[Story] Journey of an Elven Brawler - Prologue

[Galdhron]

“Jurl!…..Jurl!...how about flinging more coal into the forge and less into the basket?

Elves don’t mine hard coal like dwarves do. Instead they harvest hard words from the nearby forest, and then stack cords end to end in a smokehouse to slowly smoke out all the moisture. What is left is a charcoal suitable for firing the forges and tempering the steel, but it doesn’t burn nearly as long. It means a servant elf like Jurl has to keep the forge constantly fueled and the bellows constantly pumping.

Jurl wasn’t always a servant. It was rumored he was learning to be a great warrior in the prior age, or at least that is what his dreams reveal. As a very young elf, he may have fought as a simple foot soldier at Battle of the Gladden Fields. He was allowed to work with the Dúnedain to learn the Thangail, the shield-fence formation to hold off attacking armies, and once mastered, take it back to Rivendell to teach to elves. Being overwhelmed by the attacking orcs and suffering a serious head wound, Jurl was left for dead. Even after recovering, he could remember very little of his prior life or training, or so it would seem from the bits and pieces of foggy dream-memories.

Elrond himself had revealed part of the mystery, where Jurl had been sent to Gondor as a messenger for Rivendell, to convey letters and messages from King Isuldur’s wife and youngest son to the King, along with well wishes from Elrond.

Jurl never made the journey to Gondor armed, but nevertheless piqued the curiosity of one of Gondor’s weaponmasters, Brand of Minas Tirith. Brand wanted to know if elves learned their battle skills more slowly then men, being much longer lived. But Jurl has barely progressed through shield and defensive skills before King Isildur decided to visit Rivendell and quartered Jurl with his squires.

Ohtar, an esquire to the King and putative sole survivor, mentioned that a Rivendell elf was part of their host traveling north, but barely survived with his own skin, and could not recount all of the fallen. Jurll’s dreams of large bears and honey suggest the Beornings may have rescued him and brought him homeward through the High Pass. Which would make sense, as many years ago Jurl emerged from the foothills of the Misty Mountains, dressed in furs and as savage as a Hillman.

“Alright, alright! I’ll practice my hurling skills at the Forge, just give me a minute,” sniped Jurl.

Holding a piece of coal like a tailor’s chalk and marking up his metal armor design on the leather pattern, he finished the diagram of an elbow joint and tossed the chunk and eleven of its brethren into the forge.

“I’ll get to the bellows as soon as this pattern is dressed on the tailor’s dummy.”

[Galdhron]

“Jurl, Jurl, wake up! You are dreaming again…”

“Take a look at your armor design, the Master has finished it for you!”

Jurl rubbed the sleep out of his eyes, trying to remember the details of the battle he had revisited for so many nights in the last fortnight. Grabbing his smithing and tailoring tools, he headed over to The Forges to meet Dringlinn the Metalsmith as ordered.

The dream wouldn’t leave his head, yet it wouldn’t reveal the details either. Elrond was there, along with an elf he had heard numerous tales about, but never met in person, Cirdan. Elrond had called him “The Shipwright”, yet in his dream, Cirdan was a warrior and not a crafter. Elrond had sent Jurl about the battlefield as a messenger to convey orders to the great elven heroes of old, and the final battle was to confront the Ringwraiths themselves. It was clear from the dream interpretation, that Jurl was to don his messenger satchel again and get back in the business of delivering important communications.

“There you are, and taking your own sweet time I see,” chided Dringlinn. “The day you are to go West and resume your career, you decide to dawdle.”

“I completed our armor while you slept, and it is a very novel design. Elrond says you are to meet the elves of Celondim, briefly, in order to get oriented and equipped. Once you complete their tasks, head to the Shire, where you are to train with their Quickpost organization on the nuances of message delivery. I will send you orders at Needlehole of the Shire with further instructions.”

“Go forth and make Elrond proud!”

[Galdhron]

[https://www.lotro.com/forums/showthr...the-Messenger]

[The story continues here in the newly formed Brawler subtopic.]