The Revenge of the Entish Bow - RPG

[Diamond18]

The poker game ended with Kuruharan the winner (which was hardly surprising, being what and who he was—a card shark of the Khazad). This led to an awkward pause, followed by an awkward fast-forward, rewind, play, and finally an awkward stop.

“Aren’t they finished yet?” Pimpi wondered. “Don’t think I’ve forgotten what was going on, no sir. As soon as they’re done, I’m going to…I’m going to…do something.” She then became distracted by a donut she found in her pocket.

Vogonwë, meanwhile, was bored. Not simply bordering on bored, but bored to pieces. Bored to bits. Bored to infinitesimal little shreds of indefinable something-or-other which all the king’s horses and all the king’s men could never put back together again. He was dying of a boredom so lethal that if he didn’t do something and do it quick, he would shrivel up like a Wet-Ones towelette that someone had removed from its package and didn’t throw away, from the misguided assumption that it was still clean enough to reuse.

So, what to do. Not just anything would suffice to overcome a boredom so palpable and pulpy, like orange-juice that hasn’t been strained, and so whatever he was going to do had to be good. Really good. And not just “fun” good, but crazy, spontaneous, unpredictable good. Uncharacteristic, devil-may-care, thought up on the fly and in a fey mood good. Yes, it had to be sufficiently entertaining, in a shocking and wordy sort of way. And it had to be good for a poem or two, at least.

He sat back and twiddled his thumbs, contemplating his options. He could either sit by himself and work on Fit the Fifth, join Orogarn Two in writing down all the “-ly” words in the tongues of Men and Elves, supervise Kuruharan and Chrysophylax as they divvied up the winnings, or do something with Pimpiowyn. Gee, what a dilemma—a quandary, to be sure.

He sidled up to Pimpi. “I’m bored,” he announced as if it was worthy of a front-page headline.

She turned her gorgeous, glorious, splendid, sublime, superb, exophthalmically excellent eyes toward him, in all their dreamy azure splendor. She licked some frosting off her bottom lip and replied, “Eat something, then.”

“Well yes, I could do that,” he paused. “But, I had a better idea. All this hedonism going on around us made me think—”

“Is that some sort of Workmudian dish?” she interrupted him, tilting her head to the side quizzically. The sun chose that moment to shine down on her long cascade of fiery red-gold curls that fell around her sumptuously voluptuous figure, the Similaresque light creating a glow around her head that was nothing less than angelic, like some sort of painting in which the subject is a maiden glowing with luscious beauty, holding a piece of fruit.

“What?”

“Hedonism.”

“Er…no. But I was saying…um…what was I saying? I dunno…gosh you look pretty right now.” His mouth felt dry, and he spoke like a tongue-tied idiot, instead of his normal status as a loquacious idiot.

“Hm. Thank you, you don’t look so bad yourself,” she said politely.

“Look here, Pimpi,” he said impatiently, “can we get back to the idea I had?”

“Were we going to go eat something?”

“No, but you look good enough to eat.”

“How am I supposed to react to that statement?”

Suddenly he dropped to one knee. “Oooh, ow! Leg cramp!” he grimaced. “Just a minute.”

She smiled absently while waiting for him to stretch his legs, and her mind wandered. It traveled far and wide, roaming across the expanse of Middle-earth and back and forth through the twenty-five years of her life, pausing now and then to smell the roses but not occupied with anything in particular for any length of time.

“All right, where was I?” Vogonwë resumed. “Oh yes, my idea.” He then broke out into a spontaneous, poetic song, and it went thusly:

My dear Pimpiowyn,
Why should others have all the fun?
You’re pretty, you’re young,
I’ve got to get me some.

Let’s dispense with dull customs,
Like mushy moldy mushrooms.
I’ve never been under your skirts,
But for that there’s always a first.

Don’t worry, my sweet thing,
This will be binding.
So don’t think I’m a swinger,
You’re my one true humdinger.

So let’s forget about this mortality business,
It can certainly wait till we’re finished.
I’ve got plenty of time,
And you’re in your prime.

We’re lucky we’re half-breeds,
For were I full elf, and were you full hobbit,
I’d be too tall, and you’d be too short,
Dagnabbit.

But as is we’re just right,
For each other tonight,
My half-halflng delight.
Let’s slip away quick-like.

There was an awkward silence. This pause was most certainly not pregnant, it was actually rather devoid of any cohesive thought whatsoever. Then Pimpi started to whimper.

“What? Is that a ‘no’?” Vogonwë asked.

“Oh! If…if only…”

“If only…” Vogonwë prompted, his patience with the length of this post wearing thin.

“If only you were O Lando!” she finally blurted, breaking out into a torrent of tears, which spurted from her eyes like a sprinkler system that decides to come on right when one is walking past it, bearing paper items to mail at the post office down the block.

To say Vogonwë was stricken would be an understatement. He clasped his hands over his heart and fell back, gasping like a fish swimming in an inch of water at the bottom of a bait bucket. His mouth flapped open and shut for a few moments as he tried to say something dramatic. His pupils shrank, dilated, shrank, and then dilated again, in his shock and horrified confusion.

Pimpiowyn covered her torturously beautiful face with her dainty, well-formed hands, and continued to cry. It had not been a good day for her. In fact, it had been a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.

Vogonwë still lay gasping on the ground, both legs cramping simultaneously. Finally, filled with consternation to the overflowing point, he dragged himself away behind a tree and retched up hairballs till his inner organs threatened to turn themselves inside out and drip from his ear canal onto the ground. After such a violent purging I’d be surprised if he ever hacked up another hairball in his life.

But then, he rose up with a shameless conjunction and a feeling of grim, gritty, resolve. A fey look was upon him as his soliloquized, “I’ll do something to make her forget he ever existed…I’ll do something so stupendous and heroic and manful that she’ll fall upon me in a fit of nymphomania…I’ll…I’ll…I’ll have to try to kill Gravlox. Or commit suicide. Or maybe that’s the same thing. Hm.”

[Estelyn Telcontar]

Merisuwyniel and Gravlox reappeared just as Vogonwë emerged from behind the tree. Energetically (yet gracefully) the Elven maiden strode into the clearing and proclaimed dramatically, “Has everyone forgotten Earnur? We cannot leave him to an uncertain fate – we must rescue him! Let us be on our way without further delay.”

There were several murmurs to the effect that she’d been in no particular hurry herself, but those of the Fellow/Galship who remained packed their baggage and were ready to leave in a matter of minutes.

Suddenly Merisuwyniel screamed, the high-pitched sound which a lesser female might make when sighting a small rodent and looking for the nearest chair. Startled, the others turned to look at her. “The Bow!” she gasped. “The Bow is gone!”

“Didn’t you have it with you?” Pimpiowyn asked.

“N-no,” she stuttered, blushing. “I left it here, right beside my pack. I – I thought I didn’t need it.”

Kuruharan rummaged through his various bags, then exclaimed, “The Great Foozle is gone too! Someone must have taken them when Etceteron was captured. That settles it – we must find them!”

° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° °

After adventures too numerous to be told at this time, but certainly promising material for flashbacks, dream sequences, and perhaps even for Episode I, II, and III, if there’s money to be made, the company arrived at the foot of a great mountain upon which loomed a dark, threatening, menacing, ominous, dangerously alarming looking tower. Their hearts sank as they looked at each other; they had only one of the three heroes left, though Gravlox’ military experience was an asset, of course.

As they gazed upon the great tower of Minus Moreghoul, despairing of ever passing its fortifications, they saw a lone figure sitting before the gate. At first, the shadows of the huge walls concealed its identity, then a flash of light glanced from a silvery flask that the man lifted to his mouth. “Earnur!” Orogarn Two shouted. They rushed forward to greet him.

Puzzled, Vogonwë asked, “How come every time we want to rescue someone, he’s already freed himself?” But no one heeded his words, as usual.

So excited that they all forgot the danger in which they were, they crowded around their lost companion, asking him questions in a cacophony which would have been confusing even for one not already bewildered by the loss of a great love and the contents of the flask which had been his only comfort.

[The Squatter of Amon Rûdh]

The magic on the self-refilling flask ran out about four hours after the inexpilicable road accident. He would have needed a stiff drink anyway after seeing his long-lost ex-girlfriend run over by a lorry right in front of him, but this was compounded by the fact that he had never seen a lorry before (hardly surprising, since they hadn't yet been invented), and had always thought it to be a sort of bird. He would have got more information out of the driver prior to hanging him with his own intestines, but the mysterious machina ex machina had disappeared as suddenly as it had turned up, leaving only a sadly ironic sign that read "How am I driving?" and quoted a telephone number that would be unusable for several thousand years.

So it was that the combined forces of new and terrifying developments, personal tragedy and time-travelling commercial vehicles had led to his draining ten years' worth of re-filling magic in one night. As dawn broke across the black rocks around him it fell on a bedraggled figure in the once-fine but tattered sable raiment of the heroic noble escapee sitting in front of the castle gates, snoring and dribbling onto his tunic.

He was awoken by one of the fortress' cats using his ear as a latrine, which elicited an oath so foul that it had been known to frighten trolls. It certainly frightened the cat, which never from that day forth moved more than twenty yards from a litter tray. After a breakfast made from the last dregs of enchanted hooch he switched to a flask of plain Miruvor that had been sitting in a hidden pocket since a long-ago trip to Dor Sumyewinion. It was the best of the liquor he'd been carrying, and it served to lighten his spirits from planning suicide to merely contemplating it; for such is the strange property of Elven vintages that they only ever make a man into an amusing drunk.

He had lost his horse, his sword and his lady love, along with his wallet and most of his clothes. He had absolutely nothing of value that could be pawned, no money, no transportation, no food and no water. On a crisis scale of one to ten this was about a seven in the history of Lord Etceteron's wanderings, but it became a nine when he finished the last of the alcohol around lunch time. So his companions found him, just as the last drop was drunk.

*******

He answered their questions as best he could, as they answered his. Oragarn Two was livid.

"What?!" He exploded. "I come traipsing over half of creation with a bag of mixed nuts and the Workmud branch of Alcoholics Anonymous; I don't find my wallet, get ignored half the time, and on top of everything our main enemy has a change of heart and gets run over by a hitherto-uninvented vehicle before I even get here! Are all my quests doomed to end thus in anticlimax?"

"Maybe," replied Earnur blandly. "You haven't seen my horse, have you?"

"We found your saddlebags near the skirmish," replied Merisuwyniel sadly. "Your mount was nowhere to be found."

"And Pasdedeux is missing too. Perhaps we're being stalked by international horse thieves." suggested Vogonwë.

"Hmmph," snorted the Dwarf. "Thieves? Chrysophylax has been hungry lately. If anyone got past him then I'm a garden ornament." He was not amused, as somehow someone had removed his best red-and-black map of the world at some point during the fracas, and he was by no means sure that it was the MoreScenarios who had taken it.

"Has anyone anything to drink?" asked the Lord of Dun Sóbrin hopefully, and Kuruharan, never one to turn down an easy sale, took out his best bottle of "Nurse Tremblin's Multi-Purpose Surgical Foot Ointment" (most efficacious against warts, corns, verrucas and, if misapplied, standing upright); but the great lord of drunkards frustratingly changed his mind. "No, it is hopeless," he sighed annoyingly. "No wine can ever salve these wounds, and anyway I want to enjoy not having that sword sober."

"One drink won't hurt" guessed the Dwarf, but he had lost the audience.

For Etceteron had launched into the full tale of his capture and events afterwards (leaving out the volcano, the cat and the poetry he'd written after his first meeting with She). He told of the end of Wylkynsion (related in her final moments by Vinaigrettiel); of the great palace, the foetid cells and She's weird taste in decor and weirder end. Then he asked "Does anyone have a horse?" at which Tofu sidled quietly out of the way: he had been getting used to wandering along without anyone much noticing him, mulling over lines from Juvenal's satires to himself, and was in no mood for more manliness just yet.

"Nobody?" continued Earnur. "Oh well; the time has come to complete our quest!" he preambled unnecessarily. "Behold the stolen Entish artefacts, torn from the torsos of our foes!"

The Foozle, the Entish Bow and a number of assorted pieces of dead wood were revealed as he stood up. They were sitting in a puddle that smelled a little funny, but Ents are used to that sort of thing.

"Gather these assorted objects and gird yourselves for further travelling!" announced the scarecrow of a hero. "For now we seek to re-make the Ent that was Broken and maybe get me a new sword!"

And so we leave them, shrouded in the stench of their Entish accoutrements and awaiting further developments heroically.

[Estelyn Telcontar]

Merisuwyniel was overjoyed and relieved to be reunited with the Entish Bow. She stood at a little distance from the others, holding it tightly. It vibrated and hummed with pleasure at being in her hands again, communing silently with her. Thoughtfully she gazed upwards at the tower, strangely fascinated by the sight of its enormous height, the sleek firmness of its walls, the shape of its – oh, never mind…

“We must enter the tower,” she announced to her astounded companions. “There is yet a foe here, greater than She was, and we must destroy it if the civilized world is to live in safety.”

There was some grumbling and mumbling as they thought of comfortable beds, good food, and profitable earnings to made elsewhere, but being noble and heroic, they did not desert her, of course. Chrysophylax, who refused to enter the claustrophobic entrance that led inside, remembering his last bout with tight passages, volunteered to watch over their baggage, so they laid off their more wearisome burdens, keeping only the most necessary and precious belongings with them.

Merisuwyniel clutched the Bow in one hand and Gravlox’ hand in the other and strode bravely toward the doorway. Expecting the worst, approaching foes or at least an alarm, they entered, but nothing happened. In increasing astonishment, they traversed one passageway and hallway after another, yet there was no sign of any living thing within the walls.

“It appears to be safe for us to divide up and explore the fortress,” the Elven maiden said, “but take care – there is yet a danger that cannot be seen.”

After some whispered words with Gravlox, she nodded and released his hand. He turned down one passageway while she directed her steps toward a staircase. The others scattered in every direction, wondering what they would find.

[Kuruharan]

"If the fact that this danger cannot be seen proves it is there, does it mean when we can see this danger that it is gone?" Kuruharan wondered to himself.

"Oh well," he thought as he dashed off down a hallway. He’d never met an opportunity for plunder that he didn’t like.

The rest of the Gallows-ship apparently agreed because they scattered in all directions.

This was probably a slightly foolish thing for them to do. The Gallows-ship knew that they were in great danger because they had seen nothing dangerous to this point. Confronted by this conclusive lack of evidence, the sensible thing for them to do would have been to stick together and loot the place systematically. Alas, they were seized by a madness of unbridled avarice, each one determined to grab all the goodies for themselves and not have to share.

Two hours later Kuruharan went over the sum total of his findings up to that point.

"Let’s see here…a set of swim fins, a broken piece of plywood, a chia pet, and a half-eaten biscuit. Not my most impressive haul. There must be something better around here somewhere," muttered Kuruharan. The dwarf suddenly had a realization. "If I could only figure out where here was."

It was true, he had wandered around so confusedly that he was now thoroughly befuddled, and slightly dizzy. He sat down on his broken piece of plywood, picked up his chia pet, munched on his half-eaten biscuit, and took stock of his situation.

When he finished the biscuit he stared at the chia pet for a long moment.

"And now I shall give you a name, and I shall call you…Ralph!"

The chia pet, or Ralph as we must now call him, stared back as insipidly as only a chia pet can stare.

"I don’t suppose that you are a talking chia pet…are you?" asked Kuruharan.

++++15 minutes later++++

"Should I take that as a no?"

Ralph continued to stare.

"I wonder if Ralph could be a part of the Ent That Was Broken?" wondered Kuruharan, desperately trying to find some way of making this sequence more interesting.

He poked and prodded Ralph and eventually came to the conclusion that Ralph was indeed your run-of-the-mill chia pet, ceramic body, bizarre herbage, and all.

"Well," said Kuruharan, "that was disappointing."

Suddenly, Kuruharan had another shocking realization.

"I’m sitting on a broken piece of plywood, in the bowels of a musty, crusty castle, talking to a chia pet."

Kuruharan glanced around nervously for a moment.

"I said, I’m sitting on a broken piece of plywood, in the bowels of a musty, crusty castle, talking to a chia pet!"

Kuruharan’s eye started twitching.

"I SAID, I’M SITTING ON A BROKEN PIECE OF PLYWOOD, IN THE BOWELS OF A MUSTY, CRUSTY CASTLE, TALKING TO A CHIA PET!!!!"

Unused to such large doses of reality, Kuruharan started gibbering and cackling like a deranged monkey. He staggered to his feet, pulled on his swim fins, and started weaving and wobbling about the hallway like a drunken sailor, laughing like a hyena the whole time.

"This is *WAHAHAHAHA* not good Ralph! *HEEHEEHEEHEE* OH-NO!!! *PAWHAWHAWHAWHAW* I’M DOING IT AGAIN!!!"

Just as reality made further unwelcome intrusions into Kuruharan’s thought processes, he reeled in the direction of his broken piece of plywood. At this moment his unfortunate choice of footwear betrayed him. One of his swim fins got caught on the piece of plywood and tripped him.

*SMACK* went Kuruharan right to the floor.

Fortunately, Ralph was saved from injury. He stood there on his little ceramic legs and stared at the unlucky (and unconscious) dwarf. Ralph did not appear to find it odd that the unhinged laughter mysteriously continued, and in fact got progressively louder.

Ralph undoubtedly reasoned that since danger had now manifested itself in some way it must, of logical necessity, no longer be present.

[Diamond18]

Vogonwë traipsed up a fight of stairs, pausing in his stride every now and then to do a cartwheel. He hoped that Pimpiowyn was watching his impressive gymnastics, but when he got to the top and did an upside down pirouette, he looked around and around and around and noticed that she was nowhere to be found.

“Drat,” he thought, resuming his stance upon his feet. Not only had she deserted him, but the top of his head had a vague burning sensation. Any normal full-blooded elf or man, or, let’s face it, even any normal half-blooded elf or man, would have paused to worry about his lady love being alone in a foreboding tower. But Vogonwë had other, more pressing matters to muse upon. Namely, how he was going to dispatch with Gravlox.

He began to wander aimlessly through the corridors of the castle, whilst his mind wandered aimlessly over various methods of murder. “Strangulation?” he pondered. “No, his neck is too thick for me to get my hands around.”

“I could poison him!”

“With what?”

“Well, I could make him a mixed drink of something…I have some ‘Mudwater left over, and perhaps I could see what Earnur has…”

“But that isn’t heroic enough. I mean, poison? Poison is for little old ladies, you dipwad.”

“All right, then. I could sever one of his arteries with a knife.”

“Too messy, and too close. If you succeeded, think of all that black blood all over your clothes. I don’t think Pimpi would be very attracted to that.”

“Well, you never know…”

“Try again.”

“I could drop an anvil or a piano on him. That would work from a nice, safe distance.”

“How cheesy. Again, not heroic enough.”

“I could challenge him to a duel with pistols.”

“But pistols haven’t been invented yet.”

“Hmm… I know, I could hang him! Hang-uruk is a game I used to play with O Lando back when we were kids.”

“But how would you get him in the noose? Do you think you could really swing it?”

“You’re right…it would be a bit hard. I mean, he’s so big and burly. When we were kids we never used real Uruks, we used computers.”

“Any more bright ideas, then?”

“Well, what about you, if you’re so smart?”

There was no reply, and Vogonwë stopped walking. “Hello? Strange and Mysterious Voice With Which I Have Been Conversing? Are you there?”

Silence. A heavy, oppressive, massive, ponderous, unwieldy, fat and obese silence in which there was no sound. Vogonwë could not even hear the sound of his own breathing, which was slightly disconcerting. That is to say, the fact that he could not hear the sound was disconcerting, not the sound itself, because there was no sound, as I have already mentioned.

The suddenly, in the blink of an eye and a split second (which is cousin to the split infinitive), before Vogonwë could say “Jack Robinson” (why he would say it I don’t know, but he didn’t get to anyway) something happened which will take another sentence to relate.

The torches that lit his walkway flickered out. They were quenched, quelled, dampened, extinguished, doused, soused, and otherwise very put out. This was done by an invisible hand. How Vogonwë knew that it was a hand when it was so obviously invisible (as I have already mentioned) is a debatable point, but lets not mince words, it was dark. Very dark. It was, in fact, dark as a moonless night—that is to say, pitch black, and not lit by any light. Inky shadows pervaded the hall, though how there were shadows without a stitch of light I do not know.

Vogonwë could not see a thing, not even with his super-duper sharp half-elven eyes. They were so sharp that they could puncture paper, but at that moment they did him no good, because it was dark (as I have already mentioned).

“So this is the look, the sound, and the feel of cotton, the fabric of our lives,” he mused, the original intent of his sentence derailing like a freight train (though there was no such thing as a freight train yet). “What I mean to say,” he tried again, “is that this must be the sound of silence, thought it is not silent anymore, because I am talking.”

Vogonwë then did what any character in a horror story would do—he walked forward. He cautiously made his way down the corridor, using his spiffariffic six-and-a-half elf sense to guide him. No air stirred through the hall, and the air was as stale and stagnant as a tomb that has been shut up for a long time, (though previous to which it had been a very talkative tomb).

As he walked, he thought that he could make out a dim light up ahead. He made for this light, as any character in a horror story would do, and as he advanced it began to grow brighter, as any strange light in a horror story would do.

Vogonwë saw that the light was peeking out from a keyhole in a massive oaken door (though why he paused at this time to ascertain the wood grain of the door is beyond me). Slowly, cautiously, in agonizingly little tiny nanoseconds of slow-mo movement, he reached out his hand to the door. He took hold of the door handle (which was shaped like a serpent’s head) and took a good five minutes to curl each finger around it (as any chara…oh you know).

Let’s skip ahead in the narrative a bit. After a while, he opened the door and stepped into the room. His eyes were stabbed by a flash of neon light, and in the naked light he saw ten thousand people (eh…maybe more). He wondered for a moment if the naked light happened to know the pregnant silence, but let it slide, because his eyes really hurt.

He turned his attention to the people. Their appearances were those of corpses dug from their grave, their skin was a livid white and their eyes were hollow and black. Apparently, he assumed astutely, they too had been stabbed by the malicious neon light. That is to say, he assumed astutely that they too had been stabbed, not that it was apparent that he assumed astutely. The people turned to him and stared at him out of the hollows of their eyes, and he was slightly bemused to notice that from each empty socket there ran rivulets of vivid blood, which stained their livid cheeks red.

The people, previous to his interruption, had been engaged in ever interesting activities such as talking without speaking, hearing without listening, and writing songs that voices never share. Their tongues, it should also be mentioned, slithered out of their mouths, licking at the air with forked tips. As soon as he entered, or I should say a little after that, after they turned to look at him, they proceeded to bow to the neon god they’d made.

And then the sign flashed out its warning, in the words that it was forming. And the sign said, "The words of the prophets are written on the subway walls and tenement halls, and whispered in the sounds of silence.”

It then directed everyone’s attention to a nearby slide projector and screen. It continued to further flash out its warning upon that—an ever interesting depiction of (you guessed it) a subway wall. The words that were written on said walls were as follows:

I had a dog, and his name was Spot,
And Spot he liked to bark a lot.
He barked all day, and he barked all night,
The neighbors put up an awful fright.
And now unfortunately Spot, is not.

The neon sign slapped the screen with a stick and said solemnly, “Let that be a lesson to you.”

And then, before their eyes (and eye sockets) the picture changed to a tenement hall. This was even more interesting, as the message it conveyed was:

Kill Vogonwë Brownbark.

“Well,” said Vogonwë. “This is disconcerting.”

[Estelyn Telcontar]

Up the winding staircase Merisuwyniel went, exploring various hallways in each story as she proceeded, opening and closing doors to the left and right. Drawn on by she knew not what, she went on until she reached the thirteenth floor - well, it might have been the twelfth or fourteenth, depending on how floors are counted in that part of Muddled-berth. There were no doors at all in this hallway, only a large wardrobe at the opposite end. Intrigued by the thought of finding some unique fashions, so outdated that they would be hip again, the Elven maiden tried the door.

It opened quite easily, and two moth-balls dropped out. Looking into the inside, she saw several coats hanging up – mostly long fur coats. Now, despite her love for living animals, there was nothing Merisuwyniel liked so much as the smell and feel of fur. She immediately stepped into the wardrobe and got in among the coats and rubbed her face against them, leaving the door open, of course, because she knew that it is very foolish to shut oneself into any wardrobe. Soon she went further in and found that there was a second row of coats hanging up behind the first one. It was almost quite dark in there and she kept her arms stretched out in front of her so as not to bump her face into the back of the wardrobe. She took a step further in – then two or three steps – always expecting to feel woodwork against the tips of her fingers. But she could not feel it.

“This must be a simply enormous wardrobe!” thought Merisuwyniel, going still further in and pushing the soft folds of the coats aside to make room for her. Suddenly a silvery light appeared ahead of her. She stepped out from between the coats into a room lit by the emanations from a silvery globe on a table in its middle, reflected from a mirror on the wall. Fascinated, she approached the mysterious orb and reached out to touch it, startled when it began to hum and glow brightly. She whirled around upon hearing someone speak, but could see no one.

“I’m sorry, I’m not home right now,” said a female voice. “If it’s Sourone, press 1 for my opinion on what you are doing. If it’s my maids, Mildew and Melancholia, press 2 for instructions. If it’s Thing, my pet hand, stop playing around with my Cell-antír! If it’s Friday, press 3 for information on when I will return.”

Puzzled, Merisuwyniel whipped out her pocket calendar to see what day it was. It was Friday, so she looked at the globe, found the number 3 and pressed it. “No, not the day of the week, stupid,” came the answer. “I mean my butler Friday, of course! Now, where were we? Oh, if it’s someone else, press the first five letters of your name for a personalized message.”

M-E-R-I-S, she typed. Suddenly the room went dark and the mirror glowed with a greenish light. Strange symbols flashed, then the likeness of a female appeared. Raven-black hair surrounded a face filled with sadness and despair; blue eyes gazed mournfully as red lips moved, speaking directly to her, it seemed.

“There is only one person whose name has those letters. If you are watching this message right now, there must be some terrible reason why I can’t tell you this myself. Long have I searched for you, but the Elves kept you hidden away too well. I have sent out messengers disguised as suitors to find you, but they lost your trail. I have sought for you with my thoughts, sending you O-mails, but I couldn’t keep the connection long enough to locate you. I have sent you dreams – do you recognize me? Meri, I am your mother!”

Merisuwyniel gasped and leaned against the table for support. Could it be true? Was this the one she had longed for all her life, thinking her long dead? How had She come to this fate?

The image continued to speak, looking and sounding more familiar with every word. The Elven maiden knew that She spoke the truth. Urgently, She continued, “There is a great evil within these walls, so great that I cannot bear my life here any longer. I cannot escape; I am what I have become, and there is no way back. Yet perhaps you will succeed where I have failed, my daughter. I do not know if you will be granted the strength and the means wherewith to conquer the foe, but my heart tells me that you may after all. This is what I know about the artefacts that may be of help…”

Merisuwyniel listened attentively, nodding although she realized that the image could no longer see her. She would ask Etceteron more later, to be able to know and mourn her mother better, but now there was no time to delay. They were all in grave danger. Quickly she took the Cell-antír and ran back through the wardrobe and down the stairs to find her companions.

[Mithadan]

Gravlox reviewed his choices quietly as he stood by a fork in the labyrinthine halls of Moreghoul. The path to the right led to a stairway ascending higher into the tower. There were tacky cloth coverings and worse art adorning the walls and the floors were clean and free of dust from frequent use. The path to the left descended into the bowels of the fortress. Its walls were bare and grey and a layer of dust covered the cheap linoleum flooring.

Harkening to some remaining aspect of his inner Orcish nature, he took the way to the left. Pleasant clouds of dust billowed from the floor as he walked and cobwebs covered the corners -- very homey. He had descended several levels when he heard a sound coming from below. Drawing his blade, Gravlox proceeded grimly down the stairs. Reaching what appeared to be the lowest level, he found a long hall with closed doors wrought of heavy wood and steel on either side. The sound became clearer. Someone was...singing?


Oh, I yam Ornery the eighth I yam,
Ornery the eighth I yam, I yam.
I got married to the widder next door,
she's been married seven times before.
And every one was an Ornery,
The first and the middle and the last.
I'm the eighth old man, I'm the eighth I yam,
Ornery the eighth I yam.
Six million, seven hundred thousand twenty-fourth verse,
Same as the first..."

Gravlox's blood ran cold, even more so than usual. He knew the voice and the name. He ran down the hall until he discovered the door which hid the singer. It was locked. Gravlox searched the area until he found a key ring hanging from a peg. The Uruk fumbled among the keys until he discovered one which worked. The door swung open revealing a dank, dirty, foul, disgusting, slimey and poorly decorated cell. A figure lay crumpled on the floor, still chanting the uncanny tune.

Gravlox stepped into the cell. The figure coughed weakly and stopped singing. It rolled over to look at its visitor with bleary, sunken eyes. It was dressed in rags and its arms and legs were chained to the wall. On the floor, nearby but clearly just out of reach of the prisoner were bowls of rotten food and fouled water.

Gravlox took another step into the cell. "Dad?" he asked in astonishment.

The prisoner sat up as best he could. "Gravlox? Ah, boy, come in. Nice of you to visit your old Father. Its only been, what, twenty-five years? And not even a phone call? Not that I'm complaining, I'm sure you've been very busy."

Gravlox rushed over and cradled the frail figure in his arms. "Phones haven't been invented yet," he replied. "And we all thought you were dead. Killed as a traitor for not causing mayhem."

Ornery coughed again. "No. Not dead. Just old, malnourished and tortured. Not that I'm complaining. At least they gave me the room rent free. How's your Mother, boy?"

Tears ran from Gravlox's eyes. "She ran off with that evil wizard when I was five. Hemlock the Peach, I think it was."

The weary Orc looked up at his son. "That's no excuse for not staying in touch. You could at least have sent a card on Mother's Day. Come to think of it you could have sent me a card too. Would've been nice. Not that I'm complaining."

"We thought you were dead," repeated Gravlox.

"And how's that nice girl you married? What was her name? Razor?" continued the failing Uruk.

"Hazel," answered Gravlox. "We got a DivOrc. She was fooling around with Sourone."

"Never liked her anyway," said Ornery. "Beady little eyes set too close together if you ask me." He coughed again and closed his eyes. "Nice of you to visit son."

"I didn't know!" cried Gravlox. "I would have come for you. Helped you in your quest to be redeemed."

"Redeemed?" laughed Ornery, opening his eyes again. "Look what it got me. We can't be redeemed, not completely. Not in this life. Not when we begin so evil and do so many foul deeds. Too much to make up for. Too many debts to pay."

"But you tried," cried Gravlox. "At least you tried. I'm trying too."

"Son," said Ornery with a smile. "We're born foul and ugly and we die that way. You can't make an Elf out of an Orc. That's beyond our power to do. But we can try. That's all we can do. And maybe someday we'll be rewarded."

And with that, his head fell back and Ornery Uruk III's spirit fled this world. Gravlox cried long and hard. Eventually he stood and dashed the tears from his face. "You have not died for nothing!" he cried.

Then Gravlox, with a heavy heart, turned and made his way back up the steps...

[ April 01, 2003: Message edited by: Mithadan ]

[Diamond18]

Gravlox was not the only one attracted to the path less traveled on. Pimpiowyn's Hobytla nature prompted her to follow the nice and cozy downward slope of another spiraling hallway, which was as sinister in its appearance as a slide at a park. That is to say, very.

She thought that she could smell an enticing aroma beckoning to her from the bowels of the terrible tower, and followed the scent in the hopes that said tower would regurgitate whatever it was that it had eaten, for her.

“Mmm,” she thought, “do I smell bacon?” *sniff* “And sticky buns?” *sniff sniff* “And tender quail heads in a light plum sauce, served with a side of turtle soup and…and vichyssoise?”

She paused. “Two soups? All right!”

She continued walking, sniffing at the air, identifying the other scrumptious odors that pervaded the winding halls. She did not even notice the maze-like twists and turns and cutbacks and cutthroats, so engrossed was she with her olfactory feasting.

It was not until maybe an hour or two later, that she came to a dead end. She was deep, deep underground, and as she stared at the tombstone of the end, she became aware that the air no longer smelt of spelt or any other food stuff. It had a damp, creepy-crawly, earthy smell, which would only have been appetizing if she was in the habit of eating dirt or worms (which she wasn’t).

Pimpi shuddered with cold, and saw her own breath fill the air like a cloud. She turned around and tried to retrace her steps, but half and hour later, she had to admit that she was completely, utterly, hopelessly, lost. She did not recognize any of the tunnels which she traversed, and every path led her to yet another dead end, complete with tombstones and epitaphs.

“Oh no,” she sighed. “What am I to do?”

Then she stomped her foot impatiently and said, “If only O Lando…or Vogonwë was here. Males…they’re always hanging around when you don’t need them, but get into a little trouble and they’re nowhere to be found!”

“Ain’t that the truth,” a cold voice answered from the vicinity of the nearby headstone.

Pimpi turned around and ran as fast as her half-hobbit limbs would carry her. She came to a four-way intersection and stopped. It was then that she was reminded of the existence of her stomach, and the emptiness thereof.

“Oh, I’m so hungry,” she groaned, calculating the hours since last she had eaten. She searched through her pockets for a bite to eat, but found nothing, not even a crumb too small for a mouse.

“I wish someone was with me,” she sobbed, “someone who had some food…”

Even as she said this, she recalled with horror the words of Orogarn Two just before the Battle of Gol Dulldor:

I saw a half-starved half-halfing standing alone and foodless.

“And so it has come to pass! I’m lost…lost, and I can never go home!” she wailed in a moment of high drama. “I’d give anything to see a humanoid face, or what the heck, even a draconic one! I’d even welcome that foul monster if he had some Doritos… And I’d even forswear all memory of O Lando if only that stupid half-elven boyfriend of mine would get his pirouetting behind down here to rescue me!”

Exhausted with this angst-filled soliloquy, she sunk down to the cold stones and cried herself to sleep.

[ April 01, 2003: Message edited by: Diamond18 ]

[The Squatter of Amon Rûdh]

As his companions dispersed to begin the noble business of looting everything of value from the suddenly empty fortress of Minus Moreghoul, Earnur was looking for its erstwhile mistress. Their brief reconciliation demanded of him some hopelessly self-indulgent display of emotion, but convention also required that he give vent to his feelings over the body itself, the intuition of modern audiences being what it is (not that there would be an audience, modern or otherwise, because as I said this is serious history and not some tuppenny-ha'penny parody).

With this goal in mind, Lord Etceteron entered the fortress, possessed as usual of the heroic conviction that anything can be found without recourse either to a map or a set of directions. Logic and common sense dictated that he would thus wander pathetically around the fortress until he died of old age or the building collapsed on him, but fortunately common sense was on holiday and logic had been called away on business, because he found what he sought at the end of the very first corridor that he tried.

The fortress had been abandoned with obscene haste. Freed of their mistress' iron grip her guards had simply abandoned her in the guardroom before fleeing, although what it was that they had fled was somewhat unclear. The room was well supplied with weaponry, which hung in racks on the wall, and Vinaigrettiel the Fair lay on a huge rough-hewn oak table from which the remains of a substantial if somewhat simple meal had been swept to the floor to make room. Her ludicrously overstated make-up and odd fetishistic clothes served to enhance the illusion that she merely slept, and the Lord of Dun Sóbrin was overcome. He remained by her side for some time in a rather clichéd orgy of self-pity and belated remorse, which I shall gloss over on the grounds of taste.

Arising after he knew not how many impotent heroic vows of revenge and declarations of eternal remembrance, he grabbed at random a discarded sword and thrust it into his belt, gathered her up in his arms and carried her from the fortress to the rocks beyond. On the side of the hill he found a small white sapling growing in exactly the spot he desired, so he uprooted it and threw it away before beginning to dig a deep grave with his newly discovered weapon. He was shocked and dismayed at a complaining voice that cut through his somewhat overstated misery with unwarranted harshness:

Do I look like a spade to you? I don't know, you sit around completely unused for years and then just when you think things can't possibly get any more humiliating some idiot mistakes you for a common shovel. I'm an ancient and powerful weapon, you know; not some die-cast lump of Orcish junk. You heroes these days have no respect for decent ironwork. I despair of the lot of you.

This complaint was echoed in a thin, tinny voice from the bag of pieces that Earnur still carried:

You fink you've got it bad, mate? Look wot 'appened to me: one minute livin' the life o' Riley in a nice skirmish, next a pile o' Monopoly pieces.

Earnur groaned, not at the gratuitous anachronism but at the realisation that he now had two rather annoying swords on his hands, albeit that the Yob that was Shattered was easy to ignore in its fractured state. The newcomer continued:

And what thanks do you get for wearing out your edge in their service? Dumped in a rack without even a decent lick of oil to keep out the chill! It'll take years of polishing before my blade's back to what it was!

Well, I'm gonna need more than a bit o' bleedin' polishin'. They'll probably reforge me and then give me some stupid poncy name so no-one'll know me from that prat Andëskil...

"Shut up!" screamed Lord Etceteron, driven far beyond the restrictions of heroic language by this mind-numbing barrage of complaint. "I'm trying to bury my girlfriend here, if you don't mind. It's a deeply solemn moment and I don't want your moaning ruining it."

Ha! And you call it a funeral? What sort of a cretin am I lumbered with this time?

You're tellin' me! I 'ad ter put up wiv this cross-eyed berk fer donkeys' years! Just when I fort I'd finally got rid of 'im 'is bleedin' missus takes me out and smashes me bleedin' quillions. Death's too good fer 'er: bloody sword-'ater!

"Right! That's it!" shouted Earnur, grasping the bag firmly and beginning to wind up his arm. "This one's for the old school XI!"

And with that he flung the bag of pieces as far from himself as he possibly could, which was no small distance. To continue his analogy, the pieces went out past the slips and into the ranks of Wisden readers before it even landed, and when it did its contents were scattered to the four winds (or would have been were it not for the law of gravity). The mighty sword Wylkynsion, the keenest blade of Beleriand, would trouble its master no more.

"Hast thou more words to bandy with me, O my brand?" he asked softly, but answer came there none. Lord Etceteron continued digging.

When at last the hole was dug he lifted Vinaigrettiel gently and dropped her rather unceremoniously into the hole, jumping in to rearrange her more decorously. She seemed to have put on some weight since that day at Careless Gardenhon. When he had climbed from the pit he stood by a pace. He said "She has a lovely face; Eru in his mercy lend her grace." but he was reminded of onions and couldn't continue for tears.

So it was that Earnur came to terms with his new and rather more tiresome weapon and buried his beloved, marking her grave with a simple cairn of white stones. They say that it stands there still, although now it bears the phrase "Wot if shed repentd and not bin hit by the lory? Cudl she go inot the wste? lol" written in green crayon. Orcs will be orcs, whatever the age.

[ April 02, 2003: Message edited by: The Squatter of Amon Rûdh ]

[Estelyn Telcontar]

And so the members of the Itship wandered about the fortress, increasingly less oriented both physically and mentally, each coming closer to his or her personal nightmare of madness. Who knows what might have befallen them had they not suddenly heard a melodious voice echoing through the hallways and passages, calling them back to sanity, or at least a reasonably close facsimile thereof.

“Testing, testing, 1, 2, 3 – I hope this Cell-antír… speaker system… thing is working. Companions of the Fellow/Galship, we are in grave danger within the tower. Please proceed immediately to the nearest exit. The lights will show you the way – just follow the yellow brick road.”

To their astonished eyes, yellow stones set in the shapes of arrows lit up from within. Taking courage, each of them followed the path with hurried steps, rejoicing as they met the others at the junctions. Finally all were reunited just outside of the entrance.

There Chrysophylax waited restlessly, gazing at the pinnacle of the tower, where dark clouds had gathered, ominously billowing about the ramparts. Lightning flashed in jagged streaks and a rumble stranger than thunder emanated from the darkness.

Terrified, Pimpiowyn grasped her horsehead pendant with one hand and Vogonwë’s hand with the other, their previous enstrangement forgotten. Gravlox laid a protective arm around Merisuwyniel’s shoulder; Orogarn clutched his crystal and Etceteron his flask. Even the sturdy Dwarf moved closer to his dragon companion.

They watched spellbound as the clouds moved, shifting to form a gigantic shape. Round and soft and plump it was, and blindingly white, with a ridiculously innocuous smile on its face and a small blue hat perched jauntily on its head. One thought filled their minds – that it must be a particularly horrifying evil creature to choose such a deceptively innocent appearance.

“Ai!” wailed Vogonwë, reaching to his quiver for arrows and throwing them quickly before his courage failed him. His aim was true, but the arrows had no effect; they simply stuck in the quivering mass without doing any harm to the creature.

“Break the Kazoom!” Kuruharan shouted, brandishing his axe and throwing it in a mighty arc. Unfortunately, it passed right through their foe and the cut closed behind it.

Pimpiowyn, not to be outdone, tore the horsehead pendant from its chain. Looking at it one last time in fond memory, she told herself sternly, “One who cannot cast away a treasure at need is in fetters.” Then she threw it with all her might. A long-drawn, glorious whinny accompanied its flight. Hobbit aim being what it is, it met its mark and exploded upon impact. The white mass began to burn, and for some strange reason, the smell made her think of graham crackers and chocolate, becoming even more hungry than before.

The others cheered, but their joy was short-lived, for the burning wound was quite small in the large body of their enemy. Then Chrysophylax raised his mighty head and spewed forth a flame that engulfed the creature, setting it on fire. Its surface charred, cracked and blackened, yet it was not consumed by the fire. A black smoke filled the air as it raced toward them, its shadow reaching out like two vast wings.

“If we only had the third Cell-antír!” Merisuwyniel cried out. “Gravlox has the golden one from Sourone and I have the one of mithril from my mother’s room. There is another, made of silver, which has been lost. The three together have the power to conquer this foe, she told me. I had hoped that we would have time to search for it.”

Suddenly there came a voice from behind her, chanting words in a strange tongue:
A! Pettygast Gilthalion!
Silver globus bringius,
Ho, Tom Bombadil,
needius is nearius.

Astonished, the companions turned around to see Etceteron speaking. They were rather used to hearing indistinct sentences from him, but these words affected them powerfully. What’s more, they stopped the foe in its tracks. It paused uncertainly. Orogarn Two held up his crystal; a light shone from its depths, blazing suddenly like a white torch in his hand. It flamed like a star that leaping from the firmament sears the air with intolerable light. Its beams entered the cracks in the charred surface of the creature, causing it to writhe in pain.

Then to their surprise, a strange apparition appeared. A beast that seemed to have six legs and two heads suddenly landed in their midst. One of the heads arose, a leg swung over the body and to their complete and utter astonishment, the wizard Pettygast stood before them. In his hand he held a tarnished orb, announcing, “I found this at a yard sale yesterday – thought it might come in handy. I guess it’s just what you need now!”

Merisuwyniel and Gravlox reached into their bags for the other two orbs while the wizard polished his to a silvery sheen. All three then held them aloft; the light from Orogarn’s crystal reflected from the globes, joining to a single, powerful ray that sparkled and crackled, finally destroying the evil creature with a gigantic, gooey, messy explosion.

Overjoyed, the companions danced and hugged each other, and if some of those hugs were more fervent than others, who was to blame them in the excitement of the moment? After awhile they fell to the ground in exhaustion and looked at each other. “Now what?” Pimpiowyn asked the question that they all had on their minds.

[Diamond18]

“I’m surprised that you of all people should ask!” Merisuwyniel replied with a laugh. “We eat it, of course!”

Indeed, this was a very logical conclusion, and a practical one as well, since they were all covered in the white fluffy stuff. It was all over the place, splattered here, there, and everywhere in liberal amounts. Apparently it had been a left-wing monster.

The company (of varied political mixage, no doubt) proceeded to scrape the sucrose rich glop off of themselves, transferring the puffy porridge into their mouths. It was sticky and sweet, like whipped sugar. The taste was also akin to beaten, kicked, and strangulated sugar. They slurped and licked and sucked at the stuff, murmuring their compliments to the non-existent chef all the while. Chrysophylax took care of cleaning the floor, walls, ceiling, and light fixtures. And a good time was had by all.

Vogonwë was the first to complete his self-grooming process, due to his redundantly catlike flexibility, and sandpaper tongue. He then occupied himself with gathering up his arrows, which had been spat out into all corners of the room when the creature which had “swallowed” them exploded.

Then he got an idea!
An awful idea!
THE HALF-ELF
GOT A WONDERFUL, AWFUL IDEA!

Slowly, he walked back to the scene of the feasting. All the while his mind was whirring like a cooling fan, his gray matter grating against all morality, decency, and rational thought. Perhaps it was because his head wasn’t screwed on just right, or because his shoes were too tight, or maybe even because his heart was two sizes too small. It could be those things, but it wasn’t at all. It was simply because his brain was two sizes too small. And Pimpi hadn’t let him lick any marshmallow residue off of her. Not even a little. And we all know the reason for that.

And now, the Mangler of Poetry, perceived… His time had come. He couldn’t do anything about O Lando, because he was family. He had almost despaired of being able reek vengeance on Gravlox (even if the Orc had bathed and didn’t reek anymore). But, now it came to him. It came without ribbons, it came without tags, it came without packages, boxes or bags. The perfect plan.

“Ahem…” he cleared his throat after a moment. “Er… Gravlox… Sir…?”

No, no, no! his Idea said in a tiny, tinny voice. You have to be assertive! Talk tough! Say something manly!

Vogonwë tried again, “Hey you! Orc scum!”

“Are you speaking to me?” Gravlox asked politely, glancing up and pausing in the task of licking between his toes.

“Yes, I am.”

This is boring. Say something pithy.

“I mean… Do you see any other Orcs around?”

Egad.

“Hey, I’m trying!”

“Pardon me?” Gravlox furrowed his brow.

“Vogonwë, what are you doing?” Merisuwyniel sighed impatiently.

“He’s talking to himself again,” Pimpi shrugged, trying to get at a spot between her shoulder blades.

“I’m trying to do something,” Vogonwë insisted. “So everyone be quiet.” He turned back to Gravlox. “I hereby challenge you to a duel, to defend the honor of my lady, Pimpiowyn Daughter of Éohorse.”

Merisuwyniel’s expression turned irate. “How dare you imply that—”

“I’m talking about the cruel murder of her parents,” Vogonwë rolled his eyes.

“Wait a minute, you are challenging me to a duel? Aha, aha, aha!” Gravlox laughed with exaggerated italics. He sobered momentarily and added, “Again, I’m sorry for my past deeds, especially as pertains to Pimpi here, but—” he paused and sized up Vogonwë, and then began to laugh heartily.

“That seems to be a correct assessment of the situation,” Vogonwë replied, lapsing into Nerdian, a little known Workmudian dialect.

“But Vogonwë!” Pimpi suddenly exclaimed, a look of concern in her eyes (which were still blue). “He could kill you!” She glanced between the two and amended, “he will kill you!”

Oh! This is good, she’s worried about you, that means she still cares, Vogonwë’s ever present and pesky idea said to him.

“That is a risk I am willing to take,” he proclaimed, striking a heroic pose, “for I love you, my Pimpiowyn, with every fiber of my body, even the yellowish-purple bruises in my gut, which you put there with your dainty elbow.”

“But…but…” she stammered.

“Isn’t this what you wanted? To see the monster slain?” Vogonwë asked, motioning to the conveniently idle Gravlox, who looked rather innocent with a smudge of marshmallow on his face.

“Yes, but… now that it comes down to it, I’m afraid you’ll get hurt, or something. Don’t be rash, Voggy,” Pimpi pleaded prettily.

“I’m sorry to interrupt this touching scene,” said Merisuwyniel, “but you cannot be serious, Vogonwë. And Gravlox, you can’t accept his challenge, anyway, because it just wouldn’t be fair.”

If anyone is curious as to what the Etceteron, Orogarn Two, Kuruharan, Chrysophylax and Pettygast were doing, they weren’t doing much. They were simply watching the goings-on with rapt attention.

“This is better than a movie,” Kuruharan remarked to his dragon.

“Do you think Gravlox will accept the challenge?” Orogarn Two asked Pettygast.

“How should I know? I don’t even know who he is,” Pettygast replied.

“Well, if he does, I’ll miss Vogonwë’s poetry,” Earnur remarked.

“What is a movie?” Chrysophylax wondered.

Then, Gravlox stood up. They all turned their eyes to him, and waited. Would he accept? What would be the weapons of choice? Would Vogonwë die or merely be wounded? Would this post ever end?

[Mithadan]

Gravlox looked from Vogonwë to Pimpiowyn. Now this is a strange turn of events,he thought. Then he glanced over to Merisu who looked worried and upset. She shook her head vigorously in answer to his unasked question.

Gravlox looked back to the wild-eyed Elf and smiled in an attempt to calm him. But, if anything, the sight of the Uruk's fangs only made him more frenzied. Putting on his best face (such as it was) and using his fanciest language, Gravlox addressed the Elf.

"Good gentle youth, tempt not a desperate man;
Fly hence, and leave me: think upon these gone;
Let them affright thee. I beseech thee, youth,
Put not another sin upon my head,
By urging me to fury: O, be gone!"

Vogonwë blinked and shook his finely coiffed head. "Uh, what?"

Gravlox tried again. "What you have charged me with, that have I done;
And more, much more; the time will bring it out:
'Tis past, and so am I. But what art thou
That hast this fortune on me? If thou'rt noble,
I do forgive thee."

One could almost hear the gears turning as Vogonwë puzzled over the Orc's words. Then a lighbulb appeared metaphorically over the Elf's head. He took a deep breath and mustered every bit of his verbose abilities. "Boy, this shall not excuse the injuries
That thou hast done me (and to the fair Pimpiowyn); therefore turn and fight."

"'Tis dangerous when the baser nature comes,
Between the pass and fell incensed points,
Of mighty opposites," commented Gravlox casually. Then he fell silent, for the words of his father came back to him: "Brush and floss after each meal."

Gravlox shook his head and refiled that quote for future reference. Then the correct quote came to him: "We can't be redeemed, not completely. Not in this life. Not when we begin so evil and do so many foul deeds. Too much to make up for. Too many debts to pay."

He looked at Pimpiowyn who stood chewing her lip (for she had nothing else to chew on at the moment). As he looked upon the half-Halfling, he thought back to the fateful day which had started all this trouble. He remembered a picnic laid out on a grassy knoll. Heaps and heaps of food were piled atop a red checkered blanket. But the scene changed and a multitude of his Orcs rushed about, growling and roaring and shaking various sharp and unpleasant looking implements of war. They trampled over the picnic chasing a man, a hobbit, and a toddler.

Rivers of blood, pools of blood, cascading waterfalls of blood, gurgling drinking fountains of blood, filled the image in his mind. He recalled slaying her father, killing her mother, lopping the head off of her father’s horse, chasing her with murder in his bloodshot eyes.

“I’m gonna put a maggot hole in your belly!” he had cried. Then an Elf came up from behind, wielding a shovel, ready to strike. He tripped on his shoes and came down upon the Orc’s foot. Foot and Orc separated.

He recalled the aftermath also. His return to Gol Dulldor and his wife and young children and the growing horror at what he had done. And as time had passed, he had become increasingly reluctant to commit mayhem and murder, orders notwithstanding, until, at last, he had stopped altogether...

"I owe her a great debt, one that I cannot repay," he thought sadly. "This is what my father meant. Perhaps if I fight this little twerp and let him live, some portion of that debt will be paid..."

He turned to Vogonwë and gave his answer. "You want a duel? OK. How about hand to hand? No weapons?"

[Diamond18]

Vogonwë’s first impulse was to say, “Let’s get ready to rumble!” but before he could, his Idea stepped in and screamed (though being as it only spoke in his mind, and had no legs, lungs or vocal chords, it’s difficult to explain how this was so):

No, no, no, you blathering idiot! This doesn’t fit with our plan! You can never beat him in a fistfight! Think fast, rabbit!

Vogonwë did not know many things, but he did know that he was not a rabbit, and was about to protest, but the others were waiting for him to answer Gravlox, and so he let it pass.

“I think you are misunderstanding my use of the word, ‘duel’,” he said with as studious an air as he could manage. “The very nature of my challenge makes hand to hand combat difficult. See, when two people engage in a ‘duel’, common Wood-Elven custom dictates that the parties stand back to back whilst a third party counts to a designated number, commonly ten. Each of the first two parties takes a step in the opposite direction, corresponding with the numbers being spoken. Once the desired number is attained, each party turns around and shoots at the other party. The first to dislodge his ammo, kills the other and wins. So you see, this is a contest of who has the quickest draw and the best aim. Any questions?”

There was silence. They all knew that somewhere out there, a fourth party was going on, and that it was a real hot, swinging party, with free beer and a rock band. But something also told them that this had nothing to do with Vogonwë’s three parties. Somewhere, a cricket chirped. Chrysophylax ate it.

“I have a question,” Gravlox raised a hand. “What happens if both…parties…‘dislodge’ at the same time, and both get shot?”

“Then both die. Duh.”

“But what does that accomplish?” Merisuwyniel asked.

“Nothing, but it’s very rare.”

“How rare?”

“Medium rare. Now, can we get on with this? Will you accept my definition of a duel, or not?” Vogonwë challenged Gravlox (as opposed to, say, Earnur).

“I have no bow and arrow,” Gravlox said.

“Merisuwyniel does,” Pimpi piped up.

Merisuwyniel clutched the Entish Bow. “Yes, but…”

“There, then that’s settled,” Vogonwë said. “Now, who wants to count?”

“I’ll do it!” Kuruharan volunteered, always having loved numbers. He walked over to Merisuwyniel, ostensibly in order to take the Bow and give it to Gravlox. He winked and told her quietly, “Don’t worry, I know how to take care of this.”

Merisuwyniel nodded and handed him the Entish Bow. The Dwarf carried it over to Gravlox and said, “Take as big of steps as you can, capisce?”

“Right,” Gravlox agreed.

“All right now,” Kuruharan announced in a loud voice, “back to back, belly to belly, I don’t give a damn ‘cause I’m stone dead already— Ahem… I mean, stand back to back.”

They did so.

“One—”

They took a step apart.

“Two—”

They took another step apart. You were expecting something else?

“Three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, nine and one half, nine and three quarters, nine and three eighths, nine and four eighths, nine and five eighths, nine and six eighths, nine and seven eighths, nine and eight sixteenths, nine and…”

[Seven sixteenths later…]

“Ten!”

Gravlox turned around and notched an arrow into the bow. Vogonwë pirouetted and whipped out a couple handfuls of arrows from his sheath.

Gravlox drew back the bowstring. Vogonwë recited a poem.

Or, at least that’s what the others thought. In reality, what he was doing was affixing the most deadly Workmudian Distance-Spanning Aim-Well Spell known to the Children of Ilovetar, to his arrows (as opposed to his hairbow).

Who is Tom Bombadil? (We’ll know when water runs uphill.)
Do Balrogs have wings? (And can they sing?)
Couldn’t the Eagles take the Ring to Mordor?
And was the whole story a metaphor for—
Religion, industrialism, his childhood, World War?
Or was it a prophesy of current events?
And who was the Firstborn, Elves or Ents?
Was the movie any good? (Or does it deserve to be booed?)
Why did they put in Arwen for Glorfindel?
Was it just to sell? (Can’t you tell?)
Was Tolkien racist? (On what do they base this?)
What color is Legolas’ hair? (And does he use Nair anywhere?)
Is Sam gay? (Or was that Gandalf the Grey?)
Are Orcs immortal? And is there a portal,
To Middle-earth? (I think no, for what it’s worth.)
Harry Potter and Star Wars. (Need I really say mores?)

Gravlox released his arrow. Vogonwë released his. They flew through the air, and for one breathtaking moment it looked as if both parties would be struck. But then, lo! Gravlox’s arrow fell to the stones before Vogonwë’s feet, and clattered to a stop dramatically.

Vogonwë’s missiles, however, flew long and true. One by one, in slow motion, they struck Gravlox, some in the exact same place as the others. As each one struck, his head jerked back and his hair flew about his head in an even more dramatic fashion. A look of horrified confusion was writ across his not-so-noble mien—he had never thought that Vogonwë would resort to spells and magick mischief. But so it was.

“Noooooooo!” Merisuwyniel cried, running forward. The very last arrow was flying straight toward Gravlox’s heart, but before it could hit its mark, the lithe form of the Elven maiden intercepted it. This arrow was fixed with the deadliest incantation of all (the one about Arwen) and though it lodged just to the left and above her heart of gold, its effect was terrible.

She fell to the ground with a heart-wrenching cry, and somewhere an orchestral swell could be heard. Pimpiowyn shrieked in horror, Gravlox gasped out the name of the noble lady, and Vogonwë said, “Uh-oh.”

[Mithadan]

"Merisu!" cried Gravlox even as he slumped to the ground. Orogarn and Earnur raced to her side and propped her up between them. Pimpi fell to her knees, covering her mouth with a hand. Vogonwë stood still for a moment in surprise, then tried to hide the one remaining arrow which he held behind his back.

Kuruharan, sensing an opportunity for profit, raced to his pack and began rummaging through its contents. After a few minutes, he stood, holding a small brown bottle in his hand. He raced over to Gravlox and Merisu, then stopped, looking from one to the other. Lord Etceteron looked up at the Dwarf. "Well?" he demanded. "What do you have?"

Kuruharan looked down at the bottle. "Authentic Healing Potion of the Gods," he answered. "Made from 100% Kingsboil, guaranteed to heal any wound, just 6 gold pieces."

Orogarn waved impatiently at Kuruharan. "Get on with it then," he cried.

"Uh," replied the Dwarf. "I only have enough for one person."

"What!" shouted Etceteron. "Can't you stretch it out? Cut it with some booze or something?" Kuruharan shook his head sadly.

"Give it to him," cried the valient Merisu. "Give it to Gravlox! I'll be fine." At that moment, Orogarn yanked the arrow from her chest and was greeted by an inopportunely timed fountain of blood which spurted six feet into the air.

Gravlox sat, propped up against a pack. He appeared to be resting, but he was pierced with many red feathered arrows. "I have done many ill deeds in my life," he said. "I am sorry. I have paid. I pant for life: some good I mean to do,
Despite of mine own nature. Give the potion to Merisu." He tossed Kuruharan a bag of coins.

"Sold!" cried the Dwarf. He knelt beside Merisu and poured the potion onto her wound, rubbing it on her chest with barely concealed relish. He rose and went back to his pack to get some mustard as well, but when he returned, to his disappointment, Merisu was fully healed.

The fair maiden scrambled over to Gravlox and cradled him in her arms. "Gravlox, we will get help!" she cried with a sob. "Hold on. Your wounds aren't so bad."

He smiled. "No, 'tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a
church-door; but 'tis enough,'twill serve: ask for
me to-morrow, and you shall find me a grave man. I
am peppered, I warrant, for this world.
'Zounds, a dog, a rat, a mouse, a
cat, to scratch a man to death! a braggart, a
rogue, a villain, that fights by the book of
arithmetic! Why the devil came you between us?" He glared at Vogonwë, who looked over to Pimpi but did not answer.

Gravlox took a laboured breath and closed his eyes. "O, here
Will I set up my everlasting rest,
And shake the yoke of inauspicious stars
From this world-wearied flesh. Eyes, look your last!
Arms, take your last embrace! and, lips, O you
The doors of breath, seal with a righteous kiss
A dateless bargain to engrossing death!
Come, bitter conduct, come, unsavoury guide!
Thou desperate pilot, now at once run on
The dashing rocks thy sea-sick weary bark!
Here's to my love!"

Merisu frowned down at him. "I thought you said that you don't write poetry," she said.

He opened his eyes. "I don't. But I am well read." He looked down at the blood pouring from his wounds. "Well read...blood...read, get it?"

Merisu laughed weakly. "Save your strength, dearest," she begged.

He coughed again. "Kiss me, then let me look my last into your eyes." Behind them, Etceteron tapped his foot impatiently and checked his watch. Almost dinnertime.

With a sob, she planted a kiss on his lips, then lifted herself slowly to gaze deeply into the eyes of the Uruk. And so passed away Gravlox. Gravlox the Valient. Gravlox the Almost Redeemed. Gravlox the Foul who was Fair. Gravlox All That Is Gold Does Not Glitter. [A marginal note in the text here reads, "Enough already. Too much even for an Ent."]

--------------------------

An attendant sat dozing behind a door in a vast hall wrought of black marble. A loud knock on the door roused him. "Funny," he said. "We're not expecting anyone right now." He called a second attendant from the nearby cloak room then proceeded to the door. Opening a small hatch in the door, he looked out to see a dark figure with greenish skin and fangs. The attendant shuddered, then said loudly, "Good morning! We're not accepting any Orcs here, thank you. Good morning."

With that, he shut the peephole. The knock came again, louder and more insistant. The attendant sighed and opened the peephole again. "Lemme in, please," said the Orc. The attendant glared at the annoying figure outside the door. "Listen, idiot," he growled. "We don't take Orcs. So buzz off!"

"I ain't going!" cried the Orc even as the peephole slammed in his face. The attendant turned away, but the knocking resumed, even louder this time. He spun back to the door and swung the peephole open again. "What are you? Deaf?" he shouted. "We don't take no damn, dirty, stinkin, URK..." A clawed hand had shot through the hatch and grabbed the attendant tightly by the throat.

"I SAID, LEMME IN!.....PLEASE!"

The second attendant backed away and turned to run for help. "I'll get Mantoes," he cried...

[Diamond18]

In the Tower of Minus Moreghoul, it was silent but for the tender sound of Elven tears falling from Elven eyes onto Orcish carrion. Gravlox was indeed dead, and if you poked him with a stick, ten to one he wouldn’t respond. Merisuwyniel had no intention of poking him with a stick. Her grief was the kind that doesn’t incline one to use sticks. She stroked his matted hair and tried to remain calm in front of the others, for admirable resolve is as admirable resolve does.

Pimpiowyn rose from her knees and stood a moment watching the touching scene. Then, she began to speak in a sad and regretful tone:

All my life I have wished for avengement,
Never really knowing what revenge meant.

Can his dying conquer their death?
He has paid his debt with his life.
But will it restore them to breath?
Is his end an end to my strife?

And so now he is slain.
Do I call this success?
Her kind heart to maim,
Is this proper redress?
Does her loss mean my gain?
Can my heart feel gladness?
All we’ve left her is pain,
And rivers of sadness.

All her hopes and her dreams,
Fly away on the wind.
Life lives on in a scream,
Yet my wounds never mend,
Blood flows red like a stream.
All we’ve done in the end,
With our plots and our schemes,
Is betrayed our own friend.

Now I want to forgive,
And defy unfair fate.
To live and let live,
But it is far too late.

All my life I have wished for avengement,
Never really knowing what revenge meant.

She sighed, and one of the statues in the corner of the room joined in Merisuwyniel’s sobbing. On second consideration, however, Pimpi determined that the sound was coming from behind the statue, where her hapless love had gone to hide from unpleasant repercussive action anyone might want to take.

It’s hard to say what his tears were for. It could either be the guilt that accompanied the rash killing of a reluctant adversary, the poetic beauty of such awe-inspiring mortality, Merisuwyniel’s nobility in sadness, or the realization that his girlfriend could write better poetry than he could. Whatever it was, it touched said girlfriend’s heart, and she went over and offered him a handkerchief.

“There’s a moral in all this,” Vogonwë sniffed, accepting the hankie.

“Yes…revenge is not sweet, it is very bitter,” Pimpi nodded.

“Well, yeah. I was going to say ‘When Ideas talk to you, it isn’t a good thing, so don’t listen’,” Vogonwë replied. “But yours works too.”

“This is just as much my fault as yours,” she said while he blew his nose. “You did this solely for my sake, because of my desire for revenge. It was a sweet gesture, I suppose, and I was terribly worried for you. But I’m afraid we both owe Merisuwyniel an apology.”

“Yes, an apology.”

“I intend to throw myself upon her mercy, and let her determine what justice must be done,” Pimpi declared resolutely.

“It’s only fair,” Vogonwë nodded.

“Well then.”

“What?”

“Aren’t you going to as well?”

“I was thinking of hiding behind this statue for the rest of my life,” he admitted.

“No, no. You have to pay the piper sometime. Gravlox had to do it, we all have to sometime. It’s a vicious cycle that you can’t run away from. The only thing to do is stick your head in the gears and hope that it stops them without getting ground to bits,” Pimpi explained. “Come, if we don’t beg her forgiveness now, we’ll be contributing to a cycle, and you don’t want to do that, do you?”

“I wouldn’t mind.”

“Come on!” Pimpi ordered, trying to yank him to his feet. “Merisu is sweet and kind, she’ll probably forgive us whether we deserve it or not.”

“Yeah, she’ll forgive you! She likes you! She’ll probably have the guys beat me up, the Wizard curse me, the Dragon burn all my hair off, and the Dwarf steal my clothes!” Vogonwë grabbed the waist of the statue and held on for dear life.

“I’ll buy you new clothes,” Pimpi assured him. “Now come on!”

“I’m too pretty for this!”

“COME ON!”

“Oh, all right,” Vogonwë groaned. “I’ll do it—if you’ll promise to marry me later, hairlessness, clotheslessness, bruisedness and crunchiness notwithstanding.”

“You would chose a mortal life for me?” Pimpi asked in surprise.

“Well, technically, I have no choice. See, scholars say that if I have even one drop of mortal blood in me, I’m made fully mortal, and subject to the Drift of Men, unless the Velour step in and barter my case with Ilovetar. But I don’t think they will, because I’ve never done anything exceptional.”

“I see…”

“So here—here’s a tolkien of my undying, dying love for you,” he said, giving her his hairbow.

“You cannot give me this!”

“It is mine to give, like my heart.”

“But, what would I want with it?”

“If you wear it, you can speak the language of the Kevlar,” said Vogonwë, “and you’ll be bullet-proof, to boot.”

“Vogonwë, I don’t want this, I don’t need to talk with the animals, bullets haven’t been invented yet, and besides, it would look horrible with my hair-color.”

“But—”

“Take it back.”

“It was a gift. Keep it,” he insisted. “At least for now, anyway, so if Merisu lets the Dwarf take all my accoutrements, we’ll still have that.”

“Well, in that case…okay.”

[Estelyn Telcontar]

Merisuwyniel lifted her beautiful, golden-tressed head and gazed at the approaching Pimpiowyn and Vogonwë with tear-drenched violet eyes. A human woman would have looked awful, with eyes reddened and puffy, but being a pure-blooded Elf, she of course looked stunningly gorgeous even after crying copiously. She listened silently to their stammered apologies, punctuated (or was it punctured?) with many pokes in Vogonwë’s ribs by Pimpi’s elbow.

“The cause of justice is not served by revenge,” she said. “Your poetic words expressed my feelings as well; I will not take action against you. You have learned your lesson, I hope, and are free to do whatever seems right to you. Indeed, it seems to me that Fate has played a fatal role in these events, for never before has the Entish Bow failed its mark.

“The Bow has had its revenge, and so have you, my dear Half-Hobbit. Yet I have lost not only my last great love because of it, but also my mother, and my first youthful love in the battle as well. Ill deeds have been done here; but let now all enmity that lies between us be put away, for it was contrived by the Enemy and works his will.

“With Chrysophylax’ permission and assistance, I shall bring Gravlox’ body to the River, that Ulmo may bear him to the destination that is determined for him. Then I shall turn my steps toward Minus Teeth, the Wight City. There shall I learn the art of healing, for I will be an archer no longer. Never again shall my hands fit an arrow to the Bow nor draw its string to harm any living creature. I shall learn to preserve life instead of destroying it.

“I will return to you shortly – if any of you wish to come with me, I should be glad of your companionship.” Then, with the help of Orogarn and Kuruharan, she lifted the mortal remains of the Orc onto the dragon’s back, mounted him herself, and he flew toward the River.

None of the Children of Ilovetar witnessed the parting of the Elf Merisuwyniel and the Orc Gravlox, yet the song that she sang was heard far away, in the Halls of Mantoes. It was the song most fair that ever in words was woven, and the song most sorrowful that ever the world shall hear. Unchanged, imperishable, it is sung still in Valium beyond the hearing of the world, and listening the Velour are grieved. Her tears fell upon the banks of the River like rain upon the stones, and Mantoes was moved to pity, who never before was so moved, nor has been since.

Therefore he admitted Gravlox to his Halls, to restore what had once been twisted, that thus whatever grief might lie in wait, the fates of Gravlox and Merisuwyniel might be joined, and their paths might one day lead them together.

° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° °

Pale, composed and determined, the Elven maiden approached Lord Etceteron after Chrysophylax brought her back to the tower. “You witnessed the death of my mother?” she asked. “Would you tell me of her, and do you know where she is now?”

Bewildered, he looked at her. “Your mother? Of whom do you speak?”

“I speak of the deceased mistress of this fortress,” she answered patiently. “She revealed herself to me in a message, yet you spoke of her death before I knew that it was She.”

“You are Vinaigrettiel’s daughter?” Had his flask not been empty for hours, he would have thought himself in a drunken delirium. “I didn’t even know…” His voice trailed off. “Well, I do know where she is now – I buried her out behind the tower. Would you like to see the spot?”

So she took leave of the mother she had never known, mourning their final parting and asking much of Etceteron. And both were comforted in speaking of her. Indeed, Earnur found a new resolve in himself, to aid Merisuwyniel as the last service he could render to his lost love.

When they returned to the others, they saw that all had gathered their bags and packs for the journey. “You know my goal,” the Elf stated simply. “Who goes with me?”

[The Squatter of Amon Rûdh]

At Vinaigrettiel's simple grave, Earnur and Merisuwyniel had spoken much of her mother (although if you expect any explanation of how he never found out she had a daughter don't hold your breath). Mainly he spoke of her beauty, her kindness and her fondness for cats and trifle. He had told the daughter of his beloved of how her mother had destroyed his foul-mouthed blade and redeemed him from its irritating and disloyal companionship. He also told of how they were reconciled at the end, and of his own undyingly manly love.

"Your mother was not a dark Queen at heart," he had said quietly. "That she became one is part of the long and sad history of the Black Sword Wylkynsion, whose mindless thuggery is now at an end." (from down the slope came a thin voice, as of a wasp in a tin box, saying I 'eard that, yer ponce! You'll get yours! but he ignored it). "We were never blessed with children, lady," he continued. "But I see in you that they would have been strong and fine. An ye need it, I vow you my protection. For now there is none in the world with more right to claim it."

Looking up wistfully from her mother's resting place (as is so sickeningly usual with Elves, she looked perfect in this as every other emotion), she had made reply:

"Leave thy vows for the breaking of our It-ship, Lord. For then there will be need of them."

And they had stood long in silence by the grave of Vinaigrettiel; fairest of the children of Elbow Thingy, sharing in silence their grief, and interrupted only by thin and muffled curses from a forsaken bag that only Lord Etceteron could hear.

*********

So it was that the former Black Sword of Dun Sóbrin pledged his manly companionship to the fair Merisuwyniel, and chose to take the road with her to the Wight City with Ten-Thousand Names...

[Editor's note: this catalogue of generic sobriquets would make the Greater London telephone directory look like Sheridan if either existed. It proved too boring even for one of Entish sap.]

... there to find healing for his wounds at the Houses of Bettifordeth, and so to take up once more his manly if random wanderings. There was also a chance that he could get a good deal on a second-hand war-horse in the Motorless City. When later his manly decision became known at large a thousand distillers wept.

"I shall fare with you as far as Minus Teeth, Lady," he said quietly. "And as far on your road thence as I am needed."

[Kuruharan]

The Very Secret Diary of Chrysophylax Dives-

Day-So lost track of it that it would make your head spin…

*BURP!!!* Good thing that Merisuwyniel was distracted by all of her crying when we "plopped" Gravlox in the river. {wink, wink}

He was delicious!!!!

I certainly hope that this does not have any negative impact on any afterlife that orcs might have, but I just could not resist. Gravlox looked so crunchable. And all of those nauseatingly edifying remarks on the futility of revenge made me hungry!!!

Kuruharan said that he did not think it would have any unpleasant consequences. The power of the Velour is greater than any lack of corpse, or something like that. I was not really paying attention to him.

Kuruharan said something about having to get into the snake-oil business. He tells me that I should be great help in this matter.

The way that he’s looking at me is making me nervous…

-------------

The Very Secret Journal of Kuruharan, the son of Khoreth.

-200 Days after Pre/Post Durin’s Day-

Still reeling from the shock of discovering my heretofore unknown affinity for numbers!!! No wonder I was flipping out in that castle!! Ralph tells me that this feeling should pass soon.

I don’t have the heart to tell anyone that Chrysophylax devoured the earthly remains of Gravlox. I personally don’t see what is so bad about this. Dragon’s gotta eat too. And I’m certain that a two-bit sage off in the East of Rhûde told me that what happened to the body did not really matter that much.

He was a funny chap! All clad in blue robes! There was another fellow along with him too, now that I stop to think of it! What an odd pair they were!!! Relatives of Pettygast more than likely!

Anyway, I just had the most delightful idea. Since the primary demand of these people seems to be for medicinal goods, I need to follow my true calling of becoming a wandering peddler of snake-oil and cure-alls.

Chrysophylax should be of great help in obtaining the snake-oil. He has never gotten along well with some of his cousins. Especially after a certain treasure stealing…uh…misunderstanding.

He keeps on looking at me suspiciously. I’ll let him have the bodies, I dare say, once I’ve drained all the juice out of them.

Ralph said that I could make a 400% profit on my medicines in the current market. I certainly hope so. My profit margin has taken a hit ever since I started on this little trip.

Good thing I ran into Ralph!!! He has some good herbage on his shoulders!!

----------------------

Kuruharan approached Merisuwyniel and Earnur as they were whispering to each other.

"Ahem!" said Kuruharan politely.

"Huh?!" said Merisuwyniel and Earnur together. "Oh, it’s you!"

"I have come to announce that I am taking a brief leave of absence to replenish my stock of miracle cures!" Kuruharan said. "We would not want you to be having any more ‘arrow incidents’ and not have any rotgut on hand to cure it."

"No, we certainly wouldn’t!" said Merisuwyniel.

"We’re out of rotgut??!!" cried Earnur alarmed. "But what about that portable still that you have been carrying around?!"

"It was smashed in our last battle," sighed Kuruharan sadly, bowing his head and putting his hand over his heart.

Earnur suppressed a sob, hung his head, and placed his hand over his heart also.

Merisuwyniel, not entirely aware of the magnitude of this disaster, glanced nervously from one to the other. Then, when Kuruharan signaled to her that she should pay her respects, she hung her head as well.

They remained like this for a long moment. The whole time Earnur was manfully restraining his emotions as only the manliest of manly men can do.

Merisuwyniel was wondering, "Why in the world can’t I have a normal Quest like everybody else?!"

Kuruharan was wondering if he could take advantage of this tragedy to extort some parting gifts from his companions.

"Well, anyway, I must be off!" he abruptly announced.

"Will Chrysophylax be accompanying you as well," asked Merisuwyniel uneasily.

"Yes," said Kuruharan. "I fear that he is the only one who knows how to find the right species of snakes."

Earnur continued to struggle with his feminine side.

"Are you sure that you can’t come to Minus Teeth with us?" asked Merisuwyniel. "I’m sure that they have many fine purveyors of snake-oil there."

"Sub-standard merchandise," said Kuruharan importantly. "The stuff that I’ll bring back will make their heads spin, and cure their baldness!"

With that came yet another parting among the Gallowship. Kuruharan and Chrysophylax bid farewell to their companions.

"I shall return!" cried Kuruharan to the assembled survivors. "Look for me when you don’t expect me."

"Thank you so much for that delicious meal…uuhhh…I mean for your delightful poetry," stammered Chrysophylax to Vogonwë.

"What?" said a confused Vogonwë.

"Bad luck about not finding your wallet," said Kuruharan to Orogarn Two. "It seems like it should have been in that musty, crusty castle."

"I know," groaned Orogarn Two. "By the way, when you get back make sure that you bring the deed to that piece of real estate that you were telling me about."

"You can be sure that I’ll not forget that!" said a smiling Kuruharan.

With that Chrysophylax settled down and the Gallowship loaded him down with baggage.

"Well, that’s it," said Kuruharan as he climbed up to his seat next to Ralph. "Good-bye, be good! Don’t stray off the main storyline! If you do it is a thousand to one that you will ever get out of the entangling sub-plots!"

Chrysophylax prepared to fly.

"Are you sure that you don’t have a small something about you to drink; for old times sake?" asked Earnur petulantly.

"Quite sure!" cried Kuruharan. "Ralph wishes you all the best!"

Chrysophylax rose aloft and started flying away.

Before they had passed quite out of hearing Kuruharan turned and put his hands to his mouth and called to them. They heard his voice come faintly: "Good-bye! Be good, take care of yourselves-and DON’T ABANDON THE PLOT!!!"

"BRING BACK SOMETHING TO EAT!!!" screamed Pimpi. "I’M STARVING!!"

Then Chrysophylax and Kuruharan flew away and were soon lost to sight. But Earnur was uplifted at their parting by the dwarf’s promise to bring back more booze, and was thus confident that somehow, some way their paths would cross again.

Kuruharan could always be trusted to show up when there was a potential sale to be made.

[ April 06, 2003: Message edited by: Kuruharan ]

[Child of the 7th Age]

Pettygast found that he could not stand the loud sobs and groans emitting from the mouths of several of his companions, to say nothing of the sappy poetry and the accompanying background muzak. He pulled himself apart from the group and gazed out into the shadows. With trembling steps, the tall and stooping figure made his way forward to speak with the golden-tressed Merisuwyniel.

"My dearest Lady. I fear the time has come to say goodbye. For my own steps take me far distant from the path to Minus Teeth."

Pettygast looked out to the distant horizon and stared transfixedly towards the west, waiting upon a sign. Actually, he was hoping that someone would recite a poem on his own behalf and play some of that sappy Muzak to make his exit more memorable. But, alas, it was not to be.

He turned about and stared solemnly at the Elf. "I leave now dearest lady." With these brief words, he scooped up his bag of garage sale bargains, which made a great clattering noise, and cradled his staff of living wood close to his bosom.

"But, master wizard, where do you go?

"To a distant shore which can only be reached by the misty way....."

Merisuwynil looked up abruptly, and brought two fingers to her mouth, producing a very shrill whistle that was intended to command the attention of all those who were still alive and who hadn't yet left for other shores. "Hey, everybody, get over here. Pettygast is taking the Good Ship Lollipop and going to the place beyond the great rift and the bent seas which no one can get to but where everyone wants to go.

Several of the company leaned over to wish him luck. There were cries of "You don't say, old chap" and "Have fun!" Oragorn II inquired if Pettygast could look into some real estate deeds for him.

But, above the hubub and the din, Pettygast's irritated voice rang out, "Now, just a minute. I never said that, about going to that place in the West. That's not what I meant at all."

Merisuwyniel fixed a puzzled eye on the bedraggled wizard and demanded, "Then, what in tarnation did you mean?"

"Ah, the West is such a boring place. There's nothing of interest going on there. No, I go to another distant land over the bent way, one far more deadly, the land of Cam-e-oo."

"Cam-e-oo?:" The Elf looked alarmed. "But that is a place of great danger."

Pettygast moaned, "Tell me about it! For that way is perilous indeed. It is for those who are weak of heart and drop into the middle of a quest without truly understanding what's gone on before, and then quietly slip out with some sort of highfalutin excuse. And at the very end, they may be called back again, much to their chagrin and consternation."

"Must you go back to this land of Cam-e-oo?"

"That I must sweet Merisu, for it is a most fleet and fitting end." And he kissed her gently on the hand.

Then everyone waved goodbye to Pettygast as he stumbled out the door. But though the wizard strained his ears to hear the distant notes of muzak, no such consoling sound could be heard.

[ April 10, 2003: Message edited by: Child of the 7th Age ]

[Diamond18]

“Wizards are so conceited,” Pimpi remarked, twirling a reddish-golden curl around her finger. “I’m starving, Vogonwë, got anything to eat?”

“But we just had monster residue,” Vogonwë replied.

“Not enough nutrients,” Pimpi shook her head languidly, because of course her hunger was sapping her strength and setting her on the road to complete and utter emaciation by nightfall.

“I don’t have anything, sorry,” Vogonwë shrugged. “Are you sure you don’t have any crumbs of any size or shape left?”

“No, and the high drama of this situation is enough to bore a slug to death,” Pimpi said, realizing that she had to think fast. “Oh! Duh!” she cried suddenly, “I’d almost forgotten! Well, I had forgotten, but saying ‘almost’ makes it sound less idiotic, so—”

“For Emu’s sake, Pimpi, what have you remembered that you forgot?” Vogonwë sped the situation along nicely.

Pimpi pulled a small box out of her frock pocket and held it up. “Magic beans!” she proclaimed. “Saladriel, in her not-queenly graciousness, gifted these to me when we left Topflorien! They were supposed to sustain me when all other salts had petered out, but all this time I’ve been conveniently forgetting that I had them!”

“Wow. Sheesh, and everyone thinks I’m stupid!” Vogonwë said, happily clutching at a proverbial string of superiority.

Pimpi opened the box and popped a bean into her dainty mouth. She chewed and swallowed, and found that her stomach felt full after just one kernel. “These things are amazing,” she commented.

Then suddenly, she felt an odd tingle run up and down her spine, throughout her limbs and her digits and down to the very ends of her hair. It would have been a hair curling experience had her hair not already been curly. Then, before Vogonwë’s amazed eyes, she began to grow taller. She sprouted all the way from a cute 5 feet to a tall, slender 6 feet. This was, conveniently, Vogonwë’s height, and so she could now look him in the eye.

“Ai!” Vogonwë cried, a bit nonplussed by this rather stretchy transformation.

“I feel dizzy,” Pimpi said, “and now my skirt, which was modest and practical before, is shockingly short, ending around my knees!”

“But, but I liked you just the way you were! Short and cute!” Vogonwë said. “Everyone likes short and cute! It was your gimmick! Short, cute, and hungry! Now you look like any old woman or Elf maiden, in too small a dress! I can’t handle change!”

“That’s obvious.”

Now, gentle reader, there is a call for the tacky and trite use of the patient narrator, who must step in and explain something or other. Pimpi was indeed taller, due to the magic bean which she had eaten. You may, gentle reader, be shocked and sickened by this change in a beloved character. And you may, gentle reader, wonder at the motivations behind such a change. You may, gentle reader, become cynical (though gentle) and say that there is no room in Wollyhood for the short and cute, and that obviously female characters must become tall and slender at the end of the story, for there to be a happy ending. And you may, gentle reader, think that the change was made to accommodate Vogonwë. Nay, gentle reader, Vogonwë is having a nervous breakdown as I narrate, due to his inability to accept change. At this time, gentle reader, Pimpi’s newfound height is very daunting to him. He will recover, gentle reader, but that is immaterial. The change was made, gentle reader, because I was bored.

You may, gentle reader, now become violent and scream, “If you say gentle reader one more time I’ll beat up your characters in my next post, gosh darn it!”

Moving on. Pimpi discovered that growing a foot taller was good exercise, and had made her hungry again. She was inclined to eat another bean, but Vogonwë saw what she was at, and snatched the box away. “No more beans!” he said.

“But—”

Vogonwë tossed the box over his shoulder, and it went sailing through the air till it landed in the vicinity of a not-forgotten sack, spilling its beans all over the place.

“Now I’m going to starve to death!” Pimpi sobbed, “and my stockings are torn! And, and my sleeves are too short, I’ll freeze to death! I’m not happy!” She stomped her foot.

Merisuwyniel came rushing forward. The rest of the remaining clap-on clap-off Itship remained in the off position until there should be something interesting for them to say.

“Don’t fret, Pimpiowyn. If you come to Minus Teeth, they will provide you with new clothes, and perhaps the healers can help with those inevitable stretch marks.”

“And they’ll feed us?”

“Yes.”

“Let’s go.”

“Wait a minute,” Vogonwë said. “I was hoping that after the quest was over, we could go to Chippendale to get in touch with my manly side.”

“Technically, if it was your mother who was human, wouldn’t that be getting in touch with your feminine side?” Orogarn Two spoke up, because he didn’t have enough lines. He was ignored.

“We? I don’t want to go to Chippendale,” Pimpiowyn objected. “I want to go home, to the Home Grown Cows, or maybe to the Shire, to get in touch with my mother’s kind.”

“Ha! Ha ha! You’ll scare them all into their holes with your towering height,” Vogonwë laughed.

Pimpi burst into showy tears. “You think I’m big and fat!” she sobbed.

“No, no, no! You’re tall and slender, as has already been mentioned!” Vogonwë rushed to save face.

“These exclamation marks are beginning to tire me,” muttered Etceteron.

Merisuwyniel sought to calm her demented friends. “Shhh, shhh, Pimpi, no one says that your growth sprout is unbecoming. We’ll find a dress in Minus Teeth that will make you look stunning.”

You may, gentle reader, cry, “Aha! I knew that was the cheap motivation!”

“I’ll bet they have stunning dresses in Chippendale,” Vogonwë said. “Red ones.”

“I wanna go to Minus Teeth with Merisu!” Pimpi wailed in a decidedly childish fashion.

Vogonwë fluctuated for a moment, then said, “All right, all right! We’ll go to Minus Teeth, though I am suspicious of their dentists.”

Pimpi immediately stopped crying. She removed her hands from her face and smiled brightly. “I knew you’d do this for me,” she said, giving Vogonwë a hug.

Then she turned to Merisuwyniel. “We will accompany you to Minus Teeth, and I for one desire to help you in all your future questing endeavors. I want to repay the heartache I have caused you, by being your handmaiden in shieldmadening.”

Merisuwyniel was touched by this declaration of solidarity (an overused word if ever there was one, gentle reader) and she took Pimpi’s hands in hers. "Technically, I gave up sheildmaidening for healing, but who really believes that anyway? I foresee that many adventures yet await us, and it gladdens my heart that through it all, you will be something like a faithful sidekick to me, Kemosabe.”

“Holy Burlesque Spoofery, Elf-maid,” Pimpi exclaimed, “that sounds like fun! All I’ll need is a steed of my own, a cool weapon to wield (along with Hush, a cool lethal accessory if ever there was one, gentle heroine) and I’m on my way to being a true Mary Sue!”

“This is disconcerting,” Vogonwë mused.

“Why do I feel left out?” Orogarn Two worried.

“Female empowerment, my friends,” Earnur explained. “They’re having what one would call a chic powwow, and once we get to Minus Teeth I’m sure they’ll dump us and go watch a chic flick.”

“You’re heroic language isn’t what it used to be,” Vogonwë observed.

“It’s getting late in the narrative, gentle half-elf,” Earner excused himself.

“Oh no,” Vogonwë suddenly slapped his head. “It is late! I’ve been so busy questing that I’ve neglected to write the last five fits of my epic poem! Whatever shall we do without such poetical bulletins as Getting to Gol Dulldor; Crebain, Uruks, and Sourone, Oh My!; Romeorx & Merisuette; Fear and Cheap Horror in Minus Moreghoul; and Duel of the Dunces?”

No one answered his question, gentle reader, because they had all lost interest, and were talking amongst themselves about doubtlessly far more interesting things.

“Oh well,” Vogonwë said to himself (as usual) and sat down, musing, “How am I going to get to Minus Teeth, anyway? I don’t have a horse.”

[The Barrow-Wight]

Orogarn Two wept openly at the touching sight of Merisuwyniel at the grave of her mother. His mother was also dead, buried in the the Wight City deep in the sacred ground of the Hollowed Tooth, and the memory of her washed over him. He stood for many moments, immersed in the grief he shared with the Elven maiden, and then turned away to face a decision.

Long had he been away from Minus Teeth, and almost as long had he trudged along silently with the steadfast itship, only occasionally aiding his companions in time of dire need or utter boredom. He had joined the group in answer to a dream, and through the hard road from the Hidden Valley Ranch to Minus Morghoul, he had gotten no closer to answering the riddle. Not only had he not had the chance to even one rehearse for his big haired 80s band, but his wallet was still missing. Danged ents!

He absently wiped the grisly remnants of Gravlox from his hands and look to the west where he could just make out the peak of Mandolin, whose snowy slopes overshadowed his beloved city.

“I, too, will go to Minus Teeth,” he declared. “I would show you her wondrous streets and towering ivory spires. We will climb the Great Bridge to the Citibank and from there you will witness the glory of Grundor.”

His fellow travelers smiled at the thought of a guided tour of the Wight City, which was very likely to be in much better repair than Park Galen.

“And there, in the deep libraries, I will research until I discover which light-fingered tree-man pilfered my moneybag!”

[The Squatter of Amon Rûdh]

Far to the North, in the wide grasslands for which Men have no name, or at least not one that they have remembered to jot down for the rest of us, roam great herds of wild horses. To these freebooting equine anarchists the very name of 'Mansbane' is an honour, although not many people come by to award it since the blonde fellow had his head stove in.

We run now, via the suspension of your disbelief (we can suspend it for you, but you don't want that), in the company of one such group as it moves to pastures new. The leadership of the herdlet has recently changed, and at its head run two figures who may be familiar to some, for they were later writ large in the legends of the plains (how and in what language or letters is a mystery even to me: people who ask awkward questions come to bad ends). Side-by-side run the great black stallion with flowing mane and sarcastic mien, and the lissom and noble mare, and all others keep a respectful distance from them as they take it in turns to read the map, for a mating pair that can decide on a route together and follow it successfully is a rare thing indeed.

At this stage the pace of the herd is easy, since recently they have been visited by horse-dealers, who have attempted to take some of them back to the Wight City for sale, and some of the horses are still trying to remove pieces of skull from their hooves: their new leaders are not friends to the race of Men, the name for whom in the complicated semaphore of their kind is the same as that for "wearisome irrelevance". In this language, as opaque to humans as the workings of domestic appliances, they speak fondly to one another, exchanging whinnies of endearment.

As they sweep by, we may notice that the map they bear is of unusually fine quality, writ in red and black and in a Dwarvish hand. Those with eyes of unrealistic sharpness might also discern that it bears a message for the reader: "In this style 10/-6d. Haggles to be directed to C. Dives". The horses move on at a speed beyond narration and into a golden sunset.

[ April 17, 2003: Message edited by: The Squatter of Amon Rûdh ]

[Birdland]

“How am I going to get to Minus Teeth, anyway? I don’t have a horse.”
And yo! as soon as this prophetic cue was uttered by the nimble verster Vogonwë, there appeared, as from an author who suffers writer's block, the shadow of massive wings.

"Hey! An Eagle!" cried Merisuwyniel

And the Itship took up the cry:

"Well, would you look at that: an Eagle"

That's one big Eagle."

"I've seen bigger Eagles."

"Yes, but not this far south."

"What is he carrying?"

And with a shriek embarrassingly high for such a massive bird, Haywire the Windlorn hovered over the heads of the astonished survivors and unceremoniously dumped two squirming equine forms at their feet.

"Tofu and Falafel!" squealed Pimpi, whose own voice no longer seemed to match her new size, being higher than woman's wont.

"That's it for me!" declared Haywire. "I'm not carrying anyone else. I have a life, you know." And without further word, the fed-up raptor leapt on high in a flurry of bulky down, circled to get his bearings, and soared off in the wrong direction.

Tofu dropped like a stone onto Middle-terra firma and immediately lost his lunch. Falafel just stood there with a sheepish grin.

"Well, I'm back", she said.

[Mithadan]

[Slow zoom out from the dragon and the Dwarf flying off into the sunset (warn mailroom to expect bags of mail complaining the shot is not faithful to canon) and fade to black]

[Roll credits]

[Cue closing music -- "Kuruharan's Theme"]

Covered wagon, medicine show.
Take you to the place where the healing flows.
Weak in spirit we got the juice,
Won't save your soul, it`ll shine your shoes.
Treated king to kangaroo,
Santa Fe to Timbuktu.
Don`t be fooled by imitation,
This is the stuff that cured a nation.
We took the tube and the high plains too,
Never stopped long just passing through.
A drop of the laughter of the maids of France
Makes a hopeless cripple dance

It was really vile weather,
When we got to tarred and feathered.
You could hear the six guns sound,
As they chased us out of town.

In India we`re all the rave.
Discovered that its great as aftershave.
Dropped in the sea just off Japan,
Swapped 20 bottles for an aqua-walkman.
Immunity from ridicule,
Improves your brains if you`re a fool.
And I read in the Middle East
They traded some for a hostage release.
Now if you`re bald it`ll give you hair,
If you got straight trousers it`ll give you flares.
Feeling up, you`ll get depressed.
Out of style? Here`s a brand new dress

It was really vile weather,
When we got to tarred and feathered.
You could hear the six guns sound,
As they chased us out of town.

The stuff we sell is just the best,
Passing all consumer tests.
Days of heaven, nights of sin,
Voodoo stick and sharks fin.
When all around you seems like hell,
Just one sip will make you well.
Multipurpose in a jar,
If you ain`t ill it`ll fix your car.
In days of yore for all bad feelings,
Washing socks and stripping ceilings.
Nowadays its used medicinally
For all known human malady.

It was really vile weather,
When we got to tarred and feathered.
You could hear the six guns sound,
As they chased us out of town.

Guaranteed don`t you know?
Money back?
You`ll get a no!
It`s the one and only medicine show.

(Big Audio Dynamite, Jones/Lett, 1985)

[Mithadan]

Under the spotlights in Los Angeles, what is real and what is illusory often mix and blur into one another. The result is sometimes art and sometimes pap, but most often falls somewhere in between. But perhaps the most unfortunate aspect of the cinema industry and its market is the tendency of the public to rely upon the judgments of others in discerning art from pap. These others, a most evil and corrupted group, by and large, spend their time deconstructing the work of others rather than themselves engaging in subcreation. Such is the case here.

-------------------------------

"and 3, 2, 1..."

A red light glows atop a camera and two persons straighten in their chairs. One speaks.

"Good evening. Welcome to "Ebert and Roeper and the Movies [undoubtedly a trademarked moniker, the use of which is here in the form of parody] and tonight we have the most unfortunate duty to review a film which should never have been made..."

"Right, Ebert. Tonight we review the first offering of Estelyn Telcontar to the world of the big screen. While Estelyn is undoubtedly talented, 'Entish Bow' is a film which should never have seen the light of day."

"The word 'sophomoric' leaps to mind, followed quickly by the word 'tortured'. This assay into the realm of comedy is simply not...comedy that is. One need go no farther than the subject matter to determine the inanity of this film. Entish Bow focuses upon an animate tree, cut to pieces, whose parts seek to find one another. If that were not enough..."

A peal of thunder splits the air of the soundstage and a cloud forms above the heads of Ebert and Roeper who cower in their chairs. The cloud glows gold and red and is lit by a bright fire within. From within this nebulous veil comes a deep voice, speaking in tones which shake the firmament.

"Yea, verily! It is well and truthfully said that, 'For this precise reason—that the characters, and even the scenes, are in Drama not imagined but actually beheld—Drama is, even though it uses a similar material (words, verse, plot), an art fundamentally different from narrative art. Thus, if you prefer Drama to Literature (as many
literary critics plainly do), or form your critical theories primarily from dramatic critics, or even from Drama, you are apt to misunderstand pure story-making, and to constrain it to the limitations of stage-plays. You are, for instance, likely to
prefer characters, even the basest and dullest, to things. Very little about trees as trees can be got into a play.' Thou art warned! So sayeth Mantoes!"

The cloud departed with a crash of thunder. The two men straightened again in their chairs and faced the camera.

"Right! A brilliant offering from this freshman tale-weaver, not to be missed! Two thumbs up!"

[ April 18, 2003: Message edited by: Mithadan ]

[Estelyn Telcontar]

Thus endeth Part the First of the Tale of the Revenge of the Entish Bow. Indeed, the Bow hath had its revenge, for She who was responsible for its sundering has perished. And Pimpiowyn has had her revenge, for he who hath cruelly slain her parents has perished as well.

And yet, the Ent That Was Broken is not yet reunited with all of its parts. A sequel seemeth very necessary to bring the tale to a conclusion. Stay tuned for... the Reunification of the Entish Bow!