Dead grass crunched under his heavy leather boots as he gazed up at the massive stone monolithic tower that suddenly appeared before him.Dried leaves,brittle and frail,swirled against his cloaked body as the night wind caught them in an intricate air ballet.The wind was cool and dry as it hugged his body,and everything was silent in the dark woods behind him,like the calm before the storm.<BR><BR>Balor didn't know how he had ended up here,in front of the very tower he had searched for for 30 years,ever since it had come to him in a dream on the eve of his 18th birthday.He was just a young mage then,full of energy and ambition.So much had happened in his fruitless search that he had nearly forgotten the dream.He no longer recalled what it was about,what happened,and why it compelled him to leave his life behind him.All he remembered was the Tower.<BR><BR>And here it was,looking exactly like it did in the dream.It stretched up into the night sky like a morbid testament to the power of the dark.It's massive base was made of stone,cracked and weathered by countless years of existence.Gargoyles sculpted in the image of demons were mounted on the stone,encircling the tower,their granite jaws stretched open in a cold pantomime of death,immobile wings spread out and perched in a silent attack.<BR><BR>Halfway to the top of the tower,the stone stopped.Here the horrendousness of the monolith was made clear.The upper part of the tower was not constructed of stone,nor brick,nor clay.It was constructed of the failures of Middle-Earth's society.It's neglect and refuse.<BR><BR>The cracked hulls of elven ships were stacked upon the burned out rubble of human homes,while scorched trunks of once-majestic trees stabbed out into the night sky from the tower's side.The rotted corpses and skeletons of hundreds of humans,elves,dwarves,and hobbits were heaped everywhere.Plates of steel and and iron formed crude walls,while rivers of blood and tears flowed out from the countless cracks to the dead earth below.<BR><BR>Near the top of the tower,the torso of a large statue in the image of a human jutted out of the rotting wall,it's arms stretched out to the dark sky,as if it heralded the coming of the darkness that would cover Middle-Earth.<BR><BR>Balor shivered.After 30 years,he had finally found it.He had expected and overcome countless obstacles and dangers in coming here,yet now he felt so unprepared and defenseless,like an infant thrust into the mouth of a lion.He was forty-eight,certainly not young,but not old,either.He was weathered and toughened by a lifetime of searching.Fear rarely came to him.But it was here now.He had never felt this scared before,this vulnerable.Sweat ran freely from his brow to his gray beard,where it clinged to the end of the hairs in droplets.His brown tunic was damp and sticky on his skin.His buckskin pants felt like lead weights on his legs while his brown hooded cloak offered little protection from the wind that had suddenly turned to a biting cold moments ago. <BR><BR>The scar on his cheek,a souvenier froma run-in with bandits years ago,throbbed in pain.The golden amulet tucked under his tunic,the only tie that linked him to his past,felt ice-cold against his chest.<BR><BR>Balor gripped his oak staff so tightly he could feel his knuckles turning white underneath his leather gloves.His sword,tucked into a scabbard dangling from his rawhide belt,felt as reassuring as a bamboo fishing rod.<BR><BR>But it was now or never,Balor decided.He had not travelled the length of Middle-Earth to turn back now.Mustering his courage,he stepped up to The Tower's massive stone doors,upon which was carved numerous runic heiroglyphics,centuries of dust filtering in the cracks.He forced his legs to traverse the short distance to the doors,while a colt whit mist settled along the damp earth.In a few shaky steps,he was finally there.He stretched his arm out and touched the doors with the tip of his staff,muttering the words to an opening spell.As soon as the last of the chant escaped his quivering lips,the doors bagan to crack open.The ageless hinges moaned in protest while a fountain of dust rained down on him.From within the tower a green light escaped and enveloped him in a cold,unforgiving mist.He felt it stab into his heart,he heard the whispers,and saw the pain.He opened his mouth in a scream,but no words came out....<BR><BR>----------------------------------------------------------------------<BR><BR>Balor sat up on his bed with a start.The moon shone down through the dirty windows of his room in The Prancing Pony.A dream.A terrifying dream.It was the only dream of The Tower to come to him ever since the first one thirty years ago.He was near.Very near.It assured him his quest was not in vain.He grabbed the ewer of water on the bedside table and raised it to his lips,a task he found quite dificult owing to the fact that his hands were still shaking violently.When the burning taste in his throat was satiated,he got up and placed his cloak on,drawing the hood over his graying head.Picking up his staff and making sure his amulet was safely under his shirt,he left his cramped room and made his way downstairs.<BR><BR>There was the usual plethora of patrons,Balor saw.He managed to squeeze his way past a group of squabbling hobbits arguing over a dagger and sat down in the only available table,wedged in a corner and hidden by shadows.Once comfortable he withdrew his amulet and gazed at it.It was golden,a pentagram set across a triangle,with elven runes carved around the edge.He had found it on the road a day after he left for his quest.It lay abandoned on the road,dirty and tarnished.He picked it up and it never left his side since.<BR><BR>As he gazed at it now,it felt warm.Too warm.After a few moments he dropped it to the table in pain as it had become white hot.Smoke curled up from it and threaded it's way to the ceiling.The same apprehension of fear he felt in the dream came to him now.<i>What is happening?</i>Balor thought.<i>What's going on?</i>