Limb-murk

A farmers’ annoyance.

It used to be a very annoying condition - you’d have to stay in bed for sometimes as long as up to a month to let your leg or arm recover. No work in the field, or anywhere else for that matter. That’s big trouble if your family depends on your work for staying afloat. But now, thanks to the wonders of medicine, you just have to suffer around 2 hours of burning pain and you’ll be relieved of this bothersome sickness.

provincial doctor on limb-murk

Limb-murk is a skin infection which attacks most mortal races and other animals. It sometimes is refered to as the "farmers’ blight", as due to it being caused by a lack of hygiene and prolonged contact with dirt and soil it was common in farmland villages.

Causes

The condition is the result of a specific type of bacteria which when exposed to the skin for prolonged periods of time can get into its tissue and begin destroying it. It can be found in soggy soil where it has the optimal conditions for survival before it can find a host. This is also why it always attacks either arms or legs - these are the parts of the body that would most often interact with the soil and thus the bacteria.

Symptoms

The initial symptom is the drying up of external skin tissue. Within 2 to 3 days, the skin will begin cracking up in places and darkening. At this point itching will begin, then evolving into normal pain usually the day after. This is because the now dark, crusty outer layer of skin will be easily irritated via touch.

Treatment

In the past

The only treatment that was known for hundreds of years was just waiting it out while washing the sick limb a few times every day. In such a way, some pain would be relieved and after 2 to 4 weeks, the immunity system would do its job and the darkened skin would simply fall off.

Discovery of effective counter medicine

After hundreds of years without a drug that would combat the condition, a chemical compound was discovered in 3034 that would them become the anti-biotic for limb-murk. It is a liquid that when dissolved in water creates a solution which will immediately react with the surface of the affected skin, slowly burning away the sick tissue. The process is quite painful and can last between an hour to two with the limb fully submerged in the solution, but it effectively kills the bacteria and eliminates all of the condition’s symptoms.

by Own work

Sketch of an affected arm

Type

Bacterial

Origin

Natural

Cycle

Short-term

Rarity

Uncommon

Ah, the wonders of modern medicine. Once there was nothing but time that could kill this wretched sickness, but now almost every local doctor has at least a bottle of that magical cream that burns it away like some divine remedy. village pastor when asked about limb-murk