[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

[trojanhorst]

"A short tale to lower me in your esteem, then. If you'll promise to keep my confidence. I've had prouder moments, you see."

[imperial_long]

Oolong booms something like another laugh. "My dear Herr Brauer, if we are to speak of moments of disadvantage, you have witnessed me human. I think perhaps you owe me the story if only to even the scales."

(Backhanded insults to the human species, go.)

"But of course I should keep your confidence," he tacks on, almost as if vaguely insulted by the idea that he might not.

[trojanhorst]

Horst laughs. "Touché! Fine, then -- a tale of unimpeachable ambition, and of wicked methods -- a tale of loss and of longing. A tale, perhaps, to sober the soul . . . and then, finally, to end in dissatisfaction for all concerned, and in questions that make for tales of their own. I shall briefly transport you.

"The year is somewhat after 1880; the place, the German Empire. Both could be somewhat more specific, one argues: but too many specifics do not a good story make, and there is little enough in this particular piece of my history to make a good story. Here, the audience finds two men, youngish. The elder is myself: a handsome and delightful young fellow, and the subject of this sad tale. I am, at this time, perhaps not perfect, still sowing the wild oats of youth when others have laid down deeper roots, but to the greater observation, still a likable protagonist.

"The other young man is my lesser by a few years: in age as well as vivacity and experience. Yet he aims to settle himself early, which intent seems likely to be realized when he takes a fiancée and begins his path to adulthood. Compared side by side with the elder men, the younger one has little to recommend him; he is hard-working, serious, and impersonable. But, lest the audience judge him too quickly wanting for these things: he is a good man. There is no shortcoming in the younger; he wants only to be left in peace to seek out his own happiness.

"One summer, as inevitably happens, tragedy strikes: the younger man's fiancée dies quite suddenly. He slips into a terrible grief.

"Unwilling to accept this loss, he reorders his life entirely -- searching far and wide to discover a way to return what was lost, a way to defeat death. Eternal life for human beings.

"He learns much, but not the thing he seeks. There are ways, perhaps, dark and forbidden ways whose secrets the devil keeps . . . but they cannot be had except for the price of a soul, and there the elder man draws his line in the sand, thinking still to reach the younger. The elder agrees to aid the younger in his search -- in his research -- if he will forego a devil's bargain.

"The scene, changes, abruptly, to England; the elder man's hair grows somewhat, to indicate the passage of time. The younger man's, I should note here in interests of characterization, does not. Mist covers the stage, and in it, cheap gravestones can be seen in gray silhouette. A cemetery.

"In it, there is a crypt. In the crypt, there may be a vampire.

"The younger man is nervous, suddenly. He begs me descend the stairs first; I oblige.

"Within, we find the vampire we seek. We hadn't expected her awake, but naturally she is, or what sort of story would that make? He has forgotten to set back his pocketwatch. Sunset has come early.

"I was first down the stairs. I'm attacked. I fight.

"He runs."

Horst pauses, as much for effect as for genuine need of it, to let his own memories wash over him for a moment.

"I call for him, but by now the younger man is gone. I call for him, and a vampire drives her teeth into my throat and the sound of my own voice makes me a bit dizzy. I call for him, and there is a sound of a stone door, slammed shut; I call for him, and metal hasps on metal as a lock is snapped closed, and the audience wonders how they can hear it, such a little thing, over the sound of the struggle and my screaming voice, but somehow still, they know they can. I call for him, and find some lingering strength in me, and wrestle back the vampire and kill her, and still he doesn't answer.

"I have called for him many times. He doesn't come. By now, the younger man is gone."

Horst pauses again, remembering himself closed up in that featureless black space, ramming the door with his shoulder over and over until his shirt was ruined, and then his arm, trying to force the lock.

"A few hours pass. I wait. I have hope that the younger man will return for me in the safety of the daylight . . . but dawn comes, and he does not.

"Two days more pass -- here I am guessing, of course; I had no way to track the time in truth -- the man in the crypt begins to be confronted by his own weakness. He is -- I am hungry.

"I eat the others first, the other members of the dead woman's family. I am frightened of her still -- the vampire.

"Eventually, though, there remains no one else to eat, and I turn on the woman. This is when I die, this moment of stupidity, and not before: I die when I drink the blood of the thing that drank mine."

He looks over again, to make sure the dragon's still listening and has not (oh, ego) fallen asleep.

"There -- this is how I became a vampire. I might have died a human being quite easily, you see. It was my own sheer stupidity that brought me low."

[imperial_long]

Oolong is an almost-perfect audience in some respects, regardless of his form. He loves stories-- he collects them-- and therefore is motionless as a rock as he listens, save for the bellows-like expansion of his sides, the hot puffs of his breath, and the golden gleam of his eyes, which flickers and blazes like a fire in response to the emotional highs and lows of the story.

And it is a very emotional story, for all Horst Brauer delivers it light and casual. Beneath the flippancy there is a bitterness like salted earth. Loathing of self, loathing of other; ignorance (initial ignorance of the nature of what they pursued, ignorance in the dreadful lack of knowing whether rescue would come, ignorance perfectly signified by the darkness of the crypt).

Desire. Desire echoing all through the tale, desire for the means to overcome mortality, desire for food and survival, desire for a brother's safety, desire-- terrible desire-- that the brother returns that feeling. (I call for him...)

All three of the manifest poisons of existence made tangible in this tale.

When Horst's tale finishes, the beast remains motionless some several seconds longer, save the slowly spinning eyes; those lambent orbs cast lights on the ground between him and Horst, like the reflections a stream casts on a cave wall.

Oolong clears his throat with a cavernous rumble.

"It is a splendid tale," he says after several more seconds. "I assure you it is placed in perfect confidence."

It is probably difficult to tell whether a dragon is speaking 'gently' or not-- warm air buffets the face regardless-- but in his tone if not his words Oolong attempts to convey the sympathy Horst's words have roused.

"How then did you escape this tomb of horrors, or do I presume?"

[trojanhorst]

Horst shakes his head, not letting Long tease the rest of the tale out of him that easily. Some things are a bit more incriminating, and a great deal more painful, than others. He's not ready to bare his heart to so nearly a stranger, even one he's beginning to think of as a friend.

Still, a bit of a teaser has its own appeal.

"Ah," he says, forcibly pulling himself back into a cheerier demeanor. "I'm afraid you do -- you presume I escaped. I never did. I spent some eight years and change in my little prison, with nothing but my own sparkling personality for company; I assure you, after that much time, even my charm wears thin." He pouts for effect.

"Someone eventually released me from my miserable, socially lacking state. But that, I fear, is a tale of its own, and I a mere bit player in it. I can't sell all my stories so cheaply." He winks.

"And now, Herr Long, I do wonder if I can beg a favor of you. If it's not too much trouble."

[imperial_long]

Oolong makes a noise deep in that impressive throat at Horst's cheerful (but firm) ending of the tale at that point. One must wait for sequels. Ah, so it is. He nods a philosophical acceptance of this, much as it grates on his curiosity, and skritches at his belly.

The request makes his eyes widen, giving him a brief and unfortunate resemblance to a vastly-oversized pug dog.

"I am certain that I am in your debt, Herr Brauer; whatever might I do for you?"

[trojanhorst]

Horst looks over his shoulder, toward the castle he so recently visited when fetching his (not-quite-)dragon-slaying sword, and then points that way. "The castle just that way -- I'm having a bit of a look around in search of a book one of the other captives mentioned. He says he left it in one of the towers. I was hoping you might be able to give my purloined sword and I a tiny boost up through one of the windows near the top."

And I heard a woman crying, he doesn't add, not wanting to sound easily gulled if it turns out to have been a trap. But he swears, he swears he heard a woman sobbing, and he remembers the posters for the LOST PRINCESS, and he's more than a bit concerned about what's at the top of that tower. So Horst is just going to have a bit of a peek. Just in case someone's in trouble.

[imperial_long]

"Oh, is that all?" Oolong says with a blink, feeling oddly disappointed that nothing more glamorous than serving as an impromptu elevator is required of him. Sherlock had him slay orcs.

"Of course, then."

He puts his hand down, palm up, fingers and thumb thick as a man's thigh splayed wide, claws the length and shape of a cow's ribs resting idle and quiescent. A horse could stand on that hand, but it might not want to. The black scales are warm, like flagstones that have been kissed by the sun for hours. He waits patiently for Horst to step onto the Oolong Express.

[trojanhorst]

Horst laughs, delighted, at is that all? "It wouldn't seem like such a small favor were you to ask me to do the same quid pro quo. Therefore, I must be grateful for your help."

Even though Long has been, to this point, quite comfortable rolling around on the ground, Horst still has his manners. Accordingly, he lifts each foot and takes some care to wipe the soles of his shoes as he steps up onto Long's very generously sized palm. Horst settles into a crouch, not trusting himself to be able to keep his balance standing, and not wanting to have to put Long to the trouble of hanging onto him.

"Much obliged," he says, waiting to be relocated. "Is there anything I can bring for you, on a future visit?"

[imperial_long]

Oolong's vast and toothy smile grows more so at Horst's demure foot-wiping. He waits until the vampire is situated, then up, up, up they go, smooth as can be towards yonder tower.

"I do not believe so," the dragon's voice rumbles thoughtfully. "My current concerns are primarily the acquisition of meat, but it is infinitely more satisfying to hunt deer or goats or cattle for one's self than to have meat brought unto one. Unless you happen to know the methods of Hunan-style preparation of pork, which, frankly, I doubt, meaning no offence. Still, it is quite thoughtful of you to ask."

The tower moves closer (or, technically, Oolong and his hand do).

"Charming architecture," the dragon confides in a basso profundo murmur. "The trellis-with-ivy betrays a touch of the romantic. Well, here we are, I suppose."

The hand comes to a stop next to the aforementioned trellis, climbing conveniently by the open window.