[Being the continuing saga of Milkweed Thistledown, Intrepid Burglar and Assassin of the Shire]
Summer Festival: Part I
Milkweed: “Will Whitefoot, Mayor of Hobbitown – I have urgent news!”
Whitefoot: “Greetings, Milkweed the Cuddly!”
Milkweed: “I have been beyond the confines of the Shire, to the land of Bree and beyond to wait, what now?”
Whitefoot: “I just said ‘Greetings Milkweed!’ (Hee)”
Milkweed: “Okay. I have been to the land of Bree, to the Lone Lands, to Rivendell, and as far as the Lonely Mountains. I have found orcs, goblins, and evil dwarves massing in each place! Their hosts grow in number by the day! Fell spirits roam the lands! We must prepare the Shire for their onslaught!”
Whitefoot: “Lovely! Would you like to have a picnic? (Heh heh)”
Milkweed: …
Whitefoot: “A lovely picnic would be just the thing, don’t you think, Milkweed the Lovely?”
Milkweed: “That isn’t a real title, not even a stupid one. Didn’t you just hear me? There are evil creatures lurking everywhere! The Shire is in danger!”
Whitefoot: “Bah! It’s the Summer Festival! No time for worrying about trivialities now! (Heeheehee). Lets go have a picnic!”
Milkweed: “But I’m…”
Whitefoot: “Picnic first, discussion of impending doom later! We’re hobbits after all – there’s no problem that we can’t solve with good food, good company and a roofie.”
Milkweed: “What?!?!?”
Whitefoot: “Nothing, nothing – don’t worry your pretty little head about it. Now, I have important mayor stuff to do, so you just take this pack horse here up to the very top of Lonely Hill – the part that is completely unobservable from the road. I’ll be waiting for you there. (Bwa ha! Bwa ha! BWA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!)”
Milkweed: “Where are you – hey, come back horse! Come back!”
[20 minutes later]
Milkweed (gasping): “Giant. Flaming. Turtles.” (pant, gasp) “Giant. Flaming. Drakes!” (wheeze). “Giant. Flaming. Flamey things!” (gasp, pant, choke, wheeze, gasp). “CARROTS!”
Whitefoot: “Hello Milkweed! I am done with my mayor stuff – what took you so long?”
Milkweed: “Mayor Whitefoot, for the love of the Vayar RUN! The entire area is infested with giant flaming monsters! They’ll kill you!”
Whitefoot: “Nonsense! Everythings fine and you aren’t suffering from hallucinations due to the Spanish Fly I dosed you with. Oops!”
Milkweed: “You. Did. WHAT???”
Whitefoot: “No time for that now – we must protect the picnic! And by ‘we’ I mean ‘you’!”
Milkweed: “What? Oh no – Ravenous hobbits! Level 40+ insect swarms! Rain monsters with gigantic rain swords! Back! Back!”
[Battle ensues]
Milkweed: “Okay, that was interesting. Now tell me about what it was you dosed me with?”
Whitefoot: Certainly. I – but wait, you are all wet. I think you would be more comfortable if you took off some of those damp garments! (Hoot!)”
Milkweed: “I have a level 43 mace and a level 41 dagger that think otherwise.”
Whitefoot: “Look, you can’t blame a randy old Hobbit politician looking to exploit his power to take advantage of someone younger for trying, can you? Here – I’ll give you these summer festival tokens if you don’t tell anyone!”
Milkweed: “What do I do with these?”
Whitefoot: “You can redeem them at the summer festival for pretty dresses and such!”
Milkweed: “Don’t you understand, Mayor? The forces of Mordor are massing! Soon they will come here and destroy everything and kill everyone and there WON’T BE ANYMORE FESTIVALS!”
Whitefoot: “Pish tosh! I’ve been hearing that for eleven years now and things in the Shire haven’t gotten one bit worse! Now sign this nondisclosure agreement and the festival tokens are yours!”
Milkweed: “I must go to the festival@! I must warn the rest of the Shire! I must protect the innocent against the onslaught of these heat monsters that Tolkien never mentioned or even alluded to. Away!”
(Gallops off)
Whitefoot: “Sucker. Oh well, back to peeping through windows at Hobbit holes! EEEEE HA HA HA HOO HOO HA!”
[The daily instance for the summer festival involves Mayor Will Whitefoot asking your character to go to the top of a hill to have a picnic with him. Once you agree he mentions that he has stuff to do and will meet you there – leaving you to escort the pony with your picnic to the hill. On the way you have to fight flame creatures, which are supposedly hallucinations brought on by the heat. There are flaming drakes and flaming turtles and a flaming ogre, etc. Once you make it to the top of the hill, your picnic is beset by ravenous hobbits who want to eat your food, level equivalent bugs who also want to eat your food, and even these creatures that are supposed to represent rain, but look like translucent wights carrying misty gray swords. When all this is done, you get some festival tokens, which are special tokens that allow you to purchace items only available at the festivals.
Given the supposed situation in Mordor, and the fact that Milkweed had actually MET Frodo and Sam at Rivendell, it seemed a bit incongruous to me that the Hobbits in the Shire were blithely dancing and having picnics., so I invented this story. In the actual game Will Whitefoot does not try to roofie your character on top of a secluded hill for nefarious purposes. Still, the plot seems a little rapey to me. Be warned.]
ED WRITES STUFF (and nonsense) 