Findegil ignores his wounds, hacking and hacking at the remaining orc.
Findegil cuts into the remaining orc and it falls dead.
Whatever the horn signaled, you hear no immediate signs of oncoming danger.
With a nod to both Thorgrim and Cereidh, Amalina starts down the more traveled path, hoping that they are able to catch the others sooner rather than later.
Findegil wipes his blade on some nearby brush to get the worst of the gore off it.
"Back on the trail. We need to press on."
Once the rush of battle wears off, you are left feeling completely empty. You have not rested in two days, and are spiritually and physically drained. The oppressiveness of the forest continues to batter your frayed nerves. While you believe you are still moving east toward Dol Guldur, the feeling of weariness can no longer be suppressed. You may press onward, but only at the risk of total exhaustion.
Findegil has no intention of stopping, for rest or anything else.
Perhaps he could be dissuaded but it would be an arduous task.
"Alright, Folc. That's it. Let's tend to the horses and sleep. If we face another ambush exhausted, we will not succeed here." Éothain starts to unsaddle Folc's horse to let Folc start sleeping.
"Findegil, we are stronger together. If you face three more orcs alone, you will not survive and reach Dol Guldur. I'm too tired to try to convince. If you choose to leave, then we will most likely seen each other again in the real world. I wish you well." The red rider continues his automatic routine that was ground into him before puberty.
His plan is to let Folc sleep for several hours while he tends the horses and makes camp. Then, wake him up for food and watch while the knight naps. It's a well-practiced routine. If Findegil stays, he'll put him watch rotation.
Findegil is torn.
Is the red rider trying to trick me? No, I don't think so. I see their exhaustion and feel my own. His style is more robbery. But I would prevail then. Yes, let us rest...
Findegil nods, then moves to make a resting place.
"I will take watch once I have rested."
Amalina, Cereidh, and Thorgrim follow the set of three instead of the one. They travel through the day and well into evening, Mirkwood becoming ever more oppressive with every mile of knotted root and hanging branch. By the time the trail becomes difficult to follow, you are all quite tired. It may not be possible to catch up with Éothain and Findegil on their horses, so it makes no sense to press on through the suffocating blackness.
At night, the wind plays tricks and abuses your senses, until each of you, during your watch, is quite ready to be done with this entire episode. But the dawn breaks, or at least the darkness eventually gives way to a meager portion of daylight which seeps through the canopy. You break camp silently and set back on the trail of your erstwhile companions.
Éothain and Findegil trade watches, regaining enough strength and spiritual stamina to again press forward during the night. Findegil, you feel the pull of the Ring less now, after some rest, but nevertheless still desire it, and the Shadow hangs like a black curtain over your soul.
Surviving the first night has equipped you with better defenses against the second. You are not as quick to swivel at every breaking tree limb in the forest.
Indeed, daybreak greets you as well, with seemingly no consequence from the alarm raised by the orc.
At daybreak, Éothain and Folc enter a well-practiced routine to break their fast and camp. They give Findegil obvious space compared their previous travels. The two don't speak more than a word but work in unison. Éothain judges that it is not the time for life lessons for Folc and instead quiet practice is required.
When ready, they will wait a bit for Findegil but not long. At most, Éothain will lock eyes with Findegil and say, "Dol Guldur," looking for consensus.
"On some level, I had hoped that this dream of the Mirkwood might be lighter, might be like the wood closer to our halls which we've kept even unto - well, not today here. But perhaps that's unfaithful to the wood. It's always been old. Deep."
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With the passage of time and miles Thorgrim has finally cleaned the last of the grime from Noctiscide and the blade gleams dully with honor and danger as it ever has.
"Hm, indeed," he grunts back at the she-elf. "For a dream this leaves much to be desired. My dreams usually involve good work and much gold, with ever-flowing wine and women with easy-going friendship. That I know am forced to dream of a razed town and a hard march is less so too my liking.
If you say this wood is old, then I leave it to you. I just would that there was less of it."
Findegil appears less tense and driven this day.
Amalina passes through the forest with a sense of caution and wariness, but also familiarity and comfort. Her hands occasionally brush against the trunk of an ancient tree, or she bends to gather a few leaves or bit of fallen bark. The tall trees and dim light bringing a smile and sense of peace to her usually tense and shadowed features..
Hearing the others talk of the wood, the woodwoman laughs lightly. "If it is wine, women and warmth you wish Thorgrim, then search anywhere besides Mirkwood." She says to the warrior with a friendly grin. "The forest is a harsh home, it is true. But it also provides... if you know where to look...and what to avoid." She emphasizes the last by pointing out a patch of orange and red mushrooms growing atop a fallen log.
"Most of all, it teaches. Teaches strength, survival, how to fight the shadow, how to die and feed the forest itself."
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"One might say the same of Gondor," Thorgrim replies, casually swinging his sword to cut down several thin trees encroaching on their path.
"The merchants passing through our lands would talk of what city watches to avoid and which fat nobles would give good prices on seemingly random junk--or which winehouses served hot meat and un-diluted wine if you kept your manners, or others that made note of men with fat purses and reported their names to thieves for a stabbing and looting later.
I see naught for the teaching here save to stay away from shadowy copses and stick to the well-paved and well-lit stone paths of the city.
If you find so much as a quantum of solace here, then honor to you"
"More solace for us, then, that we pass through decorously - no brawls you'd like to invite here, Thorgrim! - and as fast as we may."
By mid-day the forest thins; first you notice the absence of leaves, and the forest floor becomes a muddy slog. The trees are smaller, wretched in shape, as if strangling themselves against something even darker beyond.
Indeed, an hour later your horses begin to get stuck as the mud deepens. It becomes difficult to find solid footing, and finally, when Folc's steed settles to the shoulder and cannot be rescued, you are forced to stop and dismount. This is no place for a beast of burden. With some testing, you are able to stand without sinking more than a couple inches, and their are patches of high ground interspersed such that on foot you could continue, but the landscape has changed dramatically and looks grimmer still the further you look ahead.
If you choose to continue along this direct course to Dol Guldur, you must do so without your horses. You do not know if Haleth came this way or forged a different path. You believe you are approaching Dol Guldur from the West. You recall that Cereidh's secret entrance is along the southeast of the Hill of Sorcery.
With minimal conversation, Éothain leads the small troop toward Dol Guldur. He salvages anything of value from the horses before setting them free to return.
Wondering about the purpose of this dream state and Findegil's state of mind occupies his waking thoughts.
You press on, mud sucking at your boots as you dodge the jagged barren branches set to spear you from all sides. Eventually, the trees give way altogether to the bog; only rotting stumps serve as intermittent posts indicating your progress, toward...
The feeling is one of despair. How long must this dream endure?
And then the mist swirls about you and seem to take on a light of its own. You feel warmth on the backs of your necks, and realize that the late afternoon sun has penetrated the fog. In a gust of heated air like a great fist being thrown at the ground from the sky, the clouds billow aside, and there, in the vast distance, you see it.
The Hill of Sorcery. Dol Guldur.
Atop the hill, the fortress is wreathed by a high wall, and beyond that, rising angrily against all of Middle-Earth, is the Tower of the Necromancer, a black-stone edifice as grim and angular as it is menacing. It is a trick of the eye to look on it, so black is it that it seems almost as if the sky tore open, and evil spilled into the world.
Nothing exists between you and the Hill except swamp, and there are many miles of it ahead. As the day grows long, you all realize you cannot get there along this direct path - no one enters Dol Guldur through the swamps - and this is no place to make camp. Knowing where Cereidh's secret entrance is, given her instructions, you could turn back to find easier walking and circumnavigate to the entrance via the east or the south.
If I am to possess the ring, I must be cunning.
"We should backtrack. This is not the best route to the entrance we seek."
Amalina, as you continue to track the trio, the ground softens. Initially this makes the trail much easier to follow, but the mud eventually gives way to pools of standing water and the tracks soon disappear. You have lost the trail and Winter cannot find the scent.
"I say south, then east, then we strike for the entrance."
Findegil certainly comes across as more reasonable than during the prior day, if still driven to hunt quarry.
Cereidh will voice her support for going towards the future-secret entrance, and hoping on their companions' competence that they'll end up in basically the same place.
Having lost the trail of her companions, Amalina throws up her arms in both frustration and concern as she shakes her head looking at the swampy ground stretching on and on.
"I don't understand what is driving them into the swamps." She says to the others. "Perhaps Findegal or Eothain know of some secret path that I cannot see. But it does not matter, I've lost their trail in this muck."
Looking south toward Dol Guldur, she nods at Cereidh's suggestion. "Agreed. We should make for the hidden entrance. Even if it is just a dream, I'd rather not see the end of my days slogging through this swamp."
You turn south along the edge of the marshes, deep enough into the forest only to find sure footing. It is a rough edge, of course, and the going is slow, but again, in that uneven way in which time flows in the dream, the miles pass underfoot as your minds drift.
By last light, you hear a distant scream. The sound quickly gains volume, and through the sparse canopy you look up as a cacophony of crows blacken the sky, shrieking at an almost deafening level. They do not attack, but move south, and as soon as they have come they are gone, cries receding into the gray sky.
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Thorgrim looks about at the storm of crows and the gathering dark. "As unpleasant as this place is in light, I would not venture our luck in the dark.
Let us make camp here. I will build us a hot fire to keep away predators and make the night as comfortable as can be."
That said, he starts looking around for wood.
During each of your rests, you briefly see Irimë struggling against the Spirit. She seems to be in agony, but then you hear her voice in your mind:
The night wanes, but this evil is strong. Find its living form there, and destroy it if you are able! The vision fades, and you wake.
"We rest tonight, and drive on at first light."
.......
At the vision, Findegil is startled.
I had all but forgotten Irime! My oath...I shall still fulfill it *and* seize the Ring!
"We must press on!"
Cereidh will tend the horses as they make camp.
Over the course of the next day your path bends from south to east, and occassional glimpses through the mist allow confirmation that you are indeed approaching the Hill of Sorcery. By late afternoon, the marsh gives way to hard pack wasteland and soon after, the fog dissipates altogether. You are now only a few miles from Dol Guldur - not more than an hour's walk.
The terrain is no less troubling, but for a different reason: there is no place to hide. The Necromancer was clever in choosing this fortress, for no man can reasonably approach under watchful eye.
From the edge of the mists you spot movement in and out of the base of the Hill - surely this is Cereidh's entrance. Like ants in the distance, black shapes move to and fro in a steady stream toward a small black hill about a mile south of the fortress. The wind carries the unmistakable smell of excrement.
Wiping sweat from her brow and mud from her boots, Amalina helps set camp and gather firewood. She's careful to only gather dead and fallen branches, in order not to disturb or anger the surrounding trees. With camp set, she and Winter spend a little time hunting for fresh meat or edible berries and nuts to supplement their meager supplies.
"Cereidh's secret door doesn't look that secret. Do you want to circle around to see if another entrance is less used?"
"Or, we could cover ourselves in s#&* to disguise ourselves, and go for it?" Éothain asks Findegil.
"Damnation. Let us circle around, seek a more hidden way."
Findegil fumes silently at the frustration.
Did the elf play us false? I wonder...
After breaking camp, Amalina, Cereidh, and Thorgrim continue to push south and then east toward the secret entrance. By early evening, Winter's ears perk up. He hears something coming your way. You all prepare to ambush the unsuspecting travelers. With bowstrings taught, you see the unmistakable forms of two men, and one boy, approaching from the direction you are heading. Sure enough, it is Findegil and Eothain!
Éothain looks genuinely relieved to his companions and greets each is wearied smile and an arm-grasp. "I'm very happy to see you, my friends. We've had a rough time in this nightmare."
"We encountered the RING! Isildur's ring! A hobbit found it in the Anduin. Haleth took it. We've been chasing him here ever since."
"And have you seen Irimë, too? We have to get into Dol Guldur to kill what's attacking her."
"Does anyone have a better idea, than circling around to avoid this busy secret entrance?" The red rider of Rohan looks around for ideas and hope.
Cereidh clasps Eothain's arm in return, brightening just slightly to be rejoined. "I have seen Irime only in dreams within a dream. Although it's putting it flippantly, she is entirely behind the plan to kill this foul Shadow. - I admit, I am not wedded to the idea of this secret entrance. But perhaps one angle of approach will be less busy during the broad daylight? And - I think I might be able to climb this foul edifice, should we decide to splay ourselves against the walls in the hope that no one will climb upward."
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"Ha-HA! Good to see you two, all alive and in one piece besides!
You saw a ring, is it? Apologies, but I have not such great lore as to get too excited for an encounter with some maid's jewelry to understand your exuberance. But whatever, I'm sure it was fine all the same. If thy companion stole something valuable that was yours, then I am sorry for you, but you are better without him.
Eh, what Cereidh? Aye, let us be about it. And, yes, I also have a small hand in knowing the art of the vertical scale. If there is no way through, then let us find a way over."
Breaking into a warm smile upon spotting her missing companions, Amalina greets the two warmly. Upon hearing Eothain's tale of Isildur's ring her smile turns to a frown as she notices Findegil's quiet and brooding countenance.
Walking over to the knight of Gondor, she asks him quietly. "Is all right with you Findegil? Have you learned something about this dream world that trouble's you?"
Findegil pauses when he sees the others approach and listens intently.
Cereidh is determined to go in. Whether for the Ring or otherwise, I do not think she meant this entrance to be filled with orcs.
"We are rejoined. Excellent. I had thought to rummage for a more hidden entrance, but perhaps the open way might indeed be the best. Not all of us are great climbers."
Thorgrim does not know the value of the Ring. I cannot believe that he has now learned the art of deception. His loss and I shall not correct him.
He is startled from his brooding by Amalina's words.
"I...I have much on my mind, Amalina. This journey has been a fraught one, though one of wonders, and I would see the great goal reached at the end."
Findegil thinks more of the orc menace, and what he does know of them beyond the obvious.
You know that Orcs see well in the dark, but perhaps only a little better than an Elf or a Hobbit, and not nearly as good as an owl. They are likely disadvantaged in bright sunlight. Fortunately for them, there isn't too much of that around Dol Guldur.
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Trying to lighten the mood, Thorgrim chuckles and claps Findegil good-naturedly on the back. "Aye, aye! I have been of the same mind, of late. I would have this deed done swiftly, so all the quicker we might find some cold ale and some hot company, aye warrior?
Let us advance and at least lay eyes upon this fortress you speak of. Perhaps once it is seen a strategy will leap to the fore!"
Weary of keeping a eye on the knight of Gondor, the rider of Rohan is happy to relinquish the lead to the ignorant Beorning who doesn't know of Isildur's ring and source of the Shadow.
"Aye, take the lead Thorgrim. Let's take a look to find the best way inside."