Marcus hung his head while shaking it while Hermione knelt to inspect the dragon, other than the size difference it looked to be a replica of the one they had just fought.
Harriet looked at the dragon and then up to Hermione, " Umm can I keep it?" she asked shyly.
Hermione looked at Marcus, who shrugged, "It's her familiar now. We couldn't stop her from taking it with her if we wanted to."
Marcus looked around the chamber; this time, there was no exit door leading to the next level, "We may have a problem here; I'm not seeing the door, " he told them.
Hermione looked up and around as well seeing the same thing, "Are we going to have to go back to the beginning and get out that way?" she asked.
Marcus shrugged, " I'm not sure most of what I know comes from games and a few anime or Korean manhwa, the only time there's no way to the next level is because we've made it to the end but then there should be a way to exit from the final room or the dungeon will collapse," he said while walking along the wall trying to see if he missed something.
Harriet was cuddling the sleeping dragon while happy she was able to keep it but at the same time scared because she didn't know how long it would last before it was taken from her like had happened before.
Hermione gently hugged Harriet trying not to hurt the little dragon, "What are you going to name it?"
Harriet leaned into the hug, she was growing to like the warmth she felt every time Hermione would hug her, and even the few times Marcus had hugged her as well.
"I'm not sure; Aunt Petunia never let any animal other than Aunt Margie's dog in the house or yard, " Harriet told her.
Marcus had gotten halfway around the room, hearing the two talking as he looked for a way to get out of the room, "How about waiting to see if it is a boy or girl," he suggested just as he felt something off about the wall in front of him.
Stopping to inspect the wall he watched as his hand passed through the stone, 'An illusion?' he asked himself, his arm up to the elbow before pulling it back.
"I've found something. I think it's the way out," he called out.
Hermione looked up and nodded, still holding Harriet; standing, she kept a hand on her shoulder and led her over to Marcus, "What is it?"
"An illusion is hiding something here," he told her as he put his hand on the wall.
"You think it is a test to see if people will keep going or turn back and leave?" Hermione asked.
"It's possible; let's go see what is hidden," he said, stepping into the wall.
Hermione and Harriet followed a few steps behind him; what they found on the other side of the wall was a chamber roughly twenty feet in diameter; in the center of the room was a pulsing crystal; the pulsing was almost like a heartbeat.
Marcus stepped toward the crystal and looked it over slowly, but all he saw was that the crystal was clear and pulsed with a light in the center.
He reached out slowly to touch it, but just before his hand touched it, a small orb flew out of the crystal; the orb slowly morphed into a small female figure that was made of crystal with emerald hair and sapphire eyes, but the main thing he noticed was the fear on her face.
"Don't hurt me," she cried in a tinkling voice.
Marcus stepped back dropping his hand, "Are you the core of this dungeon?"
The little crystal girl nodded, tears falling from her eyes, "I am. I don't know why, but I was moved here to this place; two of my sisters had come as well," she told them, slowly calming down.
Marcus nodded, then looked to Hermione and Harriet, who stood back near the entrance, "I wasn't intending to hurt you. I was just looking for a way out of the dungeon to let our friends know if it is safe for them to come in to keep the monsters from overflowing and hurting others."
Almost instantly the fear left her face, "More people will be coming to face my creations and using my services?" she asked.
Marcus shrugged, then nodded, "Yeah, that's the plan they had. If it was safe, the overflow was hurting them, so we came in to find out how to stop them."
"YAY, I can continue my functions; Oooh, I hope I can grow up and have a hundred floors like my aunties and mama," she said happily while doing a funny little dance in the air.
Hermione watched as the little being danced happily and spoke of growing to be a big dungeon.
Harriet looked on, thinking that it was a cute little girl; she didn't understand what she meant about a hundred floors, though.
Marcus smiled, "Yeah, that's fine if you want to grow up; we just wanted to keep the overflow from happening again."
The little crystal girl stopped dancing and faced Marcus, "You guys beat the monsters and picked up the stuff they dropped, right?"
Marcus nodded, "Yeah, that's right, we have a lot of bones and hides along with some coins, " he told her.
"Yay coins, can you give those to me, I need those to grow up, they are the cores of the monsters that grow in here, but I can't just collect them myself, oh ya I gotta offer you stuff for the coins, but I will need the other stuff you got to make it." all of this was said in a hyper and excited voice.
Marcus looked at Hermione with a question in his eye and received a shrug in reply, "Sure, but we don't need stuff, but our friends outside could use it."
They then began pulling out the hides and coins from their bags while Harriet watched still holding the dragon close as it had woken, slowly she moved to the crystal girl.
"HI, Ohh, you are lucky that little one is a rare drop. It will make a great addition to you in keeping you safe in battles, but first, you need to give it a name," the crystal girl said happily.
Marcus said, "We needed to know if it was a boy or a girl."
"Oh, it's neither; the familiars are not supposed to breed, so they don't cause any problems outside the dungeon; the hoards are the same once they are born in here, " she told them as she floated around Harriet and the little dragon.
The pile of hides and bones covered a good portion of the room, barely leaving room to move, "Wow, most people don't keep this much because they don't have bags like those, ooh and so many gold coins I can grow two more floors, you guys are great."
Marcus and Hermione laughed at her enthusiasm when she saw the coins; they were not sure what to say, so they waited for her to calm down.
"I won't be able to use all of this there aren't enough coins, " she said quietly.
"It's fine. Use what you need; we can take the rest out to our friends to use, make what weapons and armor you can," Marcus told her.
"Okay," she chirped, then pulled up a screen similar to the one that displayed the drop information; on the screen were hundreds of different types of armor and weapons.
After looking over the list, Marcus saw that there was some nice armor, but the weapons were simple swords, daggers, and pole-type weapons.
"Umm, while the armor is good, not everyone can use these types of weapons. Do you have anything for attacking from a distance?" he asked once he finished reading.
"No these are what I have, I can only make these, if I had a sample I may be able to make something new but the stuff I can make gets stronger the more floors I have, every ten floors I'll have a room like this to trade with the people that come to fight," she told him her shoulders drooping.
"And if I give you some samples you'll be able to make new kinds?"
"Yeah, I can," she answered.
Marcus nodded then looked around, " Absorb what you will need then we'll pack up what's left," he told her then turned to Hermione, " Get a tent out and use the replicator to make a few guns handguns, and riffles as well as a few types of bows and don't forget the ammunition they'll need, " he told her while less than half of the hides and bones disappeared along with the coins.
Hermione nodded as he started gathering up the remaining stuff and putting it into the bag Hermione set up the tent and went about making the weapons, the handguns ranged from flintlock to more modern pistols, and those took several trips to give to the crystal girl who excitedly accepted them when Hermione brought her the bows and whips she was confused.
"Those don't look too good compared to the others, why make them?" she asked.
Marcus answered, " Some people don't like guns, so they use bows, and I know of one person who uses whips," he told her as he finished packing the last piece of hide.
She picked up a bullet and arrow, "What are these for?"
"Ammunition for the gun and bows, " Hermione said while putting down a compound bow.
"Ohh, but I make magic weapons," she said while looking at the bullets and then dropped them.
Marcus and Hermione looked at her, then shrugged, " Okay how about making the ammunition for powerful attacks or interchangeable elemental types?"
"Yeah, I can do that," she said happily then the ammunition and weapons dissolved into motes of light and entered the crystal in the center of the room.
"Oh yeah, I can do so much with these. Thank you. Now more people will visit and help me grow, " she said happily as three sets of armor formed at the base of the crystal, "Now, choose the weapons."
Marcus looked at the list and then pointed to a Colt forty-five revolver and a Beretta nine-millimeter, "Those will work for Xander and Buffy, and a whip for Cordelia." he said.
When the weapons were created the far wall opened to show a wavering curtain that was similar to the gate that was the entrance to the dungeon, "That's the way to the new floors or out of the dungeon, there'll be one every ten floors," the crystal girl said happily as she faded back into the central crystal.
After packing up the tent, Hermione led Harriet and the dragon; Hermione went to the curtain with Marcus following them; stepping into the curtain, a screen appeared in front of them, 'Do you wish to continue to the next level or exit the dungeon?'
Marcus spoke up, "Exit the dungeon."
With a bright flash of light, the three humans and one dragon appeared next to the dungeon entrance startling the Scoobies and Samuel and his girls.
They all rushed to them, asking questions all at once, causing a very loud and unintelligible noise, startling the little dragon that flew out of Harriet's arms to hide behind Harriet.
"Everyone calm down. We'll tell you what we've found, but we need to get some rest," Marcus told them as he tried to put together the jumbled questions.
It took a few minutes to get the group to calm down, but then the women spotted Harriet in her armor, "Wow, so cute," Cordelia squealed, then grabbed Harriet into a hug and rubbed her cheek on top of Harriet's head between the wolf-like ears.
Hermione tried to get Cordelia to put the scared girl down, but it didn't look like she was going to do so any time soon, " Cordy let the poor girl down, she's crying and looks like Harry did when Joyce and Buffy first found him," Xander said while stepping to Cordelia's side.
Hermione went to pull Harriet from Cordelia's arms; when she felt the familiar feeling of Hermione's arms, she twisted and hugged her, burning her face in her neck.
Cordelia, after seeing that she had scared Harriet, even unintentionally went to apologize, but Xander put a hand on her shoulder.
"Let her calm down first, remember Marcus said she is a female version of Harry, just younger; we'll let them tell us about the dungeon; once she calms, apologies," he told her with a soft smile.
Cordelia remembered how Harry was scared and jumped every time Joyce touched or hugged him then she thought about how Harry had told them of his life and wondered how much worse it could be for a girl to live like that.
Marcus looked at Cordelia and saw her deep in thought then her face filled with horror, "She'll be fine, and no nothing like you are imagining happened to her, so far Hermione is the only one she let's touch her, maybe in time as she gets used to people not being mean she'll probably not be scared to touch others."
Hermione looked at Cordelia with a smile, "It's only been two days away from those people so give it time."
Opening the portal, Hermione took Harriet to the house; Marcus stayed to inform the group of the dungeon and how it works, and then he handed the armor and weapons to whom he had gotten them.
"I'm not sure about the respawn rate of the monsters inside, I think you should have teams going in regularly and speak with the core about that, I'm also going to drop a portal off with a military group that can help you all, they are told that you are in charge," he told Buffy as he was hanging over the equipment.
Then he opened his bracer and typed up a message 'We've found that there are dungeons in this world, they will overflow with monsters if they are not cleared out regularly, I'm sending this to all people who have bracers with the energy signature needed to find them once found clear till level ten and speak with the core interface, remember this is an innocent being only wanting to grow and survive, also they provide weapons and armor in return for your clearing out the monsters, coins fall as loot these coins will disappear beyond the entrance to the dungeon, these coins and the materials of the monsters are tradable to the core for the weapons and armor, if you find a dungeon please send me the cororidnants, I have made a portal that can allow fast travel to the dungeons as well as a few other locations the bracers can connect to the portal platform to send requests for passage, please inform those who you meet with that if the core is damaged it will be destroyed in an explosion equivalent to a fifty megaton nuclear warhead.' he sent it out to all he knew who had a bracer.
Marcus then opened the calling function and pulled up General Hammond's bracer I.D. and then hit the call and waited."
' Yes?' Hammond asked after a few seconds.
"General, it's Marcus. I've been working with a group in California with a problem. Area 51 fell through. The people there tried to take our tech by force, so we left them to their fate," Marcus said into his bracer.
Hammond could be heard sighing, 'I'm sorry to hear that, President Whitmore sounded like a good man,'
"He is a good man but when his secretary and highest-ranking military advisor go behind his back to try and force us to hand over our things I can't leave them with our technology because one of them would order someone to disassemble a tent and that would kill the civilians under their protection I couldn't risk it."
'I understand, how can I help you?'
"We are almost finished here and have a new device for your base for coming out here to a location that may be of use to your people, I'm sure you received the message I sent out a few minutes ago?"
'Yes, Carter is excited about the dungeon and is in her lab building a device that will help detect one if it is near us,' Hammond said with a resigned voice.
"Yeah sorry about that but Hermione used her scans of the Stargate on the ship we told you about to build a terrestrial gate we want to put one up in the base for your people to use to either enter the dungeon weve found out here or to the closest town in case they need support," Marcus told him.
'Is it secure?' Hammond asked.
"Yes, to use it, the person needs to have a bracer, then call ahead to get permission to come through," he informed the general.
'Very well I will have O'Neill open an empty room for you to place it.' The general said, then he could be heard talking to someone.
"Is it possible for me to teleport into the gate room?" he asked once the general went silent.
'That will be fine I'm going to clear it out,' was the answer.
"Thank you, general. I'll be there in a few minutes. I'm almost finished here."
'Alright, see you soon.'
Marcus hung up the call and then looked at the others, "Alright, guys, we're done here for now. We'll be seeing you, and hopefully, Cordelia can get her hug," he said, getting chuckles from them and a smile from Cordelia.
Marcus then looked at Samuel and his girls, "Well, you guys stay safe and keep a lookout for the dungeons; we'll be placing a portal in the SGC and giving them your contact information so you can get through the portal if they need you."
Samuel nodded, "We're heading to Disney to see how things there are; if we find a dungeon that way, we'll message you and drop a portal off there," he said while the girls were nodding.
They shook hands, and then Samuel and his two girls turned to look at the portal into the dungeon, "Well, maybe after we do a run-through."
Marcus shrugged, "With your powers, it won't be much of a challenge for you," he told them.
"Well, we're going to head out; if anything comes up that you all can handle, send me a message or call me," he told Buffy before reopening the portal to the island and ushering the dragon through before closing it and twisting in place and disappearing silently.
Col. O'Neill was just entering the gate room when Marcus appeared on the embarkation ramp to the gate; the M.Ps standing guard raised their weapons swiftly, ready to open fire, until he barked out," Stand down, he's friendly."
They relaxed as O'Neill stood at the bottom of the ramp as Marcus joined him, "You didn't give us much time to tell these guys to not shoot you, " he said with a grin, "You almost got a few bullets sent your way."
Marcus shrugged, "Yeah, and you guys would've gotten lumps of lead on the floor; I'm pretty much bulletproof in my armor. If I didn't have this on, I'd just get a few bruises."
Jack, who was leading Marcus to the conference room, stopped midstride, "Say what now?"
Marcus nodded, "Yeah, our skin is tough and hard to pierce; our race is a warrior one, so we evolved to be harder to kill."
"Well, that's cool and all, but I don't remember you telling us what race you guys are.
"Were of Asgard, and no from the same Asgard that you know," Marcus said with a shrug.
"Where's your other half by the way?" Jack asked as he resumed walking and filing away that bit of info.
"At home putting Harriet to bed I assume," Marcus said as they entered the conference room.
"Harriet?" Jack asked as he sat to General Hammond's left.
Marcus filled them in on what happened at area51 and the bus on their way to Sunnydale, " I've set up two portals over there one in the town and the other one near the entrance to the dungeon, they are locked until someone with authority over there opens it for travel and the one I leave here will be the same so you guys will need to have a rotation for authorization duty."
Carter was bouncing in her seat, eyes gleaming as she heard about both the portal and dungeon, "I want to get a good look at these portals and the dungeon. They both sound fascinating."
"You can scan the portal but all your scans will tell you is that they are very small Stargates," Marcus told her with a grin.
"And will it tell us how it is powered?" Carter asked.
Marcus shook his head, it is powered like this facility is now after Hermione fixed the generator."
Carter pouted hearing that, "That's going to drive her crazy; she spent the last day scanning the walls, and all she found was nanofibers running every which way," Jack said with a grin.
Marcus' bracer beeped, signaling he was being called, "One second," he said, accepting the call.
"Yeah?"
"Hey man we're at Disney there is a portal in and out of the place, Reyn and his group never got here, seems he ran into a mob of trouble, but that's not why I called these people want a portal, Hermione gave us a few to drop off but we wanted to know what you wanted us to do."
"Go ahead and give them one and get your tent to fabric bracers and trade them for stuff that you want; if you get some good magitech, get me some scans; Hermione will love it."
"Sure thing, how's the little one?" Samuel asked.
"She's with Hermione at the island; I know Cordelia didn't mean to scare her, but after falling into the dungeon and having to fight, she was under a lot of stress; I expect Hermione to have put her to bed."
"You took a child into that place?" Jack asked in a shout.
Marcus shook his head, "Something pushed us into it I'm thinking it was Loki's doing so he could give her some weapons and armor," he told them.
Jack seemed to calm down with that, "So what did she get?" he asked.
"A set of wolf fang daggers and a set of armor formed from the hide of a giant wolf, it's cute with wolf ears and a tail."
"Umm, that place was filled with lizards, and that Crystal girl was kinda cute and funny, and damn those guns she gave us are sweet by the way."
Marcus nodded, "Yeah, she didn't have modern weapons, so we gave her some guns to add to what she can make," he said while grinning.
"Well, we're going to be here for a few days; I'll send you some scans later," Samuel said before closing the call from his end.
Marcus shrugged then looked to Hammond, "Where do I put the portal?" he asked.
"We've got a room just down from the doors to the gate room," Hammond told him.
"We can set it up later; no rush. You guys still seem to be working slowly around here cleaning up, " he said while catching a glimpse of people leading the transferred or changed people past the door through the small vertical window.
"Yeah, we've gotten through half of the people that have been captured or detained, so far most of them have been peaceful the ones that were our people have been helping out and most of the rest have asked to leave, that portal on level ten is slowly closing, Carter figures another week and it'll be gone," Jack said while leaning back on his seat and looking to the ceiling.
"The fairies are fascinating and friendly, if not overly curious about the things here in the base; I've had a few in my lab trying to play with the equipment," Carter said with a smile.
"Their speech is hard to understand without a lot of amplification tools; I think that their voice boxes are so small they speak too high for us to hear. Their language is similar to ancient Galic," Daniel Jackson said while looking over some notes in front of him.
"Junior does like the presence of the small winged people," Teal'c said in his stoic manner.
Marcus nodded, "They are a type of nature spirit and are normally good in alignment or neutral, they are from the legends of Camelot, or was it Avalonn? Anyway, if the portal is shrinking, make sure they are back on the other side when it is small enough to only allow one to pass at a time; no telling what being cut off from their home will do to them," Marcus told the group.
Hammond nodded, "We'll ensure they know that it may be unsafe for them to remain here for long."
Just then Marcus' bracer beeped again, "Yes?"
"Hey man we've got a dungeon about fifty miles offshore from Florida, but there's a group keeping it from overflowing, seems one of the people here knew what it was and set up a rotation for groups to go in, it can handle up to five groups at a time but it's running them thin, I saw that message from you about portals ya think you can send one to my location?" the voice of the guy that dressed as Tuxedo Mask asked.
Marcus was thinking as the man spoke," Yeah, get me the cororidnants they want it to be set up; I'll send it via port key, make sure the area is cleared out by about fifty feet to be safe." he said, reaching into his backpack and pulled out a shrunken portal.
"Give me a minute," was the response.
Standing up, Marcus walked to a wall and unshrank the portal, leaned it against it, and waited.
After a few minutes, his bracer beeped, this time indicating a text message; looking at the screen, he nodded, then tapped the portal with his fingertip," Portus," he said while focusing on the coordinates he had received, stepping back he pointed to the portal and said, "Activate," and it disappeared in a swirl of blue and red.
"Alright, it's here, so how does it work?"
"It needs someone with a bracer on each end to connect to another, then someone needs permission to pass through," Marcus told him.
"Yeah, we don't have any bracers to hand out." came the reply.
"I was sure we gave you guys one of the large tents to put up on your island because you didn't get a house like a few of the others," Marcus said while trying to remember who they traded with and for what.
"Yeah, we got one for those familiar crystals I can make."
"Alright, that thing has an unrestricted replicator that can make ten standard bracers an hour; I meant to tell you, guys, about that."
"I thought it was just a wizarding tent with a holosuite?"
"No Hermione went overboard with making them, I'm with the SGC at the moment and will be setting up a portal here but they are still cleaning up after the chaos, I've also given two portals to Buffy and her crew in Sunnydale one in the town and the other is at the dungeon."
"Cool, I wanted to stick around there, but I have a job to find a lost jumper whose Chan went offline, and his system got scrambled."
Marcus shrugged, "Yeah, he was probably trying to sneak into the event, and the chaos went through him unfiltered, and his Chan took a massive hit."
"Don't know how those systems work, all I know is my company sent me a job offer to find him, it'll give me some credit to upgrade my island and get a gate that's better than my key that only opens to the island and back to the place I opened it from." Tuxedo Mask told him that one of the girls who were with him could be heard speaking to the replicator.
"Sweet deal, you going to get a house or use the tent and save all the points for something like a ship?" Marcus asked while thinking about what he would do in his situation.
"Yeah, the girls like to see who can come up with the best or oddest configurations in the tent, and they can't do that with a house, so I'll wait on the house until they either get bored or the group gets too big to fit."
"I'm never going to understand why most of the company's agents go for harems, Hermione is enough for me," Marcus said while trying to picture himself with more than Hermione.
"Give it a few hundred years; I've been at it for three jumps now, ten years a jump, and I'm looking at another ninety-seven jumps, not including this one, to fulfill my contract."
" I'm not contracted to any of the companies and am not sure I'll be joining one for a long time," Marcus said while sitting down.
"Yeah, I would have liked to get that deal. Don't get me wrong, I love my girls, but the company I work for only has crossovers to do, and the ones I've been to are nothing I'm familiar with."
"Hermione and I are repairing Destiny and possibly going to go to that Earth once we finish up and send it on its way, Harry Potter is supposed to be sent there in a year or so," Marcus told him then looked over to Carter who was looking ready to start asking questions only to be held back by O'Neill.
"That sounds familiar, but hey, I have to go; the girls need help with teaching the people how to work the bracers," Tuxedo Mask said before closing the connection.
Marcus shrugged then looked around to the others, "So where do you want me to put the portal?"
Carter fought to get O'Neill to let her go and finally did so by biting the hand he had over her mouth, "What was all that about jumpers and companies?" she demanded.
"Huh, oh, I thought we told you all about that the last time I was here," Marcus said, then told them all he knew of the multiversal companies and how they worked.
"What I don't understand is what the companies get out of it other than an energy of some sort, " Marcus finished.
"Are these companies run by ascended beings like the ancients?" Jackson asked. "Or are they like the Ori?"
Marcus shook his head, " No, the ascended ancients and Ori are reality-locked. They've run away from their fears by ascending and forcefully entering the ascended planes, so if you want to reach that level or beyond, don't follow the ancients in ascension."
General Hammond stood and gestured for the others to follow him, "As interesting as these talks are, we need to finish getting an order in place here," he told them as they took the stairs back to the gate level and to a door across from the blast doors that covered the gate room.
"Yeah, I know, but when you're working with intellectuals, it's hard to keep them on track, " Marcus said, receiving nods of agreement from O'Neill and Teal'c and pouting from Carter and Jackson.
"But how do we ascend if we don't follow them?" Jackson got out while General Hammond was opening a reinforced door to an empty armory closet.
"You'd have to find that out on your own, I don't know how to do it myself, and the one higher being I know said it took him centuries to go from a mortal to a low-level god and then several thousand years to reach the upper level, but he never told us more than he was a dungeon diver in his home world, " Marcus told them.
Opening his backpack he reached inside it until his shoulder then just for fun he stuck his head in until his torso was in, he had to hold his laughter as he heard the others gasping, all he had to do was call the item he wanted to his hand, when he felt the shrunken portal door in his grasp he stood and saw the group gaping at him.
"Marry Poppins, eat your heart out, " he said while unshrinking the portal door pulling it from the and placing the portal just inside the door.
"Please don't break my best team," General Hammond said while sighing and rubbing his face.
Marcus grinned at the general, "Sorry but it's so fun to see these guys get like this even after all they've been through over the years, and I can do this for them to be shocked even Teal'c looks shocked, " he pointed out, Teal'c even with his stoic manner his eyes had widened a good deal.
The others looked at Teal'c and saw what for him was open-mouthed astonishment, " Be that as it may please stop pulling these stunts at least until we are in a more stable situation." Hammond said with a small smile at Teal'cs expression.
Marcus shrugged then pointed to the portal, "All you have to do is connect to the portal with a bracer and select the destination, you'll be connected to the portal to request passage, I would recommend setting up a rotation for authorization duty on this end, the ones for Sunnydale and the dungeons may already have guards," he told them as he gave them a demonstration of how it worked.
"I'll have Walter set a rotation," O'Neill said as he looked away from Teal'c and to the portal.
Hammond nodded, "Two per rotation for now, nonlethal weapons just in case," he told O'Neill, who saluted and went to find Master Sargeant Walter Harriman.
"Ohh yeah, I've got a few new things for you guys, they are skill books from the dungeon," Marcus spoke up after remembering that he and Hermione had gathered at least eight sets of books that had the wolf's skills, pulling out one set he passed it to Carter, "These will instantly teach you how to use the skills, one for a speed boost and the other will let you use the shadows to move from place to place but the range is limited to a few meters."
Carter took the books and looked ready to run for her lab but Marcus' next words stopped her, "They are one-time-use items, and even our bracers read them as regular books but you can see if the scanning equipment picks up something when you use them, " he told her as he passed sets to Teal'c Jackson and two sets to the general.
She looked over to the general who sighed and nodded, "You and the rest of SG1 are on standby for the next two days as we sort out the remaining people and creatures."
"Thank you, sir, " she called out barely saluting before she took off to the new lab tent.
"It's written in English," Jackson said as he looked at the covers of the books in his hands.
"No, it's in whatever language you understand the best, think of it like the psychic paper from Dr. Who," Marcus told the linguist.
The men went back to the conference room to find O'Neill eating a cup of jello; when Hammond waved him to stay seated, he happily went back to eating his jello, hardly looking at the books the general sat in front of him.
Marcus explained them to him, but all O'Neill did was touch the books with his elbow and nod when the screen popped up asking if he wanted to learn the skills, and the books broke down into lights that entered his chest over his heart.
"Neat," he said while scraping the last of the jello from the cup.
Marcus looked at the general, " I climb halfway into a backpack, and he nearly dents the floor with his chin; give him a magic book, and all he says is neat. Are you sure he isn't already broken?"
Hammond looked to O'Neill, "Sometimes I'm not sure myself."
O'Neill looked at the two and then shrugged and pulled out three more jello cups, passing one to Jackson and Teal'c, "It'll be fine. I'm just going to say I am not broken, just going to not see the strangeness for now," he said opening his jello.
Marcus was about to reply when a portal opened on the wall near the window overlooking the gate room, and his bracer beeped, " Yes?"
"It's me. Harriet has calmed down, and we're on the way to the gate; I just wanted to let you know before we step through, " Hermione said through the bracer.
Marcus looked at the general, who nodded, "Come on, though, we're in the conference room, and Carter is in her lab, so you'll be safe, " he jokingly said.
A few seconds later Hermione stepped through with Harriet on her hip, she smiled and nodded to the others as she joined Marcus, O'Neill looked up and nodded then smiled at Harriet his spoon still in his mouth, he then stood and pulled another cup of jello from his pocket with a spoon and held it out to Harriet.
Harriet looked at the jello and then at Hermione, "It's okay, sweetie, he's a good guy and a friend."
Harriet shyly took the jello from his hand and opened it to take a spoonful; when she tasted it, she smiled around the spoon. O'Neill grinned and then returned to his seat, pulling out another jello.
"Where are you keeping those?" Hammond asked noting that O'Neill was pulling them out of the same pocket.
"Umm, well, I talked to the avatar in the armory after talking to Walter about the guards; I was asking about the backpack, and he said the pockets of my B.D.Us could be made like that, just smaller in space, so I had him fix them up," O'Neill said as he opened the jello.
"Dr.Frasier is going to be yelling at you if you eat too many of those, " Jackson said as he put down his spoon and cup.
"Nah, I got these from the replo thing; she said they taste like jello but are healthy, and eating a few won't hurt my diet."
Hermione nodded as she sat in a chair with Harriet happily eating, "The replicator will make any food or medication you need, and the food is designed to keep you healthy in a spaceship as well as on a planet but you still need to only eat so much or you'll gain weight because of the high-calorie content or at least exercise regularly and do go to medical first, the med beds will take care of old injuries like that knee you keep busting, " she told them getting a frown from O'Neill at the word medical.
"Don't worry Jack, I went to medical yesterday and it was painless, and no needles just a funny little thing Janet stuck to my arm to administer my allergy medicine and I didn't feel a thing," Jackson said while looking forward to how they were going to have to fight to get Jack to go to medical.
After a few minutes of talking and O'Neill occasionally trying to pass Harriet sweets from the other pockets, some she took and put in her shirt pocket if she was already eating a piece when Carter suddenly appeared behind O'Neill looking like she grew out of his shadow.
"Sir I want to ask permission to study the dungeon soon, my scans indicated that while there are no physical changes to ourselves we seem to grow a small and unharmful energy core that is out of phase near the heart that allows us to use the skills from the books," she said while startling the group other than Marcus and Hermione who had felt her using the shadow step.
Harriet gave a small squeak, then buried her face in Hermione's chest, "Calm down, Carter, we'll be sending your team in a few days, " Hammond said sternly, pointing to the scared girl.
Carter followed the general, pointing and shrank back, " Sorry," she said while stepping around the table to try and comfort Harriet, only for the little girl to hide in Hermione's arms.