FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Caught between night and day, the sky blushed in a rose tinted dawn over the jagged, sandy landscape. The desert was not quite the dry, dead dust bowl however. Valleys between the dunes were packed with scrub and fuzzy fields of cacti, some sending flowering stalks skyward. Insects were already buzzing through the bristly underbrush when the sun first showed itself.

When her fur began to warm, Atla rose and stretched. There were many rumors floating around the Lioness, from her years hunting the desert wilderness. Some said she could talk to wild monsters. Others claimed that her thirst for blood was so great she never slept. Everybody said she had nipples the size of doorknobs and in the chilly morning air they stood true enough to legend.

Standing just shy of nine feet tall, her feminine shape was expanded by dense muscle under sandy colored fur. Her bare breasts were large, evolved to protect the vitals from claws, teeth and other pointy hazards. She was weighed to the ground by wide hips padded thickly with fat and a broad butt covered only by her thick tail. All she wore was a faded loincloth to fill the valley between her bulging thighs, where a valley of lighter fur guided the eyes toward loins mighty enough to envelop any dragon.

Breakfast was the first order of business for the huntress. The morning's menu consisted of many sets of tracks crisscrossing out from a patch of vegetation sheltering beneath a rock overhang where the shade had allowed a small pond to collect. She collected a couple handfuls of water then turned her attention to the surrounding plants. A rigid spiky leaf was broken, bleeding green sap where the tip dangled.

This set of tracks wasn't food. Boots, at least half a dozen sets, had trampled through here. The brow furrowed above the Lioness' brown-speckled green eyes. Travelers were not unheard of even out at this far corner of the desert. Normally she would have left it at that, had she not spotted another line of tracks offset from the others but going in the same direction.

They were distinctive hoofmarks, belonging to somebody that was very lightweight and with a long stride. Either this party had a male with them, or it was predator following prey. But what would a male be doing all alone out here? It didn't make much sense, the desert being a dangerous place for anyone let alone the fairer sex. Atla would find out regardless, pulling the heavy bronze spear off her back. She set off, her bare paw crushing the small cactus in her way.

The canyon came to an end at a spike of rock jutting out over a deep pit, its sandy bottom filled with broken rocks. Only by standing at the very edge of the outcrop could the great beast be seen, lurking at a jarring angle seeming to creep up along the near wall. Those who didn't pass out from shock would quickly notice the serpentine face was unmoving, the finer features scoured by sand and wind over many years. A crumbling staircase started at the edge of the rock and spiraled down between the fangs into blackness.

Dungeons- old shelters from the times when ice covered the entire world. Perfect places to scour for relics, treasures and other valuables.

Tarn brought out a spherical gemstone, engraved with the shape of a slit pupil. Touching it to his forehead ignited his aura into a ring of light, freeing his hands for the bow which he readied as he ventured carefully down into the snake's mouth.

The dungeon turned out to be remarkably bland, the corridor leading onward in gentle back and forth bends just as the slithering body of a snake. Sand trickled in between some of the bricks tricking his ears into believing it was hissing. Heat left the air quickly as the place took on the familiar feel of a tomb.

Abruptly the tunnel opened into the dungeon's hub, a wide open and roughly triangular chamber that was broad near the entrance and narrowed to another corridor at the rear wall. Tarn noticed there were two similar corridors along the near wall, both to the right of where he entered. Likely more entrances, distorting the picture he had of traveling through a giant snake. Unless it had three heads.

There were pillars in the room, cut with scaly patterns twisting up into the darkness. Tarn was pleased to discover an old chest resting at the base of one. The lid creaked loudly as he opened it, causing him to cringe and cast his gaze around the chamber. Nothing seemed to be disturbed by the sound thankfully and so he turned his attention back to the treasure.

Out of the chest he lifted a solid slab of bronze armor and looked it over. They weren't called breastplates for nothing. Too heavy for him to wear all day and the armored cups meant to cover breasts would have been an extremely awkward fit on his flat chest. Likewise, the hips were far too wide. He would have looked like a walking bell if he tried to wear this.

"My kingdom for some armor..." He grumbled to himself as he packed the breastplate into his backpack. At least it would fetch a few coins if nothing else.

There was little else to investigate and so Tarn moved toward the far side of the chamber. Another sound was creeping up, hiding just beneath the lonely tapping of his hooves on the stone tiles. He halted and bristled a moment later upon spotting the long bodied thing slithering down one of the pillars, camouflaged against the scaly texture.

It was a large mottled white snake probably as long as Tarn was tall. Swiftly it spilled itself onto the floor and reared up into an S-shape. The being had no eyes but rather a cluster of oblong sensory pits on the top of its head, as though it had been attacked blindly with a dagger. Its mouth opened wide with a hiss, unfolding into two separate parts ending with vicious sickle teeth.

Tarn had an arrow nocked and flying in a flash, into the monster's midsection. As quickly he noted the others descending from the pillars around him. Dashing toward the clear center of the space, he let another arrow fly and sliced one of the snakes in half scraping it off a pillar. Before it hit the floor, he had another of the snakes skewered and pinned by its neck to one of the pillars. One after the next he dispatched the snakes as they charged, whipping their bodies forward with heads reared. Only one made it within striking distance, the wide jaws snapping on air with a loud and somehow disturbing click. Tarn's hoof pinned its squirming body to the floor by its neck and he speared its brain point-blank.

It was a gauntlet of a situation, but Tarn at last was standing in silence once more. He tallied up twenty of the disgusting snakes all felled by quick but accurate shots. With a deep breath, the Deer resumed his journey deeper into the dungeon.

With a torch in one hand and her trusty scimitar in the other, Ultha led the way as her dozen comrades crowded the hallway behind. A metal door blocked their path and the Puma grunted as she jerked it a couple times.

"Thief girl! Looks like a job for you. Get up here and make it quick,"

The cloaked mouse had to weave through a forest of legs and tails as she came forward, gulping under the glare of Ultha. She produced a set of picklocks and went to work on the ancient mechanism.

Here I am in another mess. Completely off course. It has to be a curse..

The torch's light spilled over a long, narrow room lined with stone shelves, bearing weapons that had not aged very well. Around a central area the room widened around a snake's head sitting with mouth agape. The fangs overhung a slab where an enchanting circle was engraved. The musty air in here was spiced with something acrid that annoyed the eyes and nose alike.

Ultha led the way and the others filed in, beginning to poke around some of the weapon racks and chests. Lyra remained near the door where a few of the bandits milled aimlessly. The mouse tuned in to a conversation between a floppy eared canine leaning on her spear and a young looking cougar.

"Is it just me or is something a little fishy about this?" The cougar asked.

"What ya mean?"

"That buck coming out here alone...Can't figure what would possess a male to do such a thing. If I didn't know any better, I'd say it was a set up,"

"Ehh. Greenlanders is odd folks,"

"Artifacts," Lyra blurted. She meant to speak to herself but drew the gaze of the two bandits. The cougar looked annoyed while the canine kept her neutral lazy expression. The mouse fidgeted as she realized they expected an explanation.

"Th-The empire has become really, uh..interested in artifacts lately. The guild halls are offering piles of coin for anything magical,"

"That so?" The cougar said, "How much coin are we talking exactly?"

Before Lyra could answer, there was a skittering sound as if pebbles had been scattered across the floor. She felt something slide against her tail which had strayed beneath one of the tables.

The prospect of some creepy slithering thing caused the Mouse to squeak and leap into the air. She instinctively climbed the nearest thing- the Cougar bandit's leg, which the feline did not appreciate very much.

"Uh..no lesbo?" Lyra said, and was then peeled off the cougar's leg by her ears and deposited back on the floor on her rear end.

Emerging from beneath the table was a serpentine creature. It was about the size of a rattlesnake, its body composed of shiny oval scales as if it were an animated mass of brilliant multicolored gemstones. The thing blinked up at them, with gold leaf eyelids and hissed.

"Well hello there.."

The cougar bandit acted first, drawing a rusty sword. She hesitated only a moment before striking at the snake trying to spear it with the tip of the weapon. Drawing back, she found the creature was gone.

"Where'd that varmint get to?"

She locked eyes with the snake, now curled around the sword. She dropped it only a moment too late, the both of them giving a hiss. The weapon clanged loudly on the floor as the cougar stepped back shaking her hand. The snake made a break for another table as several eyes turned on the commotion. It was intercepted by an axe that sliced it in two. Sure enough, it disintegrated into a pile of gemstones scattering across the floor.

"Damn thing got me!"

The cougar ripped her glove off and stared at her hand. She gasped as her finger now glinted in a solid gold color, advancing down just past her knuckle.

"Uh...shit!"

"I can help," Lyra said. She had a dagger out and ready, tapping it against her belt.

"You mean..." The cougar trailed off, face dropping into an expression of dread.

"The longer you hesitate, the more body parts you lose," The mouse replied without emotion.

With a couple deep breaths and a curse word boiling out of her throat, the cougar extended her golden finger.

"Alright! Just do it fas-"

In a flash of an upward swipe, there was a finger shaped piece of gold pinwheeling through the air. Lyra caught and presented it to its owner who flinched much too late. It took a moment to realize the amputation had already happened. She looked first to the finger and then to her hand.

"I didn't feel anything..."

Somebody carrying a torch had come close and in the brighter light, the mouse's weapon could be seen more clearly. A kukri, shining with a very clean polish that made the silvery material look almost white. Star silver, an exceedingly rare metal that could be made obscenely sharp. It could hold temperatures indefinitely, whether blazing heat or lethal cold. Even lightning could be contained in a star silver weapon, if only somebody was brave enough to try and catch it.

Lyra became a little concerned at the bandits watching them and whether they would know such a metal when they saw it.

"Nice job newbie!"

"You shoulda cut her head off,"

The cougar held up her severed finger at the speaker and the bandits burst into laughter. Short lived, when Ultha shoved her way through the group.

"Everybody shut your damn traps now! Something's out there," She gestured with her scimitar to the far end of the room.

There was another metal door there. Ultha crept toward it and pressed an ear against the surface. Meanwhile none of her bandits did more than draw breath as they all waited. When Ultha turned around, the feline had a very sharp ear to ear grin on her face.

"Our pretty little buck is very close,"