The long awaited chapter 4 is here! I suppose on this story is where most of my inspiration is at now. I haven't given up on my older ones though, not to worry! Thank you all again for your support and help and I do hope you enjoy this latest installment.

Nevak glanced at the shiny large ring in his hands. His eyes flickered at the table, then he threw it and ducked. Sure enough the ring hit one corner of the room with an audible clunk. The few orcs that saw it looked after it with curiosity till one picked it up and started smiling. Another scrawny one came trying to grab it from the first. Then needless to say, a fight broke out and weapons were drawn and now a bloody brawl.
The two stared in both disgust and shock.
"By Orome'." Raoul shook his head. "That was much easier than I predicted."
"Come on, before they see us." Nevak advised, ushering for the bigger guy to follow.
Alicia also offered to poison the food, to which Raoul turned up his nose at the foul play, but Nevak didn't care. Sabrya still used her coercive tongue to either talk the slaves into keeping quiet or convincing whatever orc was charged with feeding them into an oblivious lul. Whenever that didn't work though, someone was quick to put an end to that orc and throw the body in the sea. It was the leaders that posed the biggest obstacle. After all they were a little smarter. They had some orc taste their food before eating it, or would jump in to try to break up the fight before too many of their men died.
"Any bright ideas hun?" Sabyra turned to Alicia. During the past three days she had subtly stopped so many snide remarks and actually went along with ideas. By subtly, it meant she at least tried to help as she complained instead of just complaining.
" We shall be hitting land today. What if more orcs are there?" Raoul pointed out.
"We take what we can and leg it outta there before we get caught."Nevak quipped.
Raoul pouted. " And what of these other folk? We cannot simply abandon them after we've freed them of their chains, only to be thrown into more."
Sabyra sighed. "We don't know for sure if there are any or not, but even if there aren't we can't hope to save them all ourselves."
" We're not, at one point they need to save themselves." Alicia responded mater-of-factly.
" If we can find some way to at least take over the ship, keep it headed towards the land, and we can see if its safe to even dock."
Nevak pursed his lips. " Sounds as good as any to me. That still leaves us with the leaders though."
Raoul groaned as the leather straps he fashioned around his hands creaked. " We may have to fight them."
"We can still arrange the odds in our favor first." Alicia said again with a smirk.
"And how's that?" Sabrya inquired.
"Use your charm to lure a leader into a trap." Alicia stated simply. Sabrya gave her a deadpanned look.
"Brilliant. Why didn't I think of that?" Sabrya replied. She drummed her nails on her knees then stood up. " So if I'm the bait here, who's gonna be the trap?"
Alicia looked pointedly to Raoul. " You can have your fight."
Raoul gave a solemn nod.
Sabrya sighed as he ventured out to the burly orc that acted as the Overseer who beat and whipped the slaves to make them obey him. He stopped and stared wide eyed at the human woman who swung her hips in a very sultry way, showing off a little leg as she talked to him flirtatiously. The burly orc was hooked the second he laid eyes on her. He followed her like a fly to honey. Then out came Raoul. The orc snarled and prepared for battle.
While he battled though, Nevak and Alicia still took the opportunity to continue sabotaging the orc's living quarters, their food, etc. What ever it took to throw them into chaos they jumped on it. As the odds were turning more into their favor, more slaves had found their courage again and helped overthrow the orcs. Then on the day of arrival for land, the ship was manned by humans.
Raoul stood in the main office of the ship along with a few other people including Sabyra, Nevak and Alicia. His arms crossed over his chest as he frowned atthe map on the table.
This map was unlike anything Aliica had seen before. It was not a map of her home country at all.
Middle Earth was what it was called. It made her both excited and fearful at the same time.
"Well? What do you think?" Alicia asked as she looked up.
The big man's barrel chest expanded with a heavy sigh. " I think we should find another place to dock. More slavers could still be waiting for us there. We must use this ship to our advantage and get as close to safety as possible, if not home."
"And where do ye suppose that would be?" Another man asked. " Our only other options are the land of Gondor, The gulf of Lhun and Andrast. Andrast is full o' dunedain, dangerous men who use poisonous arrows. And the Gulf of Lhun is right in Dwarf territory. I don't fancy being eaten alive or made in some pleasure servant."
The girl looked up at the old man. " What? Dunedain and dwarves?"
"Oh yes." He said assertively. " Don't ye know? The dunedain. They act as rangers in some places, hired hands they are. And the dwarves. Dark, bearded creatures with a dark hierarchy."
"Hmm, getting an arse full of arrows, enslaved by orcs, or eaten by dwarves." Sabyra mused while looking for split ends. " Can't quite decide which one sounds more fun."
Alicia inwardly sighed.
"How much supplies do we still have on the ship?" Raoul asked.
" Once we hit land and go our separate ways? Perhaps two or three days worth." The old man answered.
Raoul looked back at the map. "There is no sure safe place we can reach on such short supply."
"Where can we get more?" Alicia asked.
"In the lands of Gondor we MAY get some pity from those folks who will either hire us, shoo us away or treat us like beggars." Nevak answered. " But by the time we reach that we'd have run out of our provisions days in advanced."
The islander looked at the map again and placed a finger on left of the Eren Vorn. " What about here?"
"Are you joking missy?" the old man gawked. " Wild Men are said to live there! They'll capture us and do all kinds of barbaric things! No better than orcs!"
Alicia gave him a withered look. " It seems to be the least populated place, which means the least amount of danger. We gotta take the risk somewhere."
Raoul nodded. " She is right. The wild men are few in number unless we are in one of their few main villages. " He stopped a second. " one of them may be in the black forest, Eren Vorn."
Nevak rubbed his chin. " But the river there, Brandywine, Rangers patrol it's banks, all the way to The Shire-"
"The Shire?!" The old man balked again. " The shapeshifting wee folk?! They'll come after ye the second they smell ya. Just like the dwarves, but not to keep ye."
Everyone stared at the old man. " Are all your facts based off rumors and suspicions?" Alicia asked.
" It's true. You are not from these lands I donna' expect ye to believe it yet." the man harrumphed.
Nevak simply shook his head.
"Rumors or no, it is our best option. The rangers are dangerous but they are just and will help us." Raoul stated. " We make sail North which will take us to Eren Vorn."
No one objected, and so he excused himself to tell the plans to those who steered the ship.
Alicia took a drink of water." What did you mean by 'not keeping you?" She asked the old man.
" The dwarves. At times they can get like animals during their mating season. Their race is low on females and so if they have not the means to sate their desires, they pray upon the unsuspecting human women. They entice her, luring her into their trap, and once she's caught, they claim her, marking them as their own and there's no escaping them." The man said in a haunted voice.
Alicia openly stared in shock at the man.
Nevak rolled his eyes. " Stories to scare the kids into obedience."
The old man scowled. " Tis true I tell ye! They stole it from the Hobbits!"
"Stole what from the hobbits?" Alicia blurted.
" Their gifts given to them by the Lady Yavanna. She felt sorry for her husband's people and wanted to help his flawed children during the first age. And now they use it for their own selfish desires. Hobbits should be the only one to have it, as they know how best to use and control it." The elder grumped.
The girl was still filled with questions, but wisely kept them to herself. For it seemed the more this man talked, the more confusing his story may get.
She excused herself to go and get her own rucksack filled with any kind of provisions she thought she might need once they reached land Alicia had a habit of being a packrat though, and so had to go over and convince herself of what would be the most practical of things to carry. Once finally deciding on what she'd take, the islander geared up and patiently awaited for land ho.

Alicia stood at the nose of the ship, excitement and fear still dancing around her stomach as they all worked together to steer the ship as close as they could to land which was just inside the mouth of a large river. The ship hit the sand and gave a huge lurch forward that threw her to the floor with an ungraceful thud. " Ow." she muttered as she picked herself back up and peered out. Her eyes widened at the sight stretched out before her.
On one side, the black forest as far as the eyes could see till it bent with the curve of the beach. On the other side was mountains of a blueish hue with open plains in the middle of both. the mouth of the river was in front of them, inviting-ly as if a blue path for her to follow deeper into this vast and unknown land she'd never seen nor really heard of. Blues, greens, browns of all different hues and tones colored the new land before the ex-slaves as far as their eyes could reach. Something lit inside her. Folks on her island would call it 'Adventurer's Call', when an elated feeling of excitement was lit as a person saw opportunity to explore. Oh and she had it bad right now. Alicia gazed at the seagulls with both admiration and envy, wishing she could fly to explore the lands like they did.
People were already leaving the ship with whatever they were able to loot that might be useful. The woman turned on her heels, slinging on her own bag and jogging to catch up to the others. As her feet fell on solid ground, for a moment she forgot about getting back home, allowing the moment to take her thoughts elsewhere for a time. Quickly she paced up front to catch up with Nevak and the others.
As she passed by other people she caught snippets of conversation. Some planned on going to Gondor after all. Some wanted to go to a place called Rohan, or Bree or some other towns.
Raoul scanned the environment in front of them with trained eyes. " We should not tarry here. The longer we stay the more likely danger shall find us. Let us follow the river and hopefully find rangers before night falls."
Stepping on the ground even had a different 'feel' to it. Looking around, there was just so much green. Everywhere she looked, green, brown or blue. Even on this small part of this new place she was on, the islander felt like such a small little spec.
On her island, there was always a splash of colors nearly everywhere one looked. Given, her island was pretty big, but she knew it was not nearly as big as this 'Middle Earth.'
The refugees mumbled amongst themselves for a while before they had begun to move out again.
As quietly as a group of fifty to seventy odd people could move, they continued down the riverside.

Like I said, the first few chapters will be more fast paced so that we can get to the main story. It starts out with scary action because I gotta thrust her in the adventure somehow right? Anyway, I really hope to be adding more to this so long as I can make time to write!