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So, "Я в гостях" seems to be prepositional plural of гость
"Я иду в гости" leaves me puzzled, though. According to conjugation tables, it is nominative plural, while в used to express direction requires accusative (which is гостя or гостей - "Я иду в гостя/гостей" just sounds silly).
What form are we dealing with here?
Two objections to people dismissing this "because it's an adverb":
Adverb or not, it started out as a noun and a preposition, and the case form still has to be explained somehow.
More importantly: you can say в жёны is also an adverb, and в пионеры too, but what about (произведён) в полковники? Or Pushkin's мы все глядим в Наполеоны? Are they really just that many ad hoc adverbs?
I'd say we're dealing with another "lesser case" — along with the locative-prepositional (в снегу) and partitive-genitive (выпить чаю). This one we may call translative-accusative — which is indeed what it's described as (превратительный падеж) here, though I don't know what the ultimate source of that list is.
It can of course be argued that the literal meaning of в гости isn't necessarily a change of status to one of a guest; more intuitively, we tend to think of this гости as a kind of abstract territorial notion (в гостях thus referring to a sort of guest-space), but I think this is a later shift of perception and the original usage, which accounts for the ending, was the same as with the other "translative" examples (which isn't contradicted by в гостях; compare в денщиках у фельдкурата).
According to Русский язык в задачах и ответах By Борис Норман (p. 288 point 3.90)
"в гости" is "предложно-падёжная форма имени (???), that has almost become and adverb"
So it's not quite an adverb, and also includes the preposition
I think this is a kind of 'fossilized' expression, that's why it doesn't seem to fit into the modern case system. #449 in Wade's 'A Comprehensive Russian Grammar' mentions that в is used with nouns in what looks like nom. pl., but is historically an accusative, in contexts of professions or other groups; sometimes it implies a change of state or status. A few similar expressions:
ИГИЛ набирает детей в солдаты. --> ISIS is recruiting children to be soldiers.
кандидат в солдаты --> a presidential candidate
Каких женщин мужчины берут в жёны? --> What kind of women do men marry (lit., take to be a wife)?
The thing is that "в гости" is an adverb ("наречие"), so the real answer is the concept of case is just not applicable, since though this form is indeed derived from noun, it sort of solidified.
Just like we don't think of word "воля" when we use word "поневоле". Or, another example, "втиши".
UPD: Reacting on what @Nikolay Ershov is claiming. Indeed, one can just ask - OK, but why the original form was "в гости". Speaking of "lesser" cases, this could be a good candidate for traces illative case.
Perhaps some nouns are used both as animate (Nom=Gen) and inanimate (Nom=Accus), depending on the context.
Like the "добавить в друзья" in social networks. Here the word "friends" is used in the sense of "friend list", not of the humans themselves.
As such, "в гостях" reflects the prepositional usage of в, while "в гости" reflects the accusative usage of a noun which, although derived from the word for "guests", here implies a change in quality/state, rather than the embodiment of the guests themselves.
By the way, remember that лицо is inanimate when meaning "face" and animate as a formal word for "person". Which implies an animate accusative plural in "лиц". Like in the idiom "мера на лиц...", "a measure, concerning [a group of specific] people".
"в гости" (и "в гостях") here is an adverb, not really a noun with a preposition.
A prepositional plural "в гостях" would mean inside the guests (some food, maybe?).
