A longer pause. "Father says the Silmarils would make it trivial, mindless Silmarils probably aren't good enough, and that the things he'd need to do it are at least things he'd be able to pull off again without access to Valinor's resources."

"Cool. I mean, I assume this means trivial given a way to get there, which the Valar claim to have prohibited, and I assume you don't want to give me the Silmarils to take home and carry around in case of summoning."

"I don't think we can run the backups without all three, no. Silmarils as a stopgap for everyone who ages in this universe, while he designs something demon-reproducible; then you can go home and tell the fairies to tell the people you have faster-than-light travel and immortality for them."

"Sounds good."

"Anything else of interest from Angband is going to take longer to find. I'll keep you updated - is there a way to do that remotely -"

"In that direction, yeah, just title things 'letter to Cam'."

"And is there a way for my people to keep in touch with me in Brithombar, other than stationing someone every three hundred miles between here and there?"

"Do you think phones and relays would constitute escalation?"

"The Enemy knows we had those in Valinor. I can't imagine he thinks we'll refrain from using them here. Secured ones might be an escalation."

"Do you want insecure ones?"

"Unless you think it's a bad idea. If he's monitoring them I can use it towards the misinformation we've been attempting as well."

"Long as you know they're not secure it seems fine to me. I'd normally do this with satellites but I can do a dirtside version."

"Oooh. We only know how to do it with satellites or Valar."

"I can do satellites too, if the weapons tech doesn't escalate they'll be harder to knock down but if it does they're harder to hide."

"What I'd like to do is live and work in Brithombar and also be made aware of problems down here, it wouldn't be a catastrophe if he knocks them down. And any time he spends smashing things you made is time he's not spending pressing the lines forward against the locals."

"Satellites it is. I can just copy whatever you had in Valinor if you wanna give me specs."

"Project name was Treelight, blueprints were dated 1482..."

Cam produces blueprints and looks them over. "Okay, I can place these when next I'm in the sky."

"Okay. Dwarves don't share their language with outsiders; we learned it before we learned we weren't supposed to, but speak to them in Thindarin if the occasion arises. Thindarin's spoken at least a little bit in most places."

"Good to know."

"I should probably sleep, if I don't until the parley it'd be starting to affect me and it's not as if I'll be less busy tomorrow. Good skill."

"Sleep well."

Some people come in a few minutes later to remove the failed attempt at Finwe's resurrection. It's nice and quiet.

Not that basement-dwellers are usually loud.

Cam reads things and gives his computer language data and drinks coffee and eats miscellanea and asks the orc family if they want something softer than their car to sleep on, very sorry about the inconvenience...

And after a while someone comes in to tell him the King would like to discuss orc oaths.