[Midnight Hotel] Fourth-wall catch-all; 15-30 April

[gistful]

Characters: Anyone, everyone.
Date: 15-30th April, ‘2016’.
Location: The Midnight Hotel.
Situation: It’s the fourth-wall event and there’s a sudden influx of patrons! Feel free to use this post for anything that happens within the Midnight Hotel during the two weeks of the fourth-wall event, using the subject header to label specific rooms or for specific people. Regulars should feel free to continue using the non-fourth-wall Hotel post for pre-fourth-wall threads! See also the OOC note at the bottom.
Warnings/Rating: Mark your threads if content warnings become applicable, please!

The Midnight Hotel is a magical place—which is fortunate, because Keeliai has magically doubled the number of patrons the Hotel is capable of holding. Where else is capable of catering to an extra fifty Foreigners? the kedan say. Where else would want to?

Unfortunately, for all the Hotel’s many qualities and all the proprietor’s many skills, he can’t conjure up enough rooms for fifty extra people on no notice.

The solution: giant slumber party.

For the next two weeks the ground-floor common-area and the dining-area beside the garage have been repurposed as sleeping areas. Blankets, sheets, pillows, bean-bags, sleeping-bags—Mr Anton Shudder has gone, quite literally, to town in order to cater to the new arrivals. No one is going to be uncomfortable, except by the prospect of sleeping so close to strangers—but there isn’t much to be done about that. The very few rooms still available have been reserved for those who well and truly require the privacy.

Catering is a little more difficult. Suffice to say Mr Shudder is outsourcing for a good part of the fortnight.

On the plus side, Mr Shudder is gracious enough to let those without a soul-gem stay for free. As long as, of course, they Follow The Rules, which are told to every newcomer nearly as soon as they’re welcomed through the door.

Although Anton does attend the festival, he can be regularly found throughout the Hotel for anyone who has questions or concerns. He will, most of the time, be dogged by a bouncy fellow with an indefatigable grin, and it won’t be uncommon to hear variations of the following conversation:

“Hey, Anton—”

“No.”

“You didn’t even—”

“No.”

“Excuse me, I was just going to say—”

“Absolutely not.”

“Anton, hey Anton, hey hey Anton?”

“No.”

And so it goes.

[ooc: The Midnight Hotel’s status page is available here, with the rules at the top and ongoing status at the bottom. PLEASE PM ME IF YOUR CHARACTER WILL PERFORM A VIOLENT ACT. The Hotel is a neutral-zone and the proprietor is very strict as to acts of violence, and it will receive a response.

It will not be necessary for fourth-wall characters to officially check into the Hotel during the event.]

Comments

[merb]

Tina's abrupt shift from brash to confused helped temper the niggling feeling of unease, and Stork gave a mostly-silent sigh before finally answering Anton's previous question.

"There's no problem," he said, turning to face Anton fully and, in doing so, put himself between Tina and the Hotel's owner. "I'm giving her permission to be in here. She was, uh, just about to say where she'd picked up a mechanics skill."

[gistful]

If an adult had tried that, Anton wouldn't have bought it. But Tina was a child, and judging by her behaviour--and even the rumours of her behaviour--she genuinely didn't understand what was wrong with what she had just done. In which case, adhering to the letter of his own rules wouldn't do much to aid in that understanding.

There was no point in an enforcing a law on someone who had no context for it. Especially since the potentially injured party did deny there was an issue.

But he could watch.

Anton inclined his head. "Very well." He retrieved a high stool from the corner, where it had been in lieu of storage, and took a seat against the wall where they could know he was there but he wouldn't be in the way. "You may continue. I shall not interrupt."

He would stay there long enough to ensure nothing truly was going to happen, and yes, later on, take Tina aside. There was something about this girl, something not quite sane, and better to address in early than not.

[tntina]

And now the boggling went from Anton to Stork. Only a moment ago he'd been taking away her things, and now he was... letting her use the workshop. Permission. It was strange and confusing and new and something clicked in her mind then, a small voice wondering if maybe things weren't like Pandora everywhere.

It wasn't loud, and it wasn't prominent, but it was there and it was a strange thought, almost a little scary to think about. Actually, a lot scary. And so she wouldn't think about it, not now.

Tina twitched and snapped back to herself, the surprised wonder gone for the moment. "I am a self-taught mistress of demolitions, with a side-degree in charm." There was pride there, pride in her talent for blowing things up and crafting explosives and learning it all on her own. "...but Scooter did teach me some stuff 'bout his runners until I upgraded their rocket launchers. He shoulda built them stronger, they wouldn't've blown up just by starting if he used better materials in the digistruct template, and now none of them can autolock anymore."

[merb]

Stork didn't look terribly thrilled that Anton was sticking around, but he supposed that was a minor trade off. But the sidelong attention is brought back to Tina as the girl explains matter-of-factly where she got her skills.

"Demolitions," Stock echoed, which certainly explained the grenades and whatever boomers were; some type of bomb, most likely. It was probably a good thing he'd interrupted her before she'd converted his engine into something that went the wrong kind of boom.

Instead, he pulled up a stool of his own, next to the work bench. "Tell me about... runners," the pilot said, calmly beginning to put back the parts that Tina had stripped from the cylinder head like it had been nothing of consequence.

[tntina]

"Yup. No one on Pandora knows more'n me. I got skills." Tina nodded sagely (or at least her idea of sagely). She made a little squeak of protest when Stork began undoing her work, but a glance back at Anton sitting quietly, watching, and she gave no other objections.

"Oh, runners, they're just what Scooter calls his cars. Four wheels, front turret, driver, gunner seat with machine gun or rocket launcher, normal stuff like that." Her definition of normal was incredibly skewed. "Pretty fast, faster'n what the bandits build at least."

She looked sidelong at the engine, head tilted slightly. "What're you gonna do with that, anyway?"

[merb]

Stork was mentally building the vehicle in his mind as Tina described it, weapons and all, and when she was done, he gripped his wrench a little tighter. "What do you need something like that for?" he asked. "Must be pretty serious bandits."

He looked down at the engine, then pulled out a rolled blueprint from his toolbox. It showed a skimmer, and he tapped the engine compartment on the paper.

"Goes in here," he said.