The Asterian Festival was a time to gather, to share knowledge, and to generally enjoy time away from the usual war between Sapience's city states. As they came together in droves to enjoy themselves, however, something invisible struck. Something, it is rumoured, unearthed by an ancient, derelict ship raised for pageantry.

For over a thousand years, none had heard of the Mysian Rot, a disease long ago eradicated due to how simple the cure was to administer. Yet little by little, one by one, adventurers and denizens of Sapience alike began to feel an itch, then a cough, and then, horribly, their skin sloughing and their lips blackening. None knew what the cause was, though enterprising Abysal V. Devi did not let her young age deter her from harassing Cassandra, of Arcadia, for knowledge. Joined later by her citymate Archaosa Shiva and the physician of Aster Keep, they were the first to find a name for this plague, and gradually three cures came to be known: the striped lime, the Royal Lemon, and the blood orange.

The problem was no one had seen nor heard of these for centuries. Only those truly old like Epicurus held any memories of them, and any further information came from books that did not consider them important enough to detail. An extinct disease now ran rampant, meant to be cured by extinct fruit.

Eoka e'Jahlorien, meanwhile, was on her third attempt at growing rare and unusual citrus. Her shock was not hidden when she heard that these blood oranges were, as the name suggests, oranges fed on blood, as this just happened to be how she was raising a rare seed she had procured on Mhaldor Isle. Though given permission by Tyrannus Zorina Aristata to do so at first, relations soon became strained and her tending of the tree became clandestine.

Meanwhile, the lord of Aster Town, Aerek Ancyrion, came across some unknown number of pickled Royal Lemons. Knowing these were meant to be a cure, he asked his wife Tahquil Maris to open a jar for him before consuming one a piece. Instantly cured, they then planned for what came next - they feared, after all, that if the information became public, Aster would find itself besieged.

So they shared some lemons with Nezaya Visindi and Cieon Maralyn, hoping each could submit samples for research with their respective cities. What they found was that the lemons were seedless and dead but, worse still, the last Hashani lemon was stolen by a man later revealing himself as the Phantom Cure, a constable appalled at the way these rare cures were hoarded and used on what he saw as the adventurer elites of the world. Hearing of these hidden cures, an army of tritons and adventurers marched upon Aster, eventually dispersed with aid of the hulking Jineid and the God of the Sky.

Finally, striped limes were found in ancient Inbhir in the form of fortified wine. These bottles were quickly quaffed by their finders, leaving, in the end, some unknown amount of lemons and a tree that was yet to bloom as potential cures. Now Mhaldor chose to strike the tree, to eliminate what they saw as Chaos taint upon their isle. Now the peasants of Sapience rose up to demand cures, stirred to motion by the Phantom Cure. And now it quickly became apparent that the answer was to stumble upon ancient fruits or, with some hope, to assist an Ashtani endeavour, with many across the world preferring plague to the latter.

Would the rumoured blood orange ever be allowed to bloom? And what if there were no more lemons, no more limes? Was there another cure, somewhere, unknown to the ancient physicians?

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Summary: The Mysian Rot struck Sapience. Of the three known cures, only old and processed fruit was found for two, and a tree was claimed to be growing on Mhaldor Isle for the third. Mhaldor desired its destruction.


Penned by My hand on the 11th of Lupar, in the year 979 AF.