== VORTEX QUEST 1-5 ==
== CRAWLWAY SLAUGHTER ==
The crawlway was a collection of space-bending shortcuts. Points that were a dozen miles apart on the `surface' of Jheyr'Udd, were connected by leisurely minutes in the complex tunnel network in defiance of physics.
Goro had felt crammed in the demonic fortress and not looked forward to a serious cave system, but the crawlway surprised him.
Mostly wide enough to drive a jeep through, sometimes narrowing to a corridor, occasionally widening to the size of a house, the tunnels were often interrupted by holes in the ceiling that let light in.
Stretches of shimmering gems and glowing mushrooms swirling in patterns around the tunnel walls were supplemented by the occasional lantern pointed at signage-cairns.
It could have been picturesque, if not for all the skulls – from naturally formed rock ones or real bone speared at forks to mark territory.
The crawlways were well utilized along the main routes. Gnomes rushed along the edges like furry avalanches. A chained Croc was dragged along by two hellions in full armor. Tumorous, sloshing bloodvarks – a mix of cow and elephant and blood bags - were hurried along by the whips of lizardmen. A Sleuthken sniffed the area with its hyena-like snout, seeking chameleon slugs which were then speared by its handler Kobold, the plump slugs-on-sticks filling bags on the cow-sized creature's hunchback.
The yellow-scaled slaver the demigods had kidnapped led them, clad in only a loincloth and wooden jewelry. The four avatars of heaven were naked. Nobody paid enough attention to a gaggle of slaves to notice the dick cages.
"What's your name?" Chay asked their `guard', once more looking up from the red book he kept checking.
"Vnvn'Rlaaa'ee," the Kobold said with a fanged-smile.
It meant Black Tear. Maybe a poetic way of saying `drop of blood'? Goro was neither a poet nor a linguist but the dinos didn't seem overly subtle.
Chay kept his finger on a sketch in the book. "So Black Tear, why aren't you leading us directly through the Darkfoot Passage?"
"Too dangerous. Lisks are nesting there now."
The leader's eyes narrowed. "Didn't see any warnings at the fork."
"Pathwriter Customs is slow in these lower parts. Maybe there's already been a Clearance Expedition but I'd be surprised."
Chay didn't respond so Goro figured it was true. The Thai guy with a thick ass seemed able to read people magically well. Goro stayed ready to punt the slaver into the ceiling anyway.
"Aaand," Chay started again, "why aren't we taking the Frontfang Bridge?"
"Claimed by the Grubslurper clan. Do you have the obols to pay for passage? Didn't think so."
Chay shrugged. "We could try talking our way past. But fine, keep leading."
Goro shuffled his mark of madness around. It slid on his skin anywhere he willed it. He kept it on the inside of his thigh when they passed other creatures, but made it roam his body otherwise. He liked it on his neck, looking like a thug.
Xane was practicing illusions and juggled flames. If somebody passed the group, it was his `job' to have a dick covering his aegis and walk up front. Now he was wearing an illusory backwards baseball cap.
"Hey wizard," Chay said with a flick to the mage's neck. "Keep it subtle, you're making people notice us."
"Sorry," Xane said and turned the baseball cap into a crown with a smirk. "Better? Hehe."
"No."
"Fuck, whatever bitch." The crown vanished. "I'm getting stronger though. See here." An orange butterfly sat down on either round, striated shoulder. "I can make two motes now."
"That's not subtle," Chay said. "But congrats on the power-up. I think we're all growing."
Goro grunted and gave Xane an affirmative punch between the shoulder blades. He was glad to have a familiar face with him on this adventure of heroic nudity.
They passed another line of six naked human slaves, half of them scuffling and drooling, the others more alive. All were hunky and bald or buzzed, some were covered in marks from slave-driver whips, but looked otherwise healthy.
Goro had long noticed how diverse the slaves were. Their demigod gang would have stood out for being all East Asian if it wasn't for their different levels of tan. Having long hair made Goro stand out the most.
"Black Tear," Chay said. "Where do humans come from?"
"The Reapers." The triple-horned dino made it sound like a grocery store around the corner.
"How?"
"I... don't know. We just buy and sell them."
"Where are the chicks?" Xane asked.
"Huh?" Black Tear made.
"Females slaves? Naked humans with tits, horny for a rescuer? Hopefully just as athletic as the males there."
The Kobold shrugged. "These are what our Reaper gives us."
"I'm so horny," Marcus said, once again, mostly to himself.
"Shut up," Goro said, which made Marcus flinch.
The massive Japanese hunk sighed. He should probably play nice. "Me too. Just... don't remind me."
Marcus gave him a thumbs up and made a mouth-zipping gesture.
Goro was swimming in horniness like he never hadn't, not even during sex. Every round rock looked like boobs, every crack in the wall like a vagina begging to be humped. He was going to rape the first pussy he saw – he'd find a way, aegis be damned.
He expected the others to feel the same but nobody broached the subject because nobody wanted to acknowledge that they had all just rode dick and would do it again. Goro was fine with that. He was still perfectly straight. He'd keep fucking pussy for the rest of his life once the abyss was beaten. But he was no stranger to playing with his ass and right now, he'd do what it took to get relief.
Chay kept needling Black Tear for information, while reading in a different book.
Goro grabbed one of the books from Chay's bead net and flipped through. Maybe this tomb could teach him how to activate arcane weapons.
"Chapter Seven: Arcane conversion through Ether-conductive unipolarity matrices" sounded promising.
The berserker moved his tattoo to his left forearm, which seemed to help holding the book steady without effort. Maybe this way he'd stop craving a cumshot with every step.
===***===
A long flight of stairs upward ended outside, at a path along a cliff face, many miles from their entrance point. The aurora far above shone onto a field of stalks swaying like ocean waves despite a lack of breeze.
The cliff edge was secured by chains on iron spires, leading to a narrow staircase spiraling maybe half a mile up to another cavern.
There was also an elevator platform of dark wood, hanging on slack chains that lead all the way up. It was flanked by abandoned guard posts.
On the elevator was a huge hamster wheel and a head-sized garnet in an array of cables.
"Typical," Black Tear said. "Nobody here, so we can use the cargo lift, but the gem is empty so we can't."
"Gem?" Chay said.
Goro pointed the book at the red crystal. "Psychaceous Rubinite. A battery, if I understand. The basis of technology here." He handed the book to the leader.
"Right, sure," the Kobold said, gesturing at the garnet. "Normally here's a vark driving the wheel to save power. Unless one of you stays back and runs we'll have to walk up anyway."
"Say no more," Xane said and stepped forward with his chest raised. "What am I a god for if I can't turn a wheel? Everybody hop on."
There was no railing, let alone other safety features. Once the five of them had taken a stand, Xane placed a hand on the wheel's center beam, arm flexed, and fed momentum to the device.
The elevator jerked to life and their rise began.
"What are you gonna do after?" Marcus asked their crawlway-Sherpa. Chay threw him a glance.
Black Tear looked off the platform's edge. "The life of a `clan-less' is short and brutal. I'll see what's left of the Blood-Feasters and if I can go back."
Goro was glad nobody offered the creature to join them. Although, part of him wanted to feel the monster dick again. The stretching had been a sensation beyond anything he had previously known. Nothing like using his penis but incredibly pleasuring.
Staring at the abyssal landscape Goro imagined all the willing pussy he'd pump his seed into as soon as the aegis was behind him.
Marcus was rubbing his own nipples, spread thighs quivering. "Fffffuck, I'm sooo..." He caught Goro's eyes, "I'm not saying it, okay? But I'm going crazy. Think we should, uh, relieve some pressure again. Xane?"
The thaum-mage huffed. "I'm not your personal magic finger. Plus I'm busy. Use your own hand."
Chay slammed his book shut and tied it back up with the bead string. "Okay, I've had enough. We're gonna take a break and cream one out. Piss first."
Black Tear face-palmed. "You can't jerk off in the crawlways. It's suspicious enough I'm letting slaves talk."
The elevator moved into a shaft, which came out in a ballroom-sized cave without a ceiling. Above them the cliff continued to an immense skull, green sparkling ectoplasm rushing from the eyes.
Goro was sweating as much as his friends in the crawlway heat and welcomed a light breeze whistling in from above. Having spent his life at the gym had taught him to relish in the feeling of sweat, so he didn't complain.
The cave's walls were perfectly smooth and patterned with sediment layers and painted totems. A crawlway entrance lay on either side. Chutes led away in several directions - slides leading into darkness, labeled by pandemonic runes.
"Welcome to the Whiteblood Chute Splitter," Black Tear said. "That slide there will take you a skull-roll away from the Holy Spire."
Chay nodded, so Goro trusted the words were correct. He stayed on his guard, of course. The naked Thai college jock wasn't omniscient.
"People won't be nice to free roaming slaves," the Kobold said, backing away. "Don't stay out in the open or a Wretcher will get you. Oh, whoever leads the Bloodeaters will be hunting you, I'm guessing. I'd rather never meet you again."
The crawlway-Sherpa dashed off and jumped down a chute labeled `Gweee Overpass'.
The naked demigods were alone, all sweat gleaming muscle and unfulfilled desire.
"Ninty-nine percent sure horn-boy was lying," Chay said. "He expects us to die instantly if we go down that tube. No idea what waits at the end of it that makes him so confident but I'm okay not finding out."
Goro made a mental note to kill any yellow triceratops looking assholes on the spot in case any of them were Black Tear.
"Then where do we go?" Marcus asked, bouncing on his heels.
"Let me see," Chay said, leafing through the cartography book. "This doesn't have the whole crawlway. We already passed a dozen intersections that aren't marked in here. I have some guesses... Fuck, hide."
The men pressed themselves into a corner.
A Wraith entered from the side. The dark being made of nothing but dozens of arms under a thick metal disk clanked with little bones dangling off the disk's rim. The noggin floated beside him, sparking with inner fire.
"Don't think we should stick around," Xane said. "How about we take a rest up there?"
The demigods leapt to the open ceiling, where jagged, barren landscape allowed a view off the abyss around. Gooey ectoplasm floated past and down a plasma-fall.
Goro noticed the ectoplasm was the lube they had used in the slave cage. Incredibly slick, fast drying and transparent – although it took on a color in large quantities.
They found their way behind the plasma-fall for cover.
"Ugh, going insane," Marcus said. While the others settled down, he slicked his hand in the liquid and double-fingered his hole, crouching, his arms framing his dick-less ball sack.
"Fucking yourself fag-style?" Xane asked.
Goro held a grin. He continued to find it hilarious how perverted his companions had become, even if he was suffering the same fate.
"Almost glad we don't have a chick along," Marcus said, rapidly tickling his prostate. "We'd never be this casual if this wasn't a man's club."
"Probably true," Xane said and groaned lightly, thighs trembling.
"Going fag-style?" the Filipino swimmer asked.
"No," the Korean bodybuilder said. "Technically not fucking myself." He spread his bent legs to show that his hole wasn't opened by an invisible finger, then seemed to realize what he was doing and closed his legs again, awkwardly trying to hide his crotch. "I just figured bitches love my tongue technique, cause I lick like a god. Finding out what that's all about."
Xane made a grimace as the others burst into laughter.
"You're rimming yourself?" Marcus asked.
"Not my real tongue so technically no."
"Lick mine," Chay said. "I've got to keep reading maps."
"Ew," Xane said. "I'm not putting my tongue on any man's hole."
"Technically not your real tongue," Chay echoed.
"I can spare a hand," Goro said to the leader.
"Ugh, no offence," Chay said, "but I'd rather not get touched by a guy."
Marcus grunted. "Oh but you want your asshole tongue bathed by one?"
"Not his real tongue," Chay said. "Now if-"
Xane groaned and rammed a hooked finger up his own ass. "Fine."
Chay flinched and spread his legs as a transparent tongue caressed his hole. His face looked strained but blissful. "Motherfucker, this is nice. Little harder. Ooof, feel free to dig in."
"Dude," Xane said, "shut up. I can still kinda feel it like it's my own tongue and I'm not a fan."
"Could I have a go?" Goro asked.
Xane sighed. "Not unless you lick my ass in return, bro."
Goro briefly considered the possibility. Of course he didn't mention that. Clearly he was out of his mind horny. "I can finger you."
Marcus dropped to his knees, both hands on his hole, one from the front one from behind. "Can we make a rule not to touch each other when we're jerking off?"
"Milking," Goro said. "Only homo bottoms `jerk off' like this. We don't have dick-access right now but we're still men."
"You can make that a rule," Chay said. "I'm fine with anyone's tongue on my hole by this point."
"Offer stands?" Goro suggested.
"Fine," Xane said, casually.
Goro raised and spread his immense legs. His sweaty, striated thighs jiggled.
"Fuck dude," Xane said. "You don't have to flash me, hehe."
A tongue lapped across Goro's crack with enthusiasm and talent.
Goro grunted involuntarily. Then again, despite trying not to.
Xane crouched beside him, back to the berserker.
"Hate to realize it," Goro said, but you're probably a much better pussy-eater than me."
The thaum-mage flinched as Goro's three fingers massaged an inch into his hole. "Not a complement I wanted from you," Xane said, "but... uh, thanks."
Goro gave an affirmative grunt and looked again, trying to convince himself that helping a bro out anally was worth the expert rim-job.
"Guys?" Chay said. He was looking at his own crotch. Their aegises were lightning up. The gentle glow became stronger fast.
"Ugh ung," Marcus made. "Almost there."
"We gotta leave," Chay said and rose, finger still inside him, legs apart. He wobbled, dizzy and weak-kneed. "Fuck, almost there. Ugh, finger yourselves on the run."
Goro's hole felt almost cool as the invisible tongue vanished and warm air hit his crack.
Xane's body buckled. "Fuuuuu...unnggg." He creamed a spray of cum all over his abs, crotch and thighs.
Chay waddled finger-fucking to the edge of the plasmafall. One hand covered his now radiant aegis. "There's a Wretcher making the rounds. Oooh motherfucking bitch ass fuck..."
A load of jizz exploded from Chay's aegis, mostly splashing to the side and running down the insertions of his thick, ochre quads without the relief of orgasm.
Goro tickled his prostate. He'd never been able to milk himself without storing up for a while, but apparently the supernatural horniness worked wonders. He creamed a load all over his radiant crotch and up onto his perfect abs.
He desperately missed orgasms.
By the time he had jumped to a stand with superhuman agility, Marcus had splattered himself, too.
They rushed from their spot down the hole into the crawlways once Chay had made sure there was nobody currently down there, hands on their sticky packages.
Goro caught a glimpse of the far away Wretcher. Huge bat wings in white. A human body, incredibly muscled of course. They'd been told about Wretchers by now – minor demons who lived on the `ceiling'. One of their roles was to find escaped slaves.
"This one," Chay said, pointing at a chute, "should take us right to the holy spire."
"Here goes nothing," Marcus said and jumped in.
Xane jumped next, Goro followed and Chay came after him.
The chute was wide enough to comfortable sit in. It had a floor so bizarrely smooth that there was no friction. The slide bent gently but their speed stayed high.
"Use levitation to slow yourselves," Chay's voice echoed. "We don't know if we'll get spotted when we come out."
Soon their dick cages were no longer shining. There were sections of darkness but Xane had a gentle light in his hand. It would have been a fairly fun slide-ride if Goro hadn't been tense with anticipation.
Marcus cried out as he crashed into some kind of flexible membrane. Xane crashed into him. Goro was next and he felt his jizz splash between his crotch and Xane's back.
Then Chay slammed into Goro's back and splattered his own cum all over Goro's ass.
The men groaned.
"Let me just..." Marcus said and ran his chakram in circles over the membrane. His weapon jumped back onto his wrists as the opening unfolded.
They levitated down into a cave a bit larger than a football field, smelling of spring flowers and egg yolk. Diffuse light came from glinting white blossoms hanging off ceiling-vines between thick blots of mushrooms.
"Looks like Jem-Jum Lilies," Chay said, looking up. "Harmless if you don't eat them."
Xane let his own light wander between foot-high orbs on the floor. "Are those... eggs?"
A dozen creatures rose around them. Then another dozen. And another.
Shiny, deep black carapaces, long serrated arms. Hellish praying mantises with nothing but clusters of mandibles where the face should be.
"Good news," Chay said as mist rose around him, "this is the right way. Bad news, horn-boy was right about the lisk nest."
The monsters charged.
Goro had hoped they would.
Mania-power could give him the next best thing to an orgasm – battle rage. He'd fought in tournaments, but there you still had to make sure not to kill your opponent. The abyss had no such rules. He could treat living beings like boxing bags.
Frenzy rushed through him. His muscles grew in size and tripled in hardness.
His heartbeat dominated his hearing like a drum beat. Every muscle in his body became a vehicle for mindless, murderous energy. Goro was terrifying. Goro was beautiful.
From five feet in the air, his fist connected with a lisk head from above, sending the creature splaying. He didn't land, but swung his mighty legs around, swiping another lisk into a stalagmite with his right foot. Eggs burst.
Lightning zapped something above.
"Imps!" Xane yelled.
Goro leaped higher than an unaided human had ever jumped, right into the flock of descending pests. Imps were just winged footballs with sharp teeth at the front. Free kills.
The berserker pirouetted and grabbed two, breaking their spines instantly. In turning he slapped five more imps from the air with their dead comrades.
He came down with closed legs on the back of a lisk. The creature's back cracked. He rolled off and rammed his momentum into a fist-clap that shattered the throat of a lisk currently gunning for Marcus.
The rim of the arena was covered in Chay's mist, hiding the umbralist perfectly and Xane somewhat. Every few seconds a fireball, frost shard or strange air-wiggle shot from the mist and severed a limb. But the lisks were closing in on Xane.
Goro leapt and made a forward roll. He grabbed the sides of one of the mantis-like beasts and took it with him into the roll. He tossed the beast into the mass of encroaching ones.
Giant eggs burst under his rolls, swipes, fist strikes and knee slams. The lisks got claw swipes in, too, but they had halfway healed by the time Goro had torn the offenders' heads off.
Chay was yelling about their weak points, mostly the connections of their limbs and the natural segments in their carapace. Marcus had some success slicing along those seams.
The lisks rushed into the fog. Xane screamed.
Goro went to maximum muscle-frenzy and called upon sheer madness. His tattoo expanded from his neck down his back, wild tendrils reaching forward across his flanks.
Bestial rage pumped through his veins but his mind went silent with focus. The mark of madness banished all needless thoughts.
He reached for limbs just to kick the attached bodies hard enough to rip the joints off. He rained his fists down on one lisk and used the unbroken momentum to launch the next attack. An imp became a projectile to shatter five eggs like a meteor.
Shells and yolk spewed around the battle god. Every motion a masterpiece. Efficiency and excess.
Xane screamed in pain. Two blasts of chaos went off on the other side of Chay's mist.
Goro's big feet carried him like his body was a rocket.
He made it through the fog wall where Marcus dealt with the lisks who had rushed them.
Xane was on the ground, bleeding from multiple wounds in his side. He was framed by two lisk corpses with perfectly round cutouts where the butterflies had deleted reality.
"Shit, uhhh," Xane said. "Bastards got a second mouth on the stomach, shit."
Goro roared loud enough to make his own ears ring, reached into the mist and pulled a lisk in by the neck. His madness-strengthened grip was enough to turn it to a pulp.
"Got it!" Chay yelled. "The membrane's weak here."
Marcus ran his chakram over the indicated spot on the wall.
Goro ran over and ripped the spot open to reveal another chute.
"Go," Chay commanded. He supported Xane and Goro trusted them to make it.
Marcus was in first, Goro sliding close enough to have his calves touch the martial artist's thighs.
Xane had to reseal the membrane behind them to cover their escape so he and Chay were further behind. Marcus and Goro started the slide-ride.
Goro let the magic leave his body. He was back to normal in a few breaths but the tension remained.
He desperately wanted to follow up on the fight with sex. Even Marcus' body ahead of him was almost fuckable – nothing like a chick, but their lithest member would feel nicely small in Goro's arms.
Hell, if Goro's dick had been out he might have stuck it right in the cum-crusted ass ahead without a second thought just to cream into something.
The abyss was doing a number on him. All he could do was put his fingers on his nipples and dream.