The carpets were ugly.
Not the charming kind of ugly either. Not "so bad it loops around to interesting." They were just really ugly. They were a weird hexagonal pattern, of reds, oranges, and black. Looking at it for too long, the shapes seemed to shift, and would give someone a headache.
It seemed pretty ominous, but Ah'Ming couldn't tell where it seemed familiar from. He couldn't place it, and that bothered him more than it should have.
The walls were pretty ugly too.
They weren't bad, per se, but it was just that he was in a bad mood. No cracks or stains, or bones in the wall or anything, which was a bonus. It was just that points were taken off because the finish was uneven, not quite smooth, not quite textured.
An off-white, off-beige, with a not-so-smooth finish.
He ran his hand across it as he walked, skipping over any doorways.
The wall felt faintly warm. Or maybe that was just him.
424….
That was the doorway that had originally been across from the stairwell.
He glanced back over his shoulder, half-expecting to see the exit still there. It wasn't. The stairwell had vanished completely, hidden behind a large painting that hadn't existed earlier. It was far more hidden than the entrance. The ugly statue would have scared off most people anyways.
It was of pretty good make, out of oil perhaps?
423….
There were some little fancy tables every so often, with little vases of flowers. They were vibrant, full of life. Reds and yellows and blues that looked freshly picked, petals unblemished. Ah'Ming would have sniffed if not for the pile of bones next to one. They were old, thankfully, so there was no smell.
422…..
Strangely though, some of the doors seemed a bit sticky. It wasn't like they had smell, or left residue on his hands, they just existed. His fingers brushed past one and met a resistance, as though the door didn't want to be acknowledged.
421….
Cool.
420…
Pretty..
419…
He was running out of interesting things to think about. The hallway seemed to stretch on endlessly, the dizzying effect of reds and oranges burning into his eyes.
The hallway stretched on, numbers ticking down too slow.
The hallways stretching on?
He decided to follow his thoughts, and run as well.
418…
417…
He ran faster.
His footsteps echoed, swallowed, echoed again.
415…
Faster…
413….
"Oh, come on," he snapped aloud.
Seriously?!
How long was this queen-awful corridor?!
409…
Hurry up, he was tired!
406…
405….
Finally!
Thankfully, it wasn't a 404 not found scenario. That would have been horrible.
Ah'Ming fumbled the key out of his pocket, smacking it against the reader a few times.
The door slid open.
The inside of the room was a lot nicer than the outside, thankfully. It was a low bar, since the corridor was really ugly.
The lights turned on the moment he slid the card into its place. It didn't even flicker, surprisingly. There was a large plush bed that he couldn't wait to suffocate in, and a high ceiling, giving the room a sense of space that made his shoulders loosen despite himself. It even had a walk-in closet!
He opened the door to the bathroom, and was pleasantly shocked at the fact that it had a large bathtub.
Ah'Ming stared at it for a long moment, then grinned.
"Yeah," he muttered. "I'm using all of the water."
If the hotel was evil enough to torture him like this, it could foot the bill.
He was not going to feel guilty for the water wastage at all.
He soaked for the next hour, muscles slowly unknotting, steam fogging the edges of his thoughts. He didn't fully relax, though. He kept his wits about him, and he focused on learning more about the system.
There was still the panel about his information and stats, though they hadn't changed much. It now included all of the titles and achievements he'd gotten.
There was an inventory, but it only had fifty slots unlocked. Apparently, it would take more points to unlock more slots. He didn't have anything important thus far, so Ah'Ming left it for now. It was still something to pay attention to, since he kept getting random junk as rewards. The junk had white backgrounds, the egg tarts framed in blue, and the book of the lost in green.
Strangely enough, the branch and the spyglass were in blue. It was something to pay attention to later.
Additional to the inventory, there was a monsterpedia! He was pretty excited for that. Remembering his old days, being a pro-gamer, the monsterpedia was one of his favorite things about most games. DEEM, the Light Ages, Dredged the fishing game, heck even Sundew Valley had it!
It was the first thing he rushed to clear every time.
What could he say?
Old habits died hard.
He flipped to it immediately, but was slightly disappointed that it wouldn't tell him his current discovery progress. It did tell him that he'd discovered four types of monsters so far! Two from the egg tart instance, and another two from the library.
Apparently, you wouldn't even know how many monsters there were in an instance. The book would quite literally only document the monsters you'd encountered personally, but would helpfully categorize them based on substory. Perhaps when he did more instances, they'd be split into larger sections.
Ah'Ming thought back to the original egg tart instance. They'd taken the kitchen route, right? But, there hadn't been any monsters there. The other routes had too many.
Perhaps they'd all left the kitchen to go to the other routes?
It was a disheartening thought, since it meant there could be far more monsters that he hadn't collected yet.
Based on logic, there was the waitress monster in the cafe, and the paper people in the cafe, so there should be one type of monster in the kitchen.
It would probably be a chef, with a couple of assistants or something.
But, there were the other routes too! The painting and the cashier route! That meant another two, or more monsters.
A whole three that he hadn't unlocked!
Wow.
The gamer in him was dying of shame.
Would they let him re-do it?
The gamer part of his soul curled up and screamed even louder.