Acemodonian Dissent

## Overview

Acemodonian Dissent is an effect which can fall upon the mind of one who has explored what's behind. This can lead to insanity and other less wholesome ailments. In addition to this uniqueness, each individual species or location can have its own devastating effects.

## Initial Effect

Oliver Realmwell catalogues his search through Dirty's Deep in his book, *The Ruminations of a Wandering Soul*, wherein he describes the effects of the unknown on the mind. What follows is an excerpt:

> "I have begun to feel different from my ordinary self. Where before the wind did howl at me, I would grow annoyed, but in this stifling house, the wind, when it comes, fills me with dread as I picture whatever massive creature bellowed to create it. I am afraid my mind is slipping away - I have had that sense of it since first I sunk into this bog. But now that I am dry I wish now to be drowning for I am very far from the nearest moisture or breath of fresh air."
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-- Oliver Realmwell, *The Ruminations of a Wandering Soul*
As a converse opinion, Jules Klein, of the Klein Institute of the Unknown, actually named the Dissent as a mental illness caused by her surroundings. In her book, *Insanity's Plea,* Jules Klein discusses the effects of Acemodonian Dissent during her time doing research in The Lexicon, the description follows:

> "I had been there three days, I had begun to set up a sort of camp in this monstrous library, in the lightest part, where the light trickling through the ceiling of amber may have been starlight. It was a beautiful place and I found the perfect spot for my hammock: between two supports holding up the ceiling. They were steel and quite immovable - I set my hammock here just on the edge of a balcony which overlooked six stories of flickering empty streets of books. But my mind has begun to wander. This started as a sort of fantasy, in a strange way. I'm not the sort to cheat on Matthew and certainly I'm too enthralled with him to think of anyone else. But suddenly while I was noting in my journal about one of the volumes, my thoughts wandered to an imaginary man. He's not real - but I had warm feelings for him. The thought of him has followed me all over this damned library. I've heard of a tulpa but this was by no actual will of my own. He just appeared and by now I've begun to hear him talk, to see him pull books from the shelves and hand them to me. I've got to get out of here."
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--Jules Klein, *Insanity's Plea*

## Recovery

Jules Klein, unlike Oliver Realmwell, was able to fully recover. Using a combinations of antipsychotic medicine, therapy, and living in a comfortable environment with and doing whom and what she loves, she was able to regain her mental strength and acuity with a year and a half. For her, this treatment came in the form of twice daily antipsychotics, living with her partner, Matthew Johnson, who would later become her husband. She researched harmless and logical subjects. She learned and mastered many domains of calculus, music theory and she wrote several published papers during the eighteen months of her recovery.

## Long Term Effects

Acemodonian Dissent has no definite end in its grasp over an individual. Oliver Realmwell would descend into madness following his fifty-first birthday and would eventually be found dead in his Boston home in mysterious circumstances.

Jules Klein has suffered no extreme long term symptoms, and thus has proven that the condition is not always fatal.