Praeva the Slitherer

The Firstborn Praeva resided in the primordial Mistwood. She was a healer of bodies and souls, infinitely generous and compassionate. The horrors of the Great Divorce weighed heavily on her. She tried to avoid picking a side, treating and comforting those loyal to Lumaya and those loyal to Siroth equally. Yet both sides tried, subtly and not, to persuade her. Successive visitors under Siroth’s orders wove tales of woe and persecution. Feeding her a mixture of lies, half-truths, and genuine grievances, they convinced her that Lumaya’s cessation of the Dances would doom the world to inevitable stagnation and decay, the opposite of what the healer Praeva most desired. Convinced to help Siroth, Praeva began inflicting maladies upon Lumaya’s servants under the guise of care. Because the Firstborn could not die, but could still suffer, they often used terrible curses and diseases as a means of waging war. Praeva extracted the afflictions Siroth’s Firstborn were suffering, stored them within her inner reserves of magic, and then poured them into Lumaya’s faithful, where they lay dormant until Praeva later activated them. By these betrayals of her trusting patients, Praeva’s heart was darkened and she was sent to Anathraad following the casting of the banishment spell. When her fellow Demons discovered what she had done, they named her the Slitherer, for she stored and injected curses like a snake with its venom, and wrought cold, serpentine treachery. She, in turn, was furious to discover that the Firstborn of Siroth had deceived her to win her loyalty, but all her hatred could not undo her fate. Stricken with grief and self-loathing, Praeva brooded reclusively for many centuries, the Darkness of Anathraad destroying whatever vestiges of goodness remained in her. She hid from Siroth’s gaze and refused to aid him throughout numerous major events – the Sin of Dragons, the Fall of the Dwarves, and two Great Wars. Eventually, however, an overwhelming longing for her homeland grew within her, and she finally decided to seek Siroth’s guidance. Siroth revealed that he had left a Seed of Corruption within the Mistwood before the Great Divorce, a means of transforming the forest into his dominion. He promised Praeva that she could rule this domain if she awakened the Seed. Praeva agreed. She inhabited a mortal body and became a Demonspawn, able to pass into Teleria. Siroth promised, in time, to send another Demonspawn to help her carry out the plan. Meanwhile, Praeva decided to acquire a small but highly skilled group of mortal thralls to aid her. Disguising her monstrous appearance, Praeva established herself in Yakai as a traveling physician, remaining unassuming and elusive. Grasping her bewildered but trusting charges by the skull with both hands, staring deep into their uncomprehending eyes and murmuring ancient invocations, she absorbed the quality of fealty from the loyal but unremarkable citizens she healed just as she had absorbed curses from the Firstborn. Then, after gathering a large amount of this metaphysical essence, she infused a series of strong warriors with a massive dose of it, and, as with her delayed curses, set the magic to only awaken at her later command. When she issued it, those skillful warriors became her slaves, abandoning their lives, to travel to her. Siroth was satisfied that the invasion force was ready, and dispatched its final member: the Demonspawn Petrifya, a living font of rot and desiccation. Petrifya led their infiltration, loosening the soil and burrowing through the earth for countless miles under the Mistwood. Praeva and her elites followed her through the tunnel. When they surfaced, Praeva instructed Petrifya to lead the rest in creating as distracting a slaughter as possible while she awakened the Seed. While Petrifya and the rest set about massacring Sylvan civilians and the Sylvan Watchers drawn to the fight, Praeva sneaked to the very roots of the Heart Tree, where the Seed of Corruption lay dormant and unnoticed. At her touch, the Seed pulsed with dark magic and unleashed a tidal wave of malign energy. So began the Sylvan Corruption, the twisted mutation of the Tree and the Sylvan themselves. But Praeva would not live to see it. Siroth had concealed from her the true price of awakening the Seed. She was absorbed by it, body and soul, the totality of her power acting as the catalyst of the self-perpetuating Corruption. In essence, she herself became the Corruption – but was erased from existence. For as long as the Corruption raged, she was utterly lost. But when the tainted Heart Tree was finally burned and the Corruption ended, a faint trace of Praeva returned. The Arbiter took this and recreated Praeva within a Shard, much as she had called back the echo of Hierophant Lazarius. Time will tell whether Praeva can be redeemed, or if she is simply a prisoner.