No bottled water, but there is an icebox with some milk, fruit juices, alcohol, and probably a few other beverages Fiadh has never heard of.

(He can also find bottles in one of the cabinets, if he asks about that, and fill them from the sink.)

He'll fill his canteen from the sink, but not actively ask about more liquid receptacles. He stands at loose attention, pouches and pockets bulging, after a minute or two. No wasting time, not him, nope.

Once he's ready, the Hearthkeeper will lead him out of the kitchen, back through the great hall, and down a hallway, lit by more of those lamps, which seem to be the preferred method of illumination. (There is no evidence this place has electricity.)

"The reason why it is dangerous to leave my refuge is that I carved it out of something else, that was here before I arrived. It is most often called the Eternal House. Perhaps the greatest reason why it is unsafe to travel there is that things tend to move around when you aren't looking. If you travel far enough, it will become functionally impossible to return to where you started. When I created my refuge, I exerted my power over it to make it safer, more predictable, more hospitable. But the house still has a will of its own. I haven't stopped it from moving things around entirely, but within my refuge, that tendency is... benign. The further we travel from the great hall, the less consistent the layout of the rooms and halls will be. There are tricks you can learn—certain furnishings or decor that point you toward major landmarks like the great hall or cat garden—but wandering around with your destination in mind will usually bring you there without too much delay."

"All of which is to say: do not expect that you will always or even usually take the same path between two places. But you almost certainly won't get lost."

As she speaks, she leads him through a series of rooms and hallways, some of which do have windows. It's dark outside, but Fiadh's superhuman eyes can make out some foliage, outdoor furniture, and paths—the spaces outside the windows appear to be gardens. Eventually they reach a large sitting room with five closed doors.

"This room is new. Most of these doors should open to bedrooms or suites. Claim whichever you like and you'll be able to keep it; rooms don't go away if someone is using them. Although, as mentioned, they do move around. None of the doors in my refuge have locks, but people won't be able to open the door to your private spaces without your permission."

...Gardens, like in some rich fop's preserve. Huh. This is feeling more and more real; Longer and more consistent than a dream should be. It brings the sick dread up to the top again- Except it's hardly worse than the trenches, is it? There have been no signs of combat so far, just odd magic. He's tense, twitchy, and still sweeping rooms and checking his six constantly.

"...Understood, ma'am. Infinite chaos magic house. Do not rely on mapping."

The order to report to a reorganized Light Infantry Division is still hovering in the top left of his vision; He can't clear those with a grunt's account, but it reminds him.

"If I may ask, what will my duties be once I'm fit to work?"

"You must not harm any of my other guests. You do not strictly speaking have a duty to be courteous to anyone, but if you wish to have a social life I very much recommend it. And, although it is not required of you, I do encourage you to lend any books you have to the printers. They're always quite excited to get new texts."

"There is an economy for various luxury goods and services, but participation in it is entirely voluntary. There is no shortage of food or shelter, and I compensate Ton'guni for his medical work—you don't need to pay him anything. You are entirely free to do whatever you feel like doing all day, for the rest of your life, if you so wish."

That doesn't make any sense.

Oh, of course, they're doing the invisible social rules thing. Incomprehensible to outsiders. Right, he'll have to figure it out the hard way.

"Yes, ma'am."

If Fiadh doesn't have any other questions, she'll wait for him to find a room he's happy with, then depart.

Are they even meaningfully different?

The five doors in this room (excluding the one they came in through) open to:

- A small bedroom with no windows

- A larger bedroom with two beds, a couch, some armchairs, and a coffee table, still with no windows

- A suite with a small bedroom, a sitting room, a bathroom with a shower but no tub, and windows in the bedroom and sitting room (currently too dark to see outside)

- A palatially large bedroom with the biggest bed Fiadh has ever seen and several large windows

- A small kitchen with a collection of cast iron cookware seasoned to a mirror finish

(Outside the windows are, again, gardens. It's not clear if he's seeing the same garden outside all these windows or how these scenes relate to one another spatially, although the windows within a single room all appear to be facing the same place.)

The gardens make him... Almost curious. Not much grows on the surface anymore, what is it like? Still, he doesn't give them more than a glance. Peeking out of windows is asking to get your head shot off. Maybe tomorrow he can see them.

The suite is a little unnerving for the multitude of chokepoints and possible-entrypoints. As is the large, windowed room. Windows: Not even once! The kitchen is just weird. It and the suite do, however, represent an assured supply of fresh water. Because magic. Between the medium bedroom and the large bedroom, he might as well pick the larger one.

So. Kitchen or large bedroom. Perhaps the magic will be pleased if he makes regular use of the kitchen, and keep it? He doesn't know how to cook...

Well, anyway, the second room it is.

He doesn't have much but his armor and backpack, but he's still exhausted and overwhelmed enough to fall asleep straight away after taking off some of the more easily removed pieces of armor.

He can sleep as long as he likes, undisturbed.

He sleeps for four hours, mounts a short expedition to where the kitchen was, and also that ensuite bathroom (and looks around a bit more if either has vanished), and then sleeps for ten hours.

The nightmares are still the same. The withdrawal pangs are still the same. Being awake... Is not. He can just... Lie here, having made a very nice bed filthy (and quite possibly damaging it a bit with his extreme soldier-modded weight).

Everything he knows says that he should be doing something. Try to go home, and deploy this new resources for the war. Learn to navigate this new environment, both spatially and socially. Fucking maintain his armor and weapon, at least, CAN YOU EVEN DO THAT MUCH YOU WASTE OF CALORIES?

...Fuck.

He eats fruit that is slightly less fresh, and bread that is slightly crushed. He sleeps a bit more. He cries, here in the privacy of a locked room it's fine.

But what SHOULD he do. He is far too... Idle. Idleness is wastefulness, and wastefulness is a leech upon society. The only reason this much idleness is marginally acceptable is because he had JUST come back from a combat deployment, again, with his unit heavily degraded, again. His 48 hours of leave would be up by now... He thinks.

He does eventually get around to cleaning his gun and armor with the cleaning kit in his pack. He's not supposed to be a combatant here, and really... He's far too likely to twitch and shoot someone if he carries around his rifle. He wants to keep it, obviously, and keep it in good shape, but... Treat this like a visit to the inner city under the watchful eyes of MPs. Yes. They don't let you carry guns and outer armor on leave, it spooks the civilians. So no gun, and no outer layer of armor, just the metal hardpoints studded over his body that do not come out- Back of the neck, four on the arms, six on the back, four on the abdomen, four on the legs.

Implied and outright stated tasks: Find a way home, report for duty. Investigate 'magic'. Learn to navigate the physical space. Learn to navigate the social space? Report for medical evaluation. And the only specifically stated task, report to the printers for book distribution.

...Some of these tasks sound easier than others. He can manage to successfully do at least one of them. All it takes to learn basic navigation here, reportedly, is to walk around and observe how the rooms' paths change. He can try to find his way to a particular spot, to test this claim. Like the garden he's been seeing through windows.

Yes, that sounds like an acceptable plan. With a goal decided, the world seems brighter and clearer. Many things are still wrong, but it is tolerable, and he can make progress.

Fiadh Cuiligh, now sans armor and gun but still carrying his ruck pack, will march through the halls holding firmly in mind that he is looking for the garden.

When he first awakes, he find that the door to his room opens somewhere else, and the kitchen and suite he saw before are gone. He doesn't have much trouble finding a kitchen or bathroom nearby if he wants one, though.

When he next awakes, determined to reach the garden, he finds a hallway outside his room, and to one side, a narrow staircase leading downwards. The staircase takes an irregular path downwards and laterally, merging with another, larger staircase, before opening to a long gallery (mostly, but not entirely, devoid of art on the walls, oddly enough) with windows on one side, facing the garden he's looking for. From there it's not too hard to find a door leading outside. (If Fiadh is good at shape rotation and paying close attention to where he's going, he'll notice that based on the path he's taken, his room should be floating about twenty feet in the air above the garden.)

It's peaceful. A few paths wind their way between shrubs and trees, green and overhanging. Songbirds sing. In the distance, in a grassy clearing, a couple of cats lounge in the sun. Nearby, kittens and juveniles play among the roots and branches of a tree.

His AR implant informs him that he has a 3D map conflict and wants him to check the inertial sensors. Yeah, no kidding. The changes to the exterior rooms are really unnerving and very nearly has him put his armor and gun back on, but no. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter.

He paces, eyes automatically scanning the horizon. Such as it is.

What are those creatures...? Hmm, it's usually best to leave wild animals alone.

While he's pacing along the edge of the garden, a small face pokes out from under a bush.

"Are you new here? I haven't seen you before."

She is, in fact, vocalizing within the normal range of a cat (albeit in a more ordered way than non-sapient cats do), which Fiadh somehow effortlessly comprehends as language.

He reaches for his gun- Which he doesn't have.

Hiss through his teeth. He missed a possible threat. His heart is pounding, and this wide-open space quite suddenly no longer feels safe. He glances around and identifies lines of retreat...

He clenches his fist and takes a deep breath. "...I am 'new here', yes. Fiadh Cuiligh, Private First Class."

"I'm Artemis. Are you okay? What does 'private first class' mean?"

Surely it doesn't mean his name is considered to be in some first class of privacy, or he wouldn't have told her, right?

"It's a military rank. I am a soldier... Was. A soldier. I'm not sure where the title came from originally."

"Okay."

This guy is being weird. Acting like prey even though he's like, huge. Probably not a good idea to sniff him.

She disappears back into the foliage. (Fiadh might be able to track her for a little while with his enhanced senses, but she moves quickly and silently and before too long is far enough away with enough plant matter occluding his line of sight to her that he can't tell where she's gone.)

Are all of the small creatures people?? He didn't think such small brains were... Viable in that way.

They don't seem very threatening but he's frightened anyway. Perhaps of making a bad impression?

Ach, rotten eyes and gnawed bones.

Tactical withdrawal back to where he feels safer. Towards that hallway, and then looking for doors to check. He walks fast. He eats a handful of nuts to calm himself.

The gallery is the same as he left it. There are plenty of doors, doorways, and staircases to explore. Is there anything in particular he's looking for?

A dead end where he can watch the entrance and think.

It's not too hard to find a windowless sitting room with no other exits.

Yes, where he can hide. Like a coward.

...No, his brain is not producing any more nuance than that. He is a coward. He fled his duty, deserted into this madhouse of twisted space and endless doors and talking small-furry-creatures. He threatened its master with a gun, and probably pissed off the 'doctor', who is definitely an important personage, in the first minute. He really is the scum of the earth.

He want to break something. Smash it to pieces and beyond. But who knows if the master of the place will object to that? It's the kind of reckless behavior that he does on Glitterdust.

He wants to browse the internet for distractions. Video compilations of killshots, of shitty jokes, of porn or videogames. But there obviously is no network for his implant to connect to here. Also, it's in EMCON-low mode.

He wants to take his last pinch of dust. Take the edge off and relax for a bit. But he's hardly begun facing the challenges of this new environment, there are surely worse to come and he'll be regretful to not have it then. But it would be easy and a relief. But he'll need it LATER.

He has a raging headache. Is he dehydrated? Perhaps. He'll drain his canteen and then brave the hallways again looking for a place to refill it. He needs more canteens...

It doesn't take too many doors to find a bathroom with a sink.