Anna was dying for a drink of water and also mourning the increasing deterioration of her dress, but understood Kai's hesitation to drink the water. The house bothered her. Who knew what might be inside of it watching them?

"We should just get it over with and check it out. If there's a key or something useful, it's more likely to be inside than somewhere out here," Anna said.

A pair of blinking black eyes watched them as they inspected the water, studying these strange new Things. He wasn't sure what they were, really. They were dressed like one of his friends did, and his friend was a girl, so maybe they were girls, too. Maybe they were giants. Girl giants. They were looking around...maybe they were lost? He studied them for a moment from behind his rock, then knelt down to pull together a soft, gushy and perfectly muddy mudball. He giggled, looked around the rock, took his aim, and lobbed the mudball into the air. It made a perfectly good arc over the water, and then landed--SMACK!--on one of the girls. He covered his mouth with his muddy little hands to keep the giggles in, then slid down onto the ground behind his rock. He hurried to compose himself, then looked back out to see what, exactly, these girl giants would do.

Delia sighed and took the apple.

"Well, ok," she said. "Let's get them and bring them back to the Mansion. Who was it? Thanks for your help, Glenda."

"Just one this time. It's the billionaire fellow..."

"Malcom. Malcom Lawrence. He was my companion on this excursion." Selena interrupted stepping forward with arms crossed. She still maintained the stern expression she had earlier, so much so that Neal wondered if it would ever go away.

"What she said." Decker finished.

Anna shrieked reflexively when the mud splattered all over her dress and looked around wildly for the source.

"Who did that? Come out of there now!"

He frowned and slipped back behind his rock, only to pack another mudball, then, holding it behind his back, slowly came around. He giggled at them for a moment, then stopped.

"Hullo," he said.

"Who are you?" Anna asked, warily watching for signs of mud-slinging. "Do you live in that house down there?"

He tilted his head and studied the two Giant Girls for a few moments.

"Gus," he finally said. "I'm a Gus. When did the giants get here?"

"Last night. We were having a party in the Mansion and there was an earthquake. When we came outside, we had been transported here," Anna answered. "What is this place? Are we on Dittotopia?"

Ditto Mansion

Mango had slept too long. He usually slept during the day, but he went to bed at night. That was the first thing he realized when he woke up. The second thing he noticed was that there was some pressure around his neck. Panicking, he extended his claws out and slashed at the binding. He sat up and stared around. Nobody there. He looked down at where his head had been. His blanket had been shredded. Sighing, he retracted his claws again.

"Seriously? I take on thugs for a living and I nearly choke myself to death with my own blanket?"

He got out of bed and made his way towards the door.

"Next time, unless it's sub-zero I'm not WOAH!"

He slipped on something on the floor and fell back, banging his head on the base of his bed with a loud bang. Struggling to stay conscious, he focused on what he could hear. Were those footsteps? He painfully moved his head so he could get a look around. The only thing he saw was a small cylinder, the object he had tripped over.

"What is--" he started, but he never got a chance to finish.

"Ditto-what?" Gus tipped his head and looked confused. "There's no Ditto-what. There is here. You are here."

He studied them again, considering the mudball behind his back, but finally decided that these two Girl Giants were far too serious to understand any type of game or fun (which, incidentally, made them like Glenda. Except Glenda could understand fun, if Gus didn't get her house dirty.).

"The old Mansion has been empty since--since forever. No one lives there. How could you come out of it? How many of you are there?"

"Well, as long as its just Malcom, you all can head back to the mansion. I'll grab him and meet you back there. Keep an eye out though, I don't need to tell you what's out there."

"He—he's dead?" said Cynthia, laying a hand on her long, pale throat. "Just now? How utterly terrible. And he was such an eligib—er—he was such a good man. It's such a shame that he missed my last cotillion. Now he'll never have the chance to go to another... oh, this is simply heartbreaking. I shouldn't wonder if it didn't have something to do with his diet. I told him time and time again..."

Cynthia Ridley gave a tearful sigh and dabbed at her eyes with a (100% vegan) handkerchief, and then looked over at the steely-eyed Selena.

"My heart goes out to you, my dear," she said, while inwardly wondering what the woman's designs on Mr. Lawrence had been, and if they had anything to do with his will.

"Ooookay, I think that Selena might need a few moments to grieve without being glared at," Delia said, slipping her arm around Selena. "Come, my dear. Cynthia, I think you should head back to the Mansion and...fix your hair. It's going to get positively tangled with all the branches and things."

~~

Lisette rose late in the morning--somehow she had slept through Cynthia's morning theatrics. She dressed and began exploring the mansion, looking for someone, anyone. It seemed as if everyone had vanished, except for the one, no, two dead bodies in the basement. Someone else must have died during the night. She shuddered to think of it.

She was on her way back up to her room when she heard a curious thumping.

"Hello?" she called. The thumping stopped. She hurried back to the kitchen and pulled out one of the large knives, then slowly made her way upstairs, checking each room as she did. Finally, she found Mango, stretched out and not breathing, a 10 embedded in his paw. For some reason we will never know, she chose to take him downstairs to try and revive him, but she could feel herself feeling strangely woozy as she made her way downstairs.

She gently placed Mango on one of the chairs, then collapsed onto the other herself, gasping for air. She looked at the small cylinder that had been in Mango's paw for a moment, then opened it.

It was empty. Lisette began coughing, then spit out blood, before coughing again. Suddenly, she sunk back into her chair, her eyes wide and unblinking, blood dripping onto her white blouse.

The storm of emotions swirling inside Selena did not lend itself to comforting. Even though she realized Delia at least was being genuine, she really didn't want to be "comforted". "I'm fine. Just let me be for a bit..." she finally said shrugging off their hostess arm.

-----

"I'll take him back. You'd be doing better to take a look at this." Neal said tossing the small canister to Cowboy. "You might also want to work on your tact a bit if you plan of surviving here." He added glancing from Jeff to Selena and back.

Without saying anything more, Decker left the cottage and returned to where Malcom had passed. Carefully picking up the body, Decker made his way back to the mansion. He probably looked like a monster or some crazed killer if anyone was watching from the Mansion, carrying a dead body across the land and into the house without a word.

Reaching the basement, Decker quickly counted the number of bodies in the room. "Huh, the cat died as well." he mused laying Malcom's body next to the others. Turning around he noticed Vegan Hag's assistant/maid sitting in a chair. With the outside light shining down through the open basement door, the Darkling could see blood on the young woman's clothes and face.

"Well, this is really going to cause a stir...."