The Night Drinker
In a world full of magic that fuels everyday devices, one of the scariest things is a being who sucks that dry. While a variety of tales exist about this being, they are often grouped and called the Tales of the Night Drinker. These tales have many commonalities; never being visible, slowly draining magical power, and irritating repetitive sounds.
The following tale is common among the Dwarves of Wano Dez in the Henderent Plains.
Once a Dwarven child was out in the tunnels hunting for some mushrooms. Their lampstone glowing brightly as the basket became full of great morrels. After several hours sleep was creeping in their eyes. Finding a stone shelf perfect for a nap, the basket and lampstone was set aside. Rest came quickly, but was soon interrupted by a soft lapping noise. Waking up and looking around revealed nothing, so sleep came again. But again came the lapping noise, and again upon waking nothing can be seen. Yet again after sleep this continued for some time until the child noticed the light was almost gone out of the lampstone. Panic set in as the child ran back to the hold, but the light dies as the child approached near the city and was reduced to not being able to see hardly anything. Stumbling and scraping their way back to the lights of the hold, the elders noticed and reproached the child. Never wander tunnels alone, for the Drinker will steal your magic, your light and leave you alone and lost.
Historical Basis
The sinister thing is that such creatures do exist that can drain magic. However they behave nothing like these classical tales. For the most part a given creature can only drain a type of magic, and only within certain criteria, and they tend all to be visible or can be made visible. None are known to make the types of sounds as described in the tales.
In Literature
A great many tales have riffed on this concept, including full length novels, plays, poems and songs.
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