== VORTEX QUEST 5-9 ==
== CHAPTAIN CHAY ==
Word traveled slowly across realms but the pantheon had been in this place for a while. Their goal was to destroy the final vortex and Champion Slyell'Pvan knew they were coming.
The vortex fortress was protected by several layers of fully enclosing force fields. Every weakness, every exposed generator, every hidden passage had been fortified. Slyell'Pvan was one of the mightiest players in the abyss and he was blowing his budget on becoming the only one with vortex access.
With no way past the force fields, the demigods had one path forward – deny his soul stones the juice.
The Aelves were busy taking over their new headquarter, one floor and hall at a time, disarming traps, circumventing curses, and defending against opponents who had started laying claims.
Still, they sent Fenmaedr along with the demigods. With subtle magenta insets on his laced harness freshly polished, the Spring Aelf had joined their quest for a realm liner of their own.
They'd been lying in wait for a few minutes now, observing the guard patterns from the top of a truck-sized skull overlooking the village of the Goring Scratcher Clan.
It was a forking collection of huts and tents of bone and leather. One tine-end was the docks where two barges were getting unloaded, the other lead to an overhang road where crawlway tunnels merged into the surface – and above which their group was hiding. The fork's stem contained all the most important buildings, secure against the cliff. Guard posts were drilled into the surface all around.
"Any questions about the plan?" Chay asked. "No? Then let's fuck them up."
Billowing darkness rolled off his skin by the boat-load. He flooded cracks in the rock, his longer and longer tendril hidden from sight by the jagged overhangs and iron-grass bushels dotting the cliff.
"In position," Xane said.
"Give me three..." Chay counted, "two... one... go."
A tiny, nearly unspottable butterfly atop the totem to King Pwen'Gllach rammed into the totem as a lightning strike. The stack of grotesque art turned into burning chunks, bone shards and shattered chains raining on the Kobolds and the visiting Ogres among them.
Fan swipes. Chay let his smoke pour down from above the very back of the tribal village, making it look like something huge and amorphous was congealing right above the Urrk's hut.
Xane added flashes of green flame into the smoke pillars – the sign of demonic forces teleporting in.
Shouts of alarm turned into drum beats and horn blows. Ogres picked up their merchandize and ran, bumping into Kobolds who had rushed from their tents, creating a street blockade that the armed Kobold guards had to brawl through.
Some sentries remained unsure, especially those further out, toward the docks. But they were unsettled, jumpy, primed.
"Little more," Chay requested. "Make it shocking."
A yellow-purple butterfly detached from Xane's contingent and zoomed down. It entered a storage hut and made it rip apart in a storm. A shockwave and thunderclap echoed across the entire canyon, loud enough to tear Chay's eardrums. Inconvenient but effective.
Kobolds everywhere went to the ground. The small army that had assembled to fight the smoke pillars was rolling in the dust, hands on their ears. Guards left their post to help defend the Urrk, even the dock worker Kobolds grabbed weapons and ran inward.
Pebbles across the village and the cliff turned over as the lids of iris-less eye balls in dark colors. The king himself was looking on. The umbralist didn't like the exposure but it leant the pretend-attack even more credibility.
"Perfect," Chay said and got shushed. Too loud? He could barely hear himself. He gave a royal eye ahead of him a poke and it flipped over, turned back into a pebble.
He focused the umbra-magic pulsing through him, speeding up the ear drum healing. Meanwhile he signaled his team to get moving.
Xane created an illusion of a drifting bubble cloud with his free spell, just big enough to hide himself and Chay as long as they curled up.
Fenmaedr drew out his gestalt and enveloped Marcus in the shimmering, black ghost-streaks. As Fenmaedr seemed to dissolve, the Aelf-demigod duo dropped down behind some tents.
Goro stayed back on overwatch duty.
With Marcus and his even taller, gray friend sneaking deeper into the panic-filled village, Chay and Xane flew on wizardly butterfly wings, much to fast and directed for such a tiny, low-hanging cloud, but nobody was paying attention.
Chay pointed his perception at the ships. Should he prioritize the conditions of the sails hanging below or the `hull' arching above the deck?
"That one," Chay directed and slipped his head back into the illusory cloud. "Tattered sails but it won't crumble under our feet."
"On it, boss," Xane said and flew them to the top of the line of the black arches. They dropped through the webbing and the wizard dispatched lingering crew with some ice shards booming from his flexed chest.
Even though Chay's flip-induced gayness had to be fading by now, he was struck with dizzying adoration for the sheer power and manliness on display. The idea of sucking Xane's dick entered Chay's mind with the intrusiveness of a nectar vision. Xane probably liked having his muscles worshipped, right?
Fuck, he had really wanted to be a top.
"Earth to Chay," Xane said, tossing the Kobold his mage-hand held by the throat overboard.
"Uh, right," Chay said. "Good job. Untie the ropes and I'll turn on the ignition."
Xane swaggered to the boarding ramp. Chay threw a glance at the ectoplasma-crying skull across the village - seeing no sign from Goro - and a longer gaze at the tribal settlement where a few fires had started. His own smoke pillars were hanging unimpressively in the air, obviously not turning into a monster any time soon. They were on a timer.
The demigod of shadows and cunning quickly checked the steering apparatus, then hopped down the ladder into the underslung generator cabin. A dark red gem hung in chains and cables, a dozen human souls within getting sapped to keep the ship afloat.
Red sparks traveled forward to masts, to dissipate through the sails. More energy went up into the rafters and sizzled along the arches of black wood and iron.
There were safety mechanisms, locks and barriers, opportunity for sabotage, but the crew hadn't had time to turn on any of them.
Watery eyeballs with way too many irises squeezed themselves out of cracks as if they'd hidden in there all along.
Chay casually flipped off the one sloshing from a crack in the switch console. "Hey there King Fuckface. Hope you enjoyed the show cause we're off."
The eyes followed him around but one by one they blinked shut and vanished.
Back up on deck, Chay started the journey. There wasn't a simple steering wheel, but a series of levers that sent soul energy along this or that conduit. Nearly every ship was custom.
Marcus walked onto the ramp, followed by twenty bald hunks, each with a little bit of glitter around the lips, drooling, rock hard and jerking off.
A cloud of dark slivers with tiny spectral streaks coalesced into a Spring Aelf.
"Successful hunt?" Chay asked.
"Indeed," Fenmaedr answered.
"Fuck yeah," Marcus said. "Had to set a few distraction fires."
"Guys," Xane said, "we've been noticed."
An enemy crossbow fired a glowing red phaser bolt that zoomed through the barge, scorching ropes in its path.
A company of eight Kobolds with spears, bone swords and a crossbow rushed at the ship.
"Goring Scraaaatch! Attaaack!"
Xane readied lightning, Marcus let his ring jump off his wrist.
A naked powerlifter with pitch black eyes and a savage hairstyle dropped from above, crushing four lizardmen like they were made of gore-filled cardboard. Before he had risen from his landing-crouch, his hands had shattered the skulls of two more enemies.
Xane's magic took down the rest in bludgeoning strikes.
Goro walked off the lizard corpse pile, his tattoos melting away to just a strip up his lower abs. He shot a load of cum as he boarded, the aegis making the ropes spray up to his pecs and down to his knees.
"Are we ready to leave port, captain?" Goro asked.
Chay ignored how weak his knees felt at the sight of personified masculinity and gave a thumbs up with a grin. "Here goes nothing. Maybe make the slaves sit down."
Tapping the right levers to make the ship go up, Chay piloted the liner straight toward the aurora-decorated ceiling. Nobody in the village had the wherewithal to fire on them.
Fenmaedr showed interest in piloting and Chay gladly taught.
"You know," Chay finished after the basics. "It takes a crew, pulling chains into alignment with conduits along the webbed rafters overhead and sails below but it'll take a while for drift and free travel to add up to problematic levels. Don't think we'll keep her long enough to bother with maintenance."
"Her?"
"Uh, ships are female in earth-thinking. Symbolically. I... Can you steer for a bit?"
"Yes," Fenmaerd said. "You'll join your friends?"
"Either I do or I'll go insane. See you later."
Chay dove into the orgy.
Of course Goro's face had vanished between hunky, brown thighs, slurping on the biggest dick available. But Xane and Marcus had sat down on big dicks, while sucking small ones, making conversation as they drank cum.
Chay sat on the hardon of a French dude and let the hunk hump into him. Human dicks, while plain and uninspired, could still hit a few spots right.
"Marcus," Chay said. "I've got nothing to suck. Pump some slug shit."
The animus-fighter raised his head from an Arab cock with a chuckle, pushing his ass back into a Chinese crotch. "Ay ay, captain. Who?"
Chay gestured at the nearest, drooling, cross eyed Shade with a soft cock. The guy probably didn't even have cum left in his balls. Did Chay really want to suck a dick just because? Yes, very much so.
Marcus drizzled some glitter into Xane's mage-hand who delivered the load and gave Chay a suck-opportunity.
The umbralist imagined it was Goro humping his face while holding onto his edgy-styled head. Or Xane, or Marcus, or a Daemon. But mostly Goro.
As his beyond-orgasmic pleasure got warmly rubbed into him, he pulled on his signature. Hot sensation echoed through him, dragging pleasure into the farthest corners of his body, slowing its fading. And again, making his balls cry out in blissful pain. And again, again, again.
Twenty slaves got thoroughly drained.
In the end, Captain Chay and his crew cuddled in front of the steering console, naked save for the cock cages.
Xane had stopped magically wiping his crotch clean and was letting the cum fountain burst freely like Goro, making the pantheon slick with loads, renewed every minute. To think what a horror I had been to touch another man's jizz at the start of their adventure.
"Can I kill one?" Marcus asked. "Sorry, that sounds wrong. Can I `use' a Shade, who is barely conscious and literally already dead, for power?"
The tan man with a white mohawk produced a plug with a gem in the base. "I brought this."
"Yeah," Chay said. "I noticed. Hard to overlook the big garnet covering your hole. I suppose, you'll have to ask for Albic permission. Those are technically not our property."
Fenmaedr laughed. "I'll tell Völundr we caught nineteen in the raid. Go ahead."
Marcus detached from the cuddle pile, pointed his plugged ass at the dumbly lounging Shades and sent the chakram. The man hit in the chest burst apart as fading plasma, bits of his ghostly form getting sucked into Marcus' buttcrack.
The Filipino buckled, eyes rolled back.
The cuddle pile reestablished.
"You're gonna pass it," Xane said, "before it's empty this time, right?"
"It's a plug," Marcus said, "not a blunt. There's no etiquette."
"It's a communal resource," Xane said. "Tell him, captain."
Chay tore his eyes away from Goro's perfectly sculpted pecs only to get them stuck on Xane's abs. "Uh, right. Marcus, pass the plug in a bit. Skip me, I've had enough orgasms. Okay, that's a lie, but I need a nap more than sex."
Within prompting, Goro laid his arm around Chay, making the Thai hunk's heart skip a beat. Fuck, when was the flip effect going to wear off?
Not that they could go back to being `just friends' with all they'd gone through. But that's what would have to happen once they were back on earth, right?
Chay drifted uneasily into a deep, relaxing sleep.
===***===
They dropped off their kidnapped slaves at the funnelcastle where Völundr and his men had successfully dominated over the rival factions, now having to forge alliances of Hellions and Fiends on the inside and establish contacts on the outside.
Apparently King Pwen'Gllach had made his presence known here, too. A realm's god would never accept non-demons becoming powerful enough to claim Championship, but mere, simple lords of a funnel in the ceiling? Now that was just amusing.
The throne room had changed.
The Light Aelf Ascendant had tuned Kvaff'Ugorg's illusion into a dark forest – gloomy and fantastical.
Moss-slick trunks reached into the ceiling. Light-diffusing fog crept between standing stones, wafted along fern-rimmed paths and hung over a bubbling creek that surrounded the throne.
The air smelled like grass after rain, with a hint of resin and pine.
A piece of home for the gray ones, perhaps.
Völundr sat on the Daemon's throne, guarded by Aesilor and four Hellions in the shade of two oaks.
"My friends," he greeted them. "Fenmaedr has told me of your adventure and the quest ahead. I think I owe you some aid, and in the treasuries I found a few things I think should be just that. Maybe we can start with this..."
His Hellions stepped forward and presented jars.
Even before the moist forest aroma was suffused with the smell of nectar, Chay could feel the visions of Goro and ten demons fucking his brain out intrude into his mind's eye.
"You..." Chay started. "You're sure you won't need that?"
Völundr grinned. "We are protected from the effect. Our allied Fiends can make enough for trade and slave-keeping. It's yours."
All human eyes were on the umbralist.
"Planning later," Chay said with a nod. "Drugs now."