Budding Rose

Budding Rose is a random encounter in Tales of the Tiers

## Transcript

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 While making your way through the wilderness, you come upon several dense shrubs liberally dotted with crimson berries. The fruits are plump and ripe, with a thin skin that gives slightly under the pressure of your touch, hinting at the juice within.
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Identify the plant.
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You recognize the plant as Budding Rose, a bush that produces edible berries. These are a known aphrodisiac, commonly used in local festivals. Unfortunately, they're also mildly toxic to practitioners of magic.
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Try as you might, you do not recognize the plant.
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Harvest the berries
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You carefully pull several of the berries from the plant.
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Defer to Eb.
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"They're delicious," Eb chuckles and plucks a berry from the bush, though you notice she doesn't actually eat it. "They really get the juices flowing. Try one."
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Defer to Lantry.
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"This is Budding Rose." He grasps a handful of berries from the bush and stuffs them into his bag. "Consumed even in small quantities, these berries stoke the libidinous humors. Sadly, the berries almost always create dyspeptic calamities in the magically inclined."

He glances down at the pouch he just stuffed with berries. "But sometimes the terrible stomach pains are worth feeling like a teenager again."
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Continue on
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You leave the bushes be and continue on your way.
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Eat a berry.
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Eb smiles after you eat the fruit and then leaves you to your devices. Not long after a warm, tingling sensation spreads through your body. Your hair stands on end and your skin feels almost electric to the touch. Chills begin to creep from your spine, running along your limbs to the tips of your extremities. The edges of your vision blurs, and your bowels churn.
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Eb smiles after you eat the fruit and then leaves you to your devices. Not long after a warm, tingling sensation spreads through your body. Your hair stands on end and your skin feels almost electric to the touch. Amorous urges unfurl within your nethers, pulling at you like the strings of a marionette.
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Refuse her.
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"Suit yourself. Years from now, when you're squirming in your death bed, you'll wish you listened me."
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Offer berries to a companion. You look over your companions...
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Barik
				He eyes the offered berries suspiciously. Barik tells you that while he appreciates the gesture, he's had bad experiences in the past eating wild berries of the Tiers. His bronze and iron prison did nothing to decrease the unpleasantness.
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Eb
				The Tidecaster offers up a wary grin and shakes her head. "None for me, thanks. My husband used to love this stuff, and it gave him this splendidly turgid javelin for hours. But when I try them, I'm just one big chunder fountain."
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Kills-in-Shadow
				The Beastwoman sniffs your hands and then shakes her head. "No blood berries - no! Makes Beastwoman stomach churn like sea of puke. Beastmen eat blood berries, yep, yep, before they hunt, kill, rut. Quickens beating of heart. Raises spear. Not for Beastwoman."
 She chuffs quietly and returns to her tasks.
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Lantry
				"Oh no, last thing I need to do is ruin another pair of pantaloons." The old Sage furiously shakes his head.
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Sirin
				She wrinkles her nose at the fruit in your hand. "Where did you find those? They don't look very healthy." She frowns. "No, that's not right. They don't SOUND healthy. Can you not hear them, Fatebinder? They sound... disquieted."
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Verse
				"Budding Rose, Fatebinder?" Verse asks, eying the berries. "I didn't know you felt that way about me. And here I would have thought you were the type to come right out and ask." She shakes her head. "Either way, I'm afraid I'm going to have to decline. I'm not interested in complications right now, and those are little round, red complications."
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Leave with berries.
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You secret the berries away. When you next check on them, you find that they've gone slightly off color and mushy. The smell wafting from the fruit reminds you of a corpse. Deciding it might make a worthwhile poison, you bottle the juices. The reeking pulp (and the pouch you stored it in), on the other hand, you discard.
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Be sick.
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You spend the next several hours alone, muscles contracting in irregular spasms as your body does everything in its power to purge the berries from your innards. You see the sigils of the Archons - even ones you've never heard of before - in your mind's eye, but they shift and twist, as indistinct as a mirage.
Finally the sickness passes and you make your way back to the road to resume your journey, eager to put this episode behind you.
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Ask a companion's aid. You look over your companions, deciding who to proposition...
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Barik
				You ask Barik to help you relieve your... tension. He stammers an incoherent response before trundling off. You're not entirely sure he's not interested, but it doesn't look like it'll happen today...
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Eb
				As you approach, Eb raises an open palm to you. "Nope. You're going to have to ride this one out yourself. And before you ask, no, I'm not going to talk you off." She laughs to herself as she leaves you to your condition.
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Lantry
				The old man laughs pleasantly. "Got into the Budding Rose, I see?" He moves to make a note of this with his quill, then seems to think better of it. "I'll have to decline, dear Binder. I'm flattered but uh... I think I'm too old to keep up with you." He chuckles quietly to himself as he leaves you to your urges.
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Sirin
				When you ask her, Sirin blinks, blanches, and blushes in rapid succession. "What?" she asks, balking. "Ew, Fatebinder! I mean, I'm flattered, sure. But still. Ew! Can we just pretend we never had this conversation? Seriously? Ew!" She hastily retreats.
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Verse
				After you proposition her, Verse cocks her head to the side, an arm on her hip, akimbo. She stares at you for a long moment, then lets out a peal of gruff laughter. She turns and walks away, shaking her feathered head.
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Kills-in-Shadow
				"Prima desires Kills-In-Shadow?" the Shadowhunter asks, eying you hungrily, her clawed hand scratching her bare breast as she chuffs in amusement.
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Confirm your desire.
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You pass some time with Kills-In-Shadow, rutting behind a rocky hill. The experience is equal parts performance and endurance - a blur of rippling muscles, wet fur, and raked skin.
Though it takes quite a while to shake the scent of sweat and urine from your pores, the Beastwoman lopes along a little taller as you continue your journey.
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Reconsider and leave.
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Changing your mind about passing time with the Beastwoman, you make a hasty escape. Kills-In-Shadow scratches her head in confusion.
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Ignore the sensations.
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With some difficulty you put the feelings out of mind as you continue towards your destination.
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Take care of the issue yourself.
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You find some privacy beyond the next hill and spend some quality time alone before returning to your journey.
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## Cut content

This random encounter includes a sex scene with Eb which is currently unreachable in the game itself but has been left in the files. It could possibly be cut content.

```
Reaching first to her knees then behind her neck, in four motions, Eb's rope harness comes undone. Her garments collapse all at once, and a length of hempen rope runs between her hands. With a burst of speed, she presses into you, her hands threading the rope around your waist.
Once Eb has you tied and fastened to her liking, she stands over you with an impish smile.
You ride out the waves of euphoria with Eb on top of, around, and astride you - her moving about your body as you remained tied in place - 'for your own safety' as she says.
When the rush of the berries at last subsides, Eb unties you slowly, and playfully, before the two of you return to your journey.
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