I wouldn't count on that. Assuming he goes straight for diabolism, you could maybe drive off the darkness ones but won't have any special advantage against the other demons-

Silmaril has capabilities that were not best demonstrated when it was in dubiously-allied hands who we couldn't help while they were being obvious about their intent not to give it back.

I still wouldn't count on that– I could buy "impenetrable" earlier but we weren't up against a diabolist then. For all magic there exists a demon who is the strongest in the world at it, is maybe a good approximation.

If we had all three I'd still bet on us. With one, maybe not.

You think they could beat all possible magic, knowing that a single library doesn't fully inform us on what all possible magic even means.

Could just pause time in the rest of the world and figure out what to do next at our leisure, for instance.

Could you do that with two?

I'd have to ask my father, do we have prospects of getting two?

Not much of one, I'm just thinking– I'm the only one he didn't spend ages in Valinor with, should be less predictable. And presumably I'm the person he'd most want to have switch sides, short of, like your father. If you're very sure you could end the war instantly...

He asks.

Not instantly, not with two -

How not instantly? You wouldn't need the whole world if it can freeze Angband, or even just freeze me...

If it definitely wouldn't work that's almost a good thing, I wasn't liking where this was going.

I was going to give you a hard time over considering precisely the tradeoff you scolded me for considering. He's not sure how long - you'd need all three, without practitioner magic, but with it there might be a shortcut -

I don't know any chronomancy and I'm pretty sure the Thorburns didn't either. Uh, the Thorburns being the rightful owners of the library.

Then he thinks we need three.

If that's off the table, would the Doriath Silmaril still be enough that we have time?

Some time, at least.

For now...we're continuing with what we're doing but nothing looks like a very final win condition. "Forgotten god out of the Abyss can help and wants to" is basically the length of the long shot here.

Noted.

So when she goes back to the Nolofinweans, she can report that they definitely were doing the bootstrap plan but don't have many serious prospects of an actual win any time soon.

Did they give an estimate -

Too much depends on the inside of the Abyss, which no one knows. So the best guess is more just based on things like the fact that practitioners who deal with the Abyss exist, aren't even necessarily limited to a human lifespan because information gets inherited, and I've never heard of this happening.

So, not good. What about prospects for recovering the Silmarils -

Also not good. More doable, but they think the single one would only buy time. And time's not on our side.

How much can you actually decipher without any translation to work from - 

Your cousins did it while reading over our shoulders. Which I'm still surprised was even possible, but he has other advantages they didn't—