Disclaimer: I'm not sure who owns Stargate nowadays, but I can tell you it's not me. This is a fan production only, no copyright infringement is intended.

A/N: Welcome to part 3 of the Dungeons & Dragons series! I started this nearly a year ago and, yeah, it's still not done. :/ But I decided to try something new and begin posting a chapter a week (or so) in the hopes that your feedback will help motivate me to get it done. I will say that I have a very solid outline and a good chunk finished, so don't fret! Even if it turns out terrible, I will finish it. Expect 15ish chapters from this one.

If you have not read the first two installments in this series, you might be a little confused at points, but will probably still be able to enjoy most of the story as a stand-alone. That being said, I'd love it if you want to check out the other stories on my profile! I write these for my own entertainment, but it's wonderful when other people get a kick out of them, too!

Moskstraumen
by Minnicoops

Part 1

"It's not what's on this island, but what's beneath it, that interests me."

― Jules Verne, Journey to the Center of the Earth

Most of the time, Evan Lorne had the patience of a Venus fly trap, waiting in still contentment, seemingly innocuous, for that moment he may need to spring into deadly action. Most of the time, he didn't allow himself to be riled up by the whining and tattling and other child-like behaviors that went on between the Marines and the scientists he supervised both in Atlantis and off world. Most of the time, nothing fazed him; not weather or situation or individual. But right now, a combination of all of the above were about to make him snap at someone, and today, that unlucky fly was one Doctor David Parrish.

"Parrish?" he asked again, letting his impatience color his tone.

The botanist glanced up from his sketchpad, as if he was noticing for the first time that someone was standing next to him. Which he likely was, even though Evan had not only been here for a while, but had already tried to get his attention twice.

"I'm almost done," Parrish said, turning back to the lichen-covered boulder he was drawing. "Just need a few more minutes."

"You said that twenty minutes ago," Evan reminded him. "Back when I could still feel my feet."

They were visiting MR5-629, or the North Pole as the Marines had been calling it, on a biological research expedition. Doctor Parrish and Doctor Ishihara were collecting samples of the local flora and fauna, the usual fare for this kind of mission, and apparently having art class in the middle of a glacier. Evan had been out with Parrish plenty before so he knew the drill, but he had thought the below freezing temperature might persuade the botanist to skip over the part where he sat drawing whatever plants he saw for hours. The rest of the team, even Ishihara, who had been just as giddy as Parrish by the prospect of whatever arctic macroinvertebrates resided here, was ready to get home and get warm again.

Parrish looked completely unperturbed by the gentle hints that he needed to pack it up and be done. "Sorry, Major. It's hard to get the details right."

"Probably because your hand is frozen," Evan remarked. "How about you take a picture and finish it later? Or draw one of the samples you took?" He wasn't really asking. He was done being a popsicle today, and definitely done listening to Jones and St. Clair whine about being cold, even though he distinctly remembered them saying something about how "Marines don't get cold" right before they left on this polar adventure.

"You can go back to the jumper," Parrish said distractedly, still completely focused on the shading he was doing. "I'll meet up in a few minutes."

Evan gave him an incredulous look which he didn't see because he was still bent over his drawing. "I'm not going to wait in the jumper," he said, shaking his head in disbelief. How long had Parrish been with the Stargate Program? He should know as well as anyone that these seemingly innocuous planets were the ones that tended to turn on them.

Giving up for the moment from prying Parrish away from his precious lichen, Evan stepped away and tapped his radio. "Five more minutes, then we're heading out." He would drag Parrish kicking and screaming if he had to.

"Sir, can you remind Doctor Parrish that some of us are freezing our butts off out here?" came a reply from St. Clair.

"You have to have a butt to freeze it off," Jones quipped back.

"Boys," Evan interrupted before the conversation devolved into insult slinging, like it had for the past two hours. "Let's keep the radio for relevant conversation."

"Yes, sir."

"Sorry, sir."

Jones and St. Clair were patrolling the area around where they had parked the jumper and where the scientists were working. Kennel was keeping close to Ishihara, partially to keep an eye on him but more to help him haul around his equipment. Ishihara was the more reasonable of the two scientists they had brought today, and actually paid attention when he was told where he could and could not go. He also had enough common sense not to pull any stupid stunts, unlike Parrish. Which was why Evan was the one following Gilligan around.

"Sir," Kennel's voice came on a minute later. "Doctor Ishihara is picking something up on the tricorder."

Evan pulled out his own Ancient PDA, his cold fingers fumbling and almost dropping it. He'd been checking it periodically since none of the rest of his team had the ATA gene, but Ishihara did and had been using it to track down his critters.

He thought the device on and took a look at the readings on the screen. There were the six dots that showed the teams' life signs, plus another large one on the edge of the screen, approaching them slowly. Most of the animals they had seen so far were tiny little things that were barely discernible as dots—this was definitely much larger.

"Okay, party's officially over," he announced. "Everyone head back to the jumper."

Enthusiastic "Yes, sir's" all around, plus a "Thank God" thrown in for good measure. He had to agree; he was more than ready to go home and warm up.

Crossing back over to Parrish, who had a radio but of course had ignored the order in lieu of putting the finishing touches on his drawing, Evan picked up the scientist's discarded pack. "Time to go, Parrish."

"Yeah, I'm just—"

"Now," he ordered, shoving the pack toward Parrish.

Parrish finally looked at him and must have recognized the no-more-dicking-around look on his face because he quickly packed up his sketching materials and threw the pack over his shoulder.

"Is something wrong?" Parrish asked as he tried to keep up with Evan's quick pace.

"Hope not," Evan answered over his shoulder. "But there's something larger than Ishihara's arctic slugs headed our way and I'd rather not hang around to find out if it's friendly."

Everyone else was already at the jumper when they arrived, Jones and St. Clair posted on either side of the hatch waiting for them. "Did you finish your doodle, Doc?" Jones asked as they clamored inside.

Parrish gave him a funny look as he unzipped his parka. "I didn't take that long," he defended, reading the subtext of Jones' question.

Evan tossed his own hat and gloves onto the bench as he walked straight into the cockpit, sliding into the pilot seat and pulling up the HUD without hardly thinking about it. The jumper hummed warmly in his mind, welcoming him back with the same enthusiasm as a dog wagging its tail.

Kennel and Ishihara were in the cockpit already, looking between the Ancient PDA and out the front window to try to get a visual on whatever was approaching.

"See anything?" Evan asked, finding the blip on the HUD and then doing his own search out the window for it. All he could see was ice and snow and the tall mountains in the distance.

Kennel shook his head. "Nothing yet, sir."

Half of him wanted to hang out long enough to spot whatever was approaching, but the cautious half decided it was probably better that they at least get into the air in case they needed to make a hasty retreat. It hadn't been all that long ago that one of his "babysitting the scientists on a harmless planet" missions had gone sideways when a dragon took off with Doctor Zelenka, and while he couldn't remember all the details (he had been concussed), he remembered enough to not want a repeat scenario today. They lived in an alien galaxy—who's to say ice dragons weren't a thing? Or murderous polar bears?

"Everyone in?" he called back, glancing behind him to get a visual on the three in the back.

"Good to go, sir," St. Clair announced as the back hatch clicked shut.

Evan barely had to nudge the jumper to get it up into the air. The view was better from the sky and he almost immediately spotted something moving. "What is that?" he asked no one in particular, trying to make out the odd shape against the snow. It didn't look like an animal; more like some kind of vehicle.

"It looks kind of like a puddle jumper," Ishihara said.

It did look similar to a puddle jumper, except it was smaller and more round than cylindrical, and it had some distinctive markings that were not familiar. The three from the back of the jumper made their way up to the front, curiously joining the rest of the team in watching the ship make its way toward them.

"I thought this planet was uninhabited," St. Clair said.

"Maybe not so much," Parrish mused. "Wouldn't be the first time we didn't pick someone up on our initial scan.

The ship appeared to be some kind of hovercraft, staying low to the ground and kicking up powdery snow behind it. As it got closer, they could just make out the outlines of two people through the front window.

"Ever seen that kind of technology before?" Evan asked Kennel, because he didn't recognize it, but the lieutenant had been part of the initial expedition to Atlantis and may remember something they had encountered that first year.

Kennel shook his head. "No, not that I've seen."

They continued to observe the ship from their position in the sky, watching as it eventually reached the approximate area they had been parked before stopping. A hatch on the top of the ship opened after a moment, and first a woman and then a man crawled out and began to search the area with some kind of handheld scanners. They blended in with the snow around them, with pale skin and white hair. Even their clothing, which didn't look warm enough for the frigid temperatures, was an icy blue.

"Should we go say hi, sir?" Kennel asked.

"Let's radio Atlantis first and let them know about this new development," Evan decided. He wasn't all that excited about hanging out at the North Pole longer, but these folks seemed technologically advanced, and that was always worth investigating. "Then we can introduce ourselves."

John turned the stone over and over in his hand, tracing the dark line of crystals that spiraled across the face of it with his thumb as he did. The slightly rough texture of the crystals embedded in the smooth, almost polished feel of the stone was mesmerizing. His mind wandered as he slowly flipped it over again, letting the comforting warmth of it wash over him. So serene, so peaceful...

"Sheppard, you in here?"

He snapped back into reality, bolting upright in the chair and dropping the stone back into its case. Blinking away the dreamlike fog, he shut the lid over it. "In here," he called, scrubbing a hand over his face. How long had he been sitting here?

Rodney poked his head through the doorway that joined John's office to Lorne's, frowning at him. "What are you doing in Lorne's office?"

John pushed the small box aside, hoping the computer would hide it from Rodney's view, and grabbed the stack of folders he'd come in to retrieve. "Just getting some forms," he said quickly.

Rodney eyed him suspiciously. "You were messing with the stone again, weren't you?" he accused. "You always get this look when you've been holding it."

John scowled at him, embarrassed that he'd been caught. Not that he wasn't allowed to look at the Hopestone, but they'd all agreed that they should leave the thing in the shielded box unless they were doing specific, supervised tests with it. "What look?"

Shrugging, Rodney, leaned against the doorway and crossed his arms over his chest. "I don't know. You look... Happy, I guess."

Oh. Well, that made sense, given that that seemed to be the device's main purpose. The issue, of course, was that it was easy to lose all sense of time while holding it, which he had stupidly just allowed to happen to him. "And that's a problem?"

The look Rodney gave him told him he didn't need to dignify that with an answer. He knew exactly how easy it was for John to lose an hour or two just staring at the device. "I swear, the way you and Major Lorne are obsessed with that thing... We may have to hide it away in one of the labs so you quit playing with it."

"I'm not obsessed with it," John defended. "I just want to know what it is."

"Yeah, well, good luck with that," Rodney snorted. "We've run every test I can think of, and I can't find anything in the Ancient database that says anything about a device like that. Maybe it's just the Ancients version of a stress ball."

John raised an eyebrow. "Stress ball?"

"Yeah, you know, the little foam balls they make for when you're stressed…" Rodney opened and closed his hand to mimic squeezing a ball as he trailed off, then rolled his eyes as he noticed that John was just making fun of him. "My point is, it's entirely possible we'll never know what it is."

It had been a month since Lorne found the Hopestone, as he and John had named it after their adventure in the dream reality, in the bottom of his locker. Since then, they'd figured out a few things about it, but not exactly what it did or why it existed. They knew that holding it released endorphins, bringing on a strong sense of peace and contentment, and that it wanted to be held. It seemed to emanate a kind of addicting energy that drew in anyone who had the gene, which was why they'd put it in the shielded box. And they knew that it had been causing nearly all of the ATA carriers in Atlantis to have strange dreams.

That last discovery had been entirely incidental. Up until a couple weeks ago, John thought he was the only one having the eerily vivid dreams about the sandstorm, and had chalked it up to his subconscious still sorting out his mysterious capture, even though he knew the strange dreams had started before all that. But then as soon as they'd put the device in the shielded box, the dreams had stopped completely. In an offhanded conversation with Rodney, he realized that he wasn't the only one who had suddenly started sleeping better.

After a bit of poking around, they'd discovered that almost all the gene carriers in the city had been having varying levels of nightmares for months. Specifically, since around the time that Lorne had unwittingly brought the Hopestone back from the dragon planet. But the why of it all was still a big question mark.

This, of course, was all connected to the bigger mystery of John and Lorne's six weeks as captives a few months ago. They still had no idea who had taken them and stuck them in the dream reality, but they theorized that whoever it was had been looking for the Hopestone. But there had been no hint of who might want the device or why.

"So what's up, Rodney?" John asked, standing and placing the box with the Hopestone back on top of the filing cabinet behind Lorne's desk.

"Oh, right," Rodney said, moving out of the doorway so John could join him in his office. "Major Lorne just radioed in that he ran into some locals at the North Pole."

John dropped onto his couch, slouching comfortably, and waited for Rodney to continue. When the scientist merely looked at him expectantly, John asked, "Friendly locals?"

"What?" Rodney said, confused by the question. He obviously had been going in a different direction with this line of thought. "Oh, I don't know. They were going to go talk to them."

"And so you're telling me because...?" John's team wasn't on standby today, so while it was good to be informed of the happenings of the offworld teams, it wasn't necessary.

"Because that means Zelenka is free this afternoon," Rodney said, as if that should be obvious.

John sighed and rolled his eyes. Of course. Wednesday afternoons were usually Lorne and Zelenka's standing meeting time to figure out whatever it was they did that somehow magically made Atlantis run smoothly. Once upon a time, John and Rodney had been a lot more involved in those meetings—negotiating which projects would be approved for the coming quarter, updating the supply list, going over grievances between the Marines and science staff—given that they were the heads of their departments. But somewhere along the line, they'd stopped receiving the weekly invitations. John liked to think it was because they'd done such a good job delegating the tasks they didn't want to do, but in reality, it was probably more because Lorne and Zelenka had gotten tired of the two of them picking fights over every decision. Either way, John was happy to have extricated himself from one more weekly meeting.

What Rodney was referring to now was the fact that he and Zelenka had been trying to pin him down for help with some modifications to the control chair. Basically, they needed him to be a human light switch, and for whatever reason they claimed it had to be him since he was the strongest gene carrier in the city. Something about his ability to sense small changes that other people couldn't. He'd been shirking the request for weeks now, always finding some excuse or other to not be forced to sit there for hours while they tinkered with the chair.

"I have to file those reports," he said, motioning toward the folders he'd dropped on the table next to the couch and hoping the excuse would buy him another couple of days.

"You're telling me you'd rather do paperwork than upgrade Atlantis' defenses?" Rodney countered with a stern expression. "And, besides that, you specifically told me at breakfast that you had nothing important going on today."

Damn. He'd been counting on Zelenka being busy. He searched for another excuse but couldn't come up with anything. Oh well, he was going to have to do it eventually.

"Fine," he grumbled, pushing himself up off the couch. "But at least let me get a cup of coffee first."

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