ATM II RPG

[Diamond18]

“Aha!” cried Skittles, jumping out from the shadows. “I smell a conspiracy. A connection. An evil alliance, of sorts. Now what business could the two of you have to discuss in a out-of-the-way, shadowy corridor?”

Anakron and Igör gave her blank stares. “What are you on about?” asked the Grand Anarkonist, grandly.

“There are Wereducks afoot. Or should I say, aweb?” Skittles informed them. “And I’m on the lookout for suspicious behavior. Like odd fraternization between parties not given to regular fraternization. What, praytell my pretties, are you discussing in so cloistered an area?”

“Invisibility,” supplied Igör.

“Or, being ignored,” Anakron put in.

Hissyfit sauntered up and sat down next to Skittles, taking a moment to smooth down the hairs on her chest before observing, “They don’t look very ducky to me.”

“Oh?” Skittles raised an eyebrow. “And what exactly do you consider as ‘ducky’?”

“Well, if it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and waddles like a duck, it’s a duck.”

“Igör has been known to waddle.”

Igör wrinkled his forehead in confusion. “I’m sorry, are you talking to me?”

Skittles ignored him, attending to Hissyfit, who replied, “But he doesn’t have any feathers.”

“That doesn’t mean anything during the day.”

“I think,” Anakron said to Igör, “she is speaking to her cat.” Sylvestor, who had been yowling before Skittles rudely interrupted, uttered an impatient bleat to remind everyone that he was still around and he was ready to put the whammy on somebody.

Hissyfit forgot her duck-assessment for a moment and looked at the staff, her tail fuzzing out like a woolly bear caterpillar. “What is that?” she hissed.

Skittles shrugged. “It’s a cat on a stick. You act like you’ve never seen one before.”

[Hookbill the Goomba]

"Did you just see someone?" asked Tollin as they came to the lower floor, "only, I could have sworn I just..." he paused as Smilog was placing furniture against the door to the stairway while Palthwait hammered against it. "It doesn’t matter." They marched away as blares of insults and obscenities rolled out from behind the door. Smilog looked around, trying to work out where they were, but most of Mount Doom was the same, Roggie had not really gone into decorating in a big way.

The Barrow Wight took out a long pipe and began blowing smoke all around as they passed several casinos. Suddenly they heard a great BOOM. "The door!" cried Smilog, "he's got through! Run!" and that is what they did. The sounds of thundering footsteps reverberated around the Mountain.

"You cursed creature!" boomed Palthwait, "I shall catch you and kill you in a thousand different ways! Then I'll do it again! Just for the fun of it!" Smilog dashed into one of the closed rooms and Tollin piled things against the door. Fortunately Palthwait went right past the room, still booming and stomping. The Dwarf breathed a sigh of relief and sat on the floor, surveying his surroundings. It was full of food.

"I say," said the Barrow Wight, "this must be some sort of store room. Jolly good! I could do with a snack!" he stepped forth and stamped accidentally on a large cockroach. This was incredibly fortunate as this cockroach was the physical manifestation of the last remaining Nazgûl who, after nearly spending all his life force on getting a physical form again, planned to destroy the world in a strange and weird way. He'd now have to start all over again.

"I'd like some cake," said Tollin, they all ate their fill and put as much as they could into their packs before leaving the room. Smilog looked left and right to make sure they were not being perused. It was clear. So, they dashed back to where the door had been. There was now only a giant hole in the wall edged with ash smouldering embers and bits of feathers.

"Anakronisms." muttered Smilog, "He must be one of them. I hate them." They plodded up the stairs slowly and wearily, for the food they carried was heavy. At the top, Tollin spotted Igor and Skittles talking, or, as anyone who has been in a conversation with Skittles will tell you, it was more likely that Igor was simply listening.

[Kath]

Used by now to Skittles and her madness Igor thought it best to answer Anakron's earlier question and let Skittles and her cat come to an agreement before they spoke with her again. In any case, whatever Skittles' current state of mind, Anakron was the one talking softly while carrying a big stick, and a stick that could do some very nasty things to you at that.

"I didn't mean to ignore you." He said, hoping his still rolling eye wouldn't be taken as sarcasm. "I was just in a bad mood and wasn't looking where I was going. It wasn't until that knock on the head that I even realised anything was there."

The Grand Anakronist was watching the interplay between Hissyfit and Sylvestor with interest, and Igor wasn't sure if he'd heard him so he continued.

"I was wondering when we were going to find out what was going on after all those noises last night. Alli did pop in for a second to say she'd explain but then she disappeared again before she could."

"What noises?" Anakron asked suddenly, turning to Igor with a confused look.

"What noises? The noises that kept us all up half the night. There were screams and howls and now it seems that everyone thinks it was werewolves."

"Wereducks." Came a voice.

"Sorry, or possibly wereducks." Igor added. "I don't suppose you know anything about all this?"

[Rune Son of Bjarne]

The spy of Mordor entered the through the door. His eyes searched the room, in hope to find Alli. This was indeed where they had parted last he saw her, there had also been a certain Ms. Martinet present, but Frej had not paid much attention to her. Being personal selected by Alli meant that he reported to no one else and he liked it that way. It gave him a certain feeling of importance, what he loved even more was being in the presences of Alli.

He was taken by surprise when he saw Lola, she was quite hard to take ones eyes off to say the least. He normally had no problem being around beautiful woman, but never had he met one where it had been quite so “outspoken”.

Frej forced him self to take his eyes off her and stair directly above her head, it felt like he had stood like that for ages when he finally spoke. “I need to see Alli at once” He had planned on a more formal way of getting his message across, but for some reason his mouth did not obey.

As he waited for her to reply, his thoughts went back to his mission and why it was so important that he found Alli at once. In fact everything Alli had worked so hard to create (or destroy) could fall apart if he did not find her soon. He had been racing on a scooter he confiscated from an orc child all day. This could be regarded as a bad move, his height taken into consideration. . .”The next time I am in a hurry, I will ride and Elk” He thought to him self “yes an Elk that is what I need, although they can be vicious, one of the once bit my sister, Of course that was on a trip to Lebenin, where she while swimming was attacked by the rare “Saltwater-Elk” and there isn’t much saltwater around Mordor. In fact I should make an Elk-farm where my Elk can frolic and play with other Garters. . . . “ The sight of Lola’s garters made Frej snap out of his Elk related thoughts and after a some intense staring his thoughts returned to Alli.

He could not take the silence from Lola anymore, this was to important to be delayed any further. He had to find Alli and it had to be now. He felt the desperation gather inside him and he lost control. Frej grasped the edge of the desk and screamed in an unnaturally high-pitched tone. “By flames of Roggie, don’t you understand what has happened? WE ARE ALL OUT OF TEA !”
He released his hold of the desk and almost collapsed against the nearest wall.

[Anguirel]

Finally recovering his vague sense of direction, Dracomir Apparated to the Lady Spymaster's office. Just because he could.

He found the door half open - someone had obviously just entered - and edged his way in behind them. He then recoiled, clutching his delicate shell-like ears, as a vast blond fellow bellowed something about tea.

Reeling from the effects of noise pollution, Tom threw out an arm to steady himself, and picked himself up against the desk. He then found that he was looking straight at Lola...who was apparently being winsome to the blond yodeller.

Dracomir coughed, swallowed, assumed a look of immense haughtiness and and regarded the pair icily.

"Nice to see things being carried on so professionally," he remarked. "Where's Ms Martinet? Or better still, Alli? Alli and I need to talk about...important matters on which the fate of Mordor depends. And which are not to do with tea."

He looked the stranger up and down. Fine, so he was bigger than him, had more muscles, but Tom's blond hair was much nicer, he was certain, than that bumpkin's locks. What could Lola see in him?

[Eomer of the Rohirrim]

Alli peeked through the hole in the curtains and whispered something that sounded an awful lot like "Aimé, this is completely moronic! Let me out." But Aimé insisted she stay still. There was a suspicious character in the hallway of the inn they had walked into, and Aimé was eager to question him.

"Well, well, good evening sir" Aimé sneered.

"Ah, it is that, lad, it is that. Why I've just been out for a lovely stroll round...."

"Blabbering about nothing already, are we?" Aimé thundered, visibly shocking the stranger. "It's an act, an act I say! My, sir! How hairy you are!"

The man tugged his shaggy beard, alarmed.

"And what big nails you have!" he yelled, eyeing the man's unkempt hands.

"And what large teeth you have!" By this stage the man had marched off and out of the corridor, shaking his head all the while.

Alli stepped out from behind the curtain with a look of slight (or sheer) bafflement. "Are you going to do this to every buck-toothed joe we come across?" The question was clearly rhetorical; Aimé guessed that Alli had other, more subtle, plans for wolf-hunting.

"This will not be as easy as that" she said quietly.

"Nevertheless, you shall need to hide. We need a place where no-one will think to look for you" replied Aimé, with a small smile. He had obviously relished getting back into the swing of loud, obnoxious accusations.

[Feanor of the Peredhil]

"I know... I know!" Alli cried in complete upset. "But where?"

She began to look around frantically, her always calm, always cool, always totally-hot-and-can-she-be-real-the-way-she-always-seems-in-control? attitude breaking a little. She realized that she was speaking loudly and rolled her eyes at herself, flicking her long, sleek black hair over a well-postured shoulder.

"Sorry." she added, not actually sorry. "Lost myself for a moment there."

She had long considered taking up smoking. Not for any particularly grand reason, but it always seemed like the truly intimidating people in movies and shows had a cigarette. No, she didn't want the average brand of nauseating smell and illness... but she always thought it might be a little bit cool to try out the image cast by her always carrying an unlit clove ciggie in her black gaunletted right hand. She looked down her arm, following the black leather until it met white silk until the silk was pressed to her skin by well-worked black leather wrist guards. Her slender fingers moved freely (she wiggled them absently to prove it). No... she didn't need a decoration. The world had to give her credit... she simply did not need spiced smoke to look cool.

She leaned against a wall, lifting her left foot behind her to lay flat against it. Always the epitome of serious nonchalance. She'd ditched the cape. She'd learned at some unspecified point within the last year or so that people were a lot more afraid of her when she stood confidently in street clothes than when she slipped through shadows in a deep cloak. It was warm and convenient, but when she really wanted The Image, her black overcoat was fitted to the waist, embelleshed subtly with black pearls (fifteen Dwarven smiths had died in search of the fiftieth... it would appear that Dwarves don't float well and, so, though they reached the pearls quite easily, they had lethal trouble getting back to the surface with them) and opals (from a few plundered hoards) and silver threading, and it took two handmaids to help her button it. It flaired impressively and billowed like only the cape of a truly evil supervillian can do. It would have looked vampiric on anybody else, but Alli's red lips, pale skin, and long black hair... well... okay, she admitted it. She looked completely vampiric. Really, that was the whole cool part of the image. People were terrified of vampires. They couldn't help it. Something to do with the prospect of everlasting life, probably. That glint in their dark eyes. Maybe the way 'w's always lost the second 'u' and ended up sounding like a 'v' instead. Whatever it was, when Alli wanted to impress, she dressed up like the living dead and made the whole corpse concept into a fashion statement.

"Aimè!" she suddenly hissed. He looked at her. He'd been looking very intently at a piece of brick that may or may not have whispered to him a moment before.

"What?"

"I thought of a good place."

"Where?"

"Can't tell you... if any of my enemies are reading this... they'd learn..."

"Then how do we... um... narrate this?"

"Very carefully. Check this out: my idea is not to hide in a graveyard and pretend to anybody that comes along that I'm a ghost or zombie or something. My idea doesn't involved stage makeup. And it doesn't have anything to do with the idea that... um... I don't really know. But if we, wink wink, don't go hide out in a graveyard, I can finish this whole plan up with a fantastic rip off of scenes from so many different books and movies! I mean... The Phantom and Raoul in the graveyard... the jackal from The Omen... Just think of the impossibilities that could come from me, wink wink, not hiding out in a cemetary."