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The grownups are all very busy, but the children are all bored.
Bored or having nightmares. But Tasárinon was not on a ship and did not see the people dying and has only heard it thirdhand and can't exactly have nightmares about the look in his mother's eyes - well, he probably could, but he hasn't - so he's bored, and he is drawing on the floor. It is an absurdly intricate drawing. He has been embellishing it for three days.
"The next steps are 'see if the basement dwellers die' and 'try in a live volunteer, possibly even if they do' - I should have a control basement dweller, I should have thought of that."
"We should have suggested it. We'll leave that out of the epic song. Won't be ready to go in three days, in any event?"
"Mass deployment wouldn't be the point. I don't think I should go to a parley without one. Though if you're there you have the means to do it anyway, probably."
"Yes, given certain assumptions, although I have never actually killed someone before and may not have the instincts you'd want for when to do it."
"I was murdered at age twenty-two and between then and being summoned here I have spent literally all of my time in a dimension with nobody who could possibly die, or under at least modestly competent bindings!"
"Well. I'd be delighted to end this without killing anyone more except the Enemy, but I don't have any idea how to do that.
How likely are you thinking it is that the Enemy got backup-hijacking working?"
"Don't know. I'm not sure what other things he could have efficaciously chosen to lie about if he were choosing a lie, that's a factor."
"I don't know enough about orc culture to know what else would excite them.
Mandos doesn't torture souls, incidentally, though the process can involve isolation for thousands of subjective years which under some definitions ought to count."
"The main things we need my father for are an assessment of whether he could have gotten the Silmarils working in that manner, an assessment of how indestructible they are and what kinds of Angband-levelling they can tolerate - a black hole would definitely destroy them - and whether given that he now has you he can remake them. And to learn the language orc-oaths are in so he can find loopholes, there always are some."
"No, I'm just bringing them along so they can be addressed, they're staying in their shuttle."
"Lightspeed delay's the limiting factor, visual range if I want to manifest anything new in with them, do you want me to leave them a bit inland?"
"Sounds good.
I also think you should go ahead and infosec-hazard Dwarf locations because there's no way Doriath's letting any of us in now."
Found them. Underground cities built into mountain ranges. There are dozens but there are seven large ones, with populations from five to twenty million.
"And I'm not even confident 'convince them to evacuate' works, since if the Enemy slips one agent in with them he can destroy wherever you send them and we can't verify non-Enemy status with oaths.
Well.
We could make them all swear oaths on the assumption the Enemy agent actually wouldn't be able to do it."
"I've been assuming Dwarf oaths don't do anything. But shapechanger Maia posing as a Dwarf oaths do something, so we can still weed them out. Men? Have you checked out all their written works?"
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