Jump 321: Lord of the Rings

Jump #321: Lord of the Rings
>Eight of Swords (Interference), reversed: Learning a valuable lesson from the unexpected consequences of prior decisions.
>Age: 26
>Location: Harad
>Identity: Human
>Drawbacks: My Word Is My Bond (+200), The Black Riders (+300)
I don't give my word often, but when I do, I keep it. And as far as the Black Riders... I may not be able to kill them, but I can definitely inconvenience them. I'm not as worried as I should be, probably, considering I have holy magic the likes of which they are decidedly NOT accustomed to.
>Forestry (Free, Human)
Apparently I was the local equivalent of a boy scout. Okay.
>Elven Grace (1400)
Damn, I must have gotten every single merit badge.
>Mental Fortitude (1200)
Even if I was rather hard headed at times.
>Dwarven Craft (800)
Definitely won the pinewood derby.
>Elven Enchantment (300)
And I probably spent some in 4H too.
>Blood of Kings (0, Human)
something something princes of the universe

So, I awoke on the southern plains with nine ghastly riders in pursuit of me.

I am pretty certain they did not expect me to suddenly attain the ability to sprout several sets of wings and begin to fly, nor were they expecting holy magic to strike down their horses, before I flew off.

You know, there are many ways that this could go. I could join the Fellowship. I could put the ring in a catapult and launch it into Mount Doom. I could unmake the damn thing myself or absorb it (but absorbing a corrupted and broken Maia seems a bad idea). No, I'd looked at the situation with precognition... despite my resistance to such dark magic, I saw it spelled out clear as day that if I'd tried to take the ring directly, the thing would corrupt me. Suffused with the incarante will of a dark god, even the visions of the potential future tried to tempt me toward it. That was honestly one of the scarier parts of the chain - with any direct exposure, it would feel my power, and it wanted to take control of me to escape this universe.

No, none of that. Instead, I'm going to do something I have not done in a while. I'm going to apply abilities from Civilization, become invisible and intangible, and work to support everyone while they do what must be done, but not interfere directly unless it is utterly unavoidable. I did, however, act to mute the temptation of the never-to-be-sufficiently-damned ring, and having magic that would bolster willpower and the ability to make it permanent is quite helpful.

Why would I pay 1,200 CP for that? Apply a Permanence spell to literally any magic when you've levelled up enough. Sure, lacking the point-powered version means that Dispel Magic can cancel the effects, but you tell me how often I'm going to find antimagic fields in the multiverse? Answer, pretty darn rarely.

In any event, the Fellowship did as it was fated to do. Certainly the party split in time, of course. Gandalf the Grey fought a Balor, and while the Balor might have hesitated an extra moment or two, he still fell, and in time returned as Gandalf the White. (Although, as I later found, he had been fully aware of my aid. Damned Maiar.) Boromir was tempted by the ring, but felt a ghostly hand on his shoulder that shook him out of it. Unfortunately, the hobbits scattered when the orcs attacked.

I twisted fate so that Boromir lived. Wounded, perhaps, but properly applied telekinesis saw to it that only a single arrow gave him more than a glancing blow, and the orcs left him for dead as he was not fool enough to fight them directly. He threw his support behind Aragorn fully but returned to Gondor to recover, the whole experience having left him a much humbler man than he'd been before.

I left behind half of the scattered hobbits and the rest of the fellowship, and followed Frodo and Sam. Their ordeals were much as they were before, but I did what I could to aid Smeagol's tenuous grasp on sanity. They never came across Faramir, but Frodo was captured by orcs after dealing with that spider.

Sam and Smeagol worked together to help him escape, which was a development that surprised me. In the end... honestly things played out in a very similar manner as to how they had. Lending strength of will to Frodo was simply not enough to overcome the temptation of the ring, and I wasn't willing to jeopardise myself, for fear of the repercussions. In the end... Smeagol acted. A twisted, wretched creature, but he still bit off Frodo's finger, clasped the ring to himself, and... stepped off of the edge of a cliff into lava.

Perhaps it was divine intervention. Perhaps it was his last attempt at redeeming himself. Perhaps it was dumb luck. But the result was unquestionable. The ring met the fires of Mount Doom and was no more. Sauron, too, was no more, and outside of Mordor things had gone as they otherwise would have expected to gone.

A satisfying end, without stealing the fire from anyone there. Gandalf and I spoke about it at length afterward, over quite a bit of pipeweed. This was a world that had a fate which should not be changed... but it didn't mean that it was set in stone. A kind nudge here and there can have its effect but the era of magic in that world was not one meant to last.

After the conflict had ended, peace reigned, and I spent my remaining years incarnate and travelling from place to place as a simple visitor. It was kind of nice.

(Oh, and in case you were wondering: while I was disembodied and following the Fellowship and hobbits... I had my clones screwing with the Black Riders mercilessly. Not much of a group of riders when they don't have anything to ride.)

>The best thing for people to do in LoTR for the Fellowship is to be around the Shire when 'Sharky' decides to set up shop.
>Off him before he can corrupt the place.

That's what clones and companions are for. Other than screwing with the Riders, we made sure that the majority of the collateral damage that would be faced outside of Mordor was plagued with bad luck. Orc warbands and uruk-hai armies aren't nearly as much of a threat when their weapons are of such poor construction that they're breaking, their arrows' fletching is damaged so that they won't fly straight, their bowstrings constantly break, their supplies dwindle faster than they ought when they travel in any direction but home... and, well, the uruk-hai army had a hell of a time trying to lay siege to Gondor when they were suffering from dysentery. Sure, there were still battles and raids and whatnot, but such mysterious strokes of luck helped keep casualties down on the side of angels.