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The man who smelled vaguely like fermented beverage bopped her nose and Ebony was left standing in muted confusion. Who was that? Who allowed- She remained confused for a few solid minutes.

What Bo would find in the kitchen was nothing sort of the same he'd find in the dinning hall- save for a few sweet pastries yet to make an appearance.


Krystal took it in stride. "Just because something has already seen worse times doesn't mean we shouldn't try to stop it from getting worse. Besides, some pieces have held up remarkably well over the years- I'd hate to see just a bit of short neglect cause them harm. I understand the want to smoke but- there are children present and possible asthmatics. It's a risk I'm unwilling to take."


A woman, in her early 20s from the looks of her, politely stepped to the side of the stair case. "The main party is in the entertainment and dining rooms gentlemen. The ladies do not wish their private rooms disturbed."


The pool table was very sturdy, it also looked fairly new.


Ebony smiled, and it was distinctively unkind. "Thank you Chamberlain. I'm sure your home is just as lovely." It was clear- she knew who Jada from looks alone, and had no high regard for her.


The women who had attempted to usher them away winked at Blythe. "I assume they wanted to explore. The only things upstairs however are the ladies personal rooms." The woman paused. "Though, Miss Ebony wouldn hardly stop two younger men who wanted to do so, Miss Krystal gave me explicit orders."


The table is solid wood, and the polish gleams in the light. You can feel the smoothness, yet the small dips that tell of it's hand carved nature.


The portraits are nice. But- like many portraits, the eyes seem to follow you no matter where you go.


Mercy wouldn't know the man at all- After all. No one had ever met the late Mr. Rose. He hadn't even lived in the house.


Unfortunately, in bending down to get a better look, he'd taken himself out of the line of sight for the waitstaff- and was quickly tripped over by the man who had been carrying the red wine, spilling it everywhere.

"AH!" The shout of alarm coupled with the crash of glass echoed in the room, and Krystal was immediately at the scene. "Patrick!" She went to the man, eyes roaming over the hired hand. "You better not be bleeding." She scolded him, not minding the red wine or the guest. "Have this cleaned up- that bottle will be coming out of your paycheck." She hissed before glaring at Charles. "The bathroom is down the hall and to the left." She offered no other assistance, and Patrick looked to just be very ashamed, meekly excusing himself while other staff came over and began to clean up.

Pat O'Ryan - in the Dining room

"The pleasures all mine," He grinned and gave her hand a quick shake before bowing slightly, he was dressed as a prince after all. "Any friend of Fiona's is a friend of mine," Pat smiled at Fi and added, "she has great taste after all." That was one of the reasons he didn't mind her taking the lead in most of the social situations. He wasn't much of a chatty cathy unless they were discussing very specific topics so acting as Fi's arm candy for such situations didn't bother him at all.

Hell, he loved the fact that she was a strong and independent woman. A female who knew what she wanted and how to go about getting it. The only time he really wished she wouldn't was when she was walking into danger but Pat was well aware that that part of his anxiety was because he didn't want her getting hurt. He truthfully never wanted to see her hurt even though logically he knew that shielding her that way was not only pointless but idiotic. Fiona could take care of herself... a hell of a lot better than he could in all honesty. Pat absently shifted when a ghost pain reminded him of a rather bad encounter he had some time ago. Having the physical embodiment of your soul ripped out wasn't something one forgot... and it wasn't something he had told Fi about.

The two ladies were chatting which left him just standing there so he did what any male would do, he snagged three glasses of wine from a dapperly dressed waiter with a quiet 'Thank you', before handing two of them to his date and Jack.

Lorne Benoit - The Entertainment Room

In his life, Lorne didn't think parties would ever... not be a daunting thing to undertake. Too many people, too much noise, too many eyes, and too much potential to go wrong.

On the plus side, it was a party with two of his favorite people, which was always a treat - and goodness knows Nadia looked as beautiful as ever. Lorne, for his part, had gone ahead and tried to embrace the scar on his neck rather than hide it. He was playing to a vague Frankenstein's monster theme, which actually suited his height rather well. And honestly, for all the ugliness of the scar itself, it was one thing Lorne wasn't so ashamed of. Not just that he was happy to be alive, which, yes, of course, that was true, but -

He felt like something was changing in him, lately. It wasn't a bad change, or he didn't think it was. It was just something - something he could mull over more on his own time.

With a blink of his now-wide yellow eyes, Lorne asked tentatively, "How does one do a tango with three?" Then, abruptly, there was a spill of red wine and all the chaos that went with it. "Oh... " His first instinct was to help, even if the staff looked like they had it covered. "It's so early and already..."

Nadia Vetrov - Entertainment Room

Nadia, at best, was unpretrubed by the spilling of wine and tripping of people and their host most gracious behavior. She was here to enjoy herself and if people were already getting frisky, they could move to a different part of the manor with more respectful occupants.

Her arm was like steel around her boyfriend because she could feel his body tense and knew that he wanted to help and she scoffed. Most of the time, like 90% of the time, she would've also, but it could make the situation worst.

"How about...." She smiled at Lorne, "We show you how to have a trio tango. I can tell you, it is by far, the most exciting dance I have been apart of." She winked and gently tugged on Auguste. "Stick close boys. This is still a haunted house and maybe we'll get involved with a...." Her smile widened....

"Murder Mystery." She heard a lot of parties like to do those.

Trey Cameron in the dining room

Trey would have had to have been numb not to feel the irritation radiating off Queen when the new girl joined them and the tension between his shoulders ratcheted tighter, bleeding up the back of his neck.

He was used to the vapid sort of socialites he tended to mingle with, but these days their cattiness bothered him more than it used to. These weren’t the same sorts of girls, but the warning signs were there. Drama, ready and waiting.

“Queen is an acquaintance of mine, she doesn’t work for me. We know each other through mutual friends.” If you could call Suri ‘mutual friends’. He wasn’t entirely sure what to classify their relationship, but friends was close enough and it would hopefully forestall conflict by taking over the conversation, rather than allowing a back and forth between the two women.

“This suit isn’t one of my mother’s, just something I picked up from Dunhill and had tailored for me.” He said as he straightened the dark lapel with a hand. “You both blow me out of the water though… Queenie that dress fits you perfectly, you have a good eye, and that’s a character costume, right Adaline?”

He didn’t actually know what character, but assumed it had to be someone, because who came to a party in striped sleeves and a hoodie? Trey was starting to wish Suri had come, if only to help field the two of them. He lifted the wine to his mouth and sipped it, his fingers shifting around the glass.

Imara White is in the Dining Room

All it took was the one name and Imara needed no more. It had been a thought on everyone's mind since the raven hair girl's disappearance however no one had put it to words. At least not to them. Mathias and her had been...were...close.

"Next time he says anything like that, let me punch him. I have no relationship there so I won't hold back. Scum bag."

Reaching out a hand, she placed it on his. "But tell your aunt beer and pizza would have been fine."
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Nicholas Fox is in the Entertainment Room

"Maybe some old book or another formal event? Heavens knows there have been some interesting decor at the places we have gone." To be honest, it was more than he had ever expected. Mercy was strangely good about dragging him out to mix and mingle with others. Any other male might have enjoyed it. Nick just wanted to curl up in the shadows and play games.

Heading towards the room, Nick was forced to stop as people either seemed to swarm the room or try and get out of the way. Looking around, he moved the pair of them as he tried to see what the maid seemed to be doing.

"Looks like something happened."

Izume Sato-HImura - Entertainment room

"Mmmhmm," Izzy agreed, her own chin lifting as well, lips twitching as she pulled on a soft smile. Not exactly confident, but much better than the nerves she'd been displaying a moment ago.

And a good thing, too. Omorose, had produced a cellphone from her little purse, and was holding it up, camera active and pointed at them. Izzy had time to blink in surprise, chuckle, and then smile brightly up at the phone as she leaned a little closer into the other girl's side.

As the camera lowered violet eyes flicked to her companion, brows arching. "No. Have you?" Her mom didn't keep it in the house, and it wasn't exactly easy sneaking in or out of Romano's. Although, now that she thought about it, her new found job with the Negaverse did provide her a handy excuse to leave the campus whenever she wanted.



Jacqueline Maaz - Dining room

She shook Pat's hand with both of her own, smiling brightly at him before turning back to Fiona, cheeks darkening with a blush. "Th-thank you. I wasn't sure if it was too much, but...well." Hands lowering again, she ran her fingers along the fringe of the skirt. It was pretty, and she did like how it looked on her, but that didn't keep her from worrying that she'd over dressed, or under dressed.

Forcing her hands still again she shook her head. "No, not too long. Maybe a few minutes." Honestly she wasn't sure how long she'd been there before Fiona and Pat showed up, but it really didn't matter anyways.

Bright eyes widened as Pat turned to grab wine for the three of them, and her hand came up slowly to accept the glass. "Thank you." She wasn't much of a drinker, mostly because she hadn't been twenty one very long yet, and hadn't dabbled much before then.

She eyed the dark wine in her glass dubiously before bringing it up to her lips for a small sip. It was sweeter than she thought, a little dry, but smooth. She licked her lips and took another sip.




Otto Moor - Entertainment room

She was devilish, absolutely wicked, and Otto loved her for it. She knew exactly what to say or do to push his buttons, and she did it with such effortless, expert care. It drove him nuts, but she knew that.

The sound of glasses falling and voices rising drew his attention to the spilled wine on the rug, and Otto wrinkled his nose at the mess. "Well isn't that a waste." It could have been theirs, but noooo.

Ah well, there'd be more waiters wandering by with more wine.

Turning back to his pretty date, Otto leaned in to lay a rather chaste kiss on painted lips. "Pool it is, then." They could share a dance or two later, the night was still young. His fingertips danced along her side and down to her hip before slipping away as he moved to lead her over to the pool table. "So you've never played?"

More men and boys were arriving, each one lifting hope in Maggie's chest. She was particularly excited to see someone in fancy blues and golds like her, but, alas, no baby's breath on the lapel. And he came with people. Of course! Being lonely wasn't good for Maggie. She processed externally and felt the most alive with an audience. Time was ticking, and she had exhausted what little patience she had. With an awkward reach, she fished her cellphone from her bra and began scrolling twitter. She snapped a quick picture of the wall of photos and tweeted:

Her back was still to Marnie, completely oblivious that someone she knew was in such close proximity. Being self-centered could do that to a girl.



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Any quip that Penny may have retorted with to Krystal was cut short as one of the guests collided with a waiter, sending wine tumbling to the ground.

Her wine glass was still plenty full, but that didn't stop a full on grimace from settling on her features at the sight of all the wine disappearing. "Ah, so it begins. The dangers of being open to the public," she said, sort of to Krystal but Krystal was now several feet away from her.

Instead, Maggie crossed to the table set up for gambling and took a seat at a chair examining the table to see what game she might be able to play.

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Pastries? Nice. Bo leaned forward and awkwardly fumbled to snatch a pastry from the tray. He began munching away happily, oblivious to what was going on in the other room and the fact that he was the only guest here. He wasn't really a wine guy, but that was all he saw so he grabbed a bottle with the cork plugged back into the top and cradled it to his side. For later.