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The Rain Hotel

By jason malloy

Game Type: Custom

(Note: This game is currently by invitation only.)

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Lots of scarlet and gold. That`s what the Rain Hotel used to be. Probably. Shining filligree and slut-red velvet. Now, it`s a scab. The carpets and curtains have browned and the details are flaking off in jaundiced chunks. Everything within 13 steps of the double-doors to the street is damp from the drizzle outside. The CONSTANT drizzle. It can`t possibly rain all the time, can it? Soft electric hums twist behind the walls and in every light socket, crackling every now and then. The place smells like electricity, too, and mold and candlewax and... bacon? No. It`s the diner across the way. It must be the diner.

The clock in the desk-clerk`s alcove reads: "6:00".


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Aubrey Rose Davies
*sigh*
Winston Smith
(Samson)
"The furnace might eplain why he was on fire. It doesn`t say either why he was dead, or why he was in the furnace."

*Hands Samson a sturdy umbrella from the free Umbrella stand, while taking up a thick handled broom for himself from the closet behind the counter. (Closet?)*

*He hands Aubrey the manual carpet lint-roller-picker-upper- thing- chuckling*

"What *good* is multi-dimensional mathematics anyway - Its not exactly *real.* Uncaring, and inhuman."

*Opens the door a crack, and peeks down the steps.*
Samson Cavendish
[Winston] "Mathematician? Brilliant. I`m a bit a numbers man myself; lab work. Mostly DNA tests, like CSI but the boring stuff. And fish sometimes too.
Lugoyovitch? Is that his name? How did you find that? Wasn`t he in the furnace? Isn`t that how he caught fire? I thought someone had reached that conclusion.

Wait, are you saying we are in another... dimension? Brilliant.

A mathematician and a reporter. That is an odd combination, if I may say."

I move towards the basement as well, also looking for something that might be cricket-bat-esque.

"This is getting stranger by the minute. And it`s already really strange."
Winston Smith
(Aubrey)
"X-files? No, I was a mathematician in another life. It was a bit boring really. What I`m talking about is an established part of String Theory, and more broadly M-theory.

Its just that until now- there`s been nothing like a way to prove that such a thing can happen. Figuring out the movement of "duration" would help me sketch some ideas of what`s going on. Would that really help us right now? Only in so far as I hope we have no trouble walking back in or out of our own world. It won`t tell us about why the dead are walking or burning."

(Samson)

"Speaking of burning, you never told me why you thought Mr. Lugoyovitch was in the furnace?"

(Samson & Aubrey)
"Let`s go, look at the doors"

*Heads back to the door. Stops. Moves laptop as if to protect it form wind from the door, or running dead people coming from the basement. Then asks-*

(Aubrey)
"Is there anything like a bat or a crowbar around, either for the shelves or Mr. Crispy, "I`m not dead yet?"
Samson Cavendish
(Winston) "Yeah, sorry. I was lost in thought there for a minute. I saw at least two doors down there, behind boxes and rubbish and such. Like someone tried to hide them. And I do laundry down there all the time, no one has told me I can`t.

I`m not sure where I am. I thought I was in New York... but I think I remember visiting Florida yesterday. But I`m here, in my building, except it`s not my building."

(Aubrey & Winston) "Should we check out those doors?"
Aubrey Rose Davies
(Winston) Winston, you watch a lot of Star Trek and X-files don`t you?
Winston Smith
(Aubrey)
Just that, before he went silent, Samson said there were doors down that that looked like someone had tried to hide them. I didn`t see anything- both of those things seem weird- that someone`d try to hide doors- and that I didn`t see anything.

Most of the time if I don`t notice- there`s nothing to notice- its one of the reasons I became a reporter. "Hawk Eye" sorta thing.

You know like when the room numbers keep moving around from floor to floor- or rooms aren`t there any more. Usually if I don`t notice- it- it`s not there. It`s gone.

But here- who knows- maybe its only there for some people - so I had to ask. Its why I keep asking -not that anyone`s answering.

You see I`ve got a stable theory that we are in a building that isn`t in a stable geometry- its in a multi-N-dimensional brane. That`s the warped torus here. So just about anything goes- since the laws of physics- and everything else wouldn`t necessarily be the same -because at some point upon entering the hotel- we walked out of our universe and into another.

The wackiness with Time, and the fact that at least me and Samson didn`t enter the hotel from the same city supports it. You haven`t told me what city you originally walk in from yet BTW. And until you do I`ll assume you live here
and secretly have three hearts and fangs. Not that a city would disprove the three hearts and fangs thing....

Anyway- if these two don`t snap out of it soon- I think I want to brave the currently snoozing, formerly walking fiery dead, and look at the doors.
Svetlana Dugan
[Jacob and Svetlana] Da...I was in Baton Rouge.
Allison Rhodes
[Svetlana] What do you mean street signs like the ones out there?
Aubrey Rose Davies
(Winston)....um...yeah....why do you ask?
Jacob Haliwell
[Allison]
You know...the Mariners, the Seahawks...the Space Needle...birthplace of Jimi Hendrix, final resting place of Bruce and Brandon Lee, and the home of Starbucks...where it rains all the time. It`d be a hell of a fare to catch a taxi from my house, or what`s left of it, all the way to Chicago. And I don`t make that kind of money.
Winston Smith
(Aubrey) Did you see any doors down there? Other than the furnace door? I must be slipping.

(Samson) So Samson, cat got your tongue?
Allison Rhodes
[Jacob and Svetlana] I came here from Chicago. What are you talking about "Seattle?"
Jacob Haliwell
[Svetlana]
Someone asked me that earlier. Like I told them...I was in Seattle when I checked in the hotel. If anything has changed, I haven`t explored the area around here enough to find out otherwise.
Svetlana Dugan
I pause in a sudden, frightening thought.

"I have never seen a cathedral like this, or the street signs like the ones which are outside..."

I start to shake in fear.

"Do we even know what city are we in?"
Allison Rhodes
[Jacob and Svetlana] I do NOT like this music.

I approach the altar looking for any other decorations, vestments, accoutrements etc. Is there a lectern or pulpit? Is there a book on it?

In particular, are there any doors into the sacristy, etc? Were there any doors along the nave? In the lobby?
Winston Smith

(Samson)
Mm-hm. So you were doing laundry? I didn`t think guests were allowed. You said you thought Mr. Brown Suit was in the furnace and that he doesn`t work here. How do you know?

I made a duration estimator. The clocks don`t work -but we still move so there`s duration- I`m estimating what the time would be- if there`s still such a thing.

*Where* were the doors?

(Aubrey) Here let me get out of the way. *moves and moves trash can out from counter area- so Aubrey can get to it with what she`s carrying.*
Jacob Haliwell
[Svetlana]
"I don`t know, but let`s see if we can find out."

I walk down an aisle, pausing to smell one