FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

The cat pirates got their ship up and flying as soon as Cerys and I stepped aboard. It was a rather ordinary, plain airship; a wooden ship similar to a seafaring type being lifted by a large hot air balloon, which itself was controlled by a common furnace engine. The team of small felynes ran about the deck, moving ropes and tarps, lugging coal and other such fuel for the engine, and generally just acting like any of group of air sailors I’d seen. It was refreshing to see that despite the silly way they chose to talk, they appeared to take their jobs seriously.

For the most part, that is.

A sleek, pure black cat bundled in a shining red vest marched around, shouting, “Me hearties, listen well. Today we sail these white waters to help Ser Arland and Cerys on their quest. We embark on dangerous skies, but fear not, lads. For common bilge rats be not we. We be the hardiest, drunkiest, bloodthirstiest crew to ever brave the seven skies! No monster can strike fear in the hearts of cats such as we.”

The, I assumed, captain of the ship had jumped on top a barrel of sushifish during his little speech, raising himself above his crew so all could see him. Now with a better view of him, I saw his vest wasn’t just full red like I first thought. There was an emblem stitched onto the right breast; a silhouette of a Zinogre head. I’d seen the same image in copies of Hunter’s Life. It was supposedly a popular design for clothing. Giving the rest of the crew another once over as well, I began to notice they all had the same image emblazoned on their own vests, as well.

The realization of what the captain had said hit me then.

“Wait, hold on,” I thought aloud. “Did he just say drunk?” I looked down at my tiny cat friend and repeated, “Did he just say drunk!?”

Cerys didn’t seem as fazed by it as I, as she just said, “It’s all part of the act.” When I gave her a quizzical look, she elaborated, “I can’t smell alcohol on any of ‘em. They’re just messing around.”

“Weird thing to joke about when you’re carrying passengers.” I mumbled some more about this idea before I fell silent and watched on as the cats worked.

Now that we were in the air, most of the work seemed to be done, as many of the crew had gone below deck. To do what, I couldn’t fathom a guess, nor did I care enough to follow them and find out. Of the sailors remaining were the captain, the tiger striped cat that first talked to me, and two others who were keeping tabs on the engine. The three non captains might have been the highest ranked(?) sailors among the crew. Or maybe they were just the ones chosen to keep things running while everyone else took a break? I mentioned these thoughts to Cerys, hoping she might reveal some kind of hidden felyne-known secret.

However, no luck.

“Don’t really know, don’t really care,” she expressed, calmly walking over to the side of the ship and looking down at the world below as we floated.

I took her actions as advice and found a nice spot to sit down, waiting for the ship to arrive to our drop-off point. This gave me time to reflect on my chosen job. The paper had been stuffed into my item pouch, and I retrieved it along with a piece of jerky. Gnawing on the meat, I re-read the job request; a simple expedition to find what was known as abyssal mushrooms. The researchers had found a few before, and now needed a larger collection in order to perform a more complete set of experiments.

It sounded about as easy it could be. Something to relax and unwind with. Plus, it would give me the opportunity to better familiarize myself with the Jurassic Frontier. Seeing as it was so close to Bherna, it was likely to be a place I’d have plenty of jobs in and around. A few other jobs Cassie had showed to also be in the Frontier, but the rest of them were a bit more involved than just mushroom picking. One of them was about gathering wood from a special type of tree, another involved mining some ore, and so on.

We’d only be flying for around ten minutes before something happened. An odd clanging sounded out from the engine.

“Well, that can’t be good,” I mumbled to no one in particular as I rose to my feet. I walked over to where Cerys was and gave her a questioning look.

She just flopped one hand in a small gesture, silently saying to me, “No idea.”

The clanging grew louder before the ship was rocked about from the engine suddenly cutting off midflight. I had to grab hold of the mast to prevent myself from losing balance. With the fire no longer roaring, the ship began to slowly descend. At once, all the crew who had disappeared below deck shot up to the surface. A dozen cats were looking around dumbfounded before the captain got back up on that barrel.

“Listen up, lads!” he bellowed, puffing out his chest as he shouted. “We got a faulty engine, so we be needing to get to fixing ‘er up right quick and proper like, else we be putting our clients here out of work for the rest o’ the day.” With that, he raised his arms and began pointing at individual cats, ordering them to do something or other I couldn’t understand. My knowledge of ship engines was sorely lacking, so I couldn’t really follow what was being said.

Regardless of my complete confusion, the cats swiftly got to work opening up the engine and attempting to see what caused the mishap. While they did, the ship continued to float down, reaching the ground ever closer. I was absolutely not freaking out and imagining us dying in some horrible burning wreck, which wasn’t causing my legs to tremble like a newborn Kelbi’s. And even if that was true, no one could prove it.

“I wonder if we could get a refund on the flight for this,” Cerys’s voice came from my side.

Instantly, I turned to her and asked hurriedly, “Is that really what you’re most concerned about right now?” Her face was neutral as could be. She seemed so calm, completely disinterested in the fact the ship was losing more and more altitude by the second.

Armor-clad shoulders shrugged up and she scoffed, “Oh please. Just look at how slow we’re falling.” She emphasized the word by using one hand to mime air quotes. “This is hardly a crashlanding in the making. I’ve been in a crash before, and this is nothing to worry about.”

An odd whirring noise came from the engine as the cats tried to repair it on the fly, but still no fire spouted out. The crew had removed the top metal plates, exposing the inner workings of the machine. With hammers, wrenches, little gauges, oil canisters, pliers, and some unrecognizable tools those little pirates worked hard to try to get the ship flying true once more. Tiny furry hands moved as fast as a charging Tigrex, and the felynes hopped about the engine as they worked, each cat seemingly doing one specific task. They functioned as one cohesive unit. It was rather commendable.

With knuckles white, I continued to hold onto the railing. For perfectly normal reasons of not wanting to lose balance. No fear of death in my entire body. None at all.

Cerys walked closer to the pirates, and wondered aloud, “How long is this going to take? We do have a job to do, y’know.”

One of the cats hissed at her and spat out, “We be done when we be done, wench.”

A stern strike to the back of the head came from the hand of the captain cat. “Hold yer tongue, ya scallywag. Show respect to our clients.” He gave a deep bow to Cerys then. “Apologies, ma’am. Pay no mind to this lowlife bilge rat. I’ll make him swab the deck ten times over for such rudeness.”

My little palico let out a dark chuckle and offered, “Maybe we should make him walk the plank instead?”

The rude cat audibly gulped at the threat, and a few of the other pirates slowed their repairs to listen in on this development. The insulting felyne looked from Cerys to his captain, who was standing with his arms crossed and a twisted grin on his face.

“Don’t sound like too bad an idea,” the captain said, sneering at the one who’d started all this. When the rude one started shaking in fear, the captain broke into a dark laugh. “Look at ya, ya lily-livered fuzzball. Can’t even handle a wee joke.” He gave another laugh, snaking an arm around the other’s shoulders. The shaking little kitten could only offer up a nervous chuckle, while the captain’s laugh now began to transform into that of a madman’s. It was the kind of laugh to make your skin crawl.

Cerys cleared her throat, getting the captain to finally come down from his weird moment.

“Well, with that out of the way,” she began, running a hand over the top of her head, flattening her ears in the process, “I would like to know some kind of estimate, time-wise that is.”

“Certainly, lass,” the captain spoke in a raised voice. He passed his eyes over the engine, and over all the crewmates working on it, and said with full confidence, “We’ll have this old gal back up to ship shape and flying free before you can say ‘Velocidrome.’” He then immediately jumped back into working with his crew.

During all this, the airship had lost even more altitude, and we were coming closer to the ground by the second. The only upside was the fact there weren’t any mountains or hills around for us to knock into as we fell from the sky. Also, a good thing that there weren’t any particularly dangerous monsters out here to try to attack us during this extremely vulnerable moment. I could see off in the distance, barely visible on the horizon, those giant mushrooms where Cerys and I had fought the Great Maccao. We were close, but there was surely no way we’d make it to the drop-off point without that engine back up.

Just then, a sudden sputtering noise came the metal beast the cats were working on. I looked back to see the whole engine shake for a moment, give a few clicking and whirring sounds, and then a sound similar to a match being struck. At that, all the pirate felynes jumped off their project, as in that moment fire spouted up from the furnace. The entire crew gave a loud victorious yell as hot air began to fill the balloon overhead and the ship began to rise once more.

“Aye, lads!” the captain shouted over his cheering workers. “We be in business again! Once we make port, drinks are on me!”

The captain’s boast caused another eruption of shouts and howls from the crew. Some then started listing off the various drinks they’d order on their generous captain’s purse. I heard one of them mention something called goldenfish sake, a drink I’d never heard of before, and made a mental note to look into that.

Now that the airship wasn’t threatening to drop out of the sky, I let go of the railing (solely because I no longer needed to keep balance, of course) and turned around, now leaning my back against the wooden boards I once held onto for safety. I caught Cerys looking my way, glancing down at my white knuckles, and smirking.

“Does the big hunter feel safe now?” she teased, reaching a hand up to poke at my chest.

“Oh shut it, short stuff,” I responded with a smile of my own. “I could easily punt you off the side without any effort.”

A mocking laugh, full of sarcasm. “Go ahead and try, and I guarantee you’ll lose both your eyes in the attempt.”

I tried to screw my face into the most intimidating scowl I could manage, but Cerys picked up a woodchip and tossed it at my face, instantly rendering me into a fit of giggles. I sunk down to the floorboards of the deck as I laughed, bringing Cerys into my aura of cackles, her voice soft and sweet. In the meantime, I could see some of the crew returned down below deck, and the same handful from before remained behind; just the captain and a few others.

Eventually, the laughter from my palico and myself died down, and we both took a deep breath.

“So,” Cerys said, recovering first, “we doing anything else out there besides mushroom picking?”

With a nod, I replied, “I had some ideas, yeah.” Taking out the quest paper, I flipped it over, revealing a small list of things I’d jotted down. “I saw a few jobs asking for some other materials, and it seemed like a good idea to get as much as we could, so when we get back…”

“We can just turn in all the items at once instead of constantly going out in the field and back,” Cerys finished my thought.

“Exactly!” I exclaimed with a snap of my fingers. “Why waste time, energy, and money running back and forth over and over?”

A softly padded hand landed on my cheek. “Now, see? That’s the kinda thinking that’s gonna make you a great hunter.” Cerys’s fuzzy little hand fell back down to her side and she looked up at the balloon above us. Her eyes closed and she leaned back, resting her head against the wooden boards. An almost silent hum reverberated from the little cat before she turned her head towards me, her lids spreading once more.

“Y’know, I really do think you’re gonna be great someday.” Her words held an air of complete honesty, a genuine thought she was sharing with me. Those dull blue eyes seemed to be shining, twin pools of sapphire. “The kind of hunter kids will look up to and imagine themselves being when they grow up.”

Warmth crept up my face and I looked away to hide the goofy grin I could feel splitting my face at such kind words. “W-Well, come on. It’s just my first day. No need to butter me up like that.”

“I don’t just say things like that. I meant every word of it.”

My head swiveled around so I could see her. “Why?”

It was a simple question. I mean, we’d only been partnered up for less than a week, and she was saying stuff like this? I made no sense. She had to just be lying to make me feel good, surely.

After an exhale, she stated, “I’ve been in the hunting game for a while now. I’ve seen enough hunters to get a feel for how they’ll turn out. And you,” she said, stabbing one claw-tipped finger at my cheek, “have got potential.”

Before I had the chance to respond, the captain cat walked up to us. His little hat was cocked to the side a bit, the shadows it cast playing on his face like a veil.

“Sorry for the inconvenience,” he said, giving a short bow. “This old gal of mine has seen better days. Wasn’t the first time we had to do mid-flight repairs like that. But even so, ain’t no excusing the problems we causing you two with the delays.”

One of Cerys’s hands waved off the apologizing captain. “Oh, don’t be so hard on yourself. I’ve been on older ships with worse problems. I’m just glad it was such an easy fix.”

The pure black cat’s chest puffed up with pride, and when he spoke, his voice was tinged with pure ego. “We be the fastest working pirates this side of Dundorma.”

After a silent moment, I mentioned, “By the way, Captain, I don’t think I ever got your name.” He had failed to provide it when we stepped on board.

I had a hunch he’d give a fake, pirate-sounding name.

He did not disappoint.

With the same mixture of pride and ego, the captain felyne struck his chest with an open palm, striking where his heart would be, and loudly gave his name. “Me name’s Captain Dread Roberts, deadliest airship captain you ever did see. Conqueror of the seven skies. Lover of many beautiful felynes. Father to none but me crew. When I first set sail on the white cloudy ocean, I had naught but me own two hands and a rickety little skiff with the dinkiest engine, and I clawed me way up into eventually owning this beaut we now stand upon.”

“Wow, you had that whole little spiel ready to go at the drop of a hat, huh? Bet you were waiting for one of us to finally ask. And also, is that really the title you’re going with? Figured a pirate would try for something scarier than ‘Roberts.’” Cerys mocked him with a smug grin winding its way on her lips, slowly spreading her mouth into a large ‘U’ shape.

“W-Well, I just…” As Roberts (if that was his real name) faltered in his words, the pride filling his body slowly evaporated, losing him some height, shoulder hunching forward in slight shame. It was a bit sad to see the pirate captain deflate like this.

I waited for the black cat to pick himself back up and banter back with Cerys.

And waited.

The silence stretched on for what felt like five minutes before the ship’s captain awkwardly shuffled off without saying anything. He could be seen talking with one of his crew, probably giving some orders or whatnot and trying to save face in whatever manner he could.

With a disappointing tone, I said, “I think you actually hurt his feelings.”

“Feh,” Cerys snorted. “Just got a little embarrassed, is all.”

“I think those are kinda the same thing.” I watched Roberts look over his shoulder sheepishly, quickly turning back again when he notices Cerys and I still looking at him. “You should apologize,” I told my diminutive friend.

“Fine, fine, fine,” she said, waving a hand my way as she spoke, as if silencing me. “When we get back to Bherna after all this, I’ll hand him some zenny. His first round of drinks can be on me.” She bent one leg, positioning her knee up high enough for her to rest her arm across it. After a moment, she mumbled, “I was only teasing, anyway.”

“Yeah, I know. But it still got under his skin.”

She huffed and stared out across the bow of the ship, watching as we sailed closer and closer to the Frontier. It didn’t take long before we were drifting over the drop-off point. The pirate cats all wished us a happy questing as Cerys and I descended a rope ladder to the earth beneath us. Even the ones who went below deck popped their heads up to see us off.

These pirates were starting to grow on me a little.

When we touched down upon the grass, I looked back skyward and saw the entire crew peering over the edge of their ship. I gave them all a friendly wave.

I shouted to them, “Stay safe up there!” Then I watched as the ladder was pulled back and the ship floated off, away from the Frontier, heading towards a safer area to wait for our signal flare to bring us home.

Now back in the Jurassic Frontier, I was once again greeted by a vast green field, with the long-necked Larinoth wandering around in groups of two or three. The wind slowly drifted by, barely a whisper, not even strong enough to sway the grass underfoot, and yet it was strong enough to carry a sweet scent with it. I couldn’t quite place what that smell was, just that I knew it wasn’t the first time I’d encountered the odor.

The quest paper came forth in my hand and I voice some of my thoughts for Cerys.

“Alright, so I think the best way to go about things would be to split up so we can tackle multiple objectives at once.”

“My, my,” she purred, “acting like a true hunter more and more.” She gave a joking salute and stuck her little pink tongue at me. “So, meowster,” she stretched out the word with a little melodic tone to her voice, giving a playful wink as she did, “what’s on both our plates?”

I looked over to the Larinoth on the far side of the field. The large beasts were munching on some leaves from trees stretching up to the sky. I threw my chin towards the trees.

“Think you can climb up to the top branches?” The trunks of the trees went up probably around twenty feet high before even the lowest branch could be seen. The furthest ones up were almost double that.

“Hmph,” she scoffed, rolling one of her arms to rotate the shoulder. “What kind of cat can’t climb a tree?” Saying this, she swung the one arm straight out and flexed her paw-fingers, and out popped small but sharp claws from each digit. Rather than do the same with the other arm, she simply brought her opposite hand up to her chest, made a fist, then when she relaxed her grip, the claws snapped out.

I responded with a nod, telling myself to avoid seriously angering her in fear of getting razor sharp cuts from those little knives in her fingers. “Good. Then, I want you to go up and forage some berries.” I checked the little list I wrote down and explained to her, “They’re supposed to look like cherries, but bright pink, and the taste like apples.”

“Hmm…they poisonous?”

I bounced my shoulders up in a shrug. “Doesn’t say. But if they mentioned the taste, it makes sense that they wouldn’t be. Right?”

“I suppose.”

“Why’d you ask?”

The look she gave me said very plainly are you stupid. As if to add on to that, when she spoke, it was filled with almost genuine disgust over my question. “We haven’t had a proper meal since before we fought the Great Maccao. I’m hungry.”

“That was like two hours ago,” I near shouted.

As if hearing those words, my stomach made a loud gurgling noise. The sound of it instantly shut me up, and I turned away from my small cat friend. I hadn’t even noticed how empty my belly felt until just that moment. The reminder of food had awoken my hunger, it seemed. I quickly pulled forth some dried meat and nibbled enough to hopefully quiet the roaring inside me.

“See?” Cerys said from behind me. “Even you’re hungry again, too.”

I mumbled out, “Whatever.” Focusing back on her, I reminded her of the berries we needed.

“Yeah, I remember. The pink ones, taste like apples.”

“Right.” I gave her a nod and set off to do my shroom gathering.

I hadn’t ever seen shrooms in the wild before. Back home, mushrooms didn’t exactly have an easy go of sprouting up in the sandy dunes. Not a whole lot of water to go around for them to soak up, after all. I checked the description of these abyssal mushrooms I was supposed to be looking for; small, purple sprouts that typically can be found growing in the shade of large rocks.

Well, seemed easy enough, I told myself.

My heavy metal boots made nice sounding thuds as I walked on, away from our entry point into the Frontier. A little ways ahead, I spied some decently sized boulders and such, so my pace quickened, thinking perhaps this was going to be even easier than I first thought. As I drew near, however, out of the corner of my eye, a blur of green and red shot by, jumping forward to land on top of one of the big rocks.

A Maccao!

The raptor-like beast was facing away from me, its tail end directly in my line of sight. I don’t know how it hadn’t seen me, as it appeared to have come from my right, if my first guess meant anything. It leaned its head down and sniffed at the rock it was perched upon. Perhaps it was hunting something of its own? As calmly and as silently as I could, I gripped my bowgun and took aim at the monster, slowly lining up the shot as the creature stood back up, bringing its skull up high as it let loose a warble.

Its noise was matched with a similar sounding cry off the distance. It was communicating with its pack.

With the Maccao’s head still up high, I pulled the trigger. Thwap went the bow limbs as they snapped forward, propelling the shot directly at my target. A thick, viscous liquid smacked into the side of the Maccao’s cranium, sending it staggering off the rock and tumbling to the soil and dirt. The liquid was like a glue, staying stuck onto the beast’s skin, and housed within this gunk was the true meat of the chosen ammo, the crag shot.

It took about a second or two, giving the monster just enough time to get its bearings and stand up, looking around at the source of its recent pain. It, however, did not have the proper time to find me before the crag shot embedded to its skull set off a small explosion, sending the beast once more to the ground, this time resulting in a dizzying stun that kept it out of commission for the time needed for me to reload my bowgun, choosing instead to use some fire shots rather than another crag.

I pumped out three quick bursts of the fire shot, blasting the unconscious beast in the broadside, causing its comatose body to now become a lifeless one. Putting the bowgun back over my shoulder, I walked up to the corpse and pulled out my carving dagger. Taking a few pieces of meat wouldn’t hurt me none. Could cook them up for a quick meal, I thought. Also, taking a nice handful of scales would probably serve useful; maybe Finley could use them along with whatever materials the scholars gave him from the Great one we captured.

I dug my blade into the soft underbelly of the animal, slicing out some good portions of its meat for later use. I then dragged the edge of the dagger against the backside of the beast, cutting off the hardy scales and depositing them into my pouch. If Finley couldn’t use them, they at least would be worth a small sum of zenny. Any amount would be good, really.

A second cry from another Maccao called from the distance, further away then it was before. Good, I thought, it wasn’t going to be heading this way. I still needed to find those shrooms, and the less distractions, the better.

I searched for my prize, finding a small cropping of the purple little fungi growing up almost completely hidden under a large rock as big as my head. About as big as my pinky, these shrooms were. A lot smaller than I assumed. I could see why the researchers needed so many if they were working with something this tiny. Into a second pouch these all went. I counted off each one as I picked, finding I was coming up short by almost half. I hunted around the other rocks, finding other kinds of mushrooms, but no more of the abyssals.

A loud, slightly annoyed sigh escaped me. I should have known it wasn’t going to be quite that easy. Of course not.