Quote:
You find yourself in the barrens with a rumor planted firmly in your mind: there are underground caverns somewhere nearby, filled with pools of clean water. You don't remember where this rumor came from or if it's true, but a new discovery would be fantastic for Homewood.
What do you do?
The ground shifted as the tree phased away, this was as expected with these quests his parents had told him ages past. Glancing around he was in the barrens still, but there was something one his mind. The words of someone speaking of a hidden place, a place where no one, Others or Nouls have really stepped. It was buried deep within the barrens by hidden cave. There was no real proof of this place, but Oriole felt it through his bones that something else was out there. Closing his eyes for a moment, calling on the senses of the stones that laid in the pouch about his neck. The wind stirred the black feathers as he looked out towards the south.
"That way is it? Is that what you are telling me Vykeli?" Oriole said in a steady tone.
It was almost as if Vykeli had spoken herself, the wind picked up at his back as she started walking. Once he had, started, the wind dropped off as the silence flooded in, whispering at him. He bore it little mind as he walked, the endless expanses of wasteland reached out to all sides, the hazy horizons never growing closer not farther away. It was a steady constant, a driving force that pushed him to go farther. It almost seemed like days sped past as he ever walked. His flank shown with sweat as he didn't stop. an ever urge pulling him forward like a spider spinning its web.
"To where are you taking me? These rumors spin like flies never knowing where they go. Until they are caught up in a web of fate they can not escape." Oriole said as he stopped and lowered his head to the ground, the pouch slipped over his neck.
When it was within reach he opened it and nosed out two small stones. One was a piece of Obsidian and the other a piece of Lapis. He placed one on the ground before placing the flatter strip of Obsidian on top. Straightening back up he looked to the stones to see if the Obsidian would do anything. Finding not an answer in these, now had Vykeli spoken to him again. He would just have to continue on.
"Very well my friend, you wish that I find this on my own." He grinned slightly picking up the stones and tucking then back them back into his pouch with the rest.
"As those before me, you guided them for so long then left us to continue on our own. We your children, we the off spring of the Great Tree. My time of your teachings are over, it is time for me to continue on and strive on my own path."Raising his head up, eyes looking forward, he continued walking. He would find these lustrous caves that had buzzed about, but in his own time. For rushing a head left little to be gained and he had a lifetime to hunt for which is hidden. But to this end, he was going with Vykeli's blessing and hopefully that of the Great tree as well.
WC: 521
It was never the easy walk, the sands ever shifting over the creases in the Barren ground. The easy slap of the rawhide pouch against his chest beat in time with his steps. Oriole stopped at the base of the plateau and glanced up. Over the edges were the great branches of the great tree. The tree that had outlived the Others that decimated their home and left it a husk of its former self. There were legends of this tree and of where their kind had come from. The buck was here to see what the tree had in store for him. Be it another story to be shared liked the many before or much more. 
