Firisma
Firisma refers to the widespread disease that spread through the kingdom of Nerinoch in Northeastern Felhedell, causing what is now known as the Nerinoch Pandemic, and leaving in its wake untold numbers of dead. It was stopped by the combined efforts of two citizens of Aes and their ability to cast protective magic on clockwork prosthetics that defended the human body from the disease and allowed those sick to recover.
Transmission & Vectors
How Firisma spread was initially spread is not entirely known, but it is theorised that the disease was spread through the air and through touch, due to how quickly it spread. However, it later evolved to become integrated with the DNA of those who had already been infected by it, and so when these people began procreating and having children, those children who weren't killed by the disease while in the womb, were then born with Firisma and died soon afterwards from it.
Causes
When the disease first became known, the cause was the viral pathogen that was spread through the air or through touch by infected individuals, but when people began to recover and were protected from any negative affects by their magic clockwork, the disease was forced to evolve to become something that would then be inherited by new babies.
Symptoms
Firisma starts with a fever and dizziness, but soon progresses to fainting and long bouts of unconsciousness. Finally, the infected comes back to consciousness, seemingly cured and healthy again, and is fine for a few days before they begin vomiting blood in increasing amounts, and bleeding out by the next week.
Treatment
There is no current chemical or herbal remedy for this disease, as no medicines produced seem to work. Instead, the only treatment for the disease is protective magic that shields the body and its organs from being attacked by the disease. Externally cast protective magic works to protect the body for a few days, but eventually fades off. In order to prevent this, the magic is instead integrated with a clockwork prosthetic which is then surgically attached to the infected person, allowing it to constantly defend the infected person so long as the magic and the prosthetic itself regularly has maintenance performed on it.
Prognosis
Firisma is considered fatal 100% of the time without treatment. Survivors of the disease have described the course of the disease as initially feeling like they were on the verge of death before suddenly waking up and feeling perfectly fine. Those who had progressed into the final stage have also said that they didn't feel ill during this stage, but they would regularly vomit and cough up alarming amounts of blood.
Sequela
Firisma itself does not have any aftereffect; however, the treatment used to cure it does. The first version of the treatment was external prosthetics, replacing arms and legs with clockwork ones and, particularly in the early stages of this treatment, these prosthetics were not always advanced and complex - those who had them often had limited movement in the replaced limb. Eventually, these prosthetics switched to internal ones, often replacing the heart with a clockwork one, and these aftereffects were lessened, becoming almost non-existent; those first few patients to receive crude clockwork prosthetics later also got them replaced with more advanced ones, allowing them complete range of movement once again.
Other than that, survivors of Firisma, particularly late stage survivors, generally experienced a short period of weakness while they recovered from the bloodloss caused by the final stage of the disease.
Affected Groups
All groups of people are equally affected by the disease.
Hosts & Carriers
Following the evolution of the disease, those who had been previously infected by the disease now become carriers of it, even after recovering from it. They no longer experience symptoms of it, but they still hold the disease in their bodies.
Prevention
There is currently no way to prevent the disease, as no medicines work on it. As of present day Nerinoch, now known as Aes, infants are born with the disease and allowed to grow without intervention until they begin to show symptoms of the disease, after which they will then be operated on and given the protective internal clockwork prosthetic.
Epidemiology
The disease first presented in the isolated village of Mooncrest, in Southern Nerinoch. Due to the village's isolation, it didn't spread outside of the village, and disappeared for two centuries before returning - this time in one of Nerinoch's more populous city. From there it spread quickly and throughout entirety of the kingdom, even to the more isolated villages as people flocked there in hopes of escaping the spread of the disease.
The disease targeted both the rich and poor equally badly, due to a lack of defence from the disease - although the spread was quicker through the poor due to more cramped living areas and less ability to isolate from infected individuals.
History
The first recorded cases of it were in the village of Mooncrest in Southern Aes, an isolated village with a small population that was very spaced out. Only a few members of the village fell ill, among which was Isolde Silver, the mother of Alianor Farrier - one of the two people responsible for providing a cure for the disease. Alianor's father had been out of the village at the time of his wife's illness and therefore escaped infection, and Alianor herself already had a clockwork heart which protected her body from the disease. As of the present day, Alianor is one of three people in the entire kingdom to have never caught the disease.
Due to the isolation and quick deaths of the infected, the disease quickly died out; however, two centuries later, it returned - this time in a populous city. This second outbreak was devastating and tore through the entirety of the kingdom, killing at least 40% of Nerinoch's population before the rampant death rate suddenly dropped through the efforts of Alianor Farrier and her adopted brother Eli Langridge, who worked together to give infected individuals protective clockwork prosthetics.
As of the present day, the disease is still rampant in the kingdom, and seems to only affect citizens of Aes. It is now an inherited disease, and infants are now born with the disease already in their bodies.
Cultural Reception
The people of Aes (previously known as Nerinoch) fear the disease, even to the present day, and are therefore constantly working on and improving the clockwork prosthetics used to protect the citizens from the disease so as to prevent more widespread death from it.
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