‘An Unexpected Party.’

We’ve had some recent experience of other Abanazar underground adventures in the same general locality and therefore knew that the more expert assistance we could recruit, the more likely it would be that we would be able to complete the whole, undoubtedly tortuous, Quest; to that end, we were lucky to obtain the services of no less than two Gandalfs and they proved an indispensable part of our adventure.

‘Over Hill And Under Hill.’

Our party of five (two adult hobbits, one very small hobbit and the two Gandalfs) entered the underground realm via a somewhat bat infested portal and immediately set off to find Smaug; this was a rewarding journey in itself especially as his lair was situated in very interesting surroundings and very much set the tone of things to come: stage after stage, most of which would qualify as an entire Quest in of themselves.

‘Riddles In The Dark.’

All the stages were excellent but two of them were especially memorable:  the search for Gollum’s precious - that provided much amusement for a passing group of exploring trolls, and the wonderful (surprisingly pristine) landscape of the Misty Mountains.

‘A Short Rest.’

It was getting late and the Gandalfs were rapidly tiring by the time we had collected all the required information so a planned short rest in order to determine our next steps ended up as being a rather longer overnight one spent back home in the Herefordshire Smials.  It did, of course, also provide us with a far more comfortable environment in which to decipher our final instructions and in that sense we were far more fortunate than Mr Baggins -  “I wish I was at home in my nice hole by the fire, with the kettle just beginning to sing!” 

‘Inside Information.’

We returned the following day to continue the adventure with yet more twists, turns, vertical and mental exertions.  An encounter with a particularly cunning device pointed the way towards the location of the final treasure.

‘The Last Stage’

Some enthusiastic plundering took place prior to the return to the real, non-magical and muggle infested, world above.

Another tremendous quest, the completion of which begs the question:

Whose magic is more potent, Gandalf’s or Abanazar’s?

The two Gandalfs accompanying us were spellbound the whole way which does suggest that maybe the powers of the Istari have finally met their match ...

Pictures for this log entry:

The Gandalfs