The Curse of the Tricqohi
Story by Sovrim Terraquian on SoFurry
I took considerable liberties with geography and cultural concepts here, as this is intended to set a scene for kink play rather than be historically or real-world accurate in anything more than a superficial way. This is loosely inspired by the Western stereotypes of the Aztec and other Latin American cultures, but located in a more deeply tropical environment. And on an island, because islands are cool.
Fictional Locations of note:
* Ancient Civilization Name: Tricqohi
* Country: the Sardides (climate roughly equivalent to Costa Rica, but an archipelago)
* Capital City (international airport): Miralita
* Village at the rainforest’s edge: Espador
Fun fact: Rainforests (in the technical usage) typically have such a dense canopy that the forest floor is relatively devoid of plant life. Jungles also have lots of trees, but the canopy is broken enough that light can reach the ground and the forest floor also can be overgrown with plant life.
An editing note: Text formatted In bold monospace is speech in the ancient language that Ahastar cannot understand. You, dear reader, can understand it just fine, by the powers of literary license. Do enjoy.
You had been waiting for this trip for years. You'd heard the rainforests and jungles of the Sardides were among the most beautiful in the world, but after a few years of saving and a few called-in favors to get some extra vacation time, you were going to finally see them for yourself. The islands were almost half a world away, but the time seemed to pass quickly as you dozed on the plane, fully waking only as the plane began to descend toward Miralita International Airport. The descent was bumpy - the monsoon rains brought plenty of turbulence - but the landing was smooth and the terminal welcoming. However, the capital wasn't your final destination: You intended to go deeper into the island. You'd booked a tour right into the rainforest itself.
After a few checks with airport staff, you were directed back onto the tarmac for your next flight out: A small, turboprop plane with flaking paint and well-faded markings of a defunct airline. The pilot, as aged and indifferent to the weather as his aircraft, waved you and a few other guests over and helped you on board. You knew you needed to travel light for this, but with your cell phone for pictures and only a few changes of light clothing, a single bag was enough for the trip. Once you and the others were comfortable on board, the pilot obtained his clearance for takeoff and set out toward Espador, a small town right on the edge of the rainforest.
Even from a few thousand feet in the air, you found the view to be breathtaking. The tropical blue water and vibrant green forests were almost surreal, like the color saturation of the world itself had been turned up just a little too far. Even under the clouds, the colors were stunning. But looking at it from above was still no substitute for landing and seeing it for yourself. As the plane lined up for landing, the trees felt like they were rushing up to meet the craft. By the time you landed, the trees - just a few meters from the barely-paved runway - seemed to almost tower overhead, as if the rainforest itself was just tolerant of this small airport existing at all.
Once you got off the plane, you took in a deep breath and held it for a few moments before finally letting the air go. This was no city: The scent of pollution and sounds of civilization were distant, if not entirely absent. In their place, the scent of the Earth and the sounds of the tropics took hold, giving you a sensory joy that no photos on the Internet or travel documentaries could ever truly capture. Your reverie was interrupted by the honking of a hotel shuttle, ready to bring you in for one last night in civilization before your trek into the rainforest would begin in earnest the following morning.
You were awakened at sunrise as the light filtered through the blinds in your hotel room. The clouds had broken for now, allowing for at least a couple hours of full daylight: ideal conditions to start the trip. You hastily washed and dressed yourself, helped yourself to the hotel's breakfast, grabbed your bag, and made your way to the bus that would take you to the trailhead. From there, it would be two or three days of hiking, camping, and exploring the virgin wilderness, as ancestors may have done thousands of years ago.
As the bus went along, the trees became denser. You were surprised to see the plant life on the forest floor thinning out, but after a while you realized that the trees above were so dense, the ground couldn't support much plant life due to the shade from above. In the spots where a few trees had fallen, sunlight broke through the trees and dense vegetation greedily sprouted in the light, taking advantage of every opportunity to grow.
The half-hour journey was otherwise uneventful. The bus stopped at an unremarkable clearing at the end of a dirt road, at the point where the path became too narrow for a vehicle to make it any further. From here, it was all on foot. You collected your belongings and stepped out of the bus. As soon as everyone was off, the bus turned around and drove away; the last sign of modern civilization you'd see for days was speeding off into the distance.
Your guide started talking about the history of the area, some basic safety for the hike, and other details that simply made your mind glaze over. You were more interested in listening to sounds of nature and watching the occasional snake, primate, or bird moving around in the trees, enough so that you didn't even notice the rest of the group moving along. Hastily, you moved after them, joining on the walk through paths that few had been fortunate enough to travel before.
Even just getting into the trees made the humidity spike. The air was somewhat cooler than you'd expected; the trees provided near-impenetrable shade. It initially seemed strange to be outside in broad daylight and be unable to see the sky, but your mind grew accustomed to it quickly enough. So quickly that you and the rest of the group didn't even notice the sky darkening as clouds began to build, ready to dump another round of rain onto the thirsty plants below.
Perhaps the only thing more impress than the intensity of the rain is the speed with which it arrived. One moment, it was just starting to drizzle; within another minute the rain had become so intense that it was difficult to see more than a hundred or so feet. The guide shouted for everyone to stay close; as you were nearer the back, it was difficult to hear the guide, but you followed along as best you could. The trail your group was following had become muddy, making it more challenging to keep moving. It was not helping that your group had come upon a part of the trail that was more heavily overgrown, which would have made visibility a challenge even without the torrential rainfall. As the person in front of you moved a particularly large leaf out of their way, it swung back and hit you squarely in the face. It only took a few seconds for you to recover, but by the time you pushed on through that leaf, the rest of the group was already gone, presumably around some curve in the path.
You were, for the moment, entirely alone in this overgrown part of the wilderness.
In that moment, you called out for the rest of the group, but there was no immediate response. The path in front of you had reached a fork and, with the thick vegetation, it wasn't clear which way the group had gone. The thinning mud was no longer holding footprints, so you couldn't rely on that as a guide either, had you the wits to do so. Instead, you started moving blindly forward, hoping that you would find someone with your tour group instead of finding something that would do you harm. Your efforts were certainly taking you somewhere, but the path seemed to go on and on, assuming it was even truly a path at all. You weren't even sure you were on the trail anymore, given that the gaps between trees and plants were barely wide enough for you to squeeze through.
While trying to find the rest of the group again, you tripped over something hard and landed face-first on the muddy ground. Your vision goes hazy for a moment; when it clears, you find yourself looking at a round stone with some unfamiliar writing on it. You have no idea what it means, but guess it's some sort of artifact or ruin. More importantly, though, you look up and see a building that looks like it would provide some shelter from the pouring rain and increasing lightning. It was vaguely like a pyramid, but with the top-third missing, capped off by design. You could vaguely recall hearing legends of such things, but right now, you just wanted to be out of the ran.
You hastily run through the light tree cover and make your way toward the structure, while watching your step to avoid tumbling onto your face again. It takes only a half minute or so to run across and get to the stairs, which had clearly been worn with time. You nearly trip and fall again as one of the seemingly ancient stones crumbles beneath you, though you are able to catch yourself on the next step down before you crash to the steps again. Once you've regained your composure, you finish climbing the stairs and get into the building by running through an entryway at least ten times your size. Once inside, you're able to take a look around as your eyes slowly adjust to the dim light.
You found yourself in a large hallway, with a ceiling rising far above your head, even higher than the raised doorway you ran through earlier. The bricks that made up the wall and ceiling are crumbling in some places, which allows some water to seep through, but the bulk of the hallway is surprisingly intact for how old everything looks. As you walk forward, you see more of the unusual writing above doorways, most of which are closer to your size, leading to somewhat smaller rooms that are too dark for you to want to go inside. You can just make out a few scraps of tattered, crimson cloth in one of the doors. Another has what looks like it may once have been a skull, but it looks like it was shattered under some tremendous weight. You're so busy thinking about what else might have happened that you trip over a staircase leading downward, as the hallway gives way to a single, much larger room.
The room at the end is framed in an ornately decorated doorway, with a faded metal rim around it: over time, the metal has faded to a dull yellow on one side and a pale grey on the other. The door frame itself is enormous, reaching nearly to the vaulted ceiling of this structure, with intricate writing engraved into the metal as far up as you can see. On the walls, near the yellower metal, there's a large and detailed painting of a green-skinned lizard; near the grey, a white-scaled dragon. Both have people next to them, but rather than being the size of the creatures, they stood only halfway to the knees. Other people were depicted kneeling, faces just above the feet of the giants. Perhaps they were gods of a sort, being worshiped.
Once you finish appreciating the art of a long-lost culture, you step through into the final room. Like the hallway, the room is enormous; it's at least a third of the size of the overall structure. The ceilings here reach even higher. with a few stones nearer the top missing - seemingly on purpose, judging by the metal framing around them - to allow in natural light. In this case, they also let in some rain, but you still feel compelled to keep walking in further. In the center of the room is a stone slab, rising to waist height, in the otherwise unfurnished room. You keep walking closer and, eventually, run your hand just over the dusty stone to find it is still warm.
When you lifted your hand lifted off the stone, you felt a sense of dread. You realized, perhaps too late, that you should not be here. A loud boom shook your body, as if thunder striking far too close, so intense that the structure itself trembled from the force. The storm, as it intensified, would be dangerous; staying here may be deadly.
While you started to run from the large room at the end, you felt the rumbling intensify. This was not just thunder, but something more intense. The flashes of lightning illuminated the hall, but the light started to sustain on its own. The crumbled, heavily worn stones seemed far less worn than when you ran inside. The side rooms, once dark, glowed as if fires had been lit inside. The faster you ran, the faster the changes seemed to take place. In your haste, you didn't even notice the storm had ceased; the clouds had given way to the ethereal light of a full moon.
Only once you were outside again did you stop running and realize that something had profoundly changed. The sky itself was clear, with far more stars than you had ever seen; even the galaxy's river of light shone brightly, next to the moon itself. The steps leading down were perfectly well maintained, with intricate writing you'd missed before, all of which seemed to shimmer in the moonlight. Before you stood a small village, with simple wood structures that you knew were not there earlier. Most had torches out front, but all were dark; all the light you had was that of a full moon dipping toward the barely-visible horizon in the early, pre-dawn hours of the morning. Even the distant light of nearby cities was gone, as if the world itself had a power outage.
Where were you, exactly? Where had the rest of the group gone? How had the clouds parted so quickly? How did everything change while you were inside? Your mind raced with questions for which there would be no answers. Your hesitation and contemplation allowed for someone to reach you from behind. And not just someone, but one of the gods to which this temple was constructed.
“You should not have come here, traveler," a resonating female voice said. Her voice was a rich alto, naturally rising and falling with her syllables. You did not understand it, but you did turn around, only to find yourself facing a white-scaled dragon's leg. Her knee was already well above your head - perhaps twice as high off ground as you - giving you a sense of the supernatural scale of this being. Her scales seemed supernatural as well: The edges of her scales shimmered with iridescence in the moonlight. As she expectantly tapped her foot upon the ground, your gaze drifted lower. Her foot shone with the same scales, but the talons were as if made of prism, splitting even the faint moonlight into colors on the ground below.
“If you are willing to kiss the ground at my feet and thank me for my mercy, I may let you go. If you do not, I shall claim you as sacrifice. Choose wisely, mortal." Her words - deep, powerful, yet distinctly feminine - command you to look upward; for the first time you realize she is entirely nude. While you still do not understand what is being said, you assume you are being offered the chance to leave and start slowly walking backward, minding your footing on the staircase. Your steps are unsteady, as you move down the stairs back toward the ground. Worse, moving down just brings those feet even closer to eye level, making them all you can bring yourself to stare at. You lift your hands in apology, trying to convey that you are carrying nothing and are not a threat, as you finally make your way off the stony stairs and onto the soft dirt beyond.
Once you are off the stairs, the dragoness above you moves. She steps forward, her left foot covering much of the stairway that you had just taken, placing her talons back within arm's reach. You gulp, but you fail to react in time to her right foot lifting, moving over your head, and swiftly pressing you into the dirt. Your hands and feet are broken in an instant under the pressure, while the rest of your body is simply pinned in place. You can't breathe under her foot and, with the air forced out of your lungs, you start to suffocate within seconds. “This is not how you repay mercy. And with that, you have doomed yourself to be a plaything to the gods until we tire of playing with you." Her voice is heavily muffled but the tone of her voice chills you. Something about it does not bode well for you.
Her foot lifts and you feel your body starting to repair itself, far more quickly than you ever imagined possible. The bones pulling themselves back together is painful, though, accompanied by the sounds of bones and joints snapping again as they reassemble. Watching your mangled hands restore themselves makes you feel sick. It also distracts you from the goddess' next move: Crouching down over you, gazing at you for a moment, before swiftly grabbing you in her right hand and hauling you up into the air. Her grip around your torso is painful, placing more stress on your still-bruised ribs, as her fingers try close around your body despite the damage it causes to you.
The massive talons on her fingers are brought to use as well, as your backpack is simply ripped off, straps tearing under far more pressure than they were designed to withstand. She moves to slide her talons beneath your clothing, causing you to struggle uselessly in a futile attempt to retain some modesty. Her response is simply to close her fist down on you again, snapping your ribs once more until your every movement, even breathing, is pure agony. With you unable to fight back, she simply cuts your clothing off of you, leaving you covered in nothing but your scales, as nude and vulnerable as the day you were born. Once you are naked, she takes a few steps back into the building, before simply throwing you dozens of meters down the hallway, such that you land perfectly on your back on the stone you'd made the mistake of touching earlier.
Upon the stone, you feel your body simply refuse to move. You're very nearly paralyzed. You can still feel everything, from the sensation of the cool, humid night air washing over your body, to the faint warmth of torches that were now lit around the base of the slab, to the ground shaking again as the dragoness walks up and stands above you once more, this time looming even larger. The stone was merely waist high to you; now that you are lying upon it, your view is not that far above the dragoness' ankles… “Now that you are bound to the altar, I shall claim your body as sacrifice. Until dawn, you are mine." She grins maliciously down at you before lifting her right foot over your head.
Rather than stepping down immediately, she gives you a moment to appreciate what she's about to do you. As you stare, her foot lowers slightly, until the heel rests on the altar next to you, while the remainder of her foot looms just above, barely a hand's width off of your chest. Her foot is soiled from when she stepped on you on the dirt earlier, giving it a faint layer of dust upon the otherwise white soles. The largest of her toes is nearly the size of your head, with the others still menacingly large above you. Her foot is rather wide for its length; it could easily cover your torso from waist to neck. Were she to step on you the other way, it might nearly cover your entire body.
While you stare at that sole, another rumbling snaps your attention away from it. You thought back to the paintings on the walls … oh god, another one? In your current position, all you can see are the lizard-like feet coming toward you; everything above the shins of this new giant is cut off from the foot resting just above you. But from your perspective, those feet are still more than you want to see of the new arrival. The feet are vaguely reptilian, yet devoid of scales. Three forward toes and two rear toes, all slender, clearly intended for climbing and grabbing. At such a size, you could only imagine one thing they would be about to grab.
“Found a new toy, Shira?" The new voice was not as feminine; you realized quickly it had to come from the lizard that had arrived. “And how did it get here in the first place? It doesn't even look like one of the usual travelers we have."
“Does it matter, Sovrim? I gave it a chance to make up for the intrusion and it decided to run instead. The fool thought it could outrun me. It's devoid of manners and stupid."
“Really?" Even without understanding the words, the tone of the lizard's voice seems incredulous, “Then if it has the brains and social grace of an ant, let's treat it like one. Let's crush the life out of it until it realizes its place and thanks us for the lesson."
As sunlight started to creep into the room, the lizard took his step forward, and placed one foot on the altar's edge, covering your lower body. Both of the giants started to lean their feet down, until they both sealed against the altar. Your upper body was completely engulfed by the chill feet of a dragoness, while your lower body was covered beneath the sun-warmed soles of a lizard. Between them, your body completely covered and trapped beneath those two feet. You could scarcely even breathe and pressure had knocked the air from your lungs. You could barely struggle, as the pressure made every movement taxing. It was here you would spend an untold amount of time as their plaything, until they chose to free you.