Facilier felt the power running through him, the numerous souls he had under his puppetry. Everyone affected by the illness would come to his call, no questions asked. The black brute stalked towards the proving grounds, the crocodile skull on his head fused and angled upwards as he walked with pride. He did not know where his siblings were, but frankly, did not care. He knew he could do this himself. Once in the rocky clearing of the site of combat, still marked in both stains and stench of war between Sabertooth and Tarben, he sat down and gave out a haunting howl, calling for all those afflicted by his illness that had not already perished. As souls began to wander towards him, his evil smile grew and grew.

That is, until the war starters showed up: Hermes, prince of Sabertooth, and Odin, prince of Tarben. In addition, he was ecstatic when other major war players joined – Wendigo from Tarben, several members of the Hawthorne royal bloodline, Lucaya herself included, and other royals from other packs. Instead, his excitement reached its peak. Surely with these in his arsenal, cleaning out Starfall’s population would be easy.

When it appeared as if no more wolves were making their way to his call, he imbued the power into his horn, getting ready to plunge it into the war-trodden earth. A sudden growl brought him from his enchantment – surely it would be none of his disciples. His eyes met a pair of emerald, green eyes, on a black body with a crimson skirt. The femme also had reptilian scales scattered among her body, and much sharper fangs than normal. With little preparation on the male’s end, the female lunged at him, lodging her fangs into his neck and clamping down. Hard enough to disable and paralyze him from the neck down, but not hard enough yet to kill him. She let go, blood caking her lips, and Facilier dropped to the ground as blood began to pool around his body. ”Ah, how I’ve missed this.” The vampire ess spoke, licking her lips and staring at Facilier. The sorcerer’s eyes were filled with fear, catching onto more movement around him, approaching him. A familiar skyborne male, and a large, icy brute came into view, growling and their eyes full of rage. Hermes stepped forward, ripping the crocodile skull off Facilier’s face, bringing his singular, magical horn with it. Then Odin pushed the skyborne male back and stepped forward, speaking in a cold voice matching his element. ”Good riddance.” He growled, stomping in the black male’s maw.

Any life that remained in Facilier was beat out of him by any other wolves that stepped forward and beat him to a pulp, free from the curse he had laid on them all. This was not the way he wanted it to end, but he knew that those affected would remain afflicted in one form or another with the curse he laid upon Starfall.




THE AFTERMATH
As mentioned in the first post of the plague, the healing of this curse has led some wolves to gain a new bloodline – the Poison Elemental. As a reminder, below are the two variants that can come from a wolf’s infection from the plague.

Variant one, Gaseous, is for those wolves that did not express the rotting of flesh when infected. Like their mist wolf cousins, they can disperse poison around them, and are immune to the toxins themselves. Minor exposure to this may cause stomach and lung irritation for a few days, like food poisoning or an allergy flare up. Prolonged exposure to this could lead to a decrease in lung function (run out of breath easier, coughing fits) or in extreme cases, death.

Variant two, Decayed, is for the infected wolves that had rotting wounds. They do not have the ability to release poison at will, rather, if they are injured themselves, toxins will seep from their body to affect the attacker, leaving purple-hued blood on the “weapon”. If someone leaves a scratch wound, their body will become irritated for a few days (like poison ivy). If someone were to bite a decayed, the effects vary depending on how long the bite was held for and if blood was swallowed. If a short bite, jaw strength is decreased for a few days, while for a longer bite and swallowing of blood could lead to chronic bowel issues, decreased immune system, or death (in extreme cases).