Iversh' call

The tree offers you warmth, food, and comfort, what else might you need? Few people have already fallen for it, and they fewer have been seen again. Whoever decides to use the tree, pays the price with their mind.

Causes & Symptoms

Contact with the Iversh tree's sap, is often enough to contract the illness —sometimes considered a curse. It is still unsure what causes the illness, whether it's through skin-contact, consumption, or something airborne caused when the sap of the tree reaches the air.

The first sign is the smell. Everyone considers the smells coming from the tree horrendous, yet people afflicted by this curse claim that it actually smells really good and even make them feel nostalgic and at home. There have been reports of different smells once the affliction has started.

Then, the cursed will fairly quickly lose their motivation and start feeling at home. They don't feel the need of leaving the Soufest system and really want to stay in the area. Depending on the self-control of the person, one can attempt to leave before the effect fully settles in, and those who've done so have claimed that they could see the location of the tree even through walls and knew exactly the path back to it until they left the cave system.

In some cases, some of the afflicted were managed to be dragged away from the area and that caused injuries on them, revealing that their blood is becoming bioluminescent. In the palest people and the ones who's veins are more clearly seen, the bioluminescence can be seen through the skin.

The stronger the consumption causes heavier versions of the effects, but it should be mentioned that people have kept their intelligence and even managed to convince others to partake in the consumption and even managed to escape back to the tree by faking that everything is fine until they had a moment to escape.

Brown rock formation during daytime by Bradley Dunn

Prognosis

Since not a lot of afflicted manage to come back home, there haven't been a lot of cases of the condition and the proper prognosis effects have been hard to identify, but the following effects are the most common between them.

The bioluminescent blood last for a couple years but with time, it slowly fades until no more can be seen —no people have been harmed if they didn't desire to have their blood investigated and the ones who did gave their consent on a blood extraction. It is believed that this happens as bodies renew the blood and the new blood doesn't seem to be affected by whatever affected old blood.

The urge to go with the tree seems to grow stronger for a few days but ends up disappearing within a week or two. And quicker aging and mobility issues have been seen in people with such condition but it is unsure whether that's because of the life style or the condition itself.

History

After the first encounter with the Iversh tree, not a lot of new cases have appeared, so most information about the condition is barely known and mostly hypothetical. Thankfully, for the difficulty to reach a tree, its a rare condition, but its hard to known the real amount of cases as not everyone manages to leave the tree's side.