Insanity

[Brian]

She mumbles, "Couldn't eat another muffin," before blinking her eyes open and rubbing them.  "Oh, Master Shuker," she says with a tiny yawn.  "I had the oddest drea...."  She trails off when she notices that her hand drifts through a bookcase, then sighs.

"Sorry," she says somewhat sheepishly.  "Um, was I snoring?"

[Rezantis]

Nathan rolls his eyes.

"No, you weren't . . . I just thought I'd wake you in case you wanted to find a bed or something.  I thought that might be uncomfortable."

[Brian]

"Oh, right," she says, shaking her head.  "Bed.  Certainly, Master Shuker.  Is there anything else I can do for you, first?"

The clock on the wall quietly ticks the minutes away.  The rest of the house is eerily silent -- no CPU fans to break the noise, no rats above the basement to scurry around.

[Rezantis]

"No, that's it, Molly - have a good night, alright?"

Nathan looks around the room to see if there's somewhere he might be able to put the tablet to keep it out of sight of the servants.

[Brian]

The vault springs to mind, but without a key....

Nathan could either hide it back in the basement, or possibly find a better hiding spot for it in his room.  Otherwise, the back of the liquor cabinet may do with some creative bottle placement.

[Rezantis]

Well, the liquor cabinet doesn't seem like a great idea in the first place, so Nathan lugs it back to his room.

The basement has the advantage of being remote, and the disadvantage that if anyone took it from there it wouldn't be noticed for a long time.  So let's see!

[Brian]

Nathan's bedroom is imminently respectable.  It's actually like a small apartment within the house -- it's got a sitting room, a walk-in-closet, the actual bedroom (four-poster monstrosity that it is), and there's a wealth of place to hide stone tablets.  Underneath the bed might work, but there's nothing else there, and the lack of dust suggests that servants clean there regularly.

There's the trunk at the foot of the bed, where it could be hidden beneath spare blankets.  And there's a number of boxes of personal possessions in the walk-in closet -- not to mention the the extra liquor cabinet in the sitting room (how much booze does a wealthy man need, though?).

[Rezantis]

"What I really need to do," Nathan muses, "is kill it."

Covering the tablet again in the cloth it originally came with, Nathan looks for box of personal possessions where it looks like the contents wouldn't be looked at very often.  Maybe some books.

If he finds something suitable he'll stash the tablet at the bottom.

[Brian]

Nathan manages to find a stack of old personal letters between himself and his fiancee (how handy!) that's dusty enough to not have been touched in a while.  The tablet could be hidden beneath easily.  Unfortunately, there don't appear to be any books in any of the boxes ... though, there are a handful in the sitting room.  Novels, for the most part, along with some geographical books with illustrations.

[Rezantis]

The letters will do.  He'll need to read those at some point - but that can wait until tomorrow.

For now, sleep!

[Brian]

Nathan is woken bright and early at 8:30 AM by a loud knock at the door.  "Will you be caring for breakfast this morning, Master Shuker?" Janson's voice asks.

From his vantage, deep within the poster-jungle that constitutes his bed, Nathan realizes that Janson is in the sitting room -- he wouldn't have been heard from the hallway.

Molly is nowhere in sight, at the moment, though the elder Shuker is looking around the room speculatively.

[Rezantis]

It's a long moment before Nathan acquires the coherence to realize he's been asked a question.

"Yes please, Janson," he calls back, blearily.

[Brian]

"Very good, Master Shuker," Janson replies.  "I will leave it here for you."  There's a pause, and then, "Today is the fair; I've been unable to summon a locksmith yet."

"Good news," the elder Shuker says, after poking his head through the door (presumably to make sure that Janson is gone), "but it can wait a bit.  Once you've washed and awoke, I'll meet you in the sitting room."  Dropping his voice to a whisper, he adds, "And I'll keep Molly there for you, too."

[Rezantis]

"Great", Nathan mumbles, "I could use some . . . of . . ."

He trails off as he goes back to the project of waking the hell up.

I hate mornings.

Once he -has- found some clothes and washed up, he'll head out to the sitting room.

[Brian]

The covered tray (looks like the same cart as yesterday's dinner) still conceals a warm variety of breakfast items.  There's a pitcher of something that smells suspiciously like coffee, some creamer, some sugar, some honey ... a plate of scrambled eggs, bacon, sausage, and hashed browns.  There's also a pot of tea, a small jar of jam, some butter, and scones.

And now that Nathan bothers to inspect the cutlery, it looks like it's actually silver.  The plates look like fine China, too.  Well, the mansion's got to have things to fill it, one supposes.

Molly is sitting on a couch in the sitting room, a bit away from where the table is.  Of course, a closer glance shows that Molly is not actually sitting on the couch, but hovering a fraction of an inch above it.

The elder Shuker coughs, as Nathan begins assembling breakfast from components.  "I was summoned by Dr. Christianson last night," he notes.  "Somehow -- and I've no idea how -- he's managed to locate and find his way aboard the Starflare."