Event Log #002

[caelumstaff]

EVENT LOG number 002 The hotel humbly hopes that you're settling in well and are taking advantage of the various pleasures on offer for your stay. In Mr Bennet's opinion, things have been going quite well and he doesn't think that the guests are unhappy at all. New guests have arrived, some have left, it's all going along perfectly. So, of course, this is when the next troublesome thing pops up. SHADOWS One morning, characters will find the hotel to be a little dimmer than usual, a little more shadowy. Yet if anyone asks Mr Bennet about it, he will claim to not have noticed anything different than usual. Either way, as the characters move on with their day, they'll start to notice a few odd things start to happen. PHASE ONE: Initially, characters will notice their shadow beginning to move a little out of sync with them. Discreetly at first until eventually, their shadow takes on a life of its own, mischievously playing with characters and enjoying their newfound freedom. Very Peter Pan, and completely harmless. PHASE TWO: Now, shadows might disappear entirely, roaming the hotel to their own discretion and ignoring the characters they belong to. As the shadow takes on this free will, characters will begin to feel slightly off balance and have a hard time feeling whole without their shadow around. The shadow may become slightly aggressive as well if told they should return to their characters, fighting back in their own way from knocking things over to outright attacking other characters. It's a little hard to fight back though when your opponent is a shadow, isn't it? PHASE THREE: The shadows have become fully aggressive now, fighting anyone who tries to get them to return to their original person. Characters will find themselves feeling weak and low energy as a result of losing their shadow. Eventually, the shadows will come back to their owners but the characters will find themselves sinking into their shadow, eventually changing places entirely with their shadow. The only way to rescue a character from this fate is for another character to pull them out of their shadow forcibly. The bright side is once a character is pulled out of their shadow, it all returns to normal and their shadow is no longer sentient. These phases will last over the course of the week and it is quite alright to stay in phase one/two/three. Not all shadows will become aggressive, not all shadows will be playful. Feel free to manipulate your character's shadow in the way that's most fun for you. NAV | PREMISE | RULES | FAQ | TAKEN hotelcaelum | caelumserver | caelumooc

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[velluminous]

[ to the bathrooms, then. staggeringly, slowly. ]

[vecna]

[Staggeringly and slowly, straight into the first bathroom they come across, squinting against the buzzing lights. And also straight to a sink, looking into a mirror — blood down his nostril, and a nasty bruise already starting to form along chin and jaw.

What an awfully weak form. He turns on the faucet, his first instinct to rinse the blood from the back of his hand.]

[velluminous]

[ this is the first time in days she's managed to get a good, long look at herself. her skin sallow, her eyes shadowed. hair limp and tangled from the fight. all her clothes are rumpled in a way that isn't even cutely bookish; she just looks run ragged. her lip is swollen where she bit it when she fell—hadn't even realized it had happened.

when the flickering fluorescent lights cause her shadows to jitter, she jumps with a scratchy-sounding gasp. ]

Blyat.

[vecna]

[Don't worry, he looks about as bad as her and perhaps even less flattering with his pale complexion in these bright lights. Henry looks like he hasn't slept in a week, bags under his eyes. His hair, usually so perfectly styled, has practically fallen out of its coiffed curls, hanging limply across his forehead, loose at his temples.

And a very, very wrinkled shirt. Untenable.

He scoffs. "Blyat?"]

I don't know what to do, except stand here and keep my nose pinched.

[The buzzing lights just annoy him. He raises a hand and they buzz even more angrily, shining bright-- Then quit, their illumination now steady.]

[velluminous]

[ if she looks sallow, he looks practically jaundiced. such a complete change from the man she stepped into an elevator with, as though he really has changed places with someone else. even his voice sounds ... different.

her eyes flick up as the light thrown from the fixtures swells and hum threateningly— ]

You are bleeding from using too much energy, and you are standing here using more? Stop that. Sit on counter top.

[vecna]

[He sure is. He's stubborn like that.

And from the look he tosses her from his reflection in the mirror, it also seems like he doesn't like being told what to do. His instinctual reaction, while in a mood like this, is always to perform the opposite, to be contrary -- who does she think she is? His mother? Papa?

But when that instinct recedes, rational thought takes it place more easily, knowing she's trying to help him for some unwieldy reason that must be shaped like concern(???), so Henry straightens and hops up to the space between the sinks, sitting there and tilting his head... up.]

Yes, mother.

[Sorry, he had to.]

[velluminous]

[ she does catch that look, unsteady and exhausted though she is. he's viewing her with pure disdain, even after she put herself out there to help him. even though she's helping him still, now.

her own lip curls slightly; she turns on the faucet with more force than she needs to.

over the hiss of water: ] What is wrong with you? Stand, then. Sit on floor for all I care.

[vecna]

[What is wrong with you? Henry bristles, a muscle quivering in his jaw. He remains sitting.]

Don't ask me that. [There's nothing wrong with him-] My head is going to explode. My chin hurts. There's blood running down the back of my throat.

[From tilting his head up; if the blood doesn't drain out, it drains... in and down.]

[velluminous]

Stop tipping your head back!

[ instinctively, she reaches up to take his chin and pull it down a bit, then steadies herself on the lip of the counter ]

Mammon. Don't be angry with me. Would you rather we both be wherever those shadows were taking us?

[vecna]

[Did she just catch him by the chin-

And tilt his head down, like he was a child.]

...

[He just looks at her, eyes widened a little. Well and truly surprised that someone would have the gall to do that to him. But it's also shut him up. This is so derailing that he just says, like the way a scolded teen might reply sourly-]

No.

[velluminous]

[ he has very sharp eyes, she thinks. they aren't kind at all. ]

Then you will not talk to me this way.

[ as she produces, clumsily, a handkerchief from her trousers pocket. she wets it under the cold water and thrusts it into his hand. ]

Here.

[vecna]

[And yet she's still boldly placing a wet handkerchief into this unkind man's hands and telling him not to talk to her like this. Unbelievable. He could shatter every single mirror in this bathroom with a single thought, blow out every light (and then probably bleed from his nose uncontrollably), and she's bossing him around?

...He just brings the handkerchief up to his nose and places it beneath his nostril with some slight pressure. She'll see it start to blot crimson.]

I helped you, too. [A muffled rejoinder, all things considered.]

[velluminous]

[ bleeding quite a lot, him. she pinches her brows as she watches the white fabric stain, grips harder onto the edge of the sink. ]

You did. And you did not have to. You know this happens when you do what you do—so why did you?

[vecna]

[A steady trickle. It might take a minute or two for it to halt.]

What was I going to do? Let this place get away with turning our shadows against us? I refused to stand there and watch.

[A nosebleed (and a splitting headache) was well worth the effort of upending her troublemaking shadows.]

[velluminous]

[ slapping the faucet off ]

So it is pride. [ satisfied; she can accept this answer without being offended by it ] Being made to bow.

[vecna]

Yes.

[And he can answer that easily. Without pause.]

I've spent too much of my life under someone else's thumb. I'm not going to let it happen here, too.

[velluminous]

[ something strange lights up in Sprezzatura's dark eyes at that, a little more life. ]

Good.

[vecna]

[He's already watching her expression ever since she tilted his chin downwards, so he catches that look. That little spark of fire. How... strange. He's not sure he expected affirmation.

Henry huffs out an acerbic, tired sound.]

Maybe I really didn't give you enough credit.

[velluminous]

Don't you? [ oh, the way an admission like that makes her want to get absolutely furious, to start pulling hair out by the fistfuls—and not her own. even here. even here, she's still seen as little more than a fucking footnote. she could just about scream, if she had only an ounce more energy to actually do it... but all that rises up is a bubble that sticks in her throat painfully before popping.

faucet, back on again. she cups her palms underneath until they are overflowing ] You may join ranks with everyone else, then!

[vecna]

[He’s found it. A raw, sore spot. An eking wound that makes her bare her fangs at anyone who so much as grazes past it. Everyone has one, and he often manages to find it, even if Henry has more stumbled headfirst into it than plucked it free from its tapestry.

Interesting, that anger. Just how far down does it burrow? To her core, like his own? Henry speaks over the hiss of the faucet.]

I’d rather you not lump me in with everyone else. I won’t make that mistake again.

[velluminous]

You all make it once. [ lumping again. grunts beneath her breath and leans her head down to splash her face. the way her horns jut from her brow means she has to angle her face away from the mirror, that she can't quite bend over the sink. she rubs the cool, quickly warming, water over her face and neck, then sighs... rests on her elbows on the counter's edge. ] I am too tired to argue with you.

[vecna]

I'm not arguing. [Says Henry Creel, arguing.] It's a compliment, coming from me.

[That someone might defy his expectations, because those expectations are often unyielding, and always unflattering.

But even he lets out something that sounds like a sigh, lowering the handkerchief to see the blood blotted across it. His nose, at least, has stopped its trickle.]

...You need to put ice on that.

[By the way. That bruise of hers.]

[velluminous]

[ don't tell me what to do, she thinks. too tired to argue aloud, maybe. ]

Look at me again and tell me if you think ice will be helping.

[vecna]

[Excuse you, maybe that was an actual suggestion to help you, ma'am. (Not seeing the irony in him being equally stubborn when she's trying to help him.)]

Turn your head this way. Let me get a good look at it.

[velluminous]

[ with a scowly set to her jaw, she turns her head his direction. Sprezzatura Vaux bruises easily; there's already a dark burgundy blossom of blood pooling under the surface of her skin, right there at the point of her chin. she hit the floor hard. ]