For ages, there has existed a group of beings far surpassing normal human comprehension. These are the Supernaturals.
Ranging from the weakest goblins to the highest gods and demon lords, these beings faced constant conflicts with humans and even amongst themselves.
Soon, the need for a neutral place to resolve these conflicts without fear of ambush or coercion became unavoidable.
Thus, the first and last council of all Supernatural representatives came with the resolution to create a neutral zone. A place where any party would feel safe to meet and resolve their conflicts in a position of complete balance between all the parties involved.
Thus, the Neutral Zone was born and imbued with a piece of soul magic from all the factions to perform its duties. Then all control was relinquished by all so that the zone became truly impartial.
The Zone has thus existed through time, evolving from one form to another under the guidance of its caretakers, who are its managers and marketers.
In modern times, due to the rise of demand in both short and long term accommodation from its patrons, the Zone evolved to be able to cater for this need. Thus the birth of Midstreet Hotel.
You Erwin Owl are the 596th caretaker. This is your caretaker's system. Please proceed to the main system menu.
I read all this information feeling like I was watching a movie trailer for some high fantasy adventure film.
The fact that I was staring at a virtual screen did not seem to overwhelm me. I had already come across hundreds of talking rats. That alone had reset my mind into expecting all sorts of weirdness that would be thrown at me.
The information itself was not much different from what I had gathered thus far from Maya and from my own observation.
So this building was actually an upgrade of the Neutral Zone. It was the commercial side of a rather free and impartial area where Supernatural beings congregated to solve their issues.
Still, several questions were unanswered, and so I moved to the next menu as instructed.
Caretaker System Activated
User: Erwin Owl
Status: Human
Level: Probationary Caretaker
Core Stats
Trust: 0
Reputation: None
Stability: 100 percent
Soul Points Accumulated: None
Important Notes
Trust points are earned based on the level of client satisfaction with the hospitality received and are system rewarded.
Your reputation is your standing with different faction guests. The better the reputation, the more likely you are to satisfy guests and handle conflict.
Soul points are the currency every patron pays to receive any of the hotel's services. This is essentially a tiny fraction of their magic and will be automatically deducted as soon as they agree to use the hotel's services.
The stability is the system tracking a caretaker's progress. Should it fall to zero a caretaker's tenure is nullified and the system considers the contract forfeited.
Your status will upgrade based on your level of trust and soul points earned.
At this point my questions were starting to get answers.
So all I had to do to become another rat was allow my stability to fall to zero. That was clear enough.
What was not clear however was what one had to do to get to that point or to avoid getting there for that matter.
I moved to the next menu.
System Abilities Unlocked
Universal Translation. Understand and be understood by all guests.
Guest Registry Basic. View guest names and affiliations.
Hospitality Guide Minor Beings. Basic knowledge of serving supernatural guests.
Note. The hotel comprises several levels each serving different tiers of Supernatural beings. To be able to accommodate a guest the hotel floor of their level must be available. As of now only the base level catering for minor beings is unlocked.
Alert. Serve your first guest and earn 20 trust points to unlock minor room control.
Looking at the list of abilities available, I felt a steep disappointment form at the pit of my stomach.
To me this looked too under equipped. I was supposed to bring extremely powerful beings here including rival factions. And all I had to help handle them was a universal translation, a registry, and basic knowledge of how to serve them.
So basically if guests went wild, as they often did, all I had to do was tell them, "Hey mate, you better calm down. I know who you are. I can understand you. And here is a cookie."
No wonder so many had failed. They had probably been pushed down into zero stability.
If there was something I had quickly noticed, it was that despite saying the Neutral Zone was an impartial place Supernaturals came to solve their conflicts, nowhere had I seen anything saying the actual conflict could not in fact take place here.
There was also the point of getting these guests. Where would I even find them.
And what happened since the termination of Maya's contract. Did the hotel close its doors to guests.
And earlier I had read that the caretaker is the manager and the marketer. Really.
I was now supposed to walk to every Supernatural's doorstep with business cards just in case they needed accommodation.
So many questions and very little answer. This certainly looked like it was going to be a tough job, like it was purposely designed to turn as many people as possible into rats.
The screen disappeared, aware that I was done with it.
I stretched myself on the sofa as I toyed with the ring. It felt like ages ago when I last had a decent sleep.
It was funny how just this morning I had woken up with a problem of unemployment, the threat of being homeless and starving. Only for all this to be settled and instead I suddenly now managed a kindergarten to babysit the big boys while they went about solving their problems.
I suddenly sat up as Maya's words came to my mind.
She had said I would not fail. Not on her watch.
It was an overstatement meant only to inspire, but it gave me an idea.
Perhaps I would eventually fail, but it did not have to be that fast.
Because if there is one thing I had, it was plenty of experience.
I had an entire hall full of former caretakers to learn from.
If not what to do, then at the very least I would learn what not to do.