Things are starting to get rolling now in City of Sororities. My thanks to everyone who's been following it so far!
The previous chapters can be found as follows:
Chapter 1 - http://www.ticklingforum.com/showthread.php?t=157600
Chapter 2 - http://www.ticklingforum.com/showthread.php?t=158077
City of Sororities - Chapter 3
Camilla was one of nature’s straightforward thinkers. Now in the employ of the Sorority of Thieves, most people would have thought of themselves as spies or burglars-for-hire and begun plotting about intrigue and theft. For Camilla, however, her job was clear. She had been hired to track down an illegal piece of merchandise, and that was the job of a detective. The first thing to do was follow up her leads, and that meant interviewing the suspects. And a good detective knew where her suspects were likely to hang out.
It was evening as Camilla stepped into The Broad’s Sword Tavern, popular watering hole for the Sorority of Explorers. The décor was intentionally rustic: rough wooden tables were scattered around, and a full wood-burning fireplace was set in the back wall. Hanging above the fireplace were woodcuts of famous explorers, plus the tavern’s titular sword. Off to the side, a feral-looking barmaid with an eyepatch stood behind the bar, busying herself polishing glasses. She didn’t look up as Camilla walked in.
There were a few patrons throughout the tavern indulging in pints of what could charitably be called ale, but Camilla’s eye was immediately drawn to a table in the corner where trouble was brewing. Four sisters from the Sorority of Explorers were sitting there, recognizable from their stylized chainmail bikinis that they wore in the city. When they were actually out exploring, they wore much more sensible clothing, but here it was their favorite outfit. One of the Explorers was recognizable to Camilla at once: it was Maggie Stoneheave, the Sorority’s famous part-giant sister who sat in a specially built oversized chair drinking a blindingly pink fruit-garnished concoction out of a gallon pitcher. Around her a group of friends, perhaps more concerned about appearing rugged, were polishing off pints of beer.
And they were not alone, either. Addressing their table was a short, slender girl with square-framed glasses and a head of messy but lustrous red hair that clearly took care of itself despite the fact that its owner had no idea what to do with it. Wearing a plaid miniskirt and a tight white t shirt that read, “Spell Wars TCG regional champion: Port Bastion East”, she was addressing the Explorers in the tone of someone for whom barroom brawls were things that happened to other people.
“I don’t care what you found,” said Maggie to the red-haired girl with rising indignation. “If you want to accuse us of something….” She began to stand up very purposefully.
Camilla’s law-enforcement reflexes sprung into action with the single-mindedness of a nymphomaniac rabbit on honeymoon. “All right, break it up, you two!” she declared stepping forward, even as a voice in the back of her heard told her she was embarking on A Very Bad Idea.
Maggie turned to her as she approached. “And you are…?” she asked. Her voice was not particularly imposing, but there were quite enough other imposing features about her to make up for it.
“A concerned citizen.” Camilla had been called upon to answer this question many times before.
“Well, I suggest you concern yourself with something else,” Maggie replied, not backing down. “We were enjoying a peaceful drink before this intrusion. For your own safety, we encourage you to leave.” It shouldn’t have been possible for a woman holding a pink fruity blended drink to look menacing, but Maggie pulled it off with some aplomb.
There are a few life lessons which most people, regardless of learning aptitude, tend to pick up rather quickly. Never play pool with a man who says, “Let’s make this interesting.” Never drink in a pub where they keep the booze in unmarked bottles. And never argue when a twelve-foot woman tells you to get out of here. Camilla took the girl in glasses by the arm and turned towards the door.
Some people, however, have astonishing gaps in their practical education. The girl in glasses shook herself free of Camilla and turned back to Maggie. “We’re not going anywhere!” she declared. Camilla really wished she hadn’t used the collective pronoun. “I want you to explain why an intruder who broke into our House left a matchbook for a tavern that’s patronized almost exclusively by the Sorority of Explorers!” She presented the matchbook proudly, as though she had just delivered a knock-down argument.
“Now then,” said Camilla, “I’m sure she has an explanation for this.” Camilla rather hoped she did.
Maggie looked down at both of them from her full height with an appraising expression. Camilla found it encouraging: a woman set on beating the living hell out of them would be smiling ear-to-ear. “What’s your name, girl?” Maggie asked after a second.
“Mindy, from the Sorority of Sages,” said the girl with glasses proudly.
“Well, Mindy,” said Maggie, sitting back down, “I would say you’ve been had. None of our girls have been around your House recently, so I’m afraid it’s someone else you’re looking for.” She then turned back to her table with the air of someone with some lost drinking time to make up for.
“Consider yourself lucky,” muttered Camilla to Mindy.
“I don’t remember asking you for help,” said Mindy. “What’s your name?”
“Camilla,” she said, a bit offput that her good intentions had gone unrecognized. As usual.
“Are you with the Guards?” asked Mindy.
“I’m…a prospective,” answered Camilla. A few of the Explorer girls within earshot gave a laugh. They knew what that meant.
“Well, I think I’m entitled to some answers,” said Mindy.
“And I’m entitled to some peace and quiet,” said Maggie from her table. “Are you still here? Why don’t you take your search somewhere—“
Even though the backpack was some distance away from her foot, it fell over as though upset by Maggie’s sudden turnaround. A few objects toppled out: coins, relics, and one object that from the look of it Maggie had not expected to see. A small golden idol of a nude woman fell onto the ground, glowing with an ethereal light that seemed to get brighter as they looked at it. They could feel warm, pulsing waves of heat coursing outward from it, a heat that was not felt by their bodies but by the deepest recesses of their minds. There was no doubt that what they were experiencing was magic.
“Is that—?” asked Camilla, pointing at the idol.
“Who brought this here?” demanded Maggie. “Which one of you—“
But no one could answer. The room was bathed in a deep blue aura, reducing every physical object to a mere shadow by contrast with its brilliance. The patrons, the fixtures, even the flames in the fireplace themselves were frozen in time, motionless like a ghostly blue snapshot of the past. And yet there were three observers who floated outside of the light, unaffected: the figures of Camilla, Mindy, and Maggie.
They tried to speak, but words would not come. They felt their bodies receding into the distance, and in their place, a new body. They looked out through the eyes of this body and saw distant memories come to light: forgotten sights and sensations that now had someone to see and feel them again.
There was fear. Looking out from behind these alien eyes, they saw a lithe, naked body extending forwards beneath their gaze. The eyes belonged to it, surveying its soft, ivory flesh and taut muscles. They could feel the cold stone slab that it was sitting on, and the sharp sting of the manacles chaining its arms to the wall. They felt the shackles that spread the legs in front of them. They felt the warm flush of humiliation as the cold air caused the nipples on the large, naked breasts to harden. But most of all they felt the brush of air on a pair of bare feet spread out in front of them. They knew that these feet were the most ticklish feet imaginable, a curse that was about to be exploited in the most terrible of ways. Punishment was coming.
There was terror. From the inky darkness in front of the body, a shape coalesced as it approached: a shadowy female form that walked with a calm, seductive saunter. But the eyes focused only on her hand. Between her fingers was the most terrifying object that the body could conceive of, and all three observers felt the ocean of fear overwhelm them. It held a feather.
“No!! No!!” cried Camilla’s voice in the darkness. The distinction between this body and her own was nonexistent. Each of them could see the feather approaching, but as though in a nightmare the body would not respond to their movements. It remained still, waiting for the moment of contact…
None of them had ever experienced tickling like this before. The moment the feather in the darkness touched those soft feet, the world exploded in a maelstrom of hysteria and unbearable torture. These feet were softer and more ticklish than any human pair of feet could possibly be: having them tickled was the worst punishment imaginable, reserved for the most heinous of crimes. Their minds were shattered by the intensity of the feather’s soft caress, and as it swept back and forth over those supernaturally sensitive feet, they knew what it felt like to face death by tickling.
“EEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAHAAHAAHAAHAAHAAHAAHAAHAA!!!!!” Laughter assaulted Camilla’s ears. Whether it was her own laughter or whether it belonged to the owner of those ticklish feet, she could not tell. She felt flashes of memory from the ticklish victim: memories of guilt and secrecy, of risking the ultimate punishment on a gamble which had backfired in the most terrible way. Now she faced her own ticklish destruction from the most skilled of tormentors, working feet so ticklish that even the most unskilled hand could demolish her.
“MERCEEEHEEEHEEEHEEEHAAAHAAAHAAAHAAAHAAAHAAA!!!!!” cried Maggie’s voice in the darkness, booming with laughter. Not even with her own hypersensitive feet had she ever experienced a tickling so vicious and overwhelming. She knew what feathers could do to her own feet, but this was many times worse: something she would not have believed possible. These feet with their heightened sensitivity could detect body heat from twenty yards away, or tell the difference between different gemstones from feel alone. And now they faced assault by a feather, something the mind was not built to cope with.
“NOHOHOHOHO MOHOOHOOHOOHOOHOOHOORRRRRRE!!!!!” cried Mindy’s voice, and for all she felt her own body twisting and spasming, the tickled feet remained maddeningly still. The feathering of these soles was so unbearable that she was sure no crime could have deserved this punishment. But even with her mind torn apart, she felt her body flush, sadistically demanding more of this exquisite torture.
They felt the hopelessness of a mind which knew it was descending into insanity, and was helpless to prevent it. The feet were too ticklish for the mind to withstand it. They could feel the slipping, but as they did they felt themselves moving away from this doomed mind, receding from this vision and moving to a different place, a different time, through the eyes of a different observer…
The world went black, and the tickling receded with it. Suddenly their eyes opened to a new body, a new vision.
There was loss. A lone figure in the darkness looked at an empty altar, robbed of its crowning glory. The black velvet covering it still bore the mark of where the prize had once stood. It had been stolen, but it had slipped through the thief’s fingers. Now it was lost somewhere on the surface, and all the punishment they could and would force the thief to suffer would not change that. Distant laughter echoed from afar: vengeance was demanded but it was cold comfort. She would endure the ultimate penalty. But now, plans had to be formed. As these thoughts came together, the world became hazy, and the world swirled into chaos until it coalesced into another vision, far away…
There was trepidation. The eyes that looked out now were two of many: a shadowy crowd dressed in long black cloaks wearing silver masks so that their faces would not be recognized by the surface-dwellers. They watched a figure approach: a human woman with pink, spiked hair was coming to speak with them. They did not trust her, and she did not trust them, but she had information to sell and they could not afford to ignore it. The prize waited, somewhere in this vast city with its black looming buildings, and they would find it. The woman approached them, and one of the group extended a hand heavy with the glint of gold…
And suddenly the visions ceased. They were back in the tavern, frozen in time with its blue unearthly light. The golden idol was gone, but its presence remained. Everyone but them was frozen, and even for them time seemed to move more slowly. They looked around at the motionless patrons, but something caught their eye.
One of them moved.
It was a brief, barely noticeable motion, but in this world out of time it stood out like an oasis in the desert. A figure draped in a long, black hooded robe moved their head slightly. From underneath the hood, they caught just the slightest glimpse of a silver mask: a theatrical mask with two thin eye slits and an exaggerated smile.
“I know her!” cried Mindy, thinking of her ordeal at the Sorority house. She did not have to explain. Somehow, Camilla and Maggie could see the echo of her memory, they could feel the outrage driving them to act…
Like a song interrupted in mid-note, time resumed. The blue aura bathing the tavern disappeared. It did not fade: it simply ceased to exist. The shock was like a blast of cold air striking them head on: Camilla, Mindy, and Maggie dropped to their knees with the suddenness of re-entering time. The masked figure wasted no time, however. The three girls saw the figure run out of the tavern at amazing speed, disappearing into the dark streets outside.
“Stop her!” cried Camilla, pointing at the figure, but their re-entry, as well as their exhaustive tickling session, had left all three of them too weak to move. By the time the three girls had gotten to their feet, she was only a memory. The three of them ran outside, but there was no trace.
“Wh—what was that?” asked Maggie, still unsteady.
“You tell us!” said Mindy. “It’s your idol, whatever it did to us, you ought to know!”
“You’re a member of the Sorority of Sages!” retorted Maggie. “Isn’t magic your department?”
“We don’t practice magic!” insisted Mindy. “We only study it! I’ve never actually used magic before in my life!”
Technically, this was not true. Like most Sages, Mindy had dabbled in illegal magic during some of those late nights at the Sorority house when everyone had had a few too many cosmos to drink. They had gotten together and cast a few minor hexes on some of the snobbier girls: the kind that made your hair grow three feet a day, or made you suddenly grow several cup sizes the next time you were in a public place wearing a tight shirt. Mindy had heard about a few girls who had delved into the really complicated magics, though, like demonology. There had been a few cases where some of the legendarily lustful girls had gotten together to summon a succubus, in the hopes of having her lead them in demonic orgies of dark, forbidden pleasures. Unfortunately, the act of summoning a succubus to the mortal plane also had the effect of giving her a headache and a great desire to go to sleep early tonight. Those who successfully summoned succubi tended to be very disappointed.
“Mindy’s right,” said Camilla. “Whatever that was had to be inherent in the idol itself. Where on earth did you find something like that?”
“We brought it back from our last expedition,” said Maggie.
“Where to?” Camilla asked.
“Barbarian lands,” said Maggie, with a tone indicating this was about as specific as she was going to get.
The phrase “barbarian lands” was a general term used to describe those areas on the map which were too remote or uninteresting to be worth colonizing. Most maps in circulation generally showed Port Bastion in the center, surrounded by the neighboring provinces that depended on it for trade and military protection, plus those distant provinces that were rich in mineral deposits or other natural resources. Aside from this, most other areas were labeled “Barbarian Lands”, the same way most bodies of water not used by Bastion trade ships were labeled “Here There Presumably Be Dragons”. It was not the most thorough map, but it did show all the places that any reasonable person might be interested in visiting, and after all that was the purpose of a good map.
“Well, I do know a thing or two about magical artifacts,” said Mindy. “The really powerful ones have a mind of their own. The only way to trigger their power is if they want to be triggered. Often they choose their bearers based on their own will.”
“So we’ve been chosen by this thing?” asked Camilla.
“Yes, and probably for a reason,” said Mindy. “Artifacts tend not to leave you alone until you’ve done what you need them to.”
“Great,” said Maggie. “I guess this precludes making a nice profit off of it.”
“Selling magical artifacts is against the law!” berated Camilla.
“No it isn’t,” said Maggie. “I checked.”
“Well, it’s against the spirit of the law,” said Camilla. It was amazing how many people found this ambiguous.
"So what does it want us to do?" asked Maggie.
"I...guess we'll have to find that out when it wants to tell us," said Mindy. None of them looked satisfied with this prospect, but it didn't look like they had much choice.
“But speaking of selling, I think I recognized someone from that vision,” continued Maggie.
“Who was it?” asked Mindy. “At least that might give us something to go on.”
“That woman from the final vision with the pink spiky hair,” said Maggie. “I think that was Blackmarket Becka. She’s one of the…individuals our Sorority sometimes uses as…”
“Fences?” suggested Camilla with a raised eyebrow.
“Informers,” corrected Maggie quickly. “To help us find interested parties. All above board, of course.”
“I’ll bet,” said Mindy with a scowl. Mindy had no great love for the law, but she’d had a few run-ins with fences in the past. The Sorority of Sages was generally considered an easy target for thievery throughout the city, and consequently their property tended to go missing on an amazingly regular basis. The Sage sisters often had to visit fences to buy back their own property, usually out of their own pockets. As a result, Mindy viewed fences as the lowest form of human life, along with baby seal-clubbers, and people who spelled “magic” with a “k”.
“Well, where could we find this woman?” asked Mindy. “At least she might know something about what’s going on.”
Camilla knew enough about the city to know the parts she would prefer to stay out of. Under normal circumstances she might have left it up to the law. But, as she remembered her promise to the Dark Lady with a shudder, these were not normal circumstances. Her hand was forced.
“I…know a place where we could probably find her,” said Camilla reluctantly.
* * * * *
Sonia sat at her window seat in the bar, sipping her drink pensively as she looked out onto the street below. She was wearing her reconnaissance clothes: a red lace-up bustier and a black leather miniskirt with heeled boots. Some of the junior sisters of the Sorority of Thieves wore catsuits on all their jobs, but someone with Sonia’s experience understood that a catsuit was only stealthy when worn in the shadows of a dark rooftop in the middle of the night. Anywhere else, you stood out like…well, like someone wearing a catsuit in the middle of a crowded bar. It was the easiest way to be noticed and remembered.
In her current outfit, Sonia had been noticed, but it was the sort of attention that lasted only as long as someone was standing in front of her. She had found out quickly that so long as people were staring at her chest, they wouldn’t remember her face well enough to recognize her later. Sonia looked down reflectively. At least they were good for something.
Outside on the street, she finally caught sight of what she was waiting for. The three girls were easy enough to recognize as they ran by, especially since one of them was one-quarter giant, after all. It looked like they were all together now, so at least that phase was complete. They were definitely heading in the direction Sonia had predicted. Following them at this point would be easy enough, if she got on their trail now.
Too bad. She had just ordered a new drink, too.
* * * * *
The three girls walked into the Mermaid’s Kiss Pedicure Parlor and were greeted with the sound that echoed through the establishment every hour of every day: the sound of stifled laughter. All twenty chairs were currently occupied by girls receiving pedicures, and every one of them was biting their lip, trying to hold back the giggles and snickers as an enormous grin crept over their faces. Grunts and hisses abounded from all corners as the girls tried poorly to cover up their escaping laughter. It was business as usual.
The Mermaid’s Kiss had acquired a kind of mythos around it: it was the cheapest pedicure parlor in the city, and for good reason. Although the girls who ran it were moderately competent, there was one thing they had never been trained in: how to handle clients with ticklish feet. Most other pedicure parlors in the city had girls who could handle a pair of sensitive feet without tickling, but the Mermaid’s Kiss had none. It had become a kind of joke over time: they had a mermaid’s knowledge of feet. Once word spread, it had become a kind of “proving ground” for some of the tougher girls in the city who were self-conscious about their image: a place to prove to their comrades that they didn’t have ticklish feet. Of course, most of the girls who felt compelled to prove it actually did have extremely ticklish feet. And so, every day the Mermaid’s Kiss was filled with would-be tough girls, getting pedicures and being tickled half to death while unconvincingly declaring that it didn’t tickle at all. It was the ultimate experiment in collective denial.
“Are you here for an appointment?” asked a girl at the door as the three girls walked inside.
“Um, no,” said Camilla very quickly. “We’re here to look for a friend.”
They walked past the rows of chairs full of squirming, grinning girls. A lot of them looked like street toughs, and Camilla’s detective’s instinct would have pegged them all as being up to no good. From time to time they caught snatches of conversations: “No, it’s—mmmmph!—nothing! Doesn’t—mmmmmmmph!—tickle at all!” Many of them were having a hard time of it, but laughing out loud in the Mermaid’s Kiss was the ultimate sign of weakness.
All three of the girls walked uneasily, but none more so than Maggie. With her loose sandals, they noticed she shuffled across the ground, unconsciously keeping her soles exposed for as little time as possible. She looked around nervously and said very little. Camilla felt a little better in boots, but with her ticklish feet she wouldn’t get a pedicure here for any price.
“We’ll be done here soon,” whispered Camilla to Maggie, trying to relax her.
“Remind me never to get my pedicures done here,” gulped Maggie.
It was near the back that they finally identified Becka. Her short spiky hair was dyed pink and she was dressed in a black leather tank top with leather pants that bore various knife slashes. Whether they were cosmetic or genuine none of them could tell. Her body was rippling with muscles, but one look at her confirmed she was every bit as ticklish as the other clients. She sat gripping her chair with white knuckles, while a huge forced grin showed a mouthful of gritted teeth.
“This doesn’t hurt, does it?” asked the pedicurist working on Becka, genuinely unaware that her client was ticklish at all. She rubbed a pumice stone across the soles of Becka’s feet, oblivious to the wild splaying of her toes or the tears welling up in her eyes.
“N—not at all!” Becka insisted unconvincingly without un-gritting her teeth for a second.
The pedicurist, encouraged by this good news, finished with her pumice stone and began giving a well-meaning but clumsy foot massage. First her touch was too gentle, and her fingertips glided over the soft soles like feathers with a maddeningly soft touch. Becka’s body quivered with the effort of remaining still as her arches were subjected to “special attention” from the pedicurist’s feather touch. Several minutes into the massage, the pedicurist apparently realized her mistake and began overcompensating. Now, she pressed her fingertips into the recesses of Becka’s soles, intending to relieve tension but only digging her fingernails deep into insanely ticklish spots. The pedicurist smiled, convinced she was doing a good job now. It was like watching a stage farce.
Camilla coughed loudly, as she had practiced many times in front of the mirror to prepare for apprehending suspects. Apparently her practice had paid off: Becka looked up with the speed of a career criminal who heard the law coming. She looked almost disappointed when she saw Camilla and Mindy, although the sight of Maggie towering behind them made her decide these people might be worth her contempt after all.
“Becka, is it?” asked Camilla. The authoritative air came easily to her with such a captive audience. “I wonder if you could help us answer a few questions?”
“Get lost!” snarled Becka, who could always spare a little energy to be rude to the law. She needed the rest of it, though: her pedicurist had gone back to the light grazing touch which looked as relaxing as dragging a feather across her soles.
“We hear there’s a new silver-masked gang in Port Bastion,” continued Camilla undaunted. “Know anything about that?”
“If I—mmmmphh!—did, I wouldn’t—nnnnghh—tell you!” Becka retorted. As she spoke, the pedicurist’s fingers slipped in the middle of the massage, and a long sharp fingernail scratched the length of Becka’s instep. Twice.
Becka gasped with relief when her torturous massage was finally finished, and the pedicurist reached for the nail polish. This would buy her a few minutes to recuperate, even if the pedicurist accidentally slipped the nail brush between her toes once or twice. Becka looked at the three girls with smug triumph.
“Oh, look at that,” said Mindy, pointing with affected carelessness. “It looks like she has some extra dirt there underneath her toes. You really ought to use the pedicure brush there.”
“D—damn you!” Becka spat out with a look of blackest loathing at Mindy. But her pedicurist, innocent of any ulterior motive, took her advice and put aside the nail polish, instead brushing underneath Becka’s toes. Becka’s eyes were watering as the pedicurist held back her toes one by one and meticulously brushed the soft skin.
“So, you wouldn’t happen to remember anything new about these masked women, would you?” asked Camilla with a smile. Becka’s lip was trembling, but she was terrified at the prospect that she might be forced to laugh in front of everyone.
“Have—nothing to—say to—you!” Becka managed to get out in a voice that was almost a whimper. They could see the powerlessness of her situation was humiliating, but it was nothing compared to the humiliation if she were to lose control.
With a conspiratorial smile, Mindy leaned in towards her friends. “Say, do you know what I think those dirty feet could really use?” asked Mindy in a low voice, just loud enough so that Becka could hear her, but not the pedicurist. “A good, long brush-scrub in soapy water.”
“Y—you wouldn’t!” insisted Becka, looking up in fear.
“Oh, ma’am?” Mindy called to the pedicurist with a wicked grin. “We were just—“
“Sableridge Manor!” Becka blurted out. The resentment in her voice was palpable. “On the north side! Now leave me alone!”
“You’ve been most helpful,” said Camilla, not without some personal satisfaction. She turned to her companions. “Shall we head out?”
“Certainly,” said Mindy. As she turned to go, in an affected afterthought she called out the pedicurist. “Oh, and by the way, ma’am, your client was just mentioning to us how she was hoping you could give her feet a really thorough scrub with your brush.” Even after they turned around, they could feel the enraged gaze boring into the backs of their heads.
The three girls were just stepping out the door, when from the back of the salon they heard that most dreaded of sounds: a sudden explosion of hysterical laughter, breaking free of the defenses which had kept it bottled up for so long at last.
“Oh dear,” commented Mindy as they left. “Some people have no willpower.”
The previous chapters can be found as follows:
Chapter 1 - http://www.ticklingforum.com/showthread.php?t=157600
Chapter 2 - http://www.ticklingforum.com/showthread.php?t=158077
City of Sororities - Chapter 3
Camilla was one of nature’s straightforward thinkers. Now in the employ of the Sorority of Thieves, most people would have thought of themselves as spies or burglars-for-hire and begun plotting about intrigue and theft. For Camilla, however, her job was clear. She had been hired to track down an illegal piece of merchandise, and that was the job of a detective. The first thing to do was follow up her leads, and that meant interviewing the suspects. And a good detective knew where her suspects were likely to hang out.
It was evening as Camilla stepped into The Broad’s Sword Tavern, popular watering hole for the Sorority of Explorers. The décor was intentionally rustic: rough wooden tables were scattered around, and a full wood-burning fireplace was set in the back wall. Hanging above the fireplace were woodcuts of famous explorers, plus the tavern’s titular sword. Off to the side, a feral-looking barmaid with an eyepatch stood behind the bar, busying herself polishing glasses. She didn’t look up as Camilla walked in.
There were a few patrons throughout the tavern indulging in pints of what could charitably be called ale, but Camilla’s eye was immediately drawn to a table in the corner where trouble was brewing. Four sisters from the Sorority of Explorers were sitting there, recognizable from their stylized chainmail bikinis that they wore in the city. When they were actually out exploring, they wore much more sensible clothing, but here it was their favorite outfit. One of the Explorers was recognizable to Camilla at once: it was Maggie Stoneheave, the Sorority’s famous part-giant sister who sat in a specially built oversized chair drinking a blindingly pink fruit-garnished concoction out of a gallon pitcher. Around her a group of friends, perhaps more concerned about appearing rugged, were polishing off pints of beer.
And they were not alone, either. Addressing their table was a short, slender girl with square-framed glasses and a head of messy but lustrous red hair that clearly took care of itself despite the fact that its owner had no idea what to do with it. Wearing a plaid miniskirt and a tight white t shirt that read, “Spell Wars TCG regional champion: Port Bastion East”, she was addressing the Explorers in the tone of someone for whom barroom brawls were things that happened to other people.
“I don’t care what you found,” said Maggie to the red-haired girl with rising indignation. “If you want to accuse us of something….” She began to stand up very purposefully.
Camilla’s law-enforcement reflexes sprung into action with the single-mindedness of a nymphomaniac rabbit on honeymoon. “All right, break it up, you two!” she declared stepping forward, even as a voice in the back of her heard told her she was embarking on A Very Bad Idea.
Maggie turned to her as she approached. “And you are…?” she asked. Her voice was not particularly imposing, but there were quite enough other imposing features about her to make up for it.
“A concerned citizen.” Camilla had been called upon to answer this question many times before.
“Well, I suggest you concern yourself with something else,” Maggie replied, not backing down. “We were enjoying a peaceful drink before this intrusion. For your own safety, we encourage you to leave.” It shouldn’t have been possible for a woman holding a pink fruity blended drink to look menacing, but Maggie pulled it off with some aplomb.
There are a few life lessons which most people, regardless of learning aptitude, tend to pick up rather quickly. Never play pool with a man who says, “Let’s make this interesting.” Never drink in a pub where they keep the booze in unmarked bottles. And never argue when a twelve-foot woman tells you to get out of here. Camilla took the girl in glasses by the arm and turned towards the door.
Some people, however, have astonishing gaps in their practical education. The girl in glasses shook herself free of Camilla and turned back to Maggie. “We’re not going anywhere!” she declared. Camilla really wished she hadn’t used the collective pronoun. “I want you to explain why an intruder who broke into our House left a matchbook for a tavern that’s patronized almost exclusively by the Sorority of Explorers!” She presented the matchbook proudly, as though she had just delivered a knock-down argument.
“Now then,” said Camilla, “I’m sure she has an explanation for this.” Camilla rather hoped she did.
Maggie looked down at both of them from her full height with an appraising expression. Camilla found it encouraging: a woman set on beating the living hell out of them would be smiling ear-to-ear. “What’s your name, girl?” Maggie asked after a second.
“Mindy, from the Sorority of Sages,” said the girl with glasses proudly.
“Well, Mindy,” said Maggie, sitting back down, “I would say you’ve been had. None of our girls have been around your House recently, so I’m afraid it’s someone else you’re looking for.” She then turned back to her table with the air of someone with some lost drinking time to make up for.
“Consider yourself lucky,” muttered Camilla to Mindy.
“I don’t remember asking you for help,” said Mindy. “What’s your name?”
“Camilla,” she said, a bit offput that her good intentions had gone unrecognized. As usual.
“Are you with the Guards?” asked Mindy.
“I’m…a prospective,” answered Camilla. A few of the Explorer girls within earshot gave a laugh. They knew what that meant.
“Well, I think I’m entitled to some answers,” said Mindy.
“And I’m entitled to some peace and quiet,” said Maggie from her table. “Are you still here? Why don’t you take your search somewhere—“
Even though the backpack was some distance away from her foot, it fell over as though upset by Maggie’s sudden turnaround. A few objects toppled out: coins, relics, and one object that from the look of it Maggie had not expected to see. A small golden idol of a nude woman fell onto the ground, glowing with an ethereal light that seemed to get brighter as they looked at it. They could feel warm, pulsing waves of heat coursing outward from it, a heat that was not felt by their bodies but by the deepest recesses of their minds. There was no doubt that what they were experiencing was magic.
“Is that—?” asked Camilla, pointing at the idol.
“Who brought this here?” demanded Maggie. “Which one of you—“
But no one could answer. The room was bathed in a deep blue aura, reducing every physical object to a mere shadow by contrast with its brilliance. The patrons, the fixtures, even the flames in the fireplace themselves were frozen in time, motionless like a ghostly blue snapshot of the past. And yet there were three observers who floated outside of the light, unaffected: the figures of Camilla, Mindy, and Maggie.
They tried to speak, but words would not come. They felt their bodies receding into the distance, and in their place, a new body. They looked out through the eyes of this body and saw distant memories come to light: forgotten sights and sensations that now had someone to see and feel them again.
There was fear. Looking out from behind these alien eyes, they saw a lithe, naked body extending forwards beneath their gaze. The eyes belonged to it, surveying its soft, ivory flesh and taut muscles. They could feel the cold stone slab that it was sitting on, and the sharp sting of the manacles chaining its arms to the wall. They felt the shackles that spread the legs in front of them. They felt the warm flush of humiliation as the cold air caused the nipples on the large, naked breasts to harden. But most of all they felt the brush of air on a pair of bare feet spread out in front of them. They knew that these feet were the most ticklish feet imaginable, a curse that was about to be exploited in the most terrible of ways. Punishment was coming.
There was terror. From the inky darkness in front of the body, a shape coalesced as it approached: a shadowy female form that walked with a calm, seductive saunter. But the eyes focused only on her hand. Between her fingers was the most terrifying object that the body could conceive of, and all three observers felt the ocean of fear overwhelm them. It held a feather.
“No!! No!!” cried Camilla’s voice in the darkness. The distinction between this body and her own was nonexistent. Each of them could see the feather approaching, but as though in a nightmare the body would not respond to their movements. It remained still, waiting for the moment of contact…
None of them had ever experienced tickling like this before. The moment the feather in the darkness touched those soft feet, the world exploded in a maelstrom of hysteria and unbearable torture. These feet were softer and more ticklish than any human pair of feet could possibly be: having them tickled was the worst punishment imaginable, reserved for the most heinous of crimes. Their minds were shattered by the intensity of the feather’s soft caress, and as it swept back and forth over those supernaturally sensitive feet, they knew what it felt like to face death by tickling.
“EEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAHAAHAAHAAHAAHAAHAAHAAHAA!!!!!” Laughter assaulted Camilla’s ears. Whether it was her own laughter or whether it belonged to the owner of those ticklish feet, she could not tell. She felt flashes of memory from the ticklish victim: memories of guilt and secrecy, of risking the ultimate punishment on a gamble which had backfired in the most terrible way. Now she faced her own ticklish destruction from the most skilled of tormentors, working feet so ticklish that even the most unskilled hand could demolish her.
“MERCEEEHEEEHEEEHEEEHAAAHAAAHAAAHAAAHAAAHAAA!!!!!” cried Maggie’s voice in the darkness, booming with laughter. Not even with her own hypersensitive feet had she ever experienced a tickling so vicious and overwhelming. She knew what feathers could do to her own feet, but this was many times worse: something she would not have believed possible. These feet with their heightened sensitivity could detect body heat from twenty yards away, or tell the difference between different gemstones from feel alone. And now they faced assault by a feather, something the mind was not built to cope with.
“NOHOHOHOHO MOHOOHOOHOOHOOHOOHOORRRRRRE!!!!!” cried Mindy’s voice, and for all she felt her own body twisting and spasming, the tickled feet remained maddeningly still. The feathering of these soles was so unbearable that she was sure no crime could have deserved this punishment. But even with her mind torn apart, she felt her body flush, sadistically demanding more of this exquisite torture.
They felt the hopelessness of a mind which knew it was descending into insanity, and was helpless to prevent it. The feet were too ticklish for the mind to withstand it. They could feel the slipping, but as they did they felt themselves moving away from this doomed mind, receding from this vision and moving to a different place, a different time, through the eyes of a different observer…
The world went black, and the tickling receded with it. Suddenly their eyes opened to a new body, a new vision.
There was loss. A lone figure in the darkness looked at an empty altar, robbed of its crowning glory. The black velvet covering it still bore the mark of where the prize had once stood. It had been stolen, but it had slipped through the thief’s fingers. Now it was lost somewhere on the surface, and all the punishment they could and would force the thief to suffer would not change that. Distant laughter echoed from afar: vengeance was demanded but it was cold comfort. She would endure the ultimate penalty. But now, plans had to be formed. As these thoughts came together, the world became hazy, and the world swirled into chaos until it coalesced into another vision, far away…
There was trepidation. The eyes that looked out now were two of many: a shadowy crowd dressed in long black cloaks wearing silver masks so that their faces would not be recognized by the surface-dwellers. They watched a figure approach: a human woman with pink, spiked hair was coming to speak with them. They did not trust her, and she did not trust them, but she had information to sell and they could not afford to ignore it. The prize waited, somewhere in this vast city with its black looming buildings, and they would find it. The woman approached them, and one of the group extended a hand heavy with the glint of gold…
And suddenly the visions ceased. They were back in the tavern, frozen in time with its blue unearthly light. The golden idol was gone, but its presence remained. Everyone but them was frozen, and even for them time seemed to move more slowly. They looked around at the motionless patrons, but something caught their eye.
One of them moved.
It was a brief, barely noticeable motion, but in this world out of time it stood out like an oasis in the desert. A figure draped in a long, black hooded robe moved their head slightly. From underneath the hood, they caught just the slightest glimpse of a silver mask: a theatrical mask with two thin eye slits and an exaggerated smile.
“I know her!” cried Mindy, thinking of her ordeal at the Sorority house. She did not have to explain. Somehow, Camilla and Maggie could see the echo of her memory, they could feel the outrage driving them to act…
Like a song interrupted in mid-note, time resumed. The blue aura bathing the tavern disappeared. It did not fade: it simply ceased to exist. The shock was like a blast of cold air striking them head on: Camilla, Mindy, and Maggie dropped to their knees with the suddenness of re-entering time. The masked figure wasted no time, however. The three girls saw the figure run out of the tavern at amazing speed, disappearing into the dark streets outside.
“Stop her!” cried Camilla, pointing at the figure, but their re-entry, as well as their exhaustive tickling session, had left all three of them too weak to move. By the time the three girls had gotten to their feet, she was only a memory. The three of them ran outside, but there was no trace.
“Wh—what was that?” asked Maggie, still unsteady.
“You tell us!” said Mindy. “It’s your idol, whatever it did to us, you ought to know!”
“You’re a member of the Sorority of Sages!” retorted Maggie. “Isn’t magic your department?”
“We don’t practice magic!” insisted Mindy. “We only study it! I’ve never actually used magic before in my life!”
Technically, this was not true. Like most Sages, Mindy had dabbled in illegal magic during some of those late nights at the Sorority house when everyone had had a few too many cosmos to drink. They had gotten together and cast a few minor hexes on some of the snobbier girls: the kind that made your hair grow three feet a day, or made you suddenly grow several cup sizes the next time you were in a public place wearing a tight shirt. Mindy had heard about a few girls who had delved into the really complicated magics, though, like demonology. There had been a few cases where some of the legendarily lustful girls had gotten together to summon a succubus, in the hopes of having her lead them in demonic orgies of dark, forbidden pleasures. Unfortunately, the act of summoning a succubus to the mortal plane also had the effect of giving her a headache and a great desire to go to sleep early tonight. Those who successfully summoned succubi tended to be very disappointed.
“Mindy’s right,” said Camilla. “Whatever that was had to be inherent in the idol itself. Where on earth did you find something like that?”
“We brought it back from our last expedition,” said Maggie.
“Where to?” Camilla asked.
“Barbarian lands,” said Maggie, with a tone indicating this was about as specific as she was going to get.
The phrase “barbarian lands” was a general term used to describe those areas on the map which were too remote or uninteresting to be worth colonizing. Most maps in circulation generally showed Port Bastion in the center, surrounded by the neighboring provinces that depended on it for trade and military protection, plus those distant provinces that were rich in mineral deposits or other natural resources. Aside from this, most other areas were labeled “Barbarian Lands”, the same way most bodies of water not used by Bastion trade ships were labeled “Here There Presumably Be Dragons”. It was not the most thorough map, but it did show all the places that any reasonable person might be interested in visiting, and after all that was the purpose of a good map.
“Well, I do know a thing or two about magical artifacts,” said Mindy. “The really powerful ones have a mind of their own. The only way to trigger their power is if they want to be triggered. Often they choose their bearers based on their own will.”
“So we’ve been chosen by this thing?” asked Camilla.
“Yes, and probably for a reason,” said Mindy. “Artifacts tend not to leave you alone until you’ve done what you need them to.”
“Great,” said Maggie. “I guess this precludes making a nice profit off of it.”
“Selling magical artifacts is against the law!” berated Camilla.
“No it isn’t,” said Maggie. “I checked.”
“Well, it’s against the spirit of the law,” said Camilla. It was amazing how many people found this ambiguous.
"So what does it want us to do?" asked Maggie.
"I...guess we'll have to find that out when it wants to tell us," said Mindy. None of them looked satisfied with this prospect, but it didn't look like they had much choice.
“But speaking of selling, I think I recognized someone from that vision,” continued Maggie.
“Who was it?” asked Mindy. “At least that might give us something to go on.”
“That woman from the final vision with the pink spiky hair,” said Maggie. “I think that was Blackmarket Becka. She’s one of the…individuals our Sorority sometimes uses as…”
“Fences?” suggested Camilla with a raised eyebrow.
“Informers,” corrected Maggie quickly. “To help us find interested parties. All above board, of course.”
“I’ll bet,” said Mindy with a scowl. Mindy had no great love for the law, but she’d had a few run-ins with fences in the past. The Sorority of Sages was generally considered an easy target for thievery throughout the city, and consequently their property tended to go missing on an amazingly regular basis. The Sage sisters often had to visit fences to buy back their own property, usually out of their own pockets. As a result, Mindy viewed fences as the lowest form of human life, along with baby seal-clubbers, and people who spelled “magic” with a “k”.
“Well, where could we find this woman?” asked Mindy. “At least she might know something about what’s going on.”
Camilla knew enough about the city to know the parts she would prefer to stay out of. Under normal circumstances she might have left it up to the law. But, as she remembered her promise to the Dark Lady with a shudder, these were not normal circumstances. Her hand was forced.
“I…know a place where we could probably find her,” said Camilla reluctantly.
* * * * *
Sonia sat at her window seat in the bar, sipping her drink pensively as she looked out onto the street below. She was wearing her reconnaissance clothes: a red lace-up bustier and a black leather miniskirt with heeled boots. Some of the junior sisters of the Sorority of Thieves wore catsuits on all their jobs, but someone with Sonia’s experience understood that a catsuit was only stealthy when worn in the shadows of a dark rooftop in the middle of the night. Anywhere else, you stood out like…well, like someone wearing a catsuit in the middle of a crowded bar. It was the easiest way to be noticed and remembered.
In her current outfit, Sonia had been noticed, but it was the sort of attention that lasted only as long as someone was standing in front of her. She had found out quickly that so long as people were staring at her chest, they wouldn’t remember her face well enough to recognize her later. Sonia looked down reflectively. At least they were good for something.
Outside on the street, she finally caught sight of what she was waiting for. The three girls were easy enough to recognize as they ran by, especially since one of them was one-quarter giant, after all. It looked like they were all together now, so at least that phase was complete. They were definitely heading in the direction Sonia had predicted. Following them at this point would be easy enough, if she got on their trail now.
Too bad. She had just ordered a new drink, too.
* * * * *
The three girls walked into the Mermaid’s Kiss Pedicure Parlor and were greeted with the sound that echoed through the establishment every hour of every day: the sound of stifled laughter. All twenty chairs were currently occupied by girls receiving pedicures, and every one of them was biting their lip, trying to hold back the giggles and snickers as an enormous grin crept over their faces. Grunts and hisses abounded from all corners as the girls tried poorly to cover up their escaping laughter. It was business as usual.
The Mermaid’s Kiss had acquired a kind of mythos around it: it was the cheapest pedicure parlor in the city, and for good reason. Although the girls who ran it were moderately competent, there was one thing they had never been trained in: how to handle clients with ticklish feet. Most other pedicure parlors in the city had girls who could handle a pair of sensitive feet without tickling, but the Mermaid’s Kiss had none. It had become a kind of joke over time: they had a mermaid’s knowledge of feet. Once word spread, it had become a kind of “proving ground” for some of the tougher girls in the city who were self-conscious about their image: a place to prove to their comrades that they didn’t have ticklish feet. Of course, most of the girls who felt compelled to prove it actually did have extremely ticklish feet. And so, every day the Mermaid’s Kiss was filled with would-be tough girls, getting pedicures and being tickled half to death while unconvincingly declaring that it didn’t tickle at all. It was the ultimate experiment in collective denial.
“Are you here for an appointment?” asked a girl at the door as the three girls walked inside.
“Um, no,” said Camilla very quickly. “We’re here to look for a friend.”
They walked past the rows of chairs full of squirming, grinning girls. A lot of them looked like street toughs, and Camilla’s detective’s instinct would have pegged them all as being up to no good. From time to time they caught snatches of conversations: “No, it’s—mmmmph!—nothing! Doesn’t—mmmmmmmph!—tickle at all!” Many of them were having a hard time of it, but laughing out loud in the Mermaid’s Kiss was the ultimate sign of weakness.
All three of the girls walked uneasily, but none more so than Maggie. With her loose sandals, they noticed she shuffled across the ground, unconsciously keeping her soles exposed for as little time as possible. She looked around nervously and said very little. Camilla felt a little better in boots, but with her ticklish feet she wouldn’t get a pedicure here for any price.
“We’ll be done here soon,” whispered Camilla to Maggie, trying to relax her.
“Remind me never to get my pedicures done here,” gulped Maggie.
It was near the back that they finally identified Becka. Her short spiky hair was dyed pink and she was dressed in a black leather tank top with leather pants that bore various knife slashes. Whether they were cosmetic or genuine none of them could tell. Her body was rippling with muscles, but one look at her confirmed she was every bit as ticklish as the other clients. She sat gripping her chair with white knuckles, while a huge forced grin showed a mouthful of gritted teeth.
“This doesn’t hurt, does it?” asked the pedicurist working on Becka, genuinely unaware that her client was ticklish at all. She rubbed a pumice stone across the soles of Becka’s feet, oblivious to the wild splaying of her toes or the tears welling up in her eyes.
“N—not at all!” Becka insisted unconvincingly without un-gritting her teeth for a second.
The pedicurist, encouraged by this good news, finished with her pumice stone and began giving a well-meaning but clumsy foot massage. First her touch was too gentle, and her fingertips glided over the soft soles like feathers with a maddeningly soft touch. Becka’s body quivered with the effort of remaining still as her arches were subjected to “special attention” from the pedicurist’s feather touch. Several minutes into the massage, the pedicurist apparently realized her mistake and began overcompensating. Now, she pressed her fingertips into the recesses of Becka’s soles, intending to relieve tension but only digging her fingernails deep into insanely ticklish spots. The pedicurist smiled, convinced she was doing a good job now. It was like watching a stage farce.
Camilla coughed loudly, as she had practiced many times in front of the mirror to prepare for apprehending suspects. Apparently her practice had paid off: Becka looked up with the speed of a career criminal who heard the law coming. She looked almost disappointed when she saw Camilla and Mindy, although the sight of Maggie towering behind them made her decide these people might be worth her contempt after all.
“Becka, is it?” asked Camilla. The authoritative air came easily to her with such a captive audience. “I wonder if you could help us answer a few questions?”
“Get lost!” snarled Becka, who could always spare a little energy to be rude to the law. She needed the rest of it, though: her pedicurist had gone back to the light grazing touch which looked as relaxing as dragging a feather across her soles.
“We hear there’s a new silver-masked gang in Port Bastion,” continued Camilla undaunted. “Know anything about that?”
“If I—mmmmphh!—did, I wouldn’t—nnnnghh—tell you!” Becka retorted. As she spoke, the pedicurist’s fingers slipped in the middle of the massage, and a long sharp fingernail scratched the length of Becka’s instep. Twice.
Becka gasped with relief when her torturous massage was finally finished, and the pedicurist reached for the nail polish. This would buy her a few minutes to recuperate, even if the pedicurist accidentally slipped the nail brush between her toes once or twice. Becka looked at the three girls with smug triumph.
“Oh, look at that,” said Mindy, pointing with affected carelessness. “It looks like she has some extra dirt there underneath her toes. You really ought to use the pedicure brush there.”
“D—damn you!” Becka spat out with a look of blackest loathing at Mindy. But her pedicurist, innocent of any ulterior motive, took her advice and put aside the nail polish, instead brushing underneath Becka’s toes. Becka’s eyes were watering as the pedicurist held back her toes one by one and meticulously brushed the soft skin.
“So, you wouldn’t happen to remember anything new about these masked women, would you?” asked Camilla with a smile. Becka’s lip was trembling, but she was terrified at the prospect that she might be forced to laugh in front of everyone.
“Have—nothing to—say to—you!” Becka managed to get out in a voice that was almost a whimper. They could see the powerlessness of her situation was humiliating, but it was nothing compared to the humiliation if she were to lose control.
With a conspiratorial smile, Mindy leaned in towards her friends. “Say, do you know what I think those dirty feet could really use?” asked Mindy in a low voice, just loud enough so that Becka could hear her, but not the pedicurist. “A good, long brush-scrub in soapy water.”
“Y—you wouldn’t!” insisted Becka, looking up in fear.
“Oh, ma’am?” Mindy called to the pedicurist with a wicked grin. “We were just—“
“Sableridge Manor!” Becka blurted out. The resentment in her voice was palpable. “On the north side! Now leave me alone!”
“You’ve been most helpful,” said Camilla, not without some personal satisfaction. She turned to her companions. “Shall we head out?”
“Certainly,” said Mindy. As she turned to go, in an affected afterthought she called out the pedicurist. “Oh, and by the way, ma’am, your client was just mentioning to us how she was hoping you could give her feet a really thorough scrub with your brush.” Even after they turned around, they could feel the enraged gaze boring into the backs of their heads.
The three girls were just stepping out the door, when from the back of the salon they heard that most dreaded of sounds: a sudden explosion of hysterical laughter, breaking free of the defenses which had kept it bottled up for so long at last.
“Oh dear,” commented Mindy as they left. “Some people have no willpower.”
