Featuring: Strider (Arnorian Dunadan Human) and Gharkhash (Yfelwydan Orc).

East Road - Eastern Shore of the Mitheithel
Looking westward toward the bridge, the river flows beneath three broad arches in its span. The rolling plains crossed by the road beyond have little but grass and occasional rocky outcroppings. The Weather hills are visible in the distant northwest, though. Looking east, wild forest and thickets lie across steep and rugged hills, both north and south of the road. The greater heights seem to be on the north side. These are the infamous Trollshaws, where trolls lurk in wait for victims by night, and hide from the sun in the deep thickets by day.
Contents:
Strider
Burned trees
Obvious exits:
OOC DEtour, South, North, West, and East

-------------------------------Trollshaws Time--------------------------------
Real time is: Sat Jun 02 18:05:51 2001 - Elendor time is
Early Afternoon on a Clear Summer Highday, June 14, 3023

Note: It is daytime out, so do not leave the cover of the trees!
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Strider
"Suddenly Frodo noticed that a strange-looking weather-beaten man, sitting in the shadows near the wall, was also listening intently to the hobbit-talk. He had a tall tankard in front of him, and was smoking a long-stemmed pipe curiously carved. His legs were stretched out before him, showing high boots of supple leather that fitted him well, but had seen much wear and were now caked with mud. A travel-stained cloak of heavy dark-green cloth was drawn close about him, and in spite of the heat of the room he wore a hood that overshadowed his face; but the gleam of his eyes could be seen as he watched the hobbits."

Gharkhash
Short, broad, and repugnant are three words that adequately sum up this strange individual.

His general build is almost ape-like in appearance: fairly long arms, bowed legs, stout torso. Width-wise, he is about one foot and a half across at the widest; in terms of height, some four and a half. His shoulderblades are broad and bony, jutting out on either side of his almost nonexistant neck, long and thick arms dangling therefrom. His arms are, as noted, long: the elbows bend just below the waist and the hands align closely with the knees. The legs diverge from the abdomen about two feet from the ground and bend at the kees little less than halfway up. His head is roughly square in shape, with a sloping forehead and jutting chin apparent under a hood.

His clothes are best described as rags: a great collection of rags that succeed in covering nearly all his upper body, stitched rudely together with gut of some sort. His arms are clothed by a pair of rudely-constructed sleeves in turn fastened loosely to the collection of rags and furs on his trunk; a pair of leather gloves (possibly stolen, given the rude construct of the rest of his garb) cover his hands. A skirt covers the individual's legs to just below the knees and a pair of untanned leather boots conceals the remainder of his limbs to his pair of large, broad feet. The aforementioned hood conceals all his head and face save a wide, weak, swarthy-skinned chin with patches of thin, black hair showing here and there.

Now this person's bearing is hunched, bringing his height at his shoulders down about half a foot. Arms dangle as though fastened rather loosely at his side, while his legs are bent and bowed. At any given time the odd smell of stale urine and body odor emanates from his general direction.

~~~

Near the burned trees, a low-crouched man passes. He moves among the forest with a bow in hand, watching over some secret that is precious to him. Carefully, his nose tastes the air. He is hunting.

In a clump of trees off the road to the north, a cloaked figure, roughly dwarf-sized, stumbles. He blunders this way and that, occasionally bumping into trees here and there. Stopping for a moment, he lifts his head skyward, exposing his black-skinned, flat face for a moment before he shudders and covers his face again with his hood, shielding his face with a glove-covered hand. "Garn," he mutters to himself before continuing to stumble along, sniffing and groping his way along.

Moving with the stealth of experience tempered with caution, the crouching ranger stalks the noises that the wind carries him. His moss-green cloak hides him well in the June undergrowth, richly green in summer's clothing. He passes among some laurels, and suddenly pauses. Keen eyes spy his prey at last, a stumbling black-skinned beast.

The goblin (yes, goblin; with a body and complexion as such who would guess otherwise?), still stumbling, knees shaking and eyes turned skyward, stops by a wide oak, huddling in its shadow. But at so far a time from nightfall, shade is hard to find: leaves cast too little, and the sun is at such an angle that beneath the trunk only a very little darkness is available. "Hrmph," the Orc snorts as he huddles uncomfortably by the trunk.

"Augh! Garn!" cries the Orc, leaping to his feet... and landing flat on his back just as soon after. Glaring over his shoulder, he stares wide-eyed at an arrow sticking into his hip...

"Ho! What's this! Fiend, coward, who goes?" the goblin cries, writhing painfully in an attempt to look behind him.

"I do," answers the ranger, stepping toward the wounded beast. "Who I am will matter to little to you; what I am called among men, less. I am one of those who watch the woods. I am one of those who keeps the houseless hills. I am your doom, creature of Shadow, the vengence of ancient kings on you who threw down our cities and laid waste our land."

Muttering curses in whatever tribal dialect of the Orcish speech it is he uses, the goblin grabs the shaft of the arrow sticking from his hip in an attempt to yank it out. "Threw down yer cities and land, my foot... I don't know nothin' of what yer talkin' about..." He snarls as he concentrates on the arrow. "Maybe the Morians did somethin' to ye, or the Gundabadders, but me folks done nothin' to ye... garn, this hurts..."

"And what do you know about?" asks the tall figure, clad brown and green. He pauses to lean against a nearby tree, regarding the nearly helpless figure. "No good has ever brought one of your tainted kin from the mountains. Why have you come here?"

"Why 'ave I come 'ere?" grunts the goblin, at last yanking the projectile from his aching bum with a pathetic "Yeow!" Tossing the arrow at his tree's trunk, he spits at it and snarls. "Tainted kin? Good lot ye know about goblins. I ain't even come from no mountain!" The Orc pulls his hood tightly over his face, concealing his delicate eyes from the yellow face's ravages. "I'm passin' through, if ye gots to know. Garn, as if the manspawn ain't given enough trouble to Orcs either. I ain't personally done nothin' to ye, an' that's more than ye can say, tark."

"And where have you come from, if not the mountains?" wonders the ranger, idly knocking another arrow. "Once the orcs were driven from this land to the very last. In those days there was a great slaughter, both of the eldest Men and the servants of the Shadow. Now I find your kind creeping back into the land. Passing through, you say? From whence to where, and why? You will not pass unhindered."

"From 'ere to there, or there to 'ere. Take yer pick." The goblin huddles by the oak's roots, mumbling out of his all-enfolding cloak and hood. "And I don't serve no Shadow, neither. Nar, you tarks don't know nothin' about no goblins."

As the arrow embeds itself in his cloaked back, the goblin tilts forward a few inches, then lurches back to his original place. "Weren't kiddin', were ye?" he mutters. "Dem ye filthy manspawn." And then no more.

Strider ensures the orc's death with a quick blow from his dark steel sword. Then he looks to the body, that it may be buried or concealed lest it attract the attention of its kin. Somewhere near by, another ranger lies wounded in a secret camp, which must be protected..

~~~

The moral? Never, EVER roleplay with Ranger FCs if you're an Orc. :p