Lusseriel was sitting against a tree, near the village of Llanuch. The sun was slowly setting, and she was enjoying the brisk air and light wind. She had no plan whatsoever to enter Llanuch before it became necessary.
Once the sun was set, she turned her attention back to the journal on her laps and started to write :
“Today has been… interesting. Sad, but interesting.
We left the grove of trees rather soon to go back to the dwarf home, because apparently it’s our job to save the dwarves from uruks… Radanir came with us.
This experience was… Ah, interesting. At least we lost no one there.
I may have seen Arcangar pull an arrow from his arm, which could have made further damages, but I’m trusting him to know what he was doing.
We fought uruks on the way to Zudrugund, and up at the door of the stronghold, there was Frithgeir facing a group of them. Apparently the uruks were looking for Nàr.
In the case of that dwarf, I’m advocating for mercy killing. He’s insane, a burden on Frithgeir and now uruks are looking for him. And as he has the awareness of a piece of lembas and the survival instinct of a rock it’d be more merciful to grant him the freedom of his spirit no?
Anyway, I kept my opinion to myself as we managed to dispatch the uruks in time to keep them from taking the insane dwarf.
Curunir was injured, but thankfully Arcangar took care of it. Perhaps I should ask him to teach me what to do in case of injury to one of our human friends. I do wonder if we could manage to work together long enough for him to teach me anything through our regular opposite opinions and subsequent bickering. Or if he would even agree to try.
Not that I don’t have a general idea, but I’m not a healer anymore and when I learnt I was more concerned about my fellow elves than about the humans. And a “general idea” could very well get someone killed soon.
On the other hand I am not a healer anymore for a reason so perhaps letting him do his things would be the better idea there… Hm… That’s something to think about at least.
Anyway, everyone survived, and in the end we went to speak to the dwarves… Did I say I was jealous of the number of their books? Do they even know the wealth they have? How much history was actually preserved here, I wonder? How much knowledge… ? There's actually several floors worth of books... I wonder which one would be the most ancient and when it was written.
Oh well…
At Corunir’s request, we checked some of the bookshelves that looked to have been disturbed by Nàr before the attack, but again, what passed through Nàr’s head stayed a mystery to us. Perhaps because we’re actually sane…
Anyway, Corunir sent us back to Llanuch, to speak to Halbarad. And so we went… Only to be greeted with the new that the gondorian informant has been found dead.
We were sent to examine his corpse. Andrahir found a piece of parchment in his hand. Something addressed to the rangers.
It said that the dwarf, and here I’m assuming Nàr, has told our enemies much already, and has endangered our errand and the situation in Dunland as well.
The letter also noted that some of the oath breakers cursed by Isildur at Erech came to hide in the Lich Bluffs and might be made to fulfill their oath if we could manage to convince them somehow.
Arcangar thought that this idea was dangerous, and that we should stay away from it. I thought, and still think that the idea had merit. If anything we came with an offer to see to the end of their curse, if their spirits hadn’t fallen to utter madness, which was always possible, it could have enticed them to help us enough.
Andrahir decided to bring the letter to Halbarad.
Halbarad sent us to Radanir. And from there… We went with a group of rangers to investigate the matter of the oath-breakers.
The place was… not easy to stay in. And full of spirits. Angry spirits at that. Ardirien seemed startled to see the shades. To be fair, I was rather surprised as well at the form taken by their curse.
They challenged us, and thankfully, we managed their challenge well enough… To a point.
We were directed by one of the spirits to go speak to Britou.
So, facing their aggressive behavior, the question arose of whether we should go on or go back, of whether or not it was a trap. Surprisingly several of us were of the mind to go on.
The rangers were going to go on. In the end, we all went. I dare say it, we should have insisted to know the plan of the rangers. Anyway, Candaith took the lead in the discussion, and emitted the idea that the shades could be freed if they finally fulfilled their oath…
Candaith had a copy of the ring of Barahir and tried to tell the shade he was the heir of Isildur’s line. Of course, anyone of us would have known the result if he had but talked to us. Old oaths and old curses, shades even, can’t be fooled by mortal craft. You always need the real deal or a serious loophole in order to use those oaths and curses…
Britou said in the end : “I see. We will fulfill our oath at last, that the Heir may lift the curse. Tell your Men.” And he killed Candaith.
We only managed to flee the place. We had our answers, but… I’m not sure it was really worth the price. Not for the company.
We had to tell Halbarad. In the end he decided that we had lost enough time there, and sent us back to the dwarves to call Corunir back in order to finally leave this place.
But Corunir wanted answers and had brewed the potion again to give Nàr some of his mental faculties back.
He sent us to talk to the dwarf… And in the end we learnt that our friendly dwarf… Was a friend of Saruman.
Hence the mystery of how he knew so much and how he told so much to our enemy was resolved. He is a friend of Saruman, and a danger to us and our allies.
With some luck sooner or later that dwarf would fall from the cliff nearby and that’ll be it. We’ll warn the others, and once the word is spread there will be no more useful information coming to him so whether or not he thinks that Saruman is a friend will be of no consequence anymore. And hopefully Saruman will get rid of him himself once he becomes useless. That’d be poetic justice, no?
Andrahir stayed to say farewell to Nàr for a reason that escaped me, and as for the rest of us, we all went our own way, with a promise to meet again in Llanuch to leave with the company.
And so I’m waiting here, near the village, but not in the village. I’m half afraid someone will ask me to go and fetch something for them at this point, and I’m not going back to the dwarf mine to come back here to go back and back again…”
Lusseriel chuckled at that. It had seemed to be the trend in Enedwaith. Running all over the place, back and forth on several tasks that people could have done themselves.
