Lord of the Rings Fanatics Plaza

Akrag jumped from the Morannon in distress. It was too much to take. Lucky he was only on the second step of the stairs at this point, so it was not a big fall. He was over this thief hunting caper, being beaten by that nasty Moriel all the time. Perhaps eating something would get his head straight. He'd spotted a big Hunk of Man Flesh stashed somewhere around here earlier. He had smelt it before too, but the scent was no longer there. Winddancer must have got there before him. He thought he'd seen her prowling about!

It was getting to be a bit pointless, all this running around. Frost hadn't been caught this time but it had been close. How immune to being caught was he? She was getting too good, Moriel. He was going to have to be better. Nothing could be traced back to him, he needed fences with fences. He needed layers of protection. He felt exposed after the ordeal at Spawning Pool. He went by the Mordor Pub to drown his anxiety in Elf Bloods, at least a dozen of them. He had an idea to "misplace" Grond but he needed to drink that bad idea away. Maybe a morning hangover would actually help this time.

It was absolutely ridiculous, how terrible Gwai was at thief hunting. Moriel had once again found the missing item. Gwai had been close, but close didn't pay the bills. She shook her head, and once again wondered if she should go into being an assassin first, assassinate Moriel, and then go back to thief hunting once she knocked out the competition. She sighed, and walked toward the Assassins Guild. It seemed like a lot of work, retraining to be an assassin. Perhaps staying as a thief hunter would be more financially sound. Nazgul Robesseemed to be a popular missing item right now, and Dincairwen seemed a likely suspect. She would start there.

(Edit to fix colors, because basic colors are clearly beyond me)

@Dwim - alas - there’s a bear trap in the Morannon. How do you avoid getting your leg snapped off before you continue? (Or, by all means, have your leg snapped off and continue anyway)

Frost made it out of the Pub with little more than a minor hangover. Perhaps he was getting more and more used to Elf Bloods. Did that make him a cannibal? He wasn't an elf, obviously, but wasn't that close enough? Now wasn't really the time get semantics though. He need to to talk to Loke about something. He wasn't actually sure what it was. There was a note scrawled over his arm in blue ink and capital letters to meet him in the Halls of Injustice at noon. It sounded ominous. Frost couldn't remember anything about a meeting last night, but that was Loke's handwriting alright. He found him, after searching for an embarrassingly long time, eating a Hunk-O'-Man-Flesh. Now that was definitely cannibalism. Right? Witch-King's Balls this was going to be long existential day.

It was a minor miracle that the thief had not yet been caught. Dincairwen seemed like the prime suspect so far, and Gwai decided to try heading over toward the Lava Snake Racing arena to look for the suspect. According to her sources, who had been wrong every single time so far, Grond was missing, and the powers that be were trying to cover it up. This was finally her chance to actually come close to catching a thief!

OOC - I haven't used my redirect yet, so I guess now is the time.

Where once there was a Hunk of Man Flesh, there now was a big nasty looking bear trap. Akrag used a branch to fling the trap into @Frosty the Snowman's path. Winddancer sure was crafty. Not knowing what other traps she'd set around the place, he thought he'd better get a move on before he got caught out again. The next hunting place on his agenda was the Post Office, where he planned to send out a few more death threats to his fellow thief hunters.

The Lava Snake Racing arena seemed to be sadly derelict of thieves, and particularly Dincairwen, whom Gwai was still not convinced was even the thief she was looking for. She was starting to wonder if she was on the right track of the missing item, which possibly was a Hunk o'Man Flesh. Gwai gulped. While she was not technically a man, she worried it was close enough, and whoever was looking for such a thing would not quibble over details.

Akrag found some inspiration for some new death threats at the Post Office, but he didn't find much else. Winddancer was always two steps ahead of him. Fortunately he didn't come across anymore of her traps, although it had been fun flicking the bear trap into Frosty's direction. The trail of scent from the Hunk of Man Flesh was starting to go faint, so Akrag realised he'd better hurry on to keep up with it. Eventually the scent brought him to the Lava Snake Racing arena, where it seemed another one of his opponents was sniffing around. Yes, the other hunters were the orc's opponents.

Evidently the thief was Moriel. She was altogether too good at hunting down other thieves; ergo, she must know quite a lot about thievery. Perhaps she'd been secretly distracting everyone from her evil deeds the whole time! Although it was not entirely clear to Layna what, exactly, had been stolen. She was hearing rumours about Grond, but that surely seemed like a very large weapon to hide, and a rather distinctive one too, if one were to try selling it on the Black Market. Nonetheless, she headed to the Lava Snake Racing area to investigate - Moriel did tend to hang out there a lot; maybe she'd be able to pick up some clues ...

Whatinallthecrazystupidthingsjustfreakinghappened?! Frost was minding his own business when out of know where, a Hunk-O'-Man-Flesh was thrown into his path. he was just crossing the floor to meet with Loke when the flying projectile slammed into him and knocked him to the ground. Normally Frost had good balance, but today he had been so focused on trying to outwit Moriel that he wasn't playing attention to the easy details of life around him, like flying chucks of flesh apparently coming out of freaking nowhere. He was woozy for several minutes. No one helped him of course, Mordor does have some standards, but when his ears stopped ringing Loke was nowhere to be seen, neither was the hunk of meat that had so derailed his day. He cursed in a variety of languages that no one around him seemed to least bit interested in, realizing his chances this round were likely completely shot. At least he could revel in the fact that Moriel never actually caught him during all of this.

@Moriel

I'd just like to take this time to point out Frost was the man behind all the thieving and he was never caught! Mwahaha

Congratulations Moriel. As suggested, your reward is our fierce loathing. Will you still find a way to win even as thread runner?

Any excuse to use this emoticon @Moriel