strangetrip | [EP/GP] Today is Check-In Day

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[EP/GP] Today is Check-In Day

When the fifteenth of the month came and went without any new arrivals, most people logically supposed that there would be no new arrivals that week, or that the pattern they believed they'd found was false after all.

Kitty Pryde, Caroline Forbes, and Phryne Fisher were decidedly not most people.

Between them, they agreed it would be best to keep a watch for a few days following the fifteenth, on the grounds that, often enough, holidays interrupted regular schedules, which would reassert themselves again at the next instance. If "keeping a watch" had required them to do anything out of the ordinary, they might have been somewhat less sanguine about it. Might have, as they were not, after all, most people. Yet since their routines, almost invariably, had them in public places, working and people-watching, it required no special effort on their part to be alert for new arrivals.

So it was that Phryne had taken up a table in the lobby cafe to read and hold court, while Kitty took an extra shift tending bar, and Caroline tidied up and labeled the boxes of decorations from Valentine's day "for next year's residents" on the morning of the sixteenth and again on the seventeenth--and not one of them were surprised when, in early afternoon, newcomers began to arrive.

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He remembered...

Forgiveness and fear. Pain and acceptance. Life, then nothing.

He remembered...

A smothering darkness and a light, severing the connection, giving him a choice.

He remembered...

Dragons and fights and the final descent of claws. He remembered pain, then the warm healing presence of a goddess he could respect but not venerate.

And Percival drew in a breath, his chest rising for the first time in nearly a minute. Beneath him was cold hard stone. There was rain falling on his face, strange because they'd fought the beast in her lair. He hurt, and knew that once again, he'd delayed his meeting with the Raven Queen.

Percy opened his eyes. Above him was a clouded sky, rumbling with the promise of greater ferocity. Already he was soaked. Groaning, he sat up, saw that the rain was mixing with his blood on the strange black stone beneath him. His clothes were ruined, but the skin below seemed whole, if raw.

Most worryingly, he was alone.

MacCready had taken to finding high spots so that he could feel useful. It wasn't like the hotel seemed to ever be actively under attack. Probably. Shit could change any second.

Or some guy could show up out of nowhere looking half dead.

He checked his pockets. Back home, he wouldn't've been quite so helpful. Shit changed, didn't it?

He pulled a stimpak out and got out of his perch, slinging his gun onto his back as he approached the guy, trying to stay in clear view. At least the guy was sitting up now. There was some hope for him. Way too much blood.

Not any more than he'd seen before.

"You need some help?" he asked, being as careful as he could. Careful and obvious. If he was in that kind of state, he woulda shot first before assuming anyone was doing anything but trying to finish the job.

Percy looked around at the sound of the voice, startled by how familiar it sounded and yet the man it came from looked entirely unfamiliar. Obviously, he was more addled than he'd thought, looking for recognition when there was none to be found. "Ah, yes, I think that I... that would be very welcome. I'm feeling a bit...rough."

And where were the rest of his party? Where was Vex and Keyleth? Vax and Pike? Scanlan - Scanlan had fallen before Percy had.

Where was Raishan? Did she live?

MacCready nodded, adjusting his rifle so he could crouch more easily. "Deep breath," he said. The words were more distraction than anything. He didn't exactly wait before he jammed the stimpak into the guy. Once it'd dispensed itself, he pulled the spent pak out just as quickly.

"Give it a few seconds," he advised, just in case the guy was as unfamiliar as everyone else was with healing expediently.

Percy wasn't listening. His eyes were on the firearm slung from the man's shoulder. Even the prick of the needle was less than nothing compared to that.

Feeling stronger already and even more naturally suspicious, Percy spoke in a very low, measured tone. "Where did you get that?"

"What, Lucy?" he asked, glancing over at his gun, not trusting that tone. He'd go for the knife in his boot if he had to. It'd be a damn shame to waste the stimpak.

"Off a Talon Company merc while I was on a food run when I was ten." The warning was clear in his voice. Whoever this guy was, he wasn't laying a hand on Lucy.

Ten? Percy gave the man a long look, trying to determine how truthful he was being. Percy had built his first gun barely three years ago. This man was significantly older than that. And yet Percy saw no deception in the man's face. He was, so far as he could tell, speaking true.

"It's a fine weapon. Impressive construction." Sleeker than Percy's work too, as much as it pained Percy's ego to admit it.

Groaning, but feeling far better than he had a few moments ago - obviously a powerful healing potion the man had used - Percy slowly sat up and checked for his own firearms. Bad News was in its place on his back, Animus at his hip. "Where precisely are we?"

With the haze of trying to make sure there wasn't a corpse in the lot and then needing to feel protective over his weapon, he hadn't noticed the other guy's weapons. Really he was just used to people openly carrying anyway. They were...unusual. Kinda pretty from what he could see.

"Thanks," he said, brushing his thighs off as he stood.

"We're at a shitty hotel in California." He offered the man a hand up. "No way back where you're from. No way off the property. Welcome to the party." It was pretty obvious that it wasn't a good party.

Percy had never heard of California nor a hotel, and wasn't pleased to find himself in either place. Slowly he got up, shrugging Cabal's Ruin around himself to cover the mess that was his clothing and hide his equipment. "Well, that's going to be a, no, that's going to have to change. That's unacceptable."

"Thank you for your assistance, my good man. I appreciate the use of your potion." He didn't offer to replace it. Percy routinely gave all his gold to Vex to carry.

"Unacceptable or not, it's reality. At least no one's shooting at us. Or stabbing. Or throwing grenades." He cleared his throat.

"You got a name? A point of origin?" MacCready really did not appreciate being talked even slightly down to. Good man? what kind of Diamond City Upper Stands bullshit was that?

"Percival Frederickstein von Musel Klossowski de Rolo III," Percy paused, then added with a small shrug. "Of Whitestone." He doubted that this man who spoke of California would have heard of Whitestone, and if this was a trick of the green dragon's, he already knew that answer.

Finally, Percy realized that through the rain there was a massive hulking building with the most extraordinary architecture. It was astonishingly ugly, a hodgepodge of design that never really settled on one style. "I take it that's the shitty hotel?"

Yeah. Definitely the Upper Stands type. Great. Well, he was in for a rude awakening.

"MacCready. Capitol Wasteland," he said, figuring it was only decent to offer the same information he asked for in the first place.

He nodded at the building. "The Madonna Inn, yeah. It's not- It's not completely shit, it just...it takes some getting used to, 'specially if wherever you're from isn't anywhere like this. Hell, when I got here the fact that plants are actually growing and the building's got all it's walls was enough to throw me." He started for the main building.

"C'mon, let's get you a drink and you can throw whatever questions you want at me. What's your poison? Beer? Whiskey? Vodka? Coke? Cranberry Juice?"

Wasteland? That sounded charming.

Percy limped along with MacCready, having little choice but to follow unless he wanted to strike out on his own. He wasn't in any shape to do that. "Wine, actually, if it's available."

What in Sarenrae's name was Coke?

"Wine it is," he said, adjusting his pace so that he wouldn't leave Percy too far behind. His hand rested on the pistol at his hip just in case whatever did this to the guy wasn't still in the world he came from. "You hungry? There's chicken and basically anything just as long as you're okay with chicken."

"Sounds like the home of a friend of mine." He wasn't hungry, the remains of the Heroes' Feast still sat heavy in his stomach and even if he had been, he was much too on edge to eat anything. He was thirsty, but the wine would sort that out.

They walked through the doors - well-made, Percy noted absently, though oddly polished - and into a ... room.

Percy stopped, his eyes assaulted by violent pink and red. He reached up and pulled his glasses off, rubbing his eyes. "Dear gods. What sort of madman rules here?"

"Well we called the guy at the front desk Darryl," MacCready said, glaring a little at Mr. Fluffy Towels as they walked in the foyer. "I kinda feel like it's all his fault, but you're not getting any decent information out of him or anyone else who works here."

He rolled his shoulders in a lazy shrug, finally letting himself relax a little once the doors were shut behind him. "Either him or like some super powered five year old or some crap." No sane adult would make these kind of decorating choices. Shit, he was pretty sure no insane adult would make those choices.

"Darryl." It sounded like an odd name for a lord, but perhaps the man was more of an innkeep. Percy scanned the area, alert now for threats after the initial shock of the place had faded. There was a dark spot on the floor, darkening some of the roses but at this distance Percy couldn't make out what caused the stain. It was fresh, though. The light changed as he shifted, slick and wet.

Percy glanced toward the desk where Darryl stood, then turned and walked to the stain instead. He knelt, stiffly, and reached down with two fingers. They came back red and sticky. Blood, and it wasn't his. "Does this happen often?" he asked mildly, his gunhand twitching.

"Twice a month new folks seem to show up," MacCready said, hanging back. "Probably you weren't the only one showing up half dead tonight." He nodded around them. "There's no spray or anything anywhere, right? Just a big puddle of blood. You shoot or stab or maul someone, blood gets in more than one spot." People squirted when they were freshly hurt enough to bleed that much. They leaked when they'd been going at the bleeding for a while.

"Chances are pretty high that whoever or whatever that belongs to either already got help or got put out of their misery." Probably. Hell, did it matter? Whatever made that mess wasn't here now and he couldn't see anyone actively hunting them so may as well move on.

"What a charming location this is." Percy agreed with the assessment. This wasn't the sort of spatter from battle. But it was the amount of blood that indicated death, at least without a healer around. He stood again, his body protesting every move and went back to join his guide. "You used a potion on me. How common are such things in this world?"

Either some random weirdo who worked here would clean it up or one of the 'guests' would or no one would and it'd actually be an improvement to the carpet.

"Stimpak," he corrected, less of a chastisement and more of just a sharing of terms. Potions were from like stupid stories about witches or whatever that no one really ever told because they weren't actually that scary. "In this world? Yeah not so much. Haven't seen a single one. There's little bits of medicine and stuff but nothing like what I'm used to."

He cocked his head to where Darryl was. "You wanna get your room key now or wait until after drinks?"

An interesting question. There was a ration of defeat in accepting a room key that Percy misliked the taste of. "A drink, so long as my appearance will not be too distressing."

If people frequently showed up bleeding and nearly dead, then this may well be some kind of afterlife. His previous death, he had memories only of Orthax devouring his soul. It would not surprise him in the least to find that this time, he was well and truly in Hell.

MacCready shook his head, face scrunched a little like it was no big deal. Shit happened sometimes. Maybe to other people it'd be super distressing, but he'd seen way worse on a regular basis than some guy covered in blood. Really, if his gun didn't seem to draw any weird attention he didn't think this would.

He led Percy into the café. "Grab a seat. I'll get us a bottle. Red? White? Pink?" He didn't know a lot about wine beyond that it came with weird words. He didn't particularly care where they sat, but it was gonna be telling where and how the new guy chose to sit.

Percy raised his eyebrows behind his glasses. "I suppose whatever the barkeep recommends." Since the point of the drink was intoxication, not flavor, he didn't think it mattered much.

The cafe was no better than the lobby for looks. Percy scanned the room, then headed for the far corner, where he could have a good view of the entire space. There were an astonishing number of windows, far more than he was at all used to. Even Whitestone, with all her wealth, did not have the resources to invest in this much glass. He wondered what sort of industry supported this location. Then again, if this were indeed Hell, a bit of glass was probably the least of the wonders available.

He spent a few minutes chatting with the bartender. There was no point in getting on the bad side of whoever controlled the liquor and, really, barkeeps were pretty much some of the best people.

When he came back, he was more relaxed, a corkscrew, a sealed bottle of red and two empty glasses in his hands, the wide mouths of the long stemmed glasses facing the floor- old habit to make sure no one thought they were getting drugged or anything.

Maybe the guy was kind of uppity, but he at least seemed to have good instincts for a room. Not everyone with a gun was any good with it. Some rich jerks just carried to make themselves look tougher than they were. Coulda been before that Percy'd gotten hit by something that preyed on rich idiots. Now, MacCready was a little more inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt.

He set the glasses down and set about opening the wine and pouring them drinks. Percy could pick whichever one he wanted. Not like it mattered. "You care if I just call you Percy or do you insist on going by all twelve of your names? 'Cause I'm gonna need like a cheat card if so."

"Percy is fine. Were the rest of my party here, they'd have already established that. I suppose I've become lax." The glasses were clean - like everything here excepting the blood out in the lobby. The bottle was sealed. Percy approved.

He adjusted his things on the ground next to him, Bad News in its folded state and Animus still within easy reach on his hip. He was low on ammunition. He'd have to discover where MacCready got his black powder for making his.

"Percival is also acceptable, as is de Rolo." Other nicknames came to mind - Freddie, Whitey, darling - but he felt no compulsion to share them.

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