master of the house, quick to catch your eye (OPEN)

[checkingin]

Who: Everyone!
Where: The initial arrival rooms, the main lobby, all over the place.
When: April 5rd
What: Welcome, newbies + happy Easter eggs.

ARRIVAL.

you wake up when you hit the floor in a dark room, and the air is knocked out of your lungs. the carpet is threadbare, worn with use, kind of dusty. and you're not the first person to endure this crash landing. nor will you be the last.

once your vision rights itself, you can see the well-lit hallway through the doorjam straight ahead of you. not to say there’s monsters in the shadows, but something propels you towards that door and out into the bright hallway beyond.

and once outside your room, you can hear it: the steady thrum of rain outside.

MAIN LOBBY.

there's a staircase at the end of the lengthy hallway you tumble out of. grab your suitcase and follow the dull green exit signs on the ceiling until you reach the disappointingly bland stairs that lead you down to the ornate old fashion hotel lobby.

to your left is an empty, ashy fireplace, to your right is a lobby desk. straight ahead are three large sets of doors, all three of them thrown wide open and welcoming. and outside the few (curtained, permanently dark) windows is the continually steady hiss of rain. once you leave the hallway you wake up in, you won't be able to return.

welcome to the hotel.

FRONT DESK.

though there is a bell and a plaque designating the desk to be the main desk, the customer service desk, there are currently no staff members behind it. none shall answer your calls, either. there is, however, a pad of paper and a pen neatly aligned with the desk edge. you know. for notes.

terribly sorry for the inconvenience.

SCREENING ROOM.

on a long pull-down screen, a silent version of the cabinet of dr. caligari will be playing on loop. at the back of the room, between the neat rows of fold out chairs, mounted on a wobbly table is the old-timey projector, and mounted on the walls are some rather old speakers that warble out "terrifying" old music.

along the curtained windows is another long table, with a large bowl of caramel corn and a large hot drink dispenser full of hot water, with a few cups and some old looking packages of hot chocolate mix.

BALLROOM.

the third set of grand doors have been thrown wide to reveal a brightly lit, festively decorated ball room. all across the polished wood floor, all over the tables and chairs around the edge of the room, under the curtains, in the corners, hiding in the shadows, and behind the doors, characters will find:

easter eggs.

plastic easter eggs filled with jellybeans and chocolates, real eggs dip dyed and rolled in glitter; foil wrapped chocolate eggs, sugar eggs with little diaramas in the middle. there will be novelty plastic easter bunny rings sprinkles about, and general little plastic childrens toys. there will be plastic and paper easter basket grass sprinkled all over, and upbeat ambiance music intended to excite.

by the front door will be basket for people to use in their quest to collect the hundreds of eggs scattered all over the room. a sign on the floor invites them to "take one" in curvy handwritted script.

but there's no sign to warn that — some of these eggs?

are going to explode in your face.

( event details. )

OTHER.

the ballroom is currently open, and the grand doors locked.

there is no main door leading to the outside, good luck trying to find one.

the doors to the courtyard and breakfast hall are unlocked, food is currently being served. a lot of it is candy.

ROOMS.

you've a room key with your assigned room number on it. all the new guest residences will be located on floors four. while there is an open elevator in the main lobby, and the buttons light up inside, the doors will not close. all in all, you'll be better off taking the stairs.

while they're the same stairs you undoubtedly came down to get to the lobby, the door to the endless hall everyone woke up in will not reappear between the main floor and the subsequent residential halls.

there are twenty rooms per floor. feel free to get to know your surroundings; or your neighbors as they trickle in around you.

EGGSISTING GUESTS.

happy easter, kids.

Comments

[avengeme]

[Coulson barely has time to react to her presence. He recognizes it's Skye so he's quick to welcome and return the hug. The way she's clinging to him worries him and he finds that he only wants to comfort her. Finding out what's going on can happen later.]

It's okay, Skye. It's okay.

[hacker]

[ It's not, and she's figured that out by now. Nothing about any of this is okay. It takes her a moment of keeping her face buried in his shoulder to bury how stark that fact appears in her expression. When she does finally draw back, palms clasping his shoulders, she's wearing a lopsided, easygoing smile. ]

You know, I think I would have preferred this reunion going the other way. Me coming out, not you getting dragged in. Unless this is the part where you tell me a team's been looking for us and you're here to evac.

[avengeme]

[He smiles back though he also looks mildly confused. He's doing his best to deduce everything that's going on here from her reaction alone but it's a little difficult]

Unfortunately, no. I just saw you a few hours ago.

[hacker]

[ Then, he'll be surprised to notice the way that her expression blanches, as if shorting out when she tries to process that. ]

... What? No. [ She shakes her head, collecting herself quickly after. ] That's impossible; Fitz and I have been stuck in here for two months.

[avengeme]

... The last time I saw you you were still in quarantine after the city collapsed.

[the gears in his mind are grinding, trying to work out all the possibilities. He believes her. Which just makes this all the more confusing.]

I need a debrief. Everything you know about this place.

[hacker]

[ Professional and to the point. It straightens Skye's back; she folds her hands in front of her and begins to explain. ]

Hotel California, Sir.

[ But to explain that in depth, she needs to go back to the beginning. ]

Sixty days ago, after the earthquake brought down the temple beneath San Juan, Agent Fitz and I were brought out of the underground city and into this hotel. We realized we didn't even remember anyone pulling us out of the temple, let alone bringing us here.

The more people we talked to—about forty, in that first group—the more obvious it was that they hadn't just picked people up from across the globe. They spanned time, space, multiple universes. Whoever's responsible for this has power, tech, and a lot of resources. Naturally, we pegged HYDRA for it.

[avengeme]

[Coulson listens attentively, frowning slightly at the mention of HYDRA. He can't blame her. He can't help but think it's them too]

I do too. Seeing Ward here doesn't help.

But we already took out their highest ranking agents. Last night. [a pause] I mean, for me. [he has a feeling he's going to hate this timeline bending stuff]

[hacker]

[ At the mention of Ward's name, Skye's gaze drops. She becomes briefly interested in the carpet, shoulders hunching slightly. Lifting her chin, she forces herself to look Coulson in the face as she quickly establishes, ] I know. I'm sorry; I thought I put him down.

[ If her expression is anything to go by, she genuinely seems to believe that failing to take Ward out for good will disappoint Coulson (an extension, perhaps, of her guilt and shame for not being able to pull the trigger on her father, just like she hadn't been able to let Deathlok kill Ward on the Bus). ]

There's more. [ She doesn't want to shift the topic so quickly because the choice reeks of avoiding responsibility for her failure to get the job done, but there's more to brief him on. ] Last month, I hacked the tablet interface to get more information about the intranet they're connected to. While there's no external network to piggyback on to deliver a distress signal, I did notice something weird about the network itself.

Accounting for all the tablets assigned to the people kidnapped along with us, there's still one access point unaccounted for. Someone's keeping tabs on our electronic communications from inside the hotel. If I had to guess, based on where the intranet's origin point is bouncing around, it's probably some kind of sub-basement, below the boiler room or the courtyard.

We haven't found any hard surveillance in the rooms, but that doesn't mean they haven't managed something. Especially given that it seems like they're using us for a series of psychological experiments of some kind, Stanford University style. First, they froze us out, then this month, it was ... [ Tension flickers in her jaw. She nods as she finally spits out, ] Ghosts. They were making us hallucinate, uh, hallucinate people that we've lost.

[avengeme]

[There's the slightest pull of a smile on his lips at that. He recognizes that gaze but he doesn't comment on it. Not yet. There's very little she can do that'll lead him to be disappointed in her.]

So there's a big bad somewhere pulling the strings, running experiments and making our lives miserable.

[a pause]

That makes it really hard not to pin this on HYDRA.

[he lets out a breath]

Good work. Once we're more organized, we can go down to the basement. See if there's a hidden passage.

[hacker]

[ A smile flickers on her lips, weary but grounded. At his conclusion, she nods. She'd had the same thought. It's good to be back on the same page with him. ]

Not like I'm glad you're kidnapped or anything, but—

[ It's an important premise to start with. ]

It's really good to have you back.

[avengeme]

I'm sorry I wasn't here.

[it's not his fault but the sentiment is there]

We'll get out of this somehow. And good work shooting Ward, by the way.

[hacker]

It'd be better work if he weren't recovering. [ She says it sourly. ] He's in bad shape, but someone must have patched him up. Knowing Ward, it won't be long before he's making things hard on us again. [ The shake of her head looks genuinely frustrated—with herself, not just Ward. It's hard to say if it's genuinely frustrated with her inability to take him out, or frustrated with her emotional inability to seal that deal. ]

If this is HYDRA, we are way more out of our league with them than we thought. I mean, we're looking at inter-planar travel. Even Asgard saves that kind of tech for bad days.

[avengeme]

I'll think of something. [none of the options they have look good at the moment, unfortunately.]

In the meantime, keep your eyes open and be careful who you trust. This could be HYDRA or a new player. Either way, like you said, we're way out of our league. The best we can do now is work with the others who are trapped. Get a system set up. Medical, science, intel, the works.

[hacker]

All over it. I'm putting together a form to create a skills index of willing respondents. I'm not sure how much luck we'll have: when Wallace tried to suggest some kind of security check-in to see if we're losing people, not many seemed happy with the idea.

[ That seems like an important preface before addressing the progress she has made. ]

But I've already got a few names for medical, and I've been keeping an eye on a few people who seem to know what they're doing in a fight. Raven will probably know more: I'll reach out to her.

[avengeme]

Good. Keep me posted on the rest.

I'll try to reach out through the network in few more days. See how receptive people might be to keeping an unofficial headcount. [there's going to be a lot of work cut out for them. Or at least as much as they can manage]

[hacker]

Sure. Let me know what I can do to help.

[ She glances back towards the stairs and recalls, ] Hey, what room are you in? Fitz and I are 114 and 115. Rogers is first floor too, but not Barnes or Barton.

[avengeme]

[he blinks at the names. Rogers, Barnes, and Barton. While he really shouldn't be surprised that they've been brought here too, he hasn't expected the names to come up at all.

that said, he holds up his key while he's processing the information: 110.]

That's quite a list of names. Do Rogers and Barton know about me?

[hacker]

Rogers does.

[ She nods along as she says it like an apology. For a guy who'd been running his mouth about SHIELD, Fitz had been pretty peeved when she mentioned Coulson casually to Rogers. The big secret hadn't occurred to her for even a minute. SHIELD secret, yes. Rebuilding secret, yes. Coulson being alive ... Well. She hadn't known him when he "died," and that was a briefing she'd always been absent for. ]

Fitz ... Told me to back off. That you wanted to say something yourself.

[avengeme]

[Right. They never did get around to talking about those little details, did they? Coulson just raises the corners of his lips and puts on his most 'agent' tone]

That's all right. They probably would have found out eventually.

[What with Natasha being a part of the active avengers]

[hacker]

Well, that's sweet, but I still pretty epically screwed up the whole "secret" thing.

[ Which she's readily able to admit, at least. She doesn't spend much time on self pity, sounding instead rather casual about the mistake, like perhaps she forgot to buy milk. ]

Anyway. He wanted to know how it happened, so I gave him broad strokes. You might want to fill in the rest for yourself. He wasn't happy, which makes sense because creepy.

[avengeme]

[he can't help but grin at that while he agrees:] Yeah, you did.

I'll deal with it. [he says in a tone that manages to sound casual and like he's about to undertake something dreadful at the same time] At least he's not the Hulk.

[hacker]

Yeah, then we'd really be screwed.

[ Something's off in her smile. A hesitation, something keeping her from really laughing at the Hulk jokes like she wants to, and it lies just behind her eyes. But she goes through the motions—wry jokes, accompanying eyeroll, loose body language. ]

[avengeme]

[Coulson notices that but he's also chalking it up to the stress of being trapped in an enclosed space for two months. Still, he finds himself asking]

Is there something else?

[hacker]

[ For a moment, she almost tells him. The confession dies on her lips and she drums up a lackadaisical smile. ]

Just ... really glad to see you, that's all.

[avengeme]

[he smiles reassuringly and reaches out to pat her on the shoulder]

Let's stop by my room. I need to take stock of what's in this suitcase. Then we can figure out what to do with all these easter eggs.