Ashdar

Many arcane dragons look up at the night sky and dream of being among the stars. Some, like Ashdar, even move past the dreaming phase and try to create a method of getting themselves there. Not just to orbit, as the Astrolab once was, but all the way beyond Sornieth's gravity and to whatever lies beyond. While none have yet been successful, many have gotten closer than Ashdar has. However, there are few who have given it quite as many different attempts as Ashdar has. The nocturne's got perseverance, that's for sure.

What he doesn't have is the ability to stick to anything resembling a plan. Ashdar is an idea factory; he's got no shortage of them, but will only pursue an idea until its first setback. Progress is made whenever he coincidentally has the same idea a second time. As that doesn't happen too often, parts of the fortress are littered with the remnants of previous attempts. Dragons would be wise to avoid poking them; while they may also be willing to go to space, Ashdar's creations are only partly finished, and going only partway to space doesn't end well for anyone.

Ashdar has two main ways through which he tries to develop space travel: spaceships and teleportation. While very unfinished, some of the spaceships look like they might even have worked: metal capsules with whatever type of of propulsion system happened to catch Ashdar's fancy that day. Usually explosives. His experiments with unstable crystals for fuel seemed reasonable, while the attempts that used starfall blossoms were less so. Other ships have been carved out of chalcedony, while yet others have been ordinary sailing vessels. Sometimes Ashdar tries to get those moving with something practical like levitation magic. Other times... well, the day Ashdar launched a small dinghy skywards with a massive slingshot only for it to crash through the roof of Vector's workshop is infamous for a reason.

The experiments in teleportation have less to show for themselves. According to Ashdar, it's for technical reasons. He swears he's got a teleportation spell strong enough to take him to a moon, it's just that it uses teleportation circles, so someone's going to have to draw the symbols on one of the moons for him. Portals have a similar issue. The exit portal has to get up into space somehow, and if he's building a machine to send one there, he may as well ride it himself.

(It's best not to ask about his ideas to bring space down to Sornieth.)

Still, if he can't get to space yet, Ashdar's going to take the next best thing. Which is perching up on top of Aeric's tower, as it's the tallest thing around. Unfortunately for him, ever since he tried using the top of the tower as a launchpad for a rocket he's had its owner watching him carefully. Aeric blasts him off the tower with a windstorm every time he notices Ashdar up there. Though, perhaps if he can sneak a ship up there and get Aeric to point his wind magic upwards...

He also likes to hang around Sabik and Ustasi. Both of those dragons seem to have access to powerful sources of magic, so he hopes that he can convince one of them to let him use enough of their power to get the energy to reach escape velocity. Or are they the sources of powerful magic? Ashdar's not above shoving one of them into the propulsion systems of one of his ships to find out.

The runes covering his body will (hopefully) allow Ashdar to survive in the vacuum of space. He makes sure to reinforce them often enough that they are always active, even when he doesn't have any space travel attempts planed in the near future. He's always got to be prepared. You never know, space could happen at any time.

[The basement has been designated a no Ashdar zone until further notice. Nobody wants to risk him finding the mystery portal. True, he is the best dragon around to be the one to explore it, but someone will have to figure out some way to bring him back from wherever it goes before that. Right now, the moment he learns it exists he's diving through and then he'll be gone forever.]

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The Riftrunner? Yeah, Ashdar has heard about that exploration vessel and its crew. They're, what was it again, all about exploring deep ocean trenches and rifts in the sea floor? Cool, but not Ashdar's thing.