[CaptainofDespair]

Only a dark mind as the Elf had could contrive such a malicious, and calculatingly sinister plan as he had. Wandering aside the slick, inescapable walls of the passage, he went unnoticed, as he had hoped. To an eye untrained in the ways of the Elves, one would have thought he was brooding over how to die, but this was not so. Deep within the cold crags of his mind, the Immortal conceived the final strands of his plan. But he was not alone to his thoughts, for those that were now dead spoke to him. They whispered faults of the past, those they had committed in their defense, and those they had seen fail. Yet, mere words were not enough for he who is ageless, and the ghosts that now haunted his mind began to project visions, visions of death, into his eyes. He saw not the omens of a death soon to come, but that of a most magnificent way of escape. The Elf smiled, his face contorted to a wry, evil smile. He snickered in the darkness, and he secretly laughed at his plan, as it began to unfold in his mind.

Soon, he began to murmur his dark, insidious plans to himself, but they were not so audible that any who stumbled upon him would here his near silent words that fell from his lips as if a spring had arisen upon his lips. “She will meet her end by her own devices,” the Elf muttered as he strolled along the walls which now appeared as if they had some ancient gloss painted upon them. But now, there came a reply to his rambling. “Yes, she shall, and we will be the guide.” Morgoroth was confounded, for now those that had spoken to him from their graves within the Tunnel, now responded to his plan. “She is intelligent, but she has one weakness she cannot hide, her Pride,” The voices began to hiss as they muttered this to the Elf. “Her pride will be her fall, it will,” muttered one voice. And soon another spoke up, uttering its dire words in a cold, raspy voice. “Aye, it will, and we will watch, and laugh at her faults and failures. And soon, she shall join us, and no longer be the Mistress of the Tunnel.” Upon these words, the voices began to laugh in unison, a dark, cold laugh, one weathered by time, and amplified by death.

The Elf was now content that the voices he heard were in fact those of the victims of Shelob, and not his own. He began to pace to and fro now, seeking the most perfect of spots of which to initiate his plan. His was distracted now, and he heard not of that around him, save for the vehement hisses and thrashings of Her. He heard her cries in the dark, and he gloated over what was soon to come. He knew the others would attempt to harm her, but success would be minimal, for she would not withdraw for long from any strings they brought to her. Even an the song of the arrow striking an eye would not suffice. And if she retained any weaknesses, she would protect them to her end. Nor did they have weapons strong enough to pierce her hide. She was an unstoppable behemoth, and would crush her enemies one way or another. Or that is what Shelob herself thought. The Elf knew better. For every creature, no matter how strong, has at least one weakness, and for some, it is more deadly than others.

All his plans were now in motion, and for the moment, they coincided with Her plans. He would let her force him to where she wanted them, and he would bait her into falling into his trap, and then, the fate of the Great Spider would be sealed. But he would need bait, and he thought of the perfect tantalizing treat for the spider. But he quickly struck back to his original course, and began to hunt for items he would need. The Elf began to collect the devices of his enemy, the broken strands of webbing that dangled from the ceiling. The webs glittered in the darkness, and seemed to sing, as chimes do in the wind. He took in this song, and it comforted him slightly, for they would soon sing a more beautiful song, The Hymn of Death. After he successfully pulled each of the strands he needed from their secluded position in the rafters of the high ceiling, he began a curious endeavor. He proceeded to weave the strands together, forming crude ropes of the immensely strong and durable web. In only a few brief moments, he had woven several of this web ropes, and soon put himself to the task of fusing them with the shaft of his bolts. But he did not expend all of this material on his feathered shafts. He saved a few for himself, as a precautionary measure, and he stored them out of sight, under neath his cloak, hooking them to his belt in tightly wound loops.

With his primitive, yet effective contraptions in place, and readied for use, he sat himself down upon a large rock, and waited for her coming. Those who were ahead of him, were either fighting Shelob for their lives, in a twisted and demented version of roulette, or they were already dead, and she was preparing them for the trip home, binding them in her webs for transport to a safe feasting area. In either case, she would soon be coming his way. Those behind him had come upon an immense, and seemingly unbreakable web. They were trapped as well, like rats in a maze, with only one way out, through Her. She would get them soon enough, as if it were a mere routine for her. And then there was the Elf, alone in his hide along the wall of the corridor. In the middle of it all he was, between a route blocked by an ensnaring invention of the company’s defeat, and the horrid beast herself. The eyes of Morgoroth soon began to dart between either ways of passage, and he smiled again, for he now knew exactly where Shelob would be most vulnerable. As so he left himself to his thoughts, and he began to converse with the voices, and they laughed together, for Shelob would not escape this plan wholly intact, and the mere thought of it gave them a dark amusement.