-General-
The desolate meadow was not the entrance Aldril remembered. In it, an enormous door rose, embedded in the mountainside. The lake seemed to stretch across a vast area, confirming that this was not the entrance Gandalf took with the rest of the Fellowship during the War of the Ring.
The wind whistled like a cicada, bringing with it echoes of the past. The faces of the dwarves, once joyful and full of determination, faded like a candle in a storm. Before that sight, hope vanished. Some picked up weapons worn by time; just by grasping them, painful memories flooded over them. Perhaps they didn't know those who fell in the Battle of Azanulbizar, but the simple fact that they were part of their people weighed on their hearts.
"We'll camp here," Kíli ordered.
It was night, and the journey weighed on their shoulders. What better rest than that, at the gates of the ancestral home of Durin's children?
"You heard him! Pitch the tents, get out the provisions! We'll rest tonight, and tomorrow we'll enter Moria!" Fíli shouted at the top of his lungs.
Of the two brothers, he was the more organized, so he was in charge of rations and camp logistics.
The dwarves, with coordination and speed, set up outside the Moria gate. Once again, an army of dwarves—even if it was only five hundred—stood before the threshold where King Thrór died, attempting to reclaim their home from the clutches of the orcs.
"Do you think it's a good idea to camp outside Moria?" Aldril asked Gandalf, who, with his pipe lit, took deep draws while admiring the entrance in the distance.
Turning to the half-elf, the grey wizard exhaled a puff of smoke. In it, the image of an orc hidden under stones briefly appeared in the air.
Aldril harbored an unhealthy envy for that old rascal. The figures he conjured with smoke were true works of art. But was it necessary to blow them in his face every time?
"There will be no inconvenience," Gandalf replied. "If there's still an orc alive inside, they won't come out. They'll wait for us in the darkness of the dwarven kingdom. So there's no danger if we stay here."
"I'm not so sure about that," Aldril said, scrutinizing the surroundings. "Everything is too silent, and my senses tell me something is watching us… waiting for the right moment to attack."
His tone became grave. His eyes acquired a draconic gleam as he looked towards the lake in the distance, as if he could see what lay hidden beneath its calm waters. Gandalf immediately noticed the change. He took Aldril's words seriously.
Rising from the rock where they were sitting, he walked slowly towards the shore of the lake.
On the shore, a dozen dwarves filled buckets with water, carrying them to the camp. Some, more intrepid—or simply more carefree—stripped and plunged into the lake, oblivious to any possible danger.
Gandalf watched the lake carefully. In a way, Aldril was right to be suspicious: he didn't remember that lake being there, and as he feared, its surface was unsettlingly calm. He frowned, closed his eyes, and began to murmur in an unknown, ancient language charged with power.
The dwarves swimming without a care looked at the wizard with curiosity. They didn't understand his words, but something in his tone alerted them. They took one last dive before getting out of the water and walking naked towards the camp—that's how carefree they were among their own.
Aldril witnessed the scene but paid it no mind. He was already accustomed to the dwarves' natural brazenness. He walked towards Gandalf while thinking, "Perhaps the guardian of the gate hasn't awakened yet..."
However, as he approached the lake, small and almost imperceptible ripples began to form on the water's surface, breaking its unsettling stillness.
"Gandalf," Aldril said with urgency.
Then, it happened.
A blackish tentacle emerged violently from the water, rushing towards him. From its surface, a dark, viscous substance dripped, staining everything it touched black.
Aldril reacted instantly. With feline agility, he dodged the tentacle by leaping to his left. However, his maneuver was interrupted: five other tentacles suddenly rose and lunged at him with brutal speed.
It seemed the guardian—or the creature, whatever its name—held a particular grudge against him. Why? He didn't know. But in the reddish eyes that watched him from the depths, the hatred was palpable. It burned like fire, as if it recognized something in him... something it wished to eradicate.
"Damn it..." he muttered.
With the grace of a death dancer, he drew his two swords.
Throughout the years, experience had taught him an invaluable lesson: he must never underestimate his opponent. The arrogance of feeling "strong" was a luxury he no longer afforded himself.
Moreover, if his memory served him correctly, during the War of the Ring, the Fellowship chose to escape this creature. Even an elf and a Dúnedain with Maia blood preferred to flee rather than face it. That spoke volumes about the enemy he now had to confront.
With Rellana's fire magic, he engulfed both his swords, and with a spinning cut, he tried to strike the tentacles that sought to coil around him.
But to his surprise, the scene he had imagined—tentacles severed by the burning blade—never came. The blackish substance covering the creature seemed to prevent the swords from penetrating its flesh.
Not even the steel of Gondolin could pierce it!
Fortunately, the high temperatures achieved something the blade could not: the tentacles writhed and recoiled with an unnatural shriek, burned by the fire.
Then, with a guttural roar that made the waters tremble, the creature lunged at Aldril with more fury. It seemed to have something personal against him, for it completely ignored Gandalf, who was a few yards away, hastily reciting a spell.
When the wizard uttered the last word of the enchantment, the unthinkable happened: a large part of the lake began to dry up. It was as if the earth itself was absorbing it, thirsty, eager to devour everything.
The creature's figure was revealed in all its grotesque splendor.
It looked like an enormous octopus, except for its head, which defied all natural logic. For an instant, Aldril thought that abomination had come out of Bloodborne; its face eerily reminded him of Ebrietas. Thick tentacles surrounded its skull, and a bloody mouth opened with each roar, emitting a putrid stench.
Shaking off his daze, Aldril lunged at the creature. It struggled to move out of the lake; it seemed clear it could only deploy its full mobility underwater. On land, it was slow, clumsy… vulnerable.
"By Durin's beard!" he heard someone exclaim in the distance, though he didn't stop to find out who had spoken.
The creature, desperate to find a clear spot to submerge itself, dragged itself clumsily, leaving a trail of dark mud and putrefaction. Aldril seized that moment: he tensed every muscle and channeled all his strength into a fierce leap. Mid-air, the magics of fire and ice converged on his swords. The friction between them caused a deafening roar that shook the ground and left everyone present stunned.
Taking advantage of the creature's roaring, which revealed the inside of its mouth, Aldril descended like lightning. With a precise blow, he plunged both swords into the abomination's open throat.
The monster writhed in pain. Its thrashing was violent, desperate, but with no water to retreat into, its attempts were useless. The extreme temperatures of fire and ice began to consume it from within. In a matter of seconds, the combination caused a devastating reaction.
The creature exploded.
The explosion was so powerful that Aldril was thrown through the air. He only managed to slow his movement by digging both swords into the ground, dragging himself several meters before stopping, enveloped in smoke, mud, and the creature's remains.
***
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