Tol-in-Gaurhoth XLIX - At the Source of Darkness

[Macalaure]

A few of our adventurers were granted to dream magical dreams and walk in the Gardens of Lórien, yet one was among them whose dreams were obscure enough to not need any augmentation - and she also never tried to conceal what her visions told her:

I have a dream. A dream where one day... the world becomes kaleidoscopic, like a lemming. Yes... that is my dream. Make of it what you will. It is profound though. Never doubt its profundity.

Fea's dream was disregarded by everybody, and only Gwathagor, the one who had really gotten to know the beauty of Valinor, if only a little part of it, found it necessary to show her visions their due place:

I don't think seers actually make seer-hints. The repetition of the word "dream" may only be incidental, but it might also be a wolf's attempt to gain credibility.

Yet neither he nor Fea herself would have guessed that mightier powers than they were about to take her "Make of it what you will" quite literary...

*~*

The third day of the adventurers travels out of Utumno had gone rather unspectacularly. An accusation here, a suspicion there - it was almost without a warning that Fea suddenly saw things that scared her. Did Durelin's front teeth suddenly grow? Why did Brinniel suddenly look furry? Are those whiskers?

Then madness ensued around her. The entire expedition had transformed not into wolves, but lemmings, and blindly they ran after one another, one train of lemmings shouting Feanor! Feanor! and one Formendacil! Formendacil! Yet some lemmings seemed to be as confused as Fea, standing by motionlessly and not knowing which bandwaggon to follow.

At last it became clear to Fea that the lemmings shouting her name were in the majority - and they were storming towards her! She was too paralysed to utter a word or give resistance, and Durelin and Brinniel grabbed her arms and pinned her to the ground. Then Lommy came and forced Fea's mouth open, while Nogrod brought a small barrel of wizard's gunpowder, and poured its content into his poor victim. After Nogrod attached a fuse to her and lit it, the lemmings fled and waited until Fea exploded with a deafening noise. In quite a violent way, Fea's world had been turned into a kaleidoscope of herself.

The lemmings returned to inspect the outcome of their deed. They looked around the floor, walls, and ceiling of the hallway they were in, but every separated detail of Fea still looked rather regular and ordinary. Only when they stepped back again did they saw the true marvel of their deed. The splinters of her bones, the shreds of her skin, and the pieces of her brain, all coloured in various shades of red, formed a piece of truly outstanding abstract art none of them, save maybe Fea herself, had envisioned before.

*~*

Dead:
Macalaure and Rikae (mods) - killed by wolves and turned into faulty quenya in Night One
Kitanna (ordo) - lynched by a pointless mob on Day One
Lalaith (ordo) - severed from her chalk, and her head, in Night Two
Groin Redbeard (ordo) - died from exhaustion on Day Two
Gwathagor - (seer) turned into a talking corpse on Day Two
Mithalwen - (cobbler) made into a diverse set of items in Night Three
Feanor of the Peredhil - (ordo) visionary whose body was turned into abstract art on Day Three

Alive:
Shastanis Althreduin - loner roane
Formendacil - snowbird
Eönwë - seller of pointless fakes
Nerwen - treasure-seeker
Kath - unemployed bum
Nilpaurion Felagund - aged tale-seeker
Durelin - eccentric, misanthropic archaeologist
Brinniel - junk collector
Nogrod - pointless philosopher
A Little Green - blind astronomer who sells stars at the stock exchange
the phantom - obtainer of rare antiquities
Thinlómien - marine zoologist

Night Four has begun.