After a particularly vivid dream, Maradino was struck by an unshakable idea: His lair ought to be tucked deep into the earth, away from prying eyes and bothersome vagrants.
And so he set out with his shovel, prepared to dig himself a palace worthy of one Maradino to the power of ten. He would sit, he imagined, sultan-like among his earthy pillars and muddy servants in his hidden mansion. 'Sky-dellers,' scoffed he. 'What do they know of my ways?'
Late into the night did Maradino dig, but trouble brewed high up in the much-maligned sky above Maradino. First, a droplet landed directly in Maradino's proud, un-shifting eye. In the span of a single blink, Maradino's fortress-to-be was under attack by a million ceaseless, dewy soldiers.
The great hole he had intended as the foyer quickly filled with a swirling miasma of water, mud, and failure.
Maradino trudged back to his father's house, disillusioned by the sky's ill intentions. He would have his revenge; this he swore.