Monstrous Horizons Chapter 1 (Patreon)

Okay, so fair warning before you get into this one. I normally write 95% story, 5% explicit. Sometimes I'm feeling a little silly or smutty, that gets brain dumped into MH. It is more like 80% story and 20% smut. It is very monster girl. It is different enough that I'm unsure if I'll ever post it to Amazon, or atleast maybe not as Bruce Sentar.

I saw only darkness. Blinking, or at least trying to, did nothing to resolve my current loss of vision.

What had I been doing? I remember the bar… then it gets a little fuzzy. Though admittedly the last few weeks had been pretty fuzzy since the breakup.

“Phew, didn’t lose you yet. Sorry you slipped a little further away than I’d expected.” A woman with brilliant green hair popped into existence.

“Uh hello?” I tried.

“Oh. Good, you haven’t lost your mind yet either. Sometimes people don’t do well in the void. Okay, so let’s course correct you.”

Only now did I realize that I’d been moving. It was hard to get a sense of things in this inky darkness. Now I could feel some inertia as she changed my direction.

“Where are we going?”

“Well, you are going to a lovely new world. Sorry, but one of my sister wives asked for some help in her world. You’re perfect, lots of experiences slaying dragons, negotiating peace between hostile empires and if all that fails it even seems you have experience killing god like being. Honestly, I lucked out finding you, not to mention you even have sexual proclivities that I was worried I wouldn’t find in such a hero.”

Slaying dragons, negotiating—wait a second, those are my experiences in video games. “I think you have the wro—”

“Hush, we are almost there. I need to give you a quick update. The world is struggling with… well, species survival. Stupid people have done stupid things, and the world is on a collision course for extinction with sentient life. I know a tall task, but you seem up to the challenge.”

She got distracted looking off in the distance and for the first time I saw something else, a small dot rapidly growing in the inky darkness. “Okay, now we just need to find someone who’s about to die. Okay, plenty of those… filter for humans… okay now we need someone powerful… hey do you have a preferred tool for fighting?”

I was a little dumbfounded by all of this, but it was really happening and I wasn’t about to screw up whatever this was. Fuck it, I could use a break from what I had been dealing with. “Magic? I’d prefer being a mage.”

“Good, we got plenty of those to choose from… ah! He’s perfect. Brace yourself,” she yelled, sounding excited.

If I had a stomach, it would be flipping inside out as it felt like I was being sucked through a straw, passed through a grinder, and finally steamed out into a lovely brew of my own self.

“Wait.” I spoke, my throat feeling raw.

Hey! I had a throat again.

“Colonel, I thought we lost you. How many fingers am I holding up?”

I blinked a man in an unfamiliar sandy colored uniform held up two fingers.

“Two. Ugh, where am I?”

“You’re in the medic ward, still at the Fort in Khopesh.”

Thoughts flit through my mind at the name. A desert city on the southern border of the kingdom of Rinndal. It was called the desert’s jewel, the temperate climate stretched down like a peninsula into the desert, creating a lush city surrounded on three sides by the harsh Sinian Desert.

I was feeling better by the second, and bits of information were finding their way into my mind.

Colonel Sam Ridden, sorcerer sixth class. Okay, it was all coming back to me. I could work with this.

“Help me up, I need to get back to my quarters.”

“But Sir.” He started to complain, and I just held my hand up for his silence.

“I need to get a handle on the situation.” I partially lied. ‘The Situation’ was more than just the military situation. I needed to get a grip on far more than that. Even with memories trickling back into my mind, I knew I was missing a lot of it.

“Yes, Sir. At least let me carry your things.” The soldier offered.

“Thanks…”

“Medic Mark.” He supplied his name. “I have your staff and personal effects that were on you when you collapsed.”

“Great, I’ll take the staff, you lead the way.” I had no idea where I was going, but I’m sure he knew where the command office was.

Mark did as I bid and started out of the medic ward.

I leaned heavily on the gnarled old staff with a large crystal imbedded in it. More memories came. It was a focus for my magic. Not required, but the crystal drew ambient mana to itself, allowing me easier access to concentrated mana for a spell.

Magic was real. Check that box off in this new fantasy world. I was a sorcerer, someone with an instinctual ability to control their affinities. More information trickled into my mind. I had wind, earth and life affinities.

Out of the medical ward, hot dry air hit me in the face and I squinted through the harsh sun. All around me were pale yellow stone walls. What little wood I could see in the construction was bleached white from the sun.

He’d said fort, but it was larger than I’d expected. The walls stretched thirty feet into the air, surrounding what almost seemed like a small city. Though everyone moving around wore the same sandy colored military uniforms, some almost looked white from their time in the sun.

“This way, Sir.” Mark kept me on track, leading me into the largest building I could see and up a flight of stairs, across a balcony to a lonely room at the end.

“Thank you, Mark. That’ll be all.” I dismissed him and took the offered key to unlock what my mind was telling me was my own office.

Closing the door I set down my belongings and leaned against the door. What the hell had I gotten myself into?

What was coming into my mind told me we were at war. Well, more like siege, Rinndal was the last kingdom of man. Besieged on all sides by their own folly.

On my desk was a glowing green envelope, and I had no doubt that wasn’t normal, even for this world.

“Let’s see if you can give me any more details.” I grumbled and opened the letter.

I didn’t have much time to explain… Sam. Because that’s your name now. He was dying and a perfect new host for your soul, so don’t feel an ounce of guilt. There’s a history book on the shelf behind you, perfect for you to figure out the state of the world. For now, just know that I expect great things and I’m sure you’ll be able to help the world move away from complete extinction.

Not helpful at all.

I put the paper down, which disappeared as soon as it left my hand. More magic.

Hoping this history book would have a bit more information, I pulled a book that was glowing green like the letter from the shelf and sat down at my desk to read.

I’ll spare you the whole thing, but the short version was the kingdom of Rinndal was at war with was called the Mogu Kingdom, it had been ruled by the Incubus King that the author had a clear bias against, but that might be because eventually the Incubus King cucked the King of Rinndal.

Okay, that’s fair to hate the incubus king for, but their reaction? It was to curse the incubus and his kin with impotence, only it failed. Failed halfway at least, in that no more Incubus were born. Instead, each and every one of his children was female. Cutting off the incubus line.

The incubus king became enraged and sowed his seed far and wide. In less than polite terms, the book states that he bore tens of thousands of children from every imaginable beast and even some things that boggled my mind as to how you could conceive with a slime or sea foam.

Now the world was filled with a lineage of male craving half succubi that ran the gambit from cat girls to slime girls. I wasn’t going to think about how a slime girl was made. All of whom want nothing more than to copulate with a man, but the only men left were humans. That led to the war and the vast reduction of human population.

I put my head in my hand. You 're kidding me. I was a colonel guarding a key fort along the southern border. Guarding it from what sounded like an army of monster girls wanting to capture any man they could get their hands on.

It was obvious that wasn’t sustainable. If you thought about it, if the monster girls continued to ravage the human population for males, yet produced none of their own, eventually there wouldn’t be enough to sustain the human population, then males would disappear.

Blowing out a breath, I sat back in the wooden chair, causing it to creak. This was a tall order. Then again, did it matter? I was in a new world, with magic.

I couldn’t help but grin at the idea of using magic. The idea of monster girls appealed to me too, but I got the feeling from the brief history that I wasn’t supposed to like the idea of monster girls.

“Sir.” someone called from the other side of the door.

“Come in.”

The door opened to a soldier. “Sir, there is a messenger coming to the southern gates.”

“Lead the way.” I said, standing up and grabbing my staff, stuffing the office key in my pockets. I felt far better than when I’d even entered the office.

We went up the battlements to the top of the wall and to the gate.

Across the sand something moved oddly, but I squinted and couldn’t quite make out what it was.

“Here, Sir.” The soldier that had led me up offered a spyglass.

That was better. Winding its way across the sand like a sidewinder was a woman. Only her lower half was a snake.

Lamia.

The word came to mind. There were about as many variations of them as there were actual snakes. This one was winding her way across the sand, carrying a white flag and a messenger bag.

I remember reading a number of stories about them. If they were the enemy in this situation, the comment from the deity that brought me here suddenly made sense. I had a thing for monster girls.

“Sir, I think she’s waiting for you.” I was brought back to the present.

Below the wall, the lamia was waiting with an envelop held in her outstretched arms. She was pretty, in a sort of girl next door sort of way. I’d have done her in my past life, but something told me trying that here would be a bad idea. It certainly wasn’t helping the way her chain-mail hung down and at this angle I could see right into her ample cleavage.

“Sir.” the soldier prompted me again.

Not quite sure what to do, I sort of reached with a third arm I didn’t know I had. A muscle that was missing in my previous life.

Wind kicked up around her and she let go. The wind carried the letter, and I directed it over to myself. I was a sorcerer with an affinity for wind. Magic was fun.

I could get used to that.

Holding the grin off my face at my new use of magic, I made a small blade of wind off the tip of my finger and cut it open.

Dear Colonel Ridden, my sweetheart,

I want to let you know that I’ll attack in two days’ time. If you stand at the front of your soldiers I’ll sweep you off your feet and back to my boudoir where we can —

Woah woah, let’s skip the rest of that letter.

My eyes trailed down the long, vivid description of how she was going to fuck me senseless to the bottom. It was signed Cleopatra, Queen of the Sands.

I couldn’t believe that we exchanged letters like this. Was this Cleopatra and the previous owner of this body, star-crossed lovers or something?

The lamia was waiting expectantly at the bottom of the wall, so I hurried up and penned a quick letter back using a stationery kit from a subordinate.

Dear Cleopatra,

Unfortunately, my love, I cannot abandon my post. For all that I’d love to savor you, I have a duty I cannot surrender.

Please understand my love.

Colonel Ridden

Sort, sweet and it laid the groundwork to start pushing her away. A hidden relationship with a monster girl seemed like a great way to cause a mutiny.

I summoned up a clump of dirt and packed it into a solid shape similar to what I knew my seal looked like and stamped it on the letter to hold it closed before using his air sorcery to float it back down.

“That should do it.” I said, turning back to the soldier that had led me up here.

He looked completely gob smacked. “I’ve never seen you return any of those letters. Normally you get angry and make a show of destroying it to the courier.”

Really?

…then

Oh no, what the hell did I just start.