From Valwiki

The following is a story recounted by Jiro Arashi several years after the events described. It was originally a spoken tale, at some point transcribed by one of his scholarly pupils. Copies of the tale exist in Suiriku and certain Kharlian libraries.

The Origin of Corruption

Long ago, in the same land we live in now, a war was waged. This war, the "Neo-Rebel" war, claimed the lives of many innocent people. One such man, Reuben Simms, was caught in death here. The tale begins with him.

His life was one of poverty, growing up in an orphanage as he had no parents or family to raise him. On the sixteenth anniversary of his birth, when he was finally of age to become a man, the building he called home was shut down by a local lord who deemed its costs unnecessary, and the entire group of he and his fellows were cast out into the city to live alone. Instead of striking out to seek a life of success, he spent his time tending to his younger adoptive family.

To further his ill luck, a war began just as he reached the age of 20, a prime age to be drafted. He had never gone through the rigorous combat training of a soldier, nor had he even lifted a sword before this day; the kingdom was eager to fight and thus they sent everything they had with little sense of remorse for those that served. Thrust into battle with little or no direction from above, he was one of the first to fall on the battlefield. His final moment was spent screaming a curse towards all those that had ruined his life, cursing the world and all of its people, and immediately after he fell down dead.

A nearby hag kept watch over the battle, and heard his dying cry. In truth, she was the evil goddess Searith, come to walk the world in search of those who would seek her power. She laughed, and cursed him to walk the realm as the very pinnacle of that which he despised: Corruption. His broken body cracked, shifted and mangled, and he became as ash. His helmet, given to him just before battle, dropped to the ground. Its color faded, and became dark...

There on the battlefield it sat, for many years, until an unfortunate merchant found it.

The Tale Thereafter

During his lifetime, Zazen Cekeros was a famous merchant. Traveling the known world by boat, he made many good ties and amassed himself a great fortune. One particular treasure Zazen found during his life was a strange, ornate helmet with four eye slits and a strange hue of black and gray. Kept on a stand with a different suit of armor in his Athedian shop, Zazen would visit his wealth every week to admire his prize. Eventually, the weeks would turn to days, and soon Zazen was known to never been seen outside without the helmet in his possession. Slowly but surely over the course of a few years, the merchant became utterly obsessed with this relic of his. It was not long after that the lands of Athedia were thrown into the turmoil of war, and Zazen was reported missing by his fellow town members. He was never heard of again, and assumed to have been killed during the conflicts of that era.

Years later, after the Athedian wars had died down, elaborate rumors arose of an old merchant-king's treasure that lay hidden away somewhere in the forests of Athedia. Intrigued by the thought of such a trove, the infamous mire bandit Kensei Ataenushi took it upon himself to find said hidden treasury. Unfortunately for him, he succeeded. For nestled in the woods of Athedia sits a forgotten wooden plank, concealing a small crawl space filled with traps, just big enough for a human to get in. Kensei discovered this entrance and soon found himself in an underground vault; the coins, the gems, all of the knicks and knacks that Zazen had acquired over the years were located here, including the famed helmet which sat on a beautiful stand. Nearby, the withered corpse of the merchant lay clutching at its base. Knowing he could never get all of the wealth out without being spotted or help from his fellow bandits, Kensei grabbed the most appealing looking piece of treasure and left the underground collection to travel back to his home in hopes of getting help in recovering the rest. As you can imagine, Kensei decided to take with him the alluring helmet that Zazen had obsessed over to the point of starvation. At first he carried it in a pack, but soon Kensei realized that this helmet was calling to him, demanding that he put it on. Kensei knew in that moment that this item was evil, and decided to return instead to his homeland, believing the people there could help analyze such a cursed artifact.

This homeland was none other than Suiriku, the proud culture having recently made diplomatic ties with the "outlands", as they called the other continents of Kharlia. On his way home, Kensei was slowly taken over by the helmet and turned to evil. Upon arrival, Kensei jumped ship before it even reached harbor and fled into the coastal forests. Strangely, he was soon compelled to leave Suiriku, but on his way to the docks, Kensei encountered a spears-man training at the edge of the wood. Kensei attacked the warrior after asking for help, fighting for possession over his own mind and body. The spears-man fought valiantly, but was sadly slain, his life energies too being absorbed by the evil entity. Without care for a cure, and harmed from this battle, the now-dead body of Kensei eventually stowed away on a boat to Empyria.

Upon arrival in Empyria, the possessed figure wandered its shores and attacked anyone unfortunately enough to pass him. This continued for many days, until the evil entity crossed paths with a paladin working on as a missionary, known by the name of Zecroda Revant. After a tiresome fight, Zecroda defeated the evil entity and took its helmet as a trophy. Unfortunately, like the others, Zecroda began to slowly slip towards the madness that the helmet bestowed to all of its owners. Though he fought against its corrupting powers longer than the previous three, Zecroda donned the helmet and from that day he was forever cursed. However, being of strong will power, Zecroda could effectively hold off the possession for about four years longer; during that time, Zecroda had control over his mind and body for half of the day, the other half controlled by the evil entity. Many months went by in this fashion, sometimes with Corruption awakening within defenseless homesteads, and often with Zecroda awakening to find himself outside of burning ruins or with mangled corpses. Unknowing in his curse, he continued to travel the realm giving aid and hope to a confused peasant populace. Sadly, the day would come when the pious Zecroda succumbed fully to the evil of the helmet and so an ominous unholy paladin walked the land in the guise of Zecroda the Benevolent.

Corruption, now in full control of a new and even stronger body, made many attempts at taking down the capital city of Valikorlia. His attacks were haphazard and merciless, but he was no match for the zealous peoples of the land. Paladins, knights, and common-folk alike joined together in battle, and made sure to win every one of the skirmishes. During the second of these battles, his body was left ruined, and Corruption returned to the form of the helmet and was cast into the moat of the Valikorlian castle; his visage disappeared into the waters and made them as dark and cold as the black voids of the sea.

The corrupter of minds was not ended there, no. For at the bottom of the moat had lain the corpse of a drowned fisherman for many years. It is from this form and its past life that Corruption gained most of his knowledge of the realm. Months later, this villain mysteriously arose in Frost, where an alchemist woman who had been partly responsible for his previous defeat had been living. He struck out in revenge, but quickly found that the old, rotten body made for a frail fighter, and he lost miserably. Still, Corruption survived, unable to truly die. Into the frigid waters he was cast, doomed to roam the waves, he sifted about the sea for many weeks. A day came at last when, near an island shore, he found the fresh corpse of a Sea-Imp recently slain by an unforgiving sailor. Knowing that the tiny form would not make good for his goals, he quickly set about to search for new flesh to inhabit.

While Corruption had been at sea, the will of the man Kensei, who had been devoured long ago by this point, gathered and manifested as a statue of himself on a path along a Valikorlian forest. The commoners that took this path paid no notice to it, thinking it little more than art. One day, a familiar friend walked by and, though it had been many years, Kensei's spirit recognized him immediately; this man was Jiro Arashi, a fellow thief working the trade at the same time as he. Kensei called out to Jiro, and told him of his fate, and the now middle-aged thief paid attention with great concern. Kensei could not tell him where the helmet was or what had become of his body, only able to temporarily seek freedom from the cursed artifact. Before he faded away, Kensei requested that Jiro seek out and destroy the evil creature for good.

Jiro began a campaign against Corruption, seeking out those taken by the helmet. His adventures brought him the companionship of the infamous Kender, who was already quite well-known for his amazing deeds, Tindertot Rastleknot. Together they traveled to the island of Athedia, in search of any knowledge related to Zazen Cekeros, the fabled merchant-king. In Zazen's old town, the two met his younger brother, Katsuma Cekeros, who by now was slow with age. Jiro followed a trail of clues to the entrance of the golden cove within the forest, and it was here that Katsuma revealed Zazen's story to them. Tindertot felt a breeze coming from a nearby statue in the treasury, and reported it to Jiro and Katsuma; moving it aside, they found the innermost sanctum of the underground vault, where the skeletal remains of Zazen sat, cross-legged, against the far wall.

Katsuma realized then that Zazen would never return, and wept. He joined Jiro and Tindertot in their journey, for a time, vowing to aid them in any way he could. From here they traveled to Lerhyn, seeking aid from a chapter of holy men known as the Hand of Dawn. They gained their support, but had little time to investigate the whereabouts of Zecroda, known to the guild as a good man gone down the path of evil. For now a few days later, the start of the Second Abyssal War, and thus the Plague, struck the lands of Kharlia. Corruption meanwhile took to defending itself during this period of conflict, become a massive puddle of inky darkness. In this state, it lay dormant, even after the end of the war; biding its time, Corruption waited for the chaos of war to break up the adventuring groups that once rallied to destroy it forever. Many fell to the plague, including Katsuma, and Jiro and Tindertot would not soon after become separated again with the coming of the Flood. It is thought that Corruption lay sleeping in those years, content to wait for the kingdoms of man to rebuild so that it could dash them down again.

OOC: There's a good year or two of lore still beyond this story, and eventually Corruption would return, but for now, this is the end.