Balrog Breaking and Entering

[Pitchwife]

Originally Posted by Legate of Amon Lanc

Ah, Your Highness be basically quoting the beautiful, yet terribly uncanonical works by the Iron Crown Enterprises, incorporating a vast complex of Morgoth's tunnels from the First Age, reaching from the Remains of Thangorodrim as far as the halls under Moria, and reaching further into the "Drowning-Deeps" underneath the Blue Mountains, the "Rusted Deeps" under the Iron Hills, and at last, the dark Under-Courts of Barad-Dur. So, great minds think alike?

Your Legginess doth credit me with more erudition than I can justly claim to possess, my familiarity with the scrolls of lore you mention amounting to little more than nil.

Originally Posted by Mnemosyne

Could the shaking up of the earth that must have happened with the drowning of Beleriand been enough to 1). catch the Dwarves off guard, 2). open up new and secret ways under the earth, or 3). possibly even trap the Balrog there?

Hmmm - the distance from Moria Gate to the Isle of Himling (closest remnant of Beleriand) was some 900-1000 miles as the Balrog flies*. I'm not quite sure what an earthquake that could be felt (and I mean felt, not registered by modern equipment) across such a distance would measure on the Richter scale - but who knows what the Lords of the West in their Wrath were capable of?
What about this: the Balrog, seeking to hide in the deepest recesses of Angband, was buried under what would after the cataclysm become the sea floor. It then wormed/burrowed/melted(?how much heat can an undoused Balrog generate?) its way through the continental crust till it found a nice cavern deep under Moria and decided to spend the next few millennia there.
But seriously, the real solution is, of course, much simpler:
*It flew to the top of Zirakzigil and descended the Endless Stair, etc., taking the same way as when it was pursued by Gandalf, only in the opposite direction. It's logical, isn't it? How else would it know the way so well?

(OT: Now that Legate mentions it, wayseer, are you actually, as your avatar seems to indicate, The Only Real Estel reincarnated? If so, I'm pleased and honored to meet you! (Well, pleased anyway!))