Chapter 13: Hedgevault

He may not have been running, but Charlemagne took quite large strides. Welking could only just run fast enough to reach him before he rounded the next corner. "Slow down! Hell's Teeth, yer fast!"

Charlemagne barely turned to acknowledge him. "If you are attempting again to sway my opinion, I will not hear it."

"Be kinda stupid to make yeh mad at me when I dunno where my room is."

Charlemagne stopped and turned to face the stoat. "Do the signs not help?"

"Yeh took me pretty deep inter yer little city here; none o' th' signs says anythin' 'bout the D Wing anymore, an' I ain't fermillier enuff with this place ter know where t'go."

"Ah. I suppose that would be an issue. Let's get you a map." He started walking again, but this time his strides had shrunk to a more manageable length for Welking to follow. "I don't wish to estrange potential friends, but death is a particularly sore spot for immortals."

"Wait, immordles?"

"Yes. We are trapped between worlds, as Aspects. Not fully in this world, but incapable of staying in the next."

"Oh yeah, I 'member Seamus sayin' somethin' 'bout that."

"Yes, and as a result I am fated to watch everybeast I care about pass away in time."

"Ouch."

"'Ouch' indeed. You can understand why I choose to disassociate myself from the world."

"Well, at least yeh still care. Seems t'me anybeast t' live that long would stop carin' about all the little critters that live and die like ants around 'em."

"I pray you've only just pictured that mindset, and not remembered it from before your injury."

Welking gulped, and looked away. "I… I dunno."

"Perhaps that is for the best. Whatever beast you were before has passed; now, you are free to live as you see fit." Charlemagne pointed to a door approaching on the left. "In here."

The sign by the door read "Copy Room". Inside, shelves of paper and writing utensils (Welking didn't see how they could be anything else) lined the right wall. To the left, several large boxes stood, making strange, high-pitched noises every so often but otherwise doing nothing of consequence.

Charlemagne stepped up to one and held up his arm. He tapped away at the air above with his other paw, as if marking out locations on an invisible map. Admittedly, it was not the best comparison, but it was the closest Welking could come to describing the armored beast's inexplicable actions.

Welking's assessment may have been quite close to the mark, though. After a few moments, the whirring box began churning out a glossy sheet of paper… or something. In truth, the sheet bore a curious texture that had the gloss of water, but strangely not the dampened appearance. He reached out to touch it, but stopped only a claw-length away, feeling the heat radiating from it. "How… what did you do to it?"

"It's coated in a specialized resin," Charlemagne explained. "This will prevent it from tearing and block stains, which will allow you to keep the map in good condition for far longer." He caught the map as it finished dispensing, held it up to inspect it, and handed it over to Welking.

The mesmerized stoat stared at the map in silence. The simple sheet confounded him, in more ways than one. On the surface (literally), the strange 'resin' that protected the map displayed a chemical ingenuity the lands surely had never seen before. The technique required to produce such clean lines as the map showed would have required an immense amount of care as well, not a few seconds within a whirring box. And the colors! Purple was a royal color, absurdly rare; why would anyone make a map for a guest with it, especially when its only purpose on the map was to highlight a region no more important than the others? (Mess Halls, the label read. The plurality was somewhat suspect.)

But the more astonishing part of the map was what it conveyed: an underground fortress larger than it should have any right to be! The rooms in the D Wing ('Dormitory', the map said) numbered in the hundreds, at least, and they were mirrored on the other side (the 'Creation Wing') by an equally vast array of testing rooms with individually labelled purposes. And the final blow came from the simple title in the upper left corner: "Hedgevault…

"Ground Floor."

Welking felt himself sweating. "H...how big is this place?"

"In the event of a global emergency, I can house and feed the entire population of Mossflower indefinitely."

"...izzat so…" Welking pored over the map a bit longer. "Well…" He sighed, and rolled up the sheet. "Yeh mannaged t' confuddle me wid a sheet o' parchment. Congradjellations."

"Another satisfied customer."

"Yeah yeah, hillerious. Now, eh, I'm'na get some shuteye. See yeh tomorreh, ya crazy groundhog."

"Our paths roughly coincide, if you are heading to the dormitory wing. I'll walk with you for a bit."

"Sure, whatever yeh say. Yer house, after all." The two of them headed out the door in silence.

Shortly, Welking came to the realization that Charlemagne was staring at him. "Whassa matta? Yer lookin' at me like I grew a secon' snout."

"Well, in some senses of the word, you have. Somewhere during the testing process, you seem to have grown an accent."

Welking's eyes grew slightly wider. "Sov ob a nitch, so I 'ave."

"Perhaps it was a side effect of the trauma of multiple injuries, or a result of hydrostatic shock from the first rifle. In any case, while it doesn't seem to have affected your vocabulary, I have noticed a decline in your pronunciation of certain words, and a tendency towards certain grammatical idiosyncrasies commonly associated with low-ranking corsairs."

"Izzat-is that a problem?"

"Certainly not. It makes you a more distinct individual."

"Oh. Well 'en, I'm'na keep usin' it."

The silence resumed for a while. Then Charlemagne broke it again. "You said something that sounded amusingly similar to a profanity."

"'Sov ob a nitch'?"

"Yes. Why did you-"

"Nada clue."

"I figured as much."

Silence reigned again, as they continued along the (absurdly long) hall. Finally, they came to an intersection. "This is where we part ways, for now," said Charlemagne. "May you have a restful night."

The halls after that intersection felt empty, Welking noticed. Without Charlemagne's dominating presence, the ceiling seemed frighteningly distant. And even in the periods before where silence dominated the conversation, the weighty footsteps of his metal-encased form filled the gap; now, only Welking's much smaller claws tapped against the floor, bringing little relief from the heavy silence that now surrounded him. Fur, he could even hear his own breath echoing!

Quickly, the oppressive lack of stimulus began to get to him, and he increased his pace in an attempt to make it back to the relative comfort of his room. Left at the end of the corridor, entering D-Wing… right here, then left, first door on the… wait, what? He'd found himself back at the hall of doors, but the first door on the right was now D-02. He looked at the map again… "Rooms 01-32". Dammit, wrong end of the hall.

After another short walk, he reached the other end of the dormitory hall. In a brief moment of curiosity, he peeked out the other end and to the left. Just as the map said, several more halls lay parallel to this one, connected by the perpendicular halls at the ends. How long did it take to build this?

Alas, though his mind could sit and ponder this all night, his body hadn't that kind of endurance. He returned to the door of D-31. Turning the handle (the lever-latch design was curious, though he couldn't remember why), he pushed in the door and headed in. With great care to make sure it didn't make much noise, he slowly shut the door behind him, taking note of the sloped latch that slid in as it entered the doorframe. Abzel was already in her bed in the far corner, in a sleep deeper than a deadbeast. Funny, how she could be so excitable when awake, but so peaceful now. Too bad it was bound not to last; ah well.

Time to wash my paws, he thought, then immediately wondered why. Vermin usually considered it bad luck to wash themselves; mostly due to old tales and legends of them washing away. But as he thought of this, he realized that he didn't want to consider himself vermin anymore. He was a new beast, after all; why not wash away the past?

He wandered toward the central column, set down the map on one of the small tables, and leaned over the inset washbasin. Three levers, or at least he assumed they were levers, were mounted behind it. He turned the one on the left all the way, which caused a deluge of water to pour from the middle one. Slightly panicked, he turned the lever back and cut of the stream. After a few seconds of consideration, he turned the lever again, but only halfway. The stream came forth again, but more controlled this time. He put a paw underneath…

Hot! Surprised, he quickly withdrew the singed appendage. Why would anybeast want running water that hot? He'd heard, somewhere, that some beasts enjoyed warm baths, but for a simple paw washing?

Unless… He tried the right lever. The flow increased the same way it had before; he stuck his paw under it again, and found the temperature chilling, but a fair deal more tolerable. After a few moments of fiddling with the two, he found a balance that was just warm enough to feel cleansing, and didn't shower droplets all over the surrounding area. He scrubbed his paws carefully, availing himself of a soap bar that sat inside the floral bowl. Then he shut off the water flow, and considered how to dry off his hands. Wiping them on his garment would only make them dirty again, but there wasn't a towel in sight (which didn't make sense). In the end, he decided to simply shake off the remaining water.

In his previous inspection of the room, he'd quietly decided to use the bed in the near left corner. It sat next to the door, where he could see anybeast entering and still be close enough to defend the room if necessary; even though there was arguably no chance of somebeast reaching this room with any amount of malicious intent, the urge to protect what he considered his property remained. Conveniently, the bed was also opposite Abzel's. He turned to it now…

And found a rat sitting there, observing him with a mischievous grin on his face.

The grey-furred creature lounged on the corner of the bed, leaning back into the wall. His body, aside from his head and paws, was completely covered in a padded, form-fitting suit, on which several pouches of varying sizes had been mounted. A metal bracer covered his left paw, the blocky steel-toned design glinting in the dim light and contrasting with the beast's toned muscles. One of his eyes bore a similar glint; Welking shuddered at the disturbing conclusion this brought to him.

"Who're you?" Welking demanded.

"Me?" The strange rat unfolded his arms and placed one paw on his chest. "I'm just the custodian. Name's Alphonse; you can call me Al." He held out a paw.

"Yer another one o' Charlemagne's chariddy cases?"

"If that's what you want to call it."

"Well, yer on my bed, so don' esspect me t'be nice." Welking gripped the outstretched paw, giving it a firm shake. "Ain't Seamus th' steward 'ere?"

"Naw, he just manages the face of this place. I'm the one that takes care of the nitty-gritty, the behind-the-scenes stuff nobeast else can manage." He hopped off the bed. "Took the liberty of putting some fresh clothes for ya in the wardrobe; towels, too. I'll go ahead and take your current duds to the cleaners."

Welking opened up the wardrobe; sure enough, several clean outfits hung or sat neatly folded within. "How'd ye get my mesherments?"

"Very carefully," Al responded with a devious grin. "Nah, I'm kiddin' with ya. Truth be told, these outfits are one-size-fits-all, or most anyway."

"Ah." Welking picked out an outfit that looked sleepworthy, then quickly stripped off his grime-covered tunic and started getting dressed. The new trousers hung loose around his legs, with a simple cord sewn into the waistband to keep them up. The shirt was a plain affair, little more than a tunic with a high collar. Everything fit very loosely; perfect for sleepwear, but not something he'd be caught wearing out in the open. Then again, he could just use his old wear…

Oh yeah, except for the giant hole in the shoulder. And the tattered trousers. And the fact that it was covered with the wear and tear from countless seasons of use.

He looked up, and realized that Al was still staring at him. "Were you… watchin' me th' entire time?"

"You're covered in fur, bud. Nothing to see."

"I guess y've gotta point there." Welking motioned to the pile of grimy clothes. "Um, y'can burn those."

"No problem. I'll get your measurements off 'em too, so I can fab you up some new traveling duds."

"'Fab'?"

"Fabricate, bud. I'll run your measures through the assemblers, make you some well-fitting fibers." He sauntered over to the door, metal-plated tail weaving through the air behind him.

Metal-plated tail? Eh, probably the same neurotically-connected deal Katrina had, or whatever it was called. A few questions came to mind concerning how it was connected, and then another, not-quite-unrelated question. "Uh, hey, b'fore yeh go, eh, where's th' chamber pot?"

"Over here." Al turned away from the door, and paced over to the other side of the room. Now that Welking's attention was drawn to it, he could see the seams of a door cleanly hidden in the back wall. Al stuck his pawfingers under a half-board and pulled it outward, drawing open the hidden door with it. "Charlie's not real big on drawing attention to the cistern; thinks it's neater to keep it hidden like this. I'm inclined to agree, honestly." He closed the door again; Welking wasn't that desperate yet, so he didn't bother to protest this. "Anythin' else?"

"No, I'm good fer now."

"Then I'll see ya at breakfast. Though I guess it wouldn't be breaking fast for me; I'll probably get the munchies before then!" Before Welking could get out any more questions, Al was out the door and on his way.

Welking shrugged. The whole affair was an interesting diversion, he thought, but now it was beyond time to get to sleep. If any questions still lingered in his mind, they were of diminished importance now. He climbed into bed, slid under the covers, and braced himself for the nightmares.

Oh, did I mention the incessant recurring nightmares that had plagued him since he woke up on the beach? Must have slipped this storyteller's mind.

So, here we have another character in Charlemagne's motley crew; unless anything else happens, this should be the last one for a while, but no promises.

This chapter was incredibly boring, but it practically wrote itself. Hopefully next chapter will be a bit more interesting; I'm already making headway on it.