A Corrupted Retirement - Ch1

It's a working title, so sue me. I kind of want to use the original title, but googling it leads right to my spicy online penname, so no. The first 30k words or so of this story were written back in Feb or so. This first chapter is public, the rest are restricted to patrons.

The August Patreon Update explained what this story is about, if you've read it. It's a slow-paced slice-of-life story, about a monster slayer retiring to a corrupted wasteland full of monstergirls in order to keep the remaining vestiges of humanity from being wiped out. It's much smuttier than my usual fare, although not in this chapter (it is a public post on Patreon).

Without further ado, let's jump in.

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Year 1, Spring

Lyle’s inheritance arrived late at night in a sealed letter. Unlike most inheritances, this one was more burden than windfall.

The wax sealing the letter held strong magic. It prevented anybody without Lyle’s family crest from opening the letter. More importantly, corruption wards were embedded within the wax.

Whoever sent this letter couldn’t guarantee that it would remain in the reclaimed lands of the Kingdom of Ghraive. The wards protected the letter from the Blight that devastated the continent. Normally, living matter decayed, rotted, or warped in the presence of the Blight. A letter made of paper was no exception.

Lyle had lost contact with his family long ago, and he wondered if they had sent the letter and wondered where the hell they had sent it from.

He broke the seal. Within were pages of handwritten notes, explaining his task. He read them, the purple flame of his magic lantern burning late into the night.

The notes somehow managed to say both very little and a lot. Half the pages were crude sketches and descriptions of wilderness and ancient locations. Lyle learned the names of ancient towns that had been wiped out centuries ago by the Blight, but not why they mattered.

Every sentence that mattered felt cryptic. Despite the protective wards, the sender had worried the letter would be intercepted.

“A lake hundreds of miles north of the wall, with a tower and an abandoned mining town. I’ll find the secrets to the Blight and the family crest there,” Lyle said. “That’s it.”

He ran a hand through his ragged blonde hair. A letter like this couldn’t be ignored.

“No explanation of how I’ll unearth the secrets, what my crest does, or even where you’ve been, old man,” Lyle muttered into the darkness around him. “Just a letter after all these years, and not even a well-written one.”

Engraved on Lyle’s back was his family crest. It granted him the ability to use magic and was a long-lost art of humanity, as the knowledge to create knew ones had been lost to the Blight.

If the letter was right, something about his particular family crest was tied to the Blight itself. And therefore, to the future of Ghraive and the last flickering light of humanity.

The next day, Lyle retired from the Royal Army and set off north to the location described by the letter. He spent a few days in the intervening time preparing supplies and researching the locations mentioned in the letter.

Lyle had been given a mission by his father. He was no stranger to missions. The Royal Army had been his life before his balls had dropped, and he had become a highly respected officer. To serve in the Royal Army was to be a soldier in service to Princess Nyril, whose cause was to reclaim as much of Ghraive’s lands from the Blight.

Of course, to most people, he was more ruthless and efficient butcher than savior. Princess Nyril was more popularly known as the Priestess of the Damned. The only survivor of the royal family, she was now over two centuries old and the source of all anti-corruption magic.

Lyle’s convoy came to a halt. A wall of translucent light hung in the air, rising well over fifty meters into the air. Every mile or so along it, Lyle saw a massive brass star floating in the air.

This wall had been given many names over the years. These days, most called it the Wall of the Damned. Both because it had been built and designed by the Priestess, and because everybody who was on the other side of it was beyond hope.

When Lyle was in a dark mood, he sometimes asked which side was damned. He imagined that was the point of giving such an awful name to the only thing keeping the Blight from spreading further into Ghraive.

“You’re certain about this?” Mason asked. He was Lyle’s second-in-command and had been for many years.

How many years? Lyle struggled to remember. He’d met Mason in a forest when both of them were still teenagers. A mission to cleanse a colony of antgirls had gone horribly wrong, and they’d found themselves in a desperate last stand. Had that been when the partnership had started? Probably. But Lyle paid little attention to the calendar. Winter meant little in the Royal Army.

Corruption never stopped spreading, and there was always some species of monstergirl or monster threatening Ghraive. Every time the Blight reached a village, it turned men into monsters, women into monstergirls, and the land into an uninhabitable wasteland. Stopping it was a job that allowed no rest.

Mason had fire-red hair that he kept neatly trimmed, unlike Lyle’s rusty blonde mess. The two were opposites in appearances in many ways. Mason maintained a neat beard, while Lyle had a permanent stubble that he was too lazy to keep clean-shaven. Mason’s fuller face contrasted against Lyle’s gaunt and angular one.

But they both wore the black uniform and armor of the Royal Army, and the insignias of their positions. Although Lyle probably shouldn’t, given he’d quit. His superior had told him to keep his effects, however. Given what Lyle was off to do, they’d refused to accept that he was leaving the Army. Instead, he was serving Ghraive in a different way.

“I’ve always wondered where my father and brother fucked off to,” Lyle replied. “And I’m the only person left in my family. The crest dies with me. If the letter is right, then the only way to keep the Blight contained is inside this stupid thing.” He pointed to his back, where an intricate magical tattoo was hidden under his uniform.

That had been his inheritance. The knowledge that his family crest held the secret to suppressing the Blight.

Clearly, the crest was pretty shit at it, given the state of the world. But Lyle couldn’t deny that the world had improved since the Priestess had risen. When the royal family had been slain, there was no way to stop the spread of the Blight and every other nation on the continent had collapsed. Now, Ghraive was a shining beacon in the ceaseless darkness of this shitshow of a world.

Lyle’s father claimed that the family crest played a role in allowing that to happen. If the Priestess’s work was to be undone…

Lyle had dedicated his life to Ghraive and to the Priestess in the Royal Army. Nothing changed if he dedicated himself in a different way.

“You’re talking about fighting the Blight, Lyle,” Mason said. He shifted uncomfortably. “None of us can come with you. We can’t even expand the wards further in this direction. Look at the ground here. The Blight is creeping past. That doesn’t happen anywhere else along the Wall. Something’s fucked here.”

He was right. Below the wall of light, the ground looked wrong. Next to Lyle and Mason, grass grew. Beyond the corruption wards, everything was dead. The Blight turned everything into a wasteland. How monstergirls survived out there was beyond Lyle.

But the wards were supposed to stop the Blight dead, and they clearly weren’t. The ground decayed for several meters past the wall of light. Lyle took this as a sign he was going in the right direction.

“It’s dangerous,” Lyle admitted. “The letter was sent by a dead man’s switch. That means my father and brother, or whoever was out there, has died. Probably attacked. But that’s a risk we take on every mission.”

“Fucking hell, Lyle,” Mason said. He shook his head. “I’ve never met a man as stubborn as you, or as dedicated.”

Lyle smirked. “I’ll send word once I arrive. You already know the plan if you hear nothing.”

He saluted to Mason.

Mason saluted back, but after a moment he swore and tackled Lyle in a bearhug. “You stupid bastard. Don’t fucking die out there. I want to hear all about the crazy shit you get up to.”

“Don’t let the power get to your head now you’ve been promoted,” Lyle said, returning the hug from his oldest friend.

With that, Lyle mounted his wagon and set off. An automaton horse pulled him past the wards—living horses couldn’t be used beyond the borders, for obvious reasons.

Behind him, Mason and his soldiers saluted and watched Lyle vanish in search of his family inheritance.

The journey into the wilds took longer than Lyle expected. Within an hour, monsters came into sight. Bestial hounds loped along in the distance. A few harpies circled in the air. As night began to fall, Lyle slipped inside his wagon. The corruption wards inlaid into the metal frame kept him safe, although the snarling and howling ensured his sleep was rough.

The next several days were similarly uneventful. He felt that he made good progress and found a small river on the third day. From the letter, he knew that following this upstream would lead him where he needed to go.

Even so, the wasteland stretched on and on. The nights were long, and the days longer. Lyle spent a lot of time watching his surroundings, in case some of the distant monsters ever came closer while the sun was out.

Perhaps he should have known that things would be this bad. There was a reason people didn’t go beyond the wards anymore. Supposedly, things had been better centuries ago. But the Blight had been much younger then. Although Lyle still heard stories of criminals and the poor crossing the wards in hopes of finding anything better.

On the sixth day, Lyle found something different. And with this, he finally understood how monstergirls survived. Life was different this far from the wards. The wastelands gave way to corrupted life. Trees grew, but their leaves and bark were covered in bubbles and strange pustules. The grass shimmered in shades of pink and purple. Lyle wondered if he had slipped into a dream, particularly as he spied flowers the size of houses.

Then again, those flowers were likely tended to by beegirls or monsters of similar size. The wildlife adapted to its changed reality, and entirely different plants thrived. Perhaps the river was the cause? Or maybe everything was like this so far from the wards.

The water of the stream he followed was oddly clear, in Lyle’s opinion. Much of Ghraive’s rivers were heavily corrupted. Although the wards prevented the Blight from re-entering Ghraive, much of the underground had been deeply corrupted before the Priestess had risen. Mountain springs carried deeply corrupted water—often black as tar and thick enough to stick to one’s hand—into the rivers and turned them into eerie violet streams of monster-producing horror. Huge filtration facilities were necessary to protect Ghraive, but every time one was attacked or broke down, the devastation was tremendous.

But somehow, this stream was as clear as books described pure water as being. Black tendrils ran through it, but they didn’t mix with the rest of the water. And with each passing hour, Lyle saw fewer and fewer tendrils.

Lyle encountered signs of past civilization on his trip. The long-decayed remains of a village forced him to make a detour. He didn’t know what monsters or monster girls might lurk within it. Most of the buildings had rotted completely by now, and the strange new trees grew throughout the village. But a handful of stone structures remained standing, protected from the Blight by the non-living nature of stone.

Eventually, he saw bluffs in the distance. The letter had said those indicated that Hollowford was nearby, and that Lyle’s destination not much further. Hollowford was a mining town that predated the Blight. An iron bridge across the stream—only just wide enough to fit Lyle’s wagon—marked its location, but he ignored it for now. At the base of the bluffs, he spotted the decayed shell of a homestead.

For now, Lyle climbed the steep hill. A waterfall crashed over the rocks and formed the base of the river, churning up mist.

Atop the hill lay the spring that the letter had spoken of. Unlike the mountain springs within Ghraive, this one was crystal clear. The surface shimmered like a mirror, reflecting the sun high above. As Lyle approached, he even saw normal life living within it. Not monsters, but ordinary fish.

The rest of the clearing was similarly bizarre. Bizarre in the sense that it was a bubble of normality in a screaming haze of insanity. The grass was green, the trees didn’t look like they were going to explode into a cloud of mucus at any moment, nothing was rotting.

All this, and no sign of a single corruption ward.

Lyle knew he had found what the letter described. And he knew that it had been true. Something here suppressed the Blight.

The question was how? The letter had been irritatingly vague. Lyle needed answers.

Unfortunately, he doubted he was going to find them here. A building stood beside the lake. It consisted of a tall stone tower with a small thatch hut attached to its side. But the top of the tower had been cracked open like an egg. Stone and wood were strewn everywhere.

Lyle parked his wagon outside. Then he dismounted and drew his sword. It burst into shadow instantly. The blade was formed of consecrated steel blessed by the Priestess herself and was extremely effective against corruption and monsters.

Fortunately, neither lurked within the building. It was devoid of all life.

It was also devoid of anything to help Lyle learn more. He found signs that there had been a library within the tower, but it had been ransacked. Most of the books were missing or torn to pieces. He used magic from his crest to light his way through the darkness of the house, as the magic that had powered the interior lamps no longer functioned.

Only a single bookshelf remained untouched, and it sat within the hut. But it contained mundane knowledge. Recipes, architecture, blacksmithing tips—things that helped somebody to build a life, but not to understand how to use their family crest to suppress a centuries old Blight that threatened all an entire continent.

“If I survive this, I’m going to include the instructions on how to use the crest in the letter,” Lyle muttered. He slumped back in the chair inside the living room.

The hut consisted of just three rooms: a tiny living room with a hearth, bookshelf, and chairs; a magic-fueled kitchen with a table and chairs; and a bedroom that contained only a massive plush bed.

The sun was bound to set soon, Lyle thought. He had a place to rest. In the morning, he could scout around and determine a plan of action.

Before he finished his thoughts, howls interrupted him. Not just any howls, monstergirl howls.

A man knew the difference rather well. Mostly because monstergirls can’t howl anywhere near as well as actual wolves or monsters.

Also because a smart man learned to differentiate, or be turned into a human dildo at some point in their life. Wolfgirls possessed the strength to rend steel plate and punch holes in stone. Stopping one from mounting him and enjoying themselves to their heart’s content took skill. Brute strength meant nothing, unless it was created with magic.

Lyle jumped to his feet, cursing. The wagon was safe, thanks to the wards. But he didn’t know if this clearing was actually proofed against monstergirls. The lack of corruption had lulled him into a false sense of security.

Fighting monstergirls in a cramped location such as this was dangerous. He needed space to maneuver. If one of them knew magic or was a talented fighter, they could quickly overpower him.

He slipped out of the house, sword in hand.

Four identical looking wolfgirls sniffed and crawled around the automaton horse in front of the wagon. One of them nursed a burned hand, a pout on her face. The other three poked their heads around the horse, careful not to touch it.

Lyle stared at them. They looked young. Old enough to mate, for sure, but he suspected these girls had only just left their den. The fact they were identical meant they were sisters from the same litter. Wolfgirls born together always looked the same, although they could differ in terms of personality and other aspects.

Each of them had the same black hair and long black wolf’s tail. Their wolf ears twitched. None of them had any other bestial features, which meant they were pure monstergirls. Some interbred with monsters and became much more bestial in appearance, but these girls were almost human, besides the ears, tails, and the fact they could probably rip Lyle in half and fling his body several miles.

Also, they were buck-naked, and water glistened on their fair skin and pert, nubile bodies. Lyle suspected they had been swimming in the river nearby. Their tails had mostly dried already, but that was a feature of their species.

One of the quartet spotted him and turned. She froze upon seeing him, her eyes widening him.

“Oh wow, it’s actually a male,” she said, loud enough for him to hear.

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Commentary: This is a public post, so no real commentary.

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