[Ever pragmatic, even in the face of... all this. Something he could appreciate about Claude - especially now - so it isn't much of a surprise when he asks about how the cwyld manifests.]
It... doesn't quite kill things, though what it does is likely worse, and it manifests in different ways depending on what it's infected.
[Here, have some infodump, Claude:]
Everything in an environment - the plants, mostly, but even the ground and the rocks - grow and become charged with this odd, unsettling magic. Everything turns black, except where the growth makes it crack apart, which glows with that magic.
Monsters and wildlife turn black, too, first. Then they slowly become disfigured as the infection consumes them... I'd say it's like the shift into a demonic beast, but as far as I can tell the process is much slower than that. The end result is similar, though, since the infected is unrecognizable at the end. They're... basically dead at this point, and there's no cure once it passes past the discoloration stage...
Witches and humans are similar, but... the influx of magic can also make them overload and, well, explode, instead, and take out everything around them with them. It's hard to tell if that'll happen, but if it gets to that point, there's nothing that can be done anyway.
Luckily, it can be cured if it's caught quickly enough, and the environment can be purified, but it's... risky.
[Does that speak of personal experience? It sure does. He'll even pause in his walking to dig out what looks like a pocketwatch at first glance, but... is what shows on the glass changing as he touches it? It is - and he eventually finds what he's looking for, turning to Claude to show him an image of an arm, skin blackened from the hand to up just past the elbow in creeping tendril patterns, veins looking raised and painful and just starting to glow.]
no subject
It... doesn't quite kill things, though what it does is likely worse, and it manifests in different ways depending on what it's infected.
[Here, have some infodump, Claude:]
Everything in an environment - the plants, mostly, but even the ground and the rocks - grow and become charged with this odd, unsettling magic. Everything turns black, except where the growth makes it crack apart, which glows with that magic.
Monsters and wildlife turn black, too, first. Then they slowly become disfigured as the infection consumes them... I'd say it's like the shift into a demonic beast, but as far as I can tell the process is much slower than that. The end result is similar, though, since the infected is unrecognizable at the end. They're... basically dead at this point, and there's no cure once it passes past the discoloration stage...
Witches and humans are similar, but... the influx of magic can also make them overload and, well, explode, instead, and take out everything around them with them. It's hard to tell if that'll happen, but if it gets to that point, there's nothing that can be done anyway.
Luckily, it can be cured if it's caught quickly enough, and the environment can be purified, but it's... risky.
[Does that speak of personal experience? It sure does. He'll even pause in his walking to dig out what looks like a pocketwatch at first glance, but... is what shows on the glass changing as he touches it? It is - and he eventually finds what he's looking for, turning to Claude to show him an image of an arm, skin blackened from the hand to up just past the elbow in creeping tendril patterns, veins looking raised and painful and just starting to glow.]
Looks like this, in the early stages, on a witch.