This illness has killed half of the village, and fear of its spread has caused the Confederacy to wall us off from the rest of Elsweyr. It does not matter. We are neither the origin or its only vector.
The symptoms start innocuously enough; fatigue and a diminished appetite accompany leaking tears and a rash beneath the fur. Within a day or two from the detection of these symptoms, the victim will be bleeding from the eyes, ears, and gums. The cough is the worst of it, leading to ruptured lungs and internal bleeding.
Treatment is largely ineffective. By the time curatives were administered the afflicted were so far along in the disease's progression that their bodies would not absorb it quickly enough. Only by catching it early could one be saved from death's hungry talons, and even then not for long.
It is not the disease itself that is the worst part. It is the fear — a fear that causes the villagers to tear at one another as they search for someone to blame for this slow, segregated death.
The irony? One of the soldiers hemming us in had the rash. This illness will spread, and there is nothing I can do about it.
