The Great Golden Hoard Game Thread

[Glirdan]

It was a very bad day, full of rain since late the night before. Glirdingo was shivering with cold, staring up at the Misty Mountains. He hadn't gotten much sleep the night before (he didn't trust that Man who was camping near him). "Well, this will probably be the hardest part of my journey," he thought to himself bitterly, thinking about the Orcs that lived in Mount Gundabad a shortway off as well as in the Misty Mountains themselves.

He started his treck towards the moutnains, the rain pouring down on him and soaking him to the bone, the wind on his skin feeling like icy blades cutting into him. He continued on and on, tirelessly. Finally, it was around midday (though he couldn't tell because there was no sun) when he began to feel the pains of exhaustion. He was at the base of the Mountains now. He stopped for a quick break before continuing on.

He walked all day, and almost into the night before he was really exhausted and had to stop. He searched the base of the Mountains, hoping to find a cave to rest in for the night. "Aha!" he cried delightedly as his keen, Elven eyes spotted a cave in the base of the Mountains.

He made his way wearliy to the cave at the base of the Mountains. When he reached it, he ran inside and slumped to the ground. He got changed into his (semi) dry clothes which he took out from his bag.

He had fallen asleep for what felt like a few minutes before he heard something scurrying around in the cave. He opened his eyes and grabbed his short sword and stood up while crying "Who goes there!" He heard something behind him before everything went black.

He woke up sometime later with a sharp pain in the back of his head. He put his hand up to where he had been hit and touched it gently. "Ow!" he cried sharply. Whatever (or whoever) had hit him, hit him pretty hard. He sat up slowly and took in his surroudings. He was in some sort of cell. There was a nothing in the cell, not even a small cot to lay down on and his possessions were nowhere to be found.

He rose to his feet slowly and crossed to the cell doors and peered out. He saw his sack a short way down the passage. "Hello!?" he called out. "Hellooooo!?"

"Quiet you!" a sharp, deep voice said to his left. There, sitting in front of him, was an Orc. "Quiet, or I'll stick you like a bug without the Chief's permission. Besides, you're just going to get done in tomorrow anyway!! Hawhawhaw!!" he laughed crudely.

With that, Glirdingo backed off to the back of the cell and sat down. He was a little frightened. The cave he must have fell asleep in wasn't a cave at all. It was an entrance to Mount Gundabad! He moaned as this realization dawned upon him.

The guard got to his feet and walked down the passage, just out of sight. "Well, now that he's gone, I can start thinking of a way to get out here," he thought desperately. "I need to get out, before tomorrow comes or I'm going to be a dead Elf!"

He looked around the cave once more to see if there was anything he could use to help him escape. There was absolutely nothing. Once again, he rose to his feet and crossed the cell to the cell doors. He peered around outside his cell to see if there was something he could use to escape.

As luck would have it, the Orc had convieniently forgotten the keys to the cell door which were convieniently already placed in the lock. "Well, this is convienient!"

He reached his hand through the bars, grabbed the key and turned it carefully. He heard a small click and withdrew his hand. He pushed gently on the door and it swung open quietly (the locks were (convieniently) oiled just that day).

He tiptoed down the passage to where his belongings were. He searched his pack and noticed that everything was unharmed. "I kind of figured," he thought grimly. "Orcs wouldn't like Lembas bread and my canteen is empty. They wouldn't see the usefulness of this rope. As for my weapons..." he looked around and noticed that they were locked up beside his cell down the passage. "Again, that's convienient. How stupid could you be to put someone's weapons right next to their cell," he thought happily. He grabbed the keys and tired that for the lock for his weapons. "And how stupid could someone be to make the same lock for a cell and use the same key," he laughed inside.

He grabbed his bow and arrows and slung it on his back. He took his short sword and walked slowly down the passage. He saw the guard up ahead, his back turned to him. "Oh my, these Orcs are really quite stupid..." he thought sadly.

He walked up and slashed the orc who fell down dead instantly. He continued to walk down the passage. It took him quite some time, but with luck, he found his way out and ran into no one. "Hmmm, that was too easy..." he thought to himself. It was dark out and the rain had finally stopped. "I need to get away from here and fast," he thought desperately. And with that, he ran towards the Mountains as fast as he could towards the Misty Mountains.

[Gil-Galad]

Galadster looked around, he was in a dark damp cell with a major headache, yet he felt different...

ah... what the...where am i?

Galadster looked around again, he found a dull metal bar i nteh ground and a couple of small rocks, he heard an orc guard outside cough

orcs... bloody orcs...

galadster took the metal bar and began banging the bars...

"stop that racket!"

galadster kept banging

"i said stop it!"

Galadster kept cosntantly banging the bar, till the orc guard came into the room and kicked him down through the bar

"i told you to stop it!"

no no, you can't find it!

"what? can't find what?"

you know the treasure here...bah i'm not suppose to tell you where this treasure is...

Galadster put it his hands on the ground as if to cover it, then the orc guard opened the cell and kicked galadster away

"if there is treasure it is mine"

the orc began to dig where Galadster had covered, then Galadster kickly punched the orcs jugular area, and the orc collapsed, trying to breath, but it couldn't.

Galadster then took the orcs sword and ran out, he looked around, he heard talking about these items, galadster went around and looked around the corner, there was 4 orcs, 1 in the back sleeping on a barrel againest the wall, three others going through Galadsters belongings, Galadster walked backwards and looked around another corner, it was an exit to the outside. Galadquickly ran back to the room with the orcs, took the orc sword he stole from the guard, and threw it at the sleepin orc, the 3 orcs turned to look at the now dead sleeper and wonder what happened, then Galadster ran in and grabed his scimitar that was on the table, he decapitated one of the orcs head when the other 2 turned around and tried to reach for their sowrds, but Galadster quickly cut off their arms and legs, leaving them there to bleed.

well that was interesting...

galadster quickly gathered all his belongings, including a full canteen of water from the orcs and he headed out, he began to head towards Arnor once again, but then a stone fell from the cave and hit him on the head

woah... what happened? did i go all super-crazy mode back then? nah... must have been a dream...

was it a dream? Who built the pyramids? find out next episode on THE ADVENTURES OF GALADSTER

[Nogrod]

It was so early in the morning that it was still dark as Novgorod left the little town. He had decided to press on with the quest. Against the inn-keeper’s counsel Novgorod had decided to continue straight ahead and take a shortcut through the hilly grassland the locals called Barrow Downs. Evil spirits! Bah! Old wifes stories to keep the young from playing far away from home, lunacies of the drunkards told in hope of a one more pint...

But as Novgorod dwelt deeper to the Downs the unpleasant feeling of everything not being quite right came all the more pressing. Mostly it was the weird fog. He had noticed some faint stripes of fog in the moonlight already some time ago but hadn’t paid much attention to them. Fog was fog after all and it happend to appear here and there at times, especially early mornings. But slowly Novgorod started noticing the odd behaviour of this particular fog. As long as he was able to see any futher he had time to realise that there was no fog in any other parts of the Downs but just around him. And it was moving along with him, whirling slowly around and condensating all the time!

Then came the voice. It was a low and hoarse sound that didn’t seem to come particularly from anywhere but from everywhere around him. Like the fog itself would have produced it. It sounded almost like the voice was composed of syllables, forming words of sorts. The fog got whirling and condensing tighter around Novgorod.

--------

Novgorod woke up in almost complete darkness. There was some faint phosporous light on his right. As he turned his head, he saw a light radiating fog that had vaguely a form of a gigantic warrior clad in robes. Suddenly there was a flash of dimly emerging dawning light as a boulder was turned aside and the fog-monster disappeared. The rock was slammed to its place and it was pitch dark again. Now if something is, this is creepy... Novgorod knew well enough that the best way to make things worse now was to panic. So he panicked.

But after nothing happend in a few moments he managed to cool himself down enough and tried to think. Whatever that was and wherever I am, there must be a way to get out! Carefully he came down from the table made of wood and stone that he had been laid on. Slowly he started creeping towards the entrance that had just been slammed close. He used the wall as a guide. The wall was covered with a thick layer of dust.

He reached the rock that blocked his way out. Novgorod searched for a handle but managed not to find one. Okay. I’ll just push it open. Novgorod tried, then he tried with full force. The rock didn’t move an inch. Well, then what? Waiting here for that monster to come and devour me? Novgorod was wiping sweat from his forehead. There must be something here...

Novgorod decided to check the other side of the chamber too. Just beside the entrance he stumbled to his own backpack. His sword was laying beside it. Novgorod took his sack and tied his sword on him. These won’t probably be of any use but it’s nice to die with some familiar things around, Novgorod grinned to himself in the dark and continued following the wall. Soon he crashed to a smaller table. There were different arms, dull and dusty, laid over it. There were also some cups and a few pieces of gold and coins. From habit Novgorod gathered the goldpieces and the coins and put them into his sack. After a moment’s hesitation he threw two of the cups in too. One never knows, he said half-aloud to himself and smiled sarcastically.

The small chamber was fast walked around. Novgorod sat on the table he had laid earlier and got back to thinking. I will never win that kind of thing in a fight and it seemed not a kind of a guy who wants to have a discussion and turn it’s mind after some nice pleas by its captive. But it must fear or at least dislike something. The problem is that I haven’t the faintest what it could be. Merry songs perhaps? Novgorod almost bursted to laughter with the idea. He figured how it would look: himself standing on the table he was now sitting as the foggy monster would come back and by singing some merry old nursery-rhymes the wight would be trembling in terror! That was just too funny... and futile.

But then he came upon a more promising one. It took me while it still was dark outside and it went out as it was still the early morning hours and quite dim. It lives inside this chamber, well probably... possibly? So it might not like the light? The plan was worked out pretty quickly. There seemed to be no other reasonable options anyhow. If it comes back to hide away from the morning light, I have no time to lose!

He walked over the chamber to the smaller table and took the helmet from there. Then he carved some pieces of wood from the larger table and lit a small fire near the entrance, hoping that even some of the smoke would get sucked outside by the draught. Using a wrenched cup and a small dagger taken from the table he managed to adjust the helmet to stay upsidedown over the fire so that it began to heat. Then he took the Easterling’s piece of meat out from his sack and started carving the fat out from it in the light of his little fire. This is probably the best use for this piece of meat there ever is going to be! Happily I didn’t throw it away yesterday! He poured the fat into the helmet and checked that it started to melt slowly over the fire.

He tried to hear for any sounds outside the entrance but couldn’t hear any. Okay, then the showpiece! Fast Novgorod gathered the other items from the table and got to the bigger one. He assembled the armour, the shield and the sword over the table, making them lean towards the wall looking like someone standing there. After that he started frantically to rip the dust from the walls near the entrance, laying them handful after the other over the quasi-man he had built on the table. The he changed his clothes again. The silvery and golden embroideries in the Easterling robes would flash in light too. What a self-defence...

Suddenly he was feeling cold. Something was drawing nearer.

Hurry now! Happily almost all the fat had already melted. Novgorod took the helmet by covering his hands with the Easterling underwear and poured the melted fat to the cup he had put into his sack earlier. He spread some of it over the “wanna-be man” that was covered with dust and threw some to the walls behind. Then he got beside the entrance by the little fire and started stuffing the cup with dust, ready to act as soon as needed.

Then he heard the rock being heaved out from its place and saw the dawning daylight pour in. He had the underwear still in his hand. Fast he took most of the burning wood from the fire and threw them towards his display. The foggy shape of the Wight came in just as the fire bursted. The armour and the shield shined with light and the dust on the walls flared alight, the grease continuing to burn after the blinding initial flare of the dry dust. Simultaneosly Novgorod dropped the last little burning sticks to his cup filled with fat and dust. It bursted like a torch.

The Wight was confused for a moment and that was enough. Novgorod leaped out into the daylight with his homemade torch in hand. And he ran. He ran as fast his feet could carry him. He heard noises from inside the tomb. To his luck, the Wight had decided to deal with the fake one first. After it noticed the threachery Novgorod was already somewhat far away, in bright morning sunshine. The moan of the wight coming from behind him chilled him to the bone but he continued running.

Despite not noticing anyone following him, Novgorod run the whole way until he reached the end of the Barrow Downs.