Nora was lost. She was very VERY lost. One minute she'd been rather successfully following Runa.
Then Runa had taken after those attractive dwarves and now she... was completely lost...
"Brilliant," she muttered, "I can't find my way through my own magic smoke..." She had taken a couple turns, crossed a couple bridges and eventually found herself walking down a narrow, stone stairway.
As she reached a fork in the path, she paused, looking around helplessly and was just about to resort to eenie-meenie-miney-moe to pick a direction when creepy hissing and loud noises came from one path.
Nora considered for a long moment, the other way seemed safer now, but then again, she was looking for her friends… who were being chased by goblins… probably not the safest or quietest activity known to Middle Earth.
She walked toward the hissing, carefully casting her camouflage spell as she did. Mere seconds later, a short figure came stumbling up the passage.
Due to her camouflage spell and the person glancing over their shoulder in fright, neither could have prevented the collision that happened next. Invisible and visible figure went tumbling to the ground.
The short man stood up, eyes darting about.
“Who’s there?” Muttering to herself, Nora undid the spell as she stood, seeming to appear out of thin air to the poor man. He stared in shock.
“But how… you… who are you?” He finally managed. Nora grinned,
“Bryony the Xandu Wizard and hobbit!” She flourished a bow.
“Really?” asked the man, curious. “A hobbit? So am I! Fancy meeting another hobbit, here of all places!” Nora looked him up and down,
“Well so you are! Delighted to meet you…”
“Bilbo,” he supplied. “Bilbo Baggins to be precise.”
“Pleasure to meet you Mr. Baggins!” A loud shriek echoed up the hallway,
“MY PRECIOOOOOUUUUUSSSSSS!!!!!”
“Goblins?” asked Nora hopefully, but Bilbo shook his head, saying,
“Run!” Recasting her camouflage spell over the both of them, Nora pelted back up the way she’d come, this time taking the other path.
After a long, and exhausting run, they reached a narrow crack and quickly squeezed through, leaving the eerie dark tunnels and moaning cries of ‘precious’ behind them with two, equally relieved sighs.
Then they looked around.
Somehow, they’d made it out of the tunnel and the mountain altogether and were now in a sort of foresty area clinging to the side of the mountain itself.
“Um… where are we?” asked Bilbo and Nora shrugged.
“Not a clue… but hang on!” She started muttering to herself, “Sun’s that way… east entrance… AHA!” Bilbo looked to see a glowing arrow hovering over Nora’s palm. “That way!” she said proudly.
They set off, their footsteps lighter now that the sun was above them.
“So… what were you doing in the mountain?” asked Nora. Bilbo seemed to consider the question for a long moment.
“Well… I was traveling with some friends of mine and we got separated…”
“Your friends weren’t dwarves by any chance, were they?” asked Nora and Bilbo turned her excitedly.
“Why yes, actually, they were! Did you see them? Are they alright?” Nora laughed,
“Yes, yes, they’re fine! I too was travelling with some friends and we ended up going to their rescue…” she reminisced back to her home made smoke bombs proudly. “We’re going to reconvene with them right now!”
Bilbo smiled,
“That good! I was worried I’d have to go back in there and rescue them myself!”
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[A/N: Enter Bilbo stage left! So readers, how am I doing? Vote, message, read on... when I update next that is!]