Awakening

A fairly paranormal condition which can only effect people that eat a very rare item only found on Mauray.

These are often called 'eyes of Alferun' by most cultures of the planet. Alferun is the god of magic according to Maurayan mythology. This god resides in the Core of Mauray, awaiting any brave adventurers who reach him. The only known way to obtain eyes of Alferun are to make the very dangerous pilgrimage to the core, where they are given in unlimited quantities (but the adventure party or individual in question can only bring a limited amount back up, which is why its rare). However, awakening with this method is not as effective as actually visiting the core which grants the greatest attunement of all methods.

Shortly after eating one of these objects which resemble an eye (but are not eyes), a person's soul will begin to 'awaken'. Their attunement to magic increases slowly over time following a highly painful process lasting months or even years (the latter case is rare). After they fully awaken, they will gain an instinct for many magical glyphs vastly improving the range of spells they can cast, and the increased attunement granting them more mana.

The process of awakening has a number of stages, each successive one arguably more painful than the last:

- Dawn: During this stage, the effected person will feel some tingling senses across the whole body. This seems to be constant, and is highly annoying. Dawn lasts for roughly 50 - 100 days depending on the individual.

- Shock: During this stage, the person will likely see visions of ghosts and other paranormal entities near them, even when they are not actually around. They might also sometimes see sparks. The tingling suddenly stops when reaching the shock stage, but they instead get sharp pain randomly, across random locations of the body. The effected are not likely to sleep easily. Shock lasts roughly 2 - 5 months, also depending on individual.

- Violence: During this stage, a single body part will remain in constant pain for the entire stage. This stage is called violence because it usually feels like a sword inflicted injury. Weather it feels like a stabbing or slashing injury seems to be random and depending on the person, the violence stage will normally last 1-2 months. The effected normally get used to it after a while, so perhaps it is more painful initially than when it wears off.

- Midnight: During the final stage, which only lasts about 3-10 days, many of the person's senses are disabled. They will probably have to be fed by others. They will not be able to see or hear. Mild pain is felt all over the body constantly so they will likely not be able to feel anything either. Midnight can cause death if they are unable to drink water, or the 'false' pain disguises an actual injury well enough to be fatal. It is during this stage where the brain is imprinted with more knowledge of the runes.

There is no known cure for Awakening because it is directly caused by the Core, though theoretically one could cure it by destroying the Core. However, this would also destroy all magic on the planet forever and no one has the means to do this, including the HF.