Spire-Ring Sickness

Overview

Spire-Ring Sickness is the illness of those who stand too long in the clashing sound of the Crystal Spire. Where the stored sounds of its crystals run against each other they make a field that turns the stomach, splits the head, and fills the ears with noises nobody made. Harvesters come off the mountain retching and ringing and are well in a month; the rare worst cases crack from inside.

Cause

Sound in a Crystal Spire does not fade; the crystals hold it. Where two or more held sounds clash, they make a dissonance field, and a body standing in it is shaken by frequencies it cannot hear and cannot escape. Sustained long enough, a frequency sets the body resonating as a glass rings, and the hardest parts of it, teeth and bone, give first.

Who It Strikes

Those who go to the spire and stay: harvesters cutting Scream Shards, Whisper Gems, and Memory Crystals; scholars of old tongues; and mountain folk who climb to hear a dead parent's voice again. The Crystal Singers, who live on the spire's sound, are immune. Kobolds, who feel trapped air and its pressure, are said to notice the field sooner and leave sooner.

Signs and Course

At the spire it begins as pressure in the ears and a taste of metal, then nausea and a headache that sits behind the eyes. Next come the false sounds: a voice just behind, a chord under the wind, one's own thought heard aloud a moment late. A traveller who feels a vibration in the bones is near the worst of it.

Down from the mountain, the ringing persists for days or weeks. Sufferers vomit at loud noise, cannot bear a bell, and hear music in running water. The false sounds fade first, the headaches last. Most recover in a month or two. Worse cases have teeth that crack without being bitten and fine breaks in the long bones that ache when the weather turns. The very worst, those the Spire shattered, do not come down at all.

Contagion

It does not pass from one person to another. Households that keep a harvested crystal often blame it for headaches, which a well-sealed crystal does not cause.

Treatment and Its Limits

The first cure is distance: down the mountain, away from the spire's sound. After that, quiet: a dim room, wool over the ears, no bells, no shouting, and plain food in small amounts for the stomach. Healing magic does little while the body still rings, since the vibration undoes what is mended; once the ringing stops, a bone-setter or Bone Mend treats the cracks like any other break, and Hearing Mend helps overstrained ears. Both draw on the healer's reserves and need a body that has stopped shaking.

Mortality

Down from the spire, spire-ring sickness seldom kills; deaths come at the spire itself, from a body shaken past bearing or a fall in the worst of the nausea. Survivors may keep a lasting hiss in the ears, cracked teeth, a dread of bells, or bones that ache before storms.

Lore and Belief

Harvesters say the spire's voices get into the bones, and that a sufferer who hears music in water is hearing the crystals still. Some believe a voice stored long ago is trying to speak through the sick, and ask them what it says. Scholars sometimes fear the hiss of the Static in a bad case; the two differ, since the spire's sickness is too much signal and the Static drowns all signal.

In the Medieval Era

The Crystal Spire is permanent, and its harvest is a trade, so spire-ring sickness is a known hazard of one hard calling and the families who follow it. Mountain communities below a spire nurse returning harvesters as a matter of course, keep a quiet room for them, and tie down the bell-ropes until they recover. Folk healers treat the stomach and the head with ordinary teas and rest (see Medieval Ordinary Access Reference). Few physicians beyond the mountains have seen a case.

Where It Appears

• The Crystal Spire (the Ringing, the Shatter, those shattered by the Spire)
• Crystal Singers