“Yes,” I replied. “But he didn’t get promoted to that position until late in the Second Age, after Morgoth was banished to the Void. Then Sauron rose to power. But here, during the First Age, Sauron was just one of Morgoth’s demonic generals. And he was also a shapeshifter, who could transform into a wolf or a bat.”
“Sauron isn’t around here right now, is he?” she asked uneasily, eyeing the dark skies overhead.
Once again, I wasn’t sure. I had to check the entry on Sauron in Gunterpedia.
“Sauron is in command of Tol Sirion,” I said, reading off my HUD. “An island fortress located over a hundred miles west of here. I don’t think we’ll run into him.”
“That’s a relief,” she replied, relaxing her posture a bit.
“No, Aech,” I replied. “It isn’t. Sauron is a pushover compared to this Morgoth dude. He’s one of the toughest—if not the toughest—NPCs in the entire simulation. According to what I’ve read about him, he’s all-powerful and invulnerable.”
“What do you mean, invulnerable?”
“I mean he can’t be killed,” I said. “From what I’ve read on the gunter message boards, it’s supposed to be possible to banish Morgoth to the Void indefinitely, but to do that, first you have to complete a whole series of epic-level quests to enlist the help of the Valar, and those would probably take weeks to complete. That is, if I knew enough about the Elder Days to complete all of them, which I don’t.”
“OK,” Aech said, taking this in. “Then if we can’t kill Morgoth, how are we supposed to get the last two shards out of his crown?”
“I’m still working on that,” I said, motioning to the array of browser windows I had open in the air around me, each displaying a different Gunterpedia entry. “Just give me a few more minutes.”
“Come on, Z,” she said. “Let’s keep moving!”
She was about to spur her horse forward once again, but I grabbed the reins to stop her.
“Hold on,” I said. “Before we go any further, we should probably try and conceal ourselves, so we don’t get attacked by any roving bands of Orcs. You got any invisibility spells memorized?”
Aech nodded. “Of course,” she said. “How about Osuvox’s Improved Obfuscation. It’s ninety-ninth-level. It’ll conceal us from everything, including infravision, ultravision, and true sight.”
“Perfect,” I said. “Can you cast it on both of us? And on the horses too?”
She nodded and muttered a few incantations. When she completed them, we and our horses all became invisible. But we could still see a semitransparent version of each other’s avatars and our steeds on our HUDs, allowing us to avoid bumping into each other. Then we continued to speed northward, across the barren landscape, toward the three towers of black glass and volcanic rock rising from the bleak mountain range in the distance.
We spotted a large hill up ahead of us, rising from the flat and desolate landscape around it. But once we drew a bit closer to this “hill,” it revealed itself to be an enormous mound of dead bodies—the slain and dismembered corpses of thousands of Elves and Men. My Tour Guide subtitles helpfully informed me that this was Haudh-en-Ndengin. The Mound of the Slain.
I covered my mouth and nose with my cloak, in an attempt to fend off the foul stench that filled the air. I glanced over at Aech and saw that she was doing the same.
Aech stared at the giant pile of corpses as we rode past it. Then she turned in her saddle to face me, and raised her voice to be heard over the drum of our horses’ hoofbeats.
“Are you sure you don’t want to call for some backup, Z?” Aech said. “You could try your Saint Crispin’s Day shtick again. Send out a message to every user in the OASIS, asking for them to come here and help us?”
“It won’t work this time,” I replied. “No one would come.”
“Sure they would,” Aech said. “If you told them the truth, and let them know that every single ONI user’s life depends on our success, I bet at least a few thousand of them would come to our aid.”
“An army won’t help us this time,” I said. “The Noldor laid siege to Angband for over four hundred years, and they never even got close to the Silmarils.” I shook my head. “I think we’re gonna have to sneak inside, like Beren and Lúthien.”
“Who and who?”
“A mortal Man and an immortal Elf maiden who fell in love,” I said, motioning to the copy of The Silmarillion I had open in a window beside me. “They were able to sneak into Angband and steal one of the Silmarils from the Iron Crown by putting Morgoth and his minions to sleep.” I turned to look at Aech. “What’s the most powerful sleep spell you have in your spellbook?”