Board Thread:Fun and Games/@comment-58.110.104.164-20150102075203/@comment-67.22.249.68-20150106043840

The five most recent prisoners of the Wych Cults were walking through the forests of southern Mirkwood, now known as the Black Wood. There had been seven earlier, but two managed to escape their bonds and fled into the woods. The moment they were out of sight, however, the five remaining prisoners heard the sounds of ripping, tearing, and screaming. This discouraged any more escape attempts.

Eventually, after quite literally hours of walking, the five prisoners came to a man dressed in the garb of the Cultists, but somewhat more decorated. When they got there, he took out a strange purple stick, and began using it to make purple marks on the ground. He mad a purple circle around himself, and put various symbols within. He then took out what seemed to be a lock of hair of some kind, and some sort of bone, along with other materials. He placed one on each symbol. He then reached out and roughly grabbed one of the prisoners, took out a knife, and cut her hand. He allowed the blood to drip down into the middle of the circle, then tossed her aside and began chanting in a deep, intoning language totally unfamiliar to them.

"Ia Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Necront'yr Dol Guldur wgah'nagl fhtagn. Ia! Ia!" (rough translation: enter, for in it's house of Dol Guldur, the festering darkness thrives still. Enter! Enter!)

When he finished, the magic circle and all the ingredients vanished. The five prisoners stared in awe as, before them, the ruined fortress of the once-great Dol Guldur materialized where once was a shadowy path and patch of forest.

The girl who the cultist injured asked: "How could you have possibly done that?"

He responded in a deep, guttural voice. "The lost dark arts hold many secrets for those open-minded enough to exploit them."

"What was that language you spoke?"

"Ny-cro, the lost language of darkness. Now move along." They walked along the bridge over the chasm to the gates. The bridge had collapsed in places, but it hadn't been repaired, it had simply had wooden planks placed over the gaps. The gates were rotting, and there was nobody guarding them. Even if you looked hard, from the outside the wooden planks atop the gaps of the bridge were the only signs of life. The fortress was clearly not at all repaired. It looked even worse than it did during the war of the ring. So it wasn't really surprising that there was no one patrolling the walls or towers.

"Why don't you have any defenses?"

"A place that cannot be found needs no defenses."

The outer portion of the great ruin was largely uninhabited. A little further in, however, one started seeing a few more signs of life. Most notably were the fenced-off farms of horrible looking black and purple mushrooms.

"What are those? Do you farm those?"

"They are our primary food source."

"They don't look very good."

"They're unbelievably toxic."

There was also an occasional burnt out campfire or boarded-up window. Then, getting closer to the inner temple, they saw proper signs of life. There were cultists walking the cracked roads, cultists sitting around fires, and cultists in old ruined rooms patched up with planks and converted for life. The place wasn't repaired, they hadn't even repaired the houses or roads. No, everything damaged was left damaged, and everything severely damaged was patched with wooden planks. This was clearly a very crummy place to live.

Then, they noticed the inner temple for the first time. Whatever building or fortress had once been there had been utterly decimated, and in it's place was a large pyramidal temple of black-purple stone, with an entrance glowing with a sickly green light. It had a horrendous feeling to it. The closer they got, the colder the air seemed to get, and the more heavy the evil presence became. Unfortunately, it was into this temple of darkness that they were led. Down so many corridors, lit by torches with a sickly green glow, down staircase after staircase, until eventually they reached the prison. They were each locked in separate cages, and the cultist who led them there left. However, the female prisoner tried to ask him a few more things.

"Does your entire population live here?"

"In a manner of speaking, yes."

"There aren't very many of you."

"Of course not. Only those with magic are allowed in. There are only about 100 of us."

"What are you trying to do? Why all this secrecy and power?"

"Destroy all civilization in Middle-Earth."