[Midnight Hotel] June catch-all

[gistful]

Characters: Anyone, everyone.
Date: Month of JUNE, 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!

After Rey and Kylo’s fight, and subsequent ejection from the Hotel, the Hotel is undergoing some repairs for the first part of the month. Although the clean-up happened well before June begins, the stairs and some of the furniture in particular needs some replacing. As a result, sitting areas in the lobby are a bit of a commodity this month and traffic upstairs is funnelled through the common-room staircase (which has the same magical conveniences as the main stairs, for those who need the stairs to not be stairs).

The wards are also being checked and fine-tuned, though Anton mostly does those after hours; even still, night owls will have some brief opportunities to see the arrays of multi-directional sigils in the walls which dictate the Hotel’s workings.

Anton is taking this opportunity to have a second console system installed beside the first; there is a partition between them, but they’re still generally open to the lobby. A small team of Metalworkers can thus be seen around the Hotel for the month, as they’re taking their time and using the opportunity to see whether they can figure out the undetermined error showing up in a handful of other consoles.

There are one or two instances of gang-members boasting about their new roles, which causes a few disagreements about authority; but for the most part these are smoothed over easily. In general, there’s fewer non-patrons lingering around the Hotel this month – though by no means is it empty – simply because many of them are also using the facilities offered by Dara Deis shelter. Especially because of the repairs, it’s easier to shift for a while.

Luckily, the kitchen was undamaged, so the restaurant will continue to be open in the evenings as usual!

[ooc: The Midnight Hotel’s status page is available here, with the rules at the top. 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

[witchcrap]

Avery looks a little chagrined at having interrupted Anton, though on second thought, maybe it's a good thing that they did. While he's doing the carpentry Avery was accustomed to seeing from Landry in the cafe, there's something about him that reminds Avery of Graves, and how distracted he'd been during the run-up to Nacht's final strike.

They're not sure how they feel about that.

"I'm Avery Grey, Mr. Shudder," Avery said, keeping their tone respectful. "Bakura told me that you might be able to help me - he said you showed up with a building, too, this Hotel. I was wondering if you knew anything about why."

[gistful]

"Bakura?" Anton's eyebrows lifted. That was a surprise; they weren't on particularly good terms lately. But it was true he had some experience with translocational buildings. "I believe it's due to the Hotel's characteristics," he said. "The Midnight Hotel, in my home universe, moves location every twelve hours. It's highly magical. And I built it with my own hands, which I understand in some universes presents some degree of connection. When I was brought here, I was in the Hotel; I believe the aforementioned traits contributed to its arrival with me."

He paused. "You arrived with a building also?"

That was interesting, and the first time--other than himself--that Anton had heard that happening. Very interesting indeed.

[witchcrap]

"Oh." Avery bit their lip. They weren't sure if Graves had built the cafe himself - he probably had, though they'd never thought to ask - but some of what Anton had said sounded familiar. "Yeah, it's, uh, a cafe called A Cat's Paw, it's in the Sky Sector now. It doesn't move around, usually. I was in it when I came here, too, but I also showed up earlier, without a soul gem. And now I have this," they said, touching their amethyst pendant, "and I think that's why it came with me this time. Because Graves Gave it to me before I got here, and I'm not sure how that works but he held my hands and there were some magic light motes and he said that everything he had was now mine, and..."

Avery was vaguely aware that they were babbling, and trailed off into silence.

[gistful]

Anton waited patiently for Avery to finish, his expression thoughtful. "It sounds like a magical ownership contract," he said. "There are some items in my world with similar constraints--they require certain conditions to be fulfilled before ownership can pass on. If the giving involves a magical tie to your soul, I can well imagine that it might have been enough to bring an echo of your cafe here--if not the cafe proper."

It was still up for debate whether the Hotel itself was actually the Hotel, or a very good imitation raised by his soul being dragged through the wards. The Dreaming shifted things just enough that it was difficult to tell, and almost irrelevant to attempt to define authenticity.

[witchcrap]

Avery looked a little unsure at that. "An echo?" The magical ownership contract part seemed straighforward enough, they supposed; they hadn't really had time to consider it after running from Nacht, and their time here had been spent resolutely not thinking about that.

"So it's not going to just up and disappear, right? I keep thinking I'm going to wake up and none of this will have been real, or worse, that I'll wake up still here and not even have that one little piece of home left." Because the cafe was home, or close enough to it; it was the most at home Avery had felt anywhere in quite a long time.

[gistful]

"The Dreaming manipulates reality," Anton said. "The actual physical movement of buildings through dimensions seems extraordinarily difficult--though not impossible--but the Dreaming would well replicate something which we feel should be here. I have not been able to decide which option is the more likely."

But at that question he shook his head with a faint smile. "I've been here for well over eighteen months and the Hotel's foundations have not moved, unless I'm the one who moved them." He nodded toward Avery's soul-gem. "Think of yourself as an anchor, much in the same way as your gem is for your soul. As long as you're here, I highly doubt the cafe will leave. If you go home? I do not know. Perhaps it will go with you. Perhaps it won't."

When Anton had been stuck in the Dreaming, the Hotel had already been under the turtle's shell, hidden from the rest of Keeliai. When they woke up, the Hotel had still been there. But Anton had never gone home in that time, either.

[witchcrap]

Avery looked down at their gem, then back up at Anton. To have all of this tied to a little rock that was almost indistinguishable from any piece of amethyst in the world...it was a little bit unsettling.

At least Anton seemed to be a little indulgent of their questioning, though. "Sorry...I'm just still trying to work out things here. It's weird, and I don't know if I'll ever get used to it."