[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

Garage | 22nd-23rd, closed to Callaghan

[skeletonenigma]

It was stunningly difficult to find any single person in the Hotel these days, what with every single spare room on the ground floor taken up by thin mattresses and blankets and sleeping bags of every shape and colour - some, Skulduggery knew, probably hand-made by Anton. But it remained one of the easier places for Foreigners to meet, which was why Skulduggery left Robert Callaghan a message saying he'd found the stolen ring and would be in the Hotel's garage for the rest of the day.

The garage, at least, was relatively empty of people. When Callaghan arrived, Skulduggery would be one of the only ones there, holding a pale blue stone in one hand and watching a back corner of the space the Bentley was stored in.

Raiding Stork's workshop set-up whoop

[tntina]

The warning to not try anything funny at this Hotel place almost sounds like a challenge, really. What happens if she does pull something, huh? But the fact is, her little grenade episode out in the fields has reduced her armory by one, and unlike the Vault Hunters, Tiny Tina does not have a personal Digistruct pack to carry spares upon spares of explosives.

So she's quite gleeful upon discovering a small workshop tucked away in a garage, lacking in tools, but more than enough odds and ends for her to work with. And there's an engine, too! Well, not a complete one, but hey, she's not picky. Her backpack is off and open in a moment, a half-finished detonator, small wrench, and battered and worn bunny plush all laid out on the table. She's holding a screwdriver, and proceeds to go at the engine with it, beginning to disassemble it with surprising skill for one of her age.

The whole time she chatters aimlessly to the bunny plush. "Why yes, Miss Fancilicious, I would like to hear your latest composition. Please, prrrroceed. You know how much I enjoy your singing voice."

Early-ish | OPEN

[whatparenting]

The Hotel is by no means ideal, but all things considered Cass is extremely grateful to Mr. Shudder for the place, and certainly for allowing so many new people to invade all at once. It's a lovely building, it's just... it's not home. They should be home, all of them, but if being here is what it takes to have Tadashi back, she'll get used to it. She'll get used to just about anything.

...except maybe the cooking. And the coffee.

And so she's decided to make herself useful, cheerfully intruding on the kitchen space and the coffee bar in equal measure. Find her in either place, maybe making the closest thing to a real mocha you've smelled in ages, or throwing something together in the kitchen--complete with the little apron and everything. She'll act like she owns the place but she's just so darn nice about it.

(She'll even try to keep Mochi out of the kitchen, but no promises.)

CLOSED to TINY TINA; about the 18TH

[gistful]

The evening of the, ah, 'miscommunication' in the garage, Anton kept a keen eye out for the young lady who had, intentionally or not, caused Stork some mild strife. There were any number of people worth keeping an eye on, given how many patrons Anton currently had; but Tina, in particular, was a concern.

That was why, when Anton spotted Tina apparently without much with which to occupy herself, he approached. “Miss Tina,” he said with a slight bow. “I apologise I have not been able to welcome you to the Hotel before now. May I offer you a hot drink in recompense?”

Most children, as Anton recalled, liked hot chocolate, and if Tina’s attitude was any indication she might come from a war-torn nation for which such treats were rarities.

All fortnight; everywhere; request either Anton or Rover or both; OPEN

[larrikinism]

The bouncy fellow with the indefatigable grin was, as it turned out, insatiably curious and lacking most inhibitions. He bounced around the Hotel quite willing to ask questions and make babbling conversation, usually getting well inside personal space to do it. Or without even seeming to care if anyone was around to listen.

It wasn't infrequent for someone to complain and Anton to emerge, longsufferingly, and pull Larrikin away to loud but ineffectual protests.

One day patrons would witness an explosion in the kitchen. Anyone looking in would see a sooty-faced man with a shit-eating grin peering down at what was left of a toaster.

On other occasions he can be found in the laundry taking the washing-machines for a ride. Or standing in front of one of the fridges in awe. Or poking at the tablet Anton had gotten from Krei. Or trying to see what happened if someone put a book into an oven turned up by degrees. Or just trying to cook a meal which resulted in the pans scorched and food all over the ceiling.

This was not a man familiar with modern appliances, or who seemed to care what their actual purposes were beyond what else they could be made to do.

Moreover, for all Larrikin's chattering, mistakes and general inability to lend any sort of privacy, Anton Shudder didn't seem to care. People familiar with the man would notice that although Shudder pulled Larrikin away from anyone he was bugging too much and never gave Larrikin permission--for anything--anytime Larrikin was out of the room Shudder was liable to be tense until Larrikin reappeared again.

The number of smiles Anton wore actually increased.

Wherever one of them happened to be, ten to one the other wasn't far away, even in the course of Anton's usual duties of laundry and ledger-keeping, cooking and cleaning and checking patrons in. And, of course, the addition of standing over Larrikin to make sure he cleaned up his messes.

[ooc: Larrikin is pretty invasive of personal space and compulsively talks in innuendo, so don't hesitate to toss me a note or PM if he gets to be too much and I'll tone him down. Otherwise, if anyone wants the goods on Keeliai's most mysterious Hotel-keeper, here's your chance! Larrikin would tell all the stories.]

April 15, late evening, locked to callaghan

[makesright]

[ continued from here ]

I'll make sure you aren't bothered.

The entire day had been a whirlwind of emotions and experiences, but by far that encounter was sticking out the most in his mind. Even thinking back to meeting a true, free-thinking AI couldn't keep his thoughts occupied for long; He kept thinking about that masked man and his army of robots.

Even now, as he made his way toward the hotel, Thomas' heart was still pounding as he remembered the encounter -- the man on the wave of miniature machines, standing atop them framed by the night sky, coming from the shadows to knock Thomas' attackers out cold and rescue him. His nerves were racing as he played it over in his mind.

His pounding heart was likely his body's adrenaline output, he was certain of it. Even now he was on high alert, his fight-or-flight response in full swing, as every small sound on his trip to the hotel startled him and nearly sent him running.

But somewhere in the distance -- Tom couldn't see where -- he could hear the sound of flowing metal, rattling as small machines endlessly restructured themselves on such a complex scale. At that, he could almost instantly feel the fear ebbing away, and he spent most of the trip to the Hotel feeling -- knowing -- he would be safe.