FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Chapter Three - Sigil

---

Cass did not hear from Thomas for the rest of the weekend or even into the start of the week. On Wednesday, the first day her history class met, Cass mentally rehearsed her portion of the presentation over her chicken Caesar salad, stirring around the greens idly with her fork. The ferret girl felt confident about the presentation, but the public speaking portion was enough to rattle her, if only slightly. Her classmates slowly began to filter into the classroom as she continued eating, and she noticed Thomas enter in. He pulled up one of the desks to sit next to her.

Mouth still partially full, Cass spoke up first. "How's it going? You ready?"

Thomas nodded meekly in a wordless reply.

"What's wrong?" She asked, sensing trepidation in the fennec.

"I get nervous speaking in front of others. I'm sorry. I won't let it be a problem." Cass noticed that the Sophomore was avoiding eye contact with her.

"Why are you apologizing? We've got this. You practiced, right?" She felt confident that he had, quite extensively in fact, judging based on her previous observations of his work ethic.

"Practiced? Yes, of course I did. Group presentations like these tend to freak me out a little bit so I make sure that I prepare in excess." His response seemed to inspire some confidence in his abilities, which made Cass feel a little better. "By the way, what are you doing after class? I asked my friend if he was busy and he said he didn't have anything scheduled at work yet. I figured he could unlock that door for us if you were up for it."

Cass finished chewing the last bite of her salad. "Actually, my only plans for the rest of the afternoon were homework. I don't see why I couldn't go with you."

"Oh that's great! Well, that will give me something to look forward to after class, and a reason to stay on campus a bit longer." Thomas spoke evenly, but the tip of his tail twitching betrayed a quiet excitement. Cass gave a discreet smirk as she unpacked her laptop in preparation for the presentation.

Cass and Thomas presented second, which was possibly the best slot in which to present. The first presenting group has to set the bar high, but presenting second was close enough to the beginning to where Cass didn't have to brood over it for the entire class period. During their presentation, the ferret girl noticed that Thomas's voice was quite shaky and betrayed his nerves, but as he continued his stammering lessened considerably.

The rest of class was spent taking notes on the other students' presentations--Cass anticipated an exam question regarding their general content--but no new assignments were announced other than Friday's reading. The ferret girl was thankful for the reprieve, since she had more than enough homework to keep her busy until the end of the semester.

After the final presentation, the instructor, a middle-aged lagomorph woman, ended the class with her concluding remarks. Cass and Thomas packed up their laptop computers and stood almost in unison from the desks that were too small for any adult to sit in comfortably.

"So how do you feel we did?" Thomas asked. "You kind of carried me through the presentation. I'm sorry I was nervous."

Cass pushed open the door to the humanities building, holding it open for the fennec. "Carried you? Hardly! You did great, and were an excellent partner to work with. Call me biased, but I think our presentation was probably the best."

"You think so? It's hard not to feel good about it when you talk like that. Well, I suppose only time will tell how well we did." With that, he pulled out his smart phone. "Here, let me call my friend up. I hope he doesn't mind."

Thomas talked to this unnamed Campus Safety officer as they made their way across the green lawn. Although the sky held scarcely a cloud, the sunny afternoon did little to keep the chill out of the damp November air. This was further evidenced by the clouds of condensing water vapor forming around the mouths of the students crossing the quad.

"Great! Thanks for the help, Brian. See you soon." Thomas locked his phone and slipped it back into his pocket. "Brian says he will meet us there. Lucky for us, it's been a slow day for him."

"Campus Safety is like, the only job where it's a good thing if your day is slow."

"Very true." He paused as they continued walking. "So how are your finals looking this term?"

Ugh. Finals: The dreaded gauntlet that every undergraduate student must pass through to be deemed worthy to receive their degree. "Well I'm not going to lie and say I'm looking forward to them. My analytical chemistry class is probably going to be the hardest. We have to design an experiment utilizing the techniques we've learned over the semester. On the bright side, we'll have time to work on it before the finals period. On the dark side, we pretty much _have_to work on it before the finals period if we want to pass. How about you?"

"I can never seem to do better than B's on my Physics finals no matter how much I seem to study. I feel like the A is being hung over my head, taunting me."

Fennec and ferret continued across the campus, discussing the topics that studious college students favored, until they reached the auditorium they had visited earlier in the week. Thomas pulled the door open and held it for Cass. As she walked through, he looked behind him to see Brian, a short but almost intimidatingly toned mouse, strolling across the brick forecourt to the dated building. Thomas waited for him and ushered him into the atrium. "Hey Brian, good to see you!" Thomas remarked cheerfully. Brian was uniformed in the official-looking Campus Safety uniform, and his ring of keys jingled as he walked. "Let me introduce you to my new friend Cass. Cass, this is Brian. He's pretty much the coolest person on Campus Safety."

Cass, not one to let her shyness become apparent to strangers, held out her hand authoritatively, which Brian shook with an unsurprisingly firm grip. Man, even his tail looks ripped, Cass thought, but she made sure her observations stayed where they belonged. "Nice to meet you. Thanks for taking time out of your work day to come meet with us."

"It's no problem! Gives me something to do." As they began walking down the hall, with Brian leading, he turned to Thomas and said "Although if word gets out that I let you in here and it comes back on me, I swear to god I won't be the only one out of work, Thomas." His tone was not one of anger, but a stern warning. Regardless, it had its desired effect on the meek fox. "Hey, don't worry, we're just gonna go in, prove Cass that there's not a bomb shelter down there, and get out."

Brian unlocked one of the double doors and pushed it open before relocking it. He gave the two of them a knowing smile. "Uh-huh. Sure you are." With a smug grin on his face, the mouse all but winked at the two of them.

"What? No, you've got it all wrong--"

"Door's closing, fellas!" Brian said from behind him, already walking away.

Cass caught the door almost as it closed into the latch. Thomas, on the other hand, stood watching Brian leave with an unimpressed look.

"Are you coming?" Cass asked, holding the door open for her new friend. Thomas nodded and slipped through the doorway. "You'll have to forgive Brian. He's kind of a tool."

"Every tool has its uses," Cass said, realizing only after she said it how apt a phrase it was. She switched on the light and old-fashioned fluorescent fixtures flickered into life above them. A narrow stairway led down and, forming a landing, snaked out of sight. The two followed the steps down to a lower level where another door awaited them, this one unlocked, thankfully.

This new room was unlit and the two college students could not make out much through the dim light from the stairwell. As their eyes adjusted, Thomas had an idea. "Thank god for smart phones!" He exclaimed, reaching into his pocket. He turned on the flashlight and spun it around the room slowly enough to look for any switches that could control the lights.

"Well what the heck. It's just a big, empty room. I can't even see any light switches on the wall. But there are fixtures on the ceiling so there has to be one down here."

"Look over there, there's a wall that looks like it leads to a hallway or something," Cass said, and nearly interrupted herself. "Wait a second. Thomas, turn off the flashlight for a sec."

"What? Why?" He asked, although he obliged her request anyway.

"I thought I saw something. Like, a glowing something. Yeah, see, look!"

As Thomas's eyes adjusted to the blackness, he noticed a nearly imperceptibly faint cyan glow coming from where the hallway began. "I see it. Let's check it out." He turned on his phone's flashlight again and Cass followed him through the eerie basement.

They rounded the corner and what they thought to be a hallway was simply an alcove within the room. This hardly mattered, however, compared to what was tucked into the alcove - the source of the glowing.

A strange, arcane symbol was engraved into the wall about twenty feet away from the two college students. The symbol consisted of a series of concentric circles, the largest of which stretched nearly from floor to ceiling, containing a series of roman numerals in the appearance of a clock face. A hexagram was inscribed in this circle, intersecting six of the twelve symbols of this face. In turn, inscribed within the hexagram was another circle, which contained the Eye of Providence, a crescent moon, an ankh, and a circular object Cass reasoned to be the sun or full moon in a clockwise pattern.

The most striking portions of the glyph, however, were those portions that gave off light. Three thin circles of light emanated from the three vertices of the upright triangle of the hexagram. In the center of this strange inscription, a handprint-shaped symbol emitted a pulsing cyan light that caused the hallway to be bathed in a faint bluish hue.

Cass and Thomas made eye contact in unison, and stared at each other unbelievingly, as if to say to each other, is this a dream? "I don't think this is a bomb shelter," Cass said quietly. The two of them inched forward toward the strange symbol, Thomas keeping his light on it the whole time. "Let me get a picture of this," she said, pulling out her own smart phone. "Keep the light on it for me, would ya?" The ferret girl snapped a few photos before putting it away. By now the two were within two feet from the wall. Cass wondered to herself if the symbols had begun glowing with increasing fervor or whether she just perceived that they had.

Cass gazed at the blue handprint at the center, wondering what these symbols meant. Tentatively, she reached out and almost placed her hand on top of the symbol before Thomas hastily pushed her arm away.

"Hey! What was that for?"

Thomas was quick to apologize, and he was talking so quickly Cass was surprised he didn't trip over his words. "I'm sorry, I hope I didn't hurt you, I'm not superstitious but I've got a really bad feeling about glowy blue symbols that defy explanation."

Cass scoffed. "Oh come on. I'm sure there's just a light or something in the wall that is making these glow. Just because the lights are off doesn't mean someone hasn't been down here recently. Besides, what will it do when I touch it? Open up a wormhole or something?"

"Look, call me crazy but I would rather not find out. Please, can we just... Can we just go?" The expression on Thomas's was nearly one of panic.

"Okay, fine--But only because I don't want you to pass out on me," Cass nearly growled, a tone she didn't often take with people she didn't feel comfortable around.

The two of them turned around and began to walk out, but no sooner had they walked a few paces when Cass whirled around and slammed her right hand square in the center of the engraved handprint.

A crackling of energy identical in hue and luminescence to the glowing emitted by the glyph surged through her arm and throughout her body, enveloping the ferret girl from head to toe. A fuzzy feeling began to come over here, as if her body was being dosed with an anesthetic.

Thomas reacted almost immediately, shocked expression on his face as he turned around and did the first thing he thought of: try to remove his new friend from being in physical contact with the wall. He grabbed the ferret girl by the shoulders and attempted to pull, but realized too late how poorly thought through this plan was. Not only was the ferret girl rooted in place, but he found himself overcome with the same energy that enveloped Cass.

Completely conscious but experiencing a strange, uncomfortable sensation neither had the ability to explain, the two found themselves blinded by the increasingly brilliant aura surrounding them. The energy around them sparked like a decorative plasma globe that crescendoed into a furious crackling. Then, with a rush of air, they vanished, leaving the room completely devoid of light.