CHAPTER 6 - EMYN MUIL
It was dark, cold, and raining when Frodo and Sam opened the door to their cabin. Their surprise at seeing towering rocks and boulders instead of a hallway was immediately replaced by anxiety. What had happened to the ship? Where were they? Not taking much of a liking to such weather as there was, the pair decided to keep the door shut until morning. In the meantime, they would grab some much needed rest after their close encounter with death. Little did they know, however, that they were being watched.
That wretched grunt named Gollum had seen Half Jaw's ship explode earlier in the day. Drawn to the power of the index, he traveled to the piece of the spacecraft that had landed in Emyn Muil, a large group of rock outcroppings near the flood swamps, which bordered Mordor. Undaunted by the fact that the door was locked tight, he searched for another entrance. He found one.
On one side of the immense mass of twisted purple metal there was a group of broken pipes sticking out. These pipes had been used to channel plasma, air, water, and other necessities throughout the ship, but were now empty and useless. Gollum climbed into a ventilation shaft and deftly made his way down the narrow corridor. There was a metal grate which separated him from the room below, in which slept the grunts.
Looking around, Gollum found a sparking plasma hose, leaking out superheated gas that quickly dissipated. He grabbed the device and applied it against the hinges of the metal grate, which melted easily. The grate swung free.
As quietly as possible, Gollum leapt down into the room. Neither Frodo nor Sam stirred. Unable to control himself, however, he began to mutter to himself.
"Thieves. You steal our precious. Filthy Gruntses! We no like gruntses!"
All of this blabbering got the attention of both Frodo and Sam, who immediately woke up and quickly wrestled the weaker Gollum to the ground.
The next morning they were leading him through the rocks on a rope, which he incessantly complained about.
"Rope burn us! Take off us!"
"You quiet! We tie him up and leave," said Sam.
"No. He been to Mordor before. He know the way," Frodo argued.
"We serve master of precious! We swear on precious!" pleaded Gollum.
"Index bad. It make you keep your word?"
"Yes."
"You lead us to containment."
Containment was nothing short of a gigantic natural airlock to prevent any enemies from making their way into Mordor. It consisted of a snowy canyon (because most of Mordor was snow, according to the designs of the Forerunners) with two main gates. One was lightly defended and could be easily snuck by. The other, however, had all manner of stolen tanks, wraiths, and other powerful vehicles and weapons reinforcing the wall. The only way in or out was through a large door that slid down into the ground when authorized by the captain of the wall.
Frodo, Sam, and Gollum wasted no time getting to this wall. They first had to cross the swamplands where there was an ancient storage facility said to have once housed the flood. Once they had been released, darkness had crept into the land of Mordor. The threesome had encountered the facility, but dared not to go in. Moving on, they had come at last to containment. Finding cover in a small cave they observed the wall.
There were three tanks on the wall, and two wraiths. Banshees circled overhead on their patrol. Almost all of the flood on the platform were armed with either fuel rod cannons or rockets. As if those odds were not enough, there was a massive column of Brutes approaching the gate. The door slid open with a high pitched beeping noise. Frodo began to inch forward.
"What you doing?" asked Gollum, suddenly alarmed.
"Me going to Mordor to destroy index."
"No! They catch you! There more secret way."
"What?"
After some explaining, Frodo and Sam learned that there was a path into Mordor that was not nearly as risky as trying to run the gauntlet of tanks, wraiths, brutes, rockets, fuel rods, and banshees.