Dainar

Dainar is one of the four Eternal Progenitors who divide authority over the High-Level World Tenebris. Nux targets his faction while searching for the Temple of Time, forcing Dainar into an information bargain designed to preserve his own position.

Biography

Disappearances within his faction

Dainar rules one of four mutually hostile power blocs inside Tenebris. After eleven of his kin or close subordinates vanish without struggle or trace, he suppresses news of the losses because visible weakness would invite the other Progenitors to attack his influence. He orders Rivenar to use a summoning artifact at the slightest suspicion, while personally monitoring foreign visitors through Tenebris's Will. The precautions fail: Nux bypasses the castle's anti-teleportation field, abducts Rivenar, and prevents the summoning signal from reaching usable coordinates. (Chapters 1984–1985)

Nux then contacts Dainar under the name “the Devil” and implies that the other Progenitors hired him to dismantle Dainar's faction. Dainar does not value his captured subordinates enough to trade significant information merely for their return, but he understands that a long campaign could destroy his information network, reputation, and alliances. He first tries to redirect Nux against his rivals. When Nux rejects an alliance with the apparent losing side, Dainar instead trades everything he knows about the Temple of Time for a future favour that cannot require Nux to endanger his life. The choice turns an immediate threat into a potential asset, but also gives Nux the lead he sought. (Chapters 1985–1987)

Information brokered for a favour

Dainar explains the Temple's history, the incomplete varieties of time power, its abandoned trials, and Tenebris's past investigation with Orynthar. He acknowledges that their Protectors gained weak Laws and that many killed themselves after ruining their future potential, yet retains the coordinates because he never fully dismissed the possibility that the Temple concealed something greater. Nux records the location, leaves Dainar a call artifact through which the favour can later be claimed, and verifies the account with Tenebris's other Progenitors. Dainar remains alive and in control of his faction when the exchange ends; the corpus does not show whether Nux ever repays the favour or how the bargain later affects Dainar. (Chapters 1987–1988)

Appearance and personality

Dainar belongs to a shadowy, crystallized obsidian race. He resembles his subordinate Rivenar but has a much darker body and more horns. He sits in an immense obsidian-metal throne room; no clothing, height, facial details, or more specific racial name are supplied. (Chapter 1984)

He is controlled, secretive, and intensely concerned with power. Anger makes him clench his fists hard enough for surrounding space to crack, but he quickly regains composure and focuses on keeping his losses hidden. His negotiations are pragmatic rather than sentimental: he treats subordinates in terms of the effort required to replace them and bargains only when Nux threatens the wider network sustaining his position. (Chapters 1984–1986)

Abilities and cultivation

Dainar is an Eternal who has lived for more than a million years. As one of Tenebris's four Progenitors, he can use the World's Will to track foreign beings and sense the disappearance of a connected subordinate. His control is incomplete and contested: the four Progenitors continually struggle for authority over Tenebris rather than any one of them holding the World absolutely. The corpus does not identify his personal Law, Domain, combat techniques, or advancement history. (Chapters 1984–1985, 2032)

When angered, Dainar's physical reaction cracks the space around him, demonstrating power that affects nearby space but not establishing a named spatial Law or deliberate attack. He can also allow a Sirecall artifact to teleport him to its user, although Nux defeats this route by constantly changing the transmitted coordinates. That movement depends on the artifact and can therefore be disrupted; it is not evidence of innate teleportation. (Chapters 1984–1986)

Dainar possesses extensive historical knowledge of the Temple of Time and the Laws its trials can produce. His account is informed by Tenebris and Orynthar's costly investigation and a purchase from the Supreme World of Eternity, not by a demonstrated personal ability to manipulate time. (Chapters 1987–1988)

Relationships

• Nux: Nux abducts Dainar's subordinates and coerces him into negotiating. Dainar turns the pressure into a conditional future favour, while Nux obtains and verifies the Temple's location. Their agreement remains unresolved in the supplied corpus. (Chapters 1985–1988)
• Tenebris's other Progenitors: Publicly they share rule of Tenebris, but privately all four seek greater power and would eliminate one another if an opportunity arose. Dainar immediately believes that his three peers could be behind the attack on his faction. (Chapters 1984–1986)
• Rivenar and his faction: Dainar orders Rivenar to conceal the disappearances and take emergency precautions. Although Dainar wants to preserve the network, Nux's reading of their memories establishes that he regards even close subordinates as replaceable assets rather than loved companions. (Chapters 1984–1985)

Items

Dainar receives a crystal call artifact from Nux for invoking their future-favour agreement. He also responds to Sirecall artifacts issued to his subordinates, but those devices are part of Tenebris's security system rather than demonstrated personal possessions. No other personal item is identified. (Chapters 1985–1988)