It’s Always Skin Deep(Hester)

August 17, 2025

PlotLog

Date: 2025-08-16 12:25

(It’s Always Skin Deep(Hester):Hester)

[Sat Aug 16 2025]

The Grand Casino Entrance Lobby/span
The entrance to the casino opens into a transitional space where the
salt-tinged air from the Atlantic meets the climate-controlled interior.
Polished marble floors reflect the overhead chandeliers, their crystal
pendants catching both natural light from the glass doors leading to the
plaza and the artificial glow from within. Brass railings guide visitors past
a security podium where uniformed guards monitor everyone who enters, their
eyes moving between the crowds and small screens displaying feeds from
cameras mounted in the corners. The walls feature dark wood paneling broken
by promotional posters advertising upcoming entertainment and jackpot totals,
while a large digital board displays the current time, temperature, and tide
conditions. To the north and south, the space opens directly onto the casino
floor where the carpet begins and the sound of slot machines grows louder.
The western side reveals the casino bar’s curved counter and glowing bottles,
while a bank of elevators near the entrance provides access to the second
floor. During peak hours, the constant flow of people creates a bottleneck
effect, their movements tracked by the dark dome cameras that blend into the
coffered ceiling above./span
It is about 65F(18C) degrees. The mist is heaviest At Panama and Lake/span

Well, so much for checking in at the Four Seasons. By the time Hester regroups with Alice and Stelle at the casino, she’s a wilted muffin hovering beside a potted plant with more energy than she. “Hi.. ehm, so honestly, I.. the original plan was to find a serum bottle from ehm, one of the influencer’s rooms back at the Four Seasons, and get them to maybe.. give a skin sample to help prove that I’m not behind.. whatever that was. But uh..”

But instead they’re at the Golden Sands Casino, where the Nacre(tm) launch party and its subsequent scandal all went down in the first place.

Alice steps into the casino much the same as she’d stepped into the hotel moments earlier, except this time, there’s no bird. Her mood is indefatigable today, too, a soft smile on her lips unhindered by Hester’s frustration, apparently. She keeps her hands hidden in the over-long sleeves of her sweater, keeping pace with Stelle beside her, and says, “That’s alright, Hester. We’re here to help, either way. Let’s get you cleared before you go to, um, jail forever.”

Stelle drops off her horse who immediately trots over to the nearest bush. A new bush in a new area for a new taste, supposedly. “Well, I am sure we can figure something out, yes,” Stelle adds to Alice’s words, flicking her sunglasses down slightly but then bringing them back up. She’s cosplaying a poker player. Respectfully.

“I’ve already been kinda ehm, accepting my fate but your optimism is inspiring,” murmurs Hester to Alice in quite a dull grey of hue, not really sarcastic but just.. ‘tired of all this shit’ in contrast, to put it in layman’s terms. “Right, I’m sure we can. Ehm, somehow,” she mumbles to Stelle, fidgeting as she scans the hallway from here and finds the crowd in their ebb and flow to and from the elevators to the dinner and gambling areas.

“Maybe someone was able to see what happened when it did happen..? If we could find one of the casino workers to ask.” It’s a myriad of faces moving through here, and a noticeable portion of them in casino attendant uniform, some waitresses in sparkly costumes, a stray janitor wheeling her cleaning tools… A guard stands (and doesn’t go with the current) just nearby, giving the mummified fattie a wary lookover.

Alice scans the crowd as Hester speaks, trying to stand a little bit away, out of the flow, finding a shore to the river of people so she can watch. Her eyes land on the waitresses, most of all, and she nods to Hester, saying, “Hang on. Maybe I can try something.” She joins with the flow, then, heading for a bottleneck where the sparkle-clad girls will have to pass through to get back to the kitchens or behind the bar.

“Hey!” she’ll call when one is close enough, giving a little wave. “Sorry to bug you! I work for miss Mynx underscore Magic, you know, from the party? I’m supposed to bring her some medicine, but I’m having some trouble finding her room…” She grimaces. “Help a girl out?”

Stelle gives the guard a rather casual wave, defusive maybe or just a bit awkward. For the most part though she seems ready to defer to Alice on matters of speaking for now and when the redhead charges forward Stelle hangs back just enough to seem like she’s part of a different party altogether.

Hester tries not to look at the guard, shrinking next to Stelle when the woman hangs back.

It’s a shiny, shimmering, splendid gaggle of waitress slash showgirls who end up halted before Alice. A blonde, a brunette, and a redhead – nearly your full line-up. One tries to hipbump the other to get a faster move on, who jostles the other with a “Wait, she’s not moving!”, and the blonde at the choke point itself gives Alice a look that just reads how very dare you. That is, until she registers what the woman is trying to say.

“Mynx.. sorry, um – which party? There are like, sewww many parties here?” asks the blonde. “Carol, quit shoving.”

“It’s just because Mindy was pushing me!” squawks the redhead.

The brunette drawls, “Because you’re so slow– oh wait, did you say Mynx Magic, as in the one on Insta?”

“Uh, yeah, do you know of any other Mynx Magic?” Alice asks with a raised eyebrow, tossing the ball of who the fuck do you think you are right back into the waitress’ side of the court. She puts a hand on one hip, cocking that hip out like she’s too busy to continue this conversation too much longer. “She can’t leave her room because of this stupid investigation, and it’s causing serious problems. So, like, I’m just trying to find her.” She pauses, though, eyes on the brunette. They narrow. “Listen, like… I’m a waitress too, you know, part time. At the Puff Puff Parlour? So like, I get it, I don’t wanna hold you guys up.” Now she’s putting on that winning customer service smile. “Just point me to her room and we’ll be out of your hair.”

Meanwhile, the guard continues to be a nosy feller, lifting his head when he spies Alice getting in front of the ladies. His eyebrows raise, though it seems Hester and Stelle still hold majority of his suspicion. Eyes track back to them every so often.

Stelle holds still for a long moment. Maybe too long but eventually she’s the one who cracks, not the guard. She starts to inch closer to him. Closer… closer… and finally she asks, “Hey euh… How much does this play pay?”

Stelle clears her throat and enunciates a little, her full word perhaps drowned by the crowd. “Place.”

The only one with recognition aglint in her heavily eyeshadow dusted eyes is the brunette. The other two girlies exchange dubious looks, up until Alice makes known her waitressing work and drops that parlour name. A collective gasp rises from the trio.

“The Puff Puff Parlour?? Girrrrl…”

“Ew- I mean, ugh, I’m so sorry to hear that but you have my respect. I think.”

But the brunette has tea to spill, flapping a hand at the others. “Oh my gawd, you don’t know Mynx Magic? With the underscore, not the other one.” Apparently there are (were?) two. “Remember during that big fancy private party up in the poker room? Where they had us pass around the gift bags?” she bubbles. “That one bitch with the pinker-than-my-hoohah hair???”

The two gaaasp even harder, “The one who hit you??” Turning to Alice, cowed, they go, “Oh shit, you work for her? W-what does she want…”

More whispering ensues between the three before the brunette speaks again.

“I don’t know what to tell ya,” the dark-haired waitress says, a hand going to her waist. “We don’t know where they room the celebs. It’s always down at the Four Seasons. But I -will- tell you…”

She leans in to conspiratorially share with Alice, “… I saw it -all-. She took that itty bitty bottle out, put it on, and after a few minutes everyone was going cuh-razy!”

Alice raises an eyebrow, leaning in to join in the conspiracy. She dons the mantle of someone looking for the tea, and spilling, and dishing, and serving and eating and whatever the hell else these girls are up to. “What do you mean, cuh-razy? The rest of the staff has been holding out on me, girl, what the hell did she do?” A pause, and her rational mind breaks through the character. “And uh, what happened to the bottle?”

The guard ends up spending the whole of that conversation staring at Stelle, as if trying to parse through her accent. “Play play? Pay?” He gets a bit distracted by an important-looking couple carousing through the area, before squinting at the woman again. “Place- ahh. Pays however much you win. You can try poker, craps, slot machines.. assuming you’ve got the buy-in.” Perhaps he misunderstands her question but a day in the life.

It’s super effective.

With enough rapport between Alice and the others, while Hester watches the janitor who has stopped to mop the floor nearby, and Stelle engages with the vigilant and probably underpaid guard, the gaggle of glitzed up waitresses form a huddle with their feather boas. They start talking practically over one another.

“Bottle? Oh, who knows. She probably kept it? Threw it away?” says the brunette.

“I kept one,” the redhead giggles.

“You kept one?! How did you get it? They were guarding that with like, an armoured truck,” the blonde boggles.

“Anyway, so you know how Mynx is so wholesome on Insta and stuff? All fake. Faker than Gina’s boobs.”

“Gina from the night shift?”

“Gina from the night shift.”

“Oh my godddd, you kept one? Help a girl out, how do I get a piece of that action?” Alice says with a giggle that raises her self-loathing by another two or three points. She’ll just throw herself into the character, but she hasn’t forgotten the mission. “And yeah, trust me, I know. I wouldn’t work for her if the pay wasn’t pretty good, she’s a total capital C bitch, you know what I mean? Hey, like, where was the party room? I kinda wanna see… is that too morbid? Like…”

Giggling is infectious. Alice giggles, and the redhead giggles at an even higher octave. “I did! I’ve been using it every day and it’s nearly run out, nothing’s happened to me yet,” she shrugs like no big deal.

“Oh my gawd, you tried it?? Girl, everybody’s face melted off at that party,” another cringes.

“Wait, are you sure it was the same thing? That same itty bitty bottle?” asks the blonde.

“Yeah, I wanted to see if my face skin would melt and new skin would pop out like, smoother and softer than a baby’s bum? But nope, nothing. It works really well though, I think?” the redhead pats her cheeks daintily.

“Oh, the party room? It’s just upstairs, we were on our way there but Lois must’ve cleaned it up already, it was so long ago.” one of the girls says, giving the janitor near Hester a flouncy wave.

“Oh, Lois stole a -lot- of the bottles…” whispers the redhead.

Hester notices Alice’s new friends waving her way, and she freezes where she’s at. The janitor grins with a row of browning teeth, waving back.

“Wowwww, Lois, get that bag,” Alice wonders, flicking her gaze from the redhead over to the janitor. That’s probably what she needed, more or less. She gives the girls another giggle and smile, and drums her fingers on a nearby counter, pursing her lips and wondering aloud, “Gosh, I might ask her for some. I kinda wanna try it too, because your skin is like… glowing. And it’s soooo hard to find stuff that’s good for redheads, right?” she asks, flicking some of her own red hair over a shoulder. “Maybe I’ll go ask now. Maybe she’ll sell one to me? Oh, um! You girls probably need to get working, right? And I better go find Miss Bitch… I mean Mynx.”

Stelle glances back to Hester and Alice, having half ignored the guard’s response. She was just putting him off-guard anyways, so to speak, while Alice took care of the meat and with the Alice’s posture shifting someone, wanders back to Hester.

“I know, right?? But whatever you’re doing, keep doing it ’cause -this- is already working,” the redhead gestures in a big circle around Alice’s face and overall existence. The blonde and brunette are already hip-pushing their way past the woman as she reminds them of their own work on the second level.

“Ahaha, Miss Bitch Magic!!” the brunette shrieks out a laugh. “Yes, that’s Lois over there — Lois!”

“Yes, Lois!! You’ve got another buyer, go say hi to the lady!” the redhead calls out, piling into the elevator.

The blonde meanwhile saunters past the guard with a snobbish, “Oh hi, Theodore. I didn’t see you there.” Casino drama.

The guard just purses his lips and looks away, sighing a greeting of, “Giselle.”

And there’s Lois, warts and all. A kindred spirit for Hester to have found. When the redhead speaks of buyers, she pales at Alice and starts hurrying away, wheeling her cart through the back exit.

Alice waves to the girls, giving them a little ‘call me’ gesture and a wink as they filter off, before she, too, joins Hester and Stelle over by the janitor, starting with a smile and a wave – and then she’s moving. “Oh,” manages Alice, before she gestures to the other two and starts off after her, moving quick, but not… too quick. She doesn’t want to get tackled. At least, not by a guard.

(OOC: Feel free to roll stats as needed!)

Stelle looks towards Alice, then the janitor. Target locked. Communication successful. Stelle is moving quickly too, though not quite as quickly as Alice. She’s not nearly sneaky enough to keep from drawing attention either but thankfully she’s got those expensive poker shades, she might just blend in anyways.

Hester is about as helpful as a doornail, too slow on the uptake and too big to squeeze through the crowd. She loses the pair through the crowd. It’s a good thing she lives in this city.

Lois is a busy woman. Stocky, hair in a bun, somewhere in her thirties. She probably works two other jobs besides this one. Off she zooms with her cleaning supplies rattling in her cart, but she can only go so fast in as populated an elevator lobby like this. Too focused on losing Alice that she hadn’t even realized Stelle was also in hot pursuit.

She nearly gets to the service elevator at the end of the hall, when she’s pinned by the two on either end. “W-what do you want? Why chase me??” the janitor cries out.

“Easy,” Alice says, approaching with hands held up, empty of weapons, shown plainly. “We don’t want to hurt you,” she coos. “We’re looking into that party, the one where people’s faces melted.” She chooses honesty, this time, since Lois doesn’t seem as ditzy as the waitresses… and may well be a more important witness. “We’re not after you for anything, except… except that you might have some of the bottles of the stuff that hurt people. That’s what we want.” She’s still approaching, despite her calm tone: that much is non-negotiable. “Let’s just talk, okay? Let’s figure out how to handle this, yeah?” All smiles.

Stelle stands next to Alice, same height and all. She’s somehow slightly more imposing. Maybe it’s the muscles or that way she stands like she’s better than the person in front of her. Regardless she nods and dips those sunglasses down slightly, eyes on Lois. “Yes, euh… Easy, no? We just need one to make sure nobody else’s face melts off.”

“Y-you are not with the ICE?” Lois warily asks Alice and Stelle, holding so protectively onto her cleaning cart like it were her purse. Shaking her head, she pipes up in defense with her Espaniola inflection coming out, “No no no, it’s not mine! It was from the party! Big party in the poker room full of the most famous actors and actresses from the Hollywood movies.” Which it most definitely was not, based on reports Alice and Stelle might’ve previously unearthed. But easy to make that mistake when many in New Haven can rival Brangelina.

Perhaps it is Stelle’s stature, but the way she works her sunglasses so effortlessly makes the woman gulp. Not to mention the sparks of lightning zip-zapping in those icy eyes… “I’m not a bad person, I swear. I just want to pay my son’s tuition and my boyfriend’s bail,” she begs of the two. “You are not with the Nagre? Ah eh, Nacre?”

Hushing her voice, the janitor offers shadily, “I can sell you.. have a few bottles of Aurevive serum left. $300 per.”

“No, fuck ICE,” Alice answers immediately, not even slightly hiding her disgust. She’s calming, though, even as the woman panics. This is so much easier to deal with than vampires and monsters and… worse. She can wear a smile, now. It’s just a scared lady. She nods, agreeing. “You’re not a bad person, I’m sure. That’s why you’re gonna help us, since you’re actually a good, hard-working person, right?” she asks gently, approaching until she can lay a hand gently on the cart. “We’re not with Nacre, or ICE. We’re, uh. We’re with the Order. We help people,” she explains gently. And when the price is delivered, she nods, and glances to Stelle.

Stelle glances back at Alice, Orderite charm bracelet on display as if it would bring some level of calm over the janitor. “Yes euh… in fact I think I have a contact that could save you further harassment from the euh… immigration ‘authorities’,” Stelle adds on, perhaps hoping to leverage her friend in The Prometheans as a bargaining chip rather than forking over three hundred dollars that she doesn’t quite have on her person. There had been some rumors that ICE was just a supernatural led human trafficking ring to begin with in some circles, after all. “Does that sound better than euh… three hundred dollars?”

“The Order?” A name that the woman recognizes. “You are with the Order.. I know the Order.” In the downward slant of her eyes, the pair might catch a hundred questions while she wrangles with where she fits in that equation. She’s unsure, and comes out with no answer. When Alice sets a hand upon her cart, she tenses up again but doesn’t flee. How can she, when her work stuffs are under hand-lock?

But now, Stelle is answering the biggest question for her. Those brown eyes go wider than toilet bowls – which she was due to unclog, if she hadn’t been halted. “You can do this? For me?” Lois bites on her fingernails. “.. Okay, maybe I can.. trade for this. As long as you give me your word! No false hope, my heart already break so many times,” she sniffles, tightening her grip of her cleaning cart.

With a few cursory glances over her shoulder, she reaches into the bottom of her cart, and the sound of velcro scrapes eardrums. And then a zipper. And then a clasp unlatching. Until finally…

Lois sneakily shows Stelle and Alice a couple of serum bottles – Aurevive by Nacre Corp, featuring the stylized face of Marilyn Monroe smiling on the front. Another one has Audrey Hepburn on it. All long gone celebrities.

Stelle pulls out her phone and nods, already sending off a text. The Order seemingly doesn’t defy its promises. “They will keep you under their eye, no? Keep you safe,” Stelle assures, hand moving to take a bottle and slip it away into a pocket. “Thank you, no? It will help a lot of people.”

“I’ll pull some favors with the Free, too,” Alice remarks, though her gaze is primarily on the goods they’re now being shown. She’s more than happy to offer that kind of help, though she casts a glance over her shoulder, looking to see if they’re getting spotted yet. She nods, though, eyes on the bottles, and says, “We’re glad we could help you, honestly, Miss Lois. I’d hate to see you suffer any more.” She might even mean it.

“I don’t know why their faces melt off.. Maybe it is not compatible with silicone botox,” Lois expresses, genuinely baffled as she tucks the other bottle back into her endless layers of secret bags under her cart. “Thank you, we will keep in touch or I will find where you live,” she tells Stelle wholeheartedly, in what may be a threat or gratitude. Or both. “You, too – I am putting my trust in the Order, instead of bringing home $300…” she sighs at Alice.

Before she can say more, the guard’s voice raises. Indeed, when Alice checks, he’s already peering at them now that the lunchtime crowd’s dispersed. “Loiiis. You selling weed in the lobby again?” he scolds.

The janitor makes haste to hurry off, flapping an arm at the ladies, “S-sorry, we speak again soon! You know where to find me. Enjoy!”

And with the crowd having thinned, Hester manages to catch up with the pair, panting lightly. “Oh fudge, I’m so sorry, I had to go to the bathroom and ehm, I think I’m gonna get banned from the casino if anybody realizes it was me.. D-did you manage to catch the janitor lady?”

Alice grimaces. She’d meant to try and get the other bottle, but time’s up. Time to go. Actually, wait. Time to find Hester. She glances at Stelle, then heads back for the lobby, walking with purpose. “We were just trying to find our friend,” she explains to the guard, though she’s not keen on stopping to explain herself with any further rigor. She very nearly runs into Hester, in fact, eyes wide as she dodges the roadblock. “Oh! There she is! Are you, um, all done? We should probably get going, haha…” Awkward. Not even slightly smooth.

Stelle smiles and pays no heed to the fact that Hester was rather hard to miss, truly. “Ah. Yes, here you are,” Stelle replies before motioning towards the exit and loudly complaining, “I only broke even, euh… not the most successful day, no?”

cringes clean out of her bandaged body when she realizes the guard’s attention is right on them. “R-right, yes! I was not ehm, just talking about the ladies’ room. Heheh.. heh..” She hushes her voice and hurriedly tells Alice and Stelle, “I-if we were able to snag a sample of the serum, I can take it to get analyzed — and they’ll probably be able to tell that there’s no trace of that stuff on me, and.. and hopefully that’ll be enough to keep me out of jail. A-anyway, you two might be in a hurry, but oh my gosh – thank you so much.”

Hester cringes clean out of her bandaged body when she realizes the guard’s attention is right on them. “R-right, yes! I was not ehm, just talking about the ladies’ room. Heheh.. heh..” She hushes her voice and hurriedly tells Alice and Stelle, “I-if we were able to snag a sample of the serum, I can take it to get analyzed — and they’ll probably be able to tell that there’s no trace of that stuff on me, and.. and hopefully that’ll be enough to keep me out of jail. A-anyway, you two might be in a hurry, but oh my gosh – thank you so much.” (fix)