[Celuien]

Celuien's post

Panakeia couldn't help being troubled by Elempí's gruesome and mysterious death. What a horrible way to die. She shuddered. At the sight of his corpse, her mind drifted back over their brief acquaintance.

"What's your name? What's wrong with your hair? Why do you wear so much make-up? I'll bet you're beautiful without it. Who's he?"

"What a lot of questions!" she had replied in exasperation. "Panakeia of Harad, nothing, because it's the only proper way to appear in public, I am, and," she looked around, "he's Valde Delago." Panakeia didn't think she liked him. Still smarting over her 0 points, she was not charitably disposed toward Anakron at the moment, nor was she inclined to appriecate the appearance of any of his alter-egos, no matter how friendly they might appear. Especially when he was criticizing her carefullly developed toilette.

Valde stood beside her. As he introduced himself to the odd newcomer, Panakeia took his arm, and felt a strange wave of nausea wash over her. "Strange," she muttered to herself. "Well, Valde, how goes it? I'm a little disappointed by the outcome of our last adventure, but it's nothing we can't overcome." The sick feeling rose with each word. "Nothing we can't beat as a team." That was too much. As delicately as possible, she turned her head to the side and leant over.

"Are you alright?" Valde and Elempí cried together.

Struggling to recover, Panakeia returned, "I don't know. I think so." Smiling at Valde as best as she could under the circumstances, she tried to say, "I'm fine as long as you're here," but couldn't make it past the "as long as" before giving into a wave of retching.

"There is something wrong. Maybe you'd better go rest awhile," Elempí offered kindly. Valde nodded in agreement.

"Yes, I think I will," she stammered. "I can't imagine what's wrong." She fled to hidden corner in the village Inn to rest.

And so she found Elempí the next morning, along with the rest of the village. For the first time in her life, Panakeia was truly frightened. She had heard tales of werewolves long ago, as a child in Harad, but had never thought of them as more than tales. Now it was terrifyingly real. And she didn't know what to do. Not being able to trust anyone was nothing new to her - she hadn't trusted anyone since she was 19 - but, just now, she wanted to be able to trust someone very badly. Valde? At the very thought, the queasiness returned to her. How very, very odd, she mused. I was fine a second ago.

Who was the most likely suspect? Panakeia was hardly inclined to doubt the other members of the Offending Party. After all, no strange deaths had followed the group until now. It had to be one of the newcomers. She looked them over, a hard glint in her eyes. One of them, a ragged, scruffy looking character, seemed more suspicious than the rest. It didn't help that he wore a tattered fur T-shirt and sat gnawing on a bloody bone. Nor did the signs he carried with him help his case. One read, "Dangerous Carnivore. Beware." The other said, "I'm a Werewolf! Lynch me! No he isn't. Yes he is. (Lynch rate: 67%)." This was the enigmatic Nilpaurion Felagund. And he seemed the best choice to Panakeia. Innocent or not, he was bound to cause confusion, and maybe even turn members of the Offending Party against each other, rightly or wrongly.

She heard Sai's suggestion: I'd say lynch one of these newcomers every day.

"Yes. That makes sense to me. No sense in turning against each other now. We have to get out of here." With a glare at Nilp, she turned to stand alongside Sai and Alli. "I won't be attacking anyone in our group. At least, not unless they attack me first."

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Nilpaurion Felagund's post

'Ah, Nilp. Or is it Alice today? I seem to remember seeing an Emily recently... how goes it with you?'

'Blink blink,' the eyelids replied.

'Scratch scratch,' the head and hand asked in unison.

'Yawn,' the mouths opined.

And, then, one of them screamed.

He had suddenly been transported to . . . a pair of his eyes--the red one with three black dots in it--turned to a sign.

'Welcome to Dol Gaurgaurhothr.
Population: Changes pretty fast.'

'Blimey. I'm still stuck with this guy? I thought I left him in Mt. Doom,' someone to his left said. His head turned in that direction, but he saw only a drunk man wearing what looked to him like an aluminium head-dress--Aluminium Hatted Man, he named the character, aHM for short--, conversing with a small-pink clad monkey holding what seems to be a pistol. No, that couldn't have been them. Where did that voice come--

'I'm hungry. What's for breakfast?' a female voice to his right said. He turned to the direction of the voice again. But he saw only a male-type Man. Even if that man could speak in a female voice, it couldn't have been him. His vocal chords was at least two metres away from him. Plus, he was his airway was constricted by a looped rope hung from a strange wooden cantilever.

Then where are the voices coming from?

'Oh, look, a bone,' the female voice said, and he felt himself being dragged in a direction he didn't intend to go. Suddenly, he stopped, and he found himself sitting down. He heard the sounds of a nineteen year-old gnawing on a bloody sheep's shank to his right.

He felt someone glaring at him. He turned, and saw a middle-aged female mortal with blonde hair of a questionable shade. Her seemingly violet eyes, had they had mouths, would surely be screaming bloody murder.

'Would someone please lynch us?' the creepy voice to his left said aloud. 'I'd rather be dead than stuck with him like this.'

He suddenly recalled that voice. Once, he had heard it only in the confines of his mind. It was then he realised.

Nilpaurion had three faces.

'Hi, Fea! I'm here, Emily!' another familiar female voice said behind him.

Make that four. Oh, wearing glasses would be so difficult now . . . But his nearsightedness and astigmatism weren't his primary concern now.

How do I escape from here? he thought. Think, Nilpy, think!

'Wait a second,' yelped Sai--how did he know the name? 'Will we actually be killed? That wasn't in the contract!'

That's it! Hey, isn't that Ms. Sai Onara, the lass I met in Gondor while looking for a cure for multiple-personality disorder? Never mind that! So, what was my idea? Well, since I'm of the Elder race, dying would only bring me to Mandos, about a pleasant day's walk from my childhood home. Yeah, that's it! I just have to die. Nilpaurion's strange red eyes glanced from side to side, hoping that the physically manifest alter-egos would not notice the decision made in his mind by the other half-unnamed alter-egos that made up Nilpaurion Felagund's governing council. Now, how do I pull this off . . .

'Your attention, please!' he cried as he walked to the centre of the town quadrangle. There was a hush as all eyes turned to him, some screaming bloody murder in various degrees of violence, some snorting, 'What an attention-seeker!' while others just stared with their lower eyelids dropping as if they were jaws. Nilpaurion wasn't exactly a model Elf, or an Elven model for that matter, and the three new faces that suddenly sprouted on either side and the back of his head didn't help matters.

[At this point, the narrative brakes, and then shifts into poetic gear.]

Ascended Finrod's son and heir.
With dreadful voice he uttered there:
'Be you friend, or foe, or just a guest
Of Barrowdowns, or on a quest
To fare away from this sad part
Of Middle-earth, Dark Land's black heart,
Neither law, nor love, nor league of Hell,
Nor any Troll from Dunland Fell
May save you if you do not vote
For Nilpy Feg, with brains of oat;
For he is obviously a wolf--
Uh, wait a mo: What rhymes with 'wolf'?

[Here the poetic part ends, and the narrative continues.]

All eyes blinked at least once; some did so twice, and a few other thrice. When they had finished blinking, he saw something in their eyes that made him smile. They were all too ready to lynch him. But he frowned when he looked deeper. They only wanted to rid themselves of his atrocious poetry, which seemed to be on par with Vogonwë's (of Entish Bow fame). Hmph, not appreciating my poetry. I should send the lot of you to Mordor, or something. Hmmm, maybe I'll post about that later. Oh, never me mind that! They're about to lynch me, and I don't care for what the reason, so long as they do it.

But suddenly, Emily sidled into the conversation, 'What? What does all that mean?'

All eyes blinked again, and when they had opened, confusion replaced the anger they felt at his horrendous butchering of lyric Art (short for Arthur, of course). Not a few were muttering, 'What did he mean? Some troll from Dunland fell on a nilpy peg--what's a "nilpy" peg, anyway?--while eating oat bran?' He had lost his 'Lynch me!' momentum. He had to regain it. Nilpaurion grinned sheepishly, or rather like a sheep trying hard to look like a wolf hiding in a fluffy woolen pullover.

'What it means, my dear villagers, is that I'm a werewolf. You must lynch me, lest I destroy your village. If you do not vote for me, that means you're not trying to help this village, so I'll vote for you. Is that clear?'

'Hey, Mr. ModeVayor,' a female voice cried from behind Nilp, 'is multiple voting allowed?'

Before Anakron could answer, the creepy voice declared, 'If that's allowed, then let's just vote for Nilp an infinite number of times.'

'I don't know,' said another female voice, this time from Nilp's right, her voice dripping with sensibility, 'isn't death by lynching a bit painful?'

But she was ignored. No Seer was needed to see that; Alice was usually ignored by everyone. 'I vote for

++Nilpaurion Felagund

toDAY,' Adam said.