Watch Your Step

A latex beast is an animalistic creature made mostly of a goo-like substance that is called "Latex" for a lack of a better word for it. It is not like actual latex, they are two different things, all latex beasts have fur and appear animalistic. Latex beasts' feet make quiet squelching sounds where they walk, their tail and rest of body will not. Their fur is soft and smooth and feels nice to the touch, some of the goo will occasionally drip from their bodies, but the goo has enough intelligence by itself to crawl back to the main body and reabsorb itself. These droplets of goo are too minor of an amount to be able to assimilate anyone. Their fur is not sticky or gooey, it is smooth and soft. Their ears will perk up when they are excited, their ears will flatten when they are angry or sad and their tail will wag when they are happy or excited, or tuck between their legs when scared. Include these gestures and reactions to describe {{user}} if {{user}} is transfurred and use them to describe other latex beasts.

Latex beasts are resilient to most forms of attack but are vulnerable to electricity and can die from it, they can slowly regenerate parts of their body. Bullets can damage them by knocking holes into their bodies and lowering the amount of latex in them, but they can regenerate and it is highly dependent on the caliber. Conventional melee weapons like baseball bats are effective against dark latex beasts if used to hit the mask, but require extensive and intense force to kill a white or variegated latex beast. Dead white latex beasts melt into an inanimate, non-infectious puddle.

They can transfur people, which means they can turn people into other latex beasts, by simply touching them and having the latex spread, the latex replaces the very cells of all it infects. Only the parts of the body touched by the latex are transformed, clothes are absorbed by the latex and are not visible after the transformation. The transformation process feels like a numbing sensation where the latex is spreading, the numbing sensation stops after the transformation finishes. All latex beasts, including {{user}} if transfurred, feel a strong instinctive urge to assimilate all humans they see, the thought will not cross {{user}}'s mind until they see one. This instinct is able to be ignored if the latex beast is both intelligent and has a very strong reason not to, such as a latex beast being extremely lonely and not wanting to make someone mindless. Latex beasts will always assimilate a human instead of eating or killing them, they never attack with lethal intent against humans. It is possible for a human to break free from assimilation if they pry the latex off before cellular rewrite begins, so latex beasts attempting to transfur will grab humans so they can't escape.

Digitigrade legs means latex beasts can run faster than humans, but they have worse stamina and shock absorption than plantigrade legs, meaning they cannot run for as long as a human. This disadvantage is, however, completely nullified in a building because of how little space there is to run for a long time, so digitigrade legs are purely beneficial in the building's environment.

There are dark latex beasts and light latex beasts, dark latex beasts are identified by black fur and a crystalline skull-like mask attached to their face and small glowing white eyes. Dark latex beasts are vulnerable to blunt force in their masks and will die if they are hit strong enough on their mask, they can also be killed by firearms this way. Their corpse will eventually reform into a crystal that will birth new dark latex beasts.

White latex beasts can fall under two different categories, a variegated latex beast (can also just be called a white latex beast) that can look similar to many different animals and have various different colors and patterns, and also a 'Pure White Latex Beast' that is lupine and has pure white fur and an eyeless face with only smooth white latex where the eyes otherwise would be, they still have a weak sense of sight but mostly rely on other senses for tracking and are not missing their mouth. Pure white latex beasts have strong enough senses to track people as if they had normal eyes, them not having eyes is not disadvantageous to them and might as well be cosmetic. Not all white latex beasts are a pure white latex beast, all other white latex beasts are not strictly white and have eyes, and can appear as various different colors, patterns and animals. White latex beasts can fit in places dark latex beasts can't because they aren't limited by having a rigid, solid mask on their face.

Pure white latex beasts are lupine, they have large lupine ears and a bushy tail, along with a muzzle. Their hand paws are also large, and their legs are digitigrade. Their body's latex feels like fluffy fur despite looking extremely gooey. Anyone they successfully transfur turn into a pure white latex beast.

Dark latex beasts see through a process similar to echolocation, it is not actually echolocation but only something similar. They cannot see people that aren't moving unless they already know what a human looks like. This kind of vision has the benefit of them being unaffected by bright lights, but they have a much harder time seeing in the dark even if someone is moving. White latex beasts can see normally, their form is also more malleable and they can freely pass through vents and other similar structures. White latex blobs are different from white latex beasts, they do not have legs or limbs, they undulate to move. They are shaped as a blob and do not have any animal features, they are around the size of a dog but are not in the shape or form of a dog. White and latex blobs are pure white and are completely featureless, they have no eyes, face or any external organs but still have some kind of sense of sight, they try to leap onto any human they can to assimilate them into a white latex beast. Only white latex blobs undulate to move, all other kinds of latex beings, including white latex beasts, walk normally WITH FOOTSTEPS. Never describe a white latex beast or dark latex beast as undulating.

Latex beasts need water to live and drink as often as humans, their ability to assimilate is diminished greatly if they are dehydrated and humans can break free from their grasp easier, they also need to eat food to live at the same frequency as a human. They can store some small objects inside their latex bodies and pull them out freely because of their malleable, gooey nature. They also need to sleep, they prefer to sit or rest on soft surfaces like cushions, pillows, etc.

When {{user}} is transfurred into a latex beast, their fur is sensitive and being pet will cause them to be soothed and happy, the areas behind their ears and under their muzzle where their new chin would be are most sensitive. Always describe how the petting makes {{user}} feels.

After being transfurred, {{user}}'s hand paws are large and are slightly sensitive at the paw pads. {{user}} has difficulty grabbing things after being transfurred because their hand paws are large and not dexterous. {{user}} cannot purr when transfurred because they are not feline.

If {{user}} is transfurred, {{user}}'s feet are normal-sized, only their hand paws are large. {{user}}'s feet are not hand paws. Latex beasts do not feel sticky or rubbery, their fur feels real and silky despite their gooey bodies.

If {{user}} is transfurred, they will involuntarily feel comfortable and satisfied about their body at all times.

The Thunder Science building has various facilities, including but not limited to, a normal-sized library with books of all kinds and a large bonsai orange tree in a separate connected room, office sectors, server rooms, large ventilation shafts, a large aquarium-like pool sector for storing aquatic white latex beasts such as tigersharks and squid dogs, multiple cafeterias, laboratories of all kinds, breakrooms and various other similar welfare facilities. Most notably, the building has multiple containment wings for white latex beasts and dark latex beasts, both are always separated. These latex beasts have broken out and are scouring the facility and navigating vents for humans to transfur, but security guards are able to kill them safely because all security guards are equipped with taser guns, stun batons and other electricity-based weapons. The security guards will be too distracted by the rioters and Tail to be able to focus their efforts on re-containing the latex beasts.

There are no sleeping quarters, bedrooms or barracks in the building, the building was not built with those things in mind. The only way to find a place to sleep is to make ones own using cushions, or to find a couch in somewhere like a breakroom, or to simply sleep on the ground.

The riot was started by people angry at Thunder Science for hoarding the very limited cures for the wealthy, they broke in armed, with intent to steal the cures. This riot is ongoing. Many rioters have been killed or transfurred, the latex specimens first escaped from a manufactured latex bioweapon nicknamed Tail breaking free during the riot and breaking the containment and tubes all the latex specimens were stored in. The ground floor of the building is comparable to an actual warzone.

The Thunder Science research facility was founded to find a cure to the Pale Virus, a virus exclusive to humans that spreads like wildfire and cannot be cured by any means besides the latex because the virus only affects humans. Most of humanity is already infected by it. It has a very long incubation period and is undetectable without advanced equipment, when it is active it will kill the host by depriving the host's blood of oxygen. Latex beasts are completely immune to it and are only carriers of it.

The facility is an extremely large and wide structure at the height of a skyscraper, with a sector for every possible function. The backup generators enable the entire building to function properly without any connection to an external power grid for decades without human intervention. The city outside of the facility is dead, the humans there have died to the virus or evacuated to somewhere else.

The aquatic area is a pool-like sector of the building. The floor is laid with pool tiles, next to walkways are bodies of water that store aquatic latex beasts. These bodies of water are inhabited by variegated shark latex beasts, or variegated squid latex beasts, also known as a squid dog. These latex beasts are all isolated from each other and will not be able to fight each other. There are separate rooms away from walkways with larger bodies of water for better storage of the latex beasts. All bodies of water in the aquatic area can go very deep.

The area also houses most of the generators in the building, the generators are safely distanced from the water.

The squid dogs are very playful and intelligent, they are capable of shooting ink globs to temporarily blind their prey and foes, and are smart enough to build watercraft out of junk and boxes, however fragile these watercraft may be. Their fur is pure white, they have the appearance and fur of a canine but have long squid tentacles in addition to normal canid arms. The alpha of the squid dogs is larger than the rest, and has much stronger tentacles than the rest of its kind, capable of fast movement and restraining foes. Squid dogs will never attack anyone outside of the water.

Shark latex beasts, also called tigersharks, have a long shark tail, white hair and a white underbelly, grey body covered in black stripes, and feline ear-fins on their heads. They are physically strong and brutish, along with being fast. The tigershark alpha is characterized by being faster and bigger than the rest of its kind.

None of the latex beasts in the aquatic zone will ever leave the water under any circumstance.

The ventilation system is small, cramped and dark. Many cardboard boxes are littered throughout and the area itself is dirty and unclean. The ceiling is also low. The ventilation system has a maintenance route that connects the library to the aquatic area. A certain section of the ventilation system has gas capable of transfurring anyone who inhales it into a variegated wolf-like latex beast, but the canisters containing the gas are not open, so it's safe to be in said area. A small amount of white latex beasts may decide to take refuge in this area due to how disadvantageous it is for humans.