Island of Sorrow RPG

[piosenniel]

Giledhel

‘Oh, my poor, poor flowers! Their petals will all be sundered from them by this awful wind. Then what will I say to the guests when they wish to stroll there after we’ve supped?’

Giledhel wrung her hands in worry. She’d so wanted this party to go well. Some of Malris’ close friends would be there as would Maedhros. And his brother, also, she thought. The one that sang. She’d invited some others of the fortress’ company, too . . . ones with wives. There were not many ladies in this cold keep and she savored the times she could be in their company.

A frown creased her forehead. ‘Nay, not all of them,’ she hissed to herself. ‘There is that . . . one. I’ve seen her looking at Malris, her with her shimmering eyes, her sly eyes.’ Giledhel’s own eyes narrowed, thinking of other gatherings she had attended. She clapped her hands, calling to her children.

‘Gracious me!’ she exclaimed nearly tripping over the three as she turned. She laughed, a sweet sound that tinkled merrily among the stones. ‘My dear boys! You are all that a mother could ask for.’ She glanced about the room becoming more and more impatient as she did not see the one she sought. ‘Now where can she have gone too? My lady’s-maid, have you seen her?’ With a shrug of her shoulders, she smiled at her three boys.

‘Be dears, will you?’ she asked, pointing to where her great wardrobe once stood. ‘Fetch me out my green dress . . . the one with the tapering sleeves and the beaded trim. Malris likes me in green; he’s said so often. Sets off my dark hair. I’ll have the gold fillet, too, for my hair. The one set with the emerald.’ Her lips curved into a halfsmirking smile. ‘See if her and her tatty blue and silver dress will catch any attention tonight.’

‘Oh! And ask the gardeners to see what they can do for my flowers . . . will you?’

[Anguirel]

The music of battle roaring in his mind as it had not since the Dagorlad...the grim euphoria that propels the limbs and drives the heart, as Malris drew his sword, more than half his height in length, and slashed it through the four spirits who blocked his way, careless of its utility, aware that the enemy had no flesh to harm, but ready to resist anyway. Hopeless war was the way of the Noldor, Malris thought, as Cirlach gleamed in the dusk. His memory invoked Feanor, Fingolfin, Glorfindel, Gwindor...

The Tengwar and Certh runes on Cirlach burned with sudden colour; the Tengwar red, the Certh purest white. Malris knew the inscription well. "Curufin made this for a friend and father-vengeance." Such a message all that smith's blades had born. Some distrusted Curufin as emotionless, calculating. Malris knew love of his father had driven him faster than he could control himself.

The Orcish coavalta shuddered and howled, jerking back from the sword's radiance, and Malris, with Lomwe close behind him, hurled himself forward. The gate was but a step away...

***

"Dungheaps!" Ghashthurk hissed. "It cannot hurt you, for all its light. You can hurt him. Do not let him go."

Still the band of four, led by Kragscurk, the second largest fighter in the war party, faltered.

"The runes, Cap'n. Look at them. It's one of them Star-lord swords. Garn, and you expect us to run onto it?"

"Star-lord sword or not," growled Ghashthurk, "resist it, or I will close the Cairn against you, craven muck."

Kragscurk and the others glanced at each other, and then whisked back into the fighting with a searing howl of the air. Being banned from the Cairn and left to wander outside, a nobody lone weakling like Bazhrat...well, it didn't bear even considering.

***

"They aren't yielding any more ground," Lomwe cried, his own fine sword Coruthel flashing as it pierced ethereal form again, and again, and again.

"Aye," answered Malris. "The cause is, they've remembered they're dead."

The point of a battered, pale grey spear cut into his side, leaving scarcely a mark; but a flicker of irresolution, of concern-even fear? in his eyes, quickly repressed as he whirled Cirlach pointlessly again...he cursed as he saw that another two coavalta had surged behind them, cutting the pair of swordsmen off from the others; Tasa was left to face the unhinged looking lone Orc alone, one of the ghastly, barely-visible shapes was assailing each twin, while Lindir, furthest back, was surrounded by four, his face pallid and suffused with sweat...

[Feanor of the Peredhil]

Tasa stood frozen for a moment, staring through the etherial form before her. Daggers of uncertainty quite literally pierced her heart until she heard a cry from Malris. She looked to him, noting the way his beloved sword pierced the air, if nothing else. She swept her blade from the ground, steel resolve in her bright eyes. The vines of the hilt fit the contours of her hand lovingly, cradling her fingers. It was long for a dagger, silver, and deadly. Her twin blades were strapped to her pack and she thought of them with regret as she knew unpausingly that it would take too long to unbind them. Had she realized what danger this trip would provide... she had been so certain it would be a test of will, rather than strength. Perhaps it still was.

The crazed spirit rushed her once more, blade raised. She stood her ground, crouched into a fighter's position. She still wore her filthy and torn breeches, and her boots, soft at the uppers, were solid support on the treacherous rock. No protection, any of her garb, for any weapon, be it corporeal or no, yet it was very suited for quick dodges.

"Spirit," she murmered. "Why do you linger? Your dark master awaits you in the void." With this, she leapt forward, blade nothing more than a blur. The orc did not even slow. Grotesquely, he laughed a bone-chilling laugh as her blade pierced his formless body with no effect. Tasa hesitated, barely. Another hit landed on her, scratching across her face, a mirror image of her scar of old. She shuddered uncontrollably. The wounds, insubstantial as they were, took longer to heal each time they landed.

She spared a moment to look for escape. Her companions were as beseiged as she. Their battle seemed hopeless. While the wights landed blow after blow, continuing the strikes even through the blocking blades of her fellows, they were unable to truly affect the dead. Her opponent, thankfully only one, had returned. She looked to the sky, taking comfort in Eärendil's glimmering. She glared with unadulterated hatred at the unsettled death that stood before her, sizing her up. She could not begin to imagine what evil thoughts raced through his mind, but she could hope to force his hesitation long enough to gather her companions together.

"Auta i lómë." she spoke reasonably to the orc. "Aurë entuluva." He turned to the eastern horizen and she bolted, soundless. With a wrenching cry, he saw her motive and followed. She nearly laughed at the absurdity of the feint before raising her voice above the din. The spirit froze at the horror she spoke; the Elves looked to her, perched upon a rock, shadowed, nearly hidden, and yet the center of the moment. The orcs halted their attacks.

"Hear me now, ye proud Noldor! We will leave this place. Hope stay in your hearts. Aurë entuluva! Hear me now, ye restless spirits! You shall not remain, with us or without! Leave now or we will dispatch of you in less merciful ways. Hear me now, and choose." She raised her blade to the sky, awaiting reaction in the sudden silence of the night.

[piosenniel]

Bazhrat --- encounter with the Elf Witch

Bazhrat clapped his hands to where his ears might have been. The nasty Elf was screeching. Elvish words in a big voice. She held up her pointy little Orc sticker, he saw. One of the burning, hurtful ones he’d had the bad luck to encounter that long, long time ago. It had been one of those biting Elvish knives that had gutted him on the rocky field that lay at the fortress’ feet. He clasped his long, spatulate fingers to his belly as the memory of pain burned bright within him once again.

And here she was looking out at the Orcs and cursing them with her foul Elvish words.

‘Ow! Ow!’ she cried in a grim voice, her eyes as hard as granite. ‘Ow! Ow!’ And some sneaking sounds to round the hurting words out.

He backed away from her, his eyes wide with fear. He was certain that if she once pointed that knife she held at him, he would indeed be swept away to whatever fate those long gone companions of his had met. He shrank in on himself, as does a shadow exposed to a bright light . . .

‘Witch!’ he heard one of the other Orcs hiss behind him. ‘Nasssty Elf witch. Tries to trick us with her words.’ Several of the other Orcs who had followed along behind him now pushed forward, their inconsequential forms swelling against him, carrying his along.

A number of their wraithlike figures bore no weapons save for their jagged, sharp teeth and their long, hard, ragged nails; others grasped the jagged blades they'd used in life. Moths to a bright flame, they rolled toward her . . . a great seething mass of hazy mist . . . stinging and cutting her where they touched bare skin. Cold . . . relentless . . . a frenzy of angry, malicious loathing . . . they pushed against her . . . willing her spirit to let them in . . .

‘Get behind her!’ Bazhrat heard one of the Orcs say. ‘Don’t let her reach the fortress. It’s us as has the rights to her not them murderin’, sneakin’ Elves inside. We saw her first . . .’

‘Quit yer shoving!’ Bazhrat yelled at the Orc who was now trying to elbow him out of the way. ‘I was here first!’ A fight broke out, even as they rolled about the Elf and her knife. ‘It’s me what’s got the first rights!’ yelled another of the larger Orcs. ‘You maggots stand back and let your better have first go!’

The Elven prize forgotten for the moment in the growing battle for positioning, the Orcs turned on themselves, screeching and clawing at each other with a vengeance . . .

[Anguirel]

Child of the 7th Age's post

Was he truly awake or asleep? At first Lindir was not sure. His fingers tightened stubbornly about the helm, cradling the precious artifact close against his chest. Dropping to his knee so that his body hunched protectively over the Dragon-helm, he gazed out unbelieving at the scene that assailed his senses. Waves of desire, sick and heavy, emanated from the intruders in an ever widening arc, directed more at the object in his arms than at himself as its lone Elven bearer. He was no more than an incidental, a thing to be mentally bludgeoned and tossed aside so that the object he carried could be claimed by those creatures who now stood before him.

Lindir sensed he had slipped unknowingly into his blackest night dream and was thrashing about to try and bring himself to waking. Yet his body refused to respond quickly. It was as though he was encumbered with a thousand blankets of steel that prevented him from disentangling his arms and legs to throw off the unyielding chains of sleep. He tried to reach for his sword but his fingers would not move the scant few inches that would bring his hand in contact with its hilt.

For a single instant he was not afraid. On one level, that of the rational, the situation made little sense. How could there be so many Orcs on such a small island when this many years had passed? Or could these creatures even be called Orcs? In all his years of battling the minions of Morgoth, he had never confronted any Orcs like these. For all their skill in battle, Orcs were usually witless folk who showed little hint that anything was going on inside, whose ugliness and rage was a flat outer mask that sheltered no inner complexities or glint of reflection. But this odd menagerie of combatants seemed different. The ugliness reflected in the Orcs' shadowy bodies and faces was as nothing compared to the horror that lay underneath. Thick layers of desire and obsession spun out to envelope the Elf, to catch him within a sticky, unrelenting web. It was as if these few members of the black host had spent a thousand years ruminating on a particular desire and now saw a means to achieve that wish, if only the unwelcome obstacle Lindir posed could be summarily eliminated.

Lindir struggled to rise to his feet, clutching the helm in his right hand while using his left to steady himself. He was finally moving but he was still too slow. The creatures were about him in an unrelenting circle, their movements nimble in a way he could never have foreseen. It made no sense. Elves were swift and adroit in their movements; Orcs eternally slow and clumsy. So how could this strange tableau be happening? A thick blade arced upward and then came down within inches of his head, barely catching the edge of his leather jerkin as pain resonated through his left side. Finally Lindir awoke. Whoever or whatever these assailants were, they were capable of inflicting injury and death, whether through physical blows or some other means.

Fear and anger exploded from within as Lindir sensed the real danger he was in. The helm dropped from his fingers onto the stoney ledge and, for the first time, he paid the thing no heed. His mind reminded him that he needed his sword. He desperately needed his sword, not to strike out at the things who were attacking him but to free his own being from the sticky strands of the web that now threatened to entangle his mind.

[Firefoot]

When Malris had called them to arms, Lómwë had jumped up to follow: not by conscious choice, but by old habit reawakened. His sword Coruthel had seemed to leap into his hand of its own accord. A drumming thudding in his ears seemed to dull his senses for a moment.

As they met the Orc spirits in battle, Lómwë came to himself again. His sword felt like a dead weight, unwieldy and uncomfortable in his hand. It slashed through the air, through the unhoused spirits without causing apparent harm. Two, now three, of the pale figures with their pale swords surrounded him. Once one of their blades made contact with his skin, beneath his eye. The cut stung, though it quickly healed, and Lómwë hardly noticed. Only in appearance was this a physical battle.

For their most effective weapons were mental rather than physical. Lómwë could feel his already weakened mental barriers crumbling under their barrage, and he remembered Endamir’s words: “We are in danger, I sense, we who carry those deep wounds that have not healed,” and knew them to be true. I think I know who you are, taunted one of the spirits. Didn’t do such a good job of protecting your own family, did you?

Get… out… Lómwë struggled to force the Orkish assaults out of his mind. He could feel their stinging attacks, more potent and more tolling than any physical injury. He swung his sword viciously, his physical attacks as a metaphor for his mental defense. No… more… Maintaining this tenuous compromise was sapping what small reserves of strength he had; he could feel himself slipping as a black chasm seemed to threaten to swallow him.

So it is you cajoled a second Orc. Had a young son, didn’t you? And a wife? She put up a fight, but she broke hard, like you’re breaking now –

Lómwë dug deep inside of himself and found a last push born of rage, effectively shutting the spirits out. Then, abruptly and just in time, came the needed reprieve…

[Envinyatar]

The Elves of the Courtyard

It was if the great stone maw of the gate opened wide and sucked inward on itself. Tall grey eyed, grim faced Elves pressed against the boundaries of the courtyard. And as one, they drew their blades, stirring a silent wind that seemed to pull the companions toward them.

A great shout went up . . . The Standard Bearer! . . . The Union stands . . . it is not broken! The low thrumming whisper of Maedhros! Maedhros! Has our Lord returned? Will we be avenged on those foul Orcs?

Loose dirt and debris rode the whirlwind that now stirred in the courtyard . . . they flew on the currents that coursed over the tumbled walls . . . driving hard against the attacking Orcs . . .