The tale of the Diabolists' infamous attack on the remote mountain village of Kor'indi is the stuff of disturbing legend that has made them rightly feared across Verdelis for generations.
It began with only a few advance scouts from the cult infiltrating the tranquil settlement under cover of night. These vanguard Diabolists spent weeks strategically tainting every possible food and water source with meticulously cultivated concentrates of senna extracts and other purgative toxins.
By the time the full force of robed, chanting Diabolists descended upon Kor'indi, an insidious intestinal contagion had already taken hold. Within hours, the first horrific cases of severe dysentery erupted across the village.
The cultists seamlessly blended with the panicking locals, their identities obscured by the miasma of unmentionable stench and groans of perpetual cramping afflicting every household. Fires meant for driving them out only exacerbated the overwhelming effluvium.
For an entire harrowing month, the Diabolists wordlessly moved among the townsfolk as Kor'indi descended into an eternal diarrheal nightmare. Carts endlessly carted out tubs of soiled rushes and bed foulings. The streets ran with an unholy river of human misery.
By the time the cultists finally revealed their presence with obscene invocations to Serapidam, the entire population had become too dehydrated, delirious and weakened by constant purging to mount any defense. Kor'indi's healthy livelihood had been utterly broken.
Those who survived the month-long gaseous hell only did so with permanent intestinal deformities and trauma. The incidents became a dire warning - those unlucky enough to catch the Diabolists' interest could easily lose everything to their unholy, gastrointestinal crusade of ruin.
The most chilling aspect of the Diabolists' notorious attack on Kor'indi village is that it was an entirely unprovoked atrocity. A pure exercise in testing the devastating limits of their sickening powers over bodily ruination.
There was no strategic value, no slight against their foul cult that needed answering. The peaceful mountain hamlet full of families simply had the misfortune of being selected as the Diabolists' ritual proving grounds for their mastery over toxic purgatives and biological weaponry.
With cold, clinical detachment, the advance cultists set about methodically poisoning every source of food and drink in a large radius around Kor'indi for no other reason than because they could. Not out of rage or ideological fervor, but simple fascination with unleashing gastric chaos upon the unsuspecting.
As the first victims began experiencing horrific dysentery, it created a chain reaction that allowed the surreptitiously planted Diabolists to become indistinguishable agents of transmission. They cooly observed and took notes as the entire village descended into a month of constant, debilitating expulsive misery.
Kor'indi's generational tales of the Diabolists casually observing and documenting their victims' bouts of perpetual purging and debilitating dehydration like scientists is perhaps more unsettling than any mythological monster's overt savagery. It hints at a depravity entirely devoid of conscience or justification.
So while the classic gothic threats may inspire fireside tales of death's heroic defiance, the Diabolists have undoubtedly cemented themselves as Verdelis's most personally and intimately vile living nightmare to be avoided at all costs. A new gold standard in blasphemous, immitigable boogeymen.
