Mordor Mischief 15: in which Gryfflet gets to make some wise choices and pretend to be awesome
8Gryfflet has been waiting impatiently for the chance to recover Samwise Gamgee's cooking utensils but we still pause to wonder how they got here before plunging in. He is rewarded for his forbearance with another Page to add to his collection but the best prize is to find Sam's pots followed closely by Frodo's cloak. Legolas is impressed but the news about Shelob worries him and he wants us to locate the Silent one of whom we heard last time so we set off along a trail marked with Orc blood. We discover the Silent One's cave where Gryfflet is overjoyed to be invited to partake in a Session Play in which we re-enact the Choices of Master Samwise. With the help of his Good Hobbit Sense and the Phial of Galadriel, Sam wins his way into the Tower of Cirith Ungol and rescues Frodo, but we are puzzled by one particular change from the original narrative. In the meantime Legolas concocts a plan to learn more about Shelob: we shall track down the Silent One and acquire his armour as a disguise. We resume the tracking of the blood trail and Gryfflet is very happy to be a Burglar as we breeze through hordes of potential enemies and meet up again with Legolas. The Silent One has taken refuge in the nearby swamp so Legolas proposes a contest: the first to track down our prey gets to wear his armour; he also wants us to take samples of the local wildlife. We head into the swamp and restrain ourselves from wholesale slaughter, rescuing lost Nurnhoth and recovering another Page in a nearby cavern. We are just looking at the corpse of an enormous spider when Gryfflet is ambushed by none other than the Silent One himself who has bitten off more than he can chew since he does not last long and we take his armour. We try to explore the cavern but it is filled with foes somewhat beyond our reach right now so we beat a sensible retreat. While Gryfflet finishes up his tasks in the swamp we discussed some Lore then return to Legolas with our samples. He is horrified to discover that everything in this region, not just the spiders, is contaminated with the essence of Shelob! While he struggles to process this news we don the Silent one's armour and prepare to brave the dangers of Cirith Ungol, but first of all we return to the cavern to retrieve a Page that we missed. Luckily there is sufficient time to travel to the outskirts of Cirith Ungol in readiness for our visit to the Tower itself.
"Just make sure I'm not getting killed!"
"Boy do I have news for you!"
"Sorry, I was laughing at the phrase 'toxic frogling'!"
"What have we done to deserve it?"
"What a gorgeously horrible vista!"
"I should sing!"
"They're eating a bat, which is not my fault!"
"Oh, that is so foul!"
"Found the road!"
Lore discussed this week covered the fate of mortals in Middle-earth after they die; someone asked a question about Beowulf for which we could only recommend further sources of information. We also talked about game adaptations again, how the developers get around the problems of scale, and how they deal with who knows what.