The noxious sludge spread rapidly throughout the continent, despite some cities enacting strict quarantine protocols, consuming any plant life it encountered. Adventurers, too focused on their destinations, accelerated the natural spread of the sludge as they tracked all over the land. In response to the spreading toxin, many governments closed their borders, among them Delve, Moghedu and the Second Imperium.

In a matter of weeks, most of the natural environs of Sapience were coated in the purple sludge. Lacking further plant life to consume for its sustenance, the pervasive sludge came to a standstill. Countless scraggly red stalks began to grow out of the muck as the sludge progressed to its next stage. Veterans of the first sludge attack were all too familiar with the invasive stalks and set to work culling them, but their efforts were rebuffed as the stalks always seemed to regrow. Despite the best efforts of the populace, the stalks kept growing until they eventually bloomed and sprayed their infective spores into the air.

As more and more of the stalks reached maturity, Sapience became covered in a thick cloud of virulent spores. Neither undead nor living were spared from the effects, both of them becoming infected with the Aalem Bloom disease in different ways when coming into contact with the spores. The highly contagious disease spread even further as it transferred from person to person and soon most of the citizens of Sapience were infected.

As the symptoms of the disease advanced, victims found that their curatives began failing them and became desperate in seeking out a cure. Answering these calls, Hassem and Milly of the Esterport Apothecarium bid adventurers to come assist their research and sent people out to gather ingredients for their experiments. The two reseachers laboured day and night in their attempts to produce a cure even as the disease ravaged them, until one morning the loud clatter of equipment breaking resounded across the trade city.

Hassem and Milly had fallen into a coma, their sleepless nights and self-experimentation had finally taken its toll. Yet despite the unfortunate turn of events, hope was not lost. Discovering the research notes left behind by Hassem, a small group of adventurers led by Kelliara and Sibatti toiled several nights until they successfully produced the purgative elixir - the cure for the disease.

With the cure being dispensed to the infected, many of the now-cured began to notice that the purgative elixir had worsened the failure of their curatives. Due to the plague, the cure, or both, the physiology of those infected had changed permanently. With Milly and Hassem back on their feett, they shared with everyone the knowledge gained from their weeks of research, culminating in the skills of Herbalism and Apothecary replacing the now obsolete Reanimation and Concoctions.

Although the crisis of the Aalen Bloom disease was now over, the sludge and spores still remained. Sneak, founder of the Archivists, feared it would only be a matter of time until the sludge mutated and would once again ravage the continent. The Archivist Akaryuterra volunteered to remain uncured, allowing the Bloom disease to run its full course until he eventually perished, his entire body liquefying as it dissolved into sludge. Using his gathered remains as a catalyst, a small group of Archivists consisting of Sneak, Kanivara, Nantafiria and Akaryuterra himself spent many hours putting their knowledge of Bioessence into practice and produced a mutagen known as antipseudophytal.

Needing a safe way to contain the powerful mutagen, the Archivists requested a solution from the young Sciomancer Tekias. Putting his knowledge of Enchantments and Crystalism into practice, Tekias devised the creation of a special enchanted flask, crafted from chunks of the crystalline structures growing in Spinesreach and Enorian.

With the mutagen now able to be safely contained, the Archivists made deals with the other cities for supply of the antipseudophytal solution. As supply of the solution spread, adventurers went area-by-area withering the sludge into lumpy remnants as they poureed the mutagen upon it.

The threat of the sludge and its diseased now permanently erased, the survivors began to look towards burying and burning their dead. Among the dead, one notable name stood out: Seasone the Industrious.

Penned by my hand on Tisday, the 19th of Niuran, in the year 465 MA.