The Road to Mordor: A day at the festival, Page 2

By Justin Olivetti


The Party Tree

At a nearby tent, a strange hobbit waved me over and asked if I wanted to join something called the "Inn League." Well, sure, says I. Sounds downright wholesome. What do I do? He points to six mugs of beer on the table, and tells me to drink them all in a row, lickity split. I start to suspect that this is not so much a "league" as it is a "frat house."

From that point on, the rest of the quest chain plays out like one of those "Drink Your Way To Danger" videos that they show in schools: "Shouldn't I be cautious here? I mean, if you read statistics about the dangers of college binge drinking, you..." "CHUG! CHUG! CHUG!" "Well... okay..." [drinks] "Man, I don't feel sho good... maybe I should call a cab..." "No time! DRIVE! DRIVE! DRIVE!" Numerous bars and dozens of pints later, and I'm being pulled over by the hobbit police with a 0.25 blood alcohol rating and end up getting my stomach pumped by an unsympathetic nurse. But hey! At least I got a title out of it!


Duillond

After trying — and failing, due to an otherworldly phenomenon known as "lag" — to learn an elf dance, I ran into the brand-new event of the Spring Festival: Shrew Stomping! It takes place in a small pit that's supposed to be a garden but looks more like a gladiator ring, which is more appropriate to the task at hand.

The kindly, nature-loving elves had one simple request of me: to put on heavy boots and stomp small furry animals into oblivion. Oh sure, they claim that it only "stuns" the animal, but see how "stunned" you are when something thirty times your weight steps on your neck with work boots.

Having little concern for nature myself, I gladly ran around the garden, shouting "Whee!" and stepping all over anything short and furry. I accidentally got a Lore-master's lynx at one point, but I dubbed that "friendly fire" and ran away with an apologetic shrug. The event itself was quite fun, although this being the new shiny of the Festival, approximately the entire population of the server was there trying to do the same thing. This resulted in a shrew-to-player ratio of 1:40, which means that both the shrews and my quest completion never stood a chance. Oh the shrewmanity!

Tavern Talk

Tavern Talk is the part of the column when we kick back with a pint of ale and highlight what's going on in the LotRO community this week:

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