== VORTEX QUEST 4-5 ==
== THE UNDERWATER LEVEL ==
The rootpath was half tunnel, half vehicle.
Moving underground within the wooden web was helped along by the roots themselves sliding underneath to transport them faster. Even when Chay held still he moved forward at walking pace, surfing on the roots like skating on ice, more tunnel always opening before him just as he was about to touch the dead end.
He had his jockstrap pulled down to supplement Xane's orbs and the Kobold army's torches with some holy radiance.
The tunnel became steeper until walking was no longer an option. He slid down long roots in spirals into darkness, an earthy smell in his nose and the sound of roots shuffling clay all around him.
It became a nearly vertical slide, the army and their siege equipment clanking behind him as they all dropped. The slide evened out and Chay surfed along the roots to the exit -- a crawlway space overflowing with dimly luminescent mushrooms.
Trampling squishy mushrooms, Chay collected his fellow demigods while General Killbringer kicked the Kobolds into a row, souls circling in the blue gem that was his heart. The Urrk was absent, too recognizable to risk showing up for a battle against Diego's rivals.
The pantheon scouted ahead, while the army filed into the cave. The crawlway was a random mix of tight limestone cave and Mockery's basements, an empty cargo area with thick concrete pillars and dead neon lights in places no human would have mounted them. All overgrown with fungus, some of which were just as aggressive as the jungle above, squirting flesh dissolvent or noxious clouds or whipping at intruders with their root webs.
Eventually, the army made it to a cavern lake where building-sized, fossilized mushrooms stood atop crude imitations of human apartments, lacking most exterior walls.
General Killbringer blew a horn and his men put up shields as a basic palisade while the three crystalline siege engines were rolled into place.
A spear hail rained onto Lord Vgenfri's first line of defense -- Goblins and some semi-aquatic, hunchbacked fish people. Alarm gongs echoed in the fortress of black fungus.
The demigods snuck along the side of the cave, moving across the wall with the ease of mountain goats. Chay was ejecting enough black fog to give cover to his friends, fully invisible himself.
The lake defense arrived. Three blue-gray seals as big as tanks shot from the water and flopped toward the attacking Kobolds.
Chay gave some orders and Xane sent a mote in a long arc, to make it seem like it came from the army. The butterfly exploded into a dozen tiny needles and drove into the left super-seal's face, inflicting necrotic poison that started eating the eyes and would soon reach the brain.
Meanwhile, Chay's umbra-magic controlled the right most creature like an extension of himself and Vgenfri's reinforcements would find their ally turned on them.
The middle super-seal was getting its flesh boiled by the beam of a finally emplaced siege weapon.
The attack was going to look way more powerful and prepared than it really was, driving the fortress defenders to the battle, clearing the interior.
Armored Scourge Fiends appeared in the fortress' lower floors and entered the water, their stark-white bodies moving like torpedoes toward the coast. The shark-elf demons shot from the surface and flung themselves at the simple palisades.
The Ultrabold Killbringer was entering the fray, a saber in each hand. His chest crystal pumped blood beyond the ability of any heart, letting him fight in top condition for however long the distraction would take, while the main army set up better siege walls.
Halfway around the fortress, the demigods slipped into the lake, diving deep enough to reach darkness. Their jockstraps stayed behind as did Goro's maces.
Chay had perfected his filtration mist. As long as no strong current hit him in the face, the constant cloud over his mouth should have sufficed to keep him breathing.
'Ready?' he signed in ASL and waited for three okays. 'Office Team this way, Vault Team, almost straight down this way. Good luck.'
He gave Marcus a nudge in the side and the animus-fighter followed him toward the underwater building.
Vgenfri's office was six floors down from the surface and luckily, the exterior wall of this fake apartment complex was little more than a sea weed curtain.
===***===
Xane had his trusty air bubble surround his face while strong strokes carried him down, his buddy's even more powerful ones showing him up.
The treasure chamber was only accessible through a long line of complicated, layered defenses starting at the top and working down to the bottom of the structure -- the perfect challenge for a lateral thinker.
Xane reached the ancient, fossilized fungus, its rough, organic material reflecting little of the wizard's crotch glow.
If he simply dug through, he might hit an air pocket on the other side, changing the pressure in a way that triggered alerts. He slapped a mote onto the wall and had its channeled power turn into a dome of air two feet across.
Goro's and his torso stuck inside the dome as Xane burned a circle into the fungus with a heat beam, leaving the massive Japanese man to tear the burnt bits away and toss them into the lake's darkness.
The Korean bodybuilder took a breath of the air. "Man, I'd been hoping it'd smell like grilled champignons. More like burning grass, huh?"
Goro grunted. Enough of the wall broke away to reveal the air pocket behind it.
Xane chuckled. "Feel like I'm in a heist movie. We've broken into so many places and I'm finally doing the classic laser-cutting a window bit. Just no laser or window. Same shit, tough."
"I've had the same thought," Goro said. "Never knew robbing a place would make me so giddy. Maybe just the constant, dizzying urge to orgasm."
"I feel you, bro. I'd take a fisting break if we weren't on a schedule."
Goro let his hand wander across Xane's backside. "Never wanted to fuck a chick as much as you, hehe."
Xane chuckled along, but he knew it was true. If there had been pussy around, things would have been different but his mouth watered anytime his eyes glanced over Goro's physique.
The hole was big enough to slip through. Xane pulled himself in legs-first. "Better get to work before you ravage me like a fleshlight."
Goro smirked. "I can multitask."
===***===
Dispatching what few Amphibolds remained in the fortress was messy since blood leaked into the water. Chay forbade Marcus from using the chakram again but there were now a few impossible to hide corpses.
