Aech nodded. “Of course,” she said. “How about Osuvox’s Improved Obfuscation. It’s ninety-ninth-level. It’ll conceal us from everything, including infravision, ultravision, and true sight.”
“Perfect,” I said. “Can you cast it on both of us? And on the horses too?”
She nodded and muttered a few incantations. When she completed them, we and our horses all became invisible. But we could still see a semi-transparent version of each other’s avatars and our steeds on our HUDs, allowing us to avoid bumping into each other. Then we continued to speed northward, across the barren landscape, toward the three towers of black glass and volcanic rock rising from the bleak mountain range in the distance.
We spotted a large hill up ahead of us, rising from the flat and desolate landscape around it. But once we drew a bit closer to this “hill,” it revealed itself to be an enormous mound of dead bodies—the slain and dismembered corpses of thousands of Elves and Men. My Tour Guide subtitles helpfully informed me that this was Haudh-en-Ndengin. The Mound of the Slain.
I covered my mouth and nose with my cloak, in an attempt to fend off the foul stench that filled the air. I glanced over at Aech and saw that she was doing the same.
Aech stared at the giant pile of corpses as we rode past it. Then she turned in her saddle to face me, and raised her voice to be heard over the drum of our horses’ hoofbeats.
“Are you sure you don’t want to call for some backup, Z?” Aech said. “You could try your Saint Crispin’s Day shtick again. Send out a message to every user in the OASIS, asking for them to come here and help us?”
“It won’t work this time,” I replied. “No one would come.”
“Sure they would,” Aech said. “If you told them the truth, and let them know that every single ONI user’s life depends on our success, I bet at least a few thousand of them would come to our aid.”
“An army won’t help us this time,” I said. “The Noldor laid siege to Angband for over four hundred years, and they never even got close to the Silmarils.” I shook my head. “I think we’re gonna have to sneak inside, like Beren and Lúthien.”
“Who and who?”
“A mortal Man and an immortal Elf maiden who fell in love,” I said, motioning to the copy of The Silmarillion I had open in a window beside me. “They were able to sneak into Angband and steal one of the Silmarils from the Iron Crown by putting Morgoth and his minions to sleep.” I turned to look at Aech. “What’s the most powerful sleep spell you have in your spellbook?”
She pulled up her spell list and scanned it for a few seconds.
“Mordenkainen’s Everlasting Slumber,” she said. “And I’m ninety-ninth-level, so it should be powerful enough to put any NPC within its area of effect down for the count, even if they do make their saving throws.”
“Good,” I replied. “You’ll need to cast it at least twice. The entrance into Angband is supposed to be guarded by a giant black wolf named Carcharoth. We’ll have to put him to sleep to make it past him and get inside. Then, once we find our way to Morgoth’s throne room, we need to put everyone there to sleep too. Then I think we should be able to steal the shards out of his crown.”
Aech nodded and silently made a few quick changes to her list of memorized spells. Then she gave me two thumbs up.
“OK,” I said. “That should do the trick. I think we’re ready.”
“Let’s hope so,” she said as we both spurred our anxious horses forward, carrying us away from the Mound of the Slain, and onward, toward the Gates of Angband, which lay at the base of Thangorodrim, whose three enormous peaks continued to loom up ahead of us, rising high above the Iron Mountains beneath them.
I used the magnification feature on my HUD to zoom in on the peaks of the three massive volcanic mountains, and could just make out the spot on the western peak where the Elven prince Maedhros was chained to a rocky cliff, waiting to be rescued. On the eastern peak, I spotted another prisoner of Morgoth—a man named Húrin, bound to a chair high atop Thangorodrim. Apparently, these NPCs were always there, as part of some other high-level Elder Days quests that took place in these mountains.
A few minutes later, Aech and I found ourselves riding on a long, narrow road that led up to the massive Gates of Angband, which were set deep into the base of Thangorodrim’s central peak. On either side of the road lay large open chasms, filled with thousands of giant, writhing black serpents, all squirming together in one twisted mass.
Up above, demonic-looking vultures perched on the rocky cliffs, glaring and squawking down at us. I realized that Aech’s invisibity spell didn’t appear to have any effect on the creatures that resided here, so I asked her to deactivate it. She complied, and we continued our way up to the two massive iron doors set into the sheer cliff wall ahead.
When we came within a few hundred yards of the gates, our horses refused to proceed any farther. Aech and I dismounted, then I spoke the name of each horse once again, and they shrank and morphed back into tiny glass figurines, which I scooped up and placed back inside my inventory.
On foot now, we reached the gates—to see that they were standing wide open. But a giant black wolf lay guarding the rocky plateau in front of them, glaring down at us with a pair of unblinking eyes that glowed bright red in the shadow of Angband.
This was Carcharoth—one of the most fearsome creatures of the Elder Days.
When Aech got a look at the size of the wolf, she reached down with both hands and tapped the stripes on the sides of her Adidas once again, and their color scheme changed from blue and black to silver and gold.
“Got a pair that I wear when I’m playin’ ball,” Aech recited. “With the heel inside, make me ten feet tall.”
When she finished speaking the command phrase, she suddenly grew in size, until her avatar stood exactly ten feet tall. Thanks to the change in proportions, Carcharoth would no longer tower over her. Now she would be able to stare him directly in his demonic red eyes.
Carcharoth continued to glower down at us until we reached the end of the road and arrived at the base of the steps leading up to the entrance. As Aech and I started to ascend the steps, she began to cast her sleep spell on the giant wolf, making intricate patterns in the air with her hands as she whispered the words of the incantation.
But when the spell was complete, Carcharoth didn’t close his glowing red eyes. And he did not drift off to sleep. Instead, he bared his teeth and lunged down to attack us.
He ignored Aech and came directly at me, probably because I was the one with the shards in my inventory. I raised my sword and took several steps backward as Carcharoth snapped with a black maw full of razor-sharp fangs.
I continued to retreat back down the steps as the giant wolf advanced upon me, snapping his jaws again and again, just inches from my face.
I struck him repeatedly with Glamdring, but the sword’s glowing blue blade didn’t even appear to break the wolf’s skin, not even when I managed to stab him directly in his black, slime-covered gums.
Carcharoth turned to lunge at Aech, snapping his jaws shut on her leg. Then the beast shook her fiercely and hurled her aside. But Aech landed on her feet and counterattacked, hurling balls of fire and lightning from each of her hands, firing off one spell after another.
I tried to attack the giant wolf while he was distracted by Aech’s fusillade, but he somehow sensed my approach, and before I could land a hit with my sword, he craned his neck around and bit me in the shoulder. My avatar took over a hundred points of damage, and then a message popped up on my HUD, informing me that the wolf’s teeth were covered with some sort of venom, and that I would keep on losing more hit points every few seconds from poison damage. Carcharoth’s venom had also temporarily immobilized my avatar, leaving me wide open for another attack….