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Gemma tossed the pickaxe to the side and crumpled to the ground, exhausted. She brushed a lock of blonde hair from her brow, then wiped sweat away with the back of her forearm then looked around. The Ruins of Wyveria always kind of creeped her out, truth be told, but the Avis Unit Hunter had taken a trip back to the Hunter’s Guild headquarters with Fabius and Alma, and Gemma needed Fucium ore for a new sword she was designing so she’d suited up and headed out alone to collect some. She hefted her bag, testing the weight, then shook her head and grabbed the pickaxe.
“Not quite enough. One or two more veins should take care of it, though,” she mumbled to herself as she slung the bag over her shoulder and looked around. Sparse, silvery trees surrounded her, and she saw a Guardian Doshaguma rooting around in the distance, a sure sign it was time to move locations. Gemma wasn’t cleared to actually wield any of the weapons she made, so if a monster caught wind of her then she had no choice but to make tracks as quickly as possible.
She turned and her eyes caught a slope that led to a higher level of the Ruins. Gemma pulled out her map, found her own position, then traced the path up the slope with a fingertip while occasionally glancing over her shoulder at the Guardian Doshaguma to make sure it was still distant.
“If this is right, there should be a cave just above here. I bet I can get the last of the ore I need out of it,” she said, then stowed her map back in her pocket and started climbing. The Ruins were laid out in a sort of basin with a large area at the bottom and paths and ledges dotted with caves climbing up the sides. It was one of these she found herself standing in front of, a wide maw that cut deep into the living rock. Gemma squinted and peered inside, noting that a sort of luminescent moss seemed to be lighting the depths of the cave, then she shrugged and walked in.
No more than thirty paces into the cavern, she found what she was looking for. Several ore deposits sat along a stone wall, glittering in the faint light from the strange moss. She tossed her pack down, hefted the pickaxe, and went to work.
“I’ve really,” she huffed, in time with her pickaxe strikes on the hard ore deposit, “got to work out more. This shouldn’t be this hard!” She crouched, collecting the pieces of ore from the deposit, then moved to the next one and repeated the process, then again with a third deposit. By the time she finished, Gemma’s bag was almost too heavy for her to comfortably carry back. “That should do it!”
Gemma closed her bag, then sat and leaned against it on the cool ground. Just a jew moments of rest, then I’ll head back, she thought, and a moment later began to softly snore as she dozed off. Unbeknownst to her, while she’d worked, something stirred deep in a crack in the rear wall of the cavern, and when the soft sound of her sleep filled the cave it began to push and wriggle its way out of the crevice. Long, jet black tentacles pulled the creature’s mass out, then waved in the air in Gemma’s direction as though they were tasting the air around her. One brushed against her boot and her eyes flew open and beheld the monster in front of her.
“Huh?! A Xu Wu?!” She cried as she recognized the massive octopus-like monster in front of her. The Avis Unit had run into them before, horrifying and mostly silent predators that primarily hunted guardians, of all things. Her mind raced as she remembered as many details about the monster as she could. No eyes, huge mouth on the underside with lots of teeth, and what else? That’s right, it secretes some sort of mucus that it can harden into blades to hunt with. Gemma kicked against the ground and scooted away until she hit the opposite wall of the cave, then hooked her foot around the strap of her pack and pulled it towards her. She might not be able to wield a hunter’s weapons, but she’d brought plenty of traps with her. A couple sonic bombs to disorient it and a shock trap should buy her enough time to get outside and fire off a SOS flare.
Gemma fished around in her bag, her hand digging past her haul of Fucium ore and down into the assortment of tools and traps until she grasped the familiar round shape of a sonic bomb, then hefted it out and tossed it straight at the Xu Wu. Or so she thought, but instead of the characteristic ringing of a sonic bomb, it exploded in a flash of bright light and left her blinded.
“Shit, wrong bomb!” She moaned, squinting against the after-effect of the flash. Gemma stood and grabbed the strap of her bag, barely able to see and blinking stinging tears from her eyes, and took off. She still remembered the Avis Unit’s run ins with different Xu Wu. The first had pounced on and devoured a Guardian weakened by the hunter, and the second mistook one of the Keepers for a small guardian and ate the poor bastard. Gemma made it three steps before her legs were swept out from under her, but instead of landing face first on the stone floor she felt her body rise, upside down, as a tentacle tightly wound around one ankle and lifted her into the air.
Her vision, still blotchy, made out the hulking shape of the monster easily enough as its bulk filled her entire world. A second tentacle gently touched her, tapping along her body as though it was exploring her. She flinched when it passed over her stomach, habitually bared by her constant fashion choice of short tops and low cut trousers, and the monster froze.
“What…” she began, then the tentacle passed over her belly again, this time dragging its tip slowly, and she jerked in the air and uttered a single high-pitched squeak. The Xu Wu reared back, showing its mouth on the bottom of its body, and roared triumphantly, then it changed colors. Gemma rubbed her eyes in disbelief, sure at first that it was an after-effect of the flash bomb accident, but the monster changed from inky black to… an almost rosy pink. It held another tentacle up and she saw the mucus that Xu Wu secreted from their tentacles dripping from the tip, then the tentacle whipped the air and the mucus stiffened and solidified. When Gemma saw not a blade but something that looked like a giant feather waving from the tip of the tentacle, her jaw dropped. “Wait, no. You cannot be serious!”
Then the tip passed quickly over her belly, and the strange, feather construct found her navel and laughter filled the cavern.
______
Alma stepped off the airship and sighed. Trips back to the Hunter’s Guild headquarters were… stuffier than she personally preferred, though she would never admit that to anyone out loud. Well, maybe I would to her, she thought as the Avis Unit Hunter disembarked as well, stretching in the dusty air of the Windward Plains.
“Fabius talks too much,” she said simply and Alma stifled a giggle.
“Yeah, you’re right about that. Don’t tell him I agreed if he hears about it, though. I don’t get to carry around one of those swords to help fend him off,” Alma said, pointing to the massive greatsword slung across the Hunter’s back.
“I dunno, if he gets mad enough, he might order you into stocks as punishment. I wouldn’t mind seeing that.”
“Shh, not out loud, Hunter!” Alma squeaked, her voice panicked. The Hunter’s words caught her so off guard she jumped and nearly bounced her glasses off her own face. They’d been… exploring a little more than the Forbidden Lands in the Hunter’s tent the last couple of months. It wasn’t against Guild regulations or anything, but just mentioning the subject outside of the confines of the tent and the Hunter’s hammock put Alma in a tizzy every time.
Which, of course, is why the Hunter relished bringing it up. Seeing the normally calm and collected Handler nervous and tripping over herself was more fun than she’d have thought. “Why not? Don’t want the whole base camp to hear about how ticklish you are behind…”
Alma cut off her words with a fierce hug with one arm and a hand over her mouth with the other. “Please, please, please don’t say any more!” Her dark complexion burned with embarrassment. “I don’t want the whole camp to know, Hunter!”
“Fine, fine… but if you want to buy my silence, I’ll expect to see you in my tent tonight.”
Alma froze, gulped, then with her cheeks still glowing gave one quick nod. She opened her mouth to say something, but a yell from the direction of the center of camp cut her off.
“Hey, you two! You’re back!” The Avis Unit Palico, with long black hair and bright green eyes, rushed towards them while dodging the general bustle and bluster of the base camp. He skidded to a stop in front of them, huffing, then looked up. “Come with me, there’s been trouble with Gemma while you were visiting HQ!”
“What happened?” Alma asked, her expression quickly hardening into a serious one as she brushed a lock of black hair from her forehead. “Is she okay?”
“Just follow me!” The Palico said, then turned and bolted off the way he came, pausing only to wave a paw at the pair in a gesture to hurry up.
“Come on, we’d better go see what’s wrong,” the Hunter said. “I’ve got a bad feeling.”
______
Gemma sat on a hammock slung across the back of her tent with a blanket wrapped around her shoulders. What remained of her clothes lay in a shredded heap nearby that the Hunter prodded with the toe of her boot questioningly. Apparently, Gemma had stumbled into camp the evening before, her clothing tattered, barefoot, and without so much as a satchel of supplies and collapsed in the middle of the camp. With help from some of the other Hunters, the Avis Palico had gotten her into her own tent and out of her destroyed clothes, then stayed with her until she woke up.
“Hey guys,” she said, holding up a hand in greeting. Gemma’s voice was terribly hoarse and, despite being unconscious most of the day, she had dark circles under her eyes.
“What happened to you!?” Alma asked, brushing the Palico aside and grabbing the hand the blonde had waved at them with. Gemma winced but didn’t pull away and Alma let her go and stepped back. “S-sorry.”
“She’s just worried. Are you okay?” The Hunter said as she stepped into the tent and stood next to Alma.
“I’ll be fine, just need some more rest and a few good meals,” Gemma said. The Hunter noticed that the woman trembled a little as she spoke, and when the Palico’s tail swished near one of her bare feet, her eyes widened and she pulled both of them up into the hammock to sit cross-legged under her blanket.
“What was that?”
“Nothing.” Gemma met the Hunter’s gaze for a moment, then sighed. “Ugh, sorry, I didn’t think you’d notice. Look, both of you sit down and I’ll tell you.”
“Good, okay,” Alma said, immediately plopping onto the floor. She glanced to the Palico and added, “Would you mind getting her some water? As hoarse as she sounds, talking too much might be painful.” The anthropomorphic cat nodded and scurried out of the tent with a quick glance back. Gemma hadn’t told him what happened yet either and he was a bit put out by being sent away, but knew Alma was right and left anyway.
“Go ahead and start,” the Hunter added as she took a seat on the floor next to Alma.
“There’s not too terribly much to tell,” Gemma admitted. “While the two of you were gone, I ran out of Fucium ore so I decided to head out and mine some myself over in the Ruins. Probably should have asked another Hunter to come along, but figured I could get by with enough traps and tools. And did, actually, until I ran into a new variant in a cave.”
“What kind of new variant?” The Hunter asked, her eyes narrowing as she spoke. The monsters in the Wyverian Ruins were the most aggressive in the Forbidden Lands by far. If some sort of new Guardian had been spawned, she might have her hands full.
“It… was a Xu Wu.” Gemma shuddered, then continued. “It surprised me by coming out of the cave wall while I was resting. I messed up and couldn’t get away before it grabbed me.”
“A Xu Wu? But I don’t see any cuts or anything. And last human I heard of getting caught by one was that poor man from the Keepers. Are you wounded anywhere?” Alma asked, her voice concerned as Gemma shook her head.
“No wounds like what you’d think. After it got a hold of me, it changed colors. Sort of like one of those octopus species you hear about that can change colors to blend in with their surroundings, except this thing turned bright pink. Then it did that thing where it excreted mucus and hardened it, except…”
“Except?” Alma and the Hunter asked at the same time, both leaning forward.
“Except it didn’t harden them into blades. They were feathers. Or at least like feathers.”
The Hunter blinked at her, then sat back with a confused look contorting her pretty face. “Feathers? And? Is that it?”
Alma, on the other hand, caught on almost immediately. “Wait, tentacles and feathers? Did it…?”
“Yeah,” Gemma said, her face glowing red, “it tickled the living crap out of me. Stomach first, probably because my clothes tend to leave my midriff exposed, but after a while it figured out that it could tear my clothes off and get at more places.”
“Is that it?” The Hunter asked, her face scrunched up as she tried hard not to snicker at Gemma. The smithy frowned and nodded.
“It’s not funny, Hunter. You try getting mercilessly tickled by something that doesn’t even understand your begging for hours on end.”
“Sorry, it’s just, well, tickling?” She shrugged. “I just can’t fathom it being all that bad considering how many monsters are happy to rip and tear, all claw and tooth. Running into one that just tickles you almost sounds, well, childish in comparison.”
Alma sat through their little disagreement, then cleared her throat. “Well, regardless of your feelings about the monster’s habits, it’s clear that this is a new variant of Xu Wu. I’ll have the official quest ready shortly, but I’ll go ahead and tell you that I’m authorizing you to hunt it. Capture it, if possible, so we can study the new variant species.”
“Right then, I’ll head out to catch up with the Palico and buy some supplies, then we’ll get busy hunting down Gemma’s terrible tickle monster,” the Hunter chuckled, then slapped her own knee and stood up.
“I’ll be after you shortly! We’ll meet up at your tent and take our seikrets to the Ruins,” Alma said as the Hunter left with a hand raised. She stood to follow but a tug on her sleeve halted her steps. She turned and saw Gemma had leaned forward to grab her.
“Don’t let the Hunter get cocky,” she said quietly. “I don’t think she’s taking it seriously at all, and that could end badly for you both.”
“Understood. I’ll try and talk to her on our way to the Ruins,” Alma said, then patted Gemma’s arm and left her alone in the tent as she hurried to join back up with the Hunter.
“And don’t let it near your feet! Trust me!” Gemma called after her, but Alma was gone.
______
Alma and the Hunter picked their way through the Ruins of Wyveria on their way to the cave Gemma had marked on the map for them. Unlike the blonde, they’d brought their seikrets, large bird-like creatures used as mounts in the Forbidden Lands. If worse came to worst, they could flee much faster than Gemma had attempted to.
“The cave where she encountered the… tickling Xu Wu… should be just up ahead,” the Hunter said as she snapped her mount’s reins to signal for it to pick up speed. “I want you to hang back. I’ll go in, recover Gemma’s pack, and see if we can find traces of the monster.”
“Okay. Be careful.”
“I’m not worried. Hell, after all that nonsense with Arkveld, I could probably use a good laugh,” the Hunter scoffed, then she took off ahead on her seikret. Alma watched her disappear into the dark mouth of the cave and sighed.
“I do wish she’d take it a bit more seriously,” Alma mumbled, then looked around. There wasn’t much in that part of the ruins aside from a few Wyvern Milk puddles and petrified vegetation. A few nearby herbs that hadn’t yet been affected by the high concentrations of Wyvern Milk in the area caught her eye and she tapped the side of her own mount with her heel and pointed it at them. I might as well do a little gathering while the Hunter is checking the cave, she thought, and hopped down from her seikret to pick through the plants.
She’d only pulled a few from the ground when she heard a great rumble from above. Alma froze, then stood and looked towards the cave the Hunter had entered. The entrance had collapsed, rock and silt still shifting from where it had given way. She stuffed the herbs in her hand into the pouch on her seikret without even looking to see what they were, then scrambled to the collapsed entrance and tried to peer through a gap in the rubble.
“Hunter, are you okay?” She called, her voice reedy with worry. She heard a voice but couldn’t make it out at first until she shifted and placed her ear against the ruined entrance.
“St-stop! No!” She heard the Hunter squeal from the sealed cavern, then her words were followed by a long peal of laughter.
“Hunter! Is it the variant!” Alma yelled as loud as she could, hoping that her partner could hear her through the rock and over her own noise.
“A-Alma, yes! Get… help!” The Hunter paused, and a fresh peal of laughter came from behind the rocks. “No, leave my boots alone! Alma, go!”
“O-okay! I’ll contact Olivia! I think she’s at the base camp here in Wyveria!”
“Good! And b-be careful! There’s more than one!” The Hunter’s voice cracked into helpless laughter again and Alma gulped. Olivia, the hunter in charge of the Astrum Unit, would know what to do. All she had to do was hop on her seikret and…
Alma turned around in time to see the glossy black bulk of a Xu Wu drop from a ledge above with a heavy thud. A tentacle swiped and her seikret was swept to the side and slammed against the crumbled cave entrance, then the creature turned to her and reared up, revealing its mouth.
“No!” Alma stumbled backwards, then turned to run as a tentacle lashed out and swept her feet out from beneath her. It wrapped around her leg and dragged her towards the Xu Wu’s maw, and she noticed that it began to glow a curious, blush-like shade of pink as it pulled her closer. “Flare, I need a flare!” Every hunter and handler kept a SOS flare on them whenever they left camp and Alma reached for hers, struggling to unhook it when her fingers finally did brush against it hanging from her hip. She pointed it skyward and launched it, then twisted and threw the spent base at the pink Xu Wu. The tube bounced harmlessly off it and the tentacle around her legs tightened and, with a mighty pull, dragged her the rest of the short distance towards its open mouth and into it, the orifice closing around her hips.
Alma beat at the monster with both hands, terrified it was about to bite her in half, when she noticed a strange sensation. Her lower half, trapped in the Xu Wu’s mouth, tingled and buzzed from her waist all the way to her toes as though all of her skin was covered with something slightly electrified. She smacked at it again and one of its tentacles caught her wrist and pulled her arm tight while another stated gently probing her side, poking along as though it was searching for just the right spot.
“N-no, I’m not t-ticklish,” she lied to herself through gritted teeth. The Hunter had, in recent nights, actually become quite fond of tickling her to her wit’s end, sometimes even tying her up and tormenting her until she said embarrassing things or made unreasonable promises. That tickling was loads of fun, though, especially when the Hunter followed it up with a good old roll in the hammock. This tickling was worse, lacking all playfulness and intimacy. Alma bit her lip, determined to hold in the laughter in the hope that the Xu Wu would tire of her body and leave. When it couldn’t get more than a hitched breath or slight snicker from her, it did seem to slow down as it poked along.
Then another tentacle joined the first, but instead of trying to tickle her, both of them wrapped around her arms and tugged, popping her out of the Xu Wu’s maw like a cork out of a wine bottle. When she saw her body, bare from the crotch down, she realized that the strange tingling had been the monster dissolving her lower garments. This variant must have an acidic compound in its saliva! We’ll have to capture one to study it fully for sure!
As she made mental notes about the differences they’d already observed between it and standard Xu Wu, the two tentacles lifted her from the ground so that her bare legs dangled above the monster. The movement caught her attention, breaking her brief reverie, and then she saw how it was positioning itself and her heart dropped to her toes.
“No, hold on now,” Alma stammered. It held her above the bulk of its form, the other six tentacles waving and snapping in the air directly below her freshly bared feet. If it had stripped her upper body, the monster likely would have had her in hysterics before. Her lower body was already far more ticklish, and without so much as a scrap of cloth to defend it, Alma knew she was done for.
One of the Xu Wu’s tentacles made contact with her foot, the appendage lightly brushing against the center of her left arch, and Alma squeaked. She expected it to be bad, but it felt even more ticklish than when the Hunter was playing with her feet and she wondered if whatever compound the monster used to destroy her clothing had also left her body more sensitive. The tentacle traced around her foot, following the curve of her arch up to her toes, and she gasped and kicked at it. Don’t laugh, Alma! She knew Xu Wu were blind, and she doubted that the variant had managed to grow eyes, which meant it might still release her and leave if she could hold out.
Alma kicked at it again, and the tentacle that had just teased her foot recoiled for a moment before it shot back out and wrapped tightly around her ankle, then a second tentacle swept towards the trapped sole, its tip waving threateningly.
“Wait, please,” Alma said, then snorted and bit her lip to hold in the giggles bubbling up from within. Then the tentacle pressed itself firmly against her foot, covering the entire sole, and began to vibrate somehow. Her eyes flew open and Alma jack-knifed in the air so hard her glasses went flying as the laughter she’d struggled to hold in broke out as a long stream of high pitched giggles spilled from her lips. “No, what the hell?” She cackled as the tentacle kept vibrating, the sensation seemingly permeating every nerve in her foot and tickling worse than anything she’d experienced before. “Stop, stop, stop!”
Her pleas did not fall on deaf ears, but they also didn’t convince the Xu Wu to lessen the relentless torment. In fact, every giggle, squeak, and broken word that Alma managed to force from her lips seemed to goad the monster into tickling her worse. After a few moments, tentacles probed her sides again, rapid fire poking at her ribs and tummy through her clothes, while the assault on her over-sensitized foot continued. This time, with her resistance shattered, each prod to her torso brought a high pitched yelp from her that created an odd, alternating staccato with her stream of laughter from the foot tickling. Amidst the overwhelming distraction, Alma didn’t notice the Xu Wu’s final two tentacles drawing near her as well until they were right in her face.
“No, I can’t,” she managed to say, then screamed in terror and pain as one of them snagged her coat and tore it off while the second tentacle, pausing a moment at her shirt beneath, made its own swipe that left her dangling naked, nothing left to her modesty except the scarf she used to tie her dark hair back. Then the brief moment of pain passed and the tickling hit her again like a train, even worse now that there wasn’t so much as thin fabric to guard her from the poking tentacles. The two that had finished stripping her wriggled under her nose a moment as though they were teasing her, then both stiffened and a stream of some sort of mucus shot from the tip of both of them.
Gemma mentioned this… Normal Xu Wu would secrete a mucus that they would harden on command into a blade, a trait which earned the quiet monster more than a few humorous comparisons to a ninja, but the rosy pink variant had other intentions. The strands of mucus partially stiffened, enough to turn them from goo to supple, wavy strands, then another secretion fanned them out and partially stiffened as well. When it finished, two large appendages that not only resembled feathers but danced through the air like them waved back and forth in front of Alma’s body. One of them made contact with her belly, its soft tip dipping into her navel and then trailing up and over a nipple before pulling away again and she shivered.
“Someone… please… help…” Alma wailed, but her only answer was muffled, hysterical laughter interspersed with grunts that came from the nearby cavern as the Avis Unit Hunter went through her own tickle torture at the tentacles of another variant Xu Wu. Her body trembled as the feathery appendages both lightly brushed against her, teasing over her hardening nipples and quivering belly, then across her collarbone and down her side, their sweeps deftly avoiding the pokes and prods of the other tentacles to create an overload of conflicting stimuli. One of the feathery growths trailed down her belly, along her hips, then dipped down and teased her labia and Alma’s eyes flew wide open while a sharp intake of breath halted her laughter for a short moment.
The Xu Wu noticed and danced the feather tip up and down her labia. Alma uttered something between a squeal and a moan, then her laughter took on a huskier quality. Some sort of excited burbling came from the monster, and it suddenly shifted and tossed Alma straight up in the air. She screamed as she rose, spun in the air, and plummeted towards the ground face first. Two tentacles caught her by her ankles, stopping her scream short with a pained yelp, and Alma found herself dangling upside down in front of the Xu Wu, her vision blurred from a combination of desperate tears and the loss of her glasses.
“Why won’t you let me go?! Please, anything but more tickling! Tickle the Hunter or Gemma, but please just leave me alone!” Alma screeched at it, her new position leaving her deeply frightened. Terror soon turned to fresh gales of laughter as two of the tentacles wrapped around a foot each and resumed vibrating. She saw, through squinted eyes, that the last two tentacles sprayed mucus until they were also tipped with feather-like constructs, then all four approached her. They paused, nearly close enough to touch, and waved threateningly through the air. When she bit her lip to stay the laughter from the relentless foot tickling so she could cry out in protest, they fell on her with their insidiously soft touch.
One teased around her neck and face, making her shiver and shake her head. It was particularly bad when it managed to catch her ears, but Alma’s constant movement made that mercifully rare. Another, more successful feather went back to dusting over the stiff nubs of her nipples while her breasts danced and jiggled. The third trailed up and down her ribs and across her belly, its soft tendrils tormenting the quivering flesh, and all while the vibrating tentacles continued tickling her to hysterics through her feet. Worst of all, though, was the fourth feathery growth.
The final feather found her crotch again and managed to wedge itself between her lips then sawed back and forth. Combined with the other tickling, it was hellish. Despite the torment, Alma could feel hot arousal building within, and her pussy dribbled as it was teased. The first orgasm hit like a tidal wave, blotting out the tickling as she twisted and shook in the air, and as it faded all she could focus on for a full second was a slightly ticklish trail of fluid running from her crotch and down her belly. The Xu Wu paused and Alma dangled, her muscles useless from the post-orgasmic chills.
“I… can’t… take… any-,” she moaned, then the feather between her legs sprang back into motion, mercilessly sawing back and forth, and a moment later the rest of the tentacles resumed their own tickling and she uttered a sound between a howl and a mindless cackle. Her vision blurred worse and darkened, the whole world around her turning black as a second orgasm struck, less severe than the first, and her consciousness started to slip away. The last thing Alma saw before the darkness took her was a white blur streaking across her vision, then nothing at all as she passed out.
______
Alma woke with a panicked jerk that almost sent her tumbling from her hammock. Disoriented, she righted herself by gripping the sides with both hands and looked around. She was in a standard guild tent, the soft glow of a nearby lantern illuminating the interior. The familiar form of Gemma sat nearby, her hands dangling between her knees and her head pointing downward. A gentle snoring came from the blonde and Alma wondered how long she’d been waiting for her to wake up.
“Gemma?” She whispered, and the blonde jumped.
“Holy hell, I didn’t mean to fall asleep!” Gemma cried as she sat straight up. “Good to see you awake, though. How are you feeling?”
“My whole body aches,” Alma said as she looked down at herself. Her normal clothes were missing and instead she was clad in a simple white gown that stood out stark against her darker complexion. “How… long have I been out?”
“Olivia and Athos rescued you from the Blushing Xu Wu yesterday evening, so not that long.”
“The Blushing Xu Wu?”
“Yeah, that’s the designation the Guild is assigning the new variant,” Gemma scoffed. A sour expression marred her face for a moment. “They’re being designated as low threat because they don’t outright harm people.”
“Whoever decided that should take a turn dealing with one, then,” Alma groaned. “My whole body still aches from all the laughing.”
“Yeah, mine too. Say, do you have any idea where the Hunter got off too?”
“What?” Alma asked, a her stomach twisting into a knot of worry at the question.
“Where did the Hunter go?” Gemma repeated as she tilted her head to show her confusion. “The Blushing Xu Wu got its tentacles on you because she decided to go off on her own, right? So what other mission distracted her enough to let our favorite Handler get tickle tortured by that awful monster?”
“Shit, we have to go now!” Alma said as she tried to hop out of the hammock and ended up dumping herself onto the floor in a flailing mess. “The Hunter was caught in a cave in with another of those… things! She’s probably still there!”
______
The Hunter’s eyes fluttered open and she groaned. Every muscle in her body ached from hours of laughter and just as long being held or bound in different positions. She knew a rescue would come eventually, but her heart sank when she saw the familiar stone walls of the cavern and soft glow of luminescent moss and mushrooms that lit the space.
She didn’t even have time to stand before a shadowy bulk nearby shifted and started to glow pink.
“Great, still trapped in here with the tickle monster,” she sighed. Her armor was gone, and her weapon lost somewhere in the darkness. There wasn’t a thing she could do to stop the tentacled nightmare from tickling her as long as it wanted until the cave-in was discovered and dealt with.
Then something behind her moved, and she turned to see another shadowy figure in the cave as it began to glow pink.
“Two of them?!” The Hunter wailed as she felt the tentacles from the first catch her limbs from behind and lift her into the air, then stretch her into an X shape. The second reared up and held itself steady with two of its tentacles while the other six started to drip mucus that quickly solidified into fresh feather-like constructs. “Can’t we… talk about this?”
The Blushing Xu Wu’s answer was to attack her body with all six tentacles as the Hunter’s laughter and screams echoed through the sealed cavern.