At the End of All Things Elves in Revelation
Permalink

For three months after Revelation he ignores his father's calls.

 

Yes. It should be possible to summon a demon and, depending how their powers work, either get a Silmaril from them or get the location of the patch of ground closest to the Silmaril from them or at worst do binary search over conjured models of parts of the planet to find the Silmarils. Yes, it should be possible to summon an angel to then dig the thing out of bedrock. And then they won't live life walking against the currents of fading, they will be whole again, they can summon some more for spaceship plans and head away from Earth much sooner, and much more powerful, than they imagined.

 

Also, the curious demon might go back to Hell and conjure some more Silmarils, if their powers happen to shake out that way, and might start handing out Silmarils to anyone on Earth who wants one, because why not, and the oath might still be in force, the risk is unimaginable - 

 

- they can of course get a Silmaril and then, if it turns out they can be conjured, not let the demon go home, that is merely incredibly rude and might strand someone a dimension away from their family for centuries. It at least does not risk unleashing the oath on this innocent world that has, at last, left the scars of the last time that happened beyond the reach of living memory.

 

For three months after Revelation he ignores his father's calls because he is childishly frightened, because his well-polished coping skills are fraying, because if he feels the tug of that oath on him again it will be too late to kill himself and therefore he wants, very badly, to do it now. For three months he wavers.

 

And then he answers the calls, and takes some vacation, and goes home for a Fëanorian planning session. He doesn't remember what loving them felt like but he remembers that he loved them, that it was once very important to him, and he knows he would do this for someone he loved. They plan and they read and they learn and they practice - without summoning, because daeva get the languages you speak when you summon them and so the first daeva they summon will know, if observant enough, they're not of this society - 

- he gets two weeks vacation a year, they plan very very slowly - 

 

- and six years after Revelation they have a binding and a few possible options for payment and a plan for the case where Silmarils turn out to be trivially conjurable and conjurable ones oath-relevant. Maedhros is terrified, and miserable, but no one can tell. He prides himself on that. 

 

Curufin doesn't want to do it because he speaks Khuzdul and the Dwarves who taught him it in confidence did not give him permission to share it. (They did give him permission, when it came up one optimistic night, to share it with his father should his father ever return to life, and so Fëanor speaks Khuzdul too.) Maglor's pretending to be a currently-dead pop star and that invites its own host of complications. 

Maedhros does not speak Khuzdul. He speaks the Black Speech in addition to a few human languages and Thindarin and Quenya, but the language won't scare daeva in itself (if they get his exact vocabulary, they might be frightened.) Maedhros picks a place in the castle in Canada that could be a room in an unusually wealthy human's house, unremarkable, and he painstakingly copies all but one bit of the circle they decided on together, and he calls in everyone to look and make sure he did it right, and he dismisses them all - one Elf alone is not obviously inhuman, two or more together raises suspicions -

- and he completes the circle.

 

Total: 4302
Posts Per Page:
Permalink

Here is a demon. Dark blue wings, looks like a shirtless white guy in blue jeans apart from that.

Permalink

Here is a man of carefully indeterminate age - greying, but if you ignored that he could be in his early twenties, surreally pretty, wearing a suit. His ears are not pointy; he got cosmetic surgery fifty years earlier. "Hello," he says in English, which is not one of the six or seven languages the demon just learned from him. "I'm Matthew."

Permalink

"Hello, what can I do for you?" These are interesting languages, what the heck language family - English isn't new, the dialect is weird though, kind of all over the place - just wants one phone call -

Permalink

"Forensics, might be a bit complicated. I'm looking for something. I want to know if you can make it and if you can't, I want to know where the extant ones are."

Permalink

"What is it?" He is not going to make nukes for a chance to call his dad, that would just be impressively bad priorities.

Permalink

"They're called Silmarils." He gestures. "About this big, sparkly, my father made them, I don't know what you need to go off." Call his dad -

Permalink

"Are they for anything, or...?" He's pretty sure nukes don't get cute trademark names but bioweapons or something might, due diligence, this would be really frustrating if he were gagged like the last few times, he'd just have to turn the guy down.

Permalink

He's a very good liar. "Sentimental. My father died a long time ago."

Permalink

"I will try making one for you for one phone call and track down the extant for two." Renée's not really responsible enough to be guaranteed to have a way to write down his instructions handy or keep a message on the answering machine but if he can get a second call it's not like she wouldn't appreciate hearing from him instead of from Charlie. Awkward if he gets Phil on the phone though. Hi Phil it's your dead stepson...

Permalink

"Deal."

Humans were supposed to have an afterlife but this is entirely the wrong style.

Permalink

 

"Can't make one."

Permalink

"Okay. There are three. Can you go for their surroundings, figure out where they are-"

Permalink

"Mm-hm -" Conjure conjure conjure.

Permalink

Rock, rock, and rock.

Permalink

Zooming out...

Permalink

Underwater rock. Under land rock. Under highly sulfuric rock.

Permalink

"Ow -" He stops conjuring them in his bare hands. More surroundings.

Permalink

The 'ow' one is on Venus. The other two are on Earth. Under North Dakota and under the Baltic Sea respectively.

Permalink

"Apparently a fairy fucked off with one of them to Venus. Is this precise enough or do you need larger models?"

Permalink

"That's precise enough. Thank you. There's a phone." Gesture.

Permalink

"Thanks!" Dude had better not stiff him and cut him off before he can tell Charlie anything, should've thought of that, should've said he needed at least a couple minutes. Oh well, seems like a nice enough guy, doesn't call him 'hellspawn' or anything. He goes over to the phone and dials from memory.

Permalink

He is not cut off at all. Have scale models of the locations, he tells everyone else. Also apparently humans can become daeva when they die, don't know why that part hasn't gotten out yet. Our demon is calling his father. I intend to ask him the second question afterwards.

Permalink

He gets an answering machine. Charlie's probably at work.

"This is not a prank, it's me, I need you to write a summoning circle for a demon with my full name in it," he says, "there's instructions how to do it the complicated way in my notes," or, like, the revelation book, same difference, "but you can also just write I summon the demon insert name around most of a circle with enough room for me to stand in it, then finish the circle. On the floor. Tell Renée please, I'm going to call her too but in case she, uh, Renées it. Leave the circle for a bit in case I get held up somehow, okay?"

Permalink

He still hasn't said his name. It's very annoying. 

 

Also. 

- or, like, the revelation book, same difference -

 

He looks very bored.

He is not very bored.

Permalink

Well, he expects the call recipients to recognize his voice. "I'm gonna call Renée now. See you soon."

Deep breath. Hang up. Dial a new number.

Man's voice: "Hello?"

"- hello, can I speak to Renée Dwyer?"

"She can't come to the phone right now, can I take a message?"

Jesus Christ Phil. He has nothing against Phil per se but right now he is in the way and he doesn't know how to handle him the way he can handle his parents. "It's a little delicate, are you sure she's not available?" He glances at his summoner, doesn't look impatient - "I can wait." She should be home by now. Could be out with friends but "can't come to the phone" is more likely to be "in the bathroom" or something.

"Delicate?"

"It's about her son."

"Lemme put you on hold."

"That's fine, thank you."

Total: 4302
Posts Per Page: