The Roamer
Chapter 1- Introductions
I am old. Older than most everyone on the land of Middle Earth. I am older than the eleven kings and queens, the dwarf lords, probably even the dark lord Sauron himself. I may even have more experience than Gandalf the Grey, one of the greatest people to walk Middle Earth today.
I am known by many names. Most know me as the Roamer. I am also known as the wanderer, shade and dark. The elves call me Ellanroth and the dwarves Laemahn (Lay-maan). The names don't actually mean anything in their respective languages, their just names that were common around the time the stories started, many thousands of years ago. Most people haven't heard the heard them though, only the wise, and the watchful. And of course the Sauron, may he die a painful death.
For millennia, I have watched the earth, making sure it didn't fall into darkness, but now something is rising. My old friend Gandalf spoke to me many a year ago, about something rising in Dol Gulder, and was afraid that the wyrm Smaug would befall to an evil even greater that himself. That was over 50 years ago.
I'll tell you why I'm so grim and foreboding. When I was 10, my father walked into battle against the dark lord Morgoth. He was captured, because he looked similar to a spy they thought had betrayed him. It soon became obvious that he wasn't the man, so they killed him, but not before he let word slip out of me. A young girl, detached from all but her father. Morgoth had been experimenting using dark magic, on creating a kind of creature that would be the perfect spy, yet virtually unstoppable in battle. Years later he was destroyed, but not before having used me as a test subject. When I escaped I vowed never to let another dark lord ruin anyone else's life, at least not as badly as mine was. So for millennia I have watched over Middle Earth, making few friends, and trying not to let anyone know I existed. But occasionally I was seen, and so the legend of the Roamer appeared.
Nine walkers set out from Rivendell on a quest to destroy a ring of power. Nine returned alive, but not entirely the original ones who set out. And at one point in their journey, the nine became ten.
