[Ransom]

For many of their silvian cousins, the lifestyle chosen by the Ti’Lavan was as alien as the ways of the dwarves. Having long ago forsaken living on the vast plains that surrounded the city of Dale and the Lonely Mountain, the elves had instead chosen to expand upon the labyrinth of natural tunnels that honeycombed their mountain. While they still maintained family units like the Nordor, the unusual variety of caves necessitated the appropriation of the larger caverns for workshops, storehouses, and kitchens. In particular, kitchens and smithies needed to be near the outside of the mountain to allow for proper ventilations. Families made their dwellings in the multitude of smaller caverns left over.

It was through a series of living quarters that Angolos was moving now. There was certainly evidence of habitation-stone carvings too heavy to be moved, old furniture, and even the odd piece of crumbling cloth. However, it appeared that each room had been carefully cleaned. Try as hard as he could, the man could not find any sign of the rumored treasure. Even books were hard to come by, and those he found often crumbled to dust under his touch. Angolos wandered for what seemed like half an hour, keeping away from the larger pieces of furniture. He certainly didn’t want a repeat of the fiasco with the bookcase.

For one accustomed to the hustle and bustle of humanity, the mountain was eerily quite. Angolos kept his ears alert, listening for the benevolent(?) inhabitant. After what seemed like half an hour of walking, the man found himself in front of a pair of rotting wooden doors. A faint ray of light issued from within the cavern, illuminating what seemed to be a number of low stone benches. He cautiously made his way towards the sunlight. The mysterious stalker surely wouldn’t attack him out in the open, where he had room to move and light to let him see. The shaft of sunlight came from a shaft in the roof. From the black soot on the stones on the roof, Angolos deduced that it had served as some kind of chimney, maybe for a kitchen or some sort of meeting room.

Further examination supported his former theory. A series of knives, long rusted past use, sat on the table to his left. The area immediately under the chimney was a large fire pit, roasting forks still in place as if the inhabitants would return soon and resume their daily activities. Anglos slowly strode along the outside lip of the fire pit, using the unexpected shaft of light to examine his surroundings.

A pair of sharp eyes watched the intruder from a crevice scarcely a four yards to the human’s left. While this man was certainly persistent, he was alone. Hopefully, it wouldn’t take too much work to turn him around. But it would take a bit more observation to see how to influence the intruder. The stalker pulled out a small bundle, scarcely longer than a man's forearm. It was one of the few hand crossbows in Middle Earth and one of the few projectile weapons useful under the ground. He raised the weapon to his shoulder and fired the bold at the entrence Angolos had entered from before slipping back into the darkness. Now he would watch...and wait some more.

[ April 10, 2003: Message edited by: Ransom ]