Weaveless Fever
Many magic-users dread this infection more than any other malady. The virus attacks the patient's ability to sense and shape the Weave, thus leaving them unable to access any arcane magic.
Transmission & Vectors
The virus can survive on most surfaces for up to 24 hours but is most easily transmitted airborne via coughs and sneezes. It can be quite hard to kill the infection as it is both chemically stable and physically light. This means that strict quarantine is the only way to contain the spread once there is a flare-up successfully. As far as can be determined, only humanoids with a developed enough brain can carry the contagion, though a shape-changed infected humanoid might still be a vector.
Symptoms
There is an incubation period of up to 7 days before any symptoms are shown. Three-quarters of those infected who don't commonly interact with the Weave will show few or no symptoms from the infection.
The first symptoms develop in a way similar to the flu or heavy cold. About 12 to 24 hours after the initial symptoms, the patient finds it hard or impossible to access any magic. The flu-like symptoms usually persist for less than two ten-days, with the magic abilities returning towards the end of this period.
While the symptoms of Weaveless fever can be severe and situationally dangerous for any arcane user, it is potentially deadly for those whose life force is linked to their connection to the Weave. Some individuals are born with magic as part of them, while others depend on the weave to maintain their form. Any such individuals require dedicated care for their purely physical aspects to compensate while their magical traits can't function.
The more reliant a patient is on the Weave, the harder the illness tends to hit them. Researchers at the Sanguine Institute speculate that magic-users develop a specific organ of some kind that connect them with the Weave. Heavy use of such a part of the body would make it grow and provide more tissue for the Fever to cultivate, explaining the more severe results. Those who possess a great deal of this ability are at the highest risk of negative consequences and death.
Treatment
The standard treatment for illness, healing magic, is entirely ineffective on the fever. If anything, repeated use might worsen the effects and exposes the caster to risks of contamination.
In most cases, the only treatment worth exploring is to treat the symptoms, as there is no true cure. A few experimental treatments have been developed, but they are highly unreliable and place the patient at great risk.
The most successfu,l and reliably so, treatment is what researchers call an "arcanectomy." The theoretical organ that links an individual to the Weave is thought to be located in the brain. But exactly where in the brain, and sometimes even if, depends on race and even personal history. A surgeon who believes they have figured out where the organ is located can try cutting it out. The handful of times this has ever been attempted, and the patient survived the procedure, they awoke cured of the fever but permanently unable to use magic.
Prognosis
In non-magic-users, the fever is never severe and will pass on its own within a ten-day or two if it shows symptoms at all. For most magic-users, it is a frightening experience, or at least very annoying.
80% of all magic-users have the regular progression of the illness. 15% have lingering symptoms where spells might fail, or their arcane senses miss something. This usually goes away completely within a year or so. A small number are physically marred for life due to the infection and will often suffer from intense pain while casting or around magic. Almost all of the rest represent the fatal outcomes of the illness. There are a few who survive but are permanently blocked from magic.
For those who are more closely tied to magic through birth, the outcomes are much worse. Nearly a third of all such patients die as their bodies fail to compensate for the lack of magic. The Sanguine Institute has no (public) record of any of these individuals surviving but without abilities. They do, however, admit to at least two cases where the patient faded out into nothing.
Epidemiology
Since the symptoms in most people resemble those of a heavy cold, outbreaks can spread far and wide before anyone knows that they're happening. Once magic users are infected, panic often erupts. Since an individual might have been infectious for the better part of a ten-day before showing much in the form of symptoms, everyone will quarantine as best they can. Patients can rarely spread the infection during the last few days of the illness, but others rarely want to take the risk.
Outbreaks are rare and usually brought under control once tracking of the infection has been established. The virus can reach a dormant state in non-magic users where it is barely contagious and virtually undetectable. Mutations in such dormant viruses are theorised to be the cause of outbreaks. Those who have already suffered through an outbreak are 50-90% less likely to catch a new strain, and symptoms are less likely to be severe.
Type
Viral
Cycle
Short-term
Rarity
Extremely Rare
Comments