One should take care, as one walks the lands of Aetherius, to avoid
certain threatening species of hostile flora and even fauna at times.
One of the most pernicious of these is the parasite, commonly known as
leech or lamprey.

Most parasites when first witnessed are soft, appearing harmless.
Indeed, a common practice of such spineless creatures is to appear to be
something they are not, in order to gain more ready access to what they
truly need - a source of power greater than their own, from which they
can scrape some sustenance, and even derive a modicum of the strength
contained in that source of power. When viewing such a creature you may
be astonished at how much it resembles something it is not.

The greatest tool the parasite has is its ability to conceal not only
its nature, but the fact of its attack. Most will drain in small
amounts, taking only a little of their host's blood. This will lend them
undeserved strength, and provide them undeserved power associated with
that blood. It is crucial to such worms that they do so without causing
the host pain, else the host is liable to remove the leech before it has
derived any worthwhile sustenance. The most successful parasites are
those which conceal their true nature as long as they can, before
dropping off the host, fat and slow with stolen blood, and wriggle away
to whichever swamp spawned them, or whichever foul orifice they nest in
when not feeding.

'Ware, Aetherius. You might never notice the bite of such a blood
parasite until it's already squirming back into its hole.

A caution from the wilderness,
Harker

Penned by my hand on the 6th of Ferinus, in the year 556 AD.