[Location: Adventure Zone] [open to any!]

[imperial_long]

Good afternoon, Taxon: there is an enormous black dragon flying in lazy circles above the city.

Specifically, above the Northern District, that nebulous area currently masquerading as Fantasyland. After all, what's a good castle adventure without a dragon? Even if the dragon is distinctly Eastern in flavor rather than Western.

On the map, the dragon displays as Oolong. In the air, Oolong loops like a black ribbon, drifting down from the sky in long, rippling undulations as he scans the woods below for interesting things.

'Interesting things' qualify as sheep. Or deer. Or, perhaps, even a goblin here or there.

Either way, he's visible from anywhere in Adventure Zone... and for that matter, probably visible from parts of the regular city too.



[OOC: Oolong in da house! Long is currently a 90-foot-long Chinese imperial dragon. He still has his tablet on him. Feel free to approach him in any way from terror to glee.]

Comments

[threelivesdown]

Selina is sitting on top of one of the ramparts. She's sorting through a few assorted treasures where she sits. There is a tiara sitting askew on her head and it seems there are a few ropes of... well, those can't be pearls can they? What else could they be, really?

Looking up she sees.... a dragon. Well damn.

It makes sense that there would be a dragon here. As far as Selina's concerned, though, he's going to have to find his own treasure.

[imperial_long]

The glint and gleam of shiny things catch Oolong's eye, as well as a small figure on the castle battlements. Making a thoughtful noise in his cavernous throat, Oolong starts to swoop down that direction.

It's a good ten (lazy) minutes before he's landed on the ground before the wall. He arches up to cross his arms on a section of rampart, rest his massive chin on said crossed arms, and regard Selina Kyle with enormous eyes the size of windows, huge and golden and slowly whirling.

"Good afternoon," Oolong says with a blast of warm air.

[threelivesdown]

"Hi there, dragon."

What else is she going to say? She's been cataloging her haul so far, trying to ignore the clusterfuck from earlier with Jason by soothing herself with shines.

"What brings you down here?"

Hopefully it is the shiny and not the desiring to eat her, though that would be a cap to her day.

[imperial_long]

"Civic courtesy, I imagine," Oolong says with deep amusement. Much as he'd teased Horst Brauer, he sees no reason to admit his real identity yet to Miss Kyle.

"And the wink and gleam of these marvelous baubles you've collected. It seems this region is lucrative for you."

[threelivesdown]

"It is at that. I'm not sure if it will mean anything. I don't know if I'll even be able to bring this stuff home," Selina says with a casualness that makes it seems like she ordinarily talks to dragons every day.

[trojanhorst]

There's goblin blood on Horst's sleeve.

Well, to be more particular about it, there's goblin blood coating Horst's entire left arm, but about half of that arm is encase in a rolled-up sleeve of a shirt that is, or was, brand new, and he'd been so careful about keeping his new clothes clean. It's really disappointing.

There are several tall towers here in the Northern district, and realistically, no proof that any of them is even the tower that frazzled Jason Blood had referred to, where he left his, err, bleeding book -- but feeling restless to make himself somehow useful, even to someone who might not be aware of it, and not having much better to do as yet, Horst has come looking.

Looking has, as it turned out, involved the rather surreal experience of battling some kind of -- imps? goblins? -- which Horst can't really say he dressed for when he left this evening. He's not generally a violent man, but he has no particular taste for things that appear to be diabolical in nature, and like most people, he's perfectly ready to defend himself if attacked. As a result, he's spent a harrowing amount of time now inserting his fist into the skulls of a group of goblins. He pulled a short sword off of one of them, but it hasn't seen much use, since Horst hasn't exactly had much armed combat training. He's stuck to his own two hands and his physical strength. It's been successful, but not exactly heartening.

Still, it's nothing to the sight of a very large, very unaccountably skyworthy dragon fluttering around through the air. Horst stops in his tracks and stands there for a moment just staring at it. There's really, really nothing about the dragon that explains how it's able to fly: it moves on the wind like something weightless, no long wings picking up air currents, but seeming to have no difficulty steering itself where it wills. Something about the physical impossibility of the thing just makes it seem all the more unfair.

Horst sighs. He hefts the chipped old dirk in one hand, having no real idea how he's going to use a tiny sword to . . . slay . . . a dragon.

"I suppose I'm fighting a dragon now," he grumbles sourly. "There really is no hope for this shirt."

Horst squares his shoulders to his feet and whistles, high and sharply, to grab the dragon's attention.

"Come on then, you great, impossible beast. I've put on my battle shirt and everything."

[imperial_long]

The whistle is, sadly, inaudible at the height Oolong is cruising. To the possible frustration of Horst's ego, Oolong loops around for another minute or so before he sees a small figure waving a blade in the air, presumably to attract his attention.

Heavens. A would-be hero, is it? Bother.

Oolong siiiiiiiiighs and proceeds to drift in great circles down to earth, coming to ground some fifty feet away from the man.

Enormous eyes widen as he recognizes it is Horst, and black lips pull back from milk-white teeth the length and shape of scimitars. This is amusement, but it could be difficult to tell.

Horst Brauer! Waving a sword. Oh, but he really must tease him for a bit.

"May I help you, sir?" the dragon rumbles.

[trojanhorst]

"Err -- "

An unusual circumstance: Horst Cabal is at a loss for words.

"I don't suppose you'd consider impaling yourself on my sword, here? It would save me a lot of scrubbing over the basin later, so much less mess. Otherwise I'm afraid we'll have to do this the hard way. I don't much hold with roaring beasts terrorizing the populace."

He looks on somberly, but in all honesty is more than a little frightened. Horst is reasonably sure that this great beast could do away with him in one easy gulp, and not at all confident that even vampiric immortality would survive a trip through a dragon's digestive system. He has no plan whatsoever. This is undoubtedly a bad idea.

Ah well, nothing for it.

[imperial_long]

The dragon's head draws back; the vast eyes squint down.

There's a large, ominous noise which it might take a few seconds to recognize as a throat clearing.

"Harumph," says Oolong. "Harumph," he says again, and-- "--sir, I beg your pardon, but that is not properly a sword, now is it? Let us be honest.

"At best that is a dirk, and if I did not know better I should say it made of tin.

"If you wish me to impale myself upon something, I rather think you could provide me a suitable weapon. I don't suppose you should feel altogether flattered if someone asked you to throw yourself upon their rusty and second-hand letter opener."

[trojanhorst]

Horst shrugs wryly, guilty as charged.

"Well, if you wouldn't mind waiting here, I'm sure I could go searching around for something more suitable. Unless you plan to eat me when I turn my back -- though I must warn you, if that's your intended course of action, I'm far from a healthful meal."

He should be fast enough to climb his way up onto the dragon's back. Is he strong enough to get a good hold of its head and snap its neck? That's less sure.

[voice]

[aintnoconvict]

Glitch sees the dragon from his safe cozy spot on the proper non-adventurey side of the bridge, and he knows precisely who it is (dragons and princesses and that was so, so long ago), and he's happy for his friend, yes. Being one's self is a luxury he's not sure many people in town appreciate.

He'd leave it at that, but...science. Stuff and things, new experiences. So yes, contact must be made, and thus there's a familiar little voice from Mayland's tablet.

"Is this geographical or due to the date?" He's aware that it's in the vicinity of the Chinese new year, but he's getting increasingly bad at keeping track fo the calendar.

[voice]

[imperial_long]

"Glitch!" Oolong's voice says in answer with happy thunder in the tone. He does a figure eight in the air for no more reason than indulgent delight.

"Geographical, I should say; it did not take effect until I crossed the bridge. Although, technically, we are also around the date, as well. Still."

He would no doubt say something like 'I am not inclined to look a gift horse in the mouth' but that would be a little too obvious glee in his situation.

Re: [voice]

[aintnoconvict]

"Oh."

Hrmmmmm. Crossing the bridge is something he's basically set as a line in the proverbial sand and decided that Nothing Good Can Come Of It. But Mayland being restored was a good thing so...that theory's out the window.

"Should I come up? I mean, over? To make proper acquaintance and stuff?"

[voice]

[imperial_long]

"I should be delighted if you did so," Oolong says, and he does indeed sound delighted.

Another little shimmy in the air. "I could give you a ride," Oolong says next, quite eager to show off for his friend, and also because it's really quite splendid to be in the air and everyone should get to experience that, shouldn't they?

[voice --> location]

[aintnoconvict]

Well. That sells it.

"I'm not the best with heights," Glitch concedes but there is the sound of movement, of Onward Progress. "But that...sounds fun. I'll meet you by the bridge."

And some fifteen minutes or so later, he appears. His hat and gloves get stuffed into the pockets of his coat, which also gets unbuttoned. Gods, he cannot wait for spring.

[skinandbone]

That is very big.

All of Metody rockets to attention as Long gloriously blooms across his awareness, whipping around to orient directly towards him without regard to distance or intervening sewer pipes.

Or intervening walls. His human part stumbles back, hands to a mouth that tastes like blood. The pain of impact is enough to jolt him out of the mental chaos of too much excitement for his mind to operate, at least. Metody jitters in place for a moment - should he hide? Should he flee? Should he go see it in person? And which person? - and then he abandons the diner and his lunch order, and just goes running in Long's direction. Move now, think later.

One block later, he is staggering and gasping, one hand to his heart. Never mind, though - he has other bodies, and several are clattering out of the sewers to scoop up this one and carry it. It might be foolish to expose the softest part of himself to a dragon - a dragon! - but he wants to see it completely, bones and scales and color and all.

[imperial_long]

When Metody eventually arrives at the bridge, his bony bits safely out of sight once more, the dragon is clearly visible in the sky some hundred yards away, cruising above a herd of deer visible through a gap in the trees and causing them to earnestly stampede towards the river.

Metody's unique perspective gives him a body simultaneously serpentine and quadrupedal; the long yards between head and forequarters, between forequarters and hindquarters, between hindquarters and the tip of the tail have a snake's vertebral structure, but there is something akin enough to hips and shoulders to support the dragon's limbs as well. He certainly has opposable thumbs, and additionally four more-or-less fingers on each hand. As for that skull-- it's roughly the size of an RV. Don't drool, Metody.

There is flesh too, of course; clad in shining black scales that glint bronze in the sunlight, gleaming with flecks of color of every hue.

So far, the magnificent beast has not yet noticed the small pale bit of personage at the bridge. It is quite busy terrorizing deer.

[skinandbone]

Oh, beautiful. Beautiful, beautiful. Metody walks across the bridge and slips into the forest, then drops down low to the ground and creeps forward. After a moment, his creatures collapse down to long, long snake-like spines, and slither across the bridge as well.

He makes his way after the deer, trying to get as close as possible without ending up on the menu himself. He's not entirely sure what he'll do if the beast turns on him - but why would it? Anything with a sense of smell would prefer deer to Metody.

[imperial_long]

It so happens that Oolong has the predator's sense of smell. The scent of something chemical, something unhealthy, tickles his nostrils beneath the animal musk of the frightened deer. Oolong's head begins to move this way and that, quizzically.

It's a vaguely familiar smell, and Oolong comes to earth in a landing that makes the ground shake slightly. He tries to place the scent within his memory. It's tangled up with taste-scent memories of Szechuan food, and of course it's much stronger now, as his nose is much better as a dragon than as a man.

Szechuan food, and talk of rocks.....

"Mr. Green?" Oolong says at last, his voice making the leaves on the trees vibrate slightly.

[skinandbone]

The head swings around and Metody shivers, laying flatter on the ground.

It talks. It's a person. He lifts his head and takes a deep breath. For the very first time in his life, he has a ghost of understanding for the serial killers of the silver screen, because he's not sure if he wants to eat that, or screw it, or just - just roll around and -

" - you know my name."

[apackofone]

Remus is by a creek, washing himself off after the exploding necromancer (don't ask). A few spells had done the job, but nothing feels clean like water rubbed over the skin.

He's waist deep in the water, near the middle of the creek, or stream, or small river if you insist. And standing with one hand sheltering his eyes to watch the dragon flying about.

He's not dealing with that. He just had a necromancer explode all over him. He's done his bit for civil protection.

[imperial_long]

The splotch of pale that is a human body registers to Oolong among the trees and greenery, interrupting the shining, moving line of water. Curiosity impels him closer, drifting around in great loops that narrow in until he's soaring a hundred feet above Remus, close enough to see, close enough to smell.

And to register the nudity, for that matter.

"Ah, Mr. Lupin," booms the deep voice from up above. "My apologies. I did not realize you were bathing."

The dragon averts his gaze. It is quite probable that before being human, he would not have done so; but human sensibilities have crept in, the last few years, and Mayland Long, at least, is acutely conscious of things like nudity and considers them annoying states of being.

[apackofone]

Remus is quite unashamed about it. His heavily scarred body doesn't concern him in the slightest.

"Long? Is that you?" The linguistic quirks and mannerisms, it all screams of long, but he's too far away for Remus to scent him properly.

[imperial_long]

"It is indeed. Should I return later?" the great beast asks with consummate politeness. But since Remus doesn't seem particularly bothered, he is already circling down, closer to the ground, although he now has to find a place to actually land.

Trees are prickly.

[apackofone]

"Now's as good a time as any. I'm just cleaning off the last goo and ash from the necromancer that exploded on me."

There's space a bit further down, along the bank if Long doesn't mind possibly getting a little wet settling down comfortably.