ATM II RPG

[Roggie of Morgoth]

Roggie wasn't quite sure what was going on any more so he did what any self respecting pirate balrog actor king would do in the situation: decided to leave it and pretend it wasn't happening.

In a way much surprising for a creature of his bulk, he slipped unnoticed away from the others, disappearing through a door that was pretending to be a wall, and making his way down to Alli's office for a private talk.

"Alli," he'd say, sprawled on her floor, "I can't do it any more. I don't want to. I can't even keep track of my advisors, much less my people. I've received no advice in the past few weeks except from my lovely War Advisor MacFarleywen, and I'm not even sure if I can spell her name right. Much though I want to teach Mardil a lesson or two, how can I do it with an army that exists only to march around singing lame songs about not knowing anything but having above average listening skills. They have no battle experience, except to argue with me.

"Mardil's highly trained forces would overcome my pitiful multi-whatever-they-are troops in a matter of a few very sad seconds. Why am I even bothering with this job, Alli?"

And she would answer "Because, Roggie, you are a good king. No king can choose his people and you got stuck with a bum deal, but you're doing so well with it. Here, I found you a copy of Il Principe, translated into the ancient balrogic script that nobody else knows but you and apparently the translator. It ought to help you dictate properly."

And he would jump for joy and things wouldn't fall from the walls. But that was merely a dream.

He found his way to Alli's office and tried turning the doorknob on the overly large doors. No luck. He spotted a note pinned so far down that he had to double over to read it:

"Gone to lunch. Be back in a few days at the latest."

He roared his frustration and a few eyeliner-smearing tears of stress leaked out. Without hesitation, he found a private corner and had himself a good cry before making his ever-serious reappearance to the world.

He sat in his audience chamber, awaiting what would come next.

[Hookbill the Goomba]

The door swung heavily on it's hinges as it opened slowly, almost in the same way that the mouth of a blue whale opens, and almost with the same stench of fish. The Barrow Wight lent on the wall for a moment, smoking his pipe triumphantly. Smilog looked at him in utter puzzlement, "How are you doing that?" he asked as more smoke poured out of the Wight's ribcage.

"You don't want to know," replied the Wight, the glow from one eye fading a little, indicating that he was winking. They all entered the Crack of DOOM and looked around, holding their noses, for the stench was unbearable. "Where has that Roggie fellow got himself off to?" asked The Barrow Wight.

"Ah, who cares?" snorted Smilog, "Good riddance to him. He's probably lying dead on a pile of cheese."

"Why cheese?" asked Tollin, examining something on the wall.

"Silence!" shouted Smilog, and everyone punched him in the face. "Well, no matter. He's a stupid little fuuuuuuuuuu...." All of a sudden, a trap door had opened up in the ground below them and they all fell down. Down and Down into deep dark. Such a dark as had never been seen before by any of them, and Tollin had lived in Mordor for a long while. It just seemed to keep going and going until they all stopped screaming and just continued falling normally.

"How long do you think this blighter is?" asked The Barrow Wight, "Can't say I look foward to the end of it, what, what?"

"No idea," replied Tollin, "Butss I can hazard a guesss. We're getttting near thhe Labyrinth. My lisp is coming back."

"Oh, great," grumbled the Dwarf, folding his arms. Eventually, the tunnel they were falling through became almost a slide, zipping downwards and spitting them out into the labyrinth. Tollin and Smilog arose and gathered the scattered parts of the Barrow Wight and assembled him again, although they did put his legs on wrong the first few times.

"Howsss do wess getss outss of heresss?" asked the now dumber Tollin, the Labyrinth seemed to have this adverse affect on him. Smilog laughed a little to himself and then took a deep intake of breath through his nose.

"Follow the stench of Balrog," he said. So they marched on, following the scent of burned fish that Roggie sometimes left when he got angry or annoyed. The labyrinth wound on and on, seemingly endlessly. It was somewhat damaged due to the movement of the Mountain, some walls had fallen down and they managed to make an almost straight road towards the centre of the mountain. They knew that as it began to get warmer. Eventually, they came to a brick wall and stopped.

"Looks like the end of the line, chaps," remarked the Barrow Wight, "We'd better get our thinking caps on for this."

"Not necessarily," said Smilog, Tollin smacked him across the face. "Ow! Well, as I was saying; this must be the secret entrance to Roggie's audience chamber. See, my wine bottle is there on the floor."

"Your wine bottle?" said Tollin.

"Alright, Roggie's. But All the same. All we need do is push open the door. We can then try and get back to the Crack of DOOM from there." So they all pushed and the door slowly opened.

[the guy who be short]

Angawen looked around the room carefully - if talking to inhabitants of Mordor was to be permitted, she had to take this chance of talking to the most normal, most Gondorian of them. Hyarmenwë had been dangerously blunt in his question, but Lady Alli did not seem to notice - or perhaps she, like Angawen, had trained herself not to show her thoughts.

They were sat at a corner of the room. However, the room was of an odd, non-uniform shape - something vaguely like an L. If Angawen could get around the corner, she would be free to speak to citizens of Mordor completely unseen by Alli. A golden opportunity. She would be foolish to waste it.

And she would be equally foolish to be rash. If she were to leave now she would undoubtedly raise suspicions. "It is wonderful," she said to Alli, "that one can obtain food so traditionally Gondorian in nature in Mordor. This loaf is tough, yet homely."

"Not all of our Mordorian food is Mordorian in nature," she replied. "They do some mean smoothies here."

The trio carefully ignored her.

The meal continued uneventfully, as meals are accustomed to do, until about ten minutes later, Angawen stood up suddenly. "Do excuse me, Lady Alli, but I fear I must relieve myself. I hear you have public toilets in Mordor - King Mardil II tells me they are a wonderful, if poorly implemented. I desire to see these myself."

Alli gave her consent, Hyarmenwë carefully avoided looking at Angawen, and Bearugard stuffed some more bread in his mouth.

Angawen wandered off, alone, in what seemed to her quite possibly the safest place in Mordor.

[Celuien]

Time washed over Panakeia like the sands of Mâl-in-Bû washing over a beach bum's feet. Filled with angst over her troubled romance, she drifted along the beaches of the Pathetic Ocean, not knowing or caring where she headed. That is, until she tripped over a beach-bum's beach towel and careened head long into a fence. She was then forced to care (well, not really care – she didn't care about anything other than her troubles with Anakron just then) about her location by the angry sunbather whose towel she had disturbed and an Orc guarding the carefully fenced private beach she nearly stumbled onto without proper authorization.

She answered the complaints of neither. Ignoring them, Panakeia turned coolly to a small vacant patch of beach near the tide line and sat on the sand, too absorbed in her unhappiness over Anakron to care that sand was working its way into her gown and making a mess of her shoes. She traced letters into the wet beach with her finger. A-N-A-K-R-O-N. She stopped and looked at her handiwork, even as a wave came up from the ocean and washed it away.

Panakeia broke down. Anakron had been washed away from her, just like his name was washed off the beach. Several passers by stared at the formally dressed, crying woman on the beach, wondering what she was doing there (other than sitting around and sniffling), but she didn't care if they stared or not. If they did, it was a reflection of their ill-breeding, not any error on her part. Let them stare. I hope they enjoy the watching me fall apart. Panakeia felt bitter.

What was she going to do? Anakron was lost to her. The Dweomer - the Wizards, had claimed him at last, despite her best efforts to stop them. There was nothing she could do about it. Poor Anakron was dooming himself and she couldn't stop him. All of her words only served to accelerate his decline. And now he was on his way back to Mount Doom. Back to the evil of the Dweomer. She had asked him to come to her. But though she still hoped he would, she felt certain that he never would. Never.

The only thing she could do, Panakeia decided, was to forget him. Her heart revolted at the idea. Forget Anakron? She could never do that. His image – the hair, the flowing robes, the lines around his eyes and mouth – were burned indelibly into her memory. She would never forget him. But if he truly was lost to her, she had to move on. She couldn't live in self-pity forever. At the same time, she wanted to wait for him to come around – against her better judgment, which still pessimistically insisted that he wouldn't.

So she decided to strike for the middle ground and ignore her problem for the moment in the hope that everything would work itself out eventually. It wasn't in her hands anymore. Only Anakron could decide whether or not to heed her advice and abandon the Istari. Though she would always regret being without him, she couldn't let Anakron's resolve to destroy himself, if indeed, he chose to continue down that path, destroy her too. Panakeia slowly realized that she couldn't force him to save himself, however much she wanted to help.

But where to go? Where to go… Panakeia had friends in Lost Angles. Associates from her cosmetics business who found Lost Angles, as the center of Mordor's entertainment industry, the perfect place to sell their goods. They lived, she seemed to recall, in Beaverly Hills. She would stay with them for a bit. And drown her sorrow with a shopping spree or two along Rode-o Drive.

She walked off the beach, leaving a trail of footprints in the sand. Coming to a road that roared with traffic, Panakeia waved down a passing taxi, and, shaking as much sand from her dress as she could, seated herself behind the driver.

"Where to, lady?"

Ignoring the Orc's faulty grammar, Panakeia replied, "Beaverly Hills, 90210." The taxi whizzed off, passing Mount Doom, at which Panakeia gazed mournfully, and heading into the depths of the City of the Lost Angles.

[JennyHallu]

Lola followed Maika for a few steps before collapsing against a wall, breathless with giggles. "You're *gasp* waving that *gasp* little stick around..." another giggle... "just like *gasp* that silly *gasp* boy!" More giggling. Maika turned around and glared at her in exasperation.

Eventually Lola regained her self control and pointed at the wall at the end of this corridor. A sign posted there read clearly:

<--- Audience Chamber

Restrooms --->

Secret Labyrinth --->

<--- Somewhere Else --->

"Come on!" and she took Maika by the sleeve and started running down the lefthand corridor.

[Anguirel]

Poised in the very midst of the smog of Doom, high, high above the resort of Lost Angles, Tom suddenly felt slightly queasy. Were he to slacken on his broom seat for an instant he would be very dead indeed. It was time to get stone beneath his feet again. Even with the negotiations looming. Especially with the negotiations looming, he corrected himself tersely.

Looking towards the impressive line of the Castle's fortifications, Tom scanned them for a window of suitable size for an elegant Quidditch dive to gain entry to it. There seemed, on reflection, only one suitable option. It had a vast, wide ledge and was of great height. The room within seemed to be ill-lit, and he could only see the dim radiance of flames amid its shadows. Shadow and flame. In retrospect, he really should have been a tad more cautious.

Dracomir leant forward in intense preparation and swooped with leisurely elan into the tower room.

It was then that he became aware of two things. One, some vast, vulgarly golden letters proclaiming the words AUDIENCE CHAMBER. The other, a large throne on which a Balrog, looking simultaneously very weary and very angry, was positioned.

The Lord Malfoidacil's most prudent first action was obvious enough. He fell on his knees and bowed his head before the King of Mordor.

"Melifluous greetings to Your Most Admirable, Balrogic, Courageous, Dashing, Energetic, Famous, Gracious, Honourable, Intelligent, Jocular, Kingly, Liberal, Magnificent, Notable, Omniscient, Powerful, Questioning, Righteous, Serene, Terrific, Universal, Valiant, Wise, Xenial, Ying-Yang-balanced and Zygological Majesty," he said, all in one breath. He dearly hoped the Balrog would hesitate before atomising him, trying to figure out what all the epithets meant...

[Diamond18]

Skittles MacFarlewyn was not happy. She had realized two things simultaneously.

1) She was worshipping a robot.
2) Someone else had forced her to.

These two things were rather upsetting, since:

1) Skittles worships nothing and no one.
2) Not even if it looks like her.
3) Skittles obeys no one nor allows them to control her.
4) Unless they have candy.

In a rage, she fetched a steam roller from the steam roller closet and proceeded to run down the robot while cackling madly and screaming, "Who's the divine one now?"

After RoboSkitt 2000™ had been reduced to a plastic smear on the linolium Skittles turned to thoughts of Anakron Skywalker, the rather whiney Sith Lord in the making who was responsible for her bout of subservient thinking. Gor, he even had the whole billowing cloak and grabbing the neck of his significant other thing down pat! He must be stopped before his eyes glowed red and he slaughtered younglings!

She stomped down the hall in search of Roggie, all the while muttering things about "fixing his little red wagon."

She burst through the door just in time to see Dracomir do a faceplant and begin mumuring a litany of superlatives.

By tinkerbell! she thought in horror, Anakron has gotten ahold of whatisname's mind too, and has brainwashed him into worshipping Roggie!

[Feanor of the Peredhil]

Alli sat up straight, but not unnervingly so. Her posture had improved with her new job: she spent several hours a day playing with weapons and another hour or so learning to dance appropriately in all settings. She was not crazy about the actual diplomatic aspect that her job sometimes entailed, but being able to sit and learn interesting things about human nature was worth a few formal events. And the dance lessons had quickly molded her body into well-toned muscle that didn't slouch in a way that not even her strict schedule of weapons practice and other exercise could.

She looked around consideringly. She would give Angawen five minutes before finding her again. She trusted neither the denizens of Mordor nor the lady's intentions and too long of a time spent away could allow for any number of things occuring.

Bearugard merely ate, ignoring the rest of the world.

Hyarmenwë seemed reluctant, now that he had received permission, to talk with locals. Alli cocked her head slightly and studied him. She waved to a young couple that looked to be newly married. They waved back and she beckoned them over.

"My apologies for bothering you, but my companion is rather new to these parts. He is curious about many things and I can only answer some of his questions. Could you help us?"