I woke up the next day, early in the morning and prepared to head out. I, alongside a lot of the villagers, would be tearing apart – piece by piece, room by room – the Ha'tak that we had captured from Enyalius. It would take several days – if not weeks – to complete the entire process.
Today, I would be arriving several hours ahead of the main work force and using my first perk to gain the blueprints for all of the ships and any other secondary technology that we acquired from the site. So, at 0400, I arrived at the Stargate and found Elder James and Elder Callum both waiting for me.
"Elders." I spoke to them in greeting.
They both turned to me and returned my greeting. Next, Elder James called for the gate to be dialed out. The DHD had been moved into a locked room within the Leopard in order to prevent unauthorized dialing of the gate. Once I was through the gate, I rectified something that I had forgotten the last time I was on this world and quickly touched the DHD.
First Perk Activated. Partial Blueprint Acquired: Clavis (DHD)
User Interface
I was dumbfounded at how unnecessarily complex the User Interface was, but I quickly moved on. The Stargate had been moved much closer to the fortress in order to make it easier to defend and to decrease the time it took to get to the fortress.
The moment I stepped into the fortress, the perk activated.
First Perk Activated. Partial Blueprint Acquired: Zeus' Vacation Complex
The blueprint was interesting, but I didn't have anything that I could compare it to. Examining the documents now in my head, I spoke to the Elders.
"Elders, I just got the blueprint for this facility."
Elder James raised an eyebrow.
"Well, anything interesting," asked Elder Callum.
"I'm not sure. There are a bunch of secret entrances and I'm not sure if you're aware of them or not," I spoke with a shrug.
Elder Callum's eyes lit up.
"Ohh, hidden passages are always interesting."
He turned to Elder James, his previously excited eyes faded to a much more serious face.
"We need to check those passages immediately. You never know what might be inside."
Elder James snorted once in answer but nodded nonetheless.
"Agreed. This takes priority over the Ha'tak. I'll gather some of the squads and have them prepare for the worst case. You two go find all the entrances and mark them. Under no circumstance are you to open any of them."
I nodded, though after a quick look into my memories I thought it worth specifying something.
"Elder, I don't actually know where any of them go or how to open them."
Elder James frowned.
"And how many of these passages are there?"
Some simple mental arithmetic later, I replied.
"Seventeen."
Like that, the initial plan of searching the Ha'taks was put on hold. Elder Callum and I spent the next two hours walking the entire length of the fortress and checking on the locations of the various hidden passageways. By the end of it, nearly a hundred people had congregated in the entrance, among them were Ma'chello and Arktos.
Elder James' face remains impassive as he shakes hands with both men.
"Thank you both for coming so quickly." He turns his attention to Arktos, "Are you aware of the secret passageways within this stronghold?"
Arktos nods lightly.
"I am."
The Elder continues.
"Then are you aware of how many of them there are?"
"Last I was informed, there were 14 such passageways."
"We believe we've discovered 17 passages, but we are unable to open several of them."
Arktos raises an eyebrow.
"If they have been kept hidden, then they likely require a Kara'Kesh to open."
Elder James turns his eyes to Elder Callum who nods slightly and runs off before he returns his attention to Arktos and gives him a nod of thanks.
Next, the Elder turns his attention on everyone and yells once.
"Explosives teams prepare for sweeps. Guard teams, full load out. You have one hour."
He returned his attention back to Arktos.
"Would you be willing to show us those passages that you were already aware of?"
For the next hour – while Elder Callum rushed off to go grab Ares' and Enyalius' Kara'Kesh – Arktos showed us around and pointed out all of the hidden entrances he was aware of in the facility. Elder Callum and I had marked all of the entrances. It took an hour, but by the end, we had once more gone over all of the entrances.
As we return to the Hangar, the different teams are all ready to go, as was Elder Callum with the Kara'Kesh. Elder James called to the room.
"Alright. Bomb squad, you're going in first. Guard teams spread out to 20 meter intervals from the doors. Under no circumstances are you to lose line of sight with the team in front of you."
As I was the only person currently available who could operate the Kara'Kesh, I was required to put it on. A damper was immediately put on this when the very first door required close proximity to open. As such, another 15 minutes was spent getting me into proper defensive equipment.
From there, things progressed smoothly. We started by checking all of the passages that Arktos was aware of. According to him, 11 of the passages were simple escape paths while the remaining three were meant as hidden storage rooms.
Finally, I was ready. I approached the first marked wall and sent a mental command to the Kara'Kesh; it answered by opening the door before me. The passage on the other side was pitch black. I couldn't see more than a few feet beyond the door. Suddenly, lights began to activate at regular intervals along the ceiling and wall. The entire passage quickly became visible.
A simple staircase – though heavily decorated with the standard Goa'uld gilding – led down almost twenty meters before flattening out and continuing for a considerable distance. When consulting a map, it became clear that this passage led straight to the location of the Stargate, and Arktos confirmed that this was the case. A team was sent to scout the passage – after Arktos confirmed that there would be no traps.
The next three passages were all more escape routes, all leading to hidden doors just outside the fortress. The number of hidden passages was truly excessive. It was more of a security hazard than a defence mechanism at this point. If even one of them was discovered, the fortress would effectively be compromised.
The fifth hidden doorway was supposed to be a hidden storage room. Sure enough, when we opened it up we found a rather small square room, with walls approximately 2 meters wide. The room was filled with about a hundred crates, stacked to the ceiling. Opening up a crate revealed several dozen metal bricks. I attempted to pick up one only to utterly fail.
Arktos entered the room and after looking at the bricks gave a light nod.
"High Grade Refined Naquadah. There is enough in this room to purchase several Tel'tak."
After moving all the crates out of the room and confirming there was nothing else hidden within, we closed it up and moved on. It required four people just to move one crate, which went quite far in showing how dense Naquadah is as a material.
We continued to sweep through hidden entrances. The second storage room was totally empty, but the third one contained an emergency weapon supply. There were several dozen Staff Weapons alongside a dozen or so Zat's, but that was it.
By the time we had swept through all the known passages it had been nearly 17 hours. Next was the more worrying entrances, the ones that not even Arktos knew of.
We stood before a completely ordinary wall at the bottommost layer of the fortress. I had tried to use both Ares' and Enyalius' Kara'Kesh to unlock the door, neither had worked. Ma'chello had been able to confirm that there was indeed a mechanism behind the wall, but not even he had found a way to open it.
Next, we tried everything we could to brute force the door open. From continuously blasting it with staff weapons, to laser cutters, nothing worked. Finally, we gave up on the brute force and called in our last hope; Lady Isetri.
When she finally arrived she spent several minutes inspecting the wall before coming to a conclusion.
"I've seen this type of door before. It was designed by Hephaestus. Give me a few hours and it'll be open."
A few teams stayed to watch and provide assistance while the rest of us continued on towards the next hidden entrance.
This one was no simpler to unlock. Once again it refused to respond to any form of command from the Kara'Kesh. Luckily this wall was not immune to damage and it melted open after a minute when under fire from a set of Mausers. As one particularly large chunk of door fell to the floor, a massive plume of dust rose into the air. No one had been through this entrance in millenia.
Inside was rather disappointing. It appeared to simply be another weapon storage room. The room contained crates upon crates of Ma'tok Staffs, Zats, and even several Tacluchnatagamuntoron (I almost started laughing when Arktos said their full name in one go without breaking a sweat).
I was almost disappointed by the materials in the room, that was until I opened a crate and noticed three ceramic jars. Immediately, I closed the box.
"Elder!"
Elder James immediately came over. I leaned over and whispered in his ear.
"There is a possibility that there are live Goa'uld in these."
His eyes narrowed and he quickly brought over Arktos.
Arktos looked at the jars and furrowed his brows. "I am unfamiliar with these… devices."
That didn't make any sense… I figured they'd be pretty common, or maybe not?
"They're stasis Jars," I explained, "they allow for a Symbiote to be stored effectively indefinitely."
We put the crate containing the three Stasis Jars away in another larger crate and locked that one. No one had touched the Stasis Jars to prevent them being deactivated – not even me.
The final entrance was another secret entrance. This one quickly accepted the command from Enyalius' Kara'Kesh and opened to reveal an empty room with a Ring Transporter on the floor.
First Perk Activated. Partial Blueprint Acquired: Shenu Nefer (Goa'uld Ring Transporter)
Dematerializer
I compared the dematerializer of the ring transporter to that used in the Stargate. They were basically the same, just one was active continuously, while the other activated for only fractions of a second.
On the nearby wall was the control panel for the ring transporter. I quickly touch it.
First Perk Activated. Partial Blueprint Acquired: Shenu Kar (Goa'uld Ring Transport Panel)
Wireless Systems
There was nothing else in the room, and activating the ring transporter simply took the user to Enyalius' single Ha'tak. Now there was only a single unopened door left. We returned to the bottommost layer where we waited for Lady Isetri to complete her work. She had been busy while we were gone. Multiple walls had been blown out revealing some sort of conduit.
The rest of the group sat by and began waiting. Finally, after an hour, Lady Isetri informed us that she would be opening the door. All the teams got into position and prepared. She activated the opening mechanism and immediately retreated to safety.
Once again, we were greeted by a rather lengthy tunnel, except it wasn't what I'd come to expect from Goa'uld construction. Instead the walls looked as if they had just been dug out, completely lacking any adornments whatsoever.
Two squads of guards took the lead with the rest of us following behind. It quickly became clear that this tunnel was much longer than the rest. Nonetheless, our guests were both too engrossed in finding out what was at the end of the tunnel to give up. Both groups sent messages back to their subordinates and we continued onwards.
The tunnel finally ended after five miles. At the end we found a massive stone room, in the center of which sat a landed Tel'tak. Upon looking upwards at the ceiling I could vaguely make out the appearance of a seam from which the room should slide open to allow the ship to leave.
On the ground to the right of the ship was a Ring Transporter, which Lady Isetri was kind enough to activate for us so we wouldn't have to make the trek back through the tunnel. After the ship had been checked for any traps we all entered to examine the vessel. I was the second one inside after Elder James.
First Perk Activated. Partial Blueprint Acquired: Tel'tak
Neural Interface
Upon entering the Tel'tak, Lady Isetri made to quickly look around before bee lining to the vessel's controls. I felt both Arktos and Elder James tense slightly while she spoke.
"This ship is at least 4,000 years old."
Elder James nodded tensely.
"Do you know who it belonged to?"
Lady Isetri touched the control crystal in the front seat and the interior lit up.
"Zeus." She turned to Arktos questioningly, "I do believe this fortress was originally built by Zeus, correct?"
Arktos nodded in response.
"I believe so. This was a vacation retreat."
Lady Isetri nodded.
"Then it makes sense that he would have an escape ship here. Zeus was notorious for his paranoia."
After a moment, she began to depower the vessel and everyone inside began to relax.
"The ship's last activation was 4,233 years ago."
We exited the ship and walked to the Ring Transporter. I tapped the device once with my foot.
First Perk Activated. Partial Blueprint Acquired: Shenu Nefer (Goa'uld Ring Transporter)
Wireless Systems
Once again, I was unsurprised to find that the Ring Transporters used effectively the same technology as the Stargate.
Next, I turned my attention to the control panel against the wall.
First Perk Activated. Complete Blueprint Acquired: Shenu Kar (Goa'uld Ring Transport Panel)
User Interface
A smirk appeared on my face; the panel had been modified slightly. I found the release mechanism hidden along the edges and pulled the panel off to discover a collection of crystals. I removed two of the crystals and swapped their places. Instantly, the nearby wall began to slowly grind open to reveal another doorway.
Turning back, I noticed that Lady Isetri and Arktos were both giving me rather strange glances. Elder James was looking at me like I was an idiot.
…
Right. I probably should have thought about what I was doing. Coughing into my hand in embarrassment, I spoke.
"The uhhh… panel didn't seem right."
Lady Isetri's gaze became much more contemplative. Arktos on the other hand simply smiled and clapped me on the shoulders.
"Arthur, you are a man of many talents."
I once more coughed awkwardly and Elder James let out a sigh.
"Explosives team, move in and check for traps."
Soon enough, the explosives team was out and we could see what was behind the second hidden door. Against the far wall was a Goa'uld Display – something which I had only seen on the bridge of Ha'tak vessels. That didn't catch my attention, however.
No, far more interesting were the set of six robotic bodies placed side by side on a massive table in the middle of the room. They looked strangely familiar. I approached the table and was about to touch it when I thought better of it and turned to Elder James first. He nodded very slightly at me and I continued.
First Perk Activated. Partial Blueprint Acquired: Cybrex Chassis
Computational System