Daniel Jackson was getting used to being a wizard. The study and contemplation necessary to practice arcane magic came naturally to him. While the metaphysical aspects of drawing energy from the universe and manipulating its properties were challenging, understanding the nuances of the writings about magic was not. He spent most of each day buried in tomes on magical theory, practicing enacting what he was learning for brief periods to make sure he had the correct understanding.
The study of magic was his new love, but the study of people, their cultures, and their language was his first love. He had exhausted Sand's library of cultural references the first month he was in Neverwinter. Now that he had access to the Neverwinter city archives, he was in a Nirvana of information. Unfortunately, the books and city records were organized haphazardly, shelved according to the date they were acquired or stored. There was a lot of information that didn't pertain to potential locations of a Stargate or to other means of travel between worlds that Daniel would very reluctantly set aside… sometimes. Sometimes he would get so absorbed in a reference work that by the time he realized it was not really related to his research topic he had already digested most of the work.
Most of the records in the archives were in Common, which Daniel had learned to master without the need for the translation amulet. There were also several records recorded in high elven that he was able to understand without much trouble, occasionally needing to resort to magic or take notes so he could ask Sand for a proper interpretation. In rare cases, a record was written in another language, such as Dwarven or even Netherese. In such cases he would cast the Comprehend Languages spell, the first spell he had sought out beyond what Sand had offered to teach him. He would first write the meaning of the text back into English or Common and then take a photo of the original text for later analysis.
While Daniel was given full access to the main archives, he was respectfully denied direct access to the restricted archives. Occasionally he would find a reference to a promising lead and he would ask for a record that was included in the restricted section, in which case he would need to make a petition to have the record brought to him. Daniel was fascinated by the fact that the librarians would don a magical veil that would blind them from seeing the texts but would allow them to retrieve them whenever his petitions were approved.
Dr. Jackson had just gotten one of the librarians to let him try one on to see what it was like when the screaming began. Daniel removed the veil and saw that the librarian who had loaned him the veil had just run out of the room to see what was going on. Then the archaeologist heard voices yelling in coarse Common, "Kill all who resist! Find the location of Haven! Find the records of the betrayer!" Then there were more shouts and Daniel heard the sounds of people dying and the frightening sound of something familiar: "For Zeeaire!"
Daniel quickly cast a spell that rendered him invisible. He was in the library alone, the rest of SG-1 had remained at the Sunken Flagon or accompanied Tamil to see the sage Aldanon. Not expecting to be attacked in a library, he hadn't taken his zat or FN P-90 with him. He did, at least, have his 9mm, but only one ammo clip. Carefully, Daniel walked out to get a better view of what he was up against.
Daniel saw at least two dozen of the creatures fanning out through the library, turning over shelves of books, apparently looking for something specific. Even if he were a perfect shot, and he was far from Jack's or even Carter's proficiency levels, he'd need to kill three opponents with each bullet he fired to take them all out.
So. Time to put his magical training to the test.
Jack sat in the upscale manor house of the sage Aldanon. His choices had been to go with Daniel, accompany Tamil and Sam, or go back to wait at the Sunken Flagon. For starters, there was no way he was going back to the inn while that gnome was still singing in the common room. Grobnar's "adventurous experiments with music" as Tamil called them would probably be outlawed as a form of psychological torture on most worlds Jack had visited. Between going to a library with Daniel or going to visit an old eccentric with Tamil and Sam, he had been sure the eccentric old man would have nothing on Daniel in terms of boring rambling.
Boy had he been wrong.
"… And so the githyanki are scavengers on the Astral..." the man kept droning on and on. Jack's eyes were drooping again, as they had been off and on for the past couple of hours. Tamil Farlong and Samantha Carter were apparently enthralled by whatever the guy was yakking because they kept asking him questions which inevitably led to even more yakking. "…which is why Ammon Jerro…" Jack was hearing something about a court jester and silver swords and probably something about heaven. Sam was poking him in the shoulder.
"Uh? Wha—" he blinked his eyes a few times and hoped he hadn't been drooling on himself during that… interview.
"Time to go, Jack," Sam said.
"About time. If I had to listen to another minute of that sort of prattle I would zat myself. Three times," Jack complained.
"We need to go meet up with Daniel at the archives," Tamil smirked.
"Where's my zat?" Jack responded.
Sam, Tamil, Jack, and the watchman assigned to escort them through Blacklake made their way from the sage's mansion up towards the castle area where the Neverwinter Academy and the Neverwinter Archives stood. When they got to the library the doors were wide open.
"I've heard of an open library, but I think they're taking this a little too literally," Jack remarked.
The watch member waited outside. As soon as the three entered the library they heard the sounds of battle. There was the sound of an explosion and then what was clearly the report of a handgun.
Jack cursed to himself and sprinted ahead. "Daniel!" he called out. The leader of SG-1 came to an opening into a large chamber filled with shelves of books, some of which had be overturned. The bodies of several librarians were lying around with large gashes in their bodies. Just up ahead was Daniel, or actually, several Daniels, which Jack now recognized were illusory copies of the original, each surrounded by translucent shields. Down the hall Jack noticed several groups of grey-skinned githyanki all charging towards his friend with swords drawn.
Jack pulled out his Beretta and prepared to fire. He wished he had brought his zat with him. He didn't think he had enough rounds for an extended fight and these weird creatures hadn't been willing to back down thus far. Just before Jack was ready to squeeze the trigger, Daniel extended his hand and a brilliant bluish white burst of lightning streaked out from his fingertips to electrify a group of the gith that had foolishly run in a straight line between shelves of books. Two of the three dropped to the ground and were not getting back up.
Jack fired several shots at the group coming from the right, dropping a couple more. But there was a third group converging on Daniel's position. There was no way he would be able to shoot them before they reached the scholar turned wizard. Once they reached Daniel he couldn't risk shooting into them. Sam and Tamil were still coming, but they wouldn't get there in time, either. Jack holstered his handgun and then reached down to his thighs and unsheathed the short blades he wore there.
The githyanki got to Daniel first, but luck was on Daniel's side. The attacking creatures' strikes missed their marks, were deflected by his shield, or they struck one of the several illusions Daniel had surrounded himself with. Then Jack reached them and he struck with the twin short swords he was wielding. Daniel raised his eyebrows seeing how Jack stabbed through the enemies' defenses and then danced back out of the way, his two swords working with precision, looking very much like Neeshka's combat style.
Just as the remainder of the other githyanki group arrived, three blue streaks of magical energy struck one of those already engaged in the combat. Moments later, the sound of Tamil Farlong singing filled the room and a tingle of magic created a magical skin of iron around their bodies. Then Tamil drew her sword and joined Jack while Daniel and Sam backed away and fired magic missiles into their assailants.
"You're getting pretty good," Tamil remarked as she gave Jack an appraising look and wiped the gith blood from her humming sword.
"I'm still not a match for you, though," Jack responded as he sheathed his weapons again and brought his 9mm back out.
Tamil nodded. "Probably not yet, but I'd definitely take you seriously. You move really well for an older man. And you've got superb instincts."
"Yeah, that's me. An old man with instincts," he joked then aimed his gun back quickly in Tamil's direction and fired. A few feet behind her another githyanki soldier died.
The group moved in the direction of the restricted section of the archive just in time to witness one of the githyanki give directions to the others and then vanish in a flash of light.
"The Kalach-cha! Kill her!" came a cry from the githyanki. Sam, Jack, and Daniel all opened fire with their handguns killing half of those in the room before any of them even started to move. Then Jack had his swords out and was joining Tamil as she engaged the remainder. With Sam and Daniel adding magic missile attacks to the engagement it was soon over with all the raiding githyanki lying on the floor dead.
Daniel quickly gathered up the stack of papers the gith who had vanished had been reading. After reading over it a few times he looked up, puzzled. "This is just a record of someone named Ammon Jerro and his properties."
Sam quickly joined Daniel reading it. "Oh no. This is serious."
"Why?" Daniel asked. Jack added, "Yeah, why?"
"Come on, Jack, you heard what Aldanon said!" Sam said in exasperation.
"Refresh my memory."
"Ammon Jerro was the wizard who had somehow gotten possession of one of the githyanki silver swords. The silver swords can kill people on the Astral Plane and are highly prized. Tamil had a piece of a shattered sword and they attacked her village home to find and get it. Now they've found there's a living relative of the one who took the sword, the farmer Shandra Jerro. Back in Highcliff. We've got to go back and warn them."
Jack took it all in. "You mean the place we went to so we could take a boat to get here to find out about all this stuff? The one with all the lizards? The one we spent so much time trying to leave? We have to go back there? So, we wasted all our time coming here?"
"Well, no, not entirely," Daniel contradicted. "I did manage to find quite a bit of information in these archives before the githyani attacked."
"And…?" Jack demanded.
"Well, I need Dr. Carter to confirm my theory. I think we can set up what we need while you and Tamil make arrangements for us to get back to Highcliff."
Neeshka, Grobnar, Casavir, Tamil, and SG-1 all gathered by the Neverwinter Docks. Jack had arranged for passage aboard The Barking Hound headed for Highcliff. Khelgar and Elanee had declined to travel on the boat making vague claims of things they needed to do.
Jack regarded Daniel and Sam, both of whom were looking at the ground more than looking at him. "Okay, out with it. What did the two of you find?"
Major Carter took a few moments to respond. "Daniel was correct, sir. Using precise laser measuring tools, I detected a variance between the attraction between two bodies different from what we would find on Earth." Realizing what she had said, Carter blushed for a second. "By bodies I don't mean people, I mean physical objects…"
Jack's patience for science talk was already wearing thin. "Get on with it."
"Right, sir. Well, as I was saying, by measuring forces between two objects of a known mass and accounting for physical conditions that can influence the measurement, it's possible to calculate the gravitational constant which governs the proportionality in the law of universal gravitation. Now, due to the weakness of the force we're dealing with, getting a high degree of precision in the measurement is problematic but…"
"Get to the point, Carter."
"Well, sir, the gravitational constant of the universe is different here than it is back on Earth." At Jack's blank stare she continued. "Everywhere we've ever gone, from Abydos to Chulak, gravity in the universe has been the same. We've encountered different effects that have affected gravity, but the laws of physics have been the same. But here, a universal constant is different."
"So?"
"So, we're in an entirely different universe," Daniel explained. "Not just a different world, it's a different universe. We won't find a Stargate anywhere."
"Even if we did, I doubt it would work," Dr. Carter elaborated. Or if it did work, we wouldn't be able to make it take us where we want it to. All our calculations and all the Ancients technology relies on a certain degree of precision in knowing this constant. We're stuck here, Jack."
Jack looked at the two for a few moments wordlessly. Then he shook his head. "Nope. We're not stuck here." Before either of them could protest he gestured behind himself. "We're not stuck here—we've got a boat to take."