To Make things a little easier to follow! Room 1399 continues here!
Room 1408
Within the smothering confines of the bathroom, the insects began to swarm in a shivering, stuttering mass, jerking in sudden staccato beats. Thousands upon thousands of carapaced limbs scrape and skitter as hundreds of pounds of biomass shudders and writhes. An incessant buzz began to echo through the room, crawling in through the ears and vibrating off of the meat inside their sculls. Patterns began to emerge from the skittering, jerking bodies. Shapes began to emerge, teasing the eye, niggling at memories, until, eventually, the mages realized that the vermin had began to writhe into form of...numbers?
068 069 065 084 072
Int+Academics!
Just then, an ear splitting clang of sharp bells pierced the stillness of the room.
The phone had begun to ring...
Vauban Winter Aurora
From the bathroom, a revolting buzz followed in the room by the unpleasant shrill of a phone, shredding his focus and bringing him back to the miserable malaise of his surroundings. He winced, the fruits of his labor were scarce; the nimbus of a disciple of forces, the one Campanella had described.
He gave the ringing device the evil eye; closed the gap with sure but momentous footing, a callous hand now weighs down heavily and rather ungracefully upon the receiver.
"This is Room 1408". He replies languidly, holding the receiver cradled against his ear.
The bugs were really a bit much, even for one who dealt with Life. Bugs would never be something she liked. They were creepy. And the way they seemed to be forming….something. Whatever it was, it was beyond her understanding.
But the phone ringing snaps her out of bug watching, and jumps her a bit.
“Who the hell would be calling?” she mutters. Did the two they were looking for making connections already? Did someone spot them when they entered the hotel?
She moves out of the bathroom to better hear whatever Winter would say on the phone. While her eyes remain on the bugs and the bathroom.
Maybe some Spirit would reveal something.
failure2 successes
Beyond the clawing, hideous echos of resonance left by whatever event happened here, Vauban did not notice much beyond it in the bathroom. He pulled back from the sight and glanced down at the floor. He looked a bit puzzled by what the assorted bugs and creepy crawlies were doing.
3 successes
"ASCII?" He muttered in confusion. It took him a moment for him to translate the string of numbers. "Says...Death." He proclaimed. The fact they were forming messages was a bad sign. Though he did not feel the tell tail strangeness that came with spellcasting at that moment when they started to form those numbers. "Whats making them do this?" He wondered out loud as he backed away slowly.
The ringing caught his attention. "Careful man. Whatever happened here is making this place go full on haunted hotel on us." He warned Winter as he picked up the phone. He tensed up. Was this the moment things went to hell?
Somewhere, on the other end of the line, a pair of cruel lips twisted into a half smile.
"This is room service," a woman's voice answered in reply, though their something strange happening to the connection, as though Winter could hear the distance that voice was traveling through all that untraceable length of wire.
"Is there anything we can do to help make your stay more enjoyable?"
Winter could hear the amusement in her voice, the smile lurking behind every word.
The voice on the other end of the receiver sounded distant, as if cast from a faraway place. Winter puzzled together the scanty clues; he instinctively knew he could. So, for a disciple of forces? Child's play.
He flashed years and a couple dozen pounds back. Remote surveillance was one of the very first things one ought to learn, by not checking the room beforehand he hadn't played at the top of his game. He turned around to get a better look, juggling the receiver between his ear and his shoulder and gawking informally over the rest of the room. His eyes flashed over the TV, a glint of recognition for the improvised hiding spot, either there or a camera had been stuck inside the presumptuous shallow piece of crap in the corner.
His jaw clenched; in the lobby, he had been right all along, hopefully not about the leering pervert part.
He flashed an obscene middle finger at the display, the constant threat of a smile lurking behind the hardened corners of his face. She was good, the hunt was thrilling, though he was unsure about their respective roles.
Two lazy nods routed his companions towards the offending pieces of furniture, then he went back to the lady on the phone.
"I'm afraid you won't be getting any Yelp star tonight", he paused, "too many bugs", he delivered in a grave tone. Fucking puns.
1 success
Date Action Roll Result 2018-05-12 23:23:50 Winter rolls 4 to Spot the Cameras (Wit + Investigation + Trained Observer) (10 Again) 10, 5, 3, 3, 6 1 success
Just to be clear, Perception=Wits+Composure. However, I made a bad call, so we're just going with it
There was no sound of laughter to greet Winter's reply, though the smile grew wider on the other end, teeth flashing in a something too wide for even a predaor's grin.
"How unsurprising, that the site of a true miracle wouldn't be enough to suit such pampered sensibilities. Tell me, who do you serve? An Order, or an Exarch?"
Heh, she's having fun.
"Serving? A-ha, you're a funny lady. So tell me...", he pinched the bridge of his nose for a brief second, the woman's lexical selection hadn't been random, she was fishing for clues and not giving back any, "what do we have left when everything is a lie? All thrones fall, but the truth, the truth is eternal and shall set us free. I fight for the truth". It was not entirely false.
"Your hospitality, it has a certain appeal", he said in a matter-of-fact tone, casting a forlorn look at the doors of the bathroom, "it is flattering really, your eagerness in setting up a show in that dump, dropping the keys, the longing anticipation for a worthy audience, even the cameras. The prospect of waiting there, dick in your hand like a nerd must have been dreadful"
He bit his lower lip, he needed to solicit a reaction. He lowered his voice to a hoarse growl, low enough to not be heard by his companions "Although, next time you try something daring, bring some lye. It's cleaner. If I'm going to be honest, I didn't feel any sense of enjoyment from that poor thing, too many bugs to peak under. I wonder if they'll be on the camera, whoever they were. I should tell my friend to check"