Hello, everyone! It's time for the fun to begin. Now, if you haven't read the first story, I suggest you do so or else you'll be completely confused.

We're going to see a lot of changes happening with Middle-earth and its people. Characters you know and love may die, but that's what happens during war. This story will introduce some new characters, good and bad, and take you to some new places. Eventually, we'll be going to the capital, which I'm very excited to write about.

This story will get more mature as it progresses, so I might have to boost the rating. We'll see.

Anyway, enjoy the first chapter of the sequel, and again, if you haven't read the first story, READ IT NOW!

Chapter 1: Treasures, Toils, and Trolls

Rocks. Rocks everywhere. I was surrounded by rocks: big rocks, small rocks, some rocks that weren't even rocks at all but were actually large dirt clods. Turin thought he had stepped on a dirt clod once, but it was actually something far less pleasant.

And what did he wipe his dirty foot on? A rock, of course.

If Middle-earth's currency was based on rocks, I would have been the richest woman in the kingdom, but I expected that much from a cave.

Oh, but caves were true places of wonder, where hidden treasures waited to be unearthed and never-before-seen creatures lurked in the darkness. Turin was searching for a few gems of his own, but I was looking for something far more valuable: a cave-troll.

In all my life, I had never actually seen a cave-troll; in fact, I'd been told they no longer existed. One man said they all had just died off once the One Ring was destroyed, but I refused to believe that. In my travels, I had seen many creatures long believed to be extinct, so I still had faith.

Now, I had seen trolls before. Prior to visiting the Misty Mountains, we had spent two years in the Northlands with Elladan and Elrohir. The air was cold, the days were short, and the blistering winds seemed without end, but we traveled through it all, refusing to stop no matter how severe the conditions were.

It was during one of these dangerous treks that I saw something amidst the blowing snow: a great shadow. It was a snow-troll, with thick fur as white as the snow and teeth sharper than icicles. Fierce as the winter winds, it came at us, running on all fours and attacking with dagger-like claws. And no arrows could penetrate its hide. And no sword could cut its flesh. But when the sun rose, its body turned to ice, perfectly preserving the beast's snarling expression in a frozen sculpture.

Turin later attempted to shatter the large block of ice, but the only thing that broke was his sword. According to Elrohir, the boy was too careless with his weapons, and that was true still. With first his sword and then his dagger, Turin chipped away at the cave walls, trying to dig out something that shimmered in the rock. He was convinced it was a jewel of some sort, and so he was knowingly destroying both his blades just to retrieve a tiny sparkle that was no bigger than the tip of my pinky.

"It is just a rock," I said.

"It shines like a diamond," he argued, grunting as he pushed his dagger harder into the stone.

"Then it is a shiny rock, but still a rock."

Finally, the tip of his dagger snapped off. He looked down at the blade with disgust. "Elven steel, they said. Strong enough to withstand anything, they said. It might as well be made of wood."

"It is not meant for mining," I kindly reminded him. "Perhaps you should have asked them to make you a pickaxe instead."

"But what good is a pickaxe against a cave-troll?"

"What good is a dull sword?" I fired back with a smirk, silencing him for just a moment.

He sheathed his broken dagger. "We have spent weeks traveling these mountains, and I have yet to see a cave-troll—or anything, for that matter. Soon, I will have to fight my own shadow for entertainment."

And I wonder who would win, I nearly said, but the words remained locked behind my lips, for when I looked upon the short stump that formed Turin's left arm, I realized that it would have been unkind to say such a thing.

Since losing his arm, Turin's swordsmanship had suffered greatly, and I knew he was sensitive about it. He had the potential to become a great swordsman, Elladan once said, but now it seemed like he had lost much of his fighting spirit. He fought to kill, not to grow stronger, and he did not respect his weapons, not as he once did. The old Turin would have never used his sword as a pickaxe.

I placed my hand on his shoulder and smiled. "Come, Turin. I know we're close."

As much as Turin hated to admit it, I knew he was happier now that it was just the two of us again. For the past four years, Elladan and Elrohir had been accompanying us on our adventures, but this year they had to return to Rivendell, for reasons they would not say, but I knew the matter was urgent.

Of course, I was glad to be with Turin as well. After years of dreaming about it, we were finally seeing the world together. But we had very different desires, I soon found out: Turin wanted glory and riches, to make a name for himself, and I ... I just wanted to see the natural wonders of Middle-earth.

We moved through the tunnel slowly. I carried a small torch to light our way, and Turin carried his sword, dragging it against the cave floor like it was nothing more than a worthless piece of iron. But this was an elven blade, handcrafted by Elrohir so that Turin would have a sword light enough to wield with one arm. He had put so much work into it, and Turin was treating it so carelessly. It made me angry.

"There is a light," I said. The warm, red-orange glow of firelight lit up the dark tunnel from below. There was a small hole in the cave floor, opening to a long rope ladder with wooden rungs, many of which were broken. It seemed very unstable, and very dangerous, but I wanted to see what lay beyond the bridge at the bottom, so I abandoned the torch and took hold of the ladder with both hands.

"Wait, what are you doing?" Turin asked in a panic.

I spoke calmly. "Turin, this is a ladder, and what do we do with ladders?"

"Push them down and hope nobody climbs back up," he answered urgently.

My lips curled into a mindful smirk. "We climb down." With that, I began my descent, moving slowly and carefully down the fragile rungs. "Oh, Turin, where's your sense of adventure? Don't you want to see what's at the bottom?"

"Not really," he grumbled, and for a while, I thought he was actually going to stay up there, but then he swung his legs over the edge and started his climb.

Down we climbed, and then we kept on climbing, lower and lower, plummeting deep into an enormous cavern that seemed to go on forever in every possible direction. No matter how much I strained my eyes, I could not see the end. It was as large as a great city, with a very intricate bridge system that went on for miles, lit by hundreds of torches. I jumped off the ladder before reaching its end and landed hard on the wooden bridge.

"I know this place," I said, staring around the underground city in complete fascination. "This is Goblin-town!"

Turin lingered on the bottom rung. "Goblin-town?"

I walked up and down the bridge, taking in all that my eyes would allow me. "Yes, Father used to tell stories about this place, about the Great Goblin most of all. He was chief of the goblins, and he was as big as a troll, with a humongous head and a huge belly that jiggled and made the earth quake when he laughed." I giggled at the memory of Father imitating him. "He could crush a man's head with one hand, and he sometimes kept his enemies' skulls as trophies and decorated his throne with them."

Turin jumped down and landed beside me. "He sounds like a worthy opponent."

"He is dead, slain by Gandalf the Grey many years ago." Suddenly, my eyes lit up with excitement. "I wonder if the throne is still here!"

Turin caught my arm just as I was about to start looking. "Ana, now is not the time to relive your childhood fantasies. We are but two people. We are not prepared to fight a whole town of goblins."

I stepped away from him. "But, Turin, that is why I left home in the first place, to see all the places I've dreamed about. I cannot leave now."

"But ..."

"Turin, don't you realize what this place represents? People think goblins are mindless, wild barbarians who act purely on instinct, but this proves otherwise. They have a civilization here, a society with its own rules— rules we may not understand, of course, but they are rules! There is so much to be learned here. How can you just walk away?"

He shook his head. "Do you hear yourself? You sound crazy! There are hundreds, maybe thousands of goblins here, Ana, and I doubt they want you studying them."

"Where are they now?" I shot back as I moved across the bridge. "Do you see any goblins, Turin?"

Turin looked around. "No, but I see torches, which means somebody is home."

"Then you'd best keep your voice down," I said with a giggle before breaking into a run. "Come, Turin! Think of it as another adventure!"

It was rather reckless, I had to admit, but I was just so excited to be in Goblin-town that I sort of lost all my sense. I ran all over that cavern, traversing every bridge I could step onto, hoping to uncover the secrets of goblin society. Was it very different from our society? Did they have social classes as we did? Those might have been silly questions, but my curiosity was without limits. What I wanted to know most, though, was where they were now. As Turin had said, the torches were lit, but they were nowhere in sight.

Then, at last, I saw one: a tiny brown goblin, armed with a spear but nonthreatening to my eyes. It crossed one of the lower walkways and disappeared into a small cave, igniting my curiosity. Turin had just caught up with me when I decided to chase after it, and he was not happy with my decision.

Over and over, he hissed at me, "You're mad! You're going to get us both killed!" but I didn't listen to him. Perhaps I was mad, but that goblin was going to lead me to something very interesting, I could feel it.

We followed the goblin through dark, narrow tunnels and across shallow streams, plunging deeper and deeper into the cavern, so far that we would likely never find our way back, but still I continued to follow. Turin was panting and urging me to go back, but I couldn't, not after coming so far. I stopped only when the goblin stopped.

It brought me all the way into a large cave with a crushingly low ceiling covered in dripstone that jutted out in every angle. Hundreds of goblins were gathered for ... a meeting, perhaps. Some were standing on the ground, others were sitting upon rocks, but they were all gathered around a center ring, where a larger goblin was speaking rather fervently in a language I couldn't understand. It was shouting in a rough voice and thrashing its arms about, energizing the crowd, who responded with cheers so loud that the earth seemed to shake.

Turin took my arm. "Ana, we should leave now."

"Not yet." I pulled away from him and crawled even closer, hiding behind one of the rocks. "What are they doing?" I wondered.

Two goblins were suddenly pushed into the ring, one green and one grey, and they started to fight: punching, kicking, biting, and clawing until they were both full of blood. And the more gruesome the fight grew, the louder the crowd cheered.

This is their entertainment, I quickly realized. And the fights were to the death, I learned when the green goblin grabbed a spear from one of the onlookers and drove it straight through the grey goblin's belly.

And the crowd went wild.

Turin grabbed my arm and started dragging me back toward the tunnel. "Did you see that, Ana? Do they seem civilized to you?" I hadn't the voice to argue, not after what I had seen. "It was a mistake to come here," he went on, "but thankfully our presence has gone unnoticed—"

Just as we turned to leave, we saw a small, sallow-skinned goblin standing near the tunnel's entrance. A late arrival. Its eyes flickered back and forth between Turin and me, and then it let out an ear-piercing screech, one that brought an eerie silence to the underground battle arena.

They knew we were there. Hundreds of eyes glared right at us. And the little goblin continued to scream, so Turin grabbed it by the top of its head and sent it flying into the crowd.

"Time to run!" he shouted as he took my hand and bolted through the tunnel.

Tunnel after tunnel, cave after cave, we dashed all over the dark depths of Goblin-town, and they were right on our tails ... and at our sides ... and in front of us. They were everywhere, it seemed, multiplying right before our eyes like they just spawned from the ground. Finally, Turin stumbled across a narrow passageway with walls so tight, we could barely fit. He went through first and I followed soon after. And when I came out the other side, I accidentally slammed into Turin, making him tumble into a smelly, mountainous pile of ...

"Shit!" Turin cursed. "I'm sitting in shit, aren't I?"

I covered my nose. "Yes, I believe so." There is certainly no mistaking that smell.

Poor Turin was sitting right in the middle of it all, and slowly sinking too. His arm and legs were buried in the brown waste, but it was quickly rising to his chest. And the more he struggled to free himself, the deeper he sank. Before he disappeared entirely, I hopped down and plucked him from the putrid pile.

"I think this may be troll dung," I said. "The size alone suggests so. We may be getting closer!"

Turin bent down to scrape his legs clean. "Aren't we close enough? Most people are too afraid to even talk about cave-trolls, yet you yearn to feel one's breath on your face." He took a quick whiff of his arm and then recoiled and started gagging. "You have lost all sense, Ana."

Yes, I probably had. No longer was I that scared, insecure little girl who used to cower at the mere thought of a troll. I was a confident and daring woman, arguably to a fault because my utter lack of caution nearly got me and my companions killed on several occasions.

One of the most memorable incidents occurred in the Northlands, where I unwisely went against Elladan's orders and approached a sleeping giant. I knew it was a bad idea, but my head was so full of my old nursemaid's stories that I just couldn't help myself. I walked right up to it and even touched its toes, which were big as me and very, very hairy.

Unbeknownst to me, though, that giant was extremely sensitive to touch, so he woke with a startle, and he started swatting at me like I was some pesky bug who had nipped his toes. Twice, he nearly caught me, but I was eventually able to escape while Elrohir distracted him by throwing stones at his face.

I should have learned my lesson by now, but ... I really wanted to see a cave-troll.

I walked through the long passageway with Turin shuffling behind me. His squishy steps and constant groans drew a lot of attention to us, but the stench of him would mask our scent, I hoped, and allow us to get closer to the cave-troll when we did find it.

"You owe me for this," Turin spat, shaking the waste from his arm and legs, spraying us both with the foul, wet excrement. "I shall never rid myself of this smell."

"I owe you? If I remember correctly, you still owe me for that needless expedition to the Lonely Mountain. All that work, and we found no gold, did we?" We found nothing, I remembered. It was as quiet as a tomb, and all the wealth of the dwarves is likely in some high lord's pocket by now.

A soft clanging sound parted me from my thoughts, and I saw Turin attempting to shove a silver goblet into the brown sack he carried over his shoulder, and then a matching plate and a bowl as well. There was a towering pile of fine but mismatched tableware just sitting in the middle of the cave. A thief's forgotten loot.

"What are you doing?" I said. "You can't take those!"

He shook the bag until the items finally settled inside, and then he reached for more. "Why not? He doesn't need these. We do."

"What for? What will we do with a brass serving dish?" I snatched the dish before he could throw it into his sack. "We don't need these. They will only slow us down."

He grabbed the other end of the dish and started pulling against me. "I'm not leaving without riches!"

I kept a firm hold with both hands. "It's stealing!"

He tugged back even harder. "He stole it first!"

Amidst our childish tug-of-war, I saw a giant shadow moving around the borders of my vision—a cave-troll!

With a quiet gasp, I released the dish, sending Turin crashing into the mound of tableware. The shadow twitched to the sound and came running at us. I sought shelter behind the treasure pile and yanked Turin down with me.

Staying silent, crouching as low as our bodies would let us, we hid from the troll as he stomped around, searching for the intruders. With its powerful nose, it vigorously sniffed at the air for our scent, and then it let out a grunt of apparent frustration when it failed to catch anything.

I should have stayed hidden—Turin was begging me to stay put—but I had waited my entire life to see a cave-troll, so I couldn't let the opportunity pass me by.

By the time I emerged from my hiding spot, the cave-troll was slowly making its way toward the opposite end of the cave, where a small fire was roasting four long skewers of rats. It grabbed one of the skewers hot off the fire and ripped the dark meat right off the stick with its teeth. As it chomped away, I inched closer ... and closer ... and closer until I was right in front of it, safely hidden behind a large boulder.

This is amazing, I thought as I watched it hungrily devour skewer after skewer. To most, this would have been a most disgusting sight, for its lips were literally dripping with saliva, and it preferred to tear the heads off first and then drink the blood like a fine goblet of wine. To me, though, it was extremely fascinating. There was a certain etiquette to its dining habits, almost as if it was pretending to dine at a high table. Perhaps that was why he collected such lavish tableware.

What do trolls think about? I wondered. Do they dream as we do?

Suddenly, there was a great clang that echoed through the cave, louder than any thunderstorm. I quickly glanced over my shoulder and found Turin, frozen with fear, standing in front of the troll's treasure pile, his fingers slowly creeping away from a brass tankard. And on the ground lay the golden chalice he had been trying to steal, that fool of a boy.

The troll saw Turin—and then it saw me—and it became very angry, letting out a deafening roar that made my ears ring. In a second, I saw its powerful fist looming over me, preparing to strike down with a force so strong it could have crushed me into powder.

Screaming, I rolled across the ground just as its fist came down onto the boulder that once shielded me. The rock exploded into a cloud of dust.

As I rose from the ground, I saw Turin, sword in hand, preparing to charge the troll. He cried at the top of his lungs, "Die troll scum!"

"No!" I shouted, pushing him away with all my strength. "You can't kill it!" I grabbed Turin's collar and pulled him down with me as a rock the size of my head came flying at us and smashed against the cave wall, showering sharp shards of stone upon us.

Turin started coughing up rock dust. "He's trying to kill us!"

"We invaded his home. He's only defending himself!"

In his defense, the troll threw another rock and then came charging at us, letting out another monstrous roar, one even more ferocious than the last.

Quickly, Turin sheathed his sword, grabbed my arm, and then took off running at full speed. Together, we dashed through tunnel after tunnel, winding around every possible corner, until we reached the city of bridges, Goblin-town.

This time, however, the city was not empty. The goblins had returned home, and they were waiting for us, armed with deadly bows and sharp spears. Now more than ever, I was really regretting my decision to explore the city. Was this it? After countless escapes, had Mandos finally caught us?

"Make for the bridge," Turin whispered.

I looked around, seeing countless bridges. "Which bridge?"

"The one that isn't crawling with goblins!"

Indeed, there was such a bridge—just one bridge—and it could hardly be called a bridge, for it was missing over half of its beams and there was enough footing for only half a crossing. What was Turin thinking?

"Now!"

At his call, we raced toward the bridge, and the goblins began their attack at full-force. They surged after us in a giant wave, hurling spears and firing arrows. One arrow sliced across my bicep, and another stuck right into Turin's thigh, but we kept on running until we reached the bridge. Then we made our way across, narrowly dodging the arrows that whizzed past us as we attempted to navigate the rickety bridge.

"This was your big plan?" I cursed my curiosity for putting us in this situation. "We're going to be surrounded." The goblins were closing in, and fast.

"No, we're not," Turin replied calmly. "Reach for my dagger."

"Why?"

"Just do it!" He ducked as an arrow flew over his head, and I did as I was bid. "Now," he went on, bending down and grabbing one of the supporting ropes, "cut the ropes behind you ... and hold on very tight. This will be quite the fall."

I tightly gripped the rope with my left hand and began cutting with my right: over and over, slicing and slicing until thread after thread snapped beneath the blade and the bridge suddenly collapsed. It swung through the air, hurling the screaming goblins into the darkness below.

We hit the side hard. Most of the beams shattered into millions of splinters that dug deep into my arms and legs. Turin's arm had been pierced by many of these wooden daggers, but still he held onto the rope with all his strength, and then he swung his feet around until he found a small ledge to rest upon.

He let out a heavy sigh and leaned his bleeding head against the rope. "That wasn't so bad."

Oh, but it was. Unlike Turin, I had found no ledge, and my arms were quickly giving out.

Before my last bit of strength ran out, I looked up at Turin, held his gaze, and started to say, "I'm sorry," but the words became lost in the air as my hold broke and I plummeted into the dark chasm.

I heard Turin screaming my name as I fell and fell. Forever, I was falling and spinning at a dizzying speed, but I didn't feel the air beneath me. No, I felt hard stone. And then I felt the cold rush of water as I splashed into the stream below. The hot sun was shining its light over me, telling me I was finally safe.

Turin came sliding down just moments later, and he landed much harder than I had.

For a long time he just lay on his back, staring up at the sky with a tired expression on his face; then it became contorted with discomfort as he reached behind his back and pulled out a broken arrow with a white fletching. An arrow from my quiver. Several of them were scattered about the stream, most of them unsalvageable. Out of instinct, I reached for the bow on my back and panicked when I felt nothing.

"Where is it?" I murmured, searching the ground furiously. "Where is it? It has to be here! It has to!"

Again, Turin reached beneath him and dragged out a matching white bow, Legolas's first and only gift to me.

Without another thought, I took the bow and began looking it over for scratches and breaks like it was a beloved child rather than a piece of wood. But it was so very important to me, for it was all I had to remember Legolas by. I could still remember the day he left Middle-earth, and when I thought about it, my chest tightened and my heart sank.

"I'm fine too, by the way," Turin casually declared, "but the bow survived, and that's all that matters. I nearly got skewered by all your arrows, but as long as the bow is fine ..."

I smiled down at him. "Turin, you jumped."

"Yeah ..."

"For me."

"Yeah ..."

I laughed. "Do you hate me now, Turin?"

He splashed some water onto his dirty face. "You know I don't. I never could."

"Good ... because I couldn't help but notice how close we are to Rivendell ..."

Now, he was frowning. "No. No way! We were just there!"

"Four months ago!" I argued, getting far too excited, as I usually did whenever elves were brought into conversation. "So much could have happened since then, and I really want to tell Elladan about the troll and the goblins. Please, please, Turin, please!" I dropped to my knees and gave him the biggest, most pleading pout I was capable of.

He groaned and threw his head back. "Oh, fine, we'll go see the stupid elves."

"Yes!" I hugged him tightly. "Thank you!"

Little did I know, a lot had changed since we had last visited Rivendell. As we neared the hidden valley, I saw a sight I never thought possible. The Last Homely House was alive and bustling once more, echoing with the sounds of music and laughter.

The elves had returned to Middle-earth.

And so ends the first chapter. Thanks for reading, and please review!