03-31-06:

                Malcolm called in his advisors this morning. Waiting in the council room for us was Darren. White as a sheet and sweating bullets. He didn't have much of use for us, just rumors; some of them pretty far out:

There was fighting going on inside the Mountain, between Jesse's forces and the NDR.
There was fighting going on inside the Mountain, between different factions of Jesse's men, a good old-fashioned coup d'état .
They were suffering from an outbreak of the Elvis plague; some NDR saboteurs got in and replaced the pastries with Elvis Donuts.
The Dragon had clawed his way thru the top of the mountain and had taken up residence.
There was another flair-up of the Ebola virus and the Mountain had been sealed as a quarantine measure.

                Anyway, the only solid information he had was that the Mountain is sealed and no one's getting in and no one's getting out. He also told us that all the stories agreed on one thing. That someone had been spotted carving something into the stone over the entrance, and had been killed by security forces.

                Malcolm dismissed Darren. The council was silent until Olivia asked Malcolm if "The Kingdom was curious". He answered that the Kingdom was very curious indeed. He had Cordelia brought in (since she's the only person in the House who has spent any considerable amount of time actually in the Mountain). We were hoping she could give us a basic layout to go by, but apparently she was restricted to the medical areas. She said that when she left, there wasn't a Mage powerful enough to accomplish this kind of work, but that was quite some time ago. Malcolm thanked her and she left.

                He looked at the scouting party and told us if we wanted to go - go. He wants to know what's going on, but he wasn't willing to order us to go against our will. We were all willing, so he told us to have Jesse's pilot take us down there in his helicopter. For some reason, he didn't think he should pull up to the gates of Cheyenne Mountain in the Scooby-Van we stole from the NDR!

                On our way out, we picked up our gear, Cpt. Connors, her men and all their gear. The pilot landed at the USAFA. Things there looked pretty normal, troops doing their stuff. A major and his aide showed up and asked what we wanted. So Olivia explained why we where there. He got all huffy and started going on how "This isn't some kind a freakin' sideshow for people to come gawk at". Olivia responded in that "Oh, so sweet" tone of voice, the one that anyone who knows her recognizes as her "You cretin, I am going to rip your throat out", and told him "Fine. We'll leave. Just because we all have experience working with Magic, on a daily basis, we were silly to think we could be of any assistance". He just fell all over himself, apologizing. We ignored him and got into the transport that had showed up in the meantime.

                As we were on our way to the Mountain, he told us that they had been testing the air, to see if there was any sign of contagion, and yesterday the exhaust fans stopped, even though the generators should provide enough energy to last 3-4 weeks. As we passed thru checkpoint after checkpoint, we could see a lot of very upset people. Even with the Major with us there was some BS getting thru the last one. As we approached we could see the carving over the entrance, it was in Dwarvish and Olivia cast a spell that would allow her to read it. It wasn't complete, apparently the morons had shot the guy before he finished, but she could read "Speak friend and……" A chill went thru me. Michael explained to the guy what it said, and when it was clear he had never read Tolkien, Michael explained what it was.

                They took us over to an out-building where they'd put the body of the carver. He reminded me of Vaschanka (wearing stupid robes and a BUNCH of gaudy jewelry), definitely not Human. The Major told us that the guy had come out of main entrance, climbed up and started to carve his message. When confronted by the guards, he said, "Get away you petty fools. I let you live at this time because it suits me" When they attacked him he kept saying "You can't do this to me, I'm the Wizard Master!"

                Michael asked why they kept the body instead of destroying it, and why it was packed on ice. The Major looked a little sheepish and admitted that they'd heard that there were some people "out there" who could, maybe, "interrogate" him, even though he was dead. The group all turned at looked at me, waiting. I took a look at Michael's betleH; it was glowing, shrugged and said, "I'll try". I did, it didn't work. We took a closer look at the body and we could see that the bullet holes were actually healing. Michael pulled his betleH and beheaded him. After the energy was sucked from the body into the betleH, the body disintegrated. So much for questioning him.

                With that done the Major lead us to the main entrance and assigned an armed escort to go with us. Olivia spoke the Dwarven word for "friend" and the doors opened. As we entered we could see the walls are now covered with carvings. Olivia whispered, "It looks like Moria" Before I could help myself I said, "If I see a Balrog, I am OUT of here."

                Olivia and I took point, weapons in one hand, Holy Symbols in the other. We saw some sliding panels in the walls but couldn't get any to open. Michael noticed that the walls are now marble and granite with gold veins running thru it, and the roof supports are sandstone. We marked all the sliding doors we found with chalk. Olivia remembered the wand she made to hold door-opening spells, and used it on the next one we found. Inside was a Dwarven warrior. A mummified Dwarven warrior wearing full armor and holding a battle-axe, both were glowing with Magic. Michael's betleH started to glow but didn't egg him on like it usually does, so I cast a spell to Detect Evil. Nothing. Olivia leaned in closer and could see that his name had been etched into his armor. As she spoke it out loud he came "alive". She asked him to take us to his leader, nothing happened. Then she asked him "What is your duty?" "Guardian" he said. "Who are your enemies?" "Enemies" he said. "Are we your enemies?" "Friends" he said, and retreated back into his niche. The door closed all by itself.

                We went on again and found a corpse, it had what looked like burned out ropes wrapped around it. "Ropes of Fire" Olivia whispered to me. "Balrog", I thought to myself. Along the corridor, in the new carvings, were some that were quite obviously Jesse in his new Dwarven form. We found what had been the "War Room" last time we saw it, but is now a "Throne Room". Inside there were even more elaborate carvings, discarded armor and weapons, and lots of corpses. Some burnt to death, others beheaded. And in the middle was the throne, cleaved in half. In front of it was a corpse wearing something that resembled a uniform. He still had security passes around his neck; it was one of the Joint Chiefs. Michael pocketed the passes, just in case we needed them to open something.

                As we went further in, we could tell that things are much, much larger than they had been the last time we'd been inside and the soldiers with us were getting more and more nervous. When we got to the place where the HUGE oversized transport elevator had been, we saw a vast opening with a stairway curling down. We took a quick vote and decided to finish searching this level before moving down. We were headed down a side corridor when Alfred stopped the group. He said that he could feel the wall vibrating. He knocked on it and it exploded towards us as 4 big "things" burst out. They were about 8 feet tall, and looked like some kind of burrowing insect. Michael swung, injuring one. Alfred attacked one barehanded and injured it, but it fought back and clawed at Alfred, injuring him. I could 'feel' it trying some kind of Magic on Alfred, but what ever it was, it didn't work. Another one lunged at Dallas, but he was able to dodge it. As it turned, it threw the same kind of Magic, and the next thing I knew…..Dallas whirled to attack Connors! Before I could try to stop him, one of the bugs clawed at me and bit me. My armor took most of it, but it hurt.

                As I rolled out of it's reach I saw the one that Alfred had attacked looked almost dead. The last one jumped at Dallas, and missed, but distracted him long enough that I had a chance to try to remove whatever spell was on him, trying to bring him to his senses before he killed Connors. I don't know what I did wrong, but NOTHING happened. By that time, Olivia used another of her wands and summoned up a giant wolverine that immediately attacked and seriously injured one of the things.

                Dallas had pulled that anti-tank shotgun of his and was aiming it at Connors when she pulled a tranquilizer gun and dropped him. The "Armed Escort" finally snapped to their senses and opened fire; killing two while Michael and Alfred finished off the other two. Olivia had the wolverine stick around for a while, just in case. She healed Alfred and I healed myself, and then used a spell to neutralize the tranquilizer in Dallas.

                Before we left we searched the bodies and found some gems and jewelry, Olivia took it all saying that we would "check it out" later. I found a longsword that started to glow when I unsheathed it. It had Elvish writing on it that said "Death to the Not-People", it also said that it had been forged in Lothlorien! I sent a question to Corellon and asked him if this was what I thought it was. He said that it was, and He would give me the strength to use it against His greatest enemy, Orcs.

                With no sign of more bugs, Olivia dismissed the wolverine and we moved on again, only to find ourselves back in the Throne Room. That was when we decided to go back out, to get more provisions and weapons. Enough to last for days, if need be. When we got out, it was dark; we'd been in there longer than we'd realized. We were shown to quarters in an admin building. Before settling in for the night Olivia examined the gems and jewelry. One, a large black pearl was of some kind Magic that is a level too high for her to use. But she determined that a necklace held Fireball spells that anyone can use.

04-01-06:

                The day started early, during the second watch. We woke to the sound of gunfire and grenades. We rushed outside and found five large, dead bodies, and a couple traumatized guards. One had an empty machine-gun, the other an empty flame-thrower. He looked up at us and kept saying; "They just kept coming".

                We examined the corpses; they were large, misshapen, ugly things with rubbery skin. Trolls?

                The man in charge called for some gasoline so they could completely incinerate them. He ordered more men to stand guard and we went back for a few more hours sleep.

                After breakfast, the Major got us our additional supplies (lots of those cyalume lightsticks, ammo, MRE's, PowerBars, etc) and much to our astonishment, he joined the armed soldiers who were waiting to go in with us. We headed for the staircase that had replaced the elevator. It was enormous, 5 feet wide at its narrowest. We'd been going down it for almost an hour, when the Major went to the side and dropped one of the lightsticks. It fell for over 13 seconds before hitting bottom. We kept going down and found a door in the rock wall. A standard issue US Government steel door with a sign, "Generator Sub Station". With great care we opened the door, and found…………a generator! It was still running but all the breakers had been opened. Michael checked for fuel. The gauges read 14 days worth left in the tanks, so he reset the breakers and lights flickered on up and down the staircase and we could hear the exhaust fans start up.

                In one corner Olivia found a body, this one Human, in a military uniform. It looked like he died from a sword-wound. He had some paper tucked into his jacket. Olivia pulled it out and read "I cut the power so they couldn't get to the elevator" ("What elevator?" I thought to myself) "That little shit has come back, don't know what he's going to do next", it went on with some personal messages for his family. Olivia pocketed it, just in case someone might know how to get it to them.

                Since this guy was very dead, my Speak With Dead spell worked this time. I asked him "Who is 'that little shit'?" He described the dead mage we saw outside. He then described some Positives, "Big, strange mutants. Kind of Gumby looking". Trolls? He told us that Jesse's last location was unknown, back on the 29th , he and the Chiefs had gone to investigate some strange reports.

                I said a Blessing over him and we started down the stairs again. We finally reached the bottom and saw that the floor had a giant NORAD symbol carved into it. We could see a path at least 200 feet wide leading off. Michael spotted some tracks that looked like they'd been made by a giant bear, just wandering around. We headed west on the path. At the first intersection we found a pile of bodies - Orcs, Humans, and some Dwarves….more of the Joint Chiefs, but no Jesse. The ground was littered with spent shell casings. Olivia took an M-60 machine gun that had a mostly full ammo belt. We also found a Colt 6-shooter with both silver and wood bullets. It also had a lead case with a radiation-warning symbol on it. I took it all, no telling what we might run into down there. Olivia and I Blessed the bodies of our allies and we went off again, this time following a trail of blood.

                We heard some noises off the main hallway and Michael's betleH started to glow. Thru a doorway, we saw a mummified chef carving up Human and Humanoid bodies. It looked up and said, "I'll be right with you folks. How do you like your steaks?" Then it attacked Michael with a cleaver. Michael dodged and 'killed' it. It shriveled up and turned to dust. We checked the bodies, but found no one we recognized. I Blessed them and we moved on again. We found more rooms, but they all looked perfectly ordinary, down to computers still on and apparently working. By this time the Major figured we'd gone so far that we had to be on the far side of the Mountain, and there was no indication that the path was going to end soon. Michael suggested to him that he radio up and have some bikes lowered down, while we search the area.

                While he was doing that, out of the corner of me eye, I saw something moving. A whole bunch of huge (like, 6 feet across, huge) spiders, up on the ceiling above us. I'm ashamed to say it, but I screamed. As everyone looked up, the spiders started to lower themselves. Olivia threw a fireball at the ceiling and killed 5 of them, but 2 were still coming at us. Alfred shot one and injured it and it dropped the rest of the way to the floor. Then the other one was down and moved in to attack the group. Michael killed the one Alfred had injured and I threw a Hold spell on the last one. Otsune appeared and scorched it, just for fun. Then Olivia killed it. When we checked out the ceiling, it was covered with webs. Webs with quite a few cocooned bodies in them! So Olivia used a spell to fly up to examine them - they were all dead. All but one had already dissolved and they were all unrecognizable. She also found some egg sacks that she cut loose so we could burn them. Then she found a ventilation duct that was pretty dusty and grimy but had some very new, very clean cable running thru it. She described it to us and the Major said that it sounded like fiber-optic cabling. So she tied some rope around her waist and followed the cable 'til it disappeared thru a wall. She came back to the group and sketched us a rough map.

                We headed out towards where we thought the cable ended and all along the way we kept seeing Orc footprints in the dust. We found a door that Olivia was pretty certain led to where the cable vanished; it had a voice recognition lock on it. After 2 failed attempts at guessing, Olivia pulled out her "locked-my-ass" wand and opened it that way.

                It was a good-sized room filled with computers, posters for computer games, Tolkien books and the fiber-optic cable. In one corner was a glass case labeled "The One And Only" and inside was a gold ring with a card saying that is was the ring that was used in the LOTR movies. But it was actually glowing! Olivia immediately wanted it. Alfred tried to talk her out of it, but couldn't stop her, she took it. He and I exchanged a look, and I knew we'd both keep an eye on her. Again, Michael had to explain to the Major what was going on. We searched further and found some videotapes labeled "Woman's Locker Room", etc. (guess where that fiber-optic cable went) and D&D and other RPG books. There was also a lot of information about Sarumon, including pictures from the movies. Alfred recognized it as exactly what the body had been wearing when we saw it.

                There was a contractor's pass with the name " Wendell" on it. And we found a handwritten journal. Apparently Wendell had approached Jesse with "Big Ideas" on many occasions, but was rebuked each time. One notation was repeated thru out, "Wait 'til they see what I have planned. Then they'll have to listen to me! People will pay attention to me. People will listen to me. People will laugh at my jokes!" Alfred was checking the PC's and found some maps of NORAD. When the Major looked at them, he said that they were different, had been altered. The name of the file was "Moria". Wendell had changed Cheyenne Mountain into his very own version of Moria! Alfred burned a copy of the map onto a CD and stashed it away. Olivia printed out a map of this level and the one below us. The hall we'd been in runs for over 20 miles! With lots and lots of side halls running off of it. Alfred found notations that read "Bottomless Chasm of Fire" and "Sundered Bridge" about 2 miles down the hall. So we all agreed to head that way, Alfred slipped over to the PC and changed it to read "The Cracks of Mount Doom". When he hit 'enter' we could see the walls ripple. Olivia went and made a new entry, in the nearest room she typed "Current location of President Ventura". Once again, when the enter key was hit, we could see the walls ripple. We ran to find the next room.

                Inside it we found Jesse and the Balrog. Both dead. It looked like Jesse had been attacking the Balrog with a Magical battle-axe as they both died.

                Olivia went back to the computer and changed her entry to "Current location of the living President Ventura" But got an error message, "File is read only"

                She made another new entry "Treasure trove containing Scroll of Resurrection". The computer accepted it and the walls rippled. We went to the new room, only to find a mob of Orcs waiting for us! 2 immediately attacked Dallas and Alfred killed one. Michael charged into the room and killed 2 more. Olivia used the M-60 she picked up earlier and took out 20. But as soon as she did, 20 more just 'appeared'. I unsheathed my new sword and killed one of the ones attacking Dallas. The new Orcs moved in. Alfred killed 2 more giving Michael a chance to duck out of the room. He ran back to the room with the computers, and when he checked the PC that had the maps of Moria on it, he saw that there was another program, linked to the map, that was running. It was a random encounter generator! He disconnected the link and all but 3 of the Orcs vanished. Olivia shot one, I killed another with my sword and Olivia finished off the last one as it tried to run.

                We all went back to the computer room and found Michael at the PC swearing at it. He'd tried to bring the description of that room back up, only to be told that it was "Visible only to the DM". He'd also found a combat program that was active. It listed things like "Troll encounter, Yeti encounter, Orc battle with 20 - 200 Orcs". He tried to delete it all, but got a "User not authorized" message. Michael snarled, leaned down under the desk and ripped the power cord right out of the back of the hard drive. There was a blinding flash, and Michael was thrown across the room! When we looked again, there is now a stream of power coming directly out of the wall and into the computer. A teenager popped his head into the room and with a big grin said, "Are we having fun? Sorry we've closed for renovations, but do you like our funhouse so far?" and he left the room. We started to follow him and Michael pulled a gun and shot him in the head. It split down the middle and then flowed back together - like that guy in T-2. Michael pulled his betleH and slashed the guy. He just burst into dust and the walls around us rippled again. Connors yelled, "It's gone!" and when we looked the room that we'd just been in was gone, solid rock!

                We went back to the "Treasure Room" and rummaged around until we found the Scroll of Resurrection, then we went back to where we'd left Jesse's body. Olivia unrolled the scroll and started to recite. When she finished, Jesse shuddered and tried to sit up, seemed to think better, laid back down and looked up at us. Somehow, he didn't seem the tiniest bit surprised to see us there. "I feel like shit", he said. "You're welcome," said Olivia, "At least you're not dead anymore!" He kind of nodded at that and said, "Skydiving without a parachute sucks." Then he looked over to where the Balrog was. "Is that thing still dead?"

                Olivia asked Michael to behead it, just to be sure. But try as he might, his betleH couldn't do it. Jesse held out the battle-axe he had and told Michael to try that. Michael looked at it and said that it wasn't for him to yield that weapon. So Connors helped Jesse to his feet and he walked over to the Balrog, muttered something about how it was "one ugly mother-" (you fill in the rest) and beheaded it with a single stroke.

                Then the group told Olivia that we were going to go down this hallway 'til we got to the 'Cracks of Mount Doom' and she WAS going to get rid of that ring. She started to protest but Michael was firm with her, "The last thing we need is the One Ring running around loose in the New World". As we got closer, she got more and more hesitant. Finally Alfred just picked her up and carried her. But part of Olivia was still there and new that Alfred was right, because she could have really fought him, but she didn't.

                When we finally got there, he helped Michael get the ring from her and Michael threw it into the Cracks. Olivia was yelling, but again, didn't really do anything to stop him. As the ring was falling we could all hear a high-pitched scream coming from it. It was an awful sound. Alfred put Olivia down and she gave him a quick kick.

                We started to make the long trip back, about 90 minutes later we could hear the sound of Mormon turbobikes coming towards us. When they got close enough to recognize Jesse, you should have heard 'em! They loaded him and the Major up and took off, telling us that they'd be back with more T-bikes for the rest of us. Well, we were pretty beat by then, so we sat down and waited. They came back and took us back to the bottom of the staircase and told us what happened to the elevator. It was still there, the NORAD carving was the floor of it and now there was a carving in Dwarvish, and if you read it the elevator starts and takes you up to the main level. Good thing, too. I did NOT want to climb up all those stairs!

                As we made our way to the exit, we could see that the place was still changing, with doors and rooms that had not been there earlier. Outside the main entrance, some medics were tending to Jesse. The Major pointed to the carving over the doors, it was now complete, and the guards swore that no one had done it. The rest had just appeared, not too long after we went in. All the sudden the whole front of the mountain seemed to shimmer and the soldiers who'd been inside just a few minutes ago were standing in the middle of the road leading to the gates, looking confused. Then the gates slammed closed, and started to softly glow.

                Jesse was pissed! Started ranting and raving about having to find a new 'White House'. Told the Major to have command n' control switched over to the Academy and "Set a guard here. I don't want anyone going back in here. EVER." Then he stomped off down the road.

                One of the Major's aides came out of the admin building and told him that he'd better come see something. As the 2 of them started to leave, he said, "I think they'd better some with us, sir" He waived us to follow. In the rooms that we had used the night before there were all kinds of 'goodies' and they had tags with our names on them. The aide swore to the Major that no one had been in there since we'd left. The Major told the guy "After today, I believe anything" Then he turned to us and said, "I think 'Someone' believes you earned these items. I know I certainly do." And he left.

                We couldn't believe what we saw! For Olivia, Michael and myself there were sets of Elven chainmail. Mine and Olivia's had notes attached that warned us that while we could use Magic while wearing it, there was about a 1 in 5 chance that it might not work. For Alfred there was a set of Drow chainmail that was just beautiful - and the note said it was enchanted not to disintegrate in sunlight! Finally, on a desk there was a scroll with a note on it that read "Open when you want to return and play some more" With trepidation and great care, Olivia picked it up and put it in her pack.

                When we gathered our new gear and left the building, there were a couple of trucks waiting for us. One of the drivers told us that Jesse had invited us to spend a safe, quiet night at the Academy before returning to the House. When we got there, they took us to the officer's quarters and told us that after we had a chance to clean up, Jesse would be waiting for us at the Officer's Club. I told them that Jesse would just have to wait until we'd reported back to King Malcolm, then cleaned up. I'm not sure, but I think Olivia is rubbing off on me.

                So, after some dinner and a few too many drinks, I am in a pretty comfy bed, barely able to keep my eyes open. I still can't believe that I actually saw a Balrog. Or, that I actually have Orcrist to wear at my side. Or at least, something that Wendell thought was Orcrist. I'm going to have to get a good teacher when we get back. Someone who can teach me how to use it the way Corellon wants me to.

Continued...