Chapter 3: Gathering Storm

Rohan: Edoras

Persephone Killgore watched her watched her father fly off into the sky as her teleportation spell sent him back to where she had found him, that lake in the middle of nowhere. She had screwed up her own grand plan by rushing things, which was all on her. What she would do now though, that was the big question. Her father certainly had a sensible plan, tracking down the court and forcing them all back with strict, finely worded orders, but the part she had to figure out for herself was how to do it. She supposed she could ask the peasants for help… No, she wasn't going to ask.

She stepped to the edge of the stone landing, placing two fingers from her left hand against her throat to augment her voice with magic. "Citizens of Edoras, gather at the steps of the Golden Hall if you please."

She waited for a few moments. Nothing happened. Either they couldn't hear her, which was about as likely as lighting fire underwater, or they were deliberately ignoring her. Since it could only be the latter that naturally made her very irate.

She spoke again, letting her mood seep into her voice. "Let me try this again, come out of your filthy hovels or I will start disintegrating them one by one with lightning bolts until you have nowhere to hide. You have to the count of five." She waited one second. "Five."

With a purposeful glare and snap of her elegant fingers she chose the lowliest excuse of a building in the "city" and carried out her threat. Mud shingles turned to dust, wooden beams burst into flaming ash, the flesh of the people inside instantly burnt away and subsequently pulverized by the thunderclap. By a quick estimate, around seven people had lived in that shack, and now they simply didn't exist anymore. It was what she liked so much about lightning, it was clean, and so long as she stood far enough away she didn't have to smell anything. And if she had her preference she would be far away from whatever she was obliterating. Fate forbid the smell stick to one of her favorite dresses.

Predictably, the people started flooding out if their homes when imminent death became far more than just a threat. Although, "flooded" was probably too strong of a word considering the stumbling and scrambling that the motley assortment of wretched citizens were doing as they rushed to comply with her order. It occurred to her to send down a few more bolts, just for fear effects, but she didn't want them all soiling themselves and smelling even worse.

Finally, when the rough assembly was assembled, she cleared her throat lightly before speaking, again using some slight magic to amplify her voice. "Now then, since you were all so kind as to join me, I will be blunt." She slowly stepped along the edge of the ledge. "I seem to have a problem that I'm sure at least one of you can help me with. I've no doubt that someone out of you knows something; something that you heard, or were told. Anything that relates to the whereabouts of my court, those rude men that all rode off and ruined my big day." She lifted her right hand and set lighting to arc between her slender fingers. "The first person to tell me something useful is guaranteed to not be blasted into a pile of ash like that shack back there." A dozen people started shouting at once and she raised her voice. "One at a time!"

Of course, the "one at a time" part went ignored. She paused to think for a moment, mentally picking apart the cacophony to search for anything worthwhile. Of course most of it was gibberish. "I saw so and so going this way." "The horses were headed that way." Nothing specific; which more or less meant she'd be electrocuting the whole damn crowd if someone didn't say the right thing sooner rather than later.

Just when she was about to lift her hand and blast the entire crowd she heard one thing that brought her pause. "Wait, everyone, shut up this very instant!" Slowly, she pointed to one elderly man near the center of the throng. "You, what were you saying just now?"

The old man coughed, several times, before he answered. "Snowbourn, I heard one of the younger soldiers say they were bound for Snowbourn."

She stood in stunned silence for a moment or two. Truly, she had not expected something so concrete. And she had a real feeling that the old codger wasn't lying. Her father had taught her to listen for that sort of thing at the same time he was beating the importance of honesty into her head.

A small smirk twisted her face. "Well then, that is excellent." She tapped her chin, making a show out of thinking. "Hmm, I suppose I'm in a good mood right now. So…" She looked down at the crowd of peasants. "… You all may disperse, swiftly, before I change my mind."

She turned away from the people and slowly made her way back into the Golden Hall. True, she could have just asked the crowd for directions, but that would have been bad for her image. It would have been a simple matter had she taken a grand tour of Rohan before bringing her father and brother here. Like Acheron, she could only teleport to somewhere if she had already been there before. Unlike her brother, her method of teleportation took a great deal more time than "I'll just step from here to here, forty thousand miles away." There were certain to be maps left in the Hall, and she would use those maps to head out to Snowbourn and get her court back. And maybe she would think up something creatively demeaning for Eomer once she had gotten her claws back into him. That would serve that country bumpkin for embarrassing her. Perhaps she would have him dance naked through the streets of every township in the territory. Yes? Shame was a very powerful motivator…

Rhun:

Acheron Killgore stood with his hands on his hips, smirk on his face, while he looked out over the army he had purchased. According to the chief he had paid, they were thirty thousand strong. Which would likely be more than enough considering the rest of the crap he was bringing to the table, namely himself and Lisa's AMP suit.

As for the army itself, it was quite the sight. Each soldier was decked out in glittering brass, scale armor from head to toe. And while he would be the first to admit that he had no real working knowledge of armor, aside from the fact/opinion that what he himself was wearing was super stylish, his father had once explained an opinion on how scale mail was the happy compromise between the protection of heavy plate armor and the mobility/ease of wear of chain mail. That made a bit of sense to him. And as for weapons, the pole-arms he had noticed earlier were present, standing tall in the hands of just about every man arrayed before him. The blade/axes on the ends shimmered wickedly in the evening sunlight, and he could only imagine how much it would hurt to get stuck by one. And then there were the shields, large rectangular pieces of metal embossed wood that covered, or would cover, the average Rhun-ite from lower calf to neck. He imagined that it would work very well against arrows.

He turned to Lisa, standing in her AMP suit behind ad slightly off to his left. "Hey, you mind if I…" He made a small gesture upwards to convey his request.

The blonde stretched out the right arm of the mech-suit before speaking, a smirk on her lips. "Go ahead. I'll try to keep still when you're up there."

He muttered a small "thanks" before stepping on the offered limb and climbing to the top of the machine with one short hop and turning out to the army. "Ok, for those of you who have not figured it out yet I am your new employer, Acheron Killgore. If you need to talk to me you can just call me by my first name. No, 'Mr. Killgore', no 'Sir' or any of that nonsense." He made a very grandiose downward gesture. "This fine lady is Lisa. Don't be afraid of her, she more than likely will not shoot you so long as you don't get in her way when we are fighting. Also, if she tells you to do something, you do it, unless I have told you otherwise." He spread his arms wide to the army. "Any questions? Show of hands?" Slowly, after a great deal of sideways glances, one soldier in the front of the formation raised their shield-hand. He promptly pointed to them. "Yes, you, what is it?"

The man spoke, slowly, deliberately, is an exceptionally deep voice. "For where are we bound?"

He muttered to himself. "Jeez, why does everyone out here almost sound like dad?" He looked up, bringing his voice back to normal volume. "Good question, one that I guess you should probably know. I'm sure most of you have heard the word 'Gondor' before, right? Well, that's where we're going, and we are going to beat them so bad that their grandkids are going to feel it."

Another hand rose, and another question was asked in almost the exact same voice. "Then, what route are we to take?"

His smirk only grew wider. "That's the fun part. We're taking a shortcut, my way, straight across Mordor."

Given what he had seen of the place, namely the choking ash and noxious fumes, he was not at all surprised when there was a bit of an uproar rose up at this notice. He was a demigod, essentially, and he had found the place uncomfortable. For normal people, at least those not walking around in a giant metal shell, the place was probably downright lethal. Packing provisions and other supplies for such a journey would likely have taken another whole day, and that just wouldn't do for his timetable.

He held his hands up, and waited for the grumbling to quiet down. "I get it, I've been there. But don't worry, we'll be across the ash and in Gondor before the day is out." He snapped his fingers and pointed off to his left. "Check this out."

At his bidding a dark void of a portal opened up across a wide swatch of the plain. A stretch wide enough for the current formation to walk through as they were, side by side. His troops would have to lower their polearms to pass through as the portal stood, but he could stretch the thing skyward if he had to.

He spoke again. "This, this right here is why I gaurentee you will like working for me more than past employers. It'd take, what, almost a month, three weeks maybe, to march to Gondor from here, right? Well, with me, two or three days at most." He made a small flourish with his left hand. "For example…" He hopped to his right through a smaller portal and wound up on the ground in front of the bulk of his army. "…Like so. So don't freak out, nothing bad is going to happen to you if you walk through one of my portals. The worst that can happen is that you might get temporarily left behind if you linger for too long in one of my big portals. So, if one of your friends turns up missing before we start fighting, you let me know so I can look for them. Because slowly starving to death would suck, at least that's what I'm told." He flashed a big smile at the troops. "Any more questions? Or can I get a volunteer just so I can prove that this portal is safe?"

A great silence fell, but eventually the same soldier that had aired the first question stepped forward. The man handed a small pouch to the soldier beside him before doing so, so clearly the guy was something of a pessimist. Or a pragmatist. He couldn't really tell the difference some of the time.

He grinned and pointed at the approaching soldier. "This guy, this is one brave motherfucker." He opened two more portals, portals set at an angle so that everyone present would be able to see. "Take your time, no rush."

The man apparently took "no rush" dearly to heart. They approached the black void with the apparent speed of grass growing. The man raised one hand slowly towards the portal, brushed it, and recoiled like his fingers were bit, but then gingerly poked the very tips of his fingers through the black.

He commented on the sight, mouth running faster than his brain. "Yeah, pretty trippy the first time, isn't it? Not to mention your head can start to hurt when you think of how many freaky things you can do with them. Step on your own head, prank your buddies with impunity, give yourself a blowjob…" He stopped himself. "Whoa, I never actually thought of that…"

Soul Calibur responded, mercifully keeping her words confined to the inside of his skull. "I can think of at least seven reason why you wouldn't."

In the present moment though, his hireling had overcome whichever fear holding them back and stepped through fully, which he wasted no time in commenting on. "Ok, proven safe! Everyone get your shit together and start marching. I don't want to spend any more time crossing Mordor than you do." He closed all of the smaller portals and willed the big one to connect to that first spot he had seen in Mordor when Persephone had brought him to Middle Earth. "Let's go, Gondor isn't going to pillage itself people. First one there gets the biggest cut of the loot!"

He was being honest with that last bit, though he left out that the first one to get there would undoubtedly be him.

Moria:

Erasmus Killgore felt a small thrill rush though him as he took his first genuine steps into the deep dark that was Moria. He had, of course, elected to be the first through his laser-excavated tunnel. And it was well worth it. Not for any great sight, because the dreary picture of desiccated dwarf corpses, most with a fair number of crude arrows protruding from them, was not anything that would stick with him. What made it worth it was the feeling of discovery. Judging solely from the dust on the floor, some of which might have been from the collapse, no one else had been through here in decades perhaps. The mystery of it all enticed his adventurous spirit like little else could. He was like a fish on the line; and the black, stone steps ahead of him were the bait he was inexorably drawn to.

Behind him, the steady, not to mention fairly loud, sound of metal on stone drew his attention to the dwarf, Thurin, approaching. A wry smirk twisted his lips. "So, dwarf lord, are the halls of your ancestors everything you had hoped?"

Thurin slowly looked about, tugging on the end of his beard absently as the rest of the dwarven army started to file in. "Hmm, I'll not lie, we knew what we would find when we finally gained entrance. But reality, well, stories cannot always prepare you. So many of my kin died here…"

The mention of "kin" and "death" in the same sentence prompted a flash of sympathy from him. After all, family was one of, if not the most important thing to him now that he was a father. Losing Velvet all those years ago had been hard enough on him. This Thurin character acted as if an entire branch of his family tree had been lopped away. He couldn't begin to understand what that was like. In fact he was sure that at one point or another he had perpetuated such a severing on more than one family during his evil career.

He lowered his voice slightly. "Would you like a moment? I could stall your men if you wish."

Thurin shook his head slowly. "No, I came to terms with my grief long ago when Moria was first lost. Digging it up again would serve no one, least of all myself." The dwarf general stepped forward, into his shadow. "But, I appreciate the offer, human."

He turned his gaze back towards the gloom. "I find it highly unlikely that anything within could have organized a militaristic response to our intrusion so soon. In accordance, I would like to create some light to examine the architecture in more detail."

He was more or less telling, not asking, but Thurin didn't seem to have an issue with that. Perhaps the dwarf was being accommodating because of the grim mood due to the desecrated corpses of dwarves scattered about like flotsam, and perhaps he was taking advantage of that. But if he inadvertently brought an ambush down on the dwarves, well, he would deal with that if it occurred. These dwarves had so far proved infinitely more likable than the equivalent dwarves from his home world. For one, and he considered this possibly the most important aspect, they weren't constantly drunk. Second, they spoke a common tongue with him. Third, some of them seemed to have some common sense. Fourth, judging by the wall carvings that were illuminated by the soft yellow glare of the fireball he held in his hand they had what could pass as culture just about anywhere. Not that he could understand any of the runes, but that was to be expected for a new arrival like himself. He would greatly enjoy deciphering them at a later date, familial obligations and personal training regimen abiding. However, emphasis would need to be put on, "at a later date," as already the press of incoming dwarven bodies was cramping up in the entryway.

Thurin issued an order he was only too happy to go along with. "Step lively lads, no time for the dead yet. But when we give those goblins the boot we'll have all the time in the world to give them the funerals they deserved."

He took up a position only slightly behind the dwarf general, red eyes casting a subtle glow that gave him all the light he really needed to see by. As the dwarves around behind him started lighting torches he could naturally assume that they needed a little more. On the subject of the other dwarves, it was like having a long, rusted nail driven into his head with every step they made representing a hammer blow. His ears were fine-tuned to hunt for and identify slight sounds. This, this thundering cacophony, it was downright painful to his military mind. Even the gun-toting soldiers of Pandora were quieter, when they were firing. Of course, that was something he was going to have to simply deal with. These were dwarves, he doubted that the term "stealth" existed in their language. In that light, his earlier concerns about lighting a small fireball to look at the wall more clearly was downright trivial.

On the topic of the failings of these dwarves, he had to wonder just what else they were lacking. He saw axes galore, a few swords… but not one bow. He had not personally encountered the "goblins" that he had heard inhabited Moria, but just by the corpses in the entryway he could tell that they came armed with plenty of arrows, and arrows were nothing but pointy sticks without a bow to shoot them. Any goblin standing on an elevated point would have complete impunity to slaughter the dwarves until either a quiver of arrows was exhausted, or the archer in question ran out of targets. Really now, was he going to have to deal with every ranged enemy by himself? He could, he knew that, but by the fires of the Netherworld that would be absurdly monotonous. And no shields, nothing but armor geared towards defense. These hallways were just about perfect for a phalanx formation, assuming that there was not a way to sneak around behind them. What, was the plan simply "charge and hack away at the goblins till there are none left?" If it was, he was going to have make some serious adjustments to the dwarven command structure when the first conflict occurred.

Following along in Thrurin's wake brought him to a narrow stone ledge that spiraled downwards. The interesting bit, was that the area was lit, not by the torches of the dwarves, nor by any light produced by him, but by an eerie, silvery light that seemed to come exclusively from the far-off depths of the pit around which he walked.

He spoke, directing his voice at a restrained volume towards the head dwarf. "That light, what exactly is that?"

Thurin glanced down only momentarily. "That, is the true wealth of Moria. Not gold, nor gems, but Mithril."

He scowled momentarily. "I plead ignorance. What is "Mithril?"

The dwarf looked back at him, unabashed skepticism coloring the bearded face. "It is a smith's dream material. Light as feathers, and yet as strong as dragon hide." Thurin reached up to the edge of his shoulder armor and tugged lightly, revealing a shimmering, silvery undershirt. "It's almost prohibitively expensive, but that could change when we recapture Moria."

He aired an honest comment. "That shirt would look far more fitting on an elf, or a woman for that matter."

Thurin let out one short, rough laugh. "That it might, but it'll stop a goblin blade cold. So I've no real complaints." The dwarf glanced down into the depths. "Just don't expect me to walk around with it showing."

He smirked at the light humor, and that amusement bled into his next words. "One more question, for now that is. I don't suppose you know how mithril handles on a forge? I find myself rather proud of my own craftsmanship, metalworking in particular." He tapped the side of his right gauntlet. "I trust nothing but that which I made myself to protect my person. And, well, back to my original question, can you answer it?"

Thurin cast a critical eye at him, presumably scrutinizing his armor. "I was wondering about that actually. You say you made that yourself? Impressive to say the least. But what you asked, yes, I do know a bit about how mithril handles. It is a shockingly easy metal to mold, little more difficult to work than copper. Although given its rarity none but our master smiths are ever permitted to work with it…"

The dwarf lord began making a great deal of complex hand gestures to better communicate his points, and he was rightly glad of it. He was always on the lookout for new materials to work with, and a suit of shimmering mithril mail sounded like a wonderful anniversary gift for the more combat-inclined amongst his brides. He wondered if he could color it black somehow…