Is casting on a Maia different?

Yeah, they're more complicated and it's harder to figure out what I need to do - they're more overwhelming to look at, basically.

And a Vala will probably be worse.

Yeah, the Enemy was - I got a look while I was in Angband, briefly, and it took two tries to be able to stay in the trance at all. Whoever ends up doing the casting - shouldn't be me, I'm too irreplaceable - is definitely going to need to train for that.

Too bad we don't have any Valar to train on.

That'd be best, yeah. Sensing groups of people should be pretty close, though, I think we'll be okay.

Is another thing we should be picking mages on some kind of aptitude with the sense?

That's what noticing patterns is good for. We actually need two different sorts of mages, though - the ones who're going to be training to cast on the Enemy need to avoid knowing anything dangerous, because there's no way to be sure ahead of time that trying to cast on them doesn't give them an opportunity to capture them somehow, and then we'll also want mages who can know that stuff so they can help with things that involve it.

Makes sense. And probably a couple of each if who's going to be good at it is hard to predict...

Mmhmm. And so we don't have to start over if something happens - if we only have a few mages, or if they're all in one place, that's a really tempting target.

Yeah, definitely. But there'll be some here and some with the Nolofinweans, right, so that's not all in one place...

That, yeah. Two little clusters doesn't seem that much safer than one, though. And you probably don't want them actually here, either - the Ñolofinwëans are planning on building two cities so if the Enemy captures one of their mages they'll only be able to teleport to one and their civilians can be safe in the other.

We were going to build fortresses positioned to besiege him but I don't know if we're still planning on that.

Yeah, the portal rooms make that less of a good idea. I can help with whatever you end up deciding to do, though.

Thanks.

Grin, hug.

I have a little while before I need to get back for lunch, do you have anything else for me to do?

They do! They have a list.

At some point I really need to learn your language. And to read.

But they can read the list to her, and that works fine. Spells! Experiments! Lunchtime!

I can't read either, no worries. And they document the experiment results and say goodbye.

And she heads home and gets to work on lunch.

That went well, they didn't seem upset about Findekáno being a mage at all. Unless one of the others was and Tyelkormo didn't mention it, I guess.

Oh, good. I'd expect him to mention it, he doesn't usually stay quiet about things that are upsetting him.

Good.

I mentioned that the Ñolofinwëans are planning on a second city, too, I'm not sure Tyelkormo shared that with the others but it didn't seem to be a problem - probably helped that they had me working on their defenses today.

I think they mostly want the Nolofinweans to be safe and far away in Valinor, like we originally thought they were.

Mmhmm. I meant since they're not it's probably important that I don't seem like I'm favoring them too much.

It will certainly make my life easier politically if you don't seem that way, but we wronged them, it's very fair to favor them in response.