Cyber's Hideaway

The nameless dragon of the great bitter lake has been wandering the perimeter of this mostly dry basin for longer than anyone can remember. Its body resembles a great big nonsensical castle, cobbled together from hazy memories of a bygone civilization as old and mysterious as the dragon itself. It seems to flicker in and out of existence like a mirage, and none who have tried to force their way into its halls have succeeded, or at least returned to tell the tale. In some ways, it is perfectly ordinary for a brass dragon: they roam, they observe, and they try, in their lofty, alien way, to Understand the world around them.

Most dragons construct and inhabit a lair, which are an extension of itself as a web to a spider. This dragon has become its own lair. Beyond the metaphysical courtyards that surround the inner castle, one may find that the arrangement of chambers mirror the internal structure of the dragon’s material body. Of course, a walking castle can only observe the world in broad strokes, so to keep up with the world on a more granular scale, it relies on the little fairy-creatures that serve it to visit the world below and be its eyes and ears, to find it companions. Should you be lucky enough to be invited into its walls, it may keep you for a few days, or months, or decades, until it has exhausted every conceivable conversation topic with you. You will not be speaking directly to the dragon, of course, but a lair projection in the approximate form of a human. It may show you around its grand house, from the lofty tower of its mind, to the labyrinthine dungeon of its bowels, but the chamber of the heart is eternally barred to outsiders. Some would posit that whatever priceless treasures its hoard contains are stashed away there. The Castle has a long memory, and a particular interest in the slow processes of ecological change in the basin, though the business of men and elves and other little folk will interest it too. When it grows bored of your company, you may politely ask to take your leave, and perhaps be escorted back to the world of mortal creatures, though you may find that considerably more time has passed on the surface than you perceived, and the memory of your time with the dragon fading as if only a dream. Beware, it may also just retreat into itself and leave you to wander the halls of its body until you lose yourself entirely. Those who thoroughly offend or otherwise break the contract of its hospitality are put into a state of somnambulism, and become fixtures of the lair itself.

The oldest inhabitant of the lair is the Angel, which presumably Fell into the lake after being struck down in some divine battle many eons ago. Its halo is lost to history (or so the dragon, which sees All in the basin, has told it), and without it can never heal itself, or find its way back to the firmament. The angel may have been the dragon’s first companion, but now is all but forgotten by its new host, and lives as a caged bird in the lair. Angels need a purpose (not unlike certain dog breeds), and this one busies itself with tending the garden, never mind that none of the plants are real. The ethereal space of a dragon’s lair is a close enough substitute for the celestial habitat of angels, in any case; better it be trapped here forever than to become some wretched Lower Thing on the surface, it thinks. It’s friendly enough, though most guests find its mutilated appearance offputting, and very few speak or understand its ancient dialect. It looks something like this: