Jaynin
4th Level Red Feather
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- Jul 12, 2003
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Looks like this is going to start being about Drow. Ah, well. Here's the next thing I've managed to devise.
---
The shadowy forest showed the last rays of the dying sun as the dark-skinned race of the elves, the Drow, began to stir, and the race which had been pushed to dwell under the ground gained in advantage as the light failed. Kriesa, a quick, lithe lieutenant who served as a forward scout, was already up and about, seeking to press the advantage that her race possessed in the low light. The Drow's hair was cut short, barely coming to her shoulders, and was clipped back to either side of her head so that her hair didn't fly in front of her face when she was stalking through the forest. Though the forest was dark and appeared empty, Kriesa knew that now more than ever was the time for caution and stealth. She was one of the best scouts this side of the mountain chain in which the Drow empire had been dug into, with a body that was lean as a whipcord and able to endure long, punishing sprints or rigorous combat, her longbow strapped to her back along with a quiver of arrows and a short sword at her side. She wore little armor besides oiled leather and high, soft-soled boots, needing to be able to move lightly and silently through the forest as she played her deadly game with the sworn enemies of the Drow, the Wood Elves. They, too, would be out here tonight, seeking and probing to see if they dared build their fortifications a little closer to the entrance of the caves...
This little game of back and forth had been going on for years upon years into decades and centuries, the Wood Elves sworn to exterminate the Drow just as the Drow swore to purge the Wood Elves, for reasons long since lost to history and now sustained by themselves alone, by the history of enmity they had generated. Nothing was sacred if it served the purpose of degrading the enemy; a Drow had been humiliated by the Elves who had force-fed her a potion, then had her staked out in the middle of a village for all to see as the diuretic properties of the substance had overwhelmed her resistance and caused the shamed Drow to urinate on her own weapons and clothing. A daring raid in response had captured a few of the proud male Elves and they in turn had been reduced to playthings for the female soldiers of the post to relieve their tensions with. The female-dominated society of the Drow found the male-dominant Elf society repugnant, and the difference served little purpose other than to exacerbate the existing differences between them. Just another reason for them to hate each other. Kriesa knew that capture meant humiliation before her likely death. It just wasn't enough to simply kill the enemy anymore.
The Elf hunters had once tried to match the Drow in the night forest, and had found they were ill-equipped to combat the race whose eyes were adapted to the low light. No, the Elves had learned they could not see beyond their watch fires, and so they had to remain huddled within their fortifications, though they had long since learned to use magical light since the risk of fire was so great. Even now, Kriesa could see the light from the distant post - it announced the presence of the Elves long before the light would help them see her. That watch post was her destination, as it was newly constructed; somehow the Elves had grown one of their guardian trees within an extremely short span of time. The patrols periodically swept each area every three days, and the Drow sent out random patrols to cover the areas already covered to see that the Elves were not trying to be sneaky. And here Kriesa had caught them earlier in the day, the last search only a day old and yet somehow an entire tree, gnarled and covered with vines and thick branches, its roots deep in the earth from which the Elves used it to share information between the trees. After she got closer and got a better look at the tree, she would report back, and within the next week a raid would be launched on the tree and it would be (hopefully) hacked down and carted away by the Drow for use as timber. Kriesa, movements light and swift, padded through the silent forest as the light radiated from the tree's branches illuminated the area all around for several hundred feet.
The Elves almost never bothered to scout beyond the ring of light that was cast from their guardian trees anymore. So Kriesa felt rather confident as she closed in, using the trunks of other trees to shield her from the light, though it got a little dicey from here on in; the Elves liked to blend in with the tree, and with the light in her eyes, they were hard for the Drow to see. More than a few scouts had learned the hard way that if the Elves could see something, they could also more than likely hit it with one of their longbows, and having arrows removed was no one's idea of fun. So she took no chances. More and more slowly and carefully she moved, until the Drow was as close as she dared, and then she pressed her back firmly against the tree trunk and slowly eased around the - "Ow!" she hissed softly to herself, feeling at the small of her back where her armor didn't cover the area around her kidneys, and noticing that she'd gotten pricked by a thorn or something from the tree trunk, which had drawn a bit of blood. "Stupid..." Repositioning herself to avoid the thorn or whatever, Kriesa squinted, and started taking in details about the tree, its size, any apparent defenders, the strength of its light (older ones shone brighter) when she realized that her view of the tree was a bit hazy. Taking a break, mumbling something about looking into the light for too long, the Drow scout turned back to face the darkness and closed her eyes for a few precious seconds to restore her vision...
---
Kriesa's eyes snapped open suddenly. Only now, she realized, it was totally dark, the light of the guardian tree gone entirely, and for that matter the feeling of the cool forest breeze gone entirely as well. Only a small circle directly in front of her eyes showed the forest canopy, and the rest... something dark and slightly rough, like tree bark, was all around her, tightly, squeezing her body from head to toe... No, that wasn't quite right, she realized. Her feet were sticking out the end of whatever it was that she was in. She could feel the cool - "HYEEEEEEHEHEHEEEEEEEK!!!" Her own reaction startled her, as the sound was quite loud in the enclosed space, How had she gotten in here anyway? And what was that which had just touched her feet? They were bare, she realized, her soles cooling in the night air... "GYAHAHAAHAaaaaaahhh!!! Stop!!!" she yelled, feeling that sensation again, something a little rough but with fine teeth, very gently stroking the spot just below the ball of her foot. Angrily, she tried to kick her feet, but discovered that somehow there were thin but strong leather cords wrapped around her toes and anchored into whatever she was stuck inside - Kriesa was guessing it was a log or tree branch - and she couldn't budge the rest of herself an inch. "Let go!" she yelled, though it was fruitless since whoever it was obviously had already caught her.
There wasn't a response to her, but she could make out a few muted voices of Elves, talking in their language. Kriesa knew a little bit of it, but muffled as they were, she couldn't pick up on any of the things they said, and in any case she was too busy trying to find a way out. Sword, bow, and arrows had been taken from her, as well as her boots, but everything else seemed intact... "Ghhhhhhh!! Hnnhh! Hnnh...ghhhh! Stop... ih-h-hhaaa-hehee-hahahaha STOP THAT!" she burst out again, frustrated from her predicament, and then even moreso as she heard laughter from outside. "I'll kill ahaha-haha-hahAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHA!" Her answer was cut off this time as the scratching moved from her toe to the ball of her foot and then the sole... unconsciously she gathered her breath, tensing up as the scratcher came nearer to her arch... and then breathed a sigh of relief that came out as more laughter. It had gone past, this time... whoever was in control of that thing was obviously just teasing her. The scratcher finished its meanderings and came to rest on the spot just below the ball of her foot again, stroking back and forth and back and forth...
Kriesa waited for it to escalate, to get worse, since the Elves had obviously decided to have a bit of fun with her before they killed her... She wanted to curse violently. How had they known she was ticklish and absolutely more than anything hated being tickled? Some fingers touched on her other foot, and were running lightly up and down her sole. She tried to rein in her laughter, but her feet quivered against their bonds, and even the light tickling he performed was enough to make her start tittering... The Elves were apparently discussing something, probably working out turns or something like that, and just teasing her feet idly while they spoke. Up and down and up and down... The maddening part was how lazy yet unceasing it was, as the conversation dragged on, Kriesa frustrated by her inability to understand, the inability to move... Almost involuntarily her mind, in the absence of other stimulation, focused on the sensations teasing her soles. The teeth on that scratcher stimulated her skin just enough, producing a light scratching sound as it pushed and pulled her skin this way and that, making it distort in minuscule waves as the sensitive nerves on the soft parts of her feet screamed with ticklish agony... ticklishness the tormentor was producing with just a minimum of lazy effort! Kriesa worked herself up into another burst of frustrated laughter... "Jhahaha-HAHAH--ahaha--hheehe-just get on with it ahAHAHAHAEHHEH already!!! Just GEHHEEHAHA get going and fhaha-ehehehe-hahaheheeh fucking hurry up! I haha-haha-HAHHAHAHAHH HATE THIS!!!" They probably didn't understand her either, but there was a sharp blush that tinged her cheeks at the Elves' laughter. Just the tone of her voice conveyed as much as her words did...
Kriesa's feet struggled and wiggled back and forth as much as possible, but the leather cords restraining her toes were keeping her from doing very much to defend herself, that coupled with the tight fit of the opening her feet were sticking out of. What her struggles did do was attract the attention of others, who were apparently just tickling her feet idly with fingers and what seemed to be a stick, while they decided what to do with her. Maybe, Kriesa thought with a slight glimmer of hope, tickling wasn't really what they were after, and they were doing it just to hear the girl laugh while they decided on something. Something else, the Drow fervently prayed, anything else... Only the stick or scratcher was really driving her to the level where it went beyond tickling into something else, but the growing number of fingers on her feet made it likely that one of those wandering touches was going to strike the spot she was hoping above all else they would miss. They seemed to be entertained by the curves of her feet, tracing fingers around the ball of the foot and on her toes, or the base of the heel where it met the sole - so perilously close to that soft spot. One finger was going around the side of her foot from toe to heel and back again, occasionally dipping into the arch at random, making Kriesa bite her lip and struggle not to roar with laughter, giggling regardless of her efforts to hold back all the laughter, but not quite entering into that state of hysterical howling that some of her friends knew she could be driven into...
Kriesa went into a cold sweat as the elf wielding the scratcher slowly started to descend down the very center of her foot. Chatting now, entirely unconcerned about the torment they were inflicting on her, the fingers roamed over both feet and tickled sometimes more forcefully at one point or another. The single scratcher was weaving in and out, descending past the ball of her foot but then backtracking to spend a minute scritching at the underside of it, finding a fairly tender spot that made her squeal and tug at the restraints now and again, but without warning it started to explore again and dropped precipitously, stroking the end of the scratcher along the soft skin of her arch, and then wandering just inward from the sole, idly teasing... Kriesa was sweating bullets, knowing that her soft spot was about to be discovered, and struggling frantically, then... With a shout of triumph, one of the elves started tickling fiercely on the ball of her other foot at the very same moment the scratcher wandered over the tender spot and Kriesa howled with unrestrained laughter, seeing her own doom approach in that cramped log. Kriesa shut her eyes, trying to regain control of herself and stop giggling, knowing they'd tickle her to death when they all focused on...
But fortune had intervened to save the Drow. Miraculously, the elves had mistaken the balls of her feet for the spot that had made her scream, and the stick was abandoned as suddenly the upper parts of her feet were crawling with tickling Elven fingers. Cunning born of desperation seized the Drow, and she set up a howl of laughter, struggling forcefully but fruitlessly at her bonds, screaming hysterically and going ballistic within the log, her cries of tortured laughter making her captors snicker and torture her weak spot all the more relentlessly... except that Kriesa had successfully managed to deceive them all into tickling somewhere else, exaggerating her laughter and her struggles, laughing nonetheless but not reaching the levels of earsplitting volume she was capable of. They didn't know her, she realized, and she could trick them into thinking they were driving her insane... while she absorbed the laughter and screamed with false laughter, maybe a little overloud, but her captors didn't seem to mind, tickling and tickling until they had almost tickled the skin of her feet raw, and when they paused, Kriesa panted for effect, coughing once or twice, and flexing her toes slightly, the absence of feeling producing its own strange tingling, the soles of her feet warm with exertion and ticklish after-tingles... the scratcher was picked up again, and run between her toes a few times. The novelty of that sensation made her squeal.
Apparently squealing was what drew their attention, because in a few moments' time Kriesa suddenly had a number of soft, ticklish twigs and leaves running in between her toes. This was not only significantly more effective, it also surprised her, so there was no time to build up a proper 'fake' response, and even her misleading performance previously had still had ticklishness accompanying it, so that her strength was sapped. Now she had to deal with these soft and slightly rough leaves and twigs running between her sensitive toes, and every so often one of them would brush against an especially tender nerve, and her whole body would spasm and Kriesa would squeal with laughter, making them try again, and turning the area around her toes into a virtual jungle of searching and probing foliage. The twigs were especially bad when they managed to stroke along the underside of her toes, running along just below the pads and making her jump, but her toes were especially well restrained and the twigs had the freedom to tease wherever they felt like it. Still, they really couldn't get the kind of reaction they were looking for out of her, and eventually one by one the twigs and leaves fell away too. Kriesa, though giggling with the exertion from this latest attack, felt a sense of pride. She hadn't given them what they wanted; she could sense tones of frustration in the voices as they spoke now. Even the sense of how perilously close they had come to cracking her ticklish secret was exhilarating now. They had no idea how close they had come and completely blown the chance. Kriesa smirked.
The soft swish of feet through undergrowth heralded the first one of the Elves to leave, followed by more, until she could only discern two voices still remaining nearby, talking in hushed tones. Kriesa wondered what they were about, but before she could ponder the matter more, she felt an odd, soft sensation on her soles, like a whisper of wind, and then it was gone. And then again, and again. It didn't tickle especially much, though she was getting the feeling there was some kind of grit or powder being applied to her feet. But it wasn't really that bothersome, though not knowing what it was concerned the Drow scout. What were they planning on doing? Once they were satisfied with their work, the two of them left, and Kriesa was alone. Her feet tingled slightly, but she couldn't detect any ill effects. Still, she ought to hurry and get free. They might have dusted her feet with something sweet in the hopes of luring in forest animals to lick it off, and Kriesa knew that would probably drive her to madness. Though why would they have left in that case? And thinking back on it, those last two had left in rather much of a hurry. Something was going on that she didn't understand, and Kriesa didn't like that... Now that she was alone, she started to wiggle around inside, seeing if she could jar something loose or get to her belt knife. She'd felt it pressing into her side, but the short sword and longbow had been taken from her, because she wouldn't have fit inside otherwise. There must be a trick or a catch to get her in here... It would have been impossible to squeeze her in through the narrow hole her feet were sticking out of.
The darkness wasn't as much a hindrance as the narrow space was, and Kriesa felt some stirrings of claustrophobia, but with her mind focused on the task of escaping, she tamped down the fear and continued squinting and probing at the limited amount of the inside she could reach with her hands and nose and mouth. Her muscles would cramp if she spent too long in here, and obviously she'd starve or die of thirst if she couldn't escape, assuming nothing else happened to her along the way. But... Kriesa's morbid train of thought was interrupted by a tinkling sound, like that of a small bell in the distance, and she froze. The sound repeated, and was echoed. And another time. Something clicked in her mind, and with that realization, her expression turned to one of horror. The tinkling sound came closer, and closer still. Kriesa suddenly suspected she knew exactly what it was the Elves had dusted her feet with, and why they had been in such a hurry to leave after doing so. The tinkling came closer, louder, and then it was all around her.
Sylphid!
The attack came with brutal suddenness and lacking any kind of mercy. The small, delicate fingers of the tiny fairies attacked Kriesa's feet, and this time the Drow did howl, as the attunement of the Sylphid to this kind of punishment led their expert senses directly to the weak spots in her feet. "STHAHAHAHAHEHEEHAEHAHAHAHAHAHAHA HAAHAHHEEHEHEHEHEEH EHEHNO NAHAHAHEHEH NO AHAHEHEH I DIDN'T!!!!" Kriesa screamed, gasping for air as one of the four-inch-tall Sylph came down the air hole in the log and nestled herself in the Drow's cleavage, tinkling indignantly. "PLEHEHEHEHEHEEHEHEZE!" Kriesa begged, feeling the expert fingers of the Slyphid tickle her skin so precisely, directly on the nerve endings that they could see... and though some of them were simply tickling her feet in the vulnerable spots, others were doing something far more ominous, and drawing runes and symbols in the dust that coated her feet. The magic dust of the Sylphid had extremely potent magical properties, and was highly valued by both Drow and Wood Elves for its use as a magical reagent... but gathering it was highly risky because of how angry the Sylphid became when someone tried to steal it.
The one sitting in her cleavage grinned, taking in Kriesa's laughing expression as the fingertips of the tickling Sylph started to zero in more precisely on her weak spots, clawing at the skin almost, but with the consistency of her flesh versus the size of the fairies, it produced a sensation that was more or less like the scratcher the Elves had used, with an added bonus of slight vibration that they produced somehow. Whatever it was, it tickled Kriesa witless, her sensitive feet reacting strongly to the Sylph magic and tickling fingers. One of the runes was finished, and then it activated in a muted flash of light - after that, Kriesa couldn't see anything, and her body became totally paralyzed, Sylph magic putting most of her other senses to sleep so that she was forced to focus entirely on her own ticklishness.... only touch still functioned properly. She couldn't move, but her nerves burned with alarming ticklishness... yet Kriesa couldn't speak anymore, body shaking with silent laughter.
Tears began to run down the Drow's cheeks as another rune was finished, this one activating itself as well, the skin on her feet prickling with sudden sensitivity as each and every nerve was caressed with the magical energy, its awareness heightened, receptive to the tickling fingers of the maddened Sylphid even more than she had been before. In the silent darkness within her mind, Kriesa felt the tickling grow even more intense still, unable to express that with laughter or struggling as she became a prisoner of her own body. The ruthless Sylph wouldn't stop so easily. That was just the setup; they'd hardly begun. Those who had finished drawing their runes joined in the tickling, so that Kriesa had fingers tickling at each toe and in between all of them, set loose from the cords and spread wide, since she could no longer move them of her own volition. Then there were others tickling along the ball of her foot and just beneath, their fingers scratching at the soft rounded area, exploring the curves and the tiny folds of the skin that their delicate fingers could reach into, exploiting ticklish nerves with consummate skill.
Of course they had located the weak spot on the Drow's arch, and there were three at each one, tickling relentlessly with their fingers, while another one drew an intricate rune nearby with a tailing end that pointed to the weak spot. Those tickling her tender sole paused ever so briefly to let the magic complete... and then they were tickling her again, except that with time, instead of growing easier to adapt to, it became harder. The fiendish spell caused nerve endings in her feet to be stimulated by tickling, so that she would actually grow new ones in the spots that she was being tickled, clustering the sensitive points even closer together, and making it so that the Sylphid could create new weak spots where they wished by focusing on a particular area. This they seemed to undertake with particular relish.
Already going mad from the horrific ticklish sensations screaming from the sensitive points that had existed before, Kriesa felt a new sensation start to bloom from just under each one of her toes, as the Sylph broke off their individual efforts to tickle up and down the entirety of each toe, over and over, their delicate fingers stimulating the nerves, aiming to make each and every toe hypersensitive. Already she could feel her toes growing more ticklish, the sensation of small fingers scratching at her flesh becoming more acute, nerves reporting ever-increasing sensations of titillation. Kriesa would have screamed her throat raw if she could have spoken, but just the hiccuping of her chest from the nonstop laughter made it hard to breathe, and the magic on top of that... Tears flowed freely down her cheeks, which had flushed darkly with exertion. Kriesa wanted to beg and plead with the Sylphid who was watching her, but she couldn't see the creature, just feel its presence like an afterthought between her breasts. Almost everything she felt now was from her feet, as if the rest of her body between brain and soles didn't exist. At the moment, it may as well not have...
They seemed to delight in creating new and unconventional weak spots; after having finished their work with the toes, every single Sylphid migrated to her heels, covering the usually rough skin with nerve endings, making that spot more and more ticklish, until what Kriesa had assumed was a slight, merciful break was just as torturous as anything else. Then they broke off into different groups, clustering at existing ticklish points to make them worse, or finding odd places to put new ones; the side of her right foot was one such area, as well as the spot where her Achilles tendon was, one particular Sylph focusing on a fold of skin and tickling exclusively in that area, making a hidden but extremely vulnerable spot, lost within the usual ridges of skin that formed when she tried to curl her foot. If, that is, she survived for anyone else to ever find out... Kriesa was lost in the whirlwind of ticklish sensation, laughter almost meaningless to her now because there was nothing else, even the feeling of that Sylph between her breasts mostly lost unless she decided to stir. Kriesa didn't know, but the Sylph were working industriously because the spell they had cast upon her feet was powerful but also short-lived. They would have only one chance to make her feet so ticklish, and then she would be immune to the spell forever. Its duration was close to expiring, and so they sought to leave her with a permanent reminder of why one should never dare to steal the sacred dust of the Sylph...
The Sylphid were not fools. They knew she could have had nothing to do with the theft, but maliciously they continued punishing her for it anyway, even as other Sylph had found and caught the two Wood Elves who had been frantically fleeing from the scene. Kriesa couldn't know that, didn't know why the Sylphid did as they did, just knowing that the punishment for using their sacred dust was extreme... and in truth, that was all the fairies wanted. Just that everyone would know the terrible and creative retribution of the Sylphid if they trespassed. And this big, silly Drow elf with ticklish feet would now go through the rest of her days with even more of what she hated so much; intensely ticklish feet. She would never forget this day, the impression of tickling burned deep within her mind, and yet the most fiendish of all spells was just now being drawn in some extra dust the Sylph had provided, covering both feet at once to make the sigil complete, all the Sylphid cooperating to draw and tickle until the spell was done, an incredibly intricate design... when that one lit up, the ticklish sensation was so great as to overwhelm the Drow's mind, and she at long last lost consciousness, the sensation of tickling chasing her even into that abyss, and then finally the Sylph stopped, fluttering away in a chorus of tinkling chimes. One stayed behind briefly to release the hidden catch that swung the log's top open on its hinges, and then went off to join the rest, now on their way to punish the Elves who had been so bold as to steal their dust and use it for their own purposes, and if the punishment for the victim of the dust had been harsh, the punishment for the actual thieves would be...
Kriesa laid in the log until morning when finally her body returned to consciousness, sight and sound returned to her, a sob of relief coming from her lips as she rolled out of the log, babbling incessant thanks to whomever had set her free, forehead on the ground in a combination of exhaustion and humbled prayer... at least until a stray caterpillar had crawled onto her ticklish sole and squirmed around for a bit before being flicked off as Kriesa screamed in laughter, more from the memory of her experience than its actual ticklishness. But what she wouldn't know, as she gathered herself together and fled in the morning light for the nearest cave and safety, was that the last enchantment placed upon her soles was the strongest of all, and one she might never learn about, though it would affect her forever... Now, anyone who looked upon her feet, beast or elf or insect, would feel the urge to start tickling...
---
The shadowy forest showed the last rays of the dying sun as the dark-skinned race of the elves, the Drow, began to stir, and the race which had been pushed to dwell under the ground gained in advantage as the light failed. Kriesa, a quick, lithe lieutenant who served as a forward scout, was already up and about, seeking to press the advantage that her race possessed in the low light. The Drow's hair was cut short, barely coming to her shoulders, and was clipped back to either side of her head so that her hair didn't fly in front of her face when she was stalking through the forest. Though the forest was dark and appeared empty, Kriesa knew that now more than ever was the time for caution and stealth. She was one of the best scouts this side of the mountain chain in which the Drow empire had been dug into, with a body that was lean as a whipcord and able to endure long, punishing sprints or rigorous combat, her longbow strapped to her back along with a quiver of arrows and a short sword at her side. She wore little armor besides oiled leather and high, soft-soled boots, needing to be able to move lightly and silently through the forest as she played her deadly game with the sworn enemies of the Drow, the Wood Elves. They, too, would be out here tonight, seeking and probing to see if they dared build their fortifications a little closer to the entrance of the caves...
This little game of back and forth had been going on for years upon years into decades and centuries, the Wood Elves sworn to exterminate the Drow just as the Drow swore to purge the Wood Elves, for reasons long since lost to history and now sustained by themselves alone, by the history of enmity they had generated. Nothing was sacred if it served the purpose of degrading the enemy; a Drow had been humiliated by the Elves who had force-fed her a potion, then had her staked out in the middle of a village for all to see as the diuretic properties of the substance had overwhelmed her resistance and caused the shamed Drow to urinate on her own weapons and clothing. A daring raid in response had captured a few of the proud male Elves and they in turn had been reduced to playthings for the female soldiers of the post to relieve their tensions with. The female-dominated society of the Drow found the male-dominant Elf society repugnant, and the difference served little purpose other than to exacerbate the existing differences between them. Just another reason for them to hate each other. Kriesa knew that capture meant humiliation before her likely death. It just wasn't enough to simply kill the enemy anymore.
The Elf hunters had once tried to match the Drow in the night forest, and had found they were ill-equipped to combat the race whose eyes were adapted to the low light. No, the Elves had learned they could not see beyond their watch fires, and so they had to remain huddled within their fortifications, though they had long since learned to use magical light since the risk of fire was so great. Even now, Kriesa could see the light from the distant post - it announced the presence of the Elves long before the light would help them see her. That watch post was her destination, as it was newly constructed; somehow the Elves had grown one of their guardian trees within an extremely short span of time. The patrols periodically swept each area every three days, and the Drow sent out random patrols to cover the areas already covered to see that the Elves were not trying to be sneaky. And here Kriesa had caught them earlier in the day, the last search only a day old and yet somehow an entire tree, gnarled and covered with vines and thick branches, its roots deep in the earth from which the Elves used it to share information between the trees. After she got closer and got a better look at the tree, she would report back, and within the next week a raid would be launched on the tree and it would be (hopefully) hacked down and carted away by the Drow for use as timber. Kriesa, movements light and swift, padded through the silent forest as the light radiated from the tree's branches illuminated the area all around for several hundred feet.
The Elves almost never bothered to scout beyond the ring of light that was cast from their guardian trees anymore. So Kriesa felt rather confident as she closed in, using the trunks of other trees to shield her from the light, though it got a little dicey from here on in; the Elves liked to blend in with the tree, and with the light in her eyes, they were hard for the Drow to see. More than a few scouts had learned the hard way that if the Elves could see something, they could also more than likely hit it with one of their longbows, and having arrows removed was no one's idea of fun. So she took no chances. More and more slowly and carefully she moved, until the Drow was as close as she dared, and then she pressed her back firmly against the tree trunk and slowly eased around the - "Ow!" she hissed softly to herself, feeling at the small of her back where her armor didn't cover the area around her kidneys, and noticing that she'd gotten pricked by a thorn or something from the tree trunk, which had drawn a bit of blood. "Stupid..." Repositioning herself to avoid the thorn or whatever, Kriesa squinted, and started taking in details about the tree, its size, any apparent defenders, the strength of its light (older ones shone brighter) when she realized that her view of the tree was a bit hazy. Taking a break, mumbling something about looking into the light for too long, the Drow scout turned back to face the darkness and closed her eyes for a few precious seconds to restore her vision...
---
Kriesa's eyes snapped open suddenly. Only now, she realized, it was totally dark, the light of the guardian tree gone entirely, and for that matter the feeling of the cool forest breeze gone entirely as well. Only a small circle directly in front of her eyes showed the forest canopy, and the rest... something dark and slightly rough, like tree bark, was all around her, tightly, squeezing her body from head to toe... No, that wasn't quite right, she realized. Her feet were sticking out the end of whatever it was that she was in. She could feel the cool - "HYEEEEEEHEHEHEEEEEEEK!!!" Her own reaction startled her, as the sound was quite loud in the enclosed space, How had she gotten in here anyway? And what was that which had just touched her feet? They were bare, she realized, her soles cooling in the night air... "GYAHAHAAHAaaaaaahhh!!! Stop!!!" she yelled, feeling that sensation again, something a little rough but with fine teeth, very gently stroking the spot just below the ball of her foot. Angrily, she tried to kick her feet, but discovered that somehow there were thin but strong leather cords wrapped around her toes and anchored into whatever she was stuck inside - Kriesa was guessing it was a log or tree branch - and she couldn't budge the rest of herself an inch. "Let go!" she yelled, though it was fruitless since whoever it was obviously had already caught her.
There wasn't a response to her, but she could make out a few muted voices of Elves, talking in their language. Kriesa knew a little bit of it, but muffled as they were, she couldn't pick up on any of the things they said, and in any case she was too busy trying to find a way out. Sword, bow, and arrows had been taken from her, as well as her boots, but everything else seemed intact... "Ghhhhhhh!! Hnnhh! Hnnh...ghhhh! Stop... ih-h-hhaaa-hehee-hahahaha STOP THAT!" she burst out again, frustrated from her predicament, and then even moreso as she heard laughter from outside. "I'll kill ahaha-haha-hahAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHA!" Her answer was cut off this time as the scratching moved from her toe to the ball of her foot and then the sole... unconsciously she gathered her breath, tensing up as the scratcher came nearer to her arch... and then breathed a sigh of relief that came out as more laughter. It had gone past, this time... whoever was in control of that thing was obviously just teasing her. The scratcher finished its meanderings and came to rest on the spot just below the ball of her foot again, stroking back and forth and back and forth...
Kriesa waited for it to escalate, to get worse, since the Elves had obviously decided to have a bit of fun with her before they killed her... She wanted to curse violently. How had they known she was ticklish and absolutely more than anything hated being tickled? Some fingers touched on her other foot, and were running lightly up and down her sole. She tried to rein in her laughter, but her feet quivered against their bonds, and even the light tickling he performed was enough to make her start tittering... The Elves were apparently discussing something, probably working out turns or something like that, and just teasing her feet idly while they spoke. Up and down and up and down... The maddening part was how lazy yet unceasing it was, as the conversation dragged on, Kriesa frustrated by her inability to understand, the inability to move... Almost involuntarily her mind, in the absence of other stimulation, focused on the sensations teasing her soles. The teeth on that scratcher stimulated her skin just enough, producing a light scratching sound as it pushed and pulled her skin this way and that, making it distort in minuscule waves as the sensitive nerves on the soft parts of her feet screamed with ticklish agony... ticklishness the tormentor was producing with just a minimum of lazy effort! Kriesa worked herself up into another burst of frustrated laughter... "Jhahaha-HAHAH--ahaha--hheehe-just get on with it ahAHAHAHAEHHEH already!!! Just GEHHEEHAHA get going and fhaha-ehehehe-hahaheheeh fucking hurry up! I haha-haha-HAHHAHAHAHH HATE THIS!!!" They probably didn't understand her either, but there was a sharp blush that tinged her cheeks at the Elves' laughter. Just the tone of her voice conveyed as much as her words did...
Kriesa's feet struggled and wiggled back and forth as much as possible, but the leather cords restraining her toes were keeping her from doing very much to defend herself, that coupled with the tight fit of the opening her feet were sticking out of. What her struggles did do was attract the attention of others, who were apparently just tickling her feet idly with fingers and what seemed to be a stick, while they decided what to do with her. Maybe, Kriesa thought with a slight glimmer of hope, tickling wasn't really what they were after, and they were doing it just to hear the girl laugh while they decided on something. Something else, the Drow fervently prayed, anything else... Only the stick or scratcher was really driving her to the level where it went beyond tickling into something else, but the growing number of fingers on her feet made it likely that one of those wandering touches was going to strike the spot she was hoping above all else they would miss. They seemed to be entertained by the curves of her feet, tracing fingers around the ball of the foot and on her toes, or the base of the heel where it met the sole - so perilously close to that soft spot. One finger was going around the side of her foot from toe to heel and back again, occasionally dipping into the arch at random, making Kriesa bite her lip and struggle not to roar with laughter, giggling regardless of her efforts to hold back all the laughter, but not quite entering into that state of hysterical howling that some of her friends knew she could be driven into...
Kriesa went into a cold sweat as the elf wielding the scratcher slowly started to descend down the very center of her foot. Chatting now, entirely unconcerned about the torment they were inflicting on her, the fingers roamed over both feet and tickled sometimes more forcefully at one point or another. The single scratcher was weaving in and out, descending past the ball of her foot but then backtracking to spend a minute scritching at the underside of it, finding a fairly tender spot that made her squeal and tug at the restraints now and again, but without warning it started to explore again and dropped precipitously, stroking the end of the scratcher along the soft skin of her arch, and then wandering just inward from the sole, idly teasing... Kriesa was sweating bullets, knowing that her soft spot was about to be discovered, and struggling frantically, then... With a shout of triumph, one of the elves started tickling fiercely on the ball of her other foot at the very same moment the scratcher wandered over the tender spot and Kriesa howled with unrestrained laughter, seeing her own doom approach in that cramped log. Kriesa shut her eyes, trying to regain control of herself and stop giggling, knowing they'd tickle her to death when they all focused on...
But fortune had intervened to save the Drow. Miraculously, the elves had mistaken the balls of her feet for the spot that had made her scream, and the stick was abandoned as suddenly the upper parts of her feet were crawling with tickling Elven fingers. Cunning born of desperation seized the Drow, and she set up a howl of laughter, struggling forcefully but fruitlessly at her bonds, screaming hysterically and going ballistic within the log, her cries of tortured laughter making her captors snicker and torture her weak spot all the more relentlessly... except that Kriesa had successfully managed to deceive them all into tickling somewhere else, exaggerating her laughter and her struggles, laughing nonetheless but not reaching the levels of earsplitting volume she was capable of. They didn't know her, she realized, and she could trick them into thinking they were driving her insane... while she absorbed the laughter and screamed with false laughter, maybe a little overloud, but her captors didn't seem to mind, tickling and tickling until they had almost tickled the skin of her feet raw, and when they paused, Kriesa panted for effect, coughing once or twice, and flexing her toes slightly, the absence of feeling producing its own strange tingling, the soles of her feet warm with exertion and ticklish after-tingles... the scratcher was picked up again, and run between her toes a few times. The novelty of that sensation made her squeal.
Apparently squealing was what drew their attention, because in a few moments' time Kriesa suddenly had a number of soft, ticklish twigs and leaves running in between her toes. This was not only significantly more effective, it also surprised her, so there was no time to build up a proper 'fake' response, and even her misleading performance previously had still had ticklishness accompanying it, so that her strength was sapped. Now she had to deal with these soft and slightly rough leaves and twigs running between her sensitive toes, and every so often one of them would brush against an especially tender nerve, and her whole body would spasm and Kriesa would squeal with laughter, making them try again, and turning the area around her toes into a virtual jungle of searching and probing foliage. The twigs were especially bad when they managed to stroke along the underside of her toes, running along just below the pads and making her jump, but her toes were especially well restrained and the twigs had the freedom to tease wherever they felt like it. Still, they really couldn't get the kind of reaction they were looking for out of her, and eventually one by one the twigs and leaves fell away too. Kriesa, though giggling with the exertion from this latest attack, felt a sense of pride. She hadn't given them what they wanted; she could sense tones of frustration in the voices as they spoke now. Even the sense of how perilously close they had come to cracking her ticklish secret was exhilarating now. They had no idea how close they had come and completely blown the chance. Kriesa smirked.
The soft swish of feet through undergrowth heralded the first one of the Elves to leave, followed by more, until she could only discern two voices still remaining nearby, talking in hushed tones. Kriesa wondered what they were about, but before she could ponder the matter more, she felt an odd, soft sensation on her soles, like a whisper of wind, and then it was gone. And then again, and again. It didn't tickle especially much, though she was getting the feeling there was some kind of grit or powder being applied to her feet. But it wasn't really that bothersome, though not knowing what it was concerned the Drow scout. What were they planning on doing? Once they were satisfied with their work, the two of them left, and Kriesa was alone. Her feet tingled slightly, but she couldn't detect any ill effects. Still, she ought to hurry and get free. They might have dusted her feet with something sweet in the hopes of luring in forest animals to lick it off, and Kriesa knew that would probably drive her to madness. Though why would they have left in that case? And thinking back on it, those last two had left in rather much of a hurry. Something was going on that she didn't understand, and Kriesa didn't like that... Now that she was alone, she started to wiggle around inside, seeing if she could jar something loose or get to her belt knife. She'd felt it pressing into her side, but the short sword and longbow had been taken from her, because she wouldn't have fit inside otherwise. There must be a trick or a catch to get her in here... It would have been impossible to squeeze her in through the narrow hole her feet were sticking out of.
The darkness wasn't as much a hindrance as the narrow space was, and Kriesa felt some stirrings of claustrophobia, but with her mind focused on the task of escaping, she tamped down the fear and continued squinting and probing at the limited amount of the inside she could reach with her hands and nose and mouth. Her muscles would cramp if she spent too long in here, and obviously she'd starve or die of thirst if she couldn't escape, assuming nothing else happened to her along the way. But... Kriesa's morbid train of thought was interrupted by a tinkling sound, like that of a small bell in the distance, and she froze. The sound repeated, and was echoed. And another time. Something clicked in her mind, and with that realization, her expression turned to one of horror. The tinkling sound came closer, and closer still. Kriesa suddenly suspected she knew exactly what it was the Elves had dusted her feet with, and why they had been in such a hurry to leave after doing so. The tinkling came closer, louder, and then it was all around her.
Sylphid!
The attack came with brutal suddenness and lacking any kind of mercy. The small, delicate fingers of the tiny fairies attacked Kriesa's feet, and this time the Drow did howl, as the attunement of the Sylphid to this kind of punishment led their expert senses directly to the weak spots in her feet. "STHAHAHAHAHEHEEHAEHAHAHAHAHAHAHA HAAHAHHEEHEHEHEHEEH EHEHNO NAHAHAHEHEH NO AHAHEHEH I DIDN'T!!!!" Kriesa screamed, gasping for air as one of the four-inch-tall Sylph came down the air hole in the log and nestled herself in the Drow's cleavage, tinkling indignantly. "PLEHEHEHEHEHEEHEHEZE!" Kriesa begged, feeling the expert fingers of the Slyphid tickle her skin so precisely, directly on the nerve endings that they could see... and though some of them were simply tickling her feet in the vulnerable spots, others were doing something far more ominous, and drawing runes and symbols in the dust that coated her feet. The magic dust of the Sylphid had extremely potent magical properties, and was highly valued by both Drow and Wood Elves for its use as a magical reagent... but gathering it was highly risky because of how angry the Sylphid became when someone tried to steal it.
The one sitting in her cleavage grinned, taking in Kriesa's laughing expression as the fingertips of the tickling Sylph started to zero in more precisely on her weak spots, clawing at the skin almost, but with the consistency of her flesh versus the size of the fairies, it produced a sensation that was more or less like the scratcher the Elves had used, with an added bonus of slight vibration that they produced somehow. Whatever it was, it tickled Kriesa witless, her sensitive feet reacting strongly to the Sylph magic and tickling fingers. One of the runes was finished, and then it activated in a muted flash of light - after that, Kriesa couldn't see anything, and her body became totally paralyzed, Sylph magic putting most of her other senses to sleep so that she was forced to focus entirely on her own ticklishness.... only touch still functioned properly. She couldn't move, but her nerves burned with alarming ticklishness... yet Kriesa couldn't speak anymore, body shaking with silent laughter.
Tears began to run down the Drow's cheeks as another rune was finished, this one activating itself as well, the skin on her feet prickling with sudden sensitivity as each and every nerve was caressed with the magical energy, its awareness heightened, receptive to the tickling fingers of the maddened Sylphid even more than she had been before. In the silent darkness within her mind, Kriesa felt the tickling grow even more intense still, unable to express that with laughter or struggling as she became a prisoner of her own body. The ruthless Sylph wouldn't stop so easily. That was just the setup; they'd hardly begun. Those who had finished drawing their runes joined in the tickling, so that Kriesa had fingers tickling at each toe and in between all of them, set loose from the cords and spread wide, since she could no longer move them of her own volition. Then there were others tickling along the ball of her foot and just beneath, their fingers scratching at the soft rounded area, exploring the curves and the tiny folds of the skin that their delicate fingers could reach into, exploiting ticklish nerves with consummate skill.
Of course they had located the weak spot on the Drow's arch, and there were three at each one, tickling relentlessly with their fingers, while another one drew an intricate rune nearby with a tailing end that pointed to the weak spot. Those tickling her tender sole paused ever so briefly to let the magic complete... and then they were tickling her again, except that with time, instead of growing easier to adapt to, it became harder. The fiendish spell caused nerve endings in her feet to be stimulated by tickling, so that she would actually grow new ones in the spots that she was being tickled, clustering the sensitive points even closer together, and making it so that the Sylphid could create new weak spots where they wished by focusing on a particular area. This they seemed to undertake with particular relish.
Already going mad from the horrific ticklish sensations screaming from the sensitive points that had existed before, Kriesa felt a new sensation start to bloom from just under each one of her toes, as the Sylph broke off their individual efforts to tickle up and down the entirety of each toe, over and over, their delicate fingers stimulating the nerves, aiming to make each and every toe hypersensitive. Already she could feel her toes growing more ticklish, the sensation of small fingers scratching at her flesh becoming more acute, nerves reporting ever-increasing sensations of titillation. Kriesa would have screamed her throat raw if she could have spoken, but just the hiccuping of her chest from the nonstop laughter made it hard to breathe, and the magic on top of that... Tears flowed freely down her cheeks, which had flushed darkly with exertion. Kriesa wanted to beg and plead with the Sylphid who was watching her, but she couldn't see the creature, just feel its presence like an afterthought between her breasts. Almost everything she felt now was from her feet, as if the rest of her body between brain and soles didn't exist. At the moment, it may as well not have...
They seemed to delight in creating new and unconventional weak spots; after having finished their work with the toes, every single Sylphid migrated to her heels, covering the usually rough skin with nerve endings, making that spot more and more ticklish, until what Kriesa had assumed was a slight, merciful break was just as torturous as anything else. Then they broke off into different groups, clustering at existing ticklish points to make them worse, or finding odd places to put new ones; the side of her right foot was one such area, as well as the spot where her Achilles tendon was, one particular Sylph focusing on a fold of skin and tickling exclusively in that area, making a hidden but extremely vulnerable spot, lost within the usual ridges of skin that formed when she tried to curl her foot. If, that is, she survived for anyone else to ever find out... Kriesa was lost in the whirlwind of ticklish sensation, laughter almost meaningless to her now because there was nothing else, even the feeling of that Sylph between her breasts mostly lost unless she decided to stir. Kriesa didn't know, but the Sylph were working industriously because the spell they had cast upon her feet was powerful but also short-lived. They would have only one chance to make her feet so ticklish, and then she would be immune to the spell forever. Its duration was close to expiring, and so they sought to leave her with a permanent reminder of why one should never dare to steal the sacred dust of the Sylph...
The Sylphid were not fools. They knew she could have had nothing to do with the theft, but maliciously they continued punishing her for it anyway, even as other Sylph had found and caught the two Wood Elves who had been frantically fleeing from the scene. Kriesa couldn't know that, didn't know why the Sylphid did as they did, just knowing that the punishment for using their sacred dust was extreme... and in truth, that was all the fairies wanted. Just that everyone would know the terrible and creative retribution of the Sylphid if they trespassed. And this big, silly Drow elf with ticklish feet would now go through the rest of her days with even more of what she hated so much; intensely ticklish feet. She would never forget this day, the impression of tickling burned deep within her mind, and yet the most fiendish of all spells was just now being drawn in some extra dust the Sylph had provided, covering both feet at once to make the sigil complete, all the Sylphid cooperating to draw and tickle until the spell was done, an incredibly intricate design... when that one lit up, the ticklish sensation was so great as to overwhelm the Drow's mind, and she at long last lost consciousness, the sensation of tickling chasing her even into that abyss, and then finally the Sylph stopped, fluttering away in a chorus of tinkling chimes. One stayed behind briefly to release the hidden catch that swung the log's top open on its hinges, and then went off to join the rest, now on their way to punish the Elves who had been so bold as to steal their dust and use it for their own purposes, and if the punishment for the victim of the dust had been harsh, the punishment for the actual thieves would be...
Kriesa laid in the log until morning when finally her body returned to consciousness, sight and sound returned to her, a sob of relief coming from her lips as she rolled out of the log, babbling incessant thanks to whomever had set her free, forehead on the ground in a combination of exhaustion and humbled prayer... at least until a stray caterpillar had crawled onto her ticklish sole and squirmed around for a bit before being flicked off as Kriesa screamed in laughter, more from the memory of her experience than its actual ticklishness. But what she wouldn't know, as she gathered herself together and fled in the morning light for the nearest cave and safety, was that the last enchantment placed upon her soles was the strongest of all, and one she might never learn about, though it would affect her forever... Now, anyone who looked upon her feet, beast or elf or insect, would feel the urge to start tickling...
