Chereads / The Lord of Magi / Chapter 5 - Chapter 5: Troll Hoard & The Hidden Valley

Chapter 5 - Chapter 5: Troll Hoard & The Hidden Valley

I finally woke up and it seems I had some healing from both my body and Gandalf so I can move. After some testing, I found that I can even cast spells, but not the very powerful ones. The lucky thing is even my weakest spells will work against creatures like orcs, wargs, and spiders. All are creatures I would soon face. I am sure that when we reach the hidden valley, Elrond will be able to heal me fully, he is a 'master of healing' after all.

*Groans*

I walked outside my makeshift tent groaning in pain at the movement. My sounds of pain seemed to attract the attention of the others.

Gandalf came running up to me.

"My friend you are still injured, it is to soon for you to be walking around." He said concerningly.

"I thank you for your treatment Gandalf and your concern, but we must continue our quest and I'm sure Lord Elrond will complete my healing." I said, saying the part about Elrond in a quiet whisper as I know Thorin's distrust for elves.

Gandalf smiled for her knew that I already understood his plan was always to head to Rivendell. The only thing that has changed is that now he has more of a reason to go there and even more of an excuse to give to Thorin when he finds out.

"Very well my friend, we shall continue. I had talked with Thorin, and we believe the trolls came down from the Etenmoors and they could not have been traveling in daylight. Thorin believes there must be a cave nearby and I am inclined to agree with him." Gandalf explained.

"Hmm, interesting. What were trolls even doing so far from the mountains?" I questioned.

"I am as unsure as you. The trolls haven't moved like this since before a darker power ruled this land. We were planning to search for it after you had recovered and since that seems to be the case we may begin the search now." Gandalf continued.

"Do you believe he has returned? After essentially 400 years?" I asked in a whisper obviously referring to Sauron.

"That remains to be seen, but I certainly have my suspicions. I simply have no proof otherwise I would have brought it up with the others of the Order." Gandalf answered referring to the Order of Wizards.

"Alright then, let's find that cave." I said as I began to walk while leaning on my staff due to the pain still present in my ribs.

Gandalf saw my hunched over position while walking and chuckled.

"Finally looking your age my friend." He joked.

"I still look younger than you." I said with a grin and continued to walk.

As i joined the rest of the group I got a few concerned voices mainly from Bilbo as he felt I got hurt because of him. The rest made similar jokes to what Gandalf had said and we had a good laugh before we finally got to the cave.

I could smell the cave from here and before we moved on I stopped everyone.

"I will try to do something about this smell." I said to which I received many enthusiastic nods.

I cast a combination of Sun Magic to burn the smell and bugs which made the smell worse for a bit until it all turned to ashes and Water Magic to wash the cave and Sky Magic to dry the cave.

After that we entered the cave. The smell was still bad, but not nearly as much. It was similar to the smell of a modern dump at least from what I could remember from my past life.

The dwarves made quick work of burying some treasure that was littered around. Gandalf, Thorin, and I came across some weapons.

Gandalf grabbed himself a longsword, the sword was 'Glamdring:The Foehammer. Thorin, grabbed another large sword which I already knew was the 'Orcrist: The Goblin Cleaver.' For myself, I saw a nice spear. It was a dark black color and there seemed to be white spots spread throughout it's body which I found to resemble stars after I cleaned the weapon. I was always partial to the spear as a weapon over a sword.

We all headed out of the cave and I saw Gandalf hand a weapon to Bilbo which I knew to be Sting. And I don't care what the hell Balin says, he Is a dumbass to say the weapon was a letter opener, it was very clearly a short sword. Hobbits may be small, but not much more than Dwarves and the size of the weapon in Bilbo's hands told me enough that it was a short sword or at least a dagger.

As we were outside everyone became alert as the heard someone or something coming. I already knew that it was most likely Radaghast, although it could still be something else as I never know what could've changed because of my existence in this world. Regardless I prepared my weapon like the rest.

"THIEVES, FIRE, MURDER!!" Radagast said as he came rushing through the foliage.

"Radagast, Radagast the Brown." Gandalf said as he sheathed Glamdring and walked toward him.

"What on earth are you doing here?" He asked him.

"I was looking for you Gandalf. Something's wrong, something's terribly wrong. He paused. I must say I am surprised to see you here Rozahr." He replied and turned to me and commented.

"Nice to see you again, it's been a long time Radagast, 100 years, give or take a decade." I said.

"Radagast what was it that you needed to tell me?" Gandalf asked as he needed to get his old friend's mind back on track. We both knew he could be a but scatterbrained.

"Just give me a moment, ooh I had a thought it was right there on the tip of my tongue. Wait hold on, it wasn't a thought at all, it was just a silly little, stick insect." Radagast said as Gandalf slowly grabbed the insect.

Gandalf then ushered himself and the rest of us wizards to another area to discuss. But before he began I cast a couple spells similar to what I cast at the Troll Cave on Radagast.

"My apologies Radagast, but you were filthy." I said.

"It is no problem Rozahr, I know your aversion to dirt." He said.

"It is not the dirt I had a problem with, you had dried bird feces in your hair, that is absolutely disgusting. You can be as dirty as you want but please don't leave animal dung on yourself." I said as even watching the movies I was disgusted by the fact he just had bird shit in his hair and on his clothes and did nothing about it.

"I see, that is a fair point, although it is not as if I had any company to worry about." Radagast said before turning to Gandalf and explaining how the Mirkwood was sick.

"The air is sick with decay, but worse are the webs." Radagast explained.

"Webs? What do you mean?" Gandalf questioned.

"Spiders Gandalf. Giant ones, some sort of spawn of ungoliant or I am not a wizard." He continued.

"Where could such beasts have come from?" I asked.

"I followed them. They came from Dol Goldor."

"Dol Goldor? But the old fortress is abandoned." Gabdalf said.

"No Gandalf. Tis not." Radagast said seriously.

"What would such creatures be doing at the Hill of Sorcery?" I asked using the name of the fortress in the common tongue.

"I knew not, so I entered the old fortress and what I found was not good news." Radagast said.

"What did you find?" Gandalf asked.

"A dark power dwells there, such as I have never felt before. It is the shadow of an ancient horror. One that can summon the spirits of the dead. I saw him Gandalf, from out of the darkness. A necromancer has come." Radagast told us before gasping in fright as if remembering the scene.

"Sorry." He apologized.

Gandalf offered him his pipe which he called 'Old Toby' to help calm him.

"Now, a necromancer, are you sure?" Gandalf asked after Radagast had calmed down.

Radagast pulled out a blade covered in cloth. "That is not from the world of the living" he said referring to the blade.

I saw it and feigned surprise. "No, it couldn't be could it?" I questioned aloud to no one in particular.

"You recognize this blade?" Gandalf asked.

"I have a guess as to who it could belong to, but I know not if my guess has any truth to it." I replied.

~Hooowl~

There was a loud howl and I knew what was coming so I began to draw a rune and cast a spell.

'Ferrum Venti'

"Is that a wolf? Are there Wolves out there?" Bilbo asked.

"Wolves? No that's no wolf" Bofur said as I was already walking over until I saw the warg about to pounce on the others.

It pounced and I launched my spell and a blade of wind slashed through the neck of the warg killing it instantly.

There was another warg that was taken care of by Dwalin and Thorin.

"Warg scouts! Which means an Orc pack cannot be far behind." Thorin commented as he pulled his sword out of the beast he just slew.

"Who else did you tell about your quest beyond your kin?" Gandalf asked seriously.

"No one." Thorin answered.

"Who did you tell!!" Gandalf shouted as he knew what it would implicate.

"No one I swear. What in Durin's name is going on?" Thorin replied and asked.

"You are being hunted." Gandalf said worryingly.

"We have to get out of here!" Dwalin said.

"We can't. We have no ponies, they bolted." Ori said as he ran up to the group.

"I'll draw them off." Radagast said quickly.

"Those are Gundabad Wargs, they will outrun you!" Gandalf argued.

"These are Rhosgobel rabbits, I'd like to see them try." Radagast said referring to his sled with giant rabbits.

Radagast succeeded in drawing the Orc back away and we were all following Gandalf and I knew he was leading us toward The Hidden Valley.

I didn't want to slow them down so I did something very reckless.

'Vires Ardens'

It was a Sun Magic spell that could increase your strength 10 fold. After the spell took effect I started to glow like the sun and there if one were to look at me they see I'd look like a glowing bit of magma and there were intersecting lines of fire all over my body.

AN: Will post pic in chapter comments of what MC looks like while using this spell.

"What are you doing you fool? Your injuries haven't fully healed." Gandalf said as he knew the consequences of using that spell.

The way the spell works is it pushes your body to the absolute limit using magic to supplement where your body needs it to, but doing it with an already injured body was very risky, it could even be fatal if overused.

"If i don't do this, I will slow you down. Follow the plan, I will buy you as much time as I can." I said as I took out my spear and ran out screaming so the Orcs would see me.

"COME AND GET ME YOU MINDLESS BEASTS!!" I shouted.

I rushed into the group of Orcs and Wargs and was spinning my spear around on my left and right sides as I moved to make it easier to build momentum.

I did a quick slide and slashed the left of two different wargs sending their riders flying off and even was launching small bolts of lightning with my free hand.

'Fulminus'

The dwarves who saw that were extremely impressed.

'He is a true warrior!' They all thought to themselves.

'I hope he ends up being okay' Bilbo thought.

'Good luck old friend' Gandalf thought as he continued to lead the group.

It turned out there were still some Warg Riders who didn't follow me as they followed a scent they caught. Then they all ran after the dwarves after seeing them.

The group came to a stop at a small collection of rocks. Gandalf had disappeared to look for the secret entrance and the other dwarves thought he'd abandoned them and began to attack the incoming Orcs.

Gandalf suddenly popped his head out from behind a rock formation.

"This way you fools!" He shouted.

The group ran over to him and saw a hidden hole that they started to slide down. After they all made it down they were waiting to attack any Orcs that followed, but stopped when they heard a war horn and the sounds of squealing Orcs. One such Orc fell down into the hole and they all got ready to attack it.

They saw that it wasn't moving, correctly assuming it was dead. Thorin pulled an arrow out of the Orc that he saw. As he examined it he knew who's arrow it was.

"Elves!" He said in disgust.

The other dwarves looked for a way forward and saw a path.

"I see a path but I can't see where it ends. What should we do?" One of the dwarves asked.

"Follow it of course." Bofur said and they all started to make their way down the path.

"I think that would be wise." Gandalf said with barely hidden happiness.

The finally made it to the end of the path and could see Rivendell at the bottom of the cliff they were on.

The group made their way into Rivendell and Gandalf was greeted by one of the elves that he knew.

"Mithrandir." The elf called as he walked down the steps to greet him.

"Ahh Lindir." Gandalf said

"I must speak with Lord Elrond." He stated.

"Lord Elrond is not here." Lindir said.

"Not here? Where is he?" He asked.

Before Lindir could answer they heard the war horn again and saw a group of elves on horseback. Gandalf turned and had a happy look on his face only to frown when he saw the riders were not slowing down. The dwarves huddled up keeping Bilbo protected in the middle before being surrounded by all the riders.

One of the elves greeted Gandalf and got off his horse. Gandalf realized who it was.

"Lord Elrond. My friend. Where have you been?" Gandalf said. The last part was said in Elvish.

"There is no time for pleasantries Gandalf, I must see to Rozahr." Lord Elrond said gesturing to one of the horses without an elf on it.

When Gandalf saw the state of Rozahr his breath caught in his throat.

Rozahr was bleeding heavily from every orifice and it seemed as his veins were ruptured and his bones in his arms and legs could be seen.

"ROZAHR!!" He exclaimed.

Gandalf rushed over to him and saw he was unconscious.

"You fool, why would you push yourself so hard." He said solemnly.

"I will do everything in my power to heal him Gandalf. Remember he is quite tough so rest assured he will be up and walking around soon enough." Lord Elrond remarked