Middle-Earth Role Playing Campaign

"It seems that last night they got within thirty feet of us and no-one noticed," he reported. There was a hint of reproach in his voice.

"Which side?" asked Araquenval.

"To the northwest of the camp. I just thought I should point that out. Not that I am pointing my finger at anyone or anything ..."

"Not that you had any chance of noticing them last night," said Araquenval.

"Right," said Bauglir, but his voice showed no sign he regretted his decision not to take a watch. "Those that should have been noticing obviously did not, or were deluding themselves when they thought they were."

"Is there anything else you would like to complain about before breakfast," asked Mîriel, "or can it wait until after?"

"Oh, I think I am quite finished for the time being," said Bauglir.

"Finished is an interesting way to phrase that," Mîriel mused.

"I do not think that tunic of his is going to see its way through these next few weeks," her sister added.

Despite their animosity toward Bauglir, the sisters showed an interest when after breakfast he produced his map of Middle-Earth and attempted to determine their position. "Do you know what the stars look like this far north?" Mîriel asked.

"Well, yes, I have some knowledge of that. It was one of the things I was forced to study in Litash. At his point I am actually thankful for that. I have determined we are here." He pointed to a spot on his map.

"And where did we start out?" asked Dennenor.

"Judging by the distance we have come so far, right about there. We came south this way," he said, tracing their route from the slate mine, "hit the road, came off, turned a bit west, and then south again. We were not travelling in a straight line by any means, for we were in the mountains."

"But we are going to start doing that now," said Mîriel. "We should be able to make decent time across here. At the rate we are going, in a couple of days we should cross the middle and be at the river."

"But the going could get tougher once we are there," Bauglir noted. "The river could be swollen at this time of the year. It could be hard to cross."

"We will worry about that when we get there," said Mîriel. "Our concern right now is staying alive that long."

They packed up the camp and headed south across the barren landscape of the Nan Angmar. It was not quite as cold as the day before, but the brownish-gray haze continued to largely obscure the sun. The wind was as strong as yesterday. They walked carefully, not really sneaking, but not running.

As they walked, Araquenval asked Bauglir about creating some bogus travel documents. "What should we put on them? Just so we can prepare some to stall any upcoming inquisition," he asked.

"I was not allowed to travel," came the reply. "I was beholden to a higher-up warrior priest and detained in Litash to study."

"But you do write the language, do you not?" Araquenval asked.

"I was being taught it when I escaped. I never did know it to any great extent. Not enough to fool anyone who knows it."

"Could you write it well enough to fool someone who was not well versed in it?"

"I do not know. I could make a guess."

"How long did you study?" asked Mîriel.

"About two months. And I have not been using it lately--there were not many opportunities to speak Morbeth while fleeing across the wasteland. But when next we rest, I will try to prepare something."

"At the very least," said Dennenor, "it would serve as a useful diversion while we get our swords out."

"Right," said Mîriel. "We can use it to get someone close enough so we can strike them! And for that, all you need are papers with scribbles on them."

"Well, we're going need something pretty soon," came Bradlegar's voice. "Riders are approaching from the east."

"Start scribbling, Bauglir," Luinár quipped. Bradlegar looked disdainfully at her.

Directly ahead of them was a large tangle of gorse with dogwood trees in the centre. The group made a run to it, leading the pack animals in and securing them to the dogwood. Quickly they prepared weapons.

Seven riders in a line, five armed with long, slender usrievs and two with bows, approached and stopped just outside arrow range. One of them, who appeared to be the same one who had accosted the group the day before, called out to them, "You no messengers of Witch-King!"

Araquenval called back, "We're spies of the Witch-King. You would be well advised to leave us alone!"

The speaker on the horse laughed harshly. "You not spies! Show us papers or die!"

But the riders hesitated for only a moment before charging, roaring past the party. Bauglir vanished from sight. Mîriel and Araquenval fired sleep spells: an archer fell asleep in his saddle and a swordsman fell out and crashed to the ground close to Luinár. She stepped out of the gorse and stabbed him hard with her spear, then retreated back in as the man screamed in pain.

The remaining riders stopped, turned their horses around, and charged again. This time they split into two pairs and galloped past on either side of the gorse. The remaining archer took up a position and fired, hitting Dennenor in the leg. The group's archers returned fire but their arrows went wide.

The riders turned and charged again, again splitting their attack and aiming for Rhôn and Araquenval. Though unused to this form of fighting, the stymied defenders stood their ground. Mîriel used the second charge on her spell ring and two fighters, who were turning their horses around, gently toppled from their mounts and fell asleep in a clump of gorse.

Seeking a more secure position, Dennenor painfully made his way deeper into the gorse to the dogwood. The two fighters still on their horses cantered over and began coming in. Bauglir suddenly reappeared behind one of them, attacking with his axe. Swiftly the other joined in the attack: in a mighty show of strength, Dennenor cut one of them in half.

Then he noticed movement out of the corner of his eye: the sleeping fighter Luinár had gored earlier had not died, and now desperately was trying to make good an escape. The Elf called an alarm. Hearing it, Bradlegar fired at the retreating Easterling. He fell to the ground dead, an arrow squarely planted between his shoulder blades.

Meanwhile the archer, sitting stationary on his horse fifteen yards away, fired another arrow at the group. He failed to hit a mark. Bradlegar and Mîriel now fired arrows at the archer, hitting him in the leg. Then Rhôn-Hari-Rhôn ran out. First he threw an axe at the archer, then swiftly ran up to him and killed him with his war mattock.

Suddenly there was a scream from the gorse: the archer who had earlier been sent to sleep had awakened and crept up behind Mîriel, savagely attacking her. In a flash Luinár spun around and thrust her spear deeply into the man's belly, and he died before he fell to the ground. Mîriel gulped down a mirenna berry.

Now only one fighter remained in the gorse, parrying blows from all sides. He struck at Bauglir, and stumbled from his horse. The sword he carried broke from the impact of him landing on it. Then an arrow flew in from Bradlegar's direction and the fighter died where he lay. The fighting all but over, Araquenval walked over to the gorse clump where two sleeping fighters lay and killed them as well.

"My hero!" cried Luinár joyfully, and ran over and gave an astonished Bradlegar a kiss on the forehead.

Mîriel cast a couple of healing spells on herself to repair the damage from the archer's sneak attack, then examined Dennenor. Aside from the arrow in his leg, the Elf was not badly hurt. She gave him a mirenna berry and together they pulled the arrow out.

"I do not have anything that can heal your leg," she said. "Luinár and Rhôn, will you help me look for something? Without any sort of healing plant he won't be walking right for at least a week or two."

The three of them searched for plants. Among the dogwood they found nine ur nuts, but nothing that would help the Elf.

The dead Easterlings had but three silver pieces, but they left behind a greater treasure: the horses. The group had them rounded up in minutes. So that Bradlegar could ride his pony, they off-loaded the supplies Sara had been carrying on to one of the new horses. Then they collected the bodies of the Easterlings and hid them among the gorse.

The group debated whether they should attempt to use the Easterlings' cloaks and helmets as a disguise. The coats proved too small for the purpose, but Dennenor and Luinár each appropriated a distinctive Easterling metal helm, bearing a wide fur band at the base and a point on the top. Dennenor kept an usriev.

They started out again, this time riding the newly acquired horses. The day was the warmest they had experienced so far, and about them the snow was melting and running off in little rivulets across the rocks. Two hours after leaving the scene of battle, Bradlegar noticed a strange black cloud on the horizon behind them, moving faster than the wind. He called out a warning.

"It is moving far too fast to be a cloud," said Bauglir. "We should take cover."

But the barren land afforded nothing that could be called cover, aside from clumps of gorse and small stands of stunted hazelnut trees. So they made their way to a tiny collection of hazelnut trees, and there dismounted and secured the horses. They stood around and waited anxiously while the strange black cloud rolled in, getting ever larger and it approached.

"They are bats!" Dennenor announced as they came in close enough to be seen individually. "Score upon score of thousands of bats!"

And then they were surrounded. The cloud descended upon them out of the sky and engulfed the entire party. Huge bats with wings two feet across from tip to tip swooped and swirled about them, darting in and out.

"Bats are very hard to hit," said Luinár. "A bow and arrow is useless here."

"They do not appear to be malicious," Dennenor said. "If they were, we would no longer be alive."

"These are spies of the Orcs!" wailed Bauglir. "We have been found!"

"So?" asked Mîriel.

"You do not understand," Bauglir cried, his voice rising in pitch. "When there are bats nearby, there are Orcs nearby!"

"Orcs out during the day?" asked Bradlegar.

"Not all Orcs are stopped by that," said Mîriel.

"And it is not direct sunlight," Bauglir added. "The end of the swarm is in sight; it shall soon pass us."

And then they were gone. The cloud formed again, this time to the south, and headed off to the south and west. Bauglir pulled out his map and examined it.

"They are heading to Mount Gram," he said.

"A bad place, is it not?" asked Luinár.

"Second only to Mount Gundabad," came the reply.

"They probably have one or two serious shamans there," said Mîriel. "They could be controlling these bats, and they probably knew about our existence even before the bats arrived."

Bauglir moaned, "The Easterlings know about us, the Orcs will soon know about us -"

"So, we get on the horses and ride!" Mîriel exclaimed. "Do we have any other options? We should go due south, and when we hit the river we can follow it east for a bit to find a place to cross."

Bauglir rolled up his map and returned it to his robe. They loosed their horses, mounted up, and rode on.

They enjoyed a uneventful ride for the rest of the day. The land was changing slightly as they went further south: small trees were now more apparent, clinging to the fragile soil. Large rocks and boulders were also in greater abundance. Once they came across a trail where a large number of Easterlings had made their way across the land, but Bauglir said it was at least a week old. A few hours later he noticed tracks recently left by a small lurg of Orcs, and surmised they might be living in a cave nearby.

An hour after passing the Orc tracks, Bradlegar spotted a long caravan about five miles to the north, heading west across their path.

"We should stop and wait for it to pass," said Bauglir.

"As long as we stay still, we should not be noticed," Araquenval added. "Especially at this distance."

"At this distance, we should not have to worry too much about staying still," said Mîriel.

So they waited. Luinár took advantage of the stop to cast a spell on herself to heal some of the bruises she had taken in the fight that morning. At Bradlegar's suggestion, Luinár and Rhôn-Hari-Rhôn searched for medicinal plants, turning up thirteen more ur nuts and nine kathkusa leaves.

"Kathkusa good in fights," said Rhôn-Hari-Rhôn. "Make fighters very strong, but for short time."

They gave three each to Dennenor, Luinár, and Rhôn-Hari-Rhôn. By now the caravan had passed, so they resumed their southward trek. The day was becoming shorter and they were now looking for a place to camp. A promising cave had to be passed by when Bauglir noticed Orc tracks coming in and out. Just before sunset they came upon a semicircle of boulders. Here they set up camp, and the entrance they protected with caltrops and a trip wire set up by Bradlegar.

"We will need to re-think our watches," said Bauglir.

"Why?" Mîriel asked.

"Well, Dennenor got hurt in the fight today. He may not be well enough to stand watch."

"It was my leg that was hurt, not my eyes or ears," said Dennenor quietly. "I can still do watches."

Bradlegar joined the discussion. "I'd prefer to take the one just before dawn, actually. Always was the type to get to bed early and get up early. I'm not much of a night Hobbit."

"What do you think about that, Mîriel?" Luinár asked her sister. "Would you switch with Bradlegar?"

"Yes, I will do it that way," said Mîriel. "I only agreed to take the morning watch because I thought Bradlegar also was a night owl. Now that I know he is not, we will switch watches and everyone will be happy."

So Mîriel and Dennenor kept watch after the sun set. Aside from the cold and the wind, their watch, and the one following it, were uneventful. But just when the eastern horizon was beginning to lighten while Bradlegar and Araquenval were on third watch, they spotted a line of torches slowly snaking its way westward along the track they had watched the caravan the day before.

"Should we rouse the camp?" asked Araquenval.

"Don't think we need to," Bradlegar replied. "If we can barely see them, chances are pretty good they can't see us."

"They may be flanked by outriders, though," said the Elf. "We should wake everybody up. If I were in command of a large convoy, I would have outriders to make sure we were not set upon by bandits."

"In your home territory? Known, secured, controlled territory?"

"But how secure is this, though? Perhaps there are rival bands within the same area. Orcs attack each other all the time."

"Orcs, yes," said Bradlegar. "I'm not so sure about Men. From what I've seen, they seem to be a spot better organized and disciplined than Orcs."

"Despite that," said Araquenval, "I still think we should wake the camp. We are in Angmar; paranoia is the rule here, not the exception."

So they roused the sleeping people, and each as best they could took time to look around for further danger. The torches in the distance sluggishly meandered out of view. Half an hour after the watchers had raised the camp, there was only the wind to take notice of.

"I'm awfully glad we got up for that," Mîriel muttered.

"Better safe than dead," said Araquenval.

"Somebody else could have been safe," Mîriel retorted. "I will soon be dead if I cannot get my sleep!"

"Humans generally do not travel in caravans in the night," mused Bauglir. "They would be foolish to do so, given all the Orcs about."

"But Orcs would not carry torches," protested Mîriel.

"Well, they may for the pack animals' benefit, or if there were humans with them."

"Let's wait until morning, shall we?" said Bradlegar. "When we get to the road, somebody can check the tracks and try to figure out what passed there."

"Well, in the meantime, some of us need to get our sleep," said Mîriel, "or we will not be awake enough to cast spells tomorrow."

The others returned to their beds, and the remainder of Araquenval's and Bradelgar's watch passed uneventfully.

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Based on events played to May 02, 1997. Accesses since September 30, 1998: