Khelgar, Neeshka, Tamil Farlong, and all of SG-1 stood outside the Tomb of the Betrayers which stood up on a hill overlooking the Merchant's Quarter from behind the Temple of Tyr. The Earthlings pulled out their flashlights. Neeshka led the way in, quickly proving useful as she found and disabled a series of traps in the first corridor they came to. They also found that the excursion was not going to be as easy as they had thought.
"I think I see a shadow moving up ahead," Daniel called out.
"Oh, that's just your imagination, Daniel," Jack replied chidingly.
Then they all saw shadows moving. Lots of them, and without bodies to cast them as they would have expected. There were around a dozen of the black humanoid shaped creatures of blackness. "Uh, Jack, that's not his imagination," Tamil replied in a chiding imitation of the colonel.
There was a palpable aura of menace to the things. On Colonel O'Neill's order, SG-1 opened fire with their zats and the Ma'tok staff weapon. The energy bursts passed right through them. "Um, Tamil? What the hell are these things?" Jack asked.
"They're incorporeal shadows. I've heard of such things, but never really faced one before this," the bard shrugged. She flashed the group a smile. "Just think, if you'd had stayed back at the inn you'd have missed this opportunity!" With that, the bard pulled out her Astral Blade, its sonic hum matching the tune she was producing with her voice.
Despite the gloom of the tomb and the shadowy foe they faced, the group immediately felt a lift in their spirits. Teal'c took aim a second time with his staff weapon and fired at the same shadow he had previously hit. The blast passed through the creature again, but this time the shadowy figure faded away. "These shadows seem to be able to be disrupted by physical or energy means," he reported to the rest of the group.
That seemed to be the case indeed as Khelgar and Tamil were able to take several of the creatures apart after a few solid strikes. It was slow work as the creatures were not substantial making it difficult to tell where the darkness of the hallways ended and the red glowing-eyed shadows began. Still, with some effort the enemies faded to nothingness.
Neeshka was not faring so well. Her short sword and dagger did little damage to the entities and she was overwhelmed. She groaned as their insubstantial hands passed through her. A reddish glow surrounded the area where they made contact, energy flowing from the tiefling into the shadows and then disappearing. Daniel pulled out his handgun and fired a couple shots into, and through one of them. Jack barked at him to save his fire as the weapon had virtually no effect.
"Ok, enough of this crap," Jack said with annoyance. He pulled a grenade from his belt and tossed it beyond the range of the front line fighters. The explosion shook the entire hallway, sending fine dust cascading down upon the whole group. It also destroyed all the shadows in the blast radius, leaving only those few already engaged with the dwarven fighter, human bard, and tiefling rogue.
Tamil finished with her shadow and turned to aid the beleaguered horned girl with her assailants. Teal'c called out a warning and the bard stepped back as the staff weapon blew through a creature. Tamil thrust her weapon through to follow that up and the shadow dispersed into the darkness. Khelgar defeated his opponent as well and quickly joined Tamil and Teal'c in protecting Neeshka.
When the battle was ended, the bard pointed to the hallway. "What in the Nine Hells was that?" Tamil asked Jack a bit tersely in regard to the grenade. "It could have killed us if the blast had been any closer."
"It's a grenade, and you're welcome for me not killing you," the colonel shot back. "And why the hell are there Nine Hells?"
"Well, first off, Tamil, Jack knows exactly what he's doing with our weapons. He knows the blast radius," Samantha Carter noted. "On the other hand, though, I don't think he knows about the structural integrity of this underground cave quite as well. You might want to go easy on the explosives in this place, Colonel."
"And there are Nine Hells, Jack, because there are apparently nine arch-devils who each have their own little realm of hell to torture souls who are damned for different specific reasons. Apparently, it's possible for a living person to travel there and come back again, though it's also possible to get caught, killed, and have your soul devoured by a devil. All really fascinating stuff," Daniel added. "I've heard there's a special hell there reserved for people who blow up their friends with grenades while running about in tombs."
"You mean, Grenada?"
Everyone groaned. Loudly. Tamil handed Neeshka a vial filled with a greenish liquid which she gulped down. She explained that it was a restorative that would return the energy Neeshka had lost to the shadows.
Most of the rest of the tomb was handled fairly easily as they searched it for the missing priest. Between Neeshka's expertise in tomb raiding and the zat'nik'tel disintegrating most of the undead, especially the slow-moving ones, there was not much of a challenge. The only really interesting moment came when the group was suddenly ambushed by a large group of ghouls and ghasts which were lying in wait. During the sudden commotion the flashlights were knocked to the ground and went out. Despite the sudden darkness, the creatures were rapidly dispatched.
"Um, guys, I can't see a thing and can't find the flashlight," Jack complained.
"Heh, that's what ya get fer living so long above ground," Khelgar smirked. "My vision's just fine in the dark." Neeshka quickly scoffed at him, mentioning that tieflings, elves, and even orcs could all see in the dark just as well. With noting to say about that, the dwarf harrumphed and made a rude remark about someone with demon heritage.
That was when the group heard a bit of muttering in a language they did not understand. Suddenly, two lights appeared in the air. One was floating above Tamil Farlong's head. The other was floating just above Daniel Jackson.
"Ah, thanks there Tamil, much better. But why'd you just give Daniel a light over his head and not the rest of us," Jack asked.
"I only cast one light spell, Jack," Tamil shrugged as she spoke. "I don't know who cast the one on Daniel, but I'm pretty sure Neeshka can only make darkness and Khelgar isn't a spellcaster at all."
The group turned and looked at Daniel. He shrugged, then said a little sheepishly, "Well, Sand sort of taught me a few things."
Samantha Carter nearly had a stroke trying to express the incredulity in her heart and mind. She half spit as she started to say something, bit it back, and then tried to say something else. Finally, she managed to utter, "Daniel, please tell me that you've figured out how to work their technology and this was your way of letting us all know!"
Daniel half cocked one eye in an apologetic expression and gave an even more pronounced shrug. "Well, more sort of like I've taken up wizardry as an added area of professional interest." Seeing the look of absolute incredulity on the rest of SG-1's faces Daniel added, "Come on, it's only a minor cantrip. It's not even that hard."
After that the group conversed about Daniel's knowledge of magic non-stop. They didn't even pause while they were zatting undead creatures. Daniel's magical light eventually winked out, though Tamil's was still going strong. Jack waited expectantly for Daniel to cast the spell again. Dr. Jackson had his recovered flashlight out, but seeing the rest of the group looking at him, he turned off the electric light and cast his light spell again so that they could see him doing it.
Finally, the group found the priest. They explained to him that Judge Oleff had sent them in to rescue him. The priest looked at them with despair in his eyes, "Then Oleff has sent you to your doom. We're trapped. The spirits have grown restless and one of the greatest traitors in the history of Neverwinter has arisen to lead them. I tried to overcome him, but I was unable."
He explained to them that there was a lever which controlled the lock on the door to the crypt which was guarded by a ghost. SG-1 and the other adventurers left the priest, who was too frightened to move from the chamber he had locked himself into and faced off with a swarm of undead, as well as another force of shadows. Colonel Jack O'Neill, Major Samantha Carter, and Dr. Daniel Jackson handled the ghouls and zombies with their zats while Khelgar Ironfist, Tamil Farlong, Teal'c and Neeshka struck at the shadows.
When they defeated the undead in the corridors they opened the chamber where the spirit of one of Neverwinter's greatest betrayers stood. Fenthick Moss, as the group would later learn, was considered among the city's greatest traitors for helping spread an artificially created plague around the city. By most accounts he had used his position of trust to give a group of cultists in the guise of priests access to the city; however, another version of the story painted him as a tragic figure duped by the cult leader and literally left swinging on the gallows by the political leaders to appease public outrage. Whichever was the real history, the elf was out for blood now.
"Where's a proton pack when you need one?" Jack quipped as he narrowly missed being struck by an arrow shot by the ephemeral spirit. "And how is it that a ghost can hold a bow and arrow but darts shooting out of the walls pass right through him, huh?"
Zats hadn't worked. Teal'c had trouble hitting the speedy ghost as it ran around the room, the explosions from the plasma discharge eating into the stone wall. Khelgar had attempted to engage him in melee with his axe but the ghost promptly took off running around the room while darts shot out to strike the determined dwarf before Tamil had called him back. The bard had a bow out but it wasn't having much effect.
"Well, this is as good a time as any to try this," Daniel said. He spoke the words to a spell and with concentration pointed at the ghostly creature. A small glowing dart of bluish white light raced out from the air to strike the apparition. Samantha, who had given up firing her zat and handgun after seeing their lack of effect, just stared at Daniel.
Tamil looked at Daniel for a second, and then pulled a slender stick made of bone out from her pack. She handed the wand to Daniel. "Do you know how to activate this?" she asked a little dubiously.
Jack looked over at Daniel and smirked. "If you get a letter of acceptance to Hogwarts I'm going to laugh at you."
"Well, I don't know, I've never… oh." Daniel looked at the markings on the wand and realized immediately what they meant. He pointed the wand at the ghost, spoke the activation word, and three more magical missiles shot out to strike at it with unerring accuracy. At Tamil's urging, Daniel continued to speak the command word, each time firing more bursts at the ghost.
Teal'c eventually managed to hit the mark with the staff weapon and the ghost visibly weakened, the glowing aura around it fading momentarily. Each time the ghost tried to get to the Jaffa with the staff weapon or Daniel with the wand of magic missiles it was met by a wall of blades wielded by the roguish Neeshka, the inspirational Tamil Farlong, and the indomitable Khelgar Ironfist and forced to flee back to the room full of darts where the fighters did not dare follow. Finally, with a last burst of energy from the wand the spirit of Fenthick Moss gave a cry of frustration as its connection to the living plane was finally severed and returned fully to the realm of the dead.
With that, the task was completed and the group escorted the grateful acolyte of Tyr from the temple. "So, why do they have a building full of ghosts sitting within the city, again?" Jack asked once they were out. The bard explained that it was the burial spot for all those executed as traitors. Rather than desecrate their enemies, Neverwinter believed it should show respect for the fallen dead, even if they were traitors. The clerics of Tyr watched over the tomb, which was usually much quieter, but something had disturbed the place making it suddenly and unexpectedly deadly.
"Well, Daniel, if I were you I'd be careful," Colonel O'Neill said thoughtfully. The archaeologist looked at Jack quizzically. Jack gave him a smile and completed the joke, "The way Sam is looking at you, I'm pretty sure she thinks you belong in there for betraying science."
Samantha Carter looked away with a slight blush on her cheeks.