The Quest for the Mirth Monster
Episode 6: The Magic Feather

Elizabeth had kept a very close eye on David during the week they had been
coming to the Calstinowitz Library. David had been reading through various
books written in strange glyphs and probably in other languages that she had
little hope in understanding. David, at times, seemed slightly annoyed by her
presence, although not always. There were times he would slump back in his
chair, with a sigh of frustration. He would look at her, and she always made
sure to smile widely when he did. It would offer some comforting relief in
whatever he was looking for and not finding.

The real reason for her steadfast escort, however, was the librarian, Leilani.
Elizabeth was now certain she wasn't who she appeared to be, as her dreams
were getting worse, and Elizabeth often caught the scent of something burning
when Leilani was nearby. She had yet to explain to Anne Marie why it was that
she kept such a watch over their boyfriend, but she didn't feel like being
embarrassed for what-she-was-certain they would describe as unfounded
paranoia.

Or some other big word, she thought to herself, as she looked over David's
shoulder. He was flipping through the pages of a large book, with various
stenciled illustrations of creatures large, small, and of those that Elizabeth
had never hoped to meet, even if she had the upper hand. Elizabeth leaned in
and kissed David softly, then gently nibbled on his earlobe as he smiled and
turned a page. What Elizabeth saw next was straight out of her nightmares...
literally. She jumped back and gasped loudly in surprise. David looked over
his shoulder at his afeared escort.

"What's the matter, sweetie?" he asked her. Elizabeth's finger trembled
furiously as she pointed to the image in the book. David looked at it, then
back to Elizabeth calmly.

"That is a succubus," he replied matter-of-factly. "A special type of devil
with the power to easily charm and seduce men, and then take their souls to
whatever Devil-Lord they serve in the Nine Planes." Elizabeth slowly crept
up to David's shoulder, peeking at the page. The image was just like that
thing in her dreams...just like Leilani after turning into one of those
things.

"Surely, you'd know one if you saw it, right?" she asked, dreading the answer.

"That depends," said David. "Certainly, if I saw one in this form, yes.
However, a succubus or an incubus most often forms an illusion over themselves
to look like a very attractive female of whatever race they are trying to
capture: elf, drawf, gnome..."

"Human," Elizabeth interrupted quietly.

"Yes," said David. "Even human." He paused and looked at Elizabeth with
renewed concern. "Are you okay, Beth? Ami and I have noticed you aren't
seeming quite like yourself lately..."

"How do you kill it?" Elizabeth asked, ignoring David's question. Her voice
had turned now, the fear was being pushed back by something else. David
wasn't sure if it was rage, or something more sinister. He was just impressed
that Elizabeth was interested in some of what he was doing, rather than
brushing it off as the "stuff of smarty pants". He turned the page, showing
Elizabeth more sketches of various weapons. He started to explain how they
were made, but Elizabeth already had her eyes transfixed on a jagged blade
dagger.

"Can you copy that page for me?" she asked. David started to object, but
Elizabeth slipped her slender fingers beneath David's robes and slowly
traced light circles along his manhood, immediately bringing it to life.
David shuddered in pleasure, then stated a few words, pointing to a pile of
blank parchment near the book. Within minutes the pen that had sprung to life
from the inkwell had finished copying the page, with Elizabeth tempting her
lover the entire time.

"I think someone needs to be tickled desperately," commented David as he
moved in to kiss Elizabeth.

"Tickle me," Elizabeth whispered as the two locked in a deep kiss. Elizabeth
pulled away quickly and suddenly.

"What's wrong?" asked David, surprised and almost hurt.

"Someone's coming," she replied. "We'll finish this tonight." Indeed,
Elizabeth's heightened hearing had detected a person coming that had now
appeared at the near end of the row.

"Okay, Beth," said Anne Marie. "I think it's time we left David to himself
for a bit." Elizabeth scowled to herself that once again Anne Marie had
broken up a moment with she and David alone. Anne Marie was oblivious to
Elizabeth's expressionless face, and grabbed her friend by the wrist.
Elizabeth had just enough time to grab at the parchment David copied for her
as the two walked out of the row. Elizabeth knew there would be no talking
her way out of it this time, as she had done before. Anne Marie wasn't
giving her enough time to make an excuse.

"We'll see you tonight," Elizabeth said as the two rounded the corner.

David smiled widely at the fortune of having the two girls in his life. He
sighed, and returned to his book, turning the page and looking at the next
entry. Almost instantly, another soft, feminine voice was speaking to him.

"Have you found everything good and well, m'lord?" David looked up to see
Leilani the librarian. He took a moment to really observe her before he
answered. Any rumor that librarians were stuffy old maids, hags, or spinsters
were dispelled by Leilani's youthful and sexy figure. She tended to wear
form-fitting dresses that were cut low in front and had very high slits along
her flawless legs. Definately NOT a spinstress.

"Actually, most of what I've found I already knew," he replied. "I have yet
to see something that I haven't found in the Academy Library." Leilani
feigned impressed interest at hearing about the Academy. Her true interest in
the Academy was either fearing it, or destroying it.

"You are a member of The Academy?" she asked, trying to cover her fear.

"Yes," he said.

"Well, your library should be far more extensive than anything we have in
Calstinowitz," she stated matter-of-factly.

"That may be true," said David, attempting to be diplomatic by not affirming
the statement outright. "But we are not allowed to return until we have
completed our quest." David went on to explain how the three were on a quest
to seek out and destroy a Mirth Monster. Leilani shuddered in pretended fear.

"I am so horribly ticklish," said Leilani. "I'm sure a Mirth Monster would
just simply ravish me." She could see that she had David's full attention
with that statement. Combined with the comments she heard prior to Elizabeth
and David kissing, and Leilani instantly knew how she could get inside David's
head.

"And, to make it worse," Leilani continued, seductively. "I become so aroused
by laughing. A Mirth Monster would be my worse nightmare and my highest
pleasure."

"What else do you know of Mirth Monsters?" David asked, as Leilani sashayed
closer to the already aroused wizard.

* * *

Calstinowitz Marketplace was always bustling with activity. It was widely
known that the best place to supply the Academy from parts south was in this
very city, because of the armed guards that the Academy would send here once
every few months. Calstinowitz council had made very explicit rules that
turned the city into a merchant's mecca of sorts.

Being a mecca, however, always has its offside, which means that there was
a hustler around every corner, and as Anne Marie and Elizabeth walked through
the streets of the town, they came across a carnival like bazaar. Performers
of all types competed for the attention of passers-by, with a bucket for the
deposit of a grateful copper coin or two. However, one attraction was holding
the attentions of the people moreso than any other.

Curiousity overcame the two girls, after they had looked at each other and
shrugged. As they approached, they heard a woman scream, and then quickly
dissolve into hysterical laughter. Each girl had an image of David run
through their minds, causing a slight tingling and dampness in their panties,
which continued to egg them towards the crowd. A large number of men were
part of the outer shell of the crowd.

"I GIVE!" screamed the damsel, laughing hysterically. The men groaned, and
the two ladies overheard some of the comments.

"She was always stubborn." "I didn't think she'd break ever."

One of the men turned away, after passing forward a few coins, and almost
tripped over Elizabeth.

"Careful, buddy," she snapped, as he caught himself and nearly grabbed a hand
full of Elizabeth's D-sized bust. Anne Marie grabbed the man's other arm and
helped him to a safer position away from her friend's breasts.

"HEY!" shouted the man. "Try this one! She's got spunk!" Other men turned
to see the two girls and began egging and edging them to the front of the
circle. Either woman could have stopped it, but they didn't as they were too
taken with their curiousity. The girl's were poked and stroked through their
silk blouses as they were bustled forward, each letting out a squeak and a
helpless giggle.

"I don't know," said one guy. "She's awfully ticklish!" Elizabeth's
arousal slightly increased as she could feel several men's lust as she was
tickled forward through the crowd.

"So's the redhead," said another as Anne Marie nearly doubled over from the
few fingers on her sides. They were finally tickled to the front of the
gathering, where another lady with sandy blonde hair was resting nearby two
sets of stocks. A man scooped her from the ground and carried her to a nearby
padded table, where she was left, panting and exhausted.

"Care to try your luck, ladies?" asked a second man, standing behind one of
the stocks. "If you can stand being tickled until the sand runs through the
glass over here, you will be rewarded with this fine steed!" He waived his
hand in the direction of the steed.

Not a normal steed. A wild, winged horse with it's ankles fettered to a
large wooden floorboard, with a muzzle over it's snout that simultaneuosly
silenced and held the horse to the floorboard as well. Elizabeth immediately
sensed the creature's struggles. It had been hurt repeatedly and recently,
although Elizabeth couldn't sort through how. She reasoned that it must be
from its captors. Elizabeth's desire to rend the two men would have to wait
for another day, as she stepped up onto the platform.

"What are you doing?" asked Anne Marie in surprise.

"Rescuing that horse the easy way," whispered Elizabeth to her friend. She
turned to the man that had invited the two ladies to take a seat. "What do I
so?"

Moments later, Elizabeth had her arms tied into the stock's frame over her
head. The straps of her sandals were eagerly removed by the silent assistant,
who stared longingly, almost drooling, at the sight of Elizabeth's smooth
feet and perfectly curved arches. Elizabeth could still feel the white
stallion's struggles in her mind, and could only manage to think that she
would endure anything to free the poor creature. This somehow eased it in a
way, although she was uncertain exactly how the horse could understand her
thoughts.

Each of the men brought forth a long, stiff white feather.

"Alright, men!" the leader shouted. "Place your bets that this lovely blonde
can't endure the Magic Feather!" Anne Marie quickly studied the audience and
saw two more men taking wagers from the crowd. She looked to the two men that
had Elizabeth bound and could only wish she had brought more than the dagger
hidden in her garter.

* * *

Leilani had collapsed to the floor in hysterics. Her face was surrounded by
David's ghost-like, magically generated fingers, and he was springing more of
them forth from the smoke wisps of the candles on the desk. David's eyes
were centered on Leilani's quivering breasts, as they shook from the
shockwaves of her helpless laughter. The hands were tickling her and it
seemed that every breath she took, two the of gaseous appendages would fill
her lungs, tickling her inside and out. She was nearly paralyzed with her own
laughter, barely able to move, and completely incapable of defending herself.

And, as she had already stated, lustfully aroused. Through her hearty
laughter, she begged David for mercy, but really had no desire for it.

"Well," said David. "Are you going to tell me where to find the secret
information on the Mirth Monster?"

"Pleeeeeease-he-he-he!" screamed David's sexy captive. "I can't!" She
exploded into laughter as David sent four more of his patented Ticklers after
Leilani's curvaceous frame. She felt the Ticklers starting to work their way
under her slinky dress, tickling her thighs and knees. The smoky fingers had
long since did away with Leilani's spiked heels, held her legs apart, and were
tickling her feet. The wisps were easily able to tickle between her toes, no
matter how tightly she cringed them closed.

Her arousal continued to well with her, and Leilani wondered exactly how many
of these spirit ticklers it would take to finally validate her femininity.

* * *

They had been tickling Elizabeth for a little longer than five minutes. Anne
Marie could see the sand had almost completely passed from one end of the
chamber to the other, but it still seemed to pass through very slowly. The
two men did very little movement with the feathers. The leader shad been
slowly tantillizing Elizabeth's underarms, and was now slowly tickling down
her loose fitting blouse and into her cleavage. Several men had shouted to
unbutton her blouse, and show of her tits, but the leader hadn't done that
yet.

The other, lust-filled man had been concentrating with meticulous attention
on Elizabeth's feet. He held back the toes of one foot, and played the
feather along all the tiny, soft little nooks he could find under and between
her toes. Then he would focus on the tiny lines in her feet, tracing the
feather along the edge of Elizabeth's arches, before finally drawing the
feather in.

What Anne Marie couldn't understand is that the feathers weren't just tickling
her feet or her underarms. Each stroke from each feather tickled her in every
single ticklish spot on Elizabeth's body. Even David's magics were nothing
like this experience. She had long given up squirming, as there was no where
to go. The only sound she could even hear besides her own voice was that of
the leader, echoing behind her somewhere, asking if she was ready to give up.
The tickling was everywhere! As much as she was enjoying it, she couldn't
stand much more of the torture.

She could hear Anne Marie's voice in her mind, though.

"If you really can hear my thoughts, hang on, girlfriend," Anne Marie had
said. "It's almost over! You are strong enough. You can do it."

It was the first time she had ever heard Anne Marie truly give her a vote of
confidence. Elizabeth feared her own failure now. The feathers were tickling
her swollen pussy, her thighs, her nipples...she couldn't express how much
she was being tickled.

"It's everywhere!" Elizabeth screamed in her mind, admist the echoes of her
own tickled torture. "They're getting me everywhere!"

And this thought Anne Marie could hear, echoing in her own mind. She dared
to wonder how Elizabeth could bear it. She wondered if she could bear it!
She stood transfixed on her friend, watching and wondering what it would feel
like to get tickled everywhere at once. Her body tingled slightly at the
thought, which was quickly broken up by shouts of some of the nearby men!

"PAY UP ALREADY!" "SHE DID IT! WHERE'S THE MONEY?!"

Anne Marie looked to the glass and saw that it had emptied completely, but she
wasn't aware for how long. Now they were taking advantage, and as Anne Marie
came back to her sense of honor, the leader came to a disappointed end. The
man at Elizabeth's feet, however, continued to tickle, oblivious to the
leader's orders to stop. In one, catlike motion, Anne Marie was on the stage,
grabbed the diminuative man by his collar and swept him up into the air.

"It's OVER, gnome!" Anne Marie snapped. The gnome grinned widely, then
started stroking the feather into Anne Marie's cleavage. Immediately, her
body stiffened, scarely able to move. Her body was being tickled in its
entirety. She stood on stage frozen in laughter, holding the gnome in his
place as he tickled her breasts! Slowly, Anne Marie began to collapse to the
floor of the stand, laughing madly.

It was just as Elizabeth's tortured mind had described. Anne Marie felt like
she was falling through feathers; waves of them were tickling across her
body. The effect was far more potent than anything that David had done, and
her body was responding faster than anything David had ever done. She was
soon on the ground, and had somehow been rolled onto her back...it was all a
haze. All there was for Anne Marie was the very sexy, erotic feeling of
being tickled everywhere, and her body yearning for every soft stroke.

Two of the men were quickly paying off the men in the crowd, so the only few
that watched Anne Marie's tickle torture were offering to make bets on how
long she could stand it. The leader had been quickly releasing Elizabeth who
decided that her best bet to save Anne Marie was to pretend to be exhausted.
The leader obviously bought it, until Elizabeth's wrists were finally
released. At that point, Justice: Elizabeth style was unleashed.

Anne Marie noticed and cared for nothing around her. The feather was
consuming her in ticklish torture, and her clit throbbed with the illusory
feathers that fought to tickle her clit, and tickled her thighs as each
feather competed for it's one turn on her sex. A moan of pleasure was about
to escape between Anne Marie's laughter when the feathers suddenly stopped.

Slowly, Anne Marie's strength began to return as she opened her eyes and
witnessed the power of Elizabeth's wrath. The gnome had been knocked
unconcious, and was somewhere in the fifth or sixth row of the crowd. Both of
the men collecting and paying wagers were slumped together, back-to-back near
one of the sets of stocks. The rotund leader was doubled over in some kind of
pain, grabbing his stomach and slowly trying to rise to his feet.

Elizabeth ripped off the bottom of her dress, revealing her thong panties and
perfectly rounded ass to the crowd of men. Yet, none dared to speak a word.
Elizabeth drew forth a shortsword that she strapped to her left thigh and
was immediately on top of the leader again.

"Now," she snarled. "Unless you want to do business with the business end of
my blade, give me the horse so my friend and I can go!" The leader was
confused by the panty-clad sword-weilding woman, and couldn't understand
where she could possibly have any strength left. He tried to lunge at
Elizabeth, thinking he must be faster than the blonde after her ordeal, but
grossly overcalculated his advantage. He found himself on the ground face
first after Elizabeth dodged his lunge and kicked him to the mud below.

After, of course, obliging his confused desire by using her sword to make
three quick cuts in his trousers, sending them somewhere down by his knees as
he tried to rise up, only to fall over on his back from his tangled pants.
The crowd roared in laughter, while some applauded the blonde's ability.
Elizabeth teased her supporters by blowing a kiss with a slight wiggle in her
hips. She then help Anne Marie to her feet.

"Lend me your sword, so I can cut the horse free," said Anne Marie meekly.
Elizabeth did so, but wondered if her friend had the strength to cut the
bonds and not harm the horse. Anne Marie answered with five cuts leaving the
iron rings broken on the floor.

"Go!" shouted Elizabeth at the horse. The horse's reply was to nod in her
direction. Elizabeth took her sword from Anne Marie.

"C'mon," she said as she helped her friend onto the horse's back.

* * *

Leilani was still feeling the effects of her afterglow as she led David down
the other corridors of the library. She knew she was getting to him, even
though he resisted her attempts at sexual intercourse.

"It will definately not take too long with you," she thought to herself. The
two finally stopped at a high bookshelf, near a ladder.

"What few people realize is that a Mirth Monster isn't simply under one
category of creature," Leilani stated with a seductive tone. "Mirth Monsters
are a way for certain mages to enter the un-life." David was entranced by
the information he was receiving, and trying to make mental notes of what he
was being told.

"The point to a Mirth Monster, however," Leilani continued. "Is that the user
doesn't have to worry about looking abnormal, as is the effect from other
types of un-life giving spells. A mirth monster will always have a mage of
some type associated with it, and it will usually be someone with
narcissistic tendancies."

"Like a certain Queen of Enchantment," thought Leilani to herself.

* * *

Night was nearly fallen, and the two ladies still had about an hour walk to
get back to the gates of Calstinowitz. Nevermind having to explain why
Elizabeth was wearing only a thin, silk thong to cover her womanhood. The
two girls were only dicussing their encounter with the Magic Feather.

"I suspect it actually came from the horse," said Elizabeth. "It had been in
such pain before we showed up. and freed it."

"And you know this how?" asked Anne Marie. She already suspected the answer,
based on events of the day. Elizabeth, however, only shrugged. Her true
capacity would be left for some other day.

"All we know is this," said Elizabeth. "That little feather is probably what
it will be like if we end up on the tickle end of a Mirth Monster." With that,
Anne Marie, for the first time ever, was certain she was going to fail.