20 April 2011 @10
Lobby

Nate was in the dusty lobby of the Shodding Arms hotel leaning on the front counter having a conversation with the manager. Nate was hunkered low, gesticulating through the little window in the cage.

"They're everywhere, Rita. They've stolen my cigarettes, they've put my pants in the toilet, and there was one in my bed when I woke up this morning. These gnomes gotta go, Rita. And I'm not going to pay for it."

"It's seasonal, they'll be out once it's warmer out."

"What, do gnomes holiday in Brighton, now? Hire someone."

"No...."

Nate smiled. This was fun. If his wife were around, she'd have brewed something wicked ages ago and wiped out the whole of them. But Nate's talent lay elsewhere and he was at the mercy of Shodding Arms managment, who were, in Nate's speculation, mere shadows of souls no matter how real they seemed.

There was a loud knock at the ornate wooden door at the entrance.

A moment later, another KNOCK, sharper and angrier, the door shuddering against the frame, dust rising off the intricate woodwork.

Then BAM!, the door slammed inward, as Dominic, standing just outside, his back towards the opening and struggling to carry a tower of packed cardboard boxes, was finally able to mule kick the push-bar to open the heavy door, which bounced violently off the inner wall and swung right back to close on his rear end.  He quickly stomped his still-raised kicking foot back down across the threshold to stop the swinging door, and he yelped as it made painful contact with his ankle instead.

Wincing and off-balance, he carefully shifted to sidestep through the doorway. The stack of boxes he was carrying was so tall that he had to bend awkwardly and crab walk a couple steps to ensure the head of the door frame didn't push the topmost box off its precarious perch. Once inside, there was plenty of overhead room, and Dominic straightened back up with only a slight wince and shifted his grip to readjust his hold. He closed his eyes for a moment and sighed heavily, forehead resting briefly on the burden in his arms that was threatening to topple.

He kicked once more to close the door behind him and grimaced when he noticed the door handle-shaped imprint in the wall. A side table a few yards down lazily shuffled closer on its dainty wooden legs, stopping just under the fresh damage. The gaudy flowerless vase on top of the table now hid the new hole from view. Dominic looked about, and from the condition of the rest of the lobby, he suspected this would be the permanent solution to that particular problem.

He sighed again and craned his neck around the boxes, catching sight of the hotel manager behind her caged desk and an apparent vagabond standing nearby. Glancing back and forth from the front desk to the top of his boxes, he carefully maneuvered the teetering tower between the low-floating chandeliers that hovered unlit in the derelict hotel lobby. Reaching the other side of the room, Dominic crouched slowly, teeth clenched, and finally set the boxes on the ground next to the front desk. He stood up to his full height, which was considerable, and stretched his head and arms back, a dozen or so joints popping loudly.

Slouching forward into his natural posture, he sighed, this time with relief, and looked up at the manager and the shoddy man. Dominic smiled wearily and was deciding whether he should start by apologizing for the damage to the wall or by just saying, "Hello," when he was cut off by the sound of his boxes crashing to the floor. He decided to swear instead.

Nate and Rita watched the entire vignette play out with casual interest, neither making any movement to help. It wasn't bad manners, there was just always something odd going on at the Arms that wait-and-see was a good default mode.

"Morning," Nate said, smiling again in his somewhat superior way of watching life go by. He was still leaning on the counter, but quartered out to face the slender fellow, whose personal disarray seemed temporary (from this morning's exertions) rather than the permanent sort of desperation of most other Shodding Arms guests. Nate elbowed himself away from the counter and moved to have a look at the toppled cargo.

Some books had burst out of one box, some clothing spilling out of another.  He turned his head on his side. "Is that the Monster Book of Monsters?" It looked just like a book Nate had when he was at Hogwarts. It nearly ate his housemate's toad.

Dominic quickly stood up from where he was trying to jam mittens and scarfs back into the "winter clothes" box his mother had packed for him. He step over two other spilled boxes to assess the damage to his books, not due to their falling, but potentially due to a ravenous textbook escaping from its multiple fastenings.

"Yes, it is," Dominic told the other man. "And this copy is particularly ornery," he warned, picking the book up gingerly by the spine after ensuring that at least one thick leather belt still secured its ink and paper maw. He'd had it for years, but to Dominic's perhaps misplaced sadness, it had never warmed to him. A school chum had paid him five galleons to trade books in their fourth year. Dominic suspected his friend had kept it locked up at the bottom of their trunk since they'd bought it the year before, and that the lack of fresh air was the reason for the book's surly disposition. He now made sure it always had a shelf to itself. It didn't help with the violence, but Dominic liked to think it was happier.

The book struggled only slightly being put back in the box with the others, which seemed no worse for wear. He stepped back over his boxes to the desk window and told the manager his name and asked for the key to the room he'd be staying in for the foreseeable future. She opened a cupboard next to her and began poking around for his key among dozens that hung on tiny hooks, none of which were labeled or even looked like the same size or style. While she was searching, Dominic turned to the amused face of the man next to him who lingered a bit much for his taste.

"Do you work here as well?" he asked, though judging by the man's unkempt appearance, Dominic was pretty sure he didn't work anywhere, but he wanted to make at least a polite first impression.

Nate didn't know why a grown wizard would still have school books around, but hey - maybe he was nostalgic or something. Or needed to reference the seven kinds of flying horses on a regular basis.

"Um, no." Nate said. Ritsa had disappeared.  Probably quite literally. Management seemed to vanish whenever someone needed to check in.

"I'm a cook at Calaveras. I'm Nate Briggs." If this bloke was new to London he might not know it. "Place up on Diagon." It was a solid, pedestrian gig, but the best he could get as an ex-con.

"You have a lot of ... stuff. Staying long?" He nodded over his shoulder. "No idea when she'll be back."

"Dominc Griplok, please to meet you. Staying indefinitely, actually. I just got a position at the ministry, but no other place to-- Hey!! Bring those back!" he yelled at the grungy gnome  who was scampering towards the stairwell with two of his socks and a glint of mischief in his eyes, Dominic was sure.

Dominic leapt over his boxes and sprinted to the stairwell door the gnome had just wriggled his way through. He ripped the door open to find one stairway zig-zagging up, the other spiraling down into an unlit abyss. He paused to catch his breath and to listen for footsteps.

After a moment his ears picked up the distinctive pitter-patter of urban gnome feet coming from below. He stuck his head through the lobby door just long enough to shout, "C'mon, Nate! He's got my favorite argyles!" before darting back into the stairwell and plunging down the spiral staircase into darkness.

There was not very much time to register the flash of distaste on Nate's face at the word 'Ministry' because before Griplok could finish the thought, a bleeding gnome showed its lumpy potato face!  Good news for Griplok, his new neighbor needed no invitation to make chase on the distressingly humanoid vermin.

Nate was only a half second behind Dominic, charging down the stairs after him, wand out. Nate had lived in this hotel for at least five years now and had never been lured below the first basement.

"There's never just one!" Nate shouted, his wand light casting shallow flickering shadows from the rickety stairway banisters and he scrambled down after the long-limbed Griplok.  Just under the noise of the two wizards' footfalls and just on the front edge of their wand light, Nate kept seeing little glimpses of the gnome - they hadn't lost him yet.

SLAM

"No!" Nate and Griplok had come careening out of the stairwell and into a corridor only to have the metal door of a dumbwaiter slam in their faces. A tiny nasally cackled echoed through ductwork and pipes. Nate swore as he bent over trying to catch his breath.

"Should have... exploded it ...soon as we saw it..." he panted. He straightened and gestured helplessly at the dumbwaiter in the wall. "I never catch them. I think they're shitting in my fireplace."