A/N Originally hosted on sanctuaryfiction . net, and has been moved here while that site undergoes construction. The story has already been completed, so it will all be uploaded as fast as I can code. Please R&R!

SYBARITE

1. a person who is self-indulgent in their fondness for sensuous luxury.

ONE

"Magnus, we've got to go now."

Helen grinned impishly as she fumbled with the last few locks on the ornate chest in the center of the temple and called back, "It's never a mission unless something goes wrong, isn't it Will?" The lid to the chest finally popped open and Helen found three crumbling scrolls in protective silk sleeves inside. Stowing these quickly into her pack, she caught up with Will and they both ran to the exit before the roof fell down over their heads.

"What do you think is causing this?" Will shouted above the din of falling rock.

Helen chanced a quick look behind her. "I'm not sure, Will, but this building is very old."

"Yet it's been stable for thousands of years. Why choose to collapse now?"

Helen thought on Will's words for a minute, not liking the conclusions she was coming to. "Trap?" His fervent nod signaled very clearly that he was thinking the same, and their legs pumped harder to escape the falling wreckage. Helen undid the clasp to her holster that if need be, she could pull out her handgun at any time.

"Did you get the scrolls?" Helen nodded and grimly and Will put on an extra burst of speed. They just had to get to the temple entrance where Big Guy was waiting in the truck.

Just at the doorway, Will could see the truck already rumbling and idling and chanced a grin at the Big Guy when he suddenly felt something sharp crack against the back of his skull and the world went black.

"Will!"

"Hey… it's all right now…"

Will blinked sluggishly, cautiously opening his eyes. He was warm and felt soft sheets around him. His vision was blinded by bright light for a few seconds before he could adjust to his surroundings and realized he was in the infirmary. Doctor Magnus was beaming back at him, and the Big Guy pushed a cup of water towards him.

"You took quite a fall there," Helen said. Will smiled slowly back at her, downing the cup of water quickly and falling back onto the pillows. "I guess we got out of there okay."

"And found a guest as well." Helen passed a penlight over Will's eyes to make sure he wasn't concussed, and satisfied pushed a plate of food towards him. Will realized his stomach was growling furiously and gratefully started to eat. "Abnormal?"

"Yup, and a dishy one too." Will looked up to see Kate and Henry walking into the infirmary. Kate winked at him and plonked herself down into one of the spinning chairs, arms folded on top of the headrest. "Seems like that temple had a guardian you didn't account for who was a little pissed off that you were stealing his goods."

"So you mean, an abnormal set off the temple collapsing?"

Helen nodded, looking over some reports Henry handed her. "It seems that way. It was an oversight on my part, I just assumed the temple had been abandoned for centuries." Henry laughed and said, "Not often we get you admitting to a mistake, doc."

"Hang on," Will touched the back of his head lightly, "what do you mean dishy?" Kate's grin grew wider and Helen shot her a warning look. Henry just barked a laugh and folded his arms across his chest. "Seems your temple guardian is a very naked, human-looking male. But he is abnormal, even without the blood tests we ran there's something a bit different in his physicality."

Will exhaled deeply. "Great, we have a pissed off, naked temple guardian we have some explanations to make to. Is he awake?" Helen shook her head. "No, not yet. But I think he will soon. When you feel better, let's go have a chat with our guest."

The man sat huddled into one corner of his observation cell. The clothing and blankets the Big Guy had put in there beforehand lay untouched in a pile on the other end of the room. He was pale, his skin almost translucent, and his straggly, white-blonde hair reached to his shoulders. He hugged his knees to himself and stared at them with large eyes as they approached.

Will understood immediately what Henry had meant about the abnormal's appearance. He looked very human, he could have passed off as an unconventional-looking, albeit handsome, man. His pupils were so large they made his eyes appear black, his nose was longer and slender than average, and his ears were also much larger than normal. Deciding to test something, Will muttered "hello" so quietly that he barely breathed the word.

The man's gaze shot up to Will's with a look of wary recognition in his eyes. Will knew immediately that the man had heard him, and he nodded towards Helen. "Hyper-sensitive hearing, look at his facial features. Everything looks geared towards incredibly heightened senses."

Helen frowned. "This chamber obviously is ill-suited to his needs, but I wonder what sort of room he would find comforting. I have never come across this type of abnormal before."

Will put his hand up to the glass and said softly, "Hey there. My name is Will. Do you understand what I'm saying? Can you speak our language?"

The man watched him, warily, and Will knew he was heard but it didn't seem as if the man understood. Will felt a little guilty, watching the scared man. They had entered and violated his home, he must have been scared and he only tried to stop them to defend himself. And now he was in a strange place with people he couldn't understand. It was definitely not a pleasant situation.

"It looks like we have some research to do, Doc."

"Indeed. And those scrolls look like the best place to start."

Helen had felt a thrill of excitement when she opened the first scroll and smoothed it out over her desk. The legendary city of El Dorado had been just that … a legend. Until the head of the South American sanctuary told her of rumours he had been hearing of information of the lost city being hotly traded on the black market. At first he had ignored it as mere superstition and misleading until he had received a picture of the temple. Helen had jumped at the chance for a field trip, and it seemed that she always received more than she bargained for.

The South American Sanctuary was lending its support in what way it could, but it had its hands full with rash outbreaks of falsified chupacabra sightings, and had allowed her to lead on the case. So here it was… ancient texts from a temple she didn't think could exist, and she had no idea what kind of information they could contain.

Immediately what she noticed when she opened the scroll was that it was written in pictographs. They were similar to the Egyptian hieroglyphics, but with a very different context of meaning. She could puzzle some of what the pictographs were saying, like images of people dying, of enslavement, of a war, but there were several images so foreign to her that they could have been anything from a depiction of a God, to a number, to the symbol for a tree. She just couldn't be sure.

Helen tapped her pencil against her lips, musing on whom she could turn to for advice in this. Perhaps the South American Sanctuary's database had some references she could make a comparison of… or perhaps there was something in her library she could dig up.

"Doc, come in." Helen looked to her radio that had just chirped. It was Henry's voice. She carefully put away the scroll and picked up her radio. "Magnus here."

"Doc, we've got a bit of a situation." Helen was already out of her chair and briskly making her way to the control room. "What kind of situation?"

"You know that temple guardian thing that you and Will carted back home? I think we made a mistake when we assumed he was the only one…" Helen stopped for a moment, ruminating on the gravity of that statement, and then broke into a run.