AUTHOR'S NOTE: thank you Anonymous Guest for the review!

Also, I will be taking a one-week break following this chapter. The next update will probably be posted on 31 October.

Chapter 165: Where No Rabbit Has Gone Before.

"As far as she was concerned, this was the last time she may see her friend and it was important that she kept him company at least this one time."

-frostdrop1, A New Warren

Vervain had spent a long time digging. The wire was buried very close to the surface, making it somewhat easy to extract from the ground. However, it was extremely long, and it took at least half an hour for Vervain to finally reach one of the ends, the plug. Vervain was unsure what the three metal bits at the end of the wire were supposed to do, but one thing was certain.

-"I told you it wasn't a tree root!" he proudly said.

-"It seems you were correct after all," Orchis calmly replied. "But you don't know what it really is, do you?"

-"...I don't."

-"Neither do I, but I know what do with it. You must find a set of three holes in the same pattern as the end sticks, and insert one into the other."

-"Perfect."

Vervain started to scratch the ground next to the plug.

-"What are you doing?" Orchis asked.

-"Making three holes to..."

-"No no no. It has to be very precise, you can't accomplish that with your claws."

-"Don't try to take all the glory again! Considering what happened to your claws on the last patrol, I doubt you can do better than me."

-"I can't, but humans can. You will probably find an existing set of holes closer to their living place."

Vervain looked at the building. It was just a regular house, not a farm like Bramble Cottage was. This would make it less likely, he hoped, that they would encounter other dogs, cats or hutch rabbits. Additionally, since the sun had set a while before, the human was most likely asleep, and wouldn't cause trouble either.

This prediction turned out to be correct; as Vervain hopped closer, there were no signs of other animals. He soon found what he was looking for: an extension cord, lying in the grass. It had been used for a drill recently, but there was nothing plugged in at the moment, allowing Vervain to use it.

Vervain pulled the extension cord over to the plug; it was long enough to stretch that far. Now came the moment of truth: plugging it in. It was a challenge for him, as he struggled to manipulate the plug, and was shocked more than once in his attempts. It took an annoyingly long time for Orchis to decide to help; before that, he merely stared silently. Nevertheless, with the two rabbits working at once, making the connection was much easier. As they made the final press, a few sparks flew, but otherwise nothing happened. Vervain didn't know what he was expecting, but this still felt like a letdown.

-"What now?" he asked: Orchis seemed to know a lot about this, for reasons still unclear.

-"You dig up the other end of the wire."

Vervain was annoyed at the prospect of more digging, but if Orchis said to do that, he would do it. He had nothing to lose.

At Watership Down, most rabbits retreated to their burrows, but a few lingered in the honeycomb a bit longer. Among them was Holly, who pulled Hazel aside.

-"It was decided this morning that there would need to be someone keeping a lookout overnight," he said. "Did you have someone in mind to go first?"

-"I hope to do my part," Hazel replied, "but I can't right now, I promised the kittens I would tell them a story before sleep. Anyone who wishes to do it now is free to do so."

-"One thing to keep in mind is that some of us should get some sleep now," Hyzenthlay pointed out. "The guards will cycle several times through the night, we don't want everyone awake, or asleep, at the same time."

-"I'll take first watch," Clover volunteered. "I'll never be strong or fast like the rest of you, but I still want to help the warren to the best of my ability."

-"It would probably be safer if there were two of us at all times, in case one must stop to pass hraka or something," Flora said. "Would it be all right if I came too, Clover?"

-"No, I don't mind, I would be glad to have you with me."

-"Can I get second watch?" Bluebell asked. "And Blackberry with me."

-"If Blackberry has no objections, go for it," Hazel said.

-"Oh, I'm sure he'll be so happy!" Bluebell seemed very excited at the prospect of keeping watch with Blackberry. Blackberry himself was in his burrow, unaware of what Bluebell had suggested.

Since he would have had to get up soon afterwards, Bluebell decided not go to sleep. Sleeping just a little would have been worse than not at all; he would wait until after the end of watch with Blackberry. Until then, he resumed his portal experiments, having already spent much of the afternoon working with it, attempting to discover the finer details of its functioning. He met several interesting creatures of varying species, but this was achieved mostly randomly. He was not targeting any of these locations, he just opened portals, and they just happened to lead there.

Fu Inlé, and still with no idea what he was doing wrong, he made one final attempt. This portal led to an endless night sky, filled with stars. And yet, it felt different. There was no moon in this sky, and upon taking a closer look, Bluebell realized that the arrangement of stars did not match what he saw outside every night. That in itself was good news: he had successfully created a portal leading to a distant land. However, there was still a problem: this place was nothing but sky. There did not appear to be any ground anywhere, just endless stars as far as he could see in all directions. There appeared to be a hrududu further away, slowly moving closer. This left Bluebell confused, as it did not have any ground to move on.

As he thought about it, Bluebell came with a possible theory explaining why he had failed to reach Leo's home: he didn't know where it was. All he knew was that it was in "the human world", which was a large place. Maybe, if he had a clearer idea where to aim for, he would succeed. Leaving the portal open, he hopped over to Fiver and Vilthuril's burrow.

-"Where's Leo?" he said. "You said he's in the human world, but I'm going to need additional details to narrow it down."

Bluebell's loud voice caused Fiver to wake up.

-"It's the middle of the night," he said with a yawn. "Can't this wait until morning?"

-"I suppose it could...but I already have the portal open, currently it leads to an endless night sky."

Fiver's eyes went wide, as he remembered his vision about the stars earlier.

-"You must close it right now!"

-"Why?"

-"There's no time for questions, just close it!"

-"What's going on?" Hazel, alerted by the shouting, had run over to the burrow to see what was happening.

-"Where's the portal?" Fiver asked.

-"It's in my burrow," Bluebell said, running in that direction, with Fiver following. Hazel, and a few other curious rabbits who were also woken up by the noise, also decided to follow them, although they had no idea what was happening.

But it was already too late. The portal had gone out of control, pulling the nearby rabbits inside. Bluebell and Vilthuril were the first to go, and Fiver jumped in after his mate to try to save her. Rabbits from a few nearby burrows were also sucked in through the portal. Hannah, feeling herself lose control of her body, grabbed onto a tree root sticking out of the burrow wall, but she could still feel her paws slipping and, worst of all, her magic pebble was in another chamber entirely, out of reach. No matter how hard she held on, she soon found herself meeting the same fate as the rabbits.

-"Ack, ere ve goo agin!" were her last words as she went through the portal, which closed itself afterwards, leaving no traces of what had happened.

On Orchis' instructions, Vervain had continued to dig around the electrical wire. It did not stretch much further beyond the point where Vervain had first encountered it. He soon reached a huge object, the electrical device. It way too heavy for him to lift; he was therefore forced to dig around it. Frustrated at the slow progress, Orchis went to help him dig it out.

Once the device was successfully extracted from the dirt, Vervain was able to inspect it more closely. It was an ancient computer from the 1990s. It was dirty and rusty, it had clearly been there for a long time. As with the plug at the other end of the wire, Vervain had no idea what it was. He looked at Orchis, hoping the fellow captain would know.

-"It's the Server," Orchis said, realizing what Vervain was thinking.

Vervain gasped. There it was, the famous Server that the Speaker had told him about. While the Speaker had not provided any physical descriptions, that is not how he had expected it to look like.

Vervain moved his paws across the surface of the Server, feeling it all over. The sides were still very smooth, although the colour had faded long ago. The front was more interesting, with several lights and buttons. Vervain accidentally pressed the CD-ROM eject button, but the mechanism was jammed by a twig, so nothing happened.

Vervain soon reached the power button. It was much larger than the others, and it looked to Vervain as if it was inviting him to press it. It took some strength to push it all the way in. As he did, the server sprang to life, the lights blinking. The fan started to spin quickly, and noisily, due to a pebble stuck inside.

-"You have revived the server," Orchis said.

The machine did not have any keyboard, mouse, or monitors plugged in (and it would be impossible to add any, as the ports were all filled with dirt). This left the rabbits unable to interact with the device (and even if they could have, they would not have known what to do).

Orchis continued to speak, but Vervain wasn't really paying attention; instead, he was carefully walking around the server, staring closely. The many blinking lights were so hypnotizing. Soon, he had lot all touch with reality, no longer hearing Orchis' words, and his mind was filled with ancient tales of the server's glory.