Chapter 11: Hell, Or At Least Near It (Part 1)
At first being back in the warmth was a wave of relief for the Fellowship, even to Jeff, although he hadn't wanted to admit it. But as they made their way down to the dark and dank place that was supposedly the area of where the gates of Moria stood, they began to get downhearted again.
Foley finally came to a stop in a large cave, where surprisingly two tall Holly trees stood a distance apart from each other near what looked like was an empty wall.
"Hey Foley, what's with the Holly trees?" Jericho asked.
"It used to be a token of the people in this land, and they planted it here for some reason," Foley answered, once gaain demonstrating his memory's faulty knack for detail. "These two grew great and strong, even though they're not in the sunlight. They were given names," He said. "The first one is called Hardcore and the other much smaller one Crash, or Elroy, I forget which."
Rock simply raised an eyebrow. Somehow if people were to really name trees he didn't think Crash and Hardcore were the more conventional ones. Maybe Foley's memory was bailing on him again.
"Those were also the times when Elves and Dwarves still could stay in one place and not automatically break out into a brawl," Foley said, looking at Kane and Jeff pointedly.
"It wasn't the Dwarves who ended the friendship with the Elves," Kane said gruffly.
"Hey, don't look at me!" Jeff quickly protested. "I never heard that it was the fault of the Elves!"
"Lines are bordering in book territory," Triple H warned in a low voice as he passed by.
"I've heard both sides, and frankly they're not very pretty," Foley interjected. "Now if you two can stop jumping at each other's throats every two minutes, can you please help me find the freakin' doors?"
"I thought you knew where they were," Jeff said.
"I haven't been here in a couple of centuries. You expect me to remember something like that?" Foley asked.
Kane and Jeff looked at each other, shrugged, and then set about looking for the gates.
While the three of them went about looking for blasted doors, Hunter and Rock were having a glaring competition to the side, near the Holly tree called Crash. "The stupid pony does not go," Rock said staunchly.
"We can't lead it around in the mines," Hunter reasoned with a snarl.
"This pony is carrying around the Rock's most essential baggage: Everything. Do you really expect the Rock to go lugging it around himself?"
"No," Hunter said easily. "If you can't bring it then you might as well dump it."
"Have you lost all you senses, jabroni?" Rock snapped. "The Rock is not about to throw away thirty grand worth of clothes and accessories!"
"Too bad, because we're not bringing the pony and that's final." Hunter said, looking Rock in the eye and towering over him.
Right about then Edge, who had been walking around, tripped over a root from the Crash Holly tree and he gave a yell as he went flying into the pony. The creature neighed in startled fright at the impact and bolted, running out of there like a Black Rider was after it, and in effect taking all of the Rock's possessions with it. The Rock let out a curse and pounced on Edge, proceeding to try and beat him senseless. Hunter shrugged and walked away; at least the pony was gone.
At that moment a ray of moonlight began to shine from a large opening in the cave roof. Unfortunately, Foley was standing right in its way, scratching his head and still staring in confusion at the blank wall in front of him. "I'm sure it was somewhere around here…"
Kane dryly walked over him and pulled him out of the way. Almost immediately the moonlight hit the wall and fine silver fingers began to lace around the rock, tracing out an arch, sides and different shapes. Large double doors began to take shape. All in all it was a cool effect, and they all looked on in awe. Pretty soon the gates stood in perfect sight of all of them.
All nine gathered around to look at it, even Rock who still had Edge in a headlock. Kurt looked up at the archway. "What do those letters say?" he asked Foley.
Foley squinted and looked at it. "It says…" he began, staring closely at it. "I can't read it that well but I think its says: 'Vertical Entrance 9 feet.'"
Jeff groaned. "I think you need glasses, Foley," he said. He stepped up and pointed to it. "It says 'Speak, friend, and enter.'"
Foley took a closer look at it. "Oh yeah, now I see it."
"So what does it mean?" Christian asked.
"It's simple enough," Foley answered easily. "If you're a friend, you speak the password and the doors will be opened to you." He nearly smacked himself in the head for that, but seeing as no one else chided him for using direct lines out of the movie he said nothing.
"Do you know the password?" Christian asked.
"He couldn't even find the door; you expect him to remember the password?" Hunter said.
"I'll remember it," Foley interjected, irritated.
"How does it know if we're friends or not?" Christian followed up with another dumb question.
"Somehow it just does; and if you're not a friend it reaches out and gives you a wedgie!" Jeff said, springing on the Hobbit and causing him to let out a squeal. "Why don't we put you in front of it and use you as a guinea pig?"
"Stop picking on him," Kane said.
Jeff turned and glared at him. "What's you're problem? I'm just having a little fun! What, now you're all chummy with the little guys and I'm not?"
"If all you people would all just shut the crap up and let me think, I might be able to remember the stupid password to this goddamn door," Foley suddenly snapped at all of them.
"Not likely," Jericho said under his breath.
Foley stood in front of the door and pointed the end of his stick at the star in the middle. "Open, Sesame!" he said in a loud voice.
"Old and tired, Foley," Hunter told him.
"Fine, I thought so too," Foley said with a sigh. "Well, this calls for desparate measures." He lifted his stick, assumed a stance that made him appear to know what he was doing, drew out the actual FOTR novel from within his robes, opened it to a specific page and tried again. "Annon edhelen, edro hi ammen! Fennas nogothrim, lasto beth lammen!"
"Does he even know what he said?" Edge mused to Rock, who had finally let him go. Rock simply glared at him.
Foley belted out some more Elven words, confusing even Jeff. When that didn't work he resorted to Pig Latin, actual Latin, Etruscan, gibberish, random catch phrases and eventually cursing. By this time everybody else had tired of waiting and were loafing around. Only Kurt was still looking up expectantly, and dumbly, at Foley.
Christian, bored to death, began chucking stones inside the black, murky waters of the pool in front of the doors. He wasn't even trying to skip them; he was just chucking them. Before he could throw a third stone in, Hunter grabbed his hand. "Quit disturbing the water, you twerp!"
"Why not?" Christian asked indignantly, still clutching the stone.
"Because it's giving me a bad feeling."
Christian rolled his eyes. "There you go with all that mysterious shit again. It doesn't really become you, man, it just totally creeps people out."
"Just don't fucking do it." Hunter growled at him in warning, then moved on.
Christian made a face at him, then, seeing as Hunter had walked on a considerable pace, he tossed the stone in defiantly like a dumb little kid. Hunter heard the splash and groaned, shaking his head.
"Hey, psycho," Jericho piped up, calling Foley from where he was seated on a rock, waiting impatiently. "We don't have all century! God knows more than half of us would be dead by then. Are you going to be able to remember that password or not?"
"Just give me a few more minutes," Mick said firmly.
"You said that an hour ago," Kane reminded him.
Kurt stood up and looked thoughtfully at the shimmering letters in the hard rock. "Maybe it's a riddle or something."
"Like the ones you're not very good at?" Rock piped up.
Kurt ignored him for the time being. "What's the Elvish word for friend?" he asked Foley.
Foley scratched his head for a bit. "It's on the tip of my tongue…" he murmured. Jeff was about to groan and reply when the wizard suddenly remembered. "Mellot."
Almost at once the silver, swirling lines shifted and the word 'BINGO' was formed. And then it disappeared and the great double doors gave a hideous creak and swung open slowly, revealing a barely lit passage. The nine crowded in front of it, looking inside, more than half of them not liking what they saw but not wanting to admit it. Finally Foley took up his stick and hat, and entered the passage.
"Does the Ring make him smarter?" Edge mused to Christian, looking at Kurt.
Christian shrugged. "Probably. He hasn't been acting all that goofy for the past few days. But then again maybe it's just a phase."
Kane followed the wizard inside, then Jericho and Hunter. Jeff gave a look of distaste and then entered. Rock went in after him, but Kurt, Edge and Christian lingered behind.
"So Kane, you're sure that your cousin is still here somewhere?" Foley asked, trying to feel his way forward with his stick.
"And why wouldn't he be?" Kane retorted. "He's the biggest Dwarf in Middle-earth history; I only second him. He'll be there. Everyone else may call this a mine, but I'm sure inside he's turned it into a palace."
"This isn't a mine, it's a fucking tomb!" Jericho exclaimed.
Everybody stopped as Hunter shone his torch on the ground. It was littered with rusted armor and weapons, as well as Dwarf and Orc and Goblin bones, giving it the whole spooky vibe shit. Kane looked incredulous, even through the mask, and Christian gave a girly scream and ducked behind Edge.
"Ew…" Jeff said, wrinkling his nose in disgust. Then he bent over and pulled an arrow out of one of the skeletons nearest to him. "We got goblins here, people," He informed them.
"Great, just great," Jericho muttered sarcastically.
"You know, the mountain's starting to look good again," Edge piped up.
Hunter was about to second the motion, or at least tell everybody to turn back, when a hysterical scream from Kurt cut him off. All of them turned to see that a huge tentacle had snaked out of the dark waters and coiled itself around Kurt's ankle. It reared back, dragging the unfortunate Hobbit with it.
"Aaaaaaaauuuggghhh! Somebody help me!" Kurt wailed out, his arms flailing as he was lifted off the ground.
Hunter groaned and shook his head, then drew his sword and ran forward to begin hacking at the beast. Edge and Kane followed him, and Edge finally hit the tentacle. It gave a gurgling squeal and dropped Kurt, retreating. Relieved, Kurt crawled back to the shore and let Hunter pull him to his feet.
"I owe you, man," he told Edge.
Before Edge could reply and rattle off a few thousand demands, including returning his teeth-whitener as he was running out, the water abruptly broke again and about fifty billion more tentacles shot out. Kurt, Edge, Christian, Jeff and Foley gave collective screams, but Kurt's shrieks drowned out the others as the octopus-like thingy grabbed him again.
"Wholly shit, what the FUCK is that?" Jericho yelled.
"Who gives a crap? It's going to eat me! Now save me!" Kurt screamed out again.
"It's not going to eat you!" Rock yelled at him. Kurt thought everything was going to eat him.
At that moment a huge mouth lined with huge and plentiful sharp teeth opened, suspending Kurt over it. Kurt gave another high-pitched scream. "What the hell do you call that?" he demanded.
"Oh," Rock said.
To Kurt's horror he felt something slip from his neck. "Kirk Angel, you dickwad, the Ring!" Jericho's voice yelled out. Kurt gasped and to everybody's relief managed to reach out quickly and grab the Ring before it could fall down the creature's esophagus. Assuming it had one and wasn't all feelers and stomach.
"If you can't free him, Hunter, at least get the Ring!" Foley called from the sidelines.
"Hey!" Kurt protested. He was stopped from saying anything further when an arrow whizzed about an inch away from his head. "Watch it!" he snapped. "You nearly shot me, you dope!"
"Well, sorry!" Jeff said crossly from where he had another arrow fitted into his bow. "You try shooting something that's moving! It ain't that easy, you know!" with that he let another one fly, this time cleanly slicing through Kurt's coat, but fortunately (or unfortunately) not nicking the Hobbit in the least.
"Stop it!" Kurt screamed.
"Quit whining like a baby!" Hunter growled. He and Kane were trying to cut him away from the beast near its base. "We're already trying to save your ass; don't make us change our minds!"
Right about then the creature's fangs snapped open and shut dangerously. Kurt let out another squeal while Edge and Christian watched, as if paralyzed on the bank. So much for friends. Finally Jeff shot an arrow cleanly into the tentacle that held Kurt by the ankle, and it let go of the Hobbit. Kurt abruptly landed on Hunter with a yelp of pain.
"Quick, get in!" Foley yelled, motioning for everybody to get in the doors.
Hunter gave a groan mixed with a growl and pushed Kurt off him. He changed his mind when the beast tried to strike again, and grabbed Angle by the collar. Jericho and Kane fended off the creature for a bit as Hunter dragged him to safety, then they all retreated into the double doors. Skeletons may be spooky, but at least they didn't have half a zillion tentacles grabbing at the party, nor would they try to devour them.
The octopus-freak made a great tactical error, though, and paid for it. When the entire company made it through the doors, it decided to stupidly follow. It grabbed the sides of the doors that were so ancient they probably outlived Vince McMahon, and pulled. The doors gave, and immediately everything else that supported the cave roof followed. Needless to say, it buried itself. What a moron.
"CAVE-IN!" Jeff yelled as they ran, keeping away from the falling debris. The noise was thunderous, and everything was just dropping left and right.
"We're going to be buried along with it!" Kurt wailed.
"No! We're too pretty to die!" Edge and Christian cried.
"Shut up and keep running, jabronies!" Rock ordered them with a shove.
Pretty soon the cave-in stopped. The rumble and the falling matter ceased, the unearthly cries from the Kraken-like creature faded and the hall soon became pitch-black. The silence was deafening as they stopped to catch their breaths, leaning against the cold, rock and dirt walls.
It was Foley who broke it. "Well, so much for those something-thousands-year-old Holly trees," he said. Then a radiance came from him and he stepped forward, the end of his stick shining like a flashlight. "I guess we have no choice now but to go through the Mines of Moria. There are many more vile things than orcs that that hang out in this place. Let's hope they don't notice us."
"Dude, we just freakin' hammered on the doorbell until it blared as loud as a siren," Jericho said dryly. "After that racket you think nobody in here would know they've got guests?"
"Ssshh!" Foley hushed him, a finger on his lips. "Not so loud!"
The rest of the eight rolled their eyes at the back of the wizard, but soon followed him deeper into the caves of Moria.