funnyhearts | TEST DRIVE MEME 003

TEST DRIVE MEME 003

HAPPY HEARTS HOTEL

You wake up in a padded box. It rocks, gently, as though suspended in mid-air. You begin to stir, confusion or distress pushing you to try to sit up — and then the air begins to smell sweet, and you fall back asleep.

You wake up in a padded box. For a moment, you are beatifically calm. You don't know how you got here, or why, but that isn't really all that important. You don't need to know where you are. You're just... here. And here is a wonderful place to be.

But there is a niggling suspicion growing in the back of your mind. A suspicion that here is not somewhere you wanted to be. That it is not where you're supposed to be. You remember... chasing a white rabbit (or was it a person)? A mirror? Bright light, and green ivy crawling over your skin... Before you can worry too much, the box jolts, and then settles, and after a long moment the walls fall from around you to reveal —

A hotel lobby?

"Welcome to the Happy Hearts Hotel and Casino," says an attendant behind a desk. "We're so pleased you could join us. We have your room keys and Empathies here, please make an orderly line and we'll hand them out once we've confirmed identities. After that, feel free to explore the hotel! We highly recommend starting with the casino. Everyone's a winner here in Happy Hearts!"

Is this normal? It doesn't feel normal. And hey — you could swear you had shoes before!

I. SHALL WE DANCE, SHALL WE FLY

Those of you hoping to make use of The Pool of Tears today are in for a disappointment — it appears to have been shut down for the day to make room for a special event! Dozens of small vehicles that resemble pink flamingos are parked along the grounds by the pool, and others are being flown above it with varying levels of skill.

People wearing name tags identifying them as guest instructors mingle around the parked vehicles to offer lessons on how to fly the flamingos. They'll also allow the flamingos to be checked out to be used for recreation, regardless of whether the person checking them out has had flying lessons or not.

Why is this taking place in the pool area and not outdoors, you may ask? Why, because a crash landing in water is so much softer on the bones than on solid land, of course.

Or perhaps you were hoping to spend some time at the Caucus-Race, making use of the hotel's private gym. It seems that, too, had been taken over for an event — dance lessons! There are more guest instructors there to lead dances of all kinds, from groups to couples to private instruction. Even if you didn't intend to partake of them when you came here, you may find yourself bustled away and facing your partner for the lesson before you know it.

Still another handful of guest instructors have set up in the Mad Tea-Party, offering a variety of art lessons — from paintings to drawing to pottery to glassblowing! Have a glass of wine, or something stronger, and try your hand at one! Anyone who chooses to do so will get to keep whatever masterpiece they produce.

II. WE TRADE IN FAVORS

The guest instructors aren't the only ones visiting the hotel today. It seems some traveling merchants have come to pitch their wares, and they've set up shop in the hotel lobby. There's display cases of delicately crafted jewelry, all manner of glassware, bolts of fabric, boxes of precious stones and crystal.

Why come to them when you can get what you need for free from the hotel's boutique? There's just no comparison when it comes to exquisite craftsmanship, of course, or the quality of their raw materials. But should you need a reason beyond that — there's something a little magical about their wares. This necklace is spelled to ward off evil, that circuit will grant clear thought, anything made from this bolt of cloth will always keep the wearer perfectly warm or cool, carrying that crystal will give a boost of healing or luck.

They deal only in trade. Teas, if you have them, will fetch the highest price and get you the most unique items. If you don't happen to have a tea, you're not out of luck — they will also accept favors. Perhaps they will ask you to convince someone else to make a purchase as well, perhaps they will send you on a hunt for a specific item. Perhaps they will ask you for something more intangible, like the shape of a smile or the salt of tears. Not your own, of course, you must inspire them in someone else. Hopefully there's someone nearby who can help you with that.

III. SECRET MESSAGES

By your second or third pass around the hotel, after all the visitors have left, you may notice something that looks a little out of place. A loose rock in the otherwise solid structures of the pool area, a shimmer of green tucked in among all the white abstract sculptures in a hallway, an odd knot in the wood of a bench or chair somewhere in the hotel.

No members of the staff seem to have noticed it so far, but for that to remain the case you'll have to work quickly — and work together. Maybe the rock is up too high for one person to reach, maybe the sculptures are too heavy for one person to move, maybe someone needs to stand guard or distract the hotel staff while the other pries out the wood knot.

All those who succeed in retrieving the piece of heavy green paper hidden away will find the same message: a drawing of a caterpillar, accompanied by a series of numbers and the words call a friend.

IV. WELCOME HOME

Maybe you just want to be alone — well, that's what you have your room key for! Oysters room on the second and third floors of the hotel, one to a room. You were assured your room would be exactly what you'd always wished for — and for some, that's right! It's exactly as you would have decorated it yourself. But for others, their rooms are totally wrong. A grizzled cowboy can't have a pink room! Hotel staff are firm, though: every room is exactly as its owner wants it to be. Search your feelings, Oyster. You know it to be true.

On each bed are the Oysters' personal effects, minus weapons, as well as a towel folded in the shape of a heart, and a single foil-wrapped chocolate. If eaten, the chocolate is delicious, and incites a feeling of tender warmth in Oysters — not lust, but a desire for closeness. Why spend time in your room, when you could go find a new friend in the casino?

Anyone who participates in the second prompt will receive an item with a minor enchantment of their choosing! For players apping in this round, you can include it in your list of items. Current players can reply to the second comment on this page to receive approval of their enchanted item. Please direct any questions to the first comment on this page, and happy playing, Oysters!

PREMISE RULES FAQ TAKEN RESERVES APPLICATION MOD CONTACT HIATUS & DROPS WORLD INFO NPCS CALENDAR AC REWARDS

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"I've grown to distrust anything that calls itself a 'paradise' so that doesn't surprise me."

That's interesting. This kid was treating it like something not too disgusting or too cool. Wu Xie smiles lightly at that liking the novelty of the situation that puts him in. It's not like the circles Uncle Two traveled - they knew the family business and all it's ways, nor like those kids fresh from college wanting to become cool.

"It was that or dying. There was famine and war and grave robbing kept villages alive at the time." Not that the villages were considered good ones. He was well-aware about how much the families had suffered at the hands of the common people once living became stable for them. It wasn't always what was in the graves that were their strongest enemies.

"Everything he had encountered and everything he remembers from his grandfather's tales. It's a history and a treasure map."

"I don't think the grave robbers that are around where I am from are necessarily doing so to help anyone but themselves. It's interesting to hear how it could be used in different ways. What did your grandfather do when he met up with these monsters? How was he able to defeat them?" If he wasn't a cultivator, how did he fight the evil that he encountered?

He's not surprised that he would encounter dangerous things when robbing graves. Some could possibly be guardians of the graves, others perhaps created by the dead if they died unnaturally. It isn't that far off from the things he is used to dealing with. He just doesn't rob graves in the process. He isn't going to judge anyone for their choice of job considering the paths he has taken in his lifetime.

But he is curious

"I say 'villages' but it might have been just a large family group too." Wu Xie shrugged; he often didn't listen to that part of his Uncle Three's tales, wanting to hear more about the monsters and weird artifacts they guarded.

"What did he do? Fought them, or tricked them, or ran away. When he was a child, he ran from a blood zombie and was marked when that zombie ran over his back. The southern families tend towards trickery and force according to the northern families, while they relied on spiritual cleanliness and prayers. But if you ask me, we're all just a bunch of tricky bastards with no moral standards that are too hard-headed for honest living."

Wu Xie admits that he wasn't the best at the fighting but he was good at figuring things out to make up for his lack. That was why he'd never gone alone, especially once he met Fatty and Kylin. Kylin especially was the best person to have by his side; the older graverobber was better experienced and was hard to kill plus he knew how ti fight off creatures Wu Xie did not even have names for.

"Usually though, I just figure out weaknesses by how they act, and am very very lucky."

"These definitely sounds similar to cultivation methods from my world. For us when it comes to spirits and ghosts you are supposed to first try to save and send them on. And if that doesn't work then you destroy. Of course there were alternate methods that were considered taboo such as using them to fight." Of course he fell into that taboo group with his methods but doesn't really see any point in expanding upon that. He doesn't have any shame in the fact it is the path he took, but he knows not everyone sees it that way.

"Perhaps this is just how cultivation transformed over the years. From what we did changed into what you do."

"Ah, yeah, I suppose there is that," he replies taking a gulp of tea as he looks away. While he was not technically a grave robber - his actions were all towards saving and preserving the relics of the past and hopefully those buried with them - he left the spiritual stuff to those that actually knew what they were doing.

Which apparently was what this youth did in his world, but he had said earlier that he was a rule breaker. Did that mean Wei Wuxian did not actively laid spirits to rest when he could? No wait, taboo like making them work for a person, is that what he said. Wu Xie looked over his cup at him and then set it down slowly.

"Who knows? In a way, we are just making things up as we go along. I mean, my Uncle Three used a black donkey's right hoof to subdue zombies and I always wondered how anyone in their right mind figured that one out."

"Sometimes it takes someone not in their right mind. Or just one willing to think outside of the box the world has put them in." Like creating demonic cultivation..He has been hailed as it's creator and it took being consumed by resentful energy in order to figure out how to harness it. He was certainly going out of his mind in that place.

He could talk about any of his creations and when they were first made he was considered crazy. But years later people were using them in their normal cultivation methods. So perhaps it really does just take being a little bit crazy.

"I've honestly never heard of that method before so clearly your grandfather also likes to think outside that box. The best inventions are made because of that."

"I'm still wondering why he had one on him in the first place. I can understand shoving something into the mouth of a thing trying to bite you to keep it off for a minute so you can grab the dynamite but why that in the first place?"

Oh right. Wei Wuxian might not know what that is since he seems to come from an ancient setting. Wu Xie wasn't going to explain it right now but he could talk about some of his encounters and methods.

"I'm known to be rather good at coming up with ideas and figuring out solutions. They sometimes don't work right, but often it's just enough to turn the tides."

"Better to be prepared for anything and everything. Perhaps he had a different plan for that piece but when opportunity presented itself, it gave it a new purpose." He finds it rather amusing really. It's fun to be creative and do random things just to see what will work and what won't.

"That's often more useful in a situation then someone who can fight well. In a war, those with the best tactics will always win against those that just have brute strength." He prefers to be smart about situations himself, but that is also because physically he's no longer the strongest of cultivators. His body rather weak without a solid core. Even Mo Xuanyu's tiny one has been ripped from him in this place.

"I guess so. Gotta be ready for when a black donkey's hoof will come in handy!"

Personally he thought that his grandfather held on to it as a tool to help with his dogs. Those beasts listened to any of the Wu bloodline but they were also vicious dangerous creatures that could easily eat a man. They probably went through rawhide treats the same way a rat went through wood - easily.

"So I've told, but who knows. I never really been in a war."

Wu Xie wondered if he would go up in flames, telling such lies. Oh well, there were wars fought in proper ways and then there was what he went through a year or so ago.

Just as he was about to respond, there is a voice coming through the empathy. He forgot that he had been typing that number in until suddenly it is successful.

Some sort of recorded message asks, "How doth the little crocodile improve his shining tail?"

He repeats this out loud and looks towards Wu Xie to see if he has an answer for the question.

Wu Xie raises an eyebrow at the empathy, and frowns. That was... it has been years since he studied his classics, having spent a lot more time learning about the world he was actually born into. But it sounded familiar.

"'How doth...'," he mutters, fingers tapping lightly against the table. After a second of that, he was reaching into his pocket, taking out the candy cigarettes and taking one out. He stares at it for a moment, lips twisting and then -

"And pour the waters of the Nile on every golden scale!" Snapping his fingers, he grins. "It's longer... something about his grin and claws that welcomes every little fish with his jaws... which sounds a bit hmm bad."

He repeats that into the empathy and then stares at it when he simply gets hung up on. "Well..I don't know if that is what it wanted or not but..at least we know that this is definitely a call number."

He sets his empathy back down and stares at it uncertainly. "I thought we were calling a caterpillar so why is it a poem about a crocodile?"

"Weird that it just turned off," he adds, looking at the empathy then shrugs. He'll try it alone later just to make sure and maybe by then he would remember the rest of the poem. Wu Xie also writes the one verse he remembers next to the number and closes his book. Later he will need to burn the page - after he uses the number of course.

"Could it be because of the subject matter?"

"It might be important later...this place is a little odd in how it works. But generally we are doing things now that gets us ready for what the hotel throws at us later. I'm sure the mystery will be solved eventually."

He just hopes its a good piece of the mystery and not something dangerous. One never can be too sure with the hotel.

"One mystery solved and ten more will replace it."

As it always was. Wu Xie often wondered if he thrived for the mysteries given at how much he just didn't care about day-to-day living when there wasn't something trying to kill him. Or get at him and his secrets. Or get at his family's secrets. Like there were secrets when it came to the dogs or the snakes or anything but he lived inside that, not outside it.

"I wonder if it is a warning from a friend instead of something much more grim. I don't think it's a good poem."

"Then why didn't the friend answer? Why did I have to just answer the question? This place always makes more questions instead of answering any of them." He sighs. He really shouldn't have expected anything else.

"But if the friend is going to wait until it is safer to tell us anything then I guess I just have to be patient." He knows just how much the hotel seems to have eyes in every room and if he is waiting..then he can certainly understand that.

"Do you really think that they would automatically assume you're someone they want to contact? Some things take time, after all. Maybe they need to check your street cred."

Because that's what anyone should do, especially when they have no idea what a person may be connected with. Wu Xie knows he's done that a time or three in his past, even before he started in the family business.

"It would make sense in this place..but then it also might know that not all of us would understand that or know what it is from. Since you knew it..could you tell me a little about that poem?"

Since he wasn't aware of the passage himself, if the friend ever did get back to him it might be better to know a little more or about its origin in case more questions about it were in his future.

"That's true too. It's not something that everyone could guess."

And even then he hadn't been sure. It's been years since he spent time studying modern languages and his English these days was appalling no thanks to how little he needed to use it. Tourists, he had found, really liked to show off their lack of understanding Mandarin all the time.

He wanted his cigarettes to occupy his hands with. He frown down at the table, his fingers twitching as he tried teasing out the memory.

"I'm not sure what it's about - it's been years since college and my English classes. The teacher used it as a kind of teaching tool to help with the sounds... it just goes 'How doth the little crocodile improve his shining tail, and pour the waters of the Nile on every golden scale! How cheerfully he seems to grin, how neatly spreads his claws, and welcomes little fishes in, with gently smiling jaws!'"

He frowns a little as he thinks about the poem. "This isn't a great poem..It kind of seems to talk about deception in order to lure people in."

And it really seems to fit along with the hotel. "Just like this place. A casino that no one can lose in, everything anyone would want or need is just free to have...all of these things seem like wonderful things but it's all a way to make us feel falsely at ease."

Which would make the queen or the hotel itself as the crocodile..and all of them are the fish.

Wu Xie just smiles blandly at that, not really commenting on this whole place or how it was trying so hard to be perfect. Pangzi might say something about how easy it was to fool Wu Xie on a regular basis, but that was because he was Pangzi. Wu Xie wasn't so lax around other people.

"Everything but some house slippers," he says, wiggling his toes. "What kind of shitty host doesn't provide house slippers?"

He laughs as he thinks about that. "It is strange. I'm not sure why we aren't allowed to have shoes. We ended up having to make our own when we were taken outside."

Because walking through the forest barefoot was not terribly pleasant.

"Harder to run away when you don't have anything on your feet."

Especially if the outside is far less cared for than the inside. Stones, brambles, sticks, biting insects, weird things with a lot of teeth? Yeah, no. There's a reason why he tended towards wearing hiking boots most of the time. He never knew when he was going to end up inside of a tomb with hand-shaped shellfish, or human skill figurines.

"Do they give you any time to make foot coverings when they take you out?"

"Nope. Nothing. We used some of the clothing from the boutique to make them into very rough shoes. I mostly didn't wear anything at all, but some of the others went with that route. I had wings so when things got tough I just flew over it."

The shape shifting ability is pretty convenient and he is glad he got that tea.

"Aa."

Looks like he might have to think about this. In all honesty, wasn't there ways to make shoes using a bit of bark and some string> He was going to need to think about it as well as look into that note.

"How many people like us here?"

HAPPY HEARTS HOTEL

I. SHALL WE DANCE, SHALL WE FLY

II. WE TRADE IN FAVORS

III. SECRET MESSAGES

IV. WELCOME HOME

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