...plausible.

We can get him to swear on some of these things, but - not all of them. He has more information, we're running blind...

We'd need some kind of advantage more sneaky than "surprise, we can verify oaths, which you could have figured out if you cared to check" to expect good results.

Yep. Do let me know if you think of anything. I'm going to run this by some other people.

Will do. I'll work on the oath-verifying courier anyway, could be useful for other situations.

Thanks.

He runs it by some other people. None of them can think of an informational advantage that would make it worth trying to cut a deal with the Enemy.

Is it worth trying to slip him some slightly awkward oath wording we could leverage later, and then just not show up? If he really wants us to talk...

I don't think we have anything to lose by it. See if we can get him to promise not to further harm the children until we've parleyed?

Ooh, I like it.

So they send a golem, and a bird, and a carefully-worded oath. The golem comes back.

That's not the same bird.

Course not. It'll have to pretend to do what I say if it wants to convince anybody, though, I can tell it to hang back and we can decide what to do with it?

Yeah.

"Wait on that ridge," Cam calls to the bird, pointing. So it's some kind of Maia, or an actual bird that one of the kids petted for him, can you tell which?

Sure, by talking to it. But that kinda gives the game away.

If it's an actual bird you can just shoot it. If it's a Maia we have a problem. What do we do if it's a Maia, what would one of those be here for?

Uh, if I were the Enemy, kill you. 

That or a spying campaign of some kind. Or both! Or just pretend to have verified the identity of whoever swore to corroborate the courier and draw us out into more extended negotiations! How do we kill a Maia.

If we knew that we'd be having another run at Angband instead of talking with them. Huan can give it an even fight and not even that if he's trying to protect nearby civilians and it isn't.

It might be pretending hard enough to go off somewhere remote if I tell it to, but having it duel Huan seems risky. Would the war golems be any help to him?

They couldn't even scratch Thauron but most Maiar aren't Thauron. If you tell it something that makes it think its cover's blown it might attack. On the other hand, we haven't been shooting down random birds that get near camp, there's got to be a reason he didn't just send a bunch of valaraukar in in bird form - unless he did -

It occurred to me this morning that I should have sent extra birds and that just in case Melkor was actually there they'd know him afterwards, but I suppose at least this way he was limited in his smuggling opportunities.

Yeah, I don't fancy fighting dozens of valaraukar again. Is it possible a Maia wouldn't know exactly how a pet behaves, and there's some play you could make to distinguish them....

Gotta assume he's got all the books he wanted on servantmaking.

- On reflection this can't be a real pet because how would it have been introduced to me.

Well. There we go. Don't let it anywhere near you - he sends an image of what it'll turn into - you'll be dead and we don't have a way to go fetch you from the human world this time.