[of our own device]

Who: Michael and OPEN
When: about 11:30 pm
Where: Ignite

Though she wouldn't have said so publicly, Michael thought Charlie had the right of it. When she got that memo in the morning, she'd been practically buzzing with excitement. This was only the second time she'd ever seen the hotel initiate a test, and she was fascinated by it. She'd had a hard time sleeping during the day, and she kept feeling the need to pour over the notes she kept on every individual in the hotel to try and determine who in particular it was that the hotel felt the need to push. She had theories, of course. Michael always had theories, even if she kept them to herself.

By the time she started her shift the hotel still hadn't calmed down. It wasn't chaos, but it was certainly lively. There were guests in all public rooms and chattering away in the halls, and Michael loved every minute of it. Almost immediately after starting her shift she'd taken a flashlight and made rounds of the hotel. Checking in on each public room and hallway, looking to see how things were going and if there was any situation in need of her attention. When she stepped into Ignite she saw that one of their longtime guests was walking unsteadily and talking a little too loudly. Drunk, she knew. That one was one she'd pegged as a future softie. She was a former teacher that had seduced a student and, as it happened, terrified of both darkness and solitude. Codependent, attention whore, poor concept of boundaries, hadn't evolved the littlest bit in the fifteen years she'd been there. She was all but begging another someone to come back to her room with her. Michael sidestepped that trainwreck and walked around the bar, leaning in close to the bartender to quietly give a direction. "That one needs to be cut off," she said. "And you may need to page Dr. Sherazi if she gets hysterical." Then she leaned against the bar and smiled warmly at a nearby guest. It was good to show that she was calm. This was all just a merry adventure.

Who: Justice, Katya, Nisha and Cameron
When: 6:40 pm
Where: the other elevator car!

Justice’s schedule had gotten off track again. Although, as he’d often pondered during his decades here, what difference did it make when he did what? He’d slept most of the day away, and after getting up and taking a cursory shower—his hair was barely toweled dry and stood up damp and spiky on his head, and he hadn’t bothered to shave his scruff, but he was clean enough—he’d left his room and padded down to the elevator. Time for some food. It was dinnertime, but he hadn’t eaten since about 2 a.m. He didn’t especially care what he had, but he was feeling a bit overdue for nourishment of some sort.

There were other people getting onto the elevator when he did, but he wouldn’t have to endure them for that long, Justice thought as he got on last and poked at the button for the first floor, which was already lit up. He was aware that punching the damn thing wouldn’t make the door close faster, but he always felt inclined to do it anyway. Finally the door eased closed and the elevator started to move. It was business as usual until, with an abrupt jolt, the car stopped halfway down and the lights went out, leaving them illuminated by a faint red glow.

Justice, with his superior sense of patience, rammed the heel of his hand into the control panel. “C’mon, fucker,” he demanded.

Who: Wren and [OPEN]
When: A little bit after the power goes out
Where: Hallway of the Rose Wing

( Sometime before seven, Wren decided to brave the harrowing weather and trek to the hotel itself. )

Who: Seth, Finely, Lucien, Lina
When: 6:40ish
Where: one of the elevator cars

Any time at all spent doing nothing - just being lazy and trying not to deal with her current situation - made Lina feel restless. The absolute worst kind of restless, too, and one that physically affected her. It got to the point where she couldn't take it anymore, and if she wasn't trying to figure out how the hell to get out of here, she was still trying to keep busy. So she had decided to go to the gym. Nevermind the fact that she'd been there for two hours this morning, working out just made her feel better. She'd changed into her work-out clothes, went downstairs to grab a bottle of water, and headed back to the elevator. She didn't pay any attention to the other three who got on with her, just hit the two and waited. The doors slid closed, and Lina would have guessed they were damn near directly between floors when there was a boom and the elevator stopped dead. Things went dark and the car wobbled slightly, and Lina instinctively backed into the corner and readied herself for a drop.

It didn't come. Nothing happened. The lights had gone out, the dimmest of red lights popping on instead. The car didn't move. The world seemed deathly silent without the hum of electricity. Lina sighed heavily and looked up at the ceiling. "Ah, fuck."

WHO: Lucien and Nisha
WHERE: Ignite Lounge & Bar
WHEN: Mid-afternoon

A distinct restlessness seemed to permeate the air, and the longer the storm outside raged, the thicker it grew. There was truly no escape from the hotel on a day like this; it was virtually impossible to even step foot outside the main building, let alone the outer boundaries of the facility.

Lucien had spent the better part of the morning in his room nursing a low-grade hangover, and had only ventured out a scant few hours earlier. Not that there was much to see or do that particularly interested him, of course; he just needed to get out of that damn room and stretch his legs.

So it was that, naturally, he'd found himself returning to the scene of the crime. He honestly didn't remember much of the previous night, although he knew it had involved hard liquor and a few inventive drinking games. His alcohol tolerance had developed considerably over long years of practice, and as he claimed a stool at the bar counter, it stood to reason that a little hair of the dog could only help his situation. There really wasn't much else to do, anyway.

July 6^th, 2013.
Saturday.

Weather Report: Shortly after nine AM the storm finally hits – and it hits hard. One minute, dry. Next minute, raining like the end of the world with constant thunder and lightning to boot. It’s raining so hard and visibility is so low that the managers have been cleared to allow certain members of staff to sleep in the hotel tonight, if they have a shift.

Staff Briefings: Michael gets a pretty special brief at about 4 AM, so check the journals. She’ll be informing the rest of the staff of its contents there.

Daily Events: The storm’s about all anyone can talk about. Anyone that’s been here a year or longer knows the hotel gets a handful of these sorts of storms every summer, but it tends to be jarring to newbies the first time they experience it.

Naturally, the pools, gardens, terraces and Morning Star Grill are all closed today, but the hotel isn’t exactly crowded so it should be fine. People keep to themselves and – oh, wait, no. Wrong. Skip that. Several hours before sunset, at about 6 :40 pm, the power goes out. And doesn’t come back on again. There are emergency generators that kick on, but they only lend power to certain parts of the hotel: the infirmary, the cold storage in the basement, and emergency lights. The emergency lights are not in any guests rooms –public rooms and hallways only. And they don’t actually give off a lot of light – just a faint red glow that isn’t even enough to read by. Biggest kicker: the AC goes out. Considering none of the guest room windows open, oh yes, that is certainly a problem during daylight hours.

A lot of guests will try popping their doors open and leave it at that. On the first floor, all windows that can be cracked open without flooding the area are opened. When the sun sets, fires are lit in the fireplaces in the lobby, CORE, Ignite, and the grand ballroom – as well as several dozen candles in each room. Some guests might elect to sleep in the grand ballroom, where housekeeping has set up many cots.

Beyond all that, it’s business as usual. Ignite and CORE are still serving food and drinks, and the staff is trying to carry on like usual.

Players should check the OOC for information on a special event that will occur this game-day.