March rolls around and the hotel seems to be doing just fine, bar any of the usual shenanigans. In fact, it's one of those just fine days that Mr Bennet comes on the speaker and announces to the hotel:
"Hello, hello, my lovely guests! There seems to be an issue where one of the floors is, er, overlapping the others. Sorry about that. If you end up on this specific floor, just go through it instead of avoiding it. Then it'll stop bothering you, promise! It just wants the attention, clearly."
What this means is this: as characters move throughout the hotel today, they might end up on a floor they don't mean to be. What floor is this? The Labyrinth floor. Even if the elevator or stairs open up to a floor they're intimately familiar with, they'll be faced with a dark floor where the only view they can see is a hedge maze in front of them, beckoning them inside.
TEST OF COURAGE
The labyrinth floor will haunt characters as they go through their routine for the next three days. If they're lucky enough to avoid it for those three days, they'll be fine. But like Mr Bennet said, the easiest way to deal with the labyrinth is to just go through it.
The floor is dark, with the hedge maze reaching a whopping 15 feet high and only ending at the ceiling above. Characters will be led through a maze that has many dead ends and pitfalls. Some dead ends will feature monsters they have to fight or puzzles they have to solve (maybe a sphinx they have to answer the riddle of, for instance). If they try to ask the monsters or anyone else they find in the maze what the point of the maze is, the answer will always be to get to the middle. Find your prize. Claim your victory.
WHO AM I
If your character succeeds in making their way to the middle of the maze, they're in for quite a sight. What's waiting for them in the middle of the maze? Oh, it's just yourself. They'll be faced with a doppelganger of themselves in the middle of the maze, who just seems to be standing there, waiting for them.
And when they find that doppelganger, it'll only be a few moments of staring at each other until the doppelganger attacks. That's right, it's time to kill your double! The doppelganger has all the powers and skills that the original has with an added murderous intent. There's no hesitation from the doppelganger, no mercy. The only solution here is to kill or be killed.
If a character has teamed up with another character to reach the middle, two doppelgangers will be present instead — one of each character. The same goes for three or four characters.
VICTORY CRY
If a character managers to win against the fight against their double, they'll end up being transported right back to their hotel room and find a gift on the nearest surface closest to them. The gift can contain anything, something from home, something they want dearly, a memory they've forgotten. Just something precious to the character.
If a character ends up dying instead, either to a monster or their double, they'll wake up in the infirmary an hour later all patched up and like nothing happened. No prize! But the labyrinth will no longer be haunting them to go through it.
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hotelcaelum2024-03-15 08:31 am
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But the creature zooming toward him still looks like Juniper, and the last thing he ever wants to do is hurt her. Which is why he hesitates a split second. Which is why instead of moving to take the offensive, when she swings her battle axe at him, he only dodges, yanking on the handle of his broom and veering off to one side and flying away from her.
Meanwhile, Evil Kelmp emerges from a pool of darkness crawling out like a creature pulling itself from the depths of still, murky water. Shadows drip off of him, viscous like oil. Unlike Evil Juniper, Evil Kelmp does not seem to be enjoying himself. He is, in fact, taking this as deathly seriously as Normal Kelmp takes anything, with the intense focus of a predator spotting prey. ]
Ỳ̵̬̓o̸̼̪̺͙͎̿u̸͚̝͈̥̒ ̶͈̗͙̚ŝ̸̤̹̅̃h̶̗̠̿͒͊̈̓o̸̮̺̱̱̹̿̎̿̕͝ú̶̜͕͐͗̚͝ͅl̶͙͙̅͐d̶̡̙̥̬̀̃̄̒́ ̷͓̝̰̉͘r̸̟̣͆͊ụ̵͈̯͊̚n̷̞̘̥̈́̒͒̐,̶̰̮̉̀͝ ̶̢̥̰͎͐̂̽l̵̠̐̍̅i̷̗̪̝͈̿̌͆̑̕t̷̮̑ẗ̵͙͉̺́̉͛͊̋l̴͓̭̆͒̇̉e̵̛͓̝̱̠̻ ̶̙͙͈̈͊̈g̴̭̯͕̙͖̎i̵̫͇̰̊̒͋ŗ̶̪̖̲̜̿̍̃l̸̼̔́̈̉̚ͅ.̵̺͙̇͌̿̊͘
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Her hands tremble around the haft of her greataxe, and like muscle memory, her grip only grows tighter for it. She's a frontliner; she can't just turn tail and run away, even if the sight of this dark, inky, shadowy Evan feels so wrong. It's just the kind of wrong that her guardians likely would have fought to banish or vanquish, but—
Even though it sounds wrong, too, this is... still Evan, isn't it...? ]
Gasp! [ yes, she says the word out loud ] You! Are you the demons inside of Evan?
[ She asks, despite already knowing the answer in her heart. Neither backing away nor getting closer, Juniper simply stands her ground, even in the face of that audible zalgo text. ]
If I fight you, will you let the real you leave this place?
[ Her own double, all the while, seems to be relentless in her desire to keep attacking Evan, even recklessly so, as her movements begin to take on a sort of wild edge to them, so much so that when next he eveades, she swings her greataxe right into a stone wall, and in such a way that she is now stuck there, trying to wrest her weapon free. ]