They finally reached the bottom of the mountain where snow seemed to be non-existent and the warmer weather was welcomed by everyone. They went down into the lower rock base of the mountain in search of the entrance to Moria, but apparently dwarf doors were invisible when closed so it was going to be a challenge to find them, to which Legolas pointed out to probably annoy Gimli. It worked.

They finally came to the area the entrance was supposed to be at nightfall. A large smooth surface in a dark rocky area between the mountain base and a small lake.

Gandalf approached a seemingly blank wall and muttered something under his breath as he ran a hand along it. He looked up to the sky as the moon came out from behind the clouds. Kirito was impressed when the moonlight hit the rock surface and several lines appeared, outlining some fancy doors with what looked like trees as well as some writing in a script Kirito couldn't identify at the top. So much for them being hard to find.

"It reads, the Doors of Durin, Lord of Moria. Speak friend and enter," Gandalf read.

"What do you suppose that means?" Merry asked.

"It's simple. If you are a friend, speak the password and the doors will open," Gandalf replied simply then put his staff on a place on the door dramatically shouted some words in the language Kirito still couldn't understand a word of.

And…. Nothing happened.

Gandalf looked perplexed, and tried a different combination of words, but the doors remained unchanged. Then he tried pushing on the doors, but still, they did not budge a single millimeter.

"You sure you know the right password Gandalf?" Kirito asked with a half amused tone.

Gandalf sent the 16 year old a glare and tried again. 10 minutes later, he was still trying to get in while the rest of them setting down for the possible long wait. Aragorn and Sam removed the items Bill was carrying and sent him on his way since caves were no place for a pony. Kirito scanned a few of the items into his inventory while Sam and Aragorn divided up the rest among the group.

Kirito was a bit sad to see the pony go and hoped he would be alright and did remember the way home like Aragorn said he did. Bill was the only one here who didn't bug him about his abilities or his past. Plus, horses and ponies were cool. He hadn't been able to be near once since he was 8 years old when he and his family went horseback riding on a family vacation.

Meanwhile, Pippin and Merry were seeing how far they could throw rocks out into the lake. When Aragorn noticed, he quickly grabbed Pippin's arm, preventing him from throwing another rock.

"Do not disturb the water," Aragorn warned cryptically.

Meanwhile, again, Gandalf had finally given up on trying to guess the password and sat down next to Frodo on the rock saying that it was useless.

"It's a Riddle," Frodo said suddenly standing up, but everyone except him and Gandalf was focusing on the water, where several small waves that couldn't have been caused by Pippin and Merry's rock throwing were forming.

"Speak "Friend" and enter. Gandalf, what's the Elvish word for friend?" Frodo asked.

"Mellon," Gandalf replied, and no sooner than the single world left his lips, the doors to Moria swung open.

Kirito smirked and shook his head. It was so stupidly simple yet something you had to think hard about to understand.

"Wait… why use elvish word for friend instead of the dwarvish one? This is a place built by the dwarves, wasn't it?" he thought, but decided to leave it be.

This got the rest of the Fellowhship's attention and they grabbed their things and stood up and entered the Mines, Aragorn and Boromir looking back at the water the whole way, but as they crossed into Moria, they allowed themselves to look forwards away from the water.

"Soon Master Elf, you will enjoy the fabled hospitality of the dwarves," Gimli began boasting to Legolas, "Roaring fires, malt beer, ripe off the bone meat. This, my friend, is the home of my cousin, Balin. And they call it a mine. A mine," he said with amusement.

Kirito really wasn't getting the fabled hospitality of the dwarves vibe. In fact, he wasn't getting any safe feelings of any sort inside the mine. It felt closer to one of the dungeons in SAO, maybe even the really calm area right before a Boss Monster or at least a Mid-Level Boss appeared.

Gandalf lit up his staff and the bones that littered the ground became visible.

"This is no mine," Boromir said, looking at the corpses and bones, "It's a tomb."

Gimli then too noticed the corpses that were mostly obviously dwarves and began crying out in anguish. Legolas pulled black tipped arrow out of one of the corpse's torso to ID the design, "Goblins."

Following the other's example, Kirito reached back and drew his sword, arming himself. They were definitely not safe in the Mines of Moria.

"We make for the Gap of Rohan," Boromir said, "We should never have come here."

No one argued for once.

Just as they were about to go, the Hobbits cried out. Something was dragging Frodo out of the mines, having snagged his ankle from the huddle the Hobbit's had gathered into. It was a tentacle from the lake and if they didn't act soon, Frodo would be dragged into the water and drowned, possibly eaten.

"Totally called the monster," Kirito thought as they rushed after him.

Sam slashed the tentacle with his sword until it released Frodo and Merry and Pippin pulled him away from the water's edge. The tentacle Sam had injured disappeared back under the surface of the water for a second, then several more tentacles sprang out of the water at once, grabbing Frodo around his ankle, Merry around the waist and Kirito around his arm holding his sword.

"Frodo!" "Merry!" "Kirito!" their various comrades yelled simultaneously and began wading into the water and slashing tentacles to save them, but their progress was slow and the beast raised it's three captives above it's head.

Then the beast's mutant octopus/squid like-head came above the water a bit and Kirito was able to get a clear view of it's HP bar. It had two full bars and surprisingly a name attachment. The Guardian of the Lake and Mine. It was less HP than what most big monsters had, but still a challenge. Especially because Kirito didn't know how much HP the bars each contained. It reminded Kirito of one of the boss monsters he had fought on one of the earlier floors, twenty-something probably.

The beast actually opened it's mouth and prepared to drop Frodo in, but before I could, Boromir cut the tentacle clean off and Frodo was flung away, only caught by another tentacle, which was cut by Aragorn, so the beast dropped Frodo directly into Boromir's waiting arms. The HP dropped a little.

The tentacles waving Merry and Kirito around got more wild, but if Kirito times it right… yes, he managed to drop his sword at the right time so that it fell into his left hand. Then he focused on Merry's tentacle and when he got close enough, he charged his sword with energy and swiped, causing the tentacle to come off cleanly. Merry was dropped into Aragorn's arms.

"Kirito!" Pippin called when he got violently jerked around as a result of hurting the tentacle holding Merry.

Legolas fired an arrow that hit the creature's eye. It roared and it's tentacle spread out, putting Kirito over a deeper area of the water not directly over the creature. He took the chance that the water was deep enough and cut the tentacle holding him and then he was underwater looking at the creature from underneath. Since it's eye was apparently above water, it didn't see him swim directly under it. The creature may be too large for his sword to reach anything vital- but he could cause pain and weakness.

Meanwhile above the surface, the creature was about to re-pick up Frodo as well as Boromir, who was still holding Frodo.

When it reared back in pain and one of it's health bars-not that the others could see it- fizzled out of existence and the second one was quickly reduced to the yellow-green zone, but didn't go any lower.

"Can you see him?" Gimli asked, trying to spot Kirito, but the water was too dark and too disturbed to see under it. It didn't help that Kirito was always wearing dark clothes.

Then Legolas spotted the dark haired boy pop up just a few feet from shore and grabbed him. Whatever he had done while under the water had hurt the creature enough to give them time to escape. The still drawn sword was noted.

Kirito got to his feet and ran with Legolas and the others into the mine. The creature recovered and used its remaining tentacles to pull itself up and out of the water, but the doors collapsed on it when it tried to force its way into the cave after them.

The monster's screech faded and Kirito saw the other HP bar quickly deplete and fizzle out as the rocks collapsed on its head, killing it. They were left in pitch darkness, trapped inside Moria.

A second later, Gandalf lit the light on his staff, giving them a decent amount of light in the cave.

"We now have but one choice," Gandalf said, "We must face the long dark of Moria. Be on your guard. There are older and more foul things than orcs in the deep places of the world."

They started walking after making sure everyone was okay, Gandalf in the lead, as he had the only light and the most knowledge of the mine's layout as Gimli had never actually been here.

Kirito pushed his wet bangs out of his eyes and followed Gandalf, semi-annoyed when the hair just fell back in his face as it always did.

"Quietly now, it's a four-day journey to the other side," Gandalf informed, "Let us hope that our presence goes unnoticed."

As they walked into the mines, the caverns got bigger and grander. The path became a narrow 3 foot wide path where they had to walk single file through the mostly hollowed out mountain. There were corpses here and there, as well as some old log books, some mining tools and every now and then Kirito spotted a harness that someone would once have used in order to hang from the side of a cliff to mine from the steep walls.

The path wasn't all just flat walking narrows, some of the stair cases were nearly vertical and more than once they had to cautiously climb the side of a steep wall with few hand holds to reach the other side of a broken pathway.

Kirito was now happy they turned Bill lose before going in. Otherwise they would have just had to abandon him after only the first two hours of walking in the mine. At least if he was roaming free above ground, he wouldn't have to be abandoned then starve to death alone in the dark.

As they walked, Gandalf gave some background information about Moria.

"The true wealth of Moria was not in gold or jewels, but in Mithril." Gandalf's staff shined a big brighter, and several glittering lines on the walls on the mine appeared, making the area light up even more for a moment.

"Bilbo had a set of Mithril Rings that Thorin gave him," Gandalf continued.

"Oh, that was a kingly gift," Gimli gasped.

"Yes. I never told him, but it is worth more than the value of the Shire," Gandalf replied.

"They must have been pretty good friends for him to give Bilbo and item like that," Kirito commented, even though he remembered the details of the story from when Bilbo told them (being Kirito and the Hobbits) back in Rivendell. He also recalled something about Mithril being incredibly light, but harder than diamonds, making it the perfect armor if you can get enough to make chain mail out of it. Kirito recalled several times in SAO when having anything like Mithril would have been a literal lifesaver.

"Yes, indeed they were very good friends," Gandalf nodded and faintly smiled at the memory of Thorin and Bilbo as they continued on. They walked for a few more hours then found a relatively good place to set up camp for the night.

Kirito volunteered to take first watch. He always did so, hoping to prolong the dreams about Asuna and SAO as long as he could. There had been a lot of terrifying shit in that game, more than many of the other players had even known about. Perks of being a solo player, right? Kirito had begun to feel lucky that there had been little gore graphics in that game, but even so, SAO left its mark on him and everyone else who had been in the game.

After all, 10,000 seems like a really big number in some cases, but like with how children at school learn hundreds of people's name in their grade and community, Kirito knew the names of several who died in SAO, having met both in game and even a few IRL, even if they weren't personal relationships. It still a bit of a shock and sting when you realize you knew someone, talked to someone who died even if you hadn't ever even spoken more than a few words to each other.

Kirito was also glad that he was never much of a screamer, so the worst that had happened while on the quest was when he would suddenly jolt awake with his heart racing about one billion beats per second.

Maybe Bilbo was right, and writing it down would help ease his mind. But he didn't exactly have the time or resources to do that at the moment.

None of the other Fellowship members had seemed to notice his PTSD-like nightmares or his denial of PTSD, or so Kirito thought. None of them had talked to him about it and he hopped it stayed that way. He could have PTSD when he got home. He had a job to do first.

So, he took the first watch, extending it as long as he could get away with, then finally let Aragorn take over and prepared himself for whatever his mind was going to recall from the death game that night.

Kirito thought Aragorn must have a 6th sense or something to sense when it was time for his shift and woke up almost naturally most of the time. Maybe he just afraid that Kirito would stay up all night. The first time he was given watch while he and the Hobbits were still traveling to Rivendell, Kirito didn't wake Aragorn up for his watch until a nearby animal had made a loud enough sound to wake the entire group up, and by then, the night was more than halfway over and Kirito was supposed to have let Aragorn take watch hours earlier.

"Sleep well," Aragorn said as Kirito laid down.

"Try to," Kirito mumbled almost inaudibly.

It was ALMOST inaudibly seeing as Aragorn's ears might have well have been pointed like an elf's.

Aragorn smiled lightly as Kirito went to sleep. Kirito would probably be very embarrassed if anyone were to mention it, but he often looked like a young child when he was asleep. 16 was still pretty young, hardly considered a man in many places, but peaceful sleeping Kirito looked more like a 6 year old than 16 year old.

Of course, that was only peaceful sleeping Kirito, which was like about the first hour or so of Kirito's sleep cycle.

And then the nightmares came and his peaceful sleep would become riddled with worry and fear and sorrow. Aragorn was surprised that the only noise he made was the occasional whimper and on rarer occasions, he would mutter a few words. Usually the generic "No," or "Hang on," or "I'm Sorry." or "Stay Away!" or "I'm Sorry," or something similar parried with a name like "Asuna," "Klein," "Sachi," "Yui!" "Agil," "Diavel!" "Kuradeel" or a few others, but those were the main ones. But he never full out screamed, only once did he even reach a normal talking sound level.

Aragorn often wondered who all these people were. He knew the girl, Asuna, was one of Kirito's very close friends when he had been trapped in that other world.

Though he suspected they had been more than friends from the way he brightened up the few times he talked about her. P robably still a newer couple seeing as he hadn't admitted their relationship to others yet, but he recognized the look in his eye from the way Aragorn was told he looked when speaking about or with Arwen.

Aragorn knew several people who had gone through nightmare inducing events, but it was rare to see it in someone so young.

Kirito wasn't the only young one to have gone through those trials though. Aragorn recalled a conversation from the first night they had set out together as the Fellowship of the Ring:

They had been lightly talking amongst themselves as they made camp for the night. Gandalf had seemed relatively pleased on how far they had gone from Rivendell on their first day of travel. They rested and ate and soon it was time for sleep. And with sleep for most of the Fellowship came first watch for one of them.

"Who takes the first watch?" Boromir asked his companions.

No one responded immediately, so Kirito shrugged and volunteered after a moment of silence. Boromir had thought the teen and been joking and chuckled.

"You would fall asleep within the first hour, child," Boromir said with his chuckle.

"Again with the 'child' thing?" Kirito deadpanned, as Boromir had been bugging him that he was too young to be on the quest before leaving Rivendell. In all honestly, Boromir called Kirito 'child' or 'boy' more than the called him Kirito

"You are a child, you're merely 14."

"16, Boromir… still failing to see why that's relevant to taking a watch," Kirito sighed lightly as he helped Sam clean up the plates they'd used for dinner and put them away.

Kirito didn't understand why Boromir didn't want him on first watch. Back in SAO, he had taken first watch every time- the few times it had happened- when he had to spend the night outside a safe zone with other people. And when he was on his own- which was most the time- he never had trouble pulling all-nighters when he needed/wanted, both in-game and IRL. Sometimes he had been so busy fighting monsters and stuff he'd forget meals and accidently pull all-nighters.

"Kirito is fine to take first watch, he won't fall asleep. If anything, he'll stay up all night until one of us naturally wakes," Aragorn had grumbled.

"That was one time," Kirito pointed out, as Aragorn had made him swear not to do it again. Gandalf looked amused in the background.

"I still think an elder would be a better choice for first watch," Boromir had grumbled.

"It's not like you're that much-" Kirito had begun to say, but stopped mid-sentence, "Oh right, yeah, you are more than a few years older than me. Never mind."

"How in the world would you manage to forget that?" Frodo had asked with a small hint of amusement. The large age difference between Kirito and Boromir… well Kirito and anyone in the group, even the Hobbits, was very obvious to see.

Kirito shrugged nonchalantly, "Most of the people in SAO were either about my age or at least within 10 years within my age. Age wasn't really relevant in there unless you were like a really little kid."

The entire Fellowship stopped and starred at Kirito for a moment, and after a few moments realized that Kirito didn't even realize how strange of a statement that was. He acted like it was a completely irrelevant fact. He seemed to be the only one not catching on that this was now more than just a time-passing side conversation.

"Kirito… what was relevant in there if not age?" Legolas asked.

"Skill Level, Strength," Kirito shrugged, "Experience."

Boromir smirked, thinking he had a trump card, "Experience comes from age."

"In reality, yeah. But SAO was a virtual world that was literally programmed and created over the course of about 5 years. Unless you count programmed vague fictional backstories Akihito put in for a few game play reasons, it was a completely blank slate history wise. No one in there had any experience in that world until the game was launched two years ago. Everyone started at level one at the same time and leveled up at different paces depending on how well or how willing they were to complete the game tasks. Besides, out of the 10,000 of us in there, there were less than 300 players over age 30," again, Kirito's tone sounded like this was not a shocking fact. The others were shocked by his bluntness of the situation, as if those low numbers were no big deal.

In the Fellowship, Kirito was by far the youngest. The next youngest was Pippin, who was 28, 12 years older that Kirito and considered pretty young by Hobbit standards, and the next youngest was Merry at age 36, twice Kirito's age plus 4 years. Still young adult- by Hobbit Standards- but 6 years over the 30 mark that less than 300 people had been in in that world.

(BWT, those are cannon ages… at least according to Google. Pippin is 28, Merry is 36, Sam is 38, Frodo is 50, Boromir is 41, Aragorn is 87 (looks young and lives very long due to magical bloodline stuff), Gimli is 139, Gandalf is about 2019 and I think Legolas is 2931. Hobbits have their coming of age thing at age 33 (official Hobbit adulthood and old enough for inheritance) according to the books)

"So young," Gimli had breathed, but Kirito didn't hear. They may not have known much about Sword Art Online, but they knew it had been very dangerous, and to have so many people under the age of 30, in an inexperienced world just made the danger even more real.

Aragorn agreed with Gimli… and to an extent, Boromir. Kirito was too young to be having nightmares like that, too young to have been fighting for his life for the past two years and too young to be on this quest. He was 16 dammit.

But it happened and he was here and had proved to be helpful and probably wouldn't leave even if they tried to abandon him- which they would never do, obviously.

Aragorn kept an eye on both the area around them and on Kirito. He'd never had to resort to waking Kirito up from a bad nightmare, but if it ever got too bad, he'd help the boy, but for now it was best to let him deal with it until he needed someone. He knew Kirito would eventually.

A few hours later, Aragorn went to sleep as Legolas took the third and final watch of the night and would wake the others when it was time to get up, eat, pack up then move on.

And that's what they did. Legolas roused his fellow Fellowship fellows and Sam made a quick breakfast for everyone. Then they started moving again.

They walked for several hours through winding tunnels and climbing and such. Every now and then, Gandalf would stop and look around the area before leading them on. Kirito was getting a bit concerned as each time they stopped, Gandalf would take a little longer to lead them in the supposedly correct direction. They walked all day, then found a suitable place and set up camp once more and slept a few hours and moved on once more and repeated.

On the fourth and supposedly final day in the mines, after climbing another set of pretty much vertical stairs, the came to a relatively flat area other than a few boulders, that branched off in three different directions. One straight, one to the left and down a staircase and the third to the right and up a staircase.

Gandalf frowned and looked around the areas then towards the three different passage ways. And then said the one thing no one wanted him to say;

"I have no memory of this place."
"Well shit," was Kirito's first thought.

They decided to 'take a break' and got a fire going since they were probably going to be there for a while, possibly overnight if Gandalf did not remember the way within a few hours- none of them hoped it would come to that. They did not wish to spend any more time than they had to in the Mines/Tomb of Moria.

Kirito never thought he'd miss SAO's dungeons, where you could almost always just teleport out if things got to hairy as long as an anti-teleportation trap wasn't in place.

Plus, SAO's dungeons rarely took more than a day to travel across unless you were purposely staying inside, which no one in their right mind would ever do.

After ten minutes, they made some lunch. The food was eaten quickly, but Gandalf still did not choose a direction. Aragorn pulled out his pipe and sent a subtle glare in the wizard's direction every now and then.

"Are we lost?" Pippin asked Merry quietly.

"No. Shh," Merry replied.

"I think we are."

"Gandalf's thinking."

….

"Merry?"

"What?"

"I'm hungry."

"You're always hungry. We just ate. Now shh."

Frodo's eye suddenly caught on something on the cliffs below them and scrambled to the edge for a better look. Kirito frowned and followed the hobbit's gaze and saw something moving the shadows. Frodo went to warn Gandalf. Kirito kept watch on the creature following them while they talked.

"There's something down there," Frodo whispered hastily to the old wizard.

"It's Gollum," Gandalf replied.

"Gollum?"

"He's been following us since we entered the mines."

Kirito tuned their conversation out after that and tried once again to locate the creature, who was disappearing and reappearing among the lower level rocks often. At one point, Gollum looked straight up at Kirito and scowled. They made eye contact, and what Kirito saw in the creature's unnaturally large eyes was anger and pain and longing for the madness of the ring. Kirito pitied him, but had no time to dwell on it.

As they starred at each other, it was almost clear they were telling each other something: Kirito would kill it if it came anywhere near them, and Gollum would kill anyone who got in the way of his Precious.

However, Kirito came to the conclusion that it would probably be unwise to waste time chasing the thing back through the mines attempting to kill it for following them. The thing slipped back into the shadows after showing Kirito's its teeth. Kirito tried activated his night vision skill so he could see it, but it had already fled his field of vision. The thing was fast.

Suddenly a hand was placed on his shoulder, he looked up to see Aragon behind him.

"It's best not to stare. It may provoke him," the man lightly whispered in Kirito's ear. Kirito nodded slightly.

"Oh, it's that way," Gandalf suddenly said out of the blue, catching everyone's attention.

"He's remembered!" Merry said gladly.

"No. But the air doesn't smell so foul down here," Gandalf said, standing in front of the left most tunnel with stairs leading down into darkness, "When in doubt, Meriadoc, always follow your nose."

Kirito wasn't entirely sure about the nose thing, but followed Gandalf and the others down the steps. They went down several flights of stairs for a long time until they finally came out into a larger cavern they could not see all of.

"Let me risk a little more light," Gandalf muttered to himself and let his staff glow brighter, illuminating the cavern to be a great hall with many beautifully crafted- if worn, cobwebbed and dusty- columns that went about a hundred feet into the air to reach the top of the hall.

"Behold… the great realm and Dwarf-city of Dwarrowdelf," Gandalf announced, making Kirito relived that their guide now knew where they were.

"There's an eye opener, and no mistake," Sam said quietly, and the others could only nod in awe.

The hall was huge. Rows and rows of columns everywhere. With just the sheer size, of the place, not to mention the detail on the columns, it must have taken hundreds of years for the dwarves to build it all out of the mountain. It almost looked like it had to be programmed to look so amazing in Kirito's opinion.

They began walking through it, eventually gravitating along the rightmost wall of the hall. Since entering the hall, the Fellowship had been in silence. Suddenly, Gimli let out a loud gasp and ran through an open door along the side of the hall.

"Gimli!" Gandalf called after him, but the dwarf did not return to the group and went through the doors, which had several corpses of dwarves around it by the way. The only ones they'd seen since the hall's entrance.

Kirito ran after the dwarf, followed by the others. The gamer was surprised to see that inside the room there was a single beam of pure sunlight streaming into the room and onto a large, stone rectangular suspiciously coffin shaped box.

Well, from the angle of the sun at least they finally knew what time of day it was. Probably later in the morning, between ten and eleven o'clock.

"No," Gimli said upon seeing the box inside the room. There were a few more corpses in there, one leaning against the coffin, as well as multiple weapons scattered about and some torn book pages as well.

"Oh no," Gimli cried again, falling to his knees before the coffin as the other's streamed in.

The other filtered into the room. Gandalf approached the coffin and read the inscription on the top, "Here lies Balin, son of Fundin, Lord of Moria…. He is dead then. It's as I feared." Gimli continued to sob in the background.

Kirito felt a pang of sympathy for Gimli. This Balin dude was his family. It must hurt to find that he was dead probably about as much as what Kirito felt when the Moonlit Black Cats died.

Gandalf handed his staff and hat to Pippin and turned to take some really old log boot out of one of the dwarf skeleton's hands. Some of the pages fell out upon opening.

"We must move on. We cannot linger," Legolas whispered.

"I have a feeling whatever did all this is probably still in the mines," Kirito added.

Gandalf read out of the log book, "They have taken the bridge and the second hall. We have barred the gates but cannot hold them for long. The ground shakes. Drums, drums in the deep. We cannot get out. A Shadow moves in the dark. We cannot get out….They are coming."

This books words made the entire Fellowship feel uneasy. Something big was in these mines. Maybe even something High Level Boss Monster big. Kirito shuddered at the thought.

At that moment, a loud banging filled the air, startling everyone. Kirito, as well as Aragon and Boromir reached for their swords, Legolas notched an arrow.

"FOOL OF A TOOK!" Gandalf yelled harshly at Pippin, who had disturbed a skeleton sitting on the well and made it fall, bangs and echoes following it down, probably reverberating throughout the mine. If there was anything here, which there probably was, it knew they were there and would likely seek the source of the noise. Pippin winced.

"Well, shit," Kirito though for the second time in the mines.

"Throw yourself in next time and rid us of your stupidity!" Gandalf scolded, taking back his hat and staff. Kirito couldn't argue that what Pippin did was rather stupid, even if accidental. They were likely to run into trouble now that whatever else was in here was on alert.

And alerted something was.

Faint booming sounds filled the air not ten seconds later. The sounds of running feet, screeches, war cries and drums followed soon after. And they were getting close.

"Frodo, your sword," Sam said, and Frodo partially pulled the blade out of its sheath to revel the blue glow.

"Orcs," Legolas confirmed, the sounds of several of them approaching growing louder and louder.

Boromir ran to the rotted wood doors and looked out. A second later, three arrows were imbedded in the door, just missing his head.

"Get back, stay close to Gandalf!" Aragorn ordered the hobbits.

Boromir and Aragorn closed the door. Boromir then informed them, "They have a cave troll."

"Well shit," once again was Kirito's thoughts.

They got to work barring the door with the stray axes, spears and swords around the room that once belonged to the dwarves. They were old and probably wouldn't last long, but it would buy them a little preparation time.

Everyone drew their weapons and the door began bulging inwards and the orcs began pounding.

Kirito was probably the calmest out of all of them. SAO threw wave after wave of monsters at him all the time, which he had to take solo for a large portion of the last two years. It would be nice to get back into fighting again. Not that this was a good situation but, hey, just think of it as grinding, just with the only reward being he got to live.

"Let them come," Gimli proclaimed, standing on top of Balin's coffin, brandishing his ax, "There is one Dwarf yet in Moria who still draws breath."

Holes were broken in the door, so Aragorn and Legolas sent to work as the first wave of defense, firing arrows into the holes to push back the front line orcs. After they got a few arrows fired, the doors fell in completely, and Kirito got his first look at orcs. They were as gross as had been described to him, looking vaguely human, but extremely grimy, and had grey and greenish skin, extremely long pointed ears and all kinds of extreme deforms and sometimes horns and their teeth were atrocious.

Everyone jumped into the fray and suddenly it was 10 against a small army. Luckily, they seemed to be similar to the hordes of monsters Kirito fought in Sword Art Online, not very smart, and so he took several down easily, the only difference being that they left behind bodies rather than shattering into polygons and they smelt really bad.

Kirito momentarily wondered if he would still shatter into polygons if he died, but didn't have time to dwell.

Despite the situation, Kirito couldn't help but think that this would make a great game sequence, which was also not something he had time to dwell on as another orc charged at him, spikey club thing raised above his head.

Kirito changed his sword till it glowed blue with energy and set about cutting any orcs down who dared approached him, which was a lot considering their low intelligence levels.

Suddenly that cave troll Boromir mentioned earlier decided to make an appearance.

It was huge with thick blueish grey skin and a collar with a chain around its neck. The poor orc trying to hold the chain got smashed. It also had a nice big spikey club to smash things with.

Legolas fired an arrow at the thing, but it hardly made a dent in the monster's HP bar. It tried to smash Sam, but he dove under its feet and to safety. He and the other hobbits ran for cover behind the row of pillars along the right wall. Then the cave troll tried to smash Gimli, but destroyed Balin's stone coffin instead.

Legolas kept the troll distracted as it unsuccessfully tried to whip him with its chain leash while everyone else dealt with the dwindling number of orcs entering the room. Sam discovered that a frying pan was a very efficient weapon. Kirito smiled at his comment of "Getting the hang of this" and slices another Orc's head off.

It was strange being able to deliver one hit kills all-HP-down, even with a weak connecting strike, since in SAO all that mattered were numbers and you could literally get sliced all the way through your body and still be on your feet. These things went down when you hit a vital spot, just like in real life. Strange concept to Kirito after all this time.

Then again, that also meant that would apply to Kirito too, so he made sure to carefully remember he couldn't take damage so casually anymore to get into an upper hand position.

Suddenly, Kirito found himself fighting the Cave Troll while the others continued with the orcs. The troll's HP was down maybe 1/6th or so. It took a swing at Kirito but he jumped out of the way and rolled under it's legs and with a green glowing sword, took a swipe at its thigh. It roared in pain, but its skin was too thick and the attack barley made a dent in the HP bar.

The beast turned to face and try to smash Kirito again, but once again, Kirito rolled and sliced the other thigh this time. They repeated this dance, roll, and slice, turn, smash attempt, roll and repeat for a few moments, very slowly chipping at the HP bar. The cave troll didn't seem to be to smart.

Until it turned before Kirito could slash again and picked him up, gathering both of Kirito's arms uncomfortably in one large hand and making Kirito drop his sword. Kirito lashed out, kicking at the thing, but it was no use. Luckily, Legolas came to his rescue, slicing the flesh in its armpit, which seemed to be significantly more vulnerable than other places. A few streams of dark blood tricked down its side, but it only seemed to piss the cave troll off more.

Kirito was dropped to the ground and picked up his sword. His HP was okay so far. He was still in the green and had 16500 out of 18500 HP, still well in the green zone. Smaller HP depletion here seemed to be based more off stamina directly relating to injures than anything. Probably better for survival than a solidly defined number.

The troll suddenly turned his attention back on Kirito, having gotten bored trying to grab Legolas and kicked him. Kirito hit a wall, but luckily not too hard. His HP fell to 14500, but he would be okay. He got up and immediately was occupied by an orc with a mace.

The cave troll suddenly seemed to gain an interest in the hobbits and went after them, Aragorn called Frodo's name in warning, but everyone was occupied by a new wave of incoming orcs to get to the cave troll and protect Frodo, who was currently playing a game of run around the pillar.

But then the cave troll won said game and Frodo found himself trapped in a corner. Luckily Aragorn got there just in time and poked at the thing's chest with a discarded spear while Merry and Pippen threw rocks at its head. Kirito managed to help at little by getting another leg slice in, but was quickly once more occupied by orcs.

Aragorn was suddenly then flung into a wall and rendered momentarily unconscious. While Frodo was distracted trying to make sure he was okay, the cave troll attacked him again.

Once again, Frodo was trapped in a corner, and no one got there in time before the Cave Troll picked up a spear and thrust it into the dark-haired hobbit's chest. It was like everyone froze.

"FRODO!" Someone yelled but Kirito wasn't sure who. He was angry now. He thrust a blue glowing sword into another orc's chest and took its sword. Now dual wielding, he took down even more orcs in record time. Everyone else ran to help Frodo.

"Go faster. You have to. Someone just got hurt because you were too slow!" Kirito reprimanded himself and more orc blood was spilt, the glow from the swords never faltering. The elders, despite being quite occupied trying to get to Frodo, kept a shocked look on him out of the corner of their eyes.

Merry and Pippin got on the trolls back, everyone started slicing at the trolls legs and body. Pippin was thrown off its back but Merry hung on tightly. A huge arm reached back to pull the hobbit off, but Kirito, now temporarily rid of the orcs in the room charged forwards, and the borrowed orc blade glowed intensely orange and was shoved through the creature's wrist and left there.

It roared in pain, and Merry took the chance up pull on its chain collar to lift its head up. Legolas shot an arrow up through its neck and into what could be considered its brain. The troll's HP bar instantly depleted to zero. It collapsed, dead, finally.

The room was quiet for a moment before everyone rushed to a collapsed Frodo's side.

Kirito suddenly frowned. Frodo's HP bar was still there. It was in the mid-yellow, but the majority of that damage was from the fight fatigue and strike blocking. Frodo, somehow, wasn't dead.

Aragorn crawled over to Frodo and rolled him over, Frodo groaned. Everyone looked relived, but confused.

"He's alive," Sam said gratefully.

"I'm alright. I'm not hurt," Frodo said sitting up, breathing heavily.

"You should be dead," Aragorn commented breathlessly, "That spear would have skewered a wild boar."

"I think there's more to this hobbit that meets the eye," Gandalf commented.

Frodo then revealed that he was wearing a shirt under his clothing made of Mithril. Kirito smirked. Of course. That must be the set Thorin gave Bilbo, and Bilbo gave it to Frodo to protect him.

"Smart," Kirito thought, "He probably only collapsed from the force of something hitting him too hard like a punch to the gut. Hopefully that Mithril stuff prevented any ribs from getting broken though."

"You are full of surprises, Mister Baggins," Gimli commented.

"Pretty handy," Kirito commented, "You're probably still going to have one hell of a bruise, but it's better than becoming a Frodo-kabob."

"Good with words as ever, Kirito," Gimli replied gruffly, but friendly.

The screeching of more orcs filled the air, cutting the happy feeling moment short.
They had to leave now. Aragorn helped Frodo to his feet and they ran out the door. Gimli cast a mournful look over his shoulder and Balin's now completely ruined tomb. Kirito patted him gently on the shoulder then they were running through the hall of giant stone pillars once again.

Gandalf said they were headed to the Bridge of Khazad-dum, which was apparently the bridge that would lead them to Moria's back door.

Orcs suddenly seemed to spill out of nowhere, and soon what seemed like thousands of orcs were chasing them, covering the floor, walls and ceiling. In less than two minutes, the Fellowship was completely surrounded, bringing their progress down the hall to a complete halt. There were a good few hundred of them. There was no way they could fight them all off. This was bad.

And then there was a light at the end of the tunnel. Literally.

However, this light brought no feelings of hope. It was orange like the light from a huge fire. It seemed to agitate the orcs even more than it agitated the fellowship. Then there was a deep booming sound and suddenly all the orcs began retreating, screeching all the way as the climbed up the pillars and disappearing.

However, despite no longer being surrounded by orcs brought no comfort. They were running from something. Whatever was making that deep booming sound scared them off, which meant it was definitely not friendly.

And it was getting closer to their location.