[Midnight Hotel] April catch-all

[gistful]

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

The last month has seen some new faces, including a young man by the name of Yuri who’s taking over the Hotel’s breakfasts. Thanks to a suggestion by Skulduggery Pleasant, there is now a sheet on the desk for newcomers to write their names and languages—an informal Foreigner census sheet, as it were.

There is also a new feature in the lobby—a birdhouse with a peppermint-fragranced candle on the porch and an owl tucked inside to project the nest. It’s hung from the balcony over the desk, and in fact its presence there has dissolved some tensions among the kedan which had not been readily apparent until they were gone. If anyone asks, the kedan will freely explain that a house-guardian traditionally protects a homestead against nightmares, bad luck and ill-will. Fighting under the eye of a house-guardian is Very Bad Luck, even if fighting in the Hotel wasn’t bad luck already.

The garage is also newly opened, shiny and bright and still smelling of steel and brick from the construction. The Bentley has claimed her rightful place inside it, but be careful about touching her; her owner is possessive. There is a sign-up sheet at the front desk for the four fee-based work-spaces now available there. They’re medium-sized and in cubicles against the wall, with some space underneath for storage and power outlets. Chairs are bring-your-own. There are also storage spaces on the other wall, for those who’d like to lock their things away somewhere more private.

In general, however, the Hotel is running quite smoothly and more and more the kedan are relaxed about being there. Those who are regulars are less likely to call it ‘the Foreigner’s hotel’ and more likely to call it by its name, in passive recognition of its place in the city at large rather than as a representative of the outsiders.

[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 OR A JOB. Anton will manufacture means of payment until Foreigners are able to properly offer recompense or choose to move out.

Comments

[gistful]

In truth Anton didn't particularly feel the need for a tablet, and hadn't even when Krei had offered it; but it was still a worthwhile investment, whether Anton kept it or sold it, either to Stark Industries or back to Krei directly. Still, he felt obliged to at least make the effort in testing its use, and was therefore taking lunch in the commons and--not for the first time--familiarising himself with the tablet's processes.

"I dare say some kedan would argue I've rather seized some of that already," he said without looking away from the holographic dash, his brow furrowed. He'd had the calendar just before. It was an Earth calendar, though, and he'd been trying to update it. Where had it gone?

"It was an investment on the part of one of my patrons," he added, and touched a holographic command which did not, in any way, take him back to the calendar.

I'm not proud of it but it had to be done

[kreitech]

Speaking of that patron, he happens to be passing by right around this time with a latte in one hand (which is pretty much his default state; if the magic coffee beans ever run out he's going to be more than a little distraught) and a yogurt parfait in the other. He's still a bit sketchy on most of the food in Keeliai but it's hard to go wrong with coffee and yogurt. There's even a spring in his step today--he's got a job and the promise of a steady source of income, meaning he'll be able to pay for his room in the Hotel.

At the sight of Skulduggery his step falters just a little, though he does his best not to let it show on his face. The man--skeleton--man?--is pleasant enough, but unnerving.

But there's Anton, and it looks like he's actually getting some use out of the tablet Krei had used to pay for his room initially. He doesn't really have a free hand right now, so he lifts his coffee cup in a gesture of greeting.

"Gentlemen."

[skeletonenigma]

"Nobody was using the space," Skulduggery pointed out. "In fact, I don't think anyone knew the space was there."

If Anton said he was talking about accidentally edging out local tavern or hotel competition, Skulduggery was going to have to assume his old friend had fallen completely off whatever wagon men like him usually rode. Real estate, indeed. Next thing he knew, Anton would be running a hotel chain across the city.

"Which patron?" he asked just as Alistair Krei joined them, coffee and yogurt in hand. Krei had been carrying coffee the last time Skulduggery saw him, too. A mild addiction, a habit, or a perceived necessity? Or all three of them - sometimes it was difficult to tell them apart. Skulduggery gave the man a silent nod of greeting as he approached.

[gistful]

"Master Krei," Anton said, both to answer Skulduggery's question and to acknowledge the man himself, looking up to nod toward him. When he looked down again his brow wrinkled once more, and he spent a moment studying it while sipping his cup of tea.

"I may just be too old for technology," he murmured, and somewhat helplessly pressed another familiar button which, once again, took him nowhere near the calendar, let alone any kind of familiar starting screen. He had a suspicion that the tablet, having been Krei's, was not exactly designed for a first-time user--and that he would have had trouble even if it had been.

[kreitech]

"Nonsense," scoffed Krei, stepping closer. He hadn't really been invited to the conversation and felt a bit like he was intruding... but it was his tech they were discussing, wasn't it?

"If you'd like I can take a few minutes and walk you through it, now that we've got a charger for it. You'll have it down in no time, I promise." Listen to that confidence, Anton. Believe. "Or, if you have something in mind you'd like to use it for, I can always set it up for you? I can't imagine my new job is going to take every waking moment."

That said, he stopped and shrugged contritely. "My apologies, I didn't mean to interrupt your conversation. Think about it, at least."

[skeletonenigma]

"Not at all." Skulduggery took a small step back, making unnecessary physical room for Krei in the conversation. "You'll probably be more helpful than I am."

It wasn't that Skulduggery had anything against technology. Mobile phones were useful, and practically everyone in Keeliai now knew about the Bentley. It was just that sorcerers fundamentally rejected most aspects of it, since the only way to truly keep an important document safe was to have one tangible copy of it, and keep that tangible copy in a magically warded room. Some habits were difficult to break.

A group of young kedan came into the commons, babbling excitedly amongst themselves. Skulduggery glanced over at them, but otherwise barely seemed to notice their arrival.

[gistful]

"I would appreciate the help," Anton agreed, "though I believe it would serve better if you showed me how it should work. Having it done for me doesn't leave much room to develop my own understanding of the technology."

Anton turned the tablet around to another chair nearby, so they could both view it. Which was, of course, the moment when the bell in the lobby rang. Anton put down his mug and rose. "Excuse me," he said. "If you'd like to make yourself comfortable, Mister Krei, I should only be a few minutes."

[kreitech]

Showing others how to use this sort of technology was precisely what he'd started doing for the Metalworkers, so this would be good practice anyway. He'd had to demonstrate new technology for shareholders at Krei Tech, of course, but going back to basics wasn't something he'd had to do much in the last few years, between board meetings and presentations and whatnot.

"Fair enough," he said, nodding. He slid into the empty chair near Anton's and placed his breakfast on the table, keeping hold of his latte for the time being.

[skeletonenigma]

"I'm perfectly happy not understanding," Skulduggery mentioned after Anton left the room, just in case Krei decided to try and do something about the awkward silence which fell between them. "But I gather it was yours before you arrived. Why give it away?"

There were plenty of reasons, but at least it made for some form of rudimentary conversation while they waited. Across the commons, the group of young kedan were raising their voices to a point where it was difficult not to eavesdrop, and arguing very heatedly.

"Why not?" one of them cried. "He managed to do it!"

"Don't be stupid," another one shot back. "That was a mask, not metal. You can't shapeshift yourself into metal."

[kreitech]

...filling the awkward silence had been on his mind, as a matter of fact. Those sorts of things only get amplified when one half of the awkward silence happens to be a talking skeleton, after all. Krei sipped at his coffee and shrugged, tapping a command on the tablet to bring the holographic interface back up.

"It was one of the few bargaining chips I had at the time," he replied, flipping expertly through the icons on the computer as he spoke. "I needed a room and Anton had mentioned he might be looking for some kind of computer system for the Hotel. This ought to be able to handle anything he could need it for, short of backing up an entire library or something of the sort, but...." He let the thought trail off. Anton's struggles with the tablet proved there was a bit of a learning curve attached.

Until this point he'd not spared the young kedan much attention, but as the voices grew louder he found his eyes wandering from the tablet's interface to the exchange taking place. It wasn't until the mention of a mask, however, that any sort of reaction apart from mild annoyance managed to register.

At the bit about a mask Krei blanched visibly. Callaghan, they're talking about Callaghan... Of course the man wasn't in the room with them, there wasn't any immediate danger, but nonetheless a hand strayed to his neck, rubbed at the faint bruises there before returning to the tablet.

[skeletonenigma]

On the one hand, happily using a holographic tablet as payment for a Hotel room was indicative of a type of person Skulduggery usually disliked right off the bat. On the other hand, there were a number of innocent reasons for it - maybe holographic tablets really were a dime a dozen where Krei came from, or perhaps it really was all he'd had on him in Keeliai and one of the only bargaining chips he had. Skulduggery wasn't in a position to judge.

"... But he doesn't really have a mind for computers," Skulduggery finished the thought. Anton would have been the first to admit it, and he certainly wouldn't have taken any offence from it. A moment later, and Skulduggery was forced to not only rethink his initial impression, but take it back entirely; the sorts of people he disliked right off the bat were much, much better at hiding their instinctive responses of fear.

"Did you have a run-in with the shadow thief?" Skulduggery asked, one hand absently gesturing at the bruising on Krei's neck.

[kreitech]

"Hm?"

It was a nervous, flighty response, his eyes darting from the tablet's interface to Skulduggery, and he clearly didn't immediately connect the question with the hand at his throat, or the bruises. He'd been in his own little world for that brief span of time--on the roof of that building again, surrounded by microbots and absolutely sure that he was about to die.

"Oh, no," he laughed, waving the question away a little too quickly. "A perfectly normal mugging--or at least what I've come to assume must be normal." He smiled weakly. "I'm afraid I've been mugged more times in Keeliai than I care to admit. I'm seriously thinking about investing in self defense training, if such a thing exists here. Or a bodyguard."

That part, at least, wasn't a lie.

[skeletonenigma]

Skulduggery chuckled. "I don't know about bodyguards, but I do know there's a Foreigner-run dojo in the city. They might be able to help you with self defense training."

When did muggings become something which could be perfectly normal - and muggings on Foreigners, no less? If Skulduggery had believed Krei, he might have asked exactly how many times the man had been mugged since arriving. Since almost everything about his demeanour suggested he was lying, Skulduggery took the statement as the exaggeration it no doubt was.

"Did you lose your soul gem?" he asked.

[kreitech]

"I'll have to look into that. Thank you."

It feels a little ridiculous, to be honest--actually thinking that he'll learn how to fight, that is. He's been a tech nerd his entire life. Oh, he's athletic, certainly, but running and swimming don't have much to do with punching and kicking. He hires people to do that, he doesn't bother with it himself.

And what's more ridiculous, thinking that he'll learn to punch people, or deluding himself into believing that learning to punch people is actually going to make any sort of difference when Callaghan has his microbots? If nothing else it might help with the ordinary muggings, at least.

And sadly, he hadn't even been lying about those.

"My soul gem? No." He looks slightly bewildered. "Are those being taken now? I guess I haven't been paying much attention to the network lately. Usually when I get mugged it's one of those 'I hate Foreigner' sort of deals, I've gathered."

[skeletonenigma]

Ah. Those muggings. Skulduggery doubted Keeliai would ever see a proper end to anti-Foreigner related violence.

"Yes," he said with a touch of amusement. "Several people have had their soul gems taken this month. As far as I can tell, every single one of them has gotten theirs back. It's very peculiar. I wonder if the shadow thief is behind any of them?"

The question was designed, at least in part, to elicit some sort of reaction from Krei. The group of young kedan, in the meantime, moved off towards the dining room, their conversation having shifted to something entirely different.

[kreitech]

"I can't imagine why."

It slips out without any thought behind it--he knows Callaghan, or at least knows his motives well enough to guess that the two are unrelated. Unless soul gems have anything to do with technology, or portals, or killing Krei himself, Alistair can't imagine why Robert would have anything to do with them.

And then he remembers that he's not supposed to know anything about that, and that Skulduggery is a detective. Fantastic.

(In Krei's defense, he's not often in the awkward position of trying to cover up the fact that someone might be trying to kill him.)

"He's been stealing parts from the Metal Sector, I mean," he adds hastily. "I don't get how the two would be related. Although I'm not the detective, of course."

[skeletonenigma]

Skulduggery gave Krei a steady look, inscrutable on his blank skull. Not the detective, indeed. Bright, almost definitely - but not a detective. Which raised some interesting questions. The backpedal was a logical observation, but why would someone know immediately where the shadow thief had been stealing parts from? Zanru made a public announcement earlier in the month; it was possible Krei's memory picked up and retained small pieces of information naturally, but more likely he was taking a personal interest in the thefts.

"He has indeed," Skulduggery agreed after a few moments, no less friendly than before. "And you're probably right. Stealing the soul gems indicates a very different set of motives to those of our shadow friend. For all we know, there aren't any. It seems more designed for chaos."