Wendigo Fever is spread through a few things, mainly through blood or other bodily fluids, and can lay dormant inside hosts who are starving. Sally was the host who carried it out of the Mountain. However, for a creature to begin turning into a wendigo, there needs to be a catalyst. Sally managed to get honest food before an event like cannibalism, or worse. There are many forces that can cause Wendigo Fever to develop to its final stage, like, for example, the Path.

It was mention in a certain creature’s lore while inside the Mountain Dungeon, a monster that bleeds the black-blood. The question is, was it the source of the corruption, or another victim? And was Wendigo Fever the only affliction it harboured?

Well, with what’s been hinted at so far, there is a couple of conclusions that could be drawn, and I’ll confirm some and direct further questions along the ‘correct’ lines of inquiry:

1. the entity that gave Sally the [Mental Framework] is not the same entity that reincarnated them into the lands of [Brekun]. The [Mental Framework] seems to be an act of kindness (at least from what’s been told), and the entity that reincarnated them into a drakeling seemed to be aiming to have them return to the cycle as soon as possible. Why else place them inside a helpless hatchling inside a dungeon cave currently being raided by a party of ‘intrepid heroes’? 

But what role does the Ouroboros hold? Was it one of these two mysterious figures? or an impartial third party?

2. The [Mental Framework] itself is a construct, a snapshot of Sally’s original brain from before death and tacked onto Sally’s soul. It allowed Sally to maintain their intelligence and memories upon rebirth. But it appears to be designed to degrade over time, the human brain slowly unravelling and implanting Sally’s consciousness into the draconic body. It can also be damaged, which causes serious developments to Sally’s consciousness.

3. Sally’s mind and personality are changed upon implantation into the draconic body, and when it comes to the question of the mind, is it shaped more by memories or flesh? Does nurture or nature hold a greater grip on the final shape on your personality? If you had a medical condition that created unassailable depression through an imbalance of chemicals, is that depression a permanent part of your personality, or simply an incurable condition to be managed? Is that depression an integral part of your existence as a sapient creature, as much as how your human neurons shape your intelligence? Would you be a soul hampered by an imperfect vessel, able to be healed when the flesh holding it is fixed? Or, would you be a consciousness twisted into a permanent new shape by the median that creates it, and each attempt to ‘fix’ the issue would only change you into a new shape, never able to truly re-inhabit the mental space you did before.

Conversely, if your mind was injected into a new body, a new species that operates and feels on an entirely different scale to a human, and retained characteristics about yourself that you truly hated, habits that transcend bodies, are you simply a broken consciousness?

If you felt your mind change and warp as you settles in a new body, more comfortably than you ever could in your old flesh suit, and previously undesirable habits suddenly felt completely at home in your new body, it would raise a question.

Were you simply born the wrong shape, causing unfulfillable habits and desires to find themselves sated in the ‘right body’, or, are you using the new shape as an excuse for a twisted parts of your mind that were simply born wrong?

For Sally, their development revolves around finding the line between the two sides of this coin. What changes are coming from their new flesh, what changes were repressed instincts from the human body, but could some parts be emerging from beneath healing trauma? (These questions are asked simply to expose the possibilities amongst Sally’s own thoughts, the truth is a more charitable answer than the questions would suggest.)

It’ll be back. Waiting for Orion’s return.

Within the ‘System’, or perhaps more accurately, the Path, it is fractured, yet all of its shards share the same core. At some point, there was only one Path, one designer, but then it split when the gods did.

The Moon god managed to create their own Path after being imprisoned inside the Mountain Dungeon, while the Sun god has had his for some unknown amount of time. Perhaps it is a reflection of their relationship, or of the power imbalance between them, the Moon’s Path is unable to overpower the raw influence the Sun’s system has on the world, and on Sally in particular.

The Sun’s path is structured, with skills and powers well-defined with little flexibility, one way they are intended to use, and it is very ordered and powerful. Compared to the Moon’s Path, which simply gives you abilities to leverage and use however chaotically you wish. In line with these rationals, the Sun’s Path insistence towards making Sally Orion’s pet is something that the Moon’s Path cannot overcome, but it can trick it, and twist the Sun’s Path’s wishes into something more palatable.

Which has resulted in Sally’s system being somewhat buggy, from the premise of a unfinished system struggling with extreme edge cases.

The Moon god was the one who designed the Dungeon in its entirety, and its ‘secret’ path. They made the obstacles and rest points Sally and Orion encountered, and where the secret passage exited. With the Moon god’s knowledge of the future, one has to wonder, how much of Sally and Orion’s adventure so far has been curated by their designs for upcoming events?

Well… From now on they do! These first 60-70 chapters are all about tearing them down, but from now on, I’ll be building them back up. Their character development and the plot is heading in a (mostly) positive direction. The light-hearted and encouraging changes will come from the realisations they will have about themselves and each other as both of them begin to bloom into better, healthier people.

This was a purposeful bit of characterisation from me, as it was meant to reflect Orion and Sally’s disinterest in the village around them. Sally viewed the village as little more than a backdrop for their [Quest], and Orion was too busy looking for threats, (real or otherwise), and fretting over Sally’s thoughts of him. In hindsight, this could’ve been done a bit better, with background information and personalisation of the environment offered, but denied by Sally or Orion.

However, as was always planned, I’m going to write and upload a couple of interludes during the hiatus. Both have personalised information about the world and the village in particular.