FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

"Is this the place?" Petra asked herself as she took a look at the front of the somewhat dilapidated shop, scaffolding set up close to the entrance, suggesting it was being worked on. A temporary facia above the window labelled the place as 'Shade's Bewitching Emporium', but the inside of the place still suggested that it was being worked on. Normally businesses put out openings for job positions when the shop was close to opening, but it still looked like a fair bit of work was needed on the shop. Still, she wasn't going to find out by just staring at the entrance, was she?

Petra walked into the shop, the bell above the door ringing as she stepped inside. There were plenty of shelves set up, as well as boxes full of inventory, but the displays were pretty bare. "Anyone in here? I'm here for the job interview!"

"Hold on, I'll be right with you!" A female voice called out from the stockroom behind the counter. "I wasn't expecting anyone to come this soon, I've barely started stacking the shelves!"

"If it's a bad time, I can come back another day!" Petra assured her, looking towards the counter.

"It's rarely ever a bad time for me, don't worry!" She responded, the door swinging open as she stepped into view. "So, you're Petra, right?"

"Wha..." Petra stared on at the tall, anthropomorphic raven that had appeared behind the counter. She would have questioned the creature on her rather casual nudity, despite the fact that nothing naughty was on display at the time, but she was more shocked at the fact that she appeared to be talking to a bird... or at least someone in a very convincing costume.

"Is it because I'm naked?" The raven asked. "I normally don't get any complaints, I can throw something on if it helps!"

"N-no, it's not that, it's just... you're a bird."

"Oh? And all this time I thought I was a lion!" She answered back in a playful tone. "I mean, I can shift to a leonine form if that's less distracting!"

"I don't think changing your form is going to make this any less awkward!" Petra admitted.

"Well, I tried~" The raven chirped. "But in all fairness, you came here looking for a job, and I'm more than happy to offer you one. The name's Shade!"

"It's nice to meet you, Shade... this is still a lot to take in, I mean, this IS all real, right?" Petra reached forwards, tugging at Shade's arm, expecting it to be a really fancy costume part. Shade just smirked at Petra.

"I'm about as real as the clothes you're wearing!" She giggled, casually plucking a feather from along her arm, offering it to the human.

"This is unreal..." She thought, running her fingers along the pitch-black plumage. "How are you real, I mean how are you like this?"

"It's a long story that I've only told a few close friends, I really should make it more public sometime." Shade answered. "All you need to know is that magic was involved, and I've got hundreds of years of experience doing so!"

"Wait, hundreds of years?"

"Again, long story." Shade repeated herself.

"And yet you don't look a day over your mid-20s!"

"Aww, thank you~" The raven smiled.

"No worries... so, this is a magic shop?"

"Yup! I'm selling all kinds of things - potions, trinkets, curses, scrolls, you name it! All designed to transform a person from man to beast, mostly permanent, but I do dabble in werecreature and the somewhat rare temporary spell."

"And there's seriously a business for this?" Petra raised an eyebrow.

"Hey, you'd be surprised what positive word of mouth does. A lot of my previous transformees tend to send their friends my way, and I work my magic on them too, so I don't see why people wouldn't be interested in a quick change!"

"Huh... still, I'm sure most normal people who have no knowledge of any of this would freak at the sight of a giant talking bird."

"I'll cross that bridge when I come to it. For now, I've got to find a job for you!" Shade beamed.

"Right, right!" Petra nodded, looking around. "So, is there anyone else here yet, or is it just us two?"

"I've got some help in the back, Haimogwen's double-checking some of the stuff that's being delivered. You should have seen him earlier, a spider crawled out from one of the boxes and the poor dear nearly had a heart attack!" Shade laughed. "Can't say I've ever seen a bat freaked out by a little bug before!"

"Really? I don't know how you could be scared of something so small and cute!" Petra chuckled with her.

At that point, an idea formed in Shade's head, a small smirk crossing her beak. "Oh, you find them cute?" She said in a somewhat devious tone of voice.

"Well, yeah. I mean I'd still be careful around them, I'd hate for a venomous one to bite me!"

"Funnily enough, I've collected some spider venom over the years for some of my potions, you'd be surprised at how potent it can be in some mixtures!" Shade told Petra. "Anyway, I'm getting slightly off-track, I said about finding a job for you and the subject ended up turning towards spiders... though that does bring me to my next question, are you any good at weaving?"

"You mean like knitting and that? Can't say I've ever tried it, so I wouldn't know what to answer!"

"Hrm... cause one of the jobs I was hoping to fill would involve creating some garments for transformed individuals to wear, maybe with a few items that can cause humans to change as well!"

"I... don't think I have THAT kind of talent in me, Shade." Petra shook her head.

"You don't have that talent in you YET, Petra~" Shade giggled.

"How do you mean that I don't yet?"

"I can easily give you that talent. It does, of course, mean transforming you, but I think the end result is something that'd benefit the both of us!"

"Transforming me?" She blinked - she wasn't expecting things to escalate that quickly, if at all.

"Well yeah - anyone who enters this shop isn't going to stay human for very long. Haimowgen, for example, is a bat. Granted, I've known him for years and he's a big help around the mansion I reside in, but if he had come in here as a human..."

"Then you'd have transformed him into something by now, I get ya." Petra nodded.

"Exactly!" Shade squawked. "So with that in mind, what kind of creature would you think makes for a good weaver?"

"Hrm... the only one that comes to mind would be spiders."

"Correct! Spiders are adept at making beautiful webs, so it makes sense that they'd be perfect for creating clothes if they were big enough to do so!"

"And you think I'd make for a good spider?"

"I think you'd make for a cute spider, but I'm not thinking of any old spider in this case." Shade chirped, energy beginning to gather in her taloned claws. "This spider's gotta be a big one, naturally, but not a complete beast... and I have the perfect design in mind for you!"

"I'm ready whenever you are!" Petra told her, bracing for whatever was about to happen.

"As a heads up, you may want to remove your clothing... then again, I doubt you'd be going back to those clothes anytime soon!" The raven giggled, flicking her wrist, tossing the gathered magical energy into Petra.

"Ghh!" Petra winced, feeling the magic flowing through her. An odd, yet not unpleasant, tingling sensation followed soon after, soft, greyish-brown fur sprouting from across her upper body and arms. The fur became noticeably thicker from the elbows downwards, engulfing her lower arms and hands, fingers vanishing beneath the fur. At the same time, her nails grew longer and sharper, middle digits merging into a singular finger, the claws poking out through the fur. She took a look at her hands, wriggling the claws about, finding them no harder to move than her fingers.

"And that's only for starters!" Shade watched, two bumps pressing against Petra's shirt just underneath her arms. Before she could even think about removing her shirt, a second pair of arms burst forth, only a little smaller than the pair above them, the grey-brown fur covering the upper part before shifting to a purple/pink colour, light pink fur covering everything from the elbows downwards. Petra looked curiously at her new arms, trying to move them independently from the original set. It took a few moments for her brain to figure out how to do so, as they all moved in unison, but soon enough, she was able to gain better control over them.

"This is going to take a little bit of getting used to!" Petra exclaimed, resting her arms by her sides for a moment. The fur was progressing over her chest and back, the coarse hairs feeling itchy against her damaged top, prompting the changing human to remove it, alongside her bra. Taking a look over her front, her stomach and breasts were covered in gunmetal grey fur, her bosom looking slightly larger than it was originally. A tuft of the darker fur separated her breasts, the darker pink fur wrapped around her sides and lower back.

"Trust me, your brain will adapt to it fairly quickly, just like you did with your arms a moment ago!" Shade assured Petra, the fur wrapping around her legs. "And your body will also need to adapt a little more before your legs can continue changing - I'm not sure segmented legs on a human build would work too well for walking, after all. Also you may want to prop yourself up against something!"

Petra was about to question why, but a strange tingling in her rear clued her in that whatever was going to happen was more than likely to be quite drastic, so she propped herself up between a set of empty shelves. The tingling grew more intense, the fur creeping around her backside as it began to swell outwards, steadily ballooning in size. The skirt she was wearing stood no chance against the sudden expansion, splitting apart, leaving her exposed. As her ass continued to grow larger and wider, her rear quarters reformed completely, elongating further and further to form a broad arachnid abdomen. Unlike the standard belly of a spider, this one was primarily housing the silk glands, given her upper body had not deviated too far from its original human design, though at the same time, there was probably some magical trickery going on down there.

"Man, this feels strange!" Petra looked back over her giant abdomen, the fur covering it, grey on the underside and grey-brown on the top half, a patch of pink fur spreading out in the shape of a heart. Her abdomen felt surprisingly heavy, but that was likely because her body hadn't fully adapted to it, and no sooner had she thought that, she noticed three sets of bumps forming just below the sides of where her body was now connected to her abdomen, bumps which soon grew out into six giant, segmented legs, the bottom segments covered in bristly pink fur, the clawed toes tapping against the floor. Her original legs took this as their cue to follow suit, the limbs becoming segmented, moving to rest closer to the six other legs. Two of her toes grew bigger whilst the other three shrank away, sharp claws emerging from the dark-furred tips, darker pink fur coating the top part of the legs to contrast the bright pink fur elsewhere.

Her new legs felt strong enough to carry all that additional weight, Petra easing herself away from the wall as she cautiously took a few steps to test them out. Her humanoid upper body was connected to her arachnid lower body by the waist, a small pair of limbs that wouldn't be too far removed from the pedipalps of a normal spider growing outwards, hanging down where her human legs used to be.

"Again, you'll quickly get used to it, there's just a little bit more to go!" Shade smiled reassuringly, the fur moving up her neck and around her head, her hair receding into her shifting skull. Floofy fur sprouted around the sides of her face and top of her head, ears relocating to the top of her head, stretching into long, triangular points which could easily be mistaken for horns if you were to look from a distance. The grey fur around her sides and lower lip shifted to a dark pink around the front of her face, a pair of pink-furred chelicerae jutting out from the sides of her head, the fangs hidden within them . Petra's upper lip reshaped, taking on a fang-like appearance whilst her teeth sharpened into dangerous-looking fangs.

The changes reached their end when her eyes enlarged slightly, an inky black colour filling the sclera whilst her irises turned grey, an odd pressure forming around the front of her face as two small pairs of eyes formed and opened, enhancing her vision greatly.

"So? How do you feel?" Shade asked.

"Hrm..." Petra blinked, all six eyes doing so in unison as she took a moment to realise she was now looking down at the raven. "I'd be lying if I said this didn't feel strange, but at the same time..." She looked over herself, running her many hands along her furry form, reaching down and back to feel her new legs and abdomen. "I kinda like it!"

"Here, let me help you get a better view of the front!" Shade snapped her talons together, conjuring a mirror on the wall next to the shelves that Petra had used moments ago to balance herself. She turned slowly, not wanting to bump anything with her giant abdomen, taking a look at herself in the reflective surface.

"Oh wow, I do look quite cute~" Petra smiled, admiring the tarantula-taur that stared back at her. "And you really think I'd do a good job weaving?"

"My dear, you're a natural at it!" Shade giggled. "Try making something, say... a dress."

Petra nodded, sitting back in a position where she could access her hind quarters, a fine strand of silk being ejected as her spinnerets moved to produce it. Her legs worked like a blur to weave it, like it was second nature to her, and before too long, she had produced a fine silk dress, not large enough for her, but it looked like it would fit Shade perfectly.

"See, what did I tell you?" Shade cawed proudly. "An absolute natural already!"

"Heh~" She smiled back, offering Shade the dress.

"Why thank you, I'll have to try it on once we've moved some of this stuff aside!" The raven smiled, placing the dress around her shoulder for the time being. "And I believe a new name is in order for you, I can't say I'd know many creatures that've kept their original name after they were changed, except in rare cases.

"Hrm..." Petra scratched the side of her face with both her right arms. "How about Rumi? Rumi Antula?"

"I love it!" Shade beamed. "We could always call you Ms. Antula for short!"

"I dunno about that, people might mistake me for one of the Bad Guys if I went by that name!"

"True, true!" Shade chuckled. "Rumi works just fine!" She placed an arm on Rumi's side. "Now let's get to work on clearing this stuff away... though really, some of this was meant to be done by Haimogwen, where did he get to?"

"Shade, I think we're going to need to get some bug spray to get rid of those spiders!" Haimogwen called out as he came out of the stock room, making his way out towards the raven. "Is there anywhere around here that sells any Ra....Ra...Ra..." He froze up as he caught sight of Rumi, the massive spider beast looming over the raven and the bat. "Ra...ra...ra...ra..."

Rumi advanced towards Haimogwen, a stern look on her face, perhaps at the mention of him wanting to harm the spiders out back. The bat looked like he was staring death straight in the face, his eyes wide. He glanced at Shade, shooting her a look that half read 'WHAT THE HELL IS THIS THING?!' and half read 'I'M GOING TO DIE, I'M GOING TO DIE', since Shade didn't seem to be doing anything to stop Rumi's advances.

"Ooooh, you're adorable!" Rumi grinned, wrapping her four arms around Haimogwen, pulling him into a hug, the pedipalps also working to hold him in place.

"Ra...RA....RRUAOREUHOGUOHAGEUOHGOAUHGAOUHGWOUHGWOUHGWOAHG..." Haimogwen foamed at the mouth, eyes rolling into his head as he passed out in her grasp.

"Oh dear, I think Haimogwen's soul just left his body... no, wait, I can see it dancing above him~" Shade giggled.

"Is he ok?" Rumi asked, concerned as she held the bat's limp body.

"He'll be fine, he does have a tendency to overreact to some of these things!" Shade watched as Rumi carefully placed Haimogwen down on the service desk. "Just give him some time to recover and we'll try this again! Also, disregard the whole thing with the bug spray, I'm sure the spiders out back will warm up to you so you can keep them in check!"

"Heh!" The giant spider giggled. "I think I'm going to like this job~"