They have taken the bridge and the second hall. We have barred the gates but cannot hold them for long.
-Gandalf, reading from the Book of Mazarbul
"Where is he?"
I was standing on the top floor of the convention center waiting for Gandalf, aka my friend Harry, to show up so we could do our thing. Our thing was a mock battle between Gandalf the Grey and the Balrog from Lord of the Rings.
Hold on, let me back up and help make things less confusing.
Harry and I are massive Lord of the Rings fans. We own all the books, movies, and quite a bit of merchandise as well. Harry even claims to be able to quote all of Legolas's lines from the first two movies.
Anyway, out of all the great movie scenes, our favorite one is when Gandalf and the Balrog have their little tussle on the bridge. So, when we heard that the convention was only a few weeks away, I came up with the idea for the mock battle.
Of course, we both wanted to be Gandalf, so that we could use that infamous line of his, so we flipped a coin. Harry won, leaving me to scrounge around for a semi-decent Balrog costume.
Thankfully, my aunt has some connections, and I was able to put together a pretty realistic costume, complete with a cord of rope painted to resemble the demon's whip. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get my hands on a sword prop. Hopefully Harry will forgive me for that. He likes things to be perfect.
But as I was saying, I was waiting in our meeting place. We had chosen this spot specifically because it was a few meters away from a skywalk connecting the two sides of the convention center. An appropriate place for our battle, if I do say so myself. Except that neither of us would fall to our death on the highway below.
I had arrived about ten minutes early, since my costume was a little cumbersome, and had made it in time, but Harry was nowhere to be seen. So I passed the time scaring little kids and chatting it up with fellow cosplayers.
I finished speaking with a girl who looked goooood in a Zelda costume,then checked my phone. It said 10:30, so I had been waiting for about 40 minutes for the 'self-proclaimed' Gandalf to show up.
"Well, a wizard is never late." I muttered to myself.
"Nor is he early. He arrives precisely when he means to."
I turned my attention to the vendor who had set up shop about a couple meters to my left. He was leaning against the wall behind him, but had cocked his head to the right, so that he was looking at me.
I don't know what it was, but something about him was already making me nervous.
"Nice costume." he looked me up and down. "Not many who could put together a masterpiece like that."
I brushed my uncertainty aside, and taking off my mask, began to turn it my hands, admiring its quality.
"Yeah, well, my aunt knows people. She's to thank for this."
The vendor nodded, then frowned.
"Enlighten me if you can," he said. "but it seems like something is missing."
I nodded. "The sword. Couldn't find a good one."
The vendor's eyes lit up and I noticed he was wearing what I assumed were yellow contacts with red pupils.
"Yes, that's it! Actually..." he bent over and dug around underneath his stall for a minute, then reemerged with a meter long plastic sword with a flame shaped blade. "I got this from a friend. Maybe you could use it?"
I stared in amazement. This was exactly the kinda sword the balrog needed!
I walked over and the vendor handed it to me, so that I could examine it.
"How much do you want for it?"
"Hm...let's see. Normally I'd charge $65-$75 for something like this...Hold on, are you going to hang around here for much longer?"
I looked at him in surprise. "Yeah, my friend and I are supposed to meet up here and do a mock battle on the skywalk."
The vendor nodded thoughtfully. "In that case, let's make a deal. I'll sell it to you for $30, and in return, when people ask you where you got it, you direct them to me. Sound good?"
I nodded, pulled the money from my wallet, and handed it to my new acquaintance.
He smirked, "Pleasure doing business with you, and do remember our deal."
"I will, and thanks!" I turned and started to return to the bridge.
"Oh, there's a switch on the underside of the handle," the vendor called out. "Try it! Maybe it'll light up!"
I gave him a thumbs-up, then locating the switch, flicked it to the 'On' position.
That's when everything went to hell. And that's not a Balrog themed play-on-words/pun thing."
Every light in the convention center went out, plunging the center into near pitch blackness. (I say 'near' because sunlight was still streaming through some of the windows.)
And second, my sword burst into flames. Not fake animated fire, but real hot, flickering fire!
People screamed and fled as the hallway began to fill with smoke. I tried to drop the sword, but to my fear, discovered that I couldn't.
The fire alarms went off, as did the fire sprinklers, but nothing seemed to work, and the fire was only getting bigger. It was chaos around me!
With a mixture of fear, anger, and desperation, I looked around for the vendor, and found him still standing at his stall. He gave me a grin, revealing a single fang.
"Sorry, no refunds." He said, then disappeared with a puff of comically pink smoke.
The last thing I remember was hearing the sound of drums, before I blacked out.
The ground shakes, drums... drums in the deep. We cannot get out.
-Gandalf, reading from the Book of Mazarbul
*Bold colored words will be used whenever Thomas is "speaking"
*Unbolded colored words are Thomas's thoughts.
'Uhh...What happened?'
I awoke to the smell of sulfur. Don't ask how I knew, I just did, and for some reason, it didn't smell unpleasant.
I was lying on my side, and my attempt to roll onto my back was met with some mild resistance from something unseen. Said thing must've been attached to me, as the attempt incited a slight pain in my right shoulder-blade. So, I rolled the opposite direction onto my stomach, then after seeing if my arms were still functional, pushed myself up into a kneeling position.
I waited a moment, to let any light-headedness subside, then looked around to get my bearings.
A lot of good that did me.
I could see that I was no longer in the convention center. Instead, to my surprise, I found myself staring at the walls of a large cavern.
More questions were popping into my brain, and it was making my head hurt. I clapped my hands to my head, and felt something long and pointy outstretched from my head.
'Oh, that's right. My costume.'
I gripped around my neck for the bottom of the mask, and pulled.
The pain caught me off-guard and I released a cry of agony. Except the noise that echoed off the cavern walls couldn't have been made by a man, it was more of an ear-shattering roar.
Once the pain had subsided, I brought my hands in front of me and stared in horror. No longer did they appear to be the plastic hands of my costume. Instead, they were clawed and appeared to be made out of dark, rock-like skin, like hardened lava. Looking closer, I could see glowing veins of what almost appeared to be lava between the plates of skin.
They looked so foreign, and yet familiar.
A thought struck me. If this is what my hands looked like, what about the rest of me?
I noticed a small underground pond nearby, and shambled over to it, hoping to get a better idea of my state of being.
Looking at my reflection, I was startled to see the flaming horned face of the Balrog staring right back at me!
I cried out, and my horror grew even more as the face in the water opened its gaping mouth at me in a silent roar.
I leapt away and leaned against one of the cavern walls, one hand grasping my chest. Was that really me?!
I eyed the pool for a few minutes, then gathering whatever courage I could muster, looked back into the pool.
Like my hands, the rest of my body also looked like it had been sculpted from dried lava, then filled with molten magma. My eye-sockets and slightly open mouth were filled with bright flames, greatly contrasting my blackened face. My horns were massive and curved towards the front. Clawed feet; large black, leathery wings; a tail; and a large mane of fire stretching from the back of my head down to my tailbone completed the picture for one of the most terrifying fictional monsters ever conceived.
http://vignette3.wikia.nocookie.net/eldragonverde/images/1/1d/Balrog.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20120401155236&path-prefix=es
It was difficult to decide of I should be upset or happy as a result of this unexpected change. After all, the Balrog is a pretty powerful and bad-ass looking dude.
As for how large I was, I could only guess until I had access to something that I could use as a standard.
"Finally finished being scared of your own shadow?"
I jumped, then whipped around and found myself staring at a girl standing next to a clump of stalagmites. She looked young, maybe around ten or eleven. She was light skinned with long brown hair that curled at the ends, and wore a white nightgown. She was also holding something in her hands behind her back, but from this distance, I couldn't tell what it was.
http://moodyliciouschildrensspa.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/il_570xN_384358711_buvs.jpg
"Are you done staring? It's quite rude."
I attempted to ask who she was, but all that emerged from my mouth was a confused sounding roar.
The girl rolled her eyes. "Try speaking with your mind."
Okay, like telepathy? I nodded slowly,then directed my next thought directly at her.
'LIKE THIS?'
The girl dropped to her knees and clasped her hands to her head.
"Owowowowow! Turn it down a little, you doof!"
Not quite sure how to do that, I decided to guess and not focus at her as much.
'Better?'
The girl stood and brushed off her gown, then looked me in the eyes.
"Much better."
'Now, who are you?'
"Hmph, I should be asking you that, but if you must know, my name is Grace." She smirked, "but ask anyone around here, and they'll tell you I'm anything but that."
That confused me even more, but I pushed it to the back of my mind.
'Where is "here" anyway?'
Grace waved aside my question. "We'll get to that later, but first, introduce yourself. After all, you're the newby here."
I already didn't like her attitude, but I decided to put up with it for now. Anything to get answers.
'You can call me Thomas.'
Grace smiled. "Pleasure to meet you."
'You don't seem surprised by my name.'
"You're not the first one to go through this." She clapped her hands. "Now, with formalities out of the way, you wouldn't happen to have any cheese on you, would you?"
'Huh?'
She looked me up and down. "No, I guess you wouldn't, being made of fire and all. Pity, I haven't had any good swiss or pepperjack for a while now."
I cocked my head at her and she blushed.
"Sorry, I just--, It's my favorite food. Anyway, forget about me. You had some questions, didn't you?"
She's trolling me. She just has to be.
'Questions, yes, but so many. I guess I should start with the most obvious. Where am I?"
"The mines of Marea."
'You mean Moria.....and really?'
She rolled her eyes. "Of course not. This is a cavern in the mountains outside the mining village of Hoovesburg."
'Okay...'
She sighed. "You know what? Just walk with me. It'll be much easier to show you. And I'll just give you the 'World Jumping for Idiots' lecture, sound good?"
'Uh, sure.
I started forward, but stopped when Grace stuck her hand out towards me.
"Hold on." She adopted a thoughtful expression. "There's not much cover on the mountain, so if you were to come out, it would most likely cause a panic. Which is something that ultimately wouldn't be good for either of us."
She pondered for a few seconds before her face lit up.
"I got it!"
She pulled the item out from behind her back and on closer examination, it turned out to be a doll. But not a doll with the yarn hair or a pretty dress and a smile. Not even a barbie. Instead, she was holding what appeared to be a voodoo doll. You know the stuffed white ones with button eyes, that people stick pins in? Thankfully, this one didn't have any pins in it, but I still didn't like the look of it.
'And how will that help us?' I asked, a little apprehensive.
Grace looked a little nervous.
"Well, ah yes....um...well...if you were to allow me to put your soul into my doll, for a short time, I could show and tell you everything you need to know. And all without the locals freaking out at the sight of you."
'You want me...to somehow transfer my soul...into your voodoo doll--'
"Temporary soul storage, if you please. Voodoo doll sounds so dark and evil."
'Not the point. The point is, even if I believed that it would work, even if I was crazy enough to try, what would stop you from making me your slave?'
Yes, reading all those fantasy books has indeed made me a bit wise in the ways of magic.
Grace looked indignant. "Like I said, it's a temporary soul storage. It can only hold one soul at a time, and that soul is released either when I give the command, or after 48 hours have passed. And before you ask, I can't do anything to the soul inside, except speak with it."
"Besides, I...don't know how to condemn souls yet." she added sheepishly.
I decided to ignore that last part, and just eyed her as she stood there, fidgeting. On the one hand, she could be lying about everything, but on the other, maybe she truly does want to help. She did mention something about me 'not being the first'. So perhaps she's helped others.
Of course, I haven't seen anyone else around.
'Alright, I'll trust you on this.'
"Really?!"
I nod. 'Your plan sounds like a good one. After all, I don't want to cause any problems before I even know what's going on.'
Grace leaned her puppet against one of the stalagmites.
"Alright," She said. "This might tingle a bit."
I stared in surprise as her hands were suddenly surrounded by glowing, dark-purple energy.
She pointed both of them at me and closing her eyes, began to hum a tune that sounded suspiciously like 'Mary had a Little Lamb'.
Everything went dark for a few minutes, then I felt my eyes 'open'.
Remembering the last time this occurred, (back when I first awoke as the balrog), I attempted to move my limbs. However, this time none of them responded
Something caught my attention and I looked up, internally gasping when I saw my own body about halfway across the cavern. It looked almost exactly as I had seen it in the pond, except that now, all the light from the fire and lava had gone out, giving my shell of a body the appearance of a highly detailed statue.
A gentle pressure around my midsection drew my attention back to my current situation, and I found myself rising into the air!
I cried out, silently or course, and soon found myself staring directly at the massive face of my companion.
"Ooh, it still works! I haven't used it in so long, I was afraid I had gotten rusty. How are you doing, buddy?"
It took me a minute to get used to her louder voice. Was this how I sounded when I first tried to speak to her.
'Just fantastic,' I replied, laying on thick sarcasm.
"Wow, your voice is still really deep. I thought for sure it would get higher, what with your change in size and all."
With all her talk, I guess she still is just a child at heart.
'Isn't there something you should be doing?' I was still a bit miffed at her.
"Ah, yes, sorry!"
She formed a sort of makeshift chair with her left hand, and placed me so that my back was propped up against her wrist and my legs stretched out along her fingers.
After making sure I was comfortable, we turned away from my former body and proceeded into a side tunnel, where Grace conjured up a purple ball of light in her right hand to act as a torch.
"Alright, where do I begin..."
*Next chapter will include first interaction with Equestrians.*
