A Little... Off

and thought * these are supposed to be the normals??* Apparently, this thing was spreading like wildfire. She took the microphone and said, "Um excuse me. All you who are waiting for an audience with the King, are having trouble controlling their footware, or are having tea parties with big pink bunnies, please take a seat. The rest, please come over here." A small group gathered. Mouse explained that they all needed to keep calm, and stay alert for any other changes.

"Get frelled." Rae mutters affectionately, patting him softly. "You know, now that you mention it, the voices seem to have quieted up a bit..." She frowns and looks around. "Sunny?"

Rae nods. "Yeah. You'll find everything inside that should be necessary to sort this mess out. DNA sequencers, gas chromatographs, all the good stuff. You know how to use it all?"

"Oh, that, I'm not sure...but once I made it back to my room...I wasn't affected by it any more. Must be the metal I lined my walls with. It will with-stand a taceon laser, so...must be what 'cured' me." Sunny grinned.

and directs everyone to follow her. The not-so-clearheaded ones think it's a big game and rush to get behind her, while the unaffected people grumble. "OK. Everyone. Behind me. NOW!" She uses her best Mom voice and surprisingly enough, it works. Soon they are at Rae's door. Mouse opens the door and directs the others to stay outside until she calls them, and asks Ghost to keep everyone calm. But Ghost is frantic, trying to find her mother, so Mouse tries to calm her first.

"I just need a few minutes, and then we'll know more about where your Mom is. Can you just stay here for a few minutes? Here. Look. (Mouse pulls out a doll from inside her cloak.) Pretty? Do you want to play with her?"

Mouse goes directly to the fireplace and is about to pull down the mirror when she hears a scratching noise. She walks over to the window just as Spyral does his Tarzan impression and nearly knocks her over.

Talis looks at the woman who seems to know him. She looks familiar, but he can't quite place her. But, as this IS a mission, he pretends to go along and be this Spyral person she obviously thinks he is.

"Good! Good. Just fine. And you?" he adds. "I'm ok, but it's getting stranger around here by the second. I was just about to get into Rae's lab to try and find a medical reason for these hallucinations so you'd do me a...favor...if..." she breaks off, noticing that he's no longer listening to her.

"More like it's wearing me. Can't get the thing off. Someone's going to have to chop off my head, I guess... I like it though. Feels kind of warm." she says laughingly and turns to activate the scanner, missing Spyral's horrified look and sudden white color.

"Hey, angel, can you help control the crowd out there? I don't want to leave them alone too long." Mouse pulls down the mirror, activates the scanner, takes a second to wonder exactly how Rae got her handprint to code the scanner, but saves that for another day and checks out the door that slid open under the eaves.

She walks into the lab (now she's a mouse_in_the_lab!!!) and whistles at the expensive equipment that is just sitting around. Luckily whoever set it up knew how to maintain it, so the fluids are all set and she could be up and running in a matter of minutes. "Spyral!" she calls out and he pokes his head in. "Yes?" he answered. "Can you send those people in one-by-one so I can start getting some DNA information?"

Mouse pulls a hair from herself to get the instrument calibrated and then starts on the inhabitants of the Mansion. "Want to help?" she asked Spyral. He seemed awfully enthusiastic in his reply, rushing to get a notebook and pen to record who got sampled. But, hey, help in the lab is NEVER rejected so Mouse starts dictating.

"Can we discuss this later?" Raegun snaps. "I can't concentrate with you two snipping at each other like a pair of children! Oh, and Rae, could you kindly ask the voices in your head to SHUT UP?"

"Don't worry about that - I'll appeal to him as a scientist. If that doesn't work, I'll appeal to him as a helpless woman. Never fails." Mouse starts with a drop of her own blood to calibrate the instrument and Spyral watches in fascination as the autosampler starts on it's robotic journey.

Crais growled as he stood at Velorek's bedroom door. "And I am NOT repeating myself. Mouse needs help and you've been drafted. So GET OUT OF THERE!" He strode across the room and flipped the bed onto its side.

Crais shook his head. "Un-frelling-believable... Don't go in there! Do NOT lock that door. I'm warning you... Hey!" Crais shook his head. "I give up." He tapped his comm. "Sir Jila?"

" it looks like the blood of the dilusional people has a bit of dimethyltryptamine in them. I ws talking to godalmighty the other day about drugs in the body and he mentioned this one in particular. He said that dimethyltryptamine and other drugs like LSD and mescaline bind at these same neuron sites reducing the threshold for stimulation of the neuron, greatly enhancing arousal levels, and inducing random nerve firings that are perceived as hallucinations. That combined with the higher levels of melatonin will make them sleepy also. But I can't figure out why some people are afffected and some not. But for now, we need to wake these people up and get them away from that drug, wherever it is. Can you get to Rae and ask her to have Raegun scan the area for those drugs in particular? And get Velorak up here. Spyral took off on me and I can't finish this by myself. Mouse out."

"Yeah. I mean I think we can safely assume that Spy and Jila are the last two people who would go around popping magic mushrooms. If it's being introduced into our systems from without, it stands to reason that it's contaminated the food or water supply. But then wouldn't we all be affected? I'm no expert on epidemiology here, Mouse, but I don't think we're looking for something physical. At least not in any traditional sense..."

Rae nods and starts walking. "Look. Listen, I'm going to come up there. I want you to take a blood sample from me and run it against the others. Then I want you to take a blood-sample from Sunny and see what THOSE results say. While you're running the results, I'll start searching."

"He's smarter than you might think about these things." Rae assures Mouse with a grin as she leaves. "SPY! Stop messing around and get out from behind those shelves. You're going to knock them over. Did you hear me? That's it!"

Rae picks Spy up by the back of his collar and his belt and carries him to the door. She drops him on the floor amidst the gradually shrinking crowd and firmly locks the door behind her.

that the scan was done. "I think we've got a winner." the pulse rifle quipped. "Dimethyltryptamine. In large quantities. That's what the glowy green things are. It must have occured naturally in the caverns below the Mansion."

"Dimethyltryptamine (DMT) - Dimethyltryptamine, (DMT) has a long history of use worldwide as it is found in a variety of plants and seeds ad can also be produced synthetically. It is ineffective when taken orally unless combined with another drug that inhibits its metabolism. Generally it is sniffed, smoked or injected. The effective hallucinogenic dose in humans is about 50 to 100 milligrams and last for about 45 to 60 minutes. Because the effects last only about an hour, the experience was called a "businessman's trip."

"If these green glowy things are mutated plants or seeds, we've got our cause. And the caverns are under the mansion, and you know how porus some of the walls are. That would explain why some people have it and others don't. As for Ghost, maybe she was corporeal for a bit and sniffed some by mistake. Who knows. The good part is that it's metabolized quickly, so once we get rid of the source, the hallucinogenic episodes should cease. Want to start clearing them out? Your physiology seems to shield you from the effect, and my guess is that Sunny has air scrubers in her room. But we better pass out the respirators in any case. And open all the windows."

"I'm entering the caverns now. Crais can tell you where the respirators and hazmat suits are stored. Send down as many people as you can to help me. And see if you can find a way to speed up the metabolism of this stuff." Rae clicks her comm off. "'Business-man's trip'?" She shakes her head. "Terrans..."

Rae slowly approaches one of the green-glowy things, wondering if the spores have any medicinal qualities. She produces a sample-jar and helps herself to a few ounces for later analysis. Tucking the jar away in a front pocket, she considers how best to tackle the infestation.

of the Mansion, which is basically getting all the affected people outside and making them run around, speeding up their metabolism. "Deep breaths, everyone. Deep breaths." Mouse reminds them. She also directed some of the non-affected Scapers to don their hazmat suits and respirators and directed them to rendezvous with Rae and Raegun to help with disposal.

One question nags at her, and Rae hit it right on the head. What was with this necklace? It still was firmly around her neck, with no signs of coming off. Oh well, maybe it was a goodluck charm. And she could always cut it off if need be.

"Next we'll have to check on Jila and Geradan. And Kay and Velorak. I hope everyone's coming out of this ok." Mouse said thoughtfully as she looked at the Mansion. "Sunny and Spyral seemed to snap out of it on their own. Sunny I understand, but Spyral? Well, we'll check in with him once Rae gets back." Mouse suggested.

Jila had finally succeeded in getting the closet door off it's hinges. She was Furious. How could one of the King's own Guard act like this. She threw her helmet on the floor with a resounding clang. He would come out of that closet even if she had to drag him out.

Just as she was about to step through the door frame, and into the closet, Wiz grabbed her by her shoulders. She whirled on the Wizard ready to strike with both fists. Wiz let the hood of his cloak slide off his head, and Jila once again saw the half healed wounds on his face. Her heart sank. Such bravery there must be in this Wizard. She drew a breath, held it for a few seconds, and let it out slowly. His eyes said to her what his foreign words could not, that the man in the closet was under a spell and she would need to treat him kindly.

"Please Sir Velorek," Jila pleaded. "I will not let any harm befall you. I have a mission that needs your help. There is an evil presence here but it is not King Bialar. It is one by the name of Ragnar Redbeard. If the King is evil like you say than it is surely because of him. My mission is to gather an army to vanquish the fiend. The foreign wizard out there is willing to help but I need others who can wield a weapon. May I count on you?"

Jila had run into, tripped over, and fallen onto something, she didn't know what. The sound of air being forcefully ejected came from both her and the object she had become tangled up with. When she finally caught her breath, Jila opened her eyes to see what she had crashed into.

"I... I'm sorry." Jila said, as she stood up and straightened herself out. Velorek reached out and helped the angel to stand. "I..I didn't see you. I am so sorry. It's a sign." Jila said as she turned to Velorek and the Wizard. "It's a sign. We can't lose against Ragnar Redbeard now."

"Wing?" Talis looked over both shoulders to see if Maybe the Warrior knew something he didn't. "I see no wing. Your brain has become scrambled, woman. Too much of using your dragon for a battering ram. I must go." Talis tried stepping through the three who had come through the door.

"Talisman?" Jila thought for a moment. She had heard rumors that a Lady called Mouse (queer name even for one of Royalty) wore an exceptionally strange piece of jewelry around her neck. Perhaps that was what Talis was looking for. "I have heard that one of the inhabitants here wears a pendant of great curiosity. Perhaps that is what you seek."

A little voice in her head said, "You know, you've done well here. What say we go and blow off a little steam?" Now Mouse (unlike other Scapers)was unused to hearing voices in her head. But this voice was so subtle, it was almost like her own inner monologue.

As Mouse walked towards the Mansion, she loosely quoted Tom Cruise in "Risky Business" saying, "Sometimes you just gotta say, 'what the frell'. 'What the frell' gives you power. 'What the frell' gives you freedom."

Mouse headed back to her room, looked around her closet and snorted in disgust. Typical. This closet was so frelling boring that she couldn't stand it. She made her way up to Sixth's (Sixth Sense Dreamer, who was currently on sabbatical) room and opened the door. She made her way over to the closet, and checked it out. Frellin' A, it was perfect. She and Sixth were the same size. She got changed, checked her look in the mirror, and was satisfied. The heavy black leather jacket and black leather pants would do just fine. The boots were great. Her comm lay still attached to the old boring clothes she dropped. She pulled out her black sunglasses and made her way to the garage and looked over the cars.

The Harley was just waiting for her. No huge monstrosity, but style and function all perfectly combined. She checked the gas, got her mirrored helmet, and started that baby up. Yeah. This is just what she needed.

"Rea, I think Mouse is missing. I can't find her in the ballroom, and I think I heard her say something about going out and having a good time. I can't raise her on the coms. What should I do now?"

The driver tapped the stearing wheel along to the sound of Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Freebird" which was playing on the radio. A large internal frame pack stuffed to capacity was in the back seat. An axe was in the passengers side seat, and a canoe was tied to the top of the car. The driver was absentmindedly still wearing a climbing harness with carabeener.

and the miles spinning away under the bike, Mouse felt better than she had in years. That little voice kept reminding her that she had been keeping her own desires bottled up for so long, taking care of things and people that she shouldn't have to deal with, and generally always being the "go-to" girl. Now it was her time to be a free spirit and have some fun. Frell em.

That little voice also knew that it needed to keep this emotionally and mentally exhausted woman far away from that place where those other people would find out it had taken up residence in this necklace, and would want it back.

riding forever! (more like a month..hee hee) She stopped at a disreputable-looking bar and decided to get a drink. She walked into the bar and surveyed the interior. Typical. Dark, although it was mid-day, smoky, with lots of big, biker-looking dudes. Ahh, ok. A pool table. Mouse felt right at home.

"Are you sure you're in the right place?" the gruff older bartender asked her, because although she looked the part, there was something in her eyes that told him she wasn't a barfly.

The two large men playing stopped for a minute, then continued on when she had seated herself near the table. She slammed the top of the bottle against the table edge and expertly popped the top off it. After she had a long drink, she focused on the hunk next to her and asked, "What does a girl have to do around here to play a game of pool?"

Mouse's comm crackles as she lines up her shot. She winces and pulls the cue up short. "Not now, Rae!" she hisses. "I'm in the middle of what promises to be a highly profitable pool hustle."

"Personal log, ears only, Executive level or higher: Abandoned outpost was not as abandoned as Intel indicated. Ran into heavy resistance in the tunnels. I am alone and cannot expect backup at this time. Scematics show an armoury within a half-click of my present location. Will attempt to reach and secure armoury to render current position more feasible. Will attempt to locate sympathetic parties to rebuild my unit. Intel indicates a local militia headed up by one Jila Cosa, who may be sympathetic to Peacekeeper goals. Will attempt to make contact. End log."

Rae pulls off her comm and leaves it resting conspicuously on a shelf where she knows the PK cleanup crews are sure to find it. Then she dives into an access hatch and starts towards the Mansion armoury.

Jila asked Wiz and Velorek frantically as they stood in the intersection of a hallway. They had lost track of Talis Wren in the many hallways they had run through. Not that Jila or her companions couldn’t run fast enough, but Jila had to keep slowing down to adjust the over large helmet that she wore or to make sure that the spear she carried didn’t skewer someone as they walked unexpectedly from one of the rooms along the hallways.

“I know not what you say Wizard,” Jila said scanning the floor for signs of Talis Wren’s passing. “But I’m sure you are trying to be helpful. Squire, please inquire of those people there if they have witnessed anyone dressed in black with one wing passing through here. Somebody is sure to have seen him. I will go down this direction a bit and do the same. Wizard,” Jila leaned close to Wiz hoping her voice wouldn’t carry far. “If you would be so kind as to stay with the good Squire. T’would be my guess that he has seen little of battles and has a squeamish streak to him.” Wiz nodded and sighed. Jila noticed that the Wizard looked very tired. She would make sure that he was handsomely rewarded when this was done.

Jila took the hallway to the left as Velorek and Wiz took the one to the right. Jila could her voices in this direction and felt that someone Must have seen the Angel who called himself a thief. Crossing the little room to the glass doors on the other side Jila found two people, a male and a female, similarly armed and dressed. Each wore low comfortable boots, khaki’s, a well worn leather jacket and brown Fedora. Each had a curious metal piece attached to a strap of leather on their hip, and a whip that they each expertly used. Unfortunately the garden flowers were taking a beating by these whips.

“I have need of your help.” Jila said as she stepped closer to the pair. “King Bialar’s enemy, Ragnar Redbeard, is here in the Castle. He must be found and captured ere he can do more damage than he has already done. Your weapons are… simple, yet I believe they will be helpful in this mission. Will you help me?”

“Hey Swordie!” Indiana Leaped called out then turned back to Jila. “If you can talk our friend Swordie into going, we’ll go too.” He told Jila as the sound of laughter approached.

From down the path a man came talking happily to himself. “An’ ya see Lass, t’was just a bit of the luck that brought me to ya on this day.” To Jila’s amazement he didn’t appear to be the crazed person he sounded like. As the one called Swordie approached the group Jila noticed his clothes: over-the-knee boots, breeches, and a tunic with a short cloak over his shoulders. He carried in one hand a sword, and in the other a tall mug.

"As I have told your friends here," Jila nodded to Leaped and Vi. "I have needs do battle with the Evil Ragnar Redbeard who has taken this castle from our good King Bialar. My mission is to avenge the wrongs he has done and defeat him in a great battle, but King Bialar tells me that my only chance of slaying this enemy is with an army. Will you help?" As Jila spoke she watched the swordsmen sheath his blade and take a couple of food bars from his pouch. He ate one quickly, and then took a large bite of the second.

"T'is not the Sword you'll be needin' lass." Sword and Mug said as he ate the last of the bar. "You'll be needin'.......... " Sword and Mug shuddered, then turned a circle pivoting on one foot and swinging his cloak in a wide arc. "BROWNIEMAN!!!" Dun- dun- DUN!!! There air itself rang with his change. Jila saw that his swordman's clothes had been replaced by Spiderman Underoos. She stifled a laugh and bade her new companions to follow her in her search to expand her army.

"Lady Raven!" Jila straightened her helmet quickly and got back to her feet. "I'm building my army as you and King Bialar bade me." Rae just stared at Jila with an almost blank expression on her face. "To capture and slay the evil Ragnar Redbeard? Lady are you all right?"

*Lady Raven....? King Bialar....? Ragnar Redbeard.....?* All the names had a familiar ring to the but every time Rae thought she'd figured out why the reasons escaped her. "Yes," she said slowing trying to bluff her way through the situation. "Yes, build an army. I will accompany you and fight beside you. This should serve us well." Rae pulled her pulse pistol from it's place on the side of her leg.

"Hey everyone! I'm back!..... uh, Gang? Where is everyone?" said Chryse as she walked into the mansion. *Hmm, they must be busy* she thought as she made her way back to her room. On her way up through the halls she ran into Spyral.

"Oh, do, please hush, you'll wake my children," scolded Kayde. She had popped out of her room at Chryse's shout. "And please, you mustn't use such language, you should be ashamed of yourself."

Rivyn considered. "Considering the hostility of this zone, and the relative rewards of securing it, we may recieve as many as 500 men. Armed with these." Rivyn fires her pulse-pistol at an inoffensive vase, which disintigrates into a fine powder.

"There are some rather odd looking plants in the catacombs that some how caused most of the people here in the Mansion to hallucinate. Rae was going to help me get rid of them...but she's been "infected" again by them. The last thing she asked me was if I had a Scarran disruptor." Sunny filled Chryse in.

"Yes I was...until I went into my room. I have it lined with the same metal that Prowlers are made out of. It keeps me shielded from everyone else in the Mansion's thoughts. Sometimes...being able to hear everyone...even without trying gives me a hell of a head-ache." Sunny explained to Chryse.

"Before Rae got 'infected' again...we were going to clean up those frellin' plants...but I think she took a sample of one and it's 'infected' her again. She doesn't know it." Sunny finished.

Sunny stared off...sighed..."No, I don't have one...but unfortunately, I do know how to build one." She turned to Chryse "You people have no idea the power a disruptor has. It would destroy this entire area." Sunny informed Chryse

"Ok, lets do that... the Mansion's atmospherics... are they on? We can't let any of the spores escape the mansion, and we'll have to scrub the filters and stuff to make sure they don't come back later." said Chryse.

In a about a half hour, they had two well-fueled flame throwers jury rigged. They headed on down to the basements levels in their hazmat suits, trying to avoid their affected friends.