Notes on the Withering Curse

The curse has effectively metastasized to varying extents within each fae. It infects their summer selves, including the skill set that they hold as their current summer form. The wizards have been hit the worst, like the curse is targeting not only their season but the nature of their magic as well. After seeing a few wizards I expect that mystics would be vulnerable as well but instead I find them the least affected, along with the wildlings. Their connection to nature shields them in a way that the wizards, mercenaries, and scoundrels don't have.
There is only one Blaze ghost who has a potential solution, one that many of the others think is a dark idea. The infected cannot sleep beneath trees because the curse will spread and kill off any tree the seek shelter under, thus spreading to the Grove and killing them all. Trees of Refuge aren't connected to Groves...it would be a tragedy that would cost the songs of a tree that anchored fae through their darkest time but if such a tree could draw the curse out of them, isn't it worth the sacrifice? The only reason this particular ghost is willing to suggest it is because he thinks it is a fitting closure for those war-time songs to save 200 of their descendants. His opinion is not held by many others.
And besides, others point out that to get a tree to draw the curse out of them might throw all of them into a Blaze of their own... and some of those would be very young and very dim flames. We don't even know if we could reconnect them to the day and night grove afterwards if they wanted that.
They do entrust me with the means of producing a Tree of Refuge, and I know that they consider it a dark thing to have to do. It requires taking between a dozen to fifty cuttings from existing grove trees and planting them in the hearts of fae who die and are buried together. Their lives and songs fuel the cuttings to grow together into a rapidly growing Tree of Refuge. It's almost funny hearing this - if 200 elvish lives were at stake there would be 50 elders stepping forward to sacrifice themselves to save the others. Somehow I don't think that the seasonal fae culture is quite the same, as no one dares suggest it.
And even if we were willing to create such a Tree only to destroy it to save these infected summer fae, I wouldn't create a seasonal tree. There are three different living Groves right now and if I have the opportunity to give these fae the chance to become any of those races (or something new), that is what I would choose over continuing to divide us into seasonal, day and night, and Celestial. It would give us the best chance of saving them from a Blaze if we have to.
Fortunately the day does not end with us settling on this decision.
With Miriam we took a twofold approach - excising what we could and then decaying what we couldn’t before regrowing it. We can’t do this with songs - excising them means getting rid of them and you can’t regrow them.
With Yneir the fire magic was eating her fate magic (much like the withering curse is eating summer songs). We used a counterbalancing energy to stop the fire magic and then once its rampage was finished we replaced what was lost with something new. But that just seems like the option for disinfecting, where the memories would be faded as we returned them. And the withering curse didn’t seem to be stopped by an opposite magic - it just ate that as well.
The Severed (and Zadiyah) also had a curse…. To help them we forced the Order’s curse to manifest outside of their body so we could fight it. I don’t really want to unleash a Withering abomination upon the world.
It’s nearly midsummer, the most summer time a time can be. We have many seasonal fae around, all of whom would have memories of being summer. We have me, an accomplished musician and even more accomplished wizard and healer. I think we can collectively write the most summer song possible and then contain it within something and try to create a bridge between the patient and this intense summer song. Between Kaide and myself I'm sure we could construct something to let the curse be drawn out and contained.
That is the plan that seems the most promising, especially if we can combine it with the Grove sap curative from the Grotto. I need these summer fae to become winter, and ideally mystics. We don't have enough winter fae in Dreamfall to fuel that many transformations but Andstella and Jerun are still up North and I hope they will be able to finish the mixture there before bringing it South.

Type

Journal, Medical