(Not that I want to hurt him he is a sweet baby I'm just trying to figure this out for sections of my own lore BUT) How would one kill an independent shade parasite like Regie?
that’s an interesting question! generally it’s almost impossible to kill a shade entity through traditional means (like using weapons or most magic). you may damage them, but you probably wouldn’t completely banish them back to the greater shade body, which is what u need to do to ‘kill’ them (though the shade is kinda like energy, it can’t be created or destroyed - fragments of it make it to sornieth and become self-aware, like regie, but those fragments will eventually subsume back into the whole and lose their individuality. it may take many thousands of years for that to naturally happen tho. that’s basically what death is to them)
so even if u attacked him viciously with magic or something u would not achieve much, you’d only weaken him for a couple of weeks or months depending on the severity of his injuries, and he’d eventually regenerate back to full strength. physical weapons would probably do no damage at all, just pass right through him
the only way to banish a shade entity is to do so with the aid of a deity. which is why paladins are a thing, they rely on their deity to help them contain and banish the shade. it’s also why a normal healer can’t cure a dragon of shade parasitism, only a paladin or emissary can. shade outbreaks are a huge deal and very hard to deal with if u don’t have a god on your side. your average paladin could banish a normal shade parasite from sornieth, but it would take a very skilled paladin to deal with an entity as advanced as reginald
ok since i’m home i’m going to write about the life cycle of shade parasites. much like many real-life parasites, the shade parasite is only reliant on a living host for a short amount of its lifespan. in this case, the host is only required for the larval and adolescent stages
the parasite’s life can be divided in two different ways - pre-sapience and sapience, with a host and without a host.
they start off as fragments shed from another shade creature, or shade parasite. most of the wink out of existence almost instantly, with no energy of their own, but some of them are lucky enough to find a host - which can happen by chance (if a dragon accidentally steps in a puddle of shade slime) or on purpose (a mature parasite seeking out dragons to infect)
the larval parasite is incorporeal at that point. it makes a home in the dragon’s brain stem and starts leeching energy from its host. it’s completely mindless, equivalent to a plant seeking sunlight. over time, it will grow strong enough to start hijacking the dragon’s nerves, and it gains an insight into the dragon’s mind and sensory feedback. the parasite will then begin to develop sentience as a consequence
once it has this access, it’s no longer larval, and it now has the ability to control the host body. at first, the host must be asleep or unconscious. the parasite is a constant energy drain, which in turn forces the host to sleep for longer, giving the parasite more air time
its very first autonomous instincts are protective. it will try to keep the host safe, jealously guarding them against anything else that tries to use them as an energy source. as the parasite grows stronger, it starts to think and reason, and its base nature - as an agent of destruction, something designed specifically to kill dragons - kicks in and it’ll start attacking others when it has control. the parasite will manifest its own unique shade powers, which are dependent on the host personality and powers. using the powers it strikes out at others, attacking anyone who comes close when it’s in charge
it’s rare that a parasite will ever communicate with its host, or learn how to speak. but it will eventually become fully sapient, potentially more cunning than the host themself. at this point it is a huge energy drain, and it begins to control the host more often than the host controls themself. at some point, the parasite will take control for good, when the host is just too weak to assert themself,
now the parasite is out of adolescence and is an adult. it will usually attack any other dragons in its vicinity, then wander off on its own. at some point, the host dies, but by then they’re completely unconscious and unaware so it’s a relatively peaceful death (though they do get nightmarish flashes of awareness sometimes). the parasite will continue to bleed the host dry, until the body is nothing more than a husk.
then the parasite begins to manifest outside the host, around it, and it can keep the host as a skeleton to help it keep a solid form. this fully mature stage is potentially eternal, since the parasite will stay alive as long as it has enough energy to feed on. it is now not reliant at all on the host and can travel freely, but now it has to eat regularly just like any other living thing. a favoured diet of fully mature shade monsters is mana, but if there’s no good source then younger shade parasites will do; it just absorbs em right up.
the spontaneous combustion thing can happen if a fully mature shade parasite tries to stay inside a host, without expending its power in manifesting a solid form. if it stays incorporeal it’ll grow until it becomes pressurised, and it begins to generate heat.
regie, btw, has reached a stage in his development as a shade parasite where, by rights, he should be the fully autonomous pilot of a once-living host (rightfully leo) that he basically parasitised to death, (and whose identify he’s supposedly assumed) he’s still unusual for a shade parasite since he’s so separate from the hive mind and he has such a strong sense of self, but generally that’s the stage he’s at
at this point, the host body should have nothing left to give energy-wise, except the basic chemical make-up of the skeleton and other remains. so the parasite has to consume that, too, and then it becomes unstable, too strong for what little remains of its container, and unsustainable. at that point it becomes a self-sufficient creature that can survive without a host body (though it may still use the remains of the skeleton as a framework to structure itself around), and it gets its energy by eating a variety of interesting things like pure mana or other shade parasites.
regie is a little different, since he has an external (distant) energy source. but that only means that he’s been right before that stage for much longer than usual, and he’s basically grown too much in strength for such a small host. he’s vaguely aware of this - he used to be unable to stop serraden from taking control, but now regie can just push him aside. but regie’s sense of identity is tied strongly to his appearance, and he wouldn’t dream of finding a new host because then he wouldn’t be himself, which exacerbates the problem. especially when he graduates from parasitism, gains his own energy source as a Real Living Thing, and starts literally burning up from the inside out
Is Leo happy to be rid of his Shade parasite? What about Reg, is he happy to be rid of Leo?
Leo’s relationship with Regie was kind of strained by the urgency of their situation - that Aiteal was coming and would enslave both of them if they didn’t learn how to work together. unfortunately they didn’t work together well enough and during the few times they communicated, they were unnecessarily rude to one another. Leo was resentful that he’d been possessed and Regie was panicky and unable to properly portray just how dangerous Aiteal was.
but that being said, Regie’s entire motivation was just to keep himself and Leo safe. he learned how to talk - something many shade parasites don’t ever do - just so that he could warn Leo. he kind of viewed Leo as a frustrating big brother that he still loved, deep down. he misses Leo a lot (but he doesn’t miss Leo’s lovesick poetry and incessant sappy thoughts about Tepiltzin) and hopes that he is safe.
for his part Leo is happy to be cured. he is stuck with the magic arm Regie gave him but he’s gotten used to it by now so it’s ok. the residual shade powers are nice, too (Leo can conjure up as many as six arms at will). he feels lonely sometimes - once he realised that Regie had grown self-aware, he knew that he had a companion, a horrible roommate but a roommate nonetheless (a lot of Leo’s communication involved him venting about stuff he found annoying, comforted by the fact that someone was listening). so although Leo’s life is objectively better now and he’s much healthier physically (the parasites take a great toll on the host) he does wonder sometimes where his old parasite is.
Leo is far more important to Regie than Regie is to Leo. Leo lived most of his life with no parasite, while Regie has only recently been drawn out of Leo. so that’s understandable.
the undead army, btw, automatically follows aiteal wherever she goes. elliot organises everything but mostly it’s automatic, the shade-infested undead just follow aiteal around
they act like a hivemind and communicate with one another telepathically, but the degree of personality/individualism each parasite displays depends on their old living hosts. leo’s parasite, for example, is recognisably like leo in that it’s foul-mouthed and argumentative, but now it’s on its own and can develop into its own being - only it’s completely lost without leo now and in danger of being subsumed into the hivemind
those who never preyed on a living host are far more monstrous, less conscious and more instinct-driven, unable to talk or communicate beyond broadcasting vague impressions through the hivemind. over time the ibdividuslised shade parasites might revert to this state, but some still yearn for true existence, as actual living creatures rather than shards of a nonsapient whole
the hosts affect the parasites almost as much as the reverse
oh by the way, because i’m about to write more about Aiteal...
this is Elliot
he’s Aiteal’s undead charge. Aiteal of course was born a guardian, she found Elliot and he worked with her as a lab assistant. when she began specialising in the less savory medical disciplines, he followed, trusting her blindly. when she became a ridgeback she still felt some attachment to him, but it wasn’t nearly as strong as a proper guardian-charge bond. she lied to him, telling him that she felt exactly the same protectiveness as before, and he was happy to continue working for her
eventually he became the subject of her very first shade-control spell. she introduced him to a shade parasite and used her influence over it to try to turn him into a mindless slave. it didn’t quite work and he died. now he’s similar to Scratch and Sketch, he’s a corpse animated by the shade. but Sketch and Scratch are the ‘natural’ result of shade parasitism - they ate up their hosts and now take form around the hosts’ skeletons. Elliot’s parasitism was artificial, and he died prematurely (aka before the parasite consumed his body). meaning that his body is still very much intact, but dead, and would be rotten if Aiteal hadn’t preserved it. his personality is still that of the obedient servant and he is incapable of disobeying her, though he has no memory of his past life
anyway he lives nearby, with the rest of Aiteal’s private army. he takes care of her business when she’s away
