[Private to the Admiral]

May I have a set of keys to the greenhouse, please?

[Public]

Since Ivy's left, [Vanished, really, he probably shouldn't use the euphemism even though it's impossible to know if this is permanent or not.] I've asked the Admiral to give me keys to the greenhouse. I hope no one minds.

[He doesn't... actually know all that much about gardening from a first hand perspective, but he feels like someone owes it to Ivy to make sure the plants are well cared for.]

[Spam for the Garden]

[The problem with this plan is that Charles doesn't really own clothes that are good for gardening in. He's got clothes he wears to run in, and spar and fight in (which is still sort of strange to think about, because he still hasn't really made peace with the idea of being a fighter), and the rest of his wardrobe pretty much screams frumpy professor or at least "I haven't gone shopping for clothes since the 1950's" to any modern observer.

So he's kneeling in the garden pulling weeds after he makes his brief announcement, wearing a borrowed pair of gloves and getting dirt all over an old pair of slacks, but he doesn't really care. It's good, to be outside doing something productive and methodical, and it helps make the recent losses and the lingering presence of the flood easier to bear.

He knows he should be checking in with people - his family especially, because it seems like they've been hit particularly hard recently - but at the moment, it's easier to carefully uproot the weeds and replant them somewhere where they won't choke the life out of the other plants.

Considering how much Ivy had cared about everything that grew here, he doesn't want to kill them if he can help it.]

[Charles sounds a little more hoarse and tired than usual, but he rallies enough to just sound serious and professional. This isn't a fun science lecture about genetics or ancient fish this time, but it's still kind of grounding to just lay everything out like this to an audience, asking for feedback.] I'm sorry I didn't say anything earlier- [Anyone who was wandering the infirmary after port might have noticed that Charles pretty much camped out in a chair next to Erik's bed for the first four or so days after port, helped him escape back to his room, and since then has been pretty scarce in public areas of the ship.] But as there's been some discussion over what actually happened in port, I thought it might be for the best to provide my observations on what happened, if anyone was interested.

When we first arrived, I felt as if there was something very wrong with the building, but honestly, I couldn't quite explain what it was or why I felt so nervous about it. Obviously things fairly quickly deteriorated, and on the evening of the third day we were there, I was attacked by another warden who had succumbed to the hallucinations fairly thoroughly. [He won't name names, because that's not really the important part.] When he attacked me, I tried to use my telepathy to stop him, but instead of sensing his mind, some other telepathic force intervened and tried to stop me.

I've never encountered anything like it before, but it was certainly sentient, malicious, extremely powerful, and not an organic lifeform the way we - at least, from what I've studied in my time here of life in other universes, because it's certainly not like anything from my world - typically understand it. It almost knocked me unconscious, but I was able to overpower it and it let go of the other warden long enough for me to put him to sleep so he wouldn't harm anyone else if they woke up and whatever it was returned.

I don't know if it was somehow feeding off of our presence in the hotel or what it was hoping to achieve by convincing people to murder their inmates or friends, but if anyone has any further information on creatures or being that might be similar to it, or on what exactly it was trying to do, I would appreciate hearing about it. Thank you.

[Private to Ivy]

[He hesitates a bit before adding anything, because he's not really sure how she'll take to being checked up on. Their conversations usually range from civil to argumentative, so it's a little difficult to get a read on how chummy they actually are or aren't.

Still.]

Are you doing alright?