But the far door, my door, looks battered and worn. Runes and sigils carved into the unpainted wood that I wouldn’t want to try my luck disarming. Most I don’t recognize, the rest I don’t trust. Good thing I have this key then, huh? I slide the key into the doorknob and turn. There’s a click and the door swings open easily. I cross the threshold and I’m in another world. Probably literally.

It’s a hotel suite, all right. A living room, two bedrooms, bathroom, kitchen, and dining area. Guess gramps didn’t want to depend on room service. It’s done in a forties Art Deco style, all elaborate curves and straight lines. Furniture in walnut, comfortable club chairs, plenty of light from lamps scattered around the room. I tug aside a curtain covering one of the windows, and it’s not what I was expecting.

Not really sure what I was expecting, actually, but it sure as fuck wasn’t this. This doesn’t look onto the ghost hotel’s lands, or onto the new school that’s taken its place.

Outside is a thick pink fog, but even with that there’s enough visibility to see the giant gas planet in the sky, and a landscape teeming with lumbering creatures that look like masses of tentacles and not much else.

I close the curtains quickly. Jesus, Gramps, you couldn’t have built this place in, fuck, I dunno, Detroit? Pensacola? I guess if you really want to hide something well, you put it in the middle of a Lovecraftian wet dream.

I can’t even begin to guess at all the spells that went into making this place. When I cross over to the dead side I can’t access any magic but my own. I’m cut off from the pool. But in this room I can feel plenty. I don’t know what casting any spells in here would do, but if I had to I’d have a lot of energy to work with.

Does it draw from the horror show outside? Does it bypass the ghost lands and hook directly into the living side? And what about the electricity? The hot and cold running water? The gas stove?

There’s a large console tube radio in the living room. When I power it on I can pick up some AM stations playing 1940s hits, but most of the dial is this weird piping music like vuvuzelas played by monkeys on acid. Must be a local station.