ATM II RPG

[the guy who be short]

Angawen woke up suddenly.

Escape! Escape!

All Gondorian restraint gone, she jumped out of the bed. It was dark, but she could see stars framed in the entrance of the cave, and she made for them. Aiya Earendil elenion ancalima! Aiya Varda, tari i elenion. She mused on how the stars so often gave hope to the West, and ran with all the energy she could muster.

She felt surprisingly strong for all the days of capt - no, she would not think of the anakronistic spell, or of the whereabouts of Voldemort, her captor. She did not know that it mattered little anyway; they had been consigned to the Waste of Narrative Irrelevance.

Making the entrance of the cave, she saw a great field of tombs in the moonlight. The cave she had been held in was in the base of a cliff bordering a graveyard.

She ran out into the graveyard, stumbling, wanting only to escape from her captivity. She saw gates in the distance, and she made for them, hoping thus to find civilization - what passed for it in Mordor - and gain directions to Mount Zoom.

Suddenly, she saw that on a path to her left and some way ahead of her were three people, also making swiftly for the gates. She recognised the tall gangly figure of Hyarmenwë, and the slight Maika. With them was a man whom she did not know.

Regaining her posture, she called "Hyarmenwë! Lord Hyarmenwë!"

[Feanor of the Peredhil]

When Aimè left Alli momentarily, she spared no time for logic and went off on her own. She stumbled over bones and managed to leave the tomb without anybody seeing; an impressive feat, given her own Sight was a bit off kilter.

She walked on two planes. In one, her boot lace snagged on a jaw and it crackled along behind her. In the other, stars shone brightly all around her and it wasn't so much as she walked as that she floated very calmly and certainly in the center of the universe. Illamatar was by her.

As her hroa fumbled into the night, her fea was, quite frankly, pretty chill.

When Aimè returned, his reaction went unnoticed by Alli's lack of proximity.

"Illamatar, why have you forsaken us?"

"I haven't. Do you doubt me?"

"I can't see."

"You're looking at me."

"Illamatar, that isn't fair. Why have my dreams disappeared? I used to know everything. I was the ideal spymaster. It was the economy of Mordor, for your sake. I didn't need spies, I just employed them. All of them. I shuffled papers and had Lola schedule and break appointments for me, and all of my workers had steady jobs and steady pay. None of them needed to work, I already had all of the information."

"You're whining."

"It was so easy! What did I do wrong? Why did you take away my dreams? The entirety of Mordor is ready to collapse! We're on the brink of war! Look--" She gestured to the reality in which her body lay sprawled over damp earth where she had tripped over a headstone. From their otherworldly vantage point, it was clear that the Ambassadors were surrounded.

Smilog and Co. strove with various wizards. Panakeia was busy with Anakron-istic love stuff. Angawen was... well... no sense in repeating the obvious. They were all busy, and they were all being closed in on by were-creatures of every make and model. Thunder boomed. Things were grim. The wizards cackled.

Hundreds of miles away, a surprise ending was beginning to occur. Roggie, King of Mordor, was ushering a cloaked stranger into his office, gesturing toward the warm fire.

In the cemetery, the sounds of howls kept getting louder. And louder. And more dangerous.

"Illamatar... why have you let the Blue Wizards do this to us?"

"I was bored."

Alli shrugged. It kind of made sense, after all. "But... we're all going to die--?"

The All-Mighty baaed.

Back on Middle Earth, Alli opened her eyes to find Tom Felton looking into them.

[Anguirel]

Tom Felton stepped from behind a rather art-deco sarcophagus and gave Alli a startled look. Then he glanced quickly away, as if pretending he had not seen her, and started creeping off back into the shadows.

He reappeared a second later, having emitted a muffled cry, rather as if he had been kicked. Tom was, to be candid, a complete mess. His previously conveniently unobtrusive racing broom was now lugged over one shoulder, though he knew he would now be quite unable to fly it. Indeed it hindered his attempts at stealth slightly.

"Er, hello, Alli," he said weakly. "Sorry I'm er, a bit late..."

The scene suddenly blurred as Tom advanced. He tripped entirely over a crumbling headstone and fell on his face, covering himself in mud. He rose, staggered on and then contorted as if a hippogriff and slashed his arm. Desperate, he threw his hands forward...

"They're trying to stop me... the Ithr..."

An elder tree that simply had not been there before was in his way, and he had to stagger through a succession of branches that tore his robes apart. Cold, and rather modest, he swathed a silvery spare garment, forgotten about till now, about himself, then leant towards Alli in relief.

"Ha! I've triumphed over them," he said in satisfaction. "They could stop Malfoidacil, but they can't stop Tom Felton. Alli, I'm going to explain in detail. You see, I was once a werewolf, but I surrendered to the Power of love and worshipped Illamatar, so, if you get it, I'm, like, not a werewolf now, nor a wizard, if you know what I mean. I'm just a pretty straight kind of guy, y'know. Now, we have to act quickly. I need to warn your Hunter friend where to shoot. We're about to be threatened by Fenrir Greyback, who is now bald due to a fortuitous lightning bold but was not explicitly killed by the laws of narration; by Wereducks; and by Mario, again. Then we need to foil the Blue Wizards, and I have to apologise to Maika and confess my undying love to Skittles."

Alli really was a splendid spymaster, he reflected. So remote, untouchable, poker-faced. He admired her insouciance in the face of his stunning information; though she did look slightly puzzled.

The Inaudibility Cloak glinted around the excited ex-wizard's shoulders.

Somewhere, in the distance, wolves howled, one in French, one in Italian...

[Hookbill the Goomba]

The Barrow Wight stood atop the tomb of some great king of Mordor. It was tall and made of black stone, smooth to the touch and smelled of beans. His long black cloak swirled uncontrollably about him as he peered into the darkness where the great army was mustering. Smilog and Tollin were sitting on the edge of the tomb roof, throwing stones at passing birds and grumbling about the ill treatment Wizards had given them.

A fire leaped up somewhere in the distance; yet it was in the opposite direction to the army of the blue Istari. The Barrow Wight swung around to look at the new thing that was approaching. He gave a slight gasp.

"What is it?" asked Smilog, standing up

"It looks like..." replied the Wight, straining his eyes, "the casino staff from Mount Zoom. They are wearing armour made out of gold and bear swords made from what looks like beaten snooker tables."

Tollin picked up the telescope and looked out, "There are," he mused, "five hundred of them. Men and Orks." The new army filed into the Grave yard and began forming ranks in a circle about the great Barrow in the centre. The three oddlings (as they were later called) clambered down from the large tomb and made their way towards the centre of the Grave yard. Atop the hill they could see the flame that The Barrow Wight had spotted. It seemed to be burning bright, as if it were a challenge to the Wizards.

There was a large Orc holding a large stick that was on fire. He made a great cry and began to beat his chest. The rest of the army joined in until the noise was unbearable. Smilog leaped behind a tombstone.

"Gosh" said the Barrow Wight.

[Feanor of the Peredhil]

Alli stumbled over herself yet again, uncertain of the alcohol content of her blood. She blinked a vision of Illamatar surrounded by stars from her tired eyes. Let this end, she thought wearily. Just let me end.

She thought of Mardil, married in Gondor, and the frequency with which he had saved her life once upon a time. She thought she had been in love. Falling in with Aimè had changed nothing, though she would never have said it aloud. She thought of Roggie ruling Mordor without the aid of his best friend.

Who would spend lazy nights curled before blazing fires if not those two?

Alli missed her private home in Ithilien, but she thrived on her position as official know-it-all. She missed relaxed mornings spent writing in bed, snuggling, and playing with a cat she may never before have mentioned. But now she too missed her drafty office with Lola and her three-pile paper sorting system. She missed the castle and casino gossip.

The weather waged on in its own private battle for good (warm front) and evil (cold front). The werecreatures gathered (with conviction). The subplots combined into one large climax (with the hesitation the werecreatures lack).

When Alli stumbled, Tom caught her and she met his eyes and saw in them mixed emotions. Gravity and a random edge or two of her gauntlets pulled the Inaudibility Cloak completely from his person and life was suddenly a bit more verbal.

Seeing the silvery folds of Inaudibility fall about him, Tom realised that his entire, vital, speech had gone entirely to waste. He ran his hand through his gorgeously pale locks and then said, rapidly:

"Alli, there are werewolves coming, as you can hear. Despite my best efforts, we are quite doomed."

"Totallement!" barked Fenrir Greyback as he hoved into view, still happily mauling the French language.

"I passed through the fire and the chasm," the beast growled, "and am Fenrir Greyback no longer! Now I am Fenrir Whiteback!"

"Actually, since the thunderbolt singed off your fur, you're more a sort of pinkish-brown," Tom commented, stepping straight towards the wolf.

"You'll regret this, Mudblood, renouncing your destiny as a Malfoy and a Werewolf..." the creature spat. It now became clear that he had a cohort; a smaller wolf, with an unpleasant red cap and a long-chewed cigarette in its mouth, had approached from another direction. Alli looked not so much frightened as exasperated at the sight of him, but, taken up with Fenrir, Tom did not spare the newcomer a thought.

Alli gasped at Tom's until-now-unknown identity. She wondered suddenly if he'd known she was the Seer. She wondered how the quiet meeting of friends that had never occured would have gone if it had ever managed to happen before now. She wondered if Mardil knew. She nearly sizzled with rage. And Mario. Mario! How bliddy many times was she going to have to kill the little monster?

She screamed frustration and yelled for Aimè. If Mario spoke, Tom could turn on her. Incredible and attractive fighter though she was, three werewolves jumping her was not her top choice of ways to spend her evening or die. She wanted to fall asleep one night in the unforeseeable future and never wake up.

As for Tom, he continued to concentrate fiercely on Fenrir Pinkback. "Come and eat me," he said nonchalantly.

"If you insist," Fenrir leered. He sprang forward, clasped the Kensington lad in his claws and lurched his head forward for the final, decapitatory bite.

"Fenrir," Tom observed, "haven't you noticed that I have long, blond, hair? Golden house of Finrod, anyone?" Then he shrugged and plunged his fairly pitiful body weight into the bald wolf's mass, appearing to feel no pain as the wolf's paws slashed at his back. The werewolf, on the other hand, writhed and recoiled and steamed and melted, in accordance to the Oldest Cop Out that Goodies Melt Baddies.

Tom turned to Alli, a horrendous mess, blood and ex-wolf slime smeared all over him.

"Thus," he said weakly, "has Tom Feltonagund redeemed his oath."

"You didn't swear any oath! And you're covered with slime! Don't come near me, wolf! Aimè, where are you!?"

"Don't worry...about...me," Tom gasped out. "My...agent...will...cast me...new role...thinking...about...stage acting..."

Then he collapsed and his spirit departed from Arda, but probably returned to Kensington. Wolf-Mario stood by watching the proceedings, smoking boredly.

"Alli, Alli, you have to see this" whispered Aimé loudly. Scurrying through the maze of the crypt, he felt like he was trapped inside somewhere that only closely resembled reality. And he had a strange, unrealistic prize to show for it—a huge slab of gold.

He ran towards the flickering candlelight, but tiptoed the last few steps: an eerie atmosphere was all around. Plus, there were loud shouts and screaming coming from just around the corner. Aimé peered round.

"Aimé!" yelled Alli.

"You!" yelped a wolf wearing a red cap and smoking a cigar (probably the strangest wolf Aimé had ever seen).

"...urgh..." gurgled what appeared to be corpse, somewhat familiar-looking...

"Yeah, uh, hi" offered Aimé, too puzzled to be confused.

The wolf did a bizarre little agitated jig on the spot. "I will have my vengeance!" it hollered with a slightly spoof-Italian accented howl (probably the strangest wolf Aimé had ever heard).

Who is this freak? wondered Aimé. "Alli, I'm glad to see you! Look what I found!" He held up his golden prize.

"What is....is that?....MWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!" bellowed the wolf. "What fortune! What wonder! It is the Golden Coin! It is the Sixth Golden Coin!" He chuckled manically.

"All, please tell me what this... creature is" said Aimé, very slow on the uptake.

"I am Mario!" And with that, the wolf suddenly grew to four times his original size. Then seven seconds later, he returned to normal, apparently unchanged. What a lame superpower.

Alli stopped short and looked at Mario quizzically. For somebody with such impressive longevity, he was boring.

He suddenly darted and she cried out, never expecting him to answer, "What are you doing?"

And he called out, "Taking a shortcut."

"A shortcut to where?"

"To the mushrooms!"

And with that, Mario took advantage of the darkly moist soil of the cemetery and grabbed a handful of 'shrooms of all colors, as well as an herb or two. He chomped away at them, wolf-drooling spittle and Alli and Aime watched in horror as multiple tranformations took his already lupine shape and distorted it more.

Their longest lasting enemy grew to twice his former height and changed color schemes. He grew the tail of a raccoon and felt suddenly much warmer.

Alli dove on instinct as a fireball destroyed the patch of ground on which she'd been standing.

Mario was a flamethrower.

He suddenly spun his tale quickly and levitated. She swore.

Mario could also fly.

"Aime, we have to get to the mushrooms!" she screamed.

He said, "Okay."

Veering on impulse and ducking highly heated air, Alli began to sweat attractively. Her pale skin took on a dewy glow and her outfit (mostly leather, all custum-made) made men swear many oaths. She tucked and rolled, wincing as her own gauntletted wrist and fist crushed into her stomach.

She grabbed the only mushroom left behind and laughed as Mario froze in midair, his tail spinning, a fireball forming between his jaws.

"Look what I found, buddy. Bet you thought I didn't know!"

"Not the poison mushrooms!" he shrieked.

"Aime, now we know how he kept coming back. He had a secret supply of 1-up mushrooms. Extra lives! And he's a thief, we knew he was a thief in the prequel! He's been pillaging places for gold coins! For every hundred, he gets another life. It's why we can't kill him. He gets another replay every time!"

She turned on him, throwing the rarer fungus at him. He tried to incinerate it and missed. When it hit him, his tail disappeared and he fell to the wet ground. The rain had stopped. The world was oddly quiet.

She plucked several more and shouted, "It's time for GAME OVER!"

And so it was that, with the help of her perfect aim, Alli Umfuil, Spymaster of Mordor finally took down Mario-wolf. She pegged him with poison 'shrooms until every superpower disappeared and he lay snivelling before them. She considered calling Hookbill the Goomba to touch him... she knew Mario would die on contact. She decided it wasn't worth the effort. It would require a save and a conversation she was too lazy to have.

"Aime? Would you like the honor? You are the hunter."

And so Mario died.

Alli heard a gentle baa of approval in her non-corporeal ear.

Suddenly Alli and Aime were in a different part of the graveyard. Smilog and Co. stood beside them, and the Blue Wizards were towering ominously.

[Hookbill the Goomba]

"Who the Morgoth are you?" yelped The Barrow Wight as Alli and Aime stood blinking in the pail green corpse light. Tollin gripped Smilog by the shoulder and pointed to the north where two points of blue light could be seen getting closer.

Smilog swore and took out his axe, "It's those Wizards," he said, "what do they want now? Why doesnt their army attack?" A laugh leaped up from the Wizards as they drew nearer and before long, the towering forms of Alatar and Palando were before them as menacing as fire mountains.

"I'm telling you, rice salad exists and can be a great help!" Alatar was saying, Pallando punched him and stepped forward.

"We do not attack because we do not need to," snickered Palando, "do you see our army, Aime?" Alli and Aime quickly turned to look at the wizards, slightly shocked that they had even noticed them. They had been more interested in why The Barrow Wight was emitting such an odd glow. Palando laughed again, "where is the King of Mordor?"

"He is not here," said Alli, "so why don't you all go somewhere else and bother some other people?"

"Do not cross me!" boomed Alatar, raising his staff, "Canst thou not see I am mightier than thee?" blue clouds swirled around him and Alatar's eyes became like a raging inferno of blue fire. He raised his staff and began chanting strange words. But he stopped. He looked down and saw that a long, golden hilted sword had passed through his stomach.

The Barrow Wight trembled as he removed his blade and watched as Alatar struggled to maintain his balance. "I say," said the Wight, "sorry old chap." The Wizard made a loud cry of anguish before falling down to the ground, face first. Palando knelt beside him and placed his hand on his assistant's head.

Thunder boomed from withing Palando. "You!" he roared, "You are a dead man!"

"Well spotted," said the Wight before Pallando struck him in the chest with the staff. The flailing body of The Barrow Wight flew through the air until it was out of sight. The remaining blue Wizard took his sword in one hand and his staff in the other, raising both hands, thunder and lightning surrounded him. Smilog gripped Alli and Aime by the arms.

"Run!" said the Dwarf. No one dared argue with his logic. The roar of anger from Palando was heard in Gondor. Roggie, wherever he was, sensed a change in the winds. Elrogorn and the others stopped what they were doing for a moment. All the other characters looked towards the sound of the enraged Wizard and the tornado of blue fire that surrounded him.

Palando sent forth a beam of blue light towards Smilog and the others. Fortunately, he missed and succeeded only in unburying some corpses. The Wizard looked down at his fallen comrade and Lo! He was not there. The winds stopped, the magic stopped. Palando turned this way and that looking for Alatar's body but it was no where to be seen. He ran towards a large stone pillar and climbed up it. He saw, in the south, a strange light growing.

Smilog tripped over a tree root and fell upon his face. Tollin picked him up and carried him on his back. Alli and Aime didn't think to ask why Tollin, a minotaur, was helping. Quite frankly, they didn't care. "Look," said Aime, "some stone steps. We can get a better vantage point from up there!" Not bothering to ask what they wanted vantage on, they began to climb.

At the top, they found a shelf with several small pillars dotted around. They came at length to the edge of the shelf and turned around to look out over the grave yard. They could see clearly the army that had gathered in the centre, minuscule in comparison to the massive were army the Wizards had gathered. "Look!" cried Alli, pointing down the steps into the over growth bellow.

Smilog looked and beheld a figure, like an old beggar man, bent over a staff, wearing a long brimmed pointed hat. In other lands they would have greeted him with kind words, but here they stood silent, each feeling a strange expectancy. Something was approaching that held a great power or menace.

No longer able to contain himself, Smilog yelped, "Your bow, Alli, shoot him quick! It's Palando!"

"Hail and well met!" came the voice from the old man, "may I come up that we may talk more easily?" without waiting for an answer, the old man leaped up the steps and before they knew it, he stood before them. An old man, dressed in brown with a long thorny staff. "Well met, I say again, friends." The man stepped up towards Aime and said, "do you not know who I am?"

"Erm..." said Aime, "Radagast the brown?"

"No!" cried the Old man, leaping back and lifting his hat.

"Alatar!" shrieked Smilog,

"Alatar..." mused the Wizard, "Alatar the blue, that was what they used to call me. I am Alatar the brown. I come back to you now, at the... erm... something of the tide." He looked out over the grave yard, "See, Palando! I told you rice salad could help!"

"So..." hummed Alli, "are you going to kill us?"

"Yes." replied Alatar.

[Hookbill the Goomba]

The wind stirred about the shelf as Alatar the Brown stood as menacingly as he could before the group of odd individuals. Alli picked up a sword that was lying on the floor as a writer's convenience. Smilog drew his axe and Tollin his Morning star. Alatar raised his staff and laughed.

"Dost thou think that mortal blade canst harm me?" he cried, "thou fool! Thou FOOL! Do you not know death when you see it?" The earth trembled slightly as Alatar approached them. His brown robes began to whirl around as his wizardry began to take shape and his eyes blazed like a fire. Smilog lapped forward and swung his axe, but the Wizard moved his staff slightly and the dwarf was sent back down to the ground with a thud.

Alli held her sword up and said, "Before you kill us," she coughed, "I just need to know one thing. Why are you doing all this? Why Mordor?"

"It is coming!" replied the Wizard, "the battle."

"Yes," said Aime, "we can see that. There is that big army of yours over there."

"No," laughed Alatar, "the battle. The Dagor Dagroth. The end of the age. It is coming. Did you not hear the words of the seer?

'When the grey Wizard sheds his cloak
And the mountain is moved by dwarven folk
When the Black land is left abandoned
then the door of night will be opened.
War is begun by two powerful Mage
And thus will fall, the end of the age!'"

"Yes," coughed Aime, "but those are the words of Mal beer eth, the false seer. The only visions he had were from getting blind drunk."

"His methods were unusual," admitted Alatar, "but you cannot deny that some of it has come true. The wizard has shed his cloak... on many occasions. The dwarves have moved the mountain. War is begun by two powerful mage. Can you not see it is all coming true. The Dagroth is coming. We'd just like to be on the winning side."

"You're a loony," pointed out Smilog, "and your friend agrees does he?"

"Well..." Alatar thought for a moment, "why not? I think he does." The brown Wizard raised both his hands and grinned. " But now," he said, shaking his head, "Here we all end!"

"You first, old chap!" came a familiar voice, as a gold blade passed through Alatar's leg. The Wizard shrieked and fell down to his knees. The Barrow Wight crawled across the shelf to the other side, leaving a trail of blood as he went. Smilog stood up and kicked the Wizard in the face.

Alatar laughed, deeply and horribly. His face beamed brown light and his arms grasped his staff. The Wizard raised himself up and pointed his staff towards The Barrow Wight, saying, "You won't survive this time!" But at that moment, the sound of trumpets resounded around the grave yard. They were not the Wizards war horns. These were Gondorian horns.

The Wizard leaped off the shelf and ran as fast as he could back towards his army. Alli peered out in the direction the horn had come from and there she saw a group of nine riders, all dressed in purple with hoods over their faces. Their horses were jet purple with what she swore were yellow spots.

"What are they?" asked Smilog

"The farsegul," replied Alli,

"Gosh," said The Barrow Wight.