Midnight Mayhem
Posted on Fri Mar 25th, 2022 @ 3:30pm by Lieutenant Gunnar Arnason & Caithlin t'Leiya & Cornelius Warner MS & Raikael t'Leiya & Seshi Macae
4,625 words; about a 23 minute read
Mission:
Roll With It
Location: Haumea Proper, Various Locales
Timeline: MD 01: 0012 Hrs
Midnight was the time Haumea's nightlife began to bubble out of it's chaotic climax. The handful of bars and nightclubs that made up the afterhours business for the Colony's economy were beginning their wind downs, coaxing the patrons into thinking about making exits. Slowly, but before the sun peeked over the edge of the horizon.
As this was no different from any other night on Haumea, midnight began the well-known rituals of the boozy establishments.
The first ripple throughout Haumea Proper was subtle; a slight atmospheric pressure akin to that of the air before a thunderstorm. And the second, which came about stronger, cast the air around the proper in a sickly green hue.
But the third was what brought about the changes. Perfectly paved roads shifted to cobblestone. Syntheticly-made clothing turned to scratchy fabrics and leathers. For some, chain and metal began to weigh them down. Phasers and work equipment turned to swords, shields, and bows. PaDDs to maps, and so on, all in the blink of an eye.
Seshi was entertaining a pair of newly-arrived Romulan diplomats, both of whom unenthused by the beverages they were served. A minute ago, she was talking to them about how they would be welcome to settle on the colony and they should not face any opposition from any of the various parties within it. The next moment, she was in flowy velvet robes instead of her typical silks and inherited dresses, with a rather gawdy set of bracelets and matching necklace accenting the odd, royal blue outfit. As she looked about the room, she noticed that her guests went from their own ambassadorial uniforms to odd forest green and leather outfits, complete shining scimitars hanging at their sides. They looked equally as confused as the rest of the Saloon's patrons.
"You'll have to excuse me, it seems as if I'll need some air." With an apologetic nod, Seshi turned from her now bare-chested father (... was that a battle axe leaning against the bar?), as well as the two ambassadors, and she made her way out of the Saloon's stuffy interior. Perhaps outside was...
Just as bizarre. Anyone who passed by seemed to be in a similar state she was, and she was sure that dog had battle armor on. And were the street lamps... candle-powered? Seshi let out a deep breath. Was it easier to believe this was what was in front of her right now, or that she had maybe partaken in too much of her father's own concoctions?
A bit further down the block, a tall blonde man in chain and leather armor was staring in disbelief at the steel studded leather bracers on his wrists. His mind was flat out refusing to acknowledge the axe and long sword hanging where his small medkit had been clipped only moments ago, or the dirk he could feel in the fur-lined boots that had somehow replaced his running shoes.
Gunnar squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head, hard. But the illusion refused to dissipate. Had someone drugged him?? For brief horrifying moment he was afraid he was back with captors trying to bend his mind, but even Fleck wouldn't have come up with this as a mind game. He'd been on Haumea, he was sure of it. Until a few moments ago he'd been listening to a couple of the volunteers from the hospital performing at an outdoor cafe and he had gotten up to head home when they finished... He looked back toward the cafe he'd just left - now apparently an ancient darkened market stall - and pinched the bridge of his nose, cursing quietly in his native tongue.
It was the glint of all the weaponry in the candlelight that caught Seshi's attention. She squinted, to ensure that she actually knew the person carrying all that. "Ah! Lieutenant Arnason!"
She rose a hand to wave, and as she did, a small ball of flames shot from her hand, which harmlessly shot off up into the sky. Seshi placed the same hand on her chest. "Oh! Oh my."
Gunnar looked up hearing his name, spotting someone else in an unusual outfit. Was this some elaborate practical joke? He still remembered someone having once stuck him with a holographic horned helmet on April Fools Day... His hand went to his head. No horns. So that was positive, maybe?
He took a step toward the ...gypsy? sorceress? And immediately halted, startled when a fireball erupted from her palm. But seeing her clasp it to her chest, the medical officer in him kicked in and he hurried toward her. "Ms. Macae? Are you all right? Is your hand burned?"
"That's all a matter of opinion," Seshi replied, hand still on her chest and eyes up to the sky where the fireball had disappeared off to by now, if it had not already dissipated. "Either I'm experiencing hallucinations because I've had too much to drink, or we're in some time-space... thing." She tilted her head to one side at Gunnar. "But my expertise tends toward juggling, showmanship, and conversation. Not - " she paused to wave an unburned hand, having forgotten that Gunnar even asked, "Whatever this is."
Gunnar glanced at the hand - there were no visible signs of burns and Seshi did not seem to be in any pain. He wished he knew what had happened to the medkit he usually carried since a medscanner would be useful to confirm that, as well as determine if they'd been exposed to some sort of mind-altering drug. "If that was showmanship, it was impressive," he remarked. "As to drinking though, to the best of my recollection I hadn't had anything stronger than black coffee before..." he looked around vaguely, "...this happened."
"It could be in the water," Seshi pointed out plainly. Not that that was a thought she would have liked to have had. "Considering our past encounters on this colony with the animal life making a visit and the caves trying to send us odd places, I wouldn't be surprised if the water was in on it as well." She paused a beat, before looking back at the saloon she had stumbled out of. Instead of its usual, modular appearance, it looked more akin to a cottage she would have read about in one of the holonovels from the old books she had as a child. "... And it would mean everyone else was experiencing this, or else we're very sensitive to whatever this is. Have you heard anything from Starfleet or the hospital?"
Good question. Gunnar reflexively reached to tap his comm ...and then stopped. He didn't have a comm, just a... He felt the metallic shape where a shoulder strap met chest armor and cursed under his breath. A stylized mjolnir. "I feel pretty confident I'm not wasted." He didn't say that that was because there was no level of wasted in which he'd imagine himself a devotee of frakking Thor. "Without a comm I can't hear from anyone. Let's see if we can find anyone else who might a have a clue what's going on out here."
Daggers! Cornelius had cursed to himself as he slipped into the shadows to give himself a once over. His original thought was the Caithlin had proved to have caught on to his past life and been angry, and in doing so had slipped him something - but none of the familiar side effects existed. He had checked for sweating, running his hands under a shirt that was made of some kind of overly extravagant silk, and found no signs of poisoning. The trousers itched but were loose and flexible. In fact, everything about what the man was wearing was flexible, like it was meant for someone sneaking around and needing the ability to move with as little sound as possible. The heavy black cloak blended into the shadows, ad covered his form, and was as he'd just noticed, filled with secret little pockets.
Pockets full of daggers it seemed. He'd counted all that was now on his person and at best guess where were thirteen. As he fumble about his cloak he found a small pack, which he pulled from his belt ad began to root around in, pulling the various trinkets out to inspect them in the dim light. A collection of candles, some unlabelled bottles, and a set of lockpicks were the first things he found followed by yet another dagger, some rope, a grappling hook, and - aha! A mirror. He pulled the reflective metal out and gave himself a once over, getting a better look. He was still him, and this was still Haumea, but something was very wrong. He noticed, perched upon his nose was a pair of glasses - he'd had corrective surgery as a child to fix his eyes that had left small pieces of glass in to keep them corrected, but apparently whatever this was hadn't translated. Still slightly tipsy, he glanced about, before he spotted her, Caithlin wasn't far, and in that direction he took off running, to check on the woman, and tried to ignore the strikingly medieval world that now surrounded him.
Caithlins' reaction to the change was similar yet distinct from Cornelius': Her outfit, perhaps, hadn't changed quite as much, in comparison; from her flowing tunic and pants to still silky smooth fabrics with layering of minimal but functional leather armor covered in intricate designs; a more formal version echoing the outfits Seshi was at that same time noting on those she had been meeting with. It was the weight of the sword at her side that first cued her to the change, and as she assessed the situation, before she had even finished doing so let alone consider the possibilities of having been drugged into a hallucination or such as Cornelius had, Caithlins' very first move was to get her back to a wall. Any wall, which in this case belonged to a nearby building that in normal times was a local shop but now had a sign hanging above it announcing the presence of a blacksmith. A rapid inventory of the scene around her revealed a confusing mix of things different enough to make her consider 'transported somewhere' alongside 'drug induced hallucination' as a hypothesis; but there was enough similar to make her set it aside too as less likely. An equally ruthlessly conducted inventory of herself and her attire revealed a few daggers and the like to go along with the sword, some bizarre small bottles of tinctures or dried herbs she had no idea the purpose of and was careful not to open, and a few other items; the same pinned upswept hair and pointed ears as usual, but now the pins holding that hair up had gold and silver leaves etched on them in place of the usual.
When Cornelius caught up with her, Caithlin swept one leg out, knocking the unfamiliar figure pursuing her off balance and drawing on him, point to his chin - the sword at her side wasn't a style she was familiar with, but the balance was exquisite when she did so, for all it was unnaturally light, and sized for her hand as if it had been made for her. Some recognition came over her a moment later once she could see his face, and she backed the tip of the weapon off a bit, but she didn't sheath it or move it away from him entirely yet.
"What the hell is this?!?" The lawyers' voice was tense in her half-spoken, half-shouted demand for answers, a wary intensity matched by the fact that she had reverted to her native tongue, the language she had spoken through most of the situations that had threatened her life to date.
Having hit the ground hard, Cornelius had been impressed by the swift movement of Caithlin, but less impressed with the blade now shoved in his face, increasingly less with the fact she was speaking Romulan, a language he spoke, but with the grace and care only a human could manage to degrade the language with. Clumsily, he responded with "A scimitar, if had to make poor guess." His grammar was dreadful. On the flat of the blade, he casually pushed it aside before righting himself to his feet and brushing off the dust. "Hoped you would have known," he said back in Federation common with a heavy sigh. "Unless we are both wildly hallucinating, which will raise more questions, something is terribly wrong." His accent was off - too high brow for his liking. Whatever this was it had a sense of humour in it all. "Magic," he said, back in Romulan - hoping that Caithlin hadn't relied on translators all this time, but wanted to be sure, and layered the statement with as much sarcasm as he could muster. Out in the open he got a much better look at things, and that only raised more questions.
"Much as my life has somewhat resembled a variety of ancient tales in pieces of its tragedy and its irony, I seriously doubt that." Caithlin muttered in response to the 'Magic' comment. "And no, I have no idea." The answers were woven seamlessly together in a demonstration of proof that she did, in fact, speak both languages without the translator; though there was a lilting subtle accent in her Federation speech that had been one of the tells back on Earth that she was not a native. She reluctantly put away the sword, but exchanged it for one of the daggers, just in case. "I considered the possibility of transport to another site, but there are many similarities to the colony. Too many for coincidence." She knocked the edge of the door to the now-blacksmiths' shop with one booted toe; the facade and the purpose had changed but the placement of the building was quite similar, as were some other features of their surroundings. Enough similar yet enough different to drive one mad, perhaps. "I also considered hallucination, yes, but the types of agents that can induce such tend to have...ancillary effects. Of which I have noted none."
"Yeah, I drank enough to knock me on my ass before, but I haven't noticed any of the usual signs." He leaned over, and could faintly make out the signs of where his bar was seated just off the beaten path, though what it was now was anyone's guess, and he hadn't yet worked up the desire to go check, lest it now is stables or something more of a twist on his life - perhaps a brothel? Pushing the thought from his mind, he turned his attention to Caithlin. "I say we stick together, and try and find people who will maybe have a better idea, at the very least a Starfleet officer to ask some questions of. Unless you have a better idea?"
"No. That will do." Caithlin swept her eyes around the area again, and turned to start towards closer to the center of town, then flicked a glance up and down Cornelius' new outfit. "If that get up came with a weapon, draw it and keep it at ready. We have no idea what or who else may be in wait, or what their motives are." It was not the sort of thing she was used to having to warn an adult on; and could have been taken as an insult, even, by another of her own kind, to imply they were so incautious to need the reminder. But more than half a decade of interactions with Gunnar had schooled Caithlin that some human adults could be remarkably clueless in some things; and while she hoped the barkeep was not given his time in the Empire, she was unwilling to stake their lives on that at the moment if she could remedy any potential deficit with a simple reminder.
As if on cue to her thought, a tall blonde decked out like a barbarian warrior - but pointedly not holding any of the weapons hung about his person - came around the corner with a shorter dark-haired woman who might have been a gypsy or sorceress, or some combination of both.
It took Gunnar a moment upon sighting the elven princess to place her as Caithlin, and he nearly bit his cheeks to keep in an abrupt laugh when he did. His working theory at the moment was bizarre dream - he'd eliminated hallucinogen because he'd been dosed with those before, and he'd certainly gotten very, very drunk a few times, but in neither case had he experienced anything like this - however laughing still seemed like a bad idea. "Ms t'Leiya?" he asked, not quite certain what he expected in response.
A slight eyebrow rise was paired with a soft peel of genuine laughter and mirth for a moment as Caithlin ID'd Gunnar and took in his guise. "I am assuming you have no idea what any of this is, either?" She unfortunately doubted he would have chosen his current attire and equipment for himself; as she had yet to see even the children manage to cajole him into sparring with them more than a handful of times, let alone make use of a live blade.
"None whatsoever," he replied with a near sigh, and opened his hands as if to display his outfit, a look of befuddled disbelief on his face. "I haven't been forced into wearing anything like this since my brother dragged me along to one of his historical re-enactments." He frowned at the memory. History was interesting; playing at 9th century viking however had been interesting primarily in highlighting why his people had left all that behind.
"I still insist we're hallucinating," Seshi stated with the stubbornness of a farm full of goats. "At least mildly. Though, I suppose if it were, we wouldn't have passed - what was that poor Evoran doing with all those musical instruments? He looked like he was about to start a one-person band with all that."
"Hallucination as the cause is highly unlikely, though at first I considered similar." Caithlin said. "On first, the grounds that most methods of inducing such have other effects, and I have not noted any such; second, we it would be extremely unlikely even had we all been dosed with some method that lacks secondary effects, that we would share exact details of such hallucinations between multiple people, which Cornelius and i made several checks of as we made our way here, with our perceptions lining up; and third..."
Caithlin lifted a lithe hand, and slid the sleeve up slightly on her left arm, displaying the rapidly developing greening bruise, and the elven dagger whose hilt she'd taken and slammed into her arm, needing to test the theory on the way over but loathe to cut herself with an unfamiliar blade she couldn't check for poison. "Most hallucinations don't get detailed enough to induce visual, auditory, and pain receptor feedback at once. And the ones that do again wouldn't line up between us." She shrugged her eyebrows. "I am uncertain as to what this is, or how. But I judge 'hallucination' all but ruled out." Her head tilted sideway slightly. "Though I suppose it could theoretically be possible if a single, powerful telepathic being linked peoples' minds in a shared delusion they controlled. But there are no such creatures on the colony, as far as we know."
In the back and forths that had occurred, Cornelius had been staring up to the sky, watching, gently tapping his wrist as he'd gone. "Not our stars," he muttered, squinting through his glasses and looking for signs of any artificial satellites at all. "Our moon," he now said more confidently, "but not our stars. Whatever this is, it's filtering everything out, and almost looks like there is some kind of colour shift." He glanced towards Gunnar. "You were starfleet right? Want to do me a favour?" Pulling the large circular lenses from his face he held them up. "I was born far sighted, and if my theory is correct, those are glasses to correct them. They might be useful as telescopes, but I'm going to have a hell of a time focusing on them right. Tell me what colour the stars are?"
"I don't need your glasses for that. And honestly the best you could make with two corrective lens is a very simple scope, which would just show you stars as slightly larger points of lights," Gunnar replied, scanning a night sky he'd gotten to know well ever since discovering on Starfleet compound's roof included a small fire pit. "To answer your question, the stars are all white, and more to the point, the planets that should be visible now, appearing blue and orange, there and there," he pointed to where each would have been, "are missing."
"That makes no sense." Caithlin stared upward for a minute herself. "If the planets were truly missing, the gravitational shifts from such should have affected other objects such as the moon, as well. And the amount of power required to cloak something as large as a planet...Well. If anyone has it, there would be no reason to waste it here. Or to relocate our entire planet and its moon to foreign stars." The idea of someone or something having simply picked up and relocated the entire planet had quite frankly not occurred to her until now in her assessment that they must still be in the same place from indicators of such at the ground level, and was disturbing in the extreme to contemplate the level of power or advanced technology such would require to even be on the table as a possibility for the current situation. She flicked a glance over at Cornelius. "You have a theory, clearly; to approach such a line of inquiry?"
"I don't think we've moved at all," Cornelius said, looking around at all the details around him. "The way things seems to be warped and missing, I think we haven't moved at all, but someone has changed things. Holograms maybe? It doesn't feel like holograms, and they have gone to extreme lengths to mess with my eyes. So now I wonder if this is some kind of trick? What was that thing that the Enterprise had to deal with constantly? The P? M? Some single letter entity that always messed with them and changed things around?" He shrugged. "I say we try and find an edge."
"The Q," Gunnar supplied with a heavy sigh. A low ranking nurse should have had no reason to know that, but he had (quite unwillingly) learned about the 'Continuum'. His eyes darted around the altered landscape halfway expecting to see someone dressed in a flamboyant uniform or clothes befitting royalty. Not spotting such, he eyed the sky, scowling. "Q, if this was you, I liked it better when you turned me into a golden retriever."
"...The Q turned you into a dog. I have not heard this story." Caithlin seemed caught between amusement and concern, or perhaps both at once; while most of the Empire's knowledge of the bizarre and terrifyingly powerful beings had come from intelligence on the Federation, she had heard of them before...but not this. "We may have to remedy that in the future. Still. I fail to see why they would take an interest in this place." The rather lack of interest of most of the galaxy in the colony had been a major selling point for Caithlin herself, in fact. "Possible, though. The most plausible theory so far, then: Actions of the 'Q' or some other powerful outside force. The question would then become why, to what end, and what can we do about it." She frowned in a way that ended half turning into a teasing smile with one corner of her mouth turning up slightly as she looked at the various weapons Gunnar's outfit had come with. "Other than taking the opportunity to teach you more of how to use such things."
"I'm actually somewhat surprised Kali never told you that one..." Though on second thought, given that Q had debated turning her into a rabbit, maybe it wasn't so surprising after all. "But since no being has appeared in a snap of light to make snide comments, I guess whatever caused this probably wasn't Q. That doesn't rule out any other random god-like beings, dimensional rifts, projected illusions, or..." he circled a hand vaguely at the entire unbelievable situation, "...various causes of mass hallucination." Ignoring the comment about the ridiculous array of weaponry he'd been saddled with, he went back to what Cornelius had said. "But it's a good suggestion to see if there's an edge. As I recall, about half the Starfleet records of away teams finding themselves in created spaces note that they have a limit."
Caithlin seemed to be considering the situation and the options for a moment. "Alright. Which way did the two of you come from?" She indicated Gunnar and Seshi, "We'll pick a direction none of us started at and head that way first."
"That direction." Seshi pointed behind her. She didn't quite wait for the others to pick a direction, choosing to storm off in whatever direction she thought Caithlin and Cornelius came from. Whether she was right or not, she was on a mission now. She did not know who Q was, and could have cared less if he was powerful enough to turn people into dogs or whole colonies and the people in them into fantastical settings that people dreamt of. "I need to have a talk with this Mr. Q."
"Um, I just said it probably wasn't..." Gunnar trailed off, seeing that Seshi had a full head of steam and was not likely to listen to any objections. With a shrug, he turned and headed after her. It seemed best to stay together, and given that she could shoot fireballs, it was probably a good idea to have a medic on hand in case lost her temper.
Cornelius offered a mock bow, sweeping an arm in the direction of the storming off Seshi to Caithlin and followed suit. He was feeling better, ego aside from having been caught off guard by Caithlin, and was thinking the moment to scan the surroundings. Everything felt like some kind of dungeon fantasy holo, but there was more to it than that. Smells and the cool air suggested otherwise, something a hologram was never going to be great at replicating. There was also an itch at the back of his mind, like he should be sticking to the shadows, as though the fantasy was trying to type cast him into some kind of rogue. Still, it was fun to have an adventure every once and a while.
Caithlin glared at the direction Seshi had stormed off in, feeling rather like she had lost control of the situation in a way that left her without many good options; with the rest of the group now heading in a direction they hadn't fully thought through and not one she would have selected; and no option but to strike out on her own or to follow. A moment or two later, she muttered the Romulan equivalent of 'Are you fucking kidding me?!?' under her breath, stalking off to the follow the rest.
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