Author's Note: I've gotta admit, this chapter ends with a bit of a mean trick on my part... but don't worry. More will come quickly.
Daniel sighed and looked at his watch: it was either very late or very early, depending on how he chose to think about it. He'd been in the temple for hours and hours now, preferring to think in the empty silence and study by a flashlight over being in his tent under Jack's ever-watching eyes. An extraordinarily talented and able officer in the United States Air Force, Jack was also a close friend and could usually read Daniel pretty well. And Daniel had to admit to himself, much as he didn't want to, that he had been acting strangely since learning of Bailey's involvement with the site.
Harrison Bailey was never easily understood, and he had always been very antagonistic toward Daniel, always trying to compete, trying to provoke the younger man. Though Daniel had tried, many, many times, years and years ago, to reconcile the animosity between them, Bailey would have none of it. His presence now served to bring out feelings in Daniel that he'd been able to suppress for some time.
Now, as he sat in the emptiness, completely void of anything but sand and air, hours of research behind him, he'd still gotten nowhere. The whole thing was like some absurd powder keg, ready to burst: all of his past failures were rushing at him; he closed his eyes, only to have images flash like some sadistic slideshow across his eyelids. Even the blank walls of the temple taunted him, daring him to make another attempt at unlocking the mysteries and riddles they held. In what he imagined as a temporary white flag of surrender, Daniel stretched out on the grainy tile of the room's floor. Reaching his arms behind his head to use them as a pillow, Daniel felt his hand knock over his forgotten and neglected cup of coffee.
"Damn." He muttered.
Somehow, Daniel couldn't bring himself to care quite enough to clean up his mess just yet, so he remained as he was. After several moments, however, Daniel's eyes opened widely. He listened intently: apart from the initial clanking of the cup falling over, there was another sound - it was a... dripping... much like a leaky faucet. Daniel rolled over onto his stomach, lightly brushing his fingers over the damp spots where the coffee had spilled. He followed the little trail and began feeling around the tile where it had dropped off. Scrambling about, Daniel grabbed the nearest tool he could find: a crowbar. Working quickly, he chipped away the sand-cement that held the tiles together and slowly pried up the first tile he could. Instead of being met by more sand or layers of floor, there was a dark, empty space. Daniel shone his flashlight down: it was another room.
Excited and re-energized, Daniel renewed his chipping and prying until he was able to pull enough away, creating a hole big enough for himself to pass through. Securing his flashlight to his wrist, Daniel lowered himself into the darkness.
Eyes long-adjusted to the darkness, Daniel could see enough to know that he was only a few feet from the bottom as he hung from the room above, and he managed to drop down gracefully. Turning his light about the room, Daniel closed his eyes and tried not to be discouraged: it appeared this room was just another empty, inscriptionless space with no clues to indicate what it was for or who it was for.
And then the light came across something on a far wall. Daniel focused the beam on the object: it was a reddish-colored half-sphere that was raised up from the wall, much like the ones he had known the Asguard to use.
Daniel walked cautiously forward and slowly extended a hand. Upon touching the sphere, a jolt of energy went through him, and Daniel collapsed, very much unconscious.