August Midnight Hotel post

[gistful]

Characters: Anton Shudder and OPEN
Date: Month of August from about the 3rd onward
Location: Midnight Hotel and various shopping areas around the city
Situation: Anton retakes the Hotel and opens it to the public
Warnings/Rating: Possible violence

A: Reclaiming the Hotel
A wise man scouted his new area before committing to anything within it, and Anton was if not wise then at least practical. It was during his second day exploring that he found the entrance to the Midnight Hotel. It was, frankly, quite unexpected and Anton entertained the possibility that it was an illusion before entering.

The interior was in the newly-repaired condition as he recalled three days ago, if still unfurnished. It was also full of kedan with what Anton recognised as gang tattoos. Several different gangs, in fact, taking cover from the heat and arguing over who owned the Hotel.

He told them he owned the Hotel and asked them all, politely, to leave so he could clear up the mess. They refused.

Ten minutes later they all left anyway, some of them bearing their unconscious comrades and all bearing bruises or broken limbs of some manner. The odd thing was that when he went to the door, it was as though they had all exited into different, unseen areas of the city.


B: Heatwave
Once it became clear that the heat was going to persist, Anton started double-booking the rooms and offered linens and mats to anyone who wished to bed in the common areas. It was almost just as well that he’d lost all his furniture.

There were, of course, strict stipulations dividing the lines between any gang-members who chose to retire from the heat in the Hotel’s rooms. Word had gotten around about the first brawl, and although there were one or two idiots who insisted on pushing the boundaries they were put down quite smartly and evicted. Within a few days all gang-kedan present were on their best behaviour, treating Anton with utmost courtesy and always with the appellation ‘Mr Shudder’.

The same offer was made to the rest of the public, naturally. Anton didn’t make a habit of hiring staff, but he might well have to do so on this occasion.

Either way during the heatwave the Hotel is a hive of activity. The gangs behave and even interact politely with others, and one or two enterprising kedan have requested permission to make stalls by the door for ice and cold water. In general it's like an extended family reunion, with friends meeting everywhere, playing games, exchanging stories, using the facilities.

Within a few days part of the front-wall has been removed to make space for the turtle hatchlings through the door.


C: General tagging
After the heatwave was over Anton had more time to do some needed shopping for the Hotel. Many of the kedan had donated sleeping mats and sleeping bags, and other odds and ends (the library had gotten bigger) but what he really needed was furniture.

He also needed to go back to his other accommodation every three days, which was a nuisance, but one he could put up with for a six-hour rest before returning.

[ooc: The Hotel is sort-of stuck between sectors. It’s accessible from all five sectors, but someone entering from one sector will, at this stage, only be able to exit onto the same sector. Information about the Hotel can be found here. Feel free to ask questions in that post; just identify them as OOC. Please note that if you’d like your characters to have an argument, even a verbal one, because Anton will get involved.]

Comments

B

[skeletonenigma]

The war took a backseat to the needs of friends. It hadn't always been that way, but Skulduggery liked to think he was more of a well-rounded individual now - certainly more than he used to be. The problem was that even after days of questioning and asking around, he hadn't come across hide nor hair of the shotgun Anton was missing. Given that it was a custom-made double-barreled shotgun with brass fittings lost in a world that didn't seem to have moved far past bows and arrows, that was unusual.

After those few days of searching, Skulduggery didn't think he could put off seeing his old friend for very much longer. He wasn't entirely sure why he'd been putting it off to begin with, and that made the idea too silly to entertain for long. Besides, he had a hunch.

The Hotel's entrance was right where Anton said it would be, and worked exactly the way Anton said it would. There was really no surprise there. Skulduggery paused just inside the door anyway, watching members of two different gangs he thought were bitter rivals treat each other with something remarkably like civility.

[gistful]

The Hotel was thriving. All of Anton's fees were in juulan now, but with the stipend he had initially received he had enough funds to work with as a float. He did have his funds in other currencies, of course, but they were useless here. If the week continued as it was, Anton would have more than enough to replace the furniture kedan weren't offering to donate or make in exchange for some space on his floor.

It also meant that Anton was as close to run off his feet as it was possible for Anton to be.

"Skulduggery." Anton appeared beside his friend from the general direction of the kitchen and handed him a tray of cool tea and snacks, and some medicine. "Please take this to the group of kedan in the corner of the common-room, formed in the shape of the blue-skinned humans."

Then he vanished into the crowd, stepping calmly and easily around a group of children playing with a top, and making for the kitchen. Those kedan who could cook had turned out in the kitchen, but some were too taken by the heat and in need of aid. And that, of course, wasn't considering the little squabbles which had a tendency to subside when Anton passed by.

[skeletonenigma]

... Well, as welcomes went, that was far from warm.

It was also very typically Anton.

Skulduggery took the tray with nothing more than a nod, delivered it to the group of kedan in the corner shaped like blue-skinned humans, and then followed after his friend into the kitchen. There was just as much activity here, if not more. It seemed not a single kedan had been overlooked in Anton's quest to rope the whole of Keeliai into running his Hotel for him.

"So," Skulduggery said casually, taking up residence in the least occupied corner so he could stay as much out of the way as possible. "How have you been?"

[gistful]

"I haven't had time to build or buy new furniture," said Anton as he went to the stack of dried dishes to load another tray, "but that has left room for the kedan to make beds in the common-room, so it is not much of a detriment. Fortunately, the family groups are quite able to care for themselves and others, so I am not obliged to service them all."

The medicine cabinet was the only thing he had refused to let the kedan near, which left him to distribute his dwindling stock to those who needed it most. He filled two trays and gave one to Skulduggery. "And Daisy is still missing."

Most people saw an antique shotgun hanging on the wall and assumed it was fake or unusable, if they had the nerve or ignorance to steal from Anton at all. He did not like the fact his backup weapon was missing. He didn't like it even more that it was Daisy. Daisy was an old friend.

[skeletonenigma]

"It's a good thing the Hotel's here," Skulduggery commented. "You'd run yourself ragged without it."

And a lot more of the kedan would be suffering from heatstroke, as well. Skulduggery had no doubt Anton would be doing everything he could, but it was an unfortunate fact of life that one man could only go so far. Even with the three-story Hotel, full to bursting, there were only so many people who could take refuge within it.

"Yes, about Daisy." Skulduggery tilted his head by straightening his frame without straightening his skull. It made for an interesting effect. "I haven't found it yet, as you can probably tell by my lack of a gun to give you. But I did wonder why you haven't found it yet, since you seem to have all of Keeliai's most dangerous gangs falling all over themselves to please you. Have you asked any of them?"

[gistful]

Anton paused in his preparations long enough to look up. "I have," he said, "but unfortunately all of them have learned rather quickly that I do not injure others for personal reasons. Some of them know something, no doubt, and would rather pretend ignorance than send me after someone whom I might well injure to recover my property."

It was frustrating and somehow unexpected. The Hotel's integrity was built upon Anton's reputation and while the gangs were a quick and effective means of establishing that reputation here in Keeliai, Keeliai still did not have the foundation of the reputation built during the war. Anton couldn't bluff or intimidate hardened gang-members into telling him what he wanted to know when they knew the nature of his honour untainted by knowledge of the gist.

Kedan were family-oriented. Not even the gangs wanted to give someone like Anton reason to do harm to them. Not when they knew he wouldn't harm them for choosing to protect their own.

[skeletonenigma]

Skulduggery nodded, mulling that over. Smart gang members. He never thought he'd see the day. "Any chance you know which of them know something?"

It was a long time since he'd tried working his way through constant gang strife. But then again, it wasn't very often one of Skulduggery's good friends lost something valuable enough to put their judgement into question - or as close to a loss of judgement as it was possible for Anton to get. And maybe Anton was right. Maybe Skulduggery needed a hobby. Something to focus on beyond the brewing war and Malicant's many indiscretions.

[gistful]

"I did," Anton said, "but they've changed shape since then, due to the heat, and it's changed the consistency of their unique tattoos. But some of them belonged to these gangs."

He pulled a notepad on the counter closer and sketched out the gang tattoos, and then tore off the page to hand to Skulduggery. "But before you speak to them, please take this tray to the group of kedan with the fins on their heads."

It kept them cool, apparently.

[skeletonenigma]

If anyone would take the eccentricities of Keeliai completely in stride and behave as though it was a perfectly normal everyday occurrence for a group of people to grow fins on their heads, it was Anton. Skulduggery chuckled as he picked up the tray in one hand, balancing it with the help of a little air manipulation, and the torn-off page in the other. "Thank you, Anton."

Once the medicine was delivered, Skulduggery went to talk to the kedan who bore similar tattoos to the sketches Anton gave him. He learned a little more - not as much as he wanted to, but a little more - and then turned to leave, aiming to slip out while Anton's attention was elsewhere. Not that slipping out was a difficult feat. Anton's attention was demanded in so many different places that it was almost always elsewhere.

[gistful]

Except on this occasion. It certainly hadn't slipped Anton's notice that Skulduggery had communicated in text during their first conversation, and it hadn't slipped past him that the skeleton had taken some time in coming to the Hotel. Ordinarily that wouldn't be an unusual thing, but their circumstance was one of war; the Hotel ought to have been one of the first places Skulduggery went if he was truly interested in opposing Malicant.

Yet it wasn't. Anton wanted to know why. He appeared out of the crowd before Skulduggery could actually walk through the door, leading with the bland statement of, "You're avoiding me."

[skeletonenigma]

Skulduggery turned without a shred of surprise. Disappointment, of course, but not surprise. "And you're abandoning your charges just to call me out on it."

It was a quick response - a very quick response - and after another moment, Skulduggery sighed. "I don't suppose there's any point in asking you if we can talk about it later? I do have an antique shotgun to track down."

[gistful]

"Hardly abandoning." He was still holding some sheets and a pillow he intended to deliver. But Anton regarded Skulduggery for a very long moment. The fact that Skulduggery didn't even try to avoid the issue in his bid to escape said how important the matter was. It needed to be discussed and Skulduggery clearly knew it; that alone said a great deal.

"Very well," he said, and intended to leave it at that for the moment when the great shape of a turtle appeared in the doorway behind Skulduggery. Anton added, "You may wish to allow my newest patron entry first, however."

The turtle peered around Skulduggery's thigh and chirruped. "It's you! Hello! Would you like to be my new parent?"

[skeletonenigma]

Had the patron been anyone else - or anything else - Skulduggery would have stepped back to let them pass, and then left himself. But as it was one of the large baby turtles, and especially with the large baby turtle's immediate introductory comment, he paused.

"Ah," he said, amused. "Has anyone told you about the propensity of these turtles to adopt themselves out?"

He seriously doubted the turtle was genuinely asking, after all. Quintus hadn't. Quintus had decided for himself that Skulduggery was a suitable role model, and latched on like a small piece of chewing gum that refused to be removed from between the treads of one's shoes. No matter how reasonable Skulduggery had tried to be afterwards, no amount of cajoling and prodding had convinced Quintus to leave him alone.

C

[ruinsprofessor]

Initially Raine had been perfectly happy with Ryder commuting, so to speak. During the heatwave, his spending time at the Hotel had significantly cut down on the number of unhappy-turtle headaches she experienced. And she trusted his judgment, except on what constituted a food item, so the other parent was likely a decent person.

However content she might be with the arrangement, Ryder was not, and had now been insisting loudly for the better part of a day that his people should talk to each other instead of continuing to co-exist in peaceful if separate orbits. By the early evening Raine had given in, and now with resigned fondness she followed a substantially happier turtle child down a path he apparently knew fairly well.

She would have tried to enter the Hotel quietly, but Ryder was on a mission, and he beelined promptly through the front door, heading for wherever his other parent might be. Raine trailed in his wake a moment later, though halted in the entrance hall instead.

[gistful]

By this time the door to the Hotel had been properly renovated to allow the turtle hatchlings entrance, and then some. The timber had been re-used from a building damaged some months earlier and hoarded by an enterprising family of kedan, and offered as payment for staying at the Hotel during the heatwave; the glass had been melted from sand, tinted and with a rippled texture, and offered for the same reason.

Now Anton had only a handful of patrons. A small group of gang-members had not booked rooms but enjoyed the use of the commons as a place to meet and play dice or knucklebones, and taunt one another without the need to retaliate for the insults. One or two others had chosen to remain for various reasons.

Anton was in the kitchen, making dinner. It was overly large for the number of patrons he had, but now that he had the time he needed to restock the fridge and freezer. Then he heard Ryder's cheerful, "Hello, I'm here!"

With a glance at the stoves Anton went to the door and smiled at the happy turtle humphing at the width of the kitchen's entrance, and saw the woman with white hair in the Hotel entrance. "Welcome to the Midnight Hotel," he said with a slight bow. "I am Anton Shudder. How may I help you?"

[ruinsprofessor]

"I'm Raine Sage," she said, and offered a similar short inclination in return. She glanced briefly from him to Ryder for confirmation, then nodded. "And you already have. For a little while, I was the only person looking after Ryder." The turtle in question radiated a general sense of being pleased with himself. Raine quirked half a smile, amused despite herself. "Thank you."

[gistful]

Ah. Then this must be the other parent. Ryder had mentioned her, in amongst his chatterings as he followed Anton around and asked questions, but there had not been time to submit to the turtle's increasingly less subtle proddings that they should meet.

"Children in need should not be neglected," Anton said, and nodded toward a door just down the wall. "I'm just finishing the dinner preparations. The dining-room is through there. I shall be with you momentarily, if you would like to make yourself comfortable."

The dining-room had swinging double-doors, so at least Ryder would be able to enter, and in fact already was doing so. There were many tables with comfortable chairs, but those tables weren't set; it was a common area, the sort for serving one's self. The tables and cabinets containing cutlery and dishware on the wall to the right, separated by the sort of heated counters used at restaurant buffets.

[ruinsprofessor]

Making herself comfortable hadn't been something she'd particularly planned on, but Ryder was already off in the indicated direction, and their willingness to cooperate seemed important to him. "All right," she said after a moment, and, restraining the impulse to offer culinary help, followed Ryder.

Eventually, a circuit or two around the dining-room later, Raine settled on pulling one of the chairs apart from a table, so she could sit without blocking Ryder out. It put her a little closer to his level, too, which seemed appropriate for an interaction he'd started.

[gistful]

It wasn't long before a bell rang, gong-like, through the Hotel. The gang-members came in, chattering and making rude gestures at each other, and taking several tables at the back. They were followed by the one or two patrons actually renting rooms.

Anton himself came in directly from the kitchen, lugging a massive pot which he put into a corresponding opening in the buffet-counter. He didn't look like much, particularly with the funeral-director suit he was wearing, but he still made carrying a full, heavy pot look effortless.

Dinner was hearty stew, using fish and potatoes (or the Keeliai equivalent) and various other vegetables. Anton brought out freshly-baked bread-rolls for the side, with large pats of butter. The individual kedan served themselves, but the gangs waited with varying degrees of patience for Anton to serve bowls for himself and Raine, and bring them and corresponding cutlery over to Raine's table.

"May I have something to eat too?" Ryder asked with the faintest hint of a whine.

"A moment," said Anton, and he vanished into the kitchen again, and when he emerged it was with a large bowl (it was actually a mixing-bowl) of spiced seaweed balls (the recipe had been given to him by one of the kedan during the heatwave). Ryder gave a happy trill as Anton set it on a chair before him, at appropriate head-height.

[ruinsprofessor]

She had not expected dinner, either. For the moment in which Anton vanished back into the kitchen, Raine blinked bemusedly after him, then at the bowl he'd set before her. Ryder nudged her leg, conveying not explicit words but rather a sense of normalcy and routine. Raine exhaled a quiet laugh, reminded suddenly of the way her brother warned people about her, and by the time Anton returned with food for Ryder as well she had put off bemusement for interest.

"Thank you," she said again, when Ryder was happily devouring the seaweed balls. "Did I catch you at an inconvenient time?"

Well. It was convenient for the hungry turtle, at least. And she had been putting off dinner herself. Anton did seem rather busy, however, much as she herself would be if stopped at the hospital.

[gistful]

"Not at all," Anton said, taking his seat across from her and laying a napkin across his lap. Indeed, his expression was as calm as it had been when Raine had arrived. He was entirely unperturbed by the unexpectedness of Raine's arrival. "Maintaining an establishment such as this is full of constant and regular tasks. There is rarely a better time than the present to be interrupted. I do not know much of you, however. I am only recently arrived in Keeliai."

The soup was thick and rich, and certainly very good. The bread rolls were still warm. It would soon become very clear that Anton had been doing this for a very long time, and was an excellent cook. Certainly Ryder appreciated it; he curled around the short end of the table so he could be within both their reaches during the meal.

[ruinsprofessor]

"I know little about you, as well, beyond that you run this place." She had been by with Ryder during the worst of the heat, but if she had seen Anton it had only been in passing, and she was sure she had not had the chance to talk to him. "For my part, I'm a scholar, and a healer as well: I work at the hospital most days of late."

Basic introductory material thus handled, she moved on to something a little more interesting. "Where did this building come from? It doesn't look consistent with the rest of Keeliai." Even with the differences between sectors, she could tell that much.

[gistful]

"The hospital?" That drew Anton's attention, and he put down his spoon to regard her with a touch more intensity. "This recent weather has unfortunately consumed all of my remedies for symptoms of the heat. Would I be able to arrange an exchange with you for supplies?"

Most of his first-aid items were still in good stock, but the headache medication and re-hydration liquids--commercial, natural and magical--had been depleted by the influx of patrons in need during the heatwave.

"It is mine from home," he said. "I was repairing it after a recent attack. I believe the Emperor's attempt to ensnare me caught in the Hotel's wards and drew it into Keeliai by accident--though not at its full capacity." He glanced around at the walls. Some of them were still sooty, burned as if symbols had been seared into them. He hadn't had the opportunity to repair them yet. "The Hotel changes location every twelve hours, but as this place occupies a location outside of time, it seems that feature has stalled. Now it opens into all the sectors simultaneously, and I cannot move it."

[ruinsprofessor]

"That should be possible. If you write up a list of what you need, I'll run it by Septimus and see what can be arranged." At the very least he'd have to have the final say. They should still have some of the appropriate supplies to spare, at least, despite the recent demand for them.

Raine followed his glance at the walls, noting the burn marks though she didn't quite know what to make of their significance. "Fascinating," she said, and sounded like she meant it. "I'd presume it's closely tied to you, then? How does it usually manage changing location?" To say nothing of opening into all sectors at once, but the two were probably connected.

[gistful]

"I am willing to pay whatever you require as compensation," Anton assured her. "Such supplies are in high demand, I am quite sure. I can afford to pay higher prices to meet the need." Many of the kedan had paid in favours or materials, but more than enough had paid in juulan for Anton to be quite well-off at the moment.

"Closely tied, yes," Anton said, picking up his spoon again, "though not by magic, explicitly. I built it a little under one-hundred-and-thirty years ago. I developed its wards and boundaries, and invented its manner of travel. Ordinarily, it travels along the leys to specific locations on land. I would have imagined even a turtle's back would contain some corollary, but I believe the Hotel is not truly here--not in a manner enough for me to use its time-related wards."