hotelcaelum | Event Log #004

Entry tags:

Event Log #004

EVENT LOG
number 004

Happy New Year, folks! The Hotel is settling into the New Year with little fanfare. Mr Bennet remains at his post behind the hotel desk and helps check guests in and out daily. The Hotel continues to hustle and bustle and nothing seems to be going too awry beyond the usual shenanigans. In fact, one might even call this the slow season for the Hotel.

THE FLOOR IS LAVA

That is until the second week of the month where the intercoms start with Mr Bennet's pleasant voice coming through.

"Hello, hello! This is just a small warning that one of our floors, the current 79th floor to be exact, has had a small... malfunction, I suppose, and will be affecting the other floors of the Hotel. No word yet from maintenance when this will be over, so stay on your toes, my dear guests!"

And that's it. No indication of what the problem is, or anything like that. It's up to you to figure out what's going on! And what is going on? Well, it'll become obvious very quickly when wherever characters happen to be in the Hotel, they'll soon start feeling a very obvious warmth on the floor below them. It'll increase the longer they stay standing in one spot until it's almost burning their feet.

The only salve for this will be hopping onto a nearby piece of furniture and getting their feet off the floor. It'll soon become obvious that the entire Hotel has been wrapped in a game of The Floor is Lava, including the floor turning into actual lava on some of the floors.

SAFETY SLEEPOVER

Of course, the Hotel is not cruel enough to make the entire Hotel unsafe and soon enough Mr Bennet's voice will come through on the intercom again.

"For those looking for respite from our current Hotel wide game," because clearly it's a game now. "We'll be serving tea and cake in the lounge on the ground floor. Maintenance has been able to fix the lounge for now so feel free to come by when you can if you'd like to rest. We have sleeping bags!"

As folks enter the lounge, they'll find that Mr Bennet is true to his word. The lounge has been converted into a giant sleepover, with sleeping bags lining the floor and a long table off to the side where people can eat their tea and cakes. Mr Bennet is near the food table, handing out pajamas, toothbrushes, and sleep masks to those who request them. There's some new doors off to the side leading to some restrooms, at least, so guests can change in private.

Though, one thing to point out is when Mr Bennet says there's tea and cakes, the cakes happen to be lava cakes. He thinks he's funny.

THE FLOOR IS ICE

It'll take about two days for hotel maintenance to fix the Hotel and return it to normal. So that's two days of living out of the lounge or hopping around the Hotel to get places. What a headache. Mr Bennet will make another lively announcement on the intercom.

"We are back in business, folks! I've just been given word that everything should have return to normal now. Though, there is a warning to make sure not to walk around barefoot for at least another day or so while the Hotel settles. Thank you for your patience!"

What that means becomes obvious soon as anyone walking around now will feel that the floor is especially cold. That's a bit better than the heat, at least, but still kind of a pain in the ass. Anyone who tries to walk around barefoot will find that their feet quickly start to freeze but any permanent damage is easily avoidable by putting on some socks or getting off the floor entirely.

Though that said, the ice does lead to some furniture sliding around and even with shoes on, characters might find themselves sliding too.

What a lovely end to the holidays.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Hoh! And how do you plan to do this? More daring rescues?

Ha. I'm not going to wish for more situations that require rescue on my or your part.

[Not that he wouldn't rescue her, of course. He absolutely would, and be more gentle about it than the time with the shadows.]

We can find another interesting floor together. [ANOTHER DATE] Or... just stay in together more. I want you to teach me a little of your magic someday.

[Whether or not he could actually learn it is another matter altogether, but he's curious.]

[ can she suppress a shiver of pleasure at that? his eagerness to learn paired with her love for being seen as the instructor, the knowledge-keeper. it's enough to stave off the inevitable caveats for... a few extra seconds, at least. ]

Magic takes very much mental discipline, if you are not gifted for it from birth.

[ she says to the psychic ]

[She’s saying this to Vecna]

Every aspect of my powers require mental discipline and control.

But you are already knowing your own power. This is something else.

With verbal, [ she speaks ] somatic, [ she gestures ] and often material components.

[ she plucks a tiny feather from the pillow beneath his head and tickles him with it. Tasha's Hideous Laughter!! ]

[There’s a part of him that inherently wants to exert his will to stop whatever she intends to cast — a part that relies upon his own mental willpower, and that well is a deep one to pull from.

But.

But it almost feels like an insult to ask to learn her magic, then deny its use upon him immediately. And so Henry allows it to take effect, not knowing what it could do, but only that the feather across his face—

Tickles.

And the urge to laugh rises. It starts off light, but then it truly overcomes him, and Henry falls into a fit of laughter that is well and truly beyond anything she would have heard from him ever. He has not heard himself laugh like this in decades.]

Sp— Sprezzatura— what are—

[He can’t even finish his sentence. He doesn’t even know what’s so funny. But he can’t stop, and he holds onto her like she’s his only anchor, and buries his face against her, his whole body wracked with laughter.

What a strange sound, coming from Henry Creel.]

[ oh, what a sound. people don't laugh like this around her, or for her, for any good reason, and she knows it's the spell compelling him to this—but it isn't the spell which informs how he reacts. the cling. his face pressed into the curve of her side.

she feels her heart beginning to race anew, a warmth flooding her for him that she'd never have thought possible only a few short months ago. ]

[ leans down close, the softest smile in her voice, and holds him as he holds her. ]

Divine.

[Even when the laughter finally begins to fade, he’s still holding on. His forehead pressed against her, catching his breath — and feeling that strange sense of delirious… contentedness that floods his body in the wake of a laughing fit. Needless to say, it’s not something he’s experienced in a long while.

Magic or not, how fitting it is to feel it again in her presence.]

What was that? [Breathes out the question, murmured against her.] There’s magic just to make someone laugh?

[Imagine using one’s powers for good. (Minus the times that spell generally is not used for good.)]

[ minus the times she's going to use it for no reason other than to bully him.

and maybe hear that laugh again. ]

There is.

[ she drags her fingers down the stairs of his ribs, just light enough to almost tickle. ]

To laugh and to laugh, until you can do nothing else.

[Squirms just a little, because it almost tickles, and he’s only barely stopped laughing.]

Debilitating in its own way. But a warning next time?

You will just have to learn to shore up your defenses little more, hm? And... I like your laugh.

[ she traces, next, a line in his brow ]

It made you look younger.

[ cougar ]

[cougar...

He turns his head to look up at her again, and there are traces of wetness at the corners of his eyes. He had laughed so hard his eyes begun to water.]

I guess I'll just have to work on my mental constitution. [He will just not tell her that he let it happen, it's fine.] But what, I don't already look young enough for you?

[look at this face]

[ she wants to lick the tears away........ ]

It made you look happier, then.

[Sprezzatura, when do you not want to lick his face--

Pauses, considering that answer.]

Whether or not I laugh like that, I am happier when I'm with you.

[ :) ]

Oh, don't be crass.

[ is she. joking? ]

[Is she? His face flickers with mild confusion.]

How is that crass? It's true.

It's so... sweet. But ridiculous.

[ Sprezzatura Vaux doesn't make people happier. not for very long, at least. ]

[Now, he props up again on his elbows so he can look at her a little more levelly.]

It's not. It's true. [He repeats himself again, seeking her gaze.] I haven't felt like this in a long, long time. And it's all because of you. I don't see how that's supposed to be "ridiculous."

[ avoids his gaze ] I... it's... short-sighted. You are having fun now because it is all new to you, and I am not like these other people in your life before.

[Does she really think that? That he's going to grow bored one day because what they have will lose its luster? Maybe if he had permitted himself to delve into her mind more than just once, he would have known this already.

Even so, this assumption couldn't be farther from reality. This isn't something something that'll fade with time. He's taken it to the opposite end -- he's engraved her presence into both heart and mind and likes the shapes the scars have made. Indelible.]

I told you before, I don't intend to go anywhere. [She is... stuck with him now. Sorry.] I'm not just here because I'm having "fun." You understand me better than anyone else. I don't feel like it's only me against the world when I'm with you.

[ she does, because it always has been. which is why, as he argues her, this little pinch appears between her brows, and it stays there. ]

I know almost nothing about you. Or you about me.

[ and that's why it can be fun. because all the ugly bits have been shorn away. ]

[He almost says that isn't true. She knows about how he moved to a nowhere town, then was stolen away by the government and kept trapped for 20 years. She knows how he became trapped in that alternate dimension, and the entity they call the mind flayer under someone's? whose? his? its? there is no differentiation any longer his control. His determination to return "home". And now, even the attempts of teenagers that would set him on fire to stop him.

...But she doesn't know the rest.

How he struggled after he moved to Hawkins. The true horrors of the twenty years in that lab. His brothers and sisters, their bodies dead but their memories and powers existing still in his mind. Eleven's betrayal. The true shape of his body, malformed during his banishment in that other place.

The things he did, for four years, trying to claw his way back. The people who died. Horribly. The portal rent across the whole town...]

[This is the only time when it feels like treading on thin ice with Sprezzatura; the ugly bits are very ugly on his end, and he wonders what might shatter if he revealed everything. As for hers, he isn't concerned. He welcomes every bit of her -- likes the ugly parts, because he thinks he can slot them against his own.

A silence passes. Then-]

I wouldn't turn away from you, no matter how difficult you think you are. Do you think you'd give me the same chance?

[ she senses the shadow beneath the water.

she can't make herself move away. the undertow has her. ]

I couldn't say.

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

🥺 1/2

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

1/2

no subject

no subject