Forest covering

One shall never anger a Dryad. These creatures of god have many curses to bestow on people that angry them, Forest covering being one of them and while it is not the worse curse, it is pretty annoying. It gives the afflicted strange growths in the back and they end up with lowered mobility and paranoia.

Causes

Can only be obtained by being cursed by a Dryad. It is one of the cursed of them and will only give it if the person has attacked them or damaged their homes. Usually given when the person has not caused too much damage but enough for the Dryad having to spend magic to make the place recover. It is one of the uncommon curses to be given and tends to be given by Dryads that are protecting old places or sacred places.

Origin

Magical

Cycle

Chronic, Acquired

Rarity

Extremely Rare

Affected species

Dracolis, Aquatilis, Terrelis

Topless woman in black skirt by Engin Akyurt (modified by Catoblepon)

Symptoms

The first sign would be the tingliness in the lower limbs that slowly creeps to the upper limbs as well. As the tingliness turns into numbness and gets more intense, the afflicted will see the start of the back growths.

The growth starts on the lower back, it is whiteish and has a bark-like texture. As time pass, the growth will expand up the back, following the spine, towards the head. The creeping growth will stop at the bottom of the skull, where the spine enters the cranium, and then, the expanding will switch to cover all the back, expanding to the sides, and slowly will thicken. If the afflicted has a tail, once the growth reaches the bottom of the skull, it will also expand towards the back of the tail.

At some point in the expanding of the growth, the afflicted's feces turn to an opalescent colour and harden. The opalescent colour sometimes look like rainbows depending on if light falls on it or not.

The last symptom to appear is the clouded vision. The periferial vision is covered in some sort of fog. From this fog, the afflicted sometimes see movement, like there are creatures creeping in the magical fog. This slowly makes the afflicted more and more paranoid. Forests seem to increase the rate at which these "creatures" appear.

The growth in the back is what causes the numbness on the limbs, as it is attached to the spine and slightly interferes with the nerves. It also causes reduced mobility on the limbs and the back.

Treatment

There is no treatment to this curse. Tales mentioned that getting the pardon from the Dryad would cause the curse to disappear but Dryads are resentful creatures and do not pardon easily.

One can temporally relieve some of the symptoms of the curse but it is extremely painful to do so. One can recover mobility and reduce numbness by uprooting the growth. This is, as said, extremely painful and is dangerous as well, as the growth is attached to skin and, in some parts, to the spine. If not uprooted carefully, one can cause more damaged (and in some cases, permanent damage to mobility). This only temporally relieves some symptoms as the growth does never stop expanding and no method has been discovered that can stop it of doing so.

Person showing green and black eyelid closeup by Arteum (modified by Catoblepon)