Allannia Azurewrath, seventh tier mage of the ancient elven house Glade Royal, considered the crude arcane sigils etched upon the doorway in front of her. It was a hash of low goblin and bits of archaic dwarvish runes, presumably stolen from wherever the goblins could get their hands on it. Naturally, as an elvish mage with decades of training, she could read both languages fluently, though she never deigned to speak or write either. This particular jumble had elements of protection, support, sturdiness, and alignment from the dwarvish elements, although none of these were complete. She knew Dwarvish runes were frequently centered around construction, longevity, and strength. The goblin components carried notes of anger, malice, retribution, and pain. This was also not unusual from her experience. Goblins didn’t build anything so much as destroy or repurpose, but this was their nature, and so Allannia felt no disdain for it. Still, the runes, as makeshift as they were, were presenting an effective obstacle to her progress.
She steadied her gaze along some of the lines of arcane energy, which she suspected that the creators of this enchantment probably could not see at all, and tried to identify the ideal path to defuse it. It was a relatively simple trap, all things considered. If the door was forced, or opened without the proper incantation or sigil, the nearby columns and ceiling would collapse. If she was reading it correctly, it looked like part of the floor might also be set to collapse, and some of the energy produced by the collapse would be converted to fire/heat. Adding insult to injury, I suppose? she thought. Or just the typical goblin need to hurt something?
“Oi, mage, what’s the holdup?” asked Durifud Silvermaul, the tactless and foul dwarven warrior in their party. Allannia was half-tempted to drop the trapped door on the loudmouth, but remembered how his axes had helped against the orcs earlier. If only I could convince him to bathe occasionally, she thought to herself, in something other than ale.
“Keep yer kilt on, longshanks,” said the even shorter Taanglaac Two-Blade. “Can’t ya see she’s workin’ on it?” He was supposedly a master assassin, but mostly what she’d seen of him had been hiding and occasionally claiming to have slain foes that nobody else had seen.
She ignored the two’s banter by habit now, as it was relatively unceasing. She steeled herself to channel, aligning her staff’s stored energies with the trapped door’s magic. Disconnect the goblin charms from the dwarvish runes, for a start, she thought. Then make sure the remaining magic is only intended to hold it up instead of collapsing it. Her essence speared forward, faster than thought, but fastidious and precise to her senses. Slice! Away went the anger aspects, bleeding their fire and fury into the surrounding stone, which drank it in without comment or change. Pain soon followed, and she felt the dwarvish runes strengthen slightly as the magic demanding they be ready to collapse was removed. Malice was an extremely common if unpredictable rune, but to her eyes, it looked as if it was only intended to cause instability in the dwarvish runes, so it was trivial to remove as well. The doorway as a whole was looking more ‘healthy’ to her eyes, though she’d never publicly admit to that thought, lest someone accuse her of favoring the lesser dwarf sorcerers. Retribution was last, as it was by far the most complicated. This is the one that is the trigger mechanism, she thought, it’s tied into everything! She split her focus six different ways, supporting the original dwarvish runes with three, and prepared three arcane blades to strike. These razors of thought flashed out as one from her staff’s glowing orb, severing the connections from the Retribution charm to each of the remaining dwarvish runes, while her other three channels encouraged the dwarvish runes to not catastrophically fail. ‘Lacked finesse’ or ‘subtle as a stave’ reviews from my old teachers, perhaps? she thought to herself, Yet, I was successful in my task, and no one here the wiser.
“Durifud, the door should be safe now,” she said out loud, “The original dwarvish runes are protecting only its strength now.”
“Aye, mage, those should let kin like me in no question,” he boomed, and reached out to open the door. As predicted, it swung open easily, without any kind of explosion, and revealed another dark room behind it.
“Lumin,” she murmured, casting a small light spell into the room. “Let’s see what we have here.”
“I saw it first!” shouted Taanglaac, bounding ahead towards the chest in the center of the room. “That means it’s mine!”
“Hold, you fool!” cried Allannia, as she telekinetically deflected several trap darts away from her errant ally. “I haven’t cleared the room yet!”
Her greedy companion paid her no mind, nor seemed to notice the death flying around the room, but had eyes only for the potential loot. He was quite surprised, therefore, when his skittering feet found a hidden sigil on a floor stone, which upon activation made him vanish entirely with an air-sucking vworp sound.
“Banishment spell!” said Allannia, “He’s not dead, but I have no way of telling to which plane he was sent!” In truth, with enough study, she very probably could tell where he had been sent, but she did not have any interest in spending that time or effort on such a feeble companion. “Please be more attentive than our erstwhile assassin, Durifud.”
“Aye, I plan to be that. What other traps can you sense here?”
“There’s an anti-magic screen over the chest, and a lightning bolt trap on the unlit brazier to your left, but that appears to be all of them. I would presume there are more purely mechanical traps as well, which I cannot sense.”
“Disarm what you can safely, lass. I’ll handle the stone traps meself.”
As the two went about their respective tasks, Allannia tested the strength of the anti-magic field. It was limited to only an arms length, just enough to protect the chest, but she sensed that it could expand greatly on some unknown trigger. This was much trickier magic than the door had been. Her focus was sharply broken on Durifud’s panicked cry of “Allanniaaaaaaaaaaa” as he inadvertently tripped some recessed trapdoor and dropped into the darkness. She raced over to where he had been, but the trap had already reset and closed the trapdoor behind him. She reached out her senses, but could not find any trace of him. Either dead already or dropped so far that I can’t detect him. I warned him to be careful! But there was nothing to be done. She had no desire to voluntarily follow him into the trap, and did not have the rope or other tools to descend safely into that abyss even if she did. The only way to go is forward, I suppose, she thought to herself.
The rest of the traps in the room posed no particular threat to her, and soon, she was at the chest. Checking by force of habit to verify that it was not a mimic, she opened it. There were a few baubles inside of varying values, which she knew she could probably sell back in town, but the bit that really caught her eye was a very clearly enchanted garment. She could feel the strength of its magic, and knew it to be a high mage amplifier. These were incredibly rare handcrafted items that allowed a mage’s power to form a sort of feedback loop, dramatically increasing their potential spellcasting abilities. This one appeared to be intended to be worn under her other clothes, as it’d be too revealing by itself. Surely this will help me pass the eighth-level test, she thought.
Briefly disrobing, and glad that the two buffoons weren’t there to spy on her, she slid the item on. It resized itself automatically, as expected of a magic item of this quality, and fit snugly around her chest and shoulders. It was a relatively simple piece of clothing, kind of a halter-top, in a rich red luxurious silk-like fabric. She felt it resonate, weakly, with her own magical aura. Probably due to the anti-magic field, she thought, it can’t stop my innate abilities, but I can’t channel much here. Upon paying attention to this, she noticed that the anti-magic field had expanded as she had expected. It was now enormous, possibly even larger than the dungeon complex she was in. That would make it tricky to go further, especially without my allies, but this seems to be the end, so I’ll just return to the entrance by the same route I came in.
As expected, she was able to exit the catacombs without further incident, having killed many enemies and disarmed all the traps on the way in. She exited the chambers through the main hunched doorframe built into the hillside, and appreciated the sunlight for the first time in the last few hours. As she’d half-expected, she felt the garment awaken from under its anti-magic sleep, and become fully in-tune with her own magic aura. She began the long walk back towards town, mentally noting the location of the entrance for any other seekers who might want to investigate what became of Durifud and Taanglaac.
As she walked, she absently felt a somewhat disconcerting slithering sensation. She rubbed briefly at her torso and hips, where it seemed to be originating from, but did not pay very much attention to it. When it reached her thighs, she finally heeded the feeling and tried to identify it. Loosening her clothes, she was surprised to see that her amplifier outfit had apparently grown! It maintained its original shape around her expansive bosom, but a strap of identical material with a stylish belt buckle was wrapped around her waist, and what appeared to be a rather minimal set of undergarments. Briefly stripping off her outer clothes, she inspected it from all angles she could reach, and believed it to be emulating what her former human students had called a ‘thong’. She had a loop around each thigh as well, barely below the curve of her butt, and as she watched, another pair of loops formed just below these, one on each leg. Fascinating, she thought, I wonder what the maker set its final form to be? As she continued to watch, unafraid of any item of clothing no matter how enchanted, it formed more loops down her legs. Three per thigh, three per calf, three per foot, it seems; a lucky number. As a wood elf, she was habitually barefoot, so feeling the foot straps merge into a sort of shoe was a curious but not unwelcome sensation.
While her attention was on her legs, another strap had made its way into her hair, and comfortably slid itself around her forehead. She had not yet earned the ability to wear such a decoration, but enjoyed the feeling of its weight there. I’ll remove that soon, before anybody sees me, of course. This enchantment is fascinating! She walked a bit off the trail, into a more secluded area, so that she could enjoy the feeling of this outfit for a bit longer.
The first actual surprise she received was when her new underwear-belt tightened dramatically behind her hips. She reached a hand back to try to loosen it slightly, and felt a small slap as a piece of the belt wrapped around her hand. She jerked her hand back in front of her to look at it, and watched in amazement as a piece of the belt separated from her waist and wrapped around her hand as many as a dozen times, pinning it into a compressed and immobile point. This was not what she was wanting out of this item! She drove her staff into the ground in front of her, and as she moved to remove this errant strap with her other hand, the material reached out and wrapped around that hand too! In very short order, both of her hands were confined to small mitten-like shapes, and she could not use her fingers! This was an annoyance, for sure, but every competent mage could cast spells without using their hands.
She concentrated on focusing her magic, intending to slice open the wrappings on her hands, after which she’d remove the main part of the garment until she had more chance to study its behaviors. When she channeled this extensively-practiced ethereal blade, it seemed to distort and distend the mittens, but do no actual damage to them. As she stared at her misbehaving magic, she noticed what looked like a thin rope peek out of the wrappings. This rapidly slid out of her mitten, appearing now as a much longer rope, and began flailing wildly about her.
She held her arm away from her body in shock, unsure what to do, as the rope lightly slapped against her torso and legs. She frantically tried a different cutting technique on her other hand, and her panic doubled when it produced the same result. In seconds, she had two chaotically thrashing ropes swinging around her. By some happenstance, the ropes collided somewhere behind her, and abruptly ceased their flailing. She pulled on them, but now it seemed like there was only one rope, loosely connecting her hands together. As she watched, the previously-hidden ends of the ropes left her hand wrappings, and slowly began coiling around her wrists. If there was any slack in the cord between her wrists, the coils would advance up her forearms, and her wrists would be that much closer together.
She closed her eyes, selected another spell, and tried to dispel the devious rope, and watched in mounting alarm as the rope, instead of disappearing, appeared to double! The second set of coils, already connected behind her, wound up her forearms like a snake climbing a tree, until they were just above her elbows. She desperately tried an empowered-dispel, and was shocked to see both sets of ropes double again. The third set of coils settled in just below her elbows, and the final set climbed to just under her shoulders, and they were all winching inexorably together. She had never been the strongest physically, but she doubted that even boulder-shouldered Durifud could have resisted these fiends for very long. In short order, despite her best efforts, her arms were solidly locked together behind her back. As her elbows touched, the first twinges of an unexpected excitement ran through her. She felt the coiled rope forcing its way in between her merged arms, and wondered briefly what more could possibly be in store for her. The final bits of the coils wrapped around the outer loops, cinching down tightly and increasing her sense of immobility incredibly. Her tingles redoubled at this as well, leaving her wondering how she was going to get out of this, or if she even really wanted to.
Her arms’ incredibly restrictive position had made her arch her back for comfort, and looking down, she noticed that this made her enormous breasts appear even larger. She briefly cursed her familial heritage, before noticing that her waist strap’s decorative belt buckle had also spawned several similar ropes. Oh no, she thought, where are those going? These also seemed almost snakelike in their movement, as several climbed down her legs, and several went upwards into her expansive chest. She watched as her legs were wrapped and gradually winched together in the same way her arms had been, and quietly relished the feeling when they too were fully cinched. She felt that she could not move a single limb. The last few ropes had wrapped around her back and chest, and formed a much more restrictive bra-like harness, alternately squeezing and relaxing. This also made her overall predicament feel tighter than ever, a feeling which she was savoring.
But she also retained her mage training, and knew that she alone was responsible for her own safety. I can still get out of this, if I figure out the correct trigger. She briefly refocused, and cast an Identify Magic spell on the garment. For the first time, her staff, still sticking out of the ground, seemed to help, as it relayed information about the item. Let’s see, this was created by Atria'Claadarfel’Emar'Elialaira of House Golden Forest. I didn’t know anything from that era still existed! I’ve heard legends of her, though. She was one of the greatest mages to have lived! The item is apparently named <Kwilit>. Dredging up her knowledge of ancient elvish, she tried a few simple commands in the old tongue.
“<Kwilit, stop.>” After saying this, all the individual loops on her legs joined together into larger loops that wrapped around both legs, and smoothly tightened. This did not seem to limit her movement any further than the ropes there, but was a noticeable increase to her feeling of restriction.
“<Kwilit, halt.>” Her shoes seemed to shift to an incredible point, bringing her high up on her toes and making it hard to balance. She tottered very unsteadily for a few seconds before regaining her elegant elven poise.
“<Kwilit, release.>” She felt her chest straps and ropes tighten intensely, making it slightly hard to breathe.
“<Kwilit, loosen.>” The belt around her waist and the loop in between her legs constricted relentlessly, reminding her that her plausibly secret enjoyment of this would be obvious to anybody who checked.
“<Kwilit, I am your owner.>” A strip of the same crimson fabric wrapped around her throat from behind, in what she felt must have been an intentionally erotic way. She had seen older, more regal elven women wearing similar collars, and had always been slightly jealous. A small golden loop appeared on the front of this, just outside of her vision.
“<Kwilit, retract!>” She was getting somewhat desperate, but all this appeared to do was create an ethereal golden chain between her collar and her staff, which was now glowing with an inner light. As she watched, a link in the chain disappeared, and she was ever-so-slightly closer to the staff.
“<Kwilit, cease!>” Any further speech was cut off as her mouth and lower face were wrapped repeatedly by this dastardly fabric. She mmmmphed indignantly, but to no avail.
She tried to cast several more spells, each more esoteric than the last, to interrupt or reset whatever arcane mechanism she had triggered, but all it seemed to do was drain her mana and cause the translucent retracting chain to accelerate its progress. And soon, despite her feeble attempts at resistance, she was out of magic, nearly all of the links of the wraithlike chain were gone, and she realized, for the first time, that she was well and truly stuck.
She was standing on her pointed toes, barely able to balance. Her ankles were tightly bound together with a devious, possibly sentient rope, and cinched as tightly as she believed possible. Her calves had three loops of brilliant red fabric around them, binding them together and highlighting her shapely legs. Her knees had more tightly-cinched rope above and below the joint, which kept her from moving her legs much at all. Her succulent thighs had more straps of this red belt-like fabric, each demonstrating how long and supple her legs were. She had a tight and very small thong protecting her remaining dignity, and also not doing a very good job at hiding her arousal. She had a sturdier-looking belt around her waist, which had the look more of a handhold rather than a highlight of her shapely midsection. Her enormous breasts were held up high by their own devious set of straps, which were doing little besides accentuating them in both appearance and sensitivity. Her hands were wrapped in many loops of this red fabric, rendering them useless at movement or gestures. Her wrists were tied together intensely tightly. Her elbows were welded together both above and below the joint, and cinched accordingly.
Even her shoulders were bound together, holding them backwards and forcing her breasts out forward. Her mouth was wrapped with numerous layers of red silk, rendering speech out of the question. She had a tight, erotic-feeling collar around her neck, connected by a golden chain to a nearby staff embedded in the ground, which was short enough that she had to bend over at nearly a right angle in what she imagined was a very inviting pose. Her great blue eyes stayed wide with surprise and distress as she struggled against this immense bondage, and wondered how this could possibly get any worse. Then, as if an answer to her inner thought, her thong retracted entirely from her waist, exposing her vulnerable and oh-so-needy privates to the nearby world. Oh nooooooooo, she thought, if somebody were to come along, I don’t know what I’d do. And she listened with her sharp elf ears for any footsteps or sounds of traffic, and her arousal kept ratcheting higher and higher and higher.