LTCmdr. Quentin Collins - Old Ghosts and Warp Points

[Justin Partridge]

((Interior. Theta 122 Cave System. Gate Island.))

Quentin Collins would have been astounded if he wasn't so scared.

The roiling vortex of the arch's interior seemed to spin and shine in it's own free standing space. Sparking at the edges of the arch's interior stonework and rubied latticing, the energy seemed...almost comfortable within the area. As if completely nonplussed by it's own impossibility. In a way, it charmed Quentin, but his fear of the arcane object still bubbled underneath it all anyway.

He stepped up a pace, brushing the errand globules of wetted sand from his uniform sleeves. He tried to take in the finer details of the arch, but the ghostly hands at its center demanded his attention more so.

Collins: Oh, lovely. That's not terrifying in the least...  

R'Ariel: Have you seen anything like this before?

He turned slightly to his Caitian companion and shook his head. He would have remembered something like this, but even the theory of what it could be danced just outside of his realm of experience and study. He had studied the archeological findings of dozens of civilizations and dozens more worlds unaffiliated with the Federation beyond an academic capacity. But he had never seen something like this with his own two eyes.

On the one hand, it was precisely the kind of thing he had signed up TO see. But on the other...he hadn't anticipated how off-putting it was to see something like this.

Collins: No, not as of yet, Counselor. I have read theories about free-standing transmission artifacts and archaeological findings from races like the Tholians and Iconians but...no, I can't say that I have...had the pleasure just yet. 

She cocked her head to one side, studying the arch just as intently as he was. Her eyes finally found his, Quentin's vision thankfully adjusting to the pale lighting the arch casted throughout the dank and damp cave landing. 

R'Ariel: What just happened to YOU, just now?

He sighed heavily and frowned a touch. They had talked AROUND this in session, but he hadn't gone into detail.

oO Mainly because that means she would have to throw you down the booby hatch right after you did...Oo he thought darkly, but she deserved the truth. If only to practically help him talk through it while they worked this particularly weird problem in front of them.

Collins: I saw...something I used to see at home. Back at Collins House.

R'Ariel: RESPONSE

Collins: Well, remember when I said my childhood home was weird in our last session?

R'Ariel: RESPONSE

Collins: That wasn't just colorful banter. My hometown is...especially strange. In the "People See Ghosts All Time/Hundreds of Local Legends" kind of way. Collins House always seemed a kind of focal point for it, throughout Maine. It's partly why my mother started studying parapsychology. She wanted to try to contact them somehow. Understand them. Led to me having a lot of nightmares growing up. ::under his breath slightly:: and still...

R'Ariel: RESPONSE

Collins: The Blue Lady. She used to hover around the Ballroom at all hours the night. Her portrait was in there. Some distant relative, I think, but she used to look...almost through me. Happened just the same back at the encampment. Just locked her eyes on me and I couldn't look away. How that led to us getting HERE is another question entirely though.

R'Ariel: RESPONSE

As if supported by her kind and lilting voice, he drew Skeets, soaking the arch in all sorts of invasive scans. The energy output was insane, but oddly enough the surface area of the portal AND it's encasement didn't seem to be radiating any heat. Or even an ambient energy bleed. 

oO I wonder...Oo

He reached out his free hand, gingerly, crooking his index and ring fingers slightly in pursuit of touching the rubied stonework for himself. He heard the Counselor take in breath sharply. He cocked a worried, but curious eye at her as his fingers inched closer. In seconds that passed like heavy hours, he carefully padded his finger against the stone and the archway's detailing popped to life with color, pulsing a deep, eye-demanding red throughout the carefully crafted crystals, slicing the pale blue lighting with now blood red.

The vortex also seemed to calm, transitioning from swirling whirlpooling to a pristine, almost mirrored surface. Quentin drew his hand back and looked at it, no burns or pain. Quentin looked up into the arch defiantly. He had already dared...why not dare further?

He plunged his arm into the now calmed vortex, bracing himself against the structure of the arch, feeling around "inside" the arch.

R'Ariel: RESPONSE

His arm searched around what...felt like a table? Wooden, perhaps? Or more polished stone?

Collins: I think...I got something...

He grasped the nearest item he could and then extricated his hand and shoulder from the vortex. The calm, smoothed energy returned, but the latticing of the arch looked somewhat dull with his exit. Quentin wondered if that was a sort of sign of it's "charge", but that was a question for another day.

The real questions were why he had pulled a simple water pitcher from this impossible archway and where exactly he had pulled that pitcher had come from.

R'Ariel: RESPONSE   

--

TAG/TBC

LIEUTENANT COMMANDER 

QUENTIN COLLINS III

FIRST OFFICER

U.S.S. ARROW NCC-69829

ID: E239512QC0

[[CO-FORUM OPERATOR 

(SB118 Forums) 

F.N.S. CONTRIBUTOR]]