Title: Not Yet by Lightning

Chapter: Three

Author: Jade Sabre

Notes: Again, I have to thank DarthAmmonite for The Smell of Destiny, on which I blame this chapter.

Reviews are, as always, greatly appreciated.

Disclaimer: I don't own Neverwinter Nights, or any of its sequels or expansions, or any of the characters contained herein, aside from my PC, who was created on a Bioware engine and thus probably therefore partially belongs to them too.

3

Sand took one final look around his shop, mentally going through his closing time checklist. Dangerous alchemical ingredients properly stoppered, check. Scrolls in alphabetical order, with no stray edges waiting to be wrinkled, check. Window properly dusty to discourage attention, check. Candles extinguished, check. Cat food set out—check, but there was a lack of feline interest in the food. This was most unusual.

Sand frowned, his eyes scanning the shop for any sign of his fluffy familiar. He hoped Jaral wasn't out in the alleys trying to impress the female cats; his neighbors tended to throw things through his window when that happened. Pinching the bridge of his nose, he took a deep whiff, automatically sorting through the lingering, powerful scents of his alchemical work until he honed in on the slightest odor of posturing tomcat. Sighing, he began preparing a spell to fortify glass, when he opened one eye and noticed Jaral pacing and hissing in front of the door.

"For Mystra's—" He stalked over to the cat, who deliberately ignored him, his tail twitching as he stared at the door. "Hurry up and eat. I would prefer to leave sooner rather than—"

The door opened, and Sand had to suppress a strong urge to hiss himself. Sir Nevalle, dashingly handsome (if you could find it within yourself to consider a human attractive) knight, member of the Neverwinter Nine, and Sand's erstwhile superior, shook his head of blonde hair as he stomped into the store. He side-stepped Jaral's attempt to rend a hole in his pants through sheer habit, his attention clearly elsewhere. "Bloody hell, Sand, what's going on?"

"I'm sorry?" Sand said, adopting the silky voice he affected to prove his subservience.

"You'd better be," Nevalle said, shoving aside what appeared to be empty bottles but was, in fact, a carefully outlined display of the potion vials sold in the store. Either missing or choosing to ignore Sand's scowl, he leaned against the ledge and said, "What, exactly, has been going on around here?"

"What, exactly, are you talking about?" Sand said. "I'm afraid you'll have to be more specific."

"The Docks, Sand. The district you specifically requested in order to exercise your duties more effectively." The knight's voice leveled as his immediate distress settled into what Sand thought of as his perpetually uptight displeasure. Granted, he only saw Nevalle outside of the castle when something had gone wrong, but there was no denying that he was possibly stricter than Sand himself when it came to affairs of security. Sand didn't have the benefit of being able to protect himself physically, either.

"Ah. Have my reports been unsatisfactory? I've tried to keep a running tab on this recent push the City Watch has—"

"You failed to mention that the push has been single-handedly led," Nevalle said in a strained, pinched tone.

"Hardly 'single-handed'—"

"Do you not understand that this means we have an extraordinarily powerful, potentially dangerous individual running around the city with little to no supervision?"

"She's a member of the Watch," Sand said patiently. "She's sworn her oath, she's performed her duty most admirably, according to Captain Brelaina—"

"I've read Brelaina's reports as well," Nevalle snapped. "But she failed to mention that this individual's—"

"Laura Farthing."

"—purpose was to infiltrate Blacklake."

"I beg your pardon?"

He pushed off the ledge and began pacing, still managing to avoid Jaral's vicious swipes; hissing, the cat stalked back to its food dish, offended. "Brelaina's latest report. The lieutenant comes back from Old Owl Well with a former soldier of Neverwinter in tow, conducts a raid on another warehouse—again failing to inform Sir Darmon, who again shows up too late—"

"Is that who's at the Flagon tonight?" Sand winced at the black look Nevalle shot him. "I haven't had a chance to conduct my daily sweep—"

"Yes, Darmon's letting the men 'relax' again. I've just been to see him. The lieutenant filed her report—a routine raid, clearing out the last of whatever crime lord's dregs were still there—and Brelaina cleared her to visit a man named Aldanon in Blacklake—a secluded loremaster, from what I could gather." He stopped pacing and said, his dark look becoming slowly murderous, "You don't seem surprised by any of this."

"No," Sand said. "I included it in my report two months ago. If you look, you'll see very clearly that I mentioned meeting a human girl claiming to be Duncan Farlong's niece, who was hoping to meet with the loremaster, and that I suggested she join the Watch, which she subsequently did." He made a subtle show of re-straightening his scrolls, an excuse to back away.

"Be that as it may, do you know why?" Nevalle's look was turning downright poisonous, filling the air with an acrid odor to match. "You wouldn't happen to know why Darmon's men, doing a sweep of the warehouse after the lieutenant departed, discovered githyanki corpses?"

Sand swallowed. "Did they?"

"Oh, yes." Nevalle closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose again. "Do you have any idea what Lord Nasher's reaction will be when I tell him his potential champion is attracting extra-planar attention?"

"She's not alone, you know," Sand said. "She has the paladin, and a dwarf and a tiefling and Mystra only knows what else—"

"Yes, but you know my lord. He likes having a symbol, and he found the news that the Watch was doing well pleasing, and directed me to learn as much as I could about the soldiers responsible. At which point I discovered it was one person, at which point I ventured to the Sunken Flagon, where I found Darmon watching his men celebrate and worrying about the deactivated portal he found in the warehouse."

"A portal?" Sand mentally ran through all of the recent reading he'd done, calculating how much of his understanding would benefit from having a portal to work with. "Perhaps I should—"

"Darmon already contacted the Cloaktower with a request for an investigation," Nevalle said, not a warning tone, but almost sly. "Unless you would like to offer them your services…"

Annoyed, Sand ignored him and said, "So why, exactly, did you feel a need to come and berate me for not providing information that I clearly did, in fact, provide?"

"You failed to mention that the githyanki were following—Farthing? Is that what you said her name was?"

"Laura Farthing, yes. And she mentioned there had been an attack on her home village when she arrived—"

"So this isn't her first encounter with the gith?"

Sand paused, trying to remember the details of the conversation. His memory was impeccable, but in a selective sort of way: he could memorize countless ingredients and directions and invocations and recall them in a few seconds, but personal details like names, faces, and the mundane goings-on of people's lives tended to slip beneath his radar. "I don't believe she ever said as much," he said finally, "but judging from the nature of her quest, it wouldn't surprise me if she had encountered them before."

"And what is her quest?" Nevalle's earlier poison still lingered in the air, though now he smelled much more of impatience, a rather salty scent.

"She came into Neverwinter bearing a silver shard that her father had asked to have examined. I had examined it years ago, to no avail—it appeared to be simply a shard of plain silver. Duncan has another shard exactly like it, which I also examined and found to be completely null."

"But?"

Sand decided to skip the details of his recent examination—Nevalle had little patience for the technical details of magic—and said merely, "When she brought the shard to me I examined it and discovered that it had a faint magical aura emanating from it, one that resisted my attempts to scry it, and one that grew much stronger when Duncan brought out his and they put them together. I don't know what they were; that's why I suggested she visit Aldanon."

The human leaned against the ledge again and crossed his arms. "So in other words, we won't know any more on the subject until she's through with Aldanon."

"Probably."

He sighed, which cleared away most of the scents around him, leaving only the ones Sand normally associated with him: loyalty, a youthful and fresh scent, and duty, the flat, dry odor of a sword on a whetstone. Sand found neither of these particularly aromatic, and did his very best not to tap his foot with impatience while the other man loitered.

"What's she like?" Nevalle asked.

"Too young for you." Sand almost cursed his inordinately quick mind, but the expression on his superior's face was almost worth it. Hastily he added, "She seemed like a very calm, balanced woman. Human, yes, but combat-trained, very pragmatic, always got right to the point and cut through Duncan's chatter whilst managing to avoid offense—something even I find difficult to do."

"You don't care about insulting people."

"True." Sand managed to kill the slight smile on his face, though he could have sworn Nevalle had one as well. "The few times she has come into my shop she has been very pleasant and polite. A little prying, perhaps, but she's looking for answers."

"So you don't think she did something intentionally to anger the gith?"

"No," Sand said, without hesitation. "I believe their attacks would be tied to the shard, and not to her personally."

Nevalle sighed again and straightened. "Well, at least I'll have some good news for my lord. As for you, I expect a full report on the lieutenant tomorrow. And I want you to keep a close watch on her."

Sand raised an eyebrow. "Spying on your subordinates, are we?"

"She single-handedly—"

"She has help."

"—won Old Owl Well back for Neverwinter. She's gearing up to be the city's next hero, and I want to make sure that her record is as spotless as possible. Daily reports, Sand."

Sand sighed through his nose and bowed mockingly. "As the glory of Neverwinter commands, I'm sure."

Nevalle's lip twisted, whether in a smile or a sneer he couldn't tell (though judging by the man's usual response to attacks on Neverwinter, the latter), and he departed. Sand immediately began straightening the jumbled vials, his mind already racing through the ins and outs of his new assignment. On the one hand, following the exploits of the savior of the Docks promised to be interesting—on the other, she seemed to attract attention from all corners, most of which he would prefer to avoid himself. Also, there was the little matter that actually having a chance to observe her would probably involve lurking at the Flagon on a daily basis, which would involve dealing with Duncan and his ilk, and the overpowering odor of alcohol that lingered even on the establishment's doorstep.

Sand frowned, then felt something brush his leg. Jaral weaved around his robes, so he picked up the cat, who hissed a little before settling against his shoulder and purring. "I don't like it either," he said, stroking the cat's head. "I don't like it at all."