointment in the crystalline edges of the mythic Starfell Isles. But that was to change.
They were born into a world of ice and eyes. In such a place as the Fortress of Ends, there was no room for making a family. Their clan was less a warm unit and more a desperate huddling of souls in the cold world they inhabited. Each member of the clan fell asleep to soft self-affirmations that they could handle the Fortress because they were strong enough and they were smart enough, ignoring the ghosts of those who had failed. Each of them woke with the frost nipping at their heels as the Icewarden reminded them who held the reigns.
Raised in a clan more superstitious than scientific, Nacht had to trade records of their findings for books on anything other than how to make a meal last a week. Still, they read vicariously. Books on the first age were vague at best, filled with hints towards the creation of the pillar and warnings on the shade. That information was still more exact than books on the second age. All that Nacht could glisten on that period of time was that it was godless and empty, and the creatures that inhabited it eventually drove themselves to ruin. That ruin had led to the reawakening of the gods.
In the outside world, dragons said the highest concentration of magic was found within the spiral of the Arcanist’s observatory. Nacht knew this to be wrong. The arcane could keep their haphazard experiments and meticulous observations in the Isles; that was all more childish than magic. Magic was his family, both by blood and trial, curling together around a fire and praying with the frost on their lips and the cold in their eyes. Magic was Nacht learning to hear whispers in the wind from those who had left this life and those who had never entered it. Magic was the ways they had learned to heal themselves stronger than any scroll or potion with the desperation in their voice. Magic was primordial, gritty, bloody truth. Magic was in the eyes.
They say even the ice denizens are frozen within the towers of the Fortress of Ends. Nacht grew up under those watchful stares. When they were a hatchling, Nacht found a creature bigger than a grown Imperial frozen eternally still in an enormous pillar. It must have been near death when it was frozen, for there were lacerations all down its sides and blood held midway across the ice. For that to happen, Nacht realized, it must have been frozen mid-movement. When they slept, they dreamt of the ice rising unbidden from the ground, swallowing the beast before death took it. A perfect specimen. When they were older, however, Nacht found something much greater.
It was a monster of copper cables and gears. The carvings along its edges seemed to resemble familiar languages, but Nacht couldn’t make out the exact translation. Runes that resembled eight of the elemental symbols were seared into the metal alongside a representation of a pillar—the pillar that spread through the second age and fell in to the shade in the third. No dragon had been alive when the pillar still stood. Only beastclan records and the words of the deities preserved its memory. Paired with the eight symbols, it appeared to be a record of the forgotten second age. But the ice never forgot.
Nacht carried their new discovery with a sense of purpose. The secrets of the second age were close enough to touch, yet just out of their grasp. It required more research. In this ice clan, however, frozen over and huddling in muffled fear, there was nothing more that they could find, so Nacht packed their books and journals and began the journey north. There was nothing tying them to their birth clan. The hardened words and frightened minds of those that they were raised with never held up the idea of a bright future. Those dragons dreamt of only ice and snow.
As the air turned warmer, they were struck by how wide the world was. Their lonely clan had stretched from edge to edge of Nacht’s mind, engulfing every thought in its threatening vacancy, to the point that it seemed to take up much more space than it actually did. The clans nestled in the mountain’s valleys were drastically different from what he had left behind. Nacht was fed from the kindness of strangers’ hoards. Feeling full, warm, and well-rested was no longer a luxury; each day they slept well-fed and comfortable. From the tip of the Frigid Floes to the Windswept Plateau, Nacht crossed into foreign territory. They rode on an air balloon created by the wind flight for long journeys across water and, for the first time, met dragons born on another side of the ocean.
Nacht had packed plenty of coin for the journey, but found that they could exchange stories for meals in most of the rowdy wind flight homes. Hatchlings clamored over each other to hear him speak of the eyes held in place above their clan, watching and being watched. All of them were almost aggressively curious about the things that Nacht had always found to be trivial. Some of them begged for Nacht to stay longer and to speak longer, but when it was time to leave, they left. There was a reason that they had left their home, after all.
Their passage through the edges of the Scarred Wasteland was quiet and tense. Sickly tendrils pulsed and oozed from the ground. A few dragons, bone-skinny and savage, trailed the scent of meat for miles. Nacht held their scrolls tighter and moved on.
The Starfell Isles were a whirlwind of lethargic activity. Dragons moved with dreamlike purpose and though they were focused, Nacht couldn’t help but feel that the entire flight was covered in a layer of haze. Nacht moved from library to library looking for information on the runes, each time coming up dry. The best information, they found, wasn’t in the libraries at all. It fell from the sky. The Focal Point rose at the center of the Isles, exalting the Observatory atop a pillar of earth. Strange things fell from the sky around this concentration of energy and littered the ground with glowing treasures. Many of the clans that called this place their home would gather these items and donate them to the observatory, and then sell whatever the scientists and magicians didn’t want. Nacht was more careful around these clans than they had been before. If they were going to settle down for an extended period of time, these were the clans that they needed to befriend.
An illuminated violet comet tore from the sky around sunrise and landed half a mile away from Nacht’s camp. By the time they got to it, a sparkling skydancer was already holding the bounty in his claws. It was a sparkling crystal orb, oddly unscathed from its journey, with a pleasant purple glow. The skydancer glanced at Nacht with a smile playing on his lips.
“Oh, were you coming for this?” he said. His voice was a low drawl, easy and self-assured. It was a bit different from the frantic chatter that Nacht had endured for most of his stay.
“Only out of curiosity. You can keep it,” Nacht replied. The skydancer looked at the orb for a moment, then set it down in the grass.
“You say that like you’re doing me a favor. Those things fall from the ground more often than rain.” He chuckled. “You’re new around here, aren’t you?”
“I—yes. I traveled here from the Fortress of Ends in the Icefield for research purposes. It was a long way, but I hope that it will be worth it.”
“What kind of research, exactly?” he said, though he sounded more amused than fascinated.
Nacht found themselves at a loss. The runes, of course, were the focus of it, but what more than that? Certainly they had to have a larger goal. “I’m looking into the creatures and culture of the second age. Specifically, the language.”
“Well, you didn’t choose an easy topic, did you?” he mumbled and scooped up the glowing orb. “Follow me. I have something you might want to look into. My name’s Gypsum, by the way. What should I call you?”
“Nacht. Pleasure to meet you, Gypsum.”
Gypsum took him through the lush plains of the Focal Point until, in the distance, they saw windows carved into the cliff face. It reached high towards the observatory, but just fell short of the clouds. As they approached, Nacht saw strange, faded carvings near the windows. The language vaguely resembled what Nacht had recorded from their findings in the Fortress of Ends. They squinted at it, looking for a familiar shape, and saw that one character that resembled something from the modern day. This could be a breakthrough.
“Are you listening, Nacht?” Gypsum said, interrupting their thoughts.
“Yes, of course. What did you need?”
“Well, I’m glad you like this old thing, at least,” he huffed, gesturing at the ruins. “I was asking what it was like to leave home.”
“Not hard. There was nothing there I wanted to stay for.”
“Really? Not even family?”
“Everyone there had lived in that frozen hovel their entire lives. It was stifling. If nothing else, it’s surprising that I didn’t leave sooner. I’m not much of an ice dragon, no matter where I was born.”
“You don’t think you act like an ice dragon?”
“What, and you think I do?”
“You’re analytical and emotionally distant. You left your family without a second thought, knowing full well that they might not last the winter and you’d be none the wiser. You’ve been picking apart everything you’ve seen while we’ve walked, including me.” Gypsum smirked. “You’re more ice than I am arcane.” Nacht was stunned silent for a moment.
“I didn’t realize I came off that way.”
“You ice dragons rarely do,” he said dismissively. “Now, come in. I’ll show you around. My clanmate Kerosene found this place while scavenging. It’s odd, isn’t it?” The door, which Nacht could have sworn wasn’t there moments before, was a gaping opening with a faded green cloth hanging to the floor. Inside, the darkness seemed near impenetrable. The only light near them came from the softly glowing orb that Gypsum carried, and it only illuminated what was right in front of them.
“I don’t suppose you’ve got a lantern on you?”
Gypsum laughed. “You can come back when you’ve got better light. You could never get this whole place lit up, anyways. It’s far too big.” He held up the orb to a line of bookshelves and walked down the edges. “This isn’t the kind of place you want to get lost in, so bring extra fuel.”
Nacht watched him in awe. They looked up and saw the dull pinpricks of light from the windows, barely bright enough to show anything at all. “How many floors are there?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never tried to find out.”
“Do many people in your clan come here?”
“Not really. We’ve got better things to do than sneeze our way through some dusty old ruins.”
Nacht’s breath caught in their throat. “You think it’s old? How old?”
“I know what you’re thinking, and don’t get too excited. It couldn’t be that old.” Gypsum stepped back and moved towards the door. “Come on. You need a place to stay while you research, don’t you? I’ll see if you can slum it with my clan for a little while.”
“Really? You’d let me stay with you?”
“Not my decision, and not forever. We can’t feed every soul-searching traveler who blows into town.”
“I can bring back the best books I find,” Nacht said quickly. “The clan can sell them for food.”
“Oh, joy. Books,” Gypsum snorted. “Arcanist knows we don’t have enough of those around here. Come on, we’ll figure out something that you can do.”
Nacht followed him out of the massive ancient library. It was almost like a tomb, they thought. All the information from a forgotten time, laid to rest in a massive grave carved into the earth, and here they were to finally uncover it again. They looked over their shoulder to the library and saw the little windows fading into the distance. How long had those books been untouched? What secrets did they hide? Well, Nacht thought, secrets are made to be revealed.
Hundreds of miles away, the eyes still watch. Frozen from the third age, the second age, the first age, they wait to be found. One day, Nacht will return. Once all the books have been opened and all their information has been spilled, they will return to the Fortress. If there was one thing that they had learned from the hellish time spent in their home clan, it was that the ice never forgot. (written by #126965)
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