We have a team of fleeing good guys, we have a horde of confused, drunken and slightly misguided guys pursuing them, we have a team of medieval demons staking all of them, and we also have a small group trying to rescue the fleeing good guys. On top of all that we have a long straight hallway and set in both of the walls we have a series of doors. And though we have done this before, it is a narrative opportunity that cannot be allowed to go past unexplored. All these stories have to have a scene of this type.
Samantha Carter and Jack O'Neill are the first to enter our set piece. They bounded around the corner, heedless of the scene ahead of them. They stopped in the middle of the hall, looked around frantically turned a full 360degrees on the spot in frantic confusion and then ducked into the first door on their left.
The pursuing horde of Peasants (minus a few less inebriated team members who are no longer among their original number and slinking off in the hope that nobody noticed that they were missing) cascaded into the hallway and found it empty. They skidded to a halt, except for the one trailing along last of all, who collided with the rest and toppled them over like a feeble attempt at the world domino toppling record. They clambered to their collective feet, looked around briefly to decide whether the SG1 team might have entered one of the doors, and entered the first door on the right.
After a few seconds, the first door on the left opened and O'Neill's head poked out for a moment. He scanned the hallway, found it clear and gestured for Carter to follow. Carter stepped through the door and they began sneaking along the hallway, walking with exaggerated motions signifying careful placement of their feet.
They stopped. There was a sound from the first room on the right. O'Neill led a frantic entry to the third door on the right.
The Count and his wife strode confidently into the corridor. They stopped and scanned the scene for a moment and then stepped over to the first door on the left. They peered inside and then closed the door. They found nothing in there. They strode purposefully over to the first door on the right and opened the door. They closed it hurriedly and ran back to the first door on the left, banging the door shut behind them.
Teal'c, Daniel Jackson followed by Magda and Heidi Pravda stepped into the hallway from the far end and strode purposefully between the doors.
They looked around as they walked, as though searching for something.
"They wouldn't be here," Heidi stated.
"You're probably right," Jackson said.
They walked on by.
The first door on the right opened and the Peasants trooped drunkenly into the hallway, looked around and then strode across to try the first door on the left. A couple of Peasants tried the second door on the right as well.
We had the requisite delay of almost two seconds before the Count and his wife came fleeing out of the first door on the right, made a quick U-turn and dived into the second door on the right. The drunken peasants followed a couple of seconds later, crowding into the door like the keystone cops before they tumbled into the hallway and then finally dashed across the hall into the second door on the left.
O'Neill's head appeared out of the third door on the right. O'Neill and Carter emerged in the hallway and tip-toed back to the second door on the left.
Jackson and Teal'c reappeared in the hallway.
"I could have sworn that I heard something," Teal'c said.
"Yeah. Me too," Jackson said. He frowned behind his glasses.
"It's this way," Heidi Pravda called to them. She led the way back out of the corridor.
Jackson and Teal'c followed along behind but were still in the corridor when four Peasants burst from the Second door to the right.
Obviously hyper-spatial bypasses, using technology similar to the stargates, connect the rooms on the other side of those doors to one another.
O'Neill, pursued by three Peasants raced from the second door on the left and entered the third door on the right. The door slammed shut behind them with a resounding bang.
Carter and O'Neill stepped into the hallway from the first door on the right looking very confused. They stopped in the hall for a moment before dashing into the second door on the left.
Four confused Peasants entered the hall from the third door on the left and staggered through to the third door on the right.
Carter's head popped out of the second door on the left and then back into the room. A second later her head popped into the hallway from the second door on the right and then withdrew hurriedly. She looked confused, and so do we.
The Count ran from the first door on the left and crossed to the second door on the right. Four Peasants ran from the second door on the left at the same time as a similar team of Peasants ran from the second door on the right. They collided and landed in a pile on the floor. They rolled onto their backs with their legs in the air.
Samantha Carter stepped from the third door on the left. Jack O'Neill stepped form the third door on the right.
O'Neill scratched his head and wore a puzzled expression before he looked back at the door through which he had emerged.
O'Neill and Carter exchanged a quick look and then by unspoken agreement, they ran along the corridor, retracing the way they had entered, and out of sight. The Count and the Countess emerged immediately afterward and stalked after them. The Countess's sister stopped to inspect the damage done to the peasants for a moment. She licked her lips and tilted her head as though trying to decide where to start in this banquet, before hurrying after the rest of her family. Her brother in law's call had broken her spell.
For now…
After a few seconds the Peasants began to climb groggily to their feet.
*
Trailing along behind the half of SG-1 that consisted of Samantha Carter and Jack O'Neill came a 25cm tall fluffy pink bunny, frantically beating a snare drum that it had suspended around it's neck. A gleaming relatively-new pair of Energiser D-cell batteries nestled snugly in it's back.
Jack O'Neill stopped running, frowned for a moment and turned to face the little Bunny. He scratched his head in bafflement for a moment. "I hate that thing," he snarled and then he raised his gun and drilled it through the head, dead centre on the bandaid that crossed it's forehead. "How the hell does it manage to get into the places that it does?" he wondered and not without good reason. I don't have a good answer for that one.
The sound of tiny snare drums ceased. The bunny fell onto its side and tumbled against the wall. One reasonably-new Energiser battery rolled forlornly across the floor.
"Thank god for that," commented Samantha Carter. She shivered in revulsion.
*
A skeletal figure stalked the hallway, leading a large white horse. The midnight cape was flapped in the metaphorical breeze. Something laying on the floor ahead of him caught his eye. He strode over to it and then bent over to examine it more closely. On the floor was the body of the Energiser Bunny. He picked it up off the floor and examined it critically.
"AH, ONE OF THESE THINGS" ruminated Death. He picked up the loose battery and placed it back in the cavity in the Bunny's back. After a second, Death pulled the battery out and reversed its polarity before putting it in again. The Bunny immediately resumed beating the snare drum. "THEY SEEM TO TURN UP EVERY WHERE. I WONDER HOW THEY DO IT? AND MORE IMPORTANTLY, WHO WAS STUPID ENOUGH TO INVENT THIS THING?" He looked at it closely and then grinned. "THE GUY RESPONSIBLE IS PROBABLY STILL ALIVE. FOR NOW. HUMANS, YUCK?"
He pulled out the battery, because that was his role in the universe and threw the Bunny back onto the floor.
*
Teal'c stood guard in the doorway, once again failing to do justice to the quality of the bio-ware processor he had gone to so much trouble to grow when he was much younger. Magda Pravda stood beside him wearing an expression that said, 'I can't believe that I'm here.' Every now and then she looked across at Teal'c and stared surreptitiously at the symbol on his forehead. Teal'c found the attention to be slightly disconcerting, so he stared straight ahead so that he didn't have to deal with it. Not given to complex human interactions is Teal'c.
Meanwhile Daniel Jackson clambered up to the sarcophagus and peered into business compartment. It was empty.
Heidi Pravda walked around to the other side of the piece of alien technology and leant inside the bio-mechanical coffin. She confirmed for her self that there was no blood-sucking fiend lying in there.
During their passage through the hallways and beneath the various tapestries, her hair had come unbound again. It cascaded over her shoulders in a raven veil.
"I was sure that at least one of them slept in this things during the day time," she said. "It keeps them young and healthy… Sort of... Any way, that's what we were all told as children." She shook her head ruefully, then bowing slightly so that she had to look up at Jackson through her eyelashes. Her gaze met his across the sarcophagus. One of her eyes was partially hidden behind a veil of silken hair that draped from her forehead and onto her breast. And speaking of those, the combination of her leaning into and against the sarcophagus, with her arms folded across her chest was making a fashion statement that Jackson could not ignore under threat of death. It was one of those occasions when Daniel Jackson managed not to think about his dead wife. In fact if you were to ask him about Shar're at the moment, you would probably receive a blank stare, followed by a bewildered blink in reply. For a moment he was lost in the spell of those clear brown orbs. "I don't like the fact that this one is empty," Heidi said. "It means they are abroad in day light."
Behind Jackson, Teal'c rolled his eyes and raised one mocking eyebrow. He was starting to think that Daniel had a thing for the dark, brooding ones.
Magda Pravda had noticed the exchange between Jackson and Heidi as well. She frowned. It might be time to think about finding Heidi a nice boy to settle down with, some one with better eyesight and less of the wanderlust, she decided. Until that moment Heidi had been much more intent on running about with her father and planning to do lots of damage to the local Lord and his minions. Most of her friends had long ago settled down. A few of them had even started families of their own. Heidi had seemed immune to the call of biology. Until now that was. Magda was slightly concerned about the way her all-week warrior daughter was behaving at the moment.
"That's pretty much the same story that we were told," Jackson told Heidi. "But the other Goa'uld that we encounter throughout our travels only use these things when they have to. Like when one of their number is killed."
Jackson knew this from experience, not of watching the Goa'uld use the thing, although he had done so, but of using the thing himself, having been dead once or twice already.
"And yet," said a bemused Heidi. "There was the one that we killed earlier today, and that one is not in here. I felt sure they would have placed her in here by now."
"Your father is probably keeping them busy," Suggested Magda Pravda from the doorway. "They'll get around to it eventually."
"Or perhaps it's Colonel O'Neill and Major Carter that are keeping them busy," suggested Teal'c.
In a dimensional twist where they cannot see, but by the use of special narrative viewer, one that you can down load to your browsing software (just click here for…) that has been especially prepared for this story, we can see a lanky figure dressed in the coolest and smoothest line in black attitude-wear. He sat atop a pale horse with the most arrogant stance you could imagine in that most noble of equine beasts. He shook his head and grinned (like he had a choice). "IT WAS ( c ) NONE OF THE ABOVE. DEAD FOR GOOD THIS TIME. YOU CAN TRUST ME ON THAT."
The black clad figure looked closely at Daniel Jackson and would have frowned if he had the necessary equipment. "FOR SOME REASON YOU LOOK FAMILIAR. BUT HOW CAN THAT BE…? IT WILL COME TO ME EVENTUALLY, BUT…" he scratched at his head and in so doing made a noise like two bones rubbing together. There was a reason for that.
"Come on Teal'c we have to find them," Jackson said with sudden decisiveness.
"I agree Daniel Jackson," said Teal'c. He was still maintaining his best guard pose at the doorway. "It is time we finished this business."
"They're probably back inside the main halls of the castle some where," Jackson speculated, and thus proved that even the best of simulation software provides little better than a stab in the dark.
"Or in the clutches of the Count," suggested Teal'c in his best approximation of human sympathy.
"I don't want to think about things like that," Jackson said darkly. Heidi cast a dark look at Teal'c for upsetting Jackson.
Magda Pravda groaned to herself and started making plans.
*
Jack O'Neill skidded into the dungeon where the sarcophagus rested, leapt athletically over the splintered remains of the door that had the effrontery to resist Teal'c earlier passage and landed square in the middle of the room. He looked around and catalogued the scene as only a combat veteran can.
There was a derelict set of transport rings in one corner, covered in a heavy film of dust. There were no signs of life inside the rings. Well that was not going to be the way out for any one. That was a good sign.
There were other abandoned pieces of high technology stored beneath old tapestries and heavy layers of dust.
Only a metre or so ahead of him rested a Goa'uld sarcophagus, type I, nasty piece of technology that makes you a bit strange in the head, but comes in handy from time to time, ie every time you get killed.
He reached a decision.
It was here in this room where he could do the most damage on the way out, he decided. Now where to start?
O'Neill saw lots of places where he could lob a grenade and do a lot of damage. It was just one of those kinds of rooms. The real challenge was finding a way to maximise your impact. Any idiot with a grenade could do damage, it was in the artistic bit that the real skill lay. He was ranking the potential locations according to the impact they would have and the time it would take to fashion the repairs. It kept him occupied for a while.
Samantha Carter spent the time peering under the tapestry covers and cataloguing the machinery, trying to work out what role each component was expected to perform in the overall gestalt of the facility. She was struggling to figure out how some seemed to have mechanical functions and yet they appeared to be based on biological principals and in some cases, vice versa. The SGC researchers had not yet managed to reproduce the technology within the sarcophagus or the transport rings and she took every opportunity to examine pieces of Goa'uld technology when they had the chance.
She looked closely at the sarcophagus. The entire SG-1 team had seen the inside of them a few times, mostly after having taken a mortal wound. In that respect the things are rather handy. This one seemed to be functional, and if so, it was probably the only piece of high tech gear left in this dungeon that was. She had managed to clamber into a compromising position between the piles of derelict equipment because she figured she had time for a detailed look around as soon as she saw that O'Neill had begun looking closely at the sarcophagus and fingering his grenades.
He had reached a decision on how to proceed, after debating a couple of equally likely scenarios. Carter's examination was going to be much more short-lived than she would have liked. She recognised the signs, simply by sound alone now. A few years in each other's company can do that to you.
All in all it was not the sort of tableau that either of them would have chosen for the entrance of the Count, his wife and his remaining sister-in-law.
"Goodness," said the Count. "You lot have led us on a merry chase today. Altogether too athletic for your own good."
"What did he say?" O'Neill asked.
Carter said something much less articulate, having brained herself on the lid to the sarcophagus in her anxiety to see who had just come into the room. She rather wished she had taken a bit longer, because the news was bad and she had a head ache to go with it.
"The only foreign language that I speak is mathematics," Carter quipped caustically. "How the hell would I know?" Her head hurt a lot.
"I don't think this is intended to be a pleasant greeting," O'Neill said. He wasn't fooled by the Count and Countess's smiles; while there was a lot of teeth on show, some of them were rather more pointy than suited the shape of the human mouth that surrounded them.