Vortex Quest Bk. 04 Ch. 07

== VORTEX QUEST 4-7 ==

== SCHISM 1 -- TURN OF EVENTS ==

The return trip to the lobby was somber.

The pantheon had been trapped in many situations that could have killed any number of them, but none had created such an impact on them.

Chay was still walking funny, since his asshole was the slowest among them to heal to its original tightness, fog trailing off him like a cape. Xane created new butterflies but they came out ugly, jagged, asymmetric, probably indicating something or other. Goro was quiet, inscrutable, likely brooding.

Marcus' thoughts were also going a million miles an hour, or whatever time measurement the abyss had, thinking about the future. He needed to distract himself.

Giving Xane's back a squeeze, Marcus loudly whispered, "Hey, Xee, we'll find you a nice waterfall, promise."

For a second, the wizard looked angry, then a sad smirk flashed across his face. "Fuck off," he said without bite. "I don't have a fucking water kink. That'd be an easy one."

"Shower in particular? What about locker rooms?"

"Fuck no, I'm not a fa- I mean, at this point locker rooms are kind of... hot, I guess? Fuck."

Goro grunted but didn't follow up with a comment, casually swatting at one of the smoke rings Chay left hanging in his wake.

"I'm serious," Marcus said. "If you got kinks, fantasies, buried desires we can try out," he gestured at the void of limbo between the pillars of crumpled wall, "when if not here?"

Xane shrugged. "I've wanted a dozen chicks going crazy over my body. If I want a dozen guys now, we'd have to hit up a slave auction or something. Deal with the Reapers? I'm *not* asking Diego."

Goro grunted again. "Seeing my scan-vision fantasy realized was... interesting. I don't think I need it again." He touched his abs as if to make sure there was no dick inside.

Marcus stretched as they hopped down shattered stairs. "I realize my 'day long sex' fantasy, if that was what the projection was about, is already kind of fulfilled. This whole trip has been a sex adventure."

In a way, the abyss was already fulfilling his fantasy of eternal sex, just not exactly on his - previously? - heterosexual terms.

Xane huffed. "At the beginning I thought of it as an exercise in resisting perversion but that stopped pretty quickly. 'Sex adventure' is close enough. I mean, I've had more sexual pleasure than I'll probably have in my entire life. Still would have liked more tits and pussy," - Goro hummed -- "but I always knew *I* was the hottest piece of meat around, so why wouldn't other guys be hot."

He slapped Goro's ass. Then he winked at Marcus and the martial artist felt a mage-tongue lick across his hole. He winked back, exaggerated.

"Wow," Chay said, speaking for the first time since they had started walking.

"I know," Xane said with a grin, "made some real progress."

"Not just that," Chay said. "We're a real team here, lifting each other up. Not to be too sappy, but just a few days ago we were barely friends and now we're tighter tha- Xane, take your tongue out of my hole, I'm still a little sore."

Xane flicked some sparks at the leader, who puffed black smoke in the thaum-mage's face in return.

"Robots," Goro warned.

The mechanical custodians, three of them, were wheeling or walking from the room a few paces ahead.

Chay whipped out his fan and, with three quick flaps, clouds circled around the bots' heads, making them freeze in place for lack of visuals.

Marcus took a levitation stride, did some midair acrobatics and roundhouse kicked the silver dude back into the room. His chakram bounced off the one behind him, cutting some cable at the neck and made the robot spasm out. Marcus flung his weight into the jittering bot, holy fire searing the metal, and it crashed into the final one.

He dusted off his hands. "We really didn't need that ward back then, huh?"

The demigods made it to the lobby without further incident.

Diego was waiting amidst a field of crystal debris and glittering dust.

"Ah, what took you so long? Haha."

His demon-like voice gave Marcus the urge to get to his knees and take devil-dick.

"What happened here?" Chay asked, looking at the shards. "Run in with the Glitzers?"

"Exactly, my little Cha-Cha," the devil said. "They got antsy when I hung around. Didn't take many kills to scare them off. I see you got the book."

"We did," Chay said, lightly raising the ledger. "We ran into trouble of our own, but it all worked out. Can we go?"

"I have a gift," Diego said, almost gleeful. He presented a long band of insanely ornate gold, its fractal patterns obscuring the five pockets until Marcus looked close.

The devil slung the divine artefact over his shoulder. "Super charger gems. We used a bunch of those to beat up some demons. I stashed them with the other divine shit after... I wanted nothing to do with them anymore and as a demonblooded piece of perfection," he flexed a biceps, "I can't use them anyway."

Xane rolled his eyes at the flexing. Marcus would have called him a hypocrite any other time.

"That's," Chay started slowly, "actually amazing. What are the parameters? Application, duration, strength?"

Diego pulled out the two white jockstraps he had brought along. "So you like my gifts after all?"

Behind Diego, Chay's randomly dispersed fog briefly coalesced into an arrow pointing at the straps so that the devil couldn't see them. Goro and Xane got the hint and joined the jock-brigade.

"Incoming," Chay warned.

Glitzers were flying in from the void beyond the lobby, riding Griffnix. The gem-creatures seemed too heavy even for the massive, feather-winged varks, but there was probably magic at work.

Chay started giving pointers and Diego called up a ward around them and started shepherding the pantheon to the exit. He mumbled an invocation and the leaf of leaves reassembled.

One of the Griffnix shook off its rider and clawed at the other flying monsters -- Chay's puppetry.

Marcus poked the devil in the thigh. "You could at least let my chakram out of your bubble."

"Not necessary," Diego said. "Hop on."

Marcus stepped onto the green carpet and felt Diego's finger on his hole. Was the devil just going to fingerbang him randomly or- Something egg-sized entered his hole and thumping pleasure raced up his spine and pounded his brain.

Marcus clenched his hole to keep precious nectar from leaking as the bud melted inside him.

Chay had objections. "It's *our* stash, you can't just- It's about the unilateral- Yes, I fucking want one, if the others already- Fine, I'm getting on."

The nectar-injected demigods knelt unhappily on the leaf as the rollercoaster took off again, leaving research station Gamma behind. Out of all the non-con nectar fucks Marcus had gotten, this was the hardest to wring enjoyment from.

His hand rested on Xane's thigh. The wizard reciprocated. They scooted closer together as the craving and fulfilment wrecked them.

Chay mumbled something about an unsustainable relationship.

Diego's mighty hand came to rest on Marcus' shoulder.

===***===

While Lord Lelthnu poured over the ledger, the pantheon had their pre-mission orgy, sucking slave dicks dry while Diego took turns on their willing asses.

Every few thrusts, Marcus wondered if indulging the devil was a good idea, then Diego's many bulges and ripples would inevitable hit his walls in a way that ripped his mind apart and his train of thought was suspended for a few thrusts. If he could have used the time Diego's dick spend in another man to clear his head, the devil was preventing that, too, by slipping a nectar bud into the waiting bottoms.

Eventually, Marcus came to from a delirious half-nap, threaded into a short Egyptian slave and a lean, ripped ginger one.

Chay was chatting with Lelthnu about the dangerous machines they'd find in the technarium. And apparently time was of the essence, too, since the schism had already stabilized the vortex a good bit.

"Okay," Marcus mumbled to himself and collected his limbs from between the slaves.

Xane was stretching next to him, seven pink and purple butterflies dancing on his hand as he drew a little cartoon sun. "Rise and shine, honey, hehe."

"Man, I'm dizzy," Marcus complained. "Didn't know orgies gave you a hangover."

"They don't. Oh, you've not been blackout drunk before, huh? Hey, shut up, it was one time, or two."

Marcus rose and let white fire burn inside him. Physically, his exhaustion was vanquished. "Whatever. Piss for piss?"

Xane rolled his eyes but held out a fist for rock-paper-scissor. Marcus lost and laid down to accept the muscle wizard's body on top of his, drinking each other's streams.

Soon, they were ready.

The pantheon stood on the terrace, looking out onto the canyon city ruins and the nearest overgrown roof where Lelthnu was chanting.

Chay gave Diego a smack on the back with a puff of smoke as he walked by. "Thanks for all the help. Wouldn't have made it this quickly without you."

"No no," the devil said, "thank *you* for shaking me out of my funk and taking me on adventures again. Now, let's go wreck a vortex!"

Three pairs of demigod eyes turned to Chay. The leader appeared honestly stumped but just gave a heavy nod. They were letting Diego come along, so Marcus didn't object, for now.

===***===

Chay's main concern at the moment was Lelthnu. If the Reaper saw the humans in jockstraps take down a demi-demon, he was probably not going to cooperate so easily.

And Chay wasn't even sure the fight would be easy. Not only did Diego have a divine ability, there were several runes embedded in his lair and its immediate proximity and Chay didn't think they were as easily taken care of as the sleep rune they had dealt with at the start.

There were even more considerations, tactical and strategic alike, since the outcome of the battle with the schism was unknown.

And so the five magical warriors hopped onto their individual giant leaves -- surfing the air at break-neck speed with little control for the wild paths the leaves took between the apocalyptic buildings.

Chay's leaf was blue-ish and heart-shaped, letting him take a half-squatting skateboarder positon. Xane next to him as on a speckled palm leaf, sitting on the stem like a flying broom, legs hanging under the fronds.

"I have a bad feeling about this?" Xane yelled. He didn't need to specify. "I'm blocking the sound, by the way," nodding ahead where Diego was, chatting with Goro as they surfed next to each other.

"We have to bring the vortex down no matter wh-" Chay's leaf zoomed around a decrepit mall, Xane's zoomed right through. They reunited on the other side. "We'll be leaving Mockery right after. What's one more enemy, right?"

"Maybe, if we're staying in the abyss, we should make some friends, too. Not suggesting it's this guy, but... he was human once."

"I know. It feels different from betraying demons. We'll talk about it after."

Xane gave him an okay and steered his leaf to Goro's side.

Eventually, their rides were aiming directly for a cave wall. Mockery was a sprawling realm with few narrow passages and many large area that let your forget you were underground at all.

"Any chance Lelthnu made a mistake?" Marcus yelled, sitting tight in a narrow, pea-pod-like leaf. "Cause I don't wanna go splat."

Roots dug through the rock like it was mere mud and ripped open a tunnel, teeming with pale, white roots like a snake orgy. Chay's first, horniness-induced thought was of an asshole -- a guy's asshole specifically. He tried "correcting" himself to think about pussy but at this point his attempts to fight the abyssal perversion affliction was as strong as a new year's resolution by March.

Their leaves tossed them into the tunnel without warning and they dropped onto smooth, wet roots, keeping their momentum despite some flailing. The surf continued, lit by a neon orb above Xane's head.

The constantly dug tunnel ended so abruptly that Chay couldn't help but cry out as he flew into a larger cave. He crashed into Goro who had activated his levitation earlier than him.

Clinging to the berserker's back, Chay hovered down. Yet another big cave. Deeply black jungle trees with windlessly swaying vines were dense enough to create a second floor above the ground, lit by shimmering crystals on the ceiling.

There were signs of buildings around but the decay was too advanced to make out anything beyond foundation outlines. This place was even older than the Laughing City in the canyon.

Diego stood on a circular ward just above the foliage. He spread his arms. "Welcome to the old technarium!"

He was cheerful and boisterous, obviously, like he wanted to impress them with his knowledge, but the umbra-sense told Chay of a need to be admired beyond that, a need to make them *see* him, make them awed, make them *his*.

He aimed his senses at the environment.

"There's machinery around," Chay said. "Under the trees. Some of it's active, I think. We stay above."

They began tree hopping, partly skipping via Diego's platforms, until the ground quaked.

A hill of flowers rose before them.

It reminded Chay of the Knight Specter they had evaded once, with the multi-colored blossoms all along the short grass, but this dome was big as a mansion. As it rose to full height, it pushed trees over like they weren't even there.

Tentacles unfurled beneath it, equally grassy and blossom covered, eight of them.

"The fuck?" Xane yelled. "Some kinda plantopus?"

Chay pressured smoke up from his body like a chimney, frowning hard as he speed-analyzed.

"Most vulnerable at the stomach," Chay shouted. "Can't see a way to turn it over, though. Disregard the plants, the creature the earth underneath. Drill holes, go for the joints, its sensory orga- Dodge!"

Several of the eight long limbs whipped like cables snapped under tension, racing across the tree tops and cleanly slicing twigs.

Chay jumped to safety next to- A ward. Chay smacked into the glass-like dome as it closed around him, trapping him in a sphere. The plantopus tentacle hit the ward and shoved it with a tremble as the limb broke.

Chay in the orb was pushed below the tree line. He cursed as he realized he had lost his connection to the smoke pillar. Diego's prisons cut off magic.

The devil ran somewhere overhead and Chay was released into the darkness of the black jungle, fluorescent goo on the roots giving him the bare minimum of an outline of his surroundings.

He levitation-hopped along a thick, black trunk to above the canopy where Goro was riding a tentacle, digging through the soft earth the plantopus was made of.

The head of the creature was on fire. Xane clung to it, wielding a whip of blue flame in one hand and telekinetically pulling chunks of mud from the enemy with the other.

Marcus was... in Diego's bubble, getting slammed into the cave wall by a mossy tentacle. His chakram had fallen through the foliage, cut off by the ward sphere.

Chay established control over three plantopus limbs and made them dig into the main body while he rushed to Diego.

"Don't close the bubbles! Diego! Don't enclose us. It cuts off magic."

"Shit," Diego said, angry at himself but also at Chay.

Marcus rejoined the fight, kicking a tentacle so hard it crumbled away in a chain reaction.

The devil yelled, "I'm just trying to help, okay?!"

It was better not to make him an enemy right this second. "Yeah, but walls only. And we can take some hits. Fight offensively."

That was enough to make the devil pause. "But I'm... my role was always..." He was getting angry again.

Fuck, Chay really didn't need this right now. "Maybe it synergized with your..." Friends? The ones who had eaten each other? The one who'd left him behind? The ones on earth Diego hadn't missed enough to want to return? "...with your old teams' abilities, but we could use a tank-" No, 'tank' was a modern video game concept he wouldn't get. "...a shield right in front, who taunts the enemy into pointlessly beating it. Okay?"

The 'in front' part had done it. Diego wanted to be their spearhead. The demonblooded muscleman rushed in and punched the burning plantopus where Xane had created a deep hole.

The wizard meanwhile had summoned a translucent drill, digging in from the top where only charred moss remained.

The creature in turn dug underneath itself, squeezing its constituent mud into the ground.

"It's going!" Chay yelled. "Let it retreat."

His fellow demigods pulled back, with Diego unnecessarily pulling Xane off the pantopus' top in a ward bowl.

The area was severely devastated. Ancient machines unearthed but buried anew beneath pitch black trees, pulsing goo leaking from broken trunks.

"Well," Marcus said, "seems it just needed a kick in the *bud*. We weren't *moss*-ing around."

Xane hopped off the ward and back onto the rapidly 'melting' plantopus. "Thought it was never going to *leaf*."

Marcus gave a thumbs down. "Boo."

"Aw," Xane made. "You're not *root*-ing for me?"

"No, you suck."

Chay shouted, "Watch out!" but it was too late. The plantopus' remaining limbs shot from the ground with a last, lightning-quick swipe across the terrain. Xane was right in the path.

The short, godly hunk sent a green shimmering butterfly at the incoming tangle and- was enclosed in a ward. The butterfly was no longer under his command, fluttering pointlessly as it was slapped against the ward by the tentacles ramming into it.

"Release him!" Chay shouted.

"It would have cut him in half!" Diego shouted back.

Xane in the bubble was flung into a mechanism -- some garage-sized, hexagonal stone doorway. Runes along the surface triggered.

"Release h-"

As the ward dropped, Chay was interrupted by a flash of... the opposite of light and noise. Pure nothing and everything encompassed Xane, just like one of his chaos spells -- the ones that annihilated everything.

Marcus let out an incoherent screech, somehow audible over the sound of deafening nothing. He and Goro rushed to the stone structure and started punching it.

The chaos blinked off and Xane was back, mohawk and aegis and jockstrap and all.

Marcus punched him in the chest hard enough to make him fall but caught him in a tight hug. "Never do that again. I thought you were dead and the last thing I said was 'you suck' and-"

Xane shoved him away. "I'm fine, okay? There's nothing..." He stared at Marcus with terror. "Oh fuck, y-you're too hot."

Chay inched closer. "Xane? Did you break your nose or something?"

"Uh, no why? Oh shit, Chay, you got hotter, too."

"Cause you sound a bit nasal," Chay said. "Subtly. Or maybe it's a slight lisp..."

"I have a lisp?" Xane said, with a girly intonation. The wizard looked down on himself and noticed his limp wrists, forcing them down. His eyes fell on Goro. "Holy shit. D-don't come closer. Something's wrong with me. Looking at ya'll is like getting nectar visions without the relief."

Diego had been concerned before. Now he was cheery. "I think it's a flip-portal. Forgot the technical term. It can make changes with the right priming. They used it for punishment, making random changes as 'experiments' until the Kobolds rebelled because it was too cruel even for the abyss. Changes are temporary, I *think*."

"What," Marcus started, "what did it change?"

Chay facepalmed. "If being a horny-as-fuck cock-rider counts as 'priming' I wouldn't be surprised if Xane is gay now."

"Wait what?" Xane said, forcing his limb wrist down again. "I can't be a... is this what it feels like to be *genuinely* into guys and not just because magic satan creamed pure sex into your guts?"

Marcus shrugged. "I wouldn't know."

Xane gave him a conspicuous once-over. Then he clutched his own crotch and massaged his thighs. "Fuuuck, I thought I was maxed out on the horny. I want to, I dunno, put my whole body into your body, or something."