Fontine is greeted by the sun finally creeping up high enough to peek directly through the window of her second story room at The Rabbit’s Den, which is notable for the fact eight of the ten ‘floors’ are below ground. The definition of what constitutes a room on said below-ground floor being somewhat ambiguous.
Fontine groans softly in frustration at the start of a new day, holding her personal pillow closer for a minute as she sorts out whether she wants to get up, and what was a dream and what was real from the day before. The booze doesn’t help matters. Eventually deciding she should get up, she rolls over with her pillow and kicks off the blankets before shoving the pillow back in her magic bag. After mulling over her life choices while finishing her morning routine, she checks to make sure she isn’t leaving anything behind.
She walks out of the room and down a wide hallway to the stairs, then down to the lobby and breakfast area of The Rabbit’s Den. Seemingly appropriate to the name, the dining area is quite wide and filled to capacity, with 60% of the patrons being rabbitkin. Sighing lightly, with a small smile due to the highly energetic children, she moves to grab a few items from the continental breakfast line. Lightly dodging and timing her movements around fast moving traffic, she notices one patron being ganged up on by the small terrorists.
Recognizing the Other despite his haggard appearance she heads over to sit across from him. His clearly apparent resignation to deny stranger’s children their demands for the crazy-straw he is using to consume his juice while laying his head on the table only serves to remind Fontine of Fennec’s warnings.
“Good morning,” Fontine begins. “Get much sleep last night? Are these your children?”
The Other stops slurping from the straw and says, “No, to both questions. What day is it? Were you only here for one night?”
“Only one night, yes. What is that you’re drinking from? It’s clearly not reed and not metal.”
“Failed product. Those weapons I used yesterday have a hollow component to them that also conducts magic like a wand. This is a prototype using a type of crystal-infused glass. One of the spells I was testing caused it to start melting, and, admittedly in a slight panic trying to prevent it from contacting the floor and igniting it, well, this happened.”
“So, you’re using a wand to drink juice, because you’re too tired?”
“Essentially yes.”
While the Other and Fontine were splendidly ignoring the children, their parents call them and set off.
“Dare I ask what made you so tired this morning?”
“The short version is I used some fairly extreme time dilation to fix a fairly complex magic circle that I wasn’t aware needed fixing. I’m not exactly sure, but it should have been around 12 days that I spent in there. I did sleep a bit, just the last stretch was longer than I initially thought it would be.”
“Pulling an all nighter takes a lot out of most people,” Fontine says to fill in the brief gap in conversation. While eating another bite she thinks about the current known record for time dilation being approximately one-to-ten, in either direction. “I take it you set the dilation up then. What’s your record for dilation effects?”
Sighing, the other lifts himself into a proper sitting position and puts away his ‘straw.’
“On the fly…” he begins, taking a bite out of one of the fruits in his pile. “Probably about one-to-five hundred, though my mana starts running out quickly at that level. Give me time and materials, theoretically I could set up a room sized one-to-ten thousand field powered by a continent wide blood ritual, but I’m not too keen on committing genocide. So realistically, a self sustaining formula would probably cap at around one-to-seven hundred fifty.”
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“Impressive,” Fontine says, chewing on the last of her breakfast. “You use that magic very often?”
“Only when I absolutely have to deal with annoying humanoids. I don’t need to get any more ancient than I already am. So about once a century or so. If I need to permanently mess with space-time in an area I’ll just have my specialist deal with it. Ready to go?”
“As ready as I’ll ever be I suppose. Where to?”
“Since we’re here, I’ll grab some things at Daisy Acre first.”
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Twelve hours during what seems to be a non-stop march later, a very tired sheepkin is flat on her face, buried in pillows. Earlier, in passing and just wanting to rest for a week, Fontine had mentioned to the Other that she was looking forward to leaping into bed with her pillows after all was said and done. The Other, seemingly naturally for him, brought her back to his lair and spoke some seemingly unintelligible words into the magic formation he used earlier when they had Helen with them. Not that Fontine cared.
As a result, when the floor finally settles she saw five golems carrying 30 pillows of various shapes and sizes throw them into one of the rooms, and Fleur motioning her to go ahead. The only parting comment she cared to remember from the Other was to sleep as long as she wanted, and to let the golems know if she wanted food or anything else.
The next morning, or so her internal clock tells her, Fontine wakes up and eventually digs her way out of the pillows, which were apparently piled up on and around a bed. Looking around, she sees a golem waiting at the entrance to the room. Ruffling her own hair, she remembers she could ask them questions, though she questions how complex of statements they would understand. Seeing how lifelike they are, except for the blank face, she decides to keep it simple but remain polite.
After asking for the bathroom, the golem motions her over to the wall across from the bed and motions for her to place her hand in a particular spot. She does, the wall disappears, and the golem motions to a new spot just inside and leaves for the entrance again. The interior lights up and the wall reappears.
Finishing up, she exits and looks longingly at the pillows strewn throughout the room. Looking through them, she finds her favorite one out of the bunch and stares briefly at it and sighing. As some people would turn to their pets at home, not expecting an answer, she turns to the golem and holds up the pillow.
“Do you think I would be allowed to keep this?” she asks the moving statue.
The golem walks over, looks up at her and holds out its hands. Sighing in resignation at the apparent retrieval of property, she hands it over. To her surprise though, the golem looks it over, turning it around, then walks over to a small chest in a corner. Motioning to her, he places the pillow inside and points to a flat portion of the container.
Curious now, she assumes it is similar to the wall and places her hand there. After waiting for several seconds without anything happening, the golem ignores her hand and lifts open the lid, revealing a clearly clean, warm, and fluffed pillow. Grabbing it before Fontine realizes what’s happening, the golem holds it above its head with both arms and walks towards the door.
Seeing, or sensing, that Fontine wasn’t following, it stops and turns back. Catching the hint, she follows the golem out and down one of the halls.
“Where are you taking me, little golem?”
After a short walk, it stops in front of a door and looks at Fontine. Rolling her eyes, she opens the door.
“You know, you have the capability to hold that with just one hand right?”
The golem walks in, followed closely by Fontine. She is greeted by the sight of a very well stocked armory, though very few of the items match. The golem makes his way to a counter with yet another golem behind it, and places the pillow atop the counter.
The new golem, whom Fontine immediately names Shopkeep Golem in her mind, reaches over and looks at the pillow in a similar way as the first. It places it back on the countertop and, to Fontine’s surprise, speaks.
“Purified Satansheep pillow covered with March Spider silk fabric and filled with down from a Hyperion-Class Eider duck.”
“Wait, you can talk? How? Wait, what kind of duck? What else can you tell me?”
“Yes, this body was equipped to assist you in any inquiries, Hyperion-Class Eider. Further details of any equipment, clothing, armor, weapons, or potions, that our master has allowed for you to take with you as a helper’s fee.”
“Ah,” Fontine says. “So, if I understand you, if I show you something here and you tell me about it, I am allowed to leave with it?”
“That is correct.”
“I see… Can you tell me any more about this Elder duck?”
“Eider ducks can be found in the extreme north,” it begins, pulling out a large tome from under the counter and opening to a page with a duck drawn in. “Typically the size of a chicken, the prevailing hypothesis in nearby principalities is that certain selective pressures may cause rapid changes in size classes for reasons unknown. This is a drawing of the only known Hyperion-Class Eider duck.”
“Is that a ship next to it?”
“The vessel next to ‘it’ is the Great Frigate Silver Sprite. The top of the mast as seen from another vessel in the fleet did indeed reach to the top of the wing.”
Fontine pauses for a moment as she looks at the drawing and then back at the pillow.
“Do you know what this pillow would be worth if it were sold?”
“The only other pillow created in the same manner was sold to a noble in order to gift it to the Emperor Belacard in celebration of his first born son. The funds provided were enough to purchase the Silver Sprite and supplies, and pay the crew, for a full year.”
“I’ve never heard of him, but still… So I can really keep this?”
“Yes.”
“Can I look around a bit and ask you about other things?”
“Yes.”
“Talkative one aren’t you,” Fontine mutters under her breath as she stores the pillow and turns around to look at what else is apparently available to her. “Can you bring me something to drink little one?”
The first golem wanders off back through the doors, apparently going to fulfill Fontine’s request.