Vortex Quest

== VORTEX QUEST 5-6 ==

== HGAAN'S GHOUL ARENA ==

The Nephilim did their part, preparing Winter Key fakes wrapped in priming-diagrams and stuffed into gourd bottles.

The demigods did their part, pleasuring themselves and each other, drinking cum milked from each other with the plug, abusing the plug till it was empty of souls, then pleasuring themselves again. They found time for a nap, too.

Maybe they were turning too sex crazy to function. Was that a concern? They were still on track for the mission so far.

Marcus was more satisfied than ever, with the right mix of action, banter, friendship and sex in his life. Xane felt similarly but also used thaum-magic as creative outlet during down time which was good for him. Goro, aside from indulging in his `beast nature' fantasy, had grown superhumanly loyal to his friends and almost saw himself as their protector, if they needed such a role in the group.

And Chay himself? He couldn't turn his umbra-skills on his own mind so he had to use good old introspection.

He had practically everything he ever wanted in spades. Nobody gave him a pat on the shoulder for being a great leader but he could feel their trust and devotion. And he was literally saving the world from demons!

Not to mention that earth could never offer him a sex life like that.

He only worried that finishing their grand quest would leave them without a higher purpose, mindlessly indulging in fisting orgies and monstercock chasing while their humanity wasted away.

Not now, though. Right now he was having fun racing down plasma chutes, holding onto Marcus' abs from behind. With the lack of friction on chute walls and the extreme slope in some areas, they often approached the speed of free fall in the black tunnel where Xane's light orbs made the spiraling stone flicker like a stroboscope.

After a few more climbs and rides – or chutes and ladders as their kung fu hero called it – they reached another illusory dead end their aegises let them power through.

Being `sequestered' was no death sentence. Lord Hgaan was reachable from various crawlway entrances, but all the easy ones were blocked by King Pwen'Gllach's magic to ensure containment. The lord was allowed his domain, but no more.

The pantheons made it through the false wall, into a series of caverns, lit by red shimmering orbs festering on the ceiling like egg sacks dripping onto small bubble-spewing shrubs. The men hopped over fields of blue-purple ferns, lush with glittering spore clouds.

Chay carried the gourd bottles on a banister across his buff chest.

Goro now carried his hair shoulder long again, tied up with strands of itself. His vision ring was now a choker around his neck, metal-shaped to fit by Xane, the purple gem matrix holding three souls of thralls who'd been killed in the fury attack.

They had left their clothing behind. The plug, too.

It was difficult for an abyssal city to look `in ruins' since they were all ancient ziggurats and obelisks with a smattering of cracked skulls, but Hgaan's city was lifeless and overgrown with gnarly root webs.

At the center was a golden statue, dedicated to the realm's king, depicted as an abstract demon with dozens of arms, covered in eyes. Around the statue were the only inhabitants – Trolls.

As the demigods approached, one of the seven-foot-something greenskins met them halfway, swaggering with inhuman width, waving his spear. A thick ring glistened on his bull nose, more on his ears. His tattooed neck was decorated with a string of thick black beads. The root of his dick was visible on the low hanging leather pouch.

Chay raised a hand. He leaked smoke as a cape to appear powerful and mysterious. Xane kindly added an ominous glow.

"We want to see your lord," the leader said in pandemonic, "to fight in his arena."

The massively muscled troglodyte raised his nearly neck-less head and let out an animal scream. An alert of sorts, but not a war cry. A gong far away answered him. Multiple Trolls rose from their activities.

"Zlennrop will get you there," the Troll answered. "We will watch."

While the Trolls prepared to march, a huge, winged creature descended in front of the pantheon. Their aegises glimmered.

Hellions were one of the rarest folk to become demonblooded. But the resulting Bonemaster was terrifying to behold. Pale white and covered in a lattice of bones, buff with a wide chest and lean muscles, eight foot tall. Skeletal wings, wider than a Daemon's.

The Bonemaster's centerpiece was his spine. It protruded from his back as spikes, had outgrown the body to give him a thick, long neck and a thin, swiping tail. His arms were long enough to reach the ground as he stood, long legs bent into a stable stance.

His dark eye sockets... He was mustering them. He was... incredibly intelligent.

"You are not abyssal," he stated, skull-head tilted to glance at their crotches.

"Correct, Bonemaster Zlennrop," Chay said and let the smoke flow cover his aegis. "But we would like to fight for your lord's amusement regardless. I'm sure you can surmise what we hope to gain."

He subtly jiggled the gourd bandolier but the Bonemaster had already figured that out.

"And you came in from... a dead end."

"Correct again," Chay said. "We'll leave the same way. If we survive, of course."

"Of course," Zlennrop said. "It's just been a while since we've had volunteers. You're..."

"Chay. These are Xane, Marcus, Goro."

"From Earth?"

Something was off. Not in the sense that they were in danger. Hgaan's lieutenant was going to lead them to the arena, but... he was filled with... hope. He wanted them to succeed. So they could... help him... to leave, too? Yes but... indirectly.

Chay decided to lay the bait.

"Yes, Earth. But we understand the rules of the abyss. Making deals and alliances is still possible. If there's something outside of the sequestration zone you need..." He left the rest hanging.

The Bonemaster gave a light nod. "Just a message to deliver. Postal routes from here are unreliable."

"Sure. We can do that. Supposing our survival."

After a second of silence, the lieutenant glanced at their crotches again. "A heavenly artefact and... an open signature. Lord Hgaan won't be too pleased with either."

"We can take care of that. Xane?"

"On it boss."

Zlennrop flew ahead while the pantheon marched along the road with the crowd of Trolls.

A butterfly landed on the leader's cock cage and melted into an illusory package, covering the glow, the cage and the signature line.

"Not really an infiltration this time," the thaum-mage said, "but does remind me of the good old times."

Xane had given him a flaccid dick at the border of the anatomically plausible. Chay's thick eight inch softie was slapping between his thighs with every step, fortunately without the discomfort of having a real dick free flying.

The next four minutes were spent strategizing while Xane refilled his motes.

The Ghoul Arena was a crumbled dome, maybe the size of a small town football stadium, but round. The demigods were ushered in by Troll guards, entering through a tunnel onto rough, gray sand. The smell of blood and mercury hung in the air. Braziers were lit along the field's rim, oozing the smell of heavy oil.

The only feature interrupting the ranks all around was a square platform big enough to park four cars on. Below it, leaning on the most crumbled part of the field's wall, was a runic stone ring, leaning at a 30 degree angle.

"And that's the flipper," Marcus whispered. "Toss the proto-keys in and run?"

Chay shook his head. "As I feared, it's downgraded. See the chunks strategically carved out?"

Like various pieces of Mockery-tech across the abyss, the flipper had survived the purge because turning things into other things for a while was close enough to the local king's obsession – in this case illusions – to warrant protection. With safety measures.

"We have to do it one at a time when the lord uses it," Chay continued. "Hate to say it but plan A is still to `sacrifice' ourselves for more chances."

Xane took the first gourd, carrying it across the arena with his mage hand and laying it into the flip portal.

The ranks were filling with Trolls and Goblins on one side, Kobolds and a group of two dozen Hellions on the other.

The Bonemaster descended through the ceiling, onto the platform above the flipper. He spoke with a magically enhanced volume. "Praise be King Pwen'Gllach! Hail Lord Hgaan! Greetings to our arena fighters, Chay, Xane, Marcus and Goro!"

The crowd started making noise. Trollish howls and growls, Boldian screeches, Hellionic human-like shouts, and miscellaneous. Noggin descended to cluster in the opening of the collapsed dome above.

Xane was nervous but beaming. "Kinda reminds me of stepping out on stage."

Goro hummed. "But they're not here to just watch us flex."

Xane chuckled and tensed his arms. "Oh, I'm gonna flex on these fuckers."

"Welcome..." Zlennrop continued, "Lord Hgaan!"

A Wraith entered, hovering onto the platform. He was huge, with the metal disc about 20 feet across. His black arms and eye-covered hands were large to match, hanging down like the most disturbing grapes. Bones, meat, trinkets and shards clanked on the many chains running around his disk.

"He's big, sure" Marcus said. "Don't see what the big deal is though."

The crowd stayed noisy while the True Wraith hovered closer to the edge of the platform. Something was wrong with his disc. It had started to... vibrate. He bend forward as if pointing the disc's upper side with its bolts and steel patches at the arena.

"Fuck," Xane said. "Is he gonna blow up?"

"Something like that," Chay said, keeping himself from taking a step back. The threat didn't read well to his senses and he'd only found one rather vague book on the subject but...

Hgaan blew his lid.

Metal sparked, ruptured from his upside with a horrifying squeal, and disintegrated in teal radiance.

Safe for a five inch rim, the metal `hat' was a cerulean portal, infinite in depth, opaque at the same time, and all around uncomfortable to look at.

A long arm - pale and ethereal - reached from the disc portal, joined by more, and more, forming a `grape bunch' of their own.

Hgaan tipped over, the phantom hands hanging down, his material black ones held up. His chains tangled at the disc rim.

Chay started leaking smoke by the bucket load, his cape blanketing the gray dunes. He took a step forward. He wondered if they should have brought one of the supercharge orbs Diego had given them.

"Get ready, boys."

"Warriors of the Ghoul Arena," the True Wraith's voice came from twice as many hand-mouths as normal. "Prove worthy and prevail... for my amusement!"

"Now," Chay whispered.

Wraith hands, material and phantom, plucked generously from the chains and tossed a load into the leaning flipper.

Dozens of dead gnomes, the content of a blue flask, various shards, all poured into the gate. The runes flickered to life. A tiny gourd hopped into the ring, unnoticed. Chaos enveloped the inside of the flipper – too bright to look at and yet perfectly dark, extending far and yet utterly flat.

The chaos vanished and ethereal sprites rushed out. They bounced off the red force field which now separated the arena's battleground from the ranks and circled in on the pantheon. Shapeless veils, pulsing and jittering.

"Ether sprites," Chay said. "Phase in and out of existence. Hit them when they're real."

He let Pie slip from his toe into the ankle high fog and let his men form a wall around him.

Fluttering veils descended. Goro punched them back like he was playing ping-pong. Xane had to use his body because his mage-hand was busy. Marcus' holy fire was their most effective weapon, disintegrating ether sprites on touch.

Xane dragged the flipped key through the smoke-covered sand into Chay's reach. It was a dud. The shape had been inverted and the material changed to something wax-like. The good news was it hadn't integrated with the sprites. The isolation component worked.

He plucked gourd B from his chest. "Try this one next. Quick, he's doing it again."

"Your challenge has just begun," Hgann said and poured dead imp pieces into the flipper with other substances.

The gourd made it in time.

What emerged from the portal was nearly human-sized and vaguely oblong. A dozen tiny arms clawed on the ground, dragging the frankenstainean ghoul at the pantheon with surprising speed, randomly placed teeth grinding the creature's own rotten meat.

"Fuck, that's ugly," Xane said.

He tossed key attempt B into Chay's hands and loaded a bolt. Lightning ripped ether sprites apart.

A razor ring opened the imp-ghoul, exposing the teeth and claws on the inside. A fireball charred away the center. Goro ran in and gave the gross pile a hard enough kick to make it tear in two, the farther flung half splattering on the force field to the joy of the audience.

"Yes, yes!" Hgaan shouted. "Worthy! Good warriors! Fight for me, hahaha!"

The key was another dud. The priming wasn't taking because the item was too small. The flipper could handle it if paired with something the size of...

"One of us has to get flipped," Chay said.

Goro simply stretched out his hand.

Chay gave him gourd C and the berserker took off.

"Xane, try this one anyway," the umbralist and tossed gourd D to the wizard.

Hgaan was dropping something huge. A whole pile of dead meat, wrapped in chains and... feathers? It was a pile of carved up Furies.

"Prepare for hypno-shit," Chay said.

Chaos, crowd cheers, meaty flapping.

From the portal rose a zombie raven. Black from rot, feathers in wild patches like they were glued on haphazardly, wings too thick to fly properly.

It was eight foot tall.

As it took off, Chay puppeteered it, but the ghoul wasn't a single creature. He could only hold onto its center, keeping it flapping in midair and denying its approach.

Goro was gone, using his vision ring to make it to the flipper invisibly.

Gourd D was another dud.

A thaum-magic explosion sent the raven ghoul to the ground, ablaze. The fire didn't slow the creature down. Marcus twirled between its claw swipes, fake dong flapping from thigh to thigh. His shining hands tore chunks of rot from the raven.

"Keep hitting it," Chay shouted. "That things is made of weak points. Wait, oh fuck."

The torn chunks flapped. As the raven lost mass, its ghoul substance melted into fractal forms, smaller ravens rising where dead meat had dropped.

The leader crouched and went invisible in his own fog. It felt cowardly, which he hated, but his men had it under control.

Xane firebolted a bird every other second, yelling, "Fucking phoenix-ass corvid cunt zombies!"

The flipper went off by itself, triggered by Goro entering. He was visible when he returned. Seemingly unchanged, the mania-warrior used his superhuman quads to launch right at the remaining raven ghoul and tear it from the sky.

Gourd C landed in the arena sand.

The two went down in a splattering of black meat, Chay's fog bursting apart. Goro pummeled the creature like he was tenderizing it, ectoplasma squirting as the flesh disintegrated. Marcus ran around, slicing and burning the flapping chunks that rose from the main corpse. Xane was back on ether sprite duty with lightning forks.

"Haha, yes, more!" Hgaan shouted. "More fighting for me!"

Chay returned to umbra-powered invisibility and picked up the result of Goro's sacrifice. A dud. But this one was better. The priming had made the diagrams and the components fuse correctly just at a false alignment.

He went over his inventory.

Hgann dropped torn Nettlix parts into the flipper, together with the dead meat of something else.

Another many limbed abomination emerged, as big as a truck, spherical enough to roll at them.

Gourd H, possibly. Chay handed it to Goro, who was glistening head to toe with plasm, his muscles massively enlarged, the mark wrapped around his abs and lower back.

"Get one of the others into the flipper," the leader commanded. "Do not get flipped again yourself. Without priming you could turn into anything."

"I love you," Goro said, matter of fact, touched his choker and went invisible.

"Well... fuck," Chay said at nothing. He traced where Goro was disturbing his fog. "We'll uh, talk about that. Good luck."

Marcus was talking to thin air, then turned invisible, too. The two demigods slowly made their way across the field.

Xane and Chay went back-to-back. The abominable orb rolled circles around them, lashing out with Nettlix-like thorn limbs.

"I can't make it a puppet," Chay said, "but I can control enough of its components to keep it at a distance."

"So the big guy's gay now, huh?" Xane asked. "Wonder how he'll take it."

"Yeah," Chay said, slowly. "Anyway, can you blow that thing up?"

"Yes sir."

A star of darkness rammed into the ghoul. Thorns bursts apart violently, digging into Chay's skin. The remaining meat drew itself into orbs, ranging from palm-sized to knee-height and continued to roll around, this time in chaotic patterns, racing between their legs.

Both demigods were busy pulling thorns from their flesh. Chay's healing had improved but he was still severely wounded.

The flipper went off. Goro became visible mid-stride, stomping down on abominable flesh-balls. The thorns puncturing his feet got pushed out as he healed with the next few steps.

Xane sent radiant bolts at the nearest thorn ghoul. By using swirling fog, Chay didn't even have to point out the best targets verbally anymore. He had long blanketed the arena fully. His output had become insane. Too bad the enemy didn't rely on eyesight.

Marcus came flying. "Hello there, Homo Marcus here. Homarcus? Needs work. Fuck, I'm gay now."

"The key," Chay insisted.

Marcus' eyes went wide. "Holy cocksucker, you're so hot."

"Good, good!" Hgaan shouted. "Excellent fight. More now!"

The Wraith began drawing knives and huge carapaces from its repertoire.

Key H was a dud, but barely. Aligned correctly on two axis, leaving only... gourd K, most likely.

"One more," Chay said. "Xane, you're up. This one is it."

"No, you," the wizard said. "I'm not flipping again unless we're out of options."

"Is it bad?" Chay asked, suddenly worried. He didn't want to get flipped. It was a violation of his self. He had very much hoped to avoid it, even though it wasn't permanent.

"No but... distracting. You'll see."

"Rock-paper-sci..."

Xane crossed his arms.

Hgann shoved a Gawrus corpse into the knives and carapaces. He reached up, plucked Noggins from the air and shoved them into the pile, too. He let the construct plummet into the gate ring.

What emerged was...

Marcus huffed. "Knife-o-scorp...leton? Yeah, I got nothing."

The ghoul was mostly a six armed serpent of bones, clad in black chitin at senseless spots that broke the fluidity of its movement. Long skeleton arms and a spine tail each ended in jagged, three foot blades. The head was a human skull, dripping silver from the eye holes.

They could have really used one of those supercharges.

It came in swinging. Chay cleared the middle of the arena of smoke, building a thick ring around the demigods and their one remaining enemy.

He `grabbed' the ghoul by the spine with umbra-power and pinned it in place. It was difficult to possess – somehow sloshing in his grip.

He faded into his fog and analyzed so hard his vision blurred. The scorpi-knife-ghoul... thing had plenty of weak spots but-

"Don't let it cry on you," Chay yelled. "Stay away for the head."

The drawback of having removed the Paradox Curse was that they had to worry about curse-poisons again.

Marcus dove underneath the ghoul, dodging through two blade hands that crossed with sparks where he had been a split-second ago, silver tears dripping into the gray sand. A chakram did little against the fleshless creature but the animus-fighter's charged kick broke one of the too-many arm bones.

Silver blood. Marcus' foot got splashed with gooey, silver bone marrow. Chitin plates blossomed on his skin, creeping up.

"Fuck," Chay yelled. "Amputate! Marcus, cut it off! Now!"

The tall tan demigod seemed frozen in shock, eyes wide and fixated on his mutating leg. But his weapon came down on his calve.

Marcus screamed at the broken ceiling, tensing every fiber in his body. Holy fire raged along his leg.

Goro ran in like a sand cloud and swiped the screaming demigod away as a triple blade-hand strike raced through the arena, followed by dripping silver as the ghoul turned the rest of its long body to follow.

Xane had circled around to the back of the undead creature, firing probing bolts at his slightly reduced rate of fire. Bludgeoning force worked just fine to break the ghoul's bones but silver curse-blood came squirting out every time, forcing Xane to use every other shot to freeze the breaks he had caused.

"Empty it," Chay said, fading in next to him. "Drain it somehow. Can you?"

"Will try, boss."

"I'll get flipped," Chay said and faded.

Xane kept his eyes trained on the swiping blade-tail but smirked. "See you gayter."

Goro had picked up the skeleton-arm Marcus had broken off and tossed the blade-hand like a throw hammer. It rammed into the ghoul's human skull, causing an avalanche of silver to spray from the crack as it tipped backward. Xane evaded.

The umbralist jumped into the flipper, the bandolier dropped, save for gourd K.

Chaos enveloped him. For a blink of an eye he lost the connection to his fog. Then it was back, the flip over.

He leaped from the stone ring and faded into his fog. Breaking the gourd revealed... a perfect Winter Key. The primed piece of metal had gotten the shape, diabolic alignment, fascinatum spin, runic phase imprint... At least as far as he could tell.

Now every second counted, lest the key unflipped itself before they got to the lock.

Purple lighting ran in slow motion up the ghoul's scorpion tail, crackling from its many broken bits. Xane was poisoning the poison, turning the ghoul hollow. It began to coil, then to crumble.

"Yes," Hgaan shouted, "more hahaha, more!"

Chay jumped to the height of the platform and hovered in place. "I think we're done. How much more are you planning?"

"Moooore!" the Wraith raged. Giant hands from above and below the portal disk began plucking dead flesh, armor pieces and runic artefacts from the chains.

Chay glanced at Zlennrop who seemed... twitchy. The Bonemaster wanted them to escape to deliver his message, he wasn't fond of Hgann, and he had quite a lot of knowledge and sway in the lord's vicinity, but he couldn't do much as long as he stuck around on the platform.

Chay tried to signal him, waving with a fog pillar. Zlennrop got the hint but didn't move, only tensing his skeleton-covered body in helpless despair.

He needed a distraction.

Fuck it, distractions were child's play for the god of making people dance to the pull of his strings.

A Troll on the ranks next to the platform found itself climbing. Chay made the troglodyte throw itself into the tangle of ethereal hands and chains, immediately grabbing the next one.

The umbralist sank back into the arena and listened to Hgaan's angry shouts. Garbage dropped into the flipper but a third Troll was already throwing itself against the Wraith's ethereal limbs. The first one escaped the tangle and Chay took control of him again, making him ascend the disc, making him bite the black flesh of the lord's material half.

A roar. Trolls got flung against the force field. One landed inside the arena. Chay glanced back. The Wraith was picking audience members from the ranks. Panic ensued. Zlennrop had slipped away.

With deep self-satisfaction, Chay met up with his friends on the other side of the fallen, leaking skelle-scorpio ghoul.

"Holy fuck," he said with his voice breaking into a squeal.

The other demigods had become a whole different kind of hot. No, he reminded himself, he'd been turned gay. What had been excellent male physiques he appreciated as inspiring' or conventionally attractive' was now making him crave like he'd been using Hole. But deeper, with yearning.

Goro grabbed his neck – power, force, beauty – and pulled him into a kiss.

Chay had vaguely expected that being gay would make him feel what he had felt for girl... but for boys. As difficult as that had been to imagine. But no, this was different. He wanted Goro to own him. He wished Goro could have used umbra-power to possess Chay and do anything he wanted with him, forever.

"Is that, uh, gay love?" Chay asked.

Goro grunted. "I want to protect you, make sure nothing ever happens to you. And at the same time, I have to hold back from tearing you to shreds with all my power."

"Okay, uh," Chay mumbled. "Not exactly how I'm feeling. Different kind of gay, or whatever."

"Hey lovebirds," Xane interrupted and poked both their shoulders. "We're still fighting for our lives, yes?"

Chay's eyes rapidly dashed between Xane and Marcus. Every part of their bodies demanded worship. Chay sank in Goro's grip, literally weak kneed. Marcus' tight abs, Xane's delectable thighs, Marcus' hard pecs, Xane's perfectly proportioned arms.

Something rose from the ring, a centaur ten feet tall with a fat body, horns on the belly dragging in the sand. It mooed from two mouths at the side of the eyeless head.

The crowd in the ranks was fleeing. Hgaan had plucked Kobolds from the audience and was piling up their entrails. A few Trolls had been tossed into the arena and were trying to scale the walls.

The entrance gate opened.

Chay raised his fog layer to the edge of the arena wall, obscuring what was happening on the ground. Xane shot a light orb ahead of them. The demigods bailed toward the door as the flipper activated again, entrails combining into a massive maggot ghoul.

The air thickened. Hgaan was throwing Wraith curses.

Feeling the full might of magical horniness, the demigods barely held back long enough for Xane to slicken their hands.

Each man rammed his own fist up his hole, running with legs far apart, illusion-dicks flopping. Chay's free hand was on his nipples, eternally grateful they could pleasure themselves again.

Groaning, the pantheon reached the exit where the Bonemaster was waiting.

"The message," he said, holding up folded parchment.

"W-who... where?" Chay asked, trying to stay sane as he pushed his arm into his hole with the other hand. The magic horniness was demanding more.

"I'll take it," Xane said, both hands free, his glutes quivering from the mage-dick ravaging him.

The thaum-mage tucked the letter into Goro's vision necklace. The sight of the berserker hunk made Chay's mind go blank, safe for an echo of Gorogorogorogoro. And that had nothing to do with the Wraith's spell.

Chay fought his instinct to bend down and slurp up the divine hunk's massive dick as it slapped along the forearm Goro was trying to bury in his own hole. If he hadn't known the dick was a mere illusion, he'd already have done so.

"The Bveldno-Rwaklr cave," Zlennrop said. "Tell them who it's from."

"We'll do our best," acting leader Xane said. "Human honor."

"Go now," the Bonemaster urged. "If he speaks a- Oh no."

Fleshy, wet explosions in the arena. Dark red comets were zooming into the corridor. The demigods ran off but there wasn't any hiding space.

Xane detonated a wall and pressed himself into it. Another mote rammed more space into the makeshift alcove but it was barely enough to fit Marcus.

The comets reached Zlennrop who covered himself with his boney bat-wings. Some bounced, off, some passed through. The spell was meant for meatier creatures.

Goro rammed Chay backward hard enough to break a few rips, throwing himself at the curses. He absorbed comet after comet.

A few passed him by, dashing over the umbralist who was laying on the floor breathing through punctured lungs.

Goro began to bloat. His flesh swelled like balloons blowing up under his skin. His veins ruptured, blood gushing like fountains.

Xane and Marcus cried out as the cruses hit them. Xane had taken all the hits, his left arm and lower abs distorting as the bloat filled his veins to burst.

Goro let out a gargling scream, cut off as his neck and face ballooned, then burst at the seams.

Pie bounced past them, outside.

The effect... lessened.

The collection of blood-spewing balloons that was Goro wobbled forward.

"Go," Chay yelled at the others and grabbed the berserker by the hair to pull him in the right direction.

The vision collar around Goro's neck exploded and shards dig into Chay's flank. At least he could breathe again.

They made it outside. Trolls were still running from the arena, dropping from arches above where the exits were clogged. Pie was chewing on a dying one. Of course, she had been healing Chay's ribs and lungs.

"Good girl," Chay said, too focused on Goro to give her more acknowledgement.

The biggest demigod was looking less like a bloodbag collection now, his eyes visible on his face again. He was looking pretty angry.

Then his thighs un-swelled enough to-

Heavenly radiance shove from his crotch, the illusory dick dispelled. Xane's too.

The two curse victims' super-blisters were shrinking away. The pantheon could run in long levitating strides through the city, the sound of a crowd shouting in deathly horror and the raging of a True Wraith echoing behind them.

"The message," Chay said.

"Xane picked it up," Marcus said, waving the letter. "Key, too."

Chay looked at his hands. He had totally forgotten about the key.

"Wow," the umbralist said. "Xane, you're... a good second in command to have."

The wizard, the curse-blisters still squirting blood, walked with a casual chest-puff. "What can I say? Every comedy troupe needs the straight man. Oh sorry, was that homophobic, cocksuckers?"

Marcus gave him a shove. "Jokes on your hetero-boy. You don't have a cock to suck."

Xane gave himself a new illusory dick that reached all the way to the ground. Chay felt a dizzying erotic jolt at the sight. He instinctually looked back at Goro. Yeah, that only made it worse. The berserker was back to normal, healing fastest among them.

Their eyes met. Chay bashfully looked away. No, why was he doing that? Stupid.

"If you want something," Goro said, "let me know. We're both flipped."

"I was just... thanks for saving me."

He got a grunt in return.

They rounded the city ruins which were even more silent than before, the inhabitants hiding out as Hgaan raged.

Some part of Chay had hoped to be a total top but his attraction to dicks said otherwise. He still highly enjoyed Goro's backside, though. He understood why Xane had called being gay `distracting'.

"Something's wrong," Marcus said. "Goro, Xane, your aegises are still glowing."

The wizard dismissed the remaining two illusion cocks, revealing dark cages on Marcus and Chay.

"I think," Xane started, "we didn't just heal from that blood curse. The aegis absorbed it. Feels like it's working through something. We'll ask the Nephilim."

They reached the crawlway without incident, keeping up their high tempo. Xane was the only focused one. The other three kept glancing at his body and each other's, dealing with a lot of emotions.

"Can you, uh," Chay started. "No forget it..."

Goro sighed, then chuckled. "We don't do cutesy clichés here, faggot. Be a man."

"Can I... ride you? Piggyback?"

"Like when gravity was turned off for you? Sure."

Chay felt too giddy to put into words, levitation-hopping onto Goro's back mid-stride. Skin on skin, muscles rippling under his grip. A whole new world.