FSE

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Tomasz walked up to the mansion that he shared, returning from his trip. It was a rather eventful journey, he gathered a bit of magical artifacts, learned a few things, and more. The blue-furred lion didn't think much to himself when he noticed that the mansion seemed to be a little more quiet than normal, as he walked up to it. He brought his hand to the door and pulled.

Yet the door didn't budge. He blinked and pulled on the door again. It didn't move. That's funny, the mansion was in a bit of an out of the way location - it was rarely if -ever- locked. Locking it was so rare that he didn't even think to bring a house key with him. (Part of the reason for that was also that the keys tended to go missing when that Tera fellow brought a Klefki into the mansion...) He reached up to the knocker and knocked on the door several times.

He figured somebody had to be awake, and the lion wasn't about to walk into the house via a window, or simply teleporting in. Not long before he thought of warping in, the door opened up. He blinked as he saw a somewhat familiar figure on the other side, it was the rather large bull, clad in nothing but a towel around his waist. Tomasz recognized the bovine, it was Doug again.

"...I wasn't aware you were taking a shower this time of night." He said to the bovine.

"Nonsense, come on in." The bovine said, stepping to the side.

Despite this, he couldn't help but think there was something suspicious about the bovine. As he stepped past the eight-foot tall minotaur, he glanced at his shirtless body. He seemed to be standing a little too still. As he took several more steps in, he heard the door closing.

"...Why are you locking the door?" Tomasz asked.

"No reason." He turned around, "We had a few intruders."

"Hm." He said, "So is there anybody else who is awake at the moment?"

"Tera is in the main room." The bovine held up his arm towards the main room.

"...Alright."

He still couldn't help but shake that nagging suspicion that something was up with that ungulate. The bovine seemed to be... standing up a little too straight? Still, the lion walked into the main room, where he could see the prism dragoness Tera Ezeri sitting on one of the couches, reading some kind of book. Probably in Japanese.

Before he could say anything, shi set the book on hir lap.

"Hello Tomasz, welcome home." Shi said, placing the book to the side as shi stood up, giving the blue lion a gentle curtsy.

He couldn't help but see that there was something a little odd about hir movements as well. Shi seemed to be only making one set of movements at a time, like shi was maybe thinking oddly. He noticed something at hir wings, they seemed to be a bit... off.

"Hello Tera." He said, crossing his arms, "That's strange..."

"Whatever is the matter?" Tera took a few steps closer to him. Tomasz noted that the dragoness had a bit of a weird walk to hir, too... like shi was picking up each foot and setting it down, rather than trying to stride.

"Are you... feeling alright?" He asked.

"Never better." The dragoness said, walking closer to him.

"We are doing juuuust fine." He heard Doug speak.

Tomasz turned around, seeing the bull walk into the room. Just like Tera, he seemed to be doing that... odd walk.

"Something's not right." He said, walking up to the bovine, "Are you sure you are okay, Doug?" He waved his paw in front of the bovid muzzle.

The bull didn't respond. Tomasz waved his paw in front of the bovine muzzle again. He then turned to the prism dragoness, and waved his paw in front of hir muzzle.

"Are you okay?" Tera asked.

"There's something wrong here." He said, before stopping. He turned his attention towards the prism dragoness's neck.

"What is the matter?" Tera asked again.

"There's something on your neck," Tomasz said, reaching his hand up to Tera's neck, around the base close to hir shoulder.

Shi leaned away from his hand as he reached out.

"What are you doing?! Get your hands off me."

Tomasz took several steps away from the two after that. The dragoness and the bovine turned to face him.

"You're not Tera. And you're not Doug." Tomasz said, pointing at the two.

"Are you sure we're the ones who are not feeling alright?" The bovine asked.

"I am pretty sure." Tomasz said, "First off, your movements are off. Second, when I moved my paw in front of your faces, your eyes didn't follow. Third." He looked at Tera, "You said 'get your hands off me'. Tera would -never- say THAT. What happened to your neck?"

Doug and Tera turned to face each other. They seemed to almost glide over, raising another red flag. Tomasz then took a look at the bull's neck, seeing two black dots around the base. That was just what he saw on Tera's neck... they looked like some kind of a bite mark.

"Not only that," Tomasz continued, "You don't look wet or anything, why are you wearing a towel around your waist?"

"I walked out of the shower." The bovine didn't even turn to face the lion.

"And you didn't put any clothes on." he said, "You normally aren't one to wear nothing, especially when Tera is around. I know what Tera did once."

Against all judgment, he reached over to doug's waist and yanked the towel away. Tera and Doug seemed to react slowly, before Doug seemed to jump back, hands covering his crotch. But before he did that, Tomasz saw all he needed to. He didn't even notice Tera blushing out of the corner of his eye.

"Wh...what on earth?!" Tomasz took more steps back, "Y-You're not even real."

The two turned to Tomasz.

"Oh. We -were- real." They both said in unison.

"Were?!"

It was then that Tomasz noticed something odd. There were a few bits of shimmering light above the two figures... almost like wires of some kind. Their forms seemed to shimmer for a bit. He stared at them and gasped.

Rather than flesh and blood creatures, the dragoness and the minotaur appeared to have gained a rather grainy looking wooden texture. Just as if they were carved out of wood. Most startlingly, he noticed the seams across their bodies. Their joints were indicated by seams - and in fact, there was a notable seam around the bases of their necks and around their waist. He gasped again as he stared at their faces. Their mouths were literally blocks that opened and closed, operated by another seam. (Complete with a visible screw on the sides!). Their eyes didn't blink at all, until that was, he looked at Tera. With a small click, hir eyes made a blink, fake eyelids covering hir wooden eyes. That explained what he saw earlier - there was nothing between their legs, they were "G" rated puppets.

"Y-You're puppets."

"Of course." The Tera puppet said.

"That's a nice trick, now where are the real Tera and Doug? How're you doing the voices?"

"That's because we -are- Tera and Doug." Tera said, holding out hir arm to place around Tomasz's shoulder, "We just are a little... different."

He backed away from the dragoness.

"What are those holes on your neck?" He asked.

"We were fed upon." The Doug puppet said.

"W-What?! A vampire?"

"Nope." Tera said, "By him."

Before Tomasz could respond, he felt some tugging sensations. He was lifted up off of the ground. He tried to struggle, but he seemed to be stuck by whatever had ensnared him.

"What?! A puppet master?!"

"Oh yes." Doug said.

"H-He turned you into these!" Tomasz struggled again.

"Of course." Tera said, "We are still Tera and Doug. We're just different for now."

He was yanked higher and higher up.

"L-LEt me go!"

"We're not doing anything, we're just being the good puppets we are!" the Tera puppet said, making a shrug.

Tomasz was then lifted higher and higher towards the ceiling. He looked around. All he could see was that there was some kind of webbing on the ceiling, like a spider had set up shop... a rather -big- spider at that. He could see several wooden control bars dangling from the webs, no doubt the ones that were controlling the two anthros who were turned into puppets.

Struggling, he fought against the strings to reach for those control bars. They seemed to slide away, tugged by other strings. The lion simply growled a bit, preparing some magic. Wherever this thing was... who turned Tera and Doug into puppets, they will pay. He kept looking around the web, almost challenging the creature to show himself.

However Tomasz felt himself pulled up again, suddenly feeling something warm against his back. He looked to his right, just in time to see a rather large, chitinous head against his neck. Before he could do anything, there was a piercing sensation at his neck.

"N-NO!" He gasped, as he felt his muscles starting to go limp.

At first he simply felt his head leaning to the side, eyes seeming to roll up into his head. He stopped them though, snapping back into reality. Almost every muscle in his body was paralyzed, he hung limply. He tried to struggle a little bit, only for his body to feel like it was filled with concrete. Despite this, he could still blink. He felt his jaw sliding open all of a sudden, before it slapped closed with an audible, wooden clank.

The spider pulled its body away from the lion, releasing some kind of sigh in relief... or contentment, like he had eaten a big meal of some kind. Tomasz felt himself falling all of a sudden, and he fell limply onto the ground, his body releasing several dull clanks as it fell. Suddenly, Tomasz stood up completely straight, hovering off the floor a little bit before his wooden paws landed on the ground. He felt himself turned to face the wooden bull and the dragoness.

"Are you sure you are feeling okay?" the Tera puppet said.

Tomasz's arm lifted up stiffly, joints bending in all of the appropriate places.

"I am feeling much better now." The lion said, "Now that I have my strings."

~ ~ ~

Suddenly, Tera felt a rather odd feeling. Shi looked around the room shi was in - that's odd, why was shi in here? Shi remembered that shi had been in the room for awhile, but now shi had an odd feeling. It was like shi was at a loss for words on what to do. As shi blinked, shi heard a rather odd noise... it sounded like some kind of a small clicking noise. Hir eyelids also seemed to be a little... stiff. Shi finally stood up.

"That's strange..." Shi muttered out loud.

For some odd reason, shi noticed hir mouth didn't seem to be moving as it should have. Shi brought hir hand to hir muzzle. Clunk. What happened, hir mouth felt... hard.

Shi then heard several more clunking noises from the main room, like pieces of wood hitting each other. Shi turned hir attention to it. On the ground was a rather dazed looking bull - shi recognized him as Doug. Tera ran over to see if he was alright, only to feel rather awkward joints that could only bend a few ways.

Hir mouth fell open as soon as shi got a closer look at the bull. He was carved out of wood. Shi simply stared as the wooden bull climbed to his hooves, taking a look at Tera. He also gasped, holding up a finger. He gazed down at his arm, and made a gasping noise.

"Y-You're wood!"

"So are you!" Tera said, poking his abdomen with a clank, "Is this when we got caught?"

"But I thought it wore off." The bull said, "Why're we... we're puppets!"

"Check my neck." Tera turned to the side, "Are there marks?"

"Yes." The bull said.

"That explains it." Tera said, "We were bit by an auralvore spider. This species is the puppeteer spider." Shi held up a finger, mouth clanking as shi spoke.

"It turns us into puppets?"

"Exactly. The spider feeds by eating our auras, and feeding off of our 'reality'. The resulting body is left as a puppet up to the spider's will."

"Then why are we moving? And..." He looked at his body, "Still wood?"

"That's because auras regenerate. Eventually we 'break free' from the spider's control but our bodies haven't regenerated yet. It's called 'Pinocchio Syndrome'."

"Great... wait, wasn't Tomasz in here?"

Suddenly, there was another clank, as a puppet fell from the ceiling. Tera and Doug looked towards the scene ,watching the anthropomorphic lion tangled in the strings. Eventually, he 'stood' up, revealing his headfur carved out of wood, jointed tail, and blue-wooden body.

"Got him too..." Doug said, walking over to the puppet. Tera walked over to the other side.

"He's 'not real'... somehow 'less' real than we are, does that make sense?" Tera asked, "He must have been fed on more recently than we were."

"Well shall we get him out and wait it out?" Doug asked, "Can you warp us out?"

"I can't use any 'magic' or abilities when I'm not 'real'. We have to wait it out and wait until we become 'normal' again." Tera shook hir head, "What I know about this species is that our 'will' is formed into a control bar as we are eaten. Whoever holds the control bar will control us, and the spider can use it to feed off of the growing 'real' aura."

"Do you know where it is?" Doug asked the lion.

The wooden lion didn't respond.

"...Doug, if he's dangling, then that spider must be near-"

Tera and Doug immediately straightened up as strings formed, tying them to the ceiling. Their control bars had been grabbed.

"Are you two alright?" The Tomasz puppet asked.

"Never been better." Doug said.

"I must have dozed off." Tera added.

"Me too." Doug said, as the last of his aura left him, leaving him a lifeless wooden puppet, just like Tera nearby.

"Puppets never doze off, you two are weird." Tomasz said.

"Right, we're always good puppets." The bull said.

Meanwhile from the webbing, the spider breathed a sigh of relief. He couldn't risk letting -these- food sources go.