[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

[imperial_long]

"The pearls aren't bad," Oolong offers diplomatically. "Really, it is rather hard to muck up pearls. Unless one pairs them with a very gauche setting, but I shouldn't accuse your necklaces there of such a crime."

He's a treasure aficionado, what can we say?

[threelivesdown]

"They aren't too bad, you're right. They're an awkward length but, well, it could be much worse," Selina says as she slides a few gems his way for better perusal.

"You'll forgive me for saying that you really don't seem to fit in with the aesthetic here."

[imperial_long]

"Goodness, do I not?" Long says, enormous eyes opening wider.

"As a dragon I should think I am almost mandatory to this pleasant little psuedo-Middle-Ages. --oh, now that's a charming little topaz, isn't it?"

[threelivesdown]

"Well, all of this is European - or at least pretending to be. You are not, unless I'm mistaken," Selina comments, shuffling the jewels around a little more to give the dragon a better glimpse at what she's found.

"It isn't bad at all, no."

[imperial_long]

Oolong merely sniffs, disdainfully, at the mere conceptual implication that he could be remotely European.

"I imagine I was the closest they had on hand," he demurs.

[threelivesdown]

"That seems likely, yes. They are... Well, they seem to start well enough but the follow through... Of course the re-arrangement and this whole castle zone thing is new. Maybe it represents a change, you think?" Selina lifts a shoulder in a slight shrug. Thinking about that level of their confinement isn't something she likes to do. It reminds her that she /is/ confined.

[imperial_long]

"Change?" Oolong's eyes widen to perfect, bulging circles, giving him a vague look of a vastly-oversized pug dog, and then the dragon laughs, enormous mouth opening wide and flames flickering somewhere down in the long cavern of his throat.

"Everything is in change, madam, constantly. The universe's dharma is defined by constant motion along the wheel of samsara, as is the individual's. Everything climbs always towards enlightenment, and falls again towards ignorance, hatred, and desire; everything acquires karma and then is bound further to work through one's karma."

The dragon scratches at his lustrous belly scales, yawns, and studies the artificial sun overhead. "It's all illusion, anyway. Do not overly concern yourself with the repositioning of buildings, forests, trees, and the disposition of topazes, madam. Rather be concerned with the disposition of one's spiritual attainment."

[threelivesdown]

Selina pauses and looks at the dragon, before giving him a broad smile, "Should I consider this a lesson, then?" It took her a little longer than maybe it should have to put it together but then again, she had no reason to imagine that he was a /dragon/.

Still, speaking this way about this topic in this manner... surely this must be Mr. Long, "I am certainly far too attached to things for my own good."

[imperial_long]

"All the universe and all within it is a lesson, Miss Kyle," Oolong responds politely.

He crosses his sinewy forearms (each one as thick around as an old oak's trunk) on the battlements and settles his long narrow head down upon them, eyes gleaming as he studies her.

"Indubitably. In the spirit of compassion towards all living beings, such as the Buddha displayed and the Boddhisattva taught me, I would be willing to assist you in achieving freedom from the most treacherous poison, that of desire-for-material-objects. I could take those charming topazes off your hands," he says, quite earnestly, "and thus, free your spirit for more noble endeavours."