Vortex Quest

== VORTEX QUEST 4-8 ==

== SCHISM 2 – DEAD DEVIL WALKING ==

Xane flew with dark, skull-patterned butterfly wings on his back. Chay was wrapped around his hips, one arm on a round shoulder, the other free to fan, driven mad by the erotic skin-on-skin sensation, forever on the cusp of an unearthly orgasm.

Pie encircled them as they hung underneath the spire. She played whack-a-mole with anyone daring to poke out of the ornaments.

Chay kept the Reapers below busy by fanning holy mist around. The various complex fan-setups quickly cleared the major cross sections but it was enough of a barrier to their movement that it seemed worth it.

Meanwhile, Xane was planting motes in strategic places, firing the occasional bolt at any mutated imp that came too close.

Another spire-dwelling Reaper glanced out of an arch. Pie rushed for his face and he recoiled. Chay quickly assessed the level of commitment versus shock, preparedness and self-interest, concluding their feline cloud serpent was enough to keep the enemy at bay.

Xane chuckled.

"What?" Chay asked.

Xane gave him a peck on the lips. "Sorry. You're so cute when you're concentrating."

"Thanks?" Chay said, fighting a weird flash of jealously. No girl had ever told him he was cute when doing anything. "Uh, we need to find and break the soul gems down there, to make sure."

"Want me to land?"

Chay glanced at where Marcus was beheading a Demon in the air above Goro who was using a cannon's mouth on a Reaper's chest like a cookie-cutter. The Hellions outside the mist were awkwardly patrolling for an opening, locked out of battle.

"Yeah, their guards are busy."

He let his legs slide off Xane and floated down. Xane landed but kept the wings. His densely muscled body oozed the same cocky masculinity as before. Only his voice was a little softer, a little gayer, if you knew what to listen for.

"Run," shouted an unfamiliar voice in the mist, "I broke the Specter-abjuration runes."

Chay forced the mist to part but holy mist wasn't under his control as much as his own smoke and the unknown person – humanoid silhouette, too short to be a demon – was already dashing away.

"I'll summon one now," the stranger shouted, already around a corner.

A saboteur in the schism's ranks? A turncoat Hellion? Chay was stumped.

"What do we do?" Xane asked.

"Uh, grab the others and run?"

Chay pushed white smoke ahead of himself and fanned holy mist into the mix. Pie dove in and out of his custom soup.

Incoming Reapers were shoved out of the way as if running against a wall. Chay couldn't help but grin. "Finally, offensive fog. Wish I could bottle some of that."

===***===

Marcus wiped sweat from his eyes, saw Chay running and ran after him long before Xane voice-projected an explanation: A Specter was coming.

It emerged from the generic vapor of the cave with feathered wings, one pair, then two, then three, spanning ten yards each. They were colorful – hypnotic even.

Marcus stopped.

Everyone stopped.

The feathers shifted, in gorgeous, geometric non-patterns, so varied, Marcus wasn't sure he wasn't seeing totally new colors and shapes.

And its song! A warm, melodic chirp, like a gently played recorder by the side of a child's bed. So calm, so sweet, so... sleepy...

Dark fog crashed into his vision, hovering between the demigods and the Specter.

"Xane, silence!" Chay commanded, his ears plugged. The sound died as a butterfly expanded into a dome around them. "It's the Weaver. Don't get got."

Only now did Marcus see the webs. Spidersilk filigree rained from above on long, long strands. He set his chakram on them, finding them impossible to cut, but rolling them up just fine before they touched down on the pantheon.

Pie gnawed on spidersilk threads in Chay's buzzcut and pulled them away. She could decide to be immaterial, so she wasn't affected by stickiness.

"Okay," Chay said and let Pie hop along his arm. "Fuck all this. Kaboom time."

Xane summoned the illusion of a red button in his hand. He grinned wide. "Here we fucking go."

The thaum-mage pressed the `button' and four explosions along the circumference of the spire went off, purple fire bursting outward.

With a horrendous screech, the golden structure fragmented, the half that hung above the maze dropping onto it. Holy mist was pressured aside, slamming into fleeing Reapers, Hellions and panicked imps.

It was chaotic enough, Chay forgot to keep his smoke screen in place. Marcus caught a glimpse of the Weaver again. The wings were still there, still beautiful beyond comprehension, but spider legs just as long were stabbing out of the center, two Hellions hanging off them, getting spun into the webbing, not resisting.

"They're running," Goro said.

The schism had abandoned the HQ and was flocking to the vortex, some thirty demons, bleeding from the ears, having stabbed themselves deaf to escape the Weaver's song. Among them was the Daemon Marcus had beheaded, who'd grown his head back, black blood streaks drying on his torso. He tapped a keypad on a large armband with flickering screens.

"Are they going to earth?" Xane asked.

"No," Chay said, slowly. "Those rune stones they're putting down... They're trying to teleport the whole vortex elsewhere. Shit."

The demigods rushed, moving with Xane's deafening dome. Marcus let his weapon skitter across the ground to rub off the unbreakable spider threads.

The major Daemon saw them coming and rammed a spear into the ground – sleek with a central coil. It `lit up' black, oozing darkness so deep it hurt to look at. He flashed his fangs in a satisfied grin.

Four divine gasps. Marcus' balls got crushed like always when Hrailoth's signature activated. But this time, something else was getting pulled to.

Marcus tore his jockstrap off. The aegis shone like a diffuse flashlight in the presence of so many demons but now it also had a singular ray – almost solid – pointing straight down.

Whenever Marcus tried to move his crotch, the shining connection to the ground ripped on his package.

His dick cage was perfectly frozen in space.

"Divinity restraint," Chay said. "We're sitting ducks."

"Sitting fucks," Marcus mumbled at the same time as Xane mumbled something, too.

The hypermuscled Goro pushed on ahead, his mark centered on his cotch, expanding over abs and thighs. He gave a lion's roar. His black eyes underlined the inhumanity of his expression as he took an entire step, dragging the bright line along the ground – by three inches.

A Hellion with a soul stone in a backpack shot a red beam, powered by the trapped humans on his back. It seared across Goro's chest and burned blackening flesh away until it had dug a hole into him.

The beam hit Marcus in the shoulder as the martial arts god did an evasive bridge pose - his crotch still frozen in space. Holy fire burned the wound shut and conjured new flesh.

Xane countered with a beam of his own, redirecting the attack, while the Hellion's aim moved into the cluster of demons via Chay's puppetry.

"Hold it," Chay said. "The aegis light. We can hold it in."

Marcus, upright again, tried to deactivate his aegis, like they had practiced that one time. As the cock cage magic turned inward, it granted him an intense urge to piss.

He had forgotten how much it sucked.

Despite all the pain the abyss had inflicted upon him, including getting his shoulder set above the flash point for humans just now, having to pee more than any human bladder was able to contain still sucked the most. There was just something qualitatively different about it, but no less primal.

Freed from the ray that bound him, Marcus was still barely able to move.

"It's so fucking bad," he complained.

Goro took one step, his cage gone dark, his mark a wild pattern across his massive legs. He was breathing hard. "Can't fight... like that... fuck."

Xane was firing bolts at the dark-spear with one hand, holding his crotch with the other as he crab walked into cover. The spear swallowed magic attacks without a care, even chaos orbs and whatever eldritch lighting the wizard shot at it. The Daemon had retreated behind a force field.

Marcus followed Chay behind a hip high ruin. He wasn't to safety yet when his resolve failed and he let loose.

The moment his aegis shed light, the ray tied him down again, stopping him in his tracks. The animus-fighter convulsed in a shiver very different from what fisting gave him. Faux-pissing an inhuman load within the blink of an eye was like an ultimate penile orgasm. At least he thought it was – he hadn't had one in what felt like a lifetime.

He actually pissed a second-long splatter before regaining control.

After a deep breath he accepted the pain back in and took tiny steps with a dark crotch. This way, the four men inched along the rough terrain behind cover, hidden by Chay's omnipresent fog.

Every few steps one of them failed, getting his dick ripped while spraying a squirt of piss all over himself, then having to reestablish piss-hell just after orgasmic relief.

Marcus felt fingers feeling up his crack.

"Need a distraction?" Xane asked, entering Marcus' hole. The wizard had tears running from his cheeks, face contorted in exhaustion. Marcus noticed he himself was also crying.

"Sure," Marcus said with a shaky voice and entered between Xane's rock hard glutes. They awkwardly crab walked, side-by-side, hand in each other's hole to the wrist. Still snail's pace but with fewer interruptions.

"We won't make it," Chay said. "Their teleport is almost done. I don't even know how-" He convulsed as his aegis turned on and held him in place. "-how to stop it at this point unless-" He hit the most-muscular pose with a grunt and darkened his crotch. "-we teleport with it and keep fighting wherever they go. But I'm not sure if the Divine Binding Lance is staying here or we're just as fucked on the other side."

Marcus glanced behind them where the Weaver was hanging up enwrapped Hellions and Reapers on the ceiling. He only managed to tear his eyes off the creature's hypnotic wings when his aegis got stuck in space again, the sudden lack of piss-urge making him cringe as he splattered himself a little.

"I..." Goro said, "I can't do this." He had fallen five steps behind. Holding his ray-tied aegis with trembling hands he relaxed his legs. "I can't hold it in again. It won't... I need a break."

Chay let his eyes roll back into his head as his crotch lit up, only a few drops running from it. Marcus followed and cried out in relief.

"Fuck," the leader said. "Okay, we're not making it. They even keep counter-possessing my puppets. We'll find them again and fight elsewhere. Can't be hard to find a vortex, even in Mockery. Still gotta get away before the Weaver turns its attention on us, though."

Goro nodded, dutifully.

Xane used the time to summon a new mote.

"First time we're giving up, huh?" Marcus asked no one in particular, trying to tug on the immovable ray that bound him.

"Yup," Xane said, his new butterfly - long green wings with yellow tails. "Just waiting it out now. Lean back, relax and uh... incoming!"

===***===

The Daemon now wore a molded chest cuirass and wielded a futuristic silver sword. He had jabbed daggers into his ears to keep them from healing.

A quick analysis suggested overconfidence but sufficient intellect to stay out of immediate range.

"He's got the upper hand," Chay yelled. "We gotta bring him in. The sword is special somehow."

"On it," Xane shouted.

The Daemon flew overhead swung the sword as if he was going to throw it, instead releasing a blast from the blade.

Gravity under the demigods went wild.

Chay was pulled off his feet and rotated around his aegis that stayed tied to the ground. With his crotch getting jerked, he flailed in raging pain.

He grasped at the ground, keeping himself upside down as if doing a handstand.

Xane and Marcus were holding each other steady in the bright shine of their crotches, floating hand in hand and trying to get their feet down next to the glowing aegis binds.

Goro roared, pulled his legs in and – his aegis went dark, freeing him - rammed his feet down. He flew at the Daemon and the two muscled creatures collided.

Goro held onto the enemy's horns with one hand while gut punching with the other. The chakram raced along the red wings, inflicting tears. The silver sword came down on the berserker's flank and carved into him. Chay did his best to puppeteer the arm away from vital areas but with Goro unable to evade effectively, the blows landed as often as not.

Goro lost control and his aegis flared up, the shining tie dragging him down. Gravity was returning, which aided the divine binding's pull.

"Ready," Xane said, holding a lasso of electricity.

Goro fell, holding his crotch with both hands, not caring that his knees and face slammed into the rocks below.

The umbralist took control of an imp and made it slip into the Daemon's armor to distract him.

"Bring him to me," Chay said and readied his fist.

The thaum-lasso shot forth and wrapped around the Daemon's neck. Xane flung his arm and the lasso autonomously reeled the enemy in, a few feet above Chay.

The leader took a deep breath and held the aegis-light. The sensation of an impossibly full bladder – of ten full bladders at once - battled his basic instincts.

He jumped and extended Hole.

The Daemon was carved in two from the neck down as he was dragged over the voidblade by the flesh-searing lasso.

The nearly split Daemon floated past the space between Xane and Marcus, receiving necrosis bolts and holy flaming kicks that caused his body to split for good.

The corpse rammed into a stalagmite behind them and landed draped over a ruin.

"Fuck yeah," Chay said over the noise of a vortex-crackle. "Eat shit and die, that's what you ge- oh."

The Weaver hovered right above them. It set down for a gentle landing a mere five yard away, separating them from the vortex. With the Specter being made from nothing but hypnotic wings and spider legs it would have been wrong to say it was staring down at them – but Chay could tell it totally was.

It fluttered its feathers along the rim of its wings. Those beautiful, indescribably calming feathers... He had to get closer and- His aegis ripped on his crotch as the binding went taut.

Oh no, it was counter-fanning his fog.

Pie was mesmerized. So was Goro, drooling, unblinking. The brute took a squatting step and dragged the binding after him by inches.

"Marcus, cut Goro's eyes out. Marcus? Marcus! Fuck."

Chay managed to fan a cloud in front of Marcus and Xane, constantly fanning against the Weaver's breeze.

"Cut out Goro's- oh for fuck's sake, not this shit again."

The Daemon had had one of those immortality orbs somewhere. A cone of purple restored everything within it to health. Since it was mostly aimed at the head, it left the creature's stomach split, guts hanging from the black-oozing wound, the dick severed on the ground.

The demon rose and re-stabbed his ears which had been healed by the orb. For a second, the enemy was distracted by the Weaver, but simply swiped a claw over his eyes to blind himself. He swung the sword with a grimace of pure hate.

The demigods were swiped off their feet as gravity went haywire. Chay tried to hold the light in at just the right moment but all it got him as a deeper fall and a stronger tug on the dick.

The sword came down on Marcus. Blind and deaf, the Daemon couldn't aim well, but he didn't need to.

With the divine binding and the gravitational confusion, no amount of martial prowess and superhuman reflexes was enough. Marcus got cleaved from the shoulder to the bottom of the sternum and went limp.

Xane let out a warbling screech and shot his final mote at the demon's face.

The butterfly hit the Daemon and... healed him.

Two daggers shot from the red ears as the eardrums were instantly restored. The clawed eyes popped back into existence.

Chay puppeteered the Daemon's head but Xane was already using his mage-hand to force a turn. Together they made sure the enemies were looking right at each other.

Xane dismissed his silencing bubble and the Weaver's warm, flute-like chirp suffused the air.

The demon dragged his leaking guts over the ground as he shoulder-bumped Goro on the way to the Weaver. Spider legs jabbed down and welcomed the prey.

Chay let his smoke creep into line of sight again. He swung his fan to catapult Pie behind the barrier.

Xane was pumping rainbow rays into Marcus whose wound was flaring up with licks of white fire.

"Pie," Chay said as the cat-snake jumped into his arms. "Eat this imp, feed Marcus, please."

Goro tried to drag himself toward the group but couldn't move an inch. "Let her feed from me. Isn't that better?"

"Probably," Chay agreed. "Old girl, can you give Marcus some berserker juice?"

She stretched her smoky body in loops between the demigods.

Chay made the imp slam itself dead on a wall's edge while Pie pumped life force from Goro's arm into the twitching animus-fighter.

The Weaver enwrapped the mesmerized Daemon, its calming song ebbing away. It moved off with six large cocoons, falling silent, wings still and folded.

The vortex was still there, now ringed by ethereal silver beams with light traveling along them.

Marcus sat up, groaning, a red line along the cut still burning white. "Did I really get butchered?"

Xane pulled him into a kiss. Marcus neither leaned in nor pulled away until Xane turned the kiss into a hug.

The vortex went wild. But it wasn't teleporting.

A human figure was at the base of the blue tornado, a silhouette, standing right where the runic diagrams and soul stone cables converged. And he was surrounded by a bubble – a ward – that cut off the magic.

The vortex destabilized.

Lightning went everywhere. Pie raced back into her ring on Chay's toe.

Xane tried to rock-shape a barrier for him and Marcus but being stuck in place there was little the demigods could do to avoid the burning flashes. By pure luck, they suffered no major injuries.

As the vortex burst apart, a thousand trapped human souls broke free, flung away as little black tadpoles by power so immense it made the air too heavy to breathe.

The teleport went off semi-successfully.

Silver beams rushed up into the ceiling, green flame enveloping the platform where the maelstrom had been, including the dozen still standing Reapers and a lot of cleanly sliced demon corpses. A few more enemies were ripped apart in the teleport process, left-behind bits raining into the shallow crater.

A human in a ward bubble rolled from the teleportation fire just before a hissing implosion took the area away.

They had won again – the extra vortex was down. The victory had not been the pantheon's, but a demigod's nonetheless.

In deafening silence, the figure brushed himself off and stepped toward them, a whip dragged behind by the red-gold handle.

Diego's naked human form was of the athletic variety. Like Marcus but not as tall and long-limbed, almost boyish if it wasn't for the extremely lean muscles. He had a full head of smooth, black hair in a messy mop. Even, brown skin, dainty features. His face had the mature-edged jaw of an adult, older than the pantheon members but nowhere near indicative of his real age.

He strolled toward the divine binding lance, grinning at the demigods. With a casual kick against the black bar he... achieved nothing.

Chay detected a flash of irritation as Diego felt the lack of his demonic strength. With mere demigodly power, he fiddled with the lance's interface and turned it off.

At last, Chay's crotch was set free. He rubbed his aegis even though it no longer hurt.

"Uh, good job," the leader said to Diego as the former devil closed in. "That was... frankly I'm at a loss for words."

"You're the Goat," Xane offered.

Marcus drew Diego into a hug while Goro stepped in to deliver a hard slap on the shoulder.

"I puked out all the demonblood," Diego said. "Although puked isn't right. I shed it from everywhere. A demon would have died." He pulled away from the hug. "Well, I guess, a demon did die. I'm back to being... me."

"I like this you better already," Marcus said and turned to Chay. "Is he normal now?"

Chay sicced his umbra-sense on the presumed human. Five seconds of contact didn't give him much to go on. "He isn't, like, rid of a brainworm or something. He stayed in the abyss and turned into a devil on purpose, which... I'm sensing this isn't your favorite topic of conversation, Diego, but the part of you that wanted to own us like toys wasn't all demon. We need to stay rational- Shit, carnal craving is coming on."

"Happy to help," Xane said and pulled Chay into a groping tongue kiss. A mage-dick entered Chay's ass without asking which was technically not okay but the wizard knew what Hole's curse felt like.

"Oooh," Marcus made. "That's is steamiest craving sesh we've seen yet." He elbow-nudged Diego. "Quite the show, huh, old homo?"

Goro hummed. "I almost envy Xane's enthusiasm. Seems like he's having more fun than ever. Though for Chay it is pure desperation. Feeling like you'll crawl out of your skin if even for a second you break tongue-contact isn't-"

"Tonguetact," Marcus interrupted and earned a berserker-shove.

Xane pushed Chay's lips down his neck. "We can still hear you, you know? How about your get useful and round up some sex toys?"

Diego groped both kissers asses. "And while they do that, let's try my, uh, human-sized equipment. It's been a while."

The sight of Diego's semi-hardon triggered Chay's craving anew and he slammed his face into the divine crotch, sucking like his life depended on it.

Diego involuntarily squeaked with a cringe. "Fuuuu- good boy. Take it deep, my little Cha-Cha."

Marcus and Goro collected a pile of Reaper's robes to soften the ground and rallied the surviving six Hellions in the area – with generous doses of glitter to the skullface. Their monster dicks were barely thicker than a human's but at least they were freakishly long and supplied enough cum to satisfy four godly appetites.

Diego fucked like mad. It almost – almost – didn't matter that he was no longer the size of a calf. His magically enhanced stamina let the ex-devil fuck with more vigor than a plain human could bring.

Flowing into a state of dissociated pleasure beyond earthly orgasms, Chay made out with Xane long after his carnal craving as satisfied. Or maybe with Diego. The three of them kept tongue-wrestling.

Sleep overtook them eventually.

===***===

The demigods had moved into the wreckage of the spire, wading through fog among shattered pillars of intricate gold.

"Still gay?" Marcus asked, deeply enjoy the angry glare the shorter man sent his way.

The two were rubbing each other's torsos, a mage-hand playfully poking into Marcus' hole. His lower body was surging with a constant pleasure of which just one second would have compared to his strongest ever earthly orgasms.

Xane's face softened. He looked away with a shy smirk. "Yeah..."

"Not mad about it, huh?"

Xane shrugged. "If this is what actual gay Xane would be, that means I'm a top, so... I'll take it."

"Some top you are," Marcus said and groped the wizard's ass, certain his simple prod was doing the work of an hour's worth of sex.

"I appreciate dicks visually now," Xane said, nodding at the cuddle pile of Goro, Chay and the once more erect Diego a few feet to the side, "probably more than I ever liked looking at pussy, but more so I want to dig into every one of your asses."

"Did you already want to?" Marcus asked. "I mean, I'd stick my tool into anything but I'd have more fun going rawdog on you than some chicks at this point."

Xane shrugged again. "The difference is all on the inside. Maybe it's the abyss-level hormones, but I think I'm in love with all your holes."

"Now that's gay."

The wizard drew a rainbow between his hands, then flipped him off. The mage-dick exploded to three times size, making Marcus moan-cry.

Xane chuckled, deleted the mage-dick and leaned in for a kiss.

Pie jumped between them, her cloud trail zooming between their faces.

"He's on," Chay said and rushed to the hologram platform where his toe ring spun within a lock.

Gallant's upper half appeared in the air, his giant baby face as stern as ever.

"Hello, old ally," Chay said. "We weren't sure there'd be reception. We kind of wrecked the place before we dialed you up."

Gallant's holographic image looked around the bent and broken place. "Hm, probably for the best. I'm amazed Mockery lets you create a stable connection. How did you wash up there?"

"Surprise vortex," Chay simply said. "Taken care of. In part thanks to a new ally," he gestured at Diego who gave a shy wave.

"You're telling me," Gallant said, golden eyebrows raised, "that isn't a slave?"

"Demigod from an earlier cycle."

Gallant gave Diego a once-over. "No aegis? Since you're all still wearing one I assume you haven't found a way to circumvent the will of the heavens."

"Nope," Chay said.

"Unfortunate, but that was too much to hope for. Forgive me, revolutionary habits can be hard to drop. Oh and I have plenty of spare aegises if your new friends wants to put one on again for old times' sake. I'd be fascinated to see if it can be taken off at all or is forever affixed, lest you can get an audience with the celestials."

Diego chuckled. "Thanks, I'm good."

The ex-angel glanced at the remaining crotches. "And if you ever get rid of yours and come to regret it..."

Chay stepped into the nephil-projection's line of sight. "Any news you want to give us? Not much knick-knack in this place unless you want Mockery-tech. We'd get it to you if we could but I don't think Jheyr'Udd is on the way for us."

Gallant smiled. Marcus did not like that.

"I'm currently traveling – one reason it took me so long to `pick up' as you'd say. Once you had left, I started my journey to Hiwinymb. I assumed it would be your final destination and it seems I'm correct. I'll be there in a Span or two."

"Final destination?" Goro asked.

"To my knowledge," Gallant said, "there are no more vortices, unless there are more hidden ones like in Mockery. The Conjunction of Roosh-Groon is already over, so any new attempt to build a vortex is futile for a few millennia or so."

Xane blew sparkles in the air. "One to go. We did it, boys."

"If you'd be so kind," Gallant said, "pack up what angelic devices you find and bring them to me. I think I'll have something to trade."

"Do we get to know what it is?" Chay asked.

"There is a way to rid you of a curse – perhaps."

Marcus raised his fist in the air. "Finally some good fucking news."

Xane raised his mage-fist right into Marcus' ass. The animus-fighter crouched down and returned the favor with his arm to the elbow. Yeah, let Chay hash out the rest. Marcus was done with not having sex.

Diego's dick was soon on Xane's lips, getting an eager suck job. Some top that muscleman was.