#shade lore

Setting: Shade is wandering a forest on a mountain side, trying to find somewhere to rest.

"I swear that stupid jester always wants to make me suffer. It's like it's FUN for her. Heh, what am I saying, of course it is..."

Off in the distance, Shade hears high pitched screaming, he doesn't think much of it because the wildlife on the planet he's on is very strange, but the little curiosity in his mind is screaming to go check what the screaming is, so he starts onward.

"Wonder what new wildlife I'm going to have to fight today... At least it will give me something to do..."

As he steps into a clearing in the forest, he stares up at the precipice of the mountain infront of him, and it looks like something is... falling...?

"Hm...? A rock slide right now? Ugh... if I didn't know any better I'd assume it's that stupid jester's fault..."

As Shade prepares to break the oncoming "rock" he notices that it has an odd shape for a rock... As he's thinking that, he starts hearing panicked screaming approaching him.

"Hm? Wait. Is that a rock...? Wait, no... is that a... a CHILD?!?"

As it finally clicked in Shade's brain that it was a child falling, he started panicking, what would he do with a child??? Violet would surely try and rid him of the child (use your imagination) but, he didn't want to be the reason for the child's death, but before he could even think more than that, his arms extended and he caught the child.

"...Are you ok...? Oh. You're passed out. I guess that would happen to any human child with that much force applied to them..."

Shade sits there for a bit contemplating what to do, before ultimately bringing them into a cave and starting a fire.

As Shade sits there with his thoughts, trying to figure out how to lead the child to safety, he feels a shift in his arms, as he looks down to see the child looking up at him, fascinated and terrified, considering most children would be frightened by a giant living shadow.

"Hello... Child... I promise I mean no harm, you're safe with me."

He tries comforting the child, but end up scaring them now due to his deep voice, so the child ends up curling up, and covering their eyes.

"Dammit Shade... You just scared a child... Ugh, guess I'll just wait..."

The child eventually opens their eyes again, and whispers quietly

"...you won't hurt me...?"

Shade, surprised they actually are speaking, stumbles on his words a bit

"Oh- uh n-no I'm not gonna uh- not gonna hurt you, apologies for my unkindly appearance."

"I-It's ok... I'm just a little bit confused... I thought I just fell off a mountain and... I guess it was a bad dream..."

"Oh. You did fall off the mountain, I caught you though, so you're alright... What's your name by the way...?"

The child seems to hesitate for a moment, frowning slightly

"My name...? My name is... Shard. My name is Shard..."

"Shard? That's a nice name, similar to mine, actually."

"Your name is Shade, right...?"

Shade freezes momentarily, caught off guard by the fact she knew his name, looking down at her

"How... How do you know that...?"

"You said it earlier... You were mad at yourself...

"I did? Huh, I guess I did, apologies."

As soon as he finishes saying that, a portal opens, and none other than Violet steps out of it.

"Oh Shade~ I need you for somethi- who is that."

Violet points at Shard, obviously not very pleased.

"This is Shard. I just saved their life and I'm not going to let you kill them."

"Oh really now? You're acting quite high and mighty, Shade."

"Because you have no reason to kill her, she's a kid for fucks sake!"

"Hmph... Fine, but if she gets into trouble, it's not my job to save her."

"Fine by me, I didn't expect you to try anyways."

Violet then swiftly turns around and gestures to the portal

"Come, I need you for something, as I was stating previously."

Shade stands up, still holding Shard, he then looks down at her

"You want to come with us?"

"Well... You did save me, and I don't know where else to go, so... yes."

Shade then nods, pleased with her answer

"Alright, let's go."

Then they all go through the portal and return to their- well, Violet's, home world.

A breeder is a subspecies of shade; it’s sole function is to reproduce and spread in order to increase its population. Unlike the sentient shade, breeders lack that same kind of intelligent agency that allows some flexibility in its relationship with its host. It is a mutually exclusive parasitism in which the breeders consumes the hosts body, uses it as an incubation vessel, before destroying it in an effort to spread. Whereas sentient shades’ hosts have the ability to survive for several hundred years, a breeder infection is rapid, painful, and horrible. Usually, depending on the dragon and the areas of infection, a dragon can reached stage 4 (pre-burst) within a month. 

This type of infection can be treated by light and fire purifiers, however under very strict conditions. Not only does the host need to be isolated, but any clothes or other items touched by the infected has to be burned. The host should be immediately isolated in a sealed, controlled environment to help prevent worms from escaping into drinking water or into food or animals. This treatment must happen before the dragon enters stage 3, otherwise the infection will be too far spread and the host will enter into the terminal stage. 

So in stage 1: 

There is little visual cues to show evidence of infection, other than some dark rashes and a few black pimples. The few worms inside the spots infected on contact are incubating. If anything, the skin just feels itchy. 

Stage2:

The worms have amassed small, hardened growths the size of large boils on the specific sites. These sites are now slightly painful, very itchy, and the host can definitely feel the worms moving. The itchiness is intentional so that the host will scratch it, pop a few boils, and release a small downpour of worms that will immediately crawl back into the host’s body and incubate. Depending on the location, this can cause blindness, shortness of breath, or difficulty eating and swallowing liquids. 

Stage 3: 

Very bad stage. So bad. Like not good. By this point, the host is terminal. The skin is not only hardened, but the surrounding area is swollen by the amount of worms within the body. The boils that haven’t popped have hardened and grown while smaller ones form in between. The area of infection has spread and the initial point is likely almost stripped down. Depending on the area, this could either lead to a quick death or brain damage. These areas are no longer itchy, but the skin surrounding it is in extreme pain. 

Stage 4: 

This is a horrible stage. By this point, the host is almost ready to explode. The pupation has expanded to more areas, the initial points have been eaten through, there is organ shut down, weakened bone structure, severed limbs, brain damage and the inability to move the jaw, blindness, deafness. It’s not good. It’s just - it’s a feasting frenzy while the host is still alive. Usually, when the host reaches this stage, they are quick to enter stage 5.

Stage 5: 

Scene: Shade is alone, sitting in a forest, contemplating things, until Violet comes out of the woods, approaching him

"Oh Shade~."

Shade's neck immediately snaps to look towards Violet's voice

"What do you want..."

Violet continues to approach him

"I have a task for you my dear. Not too hard of a task, though if it were a hard task, you'd be able to do it."

Violet laughs to herself at the last part, while Shade grumbles in annoyance.

"Why must I do all your dirty work? Use your beings in your realm, or better yet, do it yourself, don't you enjoy fighting anyways?"

Shade spits those words out, obviously displeased with Violet, and Violet doesn't react much.

"Because Shade, my dear. We made a deal, many millenia ago, don't you remember? I saved you from your fate, in exchange you got to be my personal servant for all of eternity. You agreed with it very swiftly."

Violet looks up at Shade, presumably, smiling gleefully behind her 'mask', as Shade glares down at her.

"..."

"Fine then, I'll gladly remind you~."

A giant cloud of smoke envelops them, before the environment around them changes to a cellar filled with hooks with corpses hanging on them, except one hook with a man, his chest split open, his intestines swaying still alive, crying in agony, that man, was Shade.

"WHY!? WHY WONT YOU KILL ME!?!? I DON'T DESERVE THIS DAMMIT!"

The door to the cellar swings open, as a man walks in, holding an axe

"CAN YOU SHUT UP?!"

The man slams the blunt side of his axe into Shade's head, knocking him unconscious.

A while later, Shade finally regains his consciousness and sees the man with the axe, except, his head was hung from the ceiling. His lifeless corpse lay on the ground, unmoving.

"Wh-What is this...? T-This is some sorta sick joke r-right? H-Hello...?"

From the shadows, Shade sees a purple smile, watching him

"Hello there, Thomas."

Shade, is extremely frightened by the being in the corner, as he tries to pretend he isn't scared

"W-Who are you, how do you know my n-name...?"

The being, whom is Violet, laughs

"I know a lot of things my dear, but that doesn't matter, what matters is the fact that you must be in pain."

Shade seems irritated by her bluntness, but also knows she's right

"Obviously... why does it matter to you?"

Violet laughs, before continuing

"I can help you, my dear. In exchange for your servitude, I'll free you from your torture-"

Shade cuts her off, obviously willing to do anything to get out of the cellar

"Yes! Please! Just get me out of here!"

"Very well."

Violet snaps her fingers, as Shade is lifted off the hook, his wounds closing. Shade, in shock, starts feeling his chest, to see if it truly closed, seeing it truly did close, he looks at Violet in shock

"H-How did you-"

Violet cuts him off abruptly

"Thomas. Your name will now be Shade. Remember that and remember it well."

Shade then looks at Violet, and nods

"Shade... I understand..."

As that is said, the smoke fades, as they return to the forest.

"Remember now, my dear?"

Shade grumbles, very irritated and displeased

"I never forgot, and I don't want you to do that ever again..."

Violet giggles, obviously finding Shade's irritation quite humerus

"Very well, anyways, about that task I had for you..."

And I'm going to end it there, I've had a lot of fun writing this, so I'm glad you read this, and if you request, I'll probably make more lore!

Shade's personality is...hard to pin down, because it's essentially just bits and pieces of mine and I have a hard time composing an image of myself. :) I can tell you a few scraps of characterization that come to mind, though. Shade is introverted, left-brain oriented, and just generally feels kind of disconnected from other people because of being undead, so she worries a lot about coming off as cold. She tries to make up for that by showing kindness to people in ways that come naturally to her, usually by giving gifts or doing tasks for people, like building redstone farms for friends who are mostly builders. She is very curious about the world around her, and definitely puts the need for knowledge above caution in a lot of her experiments. She tends to treat most mobs as being more conscious than most people think, especially villagers. She is unlikely to start a serious fight but very likely to start a friendly one, loving competition (she doesn't have near the pvp skills to back that up, but she doesn't care if she wins or loses, it's about the journey!) If she enters a serious fight it will probably be because she was provoked, or defending someone else (which she is a little too quick to do sometimes; she needs to remember that not everyone wants or needs a bodyguard)

Shade's eyes are not naturally very expressive. She often has to make a conscious effort to make them read as nice, engaged, annoyed, etc. when talking to someone. When she's not experiencing an emotion strongly or consciously controlling her expression, her eyes tend to slip into this eery thousand yard stare type of look. She knows that freaks people out (it freaks her out a little bit, too), so she tries to make her face look more "alive" in the presence of others.

Shade is closest to the people she shares a world (Ecocraft) with at the moment, as well as a few other friends she's met along the way (Twelve, Dawn, essentially my friends' personas). She has an easy time connecting with people on a surface level, but a hard time trusting them, partially due to a bad first experience with other players. These people are patient with her though, and she's gotten to the point where she doesn't feel the need to set elaborate security systems or look out for traps wherever she steps anymore.

My previous minesona and Shade...kind of exist in the same universe, but not the same timeline. They never met. This is because Shade technically is my previous minesona: same player data, same code but with parts of it deleted and replaced by the Void, same body but modified. She has the memories of the previous player, in a disconnected type of way, but the first person's personality was essentially deleted and left to develop again from scratch, like a newly spawned player. Shade picked up a few of the same traits from undergoing similar things in a similar environment to the original, but she considers herself seperate. She thinks of my previous minesona as a sister she never met, who she is trying to honour and escape the shadow of at the same time. She stayed in Vera's world for the first few months of her life, but moved to a new one because she wanted to stop feeling like she was working around someone else's legacy.

A sentient shade is almost like your typical shade-infected parasite; it’s a slimy, gunky mess that resides within it’s host, creates a parasitical relationship where it relies on its host to gather up energy through excess food, and can even control it’s host. I posted some stages of a sentients’ reactions;

So the first would just be the sentient in its normal state while it’s host is alive and maintaining a stable diet perfect for maintaining the shade. Since it’s sensitive to fire and to light, it would be counterproductive to reveal too much of itself, hence very little signs. Now, there would still be excess residue that it excretes, which could pour out from the host’s eyes, mouth, ear - or other orifices. Another sign of a sentient shade infection is that the entrance and exit wounds would be stained black.

In stage 2, the sentient is in an environment that allows it more freedom to leave it’s host nice, dark, and moist vessel, however it is just as likely that something has caught the shade’s interest or is starting to agitate it. More residue would be secreted, however depending on the relationship, those secretions can be used to form extensions (like claw hands) for fighting and defending. A shade is typically gooey, but can harden and became very sharp. 

In stage 3, the shade is agitated and has taken full control. I don’t really do it justice here, but often the sentient shade will override it’s host’s emotional response and pretty much hijack the body. Most likely, the host will black out from the amount of stress this puts on their mind. This is ideal for the sentient as it gives them more control to do what they need to do. Sentients will take control if their host is threatened, if they are threatened, or if their host is starving them. 

Finally, a sentient can still remain in its host even after the host dies. Like wearing down your favorite shoes or shirt, a sentient will wear down it’s host’s vessel until it’s forced to find another host. This results in multiple limbs getting ripped off or rotting away and shade like substitutions. This, of course, is a less than ideal situation for protecting itself from the elements. Thus, most sentients of this type are either residing within the Hewn City Ruins or deep underwater near the trenches.