Fox shakes his head
"Not beast commander intelligent being, just built differently to us."
"Though I am interested in knowing where they learnt the basic Apache from"

The minotaur keeps up a running pace for about a mile, weaving in and out of snow drifts, rocky outcroppings and several hot springs. It quickly becomes evident that he could have tripled his speed, but he checks behind him to make sure his new allies are keeping up with him.

After the circuitous mile, he slows down, and now begins a peculiar path that doubles back on itself, crosses itself several times, and circles a couple of hot springs a few times. Finally he gestures everyone to move in a specific direction, and he follows along carefully using loose snow to cover their tracks.

After nearly another mile, this path comes to a long rocky outcropping that is almost a shallow ridge. At this point, everyone is walking on stone, presumably kept clear of snow by the nearby hotsprings.

The group comes to a large boulder which the minotaur carefully moves aside. He gestures the team inside the revealed cave. As you enter, you can see that the boulder is actually hinged; even so, it would take a concerted effort on the part of SG-X2 to swing that massive weight aside.

Once inside, the minotaur closes the 'door'.

Fox nods then holds up his hand to please wait "can I have a name to call you by pleas I am called Travis Fox"

Sarah follows the others.   If this is a trap, we are walking directly into it and more fool Michael for simply accepting matters instead of taking the lead.

Once again, Michael had no choice but to follow the Minotaur in this cave.

"Hey Fox ! I hope that Minotaurus and his friends are nicer than the people living in this ice castle." he said. "Or we are already all dead..." he added in a whisper.


OOC : Can we have more informations about the cave please ? What's the temperature ? Are there light sources or is it completely dark ? How large is the part where we are ?
I will act accordingly to these new informations. :)

Fox considers
"Sir I am seeing no sign of the insanity that possessed the fortress people"
"The being was willing to help a wounded man not of his race."
"His pace through the snow was geared so we could keep up"

Fox pauses and then continues
"I am not saying one race is right the other wrong". "What I am saying is that the balance for normal dialog is here at the moment"

Álfríðr still continued to follow the group silently. The creature had a debt toward her so if things had to go wrong, she expected to be spared.

But now, she was thinking that she should have never go on this planet full of crazy people ! One thing was sure. She will not come back here soon.

"I am called Kuruk," the minotaur replies to Travis.


The initial cave is about 10 feet high, around 30 feet in diameter, with a single passage leading off of it.

There is no artificial light, but sunlight comes through numerous cracks to generate a kind of twilight in the cave. The solitary passage, however, looks dark.

Fox bows "well met then Kuruk who speaks the language of warriors"

"The commander is concerned about where we are going". "The speaker for the team is concerned about the people we flee from.
Not knowing the language of Warriors is falls to me to explain to both of them what is happening.

The group had been walking for a long time before they arrived in this cave and it started to bother Álfríðr as she was getting tired.

Because there was nothing else to do during journey, she had lost herself inside her mind and she tried to understand how a girl as stupid as this blond-haired woman could be allow to take part in a mission on a planet that looked new to the strangers and, more important, why she was allowed to carry a weapon when she was clearly dangerous with them.

In the meantime, Dauði that was still in his bag, jumped on Álfríðr's shoulder and started to chew one of her ear, getting her out of her reverie.

Despite the low light coming from the cracks, Michael decided to turn the light of his P90 on to have a better appreciation of his environment.

He illuminated everyone, one after the other to check that they were good and he noticed the little creature on the white woman's shoulder.
He was tempted to get closer to stroke it a bit but finally thought that it would probably be a bad idea.

As the temperature inside the cave was more supportable, Michael removed his hood and his protection goggles to feel more comfortable.

As the leader of his team, it was not ideal to always follow a stranger but once again, he had no choice as the Minotaur was carrying the Jaffa, a Jaffa that shown himself more friendly than hostile before Sarah fired at him with her Zat.

Fox drops back to check on the strange women that has joined them he bows slightly in politeness,"Do you understand this language" he asks in English

if that gets no answer Fox will try Spanish French, Apache and finally Jaffa

While Travis had been speaking Apache with Kuruk back at the intersection with the mob, Sarah had been speaking Jaffa with the blue-haired woman and the Jaffa, though Travis may have been too preoccupied to have noticed.


Kuruk begins leading the group through the tunnel. It quickly grows darker, but just about the time the light is nearly gone, a moss or fungus on the walls and ceiling begins to glow.

The tunnel seems to twist and turn frequently, with no apparent rhyme or reason, further giving the impression of a maze. There are numerable turn-offs, as well, and a few ‘bottomless’ pits can be seen down these side passages. There is also no glowing moss down these side paths. It is unclear if this maze is a natural occurrence or ‘man’-made.

Kuruk leads on for about 20 minutes before entering a small lit cavern guarded by two minotaurs dressed in some kind of bone armor and wielding large bone weapons. These weapons appear to be a blend of club and sword—a sharpened edge but a large knob on the end. The guards immediately go into an aggressive stance until Kuruk reassures them, then they let the group pass.

Passing through another opening in this cavern, the group now enters a huge cavern nearly 300 feet across with a domed ceiling 100 feet high. Light enters this cavern through fissures in the ceiling.

At least 100 minotaurs can be seen in the cavern, including females and young. Around the perimeter, there are numerous niches carved into the walls. A half dozen openings can also be seen.

 Nascha’atay,” Kuruk says to Travis.

The floor of the cavern is 10 steps down, and Kuruk walks down the stairs and over to the nearest niche. He sets the Jaffa down gently in the niche, stands up and turns around.

 he calls out across the cavern.
This message was last edited by the GM at 18:12, Fri 02 May 2014.

In reply to StarMaster (msg # 86):

The floor of the cavern is 10 steps down, and Kuruk walks down the stairs and over to the nearest niche. He sets the Jaffa down gently in the niche, stands up and turns around.

 he calls out across the cavern.

Fox nods "so has the word been since the 4 created us and placed upon the earth"
he relays in English what has been said to the Commander and team that they are honoured guests and this is Kuruk's home. And that he has told them we are not the mad ones

Álfríðr was surprised to hear someone else speaking Jaffa in the strangers group. From the moment when they met, only the woman tried to speak with her in this language. But she did not say more about her because she tried to keep secret her origins and the way she could have learned this language.

During the walk in the maze, she answered to Travis that she known how to speak Jaffa but that she was unable to understand the language they used to speak with each others.

When they arrived inside the huge cavern, she was happy to finally be able to stop walking. She gone blank when she saw that many Minotaurs in the cave. As they seem to be the prey of the crazy people from the Ice Castle, she never thought that they could be so numerous.

When the sock was passed, she started to scrutinize the vicinity in search for any valuable items that she could eventually steal.

When they was in what looked like a maze, Michael tried to mentally create a map of the path they were taking. But as they were walking, it was getting clearer that it would be impossible to use this path without a guide if they wanted to leave the place.

On their way, he tried to lit some of the bottomless pit with his P90 light but he was unable to see the bottom of any of them. Falling in such a hole would be a trip without any way to come back he thought.

When they finally arrived in the first part of the cave, he was surprised to see armed and armoured guards. These Minotaurs were more advanced than he first thought and if they had to fight against them, it would be even harder than he initially thought to defeat them.
Well. It would be impossible he then thought when they entered in the huge cave and he saw the complete group of Minotaurs. He was not sure about their number but they were at least 100. And they were only 6, counting the strange woman and the unconscious Jaffa.

After Travis relayed what Kuruk said, Michael finally gave his orders. "Fox. Tell him that we are explorers and we came in peace."
He looked around him and started to evaluate the real number of Minotaurs, if ever it was possible, and tried to memorized all the possible ways out in case things went wrong. "Also Sergeant, try to look for any suspicious act from our new friends." he finally added.

"Commander" Fox says after little thought "there is no such word as explorer closest would be way finder or forward scout for the tribe". "As to suspicious acts, I believe they areas curious about us as we are about this planet"

Fox turns to Kuruk, and signs important in the way of the apache.

Sarah remained silent.  None of this was allying her fears though she was not leading this mission.  As such she quietly considering the events as they'd unfolded, noticed Travis' butterfly-like distraction from his focus on the creature to talk to (and be rebutted by) Alfrior, and considered the woman's earlier words.  Had she an accent?  Was Sarah able to place it?

[Sarah Morgan rolled 14 using 1d20+11. Xeno-Languages - Decipher Alfrior's accent.]

Most people don't think they have an accent when they speak a foreign language, but unless they make a point of eliminating it, there is almost always at least a trace of your native language that creeps in, especially when you get emotional.

It's easy enough for Sarah to detect such an accent in Alfrior's speech, but it's a lot harder to identify it. As it turns out, she doesn't think it's a xeno-language at all, but an Earth language. She can't be absolutely positive, but the faint accent sounds vaguely Scandinavian.


About the time she's considering Alfrior's accent, the Jaffa wakes up. He still clutched his staff weapon in his hand, so Kuruk had carried it along with the Jaffa, and then set it down beside him in the niche.

"Those who carry weapons are not, by nature, peaceful," Kuruk replies to Travis.

"However, we do recognize that your culture is different from ours, as is that of the Mad Ones. We would never hunt an intelligent species for its hide, nor even take survival furs by force. This is the mark of insanity to us."

Unliked most people felled by a zat, Shor'zal did not wake up groggy or disoriented. His symbiote took care of that. Once his muscles and senses were fully restored, he just sat up, fully conscious and alert.

His hand instinctivel reached out to grasp his staff weapon, which, fortunately, was by his side. However, he still had no idea where he was or how he'd gotten here.

He was surprised, though not really shocked, to see so many of the giant horned furballs. A moment later, he spotted the blue-haired woman he'd helped... and the other woman who'd shot him!

Had he still been the Jaffa that he'd been, he most assuredly would have retaliated. He was not that same Jaffa any more. He knew the Goa'uld were false gods, and now understood why other races hated Jaffa.

He stood up slowly, but left the staff weapon on the stone platform that had served as a bed for him. Equally slowly, he walked towards the woman who'd shot him.

"I apologize if I have offended you any way," he said to Sarah. "If I may ask, why did you shoot me with your zat'nik'tel?"

Sarah was still pondering the woman's accent when the Jaffa spoke up and Sarah suddenly realised that their leader hadn't taken the initiative and disarmed the obvious threat, Can he do nothing right?  Why on earth did the general give him leadership of this team!  She was therefore immediately wary but, given that her commander had chosen to leave the man with his staff weapon, polite.  Spoken in Jaffa, "Because you were raising your weapon, Jaffa.  The fact that you've been left with yours is still of some concern, so please keep it lowered."  The implied 'or I might have to shoot you again' as simple threat even for one who did not at all appear to be war-like.   That all being said, she did hit him!  So why hasn't he attacked?  Retaliated?  He is no fool and must be better trained than some, or maybe on a mission that overrides his natural tendencies.  Attacking while outnumbered would surely end such a mission.

Fox translates as he goes
"it would seem an act of madness to do so by the standards that are in use".
"How long has this been going on?"

"Perhaps perception is everything," Shor'zal replies to Sarah. "Yes, I was raising my weapon to the ceiling. Had I wished to harm you, I would have lowered it at you."

"I am Shor'zal. Based on your attire and weapons... and attitude, I should guess that you are the not-so-legendary Tau'ri."

"As you can see, I am not armed."

He may not be actively carrying his staff but... he was still Jaffa.   Was that a sneer in his voice?  The implied simplicity of her people did nothing to appease her wariness.  "My name's Sarah.  And carrying the staff or not, you know full what I mean by keeping your weapon lowered."