Private - The Splinter

The Sown Splinter

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They had sung a siren's song above in heavy bowers, hundreds of crystalline fruits that each had the appearance of a gemstone. Amythest figs glittered with a rough stem that turned into beautiful deep purple crystal point. The inside, seen through the dark gem, held bubbles of juice trapped in the fig's formation. Creedite lychee, a soapberry cousin, glittered brilliantly as the countless tiny, crystal ridges caught the rays from above. Pale green, perfectly smooth amla berries hid with their apatite skins behind the larger fruits. Fat cherries made of pure garnets left red dapples on the forest floor below. The greatest of all, growing high up above, were the apples made of solid moonstone. Each gleamed like a full moon caught and forever caged beneath the canopy.

You had sought to climb high enough to pluck them from their crystallized nests and paid the price of a short fall to the earth below. And of a new field to sow. A sliver of the citrine tree trunk came with you. First to the base of the tree, then to the fortress prison, and all along your travels since. The tiny cut healed, but the damage had been done.

A few days after, your wrist would grow sore for a while on and off, but always fading away in time. Weeks later the bone-deep ache crawled further up your arm. Your shoulder was stiff for a day, but then the next morning? Nothing out of the ordinary. It is only now you realize what has happened. The faint mark of the cut had healed to a thin line, but had suddenly scabbed over! At your touch, you realize it is no congealed blood, but rather a crystal. A blood red crystal.

Tugging on the small spot won't pull it off no matter how hard you try, the sensation dull and painless. It feels rooted to something else. Like bone, perhaps? Is it even bone deep in there anymore? Pushing into the flesh of your hand and arm, only some of it gives before you hit hard resistance far too close to the skin to be metacarpals, an ulna, a radius, or a humerus.

Your bones have turned to ruby. The tendons, ligaments, and muscles following suit in a slow crawl as the disease advances ever onwards. Soon the red spot on your palm will grow too until all the skin is turned to mirror the splinter's home.

@Solaria has contracted Zalrisis.
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Zalrisis (Affliction) Zalrisis, a nonlethal disease originating from Crystallized Zalra, turns its host into solid gemstone. The host suffers aches and pains where the crystal spreads, but is in no danger of dying to it. Crystalized flesh and bone are sturdy and nearly impossible to cut or magically damage, but are weak against shattering force. If you listen closely at night, sometimes you can hear a faint hum in your bones.​