FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Marceline pushed forward through the rock of planetoid C133Y9. Her modified vector gate severing the stone?s bonds at a subvoxel level before dumping the waste into another universe rather than her own inventory slots. Using these alien devices to track other ancient tech had proven most profitable in her work as an Exploratory Freelancer, well worth the cost of specing almost all of her skill points into the Ancient Aliens skill tree. Her latest finds practically made her a one-woman starship, which was handy since this planetoid lacked any form of atmosphere and had only minimal gravity stats.

The rock gave way to cavern after cavern, each strewn with ancient artifacts that would prove valuable to Archeology speced explorers but held little to no value to her. Marceline was fixated on the signal that summoned here to this hunk of rock in the first place, a signal she was fast approaching with less than a kilometer of stone remaining.

Marceline?s red fox tail twitched in anticipation as she approached. While this was the first signal she?d seen coming from anything smaller than a moon it was clearly the same type of vector energy that she?d tracked to all the other temples. Each temple was a marvelous work of art by the original dev team, each more spectacular than the last as they kept trying to outdo each other. Beyond the first temple, which provided her vector navigator, each dropped a randomized piece of vector loot. She sold duplicates on the auction board in the major hub stations.

Marceline stopped her cutting gate about twenty meters out from the signal to take more precise readings. Her ears flicked side to side, something was wrong. She should have found the cavern by now. Echo readings formed a map in her ocular implant, no temple cavern. Only the constantly shrinking spiral that also formed the previous caves she?d blasted through.?

Opening a small gate in front of her fist and a large gate at the wall she punched through, her enlarged fist smashing the few remaining decimeters of stone to the next little cave at the heart of the planetoid. All she saw was a small camping area. Another Explorer had already been here and set up their crafting stations. Their latest corps hovered at the planetoids center of mass.

Marceline was so disappointed. ?Begin new log. Looks like another Explorer got here first, but C133Y9 is not even a temple. This poor guy, Explorer Wilksbooth, stupid name, managed to set up most of his camp before dying, don?t see any damage on his suit so his power or air probably ran out. Poor sucker is still using some of the older stations, probably modded for archeology bonuses. Since he never put down a tent I assume he woke up on the last planet he slept on and just hasn?t been able to get back here yet. There wasn?t a ship nearby, so he was either dropped off or already summoned it to where he is now. As for the signal, it?s coming from a piece of tech he dropped, but it?s not bound to him, so I?ll just take it for myself. Need something to make this trip worth the effort.?

Marceline stopped her log and reached for the only piece of ancient tech around besides her own. As she touched it a pair of vectorgates formed above and below her before snapping together.?

She couldn't see anything around but a white void. Her HUD indicated that she was in vector space, unharmed, with no detectable exits. "This shouldn't be possible. There has to be an exit, time doesn't exist in vector space without an opening."

"Very good." A deep voice resonated through the void. "You may be worthy of our power, but first you must prove yourself. The Archeologist Wilksbooth failed to earn our power for he knew nothing of our realm. But will you, Marceline, know also of our people? Failure means death."

"What? Marceline? Oh, right, I forgot to switch the name back after that Adventure Time RP. Welp, guess I'm Marceline for this encounter.? Um, right, 'know also of our people'? Fuck. Uh, I'll try my best. Test me and I shall earn your ancient power!"

Marceline tried to look down to her hands but saw only the void. She could move her limbs, but she couldn't touch herself in any way.

The voice boomed, "Know you of our three most vital principles?"

"Three? Let's see, Exploration and Compassion, or was it Knowledge and Hospitality? Third one, oh, right, the second temple, Truth, or Honesty. Ummm, I'm going to go with Exploration, Hospitality, and Honesty."

The voice returned, but now far less authoritative and more relaxed. "Really? Your language has seperate words for those sub-concepts? Any of those combos work apparently. Let's finally meet."

Marceline's body seemed to materialize where she felt she should have been and she could feel herself once more. At the same time the white void filled in, a counter, a stool, and a large draconic woman wearing what looked almost like a flight attendant's uniform for a major starliner cruise.

The purple dragon bowed. "Only one test remains and we shall be at your service." She pointed to a piece of strange fruit on the counter. "You have one kokem, about five minutes, to safely portal the ke'uwet fruit from the counter to the stool without touching any of them. Your time begins now."

Marceline frowned, "But vector gates can't be made in vector space, they all lead to vector space."

"Normally, that would be true. But we are in a pocket of our own reality within the vector reality. You must figure out how to alter your calculations to account for this. You have four minutes remaining."

Marceline opened a pair of gates in front of herself and tossed a sensor ball in one end. The ball came out as a flat ribbon several meters long. She refactored the vectors and tried another ball. This one emerged as a stable spiral that wobbled side to side on the ?floor? of the void. "Recalculating this by hand will take forever. Recalculate? I've seen that before."

"One minute remaining."

Marceline pulled up her character sheet. In her Ancient Aliens skill tree she saw an unpicked skill, Dimensional Recalculation. It was two skills down in a branch she hadn?t planned on taking for now. "Sweet, good thing I make a habit of keeping a few points unspent." Clicking the skills she suddenly understood the math required to account for being in the same dimension as her gate's destination points.

With only seconds to spare she opened one gate below the fruit and another atop the stool. The fruit dropped through unharmed.

"Congratulations."

"Sweet, what did I just earn?"

As the dragon spoke the rest of a hotel foyer formed from the void around them. "You are now the owner of this pocket dimension and the hospitality library within. Our staff are ready to assist you and up to 200 guests as you explore the universe and bring us more knowledge to share."

Marceline's jaw dropped, her maw hanging open in astonishment. "Wait, let me get this right. I can take the artifact anywhere and it will let me access this hotel? I can bring in other people too and if I take the artifact to another world that's where people will exit, right?"

"That is correct. And while your guests are here we will teach them anything they desire which is in our capacity or read from our archives. We are well trained in the arts of teaching and hospitality, but we cannot leave this pocket. We are bound to it, and now, to you." The purple dragon stepped toward Marceline and put a large hand upon her shoulder. "We are also well versed in the arts of pleasure, and it has been thousands of years since we have had a new owner to please."

Marceline chuckled as she looked at the achievement she'd just unlocked. She switched her listed title from Explorer to the new entry. "This morning I was a one-woman scoutship, now I'm a Pleasure Starliner. This is going to be fun." Marceline pressed forward and relaxed into the dragon's large bosom. "I love Ancient Aliens."

"Mistress, it appears we are without a name among your people. We would be honored to be known as Marcelinians.? In that moment, every Ancient Alien tech tree entry changed to the Marcelinian tech tree and Marceline knew her fame and future were secure.