Low_Roads
4th Level Black Feather
- Joined
- Nov 16, 2004
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Presented here are a couple of Low Roads pictures previously unreleased to the general Community. The first is a group view of the cast, devised as reference for Cheshire Cat's S4-2 project; it's a bit out of date (Jen isn't part of the active story, at present). The second was done as a request for Ryufan at the TTC, and not seen by anyone other than him until now. I'll add further related pieces of non-tk artwork as they come up. The principal purpose of this thread, however, is to serve as a checklist for my Low Roads comix chapters, something more expansive for my signature to link with. As such, please employ liberally!
Chapter 01-"Net Profits": http://www.ticklingforum.com/showthread.php?t=67280
Chapter 02-"The Traveling Cabinet": http://www.ticklingforum.com/showthread.php?t=67753
Chapter 03-"A Meal Fit for a Thing": http://www.ticklingforum.com/showthread.php?t=72608
Chapter 04-"The Drowned Town": http://www.ticklingforum.com/showthread.php?t=75758
Chapter 05-"Law-Biting Citizens": http://www.ticklingforum.com/showthread.php?t=79697
Chapter 06-"Locked, Stocked and Embarrassed": http://www.ticklingforum.com/showthread.php?t=98021
Chapter 07-"Snooze Guard": http://www.ticklingforum.com/showthread.php?t=101684
Chapter 07.5-"Fungi and Fun Gals": http://www.ticklingforum.com/showthread.php?t=102928
Chapter 08-"Spritely and Sluggish": http://www.ticklingforum.com/showthread.php?t=105646
Chapter 09-"The Four Corners Coven": http://www.ticklingforum.com/showthread.php?t=110373
Chapter 10-"Orphans of the Firestorm": http://www.ticklingforum.com/showthread.php?t=112769
Chapter 11-"Feare Factor": http://www.ticklingforum.com/showthread.php?t=115719
Chapter 12-"High Road and Low Road": http://www.ticklingforum.com/showthread.php?t=119291
Chapter 13-"The Buddy System": http://www.ticklingforum.com/showthread.php?t=122720
Chapter 14-"Fantasy in B Major": http://www.ticklingforum.com/showthread.php?t=126898
Chapter 15-"Ten Toe Concerto": http://www.ticklingforum.com/showthread.php?t=133060
Chapter 16-"Altared States": http://www.ticklingforum.com/showthread.php?t=142676
Chapter 17-"Pen Pals": http://www.ticklingforum.com/showthread.php?t=149563
Chapter 18-"Hammer and Tongues": http://www.ticklingforum.com/showthread.php?t=155787
Chapter 19-"A Haven in the Heights": http://www.ticklingforum.com/showthread.php?t=162772
Chapter 20-"My Tinted Twin": http://www.ticklingforum.com/showthread.php?t=168958
Chapter 21-"Spacial Delivery": http://www.ticklingforum.com/showthread.php?t=174500
Chapter 21.5-"Suspended Judgement": http://www.ticklingforum.com/showthread.php?t=179120
Chapter 22-"Hissy Fit": http://www.ticklingforum.com/showthread.php?t=186662
Chapter 23-"An Affair of Humor": http://www.ticklingforum.com/showthread.php?t=193207
Chapter 24-"Pass the Grub": http://www.ticklingforum.com/showthread.php?t=199784
Chapter 25-"Blissynergy": http://www.ticklingforum.com/showthread.php?207065
Chapter 26-"Aloft on Leather Wings": http://www.ticklingforum.com/showthread.php?213119
Chapter 27-"Nothin' Dune": http://www.ticklingforum.com/showthread.php?223740
Chapter 28-"Lay of the Lab Rats": http://www.ticklingforum.com/showthread.php?268438
Chapter 29-"Golden Midnight Hour": http://www.ticklingforum.com/showthread.php?268901
Chapter 30-"Indigestion's Masterpiece": http://www.ticklingforum.com/showthread.php?304961
Chapter 31-"Poulp Friction": http://www.ticklingforum.com/showthread.php?305371
Chapter 32-"Gift of Grab": http://www.ticklingforum.com/showthread.php?305822
Chapter 33-"Beside Shrill Waters": http://www.ticklingforum.com/showthread.php?306205
Chapter 34-"Island of Lust Souls" :http://www.ticklingforum.com/showthread.php?306648
Chapter 35-"Adoration Station":http://www.ticklingforum.com/showthread.php?310226
I've decided also to add a chapter-by-chapter synopsis, so that readers may place new material into context or refresh themselves about key plot points without plowing through the actual comics:
Chapter 1, "Net Profits": Mercy Mew, resident of Tabor County, wanders the Low Roads in search of illicit reading material (the Low Roads are Tabor's creek systems, turned into permanent arroyos by the demands of an efficient canal project and now inhabited by the lowest classes of society). She is waylaid by two ne'er-do-wells, who transport her into the clutches of the Spinster, a Low Roads bogey (monster) who plans to use her as an emissary. The Spinster tickles Mercy unmercifully to demonstrate the penalty for disobedience.
Chapter 2, "The Traveling Cabinet": Mercy has returned to her home in the town of Fairview. She receives the Spinster's directive: to visit the traveling Cabinet of Curiosities of Professor Feare and make contact with a shadowy personality called Little Big Head. Confused, but fearful of reprisal, she goes to the tented museum, meeting with her longtime friend, Angela Allgoode (daughter of Fairview's mayor). Mercy makes her way to Little Big Head (passing an involved fetish tableau on the way), who is revealed to be a pickled display in the freak tent. She follows her instructions, staring into the imp's eyes... and finds herself drawn into a hallucinogenic dreamworld, accompanied by the now-active Little Big Head. The diminutive monster licks at Mercy, reducing her with his appetite, until she's awakened by Angie. Mercy anxiously draws Angie away from the freak tent; the final panel shows Little Big Head's jar, now empty, its occupant escaped.
Chapter 3, "A Meal Fit For a Thing": Mercy and Angie having explored Prof. Feare's museum fully, return to the display of fetish tickling. Angie is embarrassed; Mercy teases her friend with a bout of underarm tickling (unnoticed by them, the "wax" figures of the exhibit express a leering interest).
The girls return to their respective homes in Fairview. Mercy mulls over the day's events until she sees the shadowy form of Little Big Head at her window. She follows the nimble imp out into the night, chasing him through Fairview's streets. The hunt finally terminates at the mayor's mansion. Mercy, concerned for her friend, climbs to a second-floor window. Her fears are well founded: Little Big Head, along with the figures from the fetish display, have bound Angie to her bed and abuse her with extreme foot tickling. Mercy watches, frozen with fascination. She's eventually pulled from her perch by strands of animated ivy. Little Big Head joins her. He commiserates, promising an explanation if she'll accompany him to Lake Lamprey.
Chapter 4, "The Drowned Town": Back at the Spinster's lair: Guggle and Snide (her two operatives) are questioned about Mercy's failed mission. The Spinster knows Little Big Head will move against her now and decides to recruit bogey allies. She sends Guggle, Snide and Mud Sally (her bogey personal companion) to Lake Lamprey for a conference with the powerful water bogey, Boss Guillman. Little Big Head and Mercy have already arrived: they spy on the proceedings while Little Big Head relates Guillman's history and hints at an intimate connection between Sally and himself. Sally makes her way to the underwater town of Unterburg and confronts Guillman, who punishes her trespassing with tickling tentacles before he discovers the Spinster's scroll of entreaty. Up above, Little Big Head stuns Mercy with news that he supped away her soul during their encounter in the freak tent... Mercy will now become a bogey herself.
Chapter 5, "Law-Biting Citizens": Fairview residents gather at the town's general store to gossip about the disturbing resurgence of bogey activity. They bemoan their assumption that Sheriff Persephone Mew (Mercy's sister) hasn't done enough to counter the growing problem.
Sheriff Mew has, in fact, made her way to Swillwell (a makeshift Low Roads town) at the invitation of its founder, Friedrich von Smutt. Von Smutt and Persephone palaver: she explains the nature of bogeys (normal people who have bartered their souls for mortal pleasure and have subsequently altered into monsters); he shows her a powerful, radically new sort of bogey, secured in a pit. Intrigued, she descends to examine it, but only after the odd condition that she not exit the pit for three minutes. The initially inert bogey springs into a tickling assault. Persephone's promise to von Smutt has become a test of her honor and strength of purpose, one which she passes. Von Smutt hauls her from the pit and presents her with a captured bogey-collaborator who might provide useful information. The collaborator is revealed to be Mercy.
Chapter 6, "Locked, Stocked and Embarrassed": Persephone is furious with Mercy for her supposed connivance with the enemy. She orders a humiliating public punishment: while Mercy is secured in stocks, Tabor citizens are invited to tickle her to distraction. The participants include: Sparrow Hall (a Fairview reporter, who tries to torture a news scoop from Mercy); Angie (actually there to grant her friend a breather by light tickling; but she also drops some ominous hints about a recent change in her own nature); and Barnaby Klack, a vengeful former schoolmate. Barnaby is thrown out of the proceedings and stalks away in a huff. Little Big Head watches surreptitiously from the rooftops, gleeful at Mercy's discomfort and the growing spirit of sadism in Tabor County.
Chapter 7, "Snooze Guard": Humiliated Mercy has vowed to leave her community for good, tramping to the edge of the Gloominvald (the dense, labyrinthine forest which separates Tabor from the rest of the world). Though most residents stay away from the treacherous woodland, traveling traders and showmen regularly brave its paths. Mercy determines to follow the wagon tracks of the freshly departed Prof. Feare. She encounters Angie along the way, and after some wrangling the two friends decide to brave the Gloominvald together. But Angie and Mercy become hopelessly lost in the twisting forest paths.
They stop in a clearing to rest. Exhausted Angie falls fast asleep. Mercy doesn't believe herself capable of sleep anymore: bogeys can't enter the half-spirit world of Dreamtime, having lost any soul to guide them. It's a great surprise to her, then, when she lapses into the dreamworld. The haven of Dreamtime refreshes her damaged spirit... but almost immediately she is beset by the rampaging Little Big Head, manifested as a nightmare. Little Big Head, it seems, isn't wholly bogey: he's a spectraphage (spirit-eater), with just enough soul to enter Dreamtime but not enough for ultimate salvation. He tickle-tortures Mercy (who is blessed with a huge reservoir of spirit), attempting to turn her into a second spectraphage. His efforts are interrupted by a helmeted paladin figure who offers challenge. The two battle and Little Big Head is maimed. He departs Dreamtime in agony. The paladin is revealed to be the sleeping Persephone.
Mercy awakens, elated to know that her soul is intact. But her relief doesn't last long: during their slumber, the terrified Angie has been bound up by vines. From the branches, a diminutive forest sprite promises punishment for the girls' intrusion.
Chapter 7.5, "Fungi and Fun Gals": This is a C_Tickler tribute which keys off Katie/Chewy's cameo appearance in Chapter 7 (it's otherwise unconnected to the Low Roads continuity). C_Tickler favorites Katie and Hayley have safaried to the Gloominvald forest in order to bag a prized botanical specimen, the Madcap Mushroom. They succeed in netting the wily, spry sprout, after which Hayley cruelly subjects it to an open flame, releasing potent hallucinogenic fumes which KO Katie. Hayley, likewise addled, discards the smarting 'shroom in order to take advantage of incapacitated Katie, stripping off her boots and vigorously tickling her feet. But the Madcap soon returns with a formidable enforcer… CT's towering, ravenous flytrap, Chewy. Together, the vengeful vegetables deliver giggly punishment… the chapter closes as the interlopers slide down Chewy's leafy gullet.
Chapter 8, "Spritely and Sluggish": Back in Fairview, Persephone has been summoned by Mayor Allgoode. He's distressed, not simply by Angie's disappearance, but because his wife was a confirmed voluptuary, a pleasure-lover at prime risk for bogey-hood. He fears that Angie might tend the same way.
In the Gloominvald, a host of woodland sprites arrive to inflict an odd interrogation ritual: they tickle-torture Mercy, promising to switch their attentions to Angie only after Mercy begs them to. Mercy is strong-willed; though sorely tested, she refuses to inflict the hated torment on her friend. Angie pleads to share the burden; finally, she erupts into anger, calling Mercy selfish for hoarding all the pleasure. It seems that Mayor Allgoode was right: Angie is revealed to be a voluptuary.
Chapter 9, "The Four Corners Coven": At dawn, the sprites release Mercy and Angie, who race blindly to exit the forest. They happen upon an abandoned grist mill, which they hope will afford them a chance for rest.
They locate a bedroom. Angie falls asleep at once. Mercy is now able to enter Dreamtime without the ritual of slumber. She arrives to find Angie cavorting in a playful voluptuary's fantasy of scanty clothing and teasing feathers. Suddenly, a bulbous nightmare-demon erupts to assault Angie with four tickling hands. Angie could escape simply by waking up, but her new voluptuary tendencies draw her to the carnal sensations in spite of the horror. She's released only after two roaming spirit guardians (neither of them Persephone) enter the scene and slash the demon into gory chunks.
Mercy herself departs Dreamtime, to find an agitated Angie back in the bedroom. It seems that Mercy had left the temporal world bodily as well as in spirit. Additionally, a crew of ominous devil worshippers, the Four Corners Coven, has entered the mill. The concealed girls watch fearfully as the coven summons up a chaotic demon horror to serve the disgruntled Barnaby Klack. The demon transforms Klack into a bogey and the coven departs, hinting at some awful thing concealed in the cellar. The girls, eager to quit this unwholesome setting, creep toward the exit. But Mercy's weight breaks one of the rotten floor-boards. As she struggles to free her trapped leg, something down below latches onto her ankle.
Chapter 10, "Orphans of the Firestorm": The scene opens in the Tabor mining settlement of Blue Powder. Persephone frets over missing Mercy and the generally declining state of affairs. It's revealed that her cherished parents died when she was barely an adult, saddling her with her father's arduous responsibilities (he was the former sheriff) and the care of her baby sister, Mercy.
At the grist mill, the situation has gone from bad to worse: the thing clutching Mercy's leg has begun to stroke the sole of her foot. Angie ventures below to stop the torment, and confronts the perpetrator: a vile bogey named Sid, swollen up and deformed by some mysterious agency. The coven has trapped him in the cellar through rune magic. Sid bargains for Angie's aid, finally trying to scare her into compliance. This last tactic backfires: Angie drops her oil lantern, setting the cellar ablaze. The conflagration flummoxes Sid so much that he releases Mercy, and both girls flee for the woods. The fire burns away the rune markings; Sid bursts out of the blazing mill, pursuing the girls into the night. Mercy and Angie become separated; Mercy stumbles into a Low Roads chasm, followed closely by the plummeting Sid. She's pulled into hiding by Friedrich von Smutt. Up above, Angie bellows for Mercy. The hand of an unidentified individual clamps over her mouth.
Chapter 11, "Feare Factor": The hand belongs to Fiona Feare, Prof. Feare's daughter. She guides Angie to the safety of her camp. Prof. Feare immediately organizes a rescue party for Mercy.
Down in the Low Roads, Sid has departed. Mercy is at loggerheads with von Smutt; she's frantic to find Angie, and smacks von Smutt unconscious with a rock. By the time he comes to, Mercy is long gone. He tracks her to a bandit camp, where she's bound to a tree and tickled for the thugs' amusement. Mercy contemptuously demeans their technique... after heavy-duty abuse by bogey experts, these amateurs completely fail to impress her. The enraged bandit chief threatens more intense torture and von Smutt is compelled to intervene. The timely arrival of von Smutt's compatriots prompt the baddies' exit.
The fleeing villains run smack into Sid, who grabs up several and tickles them severely. Prof. Feare has seen all this and sends warning to von Smutt. Mercy is still reluctant to leave Angie, so von Smutt extracts a promise of cooperation. It isn't until afterward that she remembers she might have escaped into Dreamtime.
Chapter 12, "High Road and Low Road": Back in Fairview, reporter Sparrow Hall experiments with the town's growing taste for titillating sensation. Her experience leaves hungry for more. Mercy, meanwhile, arrives at Swillwell, ready to begin her life as a Low Roads resident. Von Smutt entrusts her to Jen, one of the locals. Jen shows Mercy to a bed, so that she can rest from the previous night's adventures. Mercy no longer needs sleep; she can refresh her spirit by directly visiting Dreamtime now. She lapses into the dream world, hinting at a special project she plans to set in motion.
In the Gloominvald, Professor Feare makes ready to proceed toward his destination, a remote location called Bliss Harbor. He's reluctant to leave Angie alone in the woods and insists that she accompany his troupe. Angie joins Fiona inside the carnival wagon; there, Fiona surprises her with the revelation that she too is a voluptuary. Fiona instigates a tickle fight, activity she refers to as "training". Angie doesn't understand the veiled words, but happily takes part. At the same time, Mercy's trip to Dreamtime turns ominous: the nightmare demon from Chapter 9, freshly reconstituted, emerges from a cloud to spy on her.
Chapter 13, "The Buddy System": The demon confronts Mercy. She discovers that the fiend is actually rather mild mannered; instead of attacking her, he suggests a mutually beneficial truce. Mercy, confident that she can evade any Dreamtime trap, follows her new companion into the core of a cloud. There, she hand-makes armor from malleable quasi-matter (the stuff that shapes Dreamtime's landscape) in imitation of the outfits she saw the spirit guardians wear. Her first efforts don't work well; the demon, charged with testing them, pierces their defense with ease.
When Professor Feare's wagon enters the next clearing, Angie is stunned to find that the cabinet tents have proceeded them. Fiona is keen to begin Angie's training. She and the family dray-servant, Burbeard (a manequi, part-man/part-horse), tickle Angie severely. Fiona cautions Angie that she must resist all outward displays of merriment; she is charged to control her reactions, not simply enjoy the romp.
In Dreamtime, Mercy's blacksmith failures are proving a great frustration. The demon recommends a different approach; instead of fashioning the quasi-matter by hand, she might try manipulating it mentally, the way sleepers do. This inspiration leads to success. Mercy is ecstatic about the seamless armor she's created, but is clutched by a sudden foreboding: she's certain that her absence from Swillwell is about to be discovered. Lapsing back just in time, she's dismayed to find that she's still encased in the betraying Dreamtime mail.
Chapter 14, "Fantasy in B Major": Mercy, unwilling to acknowledge her affiliation with the Dreamtime demon, dives under the bed covers. Jen enters and chides her for laziness, but the ruse proves unnecessary when the quasi-matter armor melts away. Dreamtime substance, it seems, won't persist long in the outside world.
Dressed and breakfasted, Mercy starts off toward the farmlands, accompanied by Jen and several of her friends (Izzy and Gale, female companions, and Billy, her beau). On the way, they pass close to the concealed Sid. The gigantic, malformed bogey has made prisoners of the waylaid bandits (Chapter 11) and sends their chief, Klept, to recruit a raiding party, ostensibly to loot Swillwell for hidden plunder. He tears off his deformed, tentacled eye to implant beneath Klept's shirt as a control/spy devise; Klept soon learns that it can impart devastating tickling punishment if he disobeys.
Soon, Mercy and her new friends arrive at a ranch to begin field work. Mercy is a novice at any sort of profession; ill at ease, she listens as Jen, Izzy and Gale gossip, fantasizing the marauding Sid into the perfect lover. The actual Sid, meanwhile, has ventured to the brink of Swillwell, fuming to himself from his hiding place. His real motive for attack would seem to have little to do with monetary gain.
Chapter 15, "Ten Toe Concerto": A week has passed. In Fairview, Sparrow Hall approaches her neighbors, who gush rhapsodic about the arrival of the glamorous troubadour, Moon Knight. Sparrow reveals tempting footwear (fishnet stockings and stiletto heels) which she hopes will lure a bogey out of hiding and into an interview. Outwardly, the tactic seems to have failed; unknown to her, blood-red eyes peer hungrily at her from a dark alley.
In the Low Roads, wandering Klept has arrived at the Dox House, a watering hole for itinerant malcontents. As he tries to interest patrons in Sid's plan, the brutal bar owner Dox begins to bully him. The spy devise affixed to Klept swells into bulging muscles; Klept is easily able to mop the floor with the much larger Dox. The ruffians are impressed; they follow Klept into the night, eager to join Sid's gang.
Back in Fairview, Sparrow has squandered the whole day in her fruitless quest to snag a bogey scoop. She reasons that the coziness of a closed-in room might provide better luck and retires to her apartment. The shadowy, red-eyed form does indeed clamber through her bedroom window; it strokes her stockinged feet, terrifying Sparrow and overwhelming her with pleasure. Down below, patrolling Officer Growler has heard the commotion and ventures upstairs to investigate. His lantern reveals the intruder to be no bogey at all, but the disguised, smitten Moon Knight.
It is now well after midnight; Mercy and Jen have braved a remote Low Roads trail to skinny-dip in a secret warm-water spring. As they luxuriate, Mercy muses about the heated waterfall and pool: prominent Tabor landmark Twin Sisters peak was once a volcano... perhaps elements of it are still active. Not far away, a lithe, shrouded figure surveys the sleeping Swillwell...
Chapter 16, "Altared States": The mysterious visitor vaults the town's wall and wends a course to the hillside habitation of Friedrich von Smutt. There, the intruder is revealed to be Persephone Mew. She and von Smutt trade anxiety and toy with the idea of joining forces against the growing bogey menace.
Next day, a wedding celebration for Jen and Billy takes place. Mercy, suspicious of police spies among the guests, adopts a disguise and stays indoors. Gale has ventured into the Low Roads to gather a gift of festive flowers. She happens upon Sid and his new gang of thugs; Sid has loaded each one with artificial muscles, same as he'd done for Klept. As she cowers in hiding, the raiders march toward Swillwell.
Chapter 17, "Pen Pals": Sid and his crew assault the town. Sid batters down the gate, while his thugs threaten the citizenry and rampage through buildings, seeking the promised treasure. Klept and several of his compappppptriots venture into the shanty that houses Mercy. She escapes into Dreamtime to don a fearsome, winged quasi-matter alias, then returns to punish the intruders with a feathery assault. Her pink-hued armor lasts just long enough to accomplish this attack; once done, it immediately melts away.
While von Smutt and Persephone are busy with the mercenaries, Sid capitalizes on the distraction to search Swillwell's grounds unmolested. After much fruitless effort, he abducts Jen, drawing her into the core of his mountainous frame. He tickle-tortures her horribly until she agrees to guide him to his goal... the pit which restrains the bogey Bloody Head (seen in Chapter 5). Sid springs his fellow monster free, then recalls his lent Sid-muscles, paralyzing the raiders and distracting the defenders. The two bogeys conspire to take Jen away for further entertaining torment; their scheme is foiled by von Smutt, who drives his blade deep into Sid's flesh, forcing him to vomit up his captive. Sid retaliates by hurling von Smutt into Bloody Head's now vacated pen. The two bogeys escape into the night, just as Sephie arrives with reinforcements. Mercy has ventured outside to comfort Jen; Sephie sees through her disguise. Despite von Smutt's desperately wounded condition, she chastises him for having deceived her.
Chapter 18, "Hammer and Tongues": The next morning, residents of Swillwell make repairs to the damaged gate and see to their wounded. Sephie locates a small portion of Sid's tentacle, severed by von Smutt the night before; she takes it with her as she shepherds Fairview residents back to their home town, resolved that it should be studied by an expert. The Moon Knight remains to offer aid throughout von Smutt's convalescence; Mercy travels with the returning party, breaking her residency at Swillwell.
Professor Feare's wagon, meanwhile, has breeched the border of the Gloominvald and faces the freedom of open pastureland. Angie is offered a choice and elects to stay in Fiona's company rather than return to Tabor County. She then witnesses a brutal battle between Burbeard and a rival manechi. Burbeard is clobbered, but both competitors win the privilege of tasting her bare toes. Fiona contrives this chance encounter as a test of Angie's self-control; though heavily provoked, Angie stoicly maintains her composure. Fiona is delighted, judging that Angie is now ready to step-up her training with visits into Dreamtime.
Chapter 19, "A Haven in the Heights": Sephie's party has arrived in Fairview by early afternoon. Rather than rest, she decides to deliver Sid's severed tentacle for scientific testing. Mercy remains at her cottage, bound by a grudging promise to wait for her sister's return.
In the Spinster's subterranean lair, the would-be bogey queen and her minions delight in tickle-torturing kidnapped Tessie Tingle, a Fairview school mistress. Their frolic is interrupted by the surprise arrival of Little Big Head, who mocks the proceedings and offers a battle challenge: he and his followers will face the Spinster's army within the walls of sleeping Fairview at the rise of the next harvest moon. Spinster would prefer to hide safely away from the rampaging Sid, but accepts these terms in order to unify her loose confederation of bogey compatriots.
Meanwhile, Sephie tramps the treacherous heights of the Twin Sisters peak. Her object: the ramshackle cliffside laboratory of an eccentric hermit researcher, Simon Putsy. Sephie presents Sid's tentacle for analysis; Putsy soon determines that (1) its flesh is an unnatural blending of plant and animal, (2) its structure reconstitutes fully when broken apart, and (3) its attack works much the same way as a jellyfish's sting, firing infinitesimal nematocyst-like strands to engulf and directly tease the victim's nerve endings. Sephie, while disturbed by these grim revelations, is grateful for the knowledge and departs once more toward Fairview.
Chapter 20, "My Tinted Twin": Sephie arrives at her sister's cottage by dusk, only to find it empty; Mercy has journeyed into Dreamtime, where she hopes to toughen her quasi-matter armor through combat with nightmare intruders. To that end, she enlists the aid of her demon chum, whose advice she deems necessary for picking out opponents. The pink ethereal has been hard at work in her absence, refining his shape-shifting skills; he now resembles Mercy perfectly in everything but color. The two set out in search of nightmares for Mercy to battle. The first candidates seem far too powerful for her; the second set don't appear to be demons at all, but rather dreamers. The demon, full of himself due to his freshly perfected abilities, offers to make a close examination for signs of the infernal; he assumes an old-man guise, strips the dreamers bare and subjects them to intense tickling. Mercy sees through his lust-filled ruse and calls him on it; the dreamers (not entirely put off by the demon's attention) turn on her, ganging up with the demon to tickle-torture her until she escapes back into the waking world. Resentful, Mercy vows never to trust the demon again.
Chapter 21, "Spacial Delivery": The next day, Sephie attempts to persuade her sister into accompanying her to the Sheriff's Office in Blue Powder; her hope is that the trip may help repair the bad blood between them. Mercy agrees only when Sephie promises to relate the facts surrounding their father's death, a story long withheld from her.
Meanwhile, Angie makes ready for her first lucid trip into Dreamtime as a Sleepwalker (a calling she's come to christen "wake-walking") under the tutelage of Fiona. When they arrive, Anige is dazzled by the bizarre vistas of the sleep world… but even more so at the sight of her friend, who has transformed herself into a colossal human-headed bird. The need for this unnerving guise is revealed when Fiona employs its strength and flight ability to shift the mighty bulk of Prof. Feare's cabinet tents to its next campsite location. It seems that Dreamtime will allow a wake-walker to span great distances in the waking world, if only she's able to spot the correct entryway. Unknown the Fiona (who can see only faint hints), Angie is able to spot these portals with uncanny ease.
By this time, night has fallen for the trekking Mew sisters. While Mercy sits by their campfire, all rapt attention, Sephie tells of twenty years past, when the normal folk of Tabor County finally fought back against all-pervading bogey domination. They cleared the predatory menace from their land, but at a price… Sephie was severely mauled by Hurd, a savage bogey overlord. When Papa Mew rushed to her defense, the hoary beast ran his horns through the elder sheriff's chest, murdering him right in front of her horrified eyes. Sephie claims not to blame herself for the tragedy… all the same, she clearly feels tremendous guilt. Mercy, shaken, excuses herself from the camp, escaping into Dreamtime as soon as she's out of sight. Once there, she dons her quasi-matter armor, intent on taking out her frustrations on the next over-sized demon interloper she can find. She spots the daunting figure of transformed Fiona returning from the tent delivery… this possible opponent seems made to order.
Chapter 21.5, "Suspended Judgement": a mini-adventure featuring Raven_kirsaen's character Raven Drakil. Extrapolated from events at the end of Chapter 21: as soon as Mercy vacates the campsite, Sephie is startled to notice a thug perched on a ledge above, poised to crush her with a stone. She springs instantly to confront him, but is further dismayed to find the would-be assassin frozen into complete immobility. Raven Drakil is revealed to be the cause: he happened upon the ne'er-do-well just in time to deploy his special controlling powers, saving her life. Further thugs descend upon the pair, and during the ensuing fight Sephie comes close to battering one of her opponents to death. Raven's pleas for moderation fall upon deaf ears (Sephie, it seems, had succumbed to battle madness)… he is forced to unleash his controlling force against her to prevent a murder. Raven would like to use his reliable techniques to heal the psychic agony of his friend, but she clings so desperately to her pain that his treatments would never prove helpful. Instead, he employs a mild tickling massage to lull her into a peaceful night's rest.
Chapter 22, "Hissy Fit": Back in the Dreamtime realm, armor-obscured Mercy soars to confront titanic transformed Fiona. Each mistakes the other for a nightmare demon; Angie, hunkered low into Fiona's plumage, goes unnoticed. The formidable opponents trade blows, Mercy at length sprouting dozens of teasing finger from her shielding to gain the advantage. Fiona quits the combat, desperately seeking her original entryway for escape. Angie uses her newly discovered ability to spot the portal at once, revealing herself to point it out. At the sight of her old Fairview friend, Mercy abandons her disguise and makes a mad dash to overtake what she assumes to be a demon kidnapping; however, the unexpected restraining hand of her pink-hued ethereal chum halts her progress. Fiona and Angie cross back into the waking world; to Mercy's eyes, they've vanished into thin air. She would still give chase, but the freshly arrived demon/ethereal attempts even stronger restraint, causing the struggling pair to crash into a quasi-matter planetoid. Mercy, livid with anger, is eager to pummel her former partner; he patiently explains the perils of passing through unknown portals, and the sudden materialization of the ethereal lord Janus (there to recommend organized sparring with She'hilde, Mercy's demon compatriot, as an alternative to reckless nightmare hunting) finally quells her rage.
The Feare troupe, having freshly regained Angie and Fiona, now enters a winding mountain pathway. To make further progress into this snowbound region, they'll need warm fur raiment, supplies they plan to obtain at the the cliffside settlement of Stonedene Eastside. While there, Angie is invited to take part in the clan's fertility ceremony, a showy ritual which generates tickle-induced laughter as an offering to the fertility goddesses. Not all enter into the spirit of the veneration, however; from the crowd, a young Stonedene hunter studies the newcomers with ominous intensity.
Chapter 23, "An Affair of Humor": The Mew sisters finally arrive at the Blue Powder mining camp. Mercy promises to stay on for a few days, after which Sephie starts her patrol rounds. Mercy sees this absence as a good opportunity to once again visit Dreamtime for another armor-toughening session.
At the same time, hundreds of miles to the west, Prof. Feare's wagon has quit its progress across the treacherous mountain trails for a brief rest stop in a wide snow-filled pass. Angie and Fiona use this leisure time for further training; Fiona employs an icicle to inflict more stimulation than Angie has heretofore received, gorging the girl's spirit reserve in anticipation of her first solo wake-walking attempt. The activity comes to an abrupt halt when Fiona senses a spy up among the overhanging crags. Her suspicions are well founded: the young hunter from Stonedene Eastside draws back, eager to remain hidden.
Mercy arrives in Dreamtime to find She'hilde present and willing to duel. But the demon is not alone; the rakish Firefox has come along, ostensibly as a spectator to the combat. Mercy dons her quasi-matter protection and the two trade blows, the last of which sends her flying into a pile of pinning hillside rubble. One of her boots has come loose, and Firefox can't resist teasing her exposed sole. The fuming girl escapes back to the Blue Powder sheriff's office with the missing footwear in tow. This is a fortunate turn: she can now monitor its disintegration, gauging how much more durable the quasi-matter has become. However, while she's in the wardrobe donning fresh clothes, Sephie returns unexpectedly to discover the potentially damning artifact.
Chapter 24, "Pass the Grub": Mercy is saved from embarrassment by a visit from longtime Blue Powder resident Diana Blunt, who summons Sephie away on official business. No sooner has her sister departed than the boot dissolves away into nothingness.
The Feare troupe has made its way through the mountains and has now descended into a dismal, fog shrouded swamp. The mysterious Stonedene spy trails them into the mire and falls prey to a rope snare set by Fiona. She and Angie bind the youth and use tickle persuasion to learn his name: Ijoli. Even the application of a worm-filled tickle pit fails to elicit further intelligence, but Fiona already understands that he's exercising a simple rite of local passage: Stonedene youths habitually depart their homeland for a full year in order to prove their mettle. The girls depart, leaving the lad to undo the knots on his own; Fiona sternly warns him to abandon furtive thrill-seeking and stay out of their private affairs. Soon after, she and Angie arrive at the coast. The object of their journey, Bliss Harbor, lies only a short distance ahead.
Chapter 25, "Blissynergy": The Feares finally arrive at Bliss Harbor, a glittering utopia devoted to tickling fetishism. Angie and Fiona venture out to explore its wonders, meeting at last with Charity and Chastity Liu, local residents and longtime friends to Fiona. The party conceives a plan to attend a showing at the local cinema, but find themselves short on cash. The theater manager offers to trade admission for a round of fetish fun. Angie, Fiona and Chastity are all wake-walker adepts and thus immune to the loss-of-control that would make such a proposition enticing for him; mousy Charity is therefore "volunteered" to gain their entry.
Elsewhere in the city, Prof. Feare gazes wistfully oceanward. He bemoans a cryptic "she" who awaits him on a remote island, primed to condemn him for a misdeed… the penalty for which may involve the sacrifice of his daughter, Fiona.
Chapter 26, "Aloft on Leather Wings": Back in Blue Powder, Sephie locates a pet bat for Mercy, one which the younger Mew hopes can be taught to bear messages to faraway Angie. Early attempts prove far from salutary: the rascally critter would far rather tease the girl's vulnerable toes and sides than perform any sort of service. Meanwhile, on the county's outskirts, a raucous celebration marks Klept's conversion from human to bogey status. The revelry does not go unobserved: Little Big Head and Sid each covertly spy on the ceremony. A third figure, cloaked and furtive, likewise regards the proceedings.
Far to the west, Angie's tour of Bliss Harbor has progressed to the Crystal Marina, a stunning window into the underwater world. There, Fiona reveals that their travels have not yet come to an end; soon, a dread ship will arrive to convey them to Pandataria… an ominous island where the most harrowing stages of wake-walker training must be mastered.
Chapter 27, "Nothin' Dune": Mercy has begun to exploit her new pet's fondness for tickling, trading access to her bare soles for courier and spy service. She's eager to keep pace with sister Sephie's investigations; it's become increasingly obvious that Sheriff Mew believes a major crisis is imminent for Tabor County.
In Bliss Harbor, put-upon Charity Liu happens upon the harried Ijoli, who (having trailed Fiona and Angie despite their warning) is destitute and starving in this strange, specialized environment. Believing that she, like the bulk of the city's citizenry, is a tickling adherent, he attempts to gain her cooperation with brutal fetish persuasion, but soon discovers his error. Shame drives him to swear an oath of fealty, one which he has an opportunity to exercise when Chastity decides to bully her young sister during a sandy seaside frolic. Charity would defuse the confrontation with a promise to accompany the wake-walker expedition to Pandataria… a ploy yanked into stark immediacy when the remote island's galliot shuttle glides unexpectedly into port.
Chapter 28, "Lay of the Lab Rats": The Putz, a colossal artificial human, and Sid's still ambulatory tentacle escape from Simon Putsy's laboratory, making their way to the Gloominvald forest. While there, they eavesdrop as Sephie and the Moon Knight coerce information from a captive bogey. All learn about the pending bogey conflict in Fairview, to occur during the next yellow moon. The Putz also rescues Tessie Tingle and Eileen Lovette from woodland sprites, bearing them both back to Fairview. Tessie decides to adopt the Putz; the Sid-scrap returns to the Low Roads to find and recombine with Sid. Soon afterward, a yellow moon crests the horizon, signaling the start of bogey hostilities.
Chapter 29, "Golden Midnight Hour": The competing bogey factions led by the Spinster and Little Big Head face off in Fairview, attempting to outflank each other and causing considerable damage as the town locals cowers behind their barred doors. Everyone is brought up short when the gargantuan Sid arrives, determined to abuse them all.
Chapter 30: "Indegenstion's Masterpiece": Sid rampages through Fairview until rescue parties led by Sheriff Mew and Friedrich von Smutt arrive to battle the assembled bogeys. Mercy also shows up, clad in Dreamtime armor. She does battle with Sid, blasting him to pieces. While all this takes place, Little Big Head overhears the super-bogey Bloody Head mention God Seed, an agency which transformed him into a bogey god. Sheriff Mew chases after Little Big Head, but he eludes her in the sewers.
Chapter 31: "Poulp Friction": The Black Galliot departs Bliss Harbor, Angie and Fiona among its passengers. While far out at sea, the ship's mechanical rowing system breaks down; Charity Liu volunteers to repair it, allowing everyone else an opportunity for some swimming recreation. Angie interacts with some tickling octopii until Fiona glides by on a huge shark companion, frightening her. Once they're back aboard, they find that Charity has fixed the problem. The ship continues on its way.
Meanwhile in Fairview, as residents pick up the pieces, Mercy tells Sephie that she's developed an interest in becoming her deputy.
Chapter 32: "Gift of Grab": At the sheriff's office, Mercy studies hard to assume her new deputy duties while Sephie likewise fixedly peruses copious volumes in secretive studies of her own. They are interrupted by the arrival of Von Smutt, who brings word of Little Big Head's sudden, unexpected search of the Low Roads. Sephie believes she knows the reason: a quest after God Seed deification.
Sometime later, Little Big Head appears in Fairview's sewers, seeking clarity from Bloody Head, the first bogey to achieve godhood.
Chapter 33, "Beside Shrill Waters": Sephie and Von Smutt track Little Big Head to a secret tunnel entrance which they assume will lead them to the God Seed. Both parties are forced in turn to withdraw, however, when they encounter a stretch of subterranean river haunted by belligerent Boss Guillman. Meanwhile at sea, the Black Galliot finally makes landfall on the island of Pandataria.
Chapter 34, "Island of Lust Souls": On Pandataria, Charity and Ijoli uncover an unnerving secret: bogeys are being bred there for export into Tabor County. At the same time, Mercy takes on a powerful, chaotic Dreamtime opponent, defeating it with newly acquired body plasticity. Upon returning to the sheriff's office, she is met by Sephie, who tells her to prepare for a trip to the lake town of Lapton.
Chapter 01-"Net Profits": http://www.ticklingforum.com/showthread.php?t=67280
Chapter 02-"The Traveling Cabinet": http://www.ticklingforum.com/showthread.php?t=67753
Chapter 03-"A Meal Fit for a Thing": http://www.ticklingforum.com/showthread.php?t=72608
Chapter 04-"The Drowned Town": http://www.ticklingforum.com/showthread.php?t=75758
Chapter 05-"Law-Biting Citizens": http://www.ticklingforum.com/showthread.php?t=79697
Chapter 06-"Locked, Stocked and Embarrassed": http://www.ticklingforum.com/showthread.php?t=98021
Chapter 07-"Snooze Guard": http://www.ticklingforum.com/showthread.php?t=101684
Chapter 07.5-"Fungi and Fun Gals": http://www.ticklingforum.com/showthread.php?t=102928
Chapter 08-"Spritely and Sluggish": http://www.ticklingforum.com/showthread.php?t=105646
Chapter 09-"The Four Corners Coven": http://www.ticklingforum.com/showthread.php?t=110373
Chapter 10-"Orphans of the Firestorm": http://www.ticklingforum.com/showthread.php?t=112769
Chapter 11-"Feare Factor": http://www.ticklingforum.com/showthread.php?t=115719
Chapter 12-"High Road and Low Road": http://www.ticklingforum.com/showthread.php?t=119291
Chapter 13-"The Buddy System": http://www.ticklingforum.com/showthread.php?t=122720
Chapter 14-"Fantasy in B Major": http://www.ticklingforum.com/showthread.php?t=126898
Chapter 15-"Ten Toe Concerto": http://www.ticklingforum.com/showthread.php?t=133060
Chapter 16-"Altared States": http://www.ticklingforum.com/showthread.php?t=142676
Chapter 17-"Pen Pals": http://www.ticklingforum.com/showthread.php?t=149563
Chapter 18-"Hammer and Tongues": http://www.ticklingforum.com/showthread.php?t=155787
Chapter 19-"A Haven in the Heights": http://www.ticklingforum.com/showthread.php?t=162772
Chapter 20-"My Tinted Twin": http://www.ticklingforum.com/showthread.php?t=168958
Chapter 21-"Spacial Delivery": http://www.ticklingforum.com/showthread.php?t=174500
Chapter 21.5-"Suspended Judgement": http://www.ticklingforum.com/showthread.php?t=179120
Chapter 22-"Hissy Fit": http://www.ticklingforum.com/showthread.php?t=186662
Chapter 23-"An Affair of Humor": http://www.ticklingforum.com/showthread.php?t=193207
Chapter 24-"Pass the Grub": http://www.ticklingforum.com/showthread.php?t=199784
Chapter 25-"Blissynergy": http://www.ticklingforum.com/showthread.php?207065
Chapter 26-"Aloft on Leather Wings": http://www.ticklingforum.com/showthread.php?213119
Chapter 27-"Nothin' Dune": http://www.ticklingforum.com/showthread.php?223740
Chapter 28-"Lay of the Lab Rats": http://www.ticklingforum.com/showthread.php?268438
Chapter 29-"Golden Midnight Hour": http://www.ticklingforum.com/showthread.php?268901
Chapter 30-"Indigestion's Masterpiece": http://www.ticklingforum.com/showthread.php?304961
Chapter 31-"Poulp Friction": http://www.ticklingforum.com/showthread.php?305371
Chapter 32-"Gift of Grab": http://www.ticklingforum.com/showthread.php?305822
Chapter 33-"Beside Shrill Waters": http://www.ticklingforum.com/showthread.php?306205
Chapter 34-"Island of Lust Souls" :http://www.ticklingforum.com/showthread.php?306648
Chapter 35-"Adoration Station":http://www.ticklingforum.com/showthread.php?310226
I've decided also to add a chapter-by-chapter synopsis, so that readers may place new material into context or refresh themselves about key plot points without plowing through the actual comics:
Chapter 1, "Net Profits": Mercy Mew, resident of Tabor County, wanders the Low Roads in search of illicit reading material (the Low Roads are Tabor's creek systems, turned into permanent arroyos by the demands of an efficient canal project and now inhabited by the lowest classes of society). She is waylaid by two ne'er-do-wells, who transport her into the clutches of the Spinster, a Low Roads bogey (monster) who plans to use her as an emissary. The Spinster tickles Mercy unmercifully to demonstrate the penalty for disobedience.
Chapter 2, "The Traveling Cabinet": Mercy has returned to her home in the town of Fairview. She receives the Spinster's directive: to visit the traveling Cabinet of Curiosities of Professor Feare and make contact with a shadowy personality called Little Big Head. Confused, but fearful of reprisal, she goes to the tented museum, meeting with her longtime friend, Angela Allgoode (daughter of Fairview's mayor). Mercy makes her way to Little Big Head (passing an involved fetish tableau on the way), who is revealed to be a pickled display in the freak tent. She follows her instructions, staring into the imp's eyes... and finds herself drawn into a hallucinogenic dreamworld, accompanied by the now-active Little Big Head. The diminutive monster licks at Mercy, reducing her with his appetite, until she's awakened by Angie. Mercy anxiously draws Angie away from the freak tent; the final panel shows Little Big Head's jar, now empty, its occupant escaped.
Chapter 3, "A Meal Fit For a Thing": Mercy and Angie having explored Prof. Feare's museum fully, return to the display of fetish tickling. Angie is embarrassed; Mercy teases her friend with a bout of underarm tickling (unnoticed by them, the "wax" figures of the exhibit express a leering interest).
The girls return to their respective homes in Fairview. Mercy mulls over the day's events until she sees the shadowy form of Little Big Head at her window. She follows the nimble imp out into the night, chasing him through Fairview's streets. The hunt finally terminates at the mayor's mansion. Mercy, concerned for her friend, climbs to a second-floor window. Her fears are well founded: Little Big Head, along with the figures from the fetish display, have bound Angie to her bed and abuse her with extreme foot tickling. Mercy watches, frozen with fascination. She's eventually pulled from her perch by strands of animated ivy. Little Big Head joins her. He commiserates, promising an explanation if she'll accompany him to Lake Lamprey.
Chapter 4, "The Drowned Town": Back at the Spinster's lair: Guggle and Snide (her two operatives) are questioned about Mercy's failed mission. The Spinster knows Little Big Head will move against her now and decides to recruit bogey allies. She sends Guggle, Snide and Mud Sally (her bogey personal companion) to Lake Lamprey for a conference with the powerful water bogey, Boss Guillman. Little Big Head and Mercy have already arrived: they spy on the proceedings while Little Big Head relates Guillman's history and hints at an intimate connection between Sally and himself. Sally makes her way to the underwater town of Unterburg and confronts Guillman, who punishes her trespassing with tickling tentacles before he discovers the Spinster's scroll of entreaty. Up above, Little Big Head stuns Mercy with news that he supped away her soul during their encounter in the freak tent... Mercy will now become a bogey herself.
Chapter 5, "Law-Biting Citizens": Fairview residents gather at the town's general store to gossip about the disturbing resurgence of bogey activity. They bemoan their assumption that Sheriff Persephone Mew (Mercy's sister) hasn't done enough to counter the growing problem.
Sheriff Mew has, in fact, made her way to Swillwell (a makeshift Low Roads town) at the invitation of its founder, Friedrich von Smutt. Von Smutt and Persephone palaver: she explains the nature of bogeys (normal people who have bartered their souls for mortal pleasure and have subsequently altered into monsters); he shows her a powerful, radically new sort of bogey, secured in a pit. Intrigued, she descends to examine it, but only after the odd condition that she not exit the pit for three minutes. The initially inert bogey springs into a tickling assault. Persephone's promise to von Smutt has become a test of her honor and strength of purpose, one which she passes. Von Smutt hauls her from the pit and presents her with a captured bogey-collaborator who might provide useful information. The collaborator is revealed to be Mercy.
Chapter 6, "Locked, Stocked and Embarrassed": Persephone is furious with Mercy for her supposed connivance with the enemy. She orders a humiliating public punishment: while Mercy is secured in stocks, Tabor citizens are invited to tickle her to distraction. The participants include: Sparrow Hall (a Fairview reporter, who tries to torture a news scoop from Mercy); Angie (actually there to grant her friend a breather by light tickling; but she also drops some ominous hints about a recent change in her own nature); and Barnaby Klack, a vengeful former schoolmate. Barnaby is thrown out of the proceedings and stalks away in a huff. Little Big Head watches surreptitiously from the rooftops, gleeful at Mercy's discomfort and the growing spirit of sadism in Tabor County.
Chapter 7, "Snooze Guard": Humiliated Mercy has vowed to leave her community for good, tramping to the edge of the Gloominvald (the dense, labyrinthine forest which separates Tabor from the rest of the world). Though most residents stay away from the treacherous woodland, traveling traders and showmen regularly brave its paths. Mercy determines to follow the wagon tracks of the freshly departed Prof. Feare. She encounters Angie along the way, and after some wrangling the two friends decide to brave the Gloominvald together. But Angie and Mercy become hopelessly lost in the twisting forest paths.
They stop in a clearing to rest. Exhausted Angie falls fast asleep. Mercy doesn't believe herself capable of sleep anymore: bogeys can't enter the half-spirit world of Dreamtime, having lost any soul to guide them. It's a great surprise to her, then, when she lapses into the dreamworld. The haven of Dreamtime refreshes her damaged spirit... but almost immediately she is beset by the rampaging Little Big Head, manifested as a nightmare. Little Big Head, it seems, isn't wholly bogey: he's a spectraphage (spirit-eater), with just enough soul to enter Dreamtime but not enough for ultimate salvation. He tickle-tortures Mercy (who is blessed with a huge reservoir of spirit), attempting to turn her into a second spectraphage. His efforts are interrupted by a helmeted paladin figure who offers challenge. The two battle and Little Big Head is maimed. He departs Dreamtime in agony. The paladin is revealed to be the sleeping Persephone.
Mercy awakens, elated to know that her soul is intact. But her relief doesn't last long: during their slumber, the terrified Angie has been bound up by vines. From the branches, a diminutive forest sprite promises punishment for the girls' intrusion.
Chapter 7.5, "Fungi and Fun Gals": This is a C_Tickler tribute which keys off Katie/Chewy's cameo appearance in Chapter 7 (it's otherwise unconnected to the Low Roads continuity). C_Tickler favorites Katie and Hayley have safaried to the Gloominvald forest in order to bag a prized botanical specimen, the Madcap Mushroom. They succeed in netting the wily, spry sprout, after which Hayley cruelly subjects it to an open flame, releasing potent hallucinogenic fumes which KO Katie. Hayley, likewise addled, discards the smarting 'shroom in order to take advantage of incapacitated Katie, stripping off her boots and vigorously tickling her feet. But the Madcap soon returns with a formidable enforcer… CT's towering, ravenous flytrap, Chewy. Together, the vengeful vegetables deliver giggly punishment… the chapter closes as the interlopers slide down Chewy's leafy gullet.
Chapter 8, "Spritely and Sluggish": Back in Fairview, Persephone has been summoned by Mayor Allgoode. He's distressed, not simply by Angie's disappearance, but because his wife was a confirmed voluptuary, a pleasure-lover at prime risk for bogey-hood. He fears that Angie might tend the same way.
In the Gloominvald, a host of woodland sprites arrive to inflict an odd interrogation ritual: they tickle-torture Mercy, promising to switch their attentions to Angie only after Mercy begs them to. Mercy is strong-willed; though sorely tested, she refuses to inflict the hated torment on her friend. Angie pleads to share the burden; finally, she erupts into anger, calling Mercy selfish for hoarding all the pleasure. It seems that Mayor Allgoode was right: Angie is revealed to be a voluptuary.
Chapter 9, "The Four Corners Coven": At dawn, the sprites release Mercy and Angie, who race blindly to exit the forest. They happen upon an abandoned grist mill, which they hope will afford them a chance for rest.
They locate a bedroom. Angie falls asleep at once. Mercy is now able to enter Dreamtime without the ritual of slumber. She arrives to find Angie cavorting in a playful voluptuary's fantasy of scanty clothing and teasing feathers. Suddenly, a bulbous nightmare-demon erupts to assault Angie with four tickling hands. Angie could escape simply by waking up, but her new voluptuary tendencies draw her to the carnal sensations in spite of the horror. She's released only after two roaming spirit guardians (neither of them Persephone) enter the scene and slash the demon into gory chunks.
Mercy herself departs Dreamtime, to find an agitated Angie back in the bedroom. It seems that Mercy had left the temporal world bodily as well as in spirit. Additionally, a crew of ominous devil worshippers, the Four Corners Coven, has entered the mill. The concealed girls watch fearfully as the coven summons up a chaotic demon horror to serve the disgruntled Barnaby Klack. The demon transforms Klack into a bogey and the coven departs, hinting at some awful thing concealed in the cellar. The girls, eager to quit this unwholesome setting, creep toward the exit. But Mercy's weight breaks one of the rotten floor-boards. As she struggles to free her trapped leg, something down below latches onto her ankle.
Chapter 10, "Orphans of the Firestorm": The scene opens in the Tabor mining settlement of Blue Powder. Persephone frets over missing Mercy and the generally declining state of affairs. It's revealed that her cherished parents died when she was barely an adult, saddling her with her father's arduous responsibilities (he was the former sheriff) and the care of her baby sister, Mercy.
At the grist mill, the situation has gone from bad to worse: the thing clutching Mercy's leg has begun to stroke the sole of her foot. Angie ventures below to stop the torment, and confronts the perpetrator: a vile bogey named Sid, swollen up and deformed by some mysterious agency. The coven has trapped him in the cellar through rune magic. Sid bargains for Angie's aid, finally trying to scare her into compliance. This last tactic backfires: Angie drops her oil lantern, setting the cellar ablaze. The conflagration flummoxes Sid so much that he releases Mercy, and both girls flee for the woods. The fire burns away the rune markings; Sid bursts out of the blazing mill, pursuing the girls into the night. Mercy and Angie become separated; Mercy stumbles into a Low Roads chasm, followed closely by the plummeting Sid. She's pulled into hiding by Friedrich von Smutt. Up above, Angie bellows for Mercy. The hand of an unidentified individual clamps over her mouth.
Chapter 11, "Feare Factor": The hand belongs to Fiona Feare, Prof. Feare's daughter. She guides Angie to the safety of her camp. Prof. Feare immediately organizes a rescue party for Mercy.
Down in the Low Roads, Sid has departed. Mercy is at loggerheads with von Smutt; she's frantic to find Angie, and smacks von Smutt unconscious with a rock. By the time he comes to, Mercy is long gone. He tracks her to a bandit camp, where she's bound to a tree and tickled for the thugs' amusement. Mercy contemptuously demeans their technique... after heavy-duty abuse by bogey experts, these amateurs completely fail to impress her. The enraged bandit chief threatens more intense torture and von Smutt is compelled to intervene. The timely arrival of von Smutt's compatriots prompt the baddies' exit.
The fleeing villains run smack into Sid, who grabs up several and tickles them severely. Prof. Feare has seen all this and sends warning to von Smutt. Mercy is still reluctant to leave Angie, so von Smutt extracts a promise of cooperation. It isn't until afterward that she remembers she might have escaped into Dreamtime.
Chapter 12, "High Road and Low Road": Back in Fairview, reporter Sparrow Hall experiments with the town's growing taste for titillating sensation. Her experience leaves hungry for more. Mercy, meanwhile, arrives at Swillwell, ready to begin her life as a Low Roads resident. Von Smutt entrusts her to Jen, one of the locals. Jen shows Mercy to a bed, so that she can rest from the previous night's adventures. Mercy no longer needs sleep; she can refresh her spirit by directly visiting Dreamtime now. She lapses into the dream world, hinting at a special project she plans to set in motion.
In the Gloominvald, Professor Feare makes ready to proceed toward his destination, a remote location called Bliss Harbor. He's reluctant to leave Angie alone in the woods and insists that she accompany his troupe. Angie joins Fiona inside the carnival wagon; there, Fiona surprises her with the revelation that she too is a voluptuary. Fiona instigates a tickle fight, activity she refers to as "training". Angie doesn't understand the veiled words, but happily takes part. At the same time, Mercy's trip to Dreamtime turns ominous: the nightmare demon from Chapter 9, freshly reconstituted, emerges from a cloud to spy on her.
Chapter 13, "The Buddy System": The demon confronts Mercy. She discovers that the fiend is actually rather mild mannered; instead of attacking her, he suggests a mutually beneficial truce. Mercy, confident that she can evade any Dreamtime trap, follows her new companion into the core of a cloud. There, she hand-makes armor from malleable quasi-matter (the stuff that shapes Dreamtime's landscape) in imitation of the outfits she saw the spirit guardians wear. Her first efforts don't work well; the demon, charged with testing them, pierces their defense with ease.
When Professor Feare's wagon enters the next clearing, Angie is stunned to find that the cabinet tents have proceeded them. Fiona is keen to begin Angie's training. She and the family dray-servant, Burbeard (a manequi, part-man/part-horse), tickle Angie severely. Fiona cautions Angie that she must resist all outward displays of merriment; she is charged to control her reactions, not simply enjoy the romp.
In Dreamtime, Mercy's blacksmith failures are proving a great frustration. The demon recommends a different approach; instead of fashioning the quasi-matter by hand, she might try manipulating it mentally, the way sleepers do. This inspiration leads to success. Mercy is ecstatic about the seamless armor she's created, but is clutched by a sudden foreboding: she's certain that her absence from Swillwell is about to be discovered. Lapsing back just in time, she's dismayed to find that she's still encased in the betraying Dreamtime mail.
Chapter 14, "Fantasy in B Major": Mercy, unwilling to acknowledge her affiliation with the Dreamtime demon, dives under the bed covers. Jen enters and chides her for laziness, but the ruse proves unnecessary when the quasi-matter armor melts away. Dreamtime substance, it seems, won't persist long in the outside world.
Dressed and breakfasted, Mercy starts off toward the farmlands, accompanied by Jen and several of her friends (Izzy and Gale, female companions, and Billy, her beau). On the way, they pass close to the concealed Sid. The gigantic, malformed bogey has made prisoners of the waylaid bandits (Chapter 11) and sends their chief, Klept, to recruit a raiding party, ostensibly to loot Swillwell for hidden plunder. He tears off his deformed, tentacled eye to implant beneath Klept's shirt as a control/spy devise; Klept soon learns that it can impart devastating tickling punishment if he disobeys.
Soon, Mercy and her new friends arrive at a ranch to begin field work. Mercy is a novice at any sort of profession; ill at ease, she listens as Jen, Izzy and Gale gossip, fantasizing the marauding Sid into the perfect lover. The actual Sid, meanwhile, has ventured to the brink of Swillwell, fuming to himself from his hiding place. His real motive for attack would seem to have little to do with monetary gain.
Chapter 15, "Ten Toe Concerto": A week has passed. In Fairview, Sparrow Hall approaches her neighbors, who gush rhapsodic about the arrival of the glamorous troubadour, Moon Knight. Sparrow reveals tempting footwear (fishnet stockings and stiletto heels) which she hopes will lure a bogey out of hiding and into an interview. Outwardly, the tactic seems to have failed; unknown to her, blood-red eyes peer hungrily at her from a dark alley.
In the Low Roads, wandering Klept has arrived at the Dox House, a watering hole for itinerant malcontents. As he tries to interest patrons in Sid's plan, the brutal bar owner Dox begins to bully him. The spy devise affixed to Klept swells into bulging muscles; Klept is easily able to mop the floor with the much larger Dox. The ruffians are impressed; they follow Klept into the night, eager to join Sid's gang.
Back in Fairview, Sparrow has squandered the whole day in her fruitless quest to snag a bogey scoop. She reasons that the coziness of a closed-in room might provide better luck and retires to her apartment. The shadowy, red-eyed form does indeed clamber through her bedroom window; it strokes her stockinged feet, terrifying Sparrow and overwhelming her with pleasure. Down below, patrolling Officer Growler has heard the commotion and ventures upstairs to investigate. His lantern reveals the intruder to be no bogey at all, but the disguised, smitten Moon Knight.
It is now well after midnight; Mercy and Jen have braved a remote Low Roads trail to skinny-dip in a secret warm-water spring. As they luxuriate, Mercy muses about the heated waterfall and pool: prominent Tabor landmark Twin Sisters peak was once a volcano... perhaps elements of it are still active. Not far away, a lithe, shrouded figure surveys the sleeping Swillwell...
Chapter 16, "Altared States": The mysterious visitor vaults the town's wall and wends a course to the hillside habitation of Friedrich von Smutt. There, the intruder is revealed to be Persephone Mew. She and von Smutt trade anxiety and toy with the idea of joining forces against the growing bogey menace.
Next day, a wedding celebration for Jen and Billy takes place. Mercy, suspicious of police spies among the guests, adopts a disguise and stays indoors. Gale has ventured into the Low Roads to gather a gift of festive flowers. She happens upon Sid and his new gang of thugs; Sid has loaded each one with artificial muscles, same as he'd done for Klept. As she cowers in hiding, the raiders march toward Swillwell.
Chapter 17, "Pen Pals": Sid and his crew assault the town. Sid batters down the gate, while his thugs threaten the citizenry and rampage through buildings, seeking the promised treasure. Klept and several of his compappppptriots venture into the shanty that houses Mercy. She escapes into Dreamtime to don a fearsome, winged quasi-matter alias, then returns to punish the intruders with a feathery assault. Her pink-hued armor lasts just long enough to accomplish this attack; once done, it immediately melts away.
While von Smutt and Persephone are busy with the mercenaries, Sid capitalizes on the distraction to search Swillwell's grounds unmolested. After much fruitless effort, he abducts Jen, drawing her into the core of his mountainous frame. He tickle-tortures her horribly until she agrees to guide him to his goal... the pit which restrains the bogey Bloody Head (seen in Chapter 5). Sid springs his fellow monster free, then recalls his lent Sid-muscles, paralyzing the raiders and distracting the defenders. The two bogeys conspire to take Jen away for further entertaining torment; their scheme is foiled by von Smutt, who drives his blade deep into Sid's flesh, forcing him to vomit up his captive. Sid retaliates by hurling von Smutt into Bloody Head's now vacated pen. The two bogeys escape into the night, just as Sephie arrives with reinforcements. Mercy has ventured outside to comfort Jen; Sephie sees through her disguise. Despite von Smutt's desperately wounded condition, she chastises him for having deceived her.
Chapter 18, "Hammer and Tongues": The next morning, residents of Swillwell make repairs to the damaged gate and see to their wounded. Sephie locates a small portion of Sid's tentacle, severed by von Smutt the night before; she takes it with her as she shepherds Fairview residents back to their home town, resolved that it should be studied by an expert. The Moon Knight remains to offer aid throughout von Smutt's convalescence; Mercy travels with the returning party, breaking her residency at Swillwell.
Professor Feare's wagon, meanwhile, has breeched the border of the Gloominvald and faces the freedom of open pastureland. Angie is offered a choice and elects to stay in Fiona's company rather than return to Tabor County. She then witnesses a brutal battle between Burbeard and a rival manechi. Burbeard is clobbered, but both competitors win the privilege of tasting her bare toes. Fiona contrives this chance encounter as a test of Angie's self-control; though heavily provoked, Angie stoicly maintains her composure. Fiona is delighted, judging that Angie is now ready to step-up her training with visits into Dreamtime.
Chapter 19, "A Haven in the Heights": Sephie's party has arrived in Fairview by early afternoon. Rather than rest, she decides to deliver Sid's severed tentacle for scientific testing. Mercy remains at her cottage, bound by a grudging promise to wait for her sister's return.
In the Spinster's subterranean lair, the would-be bogey queen and her minions delight in tickle-torturing kidnapped Tessie Tingle, a Fairview school mistress. Their frolic is interrupted by the surprise arrival of Little Big Head, who mocks the proceedings and offers a battle challenge: he and his followers will face the Spinster's army within the walls of sleeping Fairview at the rise of the next harvest moon. Spinster would prefer to hide safely away from the rampaging Sid, but accepts these terms in order to unify her loose confederation of bogey compatriots.
Meanwhile, Sephie tramps the treacherous heights of the Twin Sisters peak. Her object: the ramshackle cliffside laboratory of an eccentric hermit researcher, Simon Putsy. Sephie presents Sid's tentacle for analysis; Putsy soon determines that (1) its flesh is an unnatural blending of plant and animal, (2) its structure reconstitutes fully when broken apart, and (3) its attack works much the same way as a jellyfish's sting, firing infinitesimal nematocyst-like strands to engulf and directly tease the victim's nerve endings. Sephie, while disturbed by these grim revelations, is grateful for the knowledge and departs once more toward Fairview.
Chapter 20, "My Tinted Twin": Sephie arrives at her sister's cottage by dusk, only to find it empty; Mercy has journeyed into Dreamtime, where she hopes to toughen her quasi-matter armor through combat with nightmare intruders. To that end, she enlists the aid of her demon chum, whose advice she deems necessary for picking out opponents. The pink ethereal has been hard at work in her absence, refining his shape-shifting skills; he now resembles Mercy perfectly in everything but color. The two set out in search of nightmares for Mercy to battle. The first candidates seem far too powerful for her; the second set don't appear to be demons at all, but rather dreamers. The demon, full of himself due to his freshly perfected abilities, offers to make a close examination for signs of the infernal; he assumes an old-man guise, strips the dreamers bare and subjects them to intense tickling. Mercy sees through his lust-filled ruse and calls him on it; the dreamers (not entirely put off by the demon's attention) turn on her, ganging up with the demon to tickle-torture her until she escapes back into the waking world. Resentful, Mercy vows never to trust the demon again.
Chapter 21, "Spacial Delivery": The next day, Sephie attempts to persuade her sister into accompanying her to the Sheriff's Office in Blue Powder; her hope is that the trip may help repair the bad blood between them. Mercy agrees only when Sephie promises to relate the facts surrounding their father's death, a story long withheld from her.
Meanwhile, Angie makes ready for her first lucid trip into Dreamtime as a Sleepwalker (a calling she's come to christen "wake-walking") under the tutelage of Fiona. When they arrive, Anige is dazzled by the bizarre vistas of the sleep world… but even more so at the sight of her friend, who has transformed herself into a colossal human-headed bird. The need for this unnerving guise is revealed when Fiona employs its strength and flight ability to shift the mighty bulk of Prof. Feare's cabinet tents to its next campsite location. It seems that Dreamtime will allow a wake-walker to span great distances in the waking world, if only she's able to spot the correct entryway. Unknown the Fiona (who can see only faint hints), Angie is able to spot these portals with uncanny ease.
By this time, night has fallen for the trekking Mew sisters. While Mercy sits by their campfire, all rapt attention, Sephie tells of twenty years past, when the normal folk of Tabor County finally fought back against all-pervading bogey domination. They cleared the predatory menace from their land, but at a price… Sephie was severely mauled by Hurd, a savage bogey overlord. When Papa Mew rushed to her defense, the hoary beast ran his horns through the elder sheriff's chest, murdering him right in front of her horrified eyes. Sephie claims not to blame herself for the tragedy… all the same, she clearly feels tremendous guilt. Mercy, shaken, excuses herself from the camp, escaping into Dreamtime as soon as she's out of sight. Once there, she dons her quasi-matter armor, intent on taking out her frustrations on the next over-sized demon interloper she can find. She spots the daunting figure of transformed Fiona returning from the tent delivery… this possible opponent seems made to order.
Chapter 21.5, "Suspended Judgement": a mini-adventure featuring Raven_kirsaen's character Raven Drakil. Extrapolated from events at the end of Chapter 21: as soon as Mercy vacates the campsite, Sephie is startled to notice a thug perched on a ledge above, poised to crush her with a stone. She springs instantly to confront him, but is further dismayed to find the would-be assassin frozen into complete immobility. Raven Drakil is revealed to be the cause: he happened upon the ne'er-do-well just in time to deploy his special controlling powers, saving her life. Further thugs descend upon the pair, and during the ensuing fight Sephie comes close to battering one of her opponents to death. Raven's pleas for moderation fall upon deaf ears (Sephie, it seems, had succumbed to battle madness)… he is forced to unleash his controlling force against her to prevent a murder. Raven would like to use his reliable techniques to heal the psychic agony of his friend, but she clings so desperately to her pain that his treatments would never prove helpful. Instead, he employs a mild tickling massage to lull her into a peaceful night's rest.
Chapter 22, "Hissy Fit": Back in the Dreamtime realm, armor-obscured Mercy soars to confront titanic transformed Fiona. Each mistakes the other for a nightmare demon; Angie, hunkered low into Fiona's plumage, goes unnoticed. The formidable opponents trade blows, Mercy at length sprouting dozens of teasing finger from her shielding to gain the advantage. Fiona quits the combat, desperately seeking her original entryway for escape. Angie uses her newly discovered ability to spot the portal at once, revealing herself to point it out. At the sight of her old Fairview friend, Mercy abandons her disguise and makes a mad dash to overtake what she assumes to be a demon kidnapping; however, the unexpected restraining hand of her pink-hued ethereal chum halts her progress. Fiona and Angie cross back into the waking world; to Mercy's eyes, they've vanished into thin air. She would still give chase, but the freshly arrived demon/ethereal attempts even stronger restraint, causing the struggling pair to crash into a quasi-matter planetoid. Mercy, livid with anger, is eager to pummel her former partner; he patiently explains the perils of passing through unknown portals, and the sudden materialization of the ethereal lord Janus (there to recommend organized sparring with She'hilde, Mercy's demon compatriot, as an alternative to reckless nightmare hunting) finally quells her rage.
The Feare troupe, having freshly regained Angie and Fiona, now enters a winding mountain pathway. To make further progress into this snowbound region, they'll need warm fur raiment, supplies they plan to obtain at the the cliffside settlement of Stonedene Eastside. While there, Angie is invited to take part in the clan's fertility ceremony, a showy ritual which generates tickle-induced laughter as an offering to the fertility goddesses. Not all enter into the spirit of the veneration, however; from the crowd, a young Stonedene hunter studies the newcomers with ominous intensity.
Chapter 23, "An Affair of Humor": The Mew sisters finally arrive at the Blue Powder mining camp. Mercy promises to stay on for a few days, after which Sephie starts her patrol rounds. Mercy sees this absence as a good opportunity to once again visit Dreamtime for another armor-toughening session.
At the same time, hundreds of miles to the west, Prof. Feare's wagon has quit its progress across the treacherous mountain trails for a brief rest stop in a wide snow-filled pass. Angie and Fiona use this leisure time for further training; Fiona employs an icicle to inflict more stimulation than Angie has heretofore received, gorging the girl's spirit reserve in anticipation of her first solo wake-walking attempt. The activity comes to an abrupt halt when Fiona senses a spy up among the overhanging crags. Her suspicions are well founded: the young hunter from Stonedene Eastside draws back, eager to remain hidden.
Mercy arrives in Dreamtime to find She'hilde present and willing to duel. But the demon is not alone; the rakish Firefox has come along, ostensibly as a spectator to the combat. Mercy dons her quasi-matter protection and the two trade blows, the last of which sends her flying into a pile of pinning hillside rubble. One of her boots has come loose, and Firefox can't resist teasing her exposed sole. The fuming girl escapes back to the Blue Powder sheriff's office with the missing footwear in tow. This is a fortunate turn: she can now monitor its disintegration, gauging how much more durable the quasi-matter has become. However, while she's in the wardrobe donning fresh clothes, Sephie returns unexpectedly to discover the potentially damning artifact.
Chapter 24, "Pass the Grub": Mercy is saved from embarrassment by a visit from longtime Blue Powder resident Diana Blunt, who summons Sephie away on official business. No sooner has her sister departed than the boot dissolves away into nothingness.
The Feare troupe has made its way through the mountains and has now descended into a dismal, fog shrouded swamp. The mysterious Stonedene spy trails them into the mire and falls prey to a rope snare set by Fiona. She and Angie bind the youth and use tickle persuasion to learn his name: Ijoli. Even the application of a worm-filled tickle pit fails to elicit further intelligence, but Fiona already understands that he's exercising a simple rite of local passage: Stonedene youths habitually depart their homeland for a full year in order to prove their mettle. The girls depart, leaving the lad to undo the knots on his own; Fiona sternly warns him to abandon furtive thrill-seeking and stay out of their private affairs. Soon after, she and Angie arrive at the coast. The object of their journey, Bliss Harbor, lies only a short distance ahead.
Chapter 25, "Blissynergy": The Feares finally arrive at Bliss Harbor, a glittering utopia devoted to tickling fetishism. Angie and Fiona venture out to explore its wonders, meeting at last with Charity and Chastity Liu, local residents and longtime friends to Fiona. The party conceives a plan to attend a showing at the local cinema, but find themselves short on cash. The theater manager offers to trade admission for a round of fetish fun. Angie, Fiona and Chastity are all wake-walker adepts and thus immune to the loss-of-control that would make such a proposition enticing for him; mousy Charity is therefore "volunteered" to gain their entry.
Elsewhere in the city, Prof. Feare gazes wistfully oceanward. He bemoans a cryptic "she" who awaits him on a remote island, primed to condemn him for a misdeed… the penalty for which may involve the sacrifice of his daughter, Fiona.
Chapter 26, "Aloft on Leather Wings": Back in Blue Powder, Sephie locates a pet bat for Mercy, one which the younger Mew hopes can be taught to bear messages to faraway Angie. Early attempts prove far from salutary: the rascally critter would far rather tease the girl's vulnerable toes and sides than perform any sort of service. Meanwhile, on the county's outskirts, a raucous celebration marks Klept's conversion from human to bogey status. The revelry does not go unobserved: Little Big Head and Sid each covertly spy on the ceremony. A third figure, cloaked and furtive, likewise regards the proceedings.
Far to the west, Angie's tour of Bliss Harbor has progressed to the Crystal Marina, a stunning window into the underwater world. There, Fiona reveals that their travels have not yet come to an end; soon, a dread ship will arrive to convey them to Pandataria… an ominous island where the most harrowing stages of wake-walker training must be mastered.
Chapter 27, "Nothin' Dune": Mercy has begun to exploit her new pet's fondness for tickling, trading access to her bare soles for courier and spy service. She's eager to keep pace with sister Sephie's investigations; it's become increasingly obvious that Sheriff Mew believes a major crisis is imminent for Tabor County.
In Bliss Harbor, put-upon Charity Liu happens upon the harried Ijoli, who (having trailed Fiona and Angie despite their warning) is destitute and starving in this strange, specialized environment. Believing that she, like the bulk of the city's citizenry, is a tickling adherent, he attempts to gain her cooperation with brutal fetish persuasion, but soon discovers his error. Shame drives him to swear an oath of fealty, one which he has an opportunity to exercise when Chastity decides to bully her young sister during a sandy seaside frolic. Charity would defuse the confrontation with a promise to accompany the wake-walker expedition to Pandataria… a ploy yanked into stark immediacy when the remote island's galliot shuttle glides unexpectedly into port.
Chapter 28, "Lay of the Lab Rats": The Putz, a colossal artificial human, and Sid's still ambulatory tentacle escape from Simon Putsy's laboratory, making their way to the Gloominvald forest. While there, they eavesdrop as Sephie and the Moon Knight coerce information from a captive bogey. All learn about the pending bogey conflict in Fairview, to occur during the next yellow moon. The Putz also rescues Tessie Tingle and Eileen Lovette from woodland sprites, bearing them both back to Fairview. Tessie decides to adopt the Putz; the Sid-scrap returns to the Low Roads to find and recombine with Sid. Soon afterward, a yellow moon crests the horizon, signaling the start of bogey hostilities.
Chapter 29, "Golden Midnight Hour": The competing bogey factions led by the Spinster and Little Big Head face off in Fairview, attempting to outflank each other and causing considerable damage as the town locals cowers behind their barred doors. Everyone is brought up short when the gargantuan Sid arrives, determined to abuse them all.
Chapter 30: "Indegenstion's Masterpiece": Sid rampages through Fairview until rescue parties led by Sheriff Mew and Friedrich von Smutt arrive to battle the assembled bogeys. Mercy also shows up, clad in Dreamtime armor. She does battle with Sid, blasting him to pieces. While all this takes place, Little Big Head overhears the super-bogey Bloody Head mention God Seed, an agency which transformed him into a bogey god. Sheriff Mew chases after Little Big Head, but he eludes her in the sewers.
Chapter 31: "Poulp Friction": The Black Galliot departs Bliss Harbor, Angie and Fiona among its passengers. While far out at sea, the ship's mechanical rowing system breaks down; Charity Liu volunteers to repair it, allowing everyone else an opportunity for some swimming recreation. Angie interacts with some tickling octopii until Fiona glides by on a huge shark companion, frightening her. Once they're back aboard, they find that Charity has fixed the problem. The ship continues on its way.
Meanwhile in Fairview, as residents pick up the pieces, Mercy tells Sephie that she's developed an interest in becoming her deputy.
Chapter 32: "Gift of Grab": At the sheriff's office, Mercy studies hard to assume her new deputy duties while Sephie likewise fixedly peruses copious volumes in secretive studies of her own. They are interrupted by the arrival of Von Smutt, who brings word of Little Big Head's sudden, unexpected search of the Low Roads. Sephie believes she knows the reason: a quest after God Seed deification.
Sometime later, Little Big Head appears in Fairview's sewers, seeking clarity from Bloody Head, the first bogey to achieve godhood.
Chapter 33, "Beside Shrill Waters": Sephie and Von Smutt track Little Big Head to a secret tunnel entrance which they assume will lead them to the God Seed. Both parties are forced in turn to withdraw, however, when they encounter a stretch of subterranean river haunted by belligerent Boss Guillman. Meanwhile at sea, the Black Galliot finally makes landfall on the island of Pandataria.
Chapter 34, "Island of Lust Souls": On Pandataria, Charity and Ijoli uncover an unnerving secret: bogeys are being bred there for export into Tabor County. At the same time, Mercy takes on a powerful, chaotic Dreamtime opponent, defeating it with newly acquired body plasticity. Upon returning to the sheriff's office, she is met by Sephie, who tells her to prepare for a trip to the lake town of Lapton.
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