Jaynin
4th Level Red Feather
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Hurray, part 5.
Contains a lot of swearing and Zyl getting very angry. Also contains Zyl getting tickled until she wets herself, so if that's not your cup of tea, be warned.
On with the show!
Part 1: http://www.ticklingforum.com/showthread.php?321143-Tickle-Trap-Tower-1-(-f-fantasy)
Part 2: http://www.ticklingforum.com/showthread.php?321144-Tickle-Trap-Tower-2-(-f-fantasy)
Part 3: http://www.ticklingforum.com/showthread.php?321145-Tickle-Trap-Tower-3-(-f-fantasy)
Part 4: http://www.ticklingforum.com/showthread.php?321146-Tickle-Trap-Tower-4-(-f-fantasy)
---
Zyl cracked an eye open and almost immediately felt as if she shouldn’t have. It already felt like one of those days where the best course of action was to pull the sheets back up over herself, roll over, and go back to sleep. Indeed, she was pondering doing just this, curling up on her side and trying not to hear the soft but clearly audible stream of commentary she could hear coming from somewhere within her room. In her sleepy state of mind, it took her a minute to come up with the answer, but eventually she recognized it as the usual morning update and commentary on her progress, and Eri’s, through their daily ticklish hell. Zyl was certainly in a sour mood this morning, the kind of grumpiness that stemmed from not feeling rested after a night’s sleep.
Despite trying not to hear it, the voices coming over the image transmission carried information to Zyl’s ears anyway: “Eri’s already been struggling at this course for a little while, hasn’t he? It was a wonder that he was able to get past his first opponent and snag the water-breathing charm, but it seems like the dark elven boy looked before he leapt, and is now in a perilous situation~ It’d be even worse if he couldn’t swim at all, but he’s going to have to try a lot harder if he wants to out-swim a naga in the water! Ooh, it looks like she got another orgasm out of him just now… the poor boy looks exhausted, trying to run and swim while having his cock milked so insistently! I’m sure I don’t need to remind anyone here of just how lazy boys get after a nice climax, hee hee…”
What made it worse from Zyl’s end was that the commentary had started her imagination going, and in her mind she was seeing her brother wrangling with one of the large snake women - underwater? Or maybe on the surface? Obviously, he was all wrapped up in her tail, and had his arms held up over his head, and was absolutely getting ruined by her nails skittering along his sides, drilling into those spots just below the ribs, or in the soft bottom part of his underarms. And, because the demons were total perverts, he was probably naked, too. No, he had to be, the announcer succubus had just said he’d cum, right? It occurred to Zyl that she was able to recognize that the voice coming into her room wasn’t Arishna’s, and it wasn’t that dispassionate, analytical voice she’d heard before, either. Hadn’t she seen another succubus that one time with Eri, all bronze skin and pink outfit with gloves and platinum blonde hair?
Zyl curled up into a tighter ball, the disorganized whirl of her thoughts going on for a few more seconds before she tossed the sheet aside and sat up on the side of her bed, eyes narrowed, but taking in the sight of her brother and his current predicament as it was actually occurring. “Ghhhh…” she groaned, rolling her neck around, then forcing herself to get out of bed and stretching, cracking some of her stiff joints and feeling a little more limber after said stretches, although mental alertness did not follow as quickly as she would have liked it to. The dark elf went to prepare herself some breakfast, but rummaged a little bit deeper in her cabinet this time, hoping that Arishna would have had the foresight to -- Yes. Though she didn’t usually have any stimulants in the morning, her mother always had, and Zyl found some strong breakfast tea to go along with her meal, setting a pot of that to brew, all the while listening to and occasionally watching Erialen go through his own trials via the transmitted image that was probably put into her room entirely on purpose.
The underwater breathing charm he’d acquired protected him from any actual danger, but just as Zyl had suspected, he had a tail wrapped around his ankle tightly, so that no matter how desperately he clawed at the water to swim to the surface, he couldn’t escape the pair of hands tracing around his trapped foot. Ticklish flailing made his swimming ineffective anyway, and even as Zyl watched, his endurance waned for the moment, allowing him to be reeled back into the embrace of the waiting snake-girl who was lounging indolently on the floor of the faux seabed the demons had constructed. Even as she watched, pouring herself a cup of the strong breakfast tea and sitting down to have her morning meal, Erialen was gathered into the arms of the naga, who nestled his head right up against her breasts, leaning down to nibble on one of his ears, and used two of her own hands to grasp his wrists, gently fold them behind her neck, and open his body up for her four other hands to start their work.
It was an utter massacre. Two of the naga’s six hands went for his underarms, and with two fingers apiece, started to wriggle and massage at the sensitive spot right where the rib, underarm, and side met, an unbearably ticklish spot for the dark elven male. Just this alone had Eri tossing his head back and howling with laughter, which was interestingly punctuated by a stream of bubbles that floated up from his mouth to the surface. One additional hand laid in a fingertip along the line of Eri’s hip and waist, digging into the little hip ‘pocket’ for yet more ticklish insanity, and her other hand would have probably mirrored it if the naga hadn’t started to stroke her nails lightly all over Erialen’s erect shaft, tickling down along his balls, and reaching underneath of them now and again to get a sudden jerking reaction from his obviously tired-out body. He was too tired even to struggle effectively, something Zyl sympathized with. Swimming for long periods of time was difficult even when you swam efficiently. Being forced to struggle against an aquatic creature while being tickled out of your mind, well…
“Eri’s reeeeeeeally struggling now, isn’t he~?” came that annoyingly sweet succubus voice again. “Just look at him go~ and he’s got so much more left before he can call it quits! The Tickle Training Course is exhausting him, and the poor boy’s instructors are merciless~” There was a brief pause, and Zylinde sipped her tea almost dispassionately while watching the sight of her younger brother getting tickled silly. “Incidentally, for all you viewers out there who were curious! Zylinde has finally gotten out of bed and is having herself a nice breakfast, so now’s a good time to check up on how much support they’re getting… and it seems like everyone is enjoying what they’re seeing! The latest Succubit counts are as follows: Zylinde has jumped out into the lead with a whopping 27,201 Succubits, but Erialen’s been gaining on her in the past two hours and stands at 25,528!” Zylinde smirked slightly at that, having opened up what was, in her mind, a considerable lead. Never mind how she’d earned so many by sleeping, right? But even as she watched, Eri’s tickle torment was causing his number to increase at a considerable pace, and after just a minute of watching him suffer at the hands of the naga, he had earned another three hundred. Zyl’s count, by contrast, hadn’t budged, obviously because she wasn’t doing anything.
Her eyebrow twitched at this, but even as she finished eating her breakfast and lingered over her tea, Eri seemed to collapse limply in the naga’s arms, too tired even to struggle, it seemed. “Mmm… seems like you need to go back and try again~!” she teased, and before Zyl could wonder what that meant… she seemed to somehow slingshot the exhausted Eri out of her grasp, sending him rapidly up towards the water’s surface. As the transmission crystal changed its viewpoint from an underwater to above-water perspective, Zyl saw him burst out of the water and shoot towards what appeared to be a platform at the water’s edge. There, a pale, slim, but obviously strong demon with black feathered wings waited for him, grinning. Her blonde hair was pulled into a ponytail and she wore a black visor to go along with her black tank top and exercise shorts - clearly, a look that was deliberately cultivated. The succubus had called Eri’s tormentors ‘instructors’, hadn’t she? It was themed as some kind of boot camp from (tickle) hell.
“Whaa? Are you tellin’ me that after you snuck past me with that sneaky shit, you flopped on the water section?” she demanded, even as she caught Eri’s flying form out of the air, which looked slightly ridiculous because he was actually taller than the fallen angel, but in his exhausted state and with her obvious conditioning, she was able to handle him as if he weighed nothing. “Now I’m gonna have to punish you good, you little weasel. I’m gonna tickle you shitless until you get this right!”
“NOOOoooohohohohhehehe no please pleheheheheheheze I can’t I can’t haahahahahHAHAHAHAHA!” was all Eri managed to say in protest before he was put in an armlock, wrestled easily to the ground, and ended up with his arms locked firmly in the ‘instructor’s’ legs, letting him kick, and twist, and howl to his heart’s content, but do nothing to protect his ribs from a fiendish wiggling assault. Whereas the naga under the water - who had come up onto the platform to watch, leaning on the edge of the platform with her chin on a pair of folded arms - had been gentle, teasing, and merciless, this fallen angel was very clearly the hard-ass kind of instructor, and brutally attacked Eri’s ribs, wiggling out of sync along both sides of his ribcage with her thumbs, massaging deep to hit the sensitive spots that had him squealing with hysteria. His head twisted this way and that, nestled in between the strong thighs of the fallen angel, who was leaned over him to give her fingers the necessary leverage to tickle him so powerfully. Had he not been absolutely laughing himself stupid, he probably would have loved having a faceful of her tits and his head between her thighs, but ruthless tickle torture was the only thing he could react to at the moment.
“Mmmrhgh…” Zyl grumbled, staring at the bottom of her empty teacup, feeling stupid holding such a dainty little thing in her hand anyway, and squinting then at Eri’s climbing Succubit numbers while hers remained still. Shit. Her lead wasn’t going to remain for long if she sat here on her ass, but she still didn’t feel fully awake. Fuck it. She’d had to do things on little sleep before, during her training, and sitting here moping around wasn’t going to get anything done. Now that the tea had cooled from steaming hot to pleasantly warm, Zyl simply took the handle of the teapot, stuck the spout in her mouth, and gulped down perhaps two-thirds of the remaining contents. That would have to do. Zyl spared a moment to glance back at display while she pulled on her top and tight-fitting shorts, seeing her brother absolutely helpless in the face of a much stronger opponent who was determined to exploit his vulnerability to the fullest, and the increasing number in the corner of the display that indicated just how much demons liked seeing this sort of thing.
Zyl checked that her necklace was in place and her bracer was secure, and headed out the door. Time to face her own twisted fate.
---
The Machine Manor, Arishna had called it. Zyl stood in the entryway with her arms crossed, taking in the sight before her. Indeed, it lived up to the “manor” part of the description, with the dark, wood-paneled floors and walls, with faux candles burning in sconces to provide some level of ambient light while hidden lights somewhere else actually illuminated the place. It felt like some rich person’s house, if somewhat foreboding, although nothing at first glance actually felt suspicious or hostile. The more curious thing, Zyl thought, was that there was a hallway that led off to the left, disappearing around a corner, and a mirrored hallway to the right. Two paths, huh? That was new, unless they were going to make her solve a puzzle on one side to go back and take the other. But in Slime Land they had made that fact pretty clear, and this time she had no idea what was on either side, as the dark elf stood in the foyer with her arms crossed. Still, the fact that she had two options for which path to take wasn’t actually the strangest thing about what she was seeing right now, and Zyl had saved the oddest thing for last, despite it being right in front of her.
Of course Arishna was there, floating with that smug, annoying little smile on her face. It wasn’t ACTUALLY smug, but Zylinde had a hard time seeing that eyes-narrowed, wide grin on the succubus’ face as anything but smug, or suspicious, or plotting, or some other negative thing. Then there was somebody else with her, too. A female satyr, with deep blue skin, horns curving back from her temples to sweep back along either side of her head, wearing similarly sporty-looking clothes as Zyl herself was. She had an almost innocent-looking smile on her face, standing behind what appeared to be an impromptu wooden stand, complete with a cute sign held up on two support poles affixed to the front corners of the stand. The sign read “Drinks Shop” and laid out on the table there was a pitcher of water along with a glass, something that was labeled “Endurance Potion” and another glass, and a plate full of watermelon cut into triangles with little wooden toothpicks stuck into each one. “Okay,” Zyl started off. “You must be crazy if you think I’m going to buy this. Obviously you put some evil shit into these drinks and the watermelon that will fuck with me if I have any of it.”
“So suspicious~” Arishna teased with a giggle. “You should know me better than that, Zyl. I know you have your little lie detector on your arm there. Why would I bother to put anything in these drinks when you could just ask about it and catch me in the act? I promise that we haven’t put anything into any of these.” Zyl checked her glowing truth jewel. Blue again. Of course. It made her cross her arms and glance from the drinks, to Arishna, to this strangely shy-looking satyress.
“What the hell is the point of all this then?” she snapped, eyeing one of the watermelon bites, and trying to bite into it a bit more savagely than necessary to show her irritation. Watermelons being mostly water, this didn’t have the impact she desired, and left her feeling annoyed and foolish as usual. At least the watermelon tasted good.
“After yesterday, we came to the realization that you came dangerously close to just tiring out and being unable to continue! And that’s just no fun at all. So, after an instant online poll last night, the viewers voted on this to help you out.” Arishna made a sweeping gesture at the table. “True, the water and the watermelon are just refreshments to help you out if you need them, but the endurance potion is something you can drink for a pick-me-up if you start to get tired out and have a hard time with the obstacles!” The best lies had a core of truth to them, after all, and Zyl HAD spent a good amount of time panting on the floor during her completion of the Slime House. Since Arishna hadn’t actually lied in her explanation, Zyl’s truth detection jewel went blissfully unaware of the succubus’ deception - the endurance potion would do exactly as Arishna said.
“Whatever.” Zyl popped another watermelon triangle in her mouth. The nice thing about eating these was that you didn’t need to wash them down with anything to drink. “So what’s the deal with these two passageways?”
“Choice!” Arishna said, sparkling. Zylinde noticed out of the corner of her eye that the satyress behind the stand, who hadn’t said anything to this point, refilled the watermelon plate with additional pieces. So, she was actually here and not a projection? Maybe that explained why she’d stayed quiet. She probably knew Zyl had been seen to take several swings at Arishna’s image. “We thought, why not give you some options in the Machine Manor? The theme is similar for both routes, and both of them will take you to the end! If you can get through the left side all the way to the end, you can skip the right side entirely, no questions asked!” Still no lie, as usual. “If you go left and find it too hard, you can try out the right side instead! Both sides have obstacles to test your willpower, but you can switch between the two routes as often as you like! Now, which way are you going to choose~?”
Zyl looked left, looked right, and then left again, and chose the left path, walking around the corner and out of sight. Arishna giggled, and spoke in a stage-whisper for her audience: “You’re soooooo close, Zyl~! You’re just not asking the right questions~ Mmmhmhmhm… So now, it’s time for our first poll of the day. Our first question is: How long do you think it will take before Zyl has a little ‘accident’~?”
---
More platforms, more water, more general weirdness. It was all par for the course, Zyl thought, as she found herself standing on a platform which rose about ten feet out of the (of course) water sloshing about below. The wood-paneled walls were lit by more of the faux candles, but the ceiling here was much higher, high enough that it was lost in the darkness, although Zyl could see that there were some lights, cabling, and other uninteresting machine-y stuff up there. In the dimness, the periodic glimmering of the transmission crystals floating in the air was harder to pick up on, and more than a few times Zyl had allowed herself the luxury of forgetting that they were there, waiting to capture her embarrassment from every possible angle. Hmph. Sometimes it was really kind of astounding how much effort the demons had put into all of this stuff. Then again, Zyl knew of the Academy tower, and how enormous it was, and how much time the demons probably spent coming up with this random crap for their own amusement.
This time, the ‘goal’ platform was actually a good six or eight feet higher than the one she stood on, and they were connected by a sort of gondola contraption, a thick cable strung between the lower platform and the higher one, a cable from which dangled a truly bizarre contraption. “It looks like Zyl has opted to challenge the left-side path, the cleverly named ‘Tickle to Ride’, first!” Zyl almost didn’t even react to Arishna’s voice, and she certainly didn’t turn around in surprise like she might have at first. “The concept here is simple! There’s only one way forward, and that’s to ride in the specially designed cart which will take her to the next platform! Operation of these carts is simple - all our challenger has to do is make sure all of the red buttons are pressed simultaneously, and the cart will move forward, no questions asked! Sounds simple, right?” Arishna then paused, as if waiting for Zyl to give a response, tilted slightly forward with an expectant look on her face.
Instead, Zyl bent her knees and then jumped straight up, grabbing onto the cable which connected the two platforms. The moment her hands closed around it, she realized there was something incredibly slippery covering the cable, and she promptly started to slide backwards towards the door where she had entered the room from. Even though she let go immediately, her momentum carried her to land in the doorway, and as she walked back towards the dumb-looking cart, she considered her now-slick hands with a frown. Arishna had her fists on her hips and a comically puffed-up face of annoyance. “Oh, come on, Zyl. It’s been obvious since the first hour that your first approach to any puzzle is brute force. Didn’t you think we would take precautions against that sort of thing?”
“It’s been obvious since the first minute that this whole setup is chock-full of bullshit,” Zyl retorted as she studied the cart thing she was expected to ride in. “You can hardly blame me for keeping you honest, now can you?”
“Oho! Our little Zyl is developing a bit of a quick wit to go along with her sharp tongue~! I like it!” Zyl ignored the succubus’ retort and recalled Arishna’s explanation. All of the red buttons at once, huh. Making a simple chair would have been too easy for the demons. There were six of the buttons, in different shapes and weird positions, too far apart for her to push more than one with a single hand or foot. “Think of it like… sitting in a certain position,” Arishna added helpfully, after it seemed that Zyl was struggling with the concept a little bit, drawing the dark elf’s ire.
“I know that,” she snapped. Sitting a certain way, huh… the part on top was probably for her hands, a simple crossbar with two buttons about the size of her hands. Then there were two circular red buttons, and then the part it looked like she was supposed to sit on with two more buttons facing her… In the end, Zyl ended up kneeling upon a padded cushion, her knees touching two of the buttons, her toes perched on a narrow cutout behind her, and her arms extended overhead. Just great. But, as Arishna had said, as soon as all six of these red buttons were pressed, the cart shuddered, and began to slowly crawl upwards towards the platform above her.
Positioned as she was, of course, meant that there were almost too many exposed spots to pick from. After about fifteen seconds of a very, very slow crawl towards that upper platform, Zyl heard a very unpleasant mechanical whirring sound coming from behind her, and then a moment later, two thin, vibrating little somethings slid into the spot between her second and third toes. “KYahhHAHAHAHAHAahhahahahahaha fuuhuhuuuuuckkkk!!” she howled, immediately scrunching her toes and wiggling her feet to bat away the offending devices - and the moment she did so, her forward progress ceased, the cart slowly rolling backwards towards the beginning, even as the buzzing things tried to keep up the torment of her feet. Zyl turned her head around to see two fine, humming tips attached to what looked to be like mechanical tentacles, long, segmented metal arm things coming from underneath of the cart she was riding in. “Fuckers! Get awayahahahahah! Off! Get --” With a sudden shudder, the cart came to a stop, and Zyl realized she was back at the bottom of the incline, the mechanical arms withdrawing and leaving her feet alone. Zyl shot a murderous glare at the image of the succubus, smirking in that impish way she had that was so very infuriating. “Like hell!” she shouted, rubbing her feet against one another for a moment.
Arishna just gave one of those wicked sweet smiles. “You could always just, you know, give up and try the other path~” Zyl maintained her ‘I will murder you right now’ look for a few seconds more before she faced forward, setting her jaw stubbornly, and returning her toes to the designated spot. The way the contraption was designed was meant to force Zyl to keep her toes pressed into the narrow niche where the buttons were, preventing her from scrunching her feet, putting them down flat, or otherwise protecting them. It was only a few seconds into her second journey that the thin, vibrating protrusions returned, teasingly sliding through her toes and drawing a burst of frustrated laughter from Zyl. “FuahahahahAHAHAHAHAHAHAH FUCK! Fucking fha-ahahAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAA!”
The dark elf’s muscles tensed visibly, her back and arms bunching up, hips shifting side to side, toes pressing even harder into the switches in her attempt to endure the ticklish sensations shooting up through her feet. The humming vibrations stroked softly and precisely, the sort of precision only a machine could provide, and stimulated the nerve endings in her toes with a sort of light oscillation that tickled like mad, at least judging from the dark elf’s reactions. The whole thing was made worse by the fact that she had to voluntarily keep her toes in place or the obstacle couldn’t be cleared - a brief lapse in which she curled her toes up and tried to kick the mechanical arm away with her left foot caused the gondola cart to shudder and stop, sliding backwards a few inches before Zyl caught herself and re-exposed her vulnerable feet for more tickling. Though the entirety of both large feet were open for such torments as the ones in between her toes right now, so far she was being humbled with just the ticklish torment in her sensitive toe gaps.
Barred from moving her hands, legs, or feet, Zyl instead whipped her head around, gripping onto the overhead bars more tightly, both suffering the agonizingly slow teasing motions from her feet and the frustratingly slow progress of her ride forward. She’d only made it a third of the way up, judging from a quick glance, when the whirring seemed to change pitch and volume slightly. The difference in sound came from the fact that a new pair of mechanical arms had deployed, aiming for the balls of her feet with small, whirring circular brushes. These, too, worked in an unhurried fashion, and they likewise targeted that hyper-focused area of her feet that was stretched and exposed by the kneeling, toes-dug-in posture that Zyl was forced to adopt. Her frustrated howls of laughter filled the large room, while the glimmering transmission crystals caught close-ups of her ticklish feet as well as her facial expression. “Stoo-haahha-AHHAHAHAHAHHAH SHIHHEHEHEHEHAHAHAH SHAAAAEEEHHEEE! DAHHAHAHAHAMMIT STOOOHAHAHAHHAHAP THAT SHIHIHIIIIT!” Zyl howled, whipping her head back and forth, clenching her teeth as hard as she could in an attempt to endure the torment.
Zyl was so focused on enduring the ticklish torture that she didn’t realize she had failed to suppress the reflexes of one of her feet, which was now wiggling wildly and scrunching its toes in an attempt to fend off the relentless ticklish sensations, and even though she was rolling backwards, the second set of mechanical arms did not disappear, circling around on the balls of her feet, and making especially sure to whirr those brushes in at the base of her toes as well. This onslaught was too much for Zyl to bear, and her defenses crumbled, ankles rotating desperately in an attempt to escape the tickling that overwhelmed her feet like so many electric shocks, pulsing up through the rest of her body. Only when she had thumped back against the starting platform and the tickling ceased did she seem to remember what she was doing, and dismounted the gondola cart with an annoyed huff, breathing heavily and sitting down on the platform, using her fingers to rub in between her toes and massage away the lingering tickle sensation.
“Looks like Zyl’s second attempt has also ended in failure! Those big feet of hers are just far too ticklish to endure focused tickles in such a vulnerable spot! Not like it’s something we didn’t already know, but our big, strong dark elf challenger is just one large collection of tickle spots. A collection of tickle spots just like her brother who - as of this moment - has retaken the lead in Succubit count!” Zyl’s head came up, her eyes narrowed in irritation, but Arishna was speaking to the audience and not to her, always something that was annoying to the elf. “It seems like his training instructors are just absolutely merciless and the poor, exhausted boy still has several hours of tickle torture to endure~ you pervs just loooove seeing him so absolutely hopeless, don’t you~? Let’s see if Zyl can catch back up now that she’s started the Machine Manor’s first test!”
“That isn’t fucking fair,” Zyl snapped. “You goddess-damned degenerates are all getting off on seeing my brother get fucked sideways by those chicks, of course that’s gonna be more…” As if realizing what she was saying, Zyl suddenly closed her mouth tightly and focused on stretching down to rub at her feet, but the damage was done, and she kept her gaze looking down at the floor, anything but having to look at what was almost certainly a smug smirk on Arishna’s face.
“Do you want to be fucked sideways by sexy demon girls? Or guys? We can do guys too~ I’m sure it would be insaaaaaa~aanely popular if you got tickle-fucked out of your mind, Zyl~” As if her guise slipped for just a moment, Arishna’s grin was just pure wickedness in that moment, and no sweetness whatsoever. Then she was back to that sickly-saccharine-sweet smile. “Don’t worry about that, though! Just keep going like you’re going. I promise you that you’ve got your own points of popularity!” Arishna was almost bubbling over with glee, trying very hard not to give away what awaited Zyl in the very near future. Zyl was perceptive enough to realize there was some utter disaster lurking in the darkness ahead, but her mind naturally went to some kind of horrible tickle trap, unaware of the fact that the special scheme for today’s course had long since begun already.
Zyl had caught her breath since then, and steeled her resolve, Arishna’s antics notwithstanding. Okay. She had to endure this stupid bullshit of a trap in order to get through this obstacle, and get further ahead to whatever it was that would put her back in the lead -- Zyl shook her head quickly, as if to dispel the thought that had popped into her head like an unwelcome surprise visitor. “What the fuck am I thinking,” she breathed, too softly for Arishna to hear, as she mounted the bizarre gondola once again and tried to prepare her body to endure the hellish tickling.
Think. Think about anything else. Think about not giving up. Never give up. Not even as those ohhhhhhh goddess nnnnnghhhh vibrating fuckers slid in between her toes. Shit. Shit. Think! Anything but the tickling. Don’t give up. Arishna had weirdly asked her if she was going to give up, and usually when the succubus said that it was some scheme to force her to speak the hated ‘I give up’ phrase. But why would she give up when she could have literally just walked ohhhhh fucking shithell the brushes who the fuck twisted asshole designed these hell-brushes what the shiiiiiiiiit…! Don’t think about the things. So hard not to, they tickled like fuck, brushing around in their stupid little circles just above the toes where the vibrating things were fucking murdering her by sliding in and out like they were it tickled so fucking bad fuck fuck fuck --
“WHAT THE ACTUAL SHIHIHIHIIIIT?!” Zyl screamed, her reverie broken by the fact that something else had attacked her. Something vibrating AND brushy at the same time, and it wasn’t anywhere near her toes. Something that fit almost perfectly into her bellybutton had started to whir as it inserted its infernal, ticklish tip into her navel, brushing just past the rim of it before the dark elf’s resistance shattered into a million pieces. One hand came down off of the buttons overhead and grabbed at the mechanical arm which was inserting a piece of pure oh-hell-no into her bellybutton. There was a brief flash of savage satisfaction from Zyl when she pulled on the arm, feeling it come free - and then the whole gondola came apart around her. “Shoddy-ass piece of junk!” she swore as the contraption literally just seemed to collapse into a mess of metal tubing and wiring, dangling uselessly, and she missed grabbing at the strands, sending the dark elf plummeting into the water below, where she landed with an enormous splash. “FUCK! Fine! I give up!” she screamed upwards, the stinging slap of her skin hitting the water’s surface briefly serving as an outlet to her frustration, as it was something that at least was not tickling.
Zyl found herself before the drinks stand with its refreshments and the still-suspicious Endurance Potion, wringing water out of her hair. She really ought to put it in a ponytail or something, since it just ended up turning into a giant mess every time she got wet. That mysteriously quiet, blue-skinned satyress girl was still there, but Arishna was not, probably still giving her stupid play-by-play on Zyl falling. The dark elf was not really sure why the succubus chose to appear or not at any given time, but having a break from her presence was usually welcome. “Did you fall?” Zyl was pulled out of her thoughts by the first words spoken from the satyress, who had kept her hands folded in front of her rather submissively this whole time. “The Endurance Potion should help you with that. I think they made the tickle obstacles harder this time around because the Headmistress was expecting you to make use of the potion. It’ll make it easier for your body to endure being tickled.”
Reflexively, Zyl checked the bracer on her left arm. Nope, still no lie. It was easier to believe this quiet, soft-spoken girl, but it didn’t hurt to check. Still, there was something about this that was hard to take at face value, like… would they really give her a potion that would make dealing with being tickled easier? “Hmm…” Zyl looked at it, and then the satyress, brows furrowed in thought. “Okay, you… uh, whatever your name is… you drink some first.”
“Ciela,” she replied with a smile, and then took the full plastic bottle of Endurance Potion and started to drink from it. “I don’t need this, really,” she said, still smiling, “because I have a giant tickle fetish. I endure being tickled just because I love it so much. In fact, I’d love it if someone made a big tickle obstacle course for me…” Sighing wistfully, Ciela continued to drink from the bottle over the course of several minutes while Zyl studied her intently, from horn-tip to hooves. Nothing looked suspicious. Zyl had been half-expecting a sudden moan and gasping with lust, like it was an aphrodisiac, but no. She even lifted the satyress’ tank top up over her breasts, to see if maybe she was just a good actress and her nipples were diamond hard or something, but none of that either. The crazily submissive satyress let her do all of it with a giggle, patiently enduring Zyl’s examination, and when Zyl seemed satisfied, she refilled the plastic bottle and wiped off the top before setting it back on the table.
“Well,” Zyl said, annoyed that she’d suspected a trap but unable to figure out the catch, if there was one. It could be true, though. Having some damned brush in her bellybutton was an absolute deal-breaker, and if Arishna thought she was going to be able to sit still for that, she was completely wrong. But maybe they had come up with this Endurance Potion because otherwise she wouldn’t be able to finish? She put the bottle to her lips and chugged. It DID have that weird, herby, not exactly bitter but kinda earthy taste she recognized from healing potions she’d drank in a few training exercises. More to the point, it also felt like some of that nagging tiredness she’d felt since getting up this morning was finally going away. Zyl was bouncing on her toes by the end of the bottle, and grinned. “Okay, maybe this stuff is better than I’d thought. Let’s give this a shot.”
“Here she is! Stubborn as always, Zyl had to fail at least once on her own before taking advantage of the special Endurance Potion everyone voted to provide to her for today’s course. But you gotta admire that persistence! She always gives it a shot on her own, no matter how hopeless it looks.” Arishna earned a poisonous look for her trouble but no actual words as Zyl went right to the gondola cart, knelt and put her toes in the appropriate niche, and started the slow climb towards the next platform.
It was hard to say whether or not knowing what was going to come helped or hurt her. The vibrating thing in between her toes tickled. It tickled like shit. So much so that Zyl tightened her grip on the overhead crossbar again and bent her head, breathing rapidly. She shook her head, trying to endure, and closed her eyes tight. Whether it was being mentally prepared, or that Endurance Potion really did work, it was hard to say, but even though that tickling came, and it tickled so bad, Zyl felt like… she could take it. The tickling was there, and she wanted to move. Wanted it to stop. But it didn’t feel like it was overwhelming her, taking control of her. Kinda. Maybe. It was a lot harder when the brushes came again, their whirring ticklishness making her want to burst out laughing. Zyl realized she’d been holding her breath, face contorted into that huge, silly, ticklish grin made by a ticklish person trying not to laugh, and when she finally released the breath she’d been holding, it came out as laughter: “NahhahahahHAHAHAah dhahahahahh dammit dahahhahahammit damn dahahheheheh ehisheheheh hsiiiiiahahahahaaa! HAAAAhahhaahaha~~!”
This was so hard. Just having to sit here and fucking take this tickling. And the bellybutton thing was coming soon, too. That was what really gave her nightmares, like in a literal sense - she briefly remembered flashes of dreams last night, of something in her bellybutton, tickling like an absolute motherfucker. Her toes dug into the buttons even harder, skin going a slightly lighter shade with the pressure she was putting on them, trying to endure that goddess-damned tickling for a while longer. Then, came the nightmare, even as the toes and balls of her feet screamed with the desire to twitch away from the tickling: the navel brush. “FAAAHHAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHHACKKKKKKK!” Zyl howled, bowing her head, and bending her back, trying to suck her stomach away from the mechanical arm. She could move her torso around to some degree, and she tried to do that, shifting her hips and wiggling her belly around, but the machine-guided torture device was just too precise, and once it was inside of her bellybutton, she couldn’t get it out.
It was awful. It tickled like mad, especially when Zyl made the mistake of leaning back from her hands, arching her back and exposing her bellybutton even more to that vibrating brush which had slipped past the rim of her navel and was whirring around in a slow circle, polishing the inside of her bellybutton with what felt like at least several million bristles. “NAAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHHHA! HAHAHAHAHAH AHAHAHAHAH HAAAAAAAA ahahahahahaha! Noooho-hohooo-hahaha-STOOOOOAAHAHAHAHAHAH SHIIIIIT!” It tickled so much she even forgot to swear, briefly. It tickled so much that she couldn’t think. It tickled so badly that she wanted to give up on the spot. It tickled so much that her entire belly started to tingle warmly, the sensations seeming to morph into half a dozen different ones, radiating out from her hyper-ticklish bellybutton. The fact that she could move was her only saving grace, and Zyl squirmed about hysterically atop her kneeling cushion, almost having even forgotten about her feet in the cacophony of ticklish torture bursting from her midsection like so many fireworks. “STOOOHOHOOOHOOHOOOHOOOOP IIIIIIITTTT!”
The fact that the mechanical arm did, indeed, stop, puzzled Zyl, and she cracked open an eye, breathing heavily as she looked around. “Why did…?” she spluttered, and then realized where she was, atop the second platform. “Oh… oh damn… whew… hahhh…” The tickling slowly drained out of her body with the realization that she was done, leaving her with several conflicting sensations. One by one they died down and went away, all except for one, and when Zyl got to her feet, she found herself standing with a slightly discomforted hunch to her upper body. Standing still was difficult, and it took only a moment for her to realize why. She looked around on the platform, but it was obviously empty, and then paced back and forth before she realized there was no choice but to ask Arishna an embarrassing question. “Hey! Arishna! I got a question!” The succubus was nothing if not predictable, at least - she showed up at Zyl’s side within half a second, her face suggesting just how immensely pleased she was to have Arishna ask her a question. Zyl, uncharacteristically, leaned in and whispered the question into the succubus’ ear, trying (probably in vain) to speak without being heard by the transmission crystals. “Hey, uh… where’s the bathroom?”
“Hm? Well, there’s one past the next obstacle, why? You need to go?” It was a question delivered with a bland look of affected curiosity, as Zyl’s body language made it fairly clear what the answer was.
“Nothing, never mind,” the dark elf snapped, and stalked quickly off through the doorway to the next platform, her mind outpacing her steps by an order of magnitude. Just past the next obstacle, which was -- “Are you out of your damned mind?!” she snapped in dismay at the sight of the second obstacle, which was similar to the first. A weirdly designed gondola cart, a large gap between this platform and the next, but in total defiance of the laws of physics, the wire did not simply go from one platform to the next. Instead, it meandered about in the wide gap between platforms, going back and forth, doubling back on itself several times, and in general wasting a colossal amount of time before actually getting to the other side. At least the cart worked in the same way, though Zyl only counted five buttons this time, but four were explicitly shaped like her hands and feet, so it wasn't hard to guess how she needed to position herself. The fifth button was long and really pretty ridiculously large for a button, and as Zyl danced around impatiently looking at the configuration, Arishna (un)helpfully stepped in once more.
“See, you put your feet here, and then you bend your back waaaaaay over and put your hands down here, and then you press this middle button down with your back,” she explained. “Like making a bridge. Oh, and when you get these five into position, the sixth one will automatically come into place for you.”
“Like hell I will!” she snapped in reply, her first thought being to do absolutely anything but this. Anything but this hellspawn contraption. Had she seen a place to relieve herself in the foyer? She couldn’t remember. Having acknowledged her condition, it suddenly seemed to be the only thing she could think about, and made trying to come up with alternate options or exploits increasingly difficult. “Rrrgh! Fuck you and fuck this stupid game!” she hissed, even as she hastened to adopt the bridge position that Arishna had indicated would be necessary. She could do it, rather easily as a matter of fact, but her form trembled and quivered impatiently. Fuck, fuck, oh, fuck. How the hell had this gotten so bad so quickly? There must have been something in that fucking Endurance Potion bullshit! She knew it was a trap. It had to be! Even while her mind whirled, something slid into place and covered her vision, leading Zyl to exclaim angrily, but then she heard the subtle ‘click’ of the top of her head pressing a button, and she felt the contraption start to move with agonizing slowness.
Her thoughts whirred in a nonstop blur of anger and desperate panic. It took almost no time at all for the fucking machines to come in, too, and she felt them now. Four hands positioned at her sides - two up on either side closer to her ribs, and two down lower on her sides. Four thumbs anchoring themselves closer to her back, and sixteen fingers wiggling with merciless precision. The metal was smooth and slightly cool, but the ‘fingers’ were strong, and they attacked her sides with brutal repetition. No subtlety here. “NAHAHHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHH FUCK FUCK HAHAH YOU’RE DOING THIS ON PURPOSE!” she shrieked, her voice a higher pitch than it had ever been before, as her whole body struggled in the arched pose she was forced to maintain. There was no mercy on the part of these hands, and the fact that Zyl was able to endure it for the first minute was mostly thanks to the very real effects of the Endurance Potion. They didn’t even move that much, either, just focusing on a short stretch of her skin, wiggling their fingers deep into the ticklish flesh without mercy, clawing at her sensitive sides with wide, firm pinches of all five fingers, and generally making her life an absolute living hell.
Unlike the first gondola cart, this one didn’t even make it easy for her to soft surrender and slide back to the beginning for a rest. The middle ‘button’ kept the small of her back raised in the bridge posture even if she lacked the strength to maintain it herself, and it was hard to balance herself enough in the midst of her desperate tickle panic to raise a hand or a foot. The weird helmet-visor thingy covering her vision seemed stuck onto her head somehow, so she couldn’t get out of that one, either. While Zyl wasn’t exactly tied up… it was hard for her to escape this position, and that meant the tickling hands massacred her sides without any reprieve for the ticklish, struggling dark elf. She still had her surrender necklace, but if she did THAT, then she’d be back in the foyer and squirming like a little girl, and the humiliation that thought sparked within her was almost too much to bear. For the first time, Zyl felt legitimately trapped, without options, or at least options that she could countenance… “STHHHHAHAHAAAHAHHHEHEHEHEH NNHHHHHAHAHANOOOOHOOOO!!”
Worse still, after a minute or so of this torture, the obvious thing happened, the thing that Zyl had been dreading. Her one hundred percent exposed and stretched out navel became subject to an attack of something thin, brushy, and vibrating. Whatever it was, it was thin enough to slide into her navel without any interference, and reach right into the deepest part of her bellybutton, humming at the most ticklish, most secret inner part of her navel. Things had been difficult for Zyl before, for certain. They’d been hellishly ticklish. But they’d never been this bad. Not with this utter slaughter of her fully exposed midsection. Not with Zyl starting to feel like she was a hair's breadth away from utter humiliation in front of all those transmission crystals. She couldn’t think, couldn’t… couldn’t… couldn’t… do ANYTHING! Nothing except howl hysterically. Curses hadn’t even escaped her lips for almost a full minute now, it was just laughter. Helpless, hopeless, weak laughter. She had no idea how much further it was to the other side, to the end of this infernal contraption.
In her absolute tickle-panic, Zyl began to move her entire body, swinging it first one way, and then the other. This did absolutely nothing to stop the tickling which swarmed over her midsection, as the mechanical arms adjusted too easily to her antics. But with each swing back and forth she could hear the metal start to creak more and more, as she rocked the gondola cart into a swing which it almost certainly wasn’t designed to tolerate. The one thought which Zyl had managed to come up with in her absolute frenzy of ticklish desperation was that this cart might be flimsy like the other one had somehow been, and as she squeezed the muscles in her thighs desperately, trying to resist the growing pressure to humiliate herself, her muscles began to tighten all over. “NOONOOOONOOHOOHOOHOOHOOOHOOOOOO NO NO NOOOOHOOOOO!!” she screamed, and heaved all of her weight to one side, which caused the cart to swing much too far to that side, and the hook temporarily lost hold of the cable before coming back down onto it with a jolt, rattling the whole contraption - and just as Zyl had prayed, causing the whole thing to once again break apart in a strange sort of failsafe mechanism, sending her plummeting freely down to the water below.
Normally, Zyl surrendered the instant she hit the water, but this time, she couldn’t. She couldn’t stop herself from losing the contents of her bladder, tickled out of her by the relentless attention the hands had been paying to her midsection and sides. Even as the tickling fish started to swarm her - overwhelming any hope she might have had of regaining control, and causing her howls of laughter to resume - her mind whirled with conflicting emotions. Shame, relief, rage. She had to endure the horribly ticklish attention of the nibbling fish, swarming in her navel and making her scream with frustration, doubling over and trying to cover her belly while she waited for her body to be done, and only after that could she reach down under the water, remove her bottoms, and fling them angrily up at the dangling wires and metal of the gondola cart. Her voice was a scream of anger:
“I GIVE UP!”
---
The sadist in Arishna fanned herself a little at the sight of Zyl stalking up to the drinks stand like a thundercloud, face dark with fury. The sight of the proud warrior’s first hint of breaking - that helpless panic and desperation, only now covered up with soaring rage - had sent her support numbers on a soaring upward spiral that was just now starting to stabilize. Of course, Zyl’s unthinking anger would probably take itself out on the first available target, which was why Arishna had made a point of getting here before Zyl had. Arishna was immune to Zyl’s physical outrage, but the drinks stand and Ciela were not.
Once she had closed to within range, Zyl pivoted hard on her one foot, and raised her other leg high into the air, almost achieving a full vertical split before she brought her heel down with terrific force, aiming right for the center of the wooden drinks table. At least she had chosen to take her anger out on the objects instead of Ciela, Arishna thought to herself, as Zyl’s foot made contact with something invisible yet yielding, like a sheet of rubber, about ten inches above the surface of the drinks stand. The force of her blow was such that her kick made it almost halfway to the table before running out of force, and after a few seconds more of straining against the barrier, she whipped her foot back and stomped it on the floor beside her other foot. The look on her face made it very clear that her anger was not at all quelled, and it was her words that came next:
“You fucking made me piss myself! Fucking assholes! I swear to fuck that I’m going to find where you are, you bitch, and pound your face into the floor until you’re begging to apologize!” This finger was jabbed directly at the succubus’ image. Arishna was quite aware that her usual smile would probably prolong Zyl’s temper tantrum, and while having her flail about in incoherent rage was amusing for a while, they eventually needed her to get back to the real entertainment. So her look was neutral, her posture likewise with both hands clasped behind her back, while Ciela stood silently, gaze slightly downcast, fingers gripping each other tightly in front of her abdomen. The poor thing was probably nervous, reassurance of Arishna’s shield or no. Zyl’s words seemed to fail her, stuck as a growl in her throat, and with a (slightly less mindless) cry of anger she began to pummel the giving surface of Arishna’s barrier with her fists, until finally a few minutes later she started to wind down, and coughed, her throat likely a bit raw from all the screaming.
“Gimme the damn water,” Zyl snapped finally and Ciela passed her the bottle of water as Arishna lowered the shield, although ready to raise it again if Zyl’s temper flared a second time. The amazonian dark elf jabbed the plastic water bottle into her lips and tilted her head back, squeezing the bottle to spray water into her mouth and gulp it down as if she were on a time limit of some sort. “And some new shorts, since you made me ruin the other damn ones. I’m not doing your fucking shithouse full of traps flashing my pussy to everyone all the time. Then I’m going the other way, because the last trap on that other side is pure fucking ass.” Zyl slammed the bottle of water down on the table, and then ate three of the small triangular pieces of watermelon for the express purpose of being able to snap the wooden toothpicks between her fingers and throw the splinters into the hall behind her. “I’m not drinking any more of your bullshit potion either. I know you put something into it to fuck with me, even if I don’t know what.”
“Ciela drank the potion and nothing bad happened to her,” Arishna pointed out. “I promise, we didn’t put anything at all into the potion. It’s just made of grinding a naturally occurring herb into a powder and then mixing that with water. It’s literally just water and herbs that improve your stamina.” Zyl narrowed her eyes, obviously trying to ignore the gentle blue pulsing on her left wrist. Even that more detailed explanation of what went into it was true, but it wasn’t what Zyl had wanted to hear, and her frustration at being unable to pin down the trick was visible. Arishna still kept her expression neutral, partly to avoid provoking Zyl again but also to avoid giving away the glee she felt. Zyl was not wrong that there was a trick being played on her, and watching her flail blindly at the answer and miss was unbelievably amusing. “Anyway, there’s a couple of options for clothes in the first room on the right, so go ahead and take your pick when you’re ready, since you’re not going to the left side again.” When Zyl gave Arishna a poisonous glare and stalked off, the succubus knew she was starting to return to normal, although probably still with a short fuse on her temper.
Zyl found herself in the next room still in a foul temper, but for the moment converting her anger into determination to move forward. Now she could nurse the embers of resentment and revenge to drive her forward - fantasies of bringing the smirking succubus to heel drove Zyl’s steps to quickness. This room was different than the others she had seen so far, lit brightly with artificial light, the walls, floor, and ceilings all metal, though the floor was covered with rough, friction-y bumps that didn’t really tickle in the slightest even when Zyl walked over them barefoot. A number of swimsuits hung from pegs set into the left wall, and Zyl simply chose the one furthest to the left, colored dark blue, and pulled the bikini bottoms on before considering the obstacle. A circle set into the floor in the middle of the room, with two obvious markings for her feet, plus another circle directly above it in the ceiling, coupled with two more markings for her hands. Zyl rolled her eyes and groaned with the extremely obvious setup, but the metal door on the opposite side of the room was shut tight, and a small electronic display read “TIME REMAINING: 1:00”. At least they were up front about it this time, so Zyl stepped into the circle, put her hands and feet in place, and braced herself.
“Closing of eyes is recommended. Commencing preparation procedure,” a voice said from somewhere in the room. It wasn’t Arishna’s voice, more like that voice Zyl had heard before but hadn’t seen its owner. No sooner had Zyl narrowed her eyes in suspicion than the entire room suddenly filled with jets of water spraying from every direction, causing her to splutter and shut her eyes reflexively… and then start to giggle.
“Fuhuhhehehehahahahah dammit,” she gasped. The pressure on some of those jets was weak, like a shower, but for others it was much stronger, and they seemed to deliberately trace patterns around on her abs and ass and armpits. Water pressure didn’t tickle as much as actual physical contact did, though, but it reminded her of -- “Fuck!” she spluttered, as the warm water currently drenching her was suddenly joined by foamy, slick soap which just sort of… splashed over her like a wave. No wonder the room was set up like this, if they were just gonna throw water and soap everywhere. At least it was warm, and not too ticklish, she thought. As if triggered by said thoughts, Zyl suddenly felt large, whirring brushes make contact with her sides, thighs, waist, legs… everywhere, really, shaped all different sorts of ways to stroke against her body, and THAT fucking tickled. “FUUUUhhahahahahahahah! AHAHAHAHAHHhahaahahahh gooohahahahahheheheeheheheheh hdahaaahaaammmmiihihiiit!” Zyl howled through clenched teeth, not wanting to get a mouthful of soap, which in her experience always tasted like total ass.
Just as her resolve started to quiver, and the ticklishness seemed like it was going to prompt a reaction, Zyl heard an electronic chime sound softly, and the brushes and the soap stopped, leaving just five seconds of a total rinse-down before everything stopped, and she heard the door slide open. “Preparation complete. Please proceed forward,” the voice told her, and Zyl opened her eyes.
“Gee, fucking thanks,” she growled, realizing there was apparently no ‘drying’ sequence to this bullshit, and now she was dripping wet. She reached up to wring out her hair, and then something occurred to her suddenly, and she turned around, marching back out to Arishna and Ciela, who both looked somewhat surprised to see her coming from that direction. For some reason, that made Zyl feel a little better - having finally done something that caught Arishna off-guard. “Ciela, was it? Do you have any hair ties?” After a moment’s hesitation, Arishna conjured one somehow, and then Ciela handed it to Zyl, who put it in her mouth for a moment, used both hands to gather up her silver-white hair into a ponytail, and then used the hair tie to secure it in place. That made it much easier to wring out with her hands, and then she proceeded back the way she had come… only to discover that the door had been shut on her, and she needed to undergo an additional minute’s preparation to proceed: “OH COME THE FUCK ON!”
More water, more soap, more brushes, and then Zyl wrung out her hair once more. Come to think of it, this was probably why all of her clothing choices in this room were swimsuits, and she decided to go with the flow (hah) and discard her white top as well, tossing it back into the foyer behind her and completing her blue bottoms with a matching bikini top. Everyone watching had already seen her boobs anyway, and it wasn’t like she cared too much about showing them, so why bother trying to hide while she was changing? They’d probably get off on her being embarrassed or some shit.
So the next area was just outright weird. A short hallway, back to the wood panel style like a fake mansion or something, and then in front of her there were ten… doors? Door-shaped barriers obscuring whatever was behind them. It seemed like a lot of work to use energy barriers instead of actual doors, but whatever. The ‘doors’ stretched to her left and right, the corridor perpendicular to the one she had just walked up through, and Zyl counted ten in total. Beside each barrier was a small electronic display, and she looked at the closest one, which read:
“ONE FOOT - FIFTEEN SECONDS. CONFIRM SELECTION: YES/NO”
“So that’s what she meant,” Zyl groused. “This whole bullshit is about making me stay still for tickling for whatever amount of time.” At least with THIS side, she’d get to pick, although the fact that there were ten options meant that this was going to fucking suck. It was probably like some kind of maze bullshit, but Zyl pressed the “YES” button on the display, which caused a wooden panel to retract, opening up a foot-shaped hole in the wall. Then she stood back slightly, and kicked her foot forcefully through the hole, unfortunately connecting with nothing before the hole closed around her ankle, leaving her standing on one foot. As the display’s fifteen second countdown timer started to move, Zyl felt something on the other side, like… hands. Mechanical hands. And claws. Or fingernails. “FUCK. SHIHIHEHAHHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAAAAA!!!”
Zyl hopped around on her one foot, arms flailing to keep her balance, as the claws made the most of the time they had. Strong mechanical fingers laced with her toes, stopping her foot from curling up, and then two full sets of fingers began to scratch along her arch. They were ruthless, attacking her sole with full power right from the start, teasing along both sides of her feet and stroking at the heel. Even with only fifteen seconds to endure, Zyl burst out laughing at the sudden tickle attack: “SHHEHEHEHEHEHEHEEEHEEE! HAHAHahahahahAHHHAHAHahahehehhehe--!! FUHHUHUUUCK!” Reflexively, she pounded her fists on the wall and tried to pull her foot away, which worked, surprisingly. Rather, she realized a moment later, her fifteen seconds were up, and the barrier beside the display shimmered and dimmed, to reveal absolutely nothing but a blank wall surface.
“What - huh?” She thumped on the wall, then felt around on it for a while, then kicked at it, and then gritted her teeth. “Oh you must be fucking kidding me!” Of course it would have been too easy to trade fifteen seconds of a foot tickle to open the way forward, but the fact that it was just literally nothing in front of her was fucking irritating. “Piece of shit,” she growled, then moved to her left to check the next display: BELLYBUTTON - TWO MINUTES. “Oh fuck you, nope --” Zyl said at first, and then hesitated. It would be just like them to lock the actual way forward behind the most assful condition, betting on her to skip it, and making her suffer all the other choices before having to pick this one anyway. “Rrrgh. Fine. Fuck. Let’s get this over with. Just two minutes.” Zyl stabbed the “YES” button, and just as before, a section of wooden paneling moved to reveal… well, it looked like it was supposed to be torso-shaped, and when Zyl pressed her front up into the oddly-shaped hole, there was a feeling of sudden suction, and then she was stuck. “Shit.”
The countdown started to move. 2:00, 1:59, 1:58, 1:57… nothing happened. “Fuckers…” she breathed softly, and then she felt it. Not brushy or vibrating like before. This one was soft, teasing, sliding gently into her bellybutton and rolling around the inner rim, almost more like it was trying to tease her than torture her. And that, to Zyl, was just horrible. Unbearable, horrible, ticklish. “NOOOONHAHAHAHH NONHAHEHEHE NO NO FUCK IT I CAHHAHAEHEH I CAN’T STOP STOP STHOOOOHOOHAHAH-AHAHHAAAA! STOPPIT STOP!” she screamed, banging on the wall and trying desperately to pull herself away from the suction that had her trapped in place, but there was no escape. Dozens of little soft, feathery tendrils were reaching into her navel now, stroking at the sensitive inside of her little belly divot, and Zyl shook her head wildly, almost all out of proportion to the actual intensity of the tickling, yet this was driving the dark elf absolutely mad. “NYAHAHAHAHAHAHAHH I CAN’T NONONO I AHHAAHH CAN’T I GIVE UP PLEHEHEEE NONONO STOP STOPPIT--”
Zyl found herself suddenly back in the foyer in front of the drinks stand, for a moment confused as to what had just happened. Then she realized that she’d inadvertently spoken the surrender phrase and triggered her necklace to send her back to the start, causing her to stomp her foot and yell up at the ceiling. “FUCK YOU! I didn’t actually mean it!” she hissed, forehead wrinkling in anger as her brows scrunched. “Fucking annoying little…” She didn’t even acknowledge Ciela or Arishna as she stalked past the drinks stand, but the sight of it made her feel a little twinge, and that broke her pace just slightly. No, she couldn’t actually have to… No. It was just all in her head. The kind of head-fuckery demons loved. The purpose of the damned thing was probably just to remind her of liquid and screw with her every time she came back this way. Fuckers. And the fucking washing room again. Goddess damn it. Zyl definitely did NOT need to go again. Not at all.
Then back to the room with the ten doors - well, nine now. Back to the bellybutton torture, and Zyl pressed her front up against the torso-shaped depression in the wall, trying to ride her determination through the two minutes of torture. “NYhhh-ahahha-HAAAHAHAHAHAHA! HAHAHAHAAHA HAHAAH HAAAAAAA! NOOO-hooohahahahahha fuckit fuckit FUCK FUCK FUHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHHAAHAAA!” It was absolutely awful. Unbearably ticklish. Zyl hated having her bellybutton tickled so, so much. It was so fucking ticklish. The way those feathery little tendrils got so deep into her navel and brushed against the inside in a way fingers or most tools couldn’t? Mind-blowingly horrible. Zyl screamed with laughter, pounding her fists on the wall, trying to pull herself away as if that would save her, before just limply bowing her head in defeat, her blows against the wall weakening, and she just tried to endure, somehow. Some way. She had to, but all she could think about was the way those little tendrils were able to get into the very deepest core of her sensitive place, and stroke across it like the fingers of so many tiny fairies. Impossibly swirling around in a way no person could ever imitate.
Zyl tried to think of anything else. Anything but that evil tickling. Anything ELSE but that growing suspicion she needed to use the bathroom again. The more she tried not to think about it, the more her mind became consumed with it, her body going into a disorganized frenzy of flailing and hammering at the unyielding wall. “PLEHEHEHEHEHEHEEEEZE NO NOHOHOOO MOOHOO----ooooooreeee oh thank the goohha-hahahheh-heheheh goddess…” In the middle of her frenzied scream, the timer blessedly ran out, and Zyl sort of peeled away from the wall and fell onto her ass with a thud, then collapsed to sprawl out on the floor once again. As she glanced up, she felt a small flicker of triumph within her, for with the dissolution of the opaque barrier, she was able to see a door. “Hah… ha, you fuckers. I got your number this time.” That small pleasure of outwitting the demons again flickered within her breast, and Zyl allowed herself the luxury of resting a moment - still soaking wet, actually, because of the stupid washing room thing. That probably wasn’t helping her imagination, either. All this goddess-damned water. Finally, Zyl sprang to her feet again and rolled her neck around, stretching it to one side and then the other as she opened the door and walked through.
Had Zyl known Arishna had set up some of the transmission crystals to focus on her face at this very moment, she probably would have grown furious again, and the slow-motion playback of her momentary expression of utter bafflement would prove to be quite popular. When Zyl took a step forward, there was actually nothing there. Just a ten-foot drop into a pool of water below, in a dark room with literally nothing else in it. That was it. A literal dead-end, a trap that Zyl couldn’t escape without invoking the surrender charm, and as she splashed down into the water, she came up spluttering, and screamed: “I GIVE UP! FUCK YOU!”
---
When Zyl reappeared, soaking wet and panting in the foyer once again, she continued to ignore Arishna and Ciela and went to the right side yet again, before Arishna could say anything about her three surrenders or any commentary about stupid polls or anything like that. Zyl was furious about having that small satisfaction of victory snatched away from her so rudely. And, thanks to the whirl of thoughts in her mind, she’d forgotten that this meant she would have to go through the rinse-down yet another time, and her frustration boiled over. Zyl’s fists hammered on the metal door as if trying to punch it down, seething red clouding her vision as the enormous unfairness of the task before her loomed on the outskirts of her mind, threatening to swamp her in despair. Not having slept very well hadn’t done much for her mental state, either, and the fact that she kept flying into adrenaline-fueled rages like this, slamming her body uselessly on hard, unyielding surfaces… Zyl was starting to feel it. Starting to feel the fatigue, both physical and mental, creep up on her again. It hadn’t even been that long yet, had it? Sometimes it got hard to tell how much time was passing in here, making Zyl feel like she was losing her mind, and slowly the fruitless punches at the metal door of the washing room stopped, until with the last blow she was aware of how much the sides of her hands stung from all this thrashing - she hadn’t been so stupid as to punch hard surfaces with her knuckles and risk breaking a bone.
Think. She had to think. If nothing else, it was becoming increasingly clear that everything was set up to counter her physical strength and trick her with stupid traps and puzzles. It was a hard lesson to learn, especially right in the middle of all this crap going on, but the one thing she did have to admit was that the demons had never made a puzzle or obstacle that she COULDN’T finish. No, it was usually that she had to finish them by doing something… “Something that I don’t want to do… oh, fuck me, no,” she groaned aloud. Like before. She was only able to finish the Slime Land obstacles by taking the slimes’ advice, and letting them tickle her all over in exchange for protection from the traps that would knock her off the bars or balance beam or whatever. It was probably the same thing this time, right? Once she looked at it that way, it felt almost painfully obvious.
Zyl hadn’t wanted to admit it, but Arishna had been telling the truth the whole time, and there was probably nothing wrong with the stupid Endurance Potion. She’d seen Ciela drink it, and it didn’t seem like anything was wrong with her. She even had to admit that she’d felt considerably better and more prepared to face her challenges after having some. And that was their trap. Ciela had even said it herself - these tickling traps were way harder than before, because the dark elf had needed to endure them for longer. Zyl was wearing herself out thrashing and flailing and getting mad and hitting everything. It made sense now. The demons were forcing her to make a choice, and that choice really only had one correct answer, and it was an answer she hated.
Zyl could keep going as she was, getting angry, getting exhausted and worn out by these sneaky bullshit traps that didn’t play fair, pounding on doors, and wondering if she’d be able to stand the next session of tickling she needed to endure. Or, she could give in, guzzle a whole bunch of Endurance Potion to give herself the strength to withstand all the tickling, and absolutely kiss her dignity goodbye as they tickled the piss out of her. But there was really no other way, was there? Zyl got to her feet, again feeling that strange, almost numb sense of calm as she resolved herself to the choice she didn’t want to have to make, but made anyway in order to proceed through this tickle nightmare.
When the dark elf returned to the drinks stand, she leaned on it with a look of knowing exasperation directed at Arishna, but no words. Then she spoke to Ciela, which felt much easier. “All right. Fine. I figured out your scheme. Gimme the damn potion. The faster I get out of this shithole, the faster I can end your twisted entertainment programming.” Arishna didn’t say anything, but just smiled, and nodded.
Zyl was still overlooking one small but crucial piece to the puzzle. Too trapped in the present, too focused on what was ahead of her, to realize just what it was that she had forgotten.
What a shame.~
Contains a lot of swearing and Zyl getting very angry. Also contains Zyl getting tickled until she wets herself, so if that's not your cup of tea, be warned.
On with the show!
Part 1: http://www.ticklingforum.com/showthread.php?321143-Tickle-Trap-Tower-1-(-f-fantasy)
Part 2: http://www.ticklingforum.com/showthread.php?321144-Tickle-Trap-Tower-2-(-f-fantasy)
Part 3: http://www.ticklingforum.com/showthread.php?321145-Tickle-Trap-Tower-3-(-f-fantasy)
Part 4: http://www.ticklingforum.com/showthread.php?321146-Tickle-Trap-Tower-4-(-f-fantasy)
---
Zyl cracked an eye open and almost immediately felt as if she shouldn’t have. It already felt like one of those days where the best course of action was to pull the sheets back up over herself, roll over, and go back to sleep. Indeed, she was pondering doing just this, curling up on her side and trying not to hear the soft but clearly audible stream of commentary she could hear coming from somewhere within her room. In her sleepy state of mind, it took her a minute to come up with the answer, but eventually she recognized it as the usual morning update and commentary on her progress, and Eri’s, through their daily ticklish hell. Zyl was certainly in a sour mood this morning, the kind of grumpiness that stemmed from not feeling rested after a night’s sleep.
Despite trying not to hear it, the voices coming over the image transmission carried information to Zyl’s ears anyway: “Eri’s already been struggling at this course for a little while, hasn’t he? It was a wonder that he was able to get past his first opponent and snag the water-breathing charm, but it seems like the dark elven boy looked before he leapt, and is now in a perilous situation~ It’d be even worse if he couldn’t swim at all, but he’s going to have to try a lot harder if he wants to out-swim a naga in the water! Ooh, it looks like she got another orgasm out of him just now… the poor boy looks exhausted, trying to run and swim while having his cock milked so insistently! I’m sure I don’t need to remind anyone here of just how lazy boys get after a nice climax, hee hee…”
What made it worse from Zyl’s end was that the commentary had started her imagination going, and in her mind she was seeing her brother wrangling with one of the large snake women - underwater? Or maybe on the surface? Obviously, he was all wrapped up in her tail, and had his arms held up over his head, and was absolutely getting ruined by her nails skittering along his sides, drilling into those spots just below the ribs, or in the soft bottom part of his underarms. And, because the demons were total perverts, he was probably naked, too. No, he had to be, the announcer succubus had just said he’d cum, right? It occurred to Zyl that she was able to recognize that the voice coming into her room wasn’t Arishna’s, and it wasn’t that dispassionate, analytical voice she’d heard before, either. Hadn’t she seen another succubus that one time with Eri, all bronze skin and pink outfit with gloves and platinum blonde hair?
Zyl curled up into a tighter ball, the disorganized whirl of her thoughts going on for a few more seconds before she tossed the sheet aside and sat up on the side of her bed, eyes narrowed, but taking in the sight of her brother and his current predicament as it was actually occurring. “Ghhhh…” she groaned, rolling her neck around, then forcing herself to get out of bed and stretching, cracking some of her stiff joints and feeling a little more limber after said stretches, although mental alertness did not follow as quickly as she would have liked it to. The dark elf went to prepare herself some breakfast, but rummaged a little bit deeper in her cabinet this time, hoping that Arishna would have had the foresight to -- Yes. Though she didn’t usually have any stimulants in the morning, her mother always had, and Zyl found some strong breakfast tea to go along with her meal, setting a pot of that to brew, all the while listening to and occasionally watching Erialen go through his own trials via the transmitted image that was probably put into her room entirely on purpose.
The underwater breathing charm he’d acquired protected him from any actual danger, but just as Zyl had suspected, he had a tail wrapped around his ankle tightly, so that no matter how desperately he clawed at the water to swim to the surface, he couldn’t escape the pair of hands tracing around his trapped foot. Ticklish flailing made his swimming ineffective anyway, and even as Zyl watched, his endurance waned for the moment, allowing him to be reeled back into the embrace of the waiting snake-girl who was lounging indolently on the floor of the faux seabed the demons had constructed. Even as she watched, pouring herself a cup of the strong breakfast tea and sitting down to have her morning meal, Erialen was gathered into the arms of the naga, who nestled his head right up against her breasts, leaning down to nibble on one of his ears, and used two of her own hands to grasp his wrists, gently fold them behind her neck, and open his body up for her four other hands to start their work.
It was an utter massacre. Two of the naga’s six hands went for his underarms, and with two fingers apiece, started to wriggle and massage at the sensitive spot right where the rib, underarm, and side met, an unbearably ticklish spot for the dark elven male. Just this alone had Eri tossing his head back and howling with laughter, which was interestingly punctuated by a stream of bubbles that floated up from his mouth to the surface. One additional hand laid in a fingertip along the line of Eri’s hip and waist, digging into the little hip ‘pocket’ for yet more ticklish insanity, and her other hand would have probably mirrored it if the naga hadn’t started to stroke her nails lightly all over Erialen’s erect shaft, tickling down along his balls, and reaching underneath of them now and again to get a sudden jerking reaction from his obviously tired-out body. He was too tired even to struggle effectively, something Zyl sympathized with. Swimming for long periods of time was difficult even when you swam efficiently. Being forced to struggle against an aquatic creature while being tickled out of your mind, well…
“Eri’s reeeeeeeally struggling now, isn’t he~?” came that annoyingly sweet succubus voice again. “Just look at him go~ and he’s got so much more left before he can call it quits! The Tickle Training Course is exhausting him, and the poor boy’s instructors are merciless~” There was a brief pause, and Zylinde sipped her tea almost dispassionately while watching the sight of her younger brother getting tickled silly. “Incidentally, for all you viewers out there who were curious! Zylinde has finally gotten out of bed and is having herself a nice breakfast, so now’s a good time to check up on how much support they’re getting… and it seems like everyone is enjoying what they’re seeing! The latest Succubit counts are as follows: Zylinde has jumped out into the lead with a whopping 27,201 Succubits, but Erialen’s been gaining on her in the past two hours and stands at 25,528!” Zylinde smirked slightly at that, having opened up what was, in her mind, a considerable lead. Never mind how she’d earned so many by sleeping, right? But even as she watched, Eri’s tickle torment was causing his number to increase at a considerable pace, and after just a minute of watching him suffer at the hands of the naga, he had earned another three hundred. Zyl’s count, by contrast, hadn’t budged, obviously because she wasn’t doing anything.
Her eyebrow twitched at this, but even as she finished eating her breakfast and lingered over her tea, Eri seemed to collapse limply in the naga’s arms, too tired even to struggle, it seemed. “Mmm… seems like you need to go back and try again~!” she teased, and before Zyl could wonder what that meant… she seemed to somehow slingshot the exhausted Eri out of her grasp, sending him rapidly up towards the water’s surface. As the transmission crystal changed its viewpoint from an underwater to above-water perspective, Zyl saw him burst out of the water and shoot towards what appeared to be a platform at the water’s edge. There, a pale, slim, but obviously strong demon with black feathered wings waited for him, grinning. Her blonde hair was pulled into a ponytail and she wore a black visor to go along with her black tank top and exercise shorts - clearly, a look that was deliberately cultivated. The succubus had called Eri’s tormentors ‘instructors’, hadn’t she? It was themed as some kind of boot camp from (tickle) hell.
“Whaa? Are you tellin’ me that after you snuck past me with that sneaky shit, you flopped on the water section?” she demanded, even as she caught Eri’s flying form out of the air, which looked slightly ridiculous because he was actually taller than the fallen angel, but in his exhausted state and with her obvious conditioning, she was able to handle him as if he weighed nothing. “Now I’m gonna have to punish you good, you little weasel. I’m gonna tickle you shitless until you get this right!”
“NOOOoooohohohohhehehe no please pleheheheheheheze I can’t I can’t haahahahahHAHAHAHAHA!” was all Eri managed to say in protest before he was put in an armlock, wrestled easily to the ground, and ended up with his arms locked firmly in the ‘instructor’s’ legs, letting him kick, and twist, and howl to his heart’s content, but do nothing to protect his ribs from a fiendish wiggling assault. Whereas the naga under the water - who had come up onto the platform to watch, leaning on the edge of the platform with her chin on a pair of folded arms - had been gentle, teasing, and merciless, this fallen angel was very clearly the hard-ass kind of instructor, and brutally attacked Eri’s ribs, wiggling out of sync along both sides of his ribcage with her thumbs, massaging deep to hit the sensitive spots that had him squealing with hysteria. His head twisted this way and that, nestled in between the strong thighs of the fallen angel, who was leaned over him to give her fingers the necessary leverage to tickle him so powerfully. Had he not been absolutely laughing himself stupid, he probably would have loved having a faceful of her tits and his head between her thighs, but ruthless tickle torture was the only thing he could react to at the moment.
“Mmmrhgh…” Zyl grumbled, staring at the bottom of her empty teacup, feeling stupid holding such a dainty little thing in her hand anyway, and squinting then at Eri’s climbing Succubit numbers while hers remained still. Shit. Her lead wasn’t going to remain for long if she sat here on her ass, but she still didn’t feel fully awake. Fuck it. She’d had to do things on little sleep before, during her training, and sitting here moping around wasn’t going to get anything done. Now that the tea had cooled from steaming hot to pleasantly warm, Zyl simply took the handle of the teapot, stuck the spout in her mouth, and gulped down perhaps two-thirds of the remaining contents. That would have to do. Zyl spared a moment to glance back at display while she pulled on her top and tight-fitting shorts, seeing her brother absolutely helpless in the face of a much stronger opponent who was determined to exploit his vulnerability to the fullest, and the increasing number in the corner of the display that indicated just how much demons liked seeing this sort of thing.
Zyl checked that her necklace was in place and her bracer was secure, and headed out the door. Time to face her own twisted fate.
---
The Machine Manor, Arishna had called it. Zyl stood in the entryway with her arms crossed, taking in the sight before her. Indeed, it lived up to the “manor” part of the description, with the dark, wood-paneled floors and walls, with faux candles burning in sconces to provide some level of ambient light while hidden lights somewhere else actually illuminated the place. It felt like some rich person’s house, if somewhat foreboding, although nothing at first glance actually felt suspicious or hostile. The more curious thing, Zyl thought, was that there was a hallway that led off to the left, disappearing around a corner, and a mirrored hallway to the right. Two paths, huh? That was new, unless they were going to make her solve a puzzle on one side to go back and take the other. But in Slime Land they had made that fact pretty clear, and this time she had no idea what was on either side, as the dark elf stood in the foyer with her arms crossed. Still, the fact that she had two options for which path to take wasn’t actually the strangest thing about what she was seeing right now, and Zyl had saved the oddest thing for last, despite it being right in front of her.
Of course Arishna was there, floating with that smug, annoying little smile on her face. It wasn’t ACTUALLY smug, but Zylinde had a hard time seeing that eyes-narrowed, wide grin on the succubus’ face as anything but smug, or suspicious, or plotting, or some other negative thing. Then there was somebody else with her, too. A female satyr, with deep blue skin, horns curving back from her temples to sweep back along either side of her head, wearing similarly sporty-looking clothes as Zyl herself was. She had an almost innocent-looking smile on her face, standing behind what appeared to be an impromptu wooden stand, complete with a cute sign held up on two support poles affixed to the front corners of the stand. The sign read “Drinks Shop” and laid out on the table there was a pitcher of water along with a glass, something that was labeled “Endurance Potion” and another glass, and a plate full of watermelon cut into triangles with little wooden toothpicks stuck into each one. “Okay,” Zyl started off. “You must be crazy if you think I’m going to buy this. Obviously you put some evil shit into these drinks and the watermelon that will fuck with me if I have any of it.”
“So suspicious~” Arishna teased with a giggle. “You should know me better than that, Zyl. I know you have your little lie detector on your arm there. Why would I bother to put anything in these drinks when you could just ask about it and catch me in the act? I promise that we haven’t put anything into any of these.” Zyl checked her glowing truth jewel. Blue again. Of course. It made her cross her arms and glance from the drinks, to Arishna, to this strangely shy-looking satyress.
“What the hell is the point of all this then?” she snapped, eyeing one of the watermelon bites, and trying to bite into it a bit more savagely than necessary to show her irritation. Watermelons being mostly water, this didn’t have the impact she desired, and left her feeling annoyed and foolish as usual. At least the watermelon tasted good.
“After yesterday, we came to the realization that you came dangerously close to just tiring out and being unable to continue! And that’s just no fun at all. So, after an instant online poll last night, the viewers voted on this to help you out.” Arishna made a sweeping gesture at the table. “True, the water and the watermelon are just refreshments to help you out if you need them, but the endurance potion is something you can drink for a pick-me-up if you start to get tired out and have a hard time with the obstacles!” The best lies had a core of truth to them, after all, and Zyl HAD spent a good amount of time panting on the floor during her completion of the Slime House. Since Arishna hadn’t actually lied in her explanation, Zyl’s truth detection jewel went blissfully unaware of the succubus’ deception - the endurance potion would do exactly as Arishna said.
“Whatever.” Zyl popped another watermelon triangle in her mouth. The nice thing about eating these was that you didn’t need to wash them down with anything to drink. “So what’s the deal with these two passageways?”
“Choice!” Arishna said, sparkling. Zylinde noticed out of the corner of her eye that the satyress behind the stand, who hadn’t said anything to this point, refilled the watermelon plate with additional pieces. So, she was actually here and not a projection? Maybe that explained why she’d stayed quiet. She probably knew Zyl had been seen to take several swings at Arishna’s image. “We thought, why not give you some options in the Machine Manor? The theme is similar for both routes, and both of them will take you to the end! If you can get through the left side all the way to the end, you can skip the right side entirely, no questions asked!” Still no lie, as usual. “If you go left and find it too hard, you can try out the right side instead! Both sides have obstacles to test your willpower, but you can switch between the two routes as often as you like! Now, which way are you going to choose~?”
Zyl looked left, looked right, and then left again, and chose the left path, walking around the corner and out of sight. Arishna giggled, and spoke in a stage-whisper for her audience: “You’re soooooo close, Zyl~! You’re just not asking the right questions~ Mmmhmhmhm… So now, it’s time for our first poll of the day. Our first question is: How long do you think it will take before Zyl has a little ‘accident’~?”
---
More platforms, more water, more general weirdness. It was all par for the course, Zyl thought, as she found herself standing on a platform which rose about ten feet out of the (of course) water sloshing about below. The wood-paneled walls were lit by more of the faux candles, but the ceiling here was much higher, high enough that it was lost in the darkness, although Zyl could see that there were some lights, cabling, and other uninteresting machine-y stuff up there. In the dimness, the periodic glimmering of the transmission crystals floating in the air was harder to pick up on, and more than a few times Zyl had allowed herself the luxury of forgetting that they were there, waiting to capture her embarrassment from every possible angle. Hmph. Sometimes it was really kind of astounding how much effort the demons had put into all of this stuff. Then again, Zyl knew of the Academy tower, and how enormous it was, and how much time the demons probably spent coming up with this random crap for their own amusement.
This time, the ‘goal’ platform was actually a good six or eight feet higher than the one she stood on, and they were connected by a sort of gondola contraption, a thick cable strung between the lower platform and the higher one, a cable from which dangled a truly bizarre contraption. “It looks like Zyl has opted to challenge the left-side path, the cleverly named ‘Tickle to Ride’, first!” Zyl almost didn’t even react to Arishna’s voice, and she certainly didn’t turn around in surprise like she might have at first. “The concept here is simple! There’s only one way forward, and that’s to ride in the specially designed cart which will take her to the next platform! Operation of these carts is simple - all our challenger has to do is make sure all of the red buttons are pressed simultaneously, and the cart will move forward, no questions asked! Sounds simple, right?” Arishna then paused, as if waiting for Zyl to give a response, tilted slightly forward with an expectant look on her face.
Instead, Zyl bent her knees and then jumped straight up, grabbing onto the cable which connected the two platforms. The moment her hands closed around it, she realized there was something incredibly slippery covering the cable, and she promptly started to slide backwards towards the door where she had entered the room from. Even though she let go immediately, her momentum carried her to land in the doorway, and as she walked back towards the dumb-looking cart, she considered her now-slick hands with a frown. Arishna had her fists on her hips and a comically puffed-up face of annoyance. “Oh, come on, Zyl. It’s been obvious since the first hour that your first approach to any puzzle is brute force. Didn’t you think we would take precautions against that sort of thing?”
“It’s been obvious since the first minute that this whole setup is chock-full of bullshit,” Zyl retorted as she studied the cart thing she was expected to ride in. “You can hardly blame me for keeping you honest, now can you?”
“Oho! Our little Zyl is developing a bit of a quick wit to go along with her sharp tongue~! I like it!” Zyl ignored the succubus’ retort and recalled Arishna’s explanation. All of the red buttons at once, huh. Making a simple chair would have been too easy for the demons. There were six of the buttons, in different shapes and weird positions, too far apart for her to push more than one with a single hand or foot. “Think of it like… sitting in a certain position,” Arishna added helpfully, after it seemed that Zyl was struggling with the concept a little bit, drawing the dark elf’s ire.
“I know that,” she snapped. Sitting a certain way, huh… the part on top was probably for her hands, a simple crossbar with two buttons about the size of her hands. Then there were two circular red buttons, and then the part it looked like she was supposed to sit on with two more buttons facing her… In the end, Zyl ended up kneeling upon a padded cushion, her knees touching two of the buttons, her toes perched on a narrow cutout behind her, and her arms extended overhead. Just great. But, as Arishna had said, as soon as all six of these red buttons were pressed, the cart shuddered, and began to slowly crawl upwards towards the platform above her.
Positioned as she was, of course, meant that there were almost too many exposed spots to pick from. After about fifteen seconds of a very, very slow crawl towards that upper platform, Zyl heard a very unpleasant mechanical whirring sound coming from behind her, and then a moment later, two thin, vibrating little somethings slid into the spot between her second and third toes. “KYahhHAHAHAHAHAahhahahahahaha fuuhuhuuuuuckkkk!!” she howled, immediately scrunching her toes and wiggling her feet to bat away the offending devices - and the moment she did so, her forward progress ceased, the cart slowly rolling backwards towards the beginning, even as the buzzing things tried to keep up the torment of her feet. Zyl turned her head around to see two fine, humming tips attached to what looked to be like mechanical tentacles, long, segmented metal arm things coming from underneath of the cart she was riding in. “Fuckers! Get awayahahahahah! Off! Get --” With a sudden shudder, the cart came to a stop, and Zyl realized she was back at the bottom of the incline, the mechanical arms withdrawing and leaving her feet alone. Zyl shot a murderous glare at the image of the succubus, smirking in that impish way she had that was so very infuriating. “Like hell!” she shouted, rubbing her feet against one another for a moment.
Arishna just gave one of those wicked sweet smiles. “You could always just, you know, give up and try the other path~” Zyl maintained her ‘I will murder you right now’ look for a few seconds more before she faced forward, setting her jaw stubbornly, and returning her toes to the designated spot. The way the contraption was designed was meant to force Zyl to keep her toes pressed into the narrow niche where the buttons were, preventing her from scrunching her feet, putting them down flat, or otherwise protecting them. It was only a few seconds into her second journey that the thin, vibrating protrusions returned, teasingly sliding through her toes and drawing a burst of frustrated laughter from Zyl. “FuahahahahAHAHAHAHAHAHAH FUCK! Fucking fha-ahahAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAA!”
The dark elf’s muscles tensed visibly, her back and arms bunching up, hips shifting side to side, toes pressing even harder into the switches in her attempt to endure the ticklish sensations shooting up through her feet. The humming vibrations stroked softly and precisely, the sort of precision only a machine could provide, and stimulated the nerve endings in her toes with a sort of light oscillation that tickled like mad, at least judging from the dark elf’s reactions. The whole thing was made worse by the fact that she had to voluntarily keep her toes in place or the obstacle couldn’t be cleared - a brief lapse in which she curled her toes up and tried to kick the mechanical arm away with her left foot caused the gondola cart to shudder and stop, sliding backwards a few inches before Zyl caught herself and re-exposed her vulnerable feet for more tickling. Though the entirety of both large feet were open for such torments as the ones in between her toes right now, so far she was being humbled with just the ticklish torment in her sensitive toe gaps.
Barred from moving her hands, legs, or feet, Zyl instead whipped her head around, gripping onto the overhead bars more tightly, both suffering the agonizingly slow teasing motions from her feet and the frustratingly slow progress of her ride forward. She’d only made it a third of the way up, judging from a quick glance, when the whirring seemed to change pitch and volume slightly. The difference in sound came from the fact that a new pair of mechanical arms had deployed, aiming for the balls of her feet with small, whirring circular brushes. These, too, worked in an unhurried fashion, and they likewise targeted that hyper-focused area of her feet that was stretched and exposed by the kneeling, toes-dug-in posture that Zyl was forced to adopt. Her frustrated howls of laughter filled the large room, while the glimmering transmission crystals caught close-ups of her ticklish feet as well as her facial expression. “Stoo-haahha-AHHAHAHAHAHHAH SHIHHEHEHEHEHAHAHAH SHAAAAEEEHHEEE! DAHHAHAHAHAMMIT STOOOHAHAHAHHAHAP THAT SHIHIHIIIIT!” Zyl howled, whipping her head back and forth, clenching her teeth as hard as she could in an attempt to endure the torment.
Zyl was so focused on enduring the ticklish torture that she didn’t realize she had failed to suppress the reflexes of one of her feet, which was now wiggling wildly and scrunching its toes in an attempt to fend off the relentless ticklish sensations, and even though she was rolling backwards, the second set of mechanical arms did not disappear, circling around on the balls of her feet, and making especially sure to whirr those brushes in at the base of her toes as well. This onslaught was too much for Zyl to bear, and her defenses crumbled, ankles rotating desperately in an attempt to escape the tickling that overwhelmed her feet like so many electric shocks, pulsing up through the rest of her body. Only when she had thumped back against the starting platform and the tickling ceased did she seem to remember what she was doing, and dismounted the gondola cart with an annoyed huff, breathing heavily and sitting down on the platform, using her fingers to rub in between her toes and massage away the lingering tickle sensation.
“Looks like Zyl’s second attempt has also ended in failure! Those big feet of hers are just far too ticklish to endure focused tickles in such a vulnerable spot! Not like it’s something we didn’t already know, but our big, strong dark elf challenger is just one large collection of tickle spots. A collection of tickle spots just like her brother who - as of this moment - has retaken the lead in Succubit count!” Zyl’s head came up, her eyes narrowed in irritation, but Arishna was speaking to the audience and not to her, always something that was annoying to the elf. “It seems like his training instructors are just absolutely merciless and the poor, exhausted boy still has several hours of tickle torture to endure~ you pervs just loooove seeing him so absolutely hopeless, don’t you~? Let’s see if Zyl can catch back up now that she’s started the Machine Manor’s first test!”
“That isn’t fucking fair,” Zyl snapped. “You goddess-damned degenerates are all getting off on seeing my brother get fucked sideways by those chicks, of course that’s gonna be more…” As if realizing what she was saying, Zyl suddenly closed her mouth tightly and focused on stretching down to rub at her feet, but the damage was done, and she kept her gaze looking down at the floor, anything but having to look at what was almost certainly a smug smirk on Arishna’s face.
“Do you want to be fucked sideways by sexy demon girls? Or guys? We can do guys too~ I’m sure it would be insaaaaaa~aanely popular if you got tickle-fucked out of your mind, Zyl~” As if her guise slipped for just a moment, Arishna’s grin was just pure wickedness in that moment, and no sweetness whatsoever. Then she was back to that sickly-saccharine-sweet smile. “Don’t worry about that, though! Just keep going like you’re going. I promise you that you’ve got your own points of popularity!” Arishna was almost bubbling over with glee, trying very hard not to give away what awaited Zyl in the very near future. Zyl was perceptive enough to realize there was some utter disaster lurking in the darkness ahead, but her mind naturally went to some kind of horrible tickle trap, unaware of the fact that the special scheme for today’s course had long since begun already.
Zyl had caught her breath since then, and steeled her resolve, Arishna’s antics notwithstanding. Okay. She had to endure this stupid bullshit of a trap in order to get through this obstacle, and get further ahead to whatever it was that would put her back in the lead -- Zyl shook her head quickly, as if to dispel the thought that had popped into her head like an unwelcome surprise visitor. “What the fuck am I thinking,” she breathed, too softly for Arishna to hear, as she mounted the bizarre gondola once again and tried to prepare her body to endure the hellish tickling.
Think. Think about anything else. Think about not giving up. Never give up. Not even as those ohhhhhhh goddess nnnnnghhhh vibrating fuckers slid in between her toes. Shit. Shit. Think! Anything but the tickling. Don’t give up. Arishna had weirdly asked her if she was going to give up, and usually when the succubus said that it was some scheme to force her to speak the hated ‘I give up’ phrase. But why would she give up when she could have literally just walked ohhhhh fucking shithell the brushes who the fuck twisted asshole designed these hell-brushes what the shiiiiiiiiit…! Don’t think about the things. So hard not to, they tickled like fuck, brushing around in their stupid little circles just above the toes where the vibrating things were fucking murdering her by sliding in and out like they were it tickled so fucking bad fuck fuck fuck --
“WHAT THE ACTUAL SHIHIHIHIIIIT?!” Zyl screamed, her reverie broken by the fact that something else had attacked her. Something vibrating AND brushy at the same time, and it wasn’t anywhere near her toes. Something that fit almost perfectly into her bellybutton had started to whir as it inserted its infernal, ticklish tip into her navel, brushing just past the rim of it before the dark elf’s resistance shattered into a million pieces. One hand came down off of the buttons overhead and grabbed at the mechanical arm which was inserting a piece of pure oh-hell-no into her bellybutton. There was a brief flash of savage satisfaction from Zyl when she pulled on the arm, feeling it come free - and then the whole gondola came apart around her. “Shoddy-ass piece of junk!” she swore as the contraption literally just seemed to collapse into a mess of metal tubing and wiring, dangling uselessly, and she missed grabbing at the strands, sending the dark elf plummeting into the water below, where she landed with an enormous splash. “FUCK! Fine! I give up!” she screamed upwards, the stinging slap of her skin hitting the water’s surface briefly serving as an outlet to her frustration, as it was something that at least was not tickling.
Zyl found herself before the drinks stand with its refreshments and the still-suspicious Endurance Potion, wringing water out of her hair. She really ought to put it in a ponytail or something, since it just ended up turning into a giant mess every time she got wet. That mysteriously quiet, blue-skinned satyress girl was still there, but Arishna was not, probably still giving her stupid play-by-play on Zyl falling. The dark elf was not really sure why the succubus chose to appear or not at any given time, but having a break from her presence was usually welcome. “Did you fall?” Zyl was pulled out of her thoughts by the first words spoken from the satyress, who had kept her hands folded in front of her rather submissively this whole time. “The Endurance Potion should help you with that. I think they made the tickle obstacles harder this time around because the Headmistress was expecting you to make use of the potion. It’ll make it easier for your body to endure being tickled.”
Reflexively, Zyl checked the bracer on her left arm. Nope, still no lie. It was easier to believe this quiet, soft-spoken girl, but it didn’t hurt to check. Still, there was something about this that was hard to take at face value, like… would they really give her a potion that would make dealing with being tickled easier? “Hmm…” Zyl looked at it, and then the satyress, brows furrowed in thought. “Okay, you… uh, whatever your name is… you drink some first.”
“Ciela,” she replied with a smile, and then took the full plastic bottle of Endurance Potion and started to drink from it. “I don’t need this, really,” she said, still smiling, “because I have a giant tickle fetish. I endure being tickled just because I love it so much. In fact, I’d love it if someone made a big tickle obstacle course for me…” Sighing wistfully, Ciela continued to drink from the bottle over the course of several minutes while Zyl studied her intently, from horn-tip to hooves. Nothing looked suspicious. Zyl had been half-expecting a sudden moan and gasping with lust, like it was an aphrodisiac, but no. She even lifted the satyress’ tank top up over her breasts, to see if maybe she was just a good actress and her nipples were diamond hard or something, but none of that either. The crazily submissive satyress let her do all of it with a giggle, patiently enduring Zyl’s examination, and when Zyl seemed satisfied, she refilled the plastic bottle and wiped off the top before setting it back on the table.
“Well,” Zyl said, annoyed that she’d suspected a trap but unable to figure out the catch, if there was one. It could be true, though. Having some damned brush in her bellybutton was an absolute deal-breaker, and if Arishna thought she was going to be able to sit still for that, she was completely wrong. But maybe they had come up with this Endurance Potion because otherwise she wouldn’t be able to finish? She put the bottle to her lips and chugged. It DID have that weird, herby, not exactly bitter but kinda earthy taste she recognized from healing potions she’d drank in a few training exercises. More to the point, it also felt like some of that nagging tiredness she’d felt since getting up this morning was finally going away. Zyl was bouncing on her toes by the end of the bottle, and grinned. “Okay, maybe this stuff is better than I’d thought. Let’s give this a shot.”
“Here she is! Stubborn as always, Zyl had to fail at least once on her own before taking advantage of the special Endurance Potion everyone voted to provide to her for today’s course. But you gotta admire that persistence! She always gives it a shot on her own, no matter how hopeless it looks.” Arishna earned a poisonous look for her trouble but no actual words as Zyl went right to the gondola cart, knelt and put her toes in the appropriate niche, and started the slow climb towards the next platform.
It was hard to say whether or not knowing what was going to come helped or hurt her. The vibrating thing in between her toes tickled. It tickled like shit. So much so that Zyl tightened her grip on the overhead crossbar again and bent her head, breathing rapidly. She shook her head, trying to endure, and closed her eyes tight. Whether it was being mentally prepared, or that Endurance Potion really did work, it was hard to say, but even though that tickling came, and it tickled so bad, Zyl felt like… she could take it. The tickling was there, and she wanted to move. Wanted it to stop. But it didn’t feel like it was overwhelming her, taking control of her. Kinda. Maybe. It was a lot harder when the brushes came again, their whirring ticklishness making her want to burst out laughing. Zyl realized she’d been holding her breath, face contorted into that huge, silly, ticklish grin made by a ticklish person trying not to laugh, and when she finally released the breath she’d been holding, it came out as laughter: “NahhahahahHAHAHAah dhahahahahh dammit dahahhahahammit damn dahahheheheh ehisheheheh hsiiiiiahahahahaaa! HAAAAhahhaahaha~~!”
This was so hard. Just having to sit here and fucking take this tickling. And the bellybutton thing was coming soon, too. That was what really gave her nightmares, like in a literal sense - she briefly remembered flashes of dreams last night, of something in her bellybutton, tickling like an absolute motherfucker. Her toes dug into the buttons even harder, skin going a slightly lighter shade with the pressure she was putting on them, trying to endure that goddess-damned tickling for a while longer. Then, came the nightmare, even as the toes and balls of her feet screamed with the desire to twitch away from the tickling: the navel brush. “FAAAHHAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHHACKKKKKKK!” Zyl howled, bowing her head, and bending her back, trying to suck her stomach away from the mechanical arm. She could move her torso around to some degree, and she tried to do that, shifting her hips and wiggling her belly around, but the machine-guided torture device was just too precise, and once it was inside of her bellybutton, she couldn’t get it out.
It was awful. It tickled like mad, especially when Zyl made the mistake of leaning back from her hands, arching her back and exposing her bellybutton even more to that vibrating brush which had slipped past the rim of her navel and was whirring around in a slow circle, polishing the inside of her bellybutton with what felt like at least several million bristles. “NAAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHHHA! HAHAHAHAHAH AHAHAHAHAH HAAAAAAAA ahahahahahaha! Noooho-hohooo-hahaha-STOOOOOAAHAHAHAHAHAH SHIIIIIT!” It tickled so much she even forgot to swear, briefly. It tickled so much that she couldn’t think. It tickled so badly that she wanted to give up on the spot. It tickled so much that her entire belly started to tingle warmly, the sensations seeming to morph into half a dozen different ones, radiating out from her hyper-ticklish bellybutton. The fact that she could move was her only saving grace, and Zyl squirmed about hysterically atop her kneeling cushion, almost having even forgotten about her feet in the cacophony of ticklish torture bursting from her midsection like so many fireworks. “STOOOHOHOOOHOOHOOOHOOOOP IIIIIIITTTT!”
The fact that the mechanical arm did, indeed, stop, puzzled Zyl, and she cracked open an eye, breathing heavily as she looked around. “Why did…?” she spluttered, and then realized where she was, atop the second platform. “Oh… oh damn… whew… hahhh…” The tickling slowly drained out of her body with the realization that she was done, leaving her with several conflicting sensations. One by one they died down and went away, all except for one, and when Zyl got to her feet, she found herself standing with a slightly discomforted hunch to her upper body. Standing still was difficult, and it took only a moment for her to realize why. She looked around on the platform, but it was obviously empty, and then paced back and forth before she realized there was no choice but to ask Arishna an embarrassing question. “Hey! Arishna! I got a question!” The succubus was nothing if not predictable, at least - she showed up at Zyl’s side within half a second, her face suggesting just how immensely pleased she was to have Arishna ask her a question. Zyl, uncharacteristically, leaned in and whispered the question into the succubus’ ear, trying (probably in vain) to speak without being heard by the transmission crystals. “Hey, uh… where’s the bathroom?”
“Hm? Well, there’s one past the next obstacle, why? You need to go?” It was a question delivered with a bland look of affected curiosity, as Zyl’s body language made it fairly clear what the answer was.
“Nothing, never mind,” the dark elf snapped, and stalked quickly off through the doorway to the next platform, her mind outpacing her steps by an order of magnitude. Just past the next obstacle, which was -- “Are you out of your damned mind?!” she snapped in dismay at the sight of the second obstacle, which was similar to the first. A weirdly designed gondola cart, a large gap between this platform and the next, but in total defiance of the laws of physics, the wire did not simply go from one platform to the next. Instead, it meandered about in the wide gap between platforms, going back and forth, doubling back on itself several times, and in general wasting a colossal amount of time before actually getting to the other side. At least the cart worked in the same way, though Zyl only counted five buttons this time, but four were explicitly shaped like her hands and feet, so it wasn't hard to guess how she needed to position herself. The fifth button was long and really pretty ridiculously large for a button, and as Zyl danced around impatiently looking at the configuration, Arishna (un)helpfully stepped in once more.
“See, you put your feet here, and then you bend your back waaaaaay over and put your hands down here, and then you press this middle button down with your back,” she explained. “Like making a bridge. Oh, and when you get these five into position, the sixth one will automatically come into place for you.”
“Like hell I will!” she snapped in reply, her first thought being to do absolutely anything but this. Anything but this hellspawn contraption. Had she seen a place to relieve herself in the foyer? She couldn’t remember. Having acknowledged her condition, it suddenly seemed to be the only thing she could think about, and made trying to come up with alternate options or exploits increasingly difficult. “Rrrgh! Fuck you and fuck this stupid game!” she hissed, even as she hastened to adopt the bridge position that Arishna had indicated would be necessary. She could do it, rather easily as a matter of fact, but her form trembled and quivered impatiently. Fuck, fuck, oh, fuck. How the hell had this gotten so bad so quickly? There must have been something in that fucking Endurance Potion bullshit! She knew it was a trap. It had to be! Even while her mind whirled, something slid into place and covered her vision, leading Zyl to exclaim angrily, but then she heard the subtle ‘click’ of the top of her head pressing a button, and she felt the contraption start to move with agonizing slowness.
Her thoughts whirred in a nonstop blur of anger and desperate panic. It took almost no time at all for the fucking machines to come in, too, and she felt them now. Four hands positioned at her sides - two up on either side closer to her ribs, and two down lower on her sides. Four thumbs anchoring themselves closer to her back, and sixteen fingers wiggling with merciless precision. The metal was smooth and slightly cool, but the ‘fingers’ were strong, and they attacked her sides with brutal repetition. No subtlety here. “NAHAHHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHH FUCK FUCK HAHAH YOU’RE DOING THIS ON PURPOSE!” she shrieked, her voice a higher pitch than it had ever been before, as her whole body struggled in the arched pose she was forced to maintain. There was no mercy on the part of these hands, and the fact that Zyl was able to endure it for the first minute was mostly thanks to the very real effects of the Endurance Potion. They didn’t even move that much, either, just focusing on a short stretch of her skin, wiggling their fingers deep into the ticklish flesh without mercy, clawing at her sensitive sides with wide, firm pinches of all five fingers, and generally making her life an absolute living hell.
Unlike the first gondola cart, this one didn’t even make it easy for her to soft surrender and slide back to the beginning for a rest. The middle ‘button’ kept the small of her back raised in the bridge posture even if she lacked the strength to maintain it herself, and it was hard to balance herself enough in the midst of her desperate tickle panic to raise a hand or a foot. The weird helmet-visor thingy covering her vision seemed stuck onto her head somehow, so she couldn’t get out of that one, either. While Zyl wasn’t exactly tied up… it was hard for her to escape this position, and that meant the tickling hands massacred her sides without any reprieve for the ticklish, struggling dark elf. She still had her surrender necklace, but if she did THAT, then she’d be back in the foyer and squirming like a little girl, and the humiliation that thought sparked within her was almost too much to bear. For the first time, Zyl felt legitimately trapped, without options, or at least options that she could countenance… “STHHHHAHAHAAAHAHHHEHEHEHEH NNHHHHHAHAHANOOOOHOOOO!!”
Worse still, after a minute or so of this torture, the obvious thing happened, the thing that Zyl had been dreading. Her one hundred percent exposed and stretched out navel became subject to an attack of something thin, brushy, and vibrating. Whatever it was, it was thin enough to slide into her navel without any interference, and reach right into the deepest part of her bellybutton, humming at the most ticklish, most secret inner part of her navel. Things had been difficult for Zyl before, for certain. They’d been hellishly ticklish. But they’d never been this bad. Not with this utter slaughter of her fully exposed midsection. Not with Zyl starting to feel like she was a hair's breadth away from utter humiliation in front of all those transmission crystals. She couldn’t think, couldn’t… couldn’t… couldn’t… do ANYTHING! Nothing except howl hysterically. Curses hadn’t even escaped her lips for almost a full minute now, it was just laughter. Helpless, hopeless, weak laughter. She had no idea how much further it was to the other side, to the end of this infernal contraption.
In her absolute tickle-panic, Zyl began to move her entire body, swinging it first one way, and then the other. This did absolutely nothing to stop the tickling which swarmed over her midsection, as the mechanical arms adjusted too easily to her antics. But with each swing back and forth she could hear the metal start to creak more and more, as she rocked the gondola cart into a swing which it almost certainly wasn’t designed to tolerate. The one thought which Zyl had managed to come up with in her absolute frenzy of ticklish desperation was that this cart might be flimsy like the other one had somehow been, and as she squeezed the muscles in her thighs desperately, trying to resist the growing pressure to humiliate herself, her muscles began to tighten all over. “NOONOOOONOOHOOHOOHOOHOOOHOOOOOO NO NO NOOOOHOOOOO!!” she screamed, and heaved all of her weight to one side, which caused the cart to swing much too far to that side, and the hook temporarily lost hold of the cable before coming back down onto it with a jolt, rattling the whole contraption - and just as Zyl had prayed, causing the whole thing to once again break apart in a strange sort of failsafe mechanism, sending her plummeting freely down to the water below.
Normally, Zyl surrendered the instant she hit the water, but this time, she couldn’t. She couldn’t stop herself from losing the contents of her bladder, tickled out of her by the relentless attention the hands had been paying to her midsection and sides. Even as the tickling fish started to swarm her - overwhelming any hope she might have had of regaining control, and causing her howls of laughter to resume - her mind whirled with conflicting emotions. Shame, relief, rage. She had to endure the horribly ticklish attention of the nibbling fish, swarming in her navel and making her scream with frustration, doubling over and trying to cover her belly while she waited for her body to be done, and only after that could she reach down under the water, remove her bottoms, and fling them angrily up at the dangling wires and metal of the gondola cart. Her voice was a scream of anger:
“I GIVE UP!”
---
The sadist in Arishna fanned herself a little at the sight of Zyl stalking up to the drinks stand like a thundercloud, face dark with fury. The sight of the proud warrior’s first hint of breaking - that helpless panic and desperation, only now covered up with soaring rage - had sent her support numbers on a soaring upward spiral that was just now starting to stabilize. Of course, Zyl’s unthinking anger would probably take itself out on the first available target, which was why Arishna had made a point of getting here before Zyl had. Arishna was immune to Zyl’s physical outrage, but the drinks stand and Ciela were not.
Once she had closed to within range, Zyl pivoted hard on her one foot, and raised her other leg high into the air, almost achieving a full vertical split before she brought her heel down with terrific force, aiming right for the center of the wooden drinks table. At least she had chosen to take her anger out on the objects instead of Ciela, Arishna thought to herself, as Zyl’s foot made contact with something invisible yet yielding, like a sheet of rubber, about ten inches above the surface of the drinks stand. The force of her blow was such that her kick made it almost halfway to the table before running out of force, and after a few seconds more of straining against the barrier, she whipped her foot back and stomped it on the floor beside her other foot. The look on her face made it very clear that her anger was not at all quelled, and it was her words that came next:
“You fucking made me piss myself! Fucking assholes! I swear to fuck that I’m going to find where you are, you bitch, and pound your face into the floor until you’re begging to apologize!” This finger was jabbed directly at the succubus’ image. Arishna was quite aware that her usual smile would probably prolong Zyl’s temper tantrum, and while having her flail about in incoherent rage was amusing for a while, they eventually needed her to get back to the real entertainment. So her look was neutral, her posture likewise with both hands clasped behind her back, while Ciela stood silently, gaze slightly downcast, fingers gripping each other tightly in front of her abdomen. The poor thing was probably nervous, reassurance of Arishna’s shield or no. Zyl’s words seemed to fail her, stuck as a growl in her throat, and with a (slightly less mindless) cry of anger she began to pummel the giving surface of Arishna’s barrier with her fists, until finally a few minutes later she started to wind down, and coughed, her throat likely a bit raw from all the screaming.
“Gimme the damn water,” Zyl snapped finally and Ciela passed her the bottle of water as Arishna lowered the shield, although ready to raise it again if Zyl’s temper flared a second time. The amazonian dark elf jabbed the plastic water bottle into her lips and tilted her head back, squeezing the bottle to spray water into her mouth and gulp it down as if she were on a time limit of some sort. “And some new shorts, since you made me ruin the other damn ones. I’m not doing your fucking shithouse full of traps flashing my pussy to everyone all the time. Then I’m going the other way, because the last trap on that other side is pure fucking ass.” Zyl slammed the bottle of water down on the table, and then ate three of the small triangular pieces of watermelon for the express purpose of being able to snap the wooden toothpicks between her fingers and throw the splinters into the hall behind her. “I’m not drinking any more of your bullshit potion either. I know you put something into it to fuck with me, even if I don’t know what.”
“Ciela drank the potion and nothing bad happened to her,” Arishna pointed out. “I promise, we didn’t put anything at all into the potion. It’s just made of grinding a naturally occurring herb into a powder and then mixing that with water. It’s literally just water and herbs that improve your stamina.” Zyl narrowed her eyes, obviously trying to ignore the gentle blue pulsing on her left wrist. Even that more detailed explanation of what went into it was true, but it wasn’t what Zyl had wanted to hear, and her frustration at being unable to pin down the trick was visible. Arishna still kept her expression neutral, partly to avoid provoking Zyl again but also to avoid giving away the glee she felt. Zyl was not wrong that there was a trick being played on her, and watching her flail blindly at the answer and miss was unbelievably amusing. “Anyway, there’s a couple of options for clothes in the first room on the right, so go ahead and take your pick when you’re ready, since you’re not going to the left side again.” When Zyl gave Arishna a poisonous glare and stalked off, the succubus knew she was starting to return to normal, although probably still with a short fuse on her temper.
Zyl found herself in the next room still in a foul temper, but for the moment converting her anger into determination to move forward. Now she could nurse the embers of resentment and revenge to drive her forward - fantasies of bringing the smirking succubus to heel drove Zyl’s steps to quickness. This room was different than the others she had seen so far, lit brightly with artificial light, the walls, floor, and ceilings all metal, though the floor was covered with rough, friction-y bumps that didn’t really tickle in the slightest even when Zyl walked over them barefoot. A number of swimsuits hung from pegs set into the left wall, and Zyl simply chose the one furthest to the left, colored dark blue, and pulled the bikini bottoms on before considering the obstacle. A circle set into the floor in the middle of the room, with two obvious markings for her feet, plus another circle directly above it in the ceiling, coupled with two more markings for her hands. Zyl rolled her eyes and groaned with the extremely obvious setup, but the metal door on the opposite side of the room was shut tight, and a small electronic display read “TIME REMAINING: 1:00”. At least they were up front about it this time, so Zyl stepped into the circle, put her hands and feet in place, and braced herself.
“Closing of eyes is recommended. Commencing preparation procedure,” a voice said from somewhere in the room. It wasn’t Arishna’s voice, more like that voice Zyl had heard before but hadn’t seen its owner. No sooner had Zyl narrowed her eyes in suspicion than the entire room suddenly filled with jets of water spraying from every direction, causing her to splutter and shut her eyes reflexively… and then start to giggle.
“Fuhuhhehehehahahahah dammit,” she gasped. The pressure on some of those jets was weak, like a shower, but for others it was much stronger, and they seemed to deliberately trace patterns around on her abs and ass and armpits. Water pressure didn’t tickle as much as actual physical contact did, though, but it reminded her of -- “Fuck!” she spluttered, as the warm water currently drenching her was suddenly joined by foamy, slick soap which just sort of… splashed over her like a wave. No wonder the room was set up like this, if they were just gonna throw water and soap everywhere. At least it was warm, and not too ticklish, she thought. As if triggered by said thoughts, Zyl suddenly felt large, whirring brushes make contact with her sides, thighs, waist, legs… everywhere, really, shaped all different sorts of ways to stroke against her body, and THAT fucking tickled. “FUUUUhhahahahahahahah! AHAHAHAHAHHhahaahahahh gooohahahahahheheheeheheheheh hdahaaahaaammmmiihihiiit!” Zyl howled through clenched teeth, not wanting to get a mouthful of soap, which in her experience always tasted like total ass.
Just as her resolve started to quiver, and the ticklishness seemed like it was going to prompt a reaction, Zyl heard an electronic chime sound softly, and the brushes and the soap stopped, leaving just five seconds of a total rinse-down before everything stopped, and she heard the door slide open. “Preparation complete. Please proceed forward,” the voice told her, and Zyl opened her eyes.
“Gee, fucking thanks,” she growled, realizing there was apparently no ‘drying’ sequence to this bullshit, and now she was dripping wet. She reached up to wring out her hair, and then something occurred to her suddenly, and she turned around, marching back out to Arishna and Ciela, who both looked somewhat surprised to see her coming from that direction. For some reason, that made Zyl feel a little better - having finally done something that caught Arishna off-guard. “Ciela, was it? Do you have any hair ties?” After a moment’s hesitation, Arishna conjured one somehow, and then Ciela handed it to Zyl, who put it in her mouth for a moment, used both hands to gather up her silver-white hair into a ponytail, and then used the hair tie to secure it in place. That made it much easier to wring out with her hands, and then she proceeded back the way she had come… only to discover that the door had been shut on her, and she needed to undergo an additional minute’s preparation to proceed: “OH COME THE FUCK ON!”
More water, more soap, more brushes, and then Zyl wrung out her hair once more. Come to think of it, this was probably why all of her clothing choices in this room were swimsuits, and she decided to go with the flow (hah) and discard her white top as well, tossing it back into the foyer behind her and completing her blue bottoms with a matching bikini top. Everyone watching had already seen her boobs anyway, and it wasn’t like she cared too much about showing them, so why bother trying to hide while she was changing? They’d probably get off on her being embarrassed or some shit.
So the next area was just outright weird. A short hallway, back to the wood panel style like a fake mansion or something, and then in front of her there were ten… doors? Door-shaped barriers obscuring whatever was behind them. It seemed like a lot of work to use energy barriers instead of actual doors, but whatever. The ‘doors’ stretched to her left and right, the corridor perpendicular to the one she had just walked up through, and Zyl counted ten in total. Beside each barrier was a small electronic display, and she looked at the closest one, which read:
“ONE FOOT - FIFTEEN SECONDS. CONFIRM SELECTION: YES/NO”
“So that’s what she meant,” Zyl groused. “This whole bullshit is about making me stay still for tickling for whatever amount of time.” At least with THIS side, she’d get to pick, although the fact that there were ten options meant that this was going to fucking suck. It was probably like some kind of maze bullshit, but Zyl pressed the “YES” button on the display, which caused a wooden panel to retract, opening up a foot-shaped hole in the wall. Then she stood back slightly, and kicked her foot forcefully through the hole, unfortunately connecting with nothing before the hole closed around her ankle, leaving her standing on one foot. As the display’s fifteen second countdown timer started to move, Zyl felt something on the other side, like… hands. Mechanical hands. And claws. Or fingernails. “FUCK. SHIHIHEHAHHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAAAAA!!!”
Zyl hopped around on her one foot, arms flailing to keep her balance, as the claws made the most of the time they had. Strong mechanical fingers laced with her toes, stopping her foot from curling up, and then two full sets of fingers began to scratch along her arch. They were ruthless, attacking her sole with full power right from the start, teasing along both sides of her feet and stroking at the heel. Even with only fifteen seconds to endure, Zyl burst out laughing at the sudden tickle attack: “SHHEHEHEHEHEHEHEEEHEEE! HAHAHahahahahAHHHAHAHahahehehhehe--!! FUHHUHUUUCK!” Reflexively, she pounded her fists on the wall and tried to pull her foot away, which worked, surprisingly. Rather, she realized a moment later, her fifteen seconds were up, and the barrier beside the display shimmered and dimmed, to reveal absolutely nothing but a blank wall surface.
“What - huh?” She thumped on the wall, then felt around on it for a while, then kicked at it, and then gritted her teeth. “Oh you must be fucking kidding me!” Of course it would have been too easy to trade fifteen seconds of a foot tickle to open the way forward, but the fact that it was just literally nothing in front of her was fucking irritating. “Piece of shit,” she growled, then moved to her left to check the next display: BELLYBUTTON - TWO MINUTES. “Oh fuck you, nope --” Zyl said at first, and then hesitated. It would be just like them to lock the actual way forward behind the most assful condition, betting on her to skip it, and making her suffer all the other choices before having to pick this one anyway. “Rrrgh. Fine. Fuck. Let’s get this over with. Just two minutes.” Zyl stabbed the “YES” button, and just as before, a section of wooden paneling moved to reveal… well, it looked like it was supposed to be torso-shaped, and when Zyl pressed her front up into the oddly-shaped hole, there was a feeling of sudden suction, and then she was stuck. “Shit.”
The countdown started to move. 2:00, 1:59, 1:58, 1:57… nothing happened. “Fuckers…” she breathed softly, and then she felt it. Not brushy or vibrating like before. This one was soft, teasing, sliding gently into her bellybutton and rolling around the inner rim, almost more like it was trying to tease her than torture her. And that, to Zyl, was just horrible. Unbearable, horrible, ticklish. “NOOOONHAHAHAHH NONHAHEHEHE NO NO FUCK IT I CAHHAHAEHEH I CAN’T STOP STOP STHOOOOHOOHAHAH-AHAHHAAAA! STOPPIT STOP!” she screamed, banging on the wall and trying desperately to pull herself away from the suction that had her trapped in place, but there was no escape. Dozens of little soft, feathery tendrils were reaching into her navel now, stroking at the sensitive inside of her little belly divot, and Zyl shook her head wildly, almost all out of proportion to the actual intensity of the tickling, yet this was driving the dark elf absolutely mad. “NYAHAHAHAHAHAHAHH I CAN’T NONONO I AHHAAHH CAN’T I GIVE UP PLEHEHEEE NONONO STOP STOPPIT--”
Zyl found herself suddenly back in the foyer in front of the drinks stand, for a moment confused as to what had just happened. Then she realized that she’d inadvertently spoken the surrender phrase and triggered her necklace to send her back to the start, causing her to stomp her foot and yell up at the ceiling. “FUCK YOU! I didn’t actually mean it!” she hissed, forehead wrinkling in anger as her brows scrunched. “Fucking annoying little…” She didn’t even acknowledge Ciela or Arishna as she stalked past the drinks stand, but the sight of it made her feel a little twinge, and that broke her pace just slightly. No, she couldn’t actually have to… No. It was just all in her head. The kind of head-fuckery demons loved. The purpose of the damned thing was probably just to remind her of liquid and screw with her every time she came back this way. Fuckers. And the fucking washing room again. Goddess damn it. Zyl definitely did NOT need to go again. Not at all.
Then back to the room with the ten doors - well, nine now. Back to the bellybutton torture, and Zyl pressed her front up against the torso-shaped depression in the wall, trying to ride her determination through the two minutes of torture. “NYhhh-ahahha-HAAAHAHAHAHAHA! HAHAHAHAAHA HAHAAH HAAAAAAA! NOOO-hooohahahahahha fuckit fuckit FUCK FUCK FUHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHHAAHAAA!” It was absolutely awful. Unbearably ticklish. Zyl hated having her bellybutton tickled so, so much. It was so fucking ticklish. The way those feathery little tendrils got so deep into her navel and brushed against the inside in a way fingers or most tools couldn’t? Mind-blowingly horrible. Zyl screamed with laughter, pounding her fists on the wall, trying to pull herself away as if that would save her, before just limply bowing her head in defeat, her blows against the wall weakening, and she just tried to endure, somehow. Some way. She had to, but all she could think about was the way those little tendrils were able to get into the very deepest core of her sensitive place, and stroke across it like the fingers of so many tiny fairies. Impossibly swirling around in a way no person could ever imitate.
Zyl tried to think of anything else. Anything but that evil tickling. Anything ELSE but that growing suspicion she needed to use the bathroom again. The more she tried not to think about it, the more her mind became consumed with it, her body going into a disorganized frenzy of flailing and hammering at the unyielding wall. “PLEHEHEHEHEHEHEEEEZE NO NOHOHOOO MOOHOO----ooooooreeee oh thank the goohha-hahahheh-heheheh goddess…” In the middle of her frenzied scream, the timer blessedly ran out, and Zyl sort of peeled away from the wall and fell onto her ass with a thud, then collapsed to sprawl out on the floor once again. As she glanced up, she felt a small flicker of triumph within her, for with the dissolution of the opaque barrier, she was able to see a door. “Hah… ha, you fuckers. I got your number this time.” That small pleasure of outwitting the demons again flickered within her breast, and Zyl allowed herself the luxury of resting a moment - still soaking wet, actually, because of the stupid washing room thing. That probably wasn’t helping her imagination, either. All this goddess-damned water. Finally, Zyl sprang to her feet again and rolled her neck around, stretching it to one side and then the other as she opened the door and walked through.
Had Zyl known Arishna had set up some of the transmission crystals to focus on her face at this very moment, she probably would have grown furious again, and the slow-motion playback of her momentary expression of utter bafflement would prove to be quite popular. When Zyl took a step forward, there was actually nothing there. Just a ten-foot drop into a pool of water below, in a dark room with literally nothing else in it. That was it. A literal dead-end, a trap that Zyl couldn’t escape without invoking the surrender charm, and as she splashed down into the water, she came up spluttering, and screamed: “I GIVE UP! FUCK YOU!”
---
When Zyl reappeared, soaking wet and panting in the foyer once again, she continued to ignore Arishna and Ciela and went to the right side yet again, before Arishna could say anything about her three surrenders or any commentary about stupid polls or anything like that. Zyl was furious about having that small satisfaction of victory snatched away from her so rudely. And, thanks to the whirl of thoughts in her mind, she’d forgotten that this meant she would have to go through the rinse-down yet another time, and her frustration boiled over. Zyl’s fists hammered on the metal door as if trying to punch it down, seething red clouding her vision as the enormous unfairness of the task before her loomed on the outskirts of her mind, threatening to swamp her in despair. Not having slept very well hadn’t done much for her mental state, either, and the fact that she kept flying into adrenaline-fueled rages like this, slamming her body uselessly on hard, unyielding surfaces… Zyl was starting to feel it. Starting to feel the fatigue, both physical and mental, creep up on her again. It hadn’t even been that long yet, had it? Sometimes it got hard to tell how much time was passing in here, making Zyl feel like she was losing her mind, and slowly the fruitless punches at the metal door of the washing room stopped, until with the last blow she was aware of how much the sides of her hands stung from all this thrashing - she hadn’t been so stupid as to punch hard surfaces with her knuckles and risk breaking a bone.
Think. She had to think. If nothing else, it was becoming increasingly clear that everything was set up to counter her physical strength and trick her with stupid traps and puzzles. It was a hard lesson to learn, especially right in the middle of all this crap going on, but the one thing she did have to admit was that the demons had never made a puzzle or obstacle that she COULDN’T finish. No, it was usually that she had to finish them by doing something… “Something that I don’t want to do… oh, fuck me, no,” she groaned aloud. Like before. She was only able to finish the Slime Land obstacles by taking the slimes’ advice, and letting them tickle her all over in exchange for protection from the traps that would knock her off the bars or balance beam or whatever. It was probably the same thing this time, right? Once she looked at it that way, it felt almost painfully obvious.
Zyl hadn’t wanted to admit it, but Arishna had been telling the truth the whole time, and there was probably nothing wrong with the stupid Endurance Potion. She’d seen Ciela drink it, and it didn’t seem like anything was wrong with her. She even had to admit that she’d felt considerably better and more prepared to face her challenges after having some. And that was their trap. Ciela had even said it herself - these tickling traps were way harder than before, because the dark elf had needed to endure them for longer. Zyl was wearing herself out thrashing and flailing and getting mad and hitting everything. It made sense now. The demons were forcing her to make a choice, and that choice really only had one correct answer, and it was an answer she hated.
Zyl could keep going as she was, getting angry, getting exhausted and worn out by these sneaky bullshit traps that didn’t play fair, pounding on doors, and wondering if she’d be able to stand the next session of tickling she needed to endure. Or, she could give in, guzzle a whole bunch of Endurance Potion to give herself the strength to withstand all the tickling, and absolutely kiss her dignity goodbye as they tickled the piss out of her. But there was really no other way, was there? Zyl got to her feet, again feeling that strange, almost numb sense of calm as she resolved herself to the choice she didn’t want to have to make, but made anyway in order to proceed through this tickle nightmare.
When the dark elf returned to the drinks stand, she leaned on it with a look of knowing exasperation directed at Arishna, but no words. Then she spoke to Ciela, which felt much easier. “All right. Fine. I figured out your scheme. Gimme the damn potion. The faster I get out of this shithole, the faster I can end your twisted entertainment programming.” Arishna didn’t say anything, but just smiled, and nodded.
Zyl was still overlooking one small but crucial piece to the puzzle. Too trapped in the present, too focused on what was ahead of her, to realize just what it was that she had forgotten.
What a shame.~
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