Your Featherlands CYOA Journey ~ Chapter 8 (Patreon)

You find yourself standing between the fox-boy and the orc girl. Both appear exhausted and desperate, having been dealing with the vicious tickling of the troll’s force farm for quite some time. You wish you could save all of them. Being the ‘human come to the Featherlands for some grand purpose’ has left you feeling dutiful, almost responsible even, for providing security and protection to those around you. Your heart races. You can hear the thundering footsteps of the trolls drawing nearer. You imagine that, no matter what you do, you’ll still be ashamed of yourself for not being able to save them all, but you know you have to do something. Tiamalla’s voice echoes in your ear.

“Come on!” she screams. You look over the contraptions made of raw materials like wood and rusted metal. You stand expecting some big sophisticated plan to come to mind, something that would be equally as clever as it is effective. But nothing comes to you easily, punctuated with dread by the oncoming forces brutally scrambling to put you in such a device. You grit your teeth. You look around the site briefly for anything to help in aiding their escape. You find an axe leaning up against a tree stump. You rush for it, bringing it back over to the device beneath the fox-boy in an exaggerated swinging motions.

“Hyah!” you grunt, batting the blade against the intricate contraption. The wood cracks more and more with each swing.

“You have to hurry!” Tia says, staying close by your side. You grunt and swing harder, sweat trickling down the side of your face. With a heavy sledge, the seat that the fox-boy is attached to collapses beneath him. He lets out a soft yelp as his butt hits the ground. You quickly dash over to the orc girl while Tia helps the boy out of the contraption, pulling him to his feet.

“Fah!” you huff some more as you swing the axe at the glass container around the orc girl. You’re careful not to cut her with the blade, restraining most of your strength in the swing to something just strong enough to break through the glass. It does take a few swings before the cylinder begins to crack, but once it does, it only takes one more to shatter the whole thing.

“We have to go!” Tia shouts back at you. The fox-boy leans on her as he fights to catch his breath, his hair and skin drenched in sweat. You reach into the broken container, shaking away the bugs that had been skittering around the young orc’s stomach. She continues to laugh while her soles are licked behind her, tears and sweat trickling down her cheeks.

“Geeeehehehhehheeet them aaahahahahahaaff!!” she cries. You carefully use the axe to cut through the ropes holding the girl’s arms above her head.

“Get them!” cries from the forest catch Tia’s attention. She turns to the boy on her shoulder with wide eyes and a pale face. She swallows and helps him stand.

“Go!” Tia says. “Run!” The fox-boy looks around with a puzzled expression. He swallows and nods, still panting heavily.

“Th-thank you,” he says. He quickly takes off in the opposite direction, sprinting swiftly off into the woods.

You chop through the rope holding the orc girl’s arms and help her stabilize herself. She grunts and pants, falling into your arms. She reaches down and tears away the ropes holding her knees to the bench. With her legs mostly free, she kicks off the wooden planks holding her feet in place for the caged creatures behind her, stumbling away from the device in the dirt. She breathes heavily, her voice raspy and frustrated. Tia rushes up to you and grabs your arm. She doesn’t wait. She pulls you as she runs through the forest, trying desperately to get away from the troll’s campsite.

“You can’t run, little piggies!” the voice of Flauntroy echoes through the trees, loud enough to penetrate the rushing wind and your footsteps crunching in the woodland brush. You run with Tia, looking back to see the trolls or the freed victims. You see neither the boy nor the girl where you left them. You’re left only hoping that they managed to get away fast enough to evade any recapture attempts. Tia’s small frame quickly dashes through the forest shrubs, nimble and expert to the wild, botanical environment. You follow her and ready an attempt to use a spell should you need to defend either you or Tia on the way back home.

“We can make it, “ Tia said as she huffed. “We just have to get back to the trail!” You dread thinking about how far you both had come and how much more of the forest you have to run through to escape the oncoming trolls. You can’t see them, occasionally glancing back, but you can still hear the distant rustling of their massive footsteps and groaning, frustrated cries. You huff and follow closely behind Tiamalla, fighting to keep up with the petite elf girl’s fluid pace.

‘Not much further,’ you tell yourself. You keep repeating the reassuring phrase even though you know you have little way of knowing whether or not it's true. You just keep saying it to yourself over and over again. You think back to the creatures that you helped save. You wish you could have brought them with you, to have gotten to know more about them and their regions of the Featherlands, but the heroic desire to save them came far greater than any thirst for knowledge and companions. Tia had proved herself to be more than enough company. But still, you can’t help but think back to the two, at the very least grateful that you had taken the opportunity to set them free.

The elation of heroic pride becomes cut short, however. You race through the forest as quickly as you can, stopping only when you catch yourself plunging forward. You barely have enough time to scream, your body already caught in a rapid downswing trajectory. Even when you expect to hit ground, you keep going, crashing through a thin layer of leaves and sticks into a pit dug into the forest floor. Darkness sweeps over you, and yet, even upon falling into the dark, dirt pit, you still don’t hit the ground. Instead, you dangle over an impossibly far drop. Your ankle is caught on something on the surface level. Your cloak falls across your body, shrouding you in even less visibility. You squirm in place, looking up to find your booted ankle caught in a vice-like trap that holds you firmly hanging over the pit. It upturns your sole to the wild elements of the forest while you sway in near complete darkness. Only after your perception catches up with the reality of the situation do you start to cry for help.

“He-hey!” you scream. “Help! Tia!” You wait. Nothing calls back to you. You only hear your own grunting as you sway in place. You try again to no effect. You try to look around for anything that may help you get some leverage out of the hole, but dirt walls surround you in total darkness. You grunt and try to kick your foot free with the other, hoping to have a better chance simply navigating the pit freely than being stuck dangling upside down. You give the trap a hard kick, only for the device’s other half to split open and catch your other ankle.

“You’ve got to be kidding,” you growl. You hold onto the expectation that Tia may turn back around upon realizing that you’ve gone missing, but the more you think about it, the more you hope that she simply kept running, hanging onto the instinct to save herself. You sigh. You wiggle around in the trap, certain that you will soon find a way out. At least you feel well-hidden from the trolls or any other creatures that may be lurking the area. That is, at least, for only a little while.

“Pitfall’s been sprung!” a nearby voice shouts. You don’t seem to recognize it, but you can’t imagine that anyone finding you in such a compromising position is a good thing.

“H-hello?” you ask, figuring that your cover’s been blown anyway. “C-can you please… let me out of here?” What answers you is a faint series of laughs, a mild chorus coming from multiple sources. Mighty footsteps lumber up closer to the edge of the trap. Shadows are cast down into the dark hole, looming above where you hang. Any notion of them being friendly or even simply letting you out is starting to wane. Your heart races. Dread returns to taint the relief of being so briefly hidden. You’ve been effectively caught and are now at the mercy of the lingering forces around you to get you out, but you know it won’t be so simple.

“Well, well, what have we here?” the sour tone of Flauntroy returns. He huffs along with the other trolls standing around and towering over where you hang, only your snared boots wiggling up out of the ground. They laugh at you, mocking your efforts to free the others and run away. “Think you’d just escape, just like that, did ya?”

“Pl-please… I’m sorry…” you try to reason. The other trolls laugh.

“No you ain’t, dirty human,” Flauntroy says. “Not yet at least. And even when you are sorry, that still won’t fix the farm or bring back the livestock you let loose.” Flauntroy bends down next to your boots on the ground. You feel the rummaging of something gliding across your left boot. It moves slowly just above where your ankle is caught in the vice, locked in by the weight of your dangling body. The other trolls snicker as they watch. A horrid coolness brushes over that foot as Flauntroy’s large hand pulls the cut boot away.

“N-no, stop!” you cry out, feeling a cool breeze of air waft across your upturned sole. The trolls continue to snicker. You feel their eyes on your foot, the dread of their intentions not lost on your racing mind.

“Won’t be needin’ these anymore,” Flauntroy says, starting to cut away the other boot. “Nah, not where you’re going!” He tears away the other boot, revealing both of your bare soles to the wilds of the Featherland forest. You swallow. Your heart pounds. You know well what they're capable of, or at least what it is they intend to do with you now.

"Ohhhh, lookin' good from this angle," says a deep voiced troll above you.

"I'm gonna drive 'em crazy!" says another, his tone light and scraggly. The trolls chuckle and come in closer to inspect your bare feet helplessly pointed up at them.

"Aye, you all will," Flauntroy says. "Especially with this one, little trouble maker. This here human’s gonna need to pay us back for the laughter we ain't getting from the ones it set free, meaning we gotta be extra thorough!" They continue to chuckle and chatter, commenting on how vulnerable and soft your feet are in the trap they've laid. You don't know what to say, knowing that there is no way to reason with them. Frantically, you look around. You search for a way out of the vice or leverage with which you might be able to get free from the hole or even a vantage point through which you may be able to land a Manic Spark spell on them from above. You see nothing but darkness where you hang. Before long, your focus on getting free is cut abruptly and violently short.

"NAAAAAAAAHHHAHAHAHAHAHAA!!! STAHAHAHAHAP!!!" The tickling comes with sudden and abrasive force. Dozens of fingers start scribbling over your soles at once. Each one tickles with vicious hunger for your laughter. You knew that it would happen sooner rather than later, and yet it still managed to catch you off guard. The tickles pour into your body, electrifying and tearing through your senses. You flail as you scream with laughter. Your cries echo within the hole and seep out into the forest above, delighting the ears of the trolls tormenting your highly ticklish feet.

"Haha, that's right, you don't screw with us, human!" Flauntroy says loudly. "Get it good, boys. Make 'em squeal!" You squirm as the tickles shock your senses. You buck and twist and wraith as you hang like a trapped animal, your ticklish soles completely helpless to the wills of the looming creatures above. They snicker and chuckle and make themselves comfortable around your trapped feet. Several trolls, by your best estimation, skitter and scribble their fingers across your soles. They leave no spot unbothered by their ticklish touch while your feet flail uselessly before them.

“Look at ‘em dance!” one comments, scraping his nails up and down one arch.

“Coochie coochie coo!” says another, digging their tickling fingers beneath your toes.

“FAAAHHAHAHHAHAHHAAA!!! STAHAHAHHAPPP!! PLEAAAHAHAHASE!!!” you scream, quickly overcome by the constant, torturous stimulation. The hovering trolls merely laugh at your reactions, taunting you while they joyfully torment your soft, sensitive soles.

“Nope, this is just payback for what you did,” Flauntroy says loudly for you to hear. “The real fun happens later when we start actually harvesting your laughter. For now, you’ll just be entertainment.” The trolls snicker around your upturned feet. They scribble their nails up and down your wiggling soles, playing your ticklish feet like an instrument. Several trolls stand around waiting their turn. Some slip their fingers in while others take over others positions as they pull themselves away from your ticklish peds. All the while, tickles storm through your body. They rage down from your soles, focused on the highly receptive nerves throughout.

“NAAAAAAHAHHAHHAH!!!! PLEEEAAHAHAHASE!!!” Your breath gets caught in your throat. Sweat trickles across your skin. You flail and swing, doing anything you can to get your body free from the trap. But none of it works. Your feet remain perfectly trapped, fit in place for the trolls to tickle and toy with for as long as they please.

“Tickle, tickle tickle!” their voices reach your ears. They laugh and taunt, clearly eager about leaving you suffering wave after wave of ticklish hysteria.

“Human gon’ pay a lot on the open market!” says another.

“‘Specially with feet as ticklish as this ones!” says another. They cheer each other on, leering over your soles as they paint each with layer upon layer of scribbling tickles. You scream with laughter. Hopelessness sets in more and more with each passing minute of ticklish torment.

“Play all you want fellas, but don’t burn it out,” says Flauntroy. “We gotta make sure it’s got laughter for the farm once we fish it out.” The trolls laugh with their deep, booming voices. More fingers touch down against your exposed soles, scratching up and down your arches and weaseling through your toes. You can only laugh. You try instinctively to squirm your way to freedom, even if it means plummeting deeper into the hole, but there you continue to dangle, only able to laugh.

“GAAAAHAHAHHAHAHHAHA!!! NAAHAHHAHAHAOOOO!!!” you cry out. Flauntroy stands over the opening of the hole. He looks down at you, sneering just out of view.

“Only good human’s a laughing one,” he says proudly. He turns to the others and gestures away. “Pull out some of them vibrants to use. And you, go catch up with the others. Especially the little elf girl; valuable one, that.” Many feelings rush through you all at once. A responsibility to hurry to Tia’s side to protect her from getting caught herself. A shame in having fallen into such a trap in the first place, locked in a position elevated in humiliation by having your feet so easily accessed for tickling. Crushing embarrassment the longer the tickling continues, leaving you flailing and shrieking with laughter growing in desperation. It only worsens when you feel a feathery stroking brushing up and down both of your soles.

“WHAAAAAHHAHAHAHAHAHHA!!!! STAHAHAHAHPP!!! PLEEAAHHASE, I CAAHAHHAHAHAAHAHA!!!” you scream as the trolls sit by, running feathers all over your trapped, helpless soles. The feathers come across as far more potent and efficient for tickling than any feathers you had felt before. Each little swipe feels as if it attacks the nerves directly, simulating the sensation of many tiny feathers brushing your feet at once. The trolls chuckle at your reactions. They don’t hold back, each laughing and commenting on your overwhelming sensitivity as the feathers stroke your soles endlessly.

“Oh wow, I never such screamin’ before,” one says.

“Let's see how loud it can get!” another adds. More shame and humiliation washes over your mind. You can’t believe how easily you had been reduced to their pitiful, ticklish plaything, but there you hang, screaming with unrestrained, ticklish laughter. The feathers brush up and down your soft, bare soles. They weave in between your toes, sending explosive flourishes of tickles all throughout your senses. You thrash in place. You scream and cry out, only able to comprehend the tickles that steadily take over your body from the inside.

“FAAAHAHAHHAHAHHAAAA!!!! SAAAAAAHAHHAHAHHAAAA!!!!” you laugh more and more with each ticklish pass of the feathers. The trolls delight in your suffering. They switch out, passing the feathers to one another as they fight over the privilege of tormenting your defenseless feet. Flauntroy stands by and watches. He snickers, cheering his fellow trolls on.

“You’ll see how rough it gets when you’re back on the farm, making up every last–” the troll starts before suddenly falling quiet.

A heavy grunt echoes above you. The tickling comes to a halt as quickly as it had begun. You gasp for air, savoring the moment free of maddening tickles. You wheeze and giggle through the residual tingles left across your soles and toes. Sweat drips from your body, raining deeper into the hole. Through your desperate wheezing, you can hear slight commotion above. Huffing and running and growling grunts of pain. You can't see what's happening above you, only that something has stopped the trolls from tickling you, if only for a little while.

"T-Tia…?" you ask aloud, your voice wheezy and tired. Looking up toward the opening of the trap, you can only see slivers of sky through the mechanism. You wiggle and writhe around before electing to call out for help once more. "H-hey! Is… someone there?" The commotion continues around you, just outside of your field of vision. You listen closely for anything or anyone to answer back, just hoping that whatever does is friendly to your exposed feet. When you do hear a voice again, you’re relieved to not feel so instantly alarmed.

“H-human?” a male voice calls down, evidently to you.

“Y-yeah?” you answer back.

“You know that’s not its name, right?” you hear another voice bicker from above.

“Well, I don’t know, okay?”

“C-can you help me?” you call up. “Please?”

“Sure, hang on!” You feel the mechanism start to loosen, shifting you a little in place.  Strong hand grabs around one ankle while the vice begins to unclench. When the trap is opened, you feel yourself being pulled up to the surface. You’re brought back up to the grassy floor of the forest, the fresh air and light embracing your skin. You smile and sigh tiredly, wiping away the dirt and sweat from your forehead. You know that you had not been locked in the trap for long, but the ticklish ordeal was more than you had wanted to experience from such unfriendly company.

“Are you okay?” The melodic and familiar voice of Tia delights your ear. Before you can look up, you feel her warm, petite hand lay on your shoulder. You look over to the small elf girl and give her a reassuring smile.

“Could be worse…” you say, trying to ease her worried expression. Tia puts on a small smile and sighs.

“I can work with that,” she says. She looks up and hurriedly pulls you to your feet. You stand and brush yourself off. You take notice of the other two individuals with you, the fox-boy and the orc girl. They stand by, looking around the site for signs of more approaching trolls.

“H-hey, it’s you…” you say. They each look over to you and grin. The fox-boy approaches and gives you a friendly bow.

“Thank you so much, human,” he says. His tail is wide and fluffy. It shifts while his ears, pointed and covered with amber fur, twitch slightly. The rest of his body is strikingly human at first glance. You smile back at him.

“Of course,” you say. The orc girl also comes up to you. She walks with a wide gait and sturdy build. She stands slightly taller than you, her dark hair pulled back in a braid.

“That wasn’t all of them,” she says. “We can’t stay here, more will be out hunting.”

“Back to the commune,” Tia says. She turns to the other two with a look of quiet assurance. “You’re both welcome as well. Please, I insist.” The two pause for a moment, glancing at one another.

“S-sure,” says the fox-boy quietly. The orc girl sighs and looks to the sky.

“Elf town, huh?” she asks. “Better than nothing.”

“You’ll get all the care you need, I assure you!” Tia says. “But you’re right, we must hurry.”

“Alright, lead the way, little thing,” the orc girl says with a chuckle. Tia giggles slightly and nods.

“Right, follow me!” she says quickly before taking off Eastward.

Back at the compound, Tia elects to take care of the others and report about what they found of the troll camp to allow you time to rest and clean yourself up. After a bit of arguing, you give in to her insisted hospitality, too tired to put up much of a fight. You retreat to the bath house and wash yourself up. You walk out refreshed, dressed into a clean robe and set of undergarments.

The events of the day still linger on your mind. Being ambushed by the trolls. Finding the force farm. Saving the two and leaving the other to suffer. Falling into the trap upon trying to escape. Something about the day feels unfinished, as if you yearn to be proud of what you have accomplished, but something just kinda feels off. Maybe it's a feeling of inadequacy at not being able to save them all or not being able to free yourself from the trap. Perhaps it's feeling as if you were the reason that Tia found herself in danger at all. Or even the gnawing realization that threats linger not far from the elven commune for which you are still woefully underprepared. The bath helped ease your immediate concerns, but more stay at the forefront of your thoughts, and you know that they’ll only remain there and corrode your peace of mind the longer they go unaddressed.

“Hey,” Dynacia’s voice breaks you out of a brief trance. You run into her in the halls between the bath house and your room, too deep into your own thoughts to even recognize her at first. She comes up to you, her head tilted knowingly.

“Oh, hey,” you reply. “How’d your mission go today?” Dynacia smirks and shrugs.

“Bust, but hey, no news is good news, right?” she asks playfully. Her tone changes upon catching your reserved demeanor. “So, I heard about what happened out there…”

“Y-yeah, sorry for…” you start to say, wanting to apologize for many things all at once. You pause to try and collect your thoughts.

“Don’t worry about it,” Dyancia says. “I think it’s very brave how you helped out those two, and of course how you risked yourself to save Tiamalla. I could tell that she was really taken by that.”

“Yeah, well, I also put us at risk and… got caught,” you say with a heavy sigh. Dynacia commands your eyes with a stern, supportive glare.

“Hey, it’s okay,” she says. “Some of the others might be kinda harsh about it, but I can’t say that I wouldn't have done the same, including falling into the pitfall. Those things can be a real pain, especially when they’re unmanned. All things considered, you’re lucky the trolls found you. Made you easier to save, ironically.”

“Right,” you say, hating the idea of needing to be saved at all.

“Don’t beat yourself up over it,” Dynacia says. “You’ll get better. This is how you learn. And hey, now we know what we’re up against! And next mission, you’ll be more prepared for what’s out there.”

“I suppose,” you say, forcing a smile.

“There it is!” Dynacia says, cheery by your change of expression. “Now, I recommend some recreation and connection with the others.”

“Recreation and… what now?” you asked with a soft chuckle.

“If you’re not too out of it, it is,” Dynacia says.

“What’s happening?” you ask. Dynacia giggles.

“It’s how we connect in the Featherlands,” she says. “I feel like you’ve only seen the bad side of this place. It can be rough out there, sure, but getting to know other people, in our very special way, can go a long way with preserving the overall magic. I know that sounds cheesy, but that’s what they call it, especially when we’re young.”

“Still not following,” you say.

“I’m saying, why not meet with someone and share in some fun tickles,” Dynacia says. “You tickle them, they tickle you, really goes a long way with easing the mind.” You think for a moment, recalling all of the more unpleasant moments you’ve had with being tickled during your time in the Featherlands. Being able to experience that same sensation in a more friendly atmosphere might actually do your mind some good.

“Hm, okay, that might be fun,” you say. “But who?” Dynacia shrugs again.

“Anyone,” she says. “Anyone willing, that is. Maybe you could connect with the orc girl that you rescued. Or the kitsu-beastie you saved. They’re both just down the hall, might go a long way in getting to know them a little better.”

“Maybe,” you say, “if they’d be okay with it.”

“It’s the Featherlands and they’re both in unfamiliar territory,” Dynacia says, “I’m sure they’d love to have the company and get to know you better too.”

“I see,” you say.

“And then there’s always Tia,” Dynacia adds. “I know she was pretty distraught too, having to report everything that happened to the captain. She’s also been through a lot. Could maybe use a friendly tickle from her own savior-of-the-day.” You pause to think for a moment.

“I just hope she’s okay,” you say aloud.

“Only one way to find out,” Dynacia says. “But, totally up to you!” She starts off past you down the hall. “Glad that you’re okay though. It’s good to have you around.”

“Heh, thanks,” you say. “Goodnight!”

“Night,” Dynacia replies before slipping around a sharp corner.

Tickle someone. You haven’t thought much about taking the initiative before, but you suppose that such an act is simply more common and friendly in the world you’ve found yourself. You like the idea of sharing in some close companionship and some innocent tickles may even feel rejuvenating to both give and receive. You think for a moment, standing in the middle of the hallway. You look at the different paths presented to you, considering your options on who to visit. The frightened fox-boy who came back for you. The brave orc girl who pulled you out of the trap. You don’t even know their names; there is still so much about this world you know you can learn from them and their outside perspectives. Then again, there’s your trustworthy and courageous elf companion, Tia. She works so hard and deserves to know just how much you value her company.

Or perhaps you know it won’t work. Tickling may do nothing to ease your mind, not while there’s still one more soul out there caught in the force farm by the insidious trolls. You turn to a nearby window, peering out into the darkened night as an idea begins to take shape. You can slip out in the middle of the night with ease. You can tell no one where you’re going to keep them out of harm’s way. You can sneak back into the camp and break the other girl free while they’re weakened in the cover of darkness.

“N-no, I… I’d be in over my head,” you say to yourself. You shake your head, but the plan remains circulating in your mind. You know it to be risky, but perhaps it could prove worth the risk. You think hard right there in the hallway about what to do to help put your mind at ease.

What do you do?