FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Madam Zophie's abode was a tiny, out of the way thing that rested along the sands of the beach, well away from the hustle and bustle of the large town resting upon the horizon. It had taken around a week for the vixen to find her. No one in Morningstar seemed to know the name. Neither did anyone in the neighboring towns. The vixen spent her days poking around occult and curiosity shops. Eventually, she found someone who did know of the seer, and pointed her west, to the coastal town of Barselow.

The front door was unlocked. Inside, the vixen found herself stepping into a dream. All manner of strange objects hung from the walls and ceiling. Alien instruments of glass and metal, circular wrappings of dried skin and bright golden thread, sinister tomes. Glowing bottles adorned shelves next to the stuffed remains of creatures the vixen thought couldn't possibly exist. Even the air was unnatural. It seemed to shimmer and roll, like a calm sea reflecting the starry night sky. A wrinkled owl sat at a table in the center of the room. The vixen quietly took at seat in front of her and looked the ancient female over. She did not move. In fact, it seemed like she had not moved for quite some time. Dust coated the table, the deck of strange cards upon it, and the owl herself. Cobwebs bridged the gap between her beak and the brilliant green tablecloth. At first the vixen took her for a corpse. The owl's eyes were milky and perfectly still, not straying from the center of the table before her. She made no noises or gestures at the fox's approach; no acknowledgments of any kind. Soon the vixen grew tired of the silence.

"I need information on the ancient Atei-Dha, The Waking Hunger. I was told you could help."

The owl spoke softly. Her voice was strange. Dusty, dry. The vixen felt that if she dared touch her, the shriveled bird would crumble into a fine powder. What the owl had spoken was simple; it was a price. The vixen frowned.

"I'll -- be back soon."

The vixen left for town. She would have to earn the rest. If only she hadn't taken that second bath; or at least taken it at a cheaper bath house. After a few nights she had drummed up the rest of the funds, and she journeyed back to the strange hut on the beach, an odd sway to her gait; she tried her best to walk in a way that did not irritate her sore areas further. The heavy sack dropped to the earthen floor with a loud jingle, and the vixen took her seat again. It was strange; the vixen did not believe the female had moved even an inch since last she was there.

"Now, then." The vixen leaned back and crossed her arms, waiting for answers.

The owl placed an emaciated hand upon the deck of cards at the table. Slowly, but deftly, she shuffled them, and as she shuffled she spoke in that same arenaceous voice. She spoke of kingdoms long gone, built atop the ruins of even older civilizations -- which, in turn, were built upon the corpses of even older peoples. History rolls on, she said. Soon they too would be the foundation for the new and take their place among the layers of the forgotten. No mortal can escape that fate; no mortal should try, it is the way things must be. It fosters growth. It brings change. Without this cycle of birth from death, the world would stagnate. The ancient peoples of the lands were renewed and reshaped within the flow of the cycle as well. They emerged from their caves and learned to build structures to shelter them from the harsh elements. They learned to construct simple tools. Over countless millennia, they learned the workings of their world. They learned to harness it, to shape it, to control it, to bend it to their will. The sciences flowered. Alchemy, psychology, astronomy, aetiology, biology, anthropology, ecology, and countless others. These, too, were swept up in the great flow of the universe. New ways of thinking replaced the old. Ideas are funny things, the owl stated.

She dealt cards along the table in a circle.

They are subject to the flow just as everything else, of course, but they are neigh indestructible. As long as even a single mind contained one, it was never truly gone; and that, she said, was why the the vixen and her people were all doomed. It was only a matter of time. If Atei-Dha did not devour their world first, then one of the other decaying things churning beyond the veil of reality most certainly would. The old Gods the ancient peoples had adopted and built up, empowered, constructed to such grand heights, were tore down by new ones; which in turn, were used as the cornerstones for yet newer ones. It was the closest thing to death they could experience. These ideas, these Gods -- death did not agree well with some. They fought against the natural order of things, they did not wish to be forgotten. Their desperation drove them insane. Death twisted them, reshaping them into shattered abominations of their former selves. Perhaps his former self had been some sort of God of love, fertility, or merriment; if anyone could remember, this wouldn't be happening.

The vixen was trembling. "What does it want?"

What does any God want, inquired the desiccated fowl. Lives. Souls. It wanted to be remembered and worshiped forever. The Waking Hunger found his strength in carnal means, she explained. The souls he consumes must be tempered in the fires of lust before he can accept them; what's more, they must be willing. Even if only partially. Even if it is only a tiny thought buried deep within their subconscious, they must want to be taken. They must also express this in the only one real way possible; their bodies must perform the one true act of acceptance.

The vixen stared blankly at her, knowing there was only one thing she could possibly mean; orgasm. "How do I kill it?"

She could not, the owl explained. Not truly. You could not kill that which was not alive to begin with; something that had no tangible form, that was not bound by time and space. She could, however, cripple it by severing the anchors it had placed upon this world.

"Anchors?"

Servants. Vassals. They numbered four, and they served to gather souls from this land and feed them to their master until it had the strength necessary to tear the cosmos open and manifest itself here.

The vixen's thoughts wandered back to a cold night in a small village, and to a large, grinning black wolf who had forced her to the ground and took her there among the overgrowth and distant screams.

She ground her fangs. "What do I have to do?"

Fortunately, these things were quite tangible; unfortunately, each had been granted protection by Atei-Dha. The vixen would have to sever this connection the creatures had to the corpse God, giving her only the briefest of windows to finish them. The owl slowly began to flip the cards on the table face-up. She studied their faces for a few moments before speaking. One, the nearest, lay in wait under the thick Barselow marshlands. Gluttony was the key to his undoing, the owl stated solemnly. Another lurked among the shifting sands of the wastes. Greed was the key to his undoing. The third hid in plain sight, stalking the streets of Pauloa city. Wrath was the key to her undoing. The fourth resided in the king's palace, deep in the heart of the capitol. Lust was the key to his undoing.

"What does that even mean?"

She owl said the meanings were for the vixen to discover, herself. She returned to the initial posture and pose the vixen had found her in, saying that she had given the vixen all that was needed to destroy the servants of Atei-Dha.

Outside, the vixen walked along the beach, the roar of the ocean droning on inside her racing mind. Home would not see her, but it shouldn't be hard to spread an anonymous message around the kingdom's demon-hunting underworld that revealed all she had learned thus far; without doubt, it would eventually reach the council's ears. She turned back to stare at the tiny shanty, and found the beach desolate.

"Then what?" she wondered to herself.

It would take time for the message to reach them if it weren't outright dismissed before it could even gain enough momentum; and if it did reach them, then what? They would most likely continue tabling it, and when they finally saw the looming threat, it would be much, much too late. She no longer had any friends inside the guild; no one with a reputation respectable enough to allow their voice to be heard a little louder than all the others that constantly rained down upon the council begging for increased funding, relocation, an endless parade of petty, tedious shit. Excommunication, she observed, was a bitch.

"Fuck them, then," the vixen said to the air.

She was owed a few favors. Of course, she had been saving them for absolute emergency, but she supposed this was as good an emergency as any. She could be fully equipped and supplied within a few days. She would show them. She would shove her accomplishments right down their goddamn throats and show them. She grinned to herself as she strode back to town. Pride, it seemed, was the key to her undoing.

*****

The Barselow marshes were not very pleasant to look at. What wasn't covered in putrid, brown muck was host to ugly and twisted fungi. The trees and plants that grew there were vicious, covered in barbs and thorns, and seemed to exist only to dig themselves into the vixen's extremities as she slopped her way past them. She had been wandering for hours. She saw no animals -- she saw no insects, for that matter. Nothing seemed to live in the swamp besides the hateful shrubbery.

"Maybe the old bitch wasn't so smart after all," the vixen idly whispered.

She was a little tired and hungry. What the hell kind of evil, soul-eating, retarded lapdog would choose to live so far away from anything -- y'know, with a soul -- anyway? Burs from overhanging branches caught in her headfur for around the thirtieth time in that half-hour, and yanked her backwards as she struggled to keep her balance.

"Ok. That's enough of this," she thought.

She turned around, her heart sinking as she thought of how far she'd trudged into the damn marshlands looking for whatever in the hell it was she was supposed to be looking for, and how long it would take to return to civilization. She was going to sell all this junk and buy a nice meal when she got back; her favors had acquired for her a nice suit of sturdy chitin armor, a beautiful falchion she kept at her waist, and an expertly carved longbow she had swung over her back. She trudged back the way she came, grumbling.

Her foot caught underneath the arch of a tree's root, hidden by the thick sludge. She fell forward, her paws hitting the ground and propping her face up just inches away from the churning muck. Getting back to her feet, she felt the nasty water leak past her armor and through her clothes, soaking the fur of her chest and crotch. She raised her hands in disgust.

"God -- DAMN IT!"

She made to rake the muck from her chest plate when something large and blue caught her eye. It clung to her front, just over her stomach. She blinked at it, confused, until it stiffened and jerked her down into the muck. She was dragged along the bottom, roots and jagged rocks slashing at her exposed flesh. Quickly she unbuckled the straps holding the armor to her chest. It yanked itself over her head, and she burst from underneath the sludge with a gasp. The armor shot from the muck and into the mouth of a red toad. He swallowed it with a grin. The vixen stood dumbfounded and dripping with sludge. He was huge. Flabby. A simple loincloth hung at his waist. The vixen watched the bulge of her armor and bow work its way down his throat where it disappeared into the bulge of his protruding gut.

"Hello," it croaked to her nonchalantly.

The vixen stood agape for a few moments before turning on her heels and furiously pumping her legs through the heavy bog. In a few instants she felt a strong tug from underneath her tail. Looking back, she found the same blue glob attached to the seat of her armor, and her eyes followed its trail back into the toad's mouth. Again she hit the muck from a powerful yank. The thing had pulled her to his feet before she could slip the snug armor over her hips. She exploded from the surface and stumbled away from the toad, wiping the grime from her eyes, while it swallowed the rest of her equipment.

He chirred behind her. "Wait. This will be so much more enjoyable for you if you would just accept it."

She did not stop moving.

"We don't have to get right to it," he called after her. "I am more than willing to start slow, give you time to adjust. This is something to be savored."

He heaved a dejected sigh as she continued her escape; they never listened to reason. His tongue shot from his mouth, a blue bolt of lightning, and wrapped itself around the vixen's waist. She screamed as she was whipped through the air and pulled into the toad's mouth. Her claws clamped down upon his upper and lower jaws and she pulled with all her might. Muffled chuckles sent vibrations through the vixen's body, the toad's strong throat muscles holding her legs tight. His mouth closed, and she was adrift in darkness. Her arms ached. Soon her grip loosened, and the toad's slick throat clenched and pulled her down into his esophagus. The pressure was uncomfortable. The vixen was squeezed tight against the toad's fleshy walls, and a quick succession of gulps worked her down into his stomach. The vixen panted heavily in the absolute black. She felt herself sitting in a pool of liquid that came up to her waist. It smelled oddly sweet, and left everything it touched with a tingling sensation. Her claws dug into the toad's insides and she raked them down the mucous-covered wrinkles surrounding her with a blind fury. The toad's chuckles shook his great belly, sending the vixen bouncing in the dark. Suddenly, she realized she was nude, the sloshing juices of the toad having eaten away the simple clothes she had worn underneath her armor. As she opened her mouth and drew a great breath, preparing to scream a large string of every obscenity she knew at the giggling amphibian, something forced itself into her mouth; something slick and phallic. The vixen immediately bit down as hard as she could. It didn't seem to mind. She chewed viciously, but the thing was far too rubbery to break. The vixen eventually gave up trying to sever it and grasped hold of the tentacle with both paws, yanking it from her dripping muzzle. It gently wrapped itself around her waist, and she struggled to force it down past her hips. Sudden contact with her tingling entrance caused her to break into wild flailing. She kicked and screamed, clawed and brayed, rolling in the toad's digestive juices. Soon the walls of the toad's stomach came alive. She felt tentacles press against her stomach and underneath her tail. They fell with gentle slaps across her muzzle and snaked their way through her headfur. They wrapped around her tail and gave slight tugs. Panicking, she doubled her efforts. Her wild movements did little to protect her sensitive areas, and quickly the tentacles moved in for the kill. Feral, angry moans issued from her as she felt her orifices filled. While she grasped for the thick crook that churned into her wet honey pot, another took the opportunity to squeeze itself up her stomach and between her pressed breasts. The vixen tried stopping it, but another quickly shoved itself into her open maw. She feebly clutched it, her movements and thoughts slowly being numbed by the building tides of pleasure washing over her. The tentacles swirling inside her lower body pistoned in steady rhythm, one burying itself under her tail as the other pulled out of her budding flower. As soon as the vixen managed to pull one from inside of her, another would distract her already fuzzy attention long enough for it to simply slip back in and continue merrily pounding away while the vixen grunted her wanton lust and shakily tried her best to resist the writhing mass. The toad stood in ecstacy, eyes half-shut. He rolled and massaged his belly, his large member pushing aside his simple loincloth and straining upward against the girth of his stomach. He felt himself draw close, and let himself tumble over the edge. Thick spurts shot from his throbbing cock and mingled with the muck at his feet. The tentacles inside stiffened, momentarily distracted. The vixen pulled them from herself as quickly as she could, scratching and biting in a whirlwind of claws and fangs. Wide oozing gashes opened up along the toad's walls and the pain quickly crowded out his momentary pleasure. He screamed. The vixen dug into his flesh, ripping and tearing pawfuls from him in her berserked, desperate attack. Within only a few seconds, her lambasting claws met with the outside air. Light poured into the toad's cavernous insides from the large hole. He toppled over onto his back, legs thrashing in the muck. His lungs finally gave out after a few minutes, and he lay still in the bog. The vixen clawed her way out of the toad's belly and fell over his corpse, bloodied, panting, and oozing. She quickly reconsidered her decision to leave the guild uninvolved.