[mark12_30]

ooc: ...respond as neccessasry to Daisy & Anee; and... /ooc

That day, Phura began at breakfast to assign rotating teams of hobbits to enter the mines and sharpen cheekpeices and visors. He rotated the members every night, to include experience and avoid having the same group of people missing.

He also, in a low, rhythmic voice, chanted a grim new song that no-one had ever heard before; no one, that is, except those that had been at the meeting, and heard Piosenniel give her instructions on lethal blows. Phura chanted the instructions three times to each group he sat with. Most hobbits paled, hearing it, and some shuddered and turned their heads; but they learned it, one and all, chanting it in the dark, in the mines, as they sharpened cheekpeices and visors, or played dagger-leapfrog under Gamba's tutelage.

The older hobbits commented how strange it was to hear Phura's sweet voice singing such dire things. The younger adults adapted perhaps too quickly, and by the end of the day, Phura had to warn them to maintain a cheerful attitude, and not a grim one. It made sense, and they started cracking jokes again.

To his horror, after lunch, he found a very young hobbit cheerfully chanting the lethal-blow song; luckily, it was in the midst of a hubbub and he did not think any guards had heard. But then he had to circulate through the ranks again, stating the obvious, forbidding that the new song be sung near any children. By then he realised he had to create a command structure, and by late that evening, one was in place. Things progressed more smoothly for him after that.

[ October 14, 2002: Message edited by: mark12_30 ]