The Dahaka

The Dahaka

The Dahaka is the main antagonist of Warrior Within and it serves as the physical manifestation of the inevitability of fate. The beast is the guardian of the Timeline, and seems to appear only when the Timeline is disrupted; in the Sands of Time, the Prince uses the Sands of Time to massively manipulate the Timeline and cheat his own death; therefore, it is the Dahaka's duty to make sure that the Prince meets his death in order to restore the timeline, thus making it the primary antagonist of the series' story.

Warrior Within

The Chase

The story starts with the Prince running through Babylon's streets, chased by an unknown black mass with tentacles. However, the Prince finds himself cornered and stands still, with his sword waiting for the unknown black mass, which is then revealed to be the Dahaka itself.

The Prince survived somehow and sails to the Island of Time. Unfortunately, another ship, full of enemies led by Shahdee, sent by Kaileena, the Empress of Time, attacks and destroys the Prince's ship. Still, the Prince manages to reach the Island and start his search for the Empress and the girl who tried to kill him in order to have revenge.

During his travels on the Island, the Prince gets chased once again by the Dahaka, who managed to find him even in that mysterious place. The hero has to flee, unable to harm the creature.

Soon the Prince learns that Dahaka cannot touch water and fight against it, so he's using this advantage to escape from The Dahaka. Later on when The Prince obtains The Sand Wraith's Mask, he journeys to the Hourglass Chamber to receive Water Sword from the pedestal he had opened when he activated the nine life upgrades mechanisms

Another Chance

The creature managed to follow the Prince even in the past, making his journey even more difficult. After the death of the Empress, the Prince thinks that he's free to leave the Island, but suddenly the Dahaka arrives and smashes him in a secret passage. The Prince then realizes that by killing the Empress, he created the sands of time. However, he suddenly finds a mural that describes the Mask of the Wraith that could give him a "second chance".

The Prince managed to retrieve the mask, transforming into the Sand Wraith. He then assumes that the creature who was following him was in fact himself who was trying to warn him about the Empress. The Prince travels back in time to reach Kaileena, but once again, he's followed by the guardian of Timeline. The wooden bridge onto which the Dahaka steps collapses, but before falling to his assumed death, one of the Dahaka's tentacles reaches the prince, who slices it and screams with anger.

Changing your Fate

After reaching the entrance to the passage for the Throne Room, the Prince finds his alter-ego from the past once again, but aware of the Dahaka's attack, he lets his past self get captured by the monster, allowing him to take off the mask.

The hero reaches the Empress and tries to convince her to come with him to the present. Kaileena refuses and attacks him. The Prince then forces Kaileena to go into the present by pushing her in a portal. The Prince reaches the woman, and after a long battle, kills her for good, so that the sands of time cannot be found by the Marharajah. The Dahaka then makes his appearance, absorbing the Empress's dead body and taking the Medallion of Time, the last relic of the Sands of Time. The Dahaka then disappears, leaving the Prince to his changed fate. The Prince is finally able to go home.

The True Ending

However, the true ending is different. The Prince managed to retrieve a special weapon: the Water Sword. After having reached Kaileena in the present, the Prince stops her from fighting. Suddenly, the Dahaka appears and tries to absorb Kaileena, who doesn't belong in the present.

Enraged, the Prince attacks the monster, surprisingly hurting him. Kaileena runs away and the Prince fights the beast with his sword, now able to harm the monster. After a long battle, Kaileena throws a sand ball at the Dahaka, who gets caught on the limit of the platform where the final battle is taking place. The prince stabs the Dahaka's head, and the creature falls in the water down the platform. As the sea turns black, the Dahaka comes out from the water, only to explode, the ocean water returning back to normal.

The Prince had finally changed his fate.

Appearance & Traits

The Dahaka appears as a massive and powerfully built humanoid, clad in black. It has long ram-like horns that twist in the form of a lemniscate, the symbol of infinity, and its eyes burn with a fierce inner light, though the area around it is always covered in shadows. It also has the ability to shoot multiple tentacles from its abdomen. Every aspect of this being suggests it is a creature of a more supernatural world. Until the very end of the game, it is impossible to fight the Dahaka, as it is seemingly invincible to sword thrusts, and if the Prince doesn't keep enough distance from it, the Dahaka captures the Prince with its tentacles.

At several points in the game the Dahaka will catch up with the Prince and chase after him. The player will then have to flee through a series of obstacles in order to escape the beast. If it does catch him, it will reduce the Prince to sand and absorb him, thus eliminating him and his actions from the Timeline. The Dahaka appears blurry during these moments and can sometimes teleport a few yards at a time, and during these times an instrumental version of the song "I Stand Alone" by Godsmack will play in the background and, when the Dahaka is close enough, the screen will change to a black and white and/or sepia tone color scheme. During his adventures, the Prince discovers that, like all the Empress' sandy minions, the Dahaka has an intense aversion to water. Contact with water harms the creature, and it cannot pass through the curtains of water that cover certain palace doors and corridors. The Prince must exploit this weakness to escape the Dahaka.

Quotes

"All who have come before you have fallen. - You are very quick, Prince."
"Disrupt the Timeline no further."

Trivia

• Because of this weakness to water, some fans speculate that the Dahaka is a sand creature and was probably created by the same beings that created the timeline, the Empress of Time and the many time artifacts (dagger, amulet, hourglass, etc) and was created for the purpose of preventing the misuse of the timeline by the sands.
• During the final battle with the Dahaka, there's a glitch that will stop the monster jumping in midair if the Prince hits him and uses Recall. This allows him to hit the monster without Kaileena's help. The scene when the Prince stabs the Dahaka in the face will trigger anyway when the life bar of the creature is empty.
• The Dahaka speaks in reverse. When the Dahaka speaks, if time is turned back, its sentence can be understood.
• The Dahaka's height seems to change, sometimes appearing to be huge, then sometimes just a little over the Princes height. It is not known how the Dahaka can change height, but if the Dahaka is a sand creature, it may have a limited shape-shifting capability.
• The Dahaka may have very likely been named off a creature from Persian/Iranian mythology known as Aži Dahāka. This creature's name then translates to titles such as "Dragon-King" or "Serpent-King".
• The Dahaka's horns resemble the infinity symbol ( ∞ ), perhaps indicating its eternal existence.
• The Dahaka can be compared to the Marut, a somewhat similar creature from Dungeons & Dragons. Both are massive, dark-colored, extra-planar beings who eternally hunt down those who have cheated death, seeking to bring about their rightful and inevitable demise. Both creatures are known to walk steadily toward their prey when they've located it, and use short-range teleportation (a dimension door spell, in the Marut's case) to gain ground during such chases. They are both extraordinarily powerful creatures that are impossible to defeat by all but the greatest of characters, and both have resistance to damage from all normal means save for one weakness (Water in the Dahaka's case, and Chaotically-aligned damaged for the Marut)