Chapter 20 – A Moment of Calm

“I think I’ll take a break, you still okay down there Chloe?” I asked.

Chloe gave me a thumbs up.

I pulled my fingers out of my thoroughly dominated monster girl’s butt, and wandered away. I felt Pinky’s tail mournfully stroke down my back as I moved away. She wasn’t stopping me, but she was sad to see me go.

“I’ll be back later, don’t worry.” I told her.

Pinky couldn’t really understand me though, so she just looked at me with innocent puppy dog eyes and a quivering lip.

“Jeez, I’ll finger your butt again later, okay? We’ve got all night.” I told her.

Puppy dog eyes. Uncomprehending betrayal. Quivering lip.

I hardened my heart and left her behind, unable to shake the feeling of incredible guilt. Deep breaths… Pinky still has the blowjob queen to herself, she’s in good hands.

I took another look around the blood soaked arena. Werewolf and Crabby were still corpses. Purple, the demonblood elf was still alive somehow, but thoroughly incapacitated. I suspected she might have something similar to my Aasimar regeneration. If so, it was a slow healing. It would still be quite a few more hours until she recovered enough to need me to distract her from the others.

Foxy was still riding Milah, grinding her hips against his crotch. She leaned down, pressing her chest against his, and tenderly licked at his neck. He groaned in pleasure, and stroked his arms along her furry back. It almost looked loving, if not for the Taint corruption likely infusing into his body.

I walked over to the last item of note. Three unraped girls, huddling along the edge of the arena. Beatrice the wolfgirl and Ginny the catgirl were both naked, and cuddling against Lothelea, the betrayed dark elven slave girl, still clad in her fetishy maid dress. She held an arm around each of them. They’d calmed down a bit, no longer crying in terror, but still obviously wary.

“Hey there, how you guys holding up?” I asked.

“Okay I guess…” Ginny mumbled nervously.

“We should be asking you that,” Beatrice commented. “I saw that Abyssal girl stick her thing in you.”

“The pinchy one?” I asked. They nodded. “Yeah, that hurt like a bitch, it still stings a little. Luckily, my species heals fast.”

“It wasn’t wise approaching a Manhunter mid coitus,” Lothelea warned. “You’re lucky she didn’t try to kill you.”

“Manhunter? You mean Foxy?” I asked, gesturing to the feral foxgirl still raping Milah.

“Her name was Foxy?” Ginny asked solemnly.

“Err… I have no idea what her name was before getting Tainted. No, I just sorta gave her that name in my own brain. We’ve got Werewolf, Crabby, Foxy, Purple and Pink.” I said pointing to the monsters, or their corpses.

“Cute names for horrible monsters… You’re very brave…” Ginny said quietly.

“Or just an idiot,” Beatrice added.

I chuckled, “Probably an idiot. I’m woefully ignorant about monsters and magic. I don’t even really know what you mean by Manhunter. Though I suppose I could guess, given the context.”

“How do you not know that? Every adventurer worth their salt has a tale about that time they got ambushed by a Manhunter…” Beatrice said, aghast.

I shrugged.

“Manhunters hunt men.” Lothelea explained patiently. “I’m sure you’ve noticed that Foxy doesn’t have a penis?”

“Yeah…?” I said.

“Most monsters are driven to hunt women, detecting a woman’s scent from as far as a mile away. Once their attention is… aroused… they’ll chase us relentlessly until either they are killed or we are fucked. A Manhunter is the exact opposite. They’ll scent a man from a mile away, chase them down and fuck themselves on his cock. Their saliva and fluids can apparently induce male arousal and hardness on contact with skin, regardless of the victim’s actual enthusiasm or how many orgasms they’ve had.”

“Ah I see,” I said.

“You’ve surely heard men warn each other about never interrupting a monster while it’s raping a woman? The same applies in reverse here. As the non-preferred sex, the Manhunter will see you as a threat rather than a potential target so long as she has a man available to her. That means they won’t hold themselves back from trying to kill you.”

“Ah… Yeah, I guess I’m lucky Foxy is such a gentle girl then.” I said.

Ginny pointed at the three long gashes in my thigh, Foxy’s claw marks. “That’s gentle?”

“This?” I pointed at the claw marks. “This was just a warning. She warned me twice with growls to back off, and I blundered towards her anyway. This was just warning number three. I’m pretty sure she could have done worse than this if she wanted.”

“You might be right about that. I’ve heard Ferals have a more animal-like intelligence. They’re not necessarily mindless, it’s just… the corruption brings them closer to their bestial nature.” Beatrice explained.

“So Pinky didn’t attack me… because I’m her preferred sex?” I asked.

“Yeah, you’re another potential target, so she’ll merely be driven to catch and rape you, rather than kill you.” Bethany said.

“She didn’t seem all that aggressive,” I shrugged.

“Yeah… that’s a pretty unusual monster. I haven’t heard of anything that docile before.” Bethany said.

“She still might try to… you know…” Ginny mumbled. “It’s not safe. They can sometimes switch targets if they see someone else they like better.”

“I’m not scared of a little bit of ‘you know.’ Like I two you and Bethany before, I’m Taint immune. In fact, I can actually gain levels from being monster raped. Chloe, the high elf there, is the same. Neither of us are in any danger from Pinky.”

“Must be nice to not be afraid of monsters…” Beatrice said.

“If you’re Taint immune, then I guess it’s safe for you to play with the monster. As the preferred sex, Pinky shouldn’t attack you with lethal intent unless you yourself threaten her life. She might try to grab and fuck you though, and monsters aren’t always gentle. She’s gentle now, but she still might be a… rough partner if she got you into a disadvantageous position,” Lothelea explained.

“Good to know…” I said. “So what even is Pinky? She looks kinda like Purple there…”

“Obviously a variant of demonblood elf, same as Purple. Demonbloods are what all high elves turn into when corrupted.” Lothelea explained.

“They barely seem like the same species. Purple is like three times the weight of Pink… at least.”

“There are some scholars that try to divide them into subcategories. Lesser, greater, alpha, beta… Personally, I just accept that there is a lot of variation of body types and behaviours within the Tainted species we call Demonblood.” Lothelea explained.

“I heard a theory that a person’s physical stats have some bearing on what sort of creature they turn into. Like… Purple was probably a warrior type, while Pink might have been a spellcaster? I don’t know…” Ginny added.

“Makes sense, I suppose,” I said. “Does that mean Foxy used to be a spell caster, and the giant Wolf man was a warrior?”

“I believe Foxy was once a level 12 [Maid], a gentle and delicate soul named Magdalene. She was torture-raped downstairs in the dungeon for only three months before she broke enough to warrant disposal, then she fell prey to the monsters in the pit. I believe she was converted by the one you call Purple. It was a rather painful rape, I recall. Purple seems to greatly favour anal and acts with great alacrity,” Lothelea said.

“Yikes!” I clenched my butt in sympathy. Purple had been a big girl down there. Dry anal with a normal sized cock last night hurt like crazy… how bad would a studded monster cock be? I might have dodged a bullet there.

“Indeed.” Lothelea replied. “I believe her strength stat was around thirteen? I can’t recall exactly. She was above average for a woman, but not equal to a proper warrior. She’s fairly small, by Feral beastkin standards. Her previous stats might have been a factor.”

“It could also be her gentle nature.” I suggested. “Some part of her didn’t want to hurt anyone, so she turned into something a bit less threatening?”

“True or not, I like that explanation better,” Beatrice said. “My sister got turned, a few years ago. Turned into a Feral wolfkin, and fled to the woods to get away from the kingdom’s divine protection aura. Our old master didn’t want to deal with her, so he let her go. She had a dick, probably large enough to hurt, but not large enough to kill someone, not like the big boy we saw here. It makes me happy to think there’s some part of her still in there, holding her back from becoming a truly vicious monster.”

“Has anyone ever found a cure?” I asked. “For the Taint? Some way to reverse it?”

“No,” Lothelea said firmly. “Greater minds than us have tried and failed.”

“Yeah, I wish there was a cure. The best we could do for someone like my sister, or Foxy over there is kill them painlessly.” Beatrice added.

“If there was a cure… we wouldn’t even be here.” Ginny said darkly.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“You ever wonder why these men want to see us suffer so much? Why they fucking raped me last night with a burning barbecue between my legs?” she grumbled. “Taint, that’s why. The early stages of Taint corruption include an increased libido and an overwhelming desire to dominate and inflict pain. For those with more Taint, that desire can get quite extreme.”

“So all of our customers survived getting monster raped?” I asked, skeptically.

“Probably not. Being captured by a monster usually leads to a full transformation unless someone else shows up to save them. The monsters don’t let their victims go until they’re fully Tainted. No, these guys are probably just inflicted with Power Greed, they’re people who levelled up too fast for their blessings to catch and cleanse the Taint from them.” Beatrice explained.

“Ah, yeah… I guess that makes more sense.” I said.

Finally, I had my answer as to why there were so many of these cruel sadistic bastards. If adventuring naturally led to Taint corruption, which naturally led to sadism, then a town that catered to adventurers would obviously have enough well paid sadists to warrant running a torture brothel like this.

I could even picture how the non-cruel townsfolk let them get away with it too… It was probably seen by many as a lesser evil, a way to keep the horny, pent up, sadistic adventurers with no legal outlet for their urges, from abusing innocent human townsfolk.

That didn’t mean any of this was okay. It was still most definitely fucked up, but I could at least see how the townsfolk rationalized it in their minds.

“How long is… umm… that going to take?” I asked, pointing at the feral fox girl and her victim.

“Corruption?” Beatrice said. “Depends. After only an hour there can be some minor, yet permanent personality changes, like the high libido and sadism Ginny talked about. If rescued early, the victim can learn to manage those urges, and live their life more or less normally. They usually say the window for a successful rescue is ten hours. After that, the victim is considered corrupted and unrecoverable. At that point they’re usually too far gone for them to reintegrate with society. There’s too much mental degradation, and they’re basically a growling horny beast too stupid to do anything but fuck. But there are exceptions to the rule, there have been stories of some people lasting as long as two days and being saved with their minds intact. I guess it would depend on their Willpower stat? As for a full transformation? That usually takes around a month of solid rape, but I think that time varies quite a bit, depending on the monster’s level.”

“Wouldn’t you starve to death before that?” I asked.

“Once the physical changes start, the need for food and water goes away. Monsters have no desires or physical needs, other than the insatiable need to rape us.” Beatrice explained.

“Keep in mind, you won’t be lucid for much of it…” Ginny said. “Your mind will be gone after ten hours. That’s why my mom told me. If you get caught, you only suffer for ten hours, then there’s no more pain.”

“That’s not the most reassuring thing to tell a kid,” I commented.

“Really?” Beatrice said. “Fuck, I wish my mom told me that. I grew up thinking I would be gang raped for months if a tribe of goblins caught me. I wish I’d known about the mental degradation part earlier. My mom couldn’t even get me to look outside the walls. Heck, I was afraid of toilets for two whole years because somebody told me goblins liked to lurk in the public latrines.”

“Is that true?” Ginny gasped.

“Fuck if I know.” Beatrice said.

“Yes, along with Weavers, Centipedes, Slimes, and other monsters favoring subterranean environments. But the latrines get inspected by the guards every morning and night so the risk of actually encountering a monster in there is low,” Lothelea said.

“Oh great… I wish you hadn’t told me that… now I’ll imagine a smelly sewer monster grabbing me and dragging me down every time I go pee,” Ginny said.

“Not like we’ll ever need to use a latrine again with them Purifying us twice a day.” Bethany commented.

“I guess that’s a perk,” I said with a smirk.

“It’s unlikely, but occasionally a customer will request a girl with unwashed body odour, or a full bladder. In that case they are not Purified, and usually required to… void themselves… at the client’s request.” Lothelea commented.

“W-Why would they want that?” Ginny said. “It’s like that healer… h-he…”

“Don’t worry, those customers are rare.” Lothelea said serenely. “It’s far more likely you’ll be the ones drinking their pee instead.”

Ginny wrinkled her nose in disgust.

“I should be horrified by that but…” Beatrice signed in resignation, “You know what? Sure, whatever. It’s still better than the rack.”

“A lot of things are better than the rack,” Lothelea agreed.

“You tried it out yet?” Beatrice asked.

“I’ve belonged to Lord Anthony Volda, this town’s most infamous sadist, for five years… Yes. I’ve experienced every torture device in the dungeon… more than once.” Lothelea said with her own sigh of resignation.

“Fuck…” I muttered.

“FUBAR, right?” Ginny said, adopting the phrase I taught her.

“Yeah, that’s right, definitely FUBAR,” I replied.

“I-is there anything worse?” Beatrice asked, with terrified curiosity.

“Worse than the rack?” Lothelea took a moment to think. “For a constant sustained level of pain lasting hours or days? No I think the rack probably wins. But to be honest, I’d rather spend all day on the rack than get my skin peeled off again. Getting skinned alive was the longest hour of my life. It was worse than burning alive, which I’d also consider to be worse than the rack.”

“That’s fucking horrifying…” I muttered.

“Yes it was,” Lothelea agreed.

The conversation lapsed into an awkward silence. Nobody really had anything to say on the matter of getting skinned alive.

“So let’s say I don’t want to be skinned alive. How do we escape from here?” I asked.

“You want to escape?” Ginny gasped.

“Yeah. Don’t you?” I asked.

“We don’t escape,” Lothelea said bitterly.

“Okay, but let’s say we wanted to try anyway…” I said.

Lothelea pointed to her slave collar. “Tracking enchantment and proximity based remote torture and kill. Try and run away we’ll be writhing in agony the instant was cross the property’s threshold. Go a little further than that, and the remote kill activates, shrinking the collar down until it strangles us to death.”

“How do we take these off then? Is there a magical key or something?” I asked.

“Lord Volda himself is the only one with the access to remove or disable them,” she replied. “I don’t suggest asking him to release you.”

“Wasn’t there like… When I got Chloe, a [High Priest] put her collar on. He said certain members of the Church of the Untainted can take them off…”

“First of all, I don’t know if that’s true for these particular collars. It’s technically illegal to enchant a slave collar without access for clergy, but Lord Volda is rich and influential enough to make his own rules. But let’s say the priests have access… what then? Are you planning on convincing a human priest to free a slave?” Lothelea grumbled.

“Well, I wasn’t a slave to begin with. I’m technically a free individual. I just sorta got kidnapped and put in a collar,” I said.

“Wait, you’re actually a human?” Ginny gasped, looking at me accusingly. She didn’t seem fond of humans, and I couldn’t exactly blame her.

“Well I was a human yesterday morning. Then Trindon, in his infinite mercy, decided to turn me into an Aasimar as a reward for healing a bunch of slaves for free. I got kidnapped by some random street thugs shortly after,” I explained.

“A god changed your species? Like… literally wove a divine miracle? And that miracle turned you into a demihuman?” Lothelea gasped, her cool composure momentarily shattered.

“Chloe too. She was fully human like… four days ago? But then she got turned into a high elf,” I shrugged.

“But we’re… corrupted… A god wouldn’t…” Lothelea stared at me wide eyed.

“This town’s [High Priest] said something like that too. That you were all slaves because you were half-monsters? I’m pretty sure that’s utter bullshit.” I said.

Ginny gasped, “Don’t just say something like that out loud…”

“Why, you think the gods will hear me?” I chuckled.

“Well… yes… they hear everything… especially when you talk about them,” she said.

“Well I had a personal conversation with Vyreth and he didn’t mention demihumans being a problem at all. Tainted monsters were the enemy I was sent to defeat. And then he went and turned Chloe into an elf, which he probably wouldn’t do to his special champion if elves were a Tainted species. Then Trindon turned me into an Aasimar. I’m basically a demi-angel, an anti-monster. I’m probably less corrupted than an average human, despite being a so-called Tainted demihuman. If anyone’s going to piss off the gods it would be these assholes for kidnapping us.”

“You had a personal conversation with the Lord of Struggle?” Lothelea asked skeptically.

“Um yes?” I said awkwardly. “A short one, at least. It’s sort of a long story, but the gist of it is… Chloe and I are from another world entirely, one without any Taint at all. Thanks to that, we were given a stronger version of Vyreth’s blessing so we could fight the corruption in this world and rise in level as fast as we wanted without getting overcome with Power Greed. Vyreth personally explained to us why we were brought here.”

“That’s also why you’re immune to Taint?” Beatrice asked.

“Yep, you got it,” I said.

“Then if you were really brought here to save the world, I hope the gods smite these assholes,” Ginny grumbled.

“Me too…” I said.

I waited a few moments. Looking up at the ceiling expectantly. Any time now guys… No? No fire and brimstone, no bolts from the heavens or pillars of salt? C’mon guys! You’re the ones who got me into this mess with that fucking ill advised Aasimar buff… Take responsibility!

“Lazy gits…” I grumbled.

“No luck?” Beatrice snickered.

“I guess they’re shy. No smiting today,” I said.

“The gods are bound by rules we cannot fathom,” Lothelea said sagely. “Perhaps they want to act, but are unable to unless the right conditions are met.”

“Yeah, if Vyreth’s blessing absorbs and converts Taint… then this Taint is obviously not something he lacks the ability to handle. There must be something stopping Vyreth from just weaving a big miracle and making the Taint vanish.”

“Against the rules,” Ginny agreed.

“Isn’t it something about acting outside one’s domain?” Beatrice asked.

Lothelea nodded, “Indeed. Vyreth is the god of Struggle and Valor. He can grant us power only because it gives us the means to struggle and prove our valor. If he made the Taint go away with a miracle, we wouldn’t struggle against it. That would be counter to his domain. Likewise, if he didn’t give us enough strength to have fighting chance against the Taint monsters at all, that would also be counter to his domain. Only by struggling do we gain his power, yet it should still be possible to eventually win against the Taint if we struggle hard enough.”

“So who is the god of calling down lightning on sadistic slaver assholes?” I asked.

Lothelea sighed, “There is no such god, though I wish there was.”

“What about, like… a patron protector of demihumans or something?”

Lothelea smiked, “I can’t speak for the other demis here, but most dark elves no longer worship Nyar’Loaketer.”

“Um… this probably sounds like a stupid question, but… why not?” I asked.

Beatrice cracked up and fell over laughing.

“You’re really not from this world, are you?” Ginny said, amazed.

“Umm…” I looked around uncomfortably.

Lothelea sighed, “So the current status of demihumans is our fault, dark elves, specifically. My species, at least, fully deserves its status as an inherently Tainted slave race. We were the ones who Tainted the world, after all. Nyar’Loaketer is the elder god of the Infinite Abyss. Or more accurately, one of three elder gods of the Infinite Abyss once worshipped by the dark elves. He is also the god who opened the rift, and Tainted the world with a single drop of his blood.”

“Oh… I see. Then yeah, probably better you don’t worship that guy anymore,” I said.

“I didn’t know there were three…” Ginny said.

“Nyar’Loaketer, Nyar’Heliothorpe, and Nyar’Shiggurath,” Lothelea said. “The Insatiable Corruption of Form, The Mournful Desecration of Glory, and The Slithering Violation of Purity. Three brothers, or whatever the elder god equivalent of a brother may be. They are sometimes enemies, sometimes allies.”

“Corruption of Form, I can see that,” I gestured to the monstrous feral foxkin and pink demonblood elf. “What makes them so… rapey? Shouldn’t forced intercourse fall under the Slithering Violator’s domain?”

“I’m not a [Dark Priestess] so I don’t know much more than the little tidbits my mother passed down to me. As I understand it… All three brothers are somewhat carnal, perhaps Nyar’Shiggurath more than the others, but each of these dark entities would almost certainly violate you sexually without mercy or remorse should you inadvertently wander into their realm. Often, the power they grant comes at the price of an elven sacrifice, sent to the gods’ personal realms to experience their violating touch for the rest of their long lifespans.”

“I’m picturing lots of tentacles,” I said.

“None have seen the gods’ true form and returned to speak of it,” Lothelea said. “In ancient artwork, the Avatar of Shiggurath, that’s basically his… projection onto the mortal plane, is often depicted as a mass of black tentacles, insatiable, and ever-raping.”

“What about mister Taint?” I asked.

“The Avatar of Loaketer is described as an ever-shifting cavern whose cramped walls are writhing flesh comprised of in an infinite number of slimy tongues, licking and tasting all that trespass.” the dark elf explained.

“A cavern? Like… a cavern in what?” I said.

“A cavern of endless flesh, of tasting and changing.”

“But like, a cavern is a void… in rock right? A mountain might contain a cavern. A cavern can’t exist on its own. This avatar is a void in… what exactly?”

“Flesh? The walls are flesh,” Lothelea said, not quite understanding my question.

Eh, forget it. I stopped trying to picture whatever impossible monstrosity this avatar of Taint happened to be.

“What about the middle brother?” Ginny asked.

“Bugs,” Lothelea replied quickly, offering no further detail.

“Bugs?” Beatrice asked.

“Just… so many bugs. All sorts. Use your imagination, I really don’t want to think about it. Bugs freak me out a little.” Lothelea said quietly.

There was a bit of a lull in the conversation. I looked over at the rape monsters again. Fox girl was still gently cuddle-fucking her victim, and Chloe was still sucking the Pink demon girl’s dick. She didn’t seem to be flagging or losing energy. How long had she been doing this? A couple hours maybe? Probably a while.

“Right… Well thanks for the theology lesson,” I said.

It was right at that moment when every hair on my body stood on end. An oppressive feeling of raw monstrous power washed over me.

There was no comparing it with any magic I’d witnessed before in this world. It was orders of magnitude more powerful. The only point of comparison I could make, was the feeling I got from Vyreth Himself during my brief conversation with him at the start of our journey.

This was a divine aura, a god’s power. What was happening?

I played around with a spreadsheet and realized that characters in higher class tiers didn't really have the stats to warrant the level of badass-ness I wanted them to have. Therefore, I changed the description and class rank-up requirements described in chapter ten.

Before, the rule was every ten levels was a class upgrade. So Tier 2 started at 10, Tier 3 started at 20, Tier 4 started at 30, and so on. Now, each new class upgrade requires more levels than the previous class. Also, because we get so many more levels now, unlocking Tier 2 skills requires 2 skill points instead of 1. Tier 3 requires 3 points, and so on.

New Rule:Tier 1 starts at level 1, requires 10 levels to unlock next tier.Tier 2 starts at level 11, requires 20 levels to unlock next tier. Tier 3 starts at level 31, requires 30 levels to unlock next tier. Tier 4 starts at level 61, requires 40 levels to unlock next tier.Tier 5 starts at level 101... and so on...