FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

A gentle ringing filled the small glass chamber, images of falling cherry blossoms surrounding the small, furred figure lying within. A silent assembly of gears rolled out the chamber from its nook in the wall, revealing a bank of similarly inset opaque chambers. Many softly pulsed with light, illustrating that they were in use, and a sleeping inhabitant lay within. Usually, the side panel closest to the wall would fold down, revealing the micro farm, daily water allowance, and a small personal items chamber. However, this particular chamber had been modified to let the inhabitant out, instead of ensuring they ate and drank their fill for the day. These were the cheapest hexes anyone could buy- living on the streets was the only lower rung than this. The inhabitant had other uses for the money they saved on living well, though. Things of much greater importance to them to spend their hard earned credits on. As they woke, they would be greeted by a barrage of messages and advertisements- another price those living in the wall hexes paid. The corridor pulsed with the light of the glass, softly illuminating a bank of grav-elevators that would take them out of CitHex tower number eleven, and in to the streets of Neo-Tokyo.

She was sleeping, but not exactly for much longer. A quiet yawn and lazy blinking as her eyes opened to the pleasant, and therefore sickening sounds and images of her home. She let out a sigh before turning, slowly getting up on the bed. She was small enough to be standing on it, carefully reaching up to rub the sleep from her eyes. She hopped off the bed, made her way towards the sink and carefully cleaned her face so she could wake up properly. She shook her head, then glanced over the walls. Every damn day these messages appeared. She thought she had finally gotten around to disabling this shit, but apparently she thought wrong. With a quiet sigh, she eventually made her way towards one of the panels in the wall to check just how much she'd make off of her sales. Producing food really had more to do with knowing your machinery than knowing how to handle crops. The system was automated, all she needed to do was maintenance. And since she was forced to learn about tech, she might as well go all the way. One of the more annoying parts of life was that these messages got more and more incessant as the day went on. With a few wiggles of one of her screwdrivers, the panel came off and she hoisted herself up, into it. Being... actually really small had some advantages. The complexity of the system still was beyond her comprehension, but she knew well enough that there was some sort of signal that was broadcasting these ads. All she needed to do was find the receiver and break it. Again. For the five thousandth time. Somehow it seemed like THAT part of the machinery always somehow fixed itself. More likely, someone came along and fixed it while she wasn't at home. Still, all that was left to do was... poke, jab and generally mess with this small box in her small claws until she couldn't hear the noise any more. A few minutes, at best, before she managed to crawl back out and sigh when she noticed another scratch on her side. Crawling around in there was all fun and games until you got stuck somewhere sharp. Well, at least that one wasn't too bad. For now... she really felt like a cup of coffee that really just tasted like dirt. But hey, it was what it was.

Heading over to the liquid dispensary proved as simple as taking two steps to the right- it really was quite a small dwelling, even for one of her size. Walking over to the spout brought up a contextual menu superimposed over the single, small interface wall that was available in her dwelling. Various beverage options became available, some gray as she did not have a high enough cooking skill in Verse to unlock them. This left her with a single option for coffee, the lowest quality available. A paw press to the icon created a red outline of a generic looking cup under the spigot, labeled with the necessary capacity. After tossing a dingy tin cup under the spigot, the outline faded to green, then vanished, as, to her eyes, thin, steaming brown liquid poured from the spout in to her cup. A happy little chime that seemed to come from the spout notified her that her drink was ready. A stream of options cascaded over her as she took the cup, ranging from shifting market prices of various goods relevant to her micro-farm, to the newest CitHex events in Verse that were happening soon. Algae blooms were up, it seemed, and there was some sort of mass combat planned for the afternoon for any who wished to participate. Scavenging was always good for these sorts of things, if you could avoid getting robbed, or worse. Seemed it was a no-kill event, too, so there was that. If an event was labeled safe, anyone who did cause permanent harm received no credit for the event, and a black mark. But they could still kill you. Best not to dwell to deeply on that. But, for some who did not have access to even the cheapest micro-farm, combat was one of the only choices left. Several personal messages bounced at the peripheries of her vision- a turn of the head and a swipe of the hand brought them up. Seemed that the cycle's production had been healthy. Several people wanted to group up with her for a dungeon crawl later, it seemed. She took a seat on the ground, just drinking some coffee for now. The farm seemed in a good enough state, but she didn't care for combat. None of her weaponry was suited for non-lethal options. As a Tinkgineer, she didn't do subtle. Improvised tech, explosives and gadgets were her forte. Take off the enemies what's useful and build something out of it to kill even more enemies. A highly potent, but also incredibly rare class for someone to choose. First there was the element of luck, finding what you need and your stuff not blowing you up instead of the enemy, but also the mechanical skill required. By sticking to only the safest options and very rarely resorting to more boom than was necessary, she survived. Some invites, the large-scale battle for later... yeah. She'd just wait that one out. A short yawn was followed by a quick glance on the clock. God damn waking up at ungodly hours. It was barely 9 am yet. She swallowed down the rest of the black liquid that barely counted as coffee, then got up. Might was well prepare some of the more reliable weapons. She rarely used them herself, she just built them for others. Unfortunately, being not even close to half as big as anyone else also had its disadvantages.

As she turned her head to find a place to put her dirty cup, her HUD switched to the news. Apparently, due to lack of resources, whatever that meant, there would be some redistribution of NullSec zones- places where high quality randomly generated treasure tended to pop up reliably, and many powerful guardian monsters showed up. Not that it was the Verse that you had to worry about. In NullSec, as in all other places, person to person fighting was allowed- you couldn't kill, but you could become vulnerable to monsters, which could kill you, and only showed up in NullSec. This strategy was fairly popular with Avians, who didn't have the physical scores to choose a class other than Beastmaster- taming a powerful monster could become invaluable. While a player trained monster couldn't kill, it was still terrifyingly strong. Yes, there was nothing quite as troubling as having to pass through Nullsec. And an hour from now, her block would become part of it. She swallowed as she was informed of her fate. Well, shit. She had known this was going to happen eventually, but she had hoped it wouldn't be too soon. By virtue of generally sticking her nose everywhere it didn't belong, she had figured out how to build one of the more destructive bombs. Small enough to throw herself, potent enough to take out anything she'd hit with it. The only problem was that she only had one- and that wasn't going to work. And she knew that finding help wasn't an option. Anyone who would saw treasure would immediately turn on her. The chance to get out of this place was too good for anyone to pass up. She began pacing in the small room, scratching her head. She really couldn't just wing it, that was far too risky. But how would anyone prepare for something that couldn't possibly be anticipated? A small ping indicating a new message interrupted her train of thought, a blue box with a tiny one next to it popping in to the lower right corner of her vision. She blinked, then narrowed her eyes and glanced downwards, gesturing with her claw to open the message she had just received. Just what the hell was still going on?

The message pulled up in a dropdown menu, listing the sender and subject. The strange thing was, though, that the sender was blank- an impossibility. The subject read, "Hey Stupid". Upon opening the message, a slight visual tear opened in front of her- like a scratch on a record, her vision hopped, different images superimposed on each other. She blinked, and her vision returned to normal. The message read, "Treasure appearing on third lane of waste disposal in 42 minutes. Can't do much to help you right now, I don't have a lot of time at this terminal. Will contact again- A." For a moment, her vision stuttered again, revealing a vision of blank grey stone, surrounding her on all sides like a tomb. A horrid stench assaulted her nose suddenly, and as she turned her head down to wretch, saw her naked form, her tight jumpsuit vanished. The air was heavy with decay, and her front wall had vanished like it had never been there- just a tiny grey stone box surrounded her, a metal spigot in one hole and a grate in the floor. She took this all in in a single moment, then reality returned, her HUD pinging softly. "Level up. Congratulations on reaching maximum level. Nobility Ranks can now be purchased from the Bazaar. Ability Unlocked: Cross-Classing. New class unlocked: Survivor. New class features unlocked." She stared at the list of notifications, not unused to them. The last was a bit strange- well, getting so much all of the sudden was all strange, really. But it looked like the last ability was simply a series of white squares. Strange. She'd never seen that before. As the otter looked over her stat block, she would notice a few changes. Where her Class usually said, "Tingineer", it now said, "Tinkgineer/". She found she had recipes with all sorts of crazy materials she had never heard of, like "Sodium Acetate" and "3/4mm wrench". The recipes were long and drawn out- some had over a hundred steps necessary for completion. Still, nothing too out of the ordinary for a sudden level up. Where had the message said to go? Junkyard? Right. That would be... at the lowest level before leaving the tower and entering the city proper.

She wondered just what this class even did. The name suggested that she was better at not dying now, somehow. And these weird combinations were odd as well, half of the stuff she didn't recognize, the other half was so hard to come by that it was unlikely she'd ever be able to craft them. Still, she was making her way towards the junkyard. She knew where to find this place blind, since a bunch of useful stuff came from there. What other people threw out, she often could use one way or the other. It wasn't pretty, but it damn well did the job. Still, better keep one of those smoke explosives ready.

The grav elevators slid down easily enough, bringing her down the hundred levels in short order. People mulled about in this floor, a wide expanse filled with piles upon piles of metal scrap, discarded items, and generally useless things to the majority of people. Still, salvagers hawked their wares to each other, pulling things up in inventories and showing them off to any interested parties. The homeless were allowed in this place, for a small fee of course. The problem with the area was the disease. Every time you visited the junkyard, especially if you sorted through the piles, you risked contaminating yourself- and medicine, as expected, was not cheap- it was only sold at specific locations, and it was almost prohibitively expensive for many- especially the destitute here. Once you got the Rotting Plague, you were finished. Thanks to her lucrative arms supply business, she didn't have to worry about affording treatment- it was a pittance compared to how much she had saved. But, what she had was only a tiny fraction of what was needed to cap her credits at one million- the price of the first nobility title. Only a handful in the city had even the first level, Baroness. Someone jostled her, a hooved foot nearly knocking her over. "Out of the way, rat." The towering mountain of muscled flesh said down to her, snorting. She had on a simple plague outfit designed to increase resistance, and was hauling a mass of circuitry behind her on a sled.

Neph groaned, his chair clicking back as he slumped. The white of the monitors reflected silver off of his eyes, those reflective silver cybernetic eyes of a programmer. He hadn't made the jump yet, though. They were a deep black- not the white of un-programmed space superimposed on his vision, denoting that he had shut off his interface for now. He popped his caps off, placing them gingerly in the solution to keep them clean. He had his tag ready at the door, swiping it with one and as it zipped back to his belt, his hand grasped firmly around a cup of coffee. He needed to actually go down to the residential layer for repairs. He was nervous, but supposed it was nothing too out of the ordinary. Glitchy code. The price they paid for such a complex system. The cold white of the painted corridor did little to please the eye, and he couldn't wait to get home.

She glared at the brutish woman that had passed her, turning to leave the incident be. She stopped, then and grit her teeth. "You know what, no." She whispered to herself, turning slowly. She reached into her pocket for what looked like a ball of gunk, really. It was in a glass bottle, corked, with a fuse sticking out of it. She lit it, then crooked one of her brows. "Hey, asshole." She yelled after her, only to then throw it at her. Plan was, the thing would shatter, the sticky fluid - almost like glue, really - would cling to her and it'd either burn or explode. Either was good. "No one calls me a rat." She said quietly, then turned for good.

Neph grumbled to himself as he trudged through the bio-hazardous sludge that covered all of Processing Facility 37. Rotting gunk too ill-suited for higher level purposes was allowed to fester in these tunnels after being turned in to a slurry by high powered blades. The stew would sit, carefully monitored, the gas it produced siphoned off, and bacteria and fungi allowed to grow through it, which would then be harvested, and the remains incinerated, nothing left of use in the ooze except for fuel. The last of the remains would be fed to VR slaves of the lowest rankings. The dead eating the dead. Without the heavy metal poisoning, of course. One of the more infamous problems this series of projects had provided a solution to. He came out at one of the dumping grounds, a large warehouse. The area was grim, and even the happy-go-lucky VR slaves seemed down and out. He slid on his VR contacts, allowing himself the distraction of whatever it was these poor souls saw. Salvage yard, well, that made sense. Someone needed to go in there and dig out the good bodies. He averted his eye from the pile of dead, another sliding down a chute and landing with a wet plop, limbs broken from the fall. A rodent-slave scrambled up to the top, and he watched for a moment as the small woman struggled with the weight of the body, dragging it over to a higher function chute where the corpse would be skinned, processed, and who knew what else. Even the candles were made from their fat. It was an amazing process. A self-regulating farm, that would never know its' true purpose. The hazard suit he was wearing protected him from the filthy diseases these VR zombies carried. He didn't have to worry. Stepping out of the elevator, he went looking for the conduit that was broken. Third row of acid vats, past the slaves working unknowingly diligently at their tasks. He was all but invisible to them. Short of physically bumping in to him, he didn't exist. Even if they did bump in to him, their senses would interpret it as a secret treasure they found, or an invisible monster. System backups. He, like most others, would have abused that for his own pleasure were it not for the Rules. He was almost to the correct row when he stopped once more, casually watching a slave haul a corpse by the hand over her shoulder like she was pulling a sled. He checked the VR- yes, that was what she thought she was doing, pulling a sled of circuitry. A short otter was yelling at her, and she cocked her arm back like she was throwing something. Virtual flames burst around the woman, and she screamed, patting them out. They of course did no real damage, but a death in VR would cause brain death as the program quite literally executed, the individual automatically lead to whatever the closest corpse chute was, and dumping him or herself down it in the pile. He wondered how long it took for the meat to stop breathing. Probably when the fall in to the pile down here snapped their neck. It was all necessary, though, he reminded himself. Nothing could be done about it even if he wanted to. He began to maneuver through the waste and the dead onward, when he noticed the otter was coming his way too, oblivious to him.

The woman dragging the sled, properly chastised, left with her goods. The junk alley with the treasure had to be close. She just had to look around. Sometimes it was invisible, sometimes it was on a timer, or you had to solve a riddle for it to show. But something about this note made her want to follow its directions. Third row... ah! There it was. You had to be careful round these piles. Stick your hands too deep, and they'd get horribly burned by whatever it was that slowly melted the piles down. She wondered to herself where she should go, now that Neo-Tokyo was a NullSec zone. China? Make the big hop over to America? Or stay, just for a while, and save some of her friends? She thanked herself again that she was so small, and a frown furrowed itself on her face. One should never accept their negatives as acceptable, after all. Still, she was thankful, as she rounded the corner, waving her hands in sweeping motions on the floor. She bumped in to something that felt like plastic, and stepped back as some sort of large plastic humanoid popped in to being. A twinge hit her head, and she winced, but looked at the monster carefully. She made a motion as if shuffling through files, and her inventory came up. She double tapped a looking glass, pulling it out of the inventory page, and in to reality, swiping away the inventory with two quick slashes. She peered through it.

Neph slumped as the girl continued to follow him. Great, he had to play monster? What did she see? He squeezed on his VR gloves through his decontamination suit, and viewed the situation information. Wait... no new information? So... she wasn't supposed to be seeing him? What if... what if she punctured his suit! He started to panic, and initialized- no, wait, that would break the Rules too. Damn it all. Now she was trying to examine him. Great. With his luck it would dump the entire truth right on her lap and they'd have to cleanse this block too. What a messed up day. He held up his hands in a pacifying gesture. "Hey there. Umm. Thing. Just looking through this scrap here. Yup. Just a... protection suit. Not a monster. Just like you. Yup. Fixing this cable. Wait, I meant looking for cable. Right. Just do your thing, not interested."

The otter paused. "Your voice... it sounds so...low. What's going on with that? And, I don't see any..." She trailed off as the world flickered, and she was naked again, covered with filth now, the stench of rotting flesh surrounding her as she looked up to see towering clear containers, filled with murky brown water. As she watched, the woman she attacked earlier dragged a starved corpse in to the vat, where it sizzled and melted. She vomited on the stranger, violently, fervently hoping that all of this would go away.

Neph paused. The otter was looking around in horror. Did she see...? A call from maintenance popped up on his screen. "Remove the otter from VR. She glitched out somehow, research wants her, but if you don't get out in the next five, they have to lock the block down. With you inside, Neph." His eyes widened, and he grabbed the still-vomiting otter girl and rushed towards the exit, making it in time with ease. The cold white of the decontamination elevator shone on him as he dropped the otter and began scrubbing her down with harsh liquid soap, scraping away years of filth with a frenzied urgency. "Neph. Neph, relax." The maintenance man in his ear spoke steadily. "You don't have to worry. You are safe now. Relax, Neph."

Erindar sighed, ending the call as he flickered through the screens, each one identical to the next, just how he liked it. In each screen, a human man was cleaning down an otter, in exactly the same strokes, at exactly the same time. No divergence. No miscalculation. Slaves working for slaves, all at the behest of the masters they didn't know existed. There might be a hundred Nephs, and a thousand peppy little otters girls, but there was only one of him. They were the ones running the experiments. They were the ones who could survive an EMP. They were the masters of the world, testing their theories of evolution and social development, and they were the ones who were served on hand and foot. It was not men who had inherited the earth, no, that had ended hundreds of years ago. It was demons.