The surveillance on the organization of thieves had yielded astounding results. The names and locations of over two dozen gang leaders who reported directly to Moire were discovered. One by one the leaders and then their subordinates were quietly arrested. Those that attempted to hide were often discovered because one of their number carried a weapon with a hidden tracking device.
While the thieves launched accusations of being a turncoat amongst each other, the Watch was becoming increasingly unified. Like the thieves, the guardsmen Neeshka had photographed were locked up individually and quietly. As those were questioned even more corrupt Watch members were disclosed. There was some fighting back, but with SG-1's help and their zat'nik'tel there were few injuries and no deaths during the arrests. The prisons were overflowing and guards who were once paid to look the other way now begged forgiveness and swore oaths of loyalty to the City Watch in return for probationary status.
While this was going on Daniel and Sam were busy maintaining the surveillance. Doctor Carter's makeshift capacitor allowed the computers to be charged for two hours from a single burst of electrical energy from the magical wand the elven wizard, Sand, had provided. According to the merchant, the wand would operate twenty five times before its magical energy was spent completely. They had attempted to use the zat as a power source, but the power output of the weapon ended up damaging the device.
Jack O'Neill got up early in the morning to continue the calisthenics routine he used to maintain his physical fitness. When he went out the back of the inn he was surprised to see the dwarf, bard, and part-demon girl already up and working out. The dwarf and the bard were going at it with great intensity using wooden versions of their favored weapons. Jack watched the two admiringly for a few minutes.
Neeshka walked over to him and gestured towards the knife Jack carried strapped to his leg. "You any good with that?" she asked.
"Not that good," Jack replied, pointing to the dwarf and human who were sparring furiously.
"Yeah, Khelgar is pretty tough. I wouldn't want to fight him," Neeshka agreed. "And Tamil's a lot stronger than she looks." Neeshka pulled out a wooden practice weapon shaped like a long knife and tossed it to Colonel O'Neill. "Let's see how well you Earth-boys fight without your… whatever those things are."
After a halfhearted protest, Jack gripped the handle of the weapon with the blade pointed down and settled into a crouching, defensive pose. Neeshka pulled out a second practice weapon with a grin. The two quickly began circling, feinting, and striking out at each other. Jack had slowed a bit with age, but he was still in excellent shape and had been highly trained in close combat fighting during his time as a black ops commando. His initial selection for the fated mission through the Stargate to Abydos had not been accidental, nor was it only due to his willingness to die if the mission called for it. He was a fine tactician and more than capable soldier.
However, he soon found Neeshka's skill with a knife exceeded his own. While he had spent hours focusing on perfecting his aim with firearms and using explosives to destroy high value targets, Neeshka had worked on mastering the use of light weapons. Her strikes broke through his defenses far more often than his did hers and she managed to strike vital points on his body when she defeated his defense while Jack scored mostly what would amount to minor wounds.
"Hey, I'm impressed," she said to him after they broke to take a break. Jack cured mildly under his breath. He knew it wasn't all due to getting older. Neeshka tossed him the second practice knife. She went to her pack and pulled out a pair of longer wooden weapons, practice versions of short swords. "Ok, let's see how you do with two weapons."
Tamil Farlong, as lieutenant in the Neverwinter City Watch, led two squads of watchmen on the raid. Weeks of listening in on conversations, tracking unwitting criminals back to their bases, and interrogating prisoners taken alive rather than being forced to kill them had borne fruit. Moire's gang had been crippled in their operations, strangled of coin and manpower. Now, finally, it was time to bring her in. According to instructions from Captain Brelaina, this time it didn't matter if it were dead or alive.
For some time Moire had dropped from sight, but she had now resurfaced, trying to rebuild the criminal underground that the Watch, with technology provided by SG-1, had just dismantled. She had returned to one of her old hideouts in the Docks, unaware that her every word was being listened in on. It was time to take her down.
Elanee was with Tamil on this trip, though she would not be part of the raid into the building. She was waiting out the back door of the building with the second squad of watchmen in case Moire tried to bolt out the back. With Elanee, her badger friend Narloch, and a half dozen guards, there was little chance she'd be able to escape. If she attempted to fight, she'd be facing a tough lot of the city watch bolstered by the magical song of a heroic and inspirational bard.
Elanee whispered words of magic and touched the four watchmen who would serve as the front line. Their skin was surrounded by sparkling sunlight momentarily. When the magical light washed away, their skin appeared exactly like the bark of a hardwood tree. The other two guardsman drew their bows and stepped back.
Moments later, the back of the door burst open and a vicious looking woman wearing an odd, cat-shaped mask charged out with a rapier pointed at the nearest of the watchmen. She was followed by two thugs, one of whom appeared to be severely wounded. As Moire, the masked woman, exchanged thrusts with the guardsmen, Elanee began chanting again and raised her hands up to the sky. The sky answered with a rapidly formed cloud and flashes of lightning.
Unbelievably, the cut-throat rogue somehow somersaulted out of the way before the electricity could strike her. The hired muscle with her, however, were not nearly as lucky or as talented. The electrical energy staggered them, one of them falling to the ground with a vacant look on his face. The other was shaken and would likely fall to attack quickly.
Then Tamil was out the back door followed by the second squad of watchmen. As soon as the bard appeared with her shining green eyes, her smile of easy confidence, and voice a-hum with an energetic melody, Elanee and the watchmen with her felt their spirits lift. Moire, on the other hand, just felt an increase in hostility.
"Wish I had time to kill you slowly, Farlong. You've been a thorn in my side for far too long," Moire nearly growled at her.
"Oh, you won't be killing me, Moire," Tamil replied calmly. "But if you're lucky, I'm sure we can arrange to spend plenty of time together. You in chains, and me asking you questions."
The underworld boss scowled. "I'll not turn rat like those filthy turncoats!" Moire spat.
Tamil put her hands on her hips and just laughed. "Oh, that's rich, coming from someone who believes power comes from paying people off and threatening their families if they don't compromise their morals whenever you say." The bard continued to smirk as she gave Moire a pointed look. "Funny thing is, it wasn't one of the Watch who fingered your hideout. It was your own 'loyal' men who led us to you."
Moire's face turned a furious crimson. "After I'm done with you, I'm gonna find that rat and he's gonna pay for this!"
"Actually," Tamil grinned, "it was him." She pointed to the thug who had been with Moire and had gotten electrocuted by Elanee's lightning. She bent down and pulled a dagger from the dead thug's belt. Then she found the spot on the hilt that released the cover and showed Moire the tracking device hidden there.
Moire screamed in anger. She turned her wrath on the watchmen near her. Tamil was ready for that, though, and quickly sang a rhythmic chant that resounded through the bodies of all her allies. Where before Moire had been trying to pierce through tough skin of bark from Elanee's magic, she was now trying to cut through skin of iron. Unable to seriously harm her opponents, she was quickly overwhelmed, but refused to surrender. She died with a curse on her lips and a city guardsman's blade through her gut.
Tamil had some of the guardsmen cleaning up the mess while she and Elanee headed back to the Sunken Flagon Inn. Halfway to the inn, Elanee noticed movements in the shadows. To her surprise, it was another druid trapped in the shape of a wolf and unable to revert to human form. Elanee tended to the druid and soon found that the druids of Neverwinter Wood were encountering the same sort of darkness and madness found in the Mere. After a quick discussion, it was decided she needed to seek out the elders of the Neverwinter Wood Circle without delay by contacting them through a special druid sanctuary not far from the city.
Tamil and Elanee returned to the inn only to see the Sunken Flagon surrounded by more than a score of wizards wearing apprentice robes marking them as being from Neverwinter's Academy. They formed a ring around three familiar figures. Neeshka, Daniel Jackson, and the girl Qara who had earlier been about to fight outside the inn were at the entrance to the inn, apparently being ambushed just as they had stepped out.
"Qara. You disgraced our sister, Glina. She was kicked out of the Academy along with many of our friends. Now you and your ragamuffin friends are going to pay," one of the wizards was saying. Then without warning the entire contingent began chanting and gesturing towards the trio.
Before Tamil could intervene by placing a silence spell in the area, the carnage had already begun. Sheets of flame and dripping globs of neon green acid in the shape of arrows flew out from the fingers of the attacking wizards. An explosion of fire rocked the ground and almost all the wizards gathered on the right hand side of the surrounding mob were knocked flying to crumple to the ground. Finally Tamil managed to loose her spell, engulfing most of the left hand side of the attackers in suffocating silence.
Neeshka was grimly stabbing one of the student wizards still casting spells outside the area of silence when she looked up and realized something was wrong. The tiefling had long ago developed an uncanny ability to jump out of the way of danger, flattening herself on the ground and rolling away from spells of destruction or discharges of fire or electricity created by cleverly placed traps. Where others might be lucky to only be wounded rather than killed, she tended to not even be injured. This time she had gotten a little singed, though her tiefling heritage provided some protection. Others, though, would not be so fortunate or as agile.
"Where's Daniel?" she asked. The scholar was nowhere to be seen. For a few tense moments, Neeshka felt a sharp anxiety.
The resonant sound of energy discharging caught the rogue's attention. Daniel Jackson suddenly appeared standing behind several of the attacking wizards with his zat in hand. He fired of several shots at close range and the students crumpled to the ground.
Without warning, a voice boomed out over the area. It was the sound of a man accustomed to being listened to. Magister Jochris, one of the heads of the Neverwinter academy the wizards belonged to, put an end to the conflict, promising punishment to all the students who had taken to fighting in the streets of the city. He also promised retribution on Qara.
When the mage finished his threats and left, Neeshka ran over to a surprised Daniel and gave him a big hug. When she asked how he escaped the attack he replied, "I managed to turn myself invisible just before the other wizards finished their casting. All those wizards targeting me had to switch to someone else."
"Well, let's just hope there are no more surprises," Tamil sighed as she was about to re-enter the inn to have a word about his 'solution' to the problem with the sorceress.
No sooner had they gotten through the door than Tamil got another surprise. "Hey, I've got a message for the girl with horns," said a boy who looked very much like a street urchin. "It's from some Leldon, a big guy over in the Merchant Quarter…" The message was an ultimatum to meet for a showdown in the small park located in the Merchant District.
"So, who's this kid?" the bard asked.
"Oh, that's just Wolf. He sort of looks out for the other street kids. He showed up a couple weeks ago after you saved him and a few of the others from abuse while you were on patrol," Neeshka informed her. Tamil took a closer look and recognized the boy from an incident on the street. "He's been running messages and reporting what the kids see to us here so Duncan put them all up in a couple unused rooms in the inn," Neeshka finished.
"And this Leldon, the one who's been sending people to kill you, why has he suddenly decided he wants to meet in person?" Tamil asked.
"Probably 'cause I broke into his headquarters and robbed him again just the other day. He tends to take that personally." The horned girl snickered and tossed a coin in the air. "And he can't stand to lose this particular 'lucky' coin."
Tamil slapped her forehead in mock exasperation. "Well, can't say this guy doesn't have it coming to him." The bard gave the rogue a playful smirk. "So, how do you plan on dealing with this?"
A few hours later when the night watch began, Neeshka found herself standing in a park face to face with her former partner in crime, Leldon. Leldon was a fairly large, brutish man with a menacing voice. Brandishing his sword, he demanded she return the coin she had stolen from him. When she refused, he attacked. As soon as that happened, though, three figures in the park suddenly appeared: Daniel Jackson, Colonel Jack O'Neill, and Teal'c, each firing a single burst from their zats. Leldon and his two backup goons fell painfully into unconsciousness.
"Useful little… spell you have there, Daniel. Wish you could have done that for us a few times on some of our earlier missions," Jack complimented him.
"Yeah, though it was lucky we had picked up a couple extra scrolls. I can only manage to turn two of us invisible before I need to study again. It's so odd how the memory of how to do it fades away after using it." Daniel looked at his two clearly visible friends. "And this popping back visible if you perform an aggressive act seems… poorly designed." Then Daniel looked over at Neeshka and smiled, "But at least we could help out our friend."
Tamil and several members of the City Watch stepped out to haul Leldon and his goons off to prison. "Well, this wraps things up here. Don't think there could possibly be anything standing in the way of getting into Blacklake to see that sage and find out how to get all of you home now with all the success we've had cleaning up these streets."
Jack and Daniel exchanged glances. The bard had just jinxed them.