The undercroft level of Stachtenbaste serves as a functional and often foreboding part of the fortress, reserved for necessities the upper levels prefer to forget. It houses the larder, multiple storerooms used to stockpile provisions and supplies. It is also the location of the gaol, where disobedient conscripts, would-be escapees, or those under suspicion are confined, and the crypt for temporarily storing the dead prior to disposal.
The larder at Stachtenbaste is kept deep within the undercroft, where the natural chill helps preserve perishables. Shelves are stacked with salted meats, hard cheeses, dried legumes, and jars of preserved fruits, while hooks overhead hold hanging game and meat cuts already smoked in the nearby smokehouse.
Larder
The storerooms contain casks of ale and cider, pantry staples, spare furniture, and supplies for the dormitories and bathing chambers. A separate infirmary storeroom holds bedding, medicinal herbs, salves, and surgical tools, kept apart from the others to discourage theft or tampering.
Storerooms
Crypt
The crypt functions as a temporary holding location where bodies are prepared for final disposal, rather than permanent place of interment. The dead are eventually transported beyond the island’s barrier, either cast into the rapids of the Flumevian River or taken to designated grounds on the mainland.
The gaol at Stachtenbaste is a stark, windowless subterranean wing used to isolate conscripts for insubordination, escape attempts, interrogation, execution, or illness quarantine. Its cells are bare, its purpose brutal. No one who enters the gaol stays for very long. Those who return are often changed; most do not return at all.