== VORTEX QUEST 3-8 ==
== INTO THE WYRM ==
Passing as slaves meant Xane had to give everybody illusory dicks again to cover the nubs and the signature on their balls.
Naturally, he made himself hung with a thick six inches dangling soft but obvious. The others got a more realistic treatment, but he couldn't help leaving Marcus' tool on the smaller side. Frankly, the tall, long-limbed athlete looked cuter -- more fuckable -- with a smaller dick. Not that Xane was putting thought into that or anything.
The mage was the only one allowed to wear cloth, turning Marcus' fundoshi into a wrist warp to hide his six butterflies, which he had made as small as possible.
They had to go bald again, including Chay, and even leave the voidblade behind.
The four smooth-headed hunks with free flopping dicks looked slave-like enough, if maybe a bit too supernaturally lean.
Ardor painted black lines around their necks. "I can't put a signature on you, if you were worried," the Nephil said, "since you're already marked by the broken, open link, but in the bazaar, they'll check."
Xane didn't trust their ally, the angel had to be 'fallen' for a reason, but Chay's judgement made him swallow his complaints.
Their small vessel arrived at the Long Fair.
From the gently bobbing ocean rose a Whalewyrm's lifeless head. With every high wave, water rushed into the open mouth -- a tooth-ringed sphincter 15 feet across -- and shot out of several blowholes just past the hollowed out eye sockets.
"How's the freight?" Chay asked.
Xane flexed his ass. The imprisoned phantasm was making the gem shift, even vibrate, but it set tightly in place. "Just peachy. Worst case, I've got an invisible hand to push it further in."
Marcus chuckled. Xane wanted to give him a knuckle sandwich. Actually, he wanted to fuck him into every hole with the power of a 500 pound deadlift, but that was just the horny speaking.
Around the Whalewyrm's mouth was an array of squat, wooden towers for soul-stone barges and docks for ship that had to touch water. Three eidophants were 'parked' some distance away with minor activity in the settlements atop their backs.
The demigods were welcomed by a creature with the upper body of a large, muscled human with unnaturally dark gray skin and narrow, pure red eyes, sat on the body of a scorpion the size of a small car. He carried a lance with colorful banners in one hand and a stack of wax tablets in his scorpion-claw.
"Scorpion... centaur," Marcus mumbled under his breath. "Scorpi-taur?"
"*Cenpion*," Xane said, quickly. "Centaur scorpion."
"Sure, Cenpion," Chay repeated and Xane smiled on the inside. "Don't get stung. Go for the head if there's a fight."
"Scorpitaur," Marcus mumbled, pouting.
Ardor stepped out and greeted the Cenpion guard. "Delivery for Lord Zoffylon's office. It's expected and paid for."
The Cenpion handed over a board from his claw.
"Okay," Chay said, "pretending to be figments, starting *now*."
"Shouldn't be hard for you, big mute," Marcus said, giving Goro's biceps a slap. He earned a 'not funny' glare from everyone and shut up. Xane considered that a victory.
The faux-figments left the ship in a line, Chay at front. They stumbled down the gullet of the undead, hollowed out Whalewyrm, into warm, fleshy dark.
The first obstacle was a much tighter, toothy sphincter, which the four slaves and their Cenpion-guard crossed on a rickety iron ramp. Beyond it began the Long Fair.
The interior was wide as a two-lane tunnel and made from flesh, held in shape by rings of bone or cartilage every few dozen feet. Instead of stalactites, there were ceiling-uvulas aplenty, instead of solid ground there were bone plates laid into meat. Pulsing light came from veins, eerie red suffusing the wyrm as necro-energy was pumped through it to keep it in a state of quiet undeath. A few pipes ran the length of the creature.
The initial chamber was mostly storage, set at a gentle decline since the rest of the Whalewyrm was entirely underwater. A few dozen abyss dwellers were shopping at a handful of stalls set up along one side of the tunnel, crowding the space.
"Zygotes!" shouted an Amphibold surrounded by azure slime-sacks with jiggling content. "Fresh morlock-zygotes, spawned no more than a week ago."
A dozen sea-imps splashed in a silver basin. Some kind of eagle-sized cicada was chirping in a cage. A Troll-owl-chimera with a blood covered chest was butchering a vark head behind his stand, while haggling with foot-high, bipedal frogs over buckets of caviar. Horned eels in fish bowls moved on clockwork spider legs, powered by soul gems.
Xane tried not to stare more than a loopy slave would.
The pantheon crossed another sphincter and the wyrm broadened to the size of a four-lane tunnel. Stalls fit on either side, swarms of shoppers looking at books, scimitars, herbs and more exotic items.
The warm air was light with a dozen smells sucked into clunky ceiling vents.
One stall sold... sand? The Lich behind the desk advertised "Sand, fine and rough, all taste tested". Other Liches were lining up to sample. There seemed to be a carving station where they got their faces... Tattooed? Reconfigured? *Engraved*?
There was no time to think.
The demigods arrived at an arch of bones and silver, guarded by three more Cenpions and two Scourges -- the sharkfaced, wingless demons -- in molt-mail chest plates and crotch pieces. There were several hovering Noggins with eyes glowing in different colors and a Daemon-Noggin with broken horns hooked up to a red soulstone with ominously sparking chains. A shimmering blue wyrm with two heads oversaw the operation.
This was security - where the mission could go to shit.
Something seemed to pull at his brain, which he easily 'swatted away' with a thought. Mental compulsion? Automatic enthrallment? Ardor hadn't mentioned anything like that.
Their Cenpion guard made them step through the arc one by one, the wired demon-skull's eyes flashing each time.
They had to pretend to get briefly choked by the signature around their neck while not giving away that in reality the open signatures around their crown jewels were getting activated instead.
Xane felt the effect like dropping balls-first from a roof. He certainly didn't have to fake surprise or a stopped breath. The difficult part was pretending that it was over, just when his crotch-fire rose to its full potential. It was the kind of pain that made him want to fuck shit up something fierce.
Goro behind him let out a choked grunt. Even without seeing his buddy's face, Xane knew the terrible actor his friend was only sounded like that when he was in real pain. The last one was Marcus. Xane couldn't help but sneak a glance. The Filipino man's face became a beautiful mess of horror, followed by hilariously forced relaxation and an awkward waddle.
The blue serpent's left head, a snakey hawk, bend down to a Cenpion and whispered. Was their cover blown? Xane was more than ready to start killing with fire burning up his stomach. He sensed wings twitch in his wrist bandage.
No, the Scourges turned their attention to a pair of Goblins carrying a chest through the arc and the wyrm slithered off behind a banner-hung structure.
Their slight descent continued, now in the 'expensive' area, where soulstone machines were sold and repaired and several rows of cages were stuffed with enthralled reptiles, abominations and catatonic humans. The clientele contained more Fiends, Drakes and Wraiths here, shopping for their lords.
Being in a fairly tight space, surrounded by demons made Xane nervous. Not just because it would be difficult to fight their way out, but because all those massive red bodies made his horniness rise to dizzying strength, along with a renewed nectar craving.
His hole twitched as the phantasm jiggled.
Another 'scanner' arc of floating Noggins with colorful eyes. A deep breath and a ball-crushing that felt like it would have popped his ball sack without his supernatural endurance.
They made it to the Long Fair's widest section, a bridge leading over pools and cages of iron plants bolted into the Whalewyrm flesh. Crocs, Lisks and aquatic creatures with way too many tentacles moved within, sometimes fighting each other.
The blue wyrm with a hawk-head and a rhino-head from the previous guard post slithered up beside them.
"Navuulmena?" the serpent-fanged rhino-face said. "Where are those going?"
The Cenpion said, "Zoffylon's. Not making him wait without somebody's signature. Why?"
"I can't read their memories," the wyrm said. An esper like Oldblue! Uh-oh.
The Cenpion rolled his eyes. "Look Grandbeak, they're slaves. They're not supposed to think. Stop it with the assassination conspiracies."
"I said *memories*, not thoughts," Grandbeak said. "Shades this hollow should not be able to set a foot before the other."
The bright blue hawk-head bent down to stare at Xane's face while the rhino spoke. The mage wasn't sure how to best react. Would a figment be outwardly scared or not even register that he was in danger? Xane decided to meet the wyrm's eyes with a neutral face.
"Reapers messed up," the Cenpion said. "So what?"
The hawk-head wandered back and forth along the demigods. Something below the bridge splashed water with a roar. Tentacles reached through the planks and caused a minor scuffle among pedestrians who bumped into Grandbeak. Chay's doing?
"If a lord gets killed by a bunch of *slaves* with a psy-attack power I'm out of a job. Submit them for review, Navuulmena."
"Don't think so."
They continued to bicker. There was some politics going on. Hopefully Chay could make sense of it.
They reached the next ball crushing scanner. How-fucking-many were there?
Ready to tear the whole Whalewyrm apart in a rage, Xane stepped foot into the admin segment. Instead of stalls, there were little apartments stretched along the moist flesh.
Navuulmena told Grandbeak to watch the slaves and went through a Noggin-guarded door, leaving the slaves with the wyrm.
"We're with the revolution," Chay said, in a conversational tone.
