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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Percy wasn't sure what was going on, but both MacCready and Vax'ildan seemed quite certain that their explanations were sufficient. His head was pounding, either from the wine or the semi-recent unconsciousness (and perhaps death?)

"A room seems, yes. I think that's a good idea." Percy released Vax, swaying alarmingly as he turned and picked up his pack and new gun.

"Sure it is," Vax agreed. He moved to take Percy's pack and sling it over his own far shoulder (not daring nor wanting to reach for the bizarre gun). He was in no way mother-henning, as he pushed his bare shoulder and arm under Percy's to brace at the stumbling gunslinger. He'd just rather not have to carry his friend the whole of the way upstairs.

"This way to check-in," he steered carefully. "You look rough around the edges, if through the haze of wine. Did you just come away from the Thordak fight?"

Percy shook his head. "That was yesterday. We were fighting Raishan."

She'd been looking fairly rough, when he'd last seen her. But rough still was deadly enough to leave him bleeding on the floor.

Percy accepted Vax's shoulder - as much because of his wounds as the drink if he were forced to be honest, which he was not. They made their way slowly out of the cafe.

If that was yesterday, in Percy's time, and weeks of his own... Vax was trying to figure out how the timing worked between the two realms, but the one of them who had the best chance at getting them to the right conclusion was currently beaten and pickled.

"Did you notice I'd gone missing?" Percy hadn't mentioned that Vax had disappeared, but that could be for a few different reasons. "When's the last time you saw me?"

"I don't even, things get chaotic in battle." Percy tried to picture the cavern, where Vax had been while they attacked Raishan. "You... leapt backward. Got away from her. It was...ten or fifteen seconds, I think?"

Time moved strangely in a fight. Percy couldn't have been more specific if he'd tried. But he did know one thing, "You were never missing."

"Isn't that bizarre, though? That I could be gone for months now by my reckoning, when you're saying I was still with you? Maybe Percy and Vax'ildan are still there, somehow, even while we're here." He didn't really expect the most articulate answer, given Percy's condition. But it was bizarre.

"What'd she get you with?" The ruin of Percy's clothing said that she'd gotten him somehow, for sure.

Percy stumbled at the challenge of the questions combined with the complicated task of putting on foot in front of another. "Her claw." She'd knocked him off the wall. Judging by the ruin of his clothes, she hadn't stopped there. "She couldn't cast spells. Keyleth stole her mind."

"She stole Raishan's mind?" Vax couldn't help but smile in wonder as they approached the registration desk. Gods, she was incredible. "Here we go. Give Darryl there your name, he gives you your room."

Percy limped forward and leaned on the wooden podium where the innkeep was. "Percival Frederickstein von Musel Klossowski de Rolo III. I was told I have a room."

The innkeeper nodded - Percy was having trouble focusing on his face. "Lord Percival, indeed. You'll be in room 192, the Old World Suite. Please let us know if you'll be needing anything. Our boutique has a fine selection of garments."

Percy frowned, looked down at his ruined clothes and decided that it was a fair comment. He took the little paper sleeve with the strangely stiff card inside, puzzled. He looked over his shoulder at Vax, hoping for enlightenment.

"Just hang onto it for now," Vax told Percy's puzzlement. His own look said something of I know, right? "I'll show you once we get up there."

"And don't get your hopes up for the new clothes," he warned. "No tailors around here, so the pickings are slim."

"Duly noted." Percy slipped the paper sleeve into a pouch. "Which way is the room? And potentially, a bathhouse, if this place has such a thing."

Vax got a bit of a gleeful glint in his eye as he began to show Percy the way, satisfied that his nibs seemed to have his land legs coming back in under him. "What if I told you that they were one in the same?"

"I would say that sounds expensive." But Percy's imagination was caught, intrigued by a common inn with in room bathing facilities. Growing up, servants had gone to great lengths to provide hot baths to the de Rolo family. It was an enormous waste of effort. Percy stumbled and caught himself against a wall, too distracted to coordinate his lanky frame. "Though I've considered a system of pipes and levers to draw water but the construction would be tricky and then heating would be a challenge. I suppose an enchanted stone could provide heat on command. It hasn't been a priority."

Maybe those land legs were still on the rubbery side after all. Vax didn't hesitate to catch Percy's arm and sling it around his shoulders as before, continuing on.

"It's something to do with a whole bunch of pipes and heaters," was about as much as Vax could agree. "That's all of it I know. But it's easily the best thing yet about being trapped in this bloody place."

Percy mostly kept his legs under him for the rest of the trip out from the main building and to the three story structure. He was rather grateful when they didn't have to take any stairs to the red door marked "Old World". He reached for the handle, but though it moved, the door wouldn't open.

Remembering the paper sleeve, he took it out and waved it at the door, then pressed it against the wood. Nothing. "What's the trick?"

Vax reached for Percy's key, sliding the hard rectangle out from the paper. He faced it the right way and inserted it into the slot in the boxy thing over the door handle, and it beeped acceptance at them. Vax pushed the handle and swung the door open with a dramatic wave of a gesture, smirking back at Percy.

"I've broken a few of these," he noted almost proudly, handing the card and paper sleeve over to Percy again. "Still no idea what's going on that makes them work. And only your card will open up your door."

"That's...interesting. That's very interesting." Percy stared at the box on the door for several long seconds, then shook his head. "Later."

He looked up then and got his first good look at his room. There was... a lot of rock. Percy didn't have anything against rocks. Rocks - or rather stone - was the fortune of his family and his city. Greyskull keep was build of stone. And yet, nothing about this place had prepared him to suddenly be faced with polished to a shine rocks that nevertheless looked rough hewn. There was a fireplace. It was lit. He took a couple steps forward. "What in the devil?"

"You can't escape all the red and pink in this place," Vax'ildan remarked, poking in after him for a look. "But the rock is better than most get. Makes it almost liveable. You're lucky compared to some."

Percy toured the room slowly, around the enormous fireplace, to the massive bed, then through yet another red door into... "What is this place?" More stone, some part of it formed as a shelf with an indentation in it - some kind of basin, he imagined. A long white robe hung from a bar in an open alcove. Another alcove mystified him entirely.

"This is your private bathhouse," Vax explained from the bathroom's doorway.

He pointed at the basin. "The fiddly bits pour water for hands, small jobs, drinking," he'd entirely intuited the last. Tasted different from home, but he'd not been sick. He continued on to the toilet. "Nethers. The lever whisks it away." He gave a more expansive gesture with his hand at the largest. "Bathing. You can have it come out hot any time you like."

Percy immediately moved to the basin to test the theory. A twist of a knob and water poured forth. Another twist and it began to warm slowly. "Remarkable." Twisting it off again, he went to the white seat Vax had indicated. Pushing the lever made the water in that basin, swirling with a noisy sound. Soon enough, just as Vax had said, the water was gone and new water filled the bowl. "Wasteful?" Percy said, dubiously.

Finally, the bathing chamber. Percy stepped in and found two more knobs. He gripped one, looking up at the silver tube of metal above him. To his shock, water instead poured down over a shelf of rock, drenching him instantly. It was cold and Percy yelped in shock.

Vax'ildan lingered in the doorway, entirely entertained by watching the somewhat over-lubricated gears turning madly in Percy's head. He shrugged at the question. "Doesn't seem to be a problem, or they'd ration it. But it's better than a chamber pot by miles."

He did have keen perception and very deft reflexes. Vax might've been able to yank Percy out of the way of the water. Vax didn't honestly think to try. He'd gone for the cold, after all.

"You could do with a bath, Freddy," Vax had an impish look where he gathered up a few of the big, fluffy towels.

Frantic adjusting of the knobs soon caused the water to cease pouring out. Percy gave the rock wall a long, penetrating look, like he was considering tearing it apart for its secrets. The look he then turned on Vax suggested something similar, but with considerably more vengeance. "You might have warned me."

He looked down at his ruined and now quite drenched coat and shirt and with a sigh, started to strip out of it. Blood still streaked liberally over a torso covered in barely healed wounds laid over the scars of years past. The dark stone floor covered any red tinge to the water. "Anything else I should be aware of?"

Faced with such a clever mind and a heart full of vengeful indignation, Vax'ildan only smiled at Percy fondly. He'd missed them all so much. And even if Percy wasn't Vex or Kiki returned to him, he was no lousy consolation prize either.

"Oh, plenty. This is a very strange place we've ended up in. If you try to leave the grounds, you can walk for a couple of hours, but it will always turn you right back around somehow. There are a few more staff like that innkeep who gave you your room, equally plain - I don't think they're actually people, but they don't do any harm as far as we've seen. The kitchens and bar stay stocked no matter how much we eat or drink, but no one ever sees deliveries made."

Percy raised his eyebrows. "Sounds like magic. It would be nice if one of the others were here." He could build things but despite a facility with a few small charms, magic was outside his expertise.

He took one of the towels from Vax and scrubbed the blood off as best he could. "So is this place like Scanlan's mansion then?"

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