Read-along: Seven Ancient Wonders - Part 10

The sooner I get you through these opening chapters (of this atrociously long opening "action sequence"), then the sooner I can start trimming down this blog by breezing through multiple chapters at once and highlighting the particularly stupid parts. We learned last chapter that our kidnappers are not alone. I wonder who, of the very few people we have met so far, their enemy shall be?
The ascending slipway featured several traps: blasting waterfall-shafts and some ankle-breaking trap-holes.
But the Eight just kept running, avoiding the traps, until halfway up the inclined tunnel they came to the Second Gate.
More riveting drama there. That was an anti-climax.

The Second Gate was simple: a ten foot deep diorite pit that just fell away in front of them, with the ascending slipway continuing beyond it five yards away.
The lower reaches of the pit, however, had no side walls: it just had two yawning, 8-foot-wide passageways that hit the pit at right angles to the slipway. And who knew what came out of them...
You do. And Wizard, the psychic professor carrying the book of plot, presumably.
Gay porn count: 14.
"Diorite pit." West said. "Nothing cuts diorite except an even harder stone called diolite. Can't use a pick-axe to get yourself out."
1. That's false. Diorite is a real rock and it is harder than "edgy" 13 year old boys binge-watching the music videos of Evanescence and Paramore. It is in fact one used on the steps of St Paul's Cathedral. HOWEVER: it is something which was cut with jewelled points and bronze tools by the ancient Egyptians, who used it in many of their early building projects. It was also used by the Incans and Mayans, often to make weapons.
2. WHAT THE FUCK IS DIOLITE?! I've searched for references to it and cannot find any trace of its existence anywhere. It is, to the best of my knowledge, a substance which he has made up for this book to make his traps seem more deadly, when they are already kind of annoying and dangerous for most adventurers, especially when you see what they are actually capable of.
3. What if the adventurers have diolite picks, West? Didn't think of that, did you? You twat.
4. All this mention of diolite makes this image compulsory:

DIOLITE! DIOLITE!

"Be careful" Wizard said. "The Callimachus Texts says this Gate is connected to the next one. By crossing this one, we to trigger the Third Gate's trap-mechanism. We're going to have to move fast."
"That's okay," West said "We're really quite good at that."
SHOW.
DON'T.
TELL.
They ended up crossing the pit by drilling steel rock-screws into the ceiling with pneumatic pressure guns. Each rock-screw had a handgrip on it.
Why are you rushing through this, Matthew? Please can you also tell me who is carrying these pneumatic pressure guns, because I'm calling bullshit if you tell me that it's Fuzzy. Those things are quite unwieldy if you want one which is good at placing steel rock-screws with handgrips.
But as West landed on the ledge on the other side of the pit, he discovered that the first step on that side was one large trigger stone. As soon as he touched it, the wide step immediately sunk a few inches into the floor-
Serves you right for bypassing the traps. Twat.
It may sound a bit daft, me calling him out on going around the traps, but remember that fact.
- and boom! Suddenly the ground shook and everyone spun. Something large had dropped into the darkened tunnel up ahead of them. Then an ominous rumbling sound came from somewhere up there.
I will offer a prize to whoever guesses what this thing up ahead shall be, based upon these three options:

1. An angry Indiana Jones reference

2. The sweet, sweet, beats of dance group Hadouken! Or, more specifically, the ominous intro percussion of the track "Rebirth", the opening track to their second album "For the Masses."

3. An angry mullet belonging to Pat Sharp

Answers on a postcard please, sent to wherever you think that I live. Your prize will be whatever I can find in my house.
Now, back to our hardcore action adventure.
"Shit! The next Gate!" West called
"Swear jar..." Lily said.
"Later," West said. "Now we run! Big Ears, grab her and follow me!"
Stop.
Lily's first lines are the most obnoxious ones in the entire novel and something of a running gag, which Matthew Reilly goes to great pains to point out that this is a recurring thing and to make it all "oh so cute" in a way which makes you want to get stabbed in the eyeballs with a forklift truck being driven at unsafe speeds by a drunk, angry man named Barry whose wife left him hours before.
Every time the words "Swear Jar" pop up, I am going to to a paragraph break, no matter where we are, and show you a picture of a good writer, a better human being, somebody who writes more interesting things than this, in the hope that we will at least remain educated after having to put up with this shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit dialogue. It'll be a writer who causes no harm and does only good in the world. It'll be my favourite writer, too.
William Gibson.

Bask in his glow.

The author of "Neuromancer" is a calming presence.
EVERY time, without exception,  there are the words "Swear Jar", I will post a picture of William Gibson: If only to remind me that there are good authors in the world.

The Third Gate

Up the steep slipway they ran, keeping to the stairs inside the rails. The ominous rumbling continued to echo out from the darkness above them. 
They kept running, straining up the slope, pausing only once to cross a five-foot-long spiked pit that blocked their way. But strangely, the stone railway tracks of the slipway still flanked this pit, so they all crossed it rather easily by taking a light dancing step on one of the side rails.

As he ran, West fired a flare into the darkness ahead of them-
-and thus revealing their menace.
Oooh! What a cliff hanger!
We're a page and a bit away from the "good stuff" kicking off. So, here's my guess as to what the "menace" is. See you next time.