FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

With all of that done I find that there is a flat table with a sign to put my staff on it followed by a large pair of doors that have no handle to speak of. Guessing what it wants me to do I place my staff down and the moment I move away the staff is lowered into the ground on the table it's on and then the doors open up, leading me to come face to face with four other people, all of which look very different and not a single one has any sign of malice. Nor are any of them wearing those hazmat suits that everyone was wearing on the other side of things.

"So you're our new mage hmm?" The one in front says. Their appearance is somewhat strange. Their body doesn't seem to be constructed normally. The arms and proportions of the chest are extremely strange. On top of that even the features on the face are definitely off, with the ears far more forward and the eyes more on the side of the head. They look down with one eye at the thing on their own arm, making me realize it made me give up my staff but not the arm thing, though I definitely now feel a bit slower and weaker than I had a moment before. I also notice that I can no longer seem to call up the power I had before, making me wonder if it came from that staff or something else. Beyond that they seem to be some sort of strange hybrid with features that seem reminiscent of a deer, a big cat and a lizard all at the same time. "So what do we have here. Looks like we've gotten a late-game mage. And a single target one at that. Hmm, I can work with that."

"What does that mean?" I ask, finding the sudden change in demeanor completely strange and somewhat off-putting. I'm not panicking probably because of that stuff they put in me to keep me calm. But when I was done with that tutorial thing I did not expect something like this right away. My ears and tail seem to adopt a more passive stance and my hands clasp each other in front of me, half wishing I still had that staff just for something to hold on to.

"Don't sweat it," the one that was talking says. "It's just as well all things considered. You see there's actually a whole bunch that they don't put in the tutorials because it breaks emersion or something? I don't know. I understand why no written words since we aren't given the ability to read just about anything outside of these little doohickeys," he says, gesturing with his little arm thing. "But these have limitations. The important thing of note in what I said has to deal with power scaling. I am more of an early-mid character. As time goes on, we get more items and become stronger so long as we are farming the minions efficiently. During the early game my power curve goes up really quickly, but sort of tapers off into the mid-game. So I have to actually learn two different play styles. During the beginning I go for hurting them quickly and abusing my advantage and then eventually switch out to a more defensive or setup role. You are a late game character. Meaning that you will be fairly weak at the start, but as the match goes on you become more and more powerful. Late-game, the amount of damage you and our AD can pump out will be far greater than anything I can do, even if I was given full burst items. Like I think last life end game your character is probably one of the most dangerous ones you can come across."

"Asher, let him in before the drugs wear off, already," one of the others complain while pulling the one back. This one seems to be like a huge elephant but with scales and small little wings.

"Sorry," Asher says. "I can get carried away at times."

"At any rate," the elephant one says. "Everything you've just dealt with, we have as well. You can feel at ease here with us. Your control chip does not work in this location. And through thick and thin for the time being we will be as close to a family as you are likely to get. Now for the introductions. The one you just met is our jungler and his name is Asher. I am our support and my name is Genis. That," he points at one that looks almost like a fuzzy little squirrel but with two heads, though like a squirrel they stand a bit shorter than I am. Currently one is paying attention to me while the other seems to be completely bored and trying to find something else to do. "Is Yonya. Yonya is a bit of an odd-case and the two will constantly bicker and fight, but they'll focus well enough when we're in a match."

"Were they two people?" I ask.

"Nope," Genis says, "just had his process split his mind in two. And finally there's Beoulitha," he points over to the one furthest in the back. "She's our solo. Unfortunately, you probably won't get that much more conversation from her anymore. She's too far gone. I imagine pretty soon we'll end up getting a replacement for her as well. Hopefully she can last long enough to get you into the swing of things before saddling us with another rookie."

"Anyway, we should go ahead and give you your customary bucket of cream," Asher says while moving towards a large rectangular thing and opening it up and bringing out what looks like a very large thermos. He scrounges around and gets out a spoon. He walks over and then hands them over to me. I take them and open up the lid, looking at it in a bit of confusion. Partly on why he would just hand this over without any real explanation. On if this is supposed to be my dinner or something. It looks almost like ice cream, though the smell is extremely foreign. Asher moves forward and reseals the top.

"Later. Just take it with you for now. You'd only waste it eating it now."

"What is it?"

"Cream," Asher says. "Trust me on this. Everyone here has experienced just about everything you have. We know what you've gone through and what you will go through. Currently you're calm because of the drugs they put into your serum. But in a little while those are going to wear off and the full weight of everything that has been done to you is going to come crashing in on you all at once. And that," he taps the top of the thermos, "is cold, is sweet and soft. When you start feeling like your world is crashing down just go ahead and excuse yourself, go find some dark corner, have yourself a good cry and chow down. Won't make things right, but at least it'll make you feel better."

I can feel the ground suddenly start shifting and everyone else just seems to take it in stride. Myself, however, especially on still fairly new legs almost falls over but Asher is quick enough to grab me to steady me again.

"What was that?" I ask, looking around.

"Oh, they're just moving us to our end position. Haven't actually seen how they do it but everything you see here is our living quarters," Asher says as he puts one arm around me and guides me further into their area. He also goes about taking his arm thing off, and from that I notice that he was the only one that was wearing one. "But this place is self-contained and can be moved around as they see fit. They had moved us to the tutorial exit to pick you up and are now returning us to our default location. They don't really want us wandering around much so they just move our homes where they need us instead." He moves up to a table and places his arm thing down on top of it. With the introductions mostly done Yonya wanders off elsewhere, and Genis hangs back but lets Asher take the initiative. "I'd probably suggest you take yours off as well and put it in your room. There are a lot of things that you could be told that will be rather helpful for you to learn, but at the same time you are also far more likely to hurt yourself when you try and break it in retaliation or something. As for this place, you can think of it as your home. Anything you can get to you can consider to be free to go to at any time. There is a private room for you to sleep. You'll be able to tell which room is yours by they're all hand print locked, so the one that has a reader shaped like your hand is the one that's yours. If you want to go into someone else's room you just have to knock and if they don't let you in, then you don't get to go in. But they will activate the chip if you try and hide or refuse to go to a match. Beyond that it'll never activate here."

I nod and make a gesture that I think is a small smile, though how well it conveys on this different form I cannot tell. I don't really feel like talking back in response, simply feeling like exploring the place a bit and perhaps finding my room so I know where to retreat to when the drugs start closing in on me. I half wonder if it was wise to have something like ice cream just staying out but the outside of the thermos doesn't feel cold, so it must be very well insulated. I walk around and see a living area, an area that Yonya seems to have settled in and is currently arguing with themselves about what they want to do to occupy their time. They are an extremely strange individual, least of all because I can detect both the scent of a female and a male from them, making it very difficult to place which gender they are. There is a sort of bathroom and when I look in it there are actually a few toilets set aside, though it is still like a home setup rather than the business one with stalls. Instead there are three toilets all along the wall, likely a result of what size one needs. There's a little tiny one, a normal sized one and that seems to be jumbo-sized and reinforced. Which I suppose makes sense. I doubt Genis would be able to use the other two without breaking them.

I find a hallway with a bunch of rooms with a large slightly protruding panel. I look at it and then look at my hand, going to the first one and noting that it is far too large for me, as is the next one. The one on the other side of the hall is much too small. The one past it looks to be normal sized but when I go to put my hand on top of it I find that the finger lengths don't match. My fingers are far too long for this hand, even though the hand on this panel looks like an ordinary hand. The next one on this side is completely empty, leaving me with one last option. So I get to be the last room in the hall. I put my hand to this last one, finding that it matches my hand perfectly and the door opens automatically and silently. My room is far more spacious than I would have figured given everything. But then it is effectively a mobile home and they do need to provide some means of comfort. I actually find that there's a mini-fridge in my room and seeing nothing in it I just place my thermos of cream there for now.

I move up to the bed and press against it and find it rather firm to the touch but since I'm in a new body it I can't exactly say if it'll be good for me or not. I do notice that this room seems to be kept at a slightly lower temperature than the one outside. But I guess with fur I wouldn't need as warm of a temperature. I get up to the closet and open it up and find that there is an entire wardrobe set aside for me. There are quite a few that are just like the outfit that I'm wearing right now as well as a hamper right inside the closet attached to the back wall. So I'm guessing that anything I put in there will immediately be put aside to be washed. The rest of the clothing seems more designed for comfort than function with a lot of soft, well breathing fabrics and even a few more revealing outfits. Shrugging, I decide to go ahead and change clothes while I am here, noting that the others didn't follow me in here, probably just letting me do things on my own. But then again, it's not like I can really go anywhere.

I'm sure if I were to try and hurt myself then the chip would activate and stop me. Though that does bring to question on if the chip has any way of knowing what I am doing right now. Or more accurately if the people in control of the chip can see me. I don't see any cameras but given they can do this to me I imagine they can hide a camera pretty effectively. I suppose, though, that that might be why the chips aren't used against us here. Not only would there be no point most of the time, but there'd be far more issues in knowing what all we're doing if we are allowed some privacy here. Though I do finally get to see one thing I haven't been able to do since coming here and that is have access to a mirror. While I am stripped down to just my underwear I walk over and take a look at myself in the mirror. I look like a giant, bipedal animal. A fox would be what looks the most similar, especially in regards to the shape of my mouth. Opening my mouth up a bit I do have quite a bit of teeth, though it does look somewhat odd. It doesn't look like what you'd expect in a dog's mouth. The really long canine teeth are still there, but my molars look almost human, just far more of them. My eyes also seem to be almost normal looking, just that they changed the color of my eyes to this light blue that is so vibrant I almost wonder if they're glowing slightly.

I do definitely seem to be in really great shape. The fur on my chest is actually somewhat thick though far thinner around my stomach and I can actually see a six pack beneath the fur of my stomach. I look down at it and rub it with my hand. It is a very strange thing indeed as I had always assumed that that would be something someone else would have and never myself. Overall there seems to be a rather long stripe of white fur going from the bottom half of my face, down my neck and chest and stopping at my inner thigh. Outside of that stripe is orange except for ears, hands and feet which all seem to be a dark brown. My head tilts to the side as I notice something else that looks somewhat odd. The top of my head does have hair on it now, though it's not like what I would expect. Instead of individual hairs behaving like human hair or like a mane you'd see on some animals, it just looks like the fur on the rest of my body. I reach up and grab at it and it is still very long, easily a good six to seven inches long and longer at the back. The fur at the back of my neck I can pull away about a foot. And that is even after considering the fact that I seem to have a bit of a fold of skin at the back of my neck on top of it all. It's like the fur on the top of my head behaves like hair, but stays as just fur.

But for the time being I should probably get dressed. It's not like it'll do me all that much good just ogling my own body. I go back into my closet and find that there are quite a few outfits available. There is almost two completely different selections. One section is full of outfits that are pretty much identical to the one I was given beforehand. The other side are much more casual-looking wear. Very simple clothes that are more just durable and comfortable and don't really do much in regards to fashion. I grab a pair of what looks almost like a pair of jeans and a simple shirt. It'll be a slight return to normalcy at the very least. I put them all on, close my closet and take another look at the mirror. The clothes don't really look all that good on me. Or more accurately they don't look natural on me. Even just casually staring at the mirror I get more of the impression of a model posing for casual wear in some magazine of some sort than someone just wearing clothing, albeit a very fuzzy model. But I consider a moment that it is probably far more a combination of me not feeling like I fit in my own body right now coupled with the fact I'm not used to being in this good of shape that just about anything would look like I'm posing for a magazine. Heck, if I wasn't so concerned at seeing just what all this new body looks like I probably could have come to the similar conclusion of being an underwear model. Sighing and taking one last look at the mini-fridge where the thing of cream waits for when everything comes crashing down I move to leave the room, intent on trying to figure out who all these people are and what passes for normal until that point.