it's getting hot in here

[happyheartsstaff]

SO (PLEASE DON'T) TAKE OFF ALL YOUR CLOTHES

Days are almost meaningless, here in Wonderland. With the eternal twilight outside the windows and many of the hotel's amenities open around the clock, it can be hard to keep track, can't it? But you must sleep, or at least return to your room, some time. It's on one of these times that you may begin to notice a faint sound coming from inside the walls. Or is it the ceiling? The floor? Something that sounds like scratching, or tapping, or the strained whir of machinery. Then it fades away. Whether it's moving on to another room or stopping entirely, it's hard to tell.

After a few nights, or days, of this happening, it suddenly stops. There's a brief period of peace, and perhaps you even get some rest. Then there's a series of thumps, sharp clicks and a loud stuttering sound that signals the hotel's air conditioning unit giving out.

At first it's not so bad. It's dark out, right, how hot can it really be outside? The air itself still seems to be circulating, albeit more slowly, but it's enough that you can breathe. But the heat seems to keep building, and building, the air hanging heavy and thick and leaving a lingering feeling that it's pressing down on you. Even sitting still no longer becomes enough to ease the suffocating heat.

The staff don't know what's happened to the air conditioner, when you ask. "Oh, that finicky thing", they say, as if it's a minor inconvenience. They assure you that the Queen's mechanics will have it fixed in no time — they always do. In the meantime, can they interest you in a refreshing iced tea? Perhaps a dip in the pool?

Is it your imagination, or do a few of the staff seem a little uncertain as they try to brush off your questions? A little less confident than they always have been before? Whatever their demeanor, it seems they still have no answers to give. The astute may notice that after a conversation with one of these staff, they can't seem to be found again.

As if that weren't enough, the scratching in the walls starts up again. With the oppressive heat, the rising tension and frayed nerves, is it any wonder that the staff might seem more apprehensive?

THINGS THAT GO BUMP IN THE NIGHT 06/11 - 06/13

Sleeping is probably hard enough, in a hotel where the activity never seems to cease. At least it's generally quiet in the upper floors, at least Oysters can turn out the lights in their own room and find some peace.

...usually, anyway.

At first it's only the faintest sounds, something only noticeable to those who sleep lightly. The staff, if asked, don't acknowledge hearing anything and seem politely concerned about anything disturbing the rest of their guests. Oysters may be offered ear plugs, or a device to listen to music, or a trip to the spa for relaxation.

Then it grows in both volume and frequency, disturbing even the heaviest of sleepers at night. Some staff still say they haven't heard anything, other staff acknowledge the sounds but brush them off, unconcerned. Every building has its quirks, after all! There does seem to be an increase in staff milling about, however, making it difficult for those who may want to look into things without being seen.

CLICK CLICK... THUMP

06/14 - 06/21

The fourth day of the event begins with a short period of blissful silence, quickly ruined by a loud, persistent clicking sound, audible in all parts of the hotel... And then an even louder THUMP as the air conditioning unit gives out.

At first, it's not terrible — the air is still circulating, and while the heat is uncomfortable it's not unbearable. As time goes on, though, the heat builds and builds, until not even staying in place will provide any relief.

The staff profess ignorance to whatever happened to the air conditioner, if asked — some more convincingly than others. They all offer iced teas for relief, and suggest a dip in the Pool of Tears, though those who seem uncertain when answering any questions will try to leave the conversation faster, and won't be easily found again.

While the iced teas are incredibly effective at helping to beat the heat, they once again seem to offer some strange effects — enough glasses, and Oysters will be overcome either with anger and irritation, or a sense of serene calm. Any little thing could set off an Oyster who's been affected by the anger-inducing tea; an Oyster who drank the calming tea is utterly unflappable. These effects persist for just as long as it takes for the cooling effects to wear off, at which point Oysters are left with a choice — deal with the heat, or take their chances with another tea?

And to top it all off, the scratching noise in the walls has started up again. The few staff remaining at this point are as unhelpful as ever, but they don't have the same infuriating calm to their answers — but who could blame them being a little nervous?

QUEEN'S ADDRESS

06/21

And finally, the tenth day brings relief in the form of a loud shuddering sound, and then the quiet whoosh of a working air conditioner. Over the course of the day, the Hotel gets progressively cooler, until it is once again at the comfortable, cool temperature Oysters had grown used to in their first month here in the Hotel.

It also brings an address from the Queen.

"Oh, my curious Oysters, when you try to play with that which you don't understand, you break things! Not to fear, all has been set to rights now that our dear Dormouse has fixed what some careless guest disrupted. If you wanted to play games, you should have simply said! I have a dear companion for you who is so eager to join in the fun."

The Queen will not respond to any messages sent back to her.

If you have any questions, please direct them to the OOC post here. RNG results for the off limits areas will be going out tomorrow, so if anyone would still like to sign up for those that hasn't yet please do so tonight!

PREMISE RULES FAQ TAKEN RESERVES APPLICATION MOD CONTACT HIATUS & DROPS WORLD INFO NPCS CALENDAR AC REWARDS

© tessisamess

Comments

[earthborn]

"No, no, I'm dead," She's pretty calm about it, really. Shepard isn't sure if she'll stop being calm, at some point, like the easy acceptance of this new reality was some form of shock, "I mean, it happens, death. More than once for me, actually."

She's led a very strange life, Crowley.

"I'm just being realistic; I'm not exactly a saint over here. People call me all this bullshit, Savior of the whatever, but the number of people I've killed... C'mon."

[inlovewithmycar]

"Huh," says Crowley, who isn't entirely unfamiliar with the phenomenon of humans coming back from the dead, especially saviours.

"You don't look like any beleaguered lost soul. Too solid for starters. You absolutely positive you're dead? Anyway, you'd be surprised how much blood on your hands you can get away with if it's for a righteous cause. Just ask Aziraphale."

[earthborn]

"Sure, but like... a million people? Half a million at least," She thinks for a minute, "...I don't even know how to count Geth as people. One Geth is not a person. But there's a line somewhere. I don't know."

How many geth did it take to make a Geth? Were geth even people really? Well, probably yeah, at least they were now, but like... how did that stack, for murder charges? Questions she ought to have asked Tali when she had the chance, maybe. One thing was for sure though:

"I'm positive. I'd be surprised if my body wasn't completely vaporized, let alone dead. Actually, that'd be kinda nice. No corpse."

Things are looking up. Shepard settles back into her futilely relaxing against the heat position, arms spread, head back, eyes closed, and sighs, "I don't wanna come back. I'm ready to stop borrowing time, pay the piper and all that. I'm tired."

[inlovewithmycar]

"Ah," said Crowley looking both a little awed and definitely a bit terrified. "Genocide. Yup. That's a one-way ticket, right there."

He shakes it off, like a dog shaking off fleas. It's some relief but his skin is still crawling.

"Anyway, m'not the piper you gotta pay. Not my department - don't really have a department anymore since I'm kind of retired. But you're the only human I've bumped into who has a recollection of dying."

[earthborn]

Genocide. The word pulls her eyes open again, staring at the ceiling. She'd been accused of it before, genocide, in that poisonous tone that only an angry friend could manage; but then, you had to have been there.

"In my defense, they started it," Which was true, on each count. Shepard fell silent for a while, thinking. How many did that make? Surely Torfan didn't qualify, except by numbers, but she had hardly been the only one there. And of course there were the Heretic Geth, and the Rachni, there wasn't much to say that those weren't genocide, even if the latter only really involved one death...

...Aratoht...

"...You know what a Reaper is, Mr, uh...?"

[inlovewithmycar]

"Death? Yeah, met him once. Along with War, Famine, and Pollution. ...And bumped into Pestilence once back in the 14th century a few hundred years before they retired."

Crowley visibly shudders. The horsemen were... well, they weren't really of Heaven or Hell. They were of humanity. Demons were broken, horrible things, but only humanity could drag into existence things as twisted as the horsemen.

"Not a pleasant lot. ...Though from context I'm going to assume you don't mean the guy with the scythe."

[earthborn]

Shepard is beginning to think this man might be one of the weirder ones she's spoken to. That's not an easy rank to acquire, given her exceptional breadth of experience with the freaks and weirdos of the galaxy.

"I was trying to subtly ask for you name, but no," She gives up on the ceiling for a moment in favor of shooting him what is most definitely a capital-L look— and notices his eyes, for the first time, "I mean a Reaper. You know, alien species, robots the size of a building, turns people into half-robotic monstrosities, killed like a third of all humans so far? Reapers. Big invasion in eight-six?"

She's only repeating because she's already sure he doesn't know. But then, if Shepard were honest, she didn't really expect him to. No one so far seems to know her world as she remembers it, and she'd thought maybe they were all just... dead people too. From before. Old dead people.

"...Nevermind. Point is, I've died twice now in the service of saving the entire fucking galaxy, and it was not more fun the second time. Why does everybody feel the need to argue with me about this? I know what dying feels like."

[inlovewithmycar]

Crowley hasn't often been on a name basis with humans. He just didn't stick around long enough most times for it to be relevant. Especially when there was more pressing information.

Shepard is not the first person outside of his timeline he's bumped into. She's not even the first from some nebulous future time. Or even an alternate universe.

"86 B.C. or 86 A.D.?" Crowley asks, brow raised. "Or some time past 2019? Because we've yet to have that kind of disaster. And I'm not arguing, just saying you don't seem like any dead person I ever met. There's a pretty distinct possibility they put you back together."

[earthborn]

"2186," Shepard tells him, disquieted. She's not an expert in afterlives, really, but... She'd been insisting on this the whole time, because she didn't see how it could be otherwise; she was dead. The Crucible fired, and anything powerful enough to take out the Reapers would certainly have atomized one measly human body.

Then again, she'd have said that about atmospheric reentry and Alchera had made a mockery of that presumption too.

"Well let's just hope you're wrong, then. Because if somebody is bringing me back from the dead... again... I'm not really sure exactly what I'm gonna do about it."

But whatever it was, it wasn't going to be nice.

[inlovewithmycar]

Crowley swallows nervously, giving a mute nod.

He doesn't doubt whatever this human has in mind, she would be perfectly willing to enact on their captors.

That's the problem with an imagination. It can be quite the double edged sword. On one hand Crowley had quite the capacity for creativity (by celestial and infernal standards) but on the other, he didn't need Shepard to paint a picture of what she intended to do to their captors.

His mind was already doing it for her.

"Er. Well. Aziraphale and a few other ... guests - "

And he uses the term very loosely.

" - have been sort of trying to figure this place out. All sorts of strange and unusual things going on, yeah?"

[earthborn]

Shepard wasn't Jack, didn't have that propensity for sheer spectacle, and nor was she Thane, or even Garrus, both of whom could turn oddly poetic in the moment, when emotion or necessity called for it. Usually, it was a rare pleasure, to watch a skilled assassin at work; a weapon that could be turned to justice, or honor, when wielded for a noble purpose. But, that wasn't Shepard's skill.

"...Aziraphale, you've mentioned them a couple times, now," Shepard settled back in, now a sour lump rather than leonine in her acceptance. Her mind was churning, "Friend of yours? And don't think I haven't noticed you not giving your name."

What it was with her was, she was efficient. A weapon of war, which had only the purpose of ending as many lives as was needed, achieving her purposes as quickly and unceremoniously as was possible.

It had given her many successes. But she had thought she was finally done with all of that.

[inlovewithmycar]

Crowley is efficient in his own ways, but he had long ago learned the valuable lesson that war just wasn't for him. He'd been in the thick of things when that first spark, that initial conflict had broken out, and then the ugly fallout from the whole debacle - it just wasn't his scene.

"Names. Yep. Right. You can call me Crowley. There's an Anthony and a J that come before it but they're really only there for decoration."

He does have other names. He even has a Name, but speaking that tends to turn human's heads inside out and he's a bit squeamish about blood. Besides, Crowley is a perfectly nice name. He always felt like a Crowley.

"And yeah, Aziraphale's a friend from home. Known him ages. He's got the fluffy white wings. And the fluffy white hair too. Dresses like an Edwardian dandy. Can't miss him."