He helps the freedwoman board a ship to the River Kingdoms and that's it, they can't catch her anymore, and he can bask in the uncomplicated high of a Good deed done.
The nearer Wound is almost familiar ground, by now, so he crosses the Warstone line on his way back. No-one will pursue him here and he'll be fine, as long as he's careful and ready for a fight.
So of course it's not a fight that gets him.
An Abyssal rift opens up at his feet and spits him out - elsewhere.
The harmony of Middle-Earth is already building upon discord; what is one more abyssal rift to deal with?
Not that anyone notices it, or that it stays open for long. That's what Music does to discord - it builds it up as a leading tone to greater harmony.
When Gord falls or steps through, he's on a flat hilltop, with a wide ring of ancient stonework now crumbling and overgrown with grass. But in the center, there's a new cairn of broken stones, blackened as with fire, and the grass around it also scorched.
If he looks around, there're a lot of other shorter hills round about, with a narrow ribbon of Road running across, skirting the hill he's on to one side. Far off, there are mountains.
It's evening, or maybe morning - the sun is near the horizon, on the side opposite the mountains.
(And the rift has already closed behind him.)
Gord spends several turns turning around and rapidly scanning for danger, but nothing immediately attacks him.
That didn't feel like a teleport or plane shift, so maybe it really was one of those Abyssal tears, he's never seen one up close. And the 'ancient ring of stones' setup is obviously suspicious. But this place doesn't look like anything he's heard about the Abyss, either; in fact it looks suspiciously wholesome.
Maybe he is in the Abyss and it's all an illusion. But they say the Abyss touches on all worlds and planes, so maybe he just ended up - elsewhere? He certainly doesn't recognize anything he sees. And this is either much farther south than he was, or it's locally summer.
Are there any people he can see in the distance anywhere? Settlements or signs of habitation? A sign conveniently saying where the road goes? Recognizable writing on any of the local stonework?
If he looks closely at the stonework, there're things that could be writing - but worn too much over the years; they're probably not in any alphabet he knows, but he can't even be totally sure.
No one's moving on the Road. He can't see any farmed fields, except maybe on the other side of the marshes to the sunward - it's too far to tell there.
But he can see some people in a hollow on one flank of the hill - what might be one man and three halflings, with a pony.
Have they seen him? Does he have a way to approach them stealthily without being seen? What are they doing, can he hear anything from over here?
(These questions are instinctive; he doesn't need to decide to hide from and/or spy on a party of strangers in the wilds, it's simply always one of the options to take.)
It doesn't look like they've seen him yet, but they might soon - the man and two of the halflings (there were three of them? No, now he can see four) are just starting to climb up. He'll be really visible if he stays here pretty soon, or if he starts climbing down toward them, unless he wants to hide behind the stonework.
That means he has to reveal himself right away, if he wants to present himself as a peaceful stranger.
Or he can hide behind a remote bit stonework and eavesdrop, in a place where he can hope to sneak away later, but if they're competent they'll sweep the hilltop and probably find him. And then he could still burn spells to get away without a fight, probably, but he'd be disadvantaged at diplomacy.
He needs to learn where he is, possibly on a scale of 'plane, planet and continent', and he's unlikely to overhear it by accident. Diplomacy it is, then.
He stands where they can clearly see him as they come up.
To non-magical senses, Gord looks like a tall, well-muscled Man. He is wearing chainmail leggings and sturdy boots but no shirt, gloves, or headgear. There are many bags, pouches and implements hanging from all around his belt, and he is holding a two-handed greatsword in one hand. (He holds it in an open and friendly manner, as coded between northern Avistani adventurers; it has no obvious sheath or baldric to be carried on.)
To magical senses, some of his equipment would stand out, but nothing terribly inappropriate for a reasonably leveled martial adventurer, and no spells one wouldn't want to approach when hung on a stranger.
Frodo is momentarily excited when someone stands up at the top of Weathertop - but a moment later, he sees he isn't Gandalf. In fact, he's a Big Person, but he isn't dressed like any sort of Big Person than Frodo's ever seen before.
He's more cautious now after Bree, but - Bilbo did describe meeting strange people on the Road, even though he didn't mention anyone like this Big Person. He still raises his hand in greeting and says in the Common Speech "Hello!"
(He and the other Halfling are wearing what were good clothes originally, though with a lot of stains that might've come from the nearby marsh. No shoes.)
The Man, who looks like he's been adventuring for a while (in these clothes, too) nods in greeting. If Gord doesn't respond to the Westron, he'll follow up after a moment with a "Greetings!" in Sindarin.
He's wearing muddy high leather boots, with a travel-stained green cloak that he has drawn close enough to hide any items carried under it.
He casts Comprehend Languages in time to catch the Sindarin.
(It's normal to prepare Comprehend Languages when crossing the Wound alone, there's no knowing who you might meet. It's not worth it to prepare Share Language; that's what free slots are for, once you've established good intent.)
For now he'll repeat the man's greetings back to him (phonetically, and with a bad accent) and add his greetings in Taldane and Hallit. If they don't understand either of those, he'll mime that he can understand them but can't speak to them right now. Who knows, maybe one of them also has a Comprehend Languages, or something fancier.
(This is a common thing to mime in places where foreign adventurers are common, and may be harder to get across to people unused to the idea of one-way language spells.)
...Why aren't the halflings wearing any shoes? Is this a weird slavery thing? They look well-fed and uninjured, but Gord mentally settles into a more wary ready stance.
Strider frowns momentarily with curiosity at the ?two? languages he doesn't recognize. This stranger must have traveled very long distances to speak languages he hasn't even heard before.
But - good, the stranger speaks Sindarin. That means he's probably an educated man, or he's spent some time with the Elves, and not serving Sauron. "What brings you here, in these troubled times?" he asks, still in Sindarin.
"And what is your name?" Frodo asks, also in Sindarin.
(He's about to add that he's "Frodo Underhill," but then thinks better of it. That barely worked at Bree, and their enemies might have heard that name from Bree by now.)
Gesturing time! "Name", point to self, "Gord". Point at ears, nod, point at mouth, shrug. Mime praying (folded hands, closed eyes), sun moves a little, point at mouth, nod. Will they wait for him to prepare a spell to talk to them?
He both can't and doesn't want to explain "what brought him here", yet, but he takes note of the "troubled times". (It doesn't particularly occur to Gord that people might habitually say "in these troubled times" even in times and places that are not as troubled as living on the Worldwound border.)
Oh, he doesn't know Sindarin well, so he can understand a lot of what he hears but can't put the words together just yet. Strider, remembering his own studies of Quenya and Adunaic and a bit of Taliska in his youth, knows that feeling well.
"Strider," he says, pointing to himself.
Oh, they're doing introductions? (He doesn't speak any Sindarin.)
"Merry. I don't suppose you've seen Gandalf here? We're hoping to find him."
"Not seen Gandalf." True, as he hasn't seen anyone. (His facility with spoken Westron, as with Sindarin, is pretty atrocious but he can repeat the words he hears in the right combination, if not necessarily the right order.)
If they want to tell him about themselves first, Gord's happy to oblige! "What brings you here?" he mimics, in Sindarin.
"We're heading east from the Shire," Frodo says, truthfully enough. "We wanted to see if Gandalf had been here."
"We're going to Rivendell." It's obvious enough, once you're headed east from Bree. "I need to speak with Elrond - we all do. And you?"
Apologetic shrug. He doesn't have the words to tell them the truth even if he wanted to, which he isn't sure he does yet, because "I've come from the Abyss" probably sounds bad.
He'll mime about praying again, and if no-one stops him, he's going to sit down in an out-of-the-way corner and meditate on his sword for fifteen minutes. Can he get across that they shouldn't interrupt him for a little while? They must have seen a cleric praying before, right?
But one of them has seen an Elf lost in osanwe, which is enough of the same thing for him to shake his head and whisper to the hobbits not to bother him.
Merry, bored, starts picking up some of the fire-blackened stones and finds one with some scratches on it:
|” |||
"Huh, I wonder what left these."
Strider is instantly over peering at it. "That might be a G-rune with thin branches..." he says thoughtfully. "Which could be a sign left by Gandalf - though one cannot be sure. The scratches are fine, and they certainly look fresh. But they could be different - Rangers use runes, and who knows what our new companion here might have done."
"Then - 'G3' - would be a sign Gandalf was here October the Third; that's three days ago now. And also, he was in a hurry, so he had no time to write anything longer or plainer."
He looks around the scorched stones.
"For myself, if it were not for our new companion, I would believe he was here and in danger... The light that we saw in the eastern sky three nights ago comes back to my mind. But he is here no longer; we must now look after ourselves as best we can."
They all stand gazing pensively for a while, around the hilltop and the land around.
Then Gord can finish preparing a spell in peace! Now, who to cast it on? The human stands out but only because he's human. Oh well, any of them can presumably translate, and he's not going to be able to guess at any distrust between them but if there is any then it might be better to be talking to one of the halflings.
"Merry," he says to get the attention of the one whose name he knows, and then offers him his hand in the 'may I cast a touch spell on you' gesture.
The Big Person looks like he's offering him something, but there's nothing in his hand?
Merry comes over, confused, and holds out his hand mirroring him.
Share Language (Hallit)! (Gord says a few unfamiliar words, makes a gesture, and lightly touches Merry's hand.)
"Now we can talk properly. Hello again, I'm Gord. I hope you're willing to translate for the rest of your group, I had to choose someone and the spell lasts for a day and a night."
"Oh, hello! I'm Merry Brandybuck. How come you suddenly speak the Common --"
He suddenly realizes they're not speaking the Common Tongue, and yelps.
Strider, on suddenly seeing Merry speaking in an unknown tongue, concludes that Gord has cast hostile magic on him and jumps forward between him and Gord.
Gord backs up in a defensive stance. "The spell only shared my language with you. I mean you no harm and thought you had agreed to it." He'd prayed for a spell and clearly offered to cast it on him!
"You can do that with magic --"
Merry pauses and repeats in Westron. "You can just make me speak a new language with magic!?"
... at least he's speaking normal Westron again???
Aragorn glances back at him with concern while keeping an eye on Gord. He says (in Westron, since Merry doesn't speak Sindarin (or at least he didn't two minutes ago)) "I've never heard of magic doing just that..."
"They're normal cleric spells where I come from. I can understand all languages - that's a different spell, a shorter lived one - but I can't speak in them so I cast this one to let you understand me. It doesn't do anything else - well, you could learn information about the language separately from me speaking it, but it doesn't do anything besides make you know the language for one day."
"Where are we? I seem to have traveled here from far away, and don't recognize any of the place-names you mentioned earlier." The common spells being different reinforces that. At least it really doesn't seem like the Abyss.
"We're at Weathertop - east of the Shire - east of Bree -"
Merry glances around, as if he might see some other familiar landmark to mention. "And, uh, what's a cleric?"
Yeah you already said that --
...um. Is the spell not working right? "A cleric is someone who is granted magic by a god. There are other words for other kinds of mages who also get powers from gods but clerics are the most common. Just now I needed the spell to share my language with you so I prayed to my god for it." Is Merry translating all this for the benefit of the others, Strider looks tense.
Merry is still confused! But he's so confused he doesn't know what to ask next, so - yeah, it's time to translate.
"He says he's got some magic from a 'god' -" (he uses the Hallit word since he's not familiar with the Westron ones it feels like it might vaguely map to) "- and it's pretty common where he's from. And it just let me speak his language just for today but nothing else. And he says he thinks he's from really far away -"
Another question jumps to his mind. He turns back to Gord and asks in Hallit, "Wait, you say you aren't sure how far off you're from? How'd you get here?"
That... sounds concerningly like what Sauron does for some of his servants.
Gord didn't use any cursed objects, or any rituals besides just meditating, so Aragorn isn't stopping him just yet. But he's not really reassured.
He takes a step back, next to Merry.
"Who is this 'god'?" he asks (in Sindarin, repeating the Hallit word Merry used.)
Gord didn't precisely say clerics are common where he comes from! They are, so he's not going to correct Merry about it, but he makes a mental note that he might not be the best translator if the stakes ever get much higher than this.
"I'm not sure how I got here. It didn't feel like a normal spell and I didn't cast anything or see anyone who might have. I'm thinking it might have been a planar rift (*), they're said to exist in the area I was in though I never saw one myself."
To Strider, "my god is called Gorum. He's the Chaotic Neutral god of striving and fighting for what you believe in." Among other things.
(*) 'Plane' is a normal Hallit word, not a loanword or phrase. This is to say you can't figure out what it means by analyzing its structure. What the translation spell makes of it is anyone's guess.
"A 'rift' in a 'plane'? Like... a hole in the burrow's floor that lets you climb down into the cellar?"
(Also Merry repeats about this "Gorum" person to Strider.)
"I've never heard of this 'Gorum'..." Unless... he can think of at least two people that description might fit... "What's he 'neutral' between? Does he ever go by the name 'Tulkas'? Or 'Sauron'?"
"I suppose. Except I fell through and it closed behind me and I can't easily climb back out."
To Strider, "I haven't heard either of those names but gods have different names in different countries. He's Neutral between Good and Evil, that's what 'Chaotic Neutral' means in this language" - he's not keeping close enough track of the translation to say if Merry misworded that somehow - "and His symbol is a giant-sized sword stuck in a mountain, at least back home. What gods are worshipped around here?"
"Oh no! So you can't get home?
"And - what sort of person doesn't care about good and evil?"
Merry makes a face while translating, and adds that addendum.
Strider frowns and shakes his head. "I've heard that from all too many people who just want to be left alone. But for someone powerful enough to give people magic... If someone that powerful told me that, I would think he wasn't telling me the truth."
Gord likes these people! They jumped straight past "so where do you actually come from" and on to the philosophical and moral implications of getting power from gods and trusting Pharasma's alignments about morals.
"Well, I don't know His mind. In my experience, most Chaotic Neutral people do care about Good and Evil, often quite a lot. It's just that they end up doing some of both, sometimes by accident or while pursuing other goals, so they can't be said to be entirely Good or entirely Evil. But that's people logic, it's not as if I can talk to Him to ask about it. I don't think He's telling me the truth, exactly, because He isn't telling me anything, He just gives me magic as long as I don't do anything he hates. That's how most of the gods are." And it's much preferable to the Lawful ones who do actually tell people what to do.
"I don't think He wants to be left alone. I'm not sure what I said to give you that impression. Gorum likes striving and growing stronger and fighting for what you believe in. He seeks out righteous fights and he gives power to mortals who do the same."
"Oh, so that's how people turn out Neutral? That makes sense!" Merry laughs. "I guess most of us hobbits would be Neutral, then."
That's when Sam shows up, puffing from his run up the slope of Weathertop.
He still doesn't totally trust Strider, and now a second Big Person is up there with them too. He's been worried ever since they vanished over the lip of the hilltop... and then he heard a hobbit's yelp, pressed Bill the Pony's bridle into Pippin's hands, and ran all the way up there.
He's relieved to find everyone looking fine, and Merry even laughing.
"What happened?" he exclaims. "Who is he?"
"His name's Gord. He's a wizard, or something like that - he says someone named Gorum gave him magic. And he used some magic to let Merry speak his language!"
Frodo looks excited but also dubious.
(The Westron word 'wizard' translates as 'mage'.)
"I can't do it again today, I prepared different spells. I could give it to more people tomorrow, but not all of you at once - not for twenty-four hours, anyway, I could do all of you for a few hours."
"What gods are worshipped around here? If I don't recognize any of them, then I'm probably not from this world." (The Hallit word, like the English one, isn't precise enough to mean 'planet'.)
Merry answers in Hallit without bothering to translate. "I don't think we worship any 'gods'. Unless the king counts; we invoke him sometimes? At least, not us hobbits.
"Er - there isn't an actual king around here, not since before my grandfather was born. But we still name him at the Free Fair and put him on our coins and things."
No gods, no kings? How very Rahadoumi of them. Strider was firmer on the idea of gods, though, so Gord isn't going to just take Merry at his word.
"Worship can be very different, depending on the god and the people. But it's always about being and doing the kinds of things that god cares about and wants to see more of in the world. Whether that's singing, painting, fighting evil, perfecting yourself, fighting for a cause, enforcing the law, trading, travelling to see the world, selflessly helping others, getting rich, raising your family - there are many gods out there. And then they choose people who are, or are doing, what that god likes to see, and give them magic, and those are clerics. Sometimes the gods intervene themselves or send messengers, but that's very rare in comparison - a historical event, not an everyday one."
"Can you keep translating for the others? Strider looks like he had something to say," he nudges.
Merry purses his lips. "Oh, like the god's your patron?... And he just wants more painting or traveling or something in the world?..."
But then, yes, he translates. "Gord wants to know what gods are worshipped here. I said I didn't know of any, except maybe The King, but he says worship can be any sort of thing about doing the kind of things the god wants to have done..." (He gives a more-or-less faithful translation of the rest of the paragraph.)
Strider has to suppress a chuckle.
"There are the Valar, the Powers, but few except the Elves worship them. Manwë Aran Einior King of the Skies, Varda Elbereth Star-Kindler, Ulmo Ylmir Lord of the Waters, Tulkas whom I thought might be the same as your Gorum... And there is also the One, All-Father, who made them. He hardly ever clearly acts in the world, though Gandalf thought he might have had a hand in some recent events. And none of them give magic the way your gods do."
He pauses and frowns. "But some worship the Dark Lord, Sauron of Mordor. He... sometimes does pretend to give magic, though it almost always hurts the person he gives it to."
(If Gord is watching very closely, he'll see Strider's eyes flicker to Frodo at that last line.)
Hmm.
"I wouldn't be surprised to hear of gods with such names and domains, back home. Desna is the Chaotic Good goddess of stars and safe travel and helping strangers. And She likes butterflies. Gozreh are the dual gods of sky and storm and nature; people who live in and care for the wilderness often worship them."
"And yes, there are Evil gods too, almost as many as Good ones. They're fighting each other, and their mortal followers are often fighting. I'm not sure if I should tell you about the Evil ones, if you don't know them already."
"But our gods all give out magic. Or, I suppose maybe there are many who don't, and that's why I haven't heard of them. They don't live among us, and I'm sure they do other things at home, but giving out magic and maybe visions is how they usually interact with mortals."
"I don't know how a world without clerics works. Do your gods do anything? Do only wizards have magic? Are you sure this goes for your whole world, and not just this country or continent?" Although it's hard to imagine how powerful clerics could stay contained to a single continent.
Merry makes a face at the evil gods. "Well, I've never seen any gods do anything. And it isn't just the wizards who have magic; the Elves have it too! And also - er -"
Frodo looks thoughtful. "Bilbo once said that the Elves said the power of Elbereth was in all the starlight, and the power of Ulmo in all the rivers. I don't know about the rest of the world.. The Undying Lands aren't really part of the world anymore, are they?"
Strider shakes his head. "Not anymore. I haven't traveled through all the world, but I've traveled a long ways, and I haven't seen any 'clerics' with given magic except the Dark Lord's servants. There are still a few Elves who learned magic from the Valar, but they learned it from them like a pupil from a teacher."
"We call people who learn to do magic on their own by studying with other mages wizards. They have to be very cunning and study a lot, to understand how the magic actually works, and they can teach others or even invent new spells. I can only use what Gorum gives me, and I understand what it does because He gives me that understanding too but I have no idea how it does it. There are many more clerics than wizards where I come from, though, because few people are smart enough and have the time and money and opportunity to study with another wizard."
Strider certainly looks and moves like a trained warrior. If he's traveled a lot, he must be a seasoned adventurer. It would be slightly weird for someone like not to carry anything even a bit magic on them. And most magic items are made by wizards, not clerics.
Half on instinct, half on a whim, Golrd casts detect magic. Are they all as unmagical as they claim to be?
"Can anyone learn magic like that!?" Merry exclaims, before (at Frodo's sharp look) translating.
"I have learned some things from the Elves," Strider says thoughtfully, "but very little I would properly call 'magic'. I wonder if magic works differently where you are from. Though, your translation spell still works..."
(He has a magical sword on him, and a few slightly-magical things in a pouch, but nothing else.)
The hobbits all have magical daggers... and one of them has a very, very magical ring in his pocket.
Aaagh that thing is blinding! He almost flinches before he can suppress the reaction, but his eyes dart involuntarily to Frodo's pocket before he drags them back to Strider's face and dismisses the spell.
What in the Nine Hells was that thing?! Gord saw a Wardstone once and it wasn't as bright! His body automatically goes into fight readiness, even as he (also automatically) tries his best to suppress any tells.
He was prepared to see a few magic swords and daggers, sure, something that might mean they'd been holding out on him, or that was maybe a misunderstanding, or just understandably keeping back some of their abilities from a stranger.
He wasn't mentally prepared to see a halfling walking around with an artifact in his pocket. Unless it's - a spell meant to blind people who cast Detect Magic?
"...anyone can learn, in principle," he says, trying to conceal his shock. "Enough for little cantrips, like this - Light!" His sword lights up. Maybe he shouldn't have drawn attention to his sword? But he had it in hand already.
"But like I said, most people aren't smart enough to learn it. And the few wizards who are looking for students choose the brightest ones, the ones who might become the strongest wizards one day. So most people never get a chance to try, either, unless they're so rich they can pay a wizard to tutor their children."
Oh, someone is looking at the Ring? The Ring will be paying attention. Even closer attention than it was already paying, with its Lord's servants nearby.
"Oh wow, can I learn how to do magic like that!? How smart is smart enough? I've been studying the family books and account-books!"
(When his family was able to make him, that is - but he's not going to mention that now that studying might lead to something fun.)
Gord's not sure he ought to confront someone who has an artifact in their pocket, but dissembling might be seen as hostile. He hasn't done anything hostile yet, only looked at them. Magic clearly exists in this world, they all have normal magic swords, so they can hardly be upset when a mage notices that they're openly carrying.
So: don't frame this as a confrontation, and tamp down his fight instincts. He was surprised, not preparing to attack them. (The two can appear similar in a veteran adventurer of the Wound border.)
"Whatever you have in your pocket," he says to Frodo, "is either more powerful than a fifty-foot gemstone that can stop a balor lord (*), or a cunning trap to distract and blind mages. I couldn't help but stare. If you don't actually want people to notice, put it in a lead box."
"...I can't tell how much you could learn, I'm not a wizard and can't teach anyone. You need to find a wizard to ask to learn from."
(*) Large demon, fire and shadow, wings, wields a sword and a whip. You know the type.
Merry whispers in shock, "He - he noticed the Ring. Somehow. And how powerful it is."
Frodo's hand goes reflexively to cup over his pocket, and he wishes for a moment he could just slip it on and get away.
"H-how'd you do it? Another spell? And what're you going to do about it?"
"One of the most trivial spells that every single mage knows, wizard or cleric, is to detect magic. It only works for a few minutes, so people don't always bother, but it doesn't cost anything and some people have it up all the time. A wizard can usually tell what the magic item does, but I'm no wizard."
"I'm not going to do anything about it, or tell anyone else; I don't even know what it is. I'm just telling you, as a courtesy, that it's extremely noticeable and if your intent was to conceal it then you should do that. I'd further warn you that whatever it is looks very powerful, and is likely to make you a target just because of that, but it sounds like you already know that?" He cocks an eyebrow.
"...also, you all have visibly magic swords and daggers but they're an ordinary amount of magic, same as mine, and no-one would bat an eye at it. Just for comparison."
"Huh!" Merry's hand goes to his dagger. His magic dagger. Maybe he should've guessed that a Barrow-blade would be magic, but he hadn't guessed it. "I... it isn't ordinary. And - yeah, the Ring makes us a target. That's why we haven't been on the Road in the first place." He pats the mud-stains on his pants.
And then, suddenly remembering, he translates to the Common Tongue. "He says he's not going to do anything about it and he doesn't know what it is except that it's powerful - well, I guess I told him sort of --"
"Then don't mention it."
He turns to Gord.
"Please do not tell anyone. We have been trying to keep it secret... despite some lapses before now."
"I won't. ...you should really put it a lead box." Because Frodo is carrying an artifact and he is carrying it around in his pocket. Gord would offer his, except he got rid of it after he made third circle and got that Divination-spoofing spell.
And it's apparently a magic ring, but he's not wearing it. Maybe they thought it would be easier to detect if he wore it, and whatever it does isn't usually useful?
He tries to put the matter out of his mind; it's really none of his business and he's glad the matter was peacefully resolved. "So, um. You said the local gods don't normally choose clerics, except the Dark Lord, but they taught some people wizardry, and all your mages were wizards? What do you do for healing?" If the local wizards can heal, maybe he should just discard all his assumptions.
"He says put it in a lead box... why!? And, uh, we didn't bring any of those."
(Then he translates the other question.)
"Huh..." Frodo's hand is twitching absent-mindedly just under the pocket where the Ring sits. "Uncle Bilbo put it in a box in a trunk in his study once. The box might've been lead? But he took it out long ago... and I didn't ever put it back there myself after he gave it to me.
He stares off into the sky. "I don't think the wizards learned their magic from the Valar? Though come to think of it, I don't have any idea where Gandalf did come from. He's older than... than the Old Took, older than the Shire I think..."
"Yes, much older than the Shire."
He does know where Gandalf is from, but Gandalf doesn't want it brought out as a point of curiosity or undue attention, so he's not going to say it now.
"And he can heal, but no better than the Elves - though it's true the best of the Elf-healers learned their art in Valinor or from people who learned it in Valinor."
"Because then it can't be easily detected," Gord repeats patiently. "And if someone scries it they'll just see darkness. ...actually, you should put it in a regular box, or a good bag that doesn't let any light in, just for that."
That's the second time they brought up Elves having learned magic in Valinor (from gods?). Some people in Golarion say that elves came from another world; probably they did here too, and that place is called Valinor. And their wizards can heal - maybe not as well as clerics, they probably have spells like the Chelish one but they wouldn't have channels. The Gandalf they've been looking for is one such (old) elf wizard.
It doesn't seem like they know enough about magic (and, by inference, the wider world) to be the best sources of information. On the other hand, if he'd landed on some truly random people they might not know anything beyond their village, so really he had good luck there, even if they're behaving like rookie adventurers who inexplicably decided to start in middle-age. (He's reserving judgement about Strider, and the fourth hobbit he hasn't met yet.)
"So - I'd like to go home, but I can't do it myself, not yet anyway. So I'll be looking for powerful mages to help me; I do have magic enough I could probably trade for it, and someone might be interested in my knowledge of another world. At home I'd look for clerics," because he needs to start by plane shifting to Elysium, "but here I guess I'll have to settle for wizards. Do you have advice on who I should approach and where?" He obviously isn't going to just take their word for it, but right now he is on a hill literally in the middle of nowhere with no other leads except a road that probably leads somewhere. "Actually, can you draw me a local map?"
"Well, I've got it in my pocket now, and you could still see it," Frodo says when Merry translates.
"And we're going to Rivendell, where Elrond lives." He shrugs. "I don't know anyone better than him, since we haven't been able to find Gandalf. And... I don't think I ever had any maps beyond the Shire, except for the ones Bilbo left me, and they only show the Misty Mountains and the places beyond there..."
Just then, Pippin comes running up over the edge of the hill.
He started getting curious and impatient almost as soon as Sam left him with the pony, and it wasn't too long before he decided that they very well might need a fourth Hobbit, given that one never could predict what might get into Big People's heads.
So, he tied the pony's bridle to an old branch, unlimbered his dagger just in case he'd need it, and started up the hill.
But he couldn't keep running all the way, so he started looking around, and then...
"I saw them!" he calls as soon as he's in sight. "They're here! On the Road!"
"You saw who?"
Aragorn quickly looks over the whole hilltop, as if ready for enemies to come any moment.
"Y-yeah," Merry says nervously. "They tried to kill us in Bree - they're sent by the Dark Lord -"
None of them can see them (or the Road) from where they're standing, but when Strider goes to the far south edge of the hilltop (crouching almost to a crawl so he's less visible), he hisses, "I see them. Five now."
"If you want to fight them I'll depart or stand aside; if you want something else, I don't know enough about this world to tell which side to help but maybe you can convince me quickly - tell someone in your party to summarize, I can still understand all of you when you talk -"
In fact his Comprehend Languages will soon run out, probably before he can talk to these Riders to get their side of the story, which is a pretty good argument for not getting involved in any actual fighting. He might be strong enough to carry the fight, but neither side knows that and neither does he, not for sure, and 'I am a fourth circle of Gorum' isn't legible around here. If the halflings don't want to fight then he'd like to help them but not unconditionally or indefinitely; maybe he can fend off these Riders until morning, nonlethally, and talk to them then?
Gord crawls the last few feet next to Strider to get a look.
He sees black specks on the road below - Black Riders on black horses. They're standing still next to each other at the foot of the hill, as if conferring, or waiting for some thing or some move of the people on the hilltop.
"You don't know -- how can you not know -" Pippin exclaims, heedless of how he'd never heard of the Black Riders himself a month ago.
"Gord's from really far away, Pippin!" he exclaims. "I don't think you can guess he knows anything!"
Then he turns to Gord. "They tried to kill us in Bree! And knocked me out with terror!"
"They are sent from Mordor," he says flatly, "and they fight with terror as well as blades."
Then, remembering that he's speaking to one of the few people in Middle-Earth who's never heard of Mordor, he adds, "From the Dark Lord Sauron, to kill us or worse."
Gord has no more idea who the Dark Lord Sauron is than about Mordor. As far as epithets go, and by demonic standards, Dark Lord is practically wholesome.
They're not telling him why these Black Riders are after them, or asking for his help, or even saying they don't want to fight them, per se. Fair enough. He does have a selfish reason not to want to leave, because these people are his only source of information right now, but if they're attacked while he's there it will be much harder to convince the attackers that he's a neutral party.
...wait. "Merry. Translate what I said." He picked a good target for Share Language, because Merry speaks unguardedly, but clearly not the best one for coordination during a possible fight.
"He says - he says -" Merry gulps, and then repeats in the Common Tongue, "if we want to fight them he'll go away or stand back - and he doesn't know enough about the world to tell whether to help us or them unless we convince him - will they even let him stand back? I guess they didn't kill everyone at Bree, but -"
"They left people alive because they were after bigger prey, or so they thought."
Aragorn purses his lips. It goes against his instincts to tell a stranger anything about the Ring, but Gord already saw that it was magical - But then he doesn't know how Gord would respond to any hint of "they aren't explicitly trying to kill us," and the only truthful way he has to answer that is by explaining how the Ring would increase Sauron's power to kill or tyrannize everyone. And saying that - saying anything to tempt Gord after the Ring himself - might ruin everything.
"What do you want to know!? Those Black Riders have been chasing us ever since we left Bag End - they've been putting magic on Master Frodo and terrifying us all - they tried to kill us - I don't know what they did to poor Fatty Bolger -" Sam throws up his hands.
"I don't see how fighting with fear-spells is worse than just stabbing you to death. You say they tried to do that too, but frankly you don't seem likely to have fought them off with your daggers." Not unless those riders are a bunch of first-circle wizards afraid to ride into melee - no, focus. Gord crawls back from the cliff-edge to where he can stand up and fix Merry with his glare.
When Gord said he'd leave, they didn't say they'll go after you when you're alone. The Black Riders have been chasing them for a while, but not attacking others. If he leaves now he should be fine.
These halflings are acting like they're still under a fear spell. Gord's tempted to round them off to civilians - noncombatants who don't want to fight and should be given the benefit of the doubt - except civilians don't normally go around uniformly armed with magic daggers. Maybe they're just rich, but then where are their servants, their guards? Or - no, he shouldn't assume; maybe magic weapons are plentiful and cheap in this world, and any real fighters would be dripping with magic items.
Merry doesn't look like a real fighter, unless he's a very good actor, but everyone has to start somewhere. Gord has Remove Fear prepared, but it'd be silly to spend it now and not during the potential fight itself.
"Translate this. You don't want to tell me why they're after you. That's your right. But I won't fight on your side just because they're Black and scary. If I help you, and you kill them, it's as if I've killed them myself." He's not going to explain how fighting purely in defense makes the fight more dangerous, he's already straining Merry's capacity for translation.
"In a few minutes my spell for understanding all tongues will run out. Only you will be able to translate for me, until tomorrow morning. I'm inclined to come back in the morning, heal any survivors, and maybe try talking to the Black Riders then and hear their side of the story. Do you not want to fight them? How could I trust you not to kill them, if I help you defend yourselves? Translate exactly what I've just said." And give the rest of his party a last chance to say something more useful.
"He says he won't help us fight without a reason more than they're black and scary - we haven't said why they're after us - he doesn't see the difference between fear-magic and daggers - and -"
Merry's impatience with translating rather than responding runs out.
"We didn't try to fight back - we hid! I picked up this dagger a few days ago and I still haven't used it for more than cutting our way through the marsh!"
Frodo respects how Gord wants a reason... even though he's strange enough that the reasons that make sense to them somehow don't to him.
"We've been trying to avoid these Black Riders; it's not like we've been using magic or daggers, and... I don't know how fighting back is going to work, unless Strider's hiding something, but we can't just let them kill us this time."
Gord has no idea how dangerous the Black Riders might be. It sounds like they could have killed this party and didn't, several times; they might be herding it somewhere with their fear spells; but if a fight develops and they see a real combatant on the halflings' side, he doesn't know what they're capable of. And there are five of them; even if all they have is longbows (magic longbows?) they'd have the advantage.
He doesn't know why they're after this party. Not wanting to fight a losing battle does not necessarily make the halflings good or righteous. Perhaps they did something to the riders that they seek to avenge; perhaps they are planning something that the riders seek to avert; perhaps they are only waiting to link up with their stronger allies (the wizard Gandalf?) before turning the tables on the riders.
Frodo has a magic ring of great power, but the Riders don't seem to be after it or they'd have taken it already. Hiding only goes so far, and a wizard who can cast fear spells ought to be able to cast Detect Magic and Locate Object too.
If Gord was infinitely powerful, he'd protect them until morning, with no casualties on either side, and then talk to the Riders (after they'd seen him help their enemies) and decide which side to help, if any. But he's alone in a strange world and up against unknown enemies who outnumber him five to one - he's not really thinking of this party as combatants anymore - and this plan is insane and frankly suicidal. He can make a very good showing for himself if pressed, but that means less than nothing when the enemy is unknown.
He doesn't have a spell prepared that would let them all hide for the night, like a wizard's rope trick; he'd have to actually fortify and defend a position, and these people aren't even competent to tell him what their enemies are really capable of when pushed to it. He has his daily nondetection, and other tricks to help him sneak away, but they're only enough for one person; he was traveling alone and didn't prepare any party buffs, and the only thing he has that would affect them all is that useless mass disguise other that only works for a few rounds. He has his bag but only one air bubble and even that only lasts for a few minutes.
Even if he led them away from here, he has no idea how the Riders have been tracking this party and the middle of nowhere, in the dark, would be worse to fight in than a prepared position.
He really, really ought to sneak away now and return tomorrow morning.
Also, he can only talk to Merry and Merry is not a good translator, because he's scared but also because he's just - untrained and not being efficient or focused. A scared civilian, afraid of an upcoming fight.
...
"How did you hide, if they're wizards? Can you do it again? The five of them against the five of you seems like a doomed battle, if they know how to use weapons and you only picked up a dagger a few days ago because you were scared."
"Do you know how they tracked you? Do they have an advantage in the dark, or will they wait to attack in the morning?"
"We... hid? Under some bushes, the first time. And then another time we crossed the river and stranded one of them on the shore..."
He turns to translate. "He's asking how they tracked us, and whether they've got an advantage in the dark or if they'll wait till morning, and he says this seems like a doomed battle..."
Aragorn give a nod. "Good questions. They'll attack at night - like most wraiths, they're stronger then. Maybe they're waiting for that, or maybe for the others of them - there are Nine in all, though I do not know where the others are."
"Hiding under the bushes didn't work," Sam says, ignoring the part he doesn't like thinking about to reply to the part he does understand. "The Black Rider was sniffing us out until the Elves came and scared him away! Or, maybe, sniffing out Frodo's Ring --"
He suddenly realizes what he said and claps his hands over his mouth.
It's not very surprising that this has to do with the ring artifact.
...they are wraiths? And they failed to mention this, before? And... they hid from wraiths under a bush? If he remembers correctly, wraiths are the kind of undead you flat out cannot hide from, at short range anyway.
Five (or nine!) wraiths, at night, is not an easy fight.
"Explain 'wraiths' and their abilities," he says urgently. "They're incorporeal undead? Flying, afraid of the sun? How and why are they riding horses - never mind that. Do they drain you with a touch, do people killed by them become wraiths, do they have extraordinary senses to find living people? Any other abilities I didn't mention? Remember I'm from another world, the word 'wraith' may not translate exactly or your wraiths might be different."
Gord really, really hates intelligent undead that turn their victims into others like themselves.
Finally, Gord looks and sounds concerned. And his questions aren't bad.
"Bodiless undead - yes. Or, they have bodies, but not material as we do. They can smell the blood of living things, and... drain, yes... strength and willpower not just with touch but with closeness if they bend their will to it. And they can smell the blood of living people and -" (Sam mentioned the Ring, so...) "- sense the pull of Frodo's ring. Their master, the Dark Lord, commanded them to bring it to him.
"They have less of the normal sense of sight that we do - but their horses have it, and they can somehow see using them.
"People they kill... no, not normally. The Dark Lord does have daggers that turn people into wraiths... but I have not seen them used in many years."
"How weakened are they during the day, can they drain people then?"
Is the sun far up enough that if he takes off running right now he can reach them in daylight?
Aragorn frowns in thought. "I do not think so. At least, I have not heard of them doing it..."
"Then I'm going to attack them right now. Better chances than waiting for nightfall. I can hide myself long enough to sneak up on them, can't hide you too but if you come you could distract them from a distance, are you coming?"
Aragorn looks between Gord and the hobbits.
"I do not know where the other four wraiths are - they might be sneaking up.
"How are you planning to attack them? Fire will repel them for a time, or flowing water - there's a small stream just east of here, if you need to retreat - simple steel without spells will do next to nothing -"
Pippin is looking almost eager at Gord's plan. He remembers how Fatty Bolger stayed behind to decoy the Black Riders...
"Distract them? How?" he bursts out.
"I do have spells, and a magic sword. Clerics are the strongest counter to undead, even though I didn't prepare for this fight at all. If I need to retreat, well, I just hope they really can't fly faster than I can run. And if they sneak up on us at night I can't save us if I don't notice them in time, so we have to take the risk while it's still daylight. If I damage them enough, maybe kill some of them, hopefully the rest will be wary enough not to attack at night."
"You can distract them by being either a nuisance or a juicy target or both while I sneak up on them, if you have a ranged weapon you could try shooting their horses - really I meant Strider, he's faster than you are and might be able to run away. I can't guarantee you'd survive it, if one of them goes after you even after I start my attack."
"Err..." He doesn't have a bow, and he doesn't like the sound of being a juicy target.
Aragorn shakes his head. "I never trained with the bow."
He's several times wished he did, but when he was young, the Elves were all so much better than him that he didn't have the dedication to get really good at it.
"And your plan... It would work if they didn't know the Ring was here. With it... it might work." He holds up his hand in salute. "We will be in the hollow down there when you return, most likely. Good luck."
The only alternative is to run away and abandon these people to their fate. Gord isn't exactly decided on risking his life for their sake, but putting down a bunch of wraiths is risking one's life for the sake of everyone in the world.
Nondetection. He doesn't think it will help but now's not the time to be stingy with resources. Disguise self, in case some of the wraiths get away and bear a grudge. And he takes off running downhill; he doesn't have time to be maximally stealthy all the way and he's hoping they can't actually see him while he's far enough away, horses or no horses.
Can he approach them stealthily to where it'd take him five minutes to close the distance running, without them seeming to notice, while actually being in a tearing hurry?
Well, how far does he want to go out of his way?
If he sets out down the side of the hill where the hobbits and Strider came up, he'll quickly find a hidden path leading back towards the front face of the hill (toward the Road where the... six wraiths, now... are sitting on their horses) some of the way down.
But only some of the way. By about halfway down, he'll be more in the open with only bushes for cover.
Gord needs to get to them while it's daylight.
He can go invisible for eight minutes but he doesn't know if it will help; Golarion wraiths can sense living creatures nearby. The invisibility could also work for a getaway, if he needs one later and can get out of their live-creature-sensing range.
...if they can fly faster than he can run, and his channels don't work and they end up chasing him, then he's fucked. But channels only harm undead, so he doesn't have to check if they're really wraiths before using them, and it really ought to be enough. He could just approach them openly and then channel at the last moment, but they might ride away if they see him coming. (He really hopes they can't fly.)
So, he'll try to approach them as stealthily as he can without risking it being dark before he reaches them - if they can only see at a distance using their horses then this might actually work? - and then, if they let him get close enough, cast invisibility and minute buffs and close the rest of the distance.
This isn't a great plan but it's the best one he's got. None of his defensive abilities or resources work against incorporeal undead; turtling up on the hill went out the window the moment wraiths came into play.
The wraiths must have split up while he was on the way down - there're only four of them there before he gets close.
One of them seems to be facing (for what it's worth) in his general direction, but he hasn't moved recently. In fact, none of them have moved at all, nor have their horses except for the slight wind blowing their cloaks and manes.
So if they have sensed him, they're not giving any signs of it.
If two of them already split off (and where did they go so quickly, the horses surely can't fly) and another three are unaccounted for, then most of them might strike at the hill-top while these four draw him off.
...but they won't strike until it's dark, and this is still his only chance to take out some of them in relative safety. It wouldn't help anything if he turned back now. (He does check whether Strider is desperately waving for him to come back from the top of the hill.)
So he closes to a few minutes' running distance, ducks into the best cover he can find at that range - some bushes that might at least obscure his casting - and casts invisibility, protection from evil, remove fear, and runs towards them at a slight angle, as if to pass them from the right.
Do they track his movement, or do anything else?
They might not see him... but the Ringwraiths can sense a Man running toward them, and one of the ways they can sense him is smell. He doesn't smell like a Ranger, or one of the natives of Bree, but he's most likely a Man.
A moment after he starts running, the closest wraith shrieks a piercing cry, one that they know will put fear into the hearts of all but the bravest of Men or Halflings.
But to their surprise, he keeps running without fear! Two of the wraiths gallop toward him.
That's a problem; he wants to catch all four of them in a channel.
A dire wolf appears, as large as one of the horses. It stalks towards them with menacingly, growling, not breaking out into a full run so as not to scatter them. Do they turn back?
They... draw rein at the suddenly-appearing wolf. It doesn't smell like any wolf or warg they've smelled before, but it's pretty clearly a wolf!
One of them circles around, to try to cut off his retreat should he retreat.
The other hisses at the wolf in Black Speech, in case it can understand, with magic to make his words convincing: "Kill the man!"
Gord's Comprehend is still up so he catches that. Do the wraiths have magic to command beasts, but no detect magic to see that they're summoned ones?
Aaargh, they're so close, the other two wraiths are just a couple of minutes away. He needs to make these ones think he's enough of a threat to make them regroup, or call the others to help them, but if he channels they might just scatter.
Would making them scatter, and only wounding or (at best) downing two wraiths, be a victory? A victory here is making them afraid to attack tonight. Gord will be better prepared tomorrow.
Getting only two of them... doesn't feel like a victory, not one that'd make the other four too frightened to attack during the night.
It's unclear how much good the invisibility is even doing him, at this point. Gord casts Lesser Mirror Image, runs towards the closest rider and tries to hit it with his sword, like the dumbest charge out of stories.
The wolf is going to prevent the other rider (or at least its horse) from interfering with this, or running off.
Summoned beasts? The Ringwraiths haven't even heard of such a thing.
Not having normal eyes, they don't even notice the mirror image through their sight. The mirror images do go beyond just sight... but after peering closer through the illusion, they see where the actual Man's soul is.
The wraith Gord is charging pulls out his own sword. It's invisible to mortal eyes, and half-intangible, but he wills it firm for long enough to parry - and he was a good swordsman in his mortal days. He'll parry and try to cut Gord off from the wolf as he charges. He won't stab him back; his sword is no Morgul-knife and would probably evaporate if he tried.
Gord can't see the enemy's sword, but he can tell when his own sword is parried by what at least feels like a metal weapon. If he keeps at it for a few rounds, can he manage to hit the wraith and force it to reconsider?
The wraith not trying to strike back with its invisible (?) ghost-touch sword is weird, but maybe it's fighting very defensively for some reason, or maybe there's no invisible sword and it's some kind of parrying-only spell. Gord tries to hit its leg, on the principle that it ought to be stuck in its stirrup and his greatsword might have better reach than the wraith (presumably) bending down to defend its leg. He can't see the wraith itself, now that he's close enough to notice that, but it's conveniently wearing visible clothes.
If he can't manage it in a few turns, the summon will expire and the other wraith will presumably attack him, at which point he'll have to settle for channeling at these two.
Gord strikes out at the folds of cloak which look like they're hiding a leg. He feels he hits something - but then when he pulls back his sword, it's smoking and twisting as if he'd stuck it into a very hot fire. It's still magic, and not quite destroyed yet, but it's still twisting and if it twists much more it will be destroyed.
The wraith can damage magic weapons as a reaction?!
If he doesn't get them all with the channels, manages to destroy his sword, and the rest come after him when he's unarmed, then he'll shortly be dead. (By his hand, not theirs.) He has a backup holy symbol in his bag (a tiny one), and a backup mundane sword which is going to be approximately useless. And he might have managed through great effort to become enough of an annoyance to these super-wraiths that they'll bother chasing him if he retreats now.
If you can't retreat, advance.
Gord takes off running towards the two wraiths who stayed behind, in a last-ditch effort to draw all four of them together. If he has to parry with the remains of his sword, well, better it than him.
One of the two wraiths who were fighting him rides after him, but at a slow pace not trying to catch up; the other one stays behind to watch the wolf but follows as soon as it vanishes.
(The wolf just vanished? Was it a magical warg after all? But it's not sunrise - and then why didn't it understand his command?)
The other two wraiths turn at Gord's approach but don't otherwise react.
... And as he runs, his sword continues to twist and shrivel to uselessness as a sword.
...he gets out his backup holy-symbol-on-a-string and wounds it tightly about his wrist. Takes his backup greatsword from his bag of holding. Waits until they're all as close together as they'll let him bring them - he'll practically go into melee range again, for this.
Channel. And he watches them carefully, trying to notice any reaction, if that's at all possible when all he can see are billowing cloaks framed on emptiness.
The Ringwraiths screech at this sudden wave of something invisible that hurts like fire would hurt a living man.
They are hurt, not destroyed - but nor are they yet strong enough that they want to keep facing this or someone who could do this! When he doesn't even have the Ring they are seeking! Raising their hands and shrieking again, they wheel their horses and gallop away east along the Road away from the setting sun.
Gord's primed to sprint after them. He can't keep up with a galloping horse, not and do anything, but he could probably catch one or two with a second channel.
He has a better plan, though: the pair that's closest to each other gets hit with a Confusion. Plenty of range for that.
Time to see if these wraiths fly when their horses are (temporarily) taken out of action. (He really hopes they take their cloaks with them if they do.)
The Ringwraiths are solidly bound to their Lord, and strong in their own right; the Confusion passes over them.
But their horses are normal horses - broken to their task by the cruelty of Mordor, but horses of flesh and blood just the same.
The two horses farthest back rear, and buck, and one lashes out at the other's rider -
- and then the one who struck out at a Ringwraith neighs in surprise and terror, and bucks even harder - and his own rider falls off.
(The other two Ringwraiths keep galloping away.)
Gord keeps running towards them, and channels again when he gets close enough.
Now, do they flee, or do they stand and fight? And how do they flee if they must abandon their horses?
They both screech in pain.
The one who's still horsed tries to master his horse, and - pressing down on its mind as much as he's able through the pain of the fire - manages to at least direct its confused dance away from this strange Man. He's not moving fast enough though - so if the Man makes any other move he's going to have to abandon the horse.
The one who's unhorsed... strikes out at Gord with another ray of fear.
But when that doesn't do anything, he abandons his cloak to fly away. Gord feels a wave of weakening chill, and the cloak settles to the Road in peace.
(With Detect Magic, Gord can see a shadowy wraith rushing away northeast, along the ground; nothing is visible with ordinary eyes. There's no magic in the cloak itself... but there's something inside it that is magical.)
Meanwhile, the horse tries to run, neighs in pain when it finds its leg stiff and weak, and starts hobbling around in confused pain.
Bad news: they can go fully invisible, and move quickly when they do. Strider was right that the horses were just for extra senses; Gord can only hope they'll be unable to attack effectively without them.
Probably good news: they might not be able to fly after all - that one rushed away along the ground. And they can't take their cloaks with them when they're not riding the horses, which implies... Gord isn't sure what, exactly, but when a fleeing foe leaves a magic item behind, one assumes said magic item was empowering them in some way. (Also, Gord just got some magical loot in exchange for his sword, which he still hopes he can rescue with Make Whole.)
So, on balance, it seems that unhorsing these Riders is a good move, as opposed to something that makes them stop sandbagging and swoop down invisibly behind your back where you won't see them coming (he's checking for it now, but he can't keep checking forever). He should press his advantage as much as he can, while they're still in daylight and in disarray.
In which case: go, summoned cheetah! Catch up with the two that galloped away and do your best to maul at least one of their horses so it can't run away from Gord! The nearer wraith will keep another turn before Gord tries to finish it off for good with a third channel, assuming it doesn't decloak and flee before then.
If you've never seen a cheetah before you might mistake it for a species of leopard. Unusually gracile and lean, with a curiously short head and long legs, but ultimately just another medium-sized cat; not nearly as scary as a tiger or lion, and certainly not dire. No danger at all, to a horse that started galloping away three turns ago.
Until what you thought an ambush predator, lazing about in clear sight and definitely not about to ambush anyone, stands up and stretches its long legs and gives you an innocent look, and suddenly it is next to you before you can flinch away.
It's not magical or supernatural; that would be cheating, and beneath it. It is merely extraordinary, the embodiment of raw speed in graceful gleaming fur; a Medium-sized animal that, once an hour, can outrun Shadowfax for a brief glorious moment, and would give Nahar himself a spirited try.
Cheetahs don't normally hunt horses; their hooves are too dangerous, their bodies too massive. A cheetah that is running for its dinner will look for easier prey.
A summoned cheetah, happy to sacrifice its own existence for a chance to tear or break the leg of a galloping horse? That's a different matter.
The Ringwraiths, however, aren't riding Nahar. Or Ancalagon. They're riding, again, well-broken but perfectly natural horses.
Who, perfectly naturally, respond to predators by running away. Fortunately for them, that's exactly what their riders are telling them to do.
Unfortunately for them, they've never before seen a predator this fast.
But the Ringwraiths were once kings, of many places scattered across Middle-Earth.
This one was from Far Harad, and he's seen cheetahs before.
It takes him a few moments to look back and see that the strange Man (another Istar? A sorcerer who's somehow not working for their Lord?) has summoned a cheetah. Who will, plausibly, be fighting on his side? By that time, it's starting to jump into its run -
"Scatter!" he hisses in the Black Speech, and instantly turns off the Road to the north into the shadows of sunset. One of them might still survive and stay horsed.
The other one, half a round later, turns off to the south with a wordless cry to put fear in beasts and persons alike.
Being a summoned creature doesn't make you immune to fear.
But only one of its prey is making scary noises, and it's riding away from the other one. The cheetah leaps on the prey that tried to run north.
The horses left to their own devices would have done better; herd animals know to stick together in the face of the predator. Scattering is leaving the weak to perish.
Meanwhile, Gord advances on the nearer wraith and its confused horse. Can he kill the horse without being attacked by the wraith, and will this wraith also flee if he does?
The wraith waits for Gord to come close - and then jumps off the horse at him. A knife, glistening in the twilight, is in his hand.
...He'll back away, and do his best to evade or parry the knife! Who knows what thing can do. If the wraith insists on following him, he'll channel again.
And if the wraith gives him some space instead, he'll cast the Spiritual Weapon he's been holding in reserve, have it kill the horse, and then bring it back to hack at the wraith. If the wraith can't dispel it and doesn't have spell resistance, it'll do more damage than a single channel anyway.
Gord still wants to see if killing the horse actually makes any difference to the wraith's behavior. Strider said they borrow the horses' senses, but a wraith accurately blocked Gord's first strike when he was invisible and you can't do that with hearing and scent.
The wraith doesn't give him space, though. Despite the wave of painful light, he barrels at Gord, knife outstretched, ready to pierce whatever part of his body he can.
Is it desperately defending the horse, or itself? Or making a last stand to delay him while the others get away, perhaps one of the wraiths can command the others and this one is a spawn?
Plan B was to kill the horse and hope the wraith will run away, but it will take the Spiritual Weapon at least two turns to actually kill it and Gord doesn't like his prospects of defending against a dagger with a greatsword, not when the opponent is entirely incorporeal except for the dagger. It's definitely acting like stabbing him with the dagger will be do something worse than making a little dagger-sized wound.
He tries to parry as best he can (the non-magical sword can parry the ghost-touch dagger, right?) but also, when the wraith gets into melee range, he converts his useless Dismissal into a Cure Critical Wounds.
He can parry the dagger, yes - it's material - but he can't keep parrying it for long with a long greatsword. The wraith is fast. How fast is Gord at stopping his sword-stroke once it's clear that he'll meet not the dagger but the sleeve of the wraith's coat? While the dagger is within his stroke?
Not that fast! Parrying a dagger with a greatsword doesn't fundamentally work if your sword can't hit your enemy to make them keep out of range.
Then when his sword cuts the wraith's cloak, it starts steaming just like his other sword did.
And he gets stabbed in the shoulder. It's got a whole lot more pain and exhaustion than a normal dagger wound - Gord can do maybe a couple things before falling unconscious.
Aaaagh they've got the dread touch already? It's not fair there's still a bit of sunlight left --
Can one of his last couple of actions be landing the Cure on the wraith? It's inside his reach, it doesn't get to just float away.
Icy chill shoots through Gord's finger, and then hand, as he touches the wraith. He might not be able to move his hand now.
But he can channel through it. The Cure lands.
The wraith screeches and rushes away northward - with the black cloak, but still away.
Gord is now by himself, except for the horse, in the failing sun.
(And the horse is stepping closer and looking at him curiously, with what might be cautious friendship.)
Ugh, he feels like he barely survived that - scratch that, he's not sure he has survived it yet.
Does a Cure Light Wounds help? He's got more healing but maybe this really is just a small knife wound with a lot of drain on top.
What has the summoned cheetah gotten up to? Is he about to be ridden down by another vengeful wraith?
... Did he pull the dagger out of his shoulder before doing that? Or was he in too bad a shape to notice it?
Either way, he feels better for a round or two - even better if he pulled the dagger out first - but only for a round or two.
Yeah, he knows to pull out the dagger before healing the wound closed, he really doesn't have to think about it.
Uh. Lesser Restoration?
That seems to do it!
... except that if he thinks about it, he can still notice what might be a nagging drain still inside him.
Oh, and the dagger he pulled out of his wound has all gone up in smoke now, except for the hilt, just like his first sword did... and like his second sword seems to be in the middle of doing now.
Meanwhile, some ways away, the summoned cheetah is vanished. It was killed by the other wraith's touch, after leaping on and killing its horse.
But it unhorsed the wraith.
Better the cheetah than him!
Battle-tally: four wraiths wounded, none destroyed, at least two unaccounted for. They're very dangerous in daylight, they could have killed him if they'd all rushed him. If even one or two find him when it's dark he won't survive it, and he's drained on top of that, and down his magic sword and his backup.
And he still has no idea what they use their horses for, or how they control them without ghost-touch reins or something.
All in all, this is a sound loss.
But at least it looks like he'll live to tell of it?
Unless they come back invisibly in half an hour, once it's fully dark, and drain him to death. So: he needs to get as far away as he can, and hope that their magical senses have limited range and their horses can't track at night. Tomorrow he'll be better prepared... hopefully.
...is there any reason to go back to Strider and Merry and the other halflings?
He doesn't owe them anything. Hasn't promised them anything, or gotten anything much from them. Has tried to help them already by fighting the wraiths, even though it's painfully clear at this point that a single wraith can handily kill that party if it finds them in the night, and maybe in daylight too. Whatever the wraiths want with them, it's not to kill them or take that ring.
Unless it's not a ghost-touch ring? Gord has no idea how that works, to be honest, what with them riding horses but also having non-magical swords conveniently pass through them.
He would like to take a closer look at the remaining horse, if it will let him. Does that look like a saddle designed to bear weight, or that has borne weight? Does the tack look used, does the horse have any signs of having been ridden or spurred or steered in the normal way?
It looks like a normal saddle, except it doesn't show any sweat or stains. Maybe it was used by someone very light?
The horse shies away when he reaches out for the tack, but if Gord persists, it'll stay in place trembling. The tack has obviously been used, and viciously so - there's a painfully cruel bit in the horse's mouth.
Alright, he can admit he hasn't got a clue how this setup works.
There, there, horse, he's not going to hurt it... pat pat? Gord hasn't ridden horses for a few years now but he used to, he knows how they work. Which is to say he could probably prepare a spell to make friends with it if not for all the everything, but as it is he's just an averagely competent horseman. He'd get (sigh) his backup dagger and cut off the cruel bit but a dagger next to its head would probably just spook the horse right now.
Also, he'll probably end up killing it so the wraiths can't get it back, since he gets little benefit from riding a horse himself and it make him much more spottable and leave a clearer track.
...
His best bet for getting away is preparing Hide from Undead in his remaining empty slot, running away as far as he can in the eighty minutes that gives him, and hoping to get enough time to prepare spells the next morning before the wraiths track him down, if they choose to do so but need their horses' sight to do it.
The spell can cover the others on the hilltop, but more people obviously leave more tracks, and the wraiths apparently have a reason to follow them and (hopefully) not him. They're supposed to be after the ring artifact.
What the Abyss is up with that ring? If Frodo thinks wraiths are after it, and isn't competent to put it in a lead box, why is he still carrying it around instead of letting them have it and running as far away as he can? The bloody thing's blinding! Anyone who sees him wouldn't be able to think about anything else!
Yes... why should Frodo be left to carry the Ring around where it's perfectly visible? And leading everyone to just keep thinking about it? Drawing in the wraiths and who knows who else on some perfectly innocent civilian halflings?
And the only person they have to help them is Strider... and whatever he might be doing, he didn't tell Frodo to put the Ring anywhere safe! And he didn't do anything like what Gord has done!
Surely Gord should come back and help the halflings? Protect them before the wraiths get at them?
Being Good doesn't mean joining a doomed fight! It means surviving to help someone else another day!
...
...those halflings really have no idea what's coming for them. The wraiths are toying with them, herding them, and maybe now that Gord bloodied them they'll be angry enough to strike. And he'll run away safely to, what, fix his sword and his drained-ness and prepare the right spells for undead, all alone in an unfamiliar wilderness without allies, and wait for the wraiths to go after him seeking revenge, possibly using an unknown artifact this time?
Maybe they know something useful, something they didn't think or didn't want to tell him, that he can get out of them. Some weakness of the wraiths that they didn't think of as such, something they have that keeps the wraiths at a distance.
Maybe he can send this Gandalf of theirs and have an actually useful ally next time.
Oh yeah, there was something magic left in the cloak of the one wraith that left its cloak behind. Why did it do that when the others fled with their cloaks? (How is the cloak itself not magic if a wraith can wear it?)
Gord tries to get a closer look at that. Carefully, because he's had his fill of touching wraith-related items. (Does the hilt of the knife he was stabbed with show detect as magic?)
Yes, the surviving knife hilt is very magical. It's also covered in some runes.
And if he carefully looks inside the other wraith's cloak, he finds a very similar knife, with a blade that glints in the last rays of the setting sun.
Gord doesn't really fancy the idea of trying to stab one of the wraiths with their own magic knife, but he's all out of magical weapons. Maybe he can... throw it? Whatever, best not to leave it lying around, he can deal with the mysterious evil loot later. He wraps both the knife and the hilt in the cloak, ties it with a bit of string, and chucks it in his bag.
Next: getting back to the others. He doesn't feel like he can outrun a horse right now, and there's no real point in trying to be stealthy on the way back up the hill. Will the black horse let him mount it? He promises not to use the bit as long as it doesn't bolt in the wrong direction!
It trembles, but it's well-trained, and lets him mount it.
This new rider feels much more comfortable than its usual riders... and he's acting much more kindly than anyone the horse can remember. It'll gladly walk, or even trot, up the hill for him.
He'd really rather it ran, he can heal it if it breaks a leg, but he'll take what he can get.
Are the others still in that hollow?
Yes they are... well, Merry and Frodo and Strider are. They look worried to hear his horse's hoofbeats - Frodo and Merry have their daggers in hand, and Strider his hand on his sword-hilt - but they instantly relax when they see Gord himself.
"Gord!" Frodo exclaims in the Common Speech (which Gord can't understand anymore.) "You're back! Did you find the Black Riders? What'd you do?"
"Yes!" Merry seconds in the Common Speech. "What happened -" He only then switches to Hallit. "Did you find them? What'd you do - what happened to your sword?"
His Comprehend ran out a while ago and now he needs to convey desperate urgency through the sole channel of 'I picked up a magic dagger because I was afraid' Merry the halfling. He'd hoped they might have seen something of the fight below, but apparently they sensibly hid out of sight while he charged a bunch of wraiths like a madman. Well, at least they're not celebrating a fake victory.
"The wraiths are stronger than I expected. By the time I got there there were only four, I don't know where the other two went - where are the other two halflings? - you should get them to come back here."
"I hurt them with magic but not enough to destroy any of them; I'm not sure if I could destroy one, definitely not tonight. Any weapon that hit them shriveled up after one strike, even my magic sword, look" - he gets the sad remains out of his bag. (They are still far too large to fit in the bag, and his hand went suspiciously deep inside it before he pulled it out.) "They also have magic daggers they can parry and hit back with, one of them got me and it's definitely drained me some, so they're very dangerous even in daylight. They got away, one's still got its horse, another horse is dead and the last one's wounded. And they can be completely invisible if they remove their cloaks."
"Which is to say that if any of them find any of us during the night, and they want us dead, we'll be dead. I don't know what game they were playing with you before now but I'm not going to rely on it continuing."
"Pippin and Sam? They went off to look for the pony; someone didn't tie him right and he wandered off -"
Merry stares in fear at the shriveled and twisted sword, glances timidly down at his own dagger, and then translates.
Strider puts his hand on Frodo's shoulder. "No, don't you go." He glances around. Unfortunately, if Merry's the only one who can understand Gord, none of them can be spared at the moment...
But one other even more urgent matter first. "The dagger that hit you. What happened? What was it? Do you still have the dagger?"
(Merry stares in confusion, not remembering that Gord's language-understanding spell expired)
"Merry, you need to keep translating. I can't understand the rest of you anymore, that spell wore off and I can't cast it again tonight."
Merry blinks in confusion. "It works that - why not tonight? But - Strider's really worried about the dagger that hit you for some reason. He wants to know what happened, and if you still have it?"
Oh good, maybe he was justified in coming back after all? Gord pulls out the cloak with the dagger-and-a-half. "It shriveled away after hitting me. Looked like what happened to my sword, but more thorough - this is the hilt. This one was left by another wraith, and its cloak too, I don't know why. I could see that wraith wasn't destroyed, it was still magic, but maybe it didn't know I could see that. It went away, though, or at least out of my range."
"I need another quarter-hour to prepare a spell, the last spell I can prepare tonight, which will hopefully make us undetectable by undead. And then we're going to run away as far as we can while their horses hopefully can't follow our tracks during the night. And then tomorrow morning I can prepare more spells. If you have any questions be quick, we don't know when they'll attack."
Strider looks at the hilt gravely, and then up at Gord with surprise. "An evil weapon; I can help mend its wound - but if that pierced you, how are you still walking around!?"
(Merry translates.)
"Badly. I cured the wound and eased the drain a bit but there's a reason you see me riding up the hill, not sprinting up it. Any more urgent questions before I start preparing the spell?"
Strider looks at Gord for a moment. If Gord can heal himself, at least for the moment - that might be just as much as he could do for Gord even if he hadn't already used all his kingsfoil.
He nods. "Keep the hilt safe. The Elves might be able to read more of the runes, when we reach Rivendell." And then he straightens. "I will go look for Sam and Pippin, if they can be safely found."
Unless Gord has a response once Merry translates, he'll be rushing out of the dell into the growing dark.
Merry (and Frodo) are looking at Gord with growing awe as he translates.
"How do you 'prepare your spell'? Can we watch?"
"You saw me do it earlier - I pray over my sword quietly over a while, you can watch but you mustn't disturb me or I have to start over." Ugh, he's going to have to pray with his backup backup holy symbol now. And tomorrow morning, that's going to suck.
If they have no further questions he'll dismount and find a nice stone to rest his back against and concentrate, for a while, on getting a spell and totally not on any wraiths that might pop up out of the ground at any moment or that might be standing invisibly right next to him while he's not detecting magic, waiting to drain him at the last moment just when he thinks he's made it.
...at least he doesn't have to look at the miniature sun in Frodo's pocket.
Frodo wishes his magic was so nice and ready to his invitation.
He'll happily sit back and try to remember the rest of the poem about Gil-Galad that Sam was quoting on the way down from the hilltop. He'd read the original Bilbo was translating, which had several parts that weren't so full of images of Mordor, but it was a while ago...
While Gord is most of the way through his spell, there's a fearsome shriek from the north. Is he still immune to fear?
Not like a spell does it, no!
He's not frightened enough to bolt randomly into the night where the wraiths are waiting instead of finishing preparing the spell that will let him do that safely but if any of the halflings are going to run he's not exactly in a position to stop them.
Frodo, trembling, grabs Merry's arm before he can run. "No! We can't get lost too!" he hisses.
If nothing else happens in the meantime, around the same time Gord completes his spell preparations, Strider and the other two hobbits come back but with no pony.
"We had him," Sam exclaims in disgruntlement, "but then he ran at that shriek. And Strider said we needed to get back rather than find him again."
Note to self: don't trust Sam with any decisions of importance.
"No time to pack. Leave anything that weighs you down, I can conjure food and water. I think we keep the horse, I or two halflings can ride on it when we get tired, we can probably move faster that way. We'll still leave ordinary tracks, can't hide them with a party this size, but try at least to be silent. Strider, figure out quickly what direction we should run in and how to obscure our trail. The spell will last for eighty minutes but we should keep moving until daybreak, get as much distance as we can and a place to hide in, it'll be safer to rest during the day."
"...Frodo, put your ring in my bag, that thing's like a beacon and you said they can track it. The bag's extradimensional (*), the inside isn't really here so they can't see it while it's inside and it'd take a powerful wizard to track." The bag is itself visibly magic but there's no way around that.
(*) Of course the language of a mostly-illiterate barbarian people has a simple word for 'extradimensional', what kind of a weird language doesn't?
Sam glances around the scanty baggage that got unloaded from Bill the pony earlier, and grabs up one bag of spare clothes and a little food. "We can at least carry this! On the horse, maybe?"
Frodo stands up slowly. "A... beacon? But... the Black Riders are wizards too, aren't they?"
... And he really doesn't like the idea of just giving the Ring over to Gord, but he's not saying that yet.
"I don't know what all they can do and neither do you. It's definitely visible as is, it very likely isn't in the bag. If you're not using it for anything, it's much safer that way."
Sam, seeing Frodo's reluctance, interrupts.
"And who're you to be telling Mister Frodo to give you the Ring? What're you going to do with it? Maybe one of us should take your magic bag?"
Maybe it's the scream from earlier, or something about the drain, but Gord really doesn't have the time or the patience to deal with these bloody halfling civilians anymore.
"I am the guy who ran off to fight a bunch of wraiths for strangers," he almost snarls, "instead of running the other way when you said they were after you. I am the guy who came back, injured, to try to get you to safety. The one who's still trying to convince you instead of just turning around and leaving. I need the bag on me because if we're attacked I'll be using it to fight for your lives," even if he has no real idea how.
"You are none of you fighters. You're not competent to walk around with a bloody artifact in your pocket, and if you want to do it anyway it won't be with me, because I don't want a wraith-attracting artifact on me while trying to dodge wraiths in the night. You can put it in the bag and I'll give it back when you ask, or leave it behind on the ground for all I care, but you're not bringing it out in the open."
"I'm leaving. Who's coming with me?" Except for the horse, the horse doesn't get to decide, that's his spoils of war. "I'll cast the spell on everyone, you don't have to come with me for that."
This tirade will probably lose something in Merry's translation, but right now Gord can't really bring himself to care.
Frodo gets the sense of Gord's rant even without a translation. His hand goes to the Ring, and part of him tries to pull it out because Gord really has been helpful - but he doesn't.
He's not surprised.
"I can't," he murmurs. He doesn't think even the other hobbits can hear.
Things are almost falling apart, again.
Well, Gord already knows that it's valuable, so... "Tell Gord - He is asking much more than he knows. The Ring lures its bearer in, and fences in his will. We think only one person in history has been able to give it up freely."
Merry's eyes go even wider - he hasn't heard the full story yet. "B-Bilbo? Only him?"
(Strider nods.)
And then he translates. "N-no offense, but we've just met you today, and also, Strider says -"
So just take it from him - oh. He said the bearer, not the wearer, didn't he.
So that's why they've been wandering the wilderness with wraiths after their artifact and haven't just dropped it and ran: they're enchanted and can't give it up to save their lives. And they can at least tell him that he's at risk if he puts it in his bag.
Will he come under the same curse if he merely travels with them? Are they even allies, or just a bunch of random people snared by the ring, forced to wander together and unable to separate?
He's not really sure what they can say to make him agree to travel with them (or rather, with their cursed artifact), but he can at least give them the courtesy of letting them say it. "Am I at risk, if I travel with you while Frodo carries it?"
There's a simple answer to that, and a complete answer, and an answer which will actually help him if he does go with them... and he doesn't know what ideas Gord has in his mind that he'll need to counter.
... "It might tempt you, but not more than that. It is not wise to handle it, or see it, more than you need to."
(Merry looks like he's chewing on some distasteful idea as he translates.)
"... and I haven't touched it myself, ever," he adds. "Pippin hasn't either. Nor Strider. I don't know about Sam."
They haven't touched it, but they're still travelling together. And the ring is still "tempting" them - to do what, exactly?
Gord has spent most of his adult life fighting and adventuring around the Worldwound, has had more than his fair share of consorting with demons, and he is still alive and (as far as he knows) unenchanted.
Which is to say: he knows how to respond to the prospect of "constantly magically tempting companion" - namely, by running away at the first opportunity - and, also, you need some serious Splendor if you're going to try to tempt him. This Ring isn't even pretty. (*)
Well, at least they're being honest, and they'll not part as foes.
"Then I shall be wise and not see it more than I have to. You will have to escape separately; I will cast the spell on all of us. Does anyone still want to come with me?" He doesn't think they can but he's still going to offer.
(*) Gord has no ranks in Spellcraft.
"Come with you? But where're you going?" Merry yelps.
" -- He says he'll cast the spell on all of us but he's leaving separately."
... yeah, this's the reaction he thought he'd get, before Merry and Pippin insisted on coming along.
They're not answering quickly but he can guess why.
"Everyone gather closely around me, I need to touch you all quickly to cast the spell on everyone." He stands next to the horse and holds out both hands.
Merry translates and quickly takes a hand; he doesn't know why this man is alternating between helping and distrusting them, but he's happy for a spell to maybe hide them from the Black Riders.
"Hey, Merry, did he say where he's going? To fight more Black Riders? Find Gandalf?"
(He's in; why not?)
Aragorn joins in the hand-clasping.
"Translate this, Merry - Before you leave, I have a warning about the wound."
(Merry translates.)
"I'm listening." Hide from Undead. "The spell lasts for eighty minutes starting now. Stops undead from seeing, hearing or smelling us - by themselves, not through their horses - but not their ability to see magic, if they can do that, which includes my bag and your swords and definitely that ring. Hopefully they can only do that at a short range, like my spell. The spell also ends if any of us attacks them or anyone else."
"He says - just under an hour and a half, the Riders won't be able to see or hear or smell us, but they can still see magic like the ring. And it ends if we attack anyone, but why would we do that? And, Strider, he says he's listening."
Strider nods. That's not unlike some things he's seen Elf-minstrels do.
He'll state it flatly. With the hobbits, he'd soften the warning, but he judges Gord can take it straight.
"I do not know how your healing might change this, but for anyone else - the wound will linger and keep weakening you. And sometimes, after - perhaps a few days, perhaps longer - it might open you more to the wraiths' shadow of fear or other magic. I do not know how to tell for sure so early; Elrond at Rivendell would know better than me."
The hobbits all yelp.
"Err... Strider says he doesn't know how your healing works, but - er - the wound's going to linger. And he says it sometimes makes you more open to the wraiths' magic, like their fear - which, ouch! But he doesn't know yet whether this's one of the times. Elrond at Rivendell would know."
Yeah, it's a drain and probably some kind of curse too, but the wraiths closing in are the immediate danger. If he lives till morning he can deal with it then.
"Thanks for the warning. Travel with Desna." And now he's going to mount the horse and ride away and hopefully he'll never get to meet a wraith after sundown.
... at a dark shadow that can suddenly be seen, or rather a place where nothing can be seen, in the starlight, on the downhill side.
And there's another shadow on the uphill side of the dell.
Shit.
Are they moving? Reacting to his movements? Are they blocking his exit?
Actually, he'd better dismount again; he doesn't want to risk falling from a dead or panicking horse. If he can lead it around them -
- Wait. He's being an idiot. This is their horse.
"I should have killed the horse, they might still be able to see through it," he whispers, even though whispering doesn't matter at this point. "If we kill it now it'll break the spell."
If they don't do anything he'll try to... pull out an empty sack and put it over the horse's head so it can't see, at least... and then if they still don't do anything he'll try to leave in a direction they're not?
The horse is used to wearing blinders or blindfolds. It stands still, waiting for the next thing to happen.
"We should have lit a fire -" Aragorn glances around. There's tinder in the dell, and sword-length sticks, but it'll take too long for the longer brands to catch to be of any use...
"Merry. Ask Gord if he has any magic for fire." He grabs one of the longer sticks.
He has Spark! He has no idea what good that'll do but sure, Strider can have a flaming stick if he wants one. It will only make him easier for the horse to see through the bag, though.
(Are the wraith-shadows moving?)
Strider lights the tinder - it's better than nothing - and holds up the brand in his left hand. "Hobbits, get some in your hands, and try to light them -"
They'll probably take too long to light to be any good, but it might at least keep them from falling overcome with fear.
They're not moving yet... but a third shadow now appears, from the north side.
A faint hiss, and a thin piercing chill, waft through the air.
And now, they start slowly advancing.
Gord can light a stick on fire once a round, but right now he cares more about whether he can get out of the slowly closing ring of doom! He can see them with detect magic! If he runs for the biggest gap do they try to cut him off?
Oh, no, not at all!
They seem like they don't care at all; they just keep closing in on the party!
Look, he's sorry, he tried his best but he couldn't defeat four wraiths in daylight. He's drained, unarmed and half out of spells and he's not going to fight three wraiths in the dark and almost certainly die for the sake of strangers on the road. He tries to be Good but he's not really the suicidal kind of Good.
"Try to run away!" he calls, and then he puts his advice into practice.
Merry cries out at Gord running away. He tries to move his legs to follow him and try to bring him back or stay safe with him or something, but they feel like they're frozen in place with the sudden fear rushing over him. The Black Riders are right there - their mysterious strange savior is leaving them - what can anyone do -
He crumples to the ground next to Pippin.
Sam isn't surprised to see Gord go. He was a good fighter, maybe, but he seemed to distrust them all. And he was even more strange than Strider, even.
But this leaves them with the Black Riders closing in, and he doesn't know what to do except curl up next to Frodo and keep trying to hold that stick in the fire like Strider said --
The horse feels the Riders coming back, of course. It shouldn't have hoped to get away from them.
The wraiths let Gord run away.
Or, they can't see him, but they can see the mysterious hole in the Song of the world (which looked like a bag to their horses) moving, and they're guessing someone they can't see is carrying it. Or even if it's moving on its own, they don't care. The Ring is right there. And that's what their Master told them to get.
They still don't know what mysterious magic blinded them to all the people who had been there a moment ago... but they don't want to wait and let things get even stranger.
Frodo is wrestling with this sudden wave of fear too, but his fear is swallowed up in a sudden temptation to put on the Ring.
Despite all the warnings he has heard, he can think of nothing else. It isn't a hope of escape; it isn't a hope of doing anything whether good or bad - he simply feels he must take the Ring and put it on his finger.
He can't speak. He shuts his eyes and struggles for what feels like a long while... but then resistance becomes unbearable and he draws out the Ring and slips it on.
And then Frodo's voice - with a strange tone to it - crying in what doesn't sound like the Common Tongue at all, "O! Elbereth! Gilthoniel!"
Gord's comprehend ran out long ago, so he's going to ignore any cry that's not "O! Gord!".
But he can see the spell on himself wink out. He knew this would happen, when the wraiths attacked the party before they could scatter, but he really hoped it would buy him more than a few rounds. Now he has to start sneaking away, rather than running pell-mell through the darkness.
He still doesn't know what senses the wraiths have at what range, and horses can hear in the dark perfectly well; presumably they still have their own horses nearby, besides the one he brought to the party. There might even be more wraiths around; he expected two but but saw three just now, and Strider said there were nine in total.
What can he see if he looks back? The wraiths are practically invisible at range in the darkness, even wearing their cloaks, but Strider at least had a torch going.
He - or someone - is stabbing with the torch like a weapon.
And it looks like the enemy's retreating?
The wraiths didn't kill the party before; they're driving it towards some mysterious purpose. It makes sense they won't kill it tonight, either. That only increases the chance that they'll be looking for Gord, hungry to take their vengeance. Or just hungry.
He's going to sneak away as best he can, while scanning all around him with detect magic running and also keeping an ear out for any sound of horses. He'd like to keep moving all night and find a secure resting place in the morning, after praying. He went from morning in Golarion to evening here; he can keep going unless the drain is much worse than he thought it is, and he has one more lesser restoration he can use.
And a couple rounds later, he sees three wraiths quickly approaching him from the direction he left the party.
But a moment after he sees them (at the limit of his Detect Magic range), they've dodged off again away from him.
He can't target them if he can't see them!
He will keep walking downslope and away from the hill, very cautiously.
His caution keeps him from tripping in the night.
He doesn't come across anyone else, or anything unusual for a hill.
A little ways away from the hill, he sees a pony that looks up at him hopefully as he runs by. If he looks closely, it's got a bridle on.
...the halflings mentioned something about looking for a pony, didn't they?
He can't ride a pony all night in the dark without exhausting and probably laming it - well, he has cures if he lames it, but he doesn't think it will help him to ride it. It will probably make his tracks easier to follow, and for all he knows the wraiths can use its senses. Anyway, it isn't his and it has their stuff on it.
It must be scared, alone in the night with wraiths around, but Gord can't do anything to help with that. Onwards into the night he goes.
The moon soon rises to light Gord's steps over the uneven ground. There's a stone-lined narrow path running up and down the dales, if he chooses to follow it.
For as long as he chooses to walk, no wraiths are in sight - nor any other magic.
Meanwhile at the camp, just after the Black Riders withdraw and the fear leaves the hobbits, they're horrified to find Frodo vanished.
Sam is the first to run around the hollow looking and feeling for him. "D-did Gord put a spell on him too?" he grumbles. "Make him invisible to us?"
"I hope the Riders didn't carry him away..." Merry ventures nervously.
"Gord?" he calls.
"If he called on Elbereth, I would hope he was stronger than..." Aragorn murmurs, and then shakes his head because it's not clear what he's hoping. Is he hoping Frodo was too strong to put on the Ring? But then his disappearance must mean the Ringwraiths carried him away. Is he hoping Frodo was too strong for that? That's a vain thing to hope.
He wishes Gandalf had been here. Or Glorfindel, or Erestor... or that Gord had stayed. He couldn't fight the Ringwraiths by himself, but he'd tried his best... and he can only hope that's good enough, for Frodo and for all Middle-Earth.
He joins the hobbits looking for Frodo. It might help.
It's Sam who literally stumbles over Frodo, lying as if dead, face downwards on the grass with his sword in one hand and his other hand curled around the Ring.
Sam picks him up and carries him over by the now-half-dead kindling where they'd been starting a fire. "Thank goodness he's here! But - is it the Black Breath again -"
Strider bends over him and feels his side and shoulders, carefully not touching the hand that's still clutching the Ring.
There's a wound on his right shoulder. Aragorn frowns gravely. "Worse, I fear. Heat water; bathe his wound. I must be away to see how far the wraiths have gone - and to search for a better balm for his wound."
And then, barely waiting for Sam to nod, he's away into the night. The moon will rise soon; he trusts the starlight and his (not-)feeling the wraiths' presence until then.
As he satisfies himself the wraiths aren't lurking anywhere nearby, he considers where to go. Normally, he would search for athelas for Frodo's wound; there should be some growing near here though he didn't see any earlier today. Or, he could track Gord - whose magical healing must be even better than athelas, at least in the short run. But Gord fled in the middle of battle; would he want to come back to them?
Or maybe Aragorn can find both tonight...
Gord spends the rest of the night walking. He leaves the path after a few hours; he'd rather be more thoroughly lost than get as far as he can. His pursuers are mounted, so he tries to shake them by going over rocks and through shallow water when he can. It probably won't help, but you never know.
He keeps his Lesser Restoration until predawn lightens the horizon, trying to judge how tired he gets and how much the drain is affecting him. Spending the night on high alert (and missing a day's worth of sunlight) makes it harder to tell, but he knows his body. He probes the place where the wraith wounded him (it left a little scar) to see if it still aches or feels at all doomy unlike a normal fully-healed dagger wound.
He finds the most defensible spot he can in half an hour of searching, so that he can't be snuck up on from behind or unaware. He doesn't know what monsters live around here; a perfectly ordinary wolf pack could interrupt his prayers as effectively as any wraiths.
Once it's finally time, Gord spends the Lesser Restoration, and a channel on the off-chance it will help.
And then he carefully takes out a small collection of skulls, and arranges them in a pyramid. Each has a story; most of the stories are of failure, and prices paid. On the top, as always, a gnome's tiny skull with an inked pentagram frowns disapprovingly at him.
After a brief consideration, he works the twisted remains of his sword into the tiny mountain. It seems appropriate, for today.
And then he prays.
Gorum presumably hears his prayers, but Gord doesn't think He cares much about them.
Some clerics he knows make a full report of the past day to their gods; some plan for the day ahead; some just meditate wordlessly, or fantasize about the girl of their dreams, or how they're definitely going to win at cards this time around. Prayers are private and (outside the Lawful churches) highly individualized, and as far as Gord knows they're just as holy and as banal as every other part of life. Prayers are the priest's, not the god's.
When Gord prays he reviews the past day, but he's not reporting to Gorum. He's reporting to himself, because his is the only opinion that matters and he believes Gorum thinks so too.
So. What went well, what went wrong? What is Gord going to learn from and do differently today?
He attacked the wraiths while it was daylight, instead of running away from the party the wraiths were after. He risked himself, even more than he knew at the time, angered very powerful wraiths - and undead have long memories and infinite grudges - and ultimately gained nothing. A very partial understanding of their daylight abilities and their use of horses wasn't worth a possibly-cursed wound that will probably require a full Restoration (and he can only afford so many of those). Even Merry's party didn't benefit; the remaining wraiths still had them at their mercy.
Recall: why did he do this? At the time, he thought that - wraiths are a menace to all living things, one must destroy them before they have a chance to breed more -
But the wraiths have been chasing the party for many days, at least. They could have turned them into wraiths already if they wanted to. He knew this when he ran off to fight them. He should have believed what Merry was implicitly telling him, that the wraiths didn't want to kill his party and very likely would keep on not killing it.
He let himself be rushed, and he made a wrong decision because of it. It hasn't cost him much (yet) but that was luck; the mistake is his to own.
...
If he had left and come back the next morning - assuming the party was still alive to continue their conversation - what would he do about the wraiths then? What can he do about the wraiths, with proper preparation?
He could kill all their horses, from a distance, if that's his goal. If he uses only summons, it might not even break Hide from Undead. If the wraiths can find him though, and if they attack, he would be in just as much danger. Ultimately, he still doesn't understand what they're using the horses for (or how they're using corporeal horses to begin with). It might be a worthwhile tactic, but only if he's already committed to attacking them, with all the risk that entails.
Anyway, letting the wraiths keep their horses makes them much more visible and findable, especially during the day; killing their horses might work out against him.
He doesn't know of any spell that would let him keep a wraith pinned down and unable to flee, even in daylight, for the rounds it would take him to destroy it. He never used his Searing Light, but two (three?) channels and a Cure Critical didn't take out a wraith, and a Searing Light is less powerful than all those together. Once the wraiths are sufficiently harmed, or once he destroys one, they will switch back to standard wraith tactics - hide during the day, attack invisibly in the night, float through the earth - and he can neither defend against it nor catch them again in the daylight if they abandon their horses.
...how does anyone destroy a bunch of wraiths that can just run away, including into the sky or underground? Stronger clerics have spells that'll do it in one round, but keeping them in place probably needs a wizard. His own blunt approach is clearly insufficient and he shouldn't try it again.
Next time, he will run away sooner.
After he drove the wraiths away he rode up the hill, drained and unarmed, to share Hide from Undead. It didn't help anything, but he doesn't think it was very wrong, in retrospect. He couldn't have known they were enchanted not to put the artifact into his bag of holding, and it wasn't obvious that the remaining wraiths would attack the minute after the sun went down and not half an hour later. (Then again, they were probably watching the party all along and only attacked because he cast Hide from Undead.)
His only real mistake was not killing their horse, but otherwise he'll give it a pass.
Overall, yesterday was a significant loss. Not one he feels, not one he'll remember on dark nights, but a tactical loss all the same.
He foolishly took large risks, was injured and made enemies, and earned nothing for himself or anyone else. It would be better for everyone if yesterday's Gord had done nothing.
...
This is normally the point where his sword, propped up by the tiny mountain of skulls, whispers to him that he is still standing. That he meant to do good. That everyone fails occasionally but he's still in the fight and will do better next time.
In the bleak light of morning, his dead and twisted sword offers no false reassurances.
He meant to do good and still does. He resolves to do better next time. By not rushing blindly into battle. By knowing clearly what he fights for, what he risks and what he might gain and why fighting is the best way forward.
Gorum is not a god of fighting. He is a god of striving. Enforcing your will on the world, no matter who stands in the way. Fighting is often the way, but it is not the goal. Strength bent to a purpose should not be stupid.
He doesn't know yet what he'll fight for in this new world. A way home, certainly, but that is certain to come so long as he grows stronger. His usual goals are likely to apply, here and everywhere but Elysium, but he does not know this land yet. He should step lightly, and wait to make any grand plans.
Which is to say: Gord doesn't want to think about his situation right now. Give it a few more days to settle.
Goals for today:
- Deal with his drain and possible curse
- Try to fix his sword
- Figure out where to go next - actually, sleep for most of the day, and then figure out where to go next
So. Gorum, please give me these and such spells. And if You know of any great anti-undead spells I missed, please put them into my free slots.
Darling, you take me to such places!
Of course you can have your spells. Earlier than usual, but there's no-one here to tell Me otherwise, is there?
Restoration (targeting vitality): definitely helps, but he can't afford to cast that too often. There's a way to supercharge the spell by feeding it ten times as much diamond dust, which can heal some kinds of drain that even cumulative castings of the base spell can't touch, but he'll wait to see if he still feels off at the end of the day before resorting to drastic measures.
Remove Curse: no way to tell if if it did anything, but better safe than sorry. At least it doesn't cost anything besides the slot.
Does Make Whole work on his poor sword? If he can un-twist it enough to be even a slightly magic sword again, Mending should be able to take it the rest of the way.
(Gord took Guidance, which helps a bit with most things out of combat. He's not tired since he cast Lesser Restoration again just before praying, so he can afford to spend a while on Mending before sleeping.)
Well, there's someone who could tell Him otherwise... but He's not going to. Of course Gord can have his spells.
Did you think that, after letting a cleric come in, Eru Illúvatar was going to stop him from filling up his spells?
... Well, He might for some gods and some clerics. But this one is perfectly fine.
No, "Make Whole" doesn't work. The tiny twisted remnants of the sword stay in place as if they'd always been twisted that way.
What is up with these wraiths and their overpowered abilities?
Maybe they're on the same power-level as the ring artifact. Maybe Gord is a magical weakling in this world, and should behave accordingly.
Can he at least Mend his non-magical sword?
Meanwhile, Aragorn is tired.
After doubling back once to check on Frodo, he decided to track Gord in the moonlight, because that was as good as any other course to search for kingsfoil. But he hasn't found any, and Gord - it turns out - is actually decently good at hiding from pursuers. He hasn't lost his trail, but he's come close several times and wondered whether it's worth giving up and going back to Frodo again (who could be expiring right now with the fate of Middle-Earth on his shoulders...)
It's not till after sunrise that he sees someone moving ahead, and crouches down behind the bushes to watch. Yes, it's Gord!
... And then when Gord isn't doing anything more than some presumable magic on his swords, Aragorn stands up.
"Hello!" he says, holding up his hand in greeting.
Gord feels annoyed at being followed, but he had tried to convince Strider and the others to come with him to begin with, so he can't really complain. Besides, he might still be a useful source of information, as long as Gord doesn't stick around until nightfall.
Is he making a mistake again, if he talks to Strider? Well, what's the worst case here?
That the wraiths charmed or dominated Strider and will use him to find Gord, because they want revenge. That they gave Strider some magic powers to strike at Gord directly. That Strider made a deal with them last night to save his life in exchange for tracking down the man who hurt them. That they're already watching him, uncloaked and invisible beyond the range of detect magic, and he won't ever shake them again now that Strider led them to him better than any horse could.
...yeah, the worst case can always be bad enough that you shouldn't gamble, or so bad that you've already lost. He doesn't think just talking to Strider, now that he's here already, is too risky. And if he decides he doesn't want Strider to keep following him, he'd like to try using words before he does swords, especially seeing as his remaining sword is still a little bent.
He walks forward and offers Strider a Share Language.
Aragorn gladly takes this thing that looks like the same thing Gord did for Merry yesterday.
"Hello," he repeats in Westron. "I hope no one pursued you after you left?"
Aragorn raises his eyebrows in surprise.
"Another language -" he starts in Westron, and then continues in a tongue of Hither Rhun, "still another from magic" -
And that's when he realizes Gord was speaking a language he hasn't heard before. Yes, there's a new language in his mind, the same one Gord was speaking. "Hello," he says in the language apparently called Hallit. "I hope no enemies found you after you left last night?"
"If they did, I didn't see them. I can only see the wraiths within sixty feet, though, and maybe not if they're hiding inside the ground. What happened to your party after I left?"
"Good. I did not think so, but -
"I attacked the wraiths with fire, but I fear it did little good. The wraiths stabbed Frodo with a Morgul-knife. But then he called on Elbereth, and they retreated. I scouted, and they are nowhere around the hill, but how far they have withdrawn, or what -" He shakes his head.
"Frodo lives, but he had not woken up when I left, and the other Hobbits" (he drops in the Westron word) "are tending him."
"Are they vulnerable to fire?" If Gord had known he'd have summoned a fire elemental!
"Who's Elbereth and what did they do?"
"Not very vulnerable, but more so than most swords. Rivers will do more good in blocking them and their senses, but we have no flowing rivers near here." He shakes his head.
"Elbereth is the goddess -" He pauses a moment, chewing on the Hallit word he just used, and then decides yes it is the right word "- who kindled the stars. She is called on for a shield against evil; the Elves honor Her greatly."
(They have a separate set of pronouns for gods? Well, all right; it's no more unusual than some of the pronoun choices in Further Rhun languages. Though it'll make a few things difficult to talk about... no, the connotations of using these pronouns for evil gods like Sauron seem perfectly normal after all?)
Hopefully like Desna, then, or maybe she is Desna. "I thought you said your gods didn't grant power to mortals. Did She just intervene, to drive off the wraiths?" That would be a notable miracle on Golarion, but maybe with no clerics it's more common here.
"They do not -" At least not except for the Elves who studied with them, but that's not relevant today. "- and if Elbereth intervened I did not see it. Perhaps She put fear in the wraiths' hearts; perhaps they merely feared Her name; perhaps they thought they had accomplished their mission when they drove you away and stabbed Frodo."
If wraiths fear Her name, that means invoking it at least occasionally prompts a real miracle! It's worth looking more into the local gods; lack of clerics does not mean lack of interventions.
"...what do you think their mission was, then? It seems to me that they could kill him, or all of you, at their will, today and on previous nights. You said they're after Frodo's ring, but they didn't take it." What kind of mission ends with stabbing but not killing someone?
"Yes, I am sure they are searching for that. And I think they think it almost accomplished if you are gone, and Frodo wounded... They will come again tonight, perhaps, if we do not escape." He shakes his head. "There are nine wraiths in all. Why they were not all here, I do not know, but given that I do not think they expected us to fight back. Even Frodo, I think, resisted longer than they expected.
"But more likely - you were a surprise to them as well as us, I'm sure. And you had put a spell on us. Perhaps they were afraid of what other magic you might have left with us even after you left?"
"Was tonight the first time any of you faced them directly?" Gord had gotten a different impression, but perhaps he was mistaken.
"I hurt the four I fought, enough at least to make them flee. If they came back, and talked to the three who attacked the hill-top, they might have been afraid of me. I left, but then they knew I had magic that could conceal me from them... Still, if they attacked you at all, enough to wound Frodo, I don't understand why they stopped. That ring was the only thing my magic definitely couldn't hide, and the spell failed besides - I assume that was when you attacked them with fire. An intervention of Elbereth is the only explanation that makes sense to me, but I'm not from around here."
"The first time we fought them. Earlier we hid, or fled.
"Yes, quite possibly - or perhaps it was your spell failing. If the rest of us suddenly came out of hiding, as it were, perhaps the wraiths feared what else might be hiding? And... all in all, I suspect they count it little loss to wait one more night, if they think you fled."
"Well. To dispel any lingering confusion, I have fled. Which is to say I don't intend to fight them in the night ever again, because I have no hope of winning." Although, if he uses fire... no, still too risky, and no reason to do it at night anyway. "And while I might survive another daytime fight, I can't destroy any of them unless they obligingly stand in place for a while and don't run again. And if they aren't riding horses, or they hide and don't move during the day, I probably couldn't find them anyway."
"What are your plans?"
Aragorn sighs.
"If we stay at Weathertop, they know where we are, and no help can reach us. If we leave, there is a small chance they might be impeded from following us, or that we might find help. So, I plan for us to leave. Our pony is gone, but Frodo can at least ride the horse you captured and left us.
"But our time is short... The wraiths are greatly weakened without their horses, and without their cloaks - I saw you uncloaked one? But Frodo and you are both wounded."
"It left its cloak behind, I didn't grab it or anything. Do you know what the cloaks are for? It didn't seem magical. And I'm healed, as far as I can tell, I cast some more powerful spells this morning that I didn't have prepared yesterday. Couldn't fix my magic sword, though."
"And I still don't understand the horses. You said they use them to see? Can they only sense magic and living people, themselves? Do you know how far away they can sense? Should I have been aiming for the horses? They have at least three left; we saw six from the hilltop but there were only four when I came down, and one of those escaped with its horse."
"Also, I assume they can still use the horse I captured; I wouldn't suggest you keep it around. I saw the pony on my way last night, it might still be around somewhere."
"I don't know for sure, but the cloaks probably help their aura of fear, and perhaps help them interact with the material world more?
"Yes - if I were fighting them on horseback, I would fight the horses more. But then, you made one of them cast off its cloak - which is already more than I have heard of anyone doing since the Last Alliance!
He frowns at the mention of their still using the captured horse. "I had not thought of that... perhaps. It would still be better than waiting till Frodo can walk, but... We can try to find the pony." He frowns.
"... Unless you are willing to come back and heal Frodo? And how does your magic healing work?"
"There's normal healing, which handles physical damage - wounds, burns, bruises, broken bones. And then there are special spells for removing tiredness, drain, curses, poisons..." Gord hadn't thought to check himself for poison; something to keep in mind if he feels worse again.
"I don't mind healing Frodo, or the rest of you if you're wounded, but it would take most of the day to walk back to the hill and I did mean to sleep today so I could be alert tomorrow night. How long are the days here?" Last night seemed pretty long, but for all Gord knows they could have long nights and long days.
"...also, casting both spells I used again - for drain and for curses - would use up a lot of my most powerful magic for the day. And the spell for drain consumes a pinch of diamond dust and I have no idea when I'll be able to get more, how expensive is diamond dust around here?"
"A spell for removing curses? How!? I know some heroes of the past who could have used that!
"Diamonds are rare here - but this is the Lone-Lands. You could find a number of them in Rivendell, or the better markets in the Shire or Gondor.
"The days are..." How should he phrase this? "...almost the same as the nights, this time of year."
"As to 'how', you'll have to ask a wizard, I'm just using the spell Gorum gives me! And it's not guaranteed to work; it pits your magical power against the curse, although you can try again if you fail."
"The real problem is that I have no way of knowing if it worked, or if I was cursed to begin with. I can only wait and see if I feel weak again. I do know it wasn't a magical curse, I would have seen that."
A twelve-hour day, minus eight hours of sleep, would leave only four hours for walking. And he still needs some time to finish Mending his sword, and to pray for more spells. Not that he can't skip some sleep, but he doesn't intend to repeat the mistake of getting deeply involved with helping these people until night suddenly falls and it's too late.
And the wraiths are likely watching them during the day-time, too. They stayed on the hill and they still have that horse, so it would be weird if they weren't. Going back there would be putting himself in danger again, even if he intends to walk back out with daylight to spare.
...
He's being silly. Him going back to heal Frodo is in Strider's interests, so he should let Strider solve the puzzle.
"I would help you if I didn't have to risk myself. Or if I could know how much I was risking myself, and had a plan."
"The wraiths are likely still near the hill and watching the halflings. Some could be far away, watching using the horses, ready to ride away if you move towards them and they don't want a daylight confrontation. Some could be close by, hiding invisibly; they're not at any risk since you can't see them and they can run away faster than you can attack them with fire."
"One of them could have followed you here, invisibly, if it wanted, and you wouldn't be able to tell."
"It took me all night to come this far. I was trying to be stealthy and I'm not as fast in the dark, but let's say it will take at least half the day for us to get back to hill. It would take another half-hour to prepare and cast the spells. And then I could leave again, although I'd be going thirty-six hours without sleep at that point, and not planning to sleep the following night either. This should be safe, because I think I can stand off the wraiths in daylight, although I can't be sure and if they're willing to seriously risk themselves they can take me down; one on nine is bad odds."
"Or I could cast Hide from Undead again. I prepared a more powerful version today. But it still lasts only eighty minutes, not even until nightfall. And I still don't want to travel with you if you're not willing to hide the ring that the wraiths can track."
...actually.
"Is the ring cursed? If I'm going to try to remove curses from Frodo anyway, maybe I can get that one, and then he'll agree to leave it behind."
Aragorn stares in surprise when Gord says he doesn't understand the spell he cast. "If you don't know how your spells... are they really your spells? Or, when your god gives you magic and you cast it, is He the one truly doing the magic and you just calling on Him to act?"
(In that case, it's not totally unlike how Melian tried to help Turin... but that's beside all their present problems.)
"The Ring is cursed, but... more than a curse put on from outside. The Ring itself bears some of Sauron's... will and malice." (Oh good, he could dodge the question of whether to use god-pronouns for Sauron.) "So... removing the curse might work on someone who was close to the Ring but isn't anymore, but with Frodo who has the Ring right in his pocket...?" He bows his head. "It might still be worth a try. After all, neither of us understand how the spell works?
"And I know for sure no wraiths are near here. I can feel them - often farther than sixty feet, though how far varies with how powerful they are at the moment."
"He gives the spell to me and I cast it, I'm not calling on Him when I do. But I can't - invent or modify a spell and have Him feed me raw power and cast whatever I want to. And I don't understand how the spells work, it's possible to learn - especially since I can see magic - but I never did. If you learn enough you can be a wizard and make your own spells, but very few wizards are smart enough to do that, they mostly copy existing spells."
...is Strider telling him he needs to cast Remove Curse on Strider, now that he's temporarily away from the Ring? Better not ask directly yet, in case he can't just say it plainly, but -
"Why don't you just overpower Frodo and force him to throw the Ring away, if it's for his own good? He's not wearing it, is it still - magically stuck to him because of the curse?"
(The ring being half-sentient is par for the course for a major artifact and doesn't earn any special notice.)
"Strange! I have never heard of anyone who could cast magic without understanding it at all, unless they were merely using a magic object..." He smiles. "I know some Elves who would be fascinated to talk with you about that."
But his smile dims at the next question.
"That would be better for Frodo, at least if you or perhaps Galadriel could then remove the curse - but no, it would be better for him anyway. But then someone else would take the Ring, and would they not be in even worse straits than Frodo, having already done violence to take it?"
"If you're trying to get rid of it, you could - I could summon an elemental that would bury it deep in the earth... Insubstantial wraiths could probably get to it, though. And anything a mage does, a stronger mage can undo." He considers.
"We could send it to another plane. Clerics can travel to other planes, and call creatures from them - I'm not strong enough to travel myself, yet, but it's not very rare. But we'd be giving the ring to the elemental; that's like giving it to a random stranger and being glad the curse isn't on you." And he's definitely not giving up his bag for this.
"Burying it in a random location might be best; at least no-one will have it for a while. And if the wraiths find it, I don't mind them being cursed."
Something seems to be missing in this picture. A major artifact, thrown away and forgotten?
"What does the ring actually do? Apart from cursing you to not want to throw it away and attracting wraiths. You said it - tempts people?"
Yes, that is the problem. Anything a mage does, a stronger mage could undo... but still... "Hiding it would be far better than letting the wraiths take it, but then we wouldn't even know if anyone finds it. I wouldn't want to do it as long as there might be a better option.
"The Ring tempts you, with Sauron's malice, trying to get you to value it and..."
Well, he can't avoid any longer telling Gord what the Ring does. If this makes Gord want it for himself - then so be it.
"... and use it. It gives you power, to see hidden things and dominate others' will and work magic, and I know not all the ways, but it will corrupt you more as you use it more. Gandalf and I both told Frodo never to use it again for that reason."
"So it gives you various magic powers, but if you use it then - you say it 'tempts'. What does that mean, exactly?" Gord is most used to hearing that word in the context of succubi, but that might not generalize. And most people don't take succubus temptation seriously, the things being offered and given, they're too busy mocking those who give in to it.
"Does the power it gives come with strings attached? Or your use of it has unforeseen results that serve it and not you? Does it give you options and abilities, real ones, that you'd rather not have?"
"Or does it affect your mind directly, your judgement or desires, if you use it? We call that 'enchantment'." It would be much more straightforward if Strider said the ring enchants its user. Succubi can enchant people but that's not temptation.
This hasn't gone horribly so far; Gord is concerned! But it's not the best way either; might he be poking at the fine distinctions to try to find a way to use it anyway?
"It does warp and change your desires, at least over enough time - everyone who knew Bilbo would say he was acting very unlike himself about the Ring. As for what unforeseen strings it might pull, I do not know what Isildur might have planned to do, but Bilbo was feeling his life was too long and thin before the end... and if Gollum was trying for anything besides living in a dark cave by himself, he did not get it.
He spreads his hands "For myself - I have not tried. I could tell you something of what it whispers in my head, but it might perhaps be better not to."
"If it tempts someone into living alone in a dark cave, not even using its magic powers by the sound of it, obviously that's bad for them..."
"So, if you use it, it slowly enchants you into - being someone else, and maybe doing weird things. If you have it, it enchants you to want to use it more, and if you're just near it it enchants you to - want to stay close, and not to throw it away? Do I have all that right?"
Aragorn nods along with what he says about Gollum.
"If you use it - maybe it does more as well; Bilbo was a hobbit, and Gandalf did say hobbits might prove surprisingly resilient. If you have it - it also seems to make you jealous about it. And if you're near it - no, it does not make you want to stay close precisely. But many times, it makes you want it yourself, which can prove the same thing. Though -" He smiles. "I don't believe any of us are staying here for that reason. And I know I'm not."
Yeah, no, first rule of enchantment is that you don't trust yourself to check if you're enchanted! Strider is either far gone or rather naive to think otherwise. He can't even detect magic on himself!
"It sounds like burying it is better than carrying it, at least. I can do that, but I'd be using up a lot of powerful spells. But if we do all that, and then I cast Hide from Undead, hopefully the wraiths won't pick up any of our trails, or have reason to pursue you anymore."
That sounds like a plan, which is a lot better than the lack of a plan he had before! The only problem is that involves him going back to join the party he spent all night running away from instead of sleeping. This is the kind of thing he kind of swore off doing again, so he'll only do it if Aragorn commits and neither of them can think of any problems on their way back.
Gord seems to be hiding something. Aragorn feels uneasy.
"But if we bury it, then the wraiths will find it, and what good is it that they won't find us?"
Yeah, there's the problem. "You're right, we don't want to give powerful magic to wraiths. I could probably still send it to another plane, and whoever picks it up is very unlikely to be as horrible as a wraith, but we'd be endangering a specific person, and there's no way to know if they'll agree when they hear our offer."
Even if it's worth it from Strider's point of view, Gord doesn't want to risk himself and spend money on moving the artifact from one set of near-strangers to another.
"We can still put the ring in my bag. It would hide it from the wraiths, almost certainly, unless they have a mage so powerful that nothing you do will work."
"I'm not agreeing to this yet, but supposing you lost the wraiths, what were you going to do?" Maybe it's something as inoffensive as living in a dark cave.
The way Gord says that first part sounds off. "Wait, are you thinking of the wraiths as... acting for themselves, like the Barrow-Wights, and trying to take the Ring for themselves? They're slaves of Sauron, enslaved by the Ring's magic when Sauron held it."
Would that have changed anything last night? Aragorn doesn't know.
"We're trying to reach Rivendell, for safety and for counsel about what to do next. And now, I suppose, to heal Frodo."
...oh.
Poor wraiths. It's always good to destroy undead to free their souls, but these ones are enslaved twice over. He doesn't have a way to help them, and it hurts. Maybe if Strider wasn't afraid of using the Ring's power, he could help them -
"You mentioned Sauron before. As the one god Who gives out magic around here. So He sent the wraiths after the ring, and gave them some kind of magic to locate it?" Gord probably shouldn't make an enemy of a uniquely active evil god without good reason. "Putting it in my bag and running for Rivendell is probably the best plan, from your point of view."
"But I'm not convinced that I should take on the risk of joining you. It sounds like a good cause," meaning Gord is going to ask Strider to confirm everything under a truth spell, "but if I helped every stranger's good cause I would be long dead. And so help fewer people. And there might be something much worse around that I don't know about yet and would rather fight without making Sauron come after me."
"In the long term I want to get stronger, which will happen naturally as long as I'm doing something worthwhile, until I'm strong enough to go home. I'll also need diamond dust and eventually whole diamonds," at least he hopes so, "and some other expensive components, and a new magic sword, but I expect I can buy all that for spells."
"You know this world much better than I do." And you don't know about zone of truth yet. "Give me your best argument for why I should risk myself helping you and not someone else."
"You get stronger... naturally?" Aragorn boggles. This sounds like something far over and above normal training and practice.
"The best reason is - well, for one, you appeared into Middle-Earth next to us, and in my experience when chance happens that neatly, there might be Someone behind that chance.
"And for another - if Sauron retrieves the Ring, he will be many times more powerful, probably powerful enough to conquer all Middle-Earth."
He bows his head gravely.
"I get stronger like anyone else does? If I keep walking into serious danger and strive for what I want and don't give up. And don't die along the way, obviously. When clerics get stronger, their god gives them stronger spells, and eventually I'll get ones that let me travel back home."
"I... really don't understand your first reason. Maybe Someone had a hand in it, but if we have no idea Who, it seems as likely to work against us as for us. If Someone wants me to do something, They should just ask me!"
"Sauron conquering the - middle continent? - does sound bad. If only because it's usually bad for anyone to conquer places. That might be enough, if I knew for sure what Sauron can and cannot do and what He's actually going to do. Can you say more about that? Anything that ought to affect my decision, I don't need all the political details."
"If you wait for Chance to explain Himself and ask you politely, you'll be waiting a long while." Aragorn is happy for the god-pronoun's wordplay.
"I visited Sauron's dominions when I was younger, and..." He shakes his head gravely.
Really, he should have talked about this before now; Gord's asking exactly the right question. But, he's too used to how everyone who's grown up in Middle-Earth knows Sauron as something to dread, at least as a childhood boogyman if not worse.
"Sauron forces everyone to worship him, and men are offered in sacrifice at his altars. He and his lieutenants rule as tyrants moving everyone like ants or game-pieces to their plans. Or at least, he would do that - he had not fully exerted his power over the parts I visited, which is why I dared visit and could escape. But he had started to, and I heard enough from the lands where he had ruled longer."
Ugh. Another world, same old troubles.
So according to Strider, there's a probably-Lawful-Evil god who rules part of the continent and will conquer the rest if He gets His ring artifact back. Gord has no idea if he'd approve of the rest of the continent as it is now, but stopping a Lawful Evil god from conquering it is probably a good idea even so.
"If that's true then I'm going to help you. I will cast a truth spell on you, which will prevent you from knowingly lying, and ask you to repeat the relevant bits. I have no particular reason to distrust you, but it's a big thing to trust a stranger about."
"This is a good time to tell me anything else you'd like me to be convinced of. About yourself, the ring, the halflings. I'll need a quarter-hour to prepare the spell, you can think while I pray. It will last about eight minutes. Then you can tell me more about this world while we walk, and how you all ended up in this situation. Do you accept?"
"Thank you," Aragorn says first, from his heart. That's the important part - Gord wants to help. "Of course I accept."
Then he adds, "But I'm curious - you said a truth spell? You're not going to ask me for an oath? And..." Aragorn's never heard of anything that could be called a truth spell, unless he counts how older Elves will look into your eyes and see your mind and heart. "... Your spell will just keep me from lying; it won't let you look into my mind?"
If not, he'll need to decide what he wants to tell Gord. He can of course talk about the hobbits and Rangers and Gondor and Elves all he wants, but what're the important things to say? And is it important to mention how he's the rightful king?... Well, it'll almost certainly come up at some time, and Gord might be upset if Aragorn left it out now...
"And if you need to focus on preparing the spell, do you mind if I look for some athelas leaves nearby? I can use it to help cure sicknesses."
Gord's first instinct is that Strider is Lawful and expects strangers like Gord to be too, but that's not the only way to interpret it. Gord has known some very Chaotic people who took oaths seriously because swearing an oath was their way of indicating they were being serious.
"I don't know what oaths mean in your culture. Where I'm from, some people are against lying, or against lying about making alliances, and calling something an oath doesn't add anything to that. Others might lie but won't forswear an oath. And of course some people give false oaths anyway, and you can never be sure about a stranger."
"I don't know what an oath means to you, so it wouldn't convince me any more than your plain words under a truth spell. You can swear or tell me about it under the truth spell, if it's important to you."
"The spell won't let me read your mind, that's a wizard spell. It will only prevent you from saying anything you know is wrong, you can try saying 'two and two make five' and see what it feels like. The spell will affect me too, it works on everyone nearby, but I don't have a way to prove that I'm not exempting myself from it or that I'm not reading your mind." Swearing about it isn't special to Gord and if it were he couldn't prove that either.
"Do what you like while I pray but return quickly; we'll be short on time getting back to your party." If Strider wants to slip away discreetly and not speak under a truth spell, Gord won't stop or pursue him.
"Oaths are - whether you mean them or not, you put some of your power into them -- or I can tell you later when you've cast the spell."
What do oaths mean to Gord, if he doesn't even know that? Or do they work differently in his world? And if it's that different, what else might be different --
As soon as Gord starts praying, Aragorn is happy to go look for athelas. He doesn't go too far, but he's glad to have something else to do to fix his mind on this world rather than his frenzied imaginings of what Gord's world might possibly be like.
Everyone here has a... magic ability to constrain themselves with an oath? And if you break one, you presumably lose the 'power' you invested. Strider isn't a mage... at least Gord thought he said he wasn't a mage, but that might have been a misunderstanding... does he mean that you'd lose some of your strength, the thing Gorum wants you to have more of? And anyone can do this - or at least, Strider expected Gord to think that Strider could -
Either this realm is very Lawful or Gord is very confused. ...Or both. Or maybe they're all fey here, that sounds like it could be a fey thing?
He prays for the power to see through to the truth.
After a little searching, Aragorn finds a few kingsfoil plants, with enough leaves to at least help Frodo's injury. Or Gord's, if his healing didn't fix everything. Or the next wound someone gets.
Meantimes, he realizes that there can't be a world where oaths are meaningless. Even if most Men somehow lived like orcs - even then, someone giving their word would mean something, however light and however often they broke it. And there would be people who wanted it to mean more.
Thus fortified, he returns to greet Gord after perhaps a quarter-hour.
"You might feel the spell take hold. Don't resist it, I'll know if you do." Gord can't actually reliably tell these things with detect magic, but together with tone and body language cues he can make an educated guess.
"...If you're not used to resistable spells, try to relax and sort of welcome it in. I'll cast it on this rock, it affects a small area, if you leave you won't be affected until you come back. Duration is around eight minutes."
Zone of Truth. He doesn't resist it himself; he doesn't want to lie by omission and it's good practice.
Aragorn feels the magic pressing on him. It's not like staring into Galadriel's Mirror or listening to a minstrel - it feels like a wind blowing on him, or a horse leaning against him, or the wraiths' fear pressing on him. He instinctively feels like he wants to resist - but he relaxes. Gord told him that the way for them to trust each other is for him to let it in, and so he does.
It doesn't feel like anything once it settles over him.
"An interesting feeling," he says. "It feels more like the wraiths' magic than the Elves - though I'm not sure that means anything?
"To start with: I haven't lied to you, ever, since we first met. I'm here to stop Sauron from reclaiming the Ring, because I deem that the most needful thing I could be doing now. If you're asking why there aren't more of us - few people know where the Ring is or who has it, and that was a good thing since we only lately learned that Sauron had realized it was in the hands of a hobbit."
He pauses.
"To test the spell... I have gone by many names. I am Aragorn. I am Strider. I am Thorongil. I was born in --"
He can't force out the words he was going to say ("the Havens of Sirion"). It's a strange feeling; he isn't sure whether he likes it.
"- in Eriador," he finishes truthfully after a few moments' pause. "The spell seems to work."
(And like he'd guessed, it lets him say everything but a straight lie.)
Detect Magic shows Strider-of-many-names to be enchanted, and he seems sincere; Gord is going to trust him.
"I'm Gord. I haven't tried to deceive or harm you and your party, and as far as I know I haven't." Truth spells can be weird about saying you didn't 'lie'; saying you didn't deceive sometimes works better.
"I intend to help get the ring to Rivendell, or somewhere else you think is safe it that doesn't work out. I intend to help and protect your party while we're traveling together."
"If the two goals conflict I will probably prioritize the ring but not totally, I'm not going to suggest abandoning one of the halflings if they can't keep up or can't fight, it's hard to say something general ahead of time. If one of you does something I find unconscionable, I may abandon or try to stop you but will still try to get the ring to Rivendell." Better to get that out of the way now than find out when it's too late.
"If I encounter something terrible along the way, someone I want to help, I will... in some cases want to deal with that before going on. But few situations will be as important as the ring."
"I also intend to tell you about most of my abilities and spells, it might be important. Almost all of them are common to clerics, but if people here really don't know about clerics then please don't spread that knowledge without my approval. I'd like you to tell me about your relevant abilities too."
"If there's anything else that I might find hard to believe later on, best to say it now."
Good.
"I wouldn't ask you to abandon one of the halflings either, at least not quickly." (He uses the native Hallit word; it's close enough.) "And - no, people don't know about 'clerics'. I don't think there's ever been someone gifted quite like you, and they certainly haven't been common."
"There're a few things I want to tell you now lest they come up later, but first -" (he's happy for the excuse to delay mentioning his lineage, but he still frowns for the topic) "- I'm concerned that if your healing did not totally cure the dagger's curse, it might weaken or kill you later. Or, worse, it might turn you into another wraith under their command. If you had not healed yourself, I would have said it might happen in a few days for a Man; longer for a halfling, but now that you did -"
He shrugs.
"So, if you feel anything that might be a sign of that, please tell me. I can at least hinder the curse with athelas."
"I'll definitely tell you," Gord agrees. This is just common sense (and common decency) when you might be afflicted by an undeadifying curse!
"I feel fine now after casting the spells, so if it does come back I expect I can hold it off by casting them again, but you never know. And I'll run out of diamond dust eventually. How do you cure it entirely? - that's probably not urgent."
"I don't know." He shakes his head. "Elrond of Rivendell might know - if anyone in Middle-Earth."
"And there's something I might mention about my ancestry while we have the truth-spell, but it can wait if you have any more urgent questions to ask?
"I'm not going to judge you by - what you said under the truth spell and what you only said later." Exact words only matter when dealing with devils and if you're dealing with a devil your mistake isn't in using the wrong words.
"You can just say you don't intend or expect to mislead me for the next while. About things that affect the mission, or that I would care about. If you think there's something I won't believe you about it later despite all that, then I guess you should say that. I don't know what could be so unbelievable about your ancestry but I don't know what kinds of ancestries are common around here."
"...I can also cast this spell again another day if we need it."