The Hills of Evendim RPG

[Imladris]

Lira nodded and crept up the stairs that led from the dungeon. Her knife was drawn, Falco padded in front of her, and Finëwen glided behind her. The dungeon itself was like a large cellar, Lira noticed. The walls were firm dirt, the floor was grey stone. A straggling, dying root here and there bulged from the wall.

The stairs were dimly lit by flickering torches. Not a cobweb clung to the corners; clouds of dust did not appear when their feet fell upon the stairs. It was relatively neat, compared to the torture chambers they had found and the grave yard of bones. But why? Was it because the master's presence was so close? Did he, or she -- Lira shuddered at the thought of the vampire -- make sure his domains were neat? Lira chuckled. How men grew lax when authority was afar.

The stairs led to a smallish hut. Herbs and meats hung from the wood panelled ceiling. A fire was dying in a small fireplace. Coils of rope were tossed into the corner. A small window was set in each of the four walls. A guard, a large black bottle by his hand, snored from the table. His head was cradled in his burly arms, drool stretched from his lips before splattering onto the table. Lira grimaced and Falco smothered a snort. The guard was exactly like a swine. All he needed was a square snout with huge ovalish nostrils, a bloated stomach, cloven hands -- Lira shook herself. What was she thinking?

Lira and Finëwen took some rope and tied him to the chair. Tearing a large stip of cloth from her dress, she stuffed it into his mouth and secured with a bit of rope tied around his head. She snorted. The man was indeed in a heavy drunken stupour.

Lira peeked out each of the windows at the barren landscape -- not even a weed straggled for life. "There is no one outside," Lira told Falco.

Falco frowned and shrugged. "So much the better for us."

"Maybe they are at the temple," Lira murmured. "There may be a sacrifice and the others might be watching." How gruesome.

"Let's join the others," Falco said.

The two ladies nodded and left the small hut with the dungeon cellar. The temple was soon in sight.

[Esgallhugwen]

Esgallhugwen was instructed to keep lookout whilst Thoronmir talked with Falowik about the order in which they were to enter the temple when everyone had arrived. Her bow was at her side in case any more guards should appear.

She was relieved to see Lira, Finëwen, and Falco come around the bend from the dungeon cellar. She smiled and beckoned them over with a wave of her hand so they would know the coast was clear.

"What news? I see Eodwine is not among you" she whispered.

Eswen did not know what Eodwine looked like but seeing that it was only the three, it was easy to assume he had already been taken by the Master.

"Thoronmir means to tell us his plan once Lumiel, Awyrgan and Furman arrive, until then we must hope to avoid detection" she motioned them to follow her up to the archway.

Kildirak

The wolf jumped up at them teeth bared, gobs of foaming drool hitting their faces. Kildirak had to act fast in order to save the Hobbits from the hungry jaws. He looped the leather whip into a lasso and tossed it at the wolf's head.

His skill at roping animals paid off. The rope looped around the its head and with a swift practised motion Kildirak tugged on the rope, it tightened around the beast's neck.

Kildirak's grip tightened as he pulled back making the whip taught. Luckily just in time before poor Gorby's face was nearly gnashed off.

[littlemanpoet]

He was in an evil dream, and wondered if he would ever wake up. It had started pleasantly enough, among quaint hobbits and northmen, then a foray into the hills in search of signs of missing men for a report back to King Eomer. But it had led to capture, witnessed by a wanderer that his captors had never seen. So he had hoped, when he still had hope. They had tried to break his spirit by showing him their machines of torture in the ruins, but they had not been able to. Then had come days and days of being herded along with scores of other men, out into fields to work a slave holder's lands, then long nights with at first a growling stomach. The growling had been replaced by a stretched and empty feeling, then numbness, the last stage before starvation. He had been fed as little as possible to keep ghost and flesh together. He grew desperate and saw a chance to escape while his limbs could still carry him, and took it; but one of them had seen and caught him before he was over the first hill. He remembered their words then: this one has a strong will, the kind the Master likes to drink; send him north. They had tied him down in a wagon and he had spent two bumped and jostled days before reaching the fortress, where there was no chance of escape. Surely the wanderer had forgotten about him, or done nothing in the first place. The Master's henchmen had fed and watered him well, for they had needed him fatted for the Master; so it was with all the prisoners who came to the fortress. He had watched those who had arrived before him, taken one at a time, their screams, ravaged with horror and loss, raising the hair on the nape of his neck. Something worse than death awaited him. Finally, the last prisoner before him was taken, and despair had set in. Now it was his turn, on a wild and stormy night, the kind the Master liked best.

They had brought him into the temple and lain him on the altar, and left him alone, naked but for a loin cloth. The entirety was wrought in black marble, shining luridly in the lightning flashes that could be seen through the hands' width thick glass of the tall windows just below the domed ceiling. The altar, round as the rim of a goblet, was in the center of the temple. At the circumference of the altar was a gutter, and there was an aperture of some kind near his right hand. He had heard the talk from the guards. They spared no detail of the horror, so he knew what was coming. The Master would cut the arteries of both wrists and ankles, and would keep the wounds open with water as needed, until he was bled dry. His blood would flow into the gutters and the Master would open the aperture; his blood would flow into a vat down below. But the Master would have a goblet handy, and the last thing Eodwine would remember, in his bodily life, would be the agony of his chest cut open, his heart removed, its contents poured into the goblet, and drunk by the Master.

But that was only the beginning.

The Master wielded power over the dead, the ghosts of his victims; and he had control over evil spirits that were all the guard he required in his temple. He himself was safe from them as long as he had drunk blood within the last twenty-four hours. It was his power now, for both his necromancy and his continued life. And Eodwine would become his slave, tied by the continuation of his blood in the vat, to the Master's will. So it was told to him by the guards, who said that they had it so from the Master himself. He believed them, for he imagined that the Master's weapons were not least, fear and terror in the hearts of his victims.

Eodwine acknowledged to himself, that he feared greatly. His heart beat as if he was sprinting. Lightning flashed. Rain poured. Thunder rolled. A shadowy figure entered the chamber through a portal Eodwine had not seen before. The Master.

[Meneltarmacil]

Awyrgan, Lumiel, and Furman had returned and told Thoronmir that Eodwine was nowhere to be seen. Thoronmir considered this, and then made up his mind.

"We can't wait any longer. Eodwine is definitely in the temple, which means the longer we wait, the less likely it is that Eodwine will survive. We'll have to go in. Falowik, Eswen, Lira, and Falco, you'll take this rope (he gave Lira the rope and grappling hook) and climb to the roof. Take the rope with you, then proceed to the side of the temple farthest from the door. After my group breaks through the door, count to five and then smash a hole in the wooden roof with your weapons and lower yourself in. Eodwine should probably be close to your location. If there are too many guards, use your bows and attack from above. Awyrgan, Finewen, Lumiel, and Furman, you'll be with me and create a distraction at the front door. Be cautious, as the Master will likely have traps set. Have you got all that?"

Everybody nodded.

"Alright, let's GO!" he said. He handed Furman a scimitar he had taken from a dead guard. "Use it well, but don't double cross us. I'm warning you." he cautioned him.

As they came up to the temple door, he whispered to Awyrgan so that nobody else could hear. "Take this. If Furman turns against us, shoot him before he tells the guards of the plan." He handed the other Ranger his bow and quiver of arrows, and Awyrgan nodded.

"GO!" Thoronmir shouted, and kicked the door open. The sight that greeted him was definitely NOT welcoming...

[Imladris]

Lira swung the rope and watched the gleaming grappling hoock skitter across the roof and latch onto a lip of wood. She hoped that if anyone had heard the rope the guards, or the Master himself, would pass it off as hungry rats scaveging for a stray crumb.

Noiselessly and swiftly, she climbed up the rope and crawled to the wooden roof. Splinters speared her palm and she swore silently. As she waited for the others to climb up after her, she tried to dig them out, but failed for they were buried deeply, and her nails were jagged and stubby.

She ceased her efforts when the rest had climbed the rope and, drawing her blade, she gripped the dagger between her teeth and began to crawl across the roof of the temple. She passed silently over the planks of wood, hoping that the others would do likewise. The grappling hook would be enough to alert their enemies...she hoped ony that they had been too concerned with their own sacrifice to notice a few scratchings upon the roof.

She slowed as she neared the farther edge of the temple and put her ear to the wooden plank. There was silence, save for a soft whisper of metal against metal. She could hear no groaning, pitiful whimperings, or pleas for mercy. She closed her eyes, and murmured a prayer for Eodwine. Then she crouched, dagger held ready in her hand, as she waited for Thoronmir's people to smash through the doors.

Under her hands, the roof began to shiver and tremble, as if some force bade them do so. Lira frowned and hissed, "Back away, back away!" She pushed Falco across the roof, and gestured Esgallhugwen back. Falowick, she gathered, was somewhere behind her, out of sight.

As she began to retreat the wood splintered beneath her, crumbling under her weight. She fell through the roof, struggling to grasp the jagged edges of the cavernous hole. As she fell, she vaguely saw the dim form of an alter, and a man bound to it, naked save for a loin cloth.

Guards filled the room and Lira knew that they had been waiting for them. As she plummeted to the stone floor, a sharp crack resounded in the temple: the sound of her broken neck.

[Esgallhugwen]

Esgallhugwen swiftly climbed to rope, the last of them to go up. They awaited for Thoronmir to break though the entrance but that chance did not come before the worst befell them.

The roof which consisted of wooden planks began to quake under their feet, Lira had urged the others back but before she could save herself the roof gave way, and she fell. Esgallugwen rushed to hole and a sound echoed up to them, it took everything in Eswen's body not to scream out in pain and anguish at the twisted form sprawled out on the tile.

But also when that sound came something snapped inside of the dark haired Elf, something more violent and terrible than before. Her clear grey eyes narrowed and seemed to glow with wrath and power.

Her body trembled and the air about her grew cold and still. Esgallhugwen picked up her bow and adjusted her quiver on her back.

The guards came then swarming over Lira like some insectile vermin. With a swift fluid motion that could only come from the Elves, Esgallhugwen began to rifle arrow after arrow at the enemy.

The Dark Queen in her smiled maniacally when she downed more then five men with arrows protruding from their eye. Falowik a little uneasy at the abrupt change in one of his comrades gathered courage and took down a fair share of the guards himself.

It was then that Esgallhugwen heard the front door being smashed in, good they made it in, she turned quickly to Falowik and Falco, tying the bow to her back.

"I'm going in, I ask you to cover me until I've cleared the way then you can enter the temple, use the rope to get down Master Falco it would be a perilous fall for you" the depth in her sweet Elvish voice was laced with anger and sadness.

The fall was steep, but when she glanced throught the hole she noticed a pillar with a huge lantern hanging horizontally from a bronze bar. It would be the perfect way for her to get down safetly enough.

With a shift of her feet she was down the hole and reaching across for the bronze bar, her long thin fingers glanced off the bar and latched on to the lanterns chain ahead. The force with which she came down pulled the lantern at an awkward angle spilling the hot embers, one grazed her cheek but did not burn her bad enough to promote a scar.

The Dark Queen landed on the black marble silently with a bend of her knees, but the gaurds had seen her descent. One came up to her right as she drew her sword, the impact of the pommel hitting his mouth shattered all of his front teeth, he screamed as blood splattered over the glistening tile.

The Dark Queen has risen.

[Imladris]

Lira opened her eyes and rose from the floor. Looking behind her she, she saw a shell of skin, a corpse with the neck at an odd angle. Her corpse. That she was dead did not matter to Lira, for she was fëa now. Before the thought had sunk into her, she became aware of dark presence in the room. Black arrogance mingled with scorn assaulted her and, turning, she saw a dread being stand between two of the black pillars, bound to them by strands not of bodily making, as if the very essence of the spirit had been used to hold it as a slave there, at the beck and call of the Master. It was not a balrog, but some other spawn of evil .

Lifting her hands, Lira cried, "You will not harm me nor my friends!"

The spirit laughed. Cold and harsh it was upon her ears, like sharpened blades upon her skin, wounding her, weakening her. "What can you do to me?" the spirit asked. "I am under the power of the Master!"

The Master ...suddenly, Lira realized who he was, and wondered why she had not known it before. The Master was the Lieutenant of Sauron, the Dark Numenorean who had forgotten his own name and entity in his vile service: The Mouth of Sauron. Lira's heart quailed and she wavered.

She could feel the spirit envelope her, gnawing at her as the ocean gnaws at the rocks, grinding them to dust. She fought against and cried, "He will be defeated again! The dark cannot stand against the light!"

The Spirit laughed again, mocking her, like poison in a wound. "You cannot defeat him!"

Yes, he could not be defeated...he was a new Dark Lord, the bearer of Sauron's name. He was destroy the Shire, a vengeance for the destruction of his lord, and from there spill the blood of Arda's inhabitants upon the land, making it a wasteland fit for a dark lord. Not man nor elf could stand in his way.. As she saw the destruction in her minds eye, and remembering all that she had learned, she drew herself up and, clinging to a single thought, cried, "He will be defeated as he was defeated upon the Morannon before the Black Gate by Mithrandir the White!"

The Spirit almost snorted in disgust and said, "But he was not truly defeated was he? He has now come back, stronger than before. Before this day is out, he will drink your blood as well as the blood of your companions. He cannot be defeated." He gestured toward the alter.

Her last hope dashed, Lira felt a tidal wave of fear, mingled with hopelessness, drown her. She struggled with it, grappled with it, but it became stronger -- a leering monster. Stretching out her arms in supplication and defiance, she cried, " Aiya Eärendil Elenion Ancalima! O Elbereth! Gilthoniel!"