== VORTEX QUEST 2-6 ==
== ENEMY WATERS ==
The town of Tlesspa was inside a geode large enough to make the settlement look minuscule. Shimmering crystal all around made Xane think of a glitter-snowglobe.
Misty waterfalls dropped from fractures in the gem sky, collecting as a whirling sea at the bottom of the geode, leaving via a huge waterfall under a bridge that marked the only entrance by land.
Tlesspa itself was built on stone pillars. A town of a hundred buildings, dark, bulky, with gems emphasizing the serrated edges of obelisks and temples.
The pantheon arrived by Wyvern. Their sponsor, Lord Chralloth had lent them the white, flying snake and was holding onto their possessions in the meantime — both to stow them safely and to make sure the demigods would be less likely to betray him.
From a crystal chunk halfway up the geode, Xane looked down on Tlesspa, trying to spot the vortex building site. A courtyard near the center seemed to be the endpoint of several new pipes that cut across narrow avenues.
The vortex wasn’t their target, however. They were here to poison Lord Jruvoth, ruler of Tlesspa.
Xane rubbed his smooth head. Aside from Chay’s narrow fade, all the demigods were bald, ready to act like figments — naked and dumb.
The thaum-mage let his butterflies settle on a man’s crotch each.
“Ready?” Chay asked.
Seeing everyone nod, Xane enchanted their crotches. For at least an hour, their aegises would be covered by illusory dicks. He hadn’t gone overboard again, only giving himself a permanently semi-hard version of his real dick, maybe a little longer. Everybody else got regular looking rods.
Marcus chuckled at his cut tool. “Wow, looks just like my real thing. You paid a lot of attention to my crotch in limbo, huh?”
“Fuck off,” Xane said, “or you get your microcock back.”
Goro sighed. He was holding his false dick, feeling the lack of sensation as he rubbed the foreskin. “Fuck I wish that were real. You have no idea.”
“Pretty sure I *have* an idea,” Xane said. “I stopped giving myself an illusion cock because it’s pure torture.”
Chay raised a hand. “We’re on the clock now. Showtime.”
They launched themselves into the geode, falling hundreds of yards down under the cover of water mist.
He he dropped, Xane started making new motes. Magic seeped from his hands and concentrated into the butterfly shape it naturally took. He prodded the mote to take an inconspicuous coloration so he could camouflage it on his skin.
They dropped into the water.
Each demigod had his own way of dealing with being submerged. Xane kept a bubble of air around his head with thaum.
Chay swam ahead, trailed by white smoke and bubbles. He was able to filter oxygen through his umbra-smoke.
Xane finished the first mote and made a second. Everything was going smoothly. Through the light that penetrated the surface, he glanced at Goro’s muscular silhouette with the illusory cock dangling between the powerfully water treading legs. The berserker was simply holding his breath, without a known limit to his capacity.
Halfway to town, their plans fell apart.
Flat crabs the size of lifesavers met them with eight uncanny, spidery legs ending in claws and spikes.
Goro couldn’t effectively punch underwater and had to rip the spider-crabs limb from limb. Marcus’ chakram were not stopped by water but the razor circle did little against the hard shells, leaving the martial artist to kick the creatures with charged legs.
Xane couldn’t use his lighting effectively. He sent slow projectiles of paralyzation, directed into the spider-crabs’ faces. He was forced to let the air bubble collapse to use his magic.
Chay gestured for him to get to the surface.
Xane’s head broke through the water, gasping for air. Swimming was serious cardio even with his powers.
The leader’s face was obscured by smoke. “They’re extremely weak to cold temperatures,” Chay said. “There’s something almost straight down they’re trying to protect. Does that help you?”
“Think so,” Xane said. “Going back down.”
He took a deep breath and dove with ice manifesting in each hand. The spider-crabs were getting bigger. For each one that Marcus and Goro tore apart, there seemed one even larger coming from below.
Xane continued to swim. Any sea monster near him got a mouthful of frost, sending it into a panicked retreat. He tried to signal his friends to follow him down. Goro did.
It was too slow going. He’d run out of air, but if he summoned a bubble he couldn’t shoot.
Goro realized what had happening and grabbed Xane from behind. With Goro’s bestial mania-powered legs, the duo tandem-swam to the bottom in a quarter of the time it would have taken Xane.
The shorter hunk, hugged by enviably big arms, found a series of bubbling, hot vents. Spider-crabs emerged as defeated ones dropped to the lake floor.
Xane fired a frost beam from his hands until he was out of air. He used up a mote Sancaktepe Escort for an air bubble large enough to include both their heads.
“Good job, Big G,” Xane said.
Goro inhaled. “Is this the plan?”
“Think so. I can ice the holes they’re coming from. Get me closer.”
Xane let the bubble burst and shot frost into more vents. The spider-crabs stopped coming. A few dismembered one still rained from above.
Satisfied with the results, he pushed off Goro and swam to the surface, eyes on the quickly ascending silhouette of the bigger bodybuilder and his flopping illusory dick.
All four broke surface to assess the situation. They were still on track to Tlesspa.
===***===
The closer they swam toward town, the more debris was in the water. Xane was glad to see no shit among the garbage. There had to be aquatic versions of the coprovore imps he’d seen care of feces.
Getting into town was as easy as jumping out of the water in a side alley when nobody was looking. But they had a gift to retrieve.
Chralloth’s lot had prepared poison fit to kill a demon, unable to smuggle it into the lord’s mansion unnoticed. Four ‘slaves’ were just right for the job.
The pantheon navigated to the third tallest building, through narrow, bumpy streets kept clean by Gloopers sucking up debris and Figments sweeping brooms.
Hellions went about their business in the main streets but the demigods stuck to the less frequented areas where possible.
Walking around a demon town was nerve wracking. Xane felt naked in a way that had nothing to do with his nudity.
The closer they came to Jruvoth’s mansion, the more slaves changed from loopy, drooling hunks with glitter on their lip to focused, grim hunks with a mark around their neck and a pentagram on their forehead.
“That’s the spot,” Chay murmured.
Xane broke away from the party and shuffled down narrow stairs to a bottomless trashcan that lead right into the lake. An unassuming bag was taped to the inside. One mage-hand application later, the pantheon was in possession of the abyss’ deadliest poison.
The mansion was guarded by well armored Hellions with poleaxes. They paid no mind to the four open-mouthed, waddling humans with a bag and two brooms. Xane was a weird mix of tense and giddy, much like going on stage at a competition. He was happy to have passed judgement.
The mansion was laid out confusingly. Not really a maze but with random additions leaving curves and bends everywhere.
Chay navigated confidently. Xane was burning to know how he had all that information.
They passed through a hallway lined with Kobold skulls and rune-engraved tablets, approaching stairs down.
“I’ve been puppeteering Gnomes,” Chay whispered, “till I found a central node in their hivemind. It’s hard to wrap my head around how they work. Killing four strategic nodes across the mansion would bring the whole network down if we need to.”
Chay strode down the stairs, confidently evading the fuzzballs making their way up in little hops. Xane kept getting headbutted in the shins by Gnomes pouring upstairs like rugby gerbils.
The air grew hotter.
“We might want to hurry,” the leader continued, “cause they’re prepping a major feast right now.”
Xane had expected to land in a huge, bustling kitchen but instead the room was barely a prep area. Narrow tunnels, ramps and arches lead into different chambers sized for gnomes. Bigger visitors were not intended.
“Well fuck,” Chay said and grabbed random bowls and pots. “Everybody grab poison — do *not* let it touch your skin — and start crawling. Goro, this way. Marcus-“
Xane took his share of the poison in a three inch pan. It looked just like salt, no smell.
Chay pointed him at a tunnel and he crawled inside, pan held ahead by his mage-hand.
Gnomes rushed between his legs, raw meat and stinking mold on plates as well as bowls of worms and chalices of blood. Xane drizzled ‘salt’ as the food passed him by on its way to Jruvoth’s feast.
The lord was known to gulp down huge amounts quickly, which was why poison had been chosen as his execution method long ago. Xane had been glad to close a vortex without a fight but the heat in the tunnel made his divine body drip with sweat.
He hadn’t fully run out of poison yet when the flow of food stopped. The claustrophobic tunnel was deserted, Gnome-tapping growing distant.
Crawling backwards, the pan floating before his face, the mage touched something gelatinous with his heel.
Xane yelped and let the pan clank to the ground. He looked between his legs, past the dangling package of impressive size and created a light between his legs.
A Glooper was filling out the tunnel, rapidly submersing his legs. Xane tried to crawl forward but was already trapped.
The creature of pure goo enveloped his abs, his chest — Xane created an air bubble around his face.
The Glooper swallowed him, bits of debris floating within the jelly. Escort Sancaktepe Xane felt his skin getting dabbed clean. The creature moved forward on its cleaning duty. Xane got dragged along and broadened his stance to anchor himself.
Eventually the Glooper absorbed the poison left in the pan. It continued to squeeze through the tunnel for another few seconds, freeing Xane’s feet, then violently vibrated.
The creature appeared to be throwing up, expelling debris and foodstuff it had collected off the tunnel floor. The jelly broke and flaked as the fast acting poison dissolved it. Other parts of it hardened as if drying out. Xane was getting increasingly stuck. He’d run out of air eventually.
The demigod took one last deep breath and let the bubble collapse. Goo slapped into his face as the Glooper continued to convulse, fracture and crystalize.
Xane let radiant flames and electric slashes dance across his body, while tearing himself backwards with muscle power. He broke free, dead gelatin stuck to him.
Something between his legs shone with blinding light. The illusory dick had vanished, leaving his aegis shining.
In a frenzy, Xane crawled back to the prep room, meeting the others.
Chay was already there, unharmed. Goro flung himself from a tunnel, dripping with jelly, heaving.
“Cleaners ate the poison?” Chay asked.
Goro grunted and flung goo off his arms. Xane cleaned himself, then the others.
“Where’s Marcus?” Xane asked.
“I pulled him out,” Goro said.
Marcus came crawling from Goro’s tunnel, as dripping as the others. His illusion had also broken, leaving the pantheon with two radiant aegises.
“Do I renew the illusions?” Xane asked, while magically rubbing down the animus-fighter.
“No need,” Chay said. “We’re bailing.”
“They got nectar,” Marcus said. “I could smell it after I blew dead Glooper out of my nose. I almost went looking for it solo.”
“We… should leave,” Chay said, sounding far from firm.
===***===
Two people barely fit on top of each other in the tunnel but Chay had covered their legs in black fog to hide the aegises and Xane wanted to see. He squeezed through Chay’s legs, his freshly cleansed body rubbing past the Thai guy’s muscles to get a view.
A dozen hunky, naked man knelt in the room, many of them marked as thralls by the pentagram and the instant-death-line around the neck. It reminded Xane a bit of a gym lockerroom, or what he imagined a gay porn version thereof would be. The bald or buzzcut slaves were universally erect, mostly masturbating themselves, sometimes helping each other out.
A Troll in a loincloth with multiple helix rings and massive nipple rings was feeding nectar from jugs to slaves.
A Daemon Fiend as tall as Goro lounged on a pile of cushions and got his rippled dicks licked, leaking more liquid gold. On the “small” demonling, the double rods’ sheer size was all the more apparent. Flexing his abs with light spasms, the red skinned youth chewed his lower lip as the flow increased.
“We kill everyone but the demon,” Chay whispered back between his legs, past Xane’s neck.
“But the slaves are innocent,” Marcus said.
Goro slipped over Marcus, practically squishing the lean athlete underneath. “They’re doomed to work for a lord until they’re needed to power machines, then their souls get captured again. Ending a cycle early is a mercy.”
“Plus,” Chay said, “They’re barely conscious. Everyone ready?”
“Let’s keep the Troll, too,” Goro said.
“What for?” Chay asked.
Goro hesitated. “Would love to say ‘none of your business’. Stretching my hole. You don’t know what you’re missing.”
“Can you manage?” Marcus said, contorting himself to look up at the powerlifter’s face. “I don’t think I’d be as confident as you.”
“Best time to find out,” Goro said and patted Marcus’ shoulder.
The pantheon flung itself from the tunnel in an explosion of darkness.
Xane sent projectiles of devastating force at slaves. The dead vanished before their corpses hit the ground. Goro hammered down on humans, while Chay cloaked the demonling in mist.
Marcus pumped a spray of glitter from his ring into the Troll’s shouting mouth, then flew over to the young Fiend.
First on the double dick were Chay and Goro, facing each other, legs intertwined. The drugged Fiend grabbed their hips and pushed them down. The men groaned at the ripples shooting pleasure into their guts as the nectar injection started.
Xane could smell the demon-sex-liquid and nearly started fighting his friends for their ‘seats’. He wanted to ride cock more desperately when he’d ever craved sex with a chick. He was *starving*.
Marcus broke jugs and licked the shards clean, but Xane waited on his knees under Goro’s spread ass, hoping for overflow. It should have grossed him out to see his best friend’s hole spread by a red, vein-riddled cock as thick as a wrist with ripples for extra pleasure but he was overwhelmed by the Sancaktepe Escort Bayan anticipation of nectar, which would make him feel nothing but love for man-sex for much too short a time.
Yeah, he was definitely getting majorly perverted. Maybe he should fight the craving instead. Maybe the inhuman pleasure had rotted his brain and he needed to-
Marcus rammed two fingers into Xane’s hole, hooked just right to tickle the most fun spot.
“Pay me back,” Marcus insisted.
Right, the paradox curse made self-pleasuring impossible. Xane finger fucked his teammate until Goro’s ass burst with strings of gold.
“Time to switch,” Marcus claimed and prodded the bottoms.
Xane got to ride the demonling, face inches from Marcus’ grimacing visage. Any idea of resisting the craving seemed pointless. His mind circled on the memory of Goro getting fucked.
Xane leaned into Marcus. They rubbed each other’s chests as a bonus to the nectar perversion making them muscle hungry. Xane’s nipples sent firework into his uncontrollably bouncing body.
Goro let out a groan Xane had last heard when he’d squatted his maximum.
The six foot hunk was on all fours, letting the Troll pin him and drive the bulbous dick into his hole. The greenskin rod was as wide as it was long, spreading Goro an impossible eight inches. The berserker instinctively frenzied, his bald head sprouting a mop of hair until his grimace was hidden.
Once Goro’s hole was stretched enough to accommodate the dick, the Troll fucked mercilessly. Chay asked for his second run on the demonling. Xane and Marcus played to see who’d have to give up his spot and Xane lost. He had to kneel between the men’s legs and lap when drops ran from their holes.
Hearing Goro’s screams of — probably — intense pleasure almost made him want to abandon the redskinned creature for a go at the spreading dick.
Chay won the next game and Marcus had to give up his spot for Xane. Goro didn’t ask for another round, only getting more whimpery as the Troll kept him pinned and drove his entire broad frame into the bottom.
On Xane’s next ride, Marcus convinced Goro to take a break and rode the Troll instead – standing up, one leg in the air, holding onto the humanoid’s green chest, repeatedly tugging on the nipple rings.
It took Marcus longer to enjoy the stretching. He fought the Troll, buckling and convulsing as he got stretch-fucked. It was incredibly hot to watch while getting injected.
Xane saw Goro hobbling closer, legs wide apart. Surely, the big guy was about to ask for a round on the double cock.
Xane reached out, trying to speak through the pleasure-convulsions and the mental fog of man-sex-craving. “Hey, how about a mage-dick as big as you can take?”
Goro stopped, sat his legs far apart and squatted on air. A Troll dick was at the limit of how big Xane could make a telekinetic limb. He fucked his fellow demigod from below at the rhythm he was bouncing on demonling-cock. His hands never left Chay’s nipples.
Goro never asked for a ride on demon cock, only licking nectar off the floor while the mage-Troll-dick wrecked him. The illusory dick flopped wildly and eventually broke, adding another shining aegis to the mix.
After some time – an hour? – the double dick ran dry and softened. The nectar flow ceased. Xane could have taken hours more.
“Kill him,” Chay said, dismissively. His legs were quivering as he let the ribbed dick slip out of him. His eyes were red and puffy from pleasure-sobbing.
Xane sacrificed a mote and turned the Fiend’s head into a stump.
Goro was walking broad legged and careful. His wild mane made him looked even more wrecked than he already seemed. The Troll had jizzed into Marcus’ guts, leaving the swimmer with ropes of cum dripping from his raw, pulsing hole.
“Time to bail for real,” Chay said. “We can just make our exit from this basement. Xane?”
“With pleasure,” the mage said and slapped Chay’s ass.
He burned away the glue around a stone tile. It sank, water bubbling in and washing over the crime scene.
The pantheon hopped into the dark lake.
===***===
Swimming in near darkness, Xane let a light glow ahead of him to find the way between the thick stone pillars holding up the mansion.
They broke surface underneath the houses of Tlesspa and casually swam until the town’s edge.
“He should be dead by now,” Chay said. “Along with a dozen other minor players. Here’s hoping his vortex project will get torn the fuck apart by the factions ravaging his estate.”
“Let’s dive,” Goro said. “Before they lock the place down or something.”
“Good point,” Chay said. “We should… Can you feel that current?”
Xane was treading water, still loopy from the nectar. But now that the leader mentioned it, he was drifting away from the walls of Tlesspa. “Yeah… weird.”
Chay glared at the water. “Shit, enemy! It’s a phantasm, like the one Fno’Xhaan summoned, but water. Just fly up to-“
The current increased into a stream like a horizontal waterfall. Tendrils of water shot up around them and slapped the men down. Xane was dragged underwater. He had just enough time to give himself an air bubble.
The maelstrom was stronger than his ability to rise with muscles and magic combined.