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The Plague's Source

The nation of Yugash had always explored their section of the machine god's body, but it was not until R.Y. 766 that they had completed a full topographical analysis of every pathway, every twisting conduit, every pulsing vein of the parts of Autocthon's body they could access. Their supplies were dwindling, and they had undertaken this task in a desperate effort to find a new source of food and essence, and perhaps even magical materials.

What they found was an area right at the end of the pole of crystal, a large space that had never been explored and that many of the essence pipes in the area appeared to lead towards.

One Alchemical who had been instrumental in the exploration needed in the mapping process was sent to find what the compartment contained. Unerringly Inquisitive Glance sealed a corridor, cracked a pipe of refined essence, and climbed in. Crawling for nearly eight minutes down a pipe a mere nine inches across, she reached an open room. She sent back one message by the Vision Transmitting Protocol, telling of a bizarre artifact that she would return with. She never was heard from again.

A second party was sent out, and with new knowledge of the exact location of the room, they carved through a wall and found their way inside. What they found was a massive room, with a series of mandala etched into the floor in every magical material, surrounding a small hearthstone sized sphere on a pedastal. On the very edge of the mandala was the melted and tarnished puddle of a dead moonsilver alchemical, the proof of Unerringly Inquisitive Glance's noble and unfortunately careless sacrifice for her people. Within a few months of work, the Alchemicals of Yugash had formulated the protocols that they needed to pass through the wards, at the cost of two more of their number.

Autocthon had always been a suspicious Primordial, and a careful one. He had safeguards upon checks on every group in creation. Of course, he had built a weapon that could save him from any threat that faced him, be it god, exalt, or primordial. It looked like a small sphere, made of all the elements of Creation and Autocthon. The elements rippled and mingled around each other in a perfect sphere; cool, smooth and polished to the touch like glass, and indeed the whole device was in a paper-thin case of adamant. Under its surface the elements roiled and twisted, and for very brief moments, as the elements parted slightly, they revealed a single point of light, infinitely small and infinitely deep, in the center. The alchemicals guessed correctly that it was a weapon, based on its defenses. Without knowledge of its power, and finding it completely inscrutable to even their most careful examinations, they left it unused, though a certain Excessively stupid alchemical urged its use.

In R.Y. 768, the Patropolis of Ot emerged in the font of mourning. The Alchemical invasion had begun, and spread quickly after early setbacks. Excessively Righteous Blossom led his force of 1500 troops north to battle the Lunar exalt, Ten Stripes. The lunar called the alchemical a coward for hiding in his army, and challenged the mechanical exalt to single combat to prove his merit. He accepted, and cockily stepped forwards to do battle, confident in the powers invested in him by the machine god's might.

The Alchemical swung his moonsilver daiklave down at the lunar, confident of a killing blow on his first strike. In response, she twisted out of the way, transformed into a seven foot tall tiger beastman, and tore his arm off and attempted to drink his blood, before spitting out the noxious oily substance. His troops fell back, but the lunar pressed her attack; her packmates joined the fray, attacking the army from all sides from the forest. Beset by five extremely skilled essence six lunars, the army was killed to within a dozen men, who the lunars allowed to escape to tell tales of their loss.
Against the advice of Meticulous Owl, the nation of Yugash decided to attempt a counterattack. Unhesitatingly Loyal Weapon marched at the head of 30,000 troops towards. Camping for a night, she did not recognize that most sparrows do not have moonsilver talons. Needless to say, seconds later she was no longer alive. The same fate befell every other exalt in the army, leaving it without skilled commanders and crawling desperately back to base as the lunars and their beastmen toyingly picked off any stragglers.

The leaders of Yugash decided it was time to unleash the weapon that they had been waiting to use. Miraculous Icon of the Talents was given what the scientists of Yugash suspected was a form of essence bomb. With his weapon, he strode alone to the north, hoping to sacrifice himself for the good of the nation of Yugash. Upon reaching the lunars, he leapt into battle and as the first blow hit, crushed the sphere in his mighty fist. All those present stood stock still as an unspeakably bright flash, far brighter than the sun had ever been, shone from his hand for an instant. When the five lunars' sight came back seconds later, they saw Icon swinging his weapon at them. He managed to kill Ten Stripes mate, Costa Many-Clawed, before he was slain by the pack. Furious at their loss, the lunars charged, but within hours found themselves weakening, found sores opening on their bodies, and their veins hardening and turning silver. They never made it to the Font of Mourning, torn apart by their own essence as it ruptured the patterns that had once shaped it to their ends.

The plague spread along every interconnected essence stream at incredible speed. Within a minute, every being in the Southwest was infected. Within another, it had spread to the Blessed Isle and the Southern Wyld. And a minute after that, it was sweeping through Malfeas, Yu-Shan, the Underworld, and the Northeast. There was no being that had not been infected within three minutes.

The plague slew every powerful essence user. The Yozi discorporated with glorious and horrifying discharges of essence, the Kukla shrieked in agony as it calcified and shattered, the Unconquered Sun looked up from meditation as he burst forth in incredible golden light and vanished, the Deathlords were dragged screaming into a horrific mockery of Oblivion bred from their own essence. Solars exploded in bursts almost like the Sun, the Sidereals twisted around their own strands and tore, Dragonbloods erupted in their element and were consumed by it, and Fair Folk vanished in puffs of logic.

The world had lost its shepherds and its wolves.

Plague Mechanics

The plague has absolute 100% morbidity. It infects everyone in the world nearly simultaneously, and it is impossible to avoid. It kills by making, essentially, a cancer of essence; it grows uncontrollably and bursts out of the patterns that bind it, killing the bearer of it. Because it is the essence itself that is killing, the more powerful the being, the faster they die. The course of the disease is completed over a number of hours equal to 10 - essence. Thus, the First and Forsaken Lion, the Incarnae, the Primordials, Malfeans, and any other essence ten being is instantly killed. The Mask of Winters dies in two hours of agonizing collapse, and Fakharu bursts into a fountain of water in four hours.
Any being of essence 3 or less is completely unaffected. Other than low-essence beings, the only ones unaffected are creatures of Autocthon. The alchemical exalts are unharmed, as are his souls and every being native to his body; the Mountain Folk are also spared its ravages.
A god, demon, ghost, or other being that would naturally return after being killed will regrow in the normal amount of time, but will return with a damage track full of aggravated down to their incapacitated. They are not permanently destroyed, and will return mostly, but not completely, unchanged. The Yozi and Malfeans retain almost all of their nature, and are still bound in the same way.
A powerful exalt dying of this condition has a massive amount of essence burst out of their body, changing the flows of creation. A demense is instantly created on that site with a of one for each point of essence past 5 that the dead exalt posessed. The demense is always aspected towards that of the dead exalt. An essence 6 fire aspected dragonblood will produce a fire demense of level one, and Leviathan will produce a level 5 lunar demense.

The Wards on the Plague

Finding the plague was no easy feat. It lies in a sealed compartment that can be reached through either an essence pipe, if you climb down its exremely narrow width and punch through a foot of metal; or alternately by carving through six feet of steel and at least twenty pipes, at least 5 of which contain essence and the rest are random on the pipe contents table in Alchemicals. Inside the chamber, there are five concentric wards, of each of the magical materials. They do not show up as magical in essence sight, but any being attempting to pass them will find out quickly and lethally that they are potent.
The first is the jade ward. It will do three levels of aggravated damage five times to anyone attempting to cross it, striking simultaneously with all five elements.
The second is the starmetal ward. It will do 15 levels of aggravated damage, and anyone who passes through it has their target numbers raised to nine for the scene.
The third is the moonsilver ward. It will deal 10 levels of aggravated damage to anyone attempting to cross it, as well as two mutation checks as if exposed to Pure Chaos. This is a shapeshifting effect, but not one of the wyld; it is not prevented by charms designed to prevent mutation in the wyld.
The Soulsteel ward does 20 levels of aggravated damage, and steals motes equal to levels of damage taken x 5. These motes cannot be replenished for a week.
The Orichalcum ward deals 25 aggravated damage, and this damage cannot be soaked by any means, including charms and sorcery of any power level.

Deactivating any one of these wards requires a specially designed God-Machine protocol. The exalts of Yugash had to devise one for each ward to reach the center. Charging through is, of course, not recommended. The Eight Divine Ministers may pass through the wards unharmed, but any other being will trigger these potent defenses.

Comments

What happens if you have some ancient cagey exalt with a psuedo-reincarnation trick like what the Forest Witches have or were packing a gem of incomparable wellness? Ditto with the dep wyld, would it affect the fae out there, would they even notice the plague's effects. ~ Curious Haku

Hmm. Ghandarva would have time to use the mantle, but every high-essence person in the sea would still be killed. The Numina would die, too. A gem of incomparable wellness would not save you; you aren't dying of damage, but of essence making your body and soul explode. I expect that would break attunement. -TheHoverpope

True true. Mainly, I would have suspected that the soul of the exalt with a Gem of wellness would go boom, but the body would be healed... so, you might get mindless high essence channellers that could conceivably be controlled by people with the right charms. Also, wouldn't Autochton have been affected or would he have designed it not to work on him, along with his creations.

Also, I think it's noted that disincorporated spirits are... vilnerable while reforming. What do you think the odds are of some bright punk-ass spirit(s) taking full advantage of the major spirits' weakness (like say the incarna) to forge them into amusing trinklets while they take over their positions and spots? Or would Gaia be back up and running and making sure no one takes potshots at the incarna or would she do... creative... adjustments of the 7 Celestial Incarna while they are weakened? ~ haku

I like the way you inquire...DeathBySurfeit

I would expect Gaia to be out for as long as the rest of them, and I have no idea what is needed to be able to soulforge. However, I do know that autocthonians are going to be hella rocking the soulforging, as it were. - TheHoverpope