Sobek the Immortal: Bringing a God to His Knees [Closed]

[hi_there_aliens]

Who: Daniel Jackson, Vala Mal Doran, Eva, The Master, Eleventh Doctor, Jamie McCrimmon
Where: Kalimba (planet side)
Summary: A small crew goes on an archaeological expedition to a jungle planet, where System Lord was imprisoned. Taking Daniel as his host, he captures the crew and tortures them, while rebuilding his fleet.
Warnings: Violence, torture, gore

((Part One and Part Two here))

As time drew on, there was no sign of Stacy, rescue parties or of a single landing pods. The typhoon season approached closer with each day, rain and wind spattering the leaves on some days, varying between intense heat and humidity on other days. The megafauna in the jungles had grown more active too. The earth rumbled under their feet as they starting their migration amidst hooting calls and croaks. Throughout the varying weather, one thing remained constant. The hive of activity around the three step pyramids never ceased, slaves either taking shifts or in the most fanatical cases, working themselves near to death or to death. It was like this all across Kalimba. The call had gone out with the instructions for the slaves: work was to begin on restoring the Crocodile God's fleets underneath each step pyramid all across the planet. They were his Chosen, his Children, and he would ensure they were rewarded for their faith.

The complex swarmed with slaves and guards moving weapons and parts. Sobek and his personal guards were also in and out more often as the fleet began to take shape, often traveling to other sites to check on progress. Stones fell away from each ship as far as the eye could see. More and more of each ha'tak was revealed, while lines of human bodies went inside to work on the interiors. If the number of step pyramids that towered through the jungle were any indication, his fleet would be massive.

((same as Part 2: run your own posts with each other, more private threads with Sobek are available at the start. Part 3 does not have to immediately include end-plot stuff. If you want more CR amongst each other or your character being messed with by Sobek, please do!))

Comments

SOBEK one one one threads

[hi_there_aliens]

The number of troops that arrived varied, but only grew with each day. Training camps sprouted around the complex. The slave troops outnumbered the Jaffa, and while they didn't have nearly the same weapons expertise, made up for it with even more enthusiasm and a desire to please their God. Normally the increase in Jaffa would have said little for Stacy's crew and their chances of escape. This time, it might work in their favor. With the training and the fleet restoration, the Jaffa and Sobek were occupied. There was only one guard to the jail cell. Those who the God believed as subdued were allowed greater freedoms than the prison, and allowed to join the slaves, with a guard or two's eyes on them.

(private subthreads with Sobek go here)

Vala

[hi_there_aliens]

Vala

Re: Vala

[hi_there_aliens]

((Taking place some time after this))

Some time later, Eva had been returned to her cell, looking whole once again, despite the brutal attack she'd made on herself and by those of trying to get in the System Lord's favor.

More time passed, maybe a week in the Kalimba calendar, and then the guards came for Vala. There were many more this time, boxing her in completely as they navigated the labyrinthine tunnels of the step pyramid. Sections of the wall had been uncovered, and it might even look familiar to Vala, more and more like the pyramid ships in her universe. The slaves worked fast, and would work faster still, even until many dropped of exhaustion.

The Jaffa seemed on edge, even on high alert, and it wasn't because of Vala. They treated her with as much caution as terrier that might bite at the heels, an inconvenience and annoyance at best, but the helmets creaked and whirred as each guard scanned all the corners and turns, all the dark places an assassin might hide. Finally she was taken to the room that Jamie had watched the mass execution. The long curtains fluttered in te breeze through the window. A lounge had been moved in since then, along with a few pieces of furniture. Several of the guards broke rank and swept the room, and finding nothing, left her, closing the door behind them.

Sobek was alone, his back to her. The God leaned over the balcony, hands curling and uncurling restlessly on the banister as he looked down at the training camps below.

Eva

[hi_there_aliens]

Eva

Re: EVA

[hi_there_aliens]

Eva has been left to reflect in the pain and agony that she caused herself. She's been left with Vala until she's had time to consider the great gift that a God has chosen still to bestow upon her: strength, a meaning to her life, something greater than what she's had before.

The guards finally came around for her. One of them, the same one who took her out at the knees with a staff weapon in the name of her Lord and Master, dragged her to her feet. There was no need to secure her with hand cuffs. The grips on her arms were just as steady, thick fingers digging into her muscles.

She wasn't taken to the scene of her crime again. She was taken into a new section of the step pyramid, a smaller and but not less ornate chamber. It was one of the odd circular rooms in the step pyramid, and in an alcove, sat the giant cistern that housed Ammit. Something else dominated the chamber, an ornate, massive box, large enough to easily fit any of the Jaffa, the gold exterior decorated with crocodiles and hieroglyphs. Although the decorations were different and it was in better shape than the jammed machine back in Daniel's lab, there was no doubting what it was. A Goa'uld sarcophagus.

Sobek was nowhere to be seen.

One of the guards broke rank and approaching the coffin, touched something on the side. It opened, smoothly and elegantly, folding in on itself like the crocodile helmet the God wore.

The Master

[hi_there_aliens]

The Master

Eleven

[hi_there_aliens]

Eleven

I guess we're doing the heart thing here?

[makeherblue]

He'd like to say he's lost count of how many sessions he'd had with Sobek but that'd be a terrible lie, even for him. One of the perks of being a Time Lord - not quite the faulty memory humans get to be gifted with.

Sobek obviously had something to show after the months he spent trying to get into his head, the Doctor was sorry to say. For being a glorified space worm, he had to admit that the beast could be creative when he put his little parasite mind to it and the fact was that each day, each week, it became more difficult to keep focused on what he was supposed to be holding out for. Something. He was sure he'd told Eva Something, only not so much in words persay because words were overrated some of the times and right now he wasn't even sure how much he said with words and not-so-much words to Sobek. Hopefully not that Something.

Sobek by now knew more about Gallifrey and the Time War than the Doctor wanted. Ripped out of him, even if it'd taken him months, and no doubt he was using the Master to check to see if everything was in order. Even from here he could hear the teeth-rattling thrum of the fleet outside being assembled -- no doubt trying to work with the materials here to make them not only space-worthy but time-worthy. He closed his eyes, feeling his age and all those centuries piling up on him.

That, and the fact that he was functioning on one heart wasn't exactly helping things around. Rubbish way to live with one heart, by the way.

So what was it going to be this time? The Doctor licked his chapped lips, listening first to the peals of thunder and then the heavy rain outside, trying to use the time he had to himself to try to bury what he could in the back of his mind before Sobek arrived.

Jamie

[hi_there_aliens]

Jamie

Jamie/Master/Sobek

[bonnypiperlad]

Time had passed, and for Jamie it meant long stretches of time in the cell, getting what exercise he could, when he could. Not allowed the same freedom as Vala or the Master, but not being tortured like the Doctor - or going through the pain Eva had brought upon herself. After the slaughter of Eneesh's crew, he had been marked as someone to keep an eye on, in case he got any more bright ideas about trying to fight back. So he played along, seeming to slip into someone who was more passive, accepting of his lot.

But the times he had been brought out, no matter when it was, he kept his eyes and ears peeled to pick up any information he could on his own. Anything that could be useful to them to figure out some way out of here while they could. He wasn't sure what exactly it was all those slaves were unearthing, but given they were working themselves to exhaustion or death in their fervor, it couldn't be good. And that Highland sense of his started to niggle ever-so-faintly at him. It didn't resolve into any stronger sense of immediate danger, just stayed there, warning him that something was not good about that particular situation.

Sooner or later, they needed to figure a way out of there, and until they had a firm plan, their best bet was to get into the sporran that the Doctor had made into a dimensionally transcendental space. There were plenty of useful items in there - his toolkit, a torch, various odds and ends that could be used to maybe pick a lock or overpower a guard. And if he could get his morphers back, he could hide them in there as well, and no-one would be the wiser if they didn't see them go in. The problem was, the catch had gotten stuck during his attempt to pull Eva from the bars, and the fight with the Jaffa in the throne room hadn't helped. Jamie thought he could get it loose again, if he could find a small bit of metal. The problem had been finding something he could sneak out under the eyes of the very watchful guards.

Eventually, by the sheerest luck, he had managed to come across a tiny spoon - too small to use to dig their way out, the wrong shape to pick a lock with, but maybe just enough to get the catch unstuck again. For a split second the guard on him had looked away, just enough time for him to snatch it and stow it in his sock while scratching his ankle as a cover. Back in the cell, he had set to work when the guard there wasn't looking. It had taken some time, but he thought that he had managed to just work the thing loose when the guards came for him again. He only had time to hide the spoon under some debris in the cell when he was hauled to his feet and marched off again.

This time, he found himself in a room he hadn't been in before. There wasn't much in the way of lighting here, at least none he could see. Shadows stretched over everything, distorting it and making it hard to tell what was there. A table perhaps, with a strangely-shaped chair nearby. There was something attached to it. Straps, maybe? The guards didn't seem to be paying him much mind at the moment, so he started to move towards it to see if he could get a better look.

Eleven and Eva

[economicalrhinoplasty]

Since her little jaunt in the sarcophagus, Eva hasn't looked so healthy in a long while, and yet so unwell. Her body is in perfect condition, bar the old injuries and scars from the Yeerk War and her Cesarean section. All the damage of the last few weeks is gone, bar the single broken wrist.

But her eyes wander the cell with hopeless fervor. Her fingers twitch and drag against the floor. Her breathing is alternately sluggish and panicky-fast. She keeps wiping at her mouth and pacing back and forth in the cell.

She needs to focus on something besides herself. Any attempts at introspection feel like walking through foreign ruins, a decrepit house no longer familiar to her. Where did all this strange furniture come from, when did all these doors end up locked?

She hears footsteps in the hallways and rushes to the bars to see whom they've brought to her. Not Vala, the appointed healer, certainly. Her wrist isn't worth the trouble the guards would have to go to to bring Vala over. Jamie? The Doctor?

Re: Eleven and Eva

[makeherblue]

The Doctor stumbles along, the guard prodding him every now and then but it's more to keep him upright than anything else because if he doesn't keep that forward momentum, he's going to end up in a heap on the floor. At any rate, the Jaffa doesn't seem to think he'll be making a break for it, barking at Eva in those harsh guttural tones to stand back.

He opens the door and shoves her cell-mate inside. The Doctor that stumbles in is a shadow of the man he was several months ago - if he was skinny before, he's rail-thin now, dark circles under his eyes stark against the fact that he hasn't seen proper sunlight in who knows how long. His expression has a pulled, haunted expression, as if he's seen more of Sobek and his little "mercies" more than he cares to and it only reminds him that for all the good out in the universe, there's so many dark little ugly spot, growing by the day. The Doctor staggers, weaving as if he's drunk, and then decides that if he's at it he might as well aim for Eva because she's the only person he trusts to collapse at.

Well. That and she's literally the only person, period, in the cell to go collapsing/falling/etc at, but that's all technicalities.

The Doctor's still bleeding from the side, his hand clapped over the warm spot as he tries to revive enough to wrangle Eva. Eva. Cats. Both cats and humans need to be herded sometimes and if anything, they both make wonderful companions.

"Still alive?" He grunts at Eva, as if checking she's in one piece. She's amazingly resilient in that evolved-ape fashion of hers. He's impressed. It's something he's taken to asking whenever they're both in the cell together, and there's times where it seems as if he doesn't even realize he's still asking her after all these months imprisoned. "Good. Lovely. Have a job for you since you're up."

He wipes his mouth with his other hand, feeling his heart in his chest stuttering. The other one sits dead in his ribcage, useless, and considering Eva looks the picture of physical health, he thinks she can help him with his little problem. One heart attack away from regenerating on her and he'd rather not have to toss that inconvenience at the poor woman. Too much awkwardness and explanations. Explanations, especially. Once that's taken care of then he can really take a proper look at her, see how she is mentally because the clues he saw while she was standing there in the cell were alarming enough as it was. He needs her strong, sane -- mostly sane -- and he wants to know that trust he put in her from Day 1 isn't for nothing. The Doctor shifts his weight on the floor, trying to settle himself into a better position.

Re: Eleven and Eva

[economicalrhinoplasty]

"Doc!" It takes one look to see that the Doctor is doing far worse than he was last time, and it's like a dark pall falls on her already grim mood to see the difference between how he has been in the past and this shadow of himself that she is now. She catches him as he falls, strong from the sarcophagus and the general lack of gaping wounds, and they both lower to the floor. She pulls him over a bit, so they're resting against the cell wall, sitting up.

"Still alive," she confirms. "More alive than I have been." More than just alive, she's electric. There's a live wire writhing around inside her, uncontrolled and violent and senseless, just waiting to touch on something and cause chaos. She feels filled to the brim with lightning that's just seeking an outlet. Maybe this is what crazy really feels like. She doesn't know.

She runs her fingers through the Doctor's hair in the most soothing manner she can fashion, the way she used to do to Marco when he was very young and had a nightmare or skinned his knee. No, 'oh Doctor, what have they done to you' because she doubts he wants to detail it out for her. Her other hand drifts over to help cover the open wound in his side resting top his own hand.

"Dígame como puedo ayudarte.*" It should strike her as unusual to feel so maternal towards the Doctor, but here, in this dungeon without decency, when so much of her has been pared away, that she's a mother is one of the few pieces of her left, down at the wick.

*"Tell me how I can help you."

Eleven and the Master

[syncopath]

The Master doesn't have much time to spare these days; Sobek keeps him awfully busy. But no matter how demanding his schedule is, he's always been sure to make time for the Doctor.

He whistles insolently as he approaches the small cell, worn shoes clipping along the halls authoritatively. Solitary confinement. The Doctor's being given another rest period, and the Master is stopping by to gloat.

His shadow slides along the floor of the cell, and if-- no, when-- the Doctor sees fit to look up from his squalor he'll see a sunny grin and cruel eyes gleaming in the dim light right back at him.

"You look terrible." There's not a trace of concern in the Master's voice. Really, it's closer to outright glee.

Re: Eleven and the Master

[makeherblue]

"I should hope so!" The Doctor's shadow moved from where he'd been half-slumped against the wall, his face tilting up to the light. "Rubbish torturers if they couldn't get that right."

He tried to fix the Master with one of those disarming smiles of his, the ones he knew would drive the man up the walls. He'd been kept alive all these months so Sobek could leech the information from him but somehow knowing the Master was out there and doing...well, he wasn't quite sure what he was doing somehow made it worse. The Doctor straightened, coughing into his arm and trying to at least look like he wasn't about to flop around like a dying fish in front of his best enemy. There was bowties and then there was dignity and at the very least he could manage sitting up like a person, right? In comparison, the Master looked like he was doing decent for effectively being a prisoner himself; he didn't look like that blond shell of himself that he remembered at any rate and he even had the nerve to look like he was having a good day, smiling at him like that!

The Doctor carefully propped himself up against the wall, using a piece of stone to (strategically) wedge himself upright so he wouldn't tip over onto his side.

"Any particular reason he hasn't had a go at you yet?" He couldn't resist asking, giving a toss of his head so he could see out of a fringe that had grown out of control the six-ish months they'd been stuck on Kalimba. It was a question the Doctor had asked himself at least once a day, when he was able to have his thoughts to himself and didn't have to try to claw onto them while Sobek did the same.

Re: Eleven and the Master

[syncopath]

The Master cants his head in mock thoughtfulness.

"Perhaps I'm simply more cooperative than you," he murmurs innocently, leaning into the bars and curling his hands around them. Eventually he'll get closer, get inside the cell-- he has the authority-- but for now he's rather enjoying keeping the Doctor on the other side. Alone and defeated and trapped.

"How many days has it been, Doctor?" the Master asks in the same quiet voice. "How many endless days and nights of resisting? Of agony? It could all be over, you know."

GROUP HUDDLE

[hi_there_aliens]

On some days, the ground rumbled under the mass of feet outside from the Jaffa and worshipers training, more marching in on other days. Today, however, right before sunset, the ground abruptly heaved, shaking violently as something broke free with a terrible crack of stone and screech of metal and tore itself from the ground. Then the very air itself was filled with a bone numbing drone.

A look outside the window would confirm what happened. One of the pyramid ships had broken free of the temple built around it. The ship itself was a monstrosity, easily bigger than the Pyramids of Giza, engines humming as it hovered for a first test flight. Lights flickered on the hull and here and there, panels opened and closed while the pyramid ship slowly turned in place.

The restoration efforts and the interrogations had clearly gone well. The ship looked that much more deadly than the standard ha'tak, signs of a bastard merge of Gallifreyan and Goa'uld technology dotting the hull.

As it was, the majority of the usual guards have been called off for the test, leaving everyone in the cell. As there was only one way out, the corridor with the stone door and a single guard on the other side. This might be one of the few chances they have to get together and talk without prying eyes.

[order; Eva, Vala, Jamie, Eleven, Master.]

Re: GROUP HUDDLE

[economicalrhinoplasty]

Eva doesn't know if she has the wherewithal to think up anything good. She feels as if her brain's a tangle of wires, some plugged in and some not, some whipping around and some pooling dead at the base of her skull. It's a feeling she's been getting used to over the last few weeks, since the sarcophagus robbed her of what little mental stability she had left. Still, just because her own thoughts are racing and disjointed doesn't mean she'll abandon the golden opportunity to plan.

Her body is mostly fine these days. After the punishment the worshipers received, no one's eager to attempt to assassinate her again or even be caught looking like it, so she's mostly avoided the torture. Her lower lip is hamburger meat, but that's her own damn fault for biting it so much. It's her mind that's the problem, but even knotted and pulsing it's a good mind for organizing. She's always had that. God willing, she always will.

She glances around at her compatriots, scattered across a spectrum of friend and foe, stable and broken. Resources. Each of them can be used - no, each of them has something to contribute. Jamie and Vala's bravery, the Doctor's knowledge, even the Master's snakelike ruthlessness that Eva finds, admittedly, so familiar and admirable. Eva laces her fingers together.

"So. Anyone got any bright ideas?"

[valaunbound]

It's the first time Vala's been back in the cells for weeks now, she's gained a little weight albeit she's not fully back to health, her first couple of months on Kalimba will take much more than weeks to fully recover from. She's clean though and for want of a better description dressed like Xena Warrior Princess - if Vala had ever seen that - which she hasn't. She's also not badly injured although there is evidence of Sobek's claw marks in several places on her body, in varying stages of healing.

It would seem Sobek has done a complete 180 regarding Vala, and she has her suspicions as to why. Right now though, she's not sure that's the best news to share. There's little in the way she's holding herself to give away anything of what she's been forced to witness, nor what she's fairly sure is in store for her.

If Vala had previously opened up to any of them, she's well and truly closed off again now. Distractedly looking around the cell and up the stone hallway beyond the cell walls rather than make direct eye contact with anyone.

"Bright ideas of how five of us can stop an entire fleet from leaving the planet with Daniel?" Vala's tampered with the odd crystal alignment here and there when she's had access, but it's been slow and as soon as she's managed to sabotage one ship, they've already fixed the last.

"Save for blowing up the Mother Ship along with ourselves via the Naquadah generators, nope."

FINAL THREADS

[hi_there_aliens]

The end of days had come. That night, the jungle fully emptied itself of worshipers and Jaffa, disgorging itself as if sickened thousands upon thousands into the main complex. The same happened across the planet to every unveiled pyramid ship.

There hadn't been such a celebration, the earth thundering under feet, since Sobek's resurrection, and the air clamored with chanting and war drums. When morning's first light shown on Ur-Niwa, the fleet would leave the planet. The majority of the guards were already on the ships, leaving only a bare contingent left in the structure the crew's cell was in.

This was their chance. Their only chance.

[Jamie and Eva]

[hi_there_aliens]

The time had come to break free and do their part of this last desperate plan. There was only one guard down the hall, and his attention is more on celebration and his God than the prisoners.

[Eleven and Vala] - after getting supplies

[hi_there_aliens]

The Doctor was going to have to do his best possible work in manufacturing a poison he'd never made before, for a species he had limited knowledge of. Vala would be his only guide in making this, and they have only a few hours to come up with something.

[Order: Eleven, Vala]

[Vala and Sobek/Daniel] - after Vala has been given the poison

[hi_there_aliens]

His new Empire and the Age it heralded was on the threshold. At dawn, he would take what had always been his right. With the new merge of technology, not even Ra or Anubis would have the power to stop him. They would be ripped to shreds, he would step through the remains of their Empires and scatter it to the winds. He would save Bastet and Kali for last. They could taste the growing fear. Perhaps, he would reverse time just for them, kill them over and over and over. Then, when he tired of it, he would enjoy eating them both alive.

Sobek stood, watching his Children pouring their praises to him. A sense of pride swelled up. They had disappointed him before, but they were his First, the Ever Faithful, those who were the foundation for the Age of Scales. For a long while, the God remained motionless. He only watched. The hours drew on and still he waited. He finally shifted, head turned towards the horizon, eyes unseeing as they somehow the sun coming up, the heat it brought across his planet long before they saw it. The Crocodile God was ready. He gave the signal. The fleet was to begin lifting off. Vala was to be brought before him.

Daniel could only watch the dancers below, some who had already nearly been driven to exhaustion and still they kept dancing, and wonder at how this was going to be the last thing he saw. Vala was coming. Sobek's new host.

Kalimba's Last Hour - the Escape

[hi_there_aliens]

Only one ha'tak remained grounded until given the command to lift off: Sobek's. Outside of the Crocodile's chamber, it seemed as if no one else realized their God was dead. The ships remained climbing, and worse, engines glowing as the new technology was activated. And in those first few minutes, it seemed like all was lost. The technology worked. The sky ripped open, dotted with windows to the Time Vortex. Ships began to move into these tears in space and time.

The crew's plan came to fruition then. The sky turned black as if suddenly flooded with ink, red lightning streaking across. Ships suddenly exploded, and reformed, exploding in on themselves over and over again. Those that hadn't suffered such an end yet tried to maneuver away, and in their haste, clipped other ships, taking them down. More imploded on themselves, spawning the beginnings of a temporal collapse that would only spread. Several of the Time Vortex windows cut out with the ships partially within, severing them in two. The sky was a sea of fire and darkness that no light could penetrate.

The remaining worshipers all across the planet suddenly fled into the jungle rather than face the destruction, or to hide in caves or huts. They found no safety there. Debris from the ships rained down, crushing villages and people. Other pieces as large as cars and skyscrapers fell to the jungle and soon, a massive fire began to rage. There was nowhere to run.

Underneath their feet, the planet shook and rents opened up in the ground. This planet will consume itself. The crew had little time to get away before they too would be taken.

[order; Eva, Eleven, Vala, Jamie, (Daniel, if applicable)]

Re: Kalimba's Last Hour - the Escape

[economicalrhinoplasty]

"Well, our welcome's been overstayed." Eva can't see the sky from here, but she can hear all the chaos and horror. Lots of crashing. It's like thunder if thunder were ten feet off the ground instead of in the sky. She grabs the shiv she's been hiding in her clothing since killing the Jaffa.

And at that point, something strikes the wall next to the cell she's in, sending her sprawling to the ground and knocking the door clean off the hinges. How very convenient, if not for the faceplant she's just done. She scrambles to her feet and motions to Jamie. "Let's move!"

She sounds positively exhilarated. The promise of walking away from this nightmare of a peaceful archaeological dig will do that to a person. She clutches her shiv close and runs out of the cell, leading the way for the others.