Plagues

## Lux Caeco

**MEANING**: *light blindness*

**SYMPTOMS**: Vision impairment, Light sensitivity, Headaches.

**DESCRIPTION**: Patient Zero is the only subject recorded who suffers from light blindness, as a result of losing his vision during the First Cataclysm. Coming into contact with the Battle-Brave's energy during that period resulted in a mutation in the eyes, which only becomes active when coming into contact with the light. The more the light shines into it, the more the mutation spreads from the cornea into the brain. Elongated contact with the mutation and light will result in the death of the host. Patient is required to wear prescription sunglasses when coming into contact with both artificial and natural light.

## Allobion

**MEANING**: *another life*

**SYMPTOMS**: Fatal symptoms of allobion include: Memory loss, Violent outbursts, Auditory hallucinations, Blue skin, Peeling lips, Agony. Ultimately the disease leads to: Dementia, Death.

**DESCRIPTION**: The disease most notably varies from person to person. Some cases have described the painful experience of a teenage girl, whose insides had hardened to the point of crystallization, like a deadly metamorphosis. Other cases involve boiling from inside, freezing to death. Rarer cases involved the victim's organs corroding, bloating, expanding, or decaying from within. Essentially the allobion disease fought against the immune system. There is no known cure for allobion, only a vaccine that boosts the immune system to reduce the chances of contracting the disease (this was not developed until years after the Allobion Outbreak).

However, not all are subjected to death and disfigurement by the allobion disease. A very small number of people exposed to allobion have experienced mental changes, shifting how their mind perceives the world around them. For instance, a man may be able to hear only truth, or a woman may be able to hear voices of the dead similar to those of ESP, or an individual may become invulnerable. Whether or not if these immune to the allobion have expressed a pre-existing extra sense or not is unknown to them.

Allobion was created by a mixture of chemicals by a scientist named Leland Cleary, which will later be known as the Cleary cells, an immortal strain of cells. The Cleary cells combined with the compound Cleary had discovered, he unknowingly created the allobion disease that he had intended to create a panacea from. To others, allobion is a disease. To him, it was intended to be a cure for typhus among other maladies.

## Namatobia

**MEANING**: *water life*

Symptoms: Memory loss, Auditory hallucinations, Malleability.

**DESCRIPTION**: Another strain of allobion. Namatobia is a water parasite that mutated in some springs found under the city of Ashwater, and is only native to that location. The namatobia parasite can only be contracted when doused in the water, leaving the host vulnerable to memory loss and hallucinations. They also become easily prey to persuasion, allowing the host to become easily manipulated by a third party. Jonah from the Bark of Ash takes advantage of the namatobia by bathing his followers in an act called Ablution, here the parasites lay dormant inside the host. After providing the hosts with a medication called Sap during a ritual known as the Seasons, the host undergoes a physical change that transforms their bodies, allowing the parasites to rapidly mature and take control. The parasite and host become one, changing the host into what the Bark of Ash calls a Harvester. To others, they are just monsters.

## Mycetoderma (Webcap)

**MEANING**: *fungus skin*

**SYMPTOMS** (Stage I):  Dry skin, Pale complexion, Yellow eyes, Thick white coating over the tongue, Migraines (sensitivity to light), Dizzy spells, Muscle pain.

**DESCRIPTION**:  After the symptoms develop in Stage I, the victim's brain undergoes degeneration by Stage II: They experience echolalia, repeating words being said back to them but not able to appropriately comprehend them.

In Stage III a rusty brown tissue with cobweb patterns start pulsating out of the victim's mouth, popping out their eyes so that the webcap can emerge through the sockets, the nose, and ears. They are unable to control their bodily movements and functions and shut down, their corpse ultimately transformed into a disfigured host.

It is not recommended to get near the body without proper protection once the victim has reached Stage IV: Death. The webcap can enter the system only via blood contact. The organisms mature by feasting on the internal organs of the host, taking form of white worms wriggling inside the body.

Essentially the webcap feeds on organic tissue. It is a cell degenerating disease that renders the victim's body into a rapid state of decay, leaving behind corroded black bones and dead skin within a matter of days.