In the midst of this uncertainty, Queen Iola at last married her fiancé, who now took his place at her side as King Nero.  Although it was overall a celebratory day, the absence of both of their living parents hung like a cloud over the occasion, at least in the opinions of many onlookers.

Perhaps they thought that in their current state, his parents would be unaware, perhaps they were unaware themselves of the exact dangers of necrosis in spite of reading Silvius’ reports - neither of them was a scientist, after all.  In the years where they might have been studying and enjoying their youth, they had been pushed into war and leadership, and after - well, what time did they have then for studies?  Whatever the reasons, unfortunately, Morgana and Muramasa were aware of the marriage.  Although they had eagerly arranged it during Deja’s reign, in the throes of necrosis, it seemed betrayal, especially when paired with the surveillance.  Their son and his new wife watched them, but had not bothered to speak to them?  To send help to them?  They did not think of the potential of larger concerns than their own lives, such as the safety of dextroluma in general - or perhaps they simply did not care any longer.

They had already begun to twist in strange ways before then, especially during the fight with expedition members.  They had called themselves rulers of the new region - why not?  No one was here but them, and at the time, they had likely assumed that Queen Iola would eagerly grant it to them - now, as they seethed, they decided they would simply claim it - and more besides.

It would require more than what they had, however.  A small village in front of a ruined castle would not be enough to drive nations to their knees.  No, they had to dream bigger - and they had to weaponize the thing that they believed had empowered them to see others for what they were.

They started by violently ensuring the loyalty of those in that small village, and then they began to take.  No longer were only the curious or the foolhardy at risk - dextroluma in the Eternal Depths and the Realm of Tides began to be reported missing.  As the numbers grew, and signs pointed to the land where the expedition had vanished, towns in the vicinity began to be abandoned.  Not all dextroluma who were captured were kept - some were turned loose like weapons, some escaped.  All had those strange black eyes…  Those with it were quarantined in a growing contained hospital in Medic Bay if they could be, or killed if they could not be, and some nations began to operate their own to try to manage the problem and assist in trying to discover what could be done to fix this strange illness.

The lands were christened the Blighted Wilds by the rest of Aerius.  As it began to dominate the news cycle, it had needed something to be called, and that was chosen by popular vote of Aerius’ most watched news network.  Fear was becoming dominant again in Aerius, and everyone was hoping for something to change that fear - except for Aerius’ newest Royal couple, of course.  Though they had not chosen the name for their nation, they embraced it for the moment - but their plans did not end at just one nation.

Dextroluma with necrosis began to be colloquially referred to as corrupt as more became known about their symptoms.  Necrosis rendered its victims sterile and typically - although not always - made them more aggressive and violent.  Dextroluma who had survived the war considered them human-like, and that combined with the general growing fear of contracting necrosis, especially once it was discovered after a very unfortunate sex scandal with a movie star that necrosis could be passed on via bodily fluids.  Colloquially, uninfected dextroluma began to be called pure, and although many researchers and sociologists disagreed with these terms and thought them stigmatizing, they quite rapidly took root in the vocabulary of most dextroluma.

Pressure mounted on the researchers and Royals to do something.  There needed to be a cure or some way to keep the ‘corrupted’ at bay.  Conspiracy theorists were running wild, and catastrophizing began to become rampant.  Night carrier Auratails living in Lunaris began to face discrimination from visiting dextroluma who misidentified them as being infected, an issue the nation worked hard to try to curb.

The Royals were rumored to struggle with uncertainty of what to do if no cure could be made soon.  In some desperation, one of the Royals even used a roundabout way to contact humans to see if they might have solutions.  Unfortunately, although humans possessed medications called anti-fungals, they proved to be too harmful to dextroluma to actually work, as their bodies relied too deeply on fungi to live if there was a substance killing it in their bodies.