== VORTEX QUEST 4-2 ==
== DEALING WITH THE DEVIL ==
There was less overgrowth. The faux buildings were in better shape, perhaps younger. Some streetlamps, signs and storefronts were still lit, shining against the shifting spectra of the void tears far above.
After just a minute of walking, the demigods were attacked.
A dozen or so Kobolds poked out from windows a story higher, clad in leather and bark, wielding iron weapons.
"Their home turf," Chay quickly said, "Intent on capture. Probably assuming we're slaves. Should be easy to scare off."
Their pure white Fiend, Rkethnior, spread his wings and commanded the green, brown and orange lizards to stand down. He was fired upon by some kind of small cannon spewing a geyser of shrapnel.
Chay had to duck behind Xane and lost sight of the situation. The troupe was organized but not large. Easy to dispatch for his boys.
The Kobolds emerged, shouting, and charged.
"Rip their hearts out! Rip their hearts to shreeeeds!"
Goro threw his maces, each one breaking a neck and pulling the victim off its feet.
Some kind of magic activated. Chay felt sleepy. His knees nearly gave out. Rkethnior dropped, snoring before he hit the ground. It had to be a curse to which the overloaded demigods were partly immune. Source? Secondary effects? Countermeasures?
Vines snapped off a building and grabbed at the umbralist and the thaum-mage. Chay tried to stumble away but his feet were already caught in the prehensile net.
Xane and Chay got slammed into each other by the vine web and dragged to a wall, pressed into the concrete at an uncomfortable angle. Pie shot from Chay's toe and started gnawing on the web.
"Uh, let's see," Chay said, sounding barely awake, even to himself. "Just fire, Xee. Try not to hit me, please."
While Xane angrily burned through a vine, fighting sleep, Goro dropped from the sky like a vengeful muscle meteor and pummeled random Kobolds, hunched over as he battled tiredness.
Marcus was on the ground, eyes closed, but his chakram swirled around him chaotically, still controlled by him. His scimitar was stuck in an enemy chest nearby.
This wasn't good but as soon as Chay knew how to turn off the sleep-curse they'd-
Fire blinded him, and it wasn't Xane's.
The lizards were Pyrebolds -- fire breathers. Goro was engulfed in flame from multiple angles. He jumped out of the encirclement, his hair blazing as it regrew with the speed it burned.
Xane sent a butterfly at the lizard group and had it detonate as force and ice shards. There was no 'elemental opposite weakness' but it was effective enough.
Impaled Pyrebolds fell as the trapped demigods slipped out of the burning vine web. It was hard to move as sleep called loudly. Pie nuzzled herself in Chay's neck and nibbled his ear.
Xane reached down and blew icy energy into Chay's face while slapping himself. It helped. Eyes open, the umbralist paid attention to which area the attackers were most concerned about. A bit of road... unusually free from debris.
"Over there, I think," Chay said, yawning, going down on his knees as he gestured. "On the ground."
Xane dutifully sent a butterfly to explode the asphalt before his eyes shut by themselves. Whatever runic trap there was got ripped apart and the tiredness receded.
Marcus woke up and directed his ring more efficiently, Chay blanketed the area with darkness. Xane charged a bolt to-
"Stop! Hold Fire! Let's talk!" shouted a Kobold. Strangely he was speaking *Portuguese* - in the lip-less, long-tongued lizard way. It was surprising enough to give Chay pause. Where would a Kobold have learned a human tongue? The plea sounded genuine.
The umbralist answered in Boldian. "No longer interested in our hearts?"
"Ah," a lizard responded from around a corner. "That's our battle cry. We're the Heart Ripper clan. We didn't expect you'd understand, but it makes sense if you're truly divine." He said 'divine' like it was an insult. "We wanted to capture you for Djegnoth."
"You work for him?"
"Yes."
Chay rolled his eyes. "I can tell that was mostly a lie. Some complicated mercenary relationship? You'd have shopped around before delivering us. It's fine, we just want to fucking get there this centur- uh, this Arc Turn."
There was silence. Then the Kobold who had spoken emerged from the corner, his warriors retreating toward him. He wore an iron crown with colorful feathers over his mohawk of spikes, a molded silver chest piece and a leather thong. In his hand was a spear.
"You're the Urrk?" Chay asked.
"Yes. I'll escort you to Djegnoth, no delay."
"No more curse runes?"
"No. I see you can overpower our weapons. No use wasting more on you."
Marcus kicked Rkethnior. "What about this guy?" He held his black scimitar to the Fiend's throat and looked up as if waiting for the command.
"He'll wake up," the Urrk said. "Eventually. If nothing eats him first."
They walked off, leaving the snoring Wretcher behind.
===***===
The Heart Rippers were nomads, but currently camped in the three bottom floors of a relatively intact apartment tower, their presence indicated by Troll skulls on crossed sticks along a perimeter of spiky-plank palisade.
Their primitive wood, vine, leather and iron set-up contrasted with the concrete environment. Chay could infer the presence of a demonic being by the noggins hovering as sentries around the buildings top floor even before his aegis took on a light shimmer.
The Urrk lead them up a staircase, supplemented by bolted planks where the concrete had crumbled away.
Djegnoth's throne room was a loft. Skulls formed the base of a throne, but otherwise the place looked almost cozy as far as post-apocalyptic hideouts went. Someone had carried together pillows, carpets and what rare furniture there was from across the city.
A soul stone hung from thick cables on a wall like an ominous piece of modern art, barely standing out among the litany of works Mockery had generated in a mad understanding of human creativity -- from chaotic canvases to dead neon lights forming non-symbols.
A dozen slaves sat or stood around the place. Chay sensed they were fairly conscious, still figments but close to their final cycle, their eyes following them with curiosity and caution.
The Urrk bowed out as a 7'2'' tall man with downward curling horns rose from the throne.
The 'human' had a physique model musculature, but it bulged with veins like not even a strict diet of steroids could have accomplished. His skin was medium brown with a purple tint in the prominent veins. He wore a gold plated utility belt from which a leather loincloth hung and a bunch of random jewelry on his neck and wrists.
A demonblood, Chay knew, like Necrarchs and Dragoons. If he hadn't been infused, he would have been... an Ogre? A very tall Goblin? No...
"Lord Djegnoth?" Chay asked, dizzy with curiosity. "You're human?"
"Please," Djegnoth said with the deep growl of a demonic throat, in Brazilian Portuguese, "call me Diego. The whole pandemonic-name was more of a joke, but, you know, sometimes jokes stick."
"Holy shit?" Marcus questioned, glancing at Chay to figure out what reaction was appropriate.
"Have a seat," Diego said and walked his massive body to a pile of pillows where slaves rested.
Chay resolved to project confidence and led his men to the seating area. He notice that the slaves wore makeshift clothing -- jockstraps mostly, loincloths in a few cases. And they didn't seem afraid of Diego.
"What are you here for?" Diego asked. "How many were you and how long have you been here? Have you succeeded at your mission already?"
"The vortex," Chay said, taking charge. "Or vortices, plural. We've axed nearly all of them now. It's always been us four. I... the sky voice told us our team was the only one they could afford to send. I didn't think we'd run into... you're a demi-demon, right? How did that happen?"
"Yes, a *devil* is what they call a demonblooded human," Diego confirmed. "My life's story, I've told it many times before." He glanced at the slaves who were listening with somewhat more attention than the typical, seemingly stoned or sleepy figment.
"Five of us. At university. We were called by the divine to defeat the Feasting Maw before it broke through to earth, which we ultimately did. But it was costly."
Diego was telling a probably true story about his team in limbo choosing their boon, him and one other going for hunger-immunity like the pantheon had, the other three choosing to have their sexual temptations cut off.
Long story short, the hungry ones were as eager to eat as the pantheon had been to fuck. They started eating gnomes, then killed bigger targets to gnaw down to the bones, then started eating those bones, too, then plants, rocks, shit. During a mission to break the Feasting Maw's third largest gullet, they cannibalized each other when Diego and his horny buddy were off sucking demon cock.
The last two men standing had understandable difficulty dealing with the events. Diego stayed, the other returned to earth.
