Searching Grotto

Posted on Fri Sep 1st, 2023 @ 4:36pm by Jeassaho Kea (*) & Delaney O'Callaghan & Chief Helmsman Kalahaeia t'Leiya

Mission: Fractures
Timeline: 1st February 21:00
1632 words - 3.3 OF Standard Post Measure

“Welcome to the Grotto, a room unlike any other in the universe, where wonders of the weird and wonderful collide to create an awe-inspiring spectacle or as I like to call it the Collector's crap,” Jeassaho commented to Delaney and Kali as the group had been tasked to work out what device had hurt Burnie. The room was dimly lit, with soft, pulsating lights emanating from various alien devices suspended from the ceiling that cast strange lighting over the place. “Let's try and get some more light,” Jeassaho said climbing over a stack to find the light switch. She clicked it on and a faint hum filled the air, adding an air of mystery and anticipation to the room that Jeassaho tried to avoid.

It was the one area of the ship that Delaney had been itching to explore since she'd first heard about it. A certain acting security chief had other ideas about letting her loose in restricted areas, of course, and the redhead was not one to flaunt direct orders, but the curiosity ran bone-deep. Delaney was aware they were there because something had caused problems for Burnie, which meant she had some understanding that this was a serious endeavour, but it was more restraint than she had to keep the subtle gleam of excitement from her eyes as she scanned the room. "I'm going to guess that none of this is on the manifest." Which made it her duty to rectify that.

"That's probably a very sure bet, yeah." Kali reached out towards the pile where she'd left the gorgeous royal blue jeweled earrings she'd spotted when she and Cassie were retrieving the heaters during the storm, finding them still there and running a wistful finger over them. "I still say we should arrange to auction a bunch of it sometime soon." She dropped the earrings back into the sub-pile from whence they'd come. "Any idea what we're looking for? Where was he standing in here when...whatever happened happened?"

Jeassaho smiled as she noticed Kali eyeing up the earrings. “Some of it has gone but as it is only Cassie really going through all of this it’s slow work.” Jeassaho commented as she pointed to the area that Nollel had told them they were looking through.

"Well, hello, all she has to do is ask for help." Delaney leaned forward, putting her face close to something that resembled a badly-constructed kitchen appliance, and had the wherewithal to avoid touching it. "Out of earshot of Leiddem, of course, he's been pretty consistent about insisting I not poke around in here." She turned and tilted her head to the side to consider her reflection in a nearby mirror propped up against the crate. The effect was surprisingly normal, if you ignored the fact that her likeness was upside-down.

“I think she likes the work and the fact it gives her a little time away from all the glances and discussions after Jo… before holoworld.” Jeassaho said with a bit of a shrug and started to wandered around the compartment with the tricorder. “And I cannot blame him. Reuben is not overly a fan of me being here but with the chief engineer in sickbay I am all he has to figure out what happened alongside you both.”

"So, we're looking for some kind of thing that triggered Burnie's temporal spider-senses..." Kali reached out one gloved hand - seemed smart not to touch things with bare ones, given the issue - and flipped through another pile of random small items, but near as she could tell they were exactly what they appeared be, which was...elements only knew what, in most cases: The past owner of the place had clearly been one hell of a hoarder. "...Which is probably somewhere around here, but we don't know what. You getting anything better on this than I am?"

“I am getting no temporal feedback, no particles or anything like that.” Jeassaho sighed softly as she looked up from the tricorder. It was not making sense but when did anything in the grotto make sense.

"You'd think a collector would organise things a bit better than this. Half of this stuff isn't even properly on display, or if it was, it's been pretty thoroughly rearranged."

Holding her own tricorder out in front of her, Delaney squeezed past the boxes that the mirror had been propped up against and shimmied her way through some tight spaces towards an area, somewhere near the back of the section, that appeared to have been partially laid out by someone with a plan for where things should be situated. Everything was coated liberally in dust and she realised, as she switched on a small flashlight to make better sense of the gloom, that there were strands of what very much appeared to be spider's web connecting some of the outstretched hands of certain statues, pointing at each other in perpetual accusation. A faint smile tugged at her lips. Leiddem's reluctance took on fresh perspective.

Jeassaho wandered a few meters into the grotto taking in the sights of things she had not seen in years as Reuben had practically banned her after the virus and chaos that the room created every time it cropped up. “From the holo recordings he sounded unhinged in his final days.” Jeassaho commented half glancing back. “Thankfully that has stopped repeating every time we come in…”

"Yeah haven't heard nearly as much about him as you have probably, but what I have heard sounds like he definitely had a few screws loose. Much like this collection of...stuff." That the pile of random junk was judged to be a pile of random junk by someone who's quarters frequently looked as disorganized and pack-rat-esque as Kali's did said a lot about the extreme nature of the Collector's proclivities. "I got nothing so far either. Well, lots actually; but nothing that I think is what we're looking for. You got anything yet Delaney?"

Jeassaho turned when Delaney did not answered. “Delaney?” Jeassaho called out as she looked around blanket at the woman not being anywhere near where she last saw her. She wandered around the mound of items to check that she had not stumbled and knocked herself out whilst she had been deep in thought. “Where is she?”

"Maybe she found a personal cloaking device." Kali joked, but only halfway: The place was such a nest of unknown and random items that it wouldn't have entirely surprised her if there was one in there somewhere, and it was odd that she couldn't spot Delaney.

"Cannot say I have ever seen anything in here," Jeassaho commented with a shrug as she lost sight of the Romulan as she started to hunt further around. "Maybe?" Jeassaho said wandering further around the stack still. It was not that big but it was big enough to lot see the others as she moved around.

"Either that or she's having to dig her way free of some pile that collapsed on her. I swear this dude didn't know when to stop adding stuff." Kali rolled her eyes at the ship's former owner in abstentia.

Jeassaho was not sure what Delaney was playing at as she walked around in a circle and could not see her. "What would you do if had a personal cloaking device?" She wondered trying to make conversation with the pilot.

"Honestly; probably just save it for some dicey situation in the future. Good Plan B, and all that." Kali grinned.

As Jeassaho shifted around the edge of the display she jumped as Delaney was suddenly there again. "There you are. Where have you been?" She wondered shaking her head.

Standing exactly where she'd been for the past few minutes, tricorder in one hand and a small wooden box that she'd been in the process of trying to reshelve in the other, Delaney pulled a face at the question. "Just hanging out here with all my new friends." She gestured at the litter of smaller artifacts scattered haphazardly across the floor from a dislodged shelf. "What, did I stray into a no-go zone?"

Jeassaho raised an eyebrow at the moments statement. "We have been looking for you?" Jeassaho said quietly looking around. Had they missed her?

With eyebrows raised, Delaney passed her gaze back and forth between the two bewildered faces, sporting a fair amount of her own incredulity for their confusion. "Well, I haven't gone anywhere. I don't know if all this got knocked over when Burnie had his moment," she continued, turning to survey the mess. "Or if someone else has been messing about in here, but I found it like this, all over the place."

Jeassaho frowned and shook her head as she leant out to a display feeling strange for a moment. She shook her head at the sudden recollection of when and where she had felt the familiar strange feeling. "Okay... well... I do not know but we do not go any further. Nothing seems to be here that I can find. Just a weird feeling." Jeassaho did not like the uneasiness the compartment created but there was nothing that could explain Burnie's sudden issues, Delaney's missing in action or her own sudden feeling.

"Lots of stuff is here. Just..none of it seemingly what we're actually looking for, that we can tell." Kali sighed.

"Yeah… I think we all should get to bed. I will feed back to sickbay and rhs Captain." Jeassaho said with one final sweep around of her tricorder. "Nothing." She sighed frustrated. There had to be something somewhere that they were missing but there was just nothing.