The Chromatic Chord

Lifeforce Depletion

The grey weakness of a body whose vital reserves have been spent or stolen, by healing, overcasting, starvation, disease, or a draining working or being, ending in recovery, early age, or death.

Overview

The midwife's hands go grey for a day after a hard birth. That is the mild end of lifeforce depletion, which healers call "the healer's grey": a body that has given away more of its vital reserve than it had to spare. Every village knows it. At the far end is the healer who keeps one more patient alive and does not wake up.

Cause

Healing is transfer, not creation (see Lifeforce). A body has only so much usable vitality, and its reserves fall through injury, disease, overcasting, strain, starvation, and repeated healing. Spells such as Crisis Borrow and Surging's Mercy Drain spend the healer's own reserve on purpose; repeated use of either kills healers. Others lose it by theft: Necromancy's Life Drain, the bite of Blood-Eels, or the grip of Hemophages.

Who It Strikes

Healers and midwives first, because they cannot refuse; then casters who overcast, the starved, the long sick, and those weakened by childbirth or a hard winter. Drained victims of every people. A depleted body cannot heal another safely, however compatible it is, so a village with one exhausted healer is a village without one.

Signs and Course

The common sign is greyness: the face pales, the lips lose colour, and the hands go cold and grey at the fingertips. Mild depletion brings tiredness, slowness of thought, and a day of bad appetite, and is gone after a night's sleep and a meal.

Deeper depletion lasts days. The patient shakes, feels the cold, sleeps long without rest, and catches every passing sickness. Wounds heal slowly. Victims of a drain look this way at once, and stay cold and weak for days even after they break free.

When it is repeated over years, the depletion stops mending fully. Endurance shortens, recovery weakens, the hair greys early, and the body ages ahead of its years. The turning point of a single case is the first long sleep: a patient who wakes warmer will mend. One who wakes colder, with a slow pulse and no hunger, may collapse.

Contagion

Depletion does not pass between people, though a depleted healer who keeps working can spread it by healing.

Treatment and Its Limits

Rest, food, warmth, and sleep restore most of it, and broth, honeyed milk, and strengthening teas are the folk remedies in every kitchen. A deeper case can be given vitality: Lifeline Bridge from a willing donor, Reserve Tap from a stored vessel, or Living Equilibrium to share out what a group has. Every one of these is a transfer and leaves someone else greyer. Donors of the same people give most for least loss (see the compatibility bands), and a bridge to a donor who is too weak can collapse both. Nothing restores years already spent.

Mortality

A single mild case does not kill. Deep depletion kills the old, the sick, and healers who keep giving, and a hard drain can kill outright. Survivors of repeated depletion keep its marks for life: frailty, early age, a weakness against disease, and fewer years.

Lore and Belief

Most peoples revere the greyed healer, and a village that wears out its healer is ashamed of it. Many believe a healer who greys has given a part of herself, and some speak of it as giving away years, which is near the truth. Some peoples hold that greyness after a drain is the dead's mark and keep the victim from the hearth for a night.

In the Medieval Era

The healer's grey is part of ordinary medieval life. Households and villages ration how often they send for their healer, and healers age early. The schools of Vital Magic rotate their healers, keep stored reserves for mass-casualty work, and teach when to refuse. In plague years and after battles, the hospices of the Red Mercy and the Houses of Mercy lose healers to it as surely as to the sickness.

Where It Appears

See Also