Wraithblood: The Elixir, a preview
From the journal of Brother Alcuin, priest of the Threefold King:
Istarinmul is a city built upon slaves.
Slaves toil in the fields. Slaves labor in the mines. Slaves clean the streets and build the walls, and serve in the houses of the shaykhs and emirs, in the mansions of the Alchemists and the palace of the Padishah. Slaves kidnapped from every nation under the sun, from Malarae and Caeria, from Kyrace and the Free Cities, from Cyrica and Nhabatan. Men and women and children, reduced to beasts, and treated worse than beasts – in Istarinmul, a horse will often cost more than a slave.
Little wonder the slaves (and even Istarinmul’s poorer freeborn) turn to drugs to ease their misery. Rice wine is abundant, and cheap – the drunkenness of slaves is a common joke. Or dreamleaf, which takes away pain and induces pleasant delirium. Such drugs have been known for centuries.
Wraithblood, however, is something new.
It first appeared in Istarinmul about ten years ago, a thick black liquid sold in small clay vials, a liquid that remained icy cold, no matter how hot the day. No one knew where it came from, or even who made it. Cheaper than wine or dreamleaf, wraithblood quickly became popular among the slaves and the poorer freeborn, and even among some of the shaykhs and emirs.
When taken orally, wraithblood induces a state of contented relaxation that quickly advances to euphoria with a second dose. The euphoric feeling lasts for hours. After several years of regular use, wraithblood begins to cause hallucinations – visions of stunning, even heartbreaking beauty.
The beauty does not last.
Wraithblood is highly addictive, and late-stage wraithblood addiction produces a number of…deleterious effects. The hallucinations grow ever more intense, and the irises of the user’s eyes turn a bright, unnatural shade of green. Shortly after that, the hallucinations themselves become…nightmarish. The user becomes trapped in an endless waking nightmare of death and horror, seeing their worst fears before their eyes over and over again. Suicide, homicidal madness, or both, are the usual results.
While it is theoretically possible to break free of a wraithblood addiction, to my knowledge no one has ever done so after entering the final stage.