The Mount Zoom Challenge - GAME

[Caranlondien]

Files and Spiders, continued

“Oh, right,” Pippin replied to Merry’s query. “Here, I’ll just click on this Îcon, and we’ll be on the Arda-wide-web.”

Another Porthole appeared. Pippin continued to move the pen, occasionally tapping it. Every so often, he would consult the manual and dictionary, and then return to the Skrêen.

“I think I actually have a plan,” said Pippin, his eyes growing large with surprise. The others looked around a bit anxiously. Plans were not Pippin’s strongpoint. “Really,” he added. “Look.” He pulled up a Porthole labeled Google. “You see, this is a Search Enghîne. It can find anything on the Arda-wide-web! And it uses Spiderbots.”

“Spiders?” exclaimed Sam. “That’s just what we don’t need more of right now!”

“But there are good spiders and bad spiders,” replied Pippin. “The one whose web we’re trapped in right now is a bad one, because it wants to eat us. But with the Spiderbots, we can tell them what to do.”

“Well, what can we tell them to do?” asked Frodo.

**********

“Is Sam ready?” asked Pippin. Frodo called up to Sam, who was up in the thrush’s nest. Sam shouted back that he was in position. Pippin turned back to the Skrêen. The Google porthole was up. Taking the pen in his hand, he wrote “Bag-Endless-Fuel”, then moved the arrow to the Enter button.

“Quick, Pippin, I think the spider is waking up!” he heard Sam shout from above.

The arrow hovered over the button. Pippin tapped it.

For a moment, it seemed as though nothing had happened. Sam was still shouting about the other spider. “It’s seen us! It’s moving towards us!”

“Come back down, Sam!” cried Frodo. “It’s safer in here!”

Several seconds later, Sam emerged from the hearth. “It’s coming fast, Mr Frodo!” he gasped. The vehicle shook as if it had been hit by something large and, perhaps, fanged. The hobbits waited.

“Look!” shouted Pippin. He was pointing out a window. The others rushed to where he stood and peered out. They could see another spider, and yet it seemed to them that “spider” was hardly a fitting word to describe it. This Googlebot spider was huge. It was wearing a beige Safari Hat (at rather a jaunty angle) and had a utility belt slung around its abdomen. It was scurrying down the web as quickly as it could, towards the hobbits, but was still much farther away than the original spider, which they could now see was fast approaching.

It seemed that the Googlespider could see this too, and it increased its speed. Still, it seemed it would not reach them. The first spider was almost upon them now, and was about to sink its fangs into the side of Bag End.

At the last moment, the Googlespider shot a stream of web behind it, latching onto the main web. It leapt off of the web, swung down, and grabbed a hold of Bag-Endless-Fuel, pulling it way from its sticky prison. On the upswing, it released its hold on the web, and the hobbits fell over as the Googlespider and Bag-Endless-Fuel tumbled through the air. Frodo felt sure they were all about to die. But the Googlespider shot another stream of web out, secured a hold on an overhanging branch, and stopped their descent a few feet above the ground. He then released them and they landed, rather ungracefully, but intact.

The Googlespider took out a map and made a notation on it, marking the location of the Bag-Endless-Fuel. He then rushed off in another direction, presumably having received instructions to seek out the location of some other unlucky web-resident.

“That was rather remarkable,” remarked Bilbo. He turned to the others. “North by Northwest!” he cried.

“Yes, the spider did look rather like Cary Grant, didn’t he?” said Pippin.

Bilbo stared at him. “What are you talking about? Who’s Cary Grant? I was saying, we head north by northwest! We must press onward! Gandalf keeps reminding me how much he has riding on this.”

[Maeggaladiel]

"PUT YOUR BACK INTO IT, MOUTH," Sauron called from the ground, casually reading the giant newspaper. "I AM NOT PAYING YOU TO LAZE ABOUT ALL DAY, YOU KNOW."

Mouth, halfway stuck on the spider web, hacking away at the ropes holding Mount Zoom, wondered what would happen if the mountain just HAPPENED to fall while Sauron was standing underneath it...

"This would be a lot faster if you helped, My Lord," Mouth grumbled. "Or at least if the Rat Wraiths helped." Sauron gave a snort and turned the page.

"I'M WATCHING THE SPIDER," he said. "THAT WAY IT WON'T RETURN FROM THE GRAVE AND EAT US WHILE WE'RE UNAWARE. AND THE RAT WRAITHS CAN'T DO THIS KIND OF MANUAL LABOR. IT'S IN THEIR CONTRACTS."

Mouth, muttering to himself, gave the mountain an angry kick. SNAP!! The last of the web broke loose, and Mouth and the Mountain fell straight down and landed on the ground with a loud THUD!! Sauron looked up from his paper at the giant racing machine that had impacted with the ground a mere four feet away.

"I HOPE YOU DIDN'T SCRATCH THE PAINT, MOUTH," Sauron warned. Mouth just sort of whimperd from the place he had fallen, halfway trapped in a thorn bush. "AH WELL. NOW THAT WE HAVE THE MOUNTAIN, I SAY WE HEAD NORTHWEST FROM HERE."

[Hookbill the Goomba]

Barrad Dash freed.

While the other vehicles zipped along, Barrad Dash hung in the spider web helplessly. Gothmog had fallen asleep and his Orc assistant was jabbering in the corner. The other Orcs had decided to make a meal of the Spider that was asleep some feet away, but they were so stuffed that they couldn't move to free the vehicle

Suddenly, Dwafry the Dwarf flew down in the Eyrie copter with three of his best Dragons. In no time flat, the web was burned off and Barrad Dash zoomed off into the distance, although it was a little behind now.

"Don't let it happen again!" Cried Dwarfy.

[Hookbill the Goomba]

The hardest Challenge yet is coming!

BAD BONUSES!

Medel Zoom and Minas Mor-go have come into a strange situation...
While climbing over the Misty Mountains by the High Pass, they came across some troublesome goblins. The Goblins captured the vehicles and knocked out the driver and assistant. When they awoke they found themselves in Drúwaith Laur near the river Isen.

Dwarfy watched as Bag Endless fuel seemed to be going forward again. Yet something wasn't right with the buggy... or any of the other vehicles either! Something was terribly wrong! There was smoke coming out of the bottoms of the vehicles. Dwarfy sent a Baby Dragon to report. When it returned, he was terrified!

[Hookbill the Goomba]

The Fifth Challenge: Balrogs in the Basement

The Dragon reports a terrible evil in the lower reaches of the vehicles! A creature of shadow and flame, messing about with the inner workings of the engines and generally scaring the heck out of everyone.
Get it out of there!




Challenge ends on Wednesday 17th May

[Caranlondien]

A Very, Very Warm Welcome

Having finished the Dorwinion wine in celebration of their narrow escape, the hobbits sat around the table enjoying a pipe with the recently arrived Gandalf. He had reached Bag-Endless-Fuel an hour or two ago, after several days' searching for the wayward hobbit hole. Upon hearing of their goblin-induced detour into a spider's web, the wizard laughed heartily.

"I bet he wouldn't find our near-death experiences so amusing if we weren't in the lead right now," whispered Frodo to Sam.

As the company puffed on their pipes, they failed to notice that a darker, thicker smoke was rising from the engine room below.

The hobbits listened politely as Gandalf recounted a particularly amusing decloaking incident that had occurred last week, hoping this meant that he'd not be decloaking this week.

Gandalf finished his tale. Frodo blew a smoke ring and sighed contentedly. "Ah, it's nice to be back on track," he said.

"It is indeed," said his uncle. Bilbo sat back in his chair and closed his eyes, prepared to have a bit of a nap. His plans changed, however, when Bag-Endless-Fuel gave a stomach-turning lurch and careened suddenly off to one side, spinning as it went. Finally the craft came to a halt.

The kitchen furniture went flying, and it took a moment or two for the chair's previous occupants to extricate themselves from the jumble of wood that was now strewn about the floor.

Standing, Sam volunteered to have a look from the chimney-top to see what was going on outside. Gandalf looked around, a frightened (and frightening) gleam in his eyes. He muttered something to himself and waved his hand through a cloud of smoke, which was now quite clearly not coming from the hobbits' pipes. Sam re-emerged from the hearth with the news that he could see nothing outside which might have caused their course-change.

"Well what could have done it, then?" asked Frodo. The other hobbits looked around uncertainly. Frodo turned to Gandalf. "What could have caused this?" he asked of the wizard. Even as he asked, he could begin to smell the odor of something burnt. Thick, dark smoke was pouring into the kitchen now.

"I fear this is the work of a power far beyond you," Gandalf replied gravely. "But let us hope I am wrong. Perhaps it is merely some trifle; That we're on fire, or something."

"On fire?" cried Sam. "You call that a trifle? The engine room's full of fireworks!"

The sound of Ted Sandyman's horn confirmed for them that something was, indeed, wrong.

"You can all go check on that," suggested a nervous Pippin. "And I'll start making elevensies." He quickly donned an apron.

[The Saucepan Man]

The Tale of Durin’s Drain

“What do you think the problem might be, Gandalf?” asked Bilbo.

“I hope to goodness that I am mistaken, but I fear that I am not. Long ago, under the leadership of Durin the Breathless, the Dwarves opened a brand new racing track in the depths of Moria. The circuit of Khazad-Zoom, it was called. Yet, in their eagerness to fashion the perfect racing line, they delved too deeply and awakened a dreadful creature: a thing of smoke and fire, which sustained itself through the consumption of mechanical items. On the circuit’s inaugural race, the beast attacked. Cars, pit garages, grandstands and hospitality suites: all succumbed to its insatiable appetite. Only two teams escaped the carnage, and they lost most of their cars and spare parts. Of the terrible fate of the race organisers, nothing is known. The affair dealt a perilous blow to Dwarven racing ambitions and the sport took years to recover. The loss to the Dwarven economy was incalculable, and so the creature ever after was known as Durin’s Drain. The circuit of Khazad-Doom itself was abandoned and fell into ruin. In recent years, however, a party of Dwarves, led by Nascarlin son of Formallawundin, attempted to re-establish and refurbish the facilities there. I fear that they may once again have awakened Durin’s Drain.”

“But what does that have to do with us?” ventured Frodo.

“There has been no contact with Nascarlin and his company for some years. I suspect that all there is now lost and that, hearing of the Mount Zoom Challenge, the creature has emerged from Moria in search of further mechanical parts to satisfy its terrible appetite.”

“Y-y-you m-mean …?” stuttered a terrified Bilbo.

“Yes! The creature is feasting within engine room of Bag-Endless-Fuel right now.”

“Ai!” all wailed.

“Come, now that the exposition is done with, there is not a moment to lose,” commanded Gandalf. “To the engine room!”