I left off last time having peered off into the distance at the black gate only to see nothing much going on.  Well, that was the signal for Aragorn to saddle us all up and go approach the portal looking for an audience with whoever was home.

There we went through the scene at the gate from the books pretty much word for work, beat for beat, starting up with the Mouth of Sauron showing up to bandy words.

Ralph Mouth rides up with his droogs

I recall there being some heated debate in rec.arts.literature.tolkien about the mouth calling himself that as it was insisted that nobody in Sauron’s service was allowed to use the name Sauron for some reason or another.

I honestly cannot speak to the merits of the argument, I just remember it every time this guy comes up, and now maybe you will too.

Anyway, I actually took screen shots of all of the key lines… but I don’t need to replay them all here.  You either know them or you don’t I suppose.  I did have to go hush Pippin when Frodo’s gear was presented.

So that ran and the mouth went back to wherever he came from and then there was a cutscene that showed many a host of Mordor, queued up behind the gate ready to march on us.

Who was behind the gate

Among the things not ready for 4K video are the cut scenes, which are all in old school HD resolution. (This is why you should have a care naming things.  More than 20 years down the road HD seems anything but “high definition.”)

So the fight was on.  The question was, how would they guide you in the fight.  They clearly didn’t want to just put you on the front line and have you slay 100 orcs or some such.  You are, after all, too important to just do that.

The plan ended up being to have you kill 2-4 enemies, then go talk to some main character.  So it was kill some guys, talk to Aragorn, kill some guys, talk to Legolas, fetch some arrows for Legolas, then kill some guys, talk to somebody else, then kill some more guys.

In the “kill some guys” phase

My mental image of the battle from the books was the host of the west, shoulder to shoulder, formed up around the two slag heaps, in a literal sea composed of the host of Mordor.  But the game engine can’t really render that up close, so instead you can groups fighting in little clumps and orcs painted on a background in the distance.  This loose formation did facilitate my movement back and forth between the hills, carrying messages and keeping track of everybody and their status.

I wasn’t going to until you mentioned it

I think my favorite moment was when I ran other to some third tier name I could recall ever hearing before who was bereft because they lost their sword.

Of embarrassment I guess, you’re kind of safe back here

Of course, Thalanir there had somehow chucked his blade into the middle of some scrum and now it was up to me to go fetch it.  My lot in life, cleaning up after the host of the west.

Shit, how did it get over there?

So I went and grabbed it, only to get back and find him dead.

Son of a bitch!

I didn’t see what got him, but he might have indeed died of embarrassment after that performance.

Then, of course, we had to lose another member of the Grey Company.  All that way… slowly… across the land and now they’re dropping like flies… or being dropped like stones.

Calenglad, snatched up by a Nazgul and dropped from a great height

His immortal girlfriend wasn’t going to miss him for very long anyway, but now he’ll never be back.  But there were more people to check on.  Pippin seemed a bit done in.

I guess it was me who found him under the troll

There was enough going on and I was chasing about, so it was nice to have somebody check in on me mid-battle after a bout with a troll.

I do, thanks for asking!

Then, as things were reaching their climax on the slag hills, I was sent back to Aragorn to be there for the final defense… I think I had to kill six foes that time.

Aragorn and the Grey Company at the end

Aragorn declared that the tide seemed to be turning and I hit level 110 with the next quest turn in.  That popped up a message in the middle of the battle that more faction grinds were now available in Mordor.

Factions available near you!

Then the big pop hit and Gandalf made his declaration.

Glad somebody else got a quest turned in… I hate to be the only one

Then it was time for the eagles and somehow I was on the list to ride into Mordor, so set down at last withing the bounds of my goal… after which I  found out that you can totally fall right into the cracks of doom.

Well damn

That meant I had to revive and restart from the beginning on the hill with Aragorn again, hear Gandalf, get on the eagles, and ride forth into Mordor for the second time.

There I was the one who found Sam and Frodo.

Eeew, what happened to your hand Frodo?

Then it was I, Tistann, who took the phial of Galadriel from Sam and held it aloft to signal the dust off to come down and rescue us and get Frodo off to an aid station.

I have lit the beacon

And then we all ended up in a nice meadow a few days later, somewhere in Ithilien, where Gandalf and Aragorn and Frodo and Gimli and Legolas and our old dog Friday were all happy and walking about in a field of flowers and it wasn’t at all in my head that maybe we all died.

Gandalf, once more out standing in his field

There was a bunch of talk and reliving events and a whole scenario where you could play the final minutes of the ring as Gollum… though I once again opted for the shortened version.  There was plenty of back slapping and rejoicing and Radanir suggested that once the Grey Company wrapped up its final tasks that we should all go get a beer or three at the Forsaken Inn and remember Candaith and others of the company who did not make it.

And, technically, I had achieved my goal for this project.  I had reached Mordor.  I had gone past the black gate.  But had I really BEEN to Mordor?  Had I seen the place?

Not really.  But there was a mount headed that way.

Going to the right place and time

I need to go through my quest log and ditch the remaining quests for Ithilien and The Wastes and see what is going on in the black land.