The nine of us rode out within the hour passing the time however we could. Gary insisted on singing ninety-nine bottles of beer on the wall in its entirety. I think he hoped at least some of us would join him. None of us did. Kevin suggested we play punch-buggy, which turned out to be rather uneventful. Kyle kept spying things with his little eye, but no one played along. Jimbo spitballed ideas for what we should call our group, but we couldn’t all agree on either “The Black Riders” or “Ringwraiths.” We spent about two hours playing “Worst Superpower.” I won with, “Being unkillable, but only to human males,” but I must give an honorable mention to Kyle who came up with, “The ability to turn into a crazy Britney Spears-esque elf-witch of terrible power, but only when illustrating some vague point about temptation.”
After several days of knock-knock jokes and road trip games, we covered most of the distance. That’s about when Ol’ Morgul-brain Gary lost our only map. We stopped and asked for directions from one of the locals chopping wood. He had the cutest doggo! I wanted to stop and pet him, but we were behind schedule because apparently everyone MUST stop to pee at different times. I mentioned the name and address to the guy and he gave me a terrified look, saying the guy I was looking for wasn’t here and that I should check Hobbiton. He must have been a drug dealer and assumed we were cops. I mean, we are the only group that passes for law enforcement in Mordor, but this isn’t our jurisdiction. Still, the drug activity had me curious and it couldn’t hurt to ask around.
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The road the woodcutter put us on lead us to a town called Bree, which seemed to have a strict “hairy, grumbly, weirdo" quota. Four of us, (myself, Kyle, Kevin, and Gary) booked a room at the Prancing Pony. My other five cohorts scouted the roads and gathered information about potential drug activity.
The innkeeper of the Prancing Pony was an eccentric middle-aged man with an Ambrose Burnside mustache. He looked over the counter as if he expected someone much shorter and said, “Good evening, regular-sized masters! If you're seeking accommodation, we have some nice cozy Nazgûl-sized rooms available, Mr. uh...”
“Witch-king,” I said, “My name is Tony Witch-king” He repeated the name with a slight hint of skepticism. Strange guy, but I liked him. We turned in for the night to the nice cozy Nazgûl-sized beds which turned out to be full of nice cozy Nazgûl-sized bedbugs. After itching ourselves awake at the ass crack of dawn, we set out on the road toward Hobbiton.