"One room on the second or third floor, for one night, please." Wu Xiaoming went into the lounge and walked up to the reception desk.
"Yes, and - can I please see your id and have a credit card on file?" The receptionist was a young man in a slightly unfit suit.
Wu Xiaoming handed his card and driver's license over as he looked around. Right now it was still in the middle of the afternoon, so he still had plenty of time before he could actually sneak up to the Queen's Suite, or any other potentially restricted places. When the daylight was still on, all he could do was just walk around in the common and non-suspicious areas. Before leaving his room, he also placed a raw egg by his window and one by his door.
"Alright, you are room 204. " The receptionist handed Wu Xiaoming a key card tucked in a slightly tarnished paper pouch: "Enjoy your stay!"
With the time and opportunity, he familiarized himself with the locations of the interior fire escape and the other interior staircase reserved for the hotel personnel. Just out of caution, he also located a personnel break room, a storage room, and a - what he assumed was the surveillance room, because he couldn't open the door.
The evening came, Wu Xiaoming finished up his coffee with two extra espresso shots and swallowed his beef sandwich with extra beef. He needed the energy, because if he was not wrong, he had a whole night awaiting him.
It was 8:45 PM, and the sun had finally fully set. The day shift staff had left, but there did not seem to be many night shift staff to take their places. One thing he tried but failed to do, was "manifesting" the morningstar on which he used his amber conduit onto the soapberry wood staff - the reason might be that the staff already had a "physical form/presence" and therefore he could not "double manifest". It was a bummer, really.
In his backpack, he had around six fire talismans with him. He wished he could have made more, but making it was simply too spirit consuming, and he would like to have some spare spirit left so that he could actually cast spells if he needed to. Also, he was not entirely confident in the power of the talismans either, might as well save more spirit so that he would have more options. Additionally, he brought the canister of black dog urine, his soapberry wood staff, as well as the cinnamon barks and dried sage and cinnamon bark.
The hallway was empty outside of his room. So he just headed straight toward the interior fire escape and began heading up.
His footsteps echoed in the empty staircase. The air grew colder the higher he went. The light appeared to have become dimmer as well.
He walked up two floors, looking around in the process. Then he stopped. Something was off with his footsteps - there seemed to be more echoes than he would reasonably imagine. He took another step, thumping his feet harder than usual against the stair. Echoes came, but among them, there was one that was just slightly louder than it should be.
He turned to the rails and looked down. A pale, wrinkly hand with dark nails had its fingers on a rail below, then swiftly retracted. No further footsteps came.
"Motherfucker." Wu Xiaoming cursed and stepped up his pace. He rushed up two more floors before looking down again, and the same pale hand with dark nails once again appeared and retracted.
He rushed up again before looking at the floor number on the wall to confirm where he was. It was the 4th floor, while he must have gone up four floors already.
"Oh yeah, of course motherfucker." Wu Xiaoming laughed out of anger. Whatever the thing was, it had already targeted him before he could realize. He closed his eyes and cleared his mind, pushing his ability to see energy to the full extent. Then he conjured up golden light on both hands and brushed his eyes - he had no idea if this would work. But knowing the nature of the Golden Light spells, it had the highest possibility to.
When he opened his eyes, the floor number was no longer in front of him, and neither was the rail to his right. Instead, the rail was now on his left - he was walking downstairs in this illusion, instead of up.
He looked around, there were traces of dark smoke in the air around him. He turned back and began rushing upwards, without looking down the rails again. Before long, he saw the sign for the fourth floor. Then the fifth floor, sixth floor, seventh floor.
Just when the eighth was just one turn away, a man appeared in front of him.
"Hey, how are you?" Wu Xiaoming took a quick look at the man and tried to walk left, but the man stepped right and blocked him. "I'm sorry." Wu Xiaoming frowned and tried to walk right, but the man moved sideways and blocked him again.
"Are you okay, sir?" Wu Xiaoming finally couldn't help but look up at the man.
The man was pale in the face, barely a touch of color on his lips. His eyes were bulging, his cheeks were twitching, and both his nose and his mouth were dripping.
Wu Xiaoming deliberately made sure he did not make too much eye contact with the man, but was still disturbed by the dilated and bulging eyes.
A sharp pain exploded in his forehead and he had to pull away - someone or something was trying to attack his mind - trying to infiltrate his thoughts, just like any being of illusion would.
"Back off!" Wu Xiaoming swung his hand and slapped the man in the face with his glowing palm. The reason for a slap, but not a bash, was simply his concern that bashing would hurt the person too much - if that person was actually possessed and not an actual spirit, he would be only waking the person up and not actually causing him harm.
"Slap!" The man's face crumbled from the slap, smoke and ash broke from his head, then his body broke down and turned into smoke, just like his head.
"Fucking ghosts." Wu Xiaoming spat, then proceeded to the eight floor.
He pulled open the door to the interior and the hallway, a gust of cold, foul wind blasted him in the face. Traces of black smoke was almost everywhere in the air, along with moving, hair-like threads dangling from the walls, door frames and floating in the wind.
But nothing could compare to the sight of what was lingering in the hallway - a hallway that was supposed to be empty. People - or maybe he should have called them "once people but currently ghosts". Pale in their skins, walking around, with broken necks, cracked open skulls, twisted and bent spines, flattened faces and clothes full of blood - all signs of falling from the building. Right now these "people" were just like regular guests in the hotel, only loitering and wandering without their rooms.
Wu Xiaoming avoided eye contact and walked past them. A few of them did try to look Wu Xiaoming in the eyes, but Wu Xiaoming just feigned sneezing and coughing to get away. Maybe he could attack them once they started attacking, but right now, it would be better if he would act like a regular guest.
Just as he walked past a door, Door 805, the slightly muffled sounds of people fighting caught his attention. He stepped back to look at the door, wondering if he should check and see what was going on.
A heavy thump, the door busted open, rendering Wu Xiaoming's question moot. An Asian man in a dark blue changshan and another Asian man in a black business suit were wrestling each other. The man in a changshan was growling, drooling and mumbling in tongues - it was that or some kind of language Wu Xiaoming could not recognize. His body was shrouded in some kind of dark energy, his face was pale, and his eyes were glowing in red. The other man was grunting as he was fighting the other man, traces of light yellow and red smoke surrounded his body, and his arms were even glowing slightly while fighting his opponent.
In Wu Xiaoming's eyes, it was pretty easy to tell who the "bad guy" was in this situation. But also, he did not want to expose his abilities to anyone or anything present, so he did one simple thing: he came up and kicked the man wearing a changshan in the face.
The man moaned and growled as he backed off and let go of the man in a business suit. The man in a business suit immediately pressed on and tried to hold the man wearing changshan under him, while trying to pull something out of his right sleeve.
"Hey, man, do you need help?" Wu Xiaoming asked. The space was simply too narrow, and right now the man in a business suit was in the way and he could not help him suppress the changshan wearing man even if he wanted to.
"Leave! Go away! " The man in a business suit yelled: "It's not safe here!" He finally pulled out what he intended from his sleeve: a piece of red cloth, with some symbols woven onto it and stained with what looked like some kind of oil. He pushed his opponent's head back, then shoved the cloth into his mouth.
The man in a changshan screamed, flailing and kicking. Smoke came out of his ears and nostrils, making a sizzling sound.
Wu Xiaoming watched, as the dark energy dissipated and the man's face regained its lively color.
"What the hell was that?" Wu Xiaoming asked, partially genuinely.
"Why haven't you left! I told you to go!" The man in a business suit asked, panting and sweating.