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randomplaces2013-03-13 08:35 pm
mosaic_archive) wrote in randomplaces2013-03-13 08:35 pm
Entry tags:
Nexus: The House: That Night
((Happens on Jan 15th (same night as the Black Dog Wish Incident).))
Hans Seiderman/Jester: *watching the moonlight through the window. Or, well... it might be moonlight. He realises he hasn't actually seen the moon in this place, and from some of the things he's heard it could just as well be a glowing space whale. Either way, he's sitting on the floor in a room, avoiding his new sleeping bag and sleep in general, and watching the light come through the window, hitting the occasional dust mote on its way to make a square of slightly brighter floor.*
Lizzie: *is that soft door creak, and then a tiny head peeking inside as she comes looking for him after going to check on her amaryllis, which has thankfully stopped blooming and making the entire house smell like flower*
Hans Seiderman/Jester: *had left the door slightly open so the latch wouldn't be a hindrance... he knows how much trouble doorknobs can be. Smiles at Lizzie, but the smile is faintly sad*
Lizzie: *comes scooting inside, tugging on the tiny silk kimono that one of the puppets gave her for Christmas, and that she uses for her nighttime outfit*
Hans Seiderman/Jester: *hasn't even thought of the possibility of turning on the lights at night, so has just been sitting in here in the dark* This has been a very strange day.
Lizzie: *hesitates as she reaches him, instead of snuggling up like she'd usually do and burrowing under his arm* *looks up at his face* -That's puttin' it lightly.-
Hans Seiderman/Jester: This... *meaning his current form, as he looks at his hands* It brings back memories. That is both a good and a bad thing. *misses the snuggling right now, but says nothing about it*
Lizzie: *tiny sigh* -I know how that kin be. Um... I jes' realized yer a bloke now. D'ye still... Um. Dolls're usually fer girls...-
Hans Seiderman/Jester: *laughs, but tries to do so quietly so he won't wake the others... if any of them are having any more luck sleeping. Then he'll reach to carefully pick Lizzie up for a cuddle, if she'll allow it, holding her in much the same way as he had earlier that evening at the Black Dog* I am still myself...
Lizzie: *happy to be picked up. Turns those slightly faded brown eyes toward his face* -Yeah. But I'm useta yeh bein' wood 'n cloth 'n gunk.-
Hans Seiderman/Jester: *quietly* It's what I am used to, also. But in all the ways that matter, I am still myself. Or as much of myself as I have been since we arrived here.
Lizzie: -Wottrya mean?- *leans so she can try to see his face*
Hans Seiderman/Jester: We are puppets, not dolls, Lizzie. You know the difference, ja? Puppets... have strings. Even if you cannot see them. Right now our strings are broken, and so are we... not because of these forms, but because we have lost the person we trusted to hold those strings.
Lizzie: *wriggles till she's gotten down to sit on his knee so that she can lean back and look up at his face from the shadow of her bright blue fake fur wig* *quietly, confused and sad* -But Shade..?-
Hans Seiderman/Jester: He is a cat. He has been a great help to us, but... *reminded of something said by someone who, from his expression, it frightens him a little to think of* What strange creatures that would make us.
Lizzie: -Buh?-
Hans Seiderman/Jester: There is much that we have not said, about what we are, about what it means for us to be that way. I would not want you to be afraid of us. But you deserve to know... if you want.
Lizzie: -I know in some places yer horror movie props.- *impression of raised brows, though hers don't move*
Hans Seiderman/Jester: It is deserved, believe me. *slight shiver* To start at the beginning would be a long story... but I am not sleeping anyway. It frightens me.
Lizzie: *scoots down and hurries over to the door, then returns with both her own tiny plush toy and the little teddy bear that she stole the cowboy hat from and which has since become Jester's*
Hans Seiderman/Jester: *bit of a smile again* Ja, I suppose those might be needed...
Lizzie: *stops and holds the little cream coloured bear up by one ear. It's a little bit shorter than her, so this sort of works* -He ain't really big enough no more.-
Hans Seiderman/Jester: Nein... but sometimes, you have to make do with what little you have.
Lizzie: *snerks and offers the toy*
Hans Seiderman/Jester: *will give it a cuddle, or as best as possible given the size*
Lizzie: *climbs up and leans against him* -Don't believe yeh could be scary, Jes'. Not on yer own.-
Hans Seiderman/Jester: Alex Whittaker would disagree. Carolyn Bramwell would disagree. Their friends would as well, I think, if any from those times were living. But that is getting ahead of things...
Lizzie: *impression of a frown as she lays back and looks up at his face, her plushie held absently close*
Hans Seiderman/Jester: *decides the best place to start... is at the beginning. Or at least what was the beginning for him.* I first met the Toulons when I was nine years old. They had moved to Berlin, where I lived with my mother, and she would take me to their puppet shows.
The puppets I saw then all had strings... normal ones. Herr Toulon had given up practicing magic, because it had hurt him too badly.
Lizzie: *intent, though still seeming to give the impression of that quizzical and confused frown*
Hans Seiderman/Jester: I didn't know about the magic then. I did not know about a lot of things, like the reasons behind my mother's absences. They became worse as the years passed. I stayed with the Toulons often, and not just for the shows. Sometimes I would help. They were - and are - like a second set of parents to me.
As I got old enough, I learned that my mother ran messages for people who opposed the things the Nazis were doing. The Toulons were involved as well. And, eventually, so was I.
Lizzie: *softly* -'O course.-
Hans Seiderman/Jester: The Toulons would travel sometimes, the puppet shows were an excuse, and this way they could make contacts the others could not. I started to travel with them when I was fourteen, acting as Herr Toulon's assistant. Herr Strauss - Pinhead - is from Poland, and I met him on one of those trips.
Despite the difference in ages, we were good friends even then. It was hard to find friends one could trust, when one was involved in the things that we were.
Lizzie: *gives her stiff little nod, but then turns her head slightly as she thinks she catches the faint, far off sound of a snore* -Speakin' 'o Pinhead.-
Hans Seiderman/Jester: *faint smile* I suppose not all of us are having trouble sleeping. *is not so much having trouble as is afraid to even try it*
Lizzie: -He's huggin' Shade like a teddy bear.- *rubs her face on her plushie, and then looks up again attentively*
Hans Seiderman/Jester: *a sigh and he continues* In 1934, when I was 22 years old, my mother was arrested while I was away with the Toulons on another trip. She was just gone, and we never saw her again. This happened... often.
I managed to avoid suspicion and took over her communications, but with my own adjustments. I worked as a bookkeeper, and so I was able to hide information in code among the papers I handled every day.
Lizzie: *over to the crook of his arm so she can snuggle as she lays and looks up at him. Pause to examine his shirt and poke it, liking the texture of the thick, old fashioned flannel*
Hans Seiderman/Jester: I managed for a while... but in 1936, a month and a few days after my 24th birthday, they came to arrest me.
I could not let this happen. I knew too much that could put too many others in danger, and the Gestapo had their ways to be persuasive. So I tried to flee...
Lizzie: *looks up, suddenly holding her plush in a death grip* *Jester will feel a very very faint thread of distress that isn't his own*
Hans Seiderman/Jester: *trying to be reassuring about a topic that just... isn't, and his expression is a bit distant* It didn't hurt. I felt something hit my back... and I was falling... but I never even felt myself hit the ground.
Lizzie: *snuggles, hiding her face on him as she silently grieves for that long ago young man*
Hans Seiderman/Jester: I had told Herr Toulon once about a dream I had. One where I was helping with the puppet shows... but where I was one of the puppets. It had disturbed him, and his wife, and at the time I did not know why.
I found out then... waking up and finding myself in the form you are more familiar with.
Lizzie: -They weren't ready teh say g'bye.- *face still hidden*
Hans Seiderman/Jester: Nein. And neither was I, or it would not have worked. The magic cannot force someone to live. There was a point, as I started to wake, when I could have refused it. But I had unfinished business... the records in my office. If the code was cracked, then my death would have been for nothing.
Lizzie: *looks up at him again, the grip on her plush still firm*
Hans Seiderman/Jester: I remember that, at first I did not really think of myself as alive. I wasn't sure what I was, and I didn't think about it. The task was what mattered. The first night after I became Jester, I went back to where I had worked... and I set it on fire.
Lizzie: *soft sound of a mental gasp*
Hans Seiderman/Jester: I think it was realizing that I did not want to burn up with everything else that made me decide... I must still be alive, or I would not be afraid of dying.
I escaped easily enough, since I had left the window open, and I returned to the puppet theater.
Lizzie: *impression of lifted brows urging him to continue*
Hans Seiderman/Jester: After that, I helped with the shows... and occasionally with messages and sabotage. Herr Toulon told me anything I wanted to know about... how it was that I had been changed.
A month and a half later, Herr Strauss visited. He had heard word of my demise. I allowed him to see me. Not on the stage, where Herr Toulon could use the excuse that I was some motorized automaton... but out in the open, or as open as the workshop was. We trusted him.
Lizzie: *bit of a seeming of a wibble. Softly* -Hard not teh.-
Hans Seiderman/Jester: *a nod* He was a truck driver. For the resistance, he would smuggle things - and sometimes people. A few times, when it was safe enough and I was not needed in Berlin, I would go with him.
I was the only puppet like myself for over four years. Then, in 1940, I accompanied Herr Strauss on another of his trips.
His preferred assignment... he would smuggle food to the Warsaw Ghetto. It was impossible for an adult to get in and out past the guards, especially a big scary guy like Herman Strauss.
What was done was that a place would be found in the walls where the fence was loose, or the wall had boards that could be moved to make a small hole, or there was a drain... anything that would work, and the children would be sent out.
They sent four year olds, because if they were older they would have had to wear the yellow star, and younger and they might not follow instructions.
Lizzie: *soft snerk* -Scary.- *snerk* *listens to the snore again, and then once more looks up*
Hans Seiderman/Jester: *bit of a smile* To those who do not know him, and who are foolish enough to judge by appearances, ja.
That time, while Herman was removing packages from the truck, a guard found the way the children were getting out.. a gap barely more than a foot in size where loose bricks had been chipped out, in a wall facing the alley we had parked near. Herr Strauss returned to find the guard taking aim at one of the children... so from behind him, he broke his neck.
Lizzie: *tiny mental squeak, and again the soft rush of grieving*
Hans Seiderman/Jester: Unfortunately, the guard was not alone. There was a second on the same patrol. Herman was between them and the children, and he would not move until they had scrambled back to their side of the wall.
I picked up a piece of broken glass in the alleyway, but I was not fast enough... The guard managed to fire before I injured his ankle and... when he fell down, made certain he would not be shooting anyone again.
Lizzie: *shaky mental sigh and snuggles. Still feels of that sadness and mourning*
Hans Seiderman/Jester: At first, it seemed all I could do was stay there, with Herr Strauss, until... until what would come. But he said... he asked if I thought he would be any good at theater. It was the last thing he said, and I knew what he meant. And Herr Toulon had told me what needed to be done.
So I found a cleaner piece of glass, and took the syringe that was kept with... my food. And after that... I managed to contact Herr Toulon so he could retrieve me from Poland.
Lizzie: *quietly* -I gotta give 'im a hug when 'e wakes up.-
Hans Seiderman/Jester: *bit of a smile* He will like that.
Since Tunneler already told how he and Six-Shooter joined us later that year, that brings us to 1941, and four living puppets in a theater in Berlin. A theater ran by André Toulon and his wife Elsa...
Lizzie: -'N no bloomin' Punch 'n Judy in sight.-
Hans Seiderman/Jester: Well, we did have a stringed Hitler puppet, but he was more punching bag than Punch.
Hans Seiderman/Jester: *watching the moonlight through the window. Or, well... it might be moonlight. He realises he hasn't actually seen the moon in this place, and from some of the things he's heard it could just as well be a glowing space whale. Either way, he's sitting on the floor in a room, avoiding his new sleeping bag and sleep in general, and watching the light come through the window, hitting the occasional dust mote on its way to make a square of slightly brighter floor.*
Lizzie: *is that soft door creak, and then a tiny head peeking inside as she comes looking for him after going to check on her amaryllis, which has thankfully stopped blooming and making the entire house smell like flower*
Hans Seiderman/Jester: *had left the door slightly open so the latch wouldn't be a hindrance... he knows how much trouble doorknobs can be. Smiles at Lizzie, but the smile is faintly sad*
Lizzie: *comes scooting inside, tugging on the tiny silk kimono that one of the puppets gave her for Christmas, and that she uses for her nighttime outfit*
Hans Seiderman/Jester: *hasn't even thought of the possibility of turning on the lights at night, so has just been sitting in here in the dark* This has been a very strange day.
Lizzie: *hesitates as she reaches him, instead of snuggling up like she'd usually do and burrowing under his arm* *looks up at his face* -That's puttin' it lightly.-
Hans Seiderman/Jester: This... *meaning his current form, as he looks at his hands* It brings back memories. That is both a good and a bad thing. *misses the snuggling right now, but says nothing about it*
Lizzie: *tiny sigh* -I know how that kin be. Um... I jes' realized yer a bloke now. D'ye still... Um. Dolls're usually fer girls...-
Hans Seiderman/Jester: *laughs, but tries to do so quietly so he won't wake the others... if any of them are having any more luck sleeping. Then he'll reach to carefully pick Lizzie up for a cuddle, if she'll allow it, holding her in much the same way as he had earlier that evening at the Black Dog* I am still myself...
Lizzie: *happy to be picked up. Turns those slightly faded brown eyes toward his face* -Yeah. But I'm useta yeh bein' wood 'n cloth 'n gunk.-
Hans Seiderman/Jester: *quietly* It's what I am used to, also. But in all the ways that matter, I am still myself. Or as much of myself as I have been since we arrived here.
Lizzie: -Wottrya mean?- *leans so she can try to see his face*
Hans Seiderman/Jester: We are puppets, not dolls, Lizzie. You know the difference, ja? Puppets... have strings. Even if you cannot see them. Right now our strings are broken, and so are we... not because of these forms, but because we have lost the person we trusted to hold those strings.
Lizzie: *wriggles till she's gotten down to sit on his knee so that she can lean back and look up at his face from the shadow of her bright blue fake fur wig* *quietly, confused and sad* -But Shade..?-
Hans Seiderman/Jester: He is a cat. He has been a great help to us, but... *reminded of something said by someone who, from his expression, it frightens him a little to think of* What strange creatures that would make us.
Lizzie: -Buh?-
Hans Seiderman/Jester: There is much that we have not said, about what we are, about what it means for us to be that way. I would not want you to be afraid of us. But you deserve to know... if you want.
Lizzie: -I know in some places yer horror movie props.- *impression of raised brows, though hers don't move*
Hans Seiderman/Jester: It is deserved, believe me. *slight shiver* To start at the beginning would be a long story... but I am not sleeping anyway. It frightens me.
Lizzie: *scoots down and hurries over to the door, then returns with both her own tiny plush toy and the little teddy bear that she stole the cowboy hat from and which has since become Jester's*
Hans Seiderman/Jester: *bit of a smile again* Ja, I suppose those might be needed...
Lizzie: *stops and holds the little cream coloured bear up by one ear. It's a little bit shorter than her, so this sort of works* -He ain't really big enough no more.-
Hans Seiderman/Jester: Nein... but sometimes, you have to make do with what little you have.
Lizzie: *snerks and offers the toy*
Hans Seiderman/Jester: *will give it a cuddle, or as best as possible given the size*
Lizzie: *climbs up and leans against him* -Don't believe yeh could be scary, Jes'. Not on yer own.-
Hans Seiderman/Jester: Alex Whittaker would disagree. Carolyn Bramwell would disagree. Their friends would as well, I think, if any from those times were living. But that is getting ahead of things...
Lizzie: *impression of a frown as she lays back and looks up at his face, her plushie held absently close*
Hans Seiderman/Jester: *decides the best place to start... is at the beginning. Or at least what was the beginning for him.* I first met the Toulons when I was nine years old. They had moved to Berlin, where I lived with my mother, and she would take me to their puppet shows.
The puppets I saw then all had strings... normal ones. Herr Toulon had given up practicing magic, because it had hurt him too badly.
Lizzie: *intent, though still seeming to give the impression of that quizzical and confused frown*
Hans Seiderman/Jester: I didn't know about the magic then. I did not know about a lot of things, like the reasons behind my mother's absences. They became worse as the years passed. I stayed with the Toulons often, and not just for the shows. Sometimes I would help. They were - and are - like a second set of parents to me.
As I got old enough, I learned that my mother ran messages for people who opposed the things the Nazis were doing. The Toulons were involved as well. And, eventually, so was I.
Lizzie: *softly* -'O course.-
Hans Seiderman/Jester: The Toulons would travel sometimes, the puppet shows were an excuse, and this way they could make contacts the others could not. I started to travel with them when I was fourteen, acting as Herr Toulon's assistant. Herr Strauss - Pinhead - is from Poland, and I met him on one of those trips.
Despite the difference in ages, we were good friends even then. It was hard to find friends one could trust, when one was involved in the things that we were.
Lizzie: *gives her stiff little nod, but then turns her head slightly as she thinks she catches the faint, far off sound of a snore* -Speakin' 'o Pinhead.-
Hans Seiderman/Jester: *faint smile* I suppose not all of us are having trouble sleeping. *is not so much having trouble as is afraid to even try it*
Lizzie: -He's huggin' Shade like a teddy bear.- *rubs her face on her plushie, and then looks up again attentively*
Hans Seiderman/Jester: *a sigh and he continues* In 1934, when I was 22 years old, my mother was arrested while I was away with the Toulons on another trip. She was just gone, and we never saw her again. This happened... often.
I managed to avoid suspicion and took over her communications, but with my own adjustments. I worked as a bookkeeper, and so I was able to hide information in code among the papers I handled every day.
Lizzie: *over to the crook of his arm so she can snuggle as she lays and looks up at him. Pause to examine his shirt and poke it, liking the texture of the thick, old fashioned flannel*
Hans Seiderman/Jester: I managed for a while... but in 1936, a month and a few days after my 24th birthday, they came to arrest me.
I could not let this happen. I knew too much that could put too many others in danger, and the Gestapo had their ways to be persuasive. So I tried to flee...
Lizzie: *looks up, suddenly holding her plush in a death grip* *Jester will feel a very very faint thread of distress that isn't his own*
Hans Seiderman/Jester: *trying to be reassuring about a topic that just... isn't, and his expression is a bit distant* It didn't hurt. I felt something hit my back... and I was falling... but I never even felt myself hit the ground.
Lizzie: *snuggles, hiding her face on him as she silently grieves for that long ago young man*
Hans Seiderman/Jester: I had told Herr Toulon once about a dream I had. One where I was helping with the puppet shows... but where I was one of the puppets. It had disturbed him, and his wife, and at the time I did not know why.
I found out then... waking up and finding myself in the form you are more familiar with.
Lizzie: -They weren't ready teh say g'bye.- *face still hidden*
Hans Seiderman/Jester: Nein. And neither was I, or it would not have worked. The magic cannot force someone to live. There was a point, as I started to wake, when I could have refused it. But I had unfinished business... the records in my office. If the code was cracked, then my death would have been for nothing.
Lizzie: *looks up at him again, the grip on her plush still firm*
Hans Seiderman/Jester: I remember that, at first I did not really think of myself as alive. I wasn't sure what I was, and I didn't think about it. The task was what mattered. The first night after I became Jester, I went back to where I had worked... and I set it on fire.
Lizzie: *soft sound of a mental gasp*
Hans Seiderman/Jester: I think it was realizing that I did not want to burn up with everything else that made me decide... I must still be alive, or I would not be afraid of dying.
I escaped easily enough, since I had left the window open, and I returned to the puppet theater.
Lizzie: *impression of lifted brows urging him to continue*
Hans Seiderman/Jester: After that, I helped with the shows... and occasionally with messages and sabotage. Herr Toulon told me anything I wanted to know about... how it was that I had been changed.
A month and a half later, Herr Strauss visited. He had heard word of my demise. I allowed him to see me. Not on the stage, where Herr Toulon could use the excuse that I was some motorized automaton... but out in the open, or as open as the workshop was. We trusted him.
Lizzie: *bit of a seeming of a wibble. Softly* -Hard not teh.-
Hans Seiderman/Jester: *a nod* He was a truck driver. For the resistance, he would smuggle things - and sometimes people. A few times, when it was safe enough and I was not needed in Berlin, I would go with him.
I was the only puppet like myself for over four years. Then, in 1940, I accompanied Herr Strauss on another of his trips.
His preferred assignment... he would smuggle food to the Warsaw Ghetto. It was impossible for an adult to get in and out past the guards, especially a big scary guy like Herman Strauss.
What was done was that a place would be found in the walls where the fence was loose, or the wall had boards that could be moved to make a small hole, or there was a drain... anything that would work, and the children would be sent out.
They sent four year olds, because if they were older they would have had to wear the yellow star, and younger and they might not follow instructions.
Lizzie: *soft snerk* -Scary.- *snerk* *listens to the snore again, and then once more looks up*
Hans Seiderman/Jester: *bit of a smile* To those who do not know him, and who are foolish enough to judge by appearances, ja.
That time, while Herman was removing packages from the truck, a guard found the way the children were getting out.. a gap barely more than a foot in size where loose bricks had been chipped out, in a wall facing the alley we had parked near. Herr Strauss returned to find the guard taking aim at one of the children... so from behind him, he broke his neck.
Lizzie: *tiny mental squeak, and again the soft rush of grieving*
Hans Seiderman/Jester: Unfortunately, the guard was not alone. There was a second on the same patrol. Herman was between them and the children, and he would not move until they had scrambled back to their side of the wall.
I picked up a piece of broken glass in the alleyway, but I was not fast enough... The guard managed to fire before I injured his ankle and... when he fell down, made certain he would not be shooting anyone again.
Lizzie: *shaky mental sigh and snuggles. Still feels of that sadness and mourning*
Hans Seiderman/Jester: At first, it seemed all I could do was stay there, with Herr Strauss, until... until what would come. But he said... he asked if I thought he would be any good at theater. It was the last thing he said, and I knew what he meant. And Herr Toulon had told me what needed to be done.
So I found a cleaner piece of glass, and took the syringe that was kept with... my food. And after that... I managed to contact Herr Toulon so he could retrieve me from Poland.
Lizzie: *quietly* -I gotta give 'im a hug when 'e wakes up.-
Hans Seiderman/Jester: *bit of a smile* He will like that.
Since Tunneler already told how he and Six-Shooter joined us later that year, that brings us to 1941, and four living puppets in a theater in Berlin. A theater ran by André Toulon and his wife Elsa...
Lizzie: -'N no bloomin' Punch 'n Judy in sight.-
Hans Seiderman/Jester: Well, we did have a stringed Hitler puppet, but he was more punching bag than Punch.
no subject
Hans Seiderman/Jester: Ja, thank you...
Patrick Bramwell/Torch: *he starts to fix one... one-handed due to Lizzie* How far did you get with that story?
Hans Seiderman/Jester: To... when your sister left us at the hotel.
Patrick Bramwell/Torch: *slight frown, and nods* Better finish it then, it might help her feel better.
Lizzie: *not even trying to accidentally add herself to the float. She must be feeling low*
Hans Seiderman/Jester: *sighs* There was no one in the hotel. The police had come and gone, and no one owned it then. Even if there had been people around, we did not trust ourselves after all that we had caused.
Patrick Bramwell/Torch: Translated, they were all being really emo. *sets the ice cream float by Jester, who's taken a seat at the table, and sits down to sip at his own*
Lizzie: *quietly* -Yeh blame 'em? Wosn' you, too?-
Patrick Bramwell/Torch: *sad look for a moment, thinking back* Yeah... but not enough to want to shut myself up in a box in a storage room.
Hans Seiderman/Jester: We looked around the hotel a little, while... making decisions. We even considered that it would be better if we did not exist at all. At least then we could not hurt anyone else. But we found Six-Shooter and Decapitron hidden away. Even if we were gone, they would still be there... and they would not know the things we had learned about... strings.
Patrick Bramwell/Torch: I think of it more like drugs. I mean, they don't call those 'mood altering substances' for nothing. And whatever the Puppet Master's mood is, we get stuck with it. You guys never noticed with Toulon, because if he was upset about something it was probably something that would have bothered you too, anyway.
Lizzie: *turns to look at Jester, but is still snuggling Torch*
Hans Seiderman/Jester: Ja... but this does not explain why it would be that way. I have thought that.. the process means we take on some aspect of the form we are placed into.
But... to get back to things... We could not have stayed awake forever. We had pushed our limits without a master, or at least I had. I passed out on the others...
Patrick Bramwell/Torch: They hid Jester away with Decapitron as 'insurance' of sorts. He knew all of the others before they were puppets, so they hoped if anything went screwy they could try to wake him themselves and see if he could snap them out of it. Six-Shooter and everyone else except me and Blade went into the puppet case. We'd moved it to an attic storage room. The zombie creep had managed to put the key to the thing somewhere, and we never found it, but I don't think the others cared.
Lizzie: -Keys're jus' a pain in th' arse.-
Hans Seiderman/Jester: *sips at the ice cream float, willing lets Torch handle this part, since he'd slept through it*
Patrick Bramwell/Torch: I think it was about two years... time can get hard for us to grasp when there's no 'Puppet Master'. Worse when there's not much to mark it by. There was just me and Blade, and we didn't talk a whole lot... mostly my fault there. He tried. Someone eventually picked up the hotel cheap, what with the condition it was in and the reputation. Honestly, I think they were running it as a tax write-off. There's no way they were making any money.
Lizzie: *seems to be frowning as she listens*
Patrick Bramwell/Torch: I guess they still didn't want to be robbed, though, so they hired a caretaker for the off-season. They couldn't have been paying much, so... they got someone who wanted a place he could work without being cooped up in a lab and having people looking over his shoulder all the time.
Hans Seiderman/Jester: *bit of a fond and sad smile*
Lizzie: *perk*
Patrick Bramwell/Torch: We watched him. He'd set up a lab in one of the attic rooms so Blade wanted at first to make sure he didn't get too close to the others. Then he started to like the kid.... fellow mad scientist and all that.
Lizzie: *can't help giggling* -Oi know who 'hat is.-
Hans Seiderman/Jester: *chuckles* Ja. Rick Myers was researching artificial intelligence.
Patrick Bramwell/Torch: Blade eventually let Rick find him, but pretended to just be some old doll. He ended up a desk ornament, and sometimes Rick would talk to him... Of course, Rick didn't know Blade was listening.
Lizzie: -Awww.-
Patrick Bramwell/Torch: Sometimes Rick's girlfriend Susie would come around, but we didn't see anyone else. Then... one evening she was going to come over, and there was a bad storm moving in. Rick warned her that she might end up having to spend the night *snerk* I think he was hoping for that result.
Lizzie: -Yeah. Storms kin be scary.-
Patrick Bramwell/Torch: The hotel's out in the middle of nowhere, too, and the roads weren't in the best shape. Its days as a popular spot were way in the past. Susie brought company with her, which Rick wasn't too happy about at first. Cameron and Lauren. Rick had gone to school with Cameron, and the guy was a complete jerk. And Lauren...
Hans Seiderman/Jester: *giggles and almost chokes on ice cream float* Dear Auntie Lauren... our very own early warning alarm.
Lizzie: -Huh?-
Hans Seiderman/Jester: Lauren is a psychic. She specializes in channeling, but... she also has this tendency to scream if anything evil is anywhere nearby.
Patrick Bramwell/Torch: Or anything that's even had passing contact with anything evil, which... is a lot of things.
Lizzie: *brb, overcome by giggles*
Hans Seiderman/Jester: *giggling as well, then sobers a little as he wonders if Lauren is safe...*
Lizzie: -So she's th' burglar alarm with boobies.-
Patrick Bramwell/Torch: Totem alarm, but close enough.
She found Blade downstairs and picked him up. *snerks* Thought he was cute. By then... I think he just wanted the others back, and eventually the two of us would have konked out too. And Rick seemed like a good person... but Blade had had a little trouble figuring out how to get Rick to the puppet case without moving around and possibly freaking him out.
Hans Seiderman/Jester: *giggles* Which just shows Blade didn't know him as well as we would just yet.
Patrick Bramwell/Torch: *nods* Lauren was an... opportunity, so Blade started 'yelling' at her. It took a while before she started asking Rick questions about where he'd found Blade, where was the box the puppet was supposed to be in... Rick showed her where he'd found Blade, but Lauren knew that wasn't right, so Rick told her she could go look in the storage rooms if she wanted.
She found the puppet case, touched it... screamed, and fainted.
Lizzie: *seems to o.0* -You lot ain't evil.-
Hans Seiderman/Jester: You know how the fire alarm can sometimes go off when you make toast? It is something like that.
Patrick Bramwell/Torch: Susie had to take her out of the room. She was completely terrified. Cameron didn't care. It just made him want to get the case open even more. He never cared about Lauren. And Rick... well, he was curious. Eventually he used acid on the lock and a hammer. I'm pretty sure if Cameron had tried to wake any of the others, he would have had something sharp come into contact with his ankle... but it was Rick that figured out what the green stuff was for. Six-Shooter had missed everything since the early 40's... Tunneler had to be helped up. I guess he was still a little woozy from...
Hans Seiderman/Jester: *awkward silence, since Tunneler had been dissected by Lance... right after killing Patrick*
Lizzie: *snugga Torch*
Patrick Bramwell/Torch: He woke Pinhead up too. Blade was still watching, and I was still peeping out of secret passages. He didn't even know about me... just in case. Lauren was still scared at first, and Pinhead and Cameron almost got into a fight... but things started to actually work out for a change.
Lizzie: -'E wos fightin' wit' Pinhead??-
Patrick Bramwell/Torch: Pinhead was startled and grabbed the front of Cameron's shirt when he woke, and Cameron was going to hit Pinhead with a wrench, but Rick broke it up. No one got hurt.
Hans Seiderman/Jester: Everyone was still... very defensive.
Lizzie: *impression of a nod and a slight frown*
Hans Seiderman/Jester: The others brought me to Rick then. It was... very different. You know jigsaw puzzles, ja? It was like... finding a piece that fit.
Lizzie: -Wot'dryeh mean?-
Hans Seiderman/Jester: The strings... were not strings with Rick, as they had not been with Herr Toulon. Instead of something that controlled, that was not part of us... he was.
Patrick Bramwell/Torch: He thought we were some kind of AI, but... he wanted to know everything about us, not force his own impressions. It probably helped that he was sane, and not a sociopath like Gallagher... or delusional like that zombie or just plain nuts like Camille.
Lizzie: -Aww.-
Hans Seiderman/Jester: He had things in common with us... not in terms of the bad things we had done, but with who we had been. Like the puzzle piece, he fit... do you understand now? It is a very rare thing to find. Far too rare.
Lizzie: *simply* -Stayed wit' Shade fer a reason, I did.- *more quietly* -'N hang out wit' you fer th' same one.-
Hans Seiderman/Jester: *turns a little pink again, but at least that distracts him from trying not to cry from thinking about Rick*
Rick had his own ways of running tests, and he was curious. So... he was playing laser tag with Pinhead and Tunnneler when a package was delivered.
Patrick Bramwell/Torch: Didn't help that Cameron was busy pressuring Lauren into trying her channeling to find out more about the puppet food. He wanted to one-up Rick and find out everything first, and he didn't care that she was scared and going on about how she sensed too much evil around to do something like that.
Lizzie: -Evil?- *snuggles close to Torch*
Hans Seiderman/Jester: The box contained a Totem. And when Lauren was pressured into using her abilities, we think one of Sutekh's followers intercepted the 'call' because the result transported two more of them into the hotel.
Cameron and Lauren fled, but Cameron was killed when he locked Lauren out of the car and himself in with one of the Totems.
Patrick Bramwell/Torch: The car wouldn't start and he wanted her to push it. In the rain. Really nice guy, huh?
Lizzie: *bonks head on Torch*
Hans Seiderman/Jester: By that time, we knew we could trust Rick... well, most of us did. And we knew that Sutekh was involved.
Patrick Bramwell/Torch: I stayed hidden longer than the others. I'd just managed to get all the extra static out of my head, so I wasn't too keen on anything that would mean having anyone else up there in any way.
Lizzie: *hiding now, but listening closely*
Hans Seiderman/Jester: *has put both Lizzie's plush and his bear near his ice cream float for now* It was time... so, we brought Decapitron to Rick.
Lizzie: *turns head to look at him, total attention now*
Hans Seiderman/Jester: Lauren had run back inside, but during all the troubles one of the Totems tried to drain her. Later, that would leave her in a coma for a few days.
Tunneler put a hole in one of the Totems, another was destroyed when Six-Shooter lassoed it with electrical wire and fried it, and Susie dumped acid on the third and Decapitron finished it off.
Patrick Bramwell/Torch: I still don't understand why Lauren tried to hide under a table from a two-foot tall demon thing.
Lizzie: -...Wot?-
Hans Seiderman/Jester: *chuckles* Ja, that was not good strategy. She has gotten better, though. And she does not scream at quite so many things as she once did.
Patrick Bramwell/Torch: *to Lizzie* Lauren tried to squish under an endtable to hide from the Totems. Right down on the floor, at perfect attacking height.
Lizzie: *can you nearly hear the sound of a tiny wooden brain breaking?*
Patrick Bramwell/Torch: *shakes his head, bit of a bemused smile* Lauren's just... one of those people who needs someone to take care of them, because they can't quite manage that on their own.
Hans Seiderman/Jester: We all know what that is like, so... we do not hold against her for being something of a ditz.
Lizzie: -Wow. I'll keep one on 'er when I see 'er.-