To make it easier to read, I have eliminated detailed author references, and am only going to list the authors here (in no particular order) :
Öjevind Lång (ojevind.lang@swipnet.se) (OL)
Rowan (goldberryshouse@oldforest.uk) (RW)
Jereeza (mia@frodo.net) (J)
David Salo (dsalo@usa.net) (DS)
Laurie Forbes (rforbes1@maine.rr.com) (LF)
Alarik (alarik@my-deja.com) (A)
Raven (jonlennart.beck@get2net.dk) (RV)
Freaksaus (g.buurman@hccnet.nl) (FS)
Mia Kalogjera (aim@theonering.net) (M)
William H. Hsu (bhsu@ringil.ncsa.uiuc.edu) (WH)
Tamfiiris (ranvei@online.no) (T)

(OL) As Frodo struggled on he called again, and kept on calling more and more frantically; but he heard no answer for some time, and then it seemed faint and far ahead and high above him. "Frodo! Hoy!" came the thin voices out of the mist; and then a scream much closer at hand: "Put down Andúril, Aragorn, it's me, BoroAAAHHH!". (LF) Frodo struggled to se through the mist, coughing as the acrid city air assailed his lungs. "By the Ring" he swore "I have awoken at Euston Station"

Frodo was frowned upon for swearing by the Hare Krishnas who infest the station, but he was offered leaflets and eternal peace nonetheless. Taking a pull on his Asthmatique Inhayler, he wiped his burning, streaming eyes, trying to peer through a mist which could only be described as sulfur dioxide.

(RW) Suddenly a dark form appeared from above. It was a PoRiHe, a great dark flying beast known to capture hapless hobbits during protests, riots, etc. (Police Riot Helicopter) NO! Screamed the asthmatic hairyfoot as dozens of hidden cameras revealed to the world that he had indeed dropped the plastic wrapper from the inhaler and NOWHERE NEAR a litterbin.

(OL) Before the rozzer beast could nab the panicky Hobbit, he was surrounded by activists from the Hobbit Liberation Front - dropout students in balaclavas who chained themselves to various parts of his anatomy in order to preclude him being taken anywhere.

(LF) Frodo was horrified to have the "support" of a group like this - which in his circle was sneeringly referred to as the "HLF-wits", and so busied himself with his well-oiled bolt cutters. (Our hero never leaves home without bolt cutters, duct tape and bag balm -- what a guy!) He noted that removing these parasites was a lot like the time he had a nasty case of the......... well, that's a story for another thread. Ahem. Anyway - by this time the authorities were seeing Frodo as more of an ally than a dirty, rotten litterbug and joined him in enthusiastically subduing the "Front."

(DS) Television cameras, however, were less interested in the confused mêlée than in the gigantic unfurled banner that read:
END TESTING OF PHARMACEUTICAL PRODUCTS ON DISEMPOWERED PROLETARIAN HOBBITS NOW!

(LF) The riot police looked on in disgust. They knew better than to tangle with this crowd, especially when television cameras were present. Why, was this not the very group who only yesterday was lobbying for more humane warg-traps? And just last week a bunch of these yahoos was arrested for interrupting mining operations. What was that all about? "BALROG-SAFE NETS" or some rubbish! And how on Middle-earth was anybody supposed to harvest pulpwood when the populace convulsed every time an ent squealed. Not to mention that every orc who had someone managed to survive the Big One was now clamoring for disability benefits: traumatic childhoods, non-nurturing environment, poor upbringing, they couldn't help it, someone else's fault..... It was enough to give one a spontaneous attention-deficit disorder!

(RW) Happily the smog became so thick that none of the protagonists could see each other. A hobbit hole appeared beneath Frodo's feet which led to a cavern beneath the Seat of the Necromancer in the Houses of Parliament. The Necromancer, Blairog, turned his reddish eyes upon Frodo. Quoth he...

(OL) "Where the friggin' 'ell have you been all this time? Where are the fish and chips? And where's the Doctor Pepper?"

(LF) Frodo was not used to being mistaken for a servant and was mustering up some Righteous Indignation (tm) when the real delivery-hobbit arrived. The order was predictably incorrect ("Never Leave the Drive-up Window Without Looking In the Bag" is good advice), but Blairog was so hungry he gobbled the rat-paws and what-not without really looking at - or, apparently, tasting - them . Then he turned his baleful gaze back upon our hero. Frodo was prepared for the worst, but what he was not prepared for was how his heart was struck by the face of The Necromancer. This was no evil visage! Care and worry were etched deeply into the lines on his face. Those red, red eyes were not angry -- they were sore from long hours and lack of sleep -- the smog didn't help, either. Frodo had a sudden revelation........

(RW) "Here," he said in pity, (for twaS pity that stayed his hand in more than one excellent opportunity)
"Take these broken wings and learn to fly again!" and handed him a cold KFC.

(OL) "You're an Ent?" gasped Frodo.
A sad smile flickered briefly on the cracked lips.
"Not quite, not quite, little one", said the apparition before him. "I'm an Entwife. Wandlimb is my name, and in a happier time I was married to Treebeard."
"But what are you doing here?" said Frodo and looked around at the dark, gloomy room."
"Im keeping an eye on the roots", replied Wandlimb.

(A) "However", continued the Entwife, "to make to ends meet I have started a little pharmaceutical business here." She held up a little glass phial which emitted a mysterious light. "Do you want to ADD 3-5 INCHES TO YOUR PENIS? Then you can do it simply by taking two drops from this bottle every morning in a glass of miruvor. And it only costs thirty pieces of silver."

(RW) There was never any mention of hobbits having a penis, replied frodo. I am an androgyne from way back. I didnt realise entwives had them either!
"Oh, Frodo!" sighed Wandlimb. "The truth is that I love you passionately. All this was just a trap to bring you to me, my little Hobbit morsel."

(LF) But how will this work out? What can a partially-woody entwife and an androgynous hobbit (oh, I know it's redundant!) possibly have in common? And what will their children look like? (I don't know about you, but I suspect some fairly hefty offers will be rolling in from the "World of Mirth".)
And just WHAT are those sounds behind the curtain??
AAAAGGGHHHHH!!!!

(OL) Frodo was trapped in Wandlimb; a crack had closed about his waist and he was screaming: "HELP! She'll squeeze me in two if you don't! She says so!" The panicky, gibbering Laurie was pushed aside by a man, or so it seemed. At any rate he was too large and heavy for a hobbit, if not quite tall enough for one of the Big People. He had great yellow boots on his thick legs, a blue coat and a long brown beard; his eyes were blue and bright, and his face was red as a ripe apple, but creased into a hundred wrinkles of laughter. They creased in even more laughter at the sight of the embarrassed Frodo; but then he kneeled beside Wandlimb, put his mouth to the crack and shouted:

Hey dol! Ding-a-ling! Merry dol dildo!
Ring a dong! hop a long! fal lal the bild-oh! Tom Bom, jolly Tom, Tom Bomba -

"OK, OK!" shouted Wandlimb. "I'll let him go if you will only stop your vile singing." A popping sound was heard, and the released Frodo whooshed across the room and landed in hibiscus pot.

(A) An SAS team rushed in, grabbed Frodo and rushed out again. They were in such a hurry that they forgot to shoot everybody else in the room as they usually do. They hustled Frodo into a car and drove him right to the head of MI5, Sir Dick Dogberry.

(J) When Frodo awoke, he saw two menacing shapes bending above him, and one turned an unbearably bright apricot lamp towards him, lighting his face with a colour that made him look just peachy. But he didn't feel that way. He uttered a few Holbytlan words unworthy of translation and spat. One shadowy shape screamed and took a step back, while the other laughed grimly.
"Soooo... halfling." it said in a whispery, dull voice. "Yeah?" Frodo squinted.
"Were you in the Mines of Moria on December fifth?"
"What does that got to do with anything? That tree was trying to rape *me*, you know? I thought you buggers were there to save me! What is this?"
"Disregard this," the shadow told the other one. Then it turned back to Frodo. "Were you in the Mines of Moria on December fifth?"
"Yeah, so?"
"Did you encounter a creature of-" the shape turned to peek at the other's notebook and continued, "- horrible darkness and utterly menacing presence, er... etcetera?" The other shadow helpfully showed it its notebook, but it was dismissed.
"Huh?"
"A Balrog, idiot. Did you see a Balrog?"
"It killed Gandalf! What have you got to do with it? Who are you?"
"So, I take it you did. Did it have... wings?"
"What?"
"Wings. Balrog. Yes? No? You're trying my patience."
"Erm. I'm not saying anything without my lawyer," Frodo ventured. He saw no eyes or face or, indeed, the whole silhouette was rather misty behind the irritating apricot lamp, but he could feel its look drilling a hole through his brain. He gave up.
"Okay. There were no wings."
"WHAT?"
"No wings. You can write that down in your little book there," Frodo yelled at the shadow in the corner. "And underline it. No wings. Optical trick, at most."
"So you say, little Halfling. Do you know where you are?"
"I heard a name, yes. Dogbard?"
"Dogberry. Dick Dogberry," a third voice said. Frodo could barely see the bright outline of a doorframe and another silhouette inside it, this one unmistakeably... Balrogian! There were, of course, no wings. A dead giveaway. Frodo jumped impulsively, but as he was tied to the chair, he fell to his side, together with it.
"Help me up?"
"You two," Dogberry said. "C'mon!"
Frodo felt strange as two misty, smoggy things wrapped themselves around him as the chair with Frodo was slowly lifted and placed properly. "We need you, Mr. Baggins," Dogberry continued. "You have a speaker's gift. You can convince people, give them truths... false truths, if you wish-"
"Never!"
"Allow me to finish, please. True truths as well. Let the truth in, it was freezing 'out there' enough. Yes?"
"What truth?"
Dogberry turned on the light, and Frodo saw his captors for the first time. He refused to believe, but his eyes saw what they saw, as horrible and bizarre as it was. They were shadowy wing shapes. Wings of shadow, dammit.
"No..." Frodo managed. "Why?"
Dogberry laughed, thus loudly defying another common belief that Balrogs make no sound. "Meet Mr. and Mrs. Humphries, Halfling," he said. "My wings."
"They're detachable! That doesn't count!"
Dogberry was silent for a moment. "Yes it does," he said. "If your foot hairs decided to take a walk or start families of their own, you'd still consider them your own, wouldn't you?"
"Of course not!" said Frodo proudly. "When they're shed, they're on their own!"
The Balrog looked darkly at him. "Leave him," he ordered, and the wings scuttled out of the room. "Halfling, you will tell the world the truth. Sooner or later, you will accept it. Rest for a while in the dark and blindness, until the Humphries decide the way of making you see."
He smiled, and Frodo mumbled "drama" under his breath. As Dick Dogberry was leaving the room and closing the dor as he did so, Frodo saw a number flash on them just before they clicked closed. Room 101, it said.

(DS) The pain amplifiers -- small feathers attached to moving arms that lightly brushed the soles of Frodo's sensitive feet -- were set near maximum. Frodo was screaming -- or was it laughing? -- hysterically. He did not know how long he had been bound here -- maybe days, maybe hours, maybe years. It did not matter.

Voices pierced the murky darkness and wounded his (slightly pointed) ears.

"You believe a great many things, little Hobbit" it said. "You think some things are true and others are false. This is something you must unlearn."
"Okay, okay! Two plus two equals five!" screamed Frodo. The feathers moved back, forth. Back, forth. "Just stop tickling me!"
"Good," said the voice. "But not good enough. Try harder. Take a look at this picture."
Frodo saw, as if suspended before him, a glowing image of a figure in a white robe. At its breast it held a wheel of fire.
"Now, Frodo: who is speaking? You or the Ring?"
"What, do you mean now?"
"Bad hobbit. Increase the tickles!"
Frodo laughed so hard the tears ran from his eyes and puddled on the floor.
"Now, who is speaking?"
"All I see is a figure in a white robe and a wheel of fire!"
"And you are the figure in the white robe, right?"
"Whatever."
"And the wheel of fire is the ring, right?"
"Is this some kind of metaphor?"
"NO! STUPID HOBBIT, there ARE NO metaphors! Increase the tickles!"
Frodo giggled and fainted.

(OL) It is held true by the wise of Eressëa, that once Frodo had come into the hands of Dick Dogberry, he remained in his prison for many years, and by slow arts of cruelty was he corrupted and enslaved until he turned into a hideous Orc in envy and mockery of the Elves.

(A) Then Dogberry sent Frodo to head the new Ford automobile plant by the Sea of Nûrnen.

(LF) On the way to work one-morning Frodo's chauffeur-driven Mercedes was attacked by kidnappers, and his bodyguards were slain. His kidnappers turned out to be none other than orcs, who had been offended enough in times past by the rumors of their "elf" connection. When they saw that this latest morph was originally a HOBBIT (yuck!), they set about by slow arts of cruelty to remove all resemblance to themselves; and they didn't even ask for any ransom money. They considered this a public service. Now when people saw Frodo they turned their heads quickly away from the hideous shape. I won't say what he looked like, but it is not a coincidence that the term "Púkel-man" was introduced into the language at about this time.

(OL) And that is how Frodo ended his days as a doorstop at the entrance to the Paths of the Dead.

(RV) His nights, however, are far from ended. But that is another tale, to be continued by the next poster.

(OL) It is a terrible tale of depraved Dark-elves carrying the immobile Frodo indoors to their secret haunts, setting him up on a pedestal as an idol to witness their nameless rites and orgies.

(J) The sad fact was unbeknownst to Sam when he sailed off to the Undying Lands. Upon arrival, all the response he got to his enquiries were the Elves' blank looks. He pondered and pondered many days, when a tiny Anor-like shape flashed above his head. He gave his last coppers for a return ticket, gathered a gang of ruffians of all races by promising them good money when the work is done, and knocked on the door of Dick Dogberry the Balrog.

(OL) Sam waited, then knocked again. Still, no sound came from the other side. He knocked a third time. Suddenly, the lid of the letter slit was lifted and a whining voice issued from underneath.
"Get lost, you nasty little hobbit! I have a rabid ferret here, and I'll sick him on you if you don't leave PDQ!"
The lid fell back with a slap. Sam scratched his head and whistled.
"Oho! What a paranoid bugger!" he said. "Speaking to us through the letter slit, indeed." His hired men loked at each other, muttered and shuffled their feet. Finally one of them, a Troll named Sourbelly, spoke up.

"Scuse me, guv'nor, but how do you know that was Dick Dogberry speaking?"
"Nobody else is home", hissed Sam. "We slit their windpipes behind the corner, remember?"
"Uh...yes. But, squire, s'pose it wasn't Dogberry speaking all the same. Suppose it was the letter-slit that spoke?"
"That's right!" chimed in another fellow, an ill-favoured, sallow man with squint-eyes. "If you go back a bit, you'll see that the text says 'a whining voice issued from underneath'. That means that the *letter slit* spoke, not Dogberry; any fool can see that."
"Excuse me?" interrupted a third ruffian, a queer, brown-skinned Hobbit named Trotter. "It says that the voice *issued from underneath*! Nothing about it coming from the letter slit. It could come from underneath the door."
"Liar!" thundered Sourbelly at him.
"Troll!" answered Trotter and whipped out a saw-toothed dagger.
"You are both assholes!" declared a small Orc with wide and snuffling nostrils. "Of course it was Dogberry who spoke through the letter slit."
"I'm getting tired of the unprovoked flaming from you little swine", growled a big warrior-orc with thick legs and large hands. "What's the use of sending out mountain-maggots on a trip only half trained."
By now all the ruffians had their weapons out and were arguing with each other. Soon, the first blow fell. In a minute, the ground before Dogberry's door became a pandemonium of ruffians hewing, shooting, clubbing each other while the air was darkened by an insanity of swearing and death-rattles. In five minutes, it was all over. The ground was strewn with dead ruffians: some lay singly as they had been cut down or shot; others in pairs, still grappling each another, dead in the very throeas of stabbing, throttling, biting. The stones were slippery with blood. Sam looked at the mess and sighed.

(RV) But every cloud has a silver lining or, in this case, one of gold: he wouldn't have to pay his hired hands, now.

(FS) By now all the ruffians had their weapons out and were arguing with each other. Soon, the first blow fell. In a minute, the ground before Dogberry's door became a pandemonium of ruffians hewing, shooting, clubbing each other while the air was darkened by an insanity of swearing and death-rattles. In five minutes, it was all over. The ground was strewn with dead ruffians: some lay singly as they had been cut down or shot; others in pairs, still grappling each another, dead in the very throeas of stabbing, throttling, biting. The stones were slippery with blood. Sam looked at the mess and sighed. But what he didn't notice was that one of the ruffians crept up from the back thinking Sam was also a flamer. Luckily thanks to the reflection in Sam's Phial (tm) he saw the ruffian in time. In a blink of an eye Sam turned and threw all his weight on the ruffian who fell and smote the land he fell on in ruin.

(OL) Naked, Sam lay on the top of the stairs to Dogberry's house until the police came and carried him away and charged him with indecent exposure.

(LF) Sam was hauled off, photographed and paw-printed, but a hefty bribe secured not only the dropping of all charges and his release, but also the pictures from the crime scene. He took a cab to the airport, sighing in anticipation of a much-deserved rest back in dear old Hobbiton. But what is this?? He has been handed a leaflet and tacky paper flower by a weird guy in a sari. The leaflet describes redemption and salvation and eternal bliss as seen through the eyes of yet another group who feels they're honor-bound to pester the rest of us with this shit. And wait! What is so familiar about the pamplet's poorly-rendered drawing of its icon?? Sam fumbles for his reading glasses (yes, he's hit THAT age) and -- YIKES!! --- the idol is none other than FRODO!

(OL) Sam's eyes bulge as he takes in what the blurry, badly printed letters on the leaflet are saying:

"MAHAGURU YI SRI MOMERJI FRODOJI BABU is the font of all wisdom, the posterns into the realm of true insight within you, without you - the unutterably blissful saviour who, out of compassion with Man-, Hobbit-, Elf-, Ent-, Orc- and Trollkind has let himself be reborn yet again and is willing to teach YOU the only road to salvation for a paltry 3 000 silver coins in his ashram in the Paths of the Dead. Grasp this chance to clear your soul of earthly dross before it is too late!"

Behind Sam, somebody with ten thumbs is playing a whiny, screeching melody on a sitar. Sam shudders. Wild, desperate thoughts race through his head. Dick Dogberry was bad enough - but THIS! How can he save Master Frodo from this one?

(M) Sam sighed deeply, folded the leaflet, tucked it in the inner pocket of his Armani jacket, and entered a Sari store. "I'll think of something along the way," he told himself. He knew what his goal was: to bring Frodo back to his former self and then, after all have rejoiced enough, beat some sense into him.

Wearing a posh outfit, Sam did the world a favour by robbing the sitar player of his instrument and some intellectual property: learning where Frodo was really kept, he broke the sitar over the musician's head and made a few phone calls. One was to Rosie, to make him several meals for the trip, one to his drug dealer with a more or less identical request, and one to his office in the Shire which was confidental. All that is known is that three strongly built and well-equipped Hobbits left the Shire immediately.

Sam started his Ferrari, and then decided against it. Discretion is the key. Spotting a group of pilgrims with flower-shaped leaflets in their hands, he muttered something very rude under his breath and joined them. He made sure their 30.000 silvers wouldn't end up in the wrong hands and continued the journey on his own towards a secretive little temple the sitar player told him about.

(WH) Sam shuddered as worst-case scenarios ran through his mind. He remembered the incident a few years back (when Will Whitfoot was still mayor) and a group of retired bounders had parked a fertilizer bomb in the back of Farmer Maggot's Rent-A-Waggon in front of Great Smials. Fortunately, one of the younger Sandymans who was in on the conspiracy became a little loosed-tongued after too much ale at the Green Dragon and tipped everyone off in time. This bombing was in retaliation for a raid that Merry and Pippin's newly-consolidated Shire soldiery had made on a group of cultists holed up (quite literally) in a compound just outside Michel Delving. Tunnels, both old and new, were used to get the authorities into the compound.

Then there was the suicide cult... what was it called? Ah, yes, "Valinor's Gate". The bounders who documented the aftermath of their final attempt to rendezvous with Vingilot had discovered some disturbing evidence that small, sharp knives had been brought into play.

Of course, the truth was probably just as ugly, even if it did not involve mass terrorism. They probably had Master Frodo on a protein deprivation diet (3 or even 2 meals a day) to keep his mind muddled...

(OL) Suddenly, Sam heard harsh, icily cold voices behind him and quickly took cover in the tall grass beside the path to the temple. Carefully, he looked out. Three Orcs carrying huge, dripping jars of tofu were walking up the path. As they passed him, one of the Orcs laughed - a horrid, gloating, glue-like laughter.
"Feeding time for the little runt god", he said.

(M) Sam frowned. All alone against three huge Orcs wasn't the best of prospects. Instead he turned around and crawled to a little hill that overlooked the camp. The big glitzy building had to be some kind of a feast hall, the guerilla fire-arms and explosives dump lookalike was probably a guerilla fire-arms and explosives dump, and the... yes. The small office building was where the Boss must have been, whoever he or she was. The first thing Sam had to do was find out *how* to bring Frodo back to his Hobbit self, and whoever could've shared that information with him, willingly or not, was in the office building.
He reached into his pocket for his cellphone, but stopped with his hand in mid-air. He then slowly raised both hands above his head, as something sharp and pointed pressed one of his spinal acupuncture points and caused his toes to go numb.

(WH) It was worse than Sam had imagined --- he had wandered into the lair of Aum Shin Sharku, the infamous cult once headed by Saruman. This was the group that had set off a noxious cloud of some foul vapors that "Sharkey" had brought from Isengard, right in the main street of Michel Delving.

(OL) Not only that, but it was obvious that Sharkey's plan was to overfeed Frodo until *he* became the new source of those poisonous vapours he used in his war against the Free Peoples.

(T) Sam pondered the horrible prospects of the future for a while, then coughed discreetly to get his capturer's attention. The point in his back seemed to point sharper, but still nothing was said. With a sharp indraw of air and a courage that would amaze his children even into their tweens, he jerked forward and made a go at the assailant's neck. Luckily for him, they were of the same height, and Sam could easily... "Gimli?!" He had troubles believing his own eyes. Did he really see a dwarf dressed in a pink sari?

(WH) "Mahal, Mahal Krishna
Krishna Rama
Rama Krishna..."

chanted the apparently brainwashed, but still strangely redoubtable, Lord of the Glittering Caves. "Mahal", Sam remembered from one of Master Bilbo's lessons on Dwarven history, was the Khuzdul name of Aule, the Maker of the Dwarves. Gimli's gibbering and whirling were beginning to hypnotize Sam as it became simultaneously painful and entrancing to watch.

Meanwhile, Sam noticed to his horror that Gimli was not only shaved bald but clean-shaven as well!

(M) "STOP IT YOU IDIOT!" Sam shouted. Gimli's face became grim and he poked Sam again with his spear. Sam caught it and turned it aside. "What IS your problem?" he asked.
"Gimli? Wake up!"
He didn't know what to do, when suddenly a thought came to him. He flashed a Zippo out of his pocket and waved the flame in front of Gimli's nose. "C'mon," he said. "I saw this in 'Westernesse Aragorn and the Mountain of Doom'," he added helpfully. Gimli instinctively jumped back, but he did get his nose burned. He blinked and looked at Sam with the face of one that was now hopelessly brainwashed. There was nothing behind his eyes. Nada. Sam grunted.
"If you had your beard, it would be in flames now, you know. And something would get to your head. Um. Can you hear me?"
Gimli nodded.
"Good. Do you remember anything?"
Gimli grinned toothily, and then fell to his back in an elegant curve, as if he had a broom instead of a spine. Sam watched him for a minute, and then gave up. He stripped Gimli of his sari (and on doing that found out Gimli had been a girl all along, but he instantly forgot that fact, knowing a trauma wouldn't help him much in his quest) and switched clothes with her, er... him! He tied the still unconscious Dwarf to a tree, picked up his, his! spear, and went to the camp, hoping no Orc would notice the difference.

(OL) On Sam's way to the camp, three Orcs who had figured out that Gimli was a woman tried to rape Sam. They were not only villainous, but also very near-sighted; all they could perceive was a moving pink blur which they recognized as Gimli's sari. (And of course, the fact that Gimli wore a pink sari instead of a saffron robe was the reason why the Orcs, stupid though they were, had grasped that he was a she.)

(T) Sam realized that a spear was the exact thing he would not want to have around when the Orcs discovered that he was born a boy after all. With desperate strength he flung the stake over their heads and on through the window of a nearby cottage, whereupon a ghastly howl emerged. The Orcs forgot their foul intentions and escaped in cowardly panic. The incident later gave origin to terrible tales among the Corrupted ones about mutated balrogs that were haunting Middle Earth again. Sam thought no more of the Orcs, he just praised himself lucky and went over to the cottage to see who, or what, was in there.

(OL) Cautiously, Sam opened the door and peered in. Sitting by the kitchen table was a red-faced, winged person with an iron crown on his head. On the table was a smashed jar of moonshine, showing where Sam's spear had hit and explaining the howl of pain and rage which had recently emanated from the dwelling. Sam's blod froze in his veins. "Morgoth!" he gasped.

(FS) Sam was struck by fear at the sight of the father of all evil. He just stood there looking for several hours. At last Sam finally managed to get his courage back and spoke: "Hail Morgoth, King of all evil, I have one question for you I always wanted to ask.""You want to know if Balrogs have wings don't you?" replied Morgoth. "Nay", answered Sam, "Do Orcs have toes??"

(J) It was now Morgoth's turn to be silent. He sat there, thinking, not daring to admit he didn't know, for, of course! - should a God of all evil be proven fallible or what is worse, ignorant - he would cease to exist, and with him all the evil created by and bred out of his fould deeds.

He still sat, sweating visibly, while Sam stood patiently at the door. He didn't dare say a word, but he would arch his eyebrows half-questioningly, looking like a worried teacher who hopes his mere brow exercise will help a clueless student suddenly grow smarter. Morgoth was displeased with this, but didn't say anything, he felt he was being threatened a chess-mate. Kill the Hobbit? Make a lucky guess? It's only 'yes' or 'no', after all! No.

Sam was growing impatient despite his peaceful Hobbit nature. "Well?" he asked. Morgoth stared at him. Sam backed for a step, but remained within Morgoth's sight. The Evil One sighed. Nobody will ever know what went on inside his troubled mind, but it is a fact that in quiet words he said:

"No idea."

Sam awoke under the tree to which he had previously tied Gimli. The Dwarf was sitting by his side, massaging his ankles. He groaned when he saw Sam was coming to, but he went back to helping his aching joints. "'E 's down there," he said, pointing at the ruins of the little temple. "Too fat to move," he added. "I didn't even bother."

It took Sam a few minutes to understand Gimli's words, but when he did, he didn't mind being returned to his blissful state of the Sam Gamgee ignorance(tm). He ran to the temple, and stopped right before he bumped into Fatty Bolger's fatter twin. "Master?" he asked.
"Mmph," the figure barely managed to nod. "Don't you worry, Sir, um, a walk back to the Shire will take care of that! I lost me car, you see. And me credit cards. So we won't really eat anything, I reckon, until we get 'ome. Um. I 'ope you don't mind."
"Mmph," the huge Hobbit shook his head, and tried to hug Sam, only to fall to his front. He grunted something angrily, and Sam helped him back. "I suppose now is a good start as any," he said pragmatically. The Hobbit-looking mass trotted slowly after him, too ashamed of itself to complain.

After many a month of slow walk they reached home, Frodo now looking rather model-like while poor Sam resembled a camp prisoner. Still, Rosie was there, eager to bring him back to his Hobbit stature with her home cuisine. Needless to add, they all lived happily ever after. Well, more or less, but that is another story we will not get into now. So: they all lived happily aver after. Okay?

The Orcs? Vanished, together with Morgoth, Dick Dogberry, and all the Bad Guys(tm). It wasn't an easy death, but their last moments brought them satisfaction in knowing balance was irrecoverably distorted, and Eru and his likes would soon follow. But anyway, as we agreed, we will not get into that part for the sake of the children, mentally or otherwise easily disturbed, any any other life form that might feel threatened for any reason, as is stated in the Article 17, Paragraph 33 of The Law.

Thus endeth the Tale of Smog upon the Barrow-Downs.

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