1
Southern Exposure:
To Live on Hopes
A Burping Troll Adventure
by
Sevilodorf, ErinRua and Celebsul
December 2005
A Note about Burping Troll Adventures
Like many Tolkien fans, we wanted to move to Middle-Earth. And like many others we created a Role-Playing Group to do so. The Inn of the Burping Troll opened February of 2002 on the Netscape LOTR Message Board and was soon populated by an exotic assortment of elves, men, hobbits and orcs, along with a bartending balrog and a lyrical warg. As the months passed, the personae we adopted took on their own lives. The characters brought in friends and relatives, and a mysterious stranger arrived to turn the place on its ear.
The second phase of The Burping Troll began with the creation of burpingtroll.com to archive the adventures the characters insisted we tell. New, more canonical, guidelines were established concerning our use of Tolkien’s landscapes; however the warg, the balrog and the rehabilitated orcs refused to leave. Thus, our stories are set in the Fourth Age of a Middle-Earth where orcs play cribbage with elves, a balrog serves Rangers steaming cups of mulled wine and hobbit lasses scold the warg for tracking mud on the common room floor.
In addition to borrowing the landscapes and characters created by JRR Tolkien, we have included a poem created by Kashif Indorie that may be found at http://www.msci.memphis.edu/~ramamurt/idd_posts/lk14.html. No harm or damage is intended in this borrowing and believe us when we say no profit is made from this endeavor. We just really liked the poem.
Lines from Riddles from the Book of Exeter and The Battle of Maldon may be found in numerous places.
Table of Contents
Part One: To Live on Hopes
3 Prologue
5 Chapter One
11 Chapter Two
20 Chapter Three
26 Chapter Four
Part Two: False or True
31 Chapter Five
42 Chapter Six
Part Three: To Drink Heart's Blood
52 Chapter Seven
62 Chapter Eight
71 Chapter Nine
78 Chapter Ten
Part Four: Cross the River or Drown
84 Chapter Eleven
92 Chapter Twelve
99 Chapter Thirteen
108 Chapter Fourteen
121 Chapter Fifteen
Part Five: Rocked by the Storm
128 Chapter Sixteen
135 Chapter Seventeen
147 Chapter Eighteen
155 Chapter Nineteen
Part Six: All the Sorrows
161 Chapter Twenty
171 Chapter Twenty-one
177 Chapter Twenty-two
186 Chapter Twenty-three
196 Chapter Twenty-four
203 Chapter Twenty-five
Part Seven: Hundreds of Stones
215 Chapter Twenty-six
228 Chapter Twenty-seven
238 Chapter Twenty-eight
248 Chapter Twenty-nine
258 Chapter Thirty
269 Chapter Thirty-one
278 Chapter Thirty-two
287 Chapter Thirty-three
Part Eight: One Mirror
303 Chapter Thirty-Four
309 Chapter Thirty-Five
317 Epilogue
Appendices
319 Appendix A : Haradrim Language, History and Locations
321 Appendix B : Index of People and Beasts
322 Appendix C : Trollisms- word unique to The Burping Troll
Prologue:
The years of war were finally over; the Dark Lord defeated, and Elessar took the crown of the united realm of Gondor and Arnor. To the king came embassies from the tribes of once-enemies: peoples from Rhûn in the northeast, and from Harondor in the south, and Harad beyond the River Harnen, and Khand and many places of the east and southeast. Also came those from the borders of Mirkwood and from Dunland in the west. King Elessar made peace with all these peoples, and a time of renewed hope blossomed like the White Tree in the courtyard of Minas Tirith.
***
October 1419 SR
Five months after the Crowning of King Elessar
Markato on the River Harnen
"What have we here?"
The Gondorian accent sliced through the rhythmic pattern of Hisham's instructions. Mindful of the value the malak placed upon this ugly foreigner, the slaver dismissed his son with a flick of his fingers. As the young man strode towards the line of men being herded aboard a river barge, Hisham touched his forehead in greeting.
"Kûn, by the wisdom of Tamar, Malak of House Minul, these worthless ones are being sent to the mines of Azhar."
"The old fox thinks to avoid trouble with the Kâthuphazgân." The Gondorian's black mustache twitched, inviting Hisham to join him in a private joke.
A brief tightening of his hand upon the butt of the whip coiled at his waist was the only sign of disdain Hisham allowed before drawing to his full height. He replied tonelessly, "Malak Tamar seeks always to maintain harmony with the House of Zimra."
After a slight pause, the Haradrim added, "And with the Lords of Gondor."
Dark spiky eyebrows lifted to signal the smaller man's disbelief. "The treaty agreed upon by the Twenty Houses and the High Council of Gondor requires all prisoners of war be made available for ransom no later than November following the Great War. A mere seven days from now, I believe."
With a careful smile, Hisham replied, "All will be done by the agreed-upon date. Even now Khôr Tamar meets with a Captain of the Horse-people. The wuvin you see were born to serve, Kûn Khint. In accord with the treaty, the malak is removing the slaves within his household beyond the Harnen."
Above them, the midmorning sun burned its great, golden eye through thin riverfront haze. Even at this early hour, the threat of muggy heat whispered on the breeze, and stirred the fronds of trees lining the far bank.
Khint tipped his head toward the ragged men crowded into temporary pens erected along a warehouse's dun colored walls. "How curious that so many possess fair skin or hair."
The slaver shrugged. "Lands between the Poros and the Harnen have for many years been held by the Houses of Harad. It is quite common for those in lesser positions to possess ancestors from the North."
The Gondorian dabbed a silk handkerchief at the perspiration beading his forehead and said, "Indeed. Master Tamar is a model of cooperation. His example will do much to further the relationship between our peoples. I bid you good day, Kûn Hisham."
The slaver touched his brow and bowed low. His hand clenched once more about the butt of his whip as he watched the man's plumed hat bob across the market square then vanish into the crowded street beyond. Eyes narrowed, he turned back to the slave pens. The malak would not be happy. The loading would have been completed before dawn were it not for the delay caused the previous evening by the collision with a felucca. Hisham regretted that the inept captain could not be made to pay for his error more than once.
When his son reappeared at his side, Hisham said softly, "See the third pen loaded next. I must inform Khôr Tamar of his guest's interest in things that do not concern him."
Part One: To Live on Hopes
Chapter One
March 1423 SR
Four years after the War of the Ring
Northern Ithilien
With a satisfied nod, Sevilodorf placed a check beside the total at the bottom of the row of figures. For the second month in a row, the account book for The Inn of the Burping Troll balanced to the last copper penny. A feat of no mean accomplishment considering the rather esoteric approach taken toward record keeping of any sort by the hobbits and elves who saw to the day-to-day operation of the inn.
She blew gently upon the page and placed the stopper in her inkbottle, then wiped her pen and set it within the slot designed to receive it. The walnut lap desk had been a Yule gift from Anardil. A gift, he said, for himself as well since she would now have no excuse to go rummaging through the contents of his own desk.
"After all," he laughed when she began an indignant protest, "a man must have some place to keep a few secrets."
Sev closed her ledger and shook her head at the memory. Any secrets the ex-Ranger possessed never saw the inside of a desk, but remained firmly in his head until required by those who sent him out to gather them. Though she had joined him in forays as far as the Eastern Borders, she would respect the boundaries he set concerning those missions which carried him beyond the safety of Gondor's borders. Indeed, the dedication to duty and obligation instilled by her Rohirrim upbringing required her to support him, no matter how thoughts of his solitary journeys in service to his liege left her pacing the dark hours, murmuring endless prayers to whatever spirits would listen. Thankfully, and Sev tapped the polished wood of the desk to ward off bad luck, since returning from Rhûn last September, Anardil had not been called to travel further than the mines opened by the dwarves in the Ash Mountains.
Before the thought could take solid root - that along with fine weather, spring usually brought an increased need for calculating observers to monitor the actions of Gondor's enemies - she banished it and frowned at the ink staining the tips of her fingers. The hobbits would never allow her to sit at table in such a state, and dinner was drawing nigh.
Splashing water into the basin atop the washstand, Sev reached toward the soap dish only to draw her hand back with a surprised yelp, then gave an undignified squeal as a brown mouse, disturbed in his savory snacking, attempted escape by racing up her outstretched arm. Throwing her hands up resulted not only in tossing the rodent across the room, but in a small shower as the contents of both ewer and basin landed with a splintering crash at her feet.
Instantly a streak of black and white leapt from the bed and hit the floor in a lightning dash. Sev yelped again as cat and mouse shot squarely between her feet, and careened towards the opposite wall. A stool tipped with a crash, two pairs of shoes went tumbling, and Sev just rescued a half-drunk cup of tea from a teetering table before the mouse dove behind Anardil's battered trunk. There the tiny creature cowered, nose twitching in vast indignation. Meanwhile Tac crouched just beyond reach, glaring balefully, and swished his tail in equal annoyance.
"For pity's sake!" Sev muttered.
Setting down the cup, she scooped up a broom and a small basket, then nudged Tac out of the way. With a judicious poke of the broom and clever placement of the basket, she prodded the mouse into captivity.
"Oh, be quiet," Sev exclaimed as Tac followed her, yowling piteously, to the door. "If you can catch him outside, you can keep him."
Grasping the now resigned rodent by the tail, she pulled wide the door and flung the creature out - and straight into a broad masculine chest. Much to Tac's disgust, with considerable aplomb the man caught the tiny animal neatly between his two hands, saving it before it fell to the ground.
Grey eyes gleamed solemn amusement above those hands. Sev gasped and began a stammering apology only to stop mid-syllable as her horrified brain informed her mouth exactly whom she was addressing. Then to the astonishment of both the mouse's savior and his tall companion, she turned without another word and slammed the door in their faces.
"I did warn you, sire," the companion murmured and bent down to prevent the loudly indignant Tac from making a ladder of the royal legs.
"So you did, Tarannon. But I've had worse thrown at me and by those far less apologetic," replied the King of Gondor with a smile. Peeking at the trembling creature trapped within his hands, Aragorn added, "We'll allow the lady time to recover while we reconcile these enemies."
Tarannon tightened his hold upon Tac, whom he held stiffly at arm's length, and nodded stoically. In his two years as Captain of the Rangers at Henneth Annûn, he had developed a weary acceptance of trouble whenever he dealt with any resident of The Burping Troll. From tame orcs stampeding hogs in the streets of Henneth Annûn, to citizen complaints of the tame Warg begging breakfast sausages from Burping Troll guests, Captain Tarannon had ceased to be surprised at anything - even a mouse flung in his king's face.
"Surely you trust my abilities of negotiation, Captain," said the king, a laugh lurking behind his eyes.
"Of course, my lord. I have every trust in you," declared Tarannon, by sheer strength of will concealing his wince as Tac twisted to wrap needle claws around his wrist. "It's simply that this is Mistress Sevilodorf's cat, and if even half the stories told are true I will be lucky to escape without losing an arm."
"I doubt such a sacrifice will be required. Here, let us sit while we parlay peace."
Aragorn settled on the well-worn bench beside the door, hands still cupped about the captive mouse, and stretched out his long legs with a sigh. "It is pleasant upon occasion to escape the bindings of courtly protocol."
For a moment he sat looking out upon the forest, and in the subtle relaxation of his stern features, Tarannon could see the Ranger his sovereign had once been. The ghost of a smile visited his own face; for he realized the trek from Henneth Annûn had been a rare diversion for Aragorn the King Elessar.
"I'm certain it is, my lord." Tarannon sat down carefully and grimaced as he pried the cat from his arm only to have it latch tightly to his knee. "And if I may be so bold, I believe you derived an additional amount of satisfaction by insisting you wander about with only two attendants."
Aragorn gave a snort of laughter and glanced toward the first line of trees. Almost unseen, two stalwart Rangers of Ithilien stood guard. Beside them, hair gleaming silver in the single shaft of sunlight to penetrate the grove, was Celebsul the Eldar: leader, though he would deny it, of the elves who made their home in the woods surrounding The Burping Troll. The elf and another of his kind had met them beyond the orchard to the south and led them to the back entrances of the inn by a circuitous path. A route designed not only to hide their approach from the casual eye, but also to provide time to send the young Mirkwood elf, Aerio, to give notice of their arrival to Anardil.