(The following content is not publicly posted in character, you do not have access to it in character) Journal Entry: Preliminary Study of Vvurden Rot       Abstract Vvurden Rot is not a well-known or documented disease outside of the Vvurdeni people; as such, I am recording my preliminary findings for broader study. Two individuals have emerged from a Vvurdeni hold bearing this rare affliction, one of whom falls under my direct care. This entry focuses specifically on the arcane aspects of the disease and the irregularities observed in the patient’s mana. These early observations are intended to support future research, the development of a cure, and potential containment methods.     Background The primary patient, Condor, currently displays only mild symptoms and is resting as much as possible to slow progression while we work toward a cure. Due to the disease’s origin within a Vvurdeni hold, I suspect an arcane influence rather than a solely physical pathology. To investigate this, I have extracted samples of Condor’s mana through wytchweed and distilled them into multiple experimental forms. The two primary preparations consist of raw wytchweed and isolated Aether Fluid reserves, the latter chosen for its stability and replicability across a wider range of conditions. These samples will be subjected to varied stimuli and controlled environments to assess their reactions, behavior, and potential indicators of the underlying mechanism of the disease.     Materials and Methods The materials are what any respectable mage should have lying around. For the broader experimentation, I made use of Aether Fluid samples, a Cleansing Rod, and wytchweed. The finer instructions and exact tools used can be found in the related logs. The experiments focused on a few key concepts common to this field of study. I made use of isolation, alignment, replication, and stabilization. Isolation Procedures The first tests focused on simple isolation. I attempted to separate the infected mana from the samples. Notable methods included standard mana weaving, aligned cleansing, and wytchweed threading. Alignment Studies The second round of tests included alignment. Without a sample from the stone god, I was unable to test the most likely aligned mana source, however I did make use of various other alignments as well as cleansed mana. The list of samples used: The Blood Tree (Wild), June (Ephalen), Pebble (Pallite), Revan (Winterling). Replication Tests Replication tests revolved around the use of Aether Fluid to manipulate samples. Primary goals were to observe impacts of sample size over time and test consistency. Stabilization Attempts The final round of tests focused on stabilization. When all else fails, one should simply try to stabilize the mana in place. At best, this sort of approach prevents escalation of diseases in the mana sickness family, which I suspect Vvurden Rot may be. The primary method used for stabilization was to block the inflow of mana.     Results Isolation Attempts Mana Weaving – The Vvurden Rot did not submit to mana weaving. Aligned Cleansing – The Vvurden Rot did not noticeably react to aligned cleansing. Wytchweed Threading – The wytchweed was unable to isolate the Vvurden Rot. Alignment Trials Alignment Flooding – None of the tested samples reacted uniquely. Replication Observations (24-hour sampling) Enlarged Sampling – Increased rate of progression. Reduced Sampling – Reduced rate of progression. Replicated Sampling – Each replication appeared identical. Stabilization Efforts Mana Restriction – Reduced rate of progression. Force Stasis – Increased rate of progression. Cleansed Infusion – No discernable impact.     Discussion Considering the development of the arcane portions of the disease in isolation of a body, I will be formally classifying Vvurden Rot among mana sicknesses. The disease progresses with only mana to feed on. As each experiment was conducted with and without a host body, I have also noted that the results are near identical, so a unified approach will be needed to treat symptoms. Unfortunately, the similarities mean that isolating mana or body as the route for the cure is impossible from these results. No standard forms of mana isolation yielded helpful results, ruling out isolation as an easy resolution. As I learn more about the disease, specialized tools may be able to be developed to perform isolation procedures, but for the time being I will look to other methods. Alignment with the mana sources I had available proved useless. My leading theory in the alignment field involves using a mana source from the god of stone. I do not currently possess such a sample, so I am unable to test if such alignment is possible. With the samples I was able to test, I could not observe any distinction between the reaction of each alignment. Sampling will continue to be monitored closely in the coming days. I do not like leaving the sampling duration so short, but time is not a resource given freely in this process. The samples reacted much as expected, a larger sample resulted in more concentrated disease, which allowed for a more rapid development. Likewise, the smaller sample progressed slower. Unfortunately, without the use of mana weaving or wytchweed threading, this information is currently limited in value. Mana Restriction was the only stabilization method that proved to provide positive results. The impact was limited, but it provides a starting point to help the patient resist the effects for longer.     Conclusion Vvurden Rot is very resistant to the common treatments of mana sicknesses. Without the ability to isolate the disease, few things are proving useful for the cure effort. The leading solution remains replacement of body. Restricting mana flow appears to be the most effective treatment for the moment.     Next Steps I intend to begin focus on ways to prevent mana from collecting around the patient. I suspect that creating a mana void will slow the progression of the disease. If created effectively, perhaps it could even stop the progression. In the event that progression stops, it should be considered whether the disease will die out with a prolonged lack of mana. Some mana sicknesses die out in such way, but this one involves the body and may not be so cooperative. Substitutes for infected portions of the body may be possible. In Condor’s case, I suspect my usual alternate organs will not take as his body runs warmer than those in my forest. I may reach out to others for expertise in a more fitting replacement. If all else fails and it is this solution or death, I will insist upon a new body for his soul. The transfer procedure is standard, but this patient likes his body and fusses about getting a new one.  

My child upon the Ember Path, I am pleased to hear that you are burning brightly both by your testimony and the infernal whispers that make their way to me.  Your questions have reached a glad heart. I hope that my answers will add fuel to your flame and embolden your passion for Netharna. You ask what becomes of a flame when it runs out of fuel and withers away.  This question is asked often and comes with an answer for the Inferno.  We are plainly taught that all that burns must fade.  Yet I tell you - to fade is not to vanish.  All true flame leaves a lasting mark. Look upon the ash.  How did it get there?  When the nether realm was forged by divinity, was ash created with it beneath your feet?  I tell you that it was not.  Ash is a testimony of what came before, so it must come after something.  You have been invited to be that something.  Fire does not pretend that the fuel was never there.  Rather, it gives witness.  The ash is a memory passed into the world, a testimony that there was once fire here.  The ashen roads of hell are paved with the labor of Netharna’s chosen. Just as the ash comes from the physical heat of fire, when you have burned your flame, you will not be cast into nothingness.  You will become ash, and ash sacred to Netharna and her people.  To burn is to leave a mark, however grand or intimate it may be.  That mark will be a record of your striving, the trace of your passion, the evidence that your soul burned a true flame.  Just as you walk an ashen road, those who walk in your wake will see your ash, and in seeing it, remember. Do not think that remembrance is weakness.  Many a warrior has lifted their weapon again not of their own flame, but of the memory of one who has gone before.  Ash is the testimony that sparks the next fire.  To wither away is to become ash.  To become ash is to be honored.   This is why we do not flee from loss.  To lose is to gain testimony.  To grieve is to embrace the warmth of another’s fire.  Our own Infernal mother does not demand that your flame last forever.  For any to burn eternally would be to spit in the face of both those who came before and those who are to come.  We are asked only to burn, and in burning, leave behind a truth no silence can deny.  The truth of Netharna’s passion. Therefore, child of Embers, do not fear what will become of you when your fuel has run out and your flame cannot burn on.  Fear only a fire that produces no ash - a spark smothered before it can take hold, a life so devoid of passion that it cannot raise it’s hand to write on the page “I burned.” That is the only life to fear. Walk steadily, then.  Burn as I hear you have already.  When your time comes, willingly give your ashes to join the sacred testimony of our people.  Rest in Netharna’s holy fire until the end of days. In Holy Flame, Eshryn Brightash, Watcher of the Ember Path    

My child upon the Ember Path, You have dwelt long in the Nether, and so fire is no stranger to you. It has licked at your boots, seared the air you breathe, and threatened to consume all you hold. Yet until now you have known it only as a hazard.  Flame is not a thing to be endured, fought, or avoided. Now you begin to see it as we who serve this realm see it: not as a foe, but as a teacher. Understand this, young flame: Fire is the most honest of all things.  It takes what it is given and makes no disguise of its hunger. Wood, stone, or flesh - all are reduced to their truth in the refining fires of the Nether.  Many find this fearful, for they look only at what is lost. But we who walk the Ember Path look deeper. The ash is not nothingness. It is remembrance. Fire consumes, yes, but in consuming it bears witness, and what it leaves behind testifies that something once burned. So too is it with the hearts of the Netharnans.  Our mother teaches that our lives, too, are fires to be stoked.  We flare with passion.  We burn with rage.  We scorch the world with our dedication.  And when trials come, do not fear them.  When your soul burns in Netharna’s name, soon too will the trials become a fuel for your work.  Without new trials, your fuel will fade.  Some burn brightly and bring light, but their flame cannot last.  Some burn low and bring longevity, but their light is difficult to find.  Neither path is right or wrong, they both bring glory to Netharna.  In any ending, they leave their trace in the ash of memory.  This is why the faithful do not shrink from loss, for in loss we are given testimony.  In loss we are given proof that a flame once lived, and in its living, warmed others. You have asked me what it means to live under Netharna.  I tell you that to begin is to have passion.  The flame that doesn’t burn is not fit to produce ash.  I tell you to burn with truth, do not hide what the Flame reveals.  I say to give light, whether it be dim for a long time or a bright flash.  Finally, accept that you cannot burn forever, and trust that even in your ending, the ashes of your life will be sacred to our people. Do not be afraid, then, of fire’s hunger. Be afraid only of never letting your flame go out before it burns. Walk steadily, child, and do not stray from the Ember Path. In Holy Flame,Eshryn Brightash, Watcher of the Ember Path

My dear friend, I put pen to paper again, though I wish my words could carry the weight of what my soul beheld. Hunters came to Her Majesty not long ago with tales most unsettling. Cries, they said, drifting from deep within the Nether’s crust. Not the cries of beast nor man, but something stranger, the sort that makes the hairs rise on the neck and the tongue dry in the mouth. Many laughed at their tale, but the Queen did not.  I couldn’t tell you whether she thought it worth investigating on its own merit or if it were another search for the Eternal Flame, but with our Queen’s record, I dare not question it.  She summoned us - the hunters themselves, along with me and my crew, commanding that we investigate what the hells sought to hide. We found an old bastion there, half-swallowed by rock and age. At first, our work rang with the usual chorus of picks striking stone, hammers driving spikes, voices raised in jest and song. Yet as the walls opened, that noise bled away. The deeper we dug, the quieter it became, until even our own tools seemed ashamed to make sound. My men began to speak in whispers, as though afraid the bastion might hear them. It was a silence so heavy, friend, it pressed upon the chest like the weight of the deep.  Not one soul in that place could answer why we felt that way, but we all knew better than to break the silence. The tunnels we opened gave way to the inner walls of the bastion.  We pressed on. The tunnels stretched farther than I would have thought possible, corridors carved by hands long turned to dust. Banners clung to the walls rotted to threads, their colors lost but their shapes still proud. My men glanced at them as though expecting the soldiers who once bore them to step from the shadows. The hunters who had brought us stood nearest the Queen, their eyes sharp, but even they looked unnerved at what we uncovered.  You could feel fear warring against their resolve to stand by the Queen.. Step by step, the silence deepened. It was not merely an absence of sound.  It was as though the stone itself swallowed every note before it could reach our ears. A man coughed beside me, yet no echo followed. Another struck his chisel, and the blow rang dull, like a drum half-filled with sand. Some would later recall that they could almost hear breaths that were not their own, slipping between the strokes of their work. I will not tell you if I heard the same, for I cannot say whether it was the bastion or my own fears that whispered to me. At the heart of that fortress, we found a great hall. Its pillars leaned as though tired of standing, its floor cracked with age. We gathered in the center, waiting for the Queen’s command. She did not speak at once. Instead, she raised her lantern and walked slowly across the stone, her light glinting on shattered helms and rusted blades strewn like offerings at the feet of a long-forgotten throne. And then we saw it. A glow, faint at first, seeping through the cracks of the dais as though the earth itself were exhaling. We cleared the rubble with bare hands and trembling arms, and the glow grew stronger until it burst forth in a pillar of azure fire. Friend, much as with the Flame of Hope, no words of mine can capture it.  You simply must see the grandeur for yourself. The holy flame blazed higher than a house, blue and fierce, hotter than any forge, yet it gave no warmth of comfort. Its heat was a warning, its light a lament. Standing before it, I felt as though all the dead of the Nether had gathered in one voice and chosen flame as their tongue. The Queen declared it then, her voice steady though her eyes glistened. “The Flame of Souls,” she called it, “born of sacrifice, kept alive by memory.” And she decreed that the hunters and warriors who had led us to that place would bear a new name: Soul Hunters. Guardians not of hope, but of remembrance.  In the days since that event, I have seen the strength of those warriors grow ten fold.  None in Kindra have held the strength to stand against them, and I doubt those outside will. With care and reverence, we bore the flame back to Kindra. It rests now beneath the arena, sealed behind glass so all who fight above may look down and know the cost of every clash of steel, the cost of every mistake in battle, the cost of letting your passion wither into a gentle ember.  I walked that glass myself, and though the fire’s heat pressed against me, it was the silence of divinity that lingered in my bones. This flame, my friend, is no beacon of triumph. It is a reminder that loss stands beside us, always. And yet, I believe it will make our people stronger, for to honor the dead is to give the living purpose. In Flame,Thorne Pyrestone, Foreman to Flame

My dear friend,   I write to you this night with ash and rubble clinging to my boots and a wonder in my memory I scarce believe my own eyes have witnessed.  You recall, no doubt, how long Her Majesty has hunted for the Eternal Flame, that ancient relic that even I once believed only a myth.  Years it has been, and though we all thought the trail had iced like the cursed lands of the night, the Queen has never once set her torch aside.   A short few days ago, she summoned my crew to a site her scholar marked upon their maps.  An old chamber, buried beneath the ruins of time.  The place was said to have once cradled fire in the days before Kindra had been named.  My men grumbled as the work began, yet another wild chase for an old child’s tale.  The ground was stubborn and prone to collapse, who would blame them for wishing to lay down their tools and return to a more fruitful labor?  At least, that was until the queen stepped into our tunnel.  She greeted each worker by name, despite not having known them save for my reports.  The complaints turned to silence.  None would shame themselves by rebuking such resolve.   We dug.  Each time my men grew tired, they looked upon the light of our Queen’s lantern and pushed themselves on until they could no more.  While my workers burrowed deep with their might, Her Majesty demonstrated things we couldn’t have hoped to achieve.  She held her lantern in one hand and a pickaxe in the other.  My men struck with might to carve a path, swinging to cut deep with each blow, but the Queen- she moved the ground as though she was one with it.  Her tools glided through the stone as if it bent to her will.  Such an honor to see our Queen at work.   Hours bled into days, and at last the realm of Flame yielded what we were after.  A crack gave way, and from it breathed forth a glow like seeing Netharna herself.  Like when we were children and we saw the grace of Holy Fire for the first time.  We were inspired.  What we found was no Eternal Flame, yet none dare say it was less than a wonder.  Imagine it- a golden fire, pure and unyielding, burning with no wood or wick to keep it lit.  It danced upon nothing, yet it seemed to grow brighter as Her Majesty gazed upon it.  We all knew this was not what we were after, yet none dared wish for anything more.   Our Queen did not yet tell us what we had found, rather she called us to gather around it.  She reached out to the flame and pulled wisps of it off, touching each of us with it.  We may not have known at the time, but we had just become a part of history.  I will never forget what our Queen said that day, “This fire is a symbol, a gift from Netharna herself.  You, my people, are a beacon to the Nether.  Upon this flame will rest your hope, as upon my people has rested mine.  Those of you who so desire will form a new council within our walls, appointed by divine right.  You will be the Council of Hope, for you have brought hope to our people with your actions today.”   With her blessing, we bore it to the library, for we believe the scholars first found this place..  My friend, you must see it there now.  It towers higher than sixteen men, a column of living light that warms the halls.  The scribes once bent over dim candles or carried around their own lanterns, but now the Flame of Hope illuminates their pages.  Their ink flows as though called forth by Netharna herself.   I tell you plainly, I felt a stirring in my chest that no pickaxe or hammer ever gave me.  This fire is not just for our Queen, it is for us.  Given these events, I trust that the Eternal Flame will enter her grasp, but, should that not happen, I think this alone would prove her reign blessed.  Knowing our Queen, however, she will not rest until the relic is found.  I, for one, will follow her tools in hand to right the path for her.  I have declined the position on the council in favor of joining the Queen in her search.  May hope fill the hearts of the people until the day of victory comes.   In Flame, Thorne Pyrstone, Foreman to Flame