Pulling his cloak about him against the bitter cold, Morgaur trudges up the hill from the Black Gates to the plains above. He has been preparing for weeks to take on Mordors Bane, the most devious and often fatal assault course ever devised by evil minds. Approaching the entrance he steels his mind and begins breathing exercises, getting his blood pumping up to speed. Looking ahead to the rows of staggered iron wheels he pauses for a few seconds, then breaks into a run toward the first obstacle. Coming to the first wheel Morgaur jumps a bit to avoid splintering his shins on the rim and then gets a rhythm going as he runs and leaps through the wainwheels. He recovers without falling after catching a toe on some of the elven hair that holds the whole thing together. As he runs out of the last wheel Morgaur keeps up his speed and lines himself up with the huge seesaw. He runs up and brings himself to a stop just beyond the pivot point to start the other side on its downward plunge. Before it hits the ground he is running again and steps off the plank just as it contacts the earth. Ahead is the submerged granite tunnel; he can smell the foul water before he sees it. Morgaur hyperventilates, sucking in deep lungfuls of air as he rushes forward and plunges into the tube, going underwater. He swims more than half the distance under the surface before his lungs begin to burn, then breaks to the top for a long breath and takes the last quarter of the length above the water. As he reaches the end and climbs out of the pipe his eyes are drawn upwards to the top of the towering cargo net, dripping with blood and gore. It is much taller when seen in person than one imagines while discussing the course with veterans. Morgaur takes a running start and leaps at the net, catching hold of it nine feet above the ground. He begins to climb, rather fast at first but slowing after awhile. His muscles are burning from the long swim, and the blood is extremely slippery. After slipping and nearly falling to his death numerous times he reaches the top and throws a leg over to start his descent. It is much easier going down, he discovers. But nearly twenty feet from the bottom his luck turns sour as he puts his left foot down on a sharp piece tibia that is sticking up at an angle out of a slave corpse. As the bone pierces through his foot Morgaur loses his grip and falls the last seven yards to the cold ground below. Quickly regaining his senses he begins to run up the slope, trying not only to ignore the pain but turn it into energy for the last stages of the course. He reaches the top and grabs onto the overhead bars. Using his swinging body for momentum he races hand over hand down its length. He swore before starting that he would not look down at the death-filled pass below, but feeling sure of himself at this point his curiosity gets the better of him and he gazes down past his swinging legs at the carnage below. The dizzying height coupled with the horrible mass of bodies, some still alive and feebly moving around causes him to have a slight mental blackout. One hand slips off the bars and as Morgaur recovers from his lapse he finds himself about to join the minions below in their orgy of death. He kicks one leg up and over a bar just as his other hand lets go and for a moment he is suspended over the gorge, dangling by his right knee. He closes his eyes against the gruesome scene, inhales deeply and swinging his upper body manages to grab the bars anew with both hands. Finishing the remainder of the run with ease he drops down onto a ledge in front of the cave. He walks up to the bridge and turns slightly to the right, positioning his feet at an angle to the single length of rope. Sliding along, using the ropes at his waist as support Morgaur quickly reaches the end of the bridge. He looks down at the dizzying drop into the pit of ash that he must take and prepares himself for the plunge. He jumps off and pulls his arms and legs together in a cannonball position. The impact comes long before he expects it as the drop is only twenty feet or so in reality. But due to clever positioning of the bridge and the angles of the rocks, the perspective is skewed to make it appear to the jumper that they are falling hundreds of feet. He picks himself up out of the ash pile after a bit of thrashing and begins the grueling five mile run. After four miles or so he is getting quite winded, but sees up ahead that he is nearing the spiderweb nets. He races down the last bit of the open area then drops to his belly and begins crawling under the lowest section of netting. After about 250 yards of this his shirt is writhing with venomous snakes and several spiders are beginning to take up a permanent residence in his hair. Trying desperately to avoid being crushed by the myriad boulders that are crashing down around him, Morgaur rolls to one side only to find he has crushed an enormous spider beneath him. With a wet POP it bursts, the innards soaking his upper body and driving most of the vipers out through the neck of his shirt. One rather angry snake gives him a goodbye kiss, biting him on the ear as it slithers away. Finally, reeking and soaked to the skin in spider gore, his ear swelling to a horrible mass of flesh, Morgaur rolls out from under the last of the nets and gets to his feet. "Twenty-six minutes, fourteen seconds!" bellows a large orc, standing next to desk with a small hourglass on it. Morgaur looks back at the course behind him, glad to have survived. He wipes off a handful of spider guts and tosses them at the timekeeper who gobbles them greedily. He then turns and slowly begins the walk back to Minas Morgul, hoping that somebody will have remembered to refill the ice trays as he desperately needs some for the ear.