Chapter 10 - New Adventures & Life Lessons
Space Above Earth
Onboard Prometheus
The Next day
They got kitted out in the armoury talking about Jackson's jewellery and the pros and cons of taking a thieving liar into a potentially dangerous and possibly treasure-filled situation. Jackson insisted on going, stating that he had already missed one opportunity of a lifetime because of Vala's intervention. He also didn't want to die in the process, so Vala had to come with him.
Understandably, nobody was happy when the call came from the auxiliary Transporter Room for them saying that they were ready to begin.
Mitchell broke up another over-the-top flirting session by walking right through the blockage the two love birds set up at the entrance to the bridge, barring his entry.
"Marks, what have you got?"
"Well, thanks to the Asgard sensors, we were able to map around the energy distortion that would have normally fooled deep-ground sonar," the Lieutenant explained, jumping back and forth between consoles. "I was able to define a large main cavern, a network of tunnels, and some smaller caves."
"Well done, Lieutenant." Mitchell clapped the man on the back.
"Can you see what's in there, say, large piles of precious metals?" Vala bent over his shoulder and batted her eyelashes at the man. Jackson saved the poor Lieutenant from his discomfort at having her tits on his face by dragging her back to stand with him.
"Uh, as I said, we could only map the exterior of the structure." Marks muttered.
"Can you get us where we need to go?
"Well, it's almost a half-mile underground," Marks studied where Mitchell pointed. "There's no visible access from the surface–"
"Asgard beams?"
"Tried that. Doesn't seem to penetrate whatever sort of energy shield is disguising the caves." Marks answered Jackson's query.
"Rings."
When everyone turned to stare at her, Vala explained. "The Ancients were the Gate Builders, right? And they invented the rings too. They had to get in and out of there somehow, and I know this ship has rings. It's how I–"
"Yeah, yeah. Good times, good times." Jackson cut her off before she could get to the good parts. "She's right, though."
Marks flipped more switches. "If there are rings down there, we should be able to lock on. But your radios won't work."
A round of glances got exchanged. It was a risk. But it was one worth taking. Mitchell sighed and exited the room to find the other transporter room, giving Marks the go-ahead to ring them down when he got a lock.
Ancient Defence Outpost
Antarctica
Sheppard was heading towards the beaming area when he ran into Mitchell and his team who were going in the opposite direction, towards the ring transporter room. It seemed that the SG-1 needed the rings to get into the cave since it was shielded against beaming. Sheppard wished them luck to find something fun and Mitchell advised him very seriously on which science labs to avoid down at the Outpost.
The beam faded to reveal the silver dome that housed the entrance to the underground facility. He was dressed in full winter gear, courtesy of the Prometheus. But the bits of snow that found their way to the exposed skin on his face around his shades, was enough to make him shiver in earnest.
He jogged towards the door that opened as he approached and the SF closed it quickly, without letting the slight drizzle of snow follow in behind him. A Marine Sergeant named Markham flashed a brilliant smile and escorted him to the elevator that took them down a few levels to reach the command centre.
"Welcome to Antarctic Outpost, sir, very glad you're here,"
The kid was way too happy, possibly a little delirious. Sheppard started to wonder if there was any substance to Mitchell's tales and fears about this place.
"Uh, huh, any particular season, Sergeant?" he asked cautiously.
"Sir, the Atlantis expedition took almost everyone with any skills with the gene when they left," Markham explained, apprehensively. "Another team left with the Daedalus only two days back. Now, only a very few scientists left for Chair upkeep and maintenance, and that doesn't happen unless there's anyone to activate the thing," his tone almost turned into a pitiful whine at the end. "Corporal Harold and I've been on duty here for three months without a break."
"You both have this gene thing," Sheppard felt sorry for the exhausted Marine.
"Barely," Markham said. "But enough for the geeks to poke and prod things. So yeah–"
"Huh," Sheppard took in his surroundings when the elevator finally deposited them at the Command Center and opened its doors. The interior of the Outpost looked very different. The walls were made of decidedly alien metal that glowed a bluish bronze. Strange patterns and carvings adorned them, just like the ones he had seen on the Chair… from before. Or, was it, from later?
This thing with wound-up time drove him nuts at times.
"I'm just here for the day," he said as the Sergeant escorted him around the numerous workstations and consoles to get closer to the circular platform that took up space at the centre.
The Control Chair lounged majestically on it, about a foot and a half elevated above the ground. It was the same one he had seen back at Area 51, he knew because the familiar buzzing was already starting to wake up in his mind.
"Oh, really?"
"But I'm sure I can arrange to visit a few times," Sheppard found himself saying because Markham's crestfallen expression was worse than a kicked puppy's. "If I can get anything to light up, that is." he also didn't want to give the kid any false hope.
"I sure hope so, sir," he grinned again.
"Does it always hum like that even when it's off?" Sheppard asked, coming to a stop near a table that had a few laptops running various programmes. There wasn't anyone else in the vicinity at the moment.
"Sir?" Markham frowned.
"The Chair…"
"I don't, ah…" he looked around, squinting, trying to listen. "It doesn't hum, sir," he said, still a little confused.
"Never mind," Sheppard said, waving a hand. He was a little reluctant to move closer, not wanting a headache from all the noise in his mind just yet. The silver steel and the soft blue glow that highlighted the intricate patterns on the backrest, however, were intensely inviting.
"This extreme weather change is messing with me, I guess. Not really used to this cold," he said, mostly to distract himself. He tugged on the heavy coat around him a little tighter. It really was cold, even though they were inside a temperature-controlled interior.
Something did start to hum then, somewhere up on the ceiling level. A warm breeze wafted over to wrap around them like a fluffy, quilted blanket. Sheppard immediately felt much better.
"Feels like Zelenka finally got the Ancient temperature controls system figured out," Markham muttered, looking around. "It just got warmer."
"Zelenka?" Sheppard whirled around to face the Sergeant. "A short, Czech scientist with fuzzy hair and glasses?"
"Yes, sir, you've met him?"
Sheppard had to remind himself not to blurt out the first thing that came to his mind. Living his life all over again - although on a decidedly different branch of it now than the last - was difficult and confusing.
"Not personally," he muttered, with a shake of his head.
As if the name had sent out a summons, the scientist strode through an entrance to their left. Another familiar figure followed him with a welcoming smile already spreading on her face.
"Dr, Keller, Dr Zelenka," Markham made the introductions when Sheppard shook the offered hands. "Lieutenant Colonel Sheppard, Drs Keller and Zelenka."
"Nice to meet you," Sheppard said to them both before turning to the physician. "I'm sorry they stuck you with babysitting me." Landry had made the conditions for this outing abundantly clear to him before his departure.
"Not at all," Keller said brightly. "I have nothing to do here unless someone gets over excited and gets a paper cut."
Sheppard tried not to wince at the enthusiasm pouring off her and the careless way she just jinxed herself.
"I was told you have the gene," she went on, oblivious to his musings. "I've never seen the Chair work, to be honest. Zelenka insists it should. He gets very irritable most of the time when it doesn't–"
"Maybe it's broken?"
"Excuse you," Sheppard's innocent question set the scientist off. "I have been taking excellent care of the Control Chair, Colonel. It is not broken, it has more than enough power to function." Then he ran out of steam and slumped a little, glancing at the subject of their discussion dejectedly. "It just hasn't been turned on yet properly, not since General O'Neill's first use–"
"Shall we, Colonel?" Markham gestured towards the Chair.
It lit up when Sheppard was still about five feet away from the dais. Three pairs of wide eyes swivelled towards him with varying expressions of alarm, excitement and hope. He swallowed awkwardly and tried to think, but the Chair was yelling in his mind so loud, just as it had done when he had seen it in area 51, begging for him to take a ride.
"Colonel, wait," Zelenka stopped him, despite the way his excitement made him look like he wanted to throw Sheppard bodily over to the alien piece of machinery. "Please let me connect the chair to our monitors. I need to see and record everything."
"It might be nothing."
The scientist muttered something that sounded highly unflattering in Chez and ran off to get his own monitors. Keller and Markham exchanged wide grins and waited until he got all of it hooked up to the ports in the back of the Chair platform.
"Anytime you're ready, Colonel," he popped up from behind the backrest and patted it lovingly.
Sheppard could tell by their gasps that the moment he stepped up to the platform was like the dawn of Christmas to his audience. The entire thing lit up in a bright, ethereal glow and the Chair went into a full recline the moment his ass made contact with the cold hard metal. His gaze was pointed up at the ceiling, and his immediate surroundings turned into a holographic screen offering a dome-shaped 360° view.
When Sheppard turned his head a little to the side on the headrest, he saw Markham had gone still with a trance-like expression that suggested he was about to fall to his knees and pray. Keller was grinning ear to ear, searching around for popcorn and a couch. Zelenka was behind him, and a stream of nonsensical Czech poured off him so fast, Sheppard wondered if he was about to have a stroke.
"Initiate the Chair, Colonel," Keller crowed.
"Huh?"
"Place your hands on the armrests." Zelenka made a noise.
Sheppard did as he was instructed. The gel pads were cold and squishy, and soft. The moment they made contact with his bare skin, a connection blossomed in his mind, finally allowing him to understand what the thing had been yelling at him all this time.
"Welcome to Terra Atlantus, John Sheppard. How may I be of service?"
"Uh, doc," Sheppard called out. It wasn't a bad or painful connection. Only very strange. He didn't feel like jumping off of the platform just yet. "It's talking to me in my head."
"It is? In Ancient?" Keller wanted to know.
"I don't have a clue."
"Colonel, according to the readings, you have just unlocked the full access to all of Outpost's systems," Zelenka declared happily, walking around to the front to join the others. He had a laptop balanced on his palm, his gaze alternating between it and Sheppard.
"Ask the system to show you the solar system."
Before he could utter a word, the holographic dome around him changed to depict the planets and the sun in bright colours and neat little information labels. Markham had to take a step back to make space for the transparent Saturn while Mars hung just above a grinning Keller's head.
It seemed that the system was connected to his mind, and he had control of it through his thoughts. Sheppard decided to test the theory.
The view changed. The rest of the planets moved to a side to make space for Earth as it came to hover a foot above his face. Then it turned on its axis until it showed the battle cruiser serenely floating over England, holding position over the cave in England Mitchell and his band of treasure hunters were exploring.
"Oh my, that's the Prometheus," Zelenka whispered, awed. "How?"
"Just kinda directed a thought at it."
"Yes, I mean, but how?" Zelenka tried to elaborate without much success. "This is real time imagery, no?"
Sheppard knew what he was asking. "Yeah, the Outpost just activated the short and long-range sensors."
"Colonel, please run a system diagnostic."
Sheppard's request manifested in a number of sub-windows that opened all around him, running all kinds of programmes in a language he had never seen before, but understood instinctively anyway.
"Download a copy of the database to our system, Colonel," someone to his right cried out eagerly. Sheppard hadn't realised he had attracted a crowd. There were three more people gawking at him with the Sergeant and the two doctors.
"Ah, which one? There's a lot. History, languages, manuals, star charts–"
"Everything!" the man demanded.
His query was answered with a polite decline. There apparently wasn't enough data storage space in available earth systems plugged into the core. "Can't do.'' Sheppard shrugged. "Not enough space."
"Star Charts and manuals for now then, please," Zelenka cut off the man with a glare before he could pipe with anything else.
"Done."
That made two of them dance away happily, already making loud, enthusiastic plans to start studying the new information. Sheppard had to stay connected until the system checks concluded. So he used the time to queue in Zelenka's maintenance programmes, so they could start running on their own once the checks were done. There was also a list of hardware maintenance that needed to be done. He sent that to Zelenka's laptop at the Chair's request.
After that, he occupied himself by asking about Atlantis. The Ancient system complied by bringing the view of the beautiful city into his view. He had to tune out the excited chatter around him to focus on the snowflake of a city with six petal-like platforms and tall spires.
It was a breathtaking construction. The Chair showed him the city's last location, just before the exodus of the Ancients. The city was floating on a deep blue ocean of an Earth-like planet in Pegasus.
Atlantis was a ship the size of Manhattan; she had the ability to make herself at home in space, on the ground or on water. She also had a stardrive, a mighty shield, a cloak and a massive armament if she ever felt like going into battle.
Lost in the unbelievable intricacies of her design and her capabilities, he didn't at first hear Keller's voice, calling out to him.
"...Sheppard, can you hear me?"
It was the light touch on his shoulder that drew him out of his dive…fast. He still wasn't quite used to being approached without warning. It had been some time since he had felt safe enough to let his guard down completely like he had been doing. The experience of diving into the core of the Chair was exhilarating and if he wasn't careful, could get very addicting.
He flinched at the touch and blinked open his eyes. At some point, realising he could see the images in his mind, Sheppard had closed them, leaving the others to observe what he was seeing in his mind, on the transparent screen.
"Doc…"
"As exciting as this is, I'm going to have to cut this off for now," she said gently, firmly ignoring the protesting groans from the bunch around them.
Sheppard blinked some more and turned his neck from side to side. It was cramped from sitting still for so long. The Chair went dark, taking the light show with it, not really waiting for Sheppard's input. It was almost as if the thing had realised he was at his limit for the moment.
"Doc, it's only been two hours," somebody behind Zelenka whined. "We usually get four-hour sessions."
"The Colonel is on light duty," Keller said, her smile still in place, but her tone had a hard edge. "This is all you get for now."
"I just need a break," Sheppard said, straightening up to rub his neck and shoulders. "Maybe I can do more after lunch?"
He stood up and found out exactly how worn out he was when he swayed to the side. He had to lean on the side of the backrest of the chair for a moment, and blink again to get rid of the bright spots dancing in his vision. Keller, who must have been anticipating the reaction, already had his elbow in a firm grip.
"Your next stop of this tour is the infirmary," she said brightly without letting go of her hold as he climbed down the platform slowly, carefully. "The first time is a bit of a rush."
"Oh good, I'm not dying then."
"Of course not," she chuckled. "Let's go, Colonel, you can have lunch on a comfy bed at my place."
Avalon Chamber
England
Earth
The cave ticked all the necessities for a proper treasure hunt. Foreboding darkness, check. Boulder with a sword sticking out of it, check. A hologram of an old sorcerer giving them utterly useless and incomprehensible clues, double check.
It was quite the educational first mission. Mitchell learned a few things during the first half hour. First was, in a situation where the mission tended to require more brains than brawn, try not to split up the team, and if he had to, stick with Jackson. Second was, Teal'c believed he was impervious to the ricochets of his own bullets, and he was absolutely no use when it came to figuring out puzzles. Also, never trust the decrepit old men who use holograms to communicate with you from the past. Just don't.
Anyhow, none of these golden life lessons was helping him to get out of the imminent death of being crushed by a boulder. The roof was coming down on their heads. The Ancient gibberish had not miraculously revealed its secrets and helpfully pointed out how to solve the goddamn puzzle.
Another rule for future Cameron Mitchell if he somehow survived this: Do not enter any empty chambers, especially if they light up on their own with mystical fires and try to lure you in with intriguing stone altars in their midst. Chances were, the damned chamber would lock itself down the moment you entered and try to kill you in the most horrific ways possible.
It had been fine at first. They were only inside some kind of a chamber designed to test… something. The holograph of Merlin had said as much. Something about knights, paths of righteousness, knowledge and truth of the spirit. Mitchell had figured they'd have to solve some puzzles to get to the end of the hunt. Except, eight stone squares labelled with strange symbols set into tiny indentations on the stone altar made no sense to Mitchell. Below the eight squares was a caption written in Ancient, again, whose meaning was lost on him. So he took a moment to study the altar as Teal'c ran the light from his flashlight along the walls and ceiling of the alcove, looking for a way out.
The first sign of trouble made itself known when he couldn't raise Jackson on the comms. The signal wasn't getting through the thick walls of their confinement. He hoped that Jackson and Vala hadn't been dumb enough to get themselves trapped as well.
Murphy's law and the pattern he had discovered reading past SGC reports, however, suggested that the possibility of that would be very small.
The major sign of trouble came rumbling down when he tried his hand at puzzle-solving.
He picked up a tile from the top row and dropped it in a square hole on the row below, just to see what it would do. For a few seconds, it did absolutely nothing.
"Okay," he mumbled to himself, picking it up to put it back. "That didn't work."
It was as if the damned trap was waiting for him to sigh in relief. The moment he did, a dust cloud descended over both of them, followed by a rumbling, groaning sound. When the dust settled, they both saw the horrible downward movement of the stone ceiling, trudging down slowly towards them.
"Oh, come on," Mitchell groaned. This was not how he had envisioned his first mission going, or how his life would end.
He turned his attention back to the puzzle and started to randomly place the tiles in the bottom row, trying out combination after combination. Nothing seemed to work.
"Two down, and only about a million more combinations to go…" he mumbled to himself as he worked, his fingers working as fast they could to stick squares in little holes.
"Come on, come on…"
He heard a grunt behind him then. A quick glance told him that the ceiling was now at Teal'c height. The big Jaffa had put his hands up like the giant Atlas and was trying to halt the boulder's movement with brute strength and positive thinking.
"Are you still having fun, Colonel Mitchell?"
Mitchell muttered his response under his breath and continued his mad rush to work on puzzle combinations. It was a hopeless task. He had absolutely no idea what he was doing.
"Do you ever get a bad feeling about something?"
As far as last words went, they weren't his best. But, that was all he could think of as he kept working on the hopeless puzzle before him. Teal'c grunted again and pushed back, doing his best to delay the inevitable.
"Yo! Feel free to jump in here at any time!" he yelled at Teal'c when the ceiling was low enough to cause Teal'c to hunch down and for him to go down on one knee, plastered over the altar as he struggled to place the tiles.
Teal'c didn't give up on his fruitless task of trying to hold the massive moving ceiling, just as Mitchell didn't stop his meaningless fumbling with the puzzle. Help, however, arrived from outside, in the shape of Jackson's panicked yelling.
"Teal'c!"
"Daniel Jackson," Teal'c grunted back in answer.
"Hey! We have a little problem here!" Mitchell yelled. His nose was now touching the altar. They were running out of time, fast.
Jackson, bless his steel trap of a mind, didn't waste time. "Uh, what's the puzzle?"
"There's eight stones with symbols on them and some Ancient writing. I think–"
"Describe the writing!"
Now, that was going to take some doing. He squinted at the tiles which were now close enough to touch his eyeballs. "Uh, 'U' with a square over it. Chair with a little square. Upside-down backwards 'L' call that 'seven.' Squares unevenly stacked. That chair thing again. Big 'N' and 'sad face.'"
"Uh, 'reflect.'" Jackson said, somehow miraculously understanding his nonsensical rambling. "It means 'reflect'!"
"Reflect?"
He had to figure out what that meant. Real quick. Teal'c was on his knees and his hair was bruising against the ceiling.
"Reflect, reflect…reflect on the eightfold path. Buddhism teaches an eightfold path to enlightenment." Jackson added helpfully.
"Yeah, that tells me exactly NOTHING!"
"I'm sorry. I can't help if I can't see the symbols of the stones you're supposed to put in order."
"Reflect.. "reflect on the eightfold path," Mitchell muttered to himself, annoyed. His fingers kept working. "Reflect on the eight."
He held one of the blocks, his thumb partially obscuring the symbol, making the remainder look like the number four. He cocked his head, frowning. The next moment, it hit him like lightning. Jackson had said to reflect. Like mirror images. He had to arrange the tiles to reflect the symbols, like upside-down mirror images.
Sending a quick prayer to the high heavens for the strategy work, he placed the tiles. His head was now at the altar level and he had to use the feel of the carved symbols to complete the puzzles. The final three tiles were the hardest. He barely had enough space between his fingers and the ceiling. But, Mitchell was nothing but stubborn. He gritted his teeth and pushed the little tiles into their places. At the last second, he withdrew his hand before the ceiling could crush his fingers, covered his head with his arms and braced himself on the floor.
The damned roof came to a rumbling stop, a hairline above the altar.
Then it started to rise back up again, as leisurely as it pleased as if it hadn't just tried to squash the two of them like bugs. The door opened and Jackson's relieved face greeted them from the doorway.
"You did it!"
"Yeah, thanks. The symbols were actually the numbers one through eight and their mirror image," Mitchell explained how he figured it out.
Jackson's shocked expression didn't quite fade, like the man couldn't believe he had figured it out on time. Mitchell couldn't blame him. He hadn't believed it could work either.
He was just damn glad it did.
Mitchell let out another weary sigh and walked out of the chamber to get to the main area where the boulder and the sword waited, hoping against hope the trauma he just added to his existing pile was worth it.
It wasn't.
Because after pulling the sword out of the boulder, the treasure didn't appear as he had hoped. Instead, a fully armoured knight appeared and proceeded to beat the shit out of him with another sword.
"Should have known–" he muttered, blocking a swing. Barely. "It wouldn't be–" He grunted and tried to strike back. Didn't quite work. Had to jump back to avoid the sword that came at his head, instead. "-that easy."
The knight was relentless. They exchanged blows, circling around each other in the space before the boulder. The rest of the team stood in a loose circle and watched. He had a feeling Teal'c was silently judging his form and skill and was finding him sadly lacking. Jackson was spouting wholly unhelpful comments and Vala, he was sure, was switching between cheering for him and then the knight.
The blows they traded sped up in pace. Each time their swords met, a flash of light erupted at the impact site. Eventually, they locked swords for one long defiant moment before breaking apart. Mitchell had to dive below a wide swing of the knight's sword to keep his head attached to the rest of his body.
Now he was in trouble.
"Okay, I could use a little help," he yelled, backing away. Teal'c aimed his gun and let loose a short burst of his P90 the moment he had a clear shot. The bullets merely went through the knight as if he wasn't even there. The only thing that happened was the impact sites on the armour glowing a bright green.
"It appears to be a hologram," Teal'c commented, helpfully.
"A hologram?" Mitchell repeated incredulously. He was getting the shit beaten out of him by a HOLOGRAM!
The knight, the asshole, struck him while he was distracted, processing what he had just learned. He went to his knees with a grunt. It felt like he had just been branded by a hot poker.
"Jeez!" he had to bite back a scream. It hurt like a mother fucker.
"I don't think it actually cut you," Vala said, bending over to check his back.
"Well, it hurt like hell."
He then had to quickly stand and block two more blows because the armoured asshole didn't have the courtesy to let him catch his goddamn breath. Then the fucker got him on the right arm. He went down again with a groan and lost his grip on the sword in the process.
"I don't know. I don't think he's actually that good." Mitchell heard Vala muttering to Jackson.
"Okay, so I flunked fencing," he muttered, correcting a boasting comment he had thrown earlier when he started to fight.
The fighting went on. By fighting he meant, the knight continued to swing the sword with murderous intent and Mitchell barely dodged. So it wasn't even that long when the knight once again broke through his paltry defences and struck him on his left leg. He couldn't hold back a cry when he collapsed, eating the dirt for the umpteenth time.
"Colonel Mitchell, the sword."
Mitchell threw the sword to Teal'c. He was all for catching a break while the big guy stepped into the ring. Only it didn't work that way. The sword passed right through Teal'c as he tried to catch it, falling on the floor behind him with a clatter. Mitchell rolled to avoid a strike by the knight and stumbled over to the sword, cursing up a storm. It seemed that he had to be the one to fight. It was his punishment for pulling the cursed thing out of the boulder in the first place. He managed to grab the sword just as the knight struck again, only to get knocked clean off his feet this time.
"Okay, that thing is going to kill him," Vala yelled.
"Everybody, get to the rings!" Jackson yelled back and started to run out of the chamber.
Teal'c pulled Mitchell off the ground by the vest, intent on running with him.
The knight stood still, with his stupid sword ready to strike.
That was when Mitchell's anger, frustration and stubbornness mixed into a boiling rage and spilled out of him.
He pushed Teal'c away with a grunt and jumped back into the fray like a man possessed. The rage-fueled adrenaline coursed through his veins, giving him an extra bit of boost. His mad swinging enabled him to gain upper hand this time, and he got to break through the knight's defences for a change, twice in quick succession. His blade left a glowing trail as he swung it and finally managed to run it through the knight's chest, finishing the fight for good.
His next swing cleaved through the knight and the hologram disappeared.
"Oh, come on," he groaned. There was no reaction to his victory from the cave. He had no strength left to even get back on his feet. "That's got to be it."
Teal'c had to help him to his feet. The sword served as a crutch for him to keep himself upright.
"I don't understand, we solved the riddles," Vala complained, glaring around the chamber. "Well, he solved one and he solved one, and he won the fight." she corrected herself sheepishly when Mitchell and Jackson glared at her.
"So what? Nothing?" Mitchell also directed at Jackson.
Jackson figured since Mitchell defeated the knight, the treasure was going to only make an appearance for him. Seeing as no one else had any other ideas, they agreed to leave Mitchell and vacated the chamber.
It didn't work as planned.
An earthquake started and the cave started to collapse around him the moment the others left. Mitchell barely had time to get to the rings and call up a transport for himself out of the cave and into the Prometheus.
The reason for that, as it turned out, was Vala, the ever-enterprising soul, had snuck a coin out of the cave. Mitchell had to ring back to the collapsing cave and place the damn thing in the right container in the other chamber before he was buried under a pile of rubble.
The rumbling and the quakes stopped the moment he dropped the coin in the pot and replaced the lid. Sighing in relief, he returned to the empty chamber. There was a moment he felt like just screaming and tearing his hair out in frustration. At the last moment, just before he left the cave for good in defeat, his gaze fell on the sword lying on the floor. Muttering under his breath, he picked it up and stuck it back onto the stone, returning it to its original place as he had found it.
That was when, goddamn finally, the treasure they had been looking for and almost died for, made its sweet appearance.
The entire chamber was filled with gold urns, vases, statues, goblets, coins, jewels and other treasures in a blink of an eye, making Mitchell feel like an extra in the movie, Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves.
The thought was enough to give him an involuntary shudder. They had one thief and they already almost died a few times. He didn't want to get acquainted with forty for them. Nope.
He also couldn't help but smirk at the shining hoard of riches before him.
"Worth it."