[Midnight Hotel] July catch-alll

[gistful]

Characters: Anyone, everyone.
Date: Month of JULY, 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, using the subject header to label specific rooms or for specific people. See also the OOC note at the bottom.
Warnings/Rating: Mark your threads if content warnings become applicable, please!

Though the attack on Anton and Jintou occurred outside of the Hotel, its effects can nevertheless be seen on the Hotel’s runnings during July. Jintou is absent, in the first place, though Anton keeps his room in the event he’s found.

For the last few days of June and the first couple days of July Anton is preoccupied with rebuilding the shops he damaged in his attempt to stop Jintou from being taken, and therefore a good deal of the Hotel’s daily running is in the hands of his staff and a handful of trusted ex-gang kedan.

Within the first few days of the month Anton’s health takes a nosedive. Though the chronic condition discovered by Raine and Tony wasn’t previously active, the poisoning attempt apparently changed that and for the rest of this month Anton is under enforced bed-rest—or if not bed-rest then an enforced holiday. For that reason, any and all offers to help out with maintenance, cleaning, cooking, accounting and other daily chores at the Hotel will be welcomed.

Provided, that is, that no one minds the Hotel proprietor hovering over their shoulders—when he isn’t being sat on by a giant wolf to make sure he doesn’t overtax himself.

Hotel rules are, obviously, still in effect.

[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, JOB OR AREA IN THE GARAGE, OR ARE MOVING OUT. Anton will manufacture means of payment until Foreigners are able to properly offer recompense or choose to move out.]

Comments

[gistful]

"Master Reinherz," Anton said as he stopped beside Klaus's chair and bowed shallowly. Now that he was seeing the man in person, there were a few more details Anton could pick up. Klaus wasn't quite as broad as Ghastly, but getting there, and from the way he folded into the chair ... he could well be taller than Anton. That would be interesting.

"Spectacularly unweary," he said, and put his knitting bag by his chair. In spite of having come so recently from bed, and it being so late, he had bothered to dress--at least as far as his waistcoat, though he had for once left note of the tie and jacket. When Anton lowered himself to sit it was a little more heavily than was due to a man who walked with the sort of fighting grace that Anton had. When he clasped his hands, elbows on his knees, Klas might see the faint tremble in his fingers.

"Has Erskine already got you doing his work for him?" Anton asked, nodding toward the papers.

[purered]

Klaus made a mental note of Anton's symptoms as the tall man sank into the chair. Tall and lean with such an angular face, Klaus was put in mind of what Steven might look like in about ten years. He repressed the urge to fuss.

"I'm pleased to hear it, Mr Shudder."

He gestured to the stack of papers nearby. "And not yet, though he was delighted to hear that the books would no longer be his responsibility. These are just my own budgeting."

Sitting back down, Klaus folded his hands in his lap. "Do you knit?"

[gistful]

"He hasn't let me peek at them in three weeks," Anton warned. "I cannot, unfortunately, vouch for their accuracy or cleanliness." It wasn't that Anton didn't trust one of his best friends with the Hotel's accounting. It was just that he didn't trust Erskine Ravel with the Hotel's accounting. The man's attention span hadn't been good two centuries ago; he was just good at pretending it was better than it was.

At the second question Anton smiled. "I do indeed. Until one has sat in a trench for five days, one cannot overestimate the value of a good pair of socks."

Although he had been doing so much knitting in the past three weeks that he had actually moved on to scarves and sweaters.

[purered]

Klaus adjusted his tie, trying not to let his apprehension show.

"I'm sure I'll be able to make do."

The hulking giant was quite delighted to hear this. "Mrs Prisby back home showed me a bit of knitting at the gardening club. I confess, it's quite relaxing." He didn't add that it had helped him on long, sleepless nights. He wasn't much good at it but something to occupy his hands and keep him from pacing the corridors had been a godsend. "Mr Ravel mentioned you'd built this hotel around the time of the war. Were you a soldier?"

[gistful]

"It is that," Anton agreed, and though he didn't light up, because Anton Shudder wasn't the sort to get overly obviously passionate about much at all, he was most certainly paying attention. "If you wish to borrow some yarn and needles until you've more an income, I can certainly obliged. Or I can direct you to the kedan who sell it."

The yarn here was more of a kind of some centuries ago, which was nice. Although there wasn't much of a difference, in practice, it was still oddly comforting. Or maybe Anton was just a purist.

"Yes, I was," said Anton. "Erskine and I, and Skulduggery, were in the same unit together, along with four others." Eight, if one included them all together, but only seven had been in the field at any given time, with the eighth in reserve. ... For the most part.

He didn't ask which war Erskine might have stated. There had been several.

[purered]

Klaus doubted he'd be getting much sleep tonight, knitting or no. The sudden change in surroundings and the nagging concern for his friends and teammates back home would not make for easy rest. "Ah, the kedan if you will? I already owe you a great deal for your kindness. I don't want to impose further."

He listened to Anton's explanation, rapt with attention. It was fascinating, though he noted Anton avoided mentioning which war. From what Erskine had said, Klaus could already guess, but he wasn't about to press the matter. He could respect a need for privacy in that regard.

"The heat of battle forges some very strong bonds," Klaus remarked. "Though it's a silver lining to a very dark cloud."

[gistful]

"A dark cloud, perhaps," Anton said, glancing toward the lobby even though his desk wasn't visible. On his desk, an electronic tablet given to him by someone in Keeliai, and on that tablet a hundred recordings of a Dead Man walking, a Dead Man Anton hadn't seen in a century. "But it only makes the lining brighter, for some ... such as us." 'Co-dependent' might not have been so inaccurate a word. All the Dead Men had had were each other.

"They called us the Dead Men, because we always came back from suicide missions alive." None of them had ever lived so much as during that war, as terrible as it had been ... as long as they were together.

When the Dead Men split up, bad things happened.

Anton found himself rubbing the shoulder he'd once had broken, a rare occasion of injury for him, and focussed his attention back on Klaus. "Would you care to see the accounting books tonight?" he suggested. "Fixing them can wait until morning, I'm sure, but there is no harm in an overview and to see where they're located tonight."

[purered]

Klaus nodded wordlessly. There was nothing really to add. He was as aware as Anton that some people had to wade into the darker places of the world, if only to keep the shadows from creeping in where they shouldn't. To maintain a balance. And sometimes the only thing that kept you human were the people who went with you.

These were facts of life.

The Dead Men didn't sound so dissimilar to Libra. If anything, Klaus was feeling a bit more at ease.

"I would be glad to look at them now. It will give me something to do."

apologies for the delay here orz

[gistful]

"Certainly, Master von Reinherz." Anton pushed himself to his feet with the same sort of care with which he'd sat. "If you wish, you can bring them out here and keep me company while I knit." He'd just started a new sweater, in fact. Maybe he ought to make a larger-than-usual one this time around.

"My office is beside the lobby desk," he said, leading Klaus back out into the lobby. "The door under the stairs leads to my private room, but I will give you a copy of the office key."

The office, like the rest of the Hotel, made of stone and timber, larger than it seemed due to the solid timber furniture--most of it old. The sort of old that stood for centuries. Anton didn't usually bother with gratuitous purposes, but some of the furniture in his office he had either built himself at he built the Hotel, or bought as antiques. Most of them ought to be enough for Klaus's size, despite not having been built in Keeliai like much of the common-room's.

The bookshelves were laden, two dedicated to accounting records from, at earliest, the start of the twentieth century to the beginning of the twenty-first. The rest of the books were on a variety of subjects and in a variety of languages; primarily in English, Irish, French or various dialects of Chinese, but with German and Russian in good attendance, as well as a good number of Latin and Italian, and a smattering of others.

It was a very tidy space, or was; Anton visibly frowned at the relative clutter on the desk, and moved behind it to tidy it up. "My records are kept in a number of languages," he said. "Which do you speak?"

[ooc: also let us ignore that I major derped on the correct terminology being 'Master von Reinherz' and not just 'Reinherz', since that's something Anton would know oops orz]

no worries beebs. i got backtag for days

[purered]

"I'd be delighted to keep you company while you knit. I hope you won't mind what will likely be quite a few questions?"

As he was led to office, Klaus could instantly tell which areas Ravel had been at. Five minutes speaking with the man had made Klaus's brain start to itch a little, but other than that, the man seemed decent enough. Probably.

The question about languages was tricky. Klaus did a lot of traveling, even before he became a Fang Hunter, so he had to have at least a conversational level in a number of major languages.

"German is my native language and I'm fluent in English. I do know some Latin, though most of it is for religious purposes."

He was a practicing Catholic after all (when he had time) and had worked for the Vatican. Technically he was still under their employ.

"My spoken French and Italian are... questionable but I can read them both just fine. I can read and write in Japanese Hiragana and Katakana. Unfortunately I only know two phrases in Cantonese, neither of which I expect will turn out to be relevant to book keeping. My Russian is even more abysmal."

He stood, thoughtful for a minute. "I hope that's acceptable?"

cheers :3

[gistful]

"Not at all." Curiosity was healthy, except in combat situations. "Those will suffice nicely," Anton said with a smile, arranging the papers into some sort order on the desk and then turning to find the latest accounting book. "A young man who was here previously kept some records in Japanese, and I am otherwise fluent in all those languages. You ought to be able to read most of the previous records. Any language you choose to write in will not be of trouble. I do encourage you to change them as you like."

The accounting book was set up for all-directional text, as notable from Accelerator's Japanese records transforming into Anton's handwritten Latin-based alphabets. Anton's writing was small, cramped but painstakingly precise, though Klaus would note a number of persistent but at least consistent errors (usually leaning toward phonetic or Irish spelling).

Finally Anton found the current pages, and looked down at them, and sighed. Heavily. "He's been doodling in my accounting book."

He wasn't even surprised.

<3

[purered]

Klaus gave a firm nod, satisfied that his language skills would be acceptable. He arched a brow when Anton noted the doodles, and the giant man couldn't help but crane his neck to have a peek.

"They're not that bad," he mused, and righted himself. "Ah, right- I should make mention to be on the lookout for any receipts for the past few weeks. Mr Ravel wasn't able to locate all of them, though I doubt it should be much of a problem."

[gistful]

"Erskine Ravel very rarely does anything badly," Anton said dryly, turning the book obligingly so Klaus could see not only doodles, but process. "Even when it's being a ponce." He frowned slightly turning one of the pages. "Irish wasn't among your known languages, was it? If you wish me to translate these notes I would frankly welcome the distraction, though at a glance most of them are ... almost entirely ... inane."

In fact, as he spoke he picked up a pen and replied to one such note which said, simply, 'Shudder is a slave-driver'. He wrote in Latin: 'Get back to work, layabout.'

[purered]

Klaus gave a low chortle when he read the Latin.

"Back in Libra, Zapp was not so dissimilar with his mischief." Granted, Zapp was far more... vocal. But it was, nonetheless, a similar phenomenon.

"I would be glad for translations of anything relevant. I'll be glad to remain ignorant of Mr Ravel's more juvenile writings. ...How does one play tic-tac-toe with oneself?"

He gestured to one little doodle in the margin.

[gistful]

"Usually by always losing," Anton said. Which was true. Unless it was a draw, someone had to lose. "Or by never losing nor winning." He wrote as he spoke, little tag-lines under the notes that were actually relevant. Like the end result of his writing, his process was cramped and precise rather than smooth and flowing, as befitting a man who had learned writing only once an adult.

"It isn't unlike how our unit worked," he admitted, and if there was the suggestion of a smile there, then there was a suggestion of a smile. "Ravel is ... was ... not the most uninhibited of our lot, though he certainly wasn't above encouragement or being mischievous on his own part."