Progression Of The Sickness
It begins with a seed latching onto a dragon’s fur, feathers, or scales. There, like a burr, it will cling and start to take root. To keep the seed from falling off the fur, and not completing it’s life cycle, it roots itself into the dragon’s skin.
After a few days, the base of the dragon’s fur/feathers/scales will start to turn green. Over the course of a month, the dragons body will become green. By this time, leaves should have sprouted around the original seed.
About one month and 2 weeks in, the original pattern will start being replaced by rosettes, or any of the other patterns. There should be a bloom near the original seed at this point, the leaves should have spread further out.
3 months in and almost all of their original pattern has been replaced, and the flower has bloomed, other blooms may have appeared over the dragon at this point. They, at this point, are now infectious.
The Rotting, A Story From A Lost
They know, they hide, they know the damage they can inflict, they’ve most likely seen it happen to their families, their clan. It could be their fault, they could’ve been the victim of their own kind not knowing that they could do.
He knows, and the dark cave is where he stays, afraid of himself and what he’s seen. He coughs, this time it was blood. His feathers have been falling out for weeks now. He tried again to scrape all the fungus off of him, it doesn’t work, it never works, it hurts, he can’t continue. He lays down on the dirty ground, resigned to his fate. His ribcage was showing, he hadn’t eaten for weeks. He shouldn’t have visited Vikko. He would’ve been outside, out playing in the glowing forest he called home. There is no reason to dwell on the past, he knows this. He closes his eyes.
He opens his eyes, he can’t see, he felt around where his eyes used to be, he feels goop. He coughs again, going into a hacking fit. He’s too weak to get up, he closes his eyes again.
In a cave lies a skeleton, holes dotting the bones, withering fungus clinging to the last few remaining bits of marrow. Long since dried blood covers the cave floor. The air is dusty, cold, and makes you want to cough.
The White Rot
The white rot fungus, the name referencing the original animal the fungus made the jump from, latches onto anything it can take hold of on a dragon. Much like the burrs of the Blooming sickness, it’s mycelium roots taking hold, and starts taking the nutrients from a dragon.
First it starts with hunger, and coughing. Then the falling off of feathers, fur and scales, mushrooms growing all over spreading their spores. Then weakness from starvation, and consuming of muscle and skin. After which it targets organs, leading to the victim’s death.
Once a rotting has died, it begins to consume the corpse and eat the bone marrow. It releases its last spores, eats all of it’s food resources, and dies of nutrient starvation.
The Wilting's Tale: Dacot
It’s been so long. He doesn’t have long left. They’ve had so many funerals, they can’t keep up and have stopped digging graves. In front of him lies the body of the second to last of his clan. He weakly pushes the body into the pile. He doesn’t have long, he lies down in the pile. He Shouldn’t have let that dragon in, they knew he was suffering. They thought they could let him in. Dacot sighed, it was his fault, he was the one to say it was a good idea.
After a bit, their flowers fell off, they thought this dragon was a blessing, they didn’t notice the mushrooms, he wished he had. Then their fur darkened as the stranger dropped dead. Then they started to rot and drop dead. There was nothing he could’ve done.
Dacot cries, he cries for what he has lost, and for what he has done. As the moons starts to descend into the earth, the last of them are gone.
