"A golden acorn," Trissa's words reverberated in Cherry's mind as she sat in the still quiet of the Greenhouse. "To cleanse a desecrated grove, you will need a golden acorn from Obad-Hai's realm. If you were the one that did it, though, you will never be forgiven. . ."
The task seemed simple enough, but another journey to the Outlands so soon? Cherry mused over her options. Then she sighed. One final hurdle, then it would all be over.
Cherry's Quest For Faith
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*orcy11
- Posts: 22
- Joined: Thu Jan 01, 1970 12:00 am
Rexxer know's the golden acorn is the only thing that can cure cherry off her curse he sets off into the outlands to search for the realm of Obad-Hai to find a golden acorn and cure Cherry of her curse.
He is filled with determination to show cherry he can do it himself and help her like how she helped rexxer once.
He is filled with determination to show cherry he can do it himself and help her like how she helped rexxer once.
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*Mymothersmeatloaf
- Posts: 24
- Joined: Thu Jan 01, 1970 12:00 am
Lyra continues studying to find information regarding obad-hai and this "golden acorn"...to her dismay there's hardly any information on it at all.
"What in the bloody hell...is oerth lacking of any significant literature and knowledge regarding their gods? Perhaps it's time for a trip to the hall of records.."
She speaks to herself.
"What in the bloody hell...is oerth lacking of any significant literature and knowledge regarding their gods? Perhaps it's time for a trip to the hall of records.."
She speaks to herself.
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*Tsidkenu
- Posts: 156
- Joined: Thu Jan 01, 1970 12:00 am
After a discussion in private with the nymph Trissa and a mysterious trip to Brux in the company of Sharon, Danae and, most importantly, Argent, Cherry has returned to the Cage with rather intense emotion. At the same time she is a conglomeration of hopeful expectancy joyous exuberance mingled with a dour, serious note of meditative contemplation and intensity of purpose. She seems to be taking time talking to her friends, organising something very, -very- important.
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*Tsidkenu
- Posts: 156
- Joined: Thu Jan 01, 1970 12:00 am
In the middle of the Clerk's Ward a group assembled outside Melethkanara's docking bay. They seemed to be waiting for someone, and after a little while a small argument broke out between an ogre and a half elf amongst the group. It was into this scene that Cherry finally arrived, accompanied by Lance and Rainrix.
". . . it really hurts me Danae." The ogre's feelings were hurt again, it seemed.
"That's nice," Danae replied. It was hard to tell if those words were sincere or sarcastic.
"There is no pikin' manipulating going on here. People are asked to come here, not forced to. There is no bribery or anything taking place," Sharon's voice of reason emerged amidst the feuding.
"Really it does why do you think I am getting mad over this?" Rexxar continued.
"I'm here now. Stop squabbling please." Cherry's words were direct, polite and straight to the point.
"...Yay... Drama..." Rainrix commented, most likely sarcastically, this one.
"I'm not letting him in," Danae said to Cherry with all the sternness the half-elf's diminutive presence afforded her.
"Yea Cherry I really want to help you but Danae and argent are just souless..." Rexxar interupted.
"...Hells, what is all this?" Lance protested in his usual direct, no-nonsense manner.
"Soul-less..." Lyra said, eyes wide in disbelief that Rexxar would say that. "Far from it."
"... Rexxer wouldn't stop," Sharon tried to point out to Lance. "That's... what happened."
"Thank you, we really are," Danae snapped back at the ogre immediately.
Lance returned his usual expressionless stare.
"They did not want me to let me in anyway... I already knew," Rexxar continued. That was enough.
"Fine I'll just give my spiel right here in the damn street then," Cherry exclaimed loudly over the top of all of them, limping her way up the stairs to stand on the balcony that abutted Melethkanara's landing entrance.
[align=center]
[/align]
She rested her staff against the wall, and then pushed her hood back, taking her mask off, displaying her facial deformity unashamedly before them all. As she did so, the squabbling quickly died down as all eyes and ears of those present trained to fix on her. Slowly, one by one, she carefully rolled back her left sleeve and took off the left glove. That arm was relatively normal, a pale white dotted with the only freckled resistance her body was able to produce in response to any degree of sunlight she received.
Again, taking all due care, she rolled back her right sleeve and gently took that glove off. That right arm was horribly distorted, a sickly, fiendish grey dotted with lumps and bumps and protrusions. Her fingertips ended in curled, thick black claws which had had their needle-point tips cut off. She held up both arms in everyone's sight. The silence now was palpable, just the creak of shifting bodies and the rustle of idle clothing.
"Some of you know what this means," Cherry began in earnest. "Some of you do not. For twenty two years I have been fighting against myself. A curse spanning back generations. But it is more than just a curse." There was a deliberate pause.
"It is a presence that has tainted my life from the first moment I received it until now, now when it is so very obvious to anyone who lays their eyes on me."
"It's days are numbered. Eight. I am going back to my world. This will all end where it began. You are my best friends here. I will not compel any of you to join me in my quest. . . because I only know one way back to Oerth, and that's the way I came." Again, Cherry paused amidst a bout of quirked eyebrows and intense glances of intrigue from those who were listening.
"In eight days I will be gathering my things and assembling at the gateway to the Abyss," she continued, but that immediately resulted in a slew of interjections.
"If you need help, well eh, see what I can do," Rainrix was the first to comment, accompanying his words with a usual shrug.
"..The Abyss?" Lance grumbled.
"I will be there!" Rexxar so proudly exclaimed, "and we will cure you!"
"So...cherry..." Lyra also interjected, burning questions dancing off the end of her tongue, "Does this mean the information I collected..or well the lack there of..on obad-hai as well as the acorn has grown...obsolete?"
Cherry nodded. "No questions, I'm not finished."
"Oh sorry," Lyra quietened again amidst Lance's subtle, methodical tappings of annoyance upon the stair's railing.
"Yes, it has. I need no acorn. Everything I've needed has always been within my grasp. I just never realised it until this very last cycle gone. If you want to help me, really and truly, you will assemble there on that day. If not, I will never hold your choice against you."
"I cannot say what awaits us on my 'home' soil. I cannot promise I, or any of you, will even come back alive. You will come knowing that all the risks were explained to you beforehand," Cherry said in sombreness.
"There is one more thing," she added with another deliberate pause. "Some of you may really be wondering. Is it really that serious?" After she had said that, she looked around at each of them. There was nothing but severity in that gaze. She then closed her eyes, and in those awkward moments of silence, concentrated intensely. Every eye was fixed on her, and she knew it. Altair finally arrived to be with the group, arguably at the most powerful and rhetorical moment.
Her good arm began to change colour; her fingernails lengthened in to razor sharp, blackened claws. Spines sprouted from her head, two horrible gray wings erupted from her back. Her teeth became like rows of daggers. Her eyes did not change colour this time, unlike her previous transformations. One was still her crystal blue, the other its current tainted yellow. There were shifts and murmurs amongst the crowd as some of those present began to ready magic. Some hands drifted to sword hilts. Her transformation was complete. Her cursed form revealed. Except, this time she had complete control. The tension in the air was as palpable as the silence, broken only by Cherry's now form-distorted voice.
[align=center]
[/align]
"Yes. It is. It is that bad."
"Yow. That looks like it bloody well 'urts," Altair suddenly blurted out. That elicited one nearby snicker, but several other glares and hand waves for him to stop and shut up. The exhausted werewolf did so, busying himself by fumbling at his belt with one of his hands. His posture changed when he sensed tension in the air, his eyes darting around in expectation of uncertainty. Cherry's eyes closed. Her left hand clenched and released.
"She has no power over me any more. . ." she exclaimed to try and reassure them all. The evidence of that fact was before them plainly now. A nearby breath exhaled in apparent relief.
"Eight days, then," Sharon's soft voice spoke up in a token of support.
As gradually as she had transformed, everything slowly returned to as it was for the red-headed Sensate, returning to her half-deformed state. Cherry's undeniably marred visage returned, and she was taking deep breaths in and out.
"So now you all know. Do not say I never told you."
Altair lifted a finger. "C'n I say it t' be a berk? Seein' as I wos late?" He grinned wearily, attempting to lighten the mood and make it clear he was joking.
Lyra's little hand slowly lifted above her head. "...may...I ask a question?"
Cherry stopped speaking and nodded at Lyra.
"What exactly is on your home prime that's going to get us killed? Or potentially get us killed?"
"We will emerge from the gateway through the Abyss into a cult's lair. We will be fortunate if no-one is at home.From there we shall travel to the town of Kelten. They will not receive some of you."
"...uhh..are we going outside at all by chance?" Lyra added again. The vampress looked a touch nervous, perhaps.
"Of course."
"...looks like I'm going to need to prepare a full body suit," the halfling muttered to herself before Cherry continued.
"Once I have secured a guide, we shall be travelling north, at the start of midwinter, until we find Shadow Valley. Only the gods know what awaits for us in that haunted place. We must pass through it until we reach the Glade of Whispering Oaks. That is where this will end." Cherry held up her arms again to remind them.
There were a few mumbles in the crowd as they started talking amongst themselves.
"...I'll be back in a tick." Lance looked at Rain a moment longer and silently walked off.
"Any more questions?" Cherry asked them all as she slowly began to tug up her sleeves and pick up her gloves from the wall where she had placed them.
"What can we expect at this glade?" Lyra inquired again. At least someone was still paying attention.
"Defilement. Corruption. Gods only know. . ."
" ...So..demons? devils?"
Cherry only answered with a shrug. She genuinely didn't know.
"Hmph. Looks like I'm going to need to do some research on this glade."
"I would expect some manner of fiends or shadow beasts, if the vision was right," Sharon suggested. It would seem she knew more than she was letting on the whole time.
"Perhaps a few banishment scrolls too... just in case," Lyra added.
"I will fight whatever it is to reach the goal," Rexxar exclaimed. As bold as ever from the young ogre, and to be expected.
"How far do we travel through the Abyss?" Sharon asked in an attempt to clarify the point Cherry had made earlier.
"Banishment scrolls it is," Lyra immediately quipped at that point before Cherry could answer.
"Broken Reach. I can gate from there, Sharon."
"Fair enough. I... may know a quicker way there, without going from the portal in the Hamronium barracks."
"Whatever will increase our chances."
" ... Problem is going through the Temple of the Abyss," Sharon concluded with a final wince.
"Huh, you ain't goin' that --- yup," Altair queried and then concluded as it became self-evident of Sharon's intention.
"Temple I guess... Yeah," Rainrix also concluded.
"Just offering. That place is terrible to me," Sharon said, looking quite uncomfortable with her own suggestion.
"I will leave that up to you, my friends. You already know I have no qualms doing whatever it takes to end this," Cherry said, her tone couched with determination and self-will.
"If none of you have any other questions, that is all I have to say." Those final words were met with an immediate smile and nod from Sharon.
"You know I'm coming along," she said to Cherry.
There was a sigh nearby. "I really wanna go, but... I 'ave t' mind th' pups. Tell y' wot, it bleeds, not knowin' yer favvah. Anyfin' else I c'n do vough, you say it," Altair said. "Jinx. Guff. Info. We'll make it 'appen."
"Al, no one expects you to," Danae reassured him.
"It's all right, Altair. You raise those pups well," Sharon concurred.
"I will die to see this happen," Rexxar announced. Time would tell the sincerity behind his words, though.
"I'll attempt to come as well...It's always interested me to travel to other primes..it'll be quite exciting," Lyra also concurred.
"Oerth does have a sun, Lyra," Cherry remarked to her, a caution about the major peril she would be facing if she truly wished to do so.
"I'm aware..."
"I'm uh... Very busy. But... I'll work something out... Potentially... I mean... I really want to help," Rainrix said. There would be no golems on this trip, though. "Uh... Well you know anyway..."
"As I said. . . eight days. Assembly at the gateway to the Abyss. I will not hold it against you if you are not there."
Cherry zoned out at this point, whatever else the others started discussing amongst themselves. Sensing there were no further questions to be asked, Cherry re-affixed her mask and pulled her hood back up, rolled her sleeves back down and put her gloves back on. She took her staff and made her way down to Lance when he returned with a neat wooden box that was a little more than a foot long. She received it from him with a solemn nod, whispered a few words of appreciation, and then departed from the group without a word.
". . . it really hurts me Danae." The ogre's feelings were hurt again, it seemed.
"That's nice," Danae replied. It was hard to tell if those words were sincere or sarcastic.
"There is no pikin' manipulating going on here. People are asked to come here, not forced to. There is no bribery or anything taking place," Sharon's voice of reason emerged amidst the feuding.
"Really it does why do you think I am getting mad over this?" Rexxar continued.
"I'm here now. Stop squabbling please." Cherry's words were direct, polite and straight to the point.
"...Yay... Drama..." Rainrix commented, most likely sarcastically, this one.
"I'm not letting him in," Danae said to Cherry with all the sternness the half-elf's diminutive presence afforded her.
"Yea Cherry I really want to help you but Danae and argent are just souless..." Rexxar interupted.
"...Hells, what is all this?" Lance protested in his usual direct, no-nonsense manner.
"Soul-less..." Lyra said, eyes wide in disbelief that Rexxar would say that. "Far from it."
"... Rexxer wouldn't stop," Sharon tried to point out to Lance. "That's... what happened."
"Thank you, we really are," Danae snapped back at the ogre immediately.
Lance returned his usual expressionless stare.
"They did not want me to let me in anyway... I already knew," Rexxar continued. That was enough.
"Fine I'll just give my spiel right here in the damn street then," Cherry exclaimed loudly over the top of all of them, limping her way up the stairs to stand on the balcony that abutted Melethkanara's landing entrance.
[align=center]
[/align]She rested her staff against the wall, and then pushed her hood back, taking her mask off, displaying her facial deformity unashamedly before them all. As she did so, the squabbling quickly died down as all eyes and ears of those present trained to fix on her. Slowly, one by one, she carefully rolled back her left sleeve and took off the left glove. That arm was relatively normal, a pale white dotted with the only freckled resistance her body was able to produce in response to any degree of sunlight she received.
Again, taking all due care, she rolled back her right sleeve and gently took that glove off. That right arm was horribly distorted, a sickly, fiendish grey dotted with lumps and bumps and protrusions. Her fingertips ended in curled, thick black claws which had had their needle-point tips cut off. She held up both arms in everyone's sight. The silence now was palpable, just the creak of shifting bodies and the rustle of idle clothing.
"Some of you know what this means," Cherry began in earnest. "Some of you do not. For twenty two years I have been fighting against myself. A curse spanning back generations. But it is more than just a curse." There was a deliberate pause.
"It is a presence that has tainted my life from the first moment I received it until now, now when it is so very obvious to anyone who lays their eyes on me."
"It's days are numbered. Eight. I am going back to my world. This will all end where it began. You are my best friends here. I will not compel any of you to join me in my quest. . . because I only know one way back to Oerth, and that's the way I came." Again, Cherry paused amidst a bout of quirked eyebrows and intense glances of intrigue from those who were listening.
"In eight days I will be gathering my things and assembling at the gateway to the Abyss," she continued, but that immediately resulted in a slew of interjections.
"If you need help, well eh, see what I can do," Rainrix was the first to comment, accompanying his words with a usual shrug.
"..The Abyss?" Lance grumbled.
"I will be there!" Rexxar so proudly exclaimed, "and we will cure you!"
"So...cherry..." Lyra also interjected, burning questions dancing off the end of her tongue, "Does this mean the information I collected..or well the lack there of..on obad-hai as well as the acorn has grown...obsolete?"
Cherry nodded. "No questions, I'm not finished."
"Oh sorry," Lyra quietened again amidst Lance's subtle, methodical tappings of annoyance upon the stair's railing.
"Yes, it has. I need no acorn. Everything I've needed has always been within my grasp. I just never realised it until this very last cycle gone. If you want to help me, really and truly, you will assemble there on that day. If not, I will never hold your choice against you."
"I cannot say what awaits us on my 'home' soil. I cannot promise I, or any of you, will even come back alive. You will come knowing that all the risks were explained to you beforehand," Cherry said in sombreness.
"There is one more thing," she added with another deliberate pause. "Some of you may really be wondering. Is it really that serious?" After she had said that, she looked around at each of them. There was nothing but severity in that gaze. She then closed her eyes, and in those awkward moments of silence, concentrated intensely. Every eye was fixed on her, and she knew it. Altair finally arrived to be with the group, arguably at the most powerful and rhetorical moment.
Her good arm began to change colour; her fingernails lengthened in to razor sharp, blackened claws. Spines sprouted from her head, two horrible gray wings erupted from her back. Her teeth became like rows of daggers. Her eyes did not change colour this time, unlike her previous transformations. One was still her crystal blue, the other its current tainted yellow. There were shifts and murmurs amongst the crowd as some of those present began to ready magic. Some hands drifted to sword hilts. Her transformation was complete. Her cursed form revealed. Except, this time she had complete control. The tension in the air was as palpable as the silence, broken only by Cherry's now form-distorted voice.
[align=center]
[/align]"Yes. It is. It is that bad."
"Yow. That looks like it bloody well 'urts," Altair suddenly blurted out. That elicited one nearby snicker, but several other glares and hand waves for him to stop and shut up. The exhausted werewolf did so, busying himself by fumbling at his belt with one of his hands. His posture changed when he sensed tension in the air, his eyes darting around in expectation of uncertainty. Cherry's eyes closed. Her left hand clenched and released.
"She has no power over me any more. . ." she exclaimed to try and reassure them all. The evidence of that fact was before them plainly now. A nearby breath exhaled in apparent relief.
"Eight days, then," Sharon's soft voice spoke up in a token of support.
As gradually as she had transformed, everything slowly returned to as it was for the red-headed Sensate, returning to her half-deformed state. Cherry's undeniably marred visage returned, and she was taking deep breaths in and out.
"So now you all know. Do not say I never told you."
Altair lifted a finger. "C'n I say it t' be a berk? Seein' as I wos late?" He grinned wearily, attempting to lighten the mood and make it clear he was joking.
Lyra's little hand slowly lifted above her head. "...may...I ask a question?"
Cherry stopped speaking and nodded at Lyra.
"What exactly is on your home prime that's going to get us killed? Or potentially get us killed?"
"We will emerge from the gateway through the Abyss into a cult's lair. We will be fortunate if no-one is at home.From there we shall travel to the town of Kelten. They will not receive some of you."
"...uhh..are we going outside at all by chance?" Lyra added again. The vampress looked a touch nervous, perhaps.
"Of course."
"...looks like I'm going to need to prepare a full body suit," the halfling muttered to herself before Cherry continued.
"Once I have secured a guide, we shall be travelling north, at the start of midwinter, until we find Shadow Valley. Only the gods know what awaits for us in that haunted place. We must pass through it until we reach the Glade of Whispering Oaks. That is where this will end." Cherry held up her arms again to remind them.
There were a few mumbles in the crowd as they started talking amongst themselves.
"...I'll be back in a tick." Lance looked at Rain a moment longer and silently walked off.
"Any more questions?" Cherry asked them all as she slowly began to tug up her sleeves and pick up her gloves from the wall where she had placed them.
"What can we expect at this glade?" Lyra inquired again. At least someone was still paying attention.
"Defilement. Corruption. Gods only know. . ."
" ...So..demons? devils?"
Cherry only answered with a shrug. She genuinely didn't know.
"Hmph. Looks like I'm going to need to do some research on this glade."
"I would expect some manner of fiends or shadow beasts, if the vision was right," Sharon suggested. It would seem she knew more than she was letting on the whole time.
"Perhaps a few banishment scrolls too... just in case," Lyra added.
"I will fight whatever it is to reach the goal," Rexxar exclaimed. As bold as ever from the young ogre, and to be expected.
"How far do we travel through the Abyss?" Sharon asked in an attempt to clarify the point Cherry had made earlier.
"Banishment scrolls it is," Lyra immediately quipped at that point before Cherry could answer.
"Broken Reach. I can gate from there, Sharon."
"Fair enough. I... may know a quicker way there, without going from the portal in the Hamronium barracks."
"Whatever will increase our chances."
" ... Problem is going through the Temple of the Abyss," Sharon concluded with a final wince.
"Huh, you ain't goin' that --- yup," Altair queried and then concluded as it became self-evident of Sharon's intention.
"Temple I guess... Yeah," Rainrix also concluded.
"Just offering. That place is terrible to me," Sharon said, looking quite uncomfortable with her own suggestion.
"I will leave that up to you, my friends. You already know I have no qualms doing whatever it takes to end this," Cherry said, her tone couched with determination and self-will.
"If none of you have any other questions, that is all I have to say." Those final words were met with an immediate smile and nod from Sharon.
"You know I'm coming along," she said to Cherry.
There was a sigh nearby. "I really wanna go, but... I 'ave t' mind th' pups. Tell y' wot, it bleeds, not knowin' yer favvah. Anyfin' else I c'n do vough, you say it," Altair said. "Jinx. Guff. Info. We'll make it 'appen."
"Al, no one expects you to," Danae reassured him.
"It's all right, Altair. You raise those pups well," Sharon concurred.
"I will die to see this happen," Rexxar announced. Time would tell the sincerity behind his words, though.
"I'll attempt to come as well...It's always interested me to travel to other primes..it'll be quite exciting," Lyra also concurred.
"Oerth does have a sun, Lyra," Cherry remarked to her, a caution about the major peril she would be facing if she truly wished to do so.
"I'm aware..."
"I'm uh... Very busy. But... I'll work something out... Potentially... I mean... I really want to help," Rainrix said. There would be no golems on this trip, though. "Uh... Well you know anyway..."
"As I said. . . eight days. Assembly at the gateway to the Abyss. I will not hold it against you if you are not there."
Cherry zoned out at this point, whatever else the others started discussing amongst themselves. Sensing there were no further questions to be asked, Cherry re-affixed her mask and pulled her hood back up, rolled her sleeves back down and put her gloves back on. She took her staff and made her way down to Lance when he returned with a neat wooden box that was a little more than a foot long. She received it from him with a solemn nod, whispered a few words of appreciation, and then departed from the group without a word.
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*Tsidkenu
- Posts: 156
- Joined: Thu Jan 01, 1970 12:00 am
Cherry now had a new, permanent addition to her attire.
A stunning, show-quality silver rondel with a beautifully carved cherry wood handle and bronze pommel, which itself was stamped with the artificer's mark: two spread wings with a sword, blade downwards, in between them.
A stunning, show-quality silver rondel with a beautifully carved cherry wood handle and bronze pommel, which itself was stamped with the artificer's mark: two spread wings with a sword, blade downwards, in between them.
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*edmaster44
- Posts: 797
- Joined: Thu Jan 01, 1970 12:00 am
Helena opened a Lock box she kept underneath her bed, in the box contained equipment of her old profession and memories of her past life, A pair of bracers with a mechanical switch that would withdraw a pair of blades and a rather stylish light plated armour with a small cape. "Okay...i'm ready" She took out a small ornate ring and put it on, hiding her fiendish features in an instant. "Yes! still works.."
//And i rolled the dead family member excuse for work! I'll see you there!
//And i rolled the dead family member excuse for work! I'll see you there!
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*Tsidkenu
- Posts: 156
- Joined: Thu Jan 01, 1970 12:00 am
Friends were gathering. The time was closing. Final preparations were concluding.
The end had arrived.
The end had arrived.