Great Bear Wilderness corruption

disease festered throughout the wilds like a hidden rash, creeping in on winter's coattails. here in the great bear wilderness, a different sort of plague wrought destruction. rabbits grew slow and heavy of breath, increasingly sequestered away in their warrens until they ceased to exit at all. mice turned feverish and abandoned hard-won meals. all around the wilderness, the tiny lives that still lit the winter-smothered forests and fields were blinking out like snuffed candles.

somewhere deep in the wilderness, the last surviving rabbit in a family dragged itself to the frigid air above its home, desperate for relief. it twitched feebly for a time, prone and oblivious to the corpses huddled together nearby. soon, it would join them in eternal sleep.

tularemia has started to spread among the rabbits, hares, and rodents of great bear wilderness. wolves can be infected, though it is uncommon.

”animals may have a fever, look tired, be depressed and refuse to eat. some will have a cough, stagger from weakness, vomit or develop diarrhea. rabbits and rodents behave strangely, huddle together and have a rough looking coat. sudden death can occur.”

written by the shadow

from a distance — concealed within dense herbage dusted with frost and dark, gnarled roots — lie a spindly creature.

morgana, daughter of night. a well suited title for the likes of her, as she’d say.

the pungent trail of death brought her to warren like a moth to a flame within darkness. and now she lay here. waiting. watching the weakened rabbit twitch. she knew it’d succumb soon, just as the rest that lay piled at it’s side.

it’s the stuff of nightmares, her nightmares, come to life. yet she watched on with contained joy.

and as the daughter of night watched one of many signs of the corruption spreading through the wilderness, she too was watched. the shadow crept on feather feet through frostbitten foliage, as silent in life as the rabbits were in death. overhead, the rustling of leaves and feathers trailed after like a lingering aura. the shadow stared ahead, unflinching, intent on watching the figure that so reminded her of her mother.

time ticked forward, but she did not move with it. frozen was she with eyes that never peeled from the hare. little things shifted around her. she remained unaware.

her gaze traveled with the creature. it moved towards the dead in such contorted ways, then buried itself within them.

it was a cue, it seemed, for morgana to return to the world. she stood with a soft, content sigh. a glint in her eye. a gentle smile.

she turned away and moved forward. still unaware of the little thing that lurked in her path.

different, yes, but alike too; where astara bore no markings but scars across the midnight sheen of her coat, the creature ahead was marked by silver snaking down her spine. but there was something similar in the nightfall cast of the fur, the shape of the legs, the posture. when the woman turned, the shadow drew herself to full height, eager and thrumming with dark energy.

from the foliage emerged a shadow.

morgana halted suddenly with a near silent gasp. she then looked over her unexpected company.

they were still young. small and spindly. angled sharply. covered head to toe with fur that could easily melt into the night.

she’d never seen this child in her waking moments, yet there was a familiarity she’d recognized almost instantly. they came during the end of countless nightmares to relieve her of their horrors.

morgana smiled at her as though they had reunited after a lifetime.

i’ve found you, she breathed.

a smile.

the shadow recoiled as if the greeting were instead a lunge and a snap, lips wrinkling and lifting to expose small sharp teeth. i've found you, the woman said, but the spirits had spoken nothing of her arrival. even now they were oddly silent. the shadow was reminded of the trespasser on ursus's mountain and, as she did then, steeled herself for conflict. the encounter felt too strange in its stark silence, unknown even to a creature well-versed in the unknown. the first reaction to such would always be violence.

their movement’s were snake-like. swift and contained. poised and ready to strike at a moment’s notice.

what an odd reaction. certainly not one morgana had expected. the script she’d written within her head had gone astray so quickly. it was a tad aggravating, truthfully. disappointing even. but she quelled the feeling with a soft hum.

are you afraid?

a gentle hum dropped into the silence like a stone through still water, and the air was set alight in a flurry of spirit-whispers. the shadow stilled, face falling back to neutrality even as the familiar stranger spoke. no, the void-priest uttered, face tilting to bare the full intensity of glinting mismatched gaze upon the other as if from under dark hooded robes. i am infinite.

the intensity of her features faded. then came her short answer; no.

good.

she was infinite, the shadow uttered. the proclamation made morgana’s gaze brighten ever so slightly. it set her soul alight.

i know. her contained joy spilled from her maw. she took a deep breath and then repeated more softly, i know. you’ve come to me in many dreams.

dreams. the notion struck the shadow as quaint, for they existed in a state of constant waking dreams. the shadow walked between the mortal land and the other land, one paw in each realm, never quite awake and never quite asleep; neither dead nor alive. that she should walk through the dreams of others seemed only natural, yet the shadow had never entertained such thoughts until this meeting. the inner lives of the ignorant mattered little, but... perhaps this one was not so ignorant, to have seen a prophet in her dreams.

ah, the shadow whispered, and turned away to lead her new acolyte back to the forest that served as a temporary shelter for the cult-spawn and her companion. you come.

me rn:

the shadow:

everything fell into place with one satisfying click.

the child uttered something to themselves. a sign of recognition, morgana concluded, after being beckoned.

she took her place at the shadow’s side. the smile had returned, and she looked down upon the dreamwalker with a content, half-lidded gaze.

morgana would follow wherever she led. mephala willed it.