D.E.M.O.N.S: Getting Summoned Weekly isn't so Bad

— Kat —

The waiver was a mix of extremely clear language and exceptionally obscure phenomena. The hotel seemed to want to cover just about any possible way you could get hurt… and plenty of ways that shouldn’t. There were a few other things about not requesting adjoining rooms and staying out the kitchen, but most of it was just warnings disguised as disclaimers. For example ‘Do not leave the garden by jumping over the hedge maze lest you suffer from spatial fractures tearing at your skin’. Yeah, thanks for letting me know… WHY IS IT IN A HOTEL.

“Eleanora… is this place really safe?” asked Kat as she turned the page to yet more warnings.

“You’ll notice that horrible things only happen if you try to do something the original designer didn’t intend for… well that or use the main kitchen. The only other big risk is getting lost,” said Eleanora.

“Well what about this? ‘Don’t stand in the deep shadows that occasionally appear in corners lest you be mauled by something we have yet to identify’ how is that reasonable?” asked Kat.

“Well they’re confined to those shadows, they only appear in the corridors and you have to really go out of your way to step on them. Even then you’re not always attacked. It only happens about one in every hundred attempts so you’d have to go out of your way to poke the shadows to trigger them… and if you’re that stupid it might be best you’re not polluting the gene pool,” shrugged Eleanora.

Kat gave the elf a side-eyed glance. “That seems like… a bit of an extreme take,”

Eleanora shrugged. “If you’re not smart enough to avoid stupid decisions, or strong enough to live through them anyway then what even is your purpose? They’ll never give you a strong fight that way…”

*And this is the person that might one day be in charge of the guard.* “That’s… somewhat rude? I guess? Why are you a guard then? Protecting weak and possibly stupid people?” asked Kat

Eleanora shook her head, “No, I’m not talking about average stupidity or inattention. I’m talking about the true morons that likely struggle to remember to breathe. Most people are just… average by nature of how these things work. I have nothing against them, but I don’t care overly much for them either. The idiots I’m talking about are the ones that will jump off a cliff just because they were dared to do so. If people simply allow them to go about being idiots of such calibre they solve the problem for us. As long as nobody wastes time and effort saving them from the consequences of their own actions,”

Kat thought back to the kids at the orphanage, all the dumb shit she’d seen them stick in their mouths, and all the trouble they’d gotten up to. “I… I’m not sure I can agree with that,”

Eleanora shrugged. “I don’t find your lack of agreement a problem mistress,”

Kat sighed once again and went back to flipping through the waver. As the pages went on things seemed to get increasingly obscure. It was almost like… [Hang on. Is this a bug report?]

*What?*

[Almost like for a video game. It’s like… a bunch of idiots tested stupid stuff, the basic ones anyway, and while some didn’t work out others caused massive issues and got written down. Then, over the years, in order to ‘break’ things they kept pushing. Doing increasingly obscure things and finding new bugs and stuff.]

Kat flicked over to the last page and found Lily was correct. There was an entry that said ‘Don’t hang off the third lantern in the corridor with the blue flower pattern on the ceiling if it’s a Thursday within the third quarter of the year’ which… like… who even bothered to figure something like that out. *Wait does that mean they tested this multiple times? Like… how do they know it’s ONLY Thursday and for a quarter of the year?*

[Guess they had to have tested it multiple times.]

*Surely a blanket ‘if you’re an idiot we can’t be charged for this’ would suffice though right?*

[I’m guessing… that they might be subtly encouraging people to find new problems? Perhaps not the basic staff but the owner? I mean… it’s one way to get repeat customers I suppose.]

*They can’t come back if they’re dead.*

[I guess so… but how long has it been since this got updated? Eleanora said only a few people go missing every century and a lot of these conditions are really, really specific. You’d probably have to KNOW about them to have it happen. Plus you’d have to find these rooms wouldn’t you?]

Kat rubbed her chin as she flicked back through the waiver and noticed that the only room that had multiple different ‘issues’ present was the gardens and even then it seemed to mostly involve leaving the garden in strange and creative ways instead of anything you can find inside. That was, assuming these were the same garden but… considering one directly mentioned a fence while another a hedge maze there might be more than one.

*Alright I see your point. The hotel also might try to prevent people finding these rooms if they’re looking to injure themselves. Still… we’re good with staying here?*

[Yes. Or at least, I’m happy to do so. The space here is super interesting and I didn’t see anything in the waiver that I feel puts me at risk. Sure it’s a lot of different things but the only ones that might be even a slight worry are about breaking out of the gardens which isn’t hard to remember.]

*Alright then.* Kat put the package back on the table which seemed to be a trigger for something as the receptionist popped back into the room at the same time. Rising up out of the floor with cobwebs dangling from her hair. “Um… you’ve got a bit of…” Kat gestured towards the spider still attached to the spider web the receptionist had picked up.

The elf just shrugged. “It’s fine. Are you all ready to sign or are you leaving?”

“I’m good to sign,” said Kat as she stepped back to look at the others. Green had apparently been woken up at some point and she just shrugged. Kress grinned and nodded, while Nixilei and Gareth looked much less sure.

“How common are injuries in this place?” asked Gareth.

The receptionist shrugged. “Eh… pretty low? Depends on what you count as an injury. Occasionally people get scared but it’s only the ones that go out looking for trouble that tend to end up hurt. I think… we get about one group every six months like that? The whole group tends to end up injured doing something done but our normal customers don’t tend to have issues. It’s just the very occasional disappearing act,”

Gareth winced a bit and glanced and Nixilei who shrugged. “It sounds safe enough. We can avoid the listed issues without much trouble.”

“Thought you’ve have more of a problem with it… but alright then,” said Gareth with a shrug as he placed the pamphlet back on the desk.

“Alright, now how many rooms will that be?” asked elf as she blew the spider off her face. It was only a little one and it went flying off onto the desk.

“What are our options?” asked Gareth.

The elf shrugged. “The hotel reacts to your request. The more rooms you ask for the less likely you’ll be near each other or have the rooms attached to each other but I have seen ten rooms connected before so it’s not impossible. Shared rooms have one bathroom for every three people, adding an additional one on the fourth, seventh and so on. They will have no more than one cooking area and the sleeping areas tend to be smaller with more people but occasionally you see bunkbeds as well,”

170**

Gareth glanced at the rest of the group before saying, “Well… how do you all want to do this then? One big room… or what, four smaller ones?”

Nixilei shrugged, “We’ve roomed together plenty of times before so I don’t really care. I’m not sure how worried we should be about getting separated though…” Nixilei gave a significant look towards the receptionist.

“If you’re an adventuring party it’s probably fine,” was her answer.

“Alright then…” mumbled Gareth. “Nixilei, Kress, you want your own rooms?”

Nixilei and Kress glanced at each other before Kress shrugged and Nixilei shook her head. This caused Gareth to turn to Kress with a raised eyebrow. “Eh, whatever I’ll just room with you guys at this point,”

“I don’t mind,” added Kat.

“Might be best if you grab your own room either with or without Eleanora sticking by,” added Gareth.

Eleanora turned to the receptionist. “Is it possible to have an attached servants quarters for Kat and Lily’s room?”

“Yes… I believe so? Though do be aware such a room is essentially a small box with a bed,” answered the receptionist.

“That’s fine,” agreed Eleanora.

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