Description (Healing Blade Lore)
Clostridium perfringens are common residents of the waste aqueduct, where they often keep to themselves. But they aren’t always so peaceful. They can rear a nastier side when provoked, disrupting the aqueduct ecosystem, causing significant unrest among its inhabitants, and even escalating their attacks to kill. The smell of decaying flesh arrives even before death itself, as C. perfringens release a gaseous toxin that slowly rots the earth, like a sea star turning its stomach inside out to digest its prey before actually consuming it. They are ever present during times of war, feasting on the open wounds along the boundary wall left by brutal combat. If the Apothecaries even suspect C. perfringens’ presence, they rush into battle; the risk of waiting is too great.
C. perfringens are clever beasts, more than compensating for their sedentary state, with a coiled tail anchoring them in place. They have broad, armored wings that are often enclosed around themselves in a defensive stance. They thrive in anaerobic environments, which they often create themselves by releasing gases such as carbon dioxide. And noxious C. perfringens most often enter Soma through Buccal Bay, digging the hooked talons at the tips of each wing into the backs of unsuspecting fish and other animals swimming into the aqueduct. Their spores can survive periods of extreme heat in the waterway, germinating to cause extreme tension in the banks and overflows of the Southern Dam.