But no, Wraeclast brings about a different kind of change. The...insane kind of change.
The kind of change that creeps into you. Madness that slowly wraps barbed tentacles around your mind, squeezing and tearing until your gray matter is as soiled as this infested, cursed land.

I’ve seen it. I’ve seen it in my fellow exiles. I’ve seen it in the charming one. Who came here wearing that wry smile, challenging others to duels on the blood-soaked beaches. The same man who now leaps into battle with bloodlust burning in his eyes, slashing swords wet with gore at his enemies with wild abandon. Cleaving off limbs and tearing the innards out of his enemies. Leaving a wake of disemboweled monsters and men crying in agony. Once a gentleman but now too brash and focused to even bother finishing them off.

I’ve seen it in the Karui man. A warrior once bound by oath and honour now by all accounts a marauder. A man wreathed in flame and anger crushing skulls underfoot like seashells along the glass-crusted shore. A man who once wordlessly obeyed tradition now forging his own history of mindless genocide.

Even the crusader who claims God has kept him grounded wanders a path spoiled by blood. Confusing Divine’s design with his own carnage and calling it holy. Justified. A man disillusioned by faith now utterly blind by it. One who sweeps aside Diety’s creation thoughtlessly, smiting creatures whose only sin is existing.

I see the change in them, horribly apparent to my eyes but not to their own. Wraeclast has changed them. Brought out their darkest fears and desires, exacerbating them, corrupting them into the murmurings of chaos and nightmare.

But not me.

Wraeclast is dark, mysterious, twisted. But I was already all of those things and worse. A witch they called me and a witch I am.

I summon my will and it coalesces into a seething violet mass between my palms. I lob it forwards at my enemy. It strikes them and with a beautiful conflagration of arcane energy and liquified flesh, it burrows into the torso of the monster like a Devourer burrows through earth. Flesh sloughs off the creature even as marble-sized holes bubble up out of its very bones. It only makes a pitiful gurgle as it dissolves into viscera.

Around it, the contagion spreads, leaping eagerly to latch onto more creatures. They too collapse, turning to gore and putrid, fetid gases; the last emissions of organic matter liquifying into their primordial, constituent parts. The monsters at the back try to flee but it’s already too late. The contagion has caught hold of them and continues its deadly work, this time moving slow enough to allow their screams to intermingle with the sounds of decay. One of the creatures struggles, its skin peeling away but bones intact, organs spilling out in globs. I gracefully slide towards it, offering a hand under its revealing skull. A gentle caress and the bones regain their strength, the sinews renew their vigour. The skeleton remains standing, rattling, affirming. Ready to do my bidding.

Like the splintered crack of a diseased femur, a smile breaks across my face.