Vol.5 Ch.11.2 – Strange Tastes II

I knew the best way to take down the goblins would be to start with the ones tormenting Hephaestus. Not so much because we needed his help to take care of the rest of the goblins but because goblins would fight like cornered rats to keep hold of women they had captured and I would rather reduce their numbers as much as I could before whipping them into a frenzy. And, of course, there was the much simpler reason that Hephaestus was closer to the stairs we'd just come up.

I charged at the goblins, sword drawn, and decapitated the first two I reached. Decapitating goblins was actually harder than it sounded because the little shits were so damn small. Usually it was easier to just split their skulls vertically but the awkward angle of a low horizontal slash allowed me to kill multiple in a single slash.

When their bodies hit the ground the rest of the tholos took notice of us.

“Tailor?” Hephaestus rumbled but before I could answer him a dozen goblins descended upon me.

Or rather, they descended upon us because most of them ran past me, trying to attack Selene and Athena. Apparently they were so frustrated about not being able to rut into Aphrodite that they ignored the closest foe for the mere chance of taking down a woman. As I said, goblins were vile little creatures.

Self-preservation did not matter to them as much as hurting others did. Their instincts were to violate women, to torment men and to keep themselves alive, in that order. Well, that wasn't entirely true, they could be sent running if you thinned their numbers out enough, but in a group like this it did hold true. Of course, there was no way I was going to leave even one of those vile shit-stains alive even if they ran.

Behind me I heard a slashing sound as Selene took down a goblin with her sword followed by a nasty crunching sound as she had no doubt either kicked or punched another goblin in the face. A few pained squeals that were music to my ears rang out as Athena skewered a bunch more of the goblins and the ones that were stupid enough to approach me met their ends just as swiftly.

A few goblins thought to be clever, to circle around and attack our casters, but Yume was there to slice them to ribbons before they could get close. Goblins were no longer a proper threat to us.

Of course, that begged the question: Who had captured Aphrodite and Hephaestus? Burying one god under an avalanche of goblins I could see. Burying a couple I could not. The goblins must have had help. The fact that no goblin I'd ever seen would have been capable of hammering those chains into the ground spoke to that as well. Had the traitor helped to subjugate them? Or had it been one of the others? Had Wilhelm been here? Or maybe that other person, the one the goblins apparently listened to?

I shook it off. It was an important question, but not one I'd be able to answer by just thinking about it. The best solution would be to free them quickly and have them tell us. And that's what we did.

We sliced and stabbed and burned our way through the goblins, the little shits so dense in the small confines of the tholos that they seemed endless. And as we made headway I noticed that there were blood stains on the ground, thick black blood that seemed to belong to the goblins. I wondered if they'd cleared away the bodies or if the little shits had cannibalized the corpses of their own. I wouldn't put anything past these vile beasts.

I ran my blade through another goblin, the resulting lance of fire obliterating the three coming up behind it, and finally I started seeing the ground behind the tide of goblins. We were thinning them out.

Goblins weren't really a threat to us anymore, honestly. This horde might have been able to take down one of us but with all of us together they didn't stand a chance. The only issue with a horde this large was just how long it took to kill them. We didn't have that much time left until sunrise and I really wanted to make sure we reached Hades' tholos before the sun went up. I was certain there would be far more monsters up and about once the sun rose. Goblins might be used to dank and dark caves but that wouldn't hold true for all of the creatures the Holy Maiden had brought with her. And, honestly, goblins weren't that hampered by sunlight, as Dark Lords never had any issue riling the little shits up to attack in broad daylight.

Finally, finally, all the ones that had charged at us were dead and the only ones still alive were the ones busy rutting into Aphrodite, completely oblivious to the demise of their kin. As I said, vile creatures.

I waded through the sea of corpses we had produced until I was right next to the enormous bed, grabbed the goblin rutting into Aphrodite's ass by the scruff of the neck and yanked it off her. Once I had it I shoved my sword through its face, slowly. While I was busy with that one Selene grabbed the other one, pulling it out from underneath the goddess of love, before crushing its face in her gauntleted hand.

“There, that's the last of them,” I ground out, then walked over to Aphrodite and started yanking the chains out of the ground.

“Thank you,” the goddess of love said once I'd removed the last of them, her voice sounding like someone who had just finished a long and heavy labor. In a way, I supposed she had.

Once the last chain fell she collapsed bonelessly onto the bed, her heavy belly shaking alarmingly.

As I turned around to help Hephaestus I saw that Selene and Yume had already freed him from the pillory and carved apart his chains.

“Felix fucking Tailor,” he grumbled as he got up, stretching like a man who had been forced to stand bent over for months, his bones creaking and popping. “Not the person I'd expected to come to our rescue but stars above I'm grateful.”

“Thank Athena,” I said, trying to sound non-committal. In truth having someone like him thank me did feel good but after almost a decade of getting nothing but scorn from most of the gods even the gratitude of someone like Hephaestus felt weird.

He looked over to see Athena standing with the others and gave her a nod before he dragged himself over to his wife, the mere act of walking apparently causing him immense pain after the way he'd been bound. “Now if you'll excuse me for a moment.”

As he moved closer to the bed Aphrodite peeled herself off of it. And I don't mean that metaphorically. The bed wasn't covered in unmentionable stains so much as it now consisted of unmentionable stains. I had thought at first that the bed sheets had been an off-white color but upon closer inspection it had become clear that the bed sheets had been red once upon a time but an inch-thick layer of rancid goblin spunk now covered the entire thing. Gods above it was vile.

And finally Hephaestus and Aphrodite stood before each other. Both of them were beaten and broken, bruised and bleeding, violated and tortured, and yet the way they looked at each other was filled with so much love it was a physical thing. His trembling hand reached out to cup her cheek, smeared and soiled as it was, and a moment later their lips crashed together, the two catching each other in a crushing hug.

It lasted for several minutes and when their lips finally parted they pressed their foreheads together.

“I'm so glad you're free,” he whispered.

“Same to you,” she said. “I love you.”

“I love you, too,” he said.

They took another deep breath together before he said: “See you on the other side.”

And then Hephaestus summoned a knife out of thin air. Before anyone could react he rammed it into Aphrodite's belly and gave it a savage twist before yanking it out and thrusting it into her heart. I was about to shout in disbelief before I remembered that they were still gods, still immortal.

She collapsed onto the ground, blood and worse leaking out of her ruptured belly, before she vanished, only to reappear on the bed. The bruises and the cuts were gone, her skin and hair restored to their usual luster, the heavy iron collar had left her throat, but most importantly her tummy was as flat and sexy as it usually was. She got off the bed once more, the filth somehow not sticking to her perfect skin this time, and rubbed her belly. “Much better,” she said, her voice no longer the broken, ragged thing it had been before but the husky pillow talk voice it usually was.

“Was that necessary?” Selene asked.

“It was, actually,” Aphrodite said before Hephaestus could defend his actions. “I did not want to give birth to a clutch of goblin demigods.” That... was a good point. Was that what the goblins had been trying to do here? Breed more powerful goblins? Yuck. “So,” she said as she looked around the tholos. “Felix Tailor, Tina, Hermes, Hestia, a whole host of gorgeous women I haven't met yet and... Melinoe, is that you?”

Melinoe gave her a little wave from the hip in response.

“Athena hired us to free this place from the invaders,” I explained, deciding that proper introductions could wait until later.

“Interesting,” Aphrodite muttered. “So I take it you'll want our help?”

I pursed my lips. “It would be appreciated but I can understand if you two need some time to recover.”

“I'll recover by caving in the skull of the little shit who did this to us,” Hephaestus growled.

“Who was it?” I asked.

“I have no idea,” he said. “A young man with sallow skin and stringy blond hair. He wields powerful magic and miracles and he caught us off guard. Him and his horde of goblins.”

I looked over at Athena. “Could this be the other guy, the one with Artemis?”

“It sounds like it,” she said.

I nodded, then turned back to Hephaestus. “Alright, guess you'll get your chance real soon.”

“Good,” he said and went over to his smithy, where he picked up pieces of gear and began putting them on.

I was about to turn around and ask Aphrodite whether or not she wanted to come but when I did I saw her bent over, her absolutely perfect ass and dripping pussy very nearly in my face as she rummaged around underneath the filthy bed. Gods above. I had five women and yet the sight of that behind still made me go weak in the knees. I turned around to see if my women had caught me staring only to find them all staring as well. Yeah, Aphrodite had that kind of effect on people.

When she had found what she'd been looking for she pulled it out and got up, now holding a bag of holding. She opened it and then pulled out a set of robes fit for, well, a goddess, and an ornate longbow as well as a knife.

In a way Aphrodite using the weapons of a ranger comforted me, given that there were rumors going around that the goddess of love wielded a whip instead.

“Now then,” she said as she put on a quiver full of golden arrows. I tried very hard not to look at the way the leather strap of the quiver nestled between her perfect breasts that somehow looked more enticing hidden underneath the gossamer-thin robes than when they'd been bare. “Shall we?”

I turned around to see Hephaestus now clad in a set of armor that looked like a blacksmith had decided to go into war. He wore heavy boots and a thick leather apron on top of a thin tunic and heavy canvas pants. On his belt he wore an axe, a sword and two hammers, one of which looked like the tool of a blacksmith and the other looked like a giant meat tenderizer. Oh yes, he was going to war alright.

“Yeah,” I said in response to Aphrodite's question. “Let's.”

**

We hopped our way across the clouds once again. At first my gaze had been drawn to Aphrodite, the high jumps and subsequent bounces doing amazing things to her curves, but once I'd been able to tear my eyes away from her I'd started focusing on Hephaestus. His movements had started out pained and clunky but the more he hopped the better his form became, the less hobbled he seemed to be. I was glad about it. What he'd gone through had been harmless compared to what Demeter and Aphrodite had endured but both of them had been killed and their bodies restored. He was still in the same body the goblins had mistreated for months, still in the body that had been bound and pilloried and kept in that pose for months. It was bizarre to think about that he was at a disadvantage because he hadn't recently died but working with the gods apparently came with a lot of bizarre things to get used to.

Eventually Athena hopped her way over to me. “Not much farther now,” she said.

“The real fight only starts once we've brought the Heroes here,” I said and I looked over to see her wince. “Sorry, didn't mean to be a downer.”

“No,” she said, “you're right. So far this has been the... well, not exactly the easy part but...”

“The one where we were able to avoid the biggest fights,” I finished for her. “I still want to hurry up, though. The longer we stay here the higher the chance someone catches on to what we're doing. If the traitor manages to beat Ares he'll have enough time to run back to the Holy Maiden and tattle on us.”

“And at that point she will mobilize everything she has to catch us,” Athena said.

“Exactly,” I said. “So whatever those corrupted orcs you saw at Poseidon's tholos were, I want to hit them fast and hard before they have a chance to bog us down.”

“That's probably for the best,” she said. “I have to admit, though, so far we haven't seen anything as horrific as in father's temple.”

“So far,” I agreed. “I fear that will change once we make it to Artemis, though.”

“They couldn't have deflowered her,” Athena said, too quickly.

“That doesn't mean they haven't been hurting her.”

“True,” Athena said, then took a deep breath. “Being able to talk to you like this helps a lot.”

I didn't say anything. I understood but I didn't want to say anything and ruin the moment so I just let her continue.

“This is my home. They've invaded it, perverted it, corrupted it. My brothers and sisters, my aunts and uncles, all of them suffering and because of what? I don't even see the point of this. The Holy Maiden doesn't stand to gain anything from this, does she?”

“I believe this is all for the traitor's benefit,” I said. “Or is there maybe something else after all? This is the seat of the gods. There must be something worthwhile here.”

Athena opened her mouth, then closed it again.

“Don't hold out on me,” I said.

“Father has secrets,” she said. “As king of the gods he knows things even we don't. But unless father himself is the traitor, which I very strongly doubt, then she shouldn't know anything about this.”

“But you do?”

“Even I have only heard rumors,” she said.

“Rumors of what?” I insisted.

“It is said that the highest deity of a pantheon can open gateways between worlds,” she finally admitted.

I pursed my lips. “Would that include the ability to open a gateway to the Outside?”

Athena was quiet for a very long time, the silence utterly terrifying, until she said: “I truly hope not.”