DISCLAIMER: I do not own any of the characters from 'Stargate: Atlantis'. They're not my property.


The fall was brief but the uncertainty of where they would land shook them good. A net of roots and plants cut their fall short of possible death. Unfortunately they had lost their flashlights in the fall and now the only ones remaining were those on their helmets. Catching their breaths with the intense beating of their hearts, both tried to make sense of where they had landed.

"You okay?" John asked, looking down at her.

Gripping on the vines, Elizabeth looked up at him and nodded. "Yeah, I think so. You?"

"Alive, that's something," he responded.

"Do we try to climb up?"

"I've got a feeling we won't reach very high," he told her.

Hearing a sound of glass breaking, they soon saw the place around them light up. It appeared one of the flashlights had triggered some sort of lighting mechanism with a series of torches being lit one by one. Of course what the light revealed wasn't very comforting: a giant room filled with devices used for torture.

"You know, this resembles a torture chamber," John said.

Elizabeth appeared even more unpleasantly surprised by this. "In the scrolls it said that they didn't believe in inflicting any kind of physical pain to people..."

"Well, these things certainly send a different message."

"So does this," Elizabeth said and pointed below them. A small square surface made of sharp spikes stood just underneath them.

"Oh boy."

To make matters worse at the moment, the vines started to slowly give in to the weight of the two. "Oh no."

"Okay, so obviously, now we need to find a way to jump away from these vines and hopefully not straight down to those spikes," John said.

"And how do we do that?" Elizabeth started searching for ways to find a good solution with John, and so far nothing caught their eye, which wasn't good news, as they could hear the breaking of the vines more and more.

"There!" John then shouted and she saw him pointing to a thick, vertical metal pole. Two thin chains hung from it, ending just a couple of centimeters from another, smaller surface with shorter spikes.

"There? There are spikes there!"

"They're less dangerous than the ones below us. It's worth the risk!"

One of the lines snapped, lowering them slightly.

"We swing, jump, grab on pole and or chain and then lower ourselves enough to swing on those chains and on to the safe floor."

"You make it sound like it's a bloody video game!"

Instead of a reply, John began swinging on the vines. Elizabeth soon had to join in. "On three we jump."

Another vine snapped.

"Make that one. Jump!" John shouted and then took a leap along with Elizabeth toward the pole.

The pole was missed but they caught the chains. The final vines broke and fell on the spikes behind John and Elizabeth. "Just in time," John breathed out.

Elizabeth looked up at the top of the chains, hoping they were strong enough to hold them for a while. "Ready to swing again, ma'am?" he asked her as if inviting her for a dance.

"Yes I am," Elizabeth accepted the 'invitation' and began swinging on the chains along with him. A jump followed and both landed on the, this time hopefully, solid ground.

Elizabeth looked at her reddish hands and the burning sensation she felt inside them served her right for forgetting to pull her gloves out from her backpack.

"And was anything like this torture chamber mentioned in the scrolls?" John asked, looking around.

"Nothing," then added a quieter, "ow".

John heard this. "You okay?"

"Yeah, just my hands are a little warm."

John smirked. "I didn't tell you to wear gloves?" She made a face of what John could tell was a pout.

"I didn't expect to go all ape and swing around the place," she replied. "And no, you didn't tell me that," Elizabeth reminded him.

The flickering light of the torches gave a warmer feel to an otherwise disturbing room. From what she could tell there were twenty different devices;so much for her belief of the Ancient Krolevans being a people who didn't believe in torture.

"These are some pretty gruesome methods of forcing information or whatever out of a prisoner," John said observing the devices. "They make the ones from medieval times look like kids toys."

"I knew the Ancient Krolevans had enemies but…" Elizabeth spoke with a slight disturbance in her voice.

"Maybe the majority of the population was not aware this room existed."

"It could be."

"No civilization in human history consisted only of saints. And this is after all five-thousand and more years old."

"I know, but I had hoped that these people would be an exception. But I see this…." She pointed to the devices.

"It does raise questions."

John scratched his chin. "What else do you know about them?"

"Not much. They were mostly interested in art and literature. The Bronze City itself was a mystery up until six months ago. And that was discovered from the clues found in the Little Bell ruins. So far no one knows what the City looks like, apart from the Northern Wing."

Elizabeth then remembered something and quickly took off her backpack. She pulled out a small case where her camera had been, praying it hadn't been damaged. Giving a smile of relief, she saw that it remained intact. Pointing it toward the devices, she began taking pictures of each along with some video footage.

John in the mean time surveyed the place, looking for the exit. He spotted another leaf-shaped outline in one of the corners. Coming closer to it, he noticed the deep grooves. Touching the groove, he then started following it, hoping to find a crack or something to open this. He came to the middle of the potential door and noticed a small switch. Moving it slightly down opened the door, he looked up at one of the torches. It was placed pretty high and out of their reach, but John felt it would be better to have one instead of relying only on those small flashlights on their helmets. "We could use one of these before we continue further," he said.

"How do we get one?" Elizabeth asked.

He considered using some of the torture devices but not many of them seemed movable and those few that did appeared far too dangerous to handle, especially with the minimum protection he and Elizabeth had. "If we can't get to it… maybe we could bring it to us."

Elizabeth looked at the brown wall. She knocked on the surface and a chunk of rock fell on the ground next to her. She earned a strange look from him. "Accident!" Elizabeth replied innocently.

John smirked and then picked up the rock. Aiming it, he then threw it at the metal cup that held the torch. It didn't budge.

Five attempts later it finally fell to the ground.

"Let's go," he told her.

When they exited the chamber, narrow stairs greeted them. It made sense that something so hideous would be in the lower levels, away from the attention and view of the citizens.


Once they reached the top of the stairs and passed through another corridor, they came to a narrow street. Elizabeth could see yellow pavements, some strange markings on the ground of the street in the middle, but the walls were the ones which got her attention the most; every inch had been made of bronze. Large square blocks, up to fifty feet high… but due to the absence of better lighting, she wondered if they were taller. Tapestries made of yellow and black string, each two meters tall, were placed on the walls. Images of people doing chores were presented on the tapestries, looking so real as if they had been photographs. "Mr. Sheppard…" she called.

"Yeah, explains the name of the city now."

"I was referring more to the tapestries. The images are incredibly realistic," Elizabeth sounded amazed. "Each…" she gently took John's arm holding the torch, and began moving it along the walls with the tapestries. "Each one has words…explanations for the images. Like this one." She stopped and looked up at a tapestry that showed a man and a woman holding a child over a stream. "Every child brought to this world is taken to the Beginner's River to be blessed by its waters."

John observed the images of the people whilst Elizabeth explained the meaning. The details were outstanding: he could even tell the materials of what their clothing had been made of, or were supposed to represent. The red and yellow were prominent here; the faces not at all different from the Krolevans of today. He could clearly see the loving expressions on the parents' faces for the child in their arms. "Wow, the details are…"

"Incredible, I know." Elizabeth was in awe as she observed these pieces. The constant awareness that she was having the privilege to be the first archeologist to step inside the city and look at its artistic treasures made it difficult for her to conceal her excitement; not that she had wanted to. Moving along the many tapestries, she then stopped at one of a man and a woman holding hands and looking at each other, both dressed in fine, silver-painted clothing. "A wedding ceremony – one of the… most sacred and treasured rituals among the Krolevans."

Although Elizabeth, who began recording the findings, was engulfed in the bliss of such discovery, John was more concerned of a possible exit nearby.

"This must have taken them a great amount of time and effort to finish each tapestry," Elizabeth said.

"Aha. I bet," John replied almost absently, as he moved the light away to scan the rest of the area.

"Hey!" Elizabeth protested to the sudden absence of proper lighting.

"This is awesome and all, doc, but I'd prefer to know where the exit is around here before I can indulge into countless and," he glanced back at her, "countless hours of studying what this place has to offer."

Elizabeth bit her lip as she hated to admit that he had been right. It would certainly be safer to return here again when the entrances and exits were well known… and the supplies were bigger. She looked back at the tapestries and tried to gather as much footage as possible before the conditions became unbearable and she was forced to run after John and catch up with him. The flashlight on her helmet had been far from perfect and she cursed not taking another torch with her.

"You've accompanied a lot of archeological teams?" She sensed his earlier sentence had come from experience.

"Oh yeah. You guys tend to spend hours over a piece of plain rock if you think it has … value."

She smirked. "But you collect such objects, don't you?"

"I only collect the ones that are little more obvious of their value."

"Money value?" she eyed his response.

John stopped. "Okay, I thought I already made it clear that I don't sell the artifacts I come across and also that I'm not a thief."

"I never said you were, Mr. Sheppard," she said.

"Oh, but we know you meant it," he glanced at her and continued walking.

"So did Jojo, apparently."

John snorted at this. "Please, he's still more worked up over the fact that I bedded his cousin rather than what I do with the objects I find."

Elizabeth chuckled. "And I thought their laws about looting were stricter."

"If you try to make away with the artifacts out of the country, they are."

"How strict?"

"You get a death sentence," he replied and smiled at her.

"They wouldn't be the first country to do it but still, that's a bit harsh."

"Of course it depends on the value of the objects. You could get a life sentence if the value is less," he spoke in his usual nonchalant way.

"Oh, reassuring."

"Which is why the smuggling business here isn't exactly thriving."

"And they have no problems if you keep those artifacts at home?"

"Nope. As long as it doesn't leave Delonia, they're okay with it, but if you're a foreigner they tend to hassle you more."

"I noticed."

Following the long street led them to another set of stairs. At least they were going up. Elizabeth looked at her watch and saw that they had almost three hours left until sundown. It had not been recommended to walk through the thick forest at night no matter how good one was in making their way through the barely noticeable paths. The chances of getting lost and coming across a large predator like the Krolevan wildcat that had been the size of a Grizzly were rather big – something John was generous enough to tell Elizabeth during their trek to the cave.

"Worse comes to worse, we'll just have to spend the night in the city," Elizabeth said.

"Let's hope we don't have to," John replied. He was beginning to get a bad feeling about this place for reasons that he couldn't explain.

"Not too keen on remaining here a while longer?" she asked.

"Not exactly." They finally reached the top of the stairs where another street, similar to the previous one, met them.

"Did it say in those scrolls of theirs why the city was abandoned like that?"

"No. They didn't describe any wars happening or diseases or anything that would force them to move. But they don't explain everything about the Ancient Krolevans. The tapestries were not mentioned… maybe we'll come across more here."

So far the city appeared to be perfectly preserved. The air was breathable; the objects they came across seemed almost untouched. "You know, I watched a movie like this once. A ghost town where you think time has stopped… then it turned out they were all abducted by aliens."

Elizabeth chuckled. "Well I'm sure there was another, more realistic reason for their disappearance. Frankly, I'm more interested in what they left behind at the moment."

"There was also one theory about the Egyptian pyramids being the landing pads for alien spaceships."

Elizabeth shook her head. "That was also a movie."

"Damn. I knew I remembered it from somewhere."

"And another –"

"Uh, maybe we should give the whole alien conspiracy theory a break here," she interrupted him.

"Didn't hurt to speculate at least," he said with a shrug. "You never know."

"True. But let's go with something that's less science-fiction next time." She heard him laugh. Elizabeth concentrated once again on the decorated bronze walls.

"Not much into the whole alien belief?"

"It's not that. People just tend to exaggerate when we come across a civilization whose building methods or certain ways of life seem unusual. If it isn't something that's obvious right away that could confirm that those peoples could have come up with such methods, they think it's the work of some extra terrestrial beings."

"Tell a man there are a million stars in the universe and he'll believe you, but tell him the bench has wet paint and he'll have to touch it to be sure."

"Precisely."

A tall dark wall stopped them from going further. "What's this wall doing here?" Elizabeth asked, surprised. The red building seemed to block the street. She approached it and put her hand on it. "Strange," she said. The wall suddenly began crumbling.

"It's gonna fall!" John shouted and grabbed Elizabeth's arm.

As they started running away from it, the wall collapsed only a meter away from them.

Hearing the crash, both stopped at a safer distance, and turned around. In the dust that arose from the fallen and shattered pieces of wall, it felt safe to take a few more steps back.

John looked at Elizabeth. "You have a gift," he said sarcastically.

Elizabeth touched her neck below her ear like an embarrassed little girl. "It didn't seem that the wall would collapse just like that. But at least… it cleared the way," she said and pointed toward the dust.

He huffed and began walking again. "Let's go," John said.

Moving past the debris, Elizabeth glanced at it. "It was probably placed here to block that other part of the city from the rest, but why?"

"We'll… or you'll figure it out another time, doc."

The answer was presented to them sooner than either expected. "Oh, my God…." Elizabeth spoke.

The street before them was covered with human remains numbering in the hundreds.

"This wasn't mentioned in the scrolls?"

"No… what… what happened here?"

With the other side of the city looking almost beautiful, here it appeared to be a complete mess. There were torn down tapestries, damaged walls…. And corpses, many corpses.

"Something bad," John said.

Treading carefully among the remains, trying not to step on them, both were amazed at the number. They saw no skeletons of children, only adults.

Grabbing her hand so as not to lose her, John was careful with his steps while at the same time becoming more eager to abandon this city himself. The trail of human remains continued for miles it seemed.

"There must be hundreds or more here," he guessed.

Seeing the positions of their bones, Elizabeth could imagine the panic and suffering that reigned here. But the reason for this was still unclear.

Another tall wall presented itself before them. In the middle of it was another leaf-shaped door but without a handle anywhere. Above it was a modest tapestry with large letters. Above the letters was a white raven and under them a red fish. Lifting the torch higher, John brought it closer to the pale tapestry.

"Give them peace," Elizabeth translated the words quickly.

John turned around where the remains of the people had been. He imagined the message to be about them.

Elizabeth confirmed that for him. "The white raven was considered as the guide to the heavens for the deceased."

"You think this was put up here after their deaths?" he asked.

Elizabeth nodded. "I don't know another reason for it being here."

"What's the fish for then?"

"The Red Medallion." Elizabeth glanced at John. "The rivers here used to be plentiful with this fish. I still don't know what it represents though."

"Doesn't say what's behind this door, so it's useless for now."

"This isn't so well done like the others," Elizabeth said, observing the lack of details. "It was probably done in a hurry."

"The door doesn't seem to have a way of opening it," John said, looking at the only possible exit here.

Elizabeth's view dropped to the floor where she saw a gold-painted line next to the door. Something caught her eye as she squatted down and saw a small needle sticking out from the middle. She glanced up at the tapestry and then down again.

"Found something?" John asked her.

"Y-es….A needle," she replied. "Strange." Elizabeth reached for the needle. When she pulled it out, the door suddenly fell down.

"Did you know that was supposed to open the door or was it just a lucky guess?" he asked her.

"Neither," she confessed.

The space in front of them was wider than the corridors they had seen so far. The limitations of the flashlights and the torch along with the rising dust weren't helping. It had to be a wider room, they thought. Walking on the remains from an older wall which must have had fallen ages ago, they tried to see more and make a decent picture of what had been behind this wall.

They couldn't see walls, the floor still under the rubble, the ceiling out of their reach. Some of the rubble had fallen on a lower level than the previous ones, making it appear that there had been stairs beneath them. As they kept moving and the traces of rubble were becoming scarcer, a color of green became visible on the floor. They saw a fish drawn there, some algae…and the jaws of a shark.

Elizabeth stopped and then looked behind her. "This is the wall opposite of the first one that fell."

"Uh-uh."

"But everyone had been running towards that first wall…"

"Maybe they figured that was the only one passage that was safe to go through…."

Elizabeth stepped aside and felt her left foot hit something. Looking down, she noticed more bones. However, these didn't look human. "John…" she called.

Following the corpse or at least, its remains, John got another uneasy feeling. "Looks big."

"And ancient."

"And not the only one."

Elizabeth turned around to look at this. She saw low piles. She also saw teeth there, sharp teeth; jaws. "This room, or whatever it is, must've been full of them."

They appeared feline…large specimens. "You know, the Mountain Krolevans said that there used to be large cats living here at one time."

"What were they doing here, I wonder?"

An unexpected noise in the background broke through. Both froze, unsure if it had been their imagination as their eyes stayed on the animal remains. When one took a step forward, the noise repeated itself. "Did you hear that?" Elizabeth asked of the sound very similar to a panther.

"Yeah…"

They knew it had been insane to think of even the slight possibility of…

Spinning around she saw a pair of dark eyes and fangs in the small circle of her flashlight. The intense moment was only a moment as the creature leaped over her, snatching the last chance of a better view.

The moment left them standing in their places, searching franticly with the weaker light of the flashlights. "What was that?" she asked.

"Something big."

Elizabeth turned to him. "You saw it?"

"Just a pair of eyes and some teeth."

"It jumped over me. How big was it to be able to do that?"

She paused, looking down at the bones. "You don't think –"

"No."

"But it could –"

"No."

The ancient silence of the city returned after that.