2020-04-15 - Cleanup Crew: Phase Two

Tobin arrives once more for the process of unearthing the house in much the same get-up as the last time, with his gloves, his reacher-grabber thing for things he doesn't want to touch even with gloves, trash bags, RAID, and whatever else he might have thought to bring along. Today is time to tackle the second floor, and he's prepared as he turns up once again at Chez Hecker. "Hey," he greets as he comes up the front steps after parking out on the street in front of the house. "We ready for round two?"

James stands in the middle of the now empty living room, looking around dubiously. He holds out his hands in the empty space, and slowly turns around, and... Nothing happens. He isn't flung into some horrid memory of death or betrayal or violence or just simple evil.

"... this is fucking weird", he mutters to himself. As he hears people coming to the front door, though, he looks up and gives a little half-smile. "... here we fucking go.", he says, but cheerfully, and heads over to open it. "Yo Tobin. Thanks for coming. Again. You're a goddamn hero."

Whatever time everyone agreed to meet at, Diana arrived precisely twenty minutes early, on the dot. But James is used to this sort of thing from her. She's punctual to the point that she sometimes has to wait outside an establishment for it to open. At any rate, she heads out of her car, walking up with a smile on her face. She's once more dressed in high-waisted pants (although of denim this time), though she's eschewed the sweaters of Christmas and winter in favor of a black shirt with colored tabs on it and the words, "My Brain Has Too Many Tabs Open" written in white. She's carrying what looks to be a casserole dish filled with fried rice. "Hey, all!" she greets as she arrives, and has an extra grin for James.

Byron has to work, casino acquisition is a massive to-do given all extra work that comes with arranging the new businesses opening inside the entertainment facility out on the water. So Lilith is solo today, but given her enthusiasm and eye for junk, that might be all that's needed, energy for two when she's driven about something. Then again, without him to hold her back, slow her down, or generally avoid getting hurt, good luck with loose cannon mode today, guys.

She looks cute, though! And she brought a cold case of beer she's lugging in one of the boxes she's designated for good stuff they're trying to find in the heaps before the trash men are brought in for industrial removal and cleaning. Wearing some dark charcoal skinny jeans with little black and white Roxy sneakers, her light spring sweater is dusty amethyst and she's got on light accent cosmetics to make up for the fact her hair is in a messy bun, out of the way.

She also has a big shopping bag over her shoulder with accessories for search and rescue of items of value, including plastic gloves, bug spray just in case, one of those claw grabby things (inspirred by Tobin last time), and so on. Eventually, she's on the porch and plowing in without knocking since a few people beat her there anyway, going to put the beer in the new fridge immediately like she lives here now, "Hello kittens. Hey James? How many rooms are up there, anyway?"

Tobin grins at James and shakes his head. "I cannot let a friend suffer through this disaster alone, even if the last time was.. pretty awful. So.. let's see what lies in wait for us upstairs, huh?" He grins at Diana and Lilith, giving each of them a salute with his grabber-hand, and then begins to wander his way over toward the stairs, though not going up them first because he has no idea where they're going. "What do we tackle first?"

James is of course wearing his usual uniform of jeans and a hoodie. Today's hoodie has the logo of some obscure little podcast on it. He chuckles at Tobin's words and nods. "Yeah, it was. Which is what makes you a hero for coming back."

Diana's arrival earns her an ear-to-ear smile from the little ginger beardo, the kind that usually no one but her gets to see. He steps up and over to her to slip an arm around her and place a sound smooch on right on that kisser. "... hi love. I'm glad you're here- no way I'd get through this without you."

And then there's a Lilith, and he waves with his free hand. "Lilith Beer-bringer, leader of this salvage operation! Ahoy! Tell Byron he's a wuss for not coming." At her question about the rooms, he pauses. "... y'know, I'm not entirely sure. Been like a decade and a half since I've been up there and who knows what my uncle did to the place in the meantime, but, last I checked, 4 rooms and a bathroom. And the attic."

Diana returns that smooch, naturally, and then gives him a warm smile. "You would, but I'll make it easier," she assures-slash-teases, and offers him the casserole dish. "I brought food! ...it takes forks though, and I didn't bring those. I may have not thought this one through." She grins, then sends a wave to Tobin and Lilith. "Do you need any help, Lilith?" she wonders next.

"Gotcha." Lilith tells James while getting a beer out for at least her and Tobin, waiting on the other two to get their own so she doesn't interrupt their canoodling or casserole strategizing. While cracking open her bottle top, she takes a swig, then flashes a smile at Diana once her hands are free to take a moment with the beer, "Not yet. That smells good, at least! Everyone beer and glove up at will!"

Lilith takes another swig from her beer, then gets gloves from the box in her bag to put out on the counter (clear space!) for everyone. In passing, the woman nudges Tobin playfully with her arm and shoulder in a bump on the way to the stairs, forging her way right up to have a look at this mystery situation on the second floor, "Ready to be a big damn hero when something eats me for going up first?" he shoulders the bag, picks up her 'designated good junk' box,

Tobin grabs the beer that Lilith gets out for him with a grin and a tip of a hat that he isn't wearing before taking a swig from it. As she nudges him on her way by to the stairs he slings an arm around her shoulders and gives her a little one-armed hug in passing, "Sure. I'll be sure to run screaming to warn the others, and mourn you for at least a year. I'll wear black and everything," Tobin says, giving her a little bit of a wink. And then he follows her on up.

James helps with the casserole-carrying and the counter-clearing and the beer-getting. "I actually bought some cheap dinnerware. Now that the kitchen, uh, exists and such." When Lilith and Tobin start making their way upstairs, and encounter their first challenge, he winces. "Yeah, I tried to move that thing once. Nearly broke my neck falling down the stairs from the shock. You, ah, don't really wanna know what's been done on that table.", he says, apologetically. "We're probably gonna need to move it, tho, no way I'm getting past that without blacking out."

Diana looks up the stairs to see what James is referring to, and she winces as well. "I wanna know what's been done on that table. I'm kind of DYING to know, now. Also, I'm not all that strong, but I'll help push someone who is?" She shoulderbumps James before adding, in a softer tone of voice, "...and I'm so glad you have a kitchen now." Which calls for a cheek kiss.

Lilith nods a couple of times at James and looks back at Tobin for a considering moment, "Can move it easier if I push from the far side and a couple of you push from this side." Then she throws her box and bag of supplies onto the other side of the buffet table thing, into a pile of papers and boxes on the landing. Then she says the thing that never bodes well, putting her bottle out and saying, "Hold my beer."

Yeah, she shouldn't have said that. When she goes up and over an edge with sling of leg, her shoe gets stuck in a gap, she twists to try and get out, goes over the edge when a couple of boxes topple and pin her.

She's on the other side, technically, but she's not going to be much help pushing, and they HAVE to move the thing now, because she's pitifully and awkwardly stuck, hand up and flat palming a box to keep it from falling on her head while it's at precarious lean, "... I'm okay! Just uh. Move the thing."

Tobin takes Lilith's beer and then watches her go up and over and.. wince. "You alright over there?" he calls out with a cringe in his voice as he swigs his own beer. Finally, he sets them both to one side and then begins to tug and pull at the buffet, but there's no budging the thing. Once all three of them are done trying he says "Alright, we gotta empty this thing before it's going anywhere. I'm just going to pull the drawers right out of it with whatever's in them and we can carry those downstairs first." And he sets about doing just that.

"Trust me, love, you really don't want to know. It's... fucked up. I had nightmares for days.", James assures Diana, but then lets out a soft 'oof' as Lilith goes ass over teakettle on the other side of the table and triggers an avalanche. "... alas, poor Lilith. We knew her well.", he murmurs, but then Diana's heading up to help and Tobin's doing what he can and James can't just stand there feeling helpless. He's got to face his fears if he's ever going to be able to deal with this place. And so he sets his slim shoulders, and starts coming up the stairs just as Tobin is saying to empty the drawers. He nods, a serious expression on his face, and closes his eyes a moment. The Glimmer-bunnies in the house might notice a shimmer over his skin for a moment as he visualizes a sort of barrier between himself and the psychic crud covering the stuff in those drawers. "... o-ok. I think I can maybe help bring those down, yeah?", he says, voice shaking a little with nerves. When he does touch them, he stiffens, preparing himself to experience another jolt of vile memories, but instead his gift seems to almost burn and sizzle invisibly at the emotional residue on them, pushing it away from him. "... holy shit I think it's working."

Diana blinks, twice, at James' answer, shaking her head with a slight frown. She doesn't have time to say anything in response, however, as poor Lilith goes heels over head, as it were. Diana does move to try and help, but it's... less than helpful, putting it kindly. She's got noodle arms, folks, and definitely forgot leg day. At Tobin's suggestion, she nods, but before she moves to do anything, the drawers start moving of their own accord. She turns to look at James in surprise, and then gives him a sappily proud smile that he probably doesn't even get to see, given his concentration. She doesn't say anything, and instead tries to buoy his invisible kerjiggering with a bit of her own, aiming to lighten the load for him, if only a little.

Lilith can't do much but sit awkwardly pinned in junk with a leg up one way with her shoe stuck in a gap between boxes, her knee supporting herself on a paper heap behind the buffet. As the others start to empty it out like smarties to make it move easier, Lilith tries so hard to see what's in the drawers that they're taking down the stairs because maybe there's something neat! But she can't really see. Gradually, she shoves up the boxes hanging over her head back level in the stack and twists to look into the room behind where she's stuck to make sure nothing is going to grab her from behind.

While looking, though, she squints and makes a 'huh' noise at the carvings on the bedpost she can see sticking up, "... at least one of these bed frames is nice, have to make note to auction it, not let the movers toss it."

Tobin rummages around, dragging drawers out of the buffet and hauling them about. He finds the cigar box and says to Lilith, "Cigar box full of necklaces. Don't know if they're worth anything, so I'm going to set them off to the side so you can take a look at them." He then does just that, putting the cigar box with the pile of things for Lilith to examine later downstairs before emptying out more drawers until the thing is light enough that they can take another crack at trying to budge it.

James is smart enough not to get overconfident just because his trick worked. He doesn't know how these abilities work very well yet, not quite sure what he's doing, but whatever it is, it pushes at and erodes the psychic scars coating the junk enough to at least let him handle it safely- though still rather gingerly. Diana's efforts on his behalf lighten the load, making it easier for him to keep up his 'barrier', and earns her a soft, tender smile from him. She's probably the only person he doesn't scowl at when they use their powers. As he carries stuff downstairs, he pauses, spotting the candelabra and gawping a bit at the pricetag. "Hey Lilith? Just in case you need motivation to survive I think I just found a nice prize!" Quickly setting it aside onto the 'good stuff' box, he places the rest of the items off to the side and carefully goes back up the stairs to keep helping.

That tender smile is returned in kind to James, and Diana waits until they've reached the bottom of the stairs to whisper softly in his ear, "You did a great job." She's just about to head back up to help with the last of the drawers when that music box catches her eye. She immediately moves to gingerly scoop it up, and after examining it for a few moments, she lifts its lid up to play the music a bit; apparently those last few drawers need to be gotten without her. Still, when they start to try and move the table itself, she'll scurry to help.

Oh good. Lilith is getting freed now and she perks up at the soft sound of the music playing, "Oh neat, you guys are finding all the good stuff while I'm stuck and... Is that a music box? Neat. Make sure you save it!" Yes, Lilith, THEY KNOW.

Anyway, that buffet doesn't want to move from Tobin's angle at all, though it's less about the buffet being heavy now and more about things being in the way. When Diana pushes, her hand slips and falls into the one of the drawer holes and she gets a splinter! 🙁

But it's cool, James is on the right side and hulks out, the buffet slides with continued help from the other two and Lilith is popped free enough to tug her leg and captured foot free. She grins a bit sheepishly, "Thanks. Left or right first?"

"I vote for the room that has sunlight in it. Let's clean that one out first," Tobin says, because frankly the dark room creeps him out just a little bit considering what they've found so far downstairs, and he's not afraid to give it a bit of a dubious side-eye as he finally makes it past the giant buffet.

James does not look particularly thrilled as Diana winds that music box. "You, ah, do realize that's probably cursed as fuck, right love?", he asks Diana, but then it's all hands on board to free Lilith. Normally he'd be useless at this, but maybe he's got a little more confidence now that he's figured out a way to protect himself for now, so he's able to get a good enough grip on the thing to shift it enough that Lilith's free. "Yeah. Sunlight first. Even now I'm still getting the heebie-jeebies from that other one.", he calls in agreement with Tobin.

Diana pauses mid-wind at James' question, but ... it's too late now! "You have a point," she says mildly, and does set it down carefully. Of course, then it just keeps playing, and she tells James, "I hate it when you're right." She gives a smirk in his direction, but then it's time to SAVE LILITH. She does her part, at least until she gets that splinter, at which point she jerks her hand back and shakes it a little. "Dangit." The others talk sunlight vs. darkness while she tries to get that splinter out. It's proving feisty, though. "Sunlight sounds fine to me," she says distractedly, and then looks to Lilith, adding, "I set the musicbox down in a cleared space, but... it's still playing, so." She shrugs. "Either it's possessed, cursed, or just needs a tuning. I'm betting it's not the last one, in this town."

"Maybe it's just doing that thing like my old ballerina one used to do where the gears have to finish playing out." Lilith says to Diana with a quick nod at the concensus to go for the closed over doorway with lighting in it. Digging into the other room or going into an open dark one seems less attractive, maybe all the not-dead roaches ran to the dark. Grabbing her bag and a claw thing out of it, she touches the doorway to push open with it first, but it's stuck, so she has to reach around through where it's open with that length-spanning grabber to knock a few things over and away to make a big enough gap to see and get in.

She's the first in, because this is her charge, but once she's in, they can kind of see her jaw drop, "... What the hell? Why is all this weird stuff here?"

Tobin is busy staring at the room jam packed with paintings stuffed all around all the other pieces of furniture and art and he says, "Wow. That's a lot of.. art." He's going to be generous and call it art, even though he can't really see what it is just yet. "Guess we can move these out easily enough, just line them all up and see if there are any that are worth selling?" He glances over toward Lilith for guidance. There's that sound of a melody behind them, and while he notices it, it doesn't really register to him as anything other than the music box still likely playing downstairs, at least at first.

"I hate it when I'm right too.", James agrees with Diana, and gives the musicbox some serious side-eye as the lot of them continue their way upstairs now that there's enough room to do so. Lilith's exclamation of surprise causes him to move quicker, concerned- until he too stops to gawk at the stuff. ".... damn. What the fuck, uncle. What the actual fuck." And then, he tilts his head, like a dog . "... oh hey not to alarm anyone but... is that shit getting louder?"

Diana smiles lopsidedly at James' comment, and moves with him in a bit of a hurry as well when she hears Lilith. Like James, she pauses not far in, just staring. "Welp." She glances over to him at his question, her gaze then shifting back the way they came. "...that is definitely getting louder, yes." She winces. "I'm sorry. I wasn't thinking."

Lilith moves deeper into the room and leans forward to start flipping through some of the stacked frames, shouldering and squeezing by a taxidermy coyote. After breathing out a huh of noise to herself, there's just so many and they're all stacked, she sounds impatient to know what they're worth. After opening her mouth to speak her general bafflement, she trails off and looks over her shoulder while still leaned. Music IS coming up the stairs after them and it makes her eyes narrow while she pauses there, "... oh."

"Oh god, only you can help prevent forest fires. Down, Smokey, down!" Tobin says as he's suddenly accosted by a taxidermy bear, which succeeds in knocking him off balance, sending him stumbling into a statue which he has to try to keep upright with one hand while fending off Yogi the dancing bear with the other. As the pace picks up and grows more frenetic, he tries to scramble away like an errant pic-a-nic basket and try to get back to the stairs. "Where is the music box?" he calls out, and tries to escape the crazy maniacal menagerie long enough to get to the stairs.

The music gets louder and louder and James frowns, but he does reach for Diana's hand as she apologizes, giving it a quick squeeze. "Not your fault. It's the town. And the house.", he softly promises her, before the sudden Dance Of The Things gets his full attention. Tobin dodges a bear, Lilith gets humped, and he goes "Hey, ow!" as he's smacked in the back of the head. But when he notices Diana in trouble, something snaps in him and he does the only thing that's reasonable in that situation: he overreacts. The protective aura of denial around him suddenly turns into an electric crackle as the smell of ozone rises around him. "Let go of her!", he shouts, stepping forward as menacingly as his tiny frame can handle, his fingers crackling with power- a moment before something more rational in him stomps down hard on that idea, and he doesn't just fry the mannequin and Diana. The crackling energy dissipates and he just reaches to try and dislodge his beloved from the puppet's arms.

Diana smiles warmly but still apologetically at James when he takes her hand, and then she's being 'mannequin-handled,' and she cries out in surprise as her hand ends up yanked away from his. She tries to keep her head about this, but honestly it's just too startling, so instead she cries out again, and then a third time when she sees those cracklin' hands. "WAIT!" she yells nervously, though he's got that handled on his own, so she just nods encouragingly when that energy dissipates, and adds in, "I'm sure it'll be fine!" Of course, her tone is panicked, so maybe it's not the best bit of reassurance she could give. But James manfully knocks the mannequin away, and she quickly squeezes his hand before trying to assist Lilith womanfully.

Luckily, Lilith doesn't jump straight to fire and destruction, she takes getting mauled by a taxidermy coyote coming up her leg to stand with paws on her shoulders with relative grace. And by relative grace, that really just means she tries to punch it off of her and push instead of destroying it once she realizes it's not HURTING her.

But really, it does look like it's kind of humping the air at her while trying to dance on its hind legs and keep wobbling balance. It is stuffed and dead afterall, not a limber animal anymore. And you'd think that'd make it easier to tussle with, but it also seems to have no feeling when it gets popped in the snout as a deterrant, nor does it want to pull back when Diana tries to set her free from the canine.

"I think... it likes me. But it still has teeth so I really... is this thing HUMPING me? Good gracious, Tobin, are you..."

James smiles a little at Diana before they turn to try and help Lilith with her pet problem. Alas, that stuffed coyote is not stopping, and the ish and mannequin are back. But if James went Super Saiyan before, now he's proceeded to mastering Ultra Instinct, where his body reacts without him even thinking about it. And so that fish gets smacked away without James even looking, as he immediately notices that mannequin moving towards Diana. He rushes to try to pull her away from it. "Get the fuck away from her!"

Like James, Diana is somewhat acting on instinct now, so she sidesteps the mannequin as James comes toward her, then squeezes his shoulder reassuringly. She goes back to trying to pull that damned coyote off of Lilith, but that thing is determined and Diana, as mentioned before, has noodle arms. "How's it going, Tobin?" she asks toward the stairs, and then realizes she never answered about WHERE the musicbox even is. That mannequin startled her silly, and then she just plain forgot. "Oh, and it's far-ish to the left of the staircase! Left side of the room!" she calls out guiltily.

Lilith yells at the dog first, seeing that Diana and James aren't getting hurt at least helps her focus on keeping the violence down, despite the annoying coyote on her, "No. No. No. Down. Get. Down. Now." And there's authority in that voice like a drill sargeant, something old nature about dogs and alphas triggers, apparently! After some reluctance, it does get down, and she's able to start shoving toward the door yelling to make sure Tobin's okay next, "Tobin, are you okay? Tobin!"

When they hear him through the music finally, Lilith hears one thing and immediately reacts, lashing out with power to follow where the man went and find the box to break, she had seen it and heard it briefly enough to find it from afar. She forgets she doesn't have to SEE things to break them, but Tobin says break.

Break the gears, Lilith! It won't stop!"