Mr. Quigley Earnest Dint discovered a disturbing lack of pockets in his suit, for his invitation was in none of them.

"Hm, well," said Mr. Quigley Earnest Dint. "Now where...ah! Of course! I remember now - the invitation was in the saddlebags, with the sandwiches. I hope Milady hasn't wandered far."

Mr. Quigley Earnest Dint started toward the door, but a faint crash from the far end of the mansion stopped him. "Milady, is that you? You really should stop breaking things that aren't yours - it's terribly impolite."

As the evening wore on, Delia noticed a late arrival standing outside the door of the Mansion. Of course, someone would insist on being late. Still, she pasted on a good smile and opened the door, popping her head out through the frame as she opened it.

"Why, hello!" she grinned. "Oh, an invitation! Good! Everyone's just about to eat, so if you'll just follow me," she continued, pulling Kai in, "we'll get you seated and get you introduced and all that nice and proper stuff."

She stopped to poke her head outside and look out at the square, where Bob was happily swimming (like a true traitor to the cause), and up at the full moon, before shutting the door firmly and escorting Kai into the main hall.

(Yay, Bella, you made it! )

As Cynthia made her way into the crowded entrance hall with Lisette in tow, she scanned the swathes of people for potential candidates worthy of her witty and charming conversation.

The man in the dusty suit? No. The happy little family? No, they looked a bit too cheery and functional. And whatever she did, she was most certainly not going anywhere near the orange cat-man. Just looking at him made her feel as though a sneeze attack was coming on. Cynthia shuddered and swallowed a few more allergy pills, and then... she saw him.

"MAAALCOM!" Cynthia cried, throwing her hands in the air and then half-dragging Lisette across the room.

"Now where have you been hiding? I haven't seen you for an age, you naughty man. And you never RSVP'd the invitation to my thirty—ahem, twenty-seventh birthday cotillion. It was the social event of the season! And you would have finally had a chance to sample all of the wonderful vegan food I've been telling you about, too; the chef was marvelous. You've never met my Lisette, either. I snatched her right out of the gutter, but my, you wouldn't know it by looking at her today! She's now my personal maid and traveling companion."

Once inside Jeff spent most of the time around the refreshment bar. Technically, he was still on duty, on assignment to keep an eye on the party. But the way he reckoned it, anyone likely to cause trouble would be found where the free alcoholic beverages were being served. On the plus side Hugh was pretty good company, for a Hologram.

When he and Hugh had had finally ran out of stories to swap Jeff said his goodbyes, placed his aviators back onto his head and embarked on his journey to the main dinning hall.

Now I'll have you know that his aviators didn't just make him look exceptionally awesome, they also happened to come equipped with state of the art facial recognition. Typically this feature was used by the Ditto Town Police Department to flag those with criminal records, but they also came in handy during social situations where knowing a name went a long way.

Soon enough though Jeffery found himself seated in front of a dizzying array of forks and knives and most unfortunately for him, his aviators didn't have any sort of programming for that.

Moderator Note:

Happy Mansioning!

The evening was full of festivities, ranging from the beautiful four-course meal to the silent auction (everything from a family of rubber duckies to a weekend getaway at a resort in Ditto-by-the-Sea were up for grabs), and Delia had just turned on some good dance music to get the afterparty going when a slight tremor shook the Mansion. Delia watched the chandelier rock just slightly, then shrugged it off.

"It appears we had a small earthquake," she said, after a few moments. "Everything should be fine, though. Lights didn't even flicker."

She turned the music up some, and several people set to dancing. They were halfway through the next song when the entire room began to pitch. The chandeliers started swinging in earnest and the lights flickered wildly, casting strange shadows against the wall. A sharp crack seemed to start at one end of the mansion and travel to the other, rolling across the room, and for a few moments it almost felt as if they were all falling. The lights flickered again, then went out completely as the earth stilled and the mansion stopped rocking. For a few minutes, only the muffled sounds of people panicking could be heard, along with the clinking of the crystals on the chandeliers. Finally, silence reigned. Delia began fumbling around, finally striking a match and grabbing a candle out of one of the centerpieces. She lit the candle, then studied it for a moment. Suddenly, she looked up at everyone else and held the candle beneath her chin, much like a child might hold a flashlight under his chin during a camping trip.

"Gooooooood evening. Velcome to my home!" She said dramatically, then went off in gales of laughter.

"Sorry," she said, once she had collected herself. She began lighting more of the candles as she talked. "The fuse box must have blown during the earthquake. I'll go down to the basement and check it in a few minutes. Until then, everyone grab a candle, and help get them lit. Don't drop any; this'll have to do for lighting until I can figure out how to get the lights back on. Apparently the party's over, unless you like partying by candlelight. Either way, let me try to get the lights back on before anyone goes anywhere."

Lisette felt the quick pressure of her mistress' hand on her arm, and she allowed it to direct her in a fashionable dash across the room, towards a tall, dark man she recognized as Malcolm Lawrence. Unsociable, eccentric, but eminently respectable, she recalled.

Standing exactly two paces back and left of Ms. Ridley, she maintained a proper gaze over Mr. Lawrence's left shoulder - a lady's maid should not look the gentry in the face until addressed - and noted the casually suppressed look of bordom haunting the man's face. Not proper, she inwardly shook her head.

She managed to hardly even flinch when Cynthia loudly proclaimed that she had been "snatched from the gutter", and bobbed a curtsey to the gentleman. As she came back up, she managed to steal a long look at Mr. Lawrence's companion: a woman about Ms. Ridley's age, or possibly younger, with burnished red hair and green-grey eyes. She wore an obvious smile of amusement, which in Lisette's mind, immediately marked her as improper.

A lady shouldn't be showing amusement when introductions take place, she sniffed in her mind, though without a trace of emotion crossing her pretty, innocent face. Her hands smoothed her black maid's dress and lace-edged white apron to cover glancing through her thick eyelashes at the woman's dress. It was simple, but gorgeous; long and silky, like water in fabric form. Lisette nearly sighed aloud at the thought of owning something similar someday.

The loud music interrupted her thoughts, and finally, a small tremor made her low-heeled shoes slide across the well-waxed floor. The lights flicked and went out. "Are you alright, milday?" she cried breathlessly as it came to a stop. She could hardly see in the dark room.

"Gooooooood evening. Velcome to my home!" cried a dark, tall woman dramatically, holding a candle under her chin to weird effect. She then proceeded to burst out laughing. Lisette was properly horrified. Who let her in here?

At length the woman collected herself, and explained about the lack of lights. Evidently, this, this... madwoman truly was their host. Lisette allowed herself a visible shudder, and sincerely hoped Ms. Ridley would insist on leaving this unfashionable place by morning.

"Ms. Ridley, what a nice... eh, er..." It become very clear that Malcolm wouldn't be allowed to get a word in edge wise with The Ridley Woman carrying on, so might as well grin and bear it. Well, sort of. He was able to get a brief "Nice to meet you" in towards... Lisette, was it? before Cynthia launched into another one of her folksy yarns regarding cats, mystery meat and a particular bad case of food poisoning.

Despite her best attempts, Selena couldn't help but smile at Lawrence's plight. To see her usually cool and collected sort-of boyfriend so clearly uncomfortable and wishing to be anywhere but here, well, it was highly amusing.

Malcolm was about to excuse himself and Selena from Ms. Ridley's company when the earthquake struck. Or rather what appeared to be an earthquake. "Ditto Town is nowhere near a fault line and there have been no signs of a tremor in years..." Lawrence said quietly as he helped Selena find a candle and some matches.

------------------------

After the dinner, Neal had retreated to the back of the crowd, as was his custom. The dance music was just starting to get good (to his ears) when the tremors struck the mansion. With the lights out, Neal took the opportunity to snatch a few pigs in a blanket before taking it upon himself to check the power.

A few seconds later, the Darkling appeared next to Delia. "The fuse box is missing." he informed the Ghost Wrangler while flicking a lighter on. "That being said, you might also want to take a look outside...."

"I am most certainly not all right," Cynthia moaned, theatrically throwing her pale arm across her eyes. "These candles are made from BEESWAX. Lisette, did I ever tell you about the time that I drove my bicycle into a beehive when I was a little girl? This is simply terrible. Oh, and the earthquake was quite alarming, yes. But to more pressing matters, is there anything we can set on fire that isn't made from animal products? I was told that there would be plenty of vegan options at this event! What a dreadful state of affairs."

Before Mango had a chance to talk with the man, he had already moved on to turn in his ticket, and then he had wandered off, apparently forgetting him. Shrugging, the mobian moved deeper into the Mansion.

The meal was the best he'd had in ages, and he even managed to slip his card into the pockets of the men sitting on either side of him, as well as gain the interest of the man sitting across from him. No deal with him yet, but there was still time tonight.

The auction also turned out well. He of course didn't have any cash with him to bid with, but he paid attention to the people who bid the highest, he wanted clients with either businesses or enough money to have homes worth protecting. The sneezing lady was out of the question, but maybe that man she was talking to earlier?

He was standing at the edge of the dance crowd looking for the gentleman he'd met at dinner when the second tremor hit. Instinctively, he dropped onto all fours and dug his claws, both from his hands and his feet, into the floor for balance. Pity there weren't any tables to hide under in this room, but thankfully whatever happened wasn't strong enough to knock over walls or ceilings.

Unfortunately, in spite of the fact he worked in the night, night vision was one of the traits he did not share with true cats, so when the lights went out he was as helpless as everyone else. He felt someone trip over him in the confusion, but resisted the urge to lash out with his claws.

Eventually, their host got a candle lit and instructed everyone to start lighting more. Using their light to guide him, he made his way over to the table. Deciding to show off a little, rather than use one of the already burning candles to get the others going he extended a claw out of his thumb and middle finger. Striking them together, after several tries he got the resulting sparks to ignite the wick of the candle in front of him. Smiling, and hoping someone saw that, he made his way to the next one.

Dan gratefully accepted a lit candle but couldn’t help a quiet snicker at Cynthia’s distress over the lack of vegan options for combustibles. His wife poked him in the ribs. “Don’t be rude!” she whispered in his ear. “Everyone responds to the unexpected a little differently.”

“You’re right. Sorry about that.” He glanced back toward the elegantly dressed woman but she appeared far too busy to be worried about any imagined slight from him.

“It’s a good thing Grace isn’t here,” Angie offered by way of distraction.
Dan chuckled. “Yeah, she’d want a candle of her own and a few ghost stories to go with it. She’d love the way our hostess said ‘Velcome to my home.’”

He looked around again. “I should check with her, by the way. Maybe I can offer some help in getting things back in order again.”

"What??? They're beeswax??" Delia exclaimed, dropping the (currently unlit) candle that she held and leaping away from it like it was contaminated. "I specifically ordered the baleen blue whale candles! How dare they send me beeswax!?!?!?"

She grinned at Neal before retrieving the candle and lighting it from his lighter.

"I guess I will head out, once everyone calms down and gets settled. To avoid fire, it might be best that the candles all go back into their bases and everyone take a seat," she said, then lowered her voice. "Especially crazy vegan lady. Anyway, want to come with me when I do?"

A raised eyebrow met Delia's exaggerated response to Vegan Lady's... well, exaggerations. Picking up a nearby candle and lighting it, Neal nodded in agreement to the proposed plan.

"Sure. I'm always up for going out into a strange new world with a mysterious woman I've only recently met." Decker replied with a half smile of his own.

Lisette regained her balance in time to respond, "Yes, 'm. Quite shocking, about the candles."

She sincerely hoped there would be no more tremors, since her stomach already felt queasy and she could not show it in company. Gathering her wits back, she took one of the "horrible" beeswax candles from a holder and lit it from a candle held by a man and woman couple who were dressed in a style that unmistakably bespoke Suburbia. Lisette turned back to her mistress and held the candle at an impecable angle, where the wax would not drip, but the light would shine so Ms. Ridley could see.

Though outwardly, she maintained a servant's perfect, invisible composure, inwardly she was groaning. Oh, please, let them announce dinner soon! If Ms. Ridley sits, I can go and find the servants in this awful place and find out what in Ditto Town is going on here!

Jeff was near the rear of the mob, flirting with an especially cute twi'lek girl when the earthquake hit. After taking a moment to collect his bearings, Evans excused himself from the conversation and headed off in search of the hostess. His hope was to offer his assistance, not to mention the tactical flashlight currently attached to his blaster.

"Slow down there fedora fella, that's how people get killed 'round these parts." Jeff said, flashing a bright smile as he approached the impressive looking duo.

"Jeff Evans, DTPD. I'm here to help."