The Laotzchy

#1

((Bit of fun inspired by a dream and modified for Pax. There's a plot of course, but you don't have to take it too seriously this time

))

Furnace stood by the large lake that existed nearby The Encampment. The dragon flexed his powerful claws in the soft ground, nervous, the deadly weapons created grooves in the mud. The Dark Fire Dragon hated water so much, the stench of it made him pull a twisted face when it assaulted his sensitive nostrils. Furnace snorted, the smoke poured out of his nostrils and out of his narrow maw as he opened it. The mythological beast removed what looked to be a large glass bottle that contained thick mist and a shadow of something else, hidden away within it. The dragon uncharacteristically delicately held the implement between foreclaws and examined it closely. What was Swix playing at with this thing? He wasn't easy to impress at the best of times but she'd spent so long on this project and even he had to admit that what she'd managed to do was impressive. But now she wanted to throw it away? After all the fuss she'd made about going out alone without any reliable backup the reptilian resented being asked to throw away the culmination of all those trips he'd been dragged along on. It seemed rather small for all the stuff the humanoid had been collecting.

Still, he'd been asked to do this by a member of his group, so he'd do as he was asked. The mythical beast removed the cork from the bottle none too gently and hurled it into the very centre of the water. The bottle stayed on the surface briefly before it filled up with water and sank like a stone. The deed done, the reptilian turned his back on the despised liquid to leave-only to stop when freezing mist overtook his bulk, rushed outwards by an unseen wind. The creature turned his gaze back to the lake to see the source of the mist as the centre of the pool, there was a plume of vapour in the middle and the mist itself rose higher and gained in thickness, becoming an unnatural, thick fog.

There was a shadow in the centre of the lake as well-but by now Furnace had decided he'd had enough and launched himself into the air above the vapour with a displeased bellow that carried across the landscape. The mist would reach The Encampment in a matter of moments. No doubt the damned soft-skins would treat it as any other weather event and be none the wiser.

#2

((An RP? Oh dear! Whatever shall we do?!))

In the skies near the Encampment, Tetsu the Dragon stretched her wings. She had a lovely few hours hunting near "home", and even though she could tear off limbs forever, it felt refreshing to take to the skies.

Of course, she soon realized she had nothing to do. She hadn't bothered going into town much since she arrived, and really hadn't made many friends other than Lili. Time that wasn't spent hunting was... oddly available.

While the boredom started to seep in, the blue dragon was soon spared by an distracting cloud on the horizon. A few flaps got her closer- she mistook it for a forest fire at first, the mist was so dense. Yet there was no smell of anything burning...

She wasn't sure if this new world was prone to the same inclimance in weather that often plagued Blackstar, but no matter what, this was certainly something even remotely interesting.

So, the dragon dove into the center of the expanding cloud, flapping to keep herself aloft somewhere in the middle. Visibility was of course terrible... but maybe something would pop out to her.

Tav · #3

Trudging out of the tavern, Guardian made his way out of the Encampment, taking a deep breath as he went out on his walk. He hasn't been doing much lately, he realized - just spending all of his money for mead day in and day out, sleeping in the simple, unfurnished hole in the ground during nights.

He needed some kind of job; He had a lot of money, yes, but just staying in one place looking for his Charge wouldn't do much. He itched at the cracked line of scales around his lower torso, where an unholy tendril attacked him, during some sort of 'Collector Attack' a few months ago. There was something in the air that made him unwary.
He heard a sudden bellow from the lake, and made his way into view, as the patron dragon of the Encampment took to the air, with... something bubbling out of the lake.
Guardian rubbed at his brow as his scales darkened, sensing the sudden dimness of the sun. He looked up, eying a blue dragon flying into a great, expanding mass of clouds.

"I'm not very familiar with the weather, I must admit." He said to nobody in particular, his voice too quiet to be heard. "But that's certainly unusual."

He shrugged, and leaned forward, his powerful legs propelling the enormous, bulky Varnkieg forward as he approached the water, sniffing at it.

#4

((Yay, people are playing XD. Good to see you two in here

))

The mist rose higher into the sky, until it was a plume well over the treeline with the centre the highest and thickest part of it. Even so it kept spreading outwards-there was no telling where that would stop. Furnace passed the blue blur of baby dragon on his way upwards as she made her way downwards, diving for the very centre of the spreading cloud. The Dark Fire Dragons eyes narrowed and his nostrils flared at the sight of Tetsu-but unfortunately for him that meant he got a good dose of the disarming scent his fellow draconian was spreading around that made him slow his ascent and turn around lazily to see where she was going.

For Tetsu, just hovering around in the very centre of the thick fog meant that something did pop out at her-that something was what appeared to be a very high, thick, dark brown tree trunk minus the branches that came out of the vapour on a direct collision course with her.

Guardians sniffing the water near where the patron dragon was standing would reveal that this Lake was generally clean, apart from the natural rotted debris that you'd expect in a lake in the forest. The mist, although unnaturally freezing and clearly magical in nature was still nothing more than water vapour.

However there would come from the very centre of the lake and the fog the smell of damp wood, damp heavy material and... a large shadowy shape making it's way towards the shore where the Varrikieg stood, fast enough that it would be upon him in less than a minute.

Tav · #5

Guardian took two steps back, his eyes wide as he eyed the shadowy shape. He looked to the sparse, rather young trees near him, and reached down - with a massive grunt and straining of his entire body, he tore one of the smaller trees out of the ground. With a simple movement of a single hand, he scraped off all of the loose twigs and branches, and slung the entire thing onto his shoulder, like a massive club.
"... Greetings." He told the shadow, once it got close enough to hear him speak. He left the club on his shoulder, an implicit threat, ready to fight... just in case.

#6

Tetsu flapped, slowly spinning in an attempt to find something interesting in the cloud. Of course, it had to hit her right on her snout. With a startled yelp, the baby dragon clamped her jaws around whatever dare assult her.

Wood?

The dragon slowly released, backing up a bit. She hadn't expected wood. She really couldn't have drifted this deep into the forest, could she? It was possible, with the visibility being so poor. Yet...

With a curious sound, the Dragon began to lower herself to the bottom of the pole. Hopefully she could figure out her bearings better from the ground.

Maybe "accidentally"knock over the tree while she was there.

#7

Guardian would find that neither his greeting nor his implicit threat of a newly made club swung over his bulky shoulder made any impact upon the now gigantic shadow that bore down upon him even after his steps back. It didn't stop, slow down or give him an answer. Well, it did give him an answer, of sorts.

It creaked.

Then it revealed the front to be just as wooden as the bit that Tetsu bit, as the underneath of the front of an impossible ship sailed over the shore of the lake, suspended a mere few inches above the ground and showed no signs of slowing. It would hit Guardian if he didn't do something quickly.

Tetsu would find lowering herself down from above to be a bit more helpful, on the the way down she'd see masts with tattered, dirty, black sails that clustered together at the halfway point of her descent and then seemed to start thinning out before they disappeared when she hit the bottom. The tree trunk she'd bitten into was the part of the ship that came out of the top of the crows nest, which is why it was so high. The impossible ship creaked and rocked like any other ship, clearly on it's way somewhere. From the baby dragons viewpoint on the deck, the ship was empty. Only the creaking made any obvious noise.

From above, the lazily circling, unwary Dark Fire Dragon lowered himself babk into the mist to follow the baby dragon that had caught his eye.

Tav · #8

"... That is much larger than I thought." Guardian said, and dropped the small tree.
Then he darted. Not away from the ship, because then he'd have to outrun it, but out of the path, his powerful legs propelling him forward...
Until his months of not spending much time doing anything caught up to him, and he lost his feet, stumbling over an overturned log. He didn't bother to climb to his feet again, as it would take too much time, but brought his digging claws to bear, hoping to use the soft dirt where the rotted log had sat to dig a deep enough crevice for the floating ship to soar above him. Panting, breathing heavily, he heard another creak. It was close. Too close.
Guardian dropped into the crevice, exhaling everything he had, and heard another creak - overhead, this time, as the ship soared less than an inch above his broad shoulders, and he kept his head pinned down, waiting, hoping it would pass before he needed to take another breath, because if he did, he'd be just too wide and the ship would scrape off half his scales.

#9

The blue dragon stood wide eyed on the deck of a ship. She couldn't have possibly imagined this as being under the fog. How would a ship even get to the middle of a forest? Where was the crew? It certainly seemed abandoned, although she could only see a small portion of the top deck. If the sails were operating, it really wouldn't need anyone for propulsion she guessed, but still, wouldn't someone want to make sure they didn't hit anything?

The dragon shuffled around a bit, then brought her clawed foot down hard on the wood a couple times, shaking the lower areas. "Hello? Anyone home?"

Above her, she caught the shadow of a circling figure. Another dragon, that was actually a surprise. The mist was making the finer details hard to pick out, but the shape was definitely unmistakeable.

"Is this your boat?!"

#10

The boat did indeed soar above Guardians head, fortunately for him the boat slightly altered course, so the air above the Varrikieg was clear far before the ships bulk had passed him. On the side nearest him, like most boats there was an anchor, and unlike most boats what appeared to be a rope bridge hung off, the very edge trailed the ground.

On top of the deck of the ship where the blue dragon had stamped around, a humanoid male voice from below decks called out "OI! Watch it lady!" in answer to her question. It did appear that someone was here.

Above decks, the dragon that circled the boat in the freezing mist came closer to where the baby creature stood, until with a grunt Furnace landed on the edge of the floating vessel, with only the upper part of his body on the deck and his hind legs over the side the reptilians bulk made the ship tilt slightly. "This is no boat of mine" the Dark Fire Dragon rumbled in answer, then turned his head sideways to eye Tetsu and got another good dose of her fragrance "youngling. Why would you think it was mine?"

#11

So there was someone here.

Tetsu wandered for a moment, looking for any kind lower deck access. She took a mistep when Furnace decided to land exclusively on an area of a ship that would cause it to sway. She shot him a glare, and moved over to something that looked like you could shout through the decks.

"Well, you were the only one around... until now. Maybe a dragon decided to take to the high seas, I don't know. You're Furnace correct?" Her tone dropped a bit, releasing more of her dark perfume into the air. 'Of the evil council?"

She then turned her attention back to shouting.

"Come up here!"

#12

Furnace ignored Tetsu's glare and snorted which released a puff of black smoke into the air. "Why would a dragon want to take to the high seas in this moth eaten old thing, especially when we have wings?" the reptilian asked, stretching out his own wings for emphasis as he did so "Besides, I hate water"

The Dark Fire Dragon then decided to scramble up the side of the large ship and stand on the deck properly, however once that was accomplished he found that having his head in it's usual place meant that he could no longer see the deck, so he lowered it down in the manner that he'd normally use to get around underground tunnels. Tetsus stronger release of her strange perfume made him even less wary "You are correct" he answered, looking towards Tetsu "I am Furnace of The Evil Council, we've met briefly before. Tetsu-ko"

The blue dragons brief wandering would reveal a hatch to below deck, as well as a very square shape off towards the front of the ship that could only be a cabin of some sort.

"Why?" the voice asked from below decks again "What're you gonna do if I don't woman? Maybe I'm busy down here and don't appreciate all your banging around up there, huh?"

#13

"Maybe I'll bang around some more, and harder this time, if no one comes up to see if they might've steered their ship right into a Dragon recently." She said, deciding that bothering this man was her current goal. Curiosity had triumphed over boredom today. Yet, the ship itself seemed absolutely ancient. How could it have stayed sitting in the middle of the woods for so long without anyone finding it?

"... Or possibly, that they just might ram a few rather sturdy looking trees any minute now."

She did remember meeting Furnace before. It had been a bit... disastrous. He didn't seem too upset with her now though, which was good, but unfortunately, didn't leave her with much to say to him. She realized that he was likely just staying around because of her flower at this point anyway.

"Hear of... anything neat recently?"

Tav · #14

"... Interesting." Guardian said, his eye peering toward the rope bridge.
He was curious, and that's all he needed to be in order to leap in harm's way.

The varnkrieg stumbled to his feet, and charged, doing his best to catch up to the dangling rope half-bridge, as it bounced against the rocks and ground, and at the final moment, when his first burst of speed started to flag, he pounced. His claw took ahold of one of the wooden planks, and he hung onto it, dragging himself across the ground - until there was a cracking noise as the plank shattered in half. He lost his grip and started to slow to a stop, but luckily, his reflexes hadn't dwindled as much as he feared. His other hand shot out, grabbing the rope on the side, finally getting a secure grip. Using that handhold, he slowly, carefully pulled himself closer, his scales scraping across more dirt and stone until he was on the bridge entirely, getting to his feet.

Idly, he hoped that his bulk wouldn't break the bridge any more than it already had, and tried walking up the bridge to the ship proper.

#15

"... What?" came the male voice again, sounding genuinely puzzled "What do you mean, steered right into a dragon?". There was the sound of heavy steps coming up from below decks, and the hatch was flung open. What came up through it could only be described as an anthropomorphic snake. The man was reptilian, and a long tail dragged on the floor behind him. His neck was long and just as manouvrable, if not more so, than his tail. Strangely, the body underneath the worn and tattered old clothing he wore was quite thick set, his hands possessed no claws and his feet were covered by a pair of thick but worn boots. He also wore a battered hat, though what possessed him to do such a thing was anyones guess "... Oh" he said when he laid light yellow, slitted eyes on Furnace, then turned around to lay them on Tetsu "what's this about ramming trees then woman?" He asked, gruffly.

Furnace tilted his head slightly at the baby dragons strange question, it was true, if it wasn't for her flower then things would be messy right now. It was currently the only thing keeping his temper in check. "I've heard there may be more dragons around here than even we realise" he answered eventually "if you're interested in draconian news"

For Guardian, the old rope ladder would prove to be much tougher than he gave it credit for-even despite all it's protests-and he would make it to the top almost without incident. Only the very top step would give in to his bulk and crack in two as he reached safety. Once the deck was reached, he'd be able to see another large, more animated shadow in the fog. ((Furnace, obviously

, if you felt like approaching Tav))