tushanshu_logs | [Midnight Hotel] January catch-all

Characters: Anyone, everyone.
Date: Month of January, 2016 (2017 in-game).
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!

As with last month, the Hotel’s wards are under stress owing to the fog. The effects are more pronounced in January; water temperature, in particular, fluctuates, and the staff will find it necessary to find a different way of disposing of the Hotel’s rubbish due to the incinerator being put out of commission. The doors still only exit onto Central.

Likewise, Anton is off his feet making sure the wards don’t fail altogether, but at least the work has made him too busy to dwell on the things that had been eating at him for the past few months. Even after the swell takes the turtle off the reef, most of Anton’s time will be spent repairing damage to the wards and making sure utilities are up to snuff as soon as possible.

Even still, the doors’ ability to access multiple sectors will remain offline for the remainder of the month, making it two months in a row that the Hotel’s access has been limited to Central.

[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.]

Threaded | Flat

A) Why walk when you can fly?

Erskine spends almost all of his time in the Hotel, either performing his usual janitor's duties or skulking around between shifts and attempts at sleep. His excursions out of the Hotel are limited and predictable, and his routine rarely varies. The only difference, lately, is perhaps an increased reticence to be seen outside of his working hours.

That, and the flying.

Once a week, Skulduggery visits Erskine in the Hotel. To anyone who's seen them interact over the last half a year, it might be tempting to wonder when the first punch will be thrown--but that's not it. Skulduggery comes over to the Hotel, and the two of them spend an hour or two, depending on the day, practicing magic. Specifically, Skulduggery is teaching Erskine to fly.

Erskine is early for today's practice session. Part of the Hotel's second floor is visible from the first; there's an open balcony looking down from the second floor, above the front desk. Erskine's pulled a few of the chairs from the dining room into the lobby, cordoning off a small section of the room underneath the balcony where he expects them to be practicing. This way they can avoid the worst of the fog's effects and also avoid crashing into anyone while they're flying. Or falling, in Erskine's case.

Right now he's levitating about halfway between the first floor and the second. Pay no attention to the very pretty Irishman in the snappy suit hovering in midair. (Or do. It's up to you.)

B) Day by Day

Other than the flying sessions, feel free to try to catch Erskine in the Hotel during his work hours, during his brief appearances outside of work hours when he grabs a bite to eat in the kitchen, or during his one daily exodus outside of the Hotel to parts unknown in the city.

((Feel free to use this prompt for anything that may come up during the month, or as a Choose Your Own Adventure type thing. If you've got something you think would work, throw it at me!))

((ooc: Takes place the same day as this thread, shortly thereafter))

The encounter with the kedan girl seemed to have left Valdis with a new outlook on this whole plan of hers, tracking down the people who'd poisoned Anton. Erskine didn't understand half of it. He hadn't kept up with any of the political maneuverings going on in the city, nor the cultists that Valdis seemed so obsessed about... and on a very basic level, half of the conversation that had taken place in Dardul's apartment had been telepathic, and he'd been left out of the loop.

Still, afterward he'd volunteered to shadow the kedan girl as she'd left the apartment. Letting her go back to her master was risky enough; he'd reasoned that trying to track her couldn't hurt. Unfortunately it hadn't done much good either. Erskine was a good tracker and a good shadow, given his long years in black ops during the war, but the girl was clearly anticipating being tailed. She ducked into a hovel almost straight away and didn't emerge for hours. Finally Erskine gave up and made his way back through the city to the Midnight Hotel, to see how Valdis and Dardul were getting along.

And maybe to prod Valdis for more information on what the hell was going on.

Erskine | All through January | OTA

Valdis | Aftermath