Complex Instruments and chemistry equipment littered the room, to one side of Percy’s workshop there was a desk set out with pieces of machinery and tools, pinned to the wall behind the desk were drawings and plans. The room had initially been one of the many bedrooms to the hotel, but Percy’s inventing had called for more space and after a short discussion with Angel about the benefits of the inventors work the Vampire finally caved in to Percy’s constant barrage of facts and pleading to allow him the extra space.

The workshop was right next to Percy’s own living quarters, much like it was back in his old house in London all those centuries ago… only now he did not have the fuss housekeeper to ensure his living space was tidy. His workshop was what any normal sane person could only consider a total mess, but to Percy it was organised chaos, he knew where everything was and if it were any other way the inventor would never be able to find anything.

Sitting in his workshop the inventor was in heaven, the desk being used for planning and fine tweaking small machines, the space where a bed had once occupied was now filled with a table covered in a chemistry set, used primarily for the creation of tranquillisers at the moment. To one side of the room, slightly hidden behind the door was a coat stand upon which normally hung an apron, goggles and protective gloves to ensure that he did not hurt himself too much.

And hurting was a regular thing in this room for in the far corner of the room was a blackened area, the plaster hanging off the wall in places and most of the ceiling gone. It was where the chemistry set had originally stood when he first acquired the room, only whilst attempting to harness solar energy in a form of bullet design… only it meant a rather volatile reaction had to be performed, which went horribly wrong, sending the inventor flying across the room and totally destroyed the equipment being used. It was only because of the quick actions of the others in the hotel that the place had not caught fire and wiped out all his plans.

Still, that was all in the past now and back to the present Percy was sitting at his desk, the gold rimmed glasses loaned to him by William were lying to his left, some papers stacked to the right, an ink pen stand and some strange looking instruments to the right. In his right hand the pen hovered over a large page directly in front of him on the desk, instead of the gold rimmed glasses he wore whilst moving around the inventor was wearing a smaller pair of reading glasses that he had purchased not long after being given the room.

The large page was actually the architect’s plans for the hotel that he had obtained from the local library’s archives, copied on one of these ‘photocopiers’. All this new technology intrigued him greatly and much of his time was spent examining it when he was not working in his workshop. Already he had grasped the usage of a computer and could just about find things on the internet, though Percy was still fond of books rather than WebPages, computers did not have the same feel as a book… books had a nice safe feeling around them, a feeling of knowledge passed through the ages.

He sighed, slowly placing the pen back in its stand he glanced at a clock high on the wall to his right. He had been at this for about 4 hours now, going over the plans for the hotel and picking out the weaknesses in the building, there were several that he could see, and there were places where he could improve the place by the addition of a few technological enhancements. Not just using modern technology though, there were some things that worked better the old way. Stretching his arms out the inventor let out a small yawn, he had better get up and do something else now, carefully he removed the reading glasses then replaced them with the gold rimmed ones, the world once more becoming clearer around him.

With an air of boredom he stood and picked his way past the instruments and papers that littered the floor towards the door, removing the white apron with black marks and dropping it over a peg on the coat stand with one hand he stepped through the door and wandered slowly into his other room to change clothes. A quick change later the inventor dumped his laundry in a basket near his door, it was not very full so he did no have to do anything with it just yet, maybe if he asked nicely the younger member of the hotel could assist him with working the machine… as he had not been allowed to dismantle it he was unable to decipher how it works.

Ambling from his room Percy decided to take a walk through towards the kitchen wondering if there was anything to eat lying around, it were not like back home in London when the housekeeper would usually have some cakes in the oven baking or fresh made bread cooling on the rack that he could munch upon. He missed things like that nowadays, he had even tried to bake a loaf of bread once in an effort to regain some of the past… but it had been an outstanding failure that was not going to be repeated.

There was always the option of calling for a takeaway, only it was not the same as a freshly made ham salad sandwich… nor did it compare to a newly baked cake or bun. But the thought of food was pushed to the back of his mind reluctantly as he made his way rather loudly over the tiled floor, his heavy boots clicking as they touched the cold tiling. They had not been tied up, instead he had tucked the laces into the tops and covered them with his brown trousers, on his top half he wore one of William’s old white t-shirts, slightly stretched in places as it had been shrunk in the wash by mistake.

Passing one of the communal rooms Percy noticed a blue blob out of the corner of his eye, stopping to look in the door he could actually see through his glasses rather than out of the side and the blob turned out to be Arisa, whilst engrossed in her book and papers she did look rather down about something… Percy had not thought it a good idea to pry into her personal life right now though so was not entirely sure what the problem was.

[b]“Hello”[/b] he said softly, stepping through the door and making his way towards her, stopping in the middle of the room and hovering there for a second or two, his eyes glancing at the book in her hands. [b]“Anything I can help with”[/b] he asked, making it obvious that he was interested in her work by his general demeanour, after all he had been to university and sciences and mathematics were his strongest points. Probably one of the reasons he was called upon every now and again to speak at classes back in London, and after the people in the hotel being so nice to him
it was the least he could to to help her with her academic studies.