Dr. Daniel Jackson (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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trans_92011-09-16 12:15 am
hi_there_aliens) wrote in trans_92011-09-16 12:15 am
Archaeology, Natural Disasters and You [Closed]
The trip down revealed that Taleen was going to be of several things, none of which were pleasant. Arid, pale with a light dusting of red from the rocks, and yellow-white grass that extended in plains all the way towards far off mountains . There was a giant gash in the land near the orb landing area, which resolved itself into a massive canyon as the party drew closer. Spider webbing out across the top of the canyon were signs that a civilization had once flourished here. Traces of broken pillars and half submerged buildings, as well as what looked like a downed ship that had embedded itself in a massive building. There was no movement visible amongst the ruins now. As the dry wind blew through the stonework, it would became clear that they were walking into a mass graveyard.
Not somewhere you'd want to spend your vacation.
For some people, this was going to be a field day.
According to the scans and what little records they had, there hasn't been a sentient being around for hundreds of years. The majority of native wildlife had moved out of the area, seeking refuge. The land looked dead already. In the sky above, several specks of light twinkled in the sky, growing bigger with each passing hour. In a few days, it will be raining fire.
[Closed to Daniel, Eleventh Doctor, Sofia, Jamie, Hoshi, Howard, Billy, the Master, River Song, Cassie, Tom]
Not somewhere you'd want to spend your vacation.
For some people, this was going to be a field day.
According to the scans and what little records they had, there hasn't been a sentient being around for hundreds of years. The majority of native wildlife had moved out of the area, seeking refuge. The land looked dead already. In the sky above, several specks of light twinkled in the sky, growing bigger with each passing hour. In a few days, it will be raining fire.
[Closed to Daniel, Eleventh Doctor, Sofia, Jamie, Hoshi, Howard, Billy, the Master, River Song, Cassie, Tom]
Re: Daniel Jackson || Sub Temple B
When Howard's involved, 'smart-ass' is usually a safe bet. If not, the second-best qualifier tends to be 'weasel'. Up until recently, he was fine with both of those labels.
"Does it matter? Meteor shower's going to take it down in a few days. A self-destruct sequence would at least be a once-in-a-lifetime kind of sight for these things. Not that I'd want to be inside when it does, obviously." He wipes the algae off his finger and onto the floor next to the drain. "Algae, huh? Wonder if it's edible. Earth algae's pretty good for protein."
He follows Daniel's flashlight to the pipes in the wall - small, well-hidden, and it looks like they go up higher than he can reach. He feels along one of the lower pipes, looking for any indication or a seam or notch or something to d more than just transport the water. He runs his other hand a bit above it, trading sight for touch in the shadows and the dark of the wall's surface. He's skilled with his hands and despite the callouses he's built up, good at identifying things tactually. After sundown, light was a rare commodity back home. Fires were dangerous; batteries, scarce.
"Hey, you read hieroglyphics?" he asks as he runs his fingers over grooves in the rock that feel too uniform to be scratches, then pulls his hand back to see that they're in no language he can read (a category which pretty much encompasses English and pig latin). He pulls his little notepad out of his pocket, holds a piece of paper flat over the symbols, and rubs the lead of the pencil widely across the surface, leaving an imprint on the page. White on dark grey is infinitely easier to read than black on black. He rips the page out and holds it out to Daniel. "Don't see no mechanisms, but there's wingdings over here."
If Daniel's goal is to get Howard engaged, it's accomplished between the fact that Howard is a kinetic learner and that he does well when his natural curiosity is encouraged. He's also studying Daniel as much as the door puzzle. Daniel in his element is much more confident than he was back before they were sent to Galilee, and there's something pedagogical about him that Howard can't tell if he dislikes or not. Howard half figures Daniel already knows what to do and is letting Howard figure it out on his own...for what? An ego boost? A test of intelligence? Simple curiosity?
Re: Daniel Jackson || Sub Temple B
Howard had a point. It wasn't going to make a difference if you looked at it that way: the entire place was going down in less than two days, but there was that slim, slim chance that it might not. Maybe the meteors might impact other parts of the site, or graze the tower, or really, who could predict for sure? Daniel had to admit it, he was reaching. This place was too beautiful, too much of an archaeological treasure trove to be wiped out in an instant, but he hadn't exactly come up with a way to single-handedly stop a natural disaster since he spoke to Sofia.
"Yes, well, I'm not going to be responsible for bringing the place down earlier. And neither are you," Daniel added quickly. He watched Howard, hoping he wasn't going to put it in his mouth. Maybe it was edible back home, but those were some very important keywords: back and home. Daniel relaxed when Howard wiped his finger off instead. "Let's not risk poisoning while we're at it."
Daniel watched in quiet approval as Howard took it upon himself to make rubbings of the carvings without being prompted. If anything, he was an intuitive learner and a quick study, something that in his mind, was more valuable in the field than memorizing an entire library's worth of books, although it was on the tip of his tongue to correct his grammar: 'don't see any mechanisms', not 'don't see no', but Daniel let it drop after a second. It took a visible effort. He looked like he was about to reconsider it when Howard tagged the writing as "wingdings".
"I can read hieroglyphics, but these aren't quite what I'm used to."
He could start looking for repeated symbols, maybe find a pattern, but unless they found the equivalent of a Rosetta Stone lying around (extremely doubtful) or a natural speaker (even more doubtful), it was gonna be tough. Maybe impossible under this time limit. Daniel touched the writing, letting his fingers read each edge and curve. They did look like they escalated. It went right to left like Arabic. A cluster of spirals, and then near the next pipe, the same cluster but tripled, and then at the next pipe, tripled again.
Re: Daniel Jackson || Sub Temple B
"Wait, you can legit read hieroglyphics?" Howard actually looks impressed, which isn't a reaction he hands out easily. He knew Daniel was educated, but was expecting some sort of modest professorship with excavation on the side rather than altogether too many applicable skills. At least, that was the impression he got from reading up on archaeology - clearly it was lacking.
He stays over by the originals, tracing them over and over with his fingers. "You know, if I have to guess, I'd say the swirly things are probably water. You know, whirlpools and all when you drain a tub? That sort of thing. And that these might be instructions, nine-to-three-to-one ratio to make it do whatever."
Which still doesn't help if they can't figure out how to turn on the water in the first place. Howard paces around the doorway, tilting his head side to side and flattening the metal bit of the pencil in his teeth as some kind of unwitting compulsion. "Standing water that hasn't dried up is probably underground, some kind of underwater lake. Only way to pull that up is if you got a long enough straw going up, so this is probably at least part a water tower. Which means it goes up and then comes back down to the drains...and if the water's got to split into three rivers..."
He pushes the med kit in front of him and then gets up and stands on it, right in front of the door. His fingers barely scrape the top of the door's upper seam, even on the kit and on tip toes. But it's enough to feel the different texture up there, and a tiny little set of switches, nearly invisible against their background. He takes a breath and jumps off the kit.
"You're taller than me. There's three switches, at least."
Re: Daniel Jackson || Sub Temple B
Reading hieroglyphs wasn't big a deal, at least not to Daniel. Plenty of people in the field could read it, it was whether they could make an accurate translation or not that was the cincher. Not referencing Budge helped. The Ancient Egyptian though, that was something different. The language was long extinct on Earth, but flourished under Ra's rule on Abydos. As far as he knew, he was the only person on Earth who could speak it.
Considering the wall and door before them, Daniel had a feeling that Ancient Egyptian also wasn't going to help this time, which was a shame, because it was one of his favorite languages. Daniel waited patiently as Howard worked at the door, listening quietly as he put forth his hypothesis. The swirls all represent water? It could be, but Daniel privately thought Howard was over-simplifying a more complex issue. You rarely saw a mechanism on a door that just said the equivalent of Big Red Button, Here. Push it. These were arranged more like words or numbers. Daniel was leaning towards a numerical system based on threes himself. One-three, two-six, three-nine and so on.
"Maybe. Or they value water so much that it's become an integral part of their culture, even seeping into the basis of their writing," he pointed out. Howard was surprising, not just in his determination on the door, but the almost obscure knowledge he pulled out of the air. If anything, he knew a lot about water and how to get it to the surface, which wasn't something the average person his age knew.
Daniel took his place. With any lucky, he wasn't about to lose a few fingers, but if he did, he was sure Stacy was more technologically advanced than the SGC. They could reattach limbs.
Maybe.
Hopefully.
Daniel depressed a switch before he could over think his chances. He pulled his hand back quickly. Nothing happened at first. Then a low gurgling sounded through the wall. Seconds later, water flowed into the drain that Daniel had mentally labeled as three-nine. Something shimmered out of the corner of his eye and he turned to look. The door had shifted colors, now a faint rose-black color.
Re: Daniel Jackson || Sub Temple B
"Makes sense. We're not near the ocean, so if they got to use normal amounts of water they probably had to spend a lot of time just gathering it, or there must've been crazy rain." Either of which would make sense for it being an important fixture in their lives. "I wanna say it makes more sense that there was rain, because from my experience, if you're dehydrating to death the last thing on your mind is 'let me use these water reserves to make a freaky puzzle door'. But I'm not an expert on this. Obviously."
Howard actually jumps back when the door changes color. He pulls his flashlight back out and shines it on it - the door has an almost lavender undertone to the smokey black sheen in the harsher light. His face animates, halfway between delight at the success and wariness at this unexpected change. He crouches back over at the drain, watching the water flowing in. "That's awesome! What kind of material you think that door is, so it changes like that? You ever seen anything like that?"
For all he knows, Daniel goes out and opens jigsaw doors like this all the time. Not a lifestyle Howard would be interested in, but maybe Daniel has a better idea what they should expect next.
He makes a switch-flicking gesture with one hand. "Try to get water in the one with the single spiral, maybe? Unless you got a better idea."
Re: Daniel Jackson || Sub Temple B
"I... have no idea," Daniel said, fascinated, as he stared at the door. Howard might be onto something about the rain. "Maybe rainfall was more common back in the day. We'd need to take some soil samples. I've never seen anything like this door though." Not his idea of a good time either. He liked digging in the dirt, which wasn't quite the same as analyzing the dirt for traces of water. Daniel tilted his head, inspected the writing, and then the line of characters and creatures in procession above. The characters were in low-relief within a sunken outline, lit by their lights and shadows cast by the edges. The beings were tall, just like he thought, and he'd been kind of right about how they looked. Part Avian at least, but also part porcupine. Elegant faces. He studied each character, taking note of what they wore, what each carried, how they interacted with each other.
Seemed like a warrior-priest-scholar society. Usually he'd seen priest and scholar rolled into one, but this society had them divided, and all marching equally, with servants and lower tiers all around. Daniel looked from the door to the drain.
"I think the point of the exercise is to get equal amounts of water into these three drains," maybe to emphasize how the three top tiers of this society were equal, necessary to each other, compliments, despite their differences. The other drains were unmarked. "That is if they represent what I think they do."
Daniel flicked another switch. More water flowed, reluctantly at first, into another of the marked drains. He watched as some water from the first seemed to flow out. The door turned a faint green-pink under the black sheen.
Re: Daniel Jackson || Sub Temple B
"You know, maybe if they taught world history classes with mysterious doors and water puzzlers, I wouldn't have ditched school so much," he says, mostly to himself. Not that it would have made a difference in the long run. The days of 'get good grades so you can go to college and get a job and have kids of your own' are as much a relic as the ruins they're in now, some detached artifact of simpler, safer times past that he'll never be able to recapture. No matter how much he wants to.
Maybe it's the emptiness of these ruins, or just that he's tired, but Howard's having trouble shaking the melancholy juju of the temple.
After Daniel plays with combination of switches a few times, the rivers flow with relative evenness to the drains. Howard keeps sopping up the overflow from the first drain, watching the door for some telltale change in color. Eventually the door shifts again to blue. Darker than ocean blue - lake blue.
There's a creaking noise like metal dragging on stone from the inside of the door. Howard looks from the door, to the drains, to Daniel. "Now what? Do we just...push on it?"
By virtue of being the adult, Daniel's become the person in charge. Howard finds that he's actually not excited to see what's behind the door anymore - maybe it's too many horror movies, maybe it's just the idea that whatever it is might disappoint him by being some old earthenware or something, but he realizes he liked it better when there was the challenge of the water puzzle than he does now that they've accomplished their task.
Re: Daniel Jackson || Sub Temple B
The archaeologist focused on the switches and working several combinations. "They do teach it," Daniel mumbled into the wall. "It's called college, work-study, and sneaking onto a dig as a helper when that doesn't pan out."
It took him some time, but eventually he got the drains equally filled. The door shifted, the layer over the door shimmering and rippling like a darker event horizon of the Stargate, crystallized forever. Daniel looked at Howard, an eyebrow raising. Of course they went in. Daniel didn't do the door just because he got a kick out of the puzzle, although granted the puzzle was interesting in itself.
"Only one way to find out," Daniel shrugged. He planted both hands on the door and pushed. His hands sunk in through the crystal like a gel, his palms pressing against solid stone after a second. He pushed. The door was heavy. Daniel strained, putting his full weight on it. After a moment, the doors began to swing open. Once they got going, the gears took over. Daniel had to pull his hands out as they swung the rest of the way, stopping before they hit the walls.
The chamber was not as large as the main one, but it was just as tall. There were no floating crystals in here, but several were inset in the walls at regular intervals. A massive mural stretched out, and it looked like someone had perhaps used this as store room. Or an alter. Artifacts littered the room, stone tablets that might have been taken from the canyon. A large table with a vaguely humanoid shape slumped against it.
Daniel approached the table slowly. He angled the light on it. Just as he thought. The mummified remains of one of the aliens. Not wrapped or chemically treated if he had to make a guess. It wasn't arranged deliberately. It was dry in here, low humidity, so that was probably it. Daniel leaned in close. There was a blast mark on its chest, and now that he looked around again, several littering the room.
Re: Daniel Jackson || Sub Temple B
He follows Daniel into the chamber, walking with his weight on his toes like he's about to bolt, the way he always does when he's uneasy. The first thing he notices is the mural, if only because it's beautifully colored with the crystals and what looks like thick, textured paint. Then he notices that Daniel's leaning over a body.
It's not a human body. There's some mercy in that. It's a bloodless, dessicated, intact body, nothing at all like the corpses in the trench back on Epicurea, sticky and slick with bodily fluids and decay, with whole pieces falling off under his hands when he tried to move through them. Nothing like the dismembered pieces of little kids he had to clean up at the hospital after the insect attack, who really were no more than toddler-sized sacks of blood burst all over the room. Nothing like that.
Just a dead body. He doesn't like dead bodies. He realizes with sudden clarity that he can hear the sound of his own too-fast, shallow breathing echoing in his ears. His hands are shaking and sweating. He feels like someone's got a hand wrapped around the core of his chest and is twisting and squeezing.
"Get a grip, man," he says quietly to himself, hoping Daniel can't hear him or his way-too-loud breathing. He walks up to the mural, but he can't seem to turn his back on the body. No matter what he tries, it's still there in his peripheral vision.
He hovers his hand over the mural. "Someone ransacked this place," he tells Daniel. That should be obvious enough from the blast marks, but Howard's noticing instead smaller details in the mural. Scuffs around the seams, like someone's pulled the lining out, probably some precious metal. Gouges around every third indent for the crystals, leaving empty holes. Pieces of paint chipped off geometrically, instead of by time. Drag marks going both away from and towards the door, something heavier than stone tablets. Howard recognizes it immediately because it's what he does every day during his salvage work. Pick off the good stuff, leave the rest. Whoever was last here may not have been the killers, but instead, the vultures.
"We're right, they eat meat. You don't organize a field like this unless you're trying to bring in animals. They got crystals on the outside ring of the fields and the glittering scares them off up 'til this part..." He runs his hand over the chunk of wall depicting the agriculture. "Where you can ambush from the hills without having them run back out and trample crops. The whole field doubles as crops and a giant funnel trap."
He looks over to Daniel with an excited grin threatening to break out, hoping the resident archaeology maven will agree with him that such a setup is way smart (and thus way cool). He tries his best to keep his field of vision between Daniel and the mural, not on the dead thing.
Re: Daniel Jackson || Sub Temple B
He looked over at Howard. Did he say something? It was hard to tell. Howard was pointedly as far from the body as he could get.
"It's not going to bite, Howard," Daniel said, turning to continue studying the remains. He gingerly touched the fabric. The tiniest bit brittle, but overall, just as well preserved as the corpse. The color was even still vibrant. It reminded him of iridescent scales woven into a net. Not very warrior like. Maybe this was one of the scholar class or the priest class. He began to search for any insignias, anything that might connect back to anything they'd seen already, like the system of writing on the door lock.
Glancing over, he found Howard studying the mural. Daniel left the mummy for now and joined him. The mural was an impressive piece of work, if damaged. He looked closely at the mural, then back at the body, especially the teeth, hands, and legs. Digigrade, although it looked like the weight might have started to settle them into a more plantigrade stance given time. They'd likely easily outrun any human.
Daniel grinned. "I think you might be right. Now how do you explain the nooses in the garden?"
Re: Daniel Jackson || Sub Temple B
He's much happier focusing on the mural instead. "I guess...recycling? Like, okay, back home I had patches of vegetables I grew, and when I caught rats I'd break down the pieces that you can't eat and use those to keep the ground all fertile and all. Because bones are good for plants, right, and you can't waste food. So like..."
Famine. You don't learn to use every piece of an animal if you always live in plenty. And just like that, Howard feels kinship with that dead body. It's not a pleasant feeling. It makes the hair on the back of his next stand up.
"So like, same thing here, they use the fields to bring meat in. Then they use the carcasses to feed the plants. Like a big cycle. Does that make sense? I mean, I'm not just making something stupid up, right?"
Re: Daniel Jackson || Sub Temple B
He refocused his attention back on the mural and listened to Howard. Howard continued to surprise him. Daniel was learning more and more about Howard as the dig went on, what he found wasn't' what he expected. Howard wasn't exactly saying his entire life's story, but he didn't have to. What he dropped was clue enough for Daniel to piece together. From what Daniel could see, Howard was practical and extremely concerned with efficiency. And getting to a point where he'd either use rats as fertilizer either meant he didn't like to waste anything because it was a life taken or because things were so bad off where he came from that it was a matter of survival.
It seemed rude to bring it up but Daniel was dying to know. "You know a lot about surviving in hardship," Daniel said gently. Not wanting to put him too much on the spot, he went back to Howard's hypothesis. "I don't think it's stupid. It makes sense. We should look for remains around the fields," or what was left of them, which was bone dry land. "or implements to back it up."
Re: Daniel Jackson || Sub Temple B
He glances back at the body, locked by time in a freakish death pose. Howard's never seen anyone die so cleanly. And he's never met anyone who reacts to the dead like Daniel does, with interest and not revulsion, glee or apathy. It's strange, he thinks, that one can be so fascinated with people and not with the fact of death. Like they're a textbook filled with scintillating trivia and an ambassador from the past, and not just another short life that's been snuffed.
"I don't think 'implements' is a word in English. I think that's the ancient Egyptian peeking through," he says in kidding deadpan. He glances back out the door, wondering with sudden fear if it'll close and lock them in if the water runs out. The idea of being locked here with the body isn't exactly appealing. "I could go do that now. I don't like being around that thing."
Re: Daniel Jackson || Sub Temple B
Way, way back in high school. He barely remembered it. Most of it boiled down to one of the kid's glasses evolving into a source of fire and power, then conflict between tribes when left to their own devices. Daniel did recall the children starting to kill each other before an adult figure arrived. Please tell me that's not where he's going, Daniel suddenly thought.
He almost corrected Howard, but just barely caught the trace of humor. Daniel took some notes to cover up the near miss "It wouldn't be a five minute job,"
Howard was obviously bothered by being in a room with the mummy and if Daniel was right, was looking for an out without actually saying why. Finding backup for his theory was nowhere near as pressing as the actual room, and he was sure they both knew it. Maybe he thought he had to protect his dignity. If he really bothered by the corpse, Daniel didn't see the point in trying to cover it up, although he had admitted it at the end. Daniel wasn't going to give him trouble. If Howard was uncomfortable, he was uncomfortable. There wasn't any shame in it.
"Alright. I thought I saw something off in the main chamber. We could check it out. It's closer," Daniel offered. "I wrote down the combination for the door, so we'll be able to get back into this room too. I'll see if I can get the mummy transported to Stacy later."
Re: Daniel Jackson || Sub Temple B
Fourteen months in Hell before Stacy rescued him. The first few days weren't so bad, actually, when it was just a merry chaos of no curfew and junk food and videogames until four in the morning. It only sank in after the food started rotting what, exactly, their world was like without adults. Without police officers. Without doctors. Without a fire station. Without anybody who even had the slightest clue how to grow food or run an electrical plant or establish a system of government. Without anybody who had any sort of authority when kids started murdering each other in cold blood, or starving to death, or getting eaten alive by the multitude of mutated wild animals.
Sometimes the people Howard tells don't understand the ramifications of what he's explaining, but Daniel's smart and more than that, accustomed to thinking of cultures in large groups, motivated by resources and geography and technology. If anyone's going to understand the gravity of Howard's explanation, it'd be an archaeologist, or so he hopes.
He almost sighs in relief when Daniel offers to distract him with something else he found. He's out the chamber door fairly quickly - he waits outside the doorframe for Daniel, squinting at the walls and trying to figure out what 'something' Daniel meant.
"Why didn't you point it out earlier? I mean, when we were figuring out the door? You'd think that'd be an open invitation to start pointing out all the weird stuff." His head jerks. "Why the hell do you want to keep it? God, it's dead, just let it be at peace with all the other dead stuff."
Re: Daniel Jackson || Sub Temple B
Lord of the Flies was right.
Maybe one day he'd ask Howard what happened. What he experienced. Daniel could tell it was nowhere near a good time. "Two years on your own. That's where you got the eye for self-sufficiency from." Thing were falling into place. "The adults turned into the FAYZ? What is that?"
Leading the way out, he cast one last look over his shoulder. The alien remained where it was, the lone guardian of this room, possibly for hundreds of years, keeping a silent vigil over the records and left over relics and implements and records. Howard was looking at it like it was going to get up. Daniel joined him at the door frame.
"To study and learn from, Howard," Daniel said quietly. "Archaeology isn't about grave robbing or running off with treasure. It's about learning from the past. When the meteors destroy all this, it will take with it any sign of this civilization, forever. Everything they ever were? Gone. The only way they live on in a way is through us."
The door closed gently behind them as soon as they stepped free of the threshold. Daniel checked to make sure he had the notes, just in case. Satisfied they were there, he made his way towards one of the other walls. He tapped it with a knuckle. The wall didn't look too noticeably different to most people. It stuck out like a sore thumb to Daniel.
"Here. Looks like a false wall, different builders who tried to match the rest. You can tell with how it's joined and the discoloration."
Re: Daniel Jackson || Sub Temple B
Howard visibly relaxes once the door's closed. His hands go from trembling to a slight twitch and the tension pulls out of his shoulders. Even knowing it's still there on the other side, waiting in silence for Daniel to come back for it, is better than actually having to look at it. He gives Daniel a look that can clearly be read as gratitude and a little bit of sheepishness.
He does listen to what Daniel says, nodding slightly, although the idea of taking the body back still bothers him. He gets the ridiculous thought that the body should be left here not just because it's creepy, but because why should it be dragged away from everything it ever knew, all its culture and life, to stay in a jar somewhere in Stacy's underbelly? How completely...lonely.
But of course, that's the good thing about the dead. They don't much care if you take them places.
"Alright. Just make sure it don't stink up the trunk, I guess."
He follows Daniel to the section of wall, although honestly his eyes aren't trained enough to see much of a difference. He notices the discoloration when Daniel points it out, but not the difference in joinings. Moving past Daniel, he presses his ear to it, then taps the pencil, hard, against the surface.
"It doesn't sound hollow," he says, dubious. "How much younger you think it is?"
Re: Daniel Jackson || Sub Temple B
Getting the door between him and body seemed to have done Howard some good, because he got enough second wind back to get sarcastic about the body. Daniel frowned at him, disapproval written all over his face at how Howard was describing treating the mummy. It wasn't a bag of groceries you dumped into your car. It used to be a living person.
The archaeologist waited Howard out as he inspected the false wall. The stone wall wasn't that much different from the others, in that the stone blocks were just as solid as the other. It wasn't like a false plaster wall. Daniel's eyes roamed. He didn't see any hints of anything to open it, no writing, no triggers or switches. Nothing. It made sense. Someone had gone to great lengths to hide this. It wasn't meant to be opened. Daniel got the feeling this was going to require some good, old fashioned carefully applied brute force. The kind that required some delicacy and supervision, not the "slap-C4, depress-trigger" brute force Jack liked.
"It's probably a sealed off chamber. They usually are," Daniel switched on one of the comm channels. A few of Eneesh's crew could get this open, easily. He'd have to supervise, but he was confident that with instruction, they could open it without damaging too much. "I'd say it dates around the battle site." Daniel ducked his head towards his wrist and the speaker. "Captain Eneesh? Do you have any spare crew or equipment to remove sections of a wall? No explosives."
Re: Daniel Jackson || Sub Temple B
There's a deep and familiar bitterness when he says that, but anger is comforting to him. Anger is easier to cope with than sorrow, and with no conviction that there's a god to rage at, Howard finds absentee parents to be the next best substitute.
He gives Daniel a look that conveys something to the effect of 'bite me, Daniel, you're the one who wants to drag it around space poking at it'. Of course it used to be a living person. It'd bother Howard a lot less if it were a bag of groceries.
He takes a seat and wraps his arms around his legs as he watches Daniel work on the wall. If Daniel insists there's a secret chamber, he guesses there must be, although between the normal-looking block of stone and Daniel Howard expects he can learn more from observing the archaeologist. He's starting to paint a picture in his mind, of Daniel not only going on digs but directing them. Something about the way Daniel knows what he wants from Eneesh before Eneesh even answers the communicator speaks of someone who is not only comfortable in these scenarios but comfortable calling the shots.
In a perfect portrayal of teenage-boyness, Howard whines, "awww, no explosives?" in his best disappointed voice while they wait for Eneesh's answer.
Re: Daniel Jackson || Sub Temple B
Curt as always, the bug signed off, leaving Daniel and Howard to wait for their new helpers.
Re: Daniel Jackson || Sub Temple B
Unwilling to admit Howard was right, that the adults figured the children weren't worth it, as the only possibility, Daniel thought on the ring transports. Probably not what Howard had in mind, but the basic technology as he understood it was there. Maybe something more instantaneous and with less warning, "beaming", as Sam and Jack liked to call it, could be a possibility. "Maybe they were teleported out," Daniel offered. "They may not have had a choice. Or they could've been coerced."
Eneesh came on just then, crisp and curt. She didn't argue or ask what he found, she trusted he had found something worth the extra hands. Er, claws. Now all they had to do was wait. Daniel thought an archaeologist could get spoiled on this treatment. He was going to miss her efficiency. She didn't leave much room to tell her thanks, but hopefully she knew it. Or maybe they didn't care or have time for gratitude. Sometimes it was hard to tell with her and her crew.
He turned the communicator speaker off and regarded the wall. Unfortunately they were going to have to damage the blocks, but there wasn't any way to avoid it. Maybe they could keep the hole reasonably small. Meanwhile, it seemed like boredom caught up to Howard, or at least he was hoping for something a little more spectacular. Removing a piece of chalk, he began to mark the edge of the false wall, and then the proposed area to take down.
"No, sorry," Daniel snorted after a second, the tiniest smile directed towards the wall. "You just reminded me of a Colonel I know, by the way."
skip forward to wall coming down?
Knowing Eneesh and her creepy alien crew is about to arrive, Howard finds himself with a hand in his pocket, running his thumb over the folded-up pocketknife he keeps there. It's silly, he knows - Eneesh is there to help and he has no reason to doubt her intentions, and a knife isn't much protection against something bigger than you, in a group that outnumbers you - but it brings him a little bit of comfort.
He looks back at the closed door behind them and thinks about the mummy in there. He wonders if they were scared when they died. The way the body had fallen doesn't look like a heroic sacrifice or a peaceful death. He wonders if they sat in wait, listening to people outside figuring out the puzzle door, deciding between trying to escape, fight back, or surrender.
He runs his free hand over the goosebumps on his forearm and sucks on the tip of the pencil, waiting quietly.
Yep!
The last stone came down. Enough for even one of them to get inside. The air that drifted out felt old, stale, but considering how the outside was, it was only a fraction worse.
Daniel ducked his head in a fraction and peered around the corner. Dust, disturbed by the removal, drifted down, landing in his hair and nose. Daniel's nose twitched. He paused, waiting for the sneeze to pass, and thankfully, it did. The archaeologist remained where he was. As much as he wanted to rush in, he'd seen plenty of injuries happen because something gave way or someone didn't look first. He cautiously put his left arm through instead, shining the flashlight around and angling himself to look down the tunnel, upwards, downwards, all sides.
Looked like a short tunnel that angled downwards and, his light caught a glint of yellow-orange, a mid-sized room with a mildly reflective coating. No pits, nothing concealed he could see, no weak walls. He didn't smell anything funny, no faint traces. Not even the smell of decay. Daniel consulted the scanners. It didn't look like they had to worry about unleashing any flammable gases. Just a roughly carved out tunnel leading down into a room.
Daniel lit a flare and tossed it in. Nothing happened.
"Looks safe," Daniel called back. Ducking his head. He scooted in, butt first. "I'll go first."
His boots hit solid ground. There was something so off about the rough construction of the place. The floor was rock, covered with a lot of sand. It felt more like Abydos, how the sand got everywhere, even inside the depths of the structures. Flashlight in hand, Daniel carefully made his way downwards until the tunnel opened into the chamber.
The room was golden. Extremely golden, and had it been fully lit, it might've been blinding. Daniel barely noticed the hieroglyphs on the wall. He'd jerked to a stop instead, eyes on the large mass in the center of the room.
That couldn't be..
It was. It was a Goa'uld sarcophagus.
Re: Yep!
"I got no problem with that," Howard says, letting Daniel go on ahead. After listening a few moments in case Daniel gives him a sudden order to stay out, or go get help or a rope, he slides in too.
His jaw drops a little as he sees all the gold in the room. It's not as if gold is all that useful where he's from, but still, whomever made this room was completely loaded. The second thing he notices is that the writing looks like an entirely different style than the rest of the temple.
The third thing he notices is that Daniel is suddenly no pleasure, all tension, staring at the large contraption in the center of the room. And that scares him. He keeps Daniel's between him and the whatever-it-is, craning his neck curiously.
"You seen one of these before," he says, stating the obvious. "What is that?"
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"Goa'uld sarcophagus."
He was pretty sure of it. He shouldn't be able to read the writing, but at a glance, Daniel could skim most of it. There was only one way to find out. Daniel made as if to get his Beretta out. Then he remembered that he'd left weapons behind. "Stay where you are."
If something was in here, Daniel wanted Howard to have a fighting chance. Daniel zeroed in on one section and pressed something. A rumble followed, and then the sarcophagus began to split, the outer shielding coming down with a grating noise that reverberated through the small room. Daniel could see it again, standing next to the one on Ra's ship, folding up like a mechanical flower. His chest gave a phantom twinge.
The inner section started to open. Daniel waited, fists clenched. He leaned over just a little. He couldn't see, but it looked like there wasn't anyth- The lid abruptly stalled, the device along with it. It was still on, he could feel and hear the humming, but something was wrong with it. Was it damaged?
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