I sat up and blinked. I was lying on a hard stone floor. A metallic scent was heavy in the air, as was the reek of smoke. I looked around, but it was too dim in the room to see much. However, my eyes adjusted, and I glimpsed a figure hunched over a table forming something of gold - a ring. It was smooth and perfect, but the figure was carving something into it - something in old Elvish - and was speaking the words to himself as he carved. They translated in my head: "One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them, One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them." I shuddered at how foreboding that sounded. The figure repeated the words, muttering them over and over again as he worked. I watched his methodic carving for awhile, for it was soothing to watch the figure work. Just as he finished the final Elvish letter, a heavily armored figure burst through the door and took the still-hot ring in his hand, putting it on. The figure trembled in a mixture of awe and fear and the armored man left as hastily as he had entered.
Then I found myself in a harshly torch-lit, stone-walled room. The armored man was staring at me. "It is gone," he said in a deep, hoarse voice, "It was burned in the fire, but a remnant of my spirit remains. But where is it now?"
I awaken with a start in a cold sweat. What in Middle Earth was that?