"Enter the Dungeons," said Jackson.
"What?" asked O'Neill, he hadn't been paying any attention and missed Jackson's translation.
"It says that this is the entrance to the dungeons."
The air was filled with a sound just like a giant steel door closing against a stone wall, followed by the sound of giant keys turning in a lock.
"That was just what I thought it sounded like," guessed O'Neill.
Carter stepped out of the light momentarily before returning with the bad news. "Yep," she confirmed. "We're locked in back that way."
"Of course there's now a wall in front of us as well. Right Daniel?"
"Hang on while I have a look."
"You probably don't need to bother."
"You're right, there's a wall here as well."
"Any ideas Jack?" Carter asked.
"Nope."
"We could sit here and stave to death," suggested Teal'c. "That would appear to be our only option."
"You'd die of thirst first," said Scully. They all looked at her. "Trust me on that," she added. "I'm a doctor."
"Not a dragon slayer," said O'Neill.
"Only on my days off," she said cynically, "and in Mulder's dreams."
"We've been equipped with whatever we need to get out of each challenge that we've come too right?" asked Jackson.
"Right," chorused the SG-1++ team.
"So we should be able to get out of this somehow too."
"That's a bit like saying blue is a colour and red is a colour, therefore blue equals red," suggested Scully.
"In a way that's true," said Carter. "I mean they're both electromagnetic radiation in the narrow band between infrared and ultraviolet. Trust me on that I'm a physicist."
"Oh really? Where did you do you're degree, mine was at Harvard?" Scully asked.
"In physics?" asked Carter.
"Yeah, the medical degree was post grad."
"Oh, right, mine was from…"
"Ladies," interrupted O'Neill. "The lock. Perhaps you two physicists could put your heads together and come up with a way to open the lock."
Carter reached up to the lock and touched it with the hand that was encased in the partial nanotechnology glove arrangement that she carried as part of the Borg Collective. She was actually 7 of 9 in this manifestation, not Samantha Carter. A tiny little tool jutted from her index finger and entered the lock mechanism. Less than a second later, the lock sprang open.
"See I told you," crowed Jackson.
"Well done Daniel," said O'Neill with just a hint of mockery amongst the sarcasm. "You too Sam," he added sincerely.
"I don't think we'll bother to add their distinctiveness to the collective," suggested Carter. "It might lower the collective IQ to dangerously low levels."
They stepped through the open door and crept into the cavern once again.
"There doesn't appear to be any guards," commented Jackson.
"Don't look a gift horse in the bush," said Teal'c. "Did I get that right?"
"Just stick to silent sullen slave-like impassivity," suggested Daniel Jackson.
*
Daniel looked at the engraving and opened his mouth to speak. He found that task unfamiliarly difficult because of the hand that was clamping his lips shut.
"Don't even think it out loud," O'Neill hissed into his ear. O'Neill had worked out what Daniel was doing. "Don't read the sign out loud!" O'Neill hissed as well, to forestall the natural tendency to which Daniel had been surrendering throughout their escapade. "I'm going to take my hand away and I want you to stay quiet. OK?"
Daniel nodded.
O'Neill released his hand slowly, waiting to be sure that Daniel was not going to speak again before releasing him completely from his grasp.
O'Neill held a single finger to his lips for Jackson's benefit.
Daniel paused for a moment, thought things through and then closed his mouth with an audible snap.
"I have a theory," O'Neill began. "Everything you say has been true so far. Now that may be because you have been reading the labels on the hazards. I grant you that may be the case. But suppose, hypothetically like, that it was only because you said those things, that they came true."
Jackson nodded appreciatively.
"Say we came into this dreamscape as what we appear to be," suggested O'Neill, warming to the task. "I am a warrior, Mac is a tomb raider, Sam is a lock picking thief, Scully is a sceptic, Teal'c is the token afro-American cast as a slave because we had no other role for him in this decadent and politically incorrect story. And say you came in, not as a cleric as we first thought, but as a wizard."
"OK," Jackson said. 'I can go with that."
"If that were true, then you are probably conjuring up our troubles for us.'
"It is a theory," agreed Jackson. "Yes."
"It's actually only a hypothesis," judged Scully. "In order to be a theory, it first has to be postulated and then tested. That hasn't been tested yet."
"What?" asked O'Neill now thoroughly confused by that non-sequiter.
"She's actually right," agreed Carter.
O'Neill cast one of his 'et tu Sam' expressions at her.
"We could test your hypothesis," suggested Scully.
"We could, yes."
"We just get Daniel to say the thing wrong and see what happens."
O'Neill nodded enthusiastically. "Now careful Daniel. What does it say?" he looked at Daniel significantly.
Daniel nodded. "It says, 'penetrable passage'," he lied.
Nothing happened. The walls stayed exactly as they had been.
"For a while there I thought we might have been stuck in an impenetrable maze," suggested Mackenzie, "unable to get out."
"Can you read those things?" O'Neill asked, surprised.
"Yeah," she said. "Can't you?"
"No."
She looked at him in surprise for a moment.
O'Neill hit his forehead with the heel of his hand. "But you're a tomb raider, of course you'd be able to read it. D'oh. Come on lets get on with this."
*
"What does it say Mac?" O'Neill asked. He stood beneath a banner with squiggly runes carved into it.
Sarah Mackenzie skipped up to stand beside him. She squinted into the gloom so she could make out the runes. "Abandon hope," she said.
O'Neill nodded. "Daniel?" he called.
"Be confident," Jackson said. "You're almost there."
"Good ad lib," Carter offered sotto voce.
"Hopefully the end of this farce is just around the corner," Scully muttered.
"May the Farce be with you," Mulder shouted. He had an audience of nil.
Teal'c continued in his role of silent slave. He pushed the gurney along, with the immobile body of Fox Mulder secured into the cushioning. All four wheels had developed a distinct squeak, and the left front wheel had developed a distinct wobble to go with it now. Every now and then Teal'c had to kick the gurney to make it behave its self. At least it had lost its inappropriate political leanings now. It was reluctant to go either left or right, preferring to remain un-manipulable in either direction.
"This is not the sort of adventure I signed on for," Scully muttered.
"Hey, Scully, you think you've got it bad," muttered Mulder.
Everyone looked over their shoulders, but none of them could make out where that sound was coming from.
*
The dim cavity opened into a dim grotto. From a scenery point of view it was no improvement. The light was still pretty limited, as though it was too scared to come out and play with all that nasty dark hanging about.
The grotto was large, perhaps as big as the gate room beneath Cheyenne Mountain. It was essentially empty. In the dim light they could make out the signs of some sort of activity on the far side of the space. They marched across to see what was going on.
O'Neill and Mackenzie had their guns out. Scully would have too, but there was already enough hardware on display and she thought this might be a good time to try subtlety.
Teal'c had his spear raised. It was good theatre, but not really all that intimidating.
Carter pushed the gurney.
Jackson was looking around for runes to mis-read, but found none.
From the gloom, the shape of a throne resolved. Seated on the throne was a person wearing a black robe. He turned to face the team from SG-1++ and grinned, not that he had a lot of choice in facial expressions. Teeth he had; lips he had not. In fact his head was a little light on for skin entirely. The deaths head mask was all the more real for being the actual Death's head that was staring out at them. Not having any eyelids sort of explained the fixed staring aspect of the bleak visage that confronted the SG-1++ team. At the back of the empty eye sockets was a twinkle of actinic brilliance that could momentarily blind any one daft enough to look at it.
"It's Death," guessed Mackenzie.
Seated around the throne were a dozen little grey naked aliens with huge dark eyes staring out from their oversized heads and abbreviated faces.
"And his Asgard minions," added Jackson.
"Is that like a rock band?" asked Carter. "You know, Death and the grey minions." She giggled nervously.
"It'd be a pretty lame name for a rock band," commented O'Neill. He resorted to inconsequential sarcasm when he was terrified.
"What? Worse than Duran Duran?" asked Jackson.
"Def Leopard is a pretty awful name," Carter said.
"What? And you think Limp Biscuit isn't?" added Scully.
"You've all missed the worst of them all," said O'Neill. "I used to listen to Mott the Hoople."
"You're kidding," said Carter. "That's not a real band name. Is it?"
"It sure was."
"OK, you win." Every one else nodded.
"WHEN YOU ARE QUITE FINISHED," said Death in a voice like two lead-slabs rubbing together. "WE HAVE AN APPOINTMENT."
"Not with us you don't," O'Neill said with false bravado.
"NO, ONLY WITH HIM," Death said laconically and pointed at the increasingly tatty looking gurney carrying the prostrate form of Fox Mulder. "THE REST OF YOU ARE JUST AN UNEXPECTED BONUS."
"I think this might be a good time to run," suggested O'Neill.
They took a vote and agreed six to zero to give it a go.
A dozen Asgard minions leapt into rowdy pursuit. O'Neill thought he heard the whinny of a giant horse issue from behind the throne.