== VORTEX QUEST 5-11 ==
== ONE LAST MISDEED ==
True to his word, their style-wizard had given Chay a suitably powerful shave-job. Chaotic but geometric patterns, clearly inspired by Goro's ever-different mark now ran all over Chay's buzzcut. The glaring cartoon skull now sat on the back of his head, staring at any would-be backstabbers.
Goro meanwhile had acquired gold silk from the ex-angels and twirled it into tiny, formfitting fundoshi for the pantheon.
Chay wasn't sure how he felt about their flashiest outfits yet. They seemed more like flimsy stage posing trunks. He would have preferred to continue the theme of subtlety but he was outvoted. At least they didn't sparkle *that* much.
Marcus had insisted on checking his unicorn dust supply, filled a whole closet in the funnelcastle with glitter and, upon sucking it back into the ring, inhaled some. They had let him ride Xane's mage-cock for a Ringturn before helping him. He insisted he had 'no regrets' and took a long nap.
Chay, when he had not been reading or fucking, had negotiated with the Aelves for their explosives.
In most realms, anything earth would have recognized as simple explosives was outlawed. And with the kings' powers, prohibitions were akin to laws of nature, rather than legal contracts.
There were always exceptions, however, and a clever mix of runic artefacts, rare materials and high yield magic created substances the kings didn't bother to suppress as long as the detonations were kept reasonably rare or small.
And the funnelcastle had some anti-siege reserves Chay wanted to tap.
After all, sadly, the Fist of God had become useless.
The ship had been 'mark-struck'. A difficult and complicated spell that created unmissable blazes of green fire around the whole structure. That alone made it a beacon for attackers, but mark-struck objects were also trivial to scry for, so everyone in several canyons radius would know it was there.
With how much havoc the pantheon had brought to the slave economy, Champion Slyell'Pvan must have found it easy to create a quick coalition against them, casting such a powerful tracking curse.
Stout muscleman Chay, in his gold string thong, swaggered into their common chamber, his prominent thighs rippling with every overconfident step.
The trio of demigods was on all fours, ass up, getting licked and rimmed by Xane's anatomically silly mage-triple-tongue.
"Hey fags and ass eaters," Chay said, "guess who just got us a big fucking kaboom." He pointed both thumbs at his chest and nipple-flicked himself. "If I could get erect I'd be diamond-hard."
Marcus chuckled. "If you're into fireworks so much, why did you go for Goro and not the kaboom-wiz? Tall guys do it for you?"
Chay flipped him off. "I'd never steal your boyfriend."
"Technically not boyfriend," Marcus said. "We haven't really picked an appropriate term for our close emotional bond cause we're just straight guys being buddies but it seems relevant how much we fuck but also-"
A mute symbol appeared over Marcus' lips and his voice became rather quiet. Xane rose to his knees. "So we're going?"
"We're going," Chay confirmed. "The final preparation mission. Before we bring too much attention on Völundr's court. By the way, anybody want a sip?"
"Me, please." Goro rolled onto his back. "Can someone punch me in the guts a few times first?"
Chay crouched over the mania-beast's face, fundoshi stripped off, and pissed into his mouth, while Xane's mage-fist went elbow deep. Chay offered to drink next and Marcus stood with wide legs above Goro's quivering torso, putting his aegis into Chay's mouth. Chay held onto Marcus' ass while the animus-fighter traced the chaotic fractals in the leader's buzz cut.
They'd come a long way.
===***===
The Reapers who ran the soul collection programs of Hiwinymb probably had complicated feelings about the pantheon. The price of slaves must have skyrocketed, which was certainly a boon, but the disruption had been severe enough that the champions of the realm who were sick of paying out the nose were using every bit of leverage -- extortion, raiding, blackmail -- to extract whatever slaves were left.
There was a chance of 'helping' the Reapers, in the hopes they would turn a blind eye to the pantheon's activities and keeping them tied up in their own Reaper-y schemes.
The bastion of Arch-Hexer 'Third-Waning' was a cluster of towers, poking from the black, igneous rock in a highly defensible position at the end of a narrow canyon, cut by a teal creek.
A village of a few dozen houses lay before it, atop and partly built from the ruins of the previous bastion which had stood in the same spot and crumbled three thousand years earlier. A few houses were covered by illusion bubbles - colorful trees and swaying bushes lining the unnaturally bright, smooth walls.
The hexer-kin had seen fit to put their considerable slave reserve up for auction in the village square, guarded by Hellions and Wretcher Fiends.
Twenty realm liners were parked in hovering positons at the canyon entrance, having brought desperate buyers from all over this province of Hiwinymb.
The Fist of God raced right past the docks, the green fire of the mark-strike spiraling behind it like a comet tail.
Panic and alerts barely had time to raise the area's ambient sound before the vessel hit the village center where shades awaited their fate calmly, figments screamed with terror and abyssal dwellers fell over each other in a rush. Those who had been attuned to the mark-strike had had only a minute of preparation and clearly, the hexers hadn't mounted enough of a defense yet.
The Fist of God impacted the market and ripped apart in a flash of blinding indigo, exploding like a cloud of dense, blue smoke. The engine's soul gem was shattered apart and caused secondary explosions as the shards impacted in the vicinity.
The village was covered in expanding indigo detonations. There were even some tertiary explosions. The souls of melted human pseudo-bodies either escaped or got sucked into insufficiently shielded machines, causing overloaded equipment to tear itself apart.
The pantheon's view from their platform was excellent.
They had climbed along the side of the cliff faces, using their divine power to hop like mountain goats, umbra-senses keeping them out of sight of guard posts.
Now the leader sensed incoming attacks. The bastion was brimming with hasty activity as the Hex-kin managed to scry the demigods' position and set out to engage.
Chay tore his eyes off the fading indigo smoke cloud and turned around.
"This is the one, boys. Let's rip apart some fancy dresses."
They crouched down and pushed off the rock with godly leg strength, floating on down to where blue and purple particles settled in a shallow crater.
Xane was giving them an ominous aura of red sparks, weaving through the smoke trail of Chay's expanding cloak.
The first line of the bastion's defense were car-sized, floating squid creatures. Their bulbous head was wrapped in bronze plates that stretched along their too-many, too-long tentacles.
"Thralls," Chay said as he took control of one and turned it on the others. "They'll fight to the death."
Ghastkin Hexers exited the castle. Where other Hex-kin appeared like floating robes around an unseen person, Ghast-Hexers were fully transparent. Fleshy, veiny robes that made clear how hollow these beings really were. Their sleeves held onto greenish-blue staffs of twisting roots, eyes blinking along the length, topped by deformed skulls.
Chay froze in shock. His body no longer obeyed him. The whole pantheon was standing still, trembling with terror as the squid thralls descend on them, their tentacles' thin ends finding human skin.
With their curse-overload gone, the demigods were more vulnerable to curses again.
