Meanwhile, in the Magitechnocracy of Isengard...the trade hub of Sieglan, located in the south of the country, was in a state of disarray. It was once a bustling mercantile city that kept up active trade with the Gardio Empire, but ever since Meteor Day, it had been isolated from the rest of the world.
What was once a place filled with life was now little more than a hollow slum. It had all begun with an alleged miracle drug, a potion that kept corruption at bay, purported to have been made from ground-up Puretree branches. Naturally, the people flocked to buy it. And all of them were, unfortunately, unaware of how catastrophically addictive it was.
Those who’d ingested it soon lost their vitality, becoming little more than shambling, apathetic husks. Many were crippled by the addiction, and soon enough, they wasted away and died.
Those unlucky enough to survive gradually underwent physical changes. Some of these changes were more prominent than others... Some of the afflicted grew scales on their skin, while others grew sharp claws where their nails had once been. Their minds changed alongside the physical deformation as well. Their sanity gradually slipped away...until all they could think about was getting more of the drug that had hooked them. They lost their sense of reason, reduced to little more than raging beasts.
A weakened man was in one of Sieglan’s back alleys, his mind long gone. He was once a butcher. And at the suggestion of one of his regular customers, he tried a cheap, yet effective, medicine. At first, he thought it was a scam...but he took a few doses and felt his worries float away. His pain, his sorrow, his doubt...all were wiped from his body. He felt euphoric.
He needed more. He abandoned his business and skulked around town looking for as much as he could get. At first he only bought it, but eventually, he was fine stealing it.
The more medicine he took, the more his body changed. He grew physically larger, his skin hardened. He became almost like an Orc. And yet, the man didn’t care. In fact, the man likely didn’t even notice.
The medicine became scarcer as time went on. The man’s stress levels rose in turn. He became anxious. He fell into fits of depression and rage. Nothing he did eased his heart. He was angry and sad all at once. He became aggressive, lashing out for the smallest things. The few people remaining in his life soon left him, but that only accelerated his mental decline.
When he began killing people for looking at him wrong, he felt nothing. He only had the capacity for impatience, exhaustion, and irritability. He hated the people around him, for they refused to give him his fix. He hated the town itself, for it lacked an adequate supply of what he needed. He hated the world, for it had failed to deliver that sweet rush directly into his veins.
The man collapsed in a filthy alley, weakened and filled with spite, cursing the world that brought him here. And then...two shadowy figures appeared before him.
“Here he is. Let’s hope it’s not another failure,” the man in a metal plague doctor’s mask muttered as he glanced down at the prone man. A metallic red rapier sat at his waist.
“The drug he took had a concentrated dosage. He should still have his ego intact, so I think you’ll find him to your liking,” the man in a spherical diver’s mask answered his beaked friend. One wouldn’t expect him to see very well through the latticed peephole on the front of his headgear, yet he seemed to see just fine. A metallic blue hatchet sat at his own waist, glowing faintly.
The former butcher glared up at the two men, rage faintly burning behind his gaze.
“Me...di...cine... Give...me...”
“I’ve something better than medicine for you, friend,” the man in the plague mask merrily said as he pulled a pistol out from a deep pocket, aiming it at the man’s chest. He then pulled the trigger without a moment of hesitation, shooting the former butcher square in the heart.
Oddly enough, there wasn’t any blood. The struck man began to convulse, but he didn’t die.
“Ghah... Ghkah... Ghkhah!”
“Don’t die, okay? It’d be a real pain to find another candidate...”
The former butcher’s body began to change even more. His muscles expanded, bulging blood vessels peeking out from beneath his taut skin. His eyes rolled back into his head and a strained scream leaked out past his lips.
Eventually, he stopped convulsing and stilled. He was unconscious, but he certainly wasn’t dead.
“Bingo.”
“Hah... And thus the new devout is born.”
The former butcher rolled onto his back, revealing his bare chest. A disturbing, ominous pattern sprawled out across it, with the gunshot wound as the center. He slowly staggered to his feet.
“Hey there. You feeling okay?”
“Not... Awf...ul... Feel...better...”
The man’s muscles were pulsing and rippling. He honestly looked ready to burst. But he didn’t seem to be in any pain as he looked up to the sky with sunken eyes.
“...Maybe he took too much? What’s with the way he’s talking?”
“It’s not a big deal if he talks funny, right...? Oh, it’s manifesting.”
“Ghah?! Wh...at...?!”
The former butcher began clutching at his chest. His ribs suddenly bent outward, his upper torso exploding into a shower of blood...and a shining, sticklike object suddenly burst out of his open wound.
The butcher was still lucid, however, and he reached out with wavering hands to pull the object free.
“It’s pretty big... Is it a greatsword?”
“Don’t think so, but... Oh, now I see.”
As the butcher pulled the object from his chest, the full shape of the blood-smeared manifestation was revealed. The handle of the weapon was thick and rugged, like the kind you’d find on a machete. But the blade was, well... It was obvious what the weapon was. The beast of a man held a metallic brown meat cleaver in his hands.
“So that’s the shape his wicked vessel has taken?”
“I...cut... I...cu...t...meat...” the butcher stared vacantly as he spoke, his jaw slack and listless.
Not long after, there were various reports of bodies in the streets of Sieglan. They’d all been sliced up into chunks of meat.
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