Fey Parasite; Rainbow Worms

Thanks to Franco Carlesimo for letting me use his piece “Be Happy!”. I cannot stress this enough: his work is fucking METAL, and you should go check it out HERE.

A MOUTHFUL OF BLOODY JEWELS

-from the Book of Wretchedness-

Darrik glanced through the frosted window and felt a cold burst of shock, as if a huge icy falcon had fallen from the heavens and struck into his upper back with its murderous talons; out in the darkness, near the empty barn, there was a figure, a black monolith that somehow made its presence known despite the torrents of falling snow. It was swaying as if exhausted, no doubt freezing in its flapping cowl, dying. Darrik could not make out its face any more than he could see the eternal forest looming far behind it, obscured by night and the thick white flakes that fell on invisible spirals of air. He felt its eyes on him though, felt their chill, felt the desperate hunger.

Death was near.

But there was something else. A glimmer of colorful light, like a string of priceless jewels filtering moonlight. The light pulsated slightly, nearly in time with Darrik's heartbeat, which quickened as he imagined the weight of the precious stones and the thrum of adrenaline as he scrubbed something dark and sticky from his hands with fistfuls of snow.

He clucked his teeth in feigned annoyance and then smiled an unctuous smile, "Sarah, my darling, I think I may have forgotten to lock up the barn before I came in. Why don't you and the baby go lie down while I go see to it."

He stomped his feet into his boots, wrapped himself in his heavy fur jacket, and slipped a long, thin blade into its folds. Dierdre. His daughter's name was Dierdre. Same name as Sarah's beloved gran. Gran Dierdre, that lovely, cheerful soul. Never a moment's silence, but so full of charm and cheer. The fat, cheerful old woman...bless her soul. His daughter couldn't be more different, and damn Darrik if he didn't hate himself for it, for the hard life he had born her into. For the broken plow, the slaughtered flock, the blighted potatoes.

The poor little thing. Her eyes were hard and black, so much like pebbles that he wasn't sure she hadn't been formed from the hard bed of the cold deep river. She barely even cried anymore. If he didn't get food for her soon...

It was a frigid, blowing night, and the lantern he carried shed a weak cone of light in front of him, reflected back at him by a thousand tiny mirrored snowflakes. He called forward into the dazzling void, hailing the silent form before him, but it remained silent. Perhaps the poor devil had perished.

Life back in the city had been a fast business. Sure, there were lean days, but as long as his wits and his dagger stayed sharp, there was never any real shortage of comfort. Whether he cut a purse or cut a throat, his knife was his key, and served as a sort of broker between the wealthy and the fences. Their eyes always lit up when he approached, and after a few knowing nods and cagey remarks, he would walk into the night with fat, heavy coins in the palm of his hand, enough to buy him a weeks worth of cold beef, warm beds, and fast women.

He slipped the long knife out of his coat and hid the blade along his forearm as he held the lantern high with his other hand. Making it to his farm, maybe the stranger was a wealthy traveler, or an adventurer returning with treasures unimagined. A drunken wanderer with a gut full of hot food? On their last legs? Weak and dying in the storm?

"Hey! Whoever the fuck you are, answer me or I'm going to slash you, friend!" The warning was a formality. The old familiar taste of copper was on his tongue, and he knew how this would end. He had known as soon as he saw those dancing lights.

Darrik had been the King of the Rats, once. And then he met Sarah. She was a pretty young whore back then, and he had fallen in love. He promised to buy her freedom from the filthy city and the appetites of its filthy, bug-bitten denizens. So he did what any Rat King would do, and slashed her pimp's throat, a man named Hugo the Bugle, from ear to ear and watched the blood run into the open sewer, and then he took Sarah away from that wretch-ridden midden of a town.

It was a mistake.

He stood before the stooped form, leaning so low that he had to put a hand in the deep snow to drive the light of his lantern up under its ragged cowl. Still he could not see its face, only the dimly throbbing rainbow light. The wind drove snow between them, but it was the silence of the strange man that froze the blood in his vessels. "Hey. You. Cunt. Look at me." The blizzard paused, seemed to hold its polar breath to allow a nightmarish reek to drown the scene.

God, he muttered, as he caught a whiff of septic putrescence, a smell that instantly transported him to his younger days, to the subterranean bone yards and gut piles of The 'Berg. Its sewer tunnels and river banks, lined with the corpses of the damned, butchered in droves by plague and famine and knives like his own, were a bountiful crop for his nimble, picking fingers. He had grown rich as the stench of filth and death soaked him to the core.

His knees deserted him, softening, buckling, and dropping him into the snow. This man..this thing...it was no stooped old man in the grips of frostbite. A low hollow moan rose from its chest as the thing in the cowl seemed to expand, growing taller, looming over the fence, over Darrik, until his lantern cast its light full upon its hideous face and the source of the rainbow light.

The eyes of the thing glinted like polished black stones, and its skin was dark and leathery, stretched tight across the skull into a mummified rictus that exposed...madness. Sheer madness. It was as if its teeth were made of fat bands of gelatinous light, phosphorescent like fireflies but of wild and poisonous hues that danced before his eyes. They wriggled in the darkness of its gaping mouth, like worms, like thick, larval worms, each thrust forth from the jagged remains of a shattered, ripping tooth.

Darrik had been staked in place, hemorrhaging sanity, and he could not look away. He could not turn to flee. He could not search for his knife in the snow. He could only hold his lantern and stare as the horror with the rainbow smile reached for him.

INTRO

The world is a horrifying place, filled with all manner of monstrous microbe, their very lives depending on their ability to invade and sabotage their hosts.

Also I hate elves. I’ve talked about this before. Yes, its a form of player-hating. No, I’m not above such things. Also elves, as portrayed in fiction and RPG texts, are not real. Never have been. Never will be. Don your daddy pants and carry on.

According to most fiction, elves live a very long time, making them ideal hosts for parasites. Its simple: infest their minds and drive them into isolation where they can spend potentially hundreds of years spreading infectious material to the four corners of the map.

The trick, however, is infecting the clean, beautiful, fastidious fey in the first place. Which is why the filthy, brutish non-fey (ie. the humans) of the world make for a perfect intermediate vector.

THE RAINBOW WORM

Leucochloridium Colusibus, Ukhmylka Myasnika, Kaleidognashers, Rainbow Worm

CONTRACTION/INCUBATION

Intermediary (non-fey) hosts are infected by ingestion and/or mucous-membrane contact with matter contaminated with the eggs of the leucochloridium colusibus parasite, more commonly known as the rainbow worm. These eggs are known to contaminate the saliva, excreta, and corpses of infected hosts, as well as matter that comes into prolonged contact with the host, such as clothes, bedding, and water. Rainbow worm eggs and larvae remain viable outside of a host’s body as pseudospores for many years.

Once eggs have gained access to a host, they incubate and hatch into microscopic flatworm larvae, requiring 8-48 hours to manifest first symptoms. The flatworm migrates to the creatures head and digs a channel between the teeth and the brain, laying eggs all the while to further infest the host’s dentition, cranial vault, and tissues. The teeth, being the hardest substance in the human body, make for an excellent bunker while also giving the parasite access to the saliva and gastrointestinal tract.

Access to the GI tract results in copious amounts of saliva, vomit, and diarrhea, which are used to disperse larval eggs into the environment. Access to the oral cavity allows the bite of the intermediary host to directly infect more desirable fey hosts.

After the rainbow larvae have infested an elven host they begin their primary lifecycle which is similar to that of a non-fey host’s lifecycle with a few notable differences, such as the extreme length of the primary lifecycle, the wild physical alterations to the host, and that this lifecycle has never been directly observed or studied in any great depth.

PROGRESSION/SYMPTOMS

Symptoms begin with mild to severe gastrointestinal distress, fever, aches, fatigue, headache, and dental pain. Once the larvae have migrated to the maxilla they will bore a channel between the teeth and the brain, causing severe dental pain, local swelling, headaches, nosebleeds, paranoia, and potentially self harm as the victim tries desperately to ease their suffering.

During this process they larva, which by now has laid numerous hatching eggs, will mature into a full-grown fluke and will develop vibrant rainbow-colored bands, which will be subtly visible through the translucent dental enamel. In this stage their host will be racked with incredible dental pain, ice-pick headaches, exploding head syndrome, and violent paranoid psychosis. They will become emotionally incontinent and hyper-violent. Their senses will grow supernaturally sharp and, furthermore, cannibalistic thoughts and fantasies of consuming feyflesh will begin infiltrating their thoughts as the parasite infiltrates the matter of their brain.

Over the course of the next few days they will begin hallucinating, losing themselves in an imaginary world, slipping further into the parasite-infused darkness. They become ever more paranoid, ever more violent, and ever more foul as their gastrointestinal symptoms continue unchecked. They are driven by the growing colony of parasites to drink and eat constantly to remain hydrated and stocked up on the calories needed to support their awful burden.

By now their senses are sharpened to near supernatural levels, and they are able to detect the fey as easily as a shark detects bleeding prey in a starlit sea. In these first few days, the host may be able to resist the urge to attack, kill, and devour the fey on sight. Or they may recover their senses after the first taste of fey blood, though this will not be enough to save their poor victim; the host’s teeth, by now, are brittle or shattered, and their bite will certainly infect any who is bitten.

Within a week of infection the limbic system is all but stripped away, making its victim emotionally volatile and violent. The frontal lobe and the sensory cortices are similarly corrupted, and the host becomes a delusional, psychopath, corrupting wells, spreading contagion, and searching constantly for even the slightest trace of a feyflesh meal, though quite happy to settle for easier prey.

Fey hosts follow a similar progression, though it takes a considerably longer amount of time for symptoms to present and progress, likely because the rainbow worm begins its lifecycle as a smaller organism and spends its early efforts on spawning more eggs and in reprogramming the fey brain. Fey creatures suffering from kaleidognasher infestation will quickly seek the isolation of deep wildernesses, cave systems, sewer systems, or endless travel. This isolation guarantees first that the infection will not be discovered and "remedied" (be it by medicine or fire) and second that the parasitic coupling will be able to mature and complete its lifecycle unmolested.

After a few weeks of battling the parasite, the fey host will inevitably lose its battle, succumbing to the biological imperatives of the rainbow worm. They are then doomed to spend their remaining days wander the wilds, spreading contaminated waste across the land until every thorn bush, every burbling brook, every fruit tree promises death by foul infestation.Waterways, roadside shrines, abandoned structures, edible plants, farms, outposts, and sparsely populated towns are all targeted, though always at night, by the skulking monster with a glowing, liquid rainbow for a smile.

Each year of life, the host will have been home to many generations of rainbow worms, each building on the remains of their ancestors. The cysts that hold the worms harden with their passing, and their successors, still needing access to the outer world, must therefore build within these gradually lengthening tubes. A young infestation may appear in the night as a colorfully glowing smile, whereas an advanced infestation will appear to have a head like a forked tree or like a thousand thin termite mounds, lit with dancing lights. The body will have become wiry but deadly nimble, the hands and feet will be callused, powerful, and filthy, and everywhere it goes there will follow a cloud of blowflies and the stink of body waste.

The fey are known to live, as the ephemeral humans would say, unnaturally long lives, birth and death bracketing many storied centuries of history. Ah, but those fey that have been claimed by the leucochloridium colusibus can swim even greater distances down the River of Time preserved perhaps not only by the physiology of their parasitic infestation but by its eternal pestilent purpose. Those elder fey, possessed by the rainbow worm, defy the very bedrock principles of life itself, growing more massive, more complex, more fractal, more purposeful. Lost and ancient texts that claim some knowledge of these ancient beings describe them as living trees, as lightning clouds trapped in mud, as twisted, unliving gods of incomprehensible, alien purpose.

EFFECTS

Agony: in the early stages of infection, as the parasite proliferates and invades its host's body, mind, and teeth, itches that cannot be scratched swiftly metastasize into pure agony, accompanied by spasms, madness, and screaming. So much screaming. This pain does not fade with time, but the host learns to act with purpose despite it. This commonly results in an over-driven, disinhibited nervous system that allows for incredible feats of strength and violence.

Alluring smile: rainbow worms emit faint, varicolored light that can have a hypnotic effect on those that see it. Hypnotic or not, these lights, like a glowing smile of pulsating rainbow light, are irresistible to the curious, the adventurous, and the acquisitive.

Disease resistance: rainbow worm hosts are highly resistant to bacterial and viral infections, as the host's immune system is supplemented by anywhere from dozens to thousands of parasitic worms. Despite open wounds and the constant excretion and projection of bodily effluvia, it is all but impossible for a host to become ill from any form of pathogen. They may eat and drink of the most rancid and rotten substances with no risk of death.

Explosive excretia: projectile vomiting, drooling, urinary incontinence, and explosive diarrhea, along with revolting smells and a cloud of eager insect attendants.

Instatiable hunger: driven by the high metabolic and reproductive needs of the rainbow worm, hosts are driven to consume large quantities of food and hydration. In isolation this will include any sort of organic, digestible matter, and any sort of liquid that is not blatantly toxic. In locations where fey and non-fey prey are present, the drives of the parasites will rarely result in murder. Rather, the host will take a “snack” in the form of a mouthful of flesh, creating a newly infested host.

Predatory senses: rainbow worm infestation causes an acute sharpening of the senses, particularly the sense of smell. As a shark can seemingly detect a single drop of blood in an ocean of salt water, so too can an infested host detect the scent of a single fey creature in a crowded marketplace in a filthy city. Similarly they have a nearly supernatural ability to see the fey, almost as if their brains have been rewired to detect the subtle idiosyncrasies of fey movement, form, and demeanor.

Seclusion: non-fey and fey hosts alike are driven to seclusion by the imperatives of the worm. Knowing that discovery and direct conflict are likely to end in literal flames, hosts seek isolation and act only when they can avoid detection or when success is guaranteed. Non-fey hosts will lurk in the shadows and hidden places of population centers, venturing forth at night to sow seeds of contagion. Fey hosts will strike out for the deepest and most secluded wildernesses, far from prying eyes and purging flames. Host will stop at no lengths to prevent the discovery of their lairs and will infect, murder, or flee invaders.

Super vector: leucochloridium colusibus hosts are riddled with eggs, larvae, and fully grown worms. As such, the merest contact with them is a potential driver of contagion. If the host breaks the skin, it is nearly guaranteed that the wound will fester and result in parasitic infestation.

CURE

The cure is simple: potentially lethal and certainly agonizing invasive dental surgery to remove the parasitic worms, most certainly leading to sepsis, encephalopathy, and death, followed by a two week course of powerful, tissue-saturating, health-destroying, anti-parasitic medication.

For those short on funds and lacking access to a dental surgeon, prayer is nearly as effective at saving the host’s life.

Those hoping for a cure must act quickly, for the more advanced the infection, the lower the likelihood of curing it. There are no known cases, at least not in the human annals of medicine, of surviving an infestation affecting more than three teeth.

To properly dispose of infested remains, it is recommended to place them in a pit with three feet of sand in the bottom and to burn them until all of the sand has been converted into crude glass.

LORE

There are ancient, cryptic tomes that suggest that rainbow worms are not simple pathogenic beasts, but possess a sort of communal intelligence. As the infestation grows, so too does this intelligence, though most hosts, even with thousands of worms, suggest only a mere fraction of this intellect. Many a pint of dark ale has grown warm while parasitologists argued the implications of this information.

These books also suggest that the leucochloridium colusibus parasite is no mere creature, but is a sort of key, and that once a fey host has spent a thousand years in isolation, its myriad "keys" will turn and unlock a door to alien, incomprehensible realms.

On rare occasions, often in deep libraries or out-of-the-way taverns, a rumor will arise of hidden cults dedicated to combing the wildernesses and the dark places of the world in search of lost and ancient fey hosts. The sole purpose of these cults is to discover and eradicate these hosts to prevent the opening of something referred to as "The Door of Ten Thousand Locks". On the rare occasions that a survivor returns from one of these expeditions, they tell tales of half-buried cathedrals made of desiccated bone or dried mud or countless layers of filthy paper.

In the Book of Blackest Night there is a tale of an ancient fey king, known as the King with Spiral Eyes. After a lifetime of arcane study, he drank wine laced with rainbow worm eggs and then was sealed into his vast underground garden vault. It is said that every year his people, a people long-since vanished, would open the square door in the vault's ceiling to drop living sacrifices into the chamber far below.

Rainbow worm infection is on the rise in recent years, likely due to growing population centers coming into more frequent contact with the Greater Wilds. Logging expeditions and groups of homesteaders strike out into unknown lands in search of resources and living space, only to vanish, likely having drank from a contaminated stream or eaten contaminated foods. Their supplies are found weeks later, ravaged by the elements, but there is no hint of what fate befell the unfortunate people. At least not until the sun begins to set, and in the deepening darkness between trees, pulsating liquid rainbow smiles materialize, glow crescents of shattered, jagged teeth.

IDEAS TO PLAY WITH

• Rainbow worms shed dim visible light that is bright enough to dimly light a dark alleyway. This light will no doubt be visible through a person’s lips, and it would behoove an infected psychotic murderer to hide this telltale sign. This might also be a hint that someone on the street is infected. Or do they just have bad teeth?

• The lairs of those infected are saturated in foul smelling contaminated effluvia. Often times they will collect sharp objects, such as thorns, sharpened sticks, rusted cutlery, or broken ceramics as a means of infecting those who would discover their home.

• Witches, assassins, and agents of darkness are known to carry vials of contaminated water with them to be deployed in plots of murder and terrorism.

• The end result of an infected fey is deliberately vague because there are too many fun, interesting, and horrific threads to follow. Do they become a doorway to another world? To a world that hosts some grand imperial god of the rainbow worms? Do they eventually become a sort of static nexus of power for the rainbow worms and all they infect? Does the host become a god? Or do they simply leave a husk, something that the rainbow worms would consider an abandoned fortress, brittle and grim and degraded like the remains of a long-forgotten temple? Are the remains magical? Anti-magical? Cursed? Haunted by an amorphous shoggoth of a ghost? Or are they a source of benediction?

PLOT HOOKS

• Reread the LORE and the IDEAS TO PLAY WITH sections. They're silly with plot hooks.

• The players are hired by a mining consortium to locate an expedition that disappeared in the foothills of the Kheson Mountains. One of the expedition's provisions suppliers admitted today to a rainbow worm larval contamination at their warehouse, and the mining consortium fears the worst.

• The local magistrate suspects that, Nils Provo, the much-loved and politically connected head priest of a local religious sect, has ties to one of the major pestilential cults, and hires the players to investigate. There are only a few days until the Centennial Blood Mass, and god forbid he contaminates the celebratory wine.

NOTES

Based on Leucochloridium Paradoxum, which can be found via a simple Google search of the following keywords: zombie snail parasite. It is the most disgusting and horrific thing I can imagine and I assume that the unscrupulous, power-hungry technocrats that control the governments of the world are already making progress in developing some form of injectible, human-adapted strain of the nasty little buggers.

OUTRO

There. Another long one. Done.

I actually started this post a long time ago, March 19th 2020 to be exact. Suffice it to say, becoming suddenly unemployed thanks to COVID and watching Western Civilization unravel was enough to cause me to lose interest in writing about parasites and redirect my energies to more urgent tasks.

I like this one, though. ‘M glad I waited a bit. And ‘m glad I’m done with it. Anything to take those pretentious elves down a notch.

Buncha hoity-toity, tree-loving, Etsy-shopping, pretty boys.

Anyhow…

Until next time…

Be creative. Have fun. Get weird.