FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Well, it helped me keep my head on as straight as it could be, after evenings of discussing our shared tastes led to nights of us sharing feelings of each other. I never expected that I would fall in lust with someone, but Nibbles was a friend, through and through, and she helped take the edge off with the things she could do with that tail of hers.

But, of course, apprenticeship had to end, and I had to enjoy my journeyman days starting out small. I didn't journey too far, at first. I kept doing odd jobs around the city, but never too far from my apartment. Years of college life trained me well in rat zapping quests and helping dock workers lift things twice their size. My magic was limited back then, and the funds even more scarce, but I kept going, making myself a little nest egg for future research.

My fortune changed when a job got thrown on my lap. A wealthy merchant was looking for a party of adventurers to lead him out across Avistan. Despite his vast wealth, my patron was adamant in hiring lower-skilled adventurers--ones that wouldn't cost him a fortune, but ones who would readily do whatever he wished for the coin he was offering.

Seeking adventure and fortune myself, I signed up immediately and said goodbye to the island of Kortos and hello to my very first adventuring party! We were a well-rounded bunch, consisting of an elven archer, a rogue, and another mousefolk named Luna. While Nibbles and I may have fooled around a bit in our college years, I well and truly loved Luna. At first, I found the fighter to be a bit gruff, but she too grew up in a small village, much like my own. We had a very similar upbringing to each other and found many things in common as we took our voyage across the inner sea.

As our relationship grew, so did our skills together. We journeyed with our patron, fighting off wolves and bandits and making significant coin along the way. Our party leader decided that we worked well together, and Luna agreed, opting to continue adventuring with them. I wanted to return home with my new-found earnings and return to my studies, but curled up with Luna in our camp that night, she asked me to stay with her and join her in a life of adventure. I could not say no to my beloved, and so, our merry band continued our adventures, seeking more treasures deep underground in the dark dungeons of yesteryear. My infatuation with Luna became full-blown love, hand-holding, and everything. We were inseparable, her and me, and so were the other members of our party, but for more platonic reasons. We tackled deep dungeons and gained skills beyond I had ever thought possible. Together, we were unstoppable.

That is, of course, until we ran afoul of the Necromancer...

Tournbult the Dead was a necromancer of some renown. He fancied himself the second saint of the Whispering Way if you could believe such a thing. While he may have had lofty goals, he certainly had the power to back them up. He claimed to have found the mythical Dragonfall, and from there, took the bones of a great wyrm alive during the infancy of Azlant. Such a powerful being brought back to unlife at a necromancer's call would be quite terrible indeed. So, together, we decided that we would take the invitation to defeat him. If not to save the world, but to obtain the sizeable bounty that was on his head.

Turns out that his claims weren't just bluster. When we battled through rooms of dangerous traps and deadly enemies, we stumbled upon the tail end of the necromantic ritual. Hate-fueled orbs of red filled the hollowed husk of the dragon's eyes, and the ravenous skeletal thing rose from the grave, bellowing out a roar of tremendous and terrible magnitude.

I was just a girl from a simple village, a little mouse who wanted to learn to weave spells because it looked like it would be fun. I had been through life-and-death scenarios before, but here, in this forgotten tomb deep underground, I realized just how small I actually was. Our party fought valiantly, but as my reserves of weaker magics ran dry, I knew I had to call upon more powerful spells-but they could be dangerous. I had never practiced them, as my free time was spent in the company of my lover. But, as I saw her charging head-first towards the dragon, beaten and bloody and enervated from spells that drained life, I knew that this was my only opportunity to save her, no, all of us.

I channeled the magical energy through me, taking on nearly mythic reserves of power from my years of study, and I filled the room with a sheer force of power that would destroy even the most formidable of the undead. Yet, such powerful necromancy cast in such a place was overwhelming to my tired little body, and so once I was done, I collapsed.

When I awoke, there was not a living nor unliving soul present in the summoning chamber--just the remaining clothes and tatters from all involved, and ash heaped up past my ankles.

I was left alone in that place of death and regret, with only the treasures heaped by the Necromancer in his quest for power. While my pockets were filled, my heart was empty. Ashen in both my expression and my fur, I returned back to a town filled with jubilation and thankful townsfolk, though their cheers were drowned out by the realization of what I had done. I drowned my sorrows in all I could afford, but none of it mattered. My love for adventure was replaced with a passion for my lover, and she was gone--gone by my hand. It was then that I decided that would be the end of it. I hung up my spellbook and lived off of the riches for a while, securing a hermitage as I healed my heart, but eventually, I needed to return to the world once the prize was drained, and so, I turned towards alchemy, a much more steady science, to be sure, and slowly, my heart was mended. I had a love for my students and for my learning, and I became a teacher of renown, cultivating the curiosity of young minds while sating my own from the comfort of a lab.

Do I regret leaving the adventurer's life? No. I've discovered quite a bit and made many great friends, and even though I'm a mouse and my life is short, I feel there's a lot more left of it to live just waiting to be put into another book one day. After all, in science, when one makes a mistake, one has to go back and try again, learning from the past to create an even greater future!