The Xankus is a lifeform of unknown origin that was first discovered beneath Mount Urusarus (currently Crimson Crest). When the nomadic tribe Silver Point arrived in the area to search for minerals in the mountain’s heart, they stumbled upon Xankus, which lay dormant in the form of green fluorescent dust. Once extracted, Xankus awoke and began infecting the tribe, who had no idea what they had unleashed.
A person infected with Xankus will experience headaches, dizziness, body-wide pain, and finally death due to the abrupt interruption of brain activity, leaving the person in a vegetative state. This is known as the “Assimilation Stage.”
After a few hours (or days, depending on the host’s immune system), the subject undergoes “The Awakening.” In this state, the person loses all humanity, entering a feral state where their primary goal is to spread Xankus to other human hosts. PROELIUM designated these creatures as Ferals.
HISTORY
Discovery of the Xankus
It is unknown exactly how long Xankus has existed on the planet. The first contact with Xankus occurred when the nomadic Silver Point tribe reached Mount Urusarus to mine minerals for their crafts and trade. Five months after digging into the mountain’s mines, the tribe found Xankus in its dormant state, appearing as a glowing dust, which they mistook for deep-mountain moss.
By removing it, some miners inhaled the glowing dust and continued their work. Having been dormant for so long, Xankus would not claim its first victim until seven weeks later, when miners began to fall ill with worsening fevers and headaches. The tribe’s healer, unable to do much for his people, sought outside help. His journey took him to a small village called Armasa, a few kilometers at the mountain’s base.
Doctor Amari Saied, the volunteer medic of the village, traveled to the mountain to treat the patients and discovered it was something far more serious than a simple illness.
With few resources, Doctor Amari discreetly contacted her authority, PROELIUM—a secret organization at that time—which arrived within a week. By the time they got there, the infected subjects already exhibited an initial vegetative state, able to move but without consciousness. This led to the containment of the Silver Point tribe within the mountain. The Xankus pandemic had entered its early phases.
The Suppression of Silver Point and Armasa
PROELIUM lost several doctors in an attempt to isolate Xankus. Doctor Amari Saied, who had first discovered the organism, evacuated the village—but not before collecting a direct sample from an infected patient under PROELIUM’s orders.
One month after the first contagion, the Silver Point tribe was entirely lost. People began dying and “reviving” after a few days, which puzzled PROELIUM doctors. The resurrected patients displayed uncontrollable aggression, attacking more doctors, who in turn died and revived like their patients. This led to the conclusion that these resurrected beings could transmit the organism through bites.
Unknown to all, those who had ordered Dr. Amari Saied to evacuate had already begun working in secret on a subterranean facility near the mountain, built specifically to study the organism they called Urusarus-SN. During the construction, more remains of Xankus were found in glowing dust form, collected for future research.
Women and children who had not been infected were evacuated temporarily to Armasa, while infected and uninfected adults were transferred to the underground facility still under construction, where they would spend the rest of their lives under observation, never to see sunlight again. The original Silver Point settlement was incinerated and the mines demolished, causing Xankus to spread into the forest unnoticed. The mountain was placed under permanent PROELIUM custody, and the surviving members of the tribe were permanently settled in Armasa, where PROELIUM had kidnapped and murdered the original villagers to eliminate witnesses.
The Appearance of Special Animals
When the mines were detonated and sealed, Xankus spores that remained dormant slowly escaped to the surface, creating fomites in the mountain’s forested area. With PROELIUM sealing the site, no further human infections occurred. The animals that remained in the area eventually became infected through the food chain—such as insects carrying spores, birds eating those insects, or herbivores feeding on tainted grass.
Animals, however, did not undergo mutations as aggressive as humans. On the contrary, some became more colorful, others grew stronger or larger, and some more agile. From these strange mutations emerged the iconic Crimson Crests. Years later, these animals were discovered by the people of the now-village Armasa, who demanded their protection, seeing them as a gift from the mountain—much like the river that flowed from the hidden spring within it.
PROELIUM was astounded by this discovery, as studying a captured multicolored rabbit revealed it carried Urusarus-SN. The research had taken a new turn.
The Urusarus Treaty
The people of Armasa united to seize control of the forested area of the mountain and protect it themselves, entering into a brief conflict lasting nearly a month against PROELIUM agents. In the end, an agreement was reached: PROELIUM would cede protection of the mountain to the people of Armasa, in exchange for the removal of all primitive technology to prevent the spread of any information, and for occasional access to send agents to collect new samples. This became known as the Urusarus Treaty.
Unknown to the people of Armasa, this treaty also served as a cover to bring new test subjects to the underground facility in the future.
Over time, the forest slowly recovered. The containment fence installed by PROELIUM was left in place to mark the perimeter the villagers would protect, keeping the animals safe from outsiders. The mountain was renamed Crimson Crest when, one day, these special birds began nesting among its trees.
Manipulation of the Xankus
Doctor Amari Saied was forced to move her research entirely to the underground facility, using her collected sample from an infected subject and comparing it with the remains extracted from Xankus in the caverns.
After decades of study, it was discovered that Xankus was not so much a virus as an organism with its own defense system, capable of adapting to adverse conditions to survive. Freezing tests put the organism into hibernation, heat tests caused it to transform into glowing dust, and water exposure made it mutate into a gelatinous substance floating on the surface. It was nearly impossible to destroy by conventional means. It was, without a doubt, an incredible yet dangerous discovery.
Through biotechnology, they managed to manipulate the pure form of the organism into a fully viscous and tangible state, controllable under strict safety protocols. This way, it could be studied more easily while maintaining its original structure without needing microscopic analysis.
Human Testing
Testing on other living beings was an important step to understanding the organism’s nature. The Silver Point tribe had mutated, going from memoryless beings to violent killers. Some of these subjects remained under observation in the underground lab, while the rest of the uninfected tribe died from starvation or cruel experimentation.
When tested on animals, however, the results were different. As before, animals mutated their DNA into “special animals.” With a mouse, its size and intelligence increased; with a rabbit, its fur turned from white to crimson and its speed increased; with a chimpanzee, both intelligence and strength were enhanced. The research aimed to replicate these same effects in humans, but without any success.
PROELIUM exploited Crimson Crest’s status as a tourist site to kidnap people of various ages and use them as test subjects in their experiments with Xankus. These disappearances eventually drew the attention of outside investigative groups.
The Crimson Crest Incident
Experiments continued for years until one day, an incident in the Crimson Crest underground lab released Xankus inside the facility, infecting all personnel and test subjects. PROELIUM declared the lab a total loss and sealed it completely, burying the infected forever to prevent further casualties, while moving Xankus research to another facility.
Several PROELIUM members disagreed with this decision, as the pure form of Xankus remained inside the lab, and abandoning it meant stagnation in their effort to develop “special humans.” In total secrecy, this rogue faction of PROELIUM reopened the facility and began sending kidnapped individuals inside, both to recover Urusarus-SN and to study the behavior of the infected after years without external stimulation.