[phone calls OTA] Technical Difficulties

[st_abby]

He'd passed by the alien, gleaming thing in his room a hundred times by now, or nearly must've done, and hardly stopped to examine it. It was strange, but so were most other things in this place. A shiny, awkward looking device attached to the wall by means of a long cable, set on one of the little tables that seemed to litter these rooms. It had neat rows of square buttons with numbers etched on, and a handle, so Vax'ildan had supposed it was meant to work some feature of the room in a way he could scarcely imagine. He didn't want to break it, but eventually the boredom and curiosity got the better of him, much like with the door locks. It would probably fix itself, if it came to that.

After the first few moments spent listening to the monotonous warble that came from the handle, Vax'ildan reached to jab a finger into a button. When it beeped but did no more, he pushed another. And a third...

OOC Note: If you would like a thread with Vax, please leave a top-level comment to this post and he will reply! No need to pre-arrange, but as one does when learning new technology, he may disconnect the call etc. accidentally or your character may tell him to leave them alone in very few words if they so choose - most of these threads are likely to be short.

Comments

[st_udious]

Henry was working on more notes and trying to ignore Ingrid (the ghost, he'd named them, but had no idea much about them at all since they weren't very forthcoming about much of anything and it was the first name he'd come up with,) who was...well, he wasn't quite sure what was going on. Sulking most likely. Ingrid seemed fond of sulking. And moping.

And then his phone did a thing it hadn't done the entire time he'd been there. He had to stare at it for a ring or two just to make sure this was really happening and Ingrid wasn't poultergeisting at him somehow.

Shrugging, he set his pen down and picked up the receiver. "Room 118, Henry Winchester speaking," he said calmly.

[st_reyofsunshine]

Rey turns at the sound of the ringing. No one has ever called her before. Ever. Comms weren't exactly in surplus on Jakku, and any one she found that was semi-functioning was better spent trading in for portions. It wasn't as if she had anyone to keep in touch with anyway.

Not anyone she knew how to reach, anyway.

Rey presses her lips together, then raises the receiver. These comms were backwater -- nothing like the comms she had seen the members of the Resistance use, anyway. "Hello?" she asks, tentatively.

[st_oriedqueen]

Within minutes of arriving, almost literally, Regina threw herself into the "captives" side of hotel administration. It was what she was good at, and without Storybrooke's welfare to look after as penance and without Robin and Henry, Elsa, Emma, Hook, and Ruby Lucas and Enchanted Shores and the co-op to manage, she needed something to do to make amends. Putting the others' needs ahead of her own worked.

She'd found an office that none of the staff seemed to mind her occupying (they brought her towels), set up at the desk, and begun creating the inevitable stack of paperwork. At the moment, she was reviewing the food and beverage inventories and creating an emergency food supply target list.

When the phone rang, she glared at it suspiciously a moment, rubbed her eyes behind her glasses, and picked up, barely biting back the what? that wanted to let fly in favor of a very carefully modulated, "Regina Mills speaking."

[st_illunsmeared]

Fresh out of a bath, draped in her favorite silk peignoir set, Phryne had only just reclined on the couch with a glass of champagne and a fruit and cheese plate Dot had brought up for her. Alone, feet up when the phone rang, she smiled to herself, and let it ring once before picking it up.

"Hello, darling," she purred at the caller who could only be Jack. "Tell me, what are you wearing?"

[st_eadiesthefour]

A shrill sound broke the silence of her room, and Constance jumped, dropping her sewing and stabbing herself with her needle. Then it sounded again, as she looked around to find the source. She had noticed some of the machines in the kitchen made similar sounds when the cook was using them, but she hadn't learned what they meant or how to use them.

This sound came from a smaller object on the nightstand, and as it rang out again, she noticed a light flashing. Flashing lights, she had discovered, usually meant you were supposed to do something with the device. She jabbed at one of the buttons with a finger, but she couldn't tell that it did anything. Frowning at the annoying sound, she wondered what else she could do to make it stop.

As she lifted the handle attached by a coiled cord, she complained in frustration, "Tais-toi, appareil agaçant!" and was surprised when the sound stopped.

[st_abby]

There came a muffled clatter.

Some moments later, somewhat softly as if from a short distance, another reply - "Is it... Are you in another one of the rooms then?"

To be fair, it sounded stupid to Vax's own ears as soon as his accented voice said it, but he was a bit shocked.

[st_udious]

"Yes," Henry said patiently. "May I help you?" Whoever this voice belonged to, Henry didn't know them.

[st_abby]

"Hello, yes," was her somewhat uncertain yet somewhat excitable answer. "Is this - Are you yelling into one of these beetle-looking things with the cables, too?"

[st_reyofsunshine]

"Yes," comes Rey's tentative reply once more. She hasn't heard this particular voice before.

"Do we know one another?" she asks.

[st_abby]

What was even going on with this strange voice? Was this... Like his earring, maybe?

"Are you magic? Or is it the device has a magic bit built in?" There was something that sounded very much, to someone who knew what plastic was, like the muted clunk of smooth, hard plastic, which sent a mild rustle of static along the line.

[st_abby]

"No, I don't think so," Vax admitted, though he stopped to scour his memory. "You don't sound familiar to me. Do I sound at all familiar to you?"

[st_accato]

It wasn't that Buffy was avoiding things since the Valentine's Day disaster. There were just so many things that occupied her time that tied her to her room. That was her story and she was sticking to it! So when the phone rang, she eyed it suspiciously, sure it was Fate calling, making her face the embarrassment that was her life.

With a heavy sigh that she didn't bother to disguise, Buffy picked up the phone. "I'm sorry. I'm not in right now, please leave a message after the beep." She paused and then added, "beep." She doubted it would work but she gave it a shot anyway.

[st_udious]

"I have magic, yes, but the device isn't magic, no," he said, leaning back in his desk chair. "There are wires running throughout the hotel in the walls that connect the phones, what we're talking on now, together. There isn't any magic in this, though. May I know to whom I'm speaking?"

[st_reyofsunshine]

"No..." Whoever this person is, they're a little weird. Not that Rey thinks that's a bad thing, of course. Maz was weird, too, and she was one of Rey's favorite people.

"I'm Rey," she says into the speaker. "Who are you?"

[st_reetwolf]

Angua had avoided the thing on the table, generally, which up to now it hadn't seemed to mind. Of course, it would go off while she was engaged in mending some minor rips in a skirt, casualty of a careless almost-claw.

The odd part, really, was how automatically she picked up one bit, held it to her ear and said, "Von Uberwald," as if she'd done it a million times. (Godsdamned memory.)

[st_abby]

"I'm Vax'ildan," he replied in kind, with the twist of a lilt seamlessly sewn in the midst of the name. His tone was largely amused, not bothering to share in her hesitation. "I've been pushing the buttons on this beetle device, and it seemed to think I needed to talk to you," he explained.

[st_abby]

For a moment, Vax considered refusing him. It might be more fun, to keep some mystery in it. But the even-mannered fellow had been very forthcoming. "Vax'ildan," he offered, considering how they'd begun the call. "Is that how we're supposed to introduce ourselves using this thing? By room number and name?"

[st_abby]

This voice was much different from the others so far. Mature, female, and no nonsense in it, though he thought it might be lovely under other circumstances. Vax imagined a matron with a freshly cut switch at the ready.

"Aren't you meant to tell me what room you're in?" The man's question held genuine curiosity. The girl he'd contacted had been much less direct, so maybe how one answered didn't have to be so formal as all that? "I'm supposing Regina Mills is your name."

[st_abby]

"...Well, I..." The voice that stammered with a note of humor in it at the other end was decidedly not Jack, more youthful and with an altogether different sort of accent. "Full leather armor and cloak?"

[st_abby]

The voice came through, though at some distance, and Vax was surprised at the note of alarm in it. He thought it might be familiar, but it was hard to tell yet. "Uh, hello? Are you still there?"

[st_abby]

Vax held the handle of the phone away from him, eyeing it for a beat. That was different from the others, for sure. He lifted the handle once more.

"If you're not there right now, how would I leave you a message? No one would be there to take it." He didn't honestly know if he expected to be asking a person or not.

[st_abby]

This was a voice he recognized, and yet the greeting surprised Vax. They hadn't been very formal in their introductions, after all. "Angua? Were you speaking Wolvish just there?"

[st_unning]

Alcuin nearly jumped out of his skin when the shrill sound filled his room. He then realized where it was coming from the strange device on the table by the bed. He had picked it up once, heard a strange humming sound coming from it, and wondered if it was some broken musical instrument. He had been meaning to ask someone, but it tended to slip his mind except when he was here in the room looking at it.

He walked over while the thing made its loud sound, and picked up the handle, bringing it to his ear, wondering if he would hear the humming sound again.

[st_reetwolf]

"Vax!" At least it was someone who already understood that she had holes in her mind. "No, that's not a very vocal language." She was silent for a few moments, then yipped, then silent again, just to demonstrate. " So no, 'von Uberwald' is my family name. Angua von Uberwald."

[st_abby]

Perhaps her Wolvish yipping wasn't 'very vocal,' but it was sort of charming. Or maybe Vax had spent so much time around shape-changers and his nephew of a bear that he'd gone biased.

"I don't blame you for deciding less is more. Have you met Percy yet? He's got such a litany of names that it's as good as a mouthful of marbles for most people."