Cleaning Up After The Ancients - Chapter 78

Chapter 78 - Treasure Log

Even to Eventus the convenience of Asgard transporters was something impressive. No need for satellite relay networks that would only allow you to travel to locations where ring platforms had been set up. No need for mile long trips afterwards to get where you really wanted to go. Just the flash of matter transmission and you were there.

Because of that convenience, he'd arrived back at the SCG in time to enjoy the mess hall's best rendition of pizza, and watch the amusing dinner show that was Daniel and Vala having dinner together. Which had led to his pity offer of spending the next day helping to go through Merlin's cave of junk to make sure there weren't any more dangerous items lying around.

So after his second full night's sleep in a row, and a standard morning breakfast, he’d shown up at Daniel's office with an elf and purloined box of popcorn bags to watch a slideshow of Merlin's greatest cataloged treasures.

A picture of a large red crystalline chalice appeared on the projection screen in front of the couch they were sitting on.

“Would you believe there were twelve of those and they wouldn’t let me keep a single one.” Vala groused as she popped a kernel of popcorn into her mouth.

“I’m moderately sure you can file with some of the human governments for a monetary percentage of the discovered treasure.” Eventus offered idly as he examined the object for a moment before nodding. “Just another bit of random treasure.”

Vala visibly perked up.

“We don’t actually do that here.” Daniel said, deflating Vala’s excitement as he tapped a key on his laptop and the projector changed to showing an image of a small golden horse.

“You might want to think about it in this case.” Eventus returned, not sure why the archeologist was being so petty about rewarding Vala for leading them to the treasure. “After all, if you don't, Vala could go to the British government and tell them about how the American government stole their cultural treasures and that Cameron Mitchell is their new king.”

“And that is also just treasure.” He added in as Vala perked up again.

“Wait.” Rayla suddenly muttered, looking away from the screen to shoot a confused look over at Daniel as the projector switched to show a picture of a broach with a large red colored gem in its center. “You’re keeping the treasure a secret? But then how will everyone else learn about and appreciate all the previously unknown history of the objects you recovered?”

Eventus had to hand it to Rayla, because it was clear from the sour face Daniel was making that the question had hit home on the archeologist in a rather uncomfortable way.

“Theoretically speaking.” Vala floated in a suspiciously innocent tone. “How would one go about contacting this British government?”

“Personally?” Eventus began as he considered the question. “I'd just drive a cloaked ship up to their big castle. But given what I've learned about humans there's probably a phone number you can call.”

"Wouldn't that mess up their whole secrecy thing?” Rayla inquired with a frown.

“Very likely.” Eventus confirmed with a smile. “But one should not expect from others what they themselves are not likely to give. So if they aren't going to respect Vala's attempt to earn an honest living by uncovering lost treasure, why should Vala respect their desire to keep the existence of aliens a secret.”

“You know she probably stole the tablet that led us to the treasure?” Daniel muttered.

“Technically?” Vala put forward, rocking her upper body back and forth slightly. “I stole it back from some people who stole it from me.”

“Stole it from you you, or Qetesh while she was you?” Eventus dug, rather suspecting it was the latter.

“Does it matter?” Vala shot back with the barest hint of defensiveness in her tone. 

“I suppose not.” Eventus returned, glancing over to Daniel who was staring at his own body with a slightly furrowed brow. “The broach isn't any sort of design I recognize, so I'd say treasure again.”

Without another word Daniel switched the projector to show an image of a softball sized golden sphere with basic mathematical equations carved onto its surface, and Eventus had to hold back a laugh since that absolutely had to be Moros's idea of a joke.

“That is an educational hoverball for young children, it has a metamorphic surface and as the name suggests can hover in the air using an internal anti-gravity system. It is safe for children ages twelve and under after which point they will inevitably try to disassemble it as part of their attempt to build some sort of flying device.”

Vala smirked at him. “Speaking from experience I take it?”

“I used eight to build a pair of hover skates.” Eventus confirmed, grinning at the memory of zooming across Atlantis's surface with the things.

Rayla pursed her lips for a moment before looking over at him. “Should I be attempting to build things like that? 

“Only if you want to.” Eventus told her, motioning for Daniel to switch to the next and the image obligingly changed to a picture of a pendant with a large light blue teardrop gemstone.

“I'd have to see it in person to be sure since your camera doesn't cover the higher and lower ends of the light spectrum, but I'm pretty sure that's a holographic memory recorder.”

Daniel frowned slightly. “Are you talking about memories in the sense of things a person experienced or memories in the sense of video recordings someone made to remember an event?”

“Either is possible.” Eventus confirmed. “But you might want to be careful, because over the years I've seen everything from baby videos to memorable sexual encounters kept on them.”

Vala opened her mouth to speak only for Daniel to interrupt. “Moving on.”

The image changed once more to show a two foot long golden scepter with intermittent red and white gemstones circling its head.

“Yet again treasure.”

Honestly Eventus was really starting to wonder just why Moros had collected so much of the stuff. Was it a smokescreen to hide the handful of actually important things? Additional props for his wizard cosplay? A reward for whatever humans passed his tests? Or maybe just him indulging a newly discovered love of shiny objects? Whatever it was, the former maintenance engineer hadn't seen this much decorative gold and crystal since he'd toured the art displays on the city ship Tenmadurai.

Without prompting the image switched and a picture of Arthur's Mantle appeared on the screen.

“Laptop modified with what might be Ascended technology.”

Questions of why aside, Eventus really wished Moros had been a bit more creative with the–

“I'm sorry.” Daniel interrupted as he looked up from the laptop he was using to control the slideshow. “What!?”

Eventus pointed at the device's central matrix. “The Black crystal. I'll save everyone a long and involved lecture on the why's of crystal technology. But color matters. And in human terms, black would be the equivalent of building an integrated circuit with bismuth instead of copper.”

If he were to guess, he would say there was some sort of dimensional schism effect at play with part of the crystal existing here and part of it existing in whatever alternate dimension Moros had selected as his hideout.

He tilted his head in consideration. “Well, I suppose it’s also possible there were some major technological advances between the point I was left in Atlantis and everyone ascending. But given just who Merlin is I find it rather unlikely that such a thing occurred.”

“Who Merlin is?” Daniel repeated in confusion.

“I forgot to mention that, didn’t I?” Eventus muttered, dutifully ignoring the byplay of a clearly board Vala tossing a popcorn kernel at Rayla and the elf responding in kind.

“Yes.” Daniel drawled, so completely focused on Eventus now that he was missing the burgeoning popcorn war now occurring on the couch.

Biting his bottom lip for a moment to cover his embarrassment at forgetting to mention the man’s actual identity, Eventus offered the archeologist an apologetic shrug. “From the pictures you took of the hologram, it’s really just former High Councilor Moros with hair and a much less well kept beard.”

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 Author’s Notes: To be fair Eventus really does have a lot of things on his mind right now, mind, most of that’s looking forward to taking a few days off of work to play tourist on Earth, but the point stands. And next chapter, we have Eventus in a tiny bit over his head for the first time in the story. :D