Dead Weight

This spell is a part of the Deconstruction spell chain and is found in the Deconstruction rune stone.

There is a particular philosophy shared among seniumancers who have spent enough time studying The Fade - that decay does not always announce itself from the outside. Sometimes it works from within. Sometimes the thing that destroys you is not an enemy's blade or a rival's spell but the simple, accumulating weight of what you already are. Dead Weight is the spell that makes this philosophy literal. When the seniumancer casts Dead Weight they reach not for The Worm's hunger but for The Fade's quiet, patient gravity. The Fade does not consume. It does not rot or feast or hollow. It simply presses. Directed at the target, The Fade seeps into them and begins to multiply the most fundamental truth of their own physical existence - that they have a body, and that body has weight, and that weight does not care how strong or determined or fierce they believe themselves to be.

The curse takes hold immediately and invisibly. The target feels it first as a strange heaviness, as though their limbs have grown leaden overnight. What they do not yet realize is that their own body weight is now being added to the weight they carry - and it will be added again, and again, with every round that passes. The Fade is not in a hurry. It never is. When the target becomes overburdened they can no longer move, their legs simply refusing to carry what their body has become. At 50% beyond overburdened the target collapses entirely, brought down by their own crushing mass. Beyond double the overburdened threshold the target begins to take 20% of their maximum Vitality as crushing damage each round as their own weight works to destroy them from the inside out. This is a curse and cannot be ended by dispel or similar magic - only spells or skills that specifically remove curses, such as Purge, can bring relief. Even then, the spell will not end on its own until the battle concludes, after which The Fade withdraws and the terrible weight lifts as suddenly as it arrived. The curse however will remain until it is removed, a curse that no longer actively increases their weight or causes harm, but instead leaves them with no ability to carry anything except themselves. Those who have faced both Dead Weight and Atrophy in the same battle rarely speak of it afterward.