FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

It was early the next Friday morning when my alarm went off. I was told by Silverine about a new planet to be explored, one that hadn't been officially explored before. I got up slowly and gathered my things together. I decided this time to take the shotgun Alduin got me when I first started out. I also took along the standard CEO plasma pistol.

I also had my other various essentials that I needed, including the garb I used from my first planet fall. Once I had everything, I warped with Alduin to Central, and we walked to the great hall together. Alduin noticed my change of weaponry this time.

"Going to try a new tactic?" He asked.

"Silverine told me the other night that this was another new planet," I replied, "I figured it's better safe than sorry." Alduin shrugged and we got to the great hall shortly afterwards. Kodey and Silverine were waiting for us, along with our respective teammates. I walked over to mine, and noticed that Doran was the only one not among us.

"Where's Doran?" I asked.

"He volunteered to ping the planet this time," Orion said.

"What's it like to do that?" I asked, "I'm curious."

"It's much like teleporting anywhere else," Felicia replied, "you just need to keep a watchful eye. Maybe once you get a teleporter of your own, you can give it a try."

"When is it I get one?" I asked curiously.

"You get one when I believe you are ready," Silverine replied walking up to us, "and I would like to wait a few more weeks for you." I nodded understanding. Kodey came up to us.

"Doran has given us the green light," he said, "you guys can warp down now." I took Orion's hand and he hit his teleporter. When we finally landed, Orion kept a hold of me.

"Now don't forget buddy," he said, "we still have that settlement later."

"I understand," I said, "but let's please save that until after work. I still don't like doing that stuff right in the middle of work." He shrugged and Doran and Felicia walked up to us. We got a good look around. The sky was very gloomy, and all the greenery was all brown and dead. It looked like some kind of haunted autumn area. The only spotted wildlife were what looked like crows in the distance.

"I put a scanner down right around here," Doran explained, "The wildlife is near non existent, but is does show signs of humanoid life forms nearby. Why don't you say we go look for it?" We didn't have any qualms against it, and Doran nodded. "Very well, let's split up a little ways down where the path's branches. We don't want to be too far away from each other in the case someone gets in trouble." The other three started down a different path, but each seemingly going in a similar direction. I turned and walked down the other path to the left of me.

After a while of walking, I found myself at a more kept trail. I could tell by the impressions on it that it had recently been walked on. I was probably on the right trail to a village. After another few minutes, I found that village. I turned and hid next to a nearby tree, and reached into my bag. I pulled out a pair of binoculars, and looked deeper in.

The people here were definitely human, but they seemed more pale than anything in skin tone. Nothing looked out of the ordinary though. At first glance they looked like a olden days farming community, as if it matched 14th century Spain. Various farm animals were treading around as well, and the people were busy at work. Women were taking care of chores like milking an animal that seemed to represent a cow. The men were stacking hay and moving other live stock.

The village seemed to be all arranged in a straight row, with small houses on both sides of a median, and another building right at the end in the middle. If I could see any better, I might have guessed it was a church of some kind, which could signal, that they were very religious. Everything about the village looked as gloomy as the surrounding area, the people, environment, and even the animals, had a gloomy look to them.

'Well they don't seem to be very hostile,' I thought for a moment, and pulled out my headset.

"Doran, Orion, Felicia," I said into it trying to link them in, "Do any of you copy?"

"Loud and clear Ryan," Doran said, "find anything?"

"Yeah," I said, "I found a village, the people haven't seemed to have noticed me yet. They are all human though."

"Understood," Doran said, "why don't you go and try to talk with one of them, and we'll be there in just a few minutes." We disconnected and I got up, slowly walking into the village. Before I got too far, I saw a small house with no door, and thought I should quickly walk in. I looked around the inside, turning through the hall until I got to a small dining room. There was a man with his back turned towards me, tending to the fireplace. As I slowly approached him, he turned to face me. It looked even paler up close.

"Uh, hi," I said trying to spark up a conversation, "I'm new around here and I was wondering if you can maybe tell me a bit about this place?"

"You have no business here," He growled at me, "outsiders bring sin to our village."

"Sorry to bother you," I said backing off. I turned to leave, but heard a shout before I could. I turned just in time to see the guy lunging at me, with a rusty ax in hand.

"Woah!" I shouted, jumping quickly to the other side, and pulled out my CEO pistol. I set the level to four out of nine, and aimed it. "Just hold it right there!" He kept advancing slowly and blindly. "I said hold it!" He ran and swung again. I quickly jumped out of the way, and pulled the trigger. The man fell on the floor, dead in an instant. The blast had seared right through his head. I also heard shouts outside, and looked out a nearby window. People started walking to it, pulling out farming tools and held them up like weapons. They must have heard the altercation.

"Ryan," Felicia asked, "we all heard something. What's going on?"

"Bad news," I said quickly, running out the front door, "this village is hostile to outsiders. I'm already in deep trouble."

"We're on our way," Doran said hurriedly, "head for a place that you can bar yourself in." I looked around quickly. Taking a couple more shots at a couple villagers who got too close, before I spotted a nearby house. It was two stories, and the door was wide open. I bolted right for it, and quickly shut the door inside. I put down the wooden doorstop that rested across the entirety of the door, and looked out the nearby window again. More seemed to be around, all surrounding the house.

"Who are these guys?" I asked, my heart beating. They all pointed at a particular direction. What I saw next literally made my heart skip a beat. There was a very large man, who was carrying a large chainsaw with him. It was loud and revving proud, and I could tell that they were serious at going after blood, my blood.

"Shit, One of them has a chainsaw I said into the headset," I said and found a large chest. I got behind it and pushed it in front of the door.

"Oh shit," Doran asked, "hang on a little more. We can see the village." I then heard a shattering upstairs, and could hear yammering voices up top. They had broken a window, and people were climbing in.

"Fuck," I said plain and simple. Then I turned to see the chainsaw pierce through the door. It cut through everything with no problem at all. Even the chest easily gave way to the motorized weapon. One kick and the large barbarian gave a blood-curling scream as the door flew open. I pulled out my shotgun quickly, aiming and fired. The man seemed stunned but shrugged it off and charged. I quickly ran up stairs, narrowly avoiding a wild swipe.

"This guy is incorrigible," I said out loud, "That shell didn't even phase him." As I got upstairs I was greeted by a whole group of radicals. I quickly fired off another shot, the fired shell tearing them to pieces. I heard a loud cry and turned, just in time I might add. The chainsaw fiend was not only big, he was fast, and he was right up on me, swinging as wildly as before.

"NO!" I shouted and ducked, avoiding death by mere inches. It was then that I saw the window, and bolted for it. I jumped out head first, nearly flipping over two stories, before hitting the ground hard. I also avoided the rest of the group converging on the house, but it wasn't long before they saw me and charged again. Quite a few were throwing tools at me. I rolled to my feet and managed to dodge most of them, but a surprise ax was thrown at me, and I couldn't dodge fast enough.

That was when the ice shard knocked it out of the way. I turned in the direction of it quickly, trying to see what was going on. It was Felicia, who was accompanied by Doran and Orion. They quickly charged into the fray, mauling down the wild mob with relative ease. Orion confronted the chainsaw man, who had just barely busted out of the now ruined two-story house. Within seconds though, he found himself ablaze in a madly controlled inferno, and collapsed dead within minutes.

"That's twice you owe me now," Orion said at me. I joined the fray, emptying my shells into various villagers. Throughout this giant battle I found myself asking in my head the same question over and over.

'Why are we being attacked so vigorously?' I thought, 'We're only exploring here. Why would they be so ferocious in trying to kill us?' The villagers got smart at this point, and even more were showing up. Was there any end to this?

"We're surrounded!" Doran shouted, retreating back a bit. This was just plain bad, and it was getting worse by the second as they closed space on us. I tried to fire again, finding my ammo empty. I reached into my pockets to pull out more shells, only to find them empty.

"I'm out of ammo," I said, I quickly dropped the shotgun and pulled out my plasma pistol, switching it's power level to six.

"No Ryan wait," He shouted, "They're too close for that magnitude. You could vaporize us just as easily by accident."

"But we have to do something," I said, and saw a few villagers run for us. We braced for impact, I was ready to fire at any minute.

But then they stopped.

Why they did I don't know, but they suddenly stopped. The only noise was that of a large bell chime. It rang over and over again, and I noticed something over the hill.

"Look," I said pointing, "it's that bell. There's a tower in the distance." At the direction I pointed was a large up winding path. In the darkening horizon lied a large bell tower. It was dark and gloomy, if you looked at it in just the right angle you could swear it was portal to deep darkness. The villagers dropped their tools and weapons, turning toward the bell tower, as if they were a bunch of zombies or something. They also moaned a bit, saying something that not even my translator could properly pick up. They all soon left the village, slowly proceeding towards the sinister tower.

"Wait a minute," Felicia looked confused, "what in the world just happened?"

"Where's everybody going?" Doran said with a sigh of relief, "Bingo?"

"Maybe there's a sausage festival in this place?" I joked in a fake Scandinavian accent. Everyone chuckled lightly.

"Frankly I don't like this place," Orion said stubbornly, "This nature of the place looks completely dead, the sky is eerie, the village looks haunted, and the villagers looked and acted somewhat like zombies."

"Not to mention the smell," Doran said, "alright, we're getting out of here. Let's look around a bit, just to try to find out why they attacked us so aggressively. But we stay together this time. Any sign of the villagers returning, and we teleport back immediately, understood?" I nodded, and switched my plasma pistol back to power level 1, before turning it off completely to let it cool.

We spent roughly ten minutes looking around the village. It was still fairly small, so we managed to cover the whole thing rather quickly. Before long we got to the end of the village, just beyond the path the villagers mysteriously took off in. It looked very suspiciously like a church, and looking inside only seemed to confirm our suspicions. It looked very dark inside. It was lit by merely a few candles, leading it's way past the chairs to the main alter, and even less sunlight made it's way in.

"For a second I could swear this was a sacrilege church or something," I muttered, as we approached the alter. No one was inside, no priests, no friars, not a soul lied in here, if a soul ever even made one step in here. It was also very cold, almost to the point where I could shiver. One thing was certain, it wasn't a place I would want to spend my time praying, especially with the despair that seemed to attach to the people who would walk through here. We came across a large scroll that lied open at the altar. A half-melted candle was still burning, showing light to the text that lied inside. It was illegible, at least in the sense that the language was something I wasn't completely familiar with. The characters looked awfully similar to the English language, but it was also so alienating that I couldn't even understand one single word from it.

"Perhaps this ought to be an interesting artifact, maybe it could tell us a story," Doran explained, putting on a pair of strange glasses.

"What are those?" I asked.

"Scouter glasses," he explained, "it records audio, video, photographs, and even allows us to communicate with other scouts. If you link in to someone else, you can see what they were seeing at that point, it comes in very handy."

"Wow," I said, "that's cool, can I try?" Orion handed me his glasses and I put them on, Felicia pushed a couple buttons on it, and before I knew it I was looking at, myself? Doran turned to the scroll, and I saw it too, without even turning my head. He then looked back at me and disconnected. Orion took his glasses back and I thought in wonder. Central has lots of amazing stuff, I should try to learn how they advanced so well like that.

"Ok then," Doran started, "I have the pictures of the text. I'll see if I can get a linguist somewhere on Central to analyze it. Regardless, we're heading back now, I don't want to see what happens when those villagers come back." We all agreed and I latched onto Doran's shoulder. I closed my eyes as we warped, and after roughly forty seconds, I found myself back at the familiar hallways of Central.

***

What I didn't notice though was that we were watched the whole time. Sometime a few seconds after leaving the sacrilege planet, a woman walked inside. But she was different, she had looked like an off worlder too, completely different from the medieval villagers. She was talking on a cell phone type object, to someone.

"This was where they were last seen," she said, "an arctic fox, a wolf, an elf, and most importantly a human. I sent you a picture of them not too long ago."

"I can see that," the voice replied, "it also seems to pique my interest greatly. It should to you too, you know who he is too yes?"

"Doesn't really matter anymore," she said, "I'm returning to headquarters, my mission is done."

***

I stretched a bit, a wave of tiredness washing over me quickly. I shrugged it off a bit, I wasn't quite done yet for the day, especially since I owed Orion double time. The first person we ran into is Winslo, who came running right toward us.

"You guys made impeccable timing," Winslo began, "Orion, Felicia, we could really use your help with your magic on another planet."

"I hope no one wants to kill you guys right?" Orion asked, "we got plenty of that on our planet."

"No not yet," Winslo said, Orion nodded and walked with Winslo, but not before turning to me.

"Ok Ryan," he said, "I guess we'll settle this later." I felt bad that he had to wait further, but I also understood, and simply nodded. The selected two left, leaving Doran and I to deal with the glowers. One was making his way right to us, and Doran smiled.

"I guess we'll both take on the glowers," Doran said.

"Ryan Lewis, Doran," It began, "good to see you. Are you ready to tell us about your discoveries?" We nodded and walked with him. We told him our story with the hostile village, and my close encounter with the chainsaw madman. We also repeated it to the rest of the glowers waiting in the meeting room. When we finished they seemed to talk with each other.

"Very well, thanks for telling us," One of them said, "we'll be sure the next team to go down there tries to be a little more covert, you guys are dismissed." Doran and I walked out, going down toward the hall.

"Mind if I stick around?" I asked him, "I'm still lost around here."

"Sure thing," Doran said, "most don't finish their mission this early anyway, some company would do some good."

"So what's the hostile to friendly ratio on these planets anyway?" I asked him, as we continued walking.

"Meh, I'd say roughly 50-50," Doran said, "but that's a rate usually defined by chance. That's why we don't let just anyone be an explorer."

"You guys let me be a scout," I said, "I'm just an earthling adolescent."

"Where you come from doesn't matter," Doran said, "you know martial arts, have admirable handling with a gun, not to mention you probably fight better with a sword than any other human on Central."

"But how many humans do we have here, like three or so?" I asked. Doran shrugged.

"So does every hostile planet get so fatally dangerous?" Doran stopped walking for a second.

"Not every one of them," Doran said slowly, "but we've had too many close calls. You know Grant, right?"

"Yeah, he's the panther who was a hunted alongside you, right?" He nodded.

"There was one planet, where he was shot by several arrows," He explained, "It was almost fatal, but Arachno managed to stabilize him in time for full recovery." I nodded. Arachno, was there anything he couldn't do?

"Arachno," I repeated out loud, "he must be a real miracle worker, to be so well versed in the medical life."

"I wouldn't go that far," Doran replied, "but he has pulled us out of a grind again and again. He spends so much of his time helping us, and he sacrifices so much. He's quite selfless. He doesn't even ask for anything in return."

"Wow," I said, "sounds like he has one of the toughest jobs of all." Doran nodded, and continued walking. It was still too early for me to completely grasp everything as it was still early in my career as a scout, but I was glad that I was considered a sort of promising person. I didn't receive it as tough as some of my colleagues, but still, I was glad. My thoughts then turned to Grant's close call. I figured a good amount of people lost their lives on this job, which told me I needed to be that much more careful.

"Anyway Ryan," Doran began again, "how are you going to explain to Alduin that you ran out of all your shells?"

"Tell him the truth," I said bluntly, "Village tried to kill me I defended myself. I thought it was strange though."

"Strange how?" Doran asked.

"The guy with the chainsaw seemed nearly resistant to my shotgun," I explained, "it would tear shreds through a normal human."

"Well, best not worry about it now," Doran said, "I'd certainly like to change the subject for a while."

"Sure thing," I said.

"So when is Orion finally going to have his way with you?" He said chuckling, I flushed a little pink.

"As soon as he's done with his mission I guess," I said, "I wonder who's party he's helping."

"I can venture a guess," Doran began, "Winslo asked for Orion and Felicia specifically. Not to mention he's a magic user himself."

"So whatever he needed them for, it's magic oriented right?" I asked. Doran gave a nod.

"That's my theory anyway," he said.

"Magic," I said a little softly, "what a mysterious power."

"What do you mean?" Doran asked.

"Well," I explained, "no one on my planet can use magic. The movies and magicians don't count. CG animation and trickeries respectively is what they are. The only place magic exists on my planet are in fantasy books." Doran nodded and we changed the subject again. We spent roughly another couple hours talking and walking, it was nice, learning a little more about the team leader. Things were about to change though, and not for the good. I saw a couple people running from the opposite direction of the hall.

"Hey guys, what's the rush?" Doran asked, "a bake sale?"

"Wait, didn't you hear?" A tiger began.

"Hear what?" I asked.

"The news is spreading fast around Central," he said, "I don't know if I should be the one to tell you."

"Out with it already," Doran pushed.

"Ok well," he said, "it's Alduin, he's dead!" I froze and gasped, shock slowly creeping through my system.

"Dead? Alduin? How?" I spurted out questions at super sonic speed. My breathing was becoming shallow, heavy, and quick.

"I don't know all the details," he began, "but I hear he's been murdered by a sorceress's curse. Even more the murderer returned with his party?"

"WHAT?!?!" I shouted, "where are they? I'm going to kill her!"

"They're at the food store right now," he said, "we're going there right now." I bolted off before the tiger even finished the last sentence, Doran shouted at me.

"Ryan! The food store's the other way!" I growled, and switched directions, following the rest as they ran toward the food store. As we ran a million thoughts went through my head.

'I can't believe he's dead, the one who gave me a second chance at leading a good life. After all he's done for me, I just...' We got to the food store and the door flung open. A fair amount of people was there, including one I didn't recognize. A lithe female squirrel was standing near the middle, and just looking at her made my hair stand up on end.

"YOU KILLED HIM!" I shouted and ran at her throwing a punch at her shoulder as hard as I could, "MURDERER!"

"She didn't, I wasn't aware of the trap Eviloths had placed on the cauldron." She said, wait, was she referring to herself in the third person?

"At least you can be resurrected," Silverine said.

"Alduin?" I said in a state of shock, the squirrel looked at me.

"And by the way," she added, "we both felt that punch, so don't do it again."

"Was that you speaking Alduin?" I asked. She nodded, and I hugged the squirrel tightly, doing my best to fight back tears. I released her after a bit.

"Tell her she's an evil harlot for me," I said and backed off for a while. How in the heck did he get into this situation? I pondered that for a while.

"Now, can we find a room for me?" Alduin asked.

"What about your normal room?" Blake asked.

"Firstly, my bed has a dead body in it, and that body is mine," the squirrel explained, "I don't want to have to sleep next to it. Secondly, I don't know how long possession works, but I don't want Casdey running around." Casdey, that must have been her name. This was magic beyond my comprehension.

"Stuck here for four weeks," Alduin said, "I hope some people don't mind being possessed for a little bit at a time." Possession, then that dead body is his. Boy I'm certainly not going to that room either. I also wondered how eerie it would be to be possessed by Alduin. I'd not be able to do anything myself, not to mention the privacy would be completely cut short.

Alduin left with Casdey for a while. I walked up to Draco, who was sitting on a table, and just had to ask.

"Have you seen Orion around?"

"No," he said, "are you so quick to settle things so quickly? Or maybe you're just in the mood."

"After going through what I just did," I said, "no thanks. And don't get any ideas either, even though I know I can't stop you. Therefore I'll need to rely on your conscience to decide." Draco pondered for a bit.

"I can wait," he said, "just wait 'til later though."

"I'm just worried about what Alduin must be going through right now," I said slowly.

"Well, we only have to wade through four weeks of this," Draco explained, "the best thing we can do is just be there to support him." Felicia walked into the food store and walked up to me.

"Hey Ryan," she said, "Orion wanted me to send you a message. He says that you can wait until next mission to submit to him. He's been given another errand to help with so he won't be here for a while."

"I see," I said, "I understand." I looked to the ground for a bit.

"Hey," she said, "cheer up, Alduin will come out of it stronger than ever." I nodded silently, and she sighed. "Would me spending some time with you cheer you up?" I was a little surprised at her question.

"Uh, no thanks," I said, "but thanks for the offer." She nodded.

"I'll see you later then," she smiled and walked off. Silverine sat down at Draco's table, and I sat on the opposite side of them.

"So the glowers told me about your mission," Silverine said.

"I don't think it's quite as intense as Alduin's mission was," I said bluntly.

"Why do you say that?" Draco asked. Silverine explained.

"A whole village attacked the group. Ryan avoided death barely against a madman wielding a chainsaw." Draco's eyes widened.

"You're kidding," he said, "for a second I thought we would have had two tragedies happen. A headless Lewis is no fun."

"Oh thanks," I said bluntly, and my stomach let out a small growl.

"Is somebody hungry?" Draco asked. I didn't notice this whole time, must have lost track of the time.

"A little something wouldn't hurt," Draco got up and came back with a bowl of hot soup. He set it at my seat.

"This is perfectly healthy for humans," he said, "now eat it before it gets cold." I did so slowly. It was rather tasty actually, but I didn't pay it much mind as I downed it quickly. Not too quick as to make it scald my throat. Draco took the dish away when I was finished, and came back a bit later. Time Dancer walked in, and took a seat right next to me. Silverine looked a bit surprised and thought a bit.

"Alduin?" he asked. I quickly turned and stared at her. She nodded. Woah, I'm going to have to guess who he'd show up as next.

"Apparently even as a spirit I still need to eat and sleep," Alduin explained, "and I need to possess someone to do it. Time agreed." Alduin/Time got some food of their own, and I kept up my conversation with Draco for a while, before Winslo walked in.

"Hey Winslo," Alduin shouted.

"Y-yes?" he said.

"That spell you talked about removing possessor's from a body," he began, "will you try it on me. I figured I should take at least one to even the fairness of me possessing people."

"You sure?" Winslo asked. Alduin/Time got up and stood near the middle of the food store.

"Positive," he said and stood stoically.

"All right then," Winslo concentrated a bit, "Exi macula damnata!" A bright light flashed and I closed my eyes. There was a loud shout, and when the light faded, I opened them. Time was kneeling, holding her head. Alduin's transparent form was right behind her, he looked like Draco slugged him one. I ran up to Alduin, forgetting for a moment that he was a ghost and tried to grab him. Instead of going through him like a normal ghost though, I was stopped by an invisible barrier.

"Huh?" I was a bit confused. The two recovered a bit before Alduin spoke.

"Am I unable to possess someone for a while now?"

"Yeah, for at least a couple hours, and we can't approach you either," Winslo explained.

"Something I really don't want to see again," Draco said bluntly, "both of you looked like you were in great pain." I got up, sighing. This was certainly a long day...

***

Dear Diary,

This has been one hell of a crazy day. It started off fending a whole village of murderous nut jobs. Then followed by the craziness of finding out about the Pseudo death of Alduin Raptormaster. I say that because it seems his soul was separated from his body in a very strange curse. Well, it's better than him being blown into oblivion at least.

The only problem we need to address soon is the fact that Alduin will need to be covered from his earth job for a month. What kind of excuse are we going to give for them? I guess I'm just tired from the day's events. I'm going to be a little paranoid for a while whenever someone turns on a chainsaw, thanks to today's mission, but I'll get over it eventually.

Draco took me out for some ice cream when we got back to earth. He's so sweet, I like that caring side of him. I'm also wondering how Orion was doing. This is like the third time I've skipped out on repaying my debt. Is he going to start charging me interest? That's a weird thought, I think I better go to bed now. I still got a couple more days off before back to the earth job. Of course, now I think I am a little in the mood. What was in the ice cream...? Oh dang it, DRACO!

-Ryan Lewis