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Dwim was all hot and dirty by the time he reached On The Rocks. His thoughts had drifted far away from the thief hunt. After the long and exhausting journey, all he could think about was how he desperately needed a drink. For the hobbit, the sight of the infamous pub was like an oasis in the middle of a desert. He dragged his feet to the door with hardly enough strength left to push it open. Somehow he managed, but it was not what he expected...

He took one step inside and realised something was not right. Where there should have been a bar, tables and stools, a floor, and pub patrons, instead there was just blackness. A deep void contained within four walls. His hairy foot felt for the ground, but it was not there, and he went tumbling downwards. Taethowen had set a trap. She must have. She knew he (or someone) was coming for her.

"TAETHOWEN!!" he screamed as he plummeted downwards through the black abyss. The nothingness was frightening. For what must have been five minutes he fell, and fell. Then suddenly the void that surrounded him became redder, and hotter. Then his hairs began to singe, and his skin began to boil. Before he knew it, he was in a chasm of liquid fire, and then he was nothing. The fires of Orodruin had consumed him.

Bugger!

Ducky didn't seem to be quite as guilty as he initially appeared, so The Whisper turned her super awesome detective skills toward Taethowen. Everyone knew those Rohirrim were tricky. This one even more so. Hadn't there been something about suspicious fires lately?

But why a Rohir would want One Rotting Leg O'Las was beyond her. Clearly she needed to step up her detective skills. She'd think about it while she went to Cirith Ungol. She'd had a really bad experience last time she had the non-pleasure of visiting (murder hornets featured prominently), but anything for the sake of duty (or the reward money.)

Edit: Gwai, thanks to the anti-simul feature, I did see and take into account your post

It's been awhile since Naelia had taken part in any of Mordor's Thief Hunts (other responsibilities and all that) but once she heard that a thief was on the prowl in her native homeland, she headed straight back (she had been sent to apprehend someone who resembled her traitorous half-sister, Lathana, but the mission turned out to be false information, possibly to lead Naelia astray, while the thief tried to make it out of the Land of Shadow alive).

As she was heading back to the Land of Shadow, Naelia could have sworn she saw Krumhur making off with Ketchup the Fell Beast in the direction of the Morannon. "I hope that fell beast drops him right in the fires of Mount Doom!" Naelia thought to herself as she continued to track the guilty party back to her native homeland, wondering why a thief would try to make off with one of the dwimmerlaik, of all things.

What was that buzzing? For a moment Fleeg thought it was just Reg flapping his slobbery gums but soon the buzzing became too loud and too smart. Smart? No, no that’s wrong. Fleeg was about to turn around and start berating his Orb soahC for being nonsensical when all the sudden was attacked by murder hornets! shire balls! Someone had gotten into his apiary again. He ran around the corner, tripped, fell flat on his green face, and laid there like dead goblin until all the murder hornets passed him, seeing as he was already murdered they could not murder hornet him. It was the most clever thing he’d ever thought of! Brilliant Fleeg, brilliant. Still there was a problem here. He needed to get his murder hornets back and into their cages. He grabbed a straggler, it stung him because it was a murder hornet still and he yelped in pain. He tried to grab it again and, well the same result. This was not working. He needed something to lure them, something they could murder while he smoked them and put them to sleep.

Reg crept on tiptoe behind his little dried up cactus of a ChAoS BRo. Of course, this meant that the Cloud of Ash crapt (yes, crapt, you read it correctly) along with him. They were one! And they looked kinda like this:


Of course, Reg had to stop and shake with laughter as Fleeg flopped onto the floor to play dead around a bunch of murder hornets. HA! If this was how the little worm reacted around murder hornets, imagine how he'd deal with the infamous Murder Muffin! He'd have to change his pants, that's for sure. Reg cackled, thinking himself fully concealed within the cloud.

Now, he just needed to decide when to jump out at Fleeg and scream "GOTCHA, YOU OVERGROWN TOE FUNGUS!!!!" Perhaps when Ducky showed up, flanked by his usual entourage of wizardly mallards and such. Who knew? Blinky might even be part of the odd wizard's gang of thugs by now. Ducky didn't seem the type to discriminate against a Lava Snake, and Reg wouldn't put it past him to steal his bff...

"Now, it's not that bad." Elale's father reached out to pat her on the arm. "The fell beast was just a bit grumpy. Some little lizard creature--I think it said its name was Grobby--somehow pulled me into Cirith Ungol just when the fell beast snapped."

"By all the Flaming Eye, what keeps possessing you to try and befriend a fell beast, father?" Elale moaned, scrubbing her hands through her hair.

"I'll be fine, don't worry about me now," her father said. "You still need to go talk to Taethowen since you burned down our house."

Cirith Ungol was short a few Murder Hornets today, as the Whisper nonetheless crept around looking for Taethowen, as it was still super creepy here. Cobwebs everywhere. Shelob definitely needed to fire the housekeeper, she thought to herself, snickering. Silently, though, as she really really didn't want to meet Shelob.

She was about to turn around and go home when she tripped over a Lava Snake. For a change she managed not to get bitten, although the snake looked like it had seen better days. Was this what the thief was after, she wondered. Probably not, because why would anybody want a beat up lava snake, when you could probably get a much more race-worthy one for fairly cheap.

OOC--one minute to spare last night! Not bad!

It seemed that another thief thought that they could get away with taking something from the Dark Land. "Will these would be thieves never learn?"Naelia thought to herself as she began to hunt for clues to track down the next guilty party. The minioness would have to keep her eyes peeled as not to fall for any deceptions this time around. "Like these thieves think they can pull the wool over my eyes!" Naelia thought to herself as she could have sworn she saw someone headed in the direction of the Black Market. "Did I manage to track down the thief's hiding place already? the minioness thought to herself as she headed in that general direction.

If it weren't for her trusty Orcish helper that went by the name of Orngor, Naelia would have not been aware that some of the free peoples (or perhaps some minions that were neglecting their duties) were up to no good within the Land of Shadow. As she was contemplating this, Naelia could of sworn she saw Dwim, a Hobbit of all creatures, lurking around as if he were looking for something."Did he forget where he hid the stolen item?" Naelia wondered, as she used her stealth in tracking down would be escapees to sneak up on the halfling, and in the process, she saw that he was digging up the Hauberk of Angmar. Why one of the free peoples would want to make off with that, the minioness didn't know, perhaps there was an upcoming civil war between the free peoples that Naelia was unaware of, and he needed some more sturdy armor? Whatever the reason, he wasn't going to get away with it, not on the minioness' watch!

"End? No, the journey doesn't end here. Death is just another path, one that we all must take. The grey rain-curtain of this world rolls back, and all turns to silver glass, and then you see it... White shores, and beyond, a far green country under a swift sunrise."

Indeed, death for Dwim did just turn out to be another path. He saw it all, the silver glass, white shores, far green country, and swift sunrises. But then it was all cloudy again, then dirty and sooty, and all of a sudden the hobbit realised he was awake again, laying in the dust covered in ash-beetle poop. How long had he been laying there, naked and unconscious? He didn't have much time to figure it out, because as soon as he realised he was alive again, and had managed to get over the trauma of having been melted to death in the fires of Orodruin, he also realised that he could not just be getting around Mordor without any clothes on.

It took him a brief moment to remember how to do anything, including how to move, but soon he'd worked up to a hurried dash and was heading towards the Black Market. It was the only place he knew of where he might be able to get some clothes. But when he got there, after some searching around, he realised that the minions of Mordor mustn't have been very interested in buying new garments, because he couldn't find any anywhere! By the look of most of the people anyway, it was obvious that they hadn't changed their garments in years. All he managed to find was a shop selling strange pieces of armour, one of which was the Hauberk of Angmar. Well, it was not perfect, but big enough that it would cover most of his small body. When the owner of the shop wasn't looking, he snatched at it and dragged it away. Fortunately the owner was deep in conversation with an angry orc, so he didn't hear the rattle of the mail or the thud as it hit the ground, far too heavy for Dwim's small arms.

Unfortunately someone else (Naelia) had witnessed the attempted thievery. She looked perplexed by his actions, and none too impressed. "Oh..." Dwim mouthed quietly as he made eye contact with her. "You didn't see that," he tried to convince her, as he forgot the hauberk and instead covered himself up with a small shade sail which was on the ground waiting to be put up. He wrapped himself in it then dashed away as quickly as his short legs would allow. He needed to find the pub again. Only Írimë’s Wine Stash would help him get over the embarrassment of all this.


[OOC: @Zôrzimril: Love your work! Congratulations on the win.]

Well shire. There was no way around it. Fleeg was going to have to ask Reg for help. Just the thought of asking his porridge for brains ChAoSBrO for anything made him want to throw up. In fact, well there went breakfast. At least the splattered mess looked like Reg with his stupid tusks so that was enough to make Fleeg smile. Now he had puke breath though and he needed to get rid of it. There was once a Pearl of wisdom that said if you ate a bushel of apples it would freshen your breath. Right, to find a bushel of apples though. Did they have to be a specific type? Did they have to be fresh? There was a stall in the Black Market that sold cheap, bad food. Did they have apples? It was worth a shot.

What was he doing again? Ugh, that’s right. He was going to have ask Reg the Mutton Mouth for help. What on earth could Fleeg need so badly that he was willing to ask the ugliest, dumbest orc in all of Mordor for help? Glad you asked. Fleeg left the apiary door open again. Yes, that of course meant that the murder hornets were loose again. Yes, theoretically this was Fleeg's fault but only if you looked at it from a perspective that didn’t blame someone else (like Reg the Derp for example). So now there was a swarm of murder hornets somewhere from That Dark Corner to the Black Pits. Yeah. Quite a pickle Fleeg has gotten himself into.

Fleeg had a better shot at asking Grobby the… whatever he was, for help. Reg would probably think he was meant to find and keep the murder hornets, which he absolutely was not meant to do, or go off on another tangent about Blinky, the lava snake that continuously eluded him. There were also the insults he was going to have to endure. It would have been easier if the insults were clever, but this was Reg, they were as clever as he was handsome and there were no lady orcs lining up to date him!

Whatshisname had promised her some Murder Hornets, and wherever they were, the Whisper was going to track them down. She already had a buyer in the works, hopefully. An unsuspecting one she was going to con into buying them, named Thalinowen. All she needed was to track down the buyer, and then track down that guy who had her Murder Hornets.

Where they could possibly be was a mystery, and as long as she was at Cirith Ungol she might as well look around. Not to mention this was where she had run into Murder Hornets before. This time she played it safe and was armed with the Hauberk of Angmar, granted that she needed to return before it was missed.

Reg and the Cloud of Ash floated serenely behind Fleeg as the little booger proceeded on his merry, unsuspecting way through Mordor, then unexpectedly ralphed all over the place. What was going on? Had Fleeg eaten something bad? They had both eaten some eggs with green chile earlier . . . was Reg about to fall victim to such digestive shenanigans? He hoped not. Clouds did not barf, after all.

Now that he had thought about the weird wizard, Ducky, Reg couldn't stop pondering the man. Tall and bearded, he was certainly the suspicious type. Reg wouldn't put it past him to try and learn some more sorcery at Minas Morgûl. But noooo, he couldn't go snooping after the wizard, Fleeg needed his "help" with "catching" some "murder hornets." In all likelihood, this was yet another Fleeg the Booger scheme to get Reg killed. But Fleeg still didn't know he was hidden in the ashy cloud . . . Teehee.

Reg and the cloud crapt (this is totally a thing now) up behind Fleeg and stalked him like a lion stalking its prey. Fleeg was muttering about dark corners and Blinky and stupid Pink Tricycle Face Regdûsh - hey! That was all the provocation Reg needed. He billowed and undulated (or perhaps the cloud did, he couldn't tell anymore) until he could just about reach out and grab Fleeg by the neck . . .

(@Dwim - thank you, friend! <3 You are the politest competitor ever )

As the last of the house crumbled into ash and embers, Elale began to think that maybe--just maybe--burning it down had been a mistake.

And then she remembered the snake latching onto her wrist--had it been a Lava Snake? She honestly hadn't paid attention other than 'venomous' or 'not venomous' and there were several varieties of that particular species--and gave a full-body shudder, realizing that burning the house had indeed been the only answer.

"Here," her father said, handing her a small jar that he'd apparently had on his person somewhere. "This is honey, from Rohan. I think my supplier said it was harvested by someone named Lailorn--odd name, that--and that it had wonderful healing properties. You should put it on that bite. Keep it from getting infected."

"How, by all that is unholy in Barad-Dûr, do you know all this stuff about people from Rohan?" Elale muttered as she uncapped the jar and sniffed it. The honey did smell lovely. She slathered some on the snake bite, and then licked the rest off her fingers. "Mmm!"

What the heck was this? Dwim was falling into traps everywhere he went. This time he fell through a trap-door type hole in the ground, and landed right in the middle of a giant spider-web. The shade sail had unravelled itself from around his body, but as he wriggled around in the webs trying to escape, the sticky strands wrapped themselves around him and then all of a sudden he was fully clothed in webs. That was a lucky thing, because it looked like he wasn't on his own. That lady from the market (Naelia) also seemed to have stumbled upon the lair. Had she chased after him?

But she would be the lesser worry. At least for now anyway. Because he was still stuck in this big ol' web and the spider was surely not too far away. "Yick!" he exclaimed as he tried to unravel himself. But it was no good. He would not be able to pull himself out of the webs. He looked around for a glimmer of hope. It was dark, and the lair was stinky. He could not see much. Eventually though that glimmer of hope came to him, as he spotted the glimmer of what looked like a small sword on the ground. There was the hand of a skeleton wrapped around the hilt. Dwim thought if he could only just reach out far enough to grab the sword he might be able to cut himself free. He reached and reached, stretching so far that he thought his arm might detach itself from his shoulder. With a big groan he managed to grip it, then had to struggle to pry it free from the bony hand wrapped around it.

Thankfully the blade still looked sharp. He waved it around, slashing this way and that. It was exhausting, panicked work, but just as he saw what looked like giant eyes appear, glinting in his direction, he became loose and dropped to the ground with a thud. "Oof!" he cried out before picking himself up and sprinting towards the exit, still completely wrapped up in a costume of webs.

The wind picked up then, and blew A Cloud of Ash straight into Elale's face, fortunately just a moment after she'd replaced the lid on the honey jar. As she began to hack and cough, wondering what she'd done for near DEATH experiences to begin dogging her every moment, her father took advantage of the moment to dart away.

"Oh come on!" she hacked. "You're going to abandon me?"

"It was your decision to burn down the house because of a Lava Snake! Are you sure you even killed the snake? Or just the house? I'll return after you've talked to that seamstress!" he called back, then vanished down the street.

Elale plopped back down the rock as the air cleared once more, eyes watering from the ash and smoke. "Why me?" she moaned.

While hunting down the Hobbit, Dwim, Naelia somehow managed to find herself in Shelob's Lair."Has her Ladyship been expanding her territory? the minioness wondered as she witnessed the Hobbit trapped in her webs and trying his hardest to break free. "If he ends up getting himself killed, and the Halfling is indeed the guilty party, it will make my job much easier!" Naelia thought to herself as she continued to watch Dwim struggle to get himself free of Shelob's webs.

When Dwim finally managed to break himself free, Shelob turned her attention to Naelia herself. Though the Dark Lord liked to call her his "pet", Shelob bowed to no one, and whoever managed to find themselves trapped in her lair, whether minion or one of the Free Peoples, anyone was fair game. Now the minioness had to figure out how to get out of Shelob's Lair without getting tangled in her webs, such as the Hobbit had. Though like Dwim, she had found herself tangled in a few webs, since Shelob was more focused on the Hobbit as her next tasty meal, Naelia herself didn't find herself entangled in them deep enough to not be able to escape. "Probably because I didn't venture any further into her lair such as the Hobbit had." Naelia thought to herself. But Dwim was one of the Free Peoples, he didn't know these lands such as Naelia had, been born and bred in the Dark Land.

As her Ladyship was trying to figure out a way to trap Naelia (since being a minioness, she wasn't going to be as easy to trap as Dwim had, even though some Orcs did, probably because they were more focused on their mission than their own safety, but Orcs were expendable, Naelia herself was not, being bred by one of Barad-dur's greatest lieutenant's). When Shelob made a lunge for the minioness, she got out her trusty whip and attempted to use it on Shelob like she did on prisoners she was about to interrogate: snap it every few minutes to get their attention, then slowly back out the way she had come. Naelia would have to make a note not to follow potential thieves into the Black Market, in case Shelob was still lurking around, waiting for her next tasty (or not so tasty, in the case of the Orcs, which probably left a bad taste in her mouth) meal.

That was it! He’d had it up to here with Reg the Assface (donkey of course, we’re not that rude here) and his weird little cloud of ash. When was a nice strong breeze going to come along and blow the nonsense away? Oh, right. Never. It was Mordor. There is no wind here, unless you really, really don’t want the wind to blow everything away. Where was he? Right. Fleeg had had it up here (reaching as high as his goblin height would allow) with his CHAos BRO and his antics. He had just tried to kill him! And in the most unchaotic, straight forward way possible at that! Ugh! Reg really was as dumb as an Ass, ahem sorry, ash cloud. This was going to have to be taken to The Halls of Injustice. Attempting to kill a CHaoS BrO in a boring way? That was basically breach of contract, or something. Whatever. The point is Fleeg needed to act.

Right, so gathering witnesses. Well, shire. There was no one around. That’s okay! Bribes would work in a pinch. What about that woman that looked like Gwai but wasn’t Gwai. The one that saved his life on the doorboat? Something about being quiet? Whispering? Maybe that was just her telling him to shut up. She was a definite candidate.

But what to bribe her with? This was a pickle. Oh! That’s an idea. No, no it wasn’t. No one is going to be bribed by a pickle. Unless it was a very good pickle. What kind did she like? Fleeg! Pay attention! You need to get witnesses and you need to bribe them fast! Maybe she’d accept a Lava Snake as potential payment? Everyone could use a lava snake. They… were snakes, and something about lava… maybe. Huh, what was a lava snake really? A snake that lives in lava? A snake made of lava? Neither? Both? Crap, Fleeg! Stop getting sidetracked! Reg needed to pay for this!

Reg snickered as Fleeg flailed about in apparent distress - not at nearly having been throttled. Oh no. The little globule was freaking out about not having been nearly murdered CReAtiVElY enough! Ugh! What did Fleeg want? A dramatic DEATH of being launched from a catapult into Mount Doom, or onto one of the spiky things that lined The Morannon? Well, if that's what he wanted, he only had to ASK! GOSH. Reg was trying to give Fleeg the opportunity to fight back before chucking him over a gorge. How was he to know that Phlegm's son would get his (metaphorical, of course) Hauberk of Angmar in a twist over this? GAHHH! So while the little toenail clipping ran around, whining about not being murdered creatively enough, Reg emerged from the cloud and tackled him, wrapping one arm snugly around Fleeg's neck. "So you think I'm not chAoTiC enough, EH?!" he growled as he squeezed the little baggins' windpipe. "Just wait till I call my lawyer!!"

"He got away, He got away. Dwimmykins has got away! Spider poopy poopy-pay, find someone else to kill today!"

Dwim sang and laughed as he skipped and hopped up the rocks away from Shelob's lair. The spider had failed to capture him. Naelia had also failed, and he was sure she would now be engaged in her own battle with the spider. Perhaps she'd already died, lost forever in the shadows of the lair. Whatever had happened, as long as he wasn't being followed by her anymore, he wasn't concerned.

What had he been doing before all this spider-drama started anyway? "Oh, yeah", he suddenly remembered. He'd been trying to find some clothes. And a drink. For the moment he wasn't naked. The spider webs had covered him all over. He looked like a hobbit-mummy. So it was clear that his main priority was to find a drink. Perhaps Frost would give him a freebie at On The Rocks for 'best costume on the night'. Although, apparently there was a pyjama-party on tonight. Maybe a mummy costume wouldn't go down too well. In any case, as long as he didn't do anything silly like ride in on a pink tricycle, he was sure he wouldn't be kicked out of the pub.

With his ChAoSBrO’s thick hands around his neck, Fleeg's life passed before his eyes. That time he and Reg had snuck into the pub at the base of Mount Doom and stolen half of Írimë's Wine Stash before she caught Reg and flogged him half dead. Oh how Fleeg had laughed! That was a nice memory to fade to black to. His BRo'S hands squeezed harder and harder. This might just be it. This might be the time Reg actually killed him. Was he upset about that? What kind of question was that? If course he was upset! He kicked his CHaoSBRo in the groin and screamed until his lungs burned. The obscenities he yelled would have soured the wine they stole. He wished he had some right now, he’d force it down Reg’s dumb throat.

“You wanna go! You wanna call your toad lawyer? Do it! You’ll have to find him Beneath a Rock though, I heard you tried to lick him the last time you met and he’s probably not too eager to work with your fugly mug!”

With that, and a parting kick to his BrO's ribs, Fleeg was off to bribe more potential witnesses for the trial. He even made a list up of potential marks. His brother, Mig, would do nicely, all he would need is a new abacas (Whatever the heck that was). BabyZôr was on the list too, he heard she collected bedsheets and lava snakes, those wouldn't be hard to procure. What about that Grobby creature? They’d be too adorable for Reg to do anything about. What would Grobby want though? That was the real question. Fleeg wandered what Reg was doing now. Was his ChAOSBr0 still pretending to be invisible in his ash cloud or was he gathering his own witnesses?

(@Dwim now you have to come to come over and post in the pub. )

Elale sighed after several minutes of contemplation--and watching the embers left of the house with a wary eye, to make sure that no lava snakes would come charging at her again--and stood from her seat. She supposed it couldn't hurt to go by On the Rocks. She hadn't signed up for this thief hunting business herself in the first place, and she was still not certain what her father had intended to accomplish from that maneuver.

Taethowen would surely still be there--time was wibbly-wobbly in the pub, after all, with one night seeming to stretch over many weeks--and if she could maybe sneak a taste of some of Írimë's Wine Stash too, maybe this whole fiasco wouldn't be quite as miserable.

Since following the Hobbit Dwim had led Naelia to a confrontation with her Ladyship, the minioness decided to let him be for a while (but if he was ever accused of stealing something from the Dark Lands again, she would be on his tail in an instant, she just wouldn't follow him into the Black Market, since let someone else deal with Shelob). On her way to a different part of the Dark Land, Naelia came across Grobby, seemingly abandoned in the middle of the Towers of No Return. "Now who would hide such a thing in a place like this?" Naelia thought to herself, as she came across the item, but the guilty party seemed to have vanished. "Perhaps they were spooked by something?" the minioness thought to herself as she continued to look around.

Just as she was heading around a corner, Naelia could have sworn she saw Ducky hightailing it out of there, as if he caught her scent or something. "Ah, the plot thickens," the minioness thought to herself as she began to track the wizard, hoping that she wasn't heading into another trap (with her encounter with Shelob still fresh in her mind. This really hasn't been her day, to say the least).

"Aye, I'll call my toad lawyer!" Reg growled when Fleeg asked him if that was what he wanted to do. Of course he wanted to call his toad lawyer! Who else would he call in such circumstances? Tzu? Ha! As if!

He gave a great "ooof" when Fleeg kicked him and scurried away, presumably to find people who might help his useless court case. Reg rolled his eyes. He still had some spirits from when he'd entered the cloud of ash earlier, so he guzzled them and threw the bottle to the ground where it smashed loudly. He stomped his foot and bared his teeth and flexed his muscles. He was angry. It'd be good to kill someone in Dhâd Bûrz right about now. If only he still had his Pink Tricycle to get around more easily.

With a final snarl at the audacity of Fleeg Phlegmson, Reg skipped off toward the pits to find someone to torture. (Maybe he would be able to kidnap Fleeg along the way and make him his victim. Who knew what lay in store for the ChAos BroS???)

He felt a little guilty for what he'd put Elale through, but his daughter was so... indecisive at times. Honestly, he'd been relieved when she set fire to the house, because she was taking action about something. Now if she would just go talk to that tailor... It wasn't good for her to sit idle around the house all the time.

He whistled a jaunty tune as he wandered down the street, nearly as giddy as if he'd broken into Írimë's Wine Stash. He was so giddy that he nearly missed the turn he needed to meet with Narv, the guy in charge. He owed the fellow for the idea to get Elale thief-hunting in the first place, and he'd arranged a treat for the fellow Dhâd Bûrz.

Fleeg was on his own now. Wow. Fleeg was on his own. His ChAos HeRmAnO was no longer around. It felt strange. It felt a little sad. Who was Fleeg gonna stab as a practical joke? Who was he going to trick into running naked into On the Rocks with flaming hair? Fleeg slumped his shoulders and moped for a good long while. He reminisced about the time Reg had thrown him over the caldera of Mount Doom as a way to give him a sun burn. It had worked too; the crazy bastard had given him a sunburn! Ah, those were the days. Those were some fun, crazy, ChAoS times. But that was all over, stupid Reg. Stupid, stupid Reg! Why did he try to strangle him? That was so boring and mundane? Why not stuff his mouth full of spider web? Or try and feed him to one of the Georges by covering him in green chile honey? Reg deserved everything that was going for him. He would see!

Right, first thing was first, he needed a new ChAos BroDer. But who? That was going to be a difficult role to fill. Who was murdery enough and smart enough to pull of a CHAos BRo? What about the Jorgy fellow? He kept saying he was a hoppit but… why? Every sentence ended with “and I’m clearly a hoppit” or something like that. What the heck? He was weird. Maybe he could be a BrO? Where to find that little hoppit though. Hmmm. Hmmm. If Fleeg was a hoppit where would he go?

It wasn’t where a hoppit would go, not during dart season at least, but Fleeg found himself back in the pub. He needed a stiff drink and a fight. Any order would do, especially since there were only two ways those two things could be ordered. What to fight and who to drink. Wait, that was wrong. What to drink and who to fight. There. That was better. Drink, unquestionably a Sex on the Beach of Nurnen with a massive umbrella. Fight, Grobby seemed in a particular mood, maybe the goblin would fight the kobold.

"This thief is nearly as cunning as I am!" the minioness thought to herself. The reason that Naelia had this thought was that while coming across the would-be stolen item within the Towers of No Return, the thief had concealed a Tar Pit beneath a section of floor that the minioness was now within sight of. "This thief must be a minon gone rogue!" Naelia thought to herself as she tried to figure out a way past this obstacle. She found that the best way (and probably the fastest) was to simply swim through it, which was going to be no easy task.

While the minioness was tempting to put her cape hood up, so that she wouldn't get her hair all sticky and gooey, she noticed an abandoned log hiding behind a corner not that far back. She often heard stories that the creature Gollum often used a log to get across bodies of water when he was being pursued by enemies (minions included) and thought that she could try the same thing here (even though attempting to emulate such a creature wouldn't usually be on the top of the list for Naelia getting through obstacles, but she didn't exactly know how deep this tar pit was, so why take a chance that might end up costing her life).

Retracing her steps to pick up the abandoned log (which from a distance looked like a regular tree branch, but was anything but. so it was probably left there by one of the Uruk hai by the size of it), Naelia now realized that she should have just held her breath and attempted to swim through the tar pit like she planned from the beginning, since this tree branch (or whatever it actually was, since it just had the appearane of a seemingly large tree branch) wasn't as easy to move as the minioness first thought, so she simply slid it over to the pit as best she could until it plopped into the hot and gooey liquid, but at least it would be sturdy enough to hold her weight (she tested it with her foot before attempting to lie down on the log such as the creature Gollum would do, to make sure it would hold her weight instead of sending her to the bottom of the pit, which is what Naelia was trying to avoid). Lying down on the log, she stuck her arm in the pit to help glide the log across the seemingly endless tar pit, shifting her weight every couple of minutes to avoid falling off (it was quite uncomfortable, being quite large). When she finally made it to the other side, Naelia climbed off and wiped her warm and sticky arm off on her cape, ripping off the piece of cape and leaving it behind (not willing to make a side trek to the Sea of Nurnen to simply wash it off, even if the water wasn't entirely clean, being located within the kingdom of Mordor). Now she had to pick up clues as to where the would-be thief would travel next, keeping her eyes peeled for any more traps, since now the minioness wasn't going to take any chances, with first running into Shelob and now this. This definitely wasn't her day, to say the least.

Dwim must have been cursed to never reach the pub, because every time he tried he fell into some dastardly kind of trap. It was becoming pretty obvious that whoever the thief was, they were cunningly devious and very well prepared. They'd set traps all over Mordor, and the naive hobbit kept falling prey to them. This time it was a swarm of angry Murder Hornets, imported from far eastern lands. Dwim decided never to imagine what those lands looked like, because if they were home to creatures more deadly and terrible than Mordor's own, it must have been a truly terrifying place.

The hornets flew swiftly towards him from out of the shadows near the doorstep of On The Rocks. He could not see the expressions on the faces of the hornets, but he could tell by the shape of their swarm and the swiftness of the way they came for him, that they were angry as hell. He jumped on the spot suddenly, not knowing what to do. They were between him and the door. There was nothing else for it, he had to make a run for it. He leapt away from them then ran as quickly as his big feet and short little legs could move him. Around the side of the pub he went. They followed him. Around the other side of the pub he went. And they still followed him. Around and around the outside of the pub they went, hobbit and hornets, engaged in a mad chase.

Finally Dwim spotted something that may help him. Some empty barrels lay on the ground around the back of the pub. Seeing his opportunity, he dived for the barrel with the hornets still hot on his tail. Thankfully he was small enough and he landed easily inside with just enough time to pull the lid over it before the swarm arrived. They hovered around the barrel trying to figure out how to get in. Phew. How long would he have to hide in there though. Perhaps someone else would come by and become their victim.

A constant stream of curses and insults flowed from Reg's mouth as he wandered away from the spot where Fleeg had escaped him. Who knew where his ChAoS BrO was headed? Hopefully over the edge of a cliff, Reg thought. It would serve the little sea cucumber right to end as a mundane SPLAT on the cold, hard earth! He had flounced off in a huff simply because his near-death experience hadn't been FuN or wEirD enough! What was Regdûsh supposed to do? Tick off entries on Fleeg's "CoOLesT WAyS tO diE" list? He hadn't seen that list since Fleeg had blown his nose into it for lack of any proper tissues! How the blazes was he supposed to know?!?!?!

Breathe, Reg, breathe. He tried to get some more alcohol as if by magic. None appeared. He groaned. What a time for his magical alcohol-summoning properties to betray him! He'd have to find some spirits, and quick. Perhaps he could ask Winddancer. She seemed like the type to get smashed and ride around Dhâd Bûrz on a Pink Tricycle, the finest Mordorian transport known to orc or evil elf. Yes, it was decided. And maybe he could recruit her to be a star witness in his upcoming court case against Fleeg...

(@Moriel Sorry about that, I just thought it would stand out more, so perhaps I'll just bold the names instead of colorizing them when responding to a trap)

Now that Naelia was on the hunt again, she decided to choose a not so obvious hiding place (perhaps there would be no more surprises). While she was deciding in which area to search for clues this time around, the minioness could have sworn that she saw Taethowen heading in the direction of the Morannon."The Black Gate again?" the minioness thought to herself as she felt she was going around in circles."These would-be thieves really don't want to get caught, do they?" Naelia thought to herself as she tried to get inside the mind of someone who thought they could steal something from the Black Land and get away with it.

As she was heading in the direction of the main entrance to the Black Land, she came across an odd thing: Grobby, not very well hidden, since it seemed to be abandoned behind the nearest rock, almost blocking one's way if they were on the run from being pursued by someone like Naelia, who was very good at tracking down people who thought they could get away (or perhaps even spy on) those that resided in the one place in Middle-earth they didn't want to get any closer to (unless of course, the guilty party was a minion, that probably either had some sort of death wish or they were trying to get someone's attention. Mission accomplished, even if it was not the someone who's attention they were trying to get, so now they would be punished for it, and severely).

With that business at Dhâd Bûrz finished, Elale's father found himself wandering the streets again, whistling the same jaunty tune again as he tried to figure out what to do and where to go now that he didn't have a comfortable house to return to.

As he wandered, though, he heard an odd chittering and hissing coming from Beneath a Rock. With a cautious curiosity, he approached the rock and peer underneath it, and was surprised to see a young kobold hiding there. He'd heard of the strange being, and thought he knew its name.

"Grobby?" he called quietly, holding out a hand. "Why are you out here? Did you sleepwalk?"

The kobold creature shrank a little deeper into its hiding spot. "Must hide from ScaryZôr," the kobold hissed.

"Ah, a noble pursuit," he replied before he stood. He had no idea who or what the ScaryZôr might be, but it seemed the kobold could take care of itself.

Winddancer had been a dead end. She was far too busy extracting people's deepest secrets through various clever and horrible means of torture, and she had given him a death stare with those red eyes when he asked about her Pink Tricycle. Of course, Reg should have known this. She was a master torturer, after all, not some everyday Joe who would just show up in court on demand or rode around on a silly and too-small child's vehicle. No, Krumhûr was far more likely to fit the bill! Off Reg wobbled to find himself a witness. He suspected that Krum must be riding the trike along The Morannon, perhaps on patrol duty. Surely a court appearance would be more fun than that!

@Lady of Shadow (That's perfect, thanks! )

Though the thief continued to elude Naelia, she had a good idea what might have went missing: Irime's Wine Stash! The reason she came up with this is that whilst she was hunting in the wrong places (that ended up getting her to face obstacles she wasn't expecting), she often overheard complaints of other hunters in the area complaining about not having some fine wine to celebrate when the guilty party was finally caught and apprehended, when the minioness knew there was a "watering hole" nearby. Now, she just had to track down the thief and find out where they were hiding either the item or themselves.

As she made her way deeper into her native homeland, Naelia found herself wandering through The Shadows, searching for any clue as to the thief's identity. When the minioness heard rustling not far from where she was trying to track down the elusive thief, she could have sworn she saw PoshZor trying to conceal something that would obviously get them into hot water with the Big Bosses upstairs, something that would get them drenched (or quench their thirst, since Mordor had an arid and dry atmosphere, mostly due to the presence of the local volcano) if they were careless enough to clasp whatever they were concealing too close to themselves.

Dwim hid out in the barrel, waiting for the hornets to forget he was in there. When he heard a shriek from nearby, followed by frantic footsteps heading off in the other direction, he knew he was safe. They had found a new victim. He climbed out of the barrel and wiped his eyes, waiting for them to readjust after being in the dark for so long. He'd spent far too much time trying to escape traps and hardly any time trying to catch the thief. Time was running out.

The hobbit had a suspicion that the thief, who was probably Moriel, had hidden something in The Shadows . There was no other reason why she would have set up a booby-trap of murder hornets there. He went back to investigate. Creeping up carefully as he approached the shadows outside the pub door so as not to rustle up any more hornets, he began searching for stolen items. Miraculously, the first thing he found in those shadows was Írimë’s Wine Stash, which was what he'd come here for in the first place!

Jorgy was a dead end. The deadest of dead ends. Not to say he was actually dead, that might have been interesting. No, this reject ChAoS HeRmAnO was as boring as Fleeg was green. All he talked about were pearls. And while yes, pearls were nice and, they weren’t “the greatest that ever was" or “the nicest, kindest most perfect person" or “swell and groovy”. Jorgy the “Hobbit” was fredegaring weird. Fleeg needed someone maybe a little but more down to earth. Say, what about Elenhir? Granted the man was an angry stick in the mud but he was smart. He was as smart as Reg was dumb. Fleeg wondered what Reg was doing now. Hopefully he was having as bad a time finding a new ChaOS fRèRe as he was. Dammit Reg! Why could Fleeg stop thinking about him?

Every time he saw something move about in The Shadows he thought it might be his old pal trying to make amends by trying cool slasher film types murder but no. Partially because Reg was probably off getting piss drunk and because there was such thing as a slasher film in Mordor.

Speaking of getting drunk it was… hmm, hard to tell what time it was but Fleeg was very certain it was time to get well and truly snockered. A bit of pumpkin spice liquor from Írimë’s Wine Stash into the coffee she served at the bar would be nice. Maybe she’d be a witness in his trial? The poor goblin couldn't think of what to bribe her with though. That bartender seemed to attend to her every need. Damn him!

Leaving Grobby to its... hiding, Elale's father (who had, perhaps, identified himself so long as her father that he'd forgotten whatever name he had before) returned to his meandering. He could see the silhouette of the Towers of No Return in the distance. While he didn't want to go there, he wondered if that might be where he'd find Uruva and the bottle she'd snitched from Írimë's Wine Stash.

Regdush crapt (yep, that's still the verb) toward the Towers of No Return with trepidation. Krumhûr had declined to serve as a witness for him and so he'd made his way to On the Rocks to pilfer from Írimë’s Wine Stash once again. Of course, he'd rather have spirits, but wine would do in a pinch. And this certainly was a pinch. Sin heRmANo dE cAoS, ¿quién iba a ayudarle cuando se cayera en un hoyo de alquitrán? Reg suspiró.

He chugged one, two, and three bottles from the pubmistress' stash and wandered out of the bar, without paying, of course. The Towers loomed in the distance (though was it one or two, since one was technically a pit, right? Reg didn't know. He'd never gone in because he assumed you could never, you know, return from them). It was time to get on with the hunt for star witnesses for his trial. "I'll recruit the best o the best, Fleeg!" Reg shouted into the void. "You'll see! You and your chicken won't stand a chance against me, the Toad, and Sil!!!"

Just as Dwim reached for the wine stash, more of those darned hornets appeared. One of them even landed on his hand, and it was super lucky that his reflexes were quick. He swatted it off before the rest of his body could even jump in fright, thankfully before it stung him (as one sting was enough to kill a hobbit). But he did jump in fright, and when he landed he heard a clang and a crunch and was sure he'd crushed one or two of the wine bottles. He had no time to worry about that though. If he didn't get away from these hornets, he would never be finding any thieves again. There had been a few other people snooping around for the wine stash too, but he hoped that none of them knew about the barrels around the back. He sprinted back around the pub and rushed straight to his overturned barrel, with the hornets right behind him. Again he dived headfirst into it, a little bit more skilfully this time, then pulled the lid shut after him. He was safe again. But he'd have to wait in there a while. Hopefully the hornets found one of the other hunters.

"This thief is the craftiest one I've come across yet!" the minioness thought to herself as she came across another trap, but this time, it was more than one person that seemed to be in the same boat, including the Hobbit, Dwim, since she recognized his cries, but Naelia didn't have time to worry about the Halfling at the moment. Now, she had to find a place to hide within The Shadows where the deadly hornets wouldn't feast on her like they tried to feast on her pet dragon all those years ago.

Yes, Drinch had been found badly bitten and dehydrated, even though he was close to the Sea of Nurnen. Which meant that these hornets were also from somewhere in the far east. perhaps even further than where she had come upon the one companion she often liked to use in interrogations in order to get to the truth (unfortunately, it didn't always work). Since the minioness wasn't about to suffer the same fate (even though Drinch survived the attack, probably because she came across him just in time), she seemed to recall the hunters that were complaining about not having a fine wine to celebrate once the thief was caught and apprehended say something about a watering hole being close by. If she could come across it, she may be able to sneak inside until the hornets found another victim to munch on. As she heard the buzzing sounds getting closer to her position, Naelia looked around to see if she could see a building that looked like it might house such a place.

The minioness discovered it just in time, as the hornets were almost upon her, but she also heard a scream from one of the other hunters that seemed to be coming from the opposite direction, which seemed to distract the hornets. Instead of munching on Naelia like they did on Drinch, they turned in the direction of the screams, since they may have been tracking Naelia much like she was trying to track down the guilty party, but minions didn't scream. or at least this one didn't. She knew enough not to give away her position to a potential enemy by being vocal. It was much easier (and more rewarding) to sneak up on your victims, catching them when they least expected it. Once the hornets had their next potential victim in their sights, it left the minioness time to pick up the trail of the person who was responsible for all this madness.

Reg was… no that’s wasn’t his name. Fleeg was his name. Reg was his bestest best mate. Fleeg was stumbling around like a drunken lunatic because, well because he was in fact a drunken lunatic at the moment. He stared for a very long time in the reflection in the mug of grog. He still hadn’t worked up the courage to ask Írimë if she’d be a witness at his trial. He merely mumbled about grog and Soahc sOrb rof EfIl but he was so besotted he doubted he was making much sense. Where was Reg? He wanted to punch the stupid face and share a barrel of fermented goat milk with him. Stupid bugger. Finally, after being unable to even look Írimë in the eyes (mostly because his height prevented him from being able to see her eyes because… huge tracks of land were in the way). When he stumbled, having dodged the machinations of Illska the Craban and the bird's hunger for eyeballs, he noticed (finally after more than a week) that Reg had given him such a wedgie that his voice was an octave higher and his gait was all fredegared. He laughed and laughed, cried and cried, tried the fix the wedgie but only got more stuck, and howled in pain. All that screaming was must have brought the buzzing. Soon his ears were filled with it. The buzzing was louder than Sil singing opera. There could be only one thing it could be. His murder hornets!! He laughed and held his hands out in a sun salutation (minion yoga was going to catch on he knew it would). They… weren’t slowing down. What was… oh no! They weren't coming to see him, they weren’t being obedient to his call. They were—ow, ow, ow! Ahhhhhhh! Fleeg ran like his life depended on it. This was Reg’s doing. This cunning plan had Reg’s greasy fingerprints all over it. He must have stolen and train at Fleeg's murder hornets to find and string him. The mad genius! Ow! Ow! OW!

Alas, there was no Uruva and no wine in the Towers of No Return. Instead, Elale's father found himself falling through the floorboards and into a steaming pit of tar. Really, he should have noticed the issue with the floor before he was falling through it, either by the smell of the tar or the heat wafting up through the floorboards.

Oh well.

When he hit the surface of the tar--it was surprisingly buoyant--and began to slowly sink into the sticky mire, he took just a moment to bask in it. His joints, while not creaky yet, were definitely old and often sore, and the heat felt good.

Once he felt limbered up, he slowly swam to the edge of the tar pit and started to pull himself out. It took a few tries (clearly, he needed to work on his upper body strength again) but eventually he pulled himself free, despite the awful suction of the sticky mass that tried to keep pulling him back in.

Hopefully Elale really was going to talk to that tailor. They were both going to need full wardrobes made now, and it would be nice to have it done at a discount.

¡Reg sabía que iba a caer en un hoyo de alquitrán! It was as if he was psychic. Oooo, new business idea - he could open a palmistry shop in the Black Market! He'd look at people's palms and if they didn't pay for his readings, he'd just chop off their hands. Business would boom and all he'd have to do was make some shire up when they showed him the lines on their palms! He wouldn't even need to learn to REALLY read! Ha!

Reg was so distracted by this new business scheme that he didn't notice the actual tar of pit in front of him within the Towers of No Return, which, ironically, he had predicted with some accuracy. And so because he was utterly hapless and ChAotiC, he tumbled into the tar and floated there for a few moments, reflecting on life. If he could get out of this tar pit, he'd start up so many businesses, he'd attempt to murder Fleeg in all the most creative and ChAOtic ways, he'd find Blinky and give him some food, he'd turn over a whole new orcish leaf!

He did a gentle backstroke toward the edge of the pit. He knew this sticky stuff and had figured out long ago how to navigate it as a swimmer. He hauled himself up and out of the pit and, leaving sticky footprints in his wake, trundled away to put his new business plans in motion.