Auric Leeching

I had to oversee todays operations, we managed to pull another of Hannibal's guys out of the caves just below Baalbek. The man was gaunt and pale as a ghost, his jaw clattered like he had been left to freeze.

When the Auric doc took a look at his soul, it confirmed what we were all thinking. He got too close to the Bronze Stone, and fell under its corruptive influence. His Soul was being slowly ripped apart, almost devoured to fuel the Echos within it. It's hard to watch him struggle to say a single word.

We'll purge his meta and isolate him, before extraditing him to the surface for trial.

— Baalbek Security Office Vinci

Auric Leeching is a condition caused by exposure to the now corrupted Bronze Stone. The insatiable Auric Echos lingering within the caves will clutter and begin absorbing the latent Meta that each Sophont stores.

Without treatment, the Auric Echos will become more powerful and capable of influencing the 'host' more and more, sapping away their energy and heat ability to cast Meta. It can kill eventually, either by breaking the hosts will or their sanity. Which is followed by bouts of frenzy and hypothermic shock.

To treat Auric leeching, the soul and the Echos leeching onto it must be completely dispelled, which has no lingering affects except for an inability to cast Meta for a time.