"I'm sorry. I didn't have very long with - the person he was before that - but he had a lot of qualities I very much admired. - maybe if we can somehow arrange for the two of them to meet the more stable one can impart the correct shape, I think Telumë wants to be a Leareth."

"Maybe. How did interworld transit work in your version -"

"He discovered it. By accident, working on a way to shorten the effective distance of within-plane Gates."

"I'm not a mage but I am a Fetcher."

"I have no idea if that would work. Maybe try it on something you wouldn't mind accidentally squishing, first, but - maybe it'd work.

- what is the situation in this world, is it going to cause problems if we summon a bunch of people -"

"It's peacetime. Sauron's out there somewhere, so we try not to be totally incautious, but we haven't seen any signs of the Enemy massing forces. If your friends or - spouses - or whatever else - want to negotiate here and agree to peace while they speak, they can speak here."

"Sauron's still out there? It's been five thousand years."

"He has eventually recovered from each of his previous defeats."

"I would be very interested in hearing more about that - he is still one of the parties involved in our war - but possibly not right now."

"Well, don't trust him, and don't trust other pretty and talented young Maiar who show up wanting to help, because they're him, and don't take magic immortality rings from him."

"Magic immortality rings?"

"He developed in collaboration with some of the Noldor - including your nephew," he adds to Maedhros - "very powerful magic artifacts that among other things made the bearers immortal. However, they also enslaved them to Sauron, so. Decline them."

"Thanks for the heads up."

"And at one point he persuaded a large human kingdom that the Valar were responsible for withholding immortality from Men, and got them to invade Valinor. They lost, horribly. So - don't go for that either."

"Lost horribly how? No one in Valinor has armies or weapons..."

"Eru sank the continent that they departed from, and then made the Pelori mountains collapse on the heads of the invading army. - and made them invulnerable, so this did not kill them but just encased them in stone forever, possessed of the immortality they'd sought so desperately."

"Okay where are we on the plan to kill Eru."

"You need to stop killing people and have a quiet retirement."

"Do you happen to know if Leareth's god'll be able to do that, I don't know how Velgarth gods stack up against, apparently, Eru -"

"I don't think Leareth's god will be able to do that. Eru's not - there are not actually meaningful avenues to kill Eru - also I am worried that since Angband fucked up Leareth so much the god will also come out wrong, it has the wrong base - I guess in your world there's not that problem -"

"He has all those researchers, I was figuring they weren't decorative? Maybe yours is fucked up in a way that can get around that."

"I don't know anything about the management of his army or government or research institution except that he had free enough rein in the department I do know anything about."

"Fair enough."

"I find that really concerning, by the way. I will have him here for peace talks, if there are some wars that could stop if the right people have the right peace talks, but -"