//-------------------------------------------------------// A wizard arrives exactly when he needs to -by Redaxe211- //-------------------------------------------------------// //-------------------------------------------------------// The arrival //-------------------------------------------------------// The arrival That was quite possibly the worst journey Gandalf has ever decided to pull on us. As Legolas pulled himself slowly and painfully of the floor, he saw his reflection in a puddle, he luckily only had a bruise on his forehead, but from past experiences he knew his friends weren't to be so lucky. OUCH. If that happens one more time, I am going to shove Gandalf's precious stick right up his... Holy shit.... I'm in a bloody tree. "GANDALF"!!! "When I find you I'm going to.. whhaaaa..." THUD..."ouch.."****** As Gimli also pulled himself off the floor he could only hope that ruddy elf had hurt himself also. Despite knowing full well that he would be completely untouched apart from at worse a bruise and even that would go away due to elves having accelerated healing. " GASP " why in the name of middle earth am I in a lake? Can Gandalf not aim with that bloody stick of his? First I'm going to get out of this lake, then, once I’ve found my friends, I will proceed to completely lose it. Once Aragorn found the closest place to get out of the lake, and had then got out, he might have started to wonder where he actually was, but at that point, it simply didn't matter. "Gandalf, Legolas, Gimli?" "Can you hear me?..." then came the reply...(Crickets) "this isn’t good..." "aaahhhhh" the lovely fresh smell of the evergreen forest. What a surge of fond memories... "CRACK" he looked around...and not so fond ones as usual he had concentrated on making the perfect landing for himself but had forgotten anyone else. FOOL. where the on middle earth have they got to, or rather where on Equestria would be more accurate Gandalf had of course, no idea whatsoever where the other trio were. But he couldn’t hear them, which meant they were nowhere nearby (that dwarf can a half shout) else he would have heard them. This is going to be interesting... But they may as well discover it on their own. I only hope some friendly people find them before the common folk. As my friends have been warned they will be fine but the ordinary ponies apparently know nothing of it, I must find them before the people do or knowing them, Gimli especially; it might get a bit awkward later... .                                                                                          ****************** As there was no reply from the repeated calling that had managed to make his throat sore, Legolas decided to set off. Where to go to from here was unknown, as he quickly realised this was a completely new and unknown environment. The best bet would of course be civilisation, however Legolas was not dim, and knew that the best bet isn’t always worth the gamble and decided to stick to the woods at least until he had identified the habitants. If he could find any. My eyesight is keen but I can’t see anything of interest. This is starting to get tiresome, soon, I will just follow that handy stream leading into a... FACEPALM" a valley with smoke rising out of it, and you call yourself intelligent... and with that a somewhat dismayed elf, set off toward civilisation. Elves do not lie, and this elf wasn’t lying when he lifted his head up and cried out "why is this forest never-ending?!?!?"I have been walking for about 5 hours now and its getting dark. I really don't like the look of these trees either... calls me a dwarf but this is starting to get creepy when ALL the trees have scary faces and are genuinely reaching out at me. Sometime later.... Ok. I am now officially terrified. It’s not because it’s so dark i can’t see further than 10 feet, it’s not because of the creatures that might be lurking in the dark... It because of the TREEES. They are so unnatural its.... unnatural!!!. Then, Legolas stopped, something had changed. This wasn't right at all. and not just the trees were wrong. The branches were perfectly still. But the shadows.... we’re moving.                                                                                 *********************** Right then Dwarf. you’re not going to get out of this forest by sitting around so let’s get moving.... but the direction to move in is a bit uncertain. I have absolutely no idea where the hell I am. i would get a better view point but i can’t see above these blasted trees. If I could only get higher.... No Gimli No, you are a dwarf, creatures of the land. Never climb a tree. Fine, there isn’t any other option and quite frankly, i want to be out of here BEFORE it gets dark. After a good period of time and countless falls Gimli had eventually identified the same smoke and valley that Legolas had.Right. finally a direction to be heading out onto, now I can make some progress. Some considerable time later. Damn, it’s getting very dark very quickly here. and I heavily dislike these trees... ooohhhh. A cave. Now then Gimli that cave probably leads to no-where... but I can see the exit, later on, almost at the edge of the forest.... A short cut. Now I know how this ended last time, and ancient evil of death and destruction and all but i can see in the dark, and I REALLY don't like those trees. There was of course no debate on what he was to do next. As he entered the cave, he brushed against a huge boulder. This of course should have no effect... had it not been waiting on the edge for 3000 years; this of course meant that it fell; and fell, and fell and BOOOOOOOM"RRRAAAAWWWWW" "shit..." Luckily for Gimli he never found out what it was that he woke from its intense slumber, but as the beast stalked away - he presumed to go out for a stretch, well, that's what he would have done- he could feel the pure cacophony of rage and annoyance at being woken up, the Pure power and weight of every step made the hard granite walls shake, pebbles bounced; bats flew in front of him. They knew what it was. and they were running. as he thought back on it. he realised that the rock had fallen for about a minute. now then as the rock had bounced off the walls and shook the ground beneath his feet, he realised that the rock must have fallen miles. in a straight fall with at least a hundred mile and hour downdraught, the rock would have reached insane speeds, hence how he heard the earth-shattering impact. However, if it was miles away, then how big was the creature.. to have been able to collapse the entrance to his tunnel. which was made out of solid Granite. Pushing fears aside, rest assured it couldn't get to him from the thousands of tonnes of mountain it had just collapsed, he set off into the pitch dark. I have been walking through these tunnels for miles now. the only thing i have found so far are a few topazes.... worthless junk that couldn't withstand a hit from a baby's rattle, well, a dwarven baby anyhow. as the hours passed and Gimli trudged on, he noticed a distinct increase of the temperature and ambient light levels, this certainly wasn't the end of the cave, but he had found people!!! Gimli soon got to the part of the cave which contained some form of life. As he entered the cave through a huge Quartz arch, he marvelled at the caves interior construction, marble pillars hundreds of feet tall, the gleaming quartz buildings and arches, perfectly made to give the image of a masterpiece. "wow...." however, while he had been admiring stone work fit for dwarves, the inhabitants of the cave had blocked the exit to the outside world and into the now quite attractive forest, and were closing in...                                                                        ************************************* this forest is absolutely monumental. I thought that Mirkwood was big but I was Wrong. If I'm ever going to find my company I’m going to have to find a way out of here first, after all, the dwarf certainly doesn't want to be here, and the elf likes company. I can therefore assume that they will also want to get out of here. Aragorn stopped and looked around, his mood dropped like a stone. He was in a forest, but also in a swamp. The ground was a mushy brown, green, and looked semi-liquid, but remained slightly stable when placed under pressure. He identified that the entire area was a criss-cross of pools and stretches of land, with a thick layer of mist at about knee level. the pools of water were large, but not like lakes, more pond size, although due to the murky colour of the water it was impossible to determine how deep it was or perhaps more importantly... what was in it. He decided to climb a tree to get a better view... after about 1 minute of solid climbing he traversed his way up 20 meters of tree- he was out of practice- he could now get a far better look. there... in the distance, a valley, and smoke rising from the middle, civilisation. my best bet is probably to head toward it . that's no doubt what my friends are thinking After a unfathomable amount of time had passed, Aragorn eventually stumbled across a huge section of open swamp. the trees made way for huge open pools of murky primordial sludge. the only way across this desolate wasteland was a very questionable strip of land running down the centre of the pool. Of course if he could help it he would go round but due to the time of the day and that he didn't want to be on the edge of this swamp at night time. therefore he opted to go for the questionable path.this path is very thin... but at least it feels more solid than the rest of it. This actually feels like there is something underneath it. Aragorn walked a little along the path and noticed that there was now another path coming out the pool, and ending abruptly not long after. strange. I could have sworn that wasn't there before then another appeared... while he was looking at it, this started to get extremely creepy and images of the watcher came into mind, except that the watcher was no way near this big. To try and keep with his beliefs on the maximum size any creature could become, he decided that the pool was cursed, and that running as fast as possible was the best course of action. Only problem was that when he got to the other side of said pool. The creature in it turned out not to be as big as he had feared, and had been tricking him by using its several necks to join a path as he ran, to make him think it was huge. Well. the pool was only a km long... that's still really really REALLY big. how the hell do I deal with this ... then the creature started to stand up... Don’t worry... THERE WILL BE MORE. and there will also be pony, just not quite so soon.