The Dragon's Gem

[Benjamin "Dionysius" Musaphia]

The string quartet was a nice touch. It was new, which Dionysius generally disliked, but it was an addition that moved one back to the older times, when music was a living thing of quality. Men devoted their lives to their music, to their instrument and those who excelled where the greatest, the most demanded.

It had been a long time since live music had been the only choice for a gathering. He remembered those times with fondness. He'd been sorely tempted to burn down the whole town of the man who'd discovered one could recreate sound with a rolled tube, a disc, and a needle. It had been an in-ellegent system to Dionysius mind but humans had taken it up and there had been no going back.

Stirring himself from the oceans of his memory Dionysius glanced down at the rooms below. The Dragon's Gem, this place. Expensive, but he cared little for the human measures of wealth. He had his bed of gold, what more did his kind really need? Well, everything, of course, a dragon could always do with a little thicker bed. But human money these days, human wealth, was so... undesireable. Paper or lead or electronics. Disgusting.

He hadn't ordered a drink because he hadn't yet selected which of the vile human poisons that passed for a wine list he wished to force upon himself. Perhaps he would wait for the other before making such a choice.

Disgusted with himself he checked his pocket watch. He loathed these things of spring and brass but he could not see the sun properly here to take the time and he chose gears of brass over hearts of quartz and lightning.

The other was late. Perhaps they hadn't let him through the door at all. It wouldn't be a surprise if they hadn't really.

["Danny" Damascus]

He had awoken to chaos in the streets, people fighting everywhere. It hadn't been much of a surprise to him then because he had drifted away for much longer the last time and affairs had been much worse when he'd finally come to then. But soon, he came to know just how far events had moved away from him - how far Manalism had spread. It had been nothing noce but now was everywhere and it was kill or be killed globally.

He had organized, called for as much support as was possible. But the gods had chained themselves and the humans were to frail and chaotic. What he managed wasn't much and wasn't enough for too many had been taken away before any action could be taken to stop the growth of Manalism. The masses had cried out for it and now every being would feel the impact of that want. As he gambled his life against the new god's, his last thoughts were of bitter betrayals.

The Dragon's Gem had been around for a long time, comparitivly speaking of course. It was a fine establishment that stood proud in the heart of the city. The rich and enterprising found a comfortable niche, a safe haven for them to flaunt their wealth and power. They had, without a doubt, not earned their glory but had benefited from the labors of others. He was disgusted at the choice but knew that his friend could only select by his own tastes, no matter how devilish they might be to one of Damascus' mindset.

It was also an establishment where no one wanted a dirty vagrant placing a grubby foot from within a block's radius. He'd found a friend among the cheap labor force who worked in the Dragon's Gem, though and had passed along a few rands as he was let in the back way. As he had given away the cash, a jolt had ridden up his arm as if he'd just been hit by lightning; it hadn't been payment but a gesture of goodwill and so the curse had punished him. There had been nothing to do but bare through the pain, though.

He eventually found Dionysius' booth upstairs.
"Sorry to be late," He said. "There was some toruble getting in." He indicated vaguely toward the main entrance as he sat down. He leaned back and into the cushy space and sighed.

[Benjamin "Dionysius" Musaphia]

"I imagine there was," replied Dionysius without looking up from the list before him. "But you are a resourceful individual." He put down the list and looked up at Damascus.

The thousand voices of divine creators echoed through halls of infinitie length. None said the same thing, members on the same sides didn't agree on the tiniest details. All the rules, all of the laws, everything was failing to hold order among the gods.

"I don't suppose you have a favorite vintage?" He asked, sliding the wine list towards his comrade. "There's so little choice among these beings. Nothing lasts more than a century and there's nothing but crushed grapes on this list." He turned his head to look down on the humans below, their distance voices echoing up from below, a quiet general murmur.

Dionysius stood amid the voices, the record unfolding before him, the questions of actions burned into the stone before him. The moment the new business was introduced everything had fallen apart. And now... there was this. The golden dragon stood, keeping the record, sorting the thousand voices into line after line of scratches into the rock that was the eternal record of the gods.

Dionysius rubbed the bridge of his nose. Memories stirred often when you had lived a long lifetime but the bad ones always seemed to boil to the surface.

["Danny" Damascus]

Through his rage at his betrayal Damascus could feel a great pain wash over him. While the world churred as his magic ripped through legions of Manalist devotees, chains wrought of great power bound themselves to him, binding inside every drop his his fury unfurled. The pain was cutting, piercing and bruising both at once in waves and individually, making time stretch. Damascus drowned out the pain with hate and wrath. Rage over his situation consumed him, quashing any notions of pity or mercy from his once kind soul.

With a single roar, he obliterated droves of zealots. Fire breathed that day scared the world's mass for centruies to come. The earth rose and fell and the lifeblood of the world erupted forth, pounding liquid fire through the frail human forms. Angels circled, using magics arcane and divine and martial prowess to attempt wounding the great red. Their effort were in vain and they fell just as swiftly as their fanatical, mortal counter parts. But the pain forced his hand, caused him to give ground, move to the defensive where seconds previous to this cursed pain he had stormed through their ranks.

Curses be on this damned religion! Curses on Father Manala and all gods! Damn the mortals' devotions to self-serving beings, so caught in their own web of order that they must lose every good and decent aspect to life to save a crumbling ideal!

With these final thoughts, Damascus took to the sky, rocketing drunkenly in his pain from the field to the jears of his enemies as he turned his back - on them and on the rest of these unworthy mortals who had conjured this evil into being.

The electricity in his arm trickled through him, like a slow poison. The pain was enough to steal his voice from him for a full minute as he fought back howls of torment. After a few long moments, though the pain did not settle or ease, he composed himself enough to speak.

"You know I don't drink, Dionysius." Gritting his teeth, he gave his best at maintaining the etiquettes of regular conversation.

"But how rude I've been. How have you been faring the passing months since last we met?" His lips curled into what would have been a polite smile, had his teeth not been grinding themselves to dust. "You're looking in a particularly peak state of health, if I may be so bold."

[Benjamin "Dionysius" Musaphia]

"Nor do I when this swill is the only option." He slid the list to the edge of the table and ordered water from the server who instantly appeared to retrieve the list. "Sadly, these last few years have been kind to me," replied Dionysius, his eyes closed.

There was no interjection. His roar was drowned amid the wash of voices. Had these been humans his draconic burst would have stolen their voices for eternity but against gods, angry gods, he was nothing but additional noise. A dragon was not supposed to feel helpless...

"I have been placed in the head position of the Government Council. The laws of current man kind are different than those of before but there is law just the same. For now." He paused and looked to Damascus. He was never sure how he felt around his comrade. Or how he should feel.

Where his chains of iron, he would shatter them. Where they of magic he would unralve the spell. Where they of flesh he would gladly give of himself to cut free. But he was held by word, by word and ink and paper and by promise. In the forging of the world he had choosen his place and he could not leave it now, not with the weight of eons built atop him.

More was the tragity. He knew these gods, these beings. He had known many of then from their mortal shells and from their mythologic birth. He was elder than many and stronger than some and bore heavier weight than, perhaps, all.

"My job is, as it has been, to hold the law. And the paper." He traced a finger along the white marble of the table, reflecting on the human's lack of claws or scales. It was impossible to imagine this shell for eternity. But then he looked across the table and remembered.

"Together alone," he said slowly, "Away from all else. From humans, and gods, and angels we may speak without cander...

I have actually never quite said I was sorry, have I?"

["Danny" Damascus]

He had been so right! Justice, righteousness had stood with him, almost tangible. He should not have been defeated, should not have been driven back. He should not have been made to bear this pain! It whelmed within his immense form, enough torture for a world of mortal men and pety gods and he bore it alone. There were no voices to instruct him, but he knew the make of magics such as this; it was a spell of old magic that sought to subvert his core self and make him slave to the caster. Father Manala could not eliminate Damascus and thus he would attempt to break him.

He could not stay in the air much longer; his blood was acid, his bones worn away from their insides. His skin was burning, sloughing from his muscles! He had never felt sensations such as those brought about by fire for fire was of great comfort to him - he beded in the heart of the world, a place of liquid fire and searing heat. The curse took all that he was and imploded all feelings. Except for his pain.

But why should he not give in (this was his own thought, brought on by the pain)? What did any being deserve his gratitude? They had never given to him out of kindness, had never sought any boon of him to but to serve their own desires. He remembered Raven, his love now long lost to him. She had abandoned him for her own desires. Why should he not do the same now? What did he owe to any being other than himself?

He could not stay airborn any longer. He crashed to the ground, forming mountains and valleys as the world was torn by his impact. He some how found the strength to move and he sought shelter from the world. The air against his carapace seared his flesh, passing through his mighty scales and torn him to raw msucle and sinew, meat for the elements. The pain was in his own mind - Damascus still was whole of body - but he could lessen his torment no more than a rock might take wing.

And still he could not bring himself to give way to the curse. He would not lessen his own pain to save himself and he would never serve the being who had cause this torture; he would never bow.

Damascus was silent for a great stretch of time. Dionysius was an enemy; he did not support Manalism but he was servant to it just as much as if he did believe. He had lost nothing to Manalism. Damascus thought that if he opened his eyes, they might erupt from his skull.

"I can't forgive you, Dionysius, I'm hurt way too bad for that right now." Damascus sighed and tried to summon some inner strength, to remember who he was. "But what needs to be said? You're actions are enough in some ways."

[Benjamin "Dionysius" Musaphia]

Dionysius was silent for a moment, considering Damascus' words. He had made the choice early in creation to bind myself to the rule of order, his divinity was bound into it. Like many deities his life was what it represented.

"Yes, I was thinking something to that effect" he said at last, "It has been weighting upon me that I was unable... that I did not do more to avert your current... condition.

To that effect I have been attempting to discover the exactities of the alteration but within the limits of my position I have little authority to demand information from... anyone." He folded his fingers together, unable to look at Damascus while he spoke.

"There is no longer a universal record without gods to maintain it. There is no information stored any longer." For a moment Dionysus' eyes narrowed, "They don't keep proper records." He closed his eyes. "In short, I can not undo the curse."

["Danny" Damascus]

He rithed in agony as his own magic proved to be of little effect. Manala had used powerful, old magic to bind Damasucs into a mortal shell. Powerful magic which superceeded Damascus' own through shear fact of being in place before he could defend himself. It was an uphill battle with sufficient force but against a fortified position; Manala's magic had entrenched itself against Damascus' while the great dragon had been squabbling with the pitiful, mortal forces of Manalism.

What an ingenious web Manala had weaved to bring events about in such a manner. Damascus' thoughts were all bitter fruit for the gods and for his own race because both had abandoned him in the hour of need. The world as they knew it would be ending soon.

Damasucs failed to keep bitterness from his tone but he kept the clever quips that had come to mind to himself.
"I get it that you can't do anything about the curse, Dionysius. But I knew from the moment it hit that I wasn't getting any help from anyone else with removing it." He shifted position as the pain began its recession back into his mind. As his mood was no longer a charitable one, there was nothing to prick the magic into tormenting him. "There was quite a bit of time that passed when I wanted to give in. To make the pain go away, y'know." His eyes were piercing. "But the magic is smart. It knows what I feel and it knew I'd betray Manalism once it was gone. The magic won't be gone until I give in of my own will."

"And you, all of you, let it happen." He never said it, but it hung in the air over the two dragons.

[Benjamin "Dionysius" Musaphia]

Dionysius turned his head to face Damascus properly. He knew the truth his Damascus' fate. Everyone had failed... at the very least he had justification that... that he had not tried. Dionysius had not tried to aid the red, he tried to convince others to give him permission to allow him to do so. He had not tried to loosen the bonds around him then and ended here and now with tighter ones. Father Manala's binding will was far greater than the old gods had been.

The golden dragon rubbed his eyes and waved a hand vaguely. He shrugged. There where no words, Damascus was right. There was nothing within Dionysius' power to unmake the curse.

"I am trying, Damascus. I did not before, I am now. My bond to this world is diminishing. If the Council is disolved, as the Speaker seemed to be hinting, than the last official connection I have to the current order will be gone and I will be adrift. I am well aware that my modivations are selfish that I am only attempting to alter the human world now that I am directly threatened and I would prefur that we move past that."

["Danny" Damascus]

As the gods were eliminated and the other great beings fled from the world, Damascus remained, tied down by the curse of Manala.

He was so tired from the pain and from the battle. The battle that he had lost. The battle that could have ended this nonsense, could have saved the world from the evil of Manalism that would follow. He could scarcely hear the spirits of the mountains or the forests as his power waned swiftly from his form. It would take a number of years, but his draconic form would be robbed from him and he would bare out this torment as a mortal: without flight, without power and without aid. Manala could not destory Damascus and would thus try to break him. Damascus took grim comfort knowing that he would not be broken by this monster.

Damascus' rebuke was interupted by the news of the Council. Should the Government Council be liquidated then there would be no institution left to hold back Manalism (it could barely manage as it was). At once troubled, Damascus became concerned for the well-being of his fellow dragon, setting his own feelings aside for the moment. If the golden dragon lost his connections to the mortal world there would be one less being of great power that might oppose Manalism's evils.

Damascus made an effort at cheering on his fellow.
"Dionysius, how could the Manalsts liquidate the Government Council while you are there? Surely there is some sort of rule in that tangled web of law that lets you fight back. And what mortal being could stop you from taking charge?"

[Benjamin "Dionysius" Musaphia]

Dionysius raised his head a little and permitted himself a slight smile. "Quite so," he said slowly, "There are a few rules I might bring to bear, should I have the need. However, the danger is quite real, I assure you. Manala and his people have shown a disgusting ability to break rules.

My rules are old indeed but they have not been tested in sometime. They may well be able to hold back the lessers but if higher mortals turn their minds to it without the gods about? I am unsure."

He picked up his glass of water for the first time so far and took a long drink.

"This is a rather sharp change of subject but do you know what I found myself missing the other day? Aurochs. Their those delightful cattle that used to wander around eastern Europe. I haven't enjoyed something that tasty in sometime. Anyhow, I looked it up and apparrently they went extinct four centuries ago."

Dionysius sucked on his teeth for a moment, something he found amusing about the human mouth design. "I don't want that to happen to me. Or our kind. For some human or angel or what have you to look up 'Dionysius' or 'dragons' with a fleeting curiosity.

He pushed you out entirely. His followers are slowly edging me out of the world. I was afraid, back then, that breaking the rules may well unmake much of me. Now... I may be unmade even if I follow them."

["Danny" Damascus]

The only real comfort he could take now as unconsciousness gnashed its ugly teeth on the corners of his mind was that there would be someone to oppose this Manalism evil that was spreading. He did not presume that he might be part of such an uprising, obviously he would rather commit himself to the bottom of the world's deepest valley as a bloody stain before giving in to the wretch that did this to his once-majestic form.

Some being would dam this evil, stem the tide of Manalism. The masses would not stand for it - they never had before for long. Maybe one of the others, another dragon, would find in themselves what he had; one day, a dragon would find the good in helping others and then Manalism would be overthrown. He let fly a whisper to the good spirits that such would come to pass one day. Don't let this be the end of good things, he wept. Mortals had a way of turning the tables against oppressive deities, they had done so before, they would do so again. He might even be there for it, who knew?

Damascus looked across at Dionysius, a soft, comforting expression playing across the dirt on his face. His eyes were watery as memories stirred. How could he have ever felt such hate for Dionysius, another dragon. The only other of his kind whom Damascus had seen since being cursed. Dionysius seemed to have been coming to grips with his in-action to Manalism and Damascus had only picked at his wounds. He admonished himself for being so selfish. His caring and selflessness paired with his unfettered sorrow to produce a sharp crushing sensation across his mid-section, stealing his breath with its intensity.

He did his best not to let the pain show through.
"What I miss most," He began, trying to catch his breath. His voice was quiet as a whisper. "Is soaring. I really miss the view. And the feel of the air."

He had never been of a mind relating well with other dragons since long before being cursed. Damascus strove to be selfless in every action after several revelations in his younger days had caused him to lose all material possessions. He no longer gave thought to his personal needs when bring assistance to others. He no longer took of that which was not rightfully his own and took great lengths in insuring every sentient being he met did the same.

Given his background, he did not expect Dionysus to relate well to his comparitivly simplistic tastes. There was a chance, though, that Damascus could help to easy Dionysius' guilt through this conversation.

[Benjamin "Dionysius" Musaphia]

Dionysius smiled properly and reached his hand across the table. It pained him to use a human gesture, such as a hand shake, but when dealing in this forms such over the top expressions where required. Deliquite body language was so difficult without wings and tails.

True he was acting now only because he was personally threatened but sometimes it took such a threat make someone, even a dragon, see the world through proper eyes.

"I can not allow my views to be noticed outside of us if I am to continue my work," Dionysius began, "If we are to meet outside of these interactions I will be forced to make appearances as they are 'encouraged' be. But from this time on, you have my word that I am your friend and ally on these strange times."

["Danny" Damascus]

Has the curse slowly crushed his magnificent form down to mortal size, Damascus wished for the talent to put himself into a state of unconsciousness. The pain was that of being awake while his entire form was being minimized and he felt every bone shift, every muscle contract and all of his internal organ shift or fall away.

Normally, dragons could change to a human form at will.T he magic that was used was their own and did not shift and break away their form, more consensed and simplified it. This transform was of another's magic and it was barbaric and crude, minimizing efficiency and maximizing brutality.

Damascus tried to make his mind wander on to a topic that might take his thoughts from the pain because the pain was certainly going to be there for much time to come.

Damascus tried to wipe a stain from his hand on his pants' leg as he reached in to shake Dionysius' hand. Such a gesture as this was Dionysus' way of apologizing for what Damascus had always thought of as betrayal. It hadn't been a betrayal on Dionysius' part, though. Not really. He had his duty to preform the same as Damascus' duty had been safeguarding the mortals. How could he hate his fellow being for simply being?

"They can't get rid of us." Damasucs said, confidently, a genuine grin spread across his face. "We'll be the ones to get looked up by those humans and angels, right as rain. But that's because they'll want to know who put Manalism six feet under."

[Benjamin "Dionysius" Musaphia]

"We'll need the others," Dionysius continued, shifting his chair to face Damascus properly, "To make significant change. Many of them have positioned themselves to be rulers of humans already." He felt different than he had in a very long time. This was a goal. He had always had a purpose (though it had dimished lately) but now he had something to turn his power towards.