FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

P42s59 looked around the starting room. Dim lights carefully hidden in alcoves managed to give enough vision to see the entrance by, but the halls beyond were dark. The walls had been made to look like sandstone, though smoother to the touch.

Her task was simple, navigate the maze to earn her freedom. This was going to be easy, she'd moved through countless burrows without a single source of light and not lost her way. Besides, she knew the method to solve most mazes, follow a single wall. And so, with her hand trailing along the left side, she started to walk into the maze.

There were ominous sounds, grindings, whirrings. Atmospheric dripping noises in the distance. The occasional vent gusting cold or hot air at her. For all the turns and twists offered she stuck to her method, and it was a good ten minutes before she met her first dead end, thanks to her races ability to see so well in the dark she stopped and sighed, but for the sake of not swapping early, she walked the extra five metres to the end, following the wall. As she passed close, suddenly panels slid open!

A trio of flying metal contraptions zipped out of the spaces, each trailing a length of sand coloured bandage. P42s59 started and tried to run from them, but they descended quicker than she, whizzing around her body, the three managed to pick up such speed that they were able to apply a wrap without holding the ends down. One went for her legs, another for her feet, and the third went straight for the chest. The leg wrapper starting at the hips, the long strands catching the tail and pressing it to her thighs. All while the lowest assailant managed to snare a few lasso like coils around her ankles, drawing them tight. She would have fallen, but the tension from the bandages in all three directions kept her steady as it wound around her, up to the knee.

Finally the upper most wrapper had weaved tight bands across her chest, snaring her upper arms, it rolled up slightly to encompass the shoulders before down again, swiftly swaddling all the way to the elbow. The lengths of bandage weren't too long, just enough to weigh down her limbs and have a bit of tense slack, before the hovering devices tugged as one. The kobold found herself lifted from the floor, her weight borne by the wraps as the machines hoisted her along, it became readily obvious as she twisted, that first, she couldn't easily get down with all the motion happening, and second, they were backtracking, taking her all the way back to the start.

She shouted and barked curses at them in her mother tongue, but at a quicker pace than she had set, they made it back to the first room. A trio of hooks dangled from the ceiling, maybe they had always been there, she didn't know. Each machine flew to a different hook and tethered off their strand of bandage, giving off their last bit of supply before whizzing into a tiny hole and leaving P42s59 suspended. She was dimly aware of some other change, a light pervading hiss noise had taken up, but it didn't matter. She had to get down!

Her shins, thighs and tail were stuck so that moving them simply set her to sway lightly, but bending her elbows, she was able to get her claws up to the bandages. It was here she noticed that they had somehow been dulled, unable to simply tear through, however they still could grip between weaves and tug. She spent minutes poking what was in her reach, the wraps too far up be looked at, and eventually she found that little strip where it began, managing to weave it out of the covering. As soon as it was freed, she shifted about and found that there was some small measure of slack squared away. And by carefully poking and tugging she was able to unwind the wrap one small banded circle at a time until her arms could stretch to the sides. Working just a little more she was rewarded with a sudden shift, the bandage unwinding on its own now, thanks to gravity, and now her torso hung loose in the air.

With her arms completely free, is was a much more swift effort to untangle her thighs, able to use both hands to pull the weak point instead of just one hand and elbow at a time. As she managed to break that loose it dropped her down to the floor, her feet were still kept pointing skyward but she was only an inch or two off the ground, her horns scraping the floor if she twisted in the right way. At least the fall wouldn't hurt. Giving it her all, she bent and was able to get close enough to hold on and tug those wraps. She found that with the extra tension of her whole weight, these ones were the most stubborn. So much so that before she found the first strip she had to wait, hanging there as her chest rose and fell.

She bent forward after a long while, not giving up, even as she fervently wished her genetics had blessed her with a prehensile tail like some of her kin. But after much hard work, she finally found the starting strip, weaving it loose from the bundle. This wrap had been engineered so that after that first end was found, any slack was immediately pulled through, meaning that her legs were lowered to the ground in time with her progress before finally she pulled free, dropping like a stone. The hooks were inert, long strands of unwound bandage trailed over the floor. But swearing some more under her breath P42s59 went back to the door.

It would be simple, if she just didn't walk up to dead ends, maybe that wouldn't happen again, thankfully her dark vision should-... the hissing had stopped, but what it had done now revealed itself. While she had been struggling free the maze had filled with foggy mist. Even without light the kobold was able to navigate, but with haze in the air, that was a different story. It seemed her method wouldn't cut it. But what choice did she have... she went back inside.

She'd managed to make a lick of progress by now, spending many minutes carefully navigating, when she thought she saw darker shapes, such as a wall, she tried turning back, and had not set off anything. Her hand kept to a wall, guiding her turning, but she found increasingly that the walls were no longer flat and smooth, shapes, engravings and sometimes arty carvings had been etched. Her hand found something new, and she stopped, pausing in front of it, feeling the wall segment. It was a statue of some kind. P42s59 brushed against it and anchored herself in her mind, this would be a good landmark to remember if she got turned around. Suddenly there was a crunching noise. She saw the statue lurch in motion, a rocky finger snagging over her wrist. The grip was like stone, and she was unable to pull away!

The rock covered construct towered over most men, so a tiny kobold was nothing to it, lifting her in the air by the one arm it's giant hand was able to grip over P42s59 torso with room to spare a single hand holding her as her legs kicked wildly. The other hand was brought up and the top of its fingers snapped back. Hovering in front, before again, bandages were seemingly shot out. Bandage was layered on her torso from one wrap, same as the shape from before catching her above the elbows. However differences then came two more threads mirrored each other, one starting at her left shoulder, the other at her right wrist. They spun a more complex weave that snagged her arms in a neat fold.

But then the wraps halted, just her torso swaddled. The statue picked her legs up too, carrying her in both hands as it lumbered quickly back to the start... once again....

She tried to squirm in the fiendish golem's grasp, but whenever she felt the end that she could reach, a finger pressed down on her until she stopped. It seemed she wasn't allowed to make actual progress while being hoisted. She realised part way through, that the golem had taken a different path to her. And sure enough they arrived at the start in a quicker fashion.

The three hooks with their bandages dangling was unmistakable. Next however, the golem reached up, taking a bandage off the hook and leaving her dangling with the metal of the hook threaded through the weave at her back.

It gathered all the loose wraps and then its new task started. It grabbed one dangling leg and weaved the spare bandage around it, starting with her toes, it coiled the whole thing tightly up her leg. Her foot was completely shrouded, so well packed that she couldn't even wiggle those digits, it pressed on until it had wrapped half way up the thigh. Dropping her leg and repeating with the excess sandy coloured textiles to treat her opposite leg the same. It was like an overly tight stocking made out of a wrap but otherwise not restraining. With her legs covered, the flaps on the statue's fingers snapped open again and it weaved a fresh layer over both legs, this was not as squeezingly tight as the newer layers. More akin to how the first things had wrapped her. This outer layer going from above ankles up to her thighs and stopping. It lifted her off the hook, put her down on her back, turned, and wandered back into the mists.

P42s59 squirmed and wriggled on the floor. Once again she'd have to start with her arms, and it was a longer, more time-consuming process. Working out that only the right was going to be able to work itself out of the trap for a start. It was tiring work, and draining of will and energy, but eventually she had once again defeated the chest wrap.

Her hands moved to her legs, the outer wrap was simple, it turned out, meant to keep her still than be difficult to remove... however the stocking-like weaves were something else. No matter where she poked, prodded or scraped and tugged nothing gave. She tried until she lost patience, deciding that it must have been meant to stay fast, as it didn't hinder her mobility.

And so, the kobold set off once more. She fell afoul of more tricks and traps in the maze. Each time taken back to the start. The third failure the arm wrap was reconstructed, but then her head was swaddled up, but for the nose, leaving her to have to work from memory and feeling instead of sight. And before binding her legs another of the closer, tighter weaves was tied over her tail and her hips, leaving her wrapped in bandages from the waist down. After she escaped, freeing herself again, she found that the new layer went totally between her legs. Her lower half fully insulated from the air, the weave between her legs made her feel tingly, the pressure at her crotch keenly felt, but even if she scratched and tried to use the present holes, just under the surface her fingers found no purchase in removing the layer.

The fourth failure found her legs fully wrapped, not even the tips of her coated feet loose, and then she was dragged back along the floor. This time they took the longer lasting layer from her hip up to her neck and shoulders, leaving the arms freed, and then bound her head, before taking two bandages either side of her neck and tugging them behind her, snaring her bound legs into a tense hog-tie. It took even longer, and by the end of it, she was exhausted, sobbing, and curled up in a corner, her hands still unable to do anything about the wraps that took in most of her body.

It had been hours, she was tired, hungry and exhausted. As if knowing this, before she collected herself, a smaller statue returned to the entrance. This one bearing a tray with a meal. It placed it in the centre of the room, the kobold having scurried away to the corner in fright, before wheeling off. It only added to her despair, there was no time limit on her trial after all.

She tried yet again, after she'd had the meal, a sulk, a think, and a moment to steady herself. It was her fastest failure. Nearly following the first path. Obviously shaken. When she was carried back to the room by more of the flying creatures, she found a pole had been erected in ground. She was rolled back and forth in a confusing and dizzying pattern as the robotic things wrapped her tightly to it, from the neck down, arms pinned at her sides, hands covered. It stopped above the knees before once again they secured a part of her. This time it was her head's turn. The bandages starting from the neck, wound up around her head, the path squeezed between her eyes, before finally wrapping over her snout. There was just enough room for her nostrils to draw breath, and her eyes were left uncovered, but her mouth was squeezed shut, the sides of her head wrapped so well it dulled her hearing too, even her horns coated in a layer of wrapping. She started as before, thinking her arms vital. Spending a long time working on those limbs, trying to tug. But to absolutely no avail, she huffed and sighed, not wanting to play this game from the start, but keenly feeling it now. A figure loomed into vision out of the mist, one of the staff, wearing a lab coat.

"P42s59, do you give up?" it asked simply. The kobold struggled softly, not answering for a time. The question was repeated verbatim, the same tone. She remembered what was at stake, freedom, and failure meant... well there had been rumours. Weary, beaten down, and wanting to quit as she was, she still managed to look the coated figure in the eye, and shake her head with an emphatic mumble.

The figure withdrew, P42s59 was alone once more. She paused before she tried every part of her body one at a time, her head could move, but did nothing. Her arms, still useless. Hip, just tugged in an increasingly uncomfortable way. Finally as she tried her legs, she stumbled to one side. Feeling a lighter squeeze along one bandage. This must be it, she made more attempts to walk back and forward, left and then right. Slowly unwinding the mass was even more tiring work, time crawling by as she moved too far left and rewound a small measure. It was a trial and error challenge, and with her stopping for breath, or to shout in frustration, it was over forty minutes before she finally broke loose of the pole. At least when she landed on the ground there was not much bandage left to remove, at least of those strips that could be. The kobold picked herself together, and started to move on. She was so very careful now. Walking slow measured paces, recording a plan as best she could in her head, backtracking at the slightest whiff of danger. She actually started to work out the secret, colder jets of air weren't just to shock her, they seemed to be saying she was further from the path? At least that was her theory.

Keeping her hands off the walls, especially when statues were in place. Watching for small tiles that triggered one of her earlier failures by concealing a switch. She found herself before that self same stature that she had awoken with her touch, and very gingerly tried to creep past it. A few paces further and then there was a loud sound behind her. The wall slamming shut, preventing her from turning back. She panicked before she saw the illuminated sign. The sign before her scribbled with a translation in her native tongue below it.

Halfway Point Reached. Welcome to the new starting point.

She moaned into the mass of wrapping around her face, she had been so close, but that also meant, there was only that distance again, and the path the statue carried her before said it may well be a very small distance indeed. She'd just need to get lucky!

The kobold hurried on out of the room, stumbling through yet more mist shrouded halls. She finally came across a large open room. The fog was lighter here, and she could clearly see the floor, each flagstone had a design carved onto it. But as far as she could tell, there was nothing to explain what it meant. The same designs were repeated all over. And she gingerly decided she just had to guess. Slowly putting one foot on the tile of her choosing, it didn't shift. She hopped on, still nothing. She saw another of the same design and made a jump for it. Landing on it neatly, still nothing! Hope swelled, the swish of her bandage wrapped legs followed as she prepared for the third leap. Heavily landing on the edge... it shifted! The tile itself tilting as it showed to be loosely fit, she scampered up, and wobbled, but too little too late, her balance didn't recover and she fell off it into a neighbouring tile. That one gave way under her, tipping her into a slide that span downward. It dropped her after a long slip, landing on her rump. The slide closed behind her, a pair of semicircles slipping together. P42s59 inspected the room. More closed circles in the wall, presumably that tile forced you onto a slide here. The walls were blank but for that, save for one dominant feature, a double door of some kind. Imposing, and urn-like in shape.

There was silence, and then the doors flung themselves wide, nothing but pitch darkness beyond as the sarcophagus trap spat entangling strips. P42s59 whimpered, but fatigue had set in, despair welling up, she just stood there, knowing there was little escape option. Six strands lashed to her, her ankles, wrists, neck and waist were coiled and tugged like a hungry tongue into the darkness, flipped to be facing the door as it slammed shut after her. It was the tightest experience she'd yet endured, the ankle wraps joined each other, snapping her legs together as it tangled and weaved a cocoon of cloth upward. The neck holding wrap weaved another spin around her head, this time caring only to avoid her nose. And she felt the telltale bandages, the different sandy coloured ones having a distinct texture. They started at the last part of her scales left, the shoulders, winding tightly down. Her arms were kept spread from her body, so secure as they descended, once they reached her wrists, she found that it wasn't interested in wrapping her fingers individually. No, this was worse. Like a mitt as it weaved over her hand, snaring the fingers together, stealing her manual capacities before tying off in that untouchable way. The more escapable kind then dragged her wrists up, forcing them across her chest as the wraps took over her hip and came down from her head.

Binding her totally in that most classic of poses, before finally the bandages were doubled back, weaved to make another layer over her whole form, even her head being twice wrapped. She squirmed in the blackness. There was no way she could be expected to escape from this! She struggled and squirmed as much as she could and found to her dismay, every motion she made, the bandages pulled tighter, until she truly couldn't even move. She sobbed in dread, stuck in the darkness, before suddenly she felt something round pressing against her crotch. Snuggling against her nethers, the shape began to vibrate and thrum, teasing and torturing her further, she couldn't move her hips away or even closer to it. She felt the moisture rising, being forced from her despite how little she liked it, then, more of the shapes pressed in, one at her tail hole, two at her feet, two at her neck, they too began to buzz and shake, trilling horrible and almost creepy feeling buzzes over her defenceless form. It filled her with dread, were they trying to make her embarrass herself too? Alone in the darkness, with just those odd feelings to keep her company, time became a crawl.

It felt like an eternity before the buzzing things switched off, having done nothing but tease and torture, never enough to make her do more than make a mess of the innermost bandage, tears having also marred the layer at her eyes. In truth an hour of that torture had passed before the sarcophagus was lifted up on an elevator of sorts. Pressed around, moved about, the door finally cracked open and the kobold was spat onto the ground, she was thrown about as the bandages unwound and retracted, pulling back into the dark embrace. She found herself being unbound from that hopeless pose. Eventually even her vision restored. The thing buried in a wall that slowly closed it off again. The kobold had a moment of reflection, her eyes were now the only visible part of her, arms weaved too, fingers made useless, nothing but sand coloured bandage hiding her scales, horns and fingers. Her legs had also been left weaved together. Right up to the hips, showing the end to unwrap there.. but she couldn't do anything to it! She thrashed her hips as her wrapped hands tried to press against it, but so covered she could do nothing. No matter how many minutes she took.

She managed to worm over to the wall by bending and stretching her knees, pressing against it, as she dragged herself to at least stand. All she could hope for was to find something in the maze that could be touched or hooked against to help out. She stumbled along the ruins, head sagging with each step, exhausted mentally now, as well as physically, having to press against a wall with both hands to hop forward. She retraced her steps, finding that there was only the one way to go... to that puzzling tile room. She dropped to her wrapped knees at seeing it, despair welling up again... but that made her look upward to the sky, and there, she saw something in the dim light. A map had been carved on the roof. Showing that there was a deeper pattern to the tiles. Had she been able to decode it fully it would have revealed no etching design was truly safe, each having at least one rogue trapping element. Some were always trapped like the last she had triggered.

P42s59 summed up her courage for one last attempt, starting on the tile she picked last time, she tried the next one out, hopping to it unsteadily. She realised she was in peril of falling, though, so sat against the floor. Slowly working her way across by luck, her trials proved right, long enough for her to start to piece it together. And soon she managed to make her way in to the middle, the puzzle on the ceiling suddenly confused her, it was unclear, but she managed to decode a safe path to the far end, wiggling slowly and surely, and miraculously, she made it. Lying down for a moment to take a sigh of relief, she shut her eyes, and relaxed, not realising how twisted with tension her insides had been in their uncertainty. Lifting to her legs, using the wall again, she hopped through the doorway. Buoyed on by hope she hopped down the corridor, this one was straight as far as the haze showed, which seemed odd, until it started to become concerning. She doubted herself, worrying if she'd missed something and then turned around, hopping back. The floor clicked, the walls bursting bandages at her. She fell under the force as the wraps moved her arms to her sides, securing them and tying them off, there were then clunking noises behind her, as the strips pulled her to her feet, dangling as if caught in a web. Another of the statues was there, its stone hand wrapping around her waist. She was already wrapped so it merely dragged her along the tunnel she had come, arriving at the puzzle room. It just dropped her over one of the tiles, the floor giving way. The hall had worse at the end, had she kept going, for the solution had been in the centre of the room, a slide-trap that would have carried one safely to the next room.

Alas, the funnel she found herself hurtling down led to that same familiar sarcophagus.

Just over an hour later. The kobold was dumped in the room again, tormented just as badly, but now with her arms still wrapped, and one eye ending up covered. She fell back, her chest heaving as she sobbed muffled cries of frustration and defeat. She just couldn't do it anymore, she wanted to leave. To get out. Hell even to sleep. And after the hour long teasing had happened for the second time, she couldn't help but feel some residual pangs in her loins. In one futile final gesture, she tried to squirm toward the door, but without the use of her hands, even that took too much time. She flopped to her side and grew still.

Legs came into view again. The swishing corner of a coat. She'd not know how long she'd sat there, but it must have been long enough if the figure came in. "P42s59, do you give up?" the question rang out, the kobold stared blankly ahead, what was the use, she'd fail again, and then what, blindfolded? Swaddled so her legs couldn't even bend? "P42s59, d-" the question stopped as with a slow, heavy motion the kobold closed her eye, and nodded.

The staff member straightened. Another one broken. He relayed a quick message via radio, and before too long a large construct, like the statues but without the theme wandered in. It went to the mummified kobold, hoisting it and tucking her under one arm before plodding through a service entrance back to the compound.

The staff member brought out a board and pen, detailing the results of the experiment, he spoke into a dictaphone. "P42s59 is broken in. Large swathes of experiment proved redundant. Fabricate some new bandages to be moisture proof. Oh... and change the code name to a nickname. From now on 'Wraps' will suffice, transfer to the service rooms. Check in a week how satisfying a mummy toy proves, and then adjust accordingly."