tushanshu_logs | The Midnight Hotel January catch-all

Entry tags:

The Midnight Hotel January catch-all

Characters: Anyone, everyone.
Date: Month of January, 2016
Location: The Midnight Hotel
Situation: Catch-all post! Feel free to use this post for anything that happens within the Midnight Hotel over the month of January, using the subject header to label specific rooms or for specific people. Please also see the OOC note at the bottom.
Warnings/Rating: None thus far.

The Midnight Hotel was among the few buildings which showed no sign of having been damaged by the invasion six months ago. That followed, of course; the Hotel hadn't even been present. But either way it stood out, and many of the kedan knew by now that the building, so different from the architecture of the rest of the city, was a safe-haven. Too many mistook it as a Foreigner safe-haven alone, but not all; even now there was usually one or two kedan present.

Some of them were gang-members, ones with whom Anton had forged closer relationships before the Foreigners' year-long disappearance or simply those who chose to visit in defiance of the general public's opinion.

Anton had taken great pains to give the Foreigners structure and normalcy. While the means of payment were, in some cases, not much more than an illusion, he gave as much in the way of purpose as he could. As a result there were now many Foreigners on staff at the Hotel, though of course the rules were still in strict effect. Anton himself was readily available at most given moments if needed for assistance, questions or otherwise.

There was also an oddity in the lobby: a construction in one of the corners where a long bank of three public consoles was being built. The Metalworkers responsible for its construction were generally taciturn and more concerned with their work than with interactions, but they didn't seem worried about being observed or by the close proximity of the Foreigners.

[ooc: The Midnight Hotel's status page is available here, with the rules at the top and ongoing status at the bottom. PLEASE POST TO THE STATUS PAGE IF YOUR CHARACTER WOULD LIKE A ROOM. Anton will manufacture means of payment until Foreigners are able to properly offer recompense or choose to move out, so you can assume they're 'paying' in some method.

If you have a specific job for your character to do around the Hotel (eg working the kitchen, security, house chores) please also note that so I can keep track of Anton's casual staff.]

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Skulduggery didn't bear a grudge towards the kedan for losing his suite, which he'd barely used. Nor did he bear a grudge for the lukewarm welcome, for precisely the reasons Raine outlined. What he did hold a grudge for was the theft of his Bentley, and that was a grudge he would hold for a very long time.

All things considered, Skulduggery would leave peace up to the diplomats.

"Almost a week," he answered. "I've just returned from ending a large war. That's three disastrous wars I've ended now. I won't lie to you; I'm sick of war. If the kedan decide they want to run us out of the city, I have half a mind to let them, and lead us into a glorious new age of hermit people."

The detective took a seat in one of the room's armchairs, placing his hat carefully down on his knee. "There hasn't been any news from the Palace, has there?"

"A glorious age of hermit people who live where, exactly?" Raine's tone was blandly curious, but she was not entirely succeeding at hiding a smile. "As tempting a plan as it is, with the kedan making efforts to expand the farmland, there are only so many places on the turtle that will allow for true isolation, and taking to some mainland continent doesn't seem like a viable plan, either."

She came around to lean against the foot of the bed, rather than take up an actual seat, and her amusement, such as it was, faded a little. "None that I know of, no. It appears to have remained empty overall. Do you have reason to believe there would have been?"

"It's more of a viable plan than it was two years ago," Skulduggery pointed out. "Our soul anchors aren't fixed in lanterns anymore. We can carry them around with us."

That left the obvious question of how they'd get back home, or learn more about the magic still drawing people to Keeliai. But as far as Skulduggery was concerned, those were details. Perhaps they could visit once a year.

"Not an obvious reason," Skulduggery admitted. "It just feels strange to me that it was privy to so much of Malicant's influence without leaving behind so much as a single trap. I flew around it a few days ago, and nothing tried to shoot me down. It was very strange."

Raine touched the bracelet on her left wrist absently, as if Skulduggery's mention had reminded her to double-check; it was a narrow cuff of a thing, the main motif a tree with intertwined branches. "We could leave, yes, but I don't think we'd want to. People are still appearing here, it would be difficult to return, and there's still the matter of Tu Vishan to investigate further."

She folded her arms across her chest then, the fingers of one hand tapping absently against the other elbow. It was a little sad that lack of hostility was regarded as strange, but understandable. "It stood open and unguarded for a year," she noted. "Whatever remained once Malicant was defeated had more than enough time to be removed. Did you happen to go inside?"

Tu Vishan. Yes. Until the turtle either woke up, sank, or bumped into a landmass containing an expert in giant turtle physiology, Skulduggery didn't see how they were going to answer that question any time soon.

"Was it removed?" Skulduggery asked, the faint note of absent-mindedness in his tone marking the question as a hypothetical one. "I went inside, yes, but no one else has for months. The strange thing is that the basement, dungeons, that large pit? They've all been blocked off. Nothing I could do unblocked them. I'd venture to guess that nothing's been removed - more swept under the rug."

"Blocked off," Raine echoed, her focus on Skulduggery suddenly sharp. "Blocked off how, exactly? I haven't looked at the Palace in any detail, myself, but I didn't think there was much that could deter you if you were sufficiently determined." Elemental mages with enough motivation could wreak rather a lot of destruction, she knew, even if she hadn't seen Skulduggery in full-out combat before. "...that may be for the best -- I shudder to think of any of the fruits of Malicant's experiments getting out -- but it raises a number of new questions."

It probably was for the best, Skulduggery agreed. That didn't stop him from being mildly annoyed over it, the same way he'd be mildly annoyed over any locked door barring his way.

"Rock," he said simply. "Layers of it. I should be able to break through that, yes, but it wasn't as easy as it looked, and I'd rather wait until we know more about what's on the other side. For all we know, an enterprising group of kedan are the real heroes of the war, and breaking the barrier could release Malicant all over again."

Malicant, or whatever those blood experiments were for - something worse.

"Yes, I'd agree; better to wait until we can be sure." Raine was still frowning about the idea, though, misliking the thought that none of them knew exactly what had happened there. And the appearance of several layers of rock seemed like something that should have a discernible cause. "It would be worth asking around about, though the likelihood of a straight answer seems slim. Was the difficulty due to magical enhancement of some sort, or was it simply more rock than you anticipated?"

A hesitation, and then: "Even if we can't be sure, there's a chance we should consider trying to investigate anyway. If there's anything in Keeliai that would give us a better idea of what Malicant did to Tu Vishan..."

Skulduggery had already been asking around. Those kedan who agreed to speak with him at all hadn't been near the Palace since Malicant was defeated, which killed the investigation before it started. In the end, he'd simply resolved to keep an eye on the Palace, but to leave the underground tunnels alone.

"Probably both," Skulduggery mused. "Eva was capable of using magic. Who's to say she never taught some of the kedan what to do?"

As much as he agreed that finding out what happened to the turtle was a priority, Skulduggery was reluctant to risk obvious danger to do it. In the end, Asti was either dead or unconscious. If he was unconscious, they would find out sooner or later. If he was dead, then nothing was ever going to change.

"The Dreaming," Skulduggery suggested. "That would give us a better idea. Someone somewhere must be doing research into how the planes are connected now that the war's over."

Something about his first thought made Raine pause, and her gaze turned distant, thoughts directed inward. "I wonder," she said, soft, mostly to herself, turning over the idea of kedan and magic, specifically the possibility that they might be able to use her own. She didn't know; she'd never asked.

Then the recollection that she'd been in the middle of a conversation, and should possibly continue with that thread before diverging on any others. "I'd be surprised if they weren't," she said with a nod. "Though I doubt they'd be advertising it. Yes, that seems a safer place to start. Have you mentioned it to Solomon?" It seemed likely for a variety of reasons that Skulduggery had run into Solomon, or sought him out, and it was rather a key portion of his research.

Skulduggery had only run into Solomon once since returning - or at least, only had one in-depth conversation with him - and that had been over moving the separate pieces of a broken Dreaming gate out of the old suite and over to the Hotel. Now that Raine mentioned it, Solomon seemed an obvious choice, but he'd given Skulduggery the impression he wasn't going to continue that research right away.

"No," Skulduggery admitted. "Old habits die hard, I suppose. I'll mention it to him when I next see him."

"As far as I know, he's the one among us who's studied the planes the most," Raine pointed out. Old habits-- ah. She supposed she shouldn't be too surprised, but it did seem foolish to overlook the potential resource. Her own additions to Solomon's endeavors on that front had been secondary at best. "Especially if you can't locate any kedan researchers who are willing to talk to you, Solomon seems a logical place to start."

Another pause, and Raine straightened, went to the window before turning back. Almost aimless, something to do with excess energy rather than a real desire to look out. "What do you think are the odds that it's not all connected to the Dreaming somehow?" she asked, quietly resigned.

"Not very good," Skulduggery told her, answering quickly enough that Raine could probably surmise the same thought had already been on his mind. "We defeated Malicant in the Dreaming. Eva, the woman responsible for keeping us grounded, died while we were in the Dreaming. Many of us spent an entire year in the Dreaming. I wouldn't be surprised if there were pockets of the Palace stuck permanently in the Dreaming, or that Malicant is somehow trapped within it."

Something about that explanation made Skulduggery hesitate, and then bow his head. "We were physically in the Dreaming. Were physical injuries still present when you woke up?"

Raine glanced aside, and sighed quietly. "No," she said, "I suppose it was foolish to hope otherwise. It all comes back to the Dreaming somehow." Too much to hope for more substantial a respite; there was still the work of cleanup to do, on more than just the level of the city.

The way Raine's hand drifted to rest over her heart would likely answer the question for Skulduggery before her words actually did. She returned her gaze to him, giving the bowed head a thoughtful look. "Only a scar," she said, with something closely resembling neutrality. "But then again, I did heal myself. Milyn said most of us showed the physical evidence while it was happening. She looked after us as best she could."

That meant Skulduggery's supposition in the Dreaming had been entirely wrong. He'd shot Raine because he'd been convinced that wouldn't actually kill her, even if she wasn't able to heal herself. If the bullet wound appeared even in the Life plane, threatened Raine's life beyond the hazy curtain of the Dreaming...

Well. It was a very good thing she was able to heal herself.

An apology was, by that point, entirely useless, so Skulduggery didn't start. "Was anyone killed?" he asked with that slightly transient quality of someone deep in thought. "Did anyone return home without leaving word? If Milyn didn't want to panic us, she might not have said anything."

Raine gave both the question and his demeanor equal consideration. "No one that I know of," she said at length. "I knew both you and Bakura meant to return to your homes. I didn't notice anyone unexpectedly missing, nor did I see anyone frantic because a friend of theirs was missing. A more detailed survey would be necessary to be sure, but I believe we all survived that fight."

She hesitated over what she was going to say next; Skulduggery was difficult to read at best, but the way he'd asked that question... hm. "I said thank you, back then," she added, without any particular weight to it, just her typical calm. "I did mean it." Whether or not he had any concern for his actions then, she held nothing against him, and she judged that important to reinforce.

Skulduggery didn't need to be sure. It was enough for him that Raine believed it, particularly with more pressing questions to consider. There was always the chance someone had slipped through the cracks by virtue of being a loner, but the number of Foreigners - and the number who knew each other by face, if not by name - greatly lessened that chance.

"I'm sure you did," Skulduggery answered absentmindedly. Then he caught himself and rephrased the sentiment. "I know. If I had to do it again, I wouldn't change anything." His head tilted. "I'm not wallowing in guilt, I promise. I'm far too enigmatic for that."

Raine quirked half a smile at that, rather than taking any issue with his earlier phrasing. "Good," she said, with a little nod. That matter, at least, was not a weight worth carrying. "However, I feel it worth noting that one may be a persistent puzzle and still -- ah -- wallow in guilt; the conditions do not preclude each other." It was for semantics she said it, rather than actual contradiction of what he'd said, and the relative lightness of her tone reflected that.

An afterthought occurred to her then, which she tacked on regardless of where the conversation had taken the topic. "Milyn may bear speaking to as well; even if she hasn't studied the planes in detail, she was the only one here with Eva when everything happened."

It was tempting to be exasperated by the semantics, but Skulduggery chose to be amused by them instead. He was semantic often enough himself, and there was probably a universal rule somewhere which cited that as hypocrisy.

He'd considered Milyn as well; the only drawback was that she reminded him too much of people like Finbar Wrong, which made talking to her a bit of a last resort. Even in the days before Keeliai, Skulduggery would rather have talked to Solomon than to Sensitives who always seemed to be high on something. Unfair? Most definitely. And yet.

"I'll consider it," he eventually relented.

Skulduggery would rather speak to Solomon than Milyn. Interesting, given the history of the former relationship. "You have something against her?" Raine asked, only curious. "I can just as easily speak to her if you'd rather not -- we have projects in common." She'd simply thought it better that the primary asker be involved, the better to avoid secondhand information, but she happened to actually like Milyn, and their conversations while tangential were usually informative. It could hardly be called a hardship.

"No," Skulduggery answered. "Nothing like that. I'm sure she's wonderful, if you don't mind picking through her convoluted answers."

It wasn't precisely the truth, as Skulduggery usually didn't mind convoluted answers at all; but he preferred when they were puzzles or riddles to solve, rather than a constant fight to keep the person's attention on the topic at hand.

"If you'd talk to her," he added, "that would definitely be helpful."

Raine nodded. "The next time I get a chance, I'll ask her what she knows." Skulduggery did have a point about Milyn's loquacious tendencies, and it was true that Raine often had to simply let the words wash over her and pick out the seeds that were important. "It's not my primary focus, but-- if I happen across anything else, I'll let you know. The sooner we know exactly what's going on, the better."

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The Midnight Hotel January catch-all

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