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Chapter 1: Roles Reversed.
[tface=fraktur]W[/tface]hile it seems many wish to diagnose the colloquially claimed "Withering" as a disease, I cannot stress the infinite and terrible flaw in such presumptions. Contemporaries such as Father Mororn would tell you it is an "Infection", with the means and ways to be "Diagnosed".
Merely because Mistlocke chooses to handle the afflicted the same they would a Plague-bearing outbreak however does not mean it is the correct path. Shunning the Withered as if it is contagious from one to another. Burning the withered as if to stop the spread. Quarantine, examination, and more. Such curious and banal responses. To abate and cure that which is incurable. But in this existence we are only able to do what we know. And what Ilmateri is "Living". Yet the Withering is not that. In fact it is safe to say without doubt that living has absolutely nothing to do -with- the withering.
Gaze upon the wolves, the ravens, the trees, the soils, the streams. As these wither it is not an act of "Living". It is not an act of transferring condition that one can avoid by isolation. It is not an infection in which one being can transfer to another via contact of flesh or fluids.
No. The Withering is something more. And where the entirety of Mistlocke fails to see is the only way to understand the Withering is to understand the Withered. To walk amongst them. To meet with them. To embrace all things as they extend beyond and adapt to these new conditions.
Is a Wolf's howl less poetic if it comes from withered chords?
Does a Birds's plumage still not display the beauty of colors if they are browns and greys?
The entire world as we know it has been shifted upon its head and rather than walking amongst this new world with fresh eyes many would prefer to cloister themselves away and speculate in fear of what awaits them.
For in this text I shall document first hand both my walkings and my witherings. Passages of both exotically beautiful locations and stunningly unique individuals encountered. For in this role reversal it is we the Necromantic who may walk and frollic, enjoy and revel, grow and thrive.
...And it is the living, these Vitamancers, who now bear the burden of our once held curse of hiding away from the world, searching endlessly for a means to stave off death and remain existent beyond what has become the norm.
Let this text be informative and enlightening to any be they recently blossoming talent in the field of necromancy or if they are archaic and desperate vitomancers seeking new life.