"Yes, we left a lot of responsibilities and people who will be worried about us behind. I'm interested in helping while we're here but if we can return we need to do that."

"Then I have some possible options, but I'm guessing we should include Mr. McKay."

"Sounds like a good idea."

McKay is easy to find. He's working at a table with his tablet and his scanner.

He looks up when they arrive. "I heard from Teyla that she's in the clear. I didn't ask but it looked like it took more out of her than we were expecting."

"We forgot that they don't have proper syringes."

"Oh."

"I'm sorry it was more painful than you'd anticipated." He's not really clear on how extracting internal bodily fluids is supposed to be done without short-term wounds but whatever, it'll heal in days. "I have ideas for what we could bring in to help you work out the possibilities of travel back to your home."

"Teyla will be fine," Sheppard agrees.

Rodney perks up. "Oh, that sounds very interesting to hear about."

"So there's two main approaches we could look into; engineering or magic, and they don't much overlap. We have some schools of engineering here, and it would be easy to get a few experts in to work out what we could reproduce, how long it would take to rebuild what tools you know, materials, etc. With a small sample of some of your materials we could also lure a dwarf engineer, who would be much more of an expert, but that would take much longer."

"On magic, we have Ice Witches who could teach the theory, and I could negotiate with a Hag Witch to see if their spirit-binding methods might help your understanding improve. Further afield, with time we could invite an imperial wizard; they are more academic in their studying, and one of the Winds, Chamon the Gold Wind of Metal, has engineering-like studies, as I understand it."

"Much as I like to talk up my abilities, I don't think I could reinvent all the technologies necessary to building a Stargate. Even with all the resources in Atlantis I couldn't build a Stargate from scratch.

"So I do expect we'll need some sort of local magic whether that's from the Dwarves or from one of the human traditions. And I just don't know enough about how magic works and what it can do here to be able to guess which tradition would be best. I've been looking at the data from our trip yesterday all day and I'm still just scratching the surface."

Should he reveal his trick? No, not until Teisiya's back.

"Right, magical investigations, then. The easiest to do is to get our Ice Witches - some of the older witches of the Ice Court who mostly teach at their age have a deeper understanding and could be here in a day or two with more to say, and I don't think any but the biggest secrets would need to stay locked. Hag Witches don't like the city or the Ice Witches, but they have a very different practice so if you need a broader comparison of ways the world can be altered with magic, I can have some men seek some out to ask. Asking a dwarf runesmith would be... difficult, though they certainly have the most orderly and regular use of magic; they consider most of it a holy secret of their ancestors. Easier but slower is a Gold Wizard from the south; I believe they'd send someone if we told them we had a nonmagical device capable of studying all the energies of the Winds and gods, but it wouldn't be fast unless we sent the device to them in person with the messenger. I understand them to be alchemists and engineers by magical inclination, as among the things which attract Chamon is logical thought and structured reasoning. And, of course, we have books, some of which should arrive here this afternoon."

"Books sound like a good place to start. I'm happy to talk with anyone, I don't know enough to know who would be helpful at this point. You mentioned that about the dwarves before, I think it would still be worth talking to them but if there isn't a way they're comfortable collaborating I expect it won't go too far. I don't know enough about the other traditions you mentioned but the engineering one sounds worth asking if it'll take a long time for them to get here."

McKay also upon looking back through his scanner data this morning realized he has records of the portal that brought them here. He isn't sure whether to mention that though. On the one hand he can't effectively use it and keep it hidden but on the other hand he halfway suspects that the people here would want him to delete it.

"Are there things about magic that are dangerous to know?"

"...Yes. Probably. Chaos doesn't give many chances to test fine distinctions. Why do you ask?"

"It's something that came up in stories sometimes. And I wasn't sure if that was part of why Teisiya was worried about what to tell me. Also, this whole project is to find a way to do something that was done by the Chaos cultists. I wouldn't want to replicate their methods even if I could but the effect is the only way we know works even if we don't know why it did what it did." Rodney is clearly nervous, Teodor may be able to deduce there's something Rodney isn't mentioning. But this is a topic it's reasonable to be nervous about.

"There are books about Chaos that drive mad nearly everyone who reads them. Most of them become Chaos cultists, nearly indistinguishable from those who have abused Dhar and fried their minds that way. It's rare, but not exceptionally rare, for witnessing large Chaos invocations to do similar things, and common for  them to have temporary effects along the same lines."

And because Rodney is, if not transparent, relatively translucent: "I would not expect the botched summoning that brought you here to be one of those, but if your device wrote down what it saw, I would suggest you not read it until you're prepared to be very careful."

Sheppard who had also seen through Rodney but didn't think intervening would help relaxes a bit.

Rodney slumps a little at being seen through so easily. "I didn't really think about that possibility so I've already looked at the data. It looked fairly familiar to what I would expect from a Stargate but there are some substantial differences. I was more worried about your reaction than what I saw."

"Well, don't reread it very often, then. And,"  he says to Sheppard, "if he shows any signs of getting obsessed with it, take away the device entirely and let my men know to keep him under guard until we can bring an expert over."

"I'm not sure what obsession would mean in this context. How does it differ from working hard on a project?"

"Going over the contents repeatedly, like they were trying to memorize it, thinking of it intrusively the rest of the time... Hmm. That might not distinguish much."

"I do have some self control. Also, until I have more of a basis of comparison looking at the data over and over isn't going to help me that much."

"...Well, good. Don't do that, then." And if he starts without warning that's a very bad sign.

"Circling back if you could arrange for the wizard from the south and also someone from the Dwarves I think we would appreciate meeting both of them. To compensate for your time I'd be happy to talk with your gunsmiths about how to improve what you're making. Are you still using balls for projectiles? Also, do your barrels have rifling?"