Nexus Health

All images by Nightcafe

After The Split, the world became three: Decay, where the people withered as quickly as the land; Stability, where the very nature of the world was resistant to change; and Growth, where evolution happened rapidly and innovation was a common occurrence. These lands couldn't stay apart forever, though. Through travelling along the roots of Stablewood, Nexus was able to travel to and observe Growth's sister worlds. In discovering the stabilizing effects that Nexus could have on one's cognisance, small rooms in it were even sold to the public. Nexus quickly became a place people would frequent whenever encountering difficulty in life, either to think things out or just relax. Unfortunately, spending too much time in Nexus was detrimental to consumers' health, as the growth-reliant bodies would build up decay energy that wasn't being sucked out by Stablewood. This knowledge came too late, and many suffered from Nexus Sickness. Aware of the many problems this could cause them, Nexus launched a subcompany known as Nexus Health.

Preventing Decay

Nexus Health tried many ways to take away the decay energy from patients, but found they were unable to do so. They did discover, however, that they could prevent further decay by inducing stability. With Stableleaves, the leaves of Stablewood,some decay energy was able to be leeched from the patients, although it took out an equal amount of growth energy, inducing a state similar to that of citizens of Stability. As they were not altered by the effects of The Split itself, but rather from interrealm travel, it was decided that the term elf woud be wrong to be applied to these stabilized people, and so they were given the term Troll. Trolls had various traits that were stabilized, seemingly randomly, at the same time as their bodies were stabilized from Nexus Sickness. They can be, however, categorized in two varieties of stabilization:

Form Trolls

Form Trolls had various qualities of their forms stabilized. This was any physical characteristic of them. for example, a Form Troll could be stuck permanently in the physical age they were at time of stabilizing, although their mind would continue to age, or their joint orientation could be stabilized, such as to effectively paralyze them.

Passion Trolls

Passion Trolls had various categories of their mental state stabilized. For example, a Passion Trolls could remain as hungry as they were at the time of stabilization, no matter how much they ate, or remain constantly irate, under the situation where they had felt feelings of anger when they were stabilized.

The Tradgedy of the Ents

Unfortunately, the stabilization did not always work as well as anticipated. Many people loathed the side effects of being stabilized, and time showed Trolls to have shorter life spans than average citizens of Growth. A new solution was needed. On a walk through a forest one day, a researcher for Nexus Health had an idea for one such solution. She reasoned that merging a patient with additional unafflicted life should help lower their decay level. Thus the Ents were born. Patients' DNA was fused with that of special trees known for rapid growth, creating a species of anthropomorphic plants. Due to the same reasoning as with the trolls, these being were not called elves, but rather, Ents. Ents were still able to move as normal, albeit slower, and could feed off the sun and the ground for energy. Ents quickly became the popular treatment for Nexus Sickness, and many people were treated as such. It wasn't until a few years later when the issues were discovered with being an Ent. The merging with trees turned out to only extend the lifetimes of patients, as the decay still ate away at their DNA, eventually leaving behind only a living tree with no more trace of the patient other than the rough physical shape.

Reception

With each discovered solution, Nexus Health recieved a spike of popularity, but with each finding of side effects, the public opinion of Nexus Health became much worse. After the discovery of the long-term effects of being an Ent, Nexus Health faced much public backlash and needed to shut down completly. The Trolls lived on for the duration of their lifespans, and many Ent-forests were made. Ultimately, no solution was permanently found to Nexus Sickness, but people still spent more of their lives in Nexus, slowly killing themselves and all three worlds until the end of the era.