Read-along: Seven Ancient Wonders - Part 11

This chapter just keeps going... Unfortunately, there were no correct entries in last week's competition, so the prize rolls over until next time! The correct answer was no, unfortunately, the sweet, sweet beats of Hadkouken! It was in fact, something stupid, as you are about to find out.
"It's a sliding stone!" Wizard called "Guarding the Third Gate!"
Is it some sort of watchman, then? Or a tribute act? "Guarding the Third Gate" sounds like an album.

"Sliding Stone", the world's 5th best Rolling Stones tribute act.

A giant square-shaped block of granite- its shape filling the slipway perfectly and its leading face covered in vicious spikes- was sliding down the slipway, coming directly towards them!
Its method of death was clear:
Boredom
if it didn't push you into the spiked pit, it would slide over that pit on the stone runners and push you into the lower diorite pit... where it would fall in after you, crushing you, before whatever was coming out of the side passages made its big entrance.
Made its big entrance? Is it Nathan  Lane?

"Hello West! Welcome to my TUNNEL!"
Or his Birdcage. Go watch that, that's way better than this.

Jesus. Let's get on with the riveting writing of Reilly.
Jesus.
No.
You cannot express awe and amazement at your own traps, Matthew. You are not allowed to sit there and gasp in amazement at your writing. Observe:
“Life is a storm, my young friend. You will bask in the sunlight one moment, be shattered on the rocks the next. What makes you a man is what you do when that storm comes. You must look into that storm and shout as you did in Rome. Do your worst, for I will do mine! Then the fates will know you as we know you.
Woah."
You see? That was a quote from "The Count of Monte Cristoe" by Alexander Dumas. Do you see how me adding that one word made it a better book? You don't? Well then, you clearly do not possess the brilliance of Matthew Reilly.
Let's move on.
Halfway between the sliding stone and the Eight, sunken into the angled floor of the slipway, was a door that opened into a horizontal passage.
Gay porn count: 15.
The Third and last Gate.
Take a shot. Did anybody NOT call that? If you didn't, I'm sending an ambulance to your house, as you've clearly passed out on the keyboard.
The Eight bolted up the slope.
This is starting to sound like "DIY SOS".
The block gained speed- heading down the slope, propelled only by gravity and its immense bulk.
Oh good. I was hoping that there were no rockets attached to the rock, or even a simple lathering of grease. Otherwise this trap would be stupid and unrealistic.
It was a race to the Gate.
Now that is a game show I'd see. Like "Takeshi's Castle" but with Michael Bay.

This, but with greased rocks, and fewer Asian people. And maybe a few more massacres, ethnic cleansing and disregards for the laws of physics.

West and Big Ears and the girl came to the doorway cut into the sloping floor, ducked inside it.
Wizard came next, followed by Fuzzy and Princess Zoe.
The sliding granite block slid across the top of the doorway just as the last two remaining members of the team were approaching it.
"Stretch! Pooh! Hurry!" West called.
Is he urgently asking them to hurry, or is he issuing Yoga instructions? That's the problem with these names.
The first man - a tall thin fellow known as Stretch - dived, slithering in under the sliding stone a nanosecond before it completely covered the doorway.
The last man was too late.
He was easily the pudgiest and heaviest in the group. He had the olive skin and deep lush beard of a well-fed Arab Sheik. His call-sign in his own country was the rather mighty Saladin, but here it was-
"Pooh Bear! No! Nooo!" The little girl screamed.
The stone slid over the doorway, and despite a final desperate lunge, Pooh Bear was cut off, left in the slipway at the mercy of the great block.
Wow, that was actually rather surprising. They have finally described all save one of the team (Who we meet after this segment) only to kill one of them off. Supposedly. Again, we're getting ahead of ourselves, but I've already stated before that Pooh Bear and Stretch get the closest thing resembling character arcs, so you know he'll survive. It also does not help that we have only just learned what he looks like, let alone what his personality or arc is, so there's not much point in truly killing him off for any meaningful impact at this point. Besides which, this trap is actually pretty easy to escape, as you will see. I also imagine Pooh Bear, based entirely on that stereotypical description, to look like this:

If the mighty Omid Djalili does not play him when this is inevitably made into a film, then there is no justice in the world.

So, with that shock exit of a major character happening so early on, and the little girl taking it pretty hard, how do the rest of the team take to the death of one of their own?
"No...!" West called, hitting the underside of the sliding stone as it went by, sweeping the helpless Pooh away with it.
Okay, so he takes it poorly. As is to be expected.
"Oh dear, poor Zahir..." Wizard said.
That's it? That's all this old man, who is the only other civilian amongst their ranks and is something of the closest we have to a human being here, can only say "Oh dear"? Well, I suppose he is a racist after all. Managing to out-jerk Jack West: Super Jerk is something of an achievement. Fuck you, Wizard.
For a moment, no-one spoke.
Thank Christ. Can we keep it that way?
The seven remaining members of the group stood in stunned silence. Lily sobbed quietly.
Then West blinked- something inside him clicking into action.
That'll be his "emotion sensor" flicking into the "plot mode".
"Come on everyone, we've got a job to do and to do it we have to keep moving. We knew this wasn't going to be a cakewalk. Hell, this is only the beginning-"
Way to inspire your team there.
He turned then, gazing at the horizontal corridor awaiting them. At its far end was a ladder cut into the end-wall, a ladder that led up to a circular manhole cut into the ceiling.
White light washed down through the manhole.
Electric light.
Man-made light.
Take shots. And admit Matthew Reilly to the school of stating the complete fucking obvious.
"-and it's about to get a lot worse. 'Cause we just caught up with the Europeans."
Is West now outright stating the script notes verbatim?
There is a diagram here too, so take another shot.
Next time, we shall begin the arduous process of watching these two sides race, which is like watching two horny teenagers with oven gloves taped to their hands try and give each other handjobs/fingerings.
For now, here is my tribute to the bravest character in the novel, who tried to leave this silliness by dying early on, so as to not have to deal with Reilly.
Farewell, Pooh Bear, you magnificent bastard.