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After your daring escape from the spiders of Mirkwood, you keep plodding on through the endless forest. Eventually, being hungry, tired, and hung over from too much spider venom the night before, the dwarves stumble into the middle of an elvish camp in the forest looking for food. They are too weak to fight back and are easily captured.
You, on the other hand, were able to avoid capture by slipping on your ring and disappearing. You follow the elves to their King's stronghold on the edge of the forest, which is a large cave system.
Sneaking in behind the elves, you are able to roam about without being detected. It doesn't take long for you to find out where they are keeping the dwarves. The dungeon is on the lower levels, near where the King's cellars are located. You also are able to see how shipments come in and out of the cave via barrels floating in and out on the river that runs in a cavern deep in the caves. Full ones come in from upstream, and the empties are floated downstream and out of a tiny culvert at the bottom, to float down the river and back to Long Lake, where they are gathered by the men of Esgaroth.
In a flash of hobbit brilliance, you scheme an escape plan for the dwarves. One night during a large feast of the elves in the upper rooms, you use your invisibility to swipe the keys from the sleeping elf guard, who has managed to get himself a little of grandpa's "special juice" from upstairs and had quite a good time down here by himself. You free the dwarves from their cells and proceed to pack them into the barrels, one by one, so that they will be tossed into the river and float to freedom. Who knows, you might even find a surprise in one of them...
The elves come down a short while later to get more wine and to toss out the empty barrels. It is just as the last barrel is going into the river that the glaring fault in your escape plan hits you. Not being in a barrel yourself, you are forced to jump into the river and cling to the barrels for dear life as they bounce and jostle down the river and out the culvert into the forest stream below.