Thasaidon

Thasaidon The Consumed 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000

Bound in darkness by enchanted chains, the consumed one suffers. The highest form of blasphemy perhaps in all of Sornieth, a Gaoler consumed by the power of the Shade is allowed to exist. If for no other reason than to be saved, he is permitted his meager survival. Day and night blend into one in Thasaidon’s dim, frigid cell. The Clan that keeps him believes he’s lucky not to be frozen forever within a block of magical ice. To be permitted even the smallest fractions of his senses is more than he deserves, though they may not know what brought him to this complete and absolute low. A stoic creature watches over the lich, completely and utterly still and silent unless it needs to be otherwise. Once a familiar, Shackle is more now than it ever was--a construct built for the express purpose of jailing the lost. It is this construct that reinforces the enchantments on Thasaidon’s chains and guards the cell from any who wish to free the beast. Only dragons with the right magical clearance are allowed close to the gaoler for their experiments on extracting the Shade from his soul. There is only one creature in the entire lair that cannot be detected or affected by Shackle, and that creature is impotent and powerless to affect anything around it. The ghost visits Thasaidon often, if only to gaze sadly at the dragon she once knew and wonder how it all went so wrong...

Every dragon has their price and the Shade is quite good at pinpointing it. Traitors of the highest order to both Necromancer and Gaoler-kind alike, a Gaoler who chooses to bargain with the Shade paints a bold target on their back. Gaoler Lichs struggle to escape the sensitive noses of their fellow Gaolers and, as a result, often cannot blend in with the Council even if their marks have not yet darkened. Some may choose to cooperate with other Lichs to achieve their goals, others bargain with the Shade for increasing amounts of power so they may strike out on their own. Whether attempting to use the Shade’s power for noble or selfish purposes, life for a Gaoler Lich is often one of isolation. A Gaoler Lich is a much sought after prize for the Shade, as ensnaring a dragon specifically created to contain it presents a certain ironic victory. Some suspect that the ultimate aim of the Shade may well be to drain and use these puppet Lichs to free its imprisoned brethren from the Fortress of Ends. Only time will tell if enough Gaolers can be convinced to turn their backs on their own kind for the Shade to achieve its goal. -From Subspecies Thread

Born to a pair of Seekers, hatched within the realms of Lightning, Thasaidon nobly took up his family’s work as a Seeker, traveling Sornieth to find and root out stray creatures of the Shade. He fought tooth and claw against monsters, beastclan, and even those Shade creatures themselves. He eliminated many, honing his combat skills until he reached the Wandering Contagion.

As a young dragon tested in battle against various enemies, he sought to make himself ever stronger, to do what a Gaoler was meant to do. His birthright was to find and contain or destroy the Shade and the creatures it touched. The Shade creature he’d been hunting that brought him to the edge of Plaguebringer’s realm had beaten him back several times, though his pursuit was relentless. He needed to strengthen himself, improve his tactics if he meant to defeat this creature at long last.

He found that he was in the realm to do just that. Plaguebringer’s children prized strength and survival among all other things. He could learn from them. Thasaidon sought out a potential teacher and soon found himself in the presence of a group of dragons that preached the might and mercy of Mother. Though he’d been born amid the arid dunes of Stormcatcher’s domain, Thasaidon had very little connection to the land save for his elemental magic. Like his parents before him, he traveled endlessly in his search for Shade. There was no shame in showing some allegiance to Plaguebringer if it meant he could be stronger.

The Necromantic trials were his chosen path of strength. He took them, suffered them, and pulled through, earning his stripes and strength. However, he had no desire to join the Necromantic Council through which he had learned of these trials. It had all been a means to an end. With the mark of Mother upon his hide, he was now strong enough. His hunt continued until he vanquished the creature somewhere within the realms of the Shadow flight.

Finally free of his quarry, he could rest among the shaded glades and glowing glens of the Shadowbinder. He spent some time among those Clans and eventually was approached by a Gaoler that lived permanently within one of those Clans. She asked of him a favor, one that would change his life forever.

Sequestered secretly in her personal hoard, she had something she desperately needed transported to the Southern Icefields. She could not do it alone, would not do it alone. Trying to take it by herself was a risk she simply wasn’t willing to take. If for some reason she was attacked, the object stolen or broken, it would have been calamitous. What was this thing? Certainly a fellow Gaoler could be trusted with the knowledge.

She didn’t tell Thasaidon what it was initially, but as they traveled--on land, thanks to a Gaolers inability to truly fly--he gained her trust enough for her to reveal the identity of her charge. The Necromancer was shocked to find that a phylactery containing a fragment of virulent Shade was the treasure the Shadow Gaoler could not transport on her own. He understood, and had an entirely new respect for this female, as well as their mission.

When faced with the option to swim across the Sea of a Thousand Currents then travel through the Ashfall Waste and the straights, or traverse through the Scarred Wasteland and the Starfall Isles to the Southern Icefields, Thasaidon suggested the latter. He was at least familiar with the Scarred Wasteland--more so even than the Shifting Expanse where he had been born. She followed him with her charge, the tendril of Shade magic she’d trapped, trusting that he knew what he was doing, no matter how nervous she was about the realm of Plague.

Inevitably, a trio of Plague ridgebacks came upon them, spoiling for a fight. The Gaolers had no choice but to fight for their passage, and their lives. Thasaidon refused to be killed by a trio of upstarts. He was a Necromancer! He had been blessed by Plaguebringer herself, accepted into her bosom, learned her ways.

Even so, he was almost killed. His companion, the Shadow Gaoler, mortally wounded. He drove off the ridgebacks after killing their ringleader. It was over, and his friend was dying.

“Please,” she begged him. “It must reach our brothers and sisters at the bottom of the world.” She shoved the phylactery at Thasaidon. She knew in her heart she would not make it out of the Wasteland.

“No,” said Thasaidon. “I will not leave you here to die. Not here. Not in my realm. I am a Necromancer!” He exclaimed it with pride and sorrow, truly unsure if he could save her.

He dragged his dying friend to a safe place and worked day and night for a week to try and save her as she withered. Dropping nearly dead with exhaustion, Thasaidon began to eye the Shade fragment swirling placidly in its prison. It was anathema. It was a true taint. A creature of emptiness and voracious hunger.

But it had power. Power enough to save his friend. If only he would let it in. Oh, it would not stay. Just a moment of freedom, it promised. It swore. Then, it would go back into its vessel and be a problem no more.

Desperate to save her, Thasaidon eventually struck a bargain with the Shade. He let it out.

For just a bit of his magic, It could save her. It was not wrong. She came back from the edge of the grave, her wounds seared shut by the heat of black lightning, nerve endings repaired, organs stitched back together. All she needed was to regain her strength. And she had no memory of how he saved her. The Shade kept to its bargain and went back into its vessel satisfied--for now.

From that moment, Thasaidon found himself turning to the creature to try and learn more about it as their journey continued through the Wastes and into the Starfall Isles. He found the more he learned, the more he could use the knowledge to his advantage when battling Shade opponents. Before he realized what was truly happening to him, he was rationalizing letting the creature free more and more, allowing it to take his magic in return for power. The darkening of his marks happened so slowly at first that not even the Shadow Gaoler he’d saved noticed.

The pair were traveling over the Frigid Floes when they were captured by a roving clan of longnecks working with maren. They had expected draconic problems, not Beastclan. He had no choice but to allow the Shade tendril out of its vessel to help him and his friend escape. They were able to leave their captors and reach the Snowsquall Tundra in only a few days. Their miraculous escape hadn’t come up before then. It was when they rested on the tundra that his friend wondered aloud how they managed to get away when things seemed so hopeless.

Thasaidon never said why, having kept his bargain with the Shade a secret, hiding the vessel on his person so she wouldn’t see that it was empty. It was that night that they slept that the Shade convinced him it was too risky, she suspected him, suspected them. She had to be neutralized. The Shade sowed paranoia in Thasaidon’s mind over several nights until he was so wracked with guilt, shame, and fear that he took his friend’s life with his own claws.

It broke him. That terrible night, his stripes bestowed upon him by the Mother herself writhed and took on a life of their own, leaping and twisting upward, spreading down his spine in a line of translucent black fins, dark as the depths of the empty night sky. The Shade was free from Thasaidon’s previous morals as his sanity fractured. It ravaged him, gorging on his magic and turning him into the nearly mindless beast he has become.

Years later, he was discovered, hunted, and captured by a Clan in the Southern Icefields seeking to contain him. However, a few of the Clan’s well known mystics, scientists, and researchers petitioned to study him once they realized the nature of his possession. He is now sequestered and well guarded, kept in chains while he is observed and experimented upon to see if there is any way to extract the Shade from him and leave him intact. Even so, he is little more than a beast now, roaring and keening in the darkened depths of the Clan’s lair.



It was back again.

He strained at the chains that bound him, snarling viciously at the presence he felt more than he could see. The eyes within the large, frozen construct that watched over him flared as they always did whenever he showed signs of agitation. The construct couldn’t see it. He couldn’t perceive the thing that the gaoler could.

A chilly mist, somehow colder than the ambient temperature in his frozen cell, swept through his Shade-blackened fur. A gentle caress full of sorrow and pain. His snarl turned into a strangled whine. Pinpoints of aquamarine--all that was left of Thasaidon’s true colors--shone with unshed moisture. In the back of his mind, where the last remnants of himself remained, he wept. He knew he’d done the unthinkable. It cost him his best friend, and his life.

I forgive you.

The whisper on that cold, hollow breeze was so full of emotion. Today it did not seem intent upon torturing him.

Another voice, darker and more sinister, spoke in his mind. Guilty. You monster. We can make her go away. All we need is just a bit more. Give us more!

The chained gaoler roared, his voice echoing back to him in the dark cell. Glittering walls of ice shivered at the sound. No. He had no more to give.

A high, banshee pitched wail filled the chamber. The construct watching him did not move. Begone from him fiend! You do not belong here! A pulse of energy washed over him as a wave crashed upon a distant shore. The sinister voice immediately quieted, its hungry presence fled to the back of his mind, bringing his true self back to the forefront. It was only temporary, but clarity gripped him and he nearly collapsed under the weight of his dark deeds.

“Go, just go away. Go to your rest. Leave me to my fate…Wisp, please don’t torture me.” He begged.

Before him, the luminescent mist seemed to coalesce into a ghostly white form. I miss you. Her voice rippled through his fur. Look at me...Thasaidon.

No, he couldn’t look at her. But he felt the compulsion to do so all the same. “I know what I have done. I am to atone for it forever. Please, leave me be.”

Look.

As though thin, fragile hands took his face into them, he looked up into abyssal black eyes shedding dark tears of shadows, staining pristine, ethereal fur. He could see straight through her if he tried, but the void of those eyes kept him transfixed.

Her face twisted, morphing into a familiar terror, teeth elongating to wicked fangs, her maw full of shadows. With a roar, the phantom launched toward him as he screamed his protest to his empty cell. “No!” The word faded to an agonized bellow as it consumed him again, claws raking flesh and ephemeral teeth in his throat. It could never kill him. It could only cause him pain.

The construct impassively watched his torment, unmoving, unfeeling, frozen as the walls of his deep, dark cell.