"How did it work, what can you do, how is it done -"

"I'm not sure what you mean by 'how did it work' - uh, I can do lots of things, like disrupting feedback loops for anxiety attacks and desensitizing traumatic memories and also utility stuff like the equivalent of coffee and I have decent telekinesis on light objects that I have line of sight to and I have to concentrate really hard but otherwise it's difficult to communicate to non-artists."

"And you can stop someone from doing things, such that she stopped being affected by the oath?"

"I can do action blocks. They're very complicated. I am professionally forbidden to discuss the details of specific patients - I'm professionally forbidden to do lots of things, actually - so I can't be very specific about her case."

"What is an action block, how do you do it?"

"An action block makes it impossible to complete the formation of an intention to do a thing. I sort of - place obstacles in the way of mental connections that would need to be completed in order to form such an intention."

"Yikes."

"It takes all day and it's really really hard and I don't like doing it and I require consent to do things like that anyway."

"Would it work on a Vala?"

"........maybe? In principle? In practice probably not... I'm not a particularly strong telepath except defensively and even there there's stuff that'll steamroll over me..."

"How does one get stronger?"

"Practice. Lots of it. And some people hit a ceiling."

"What makes people hit a ceiling, practice over what time scales..."

"Unknown remember this is an anti-science world we're talking about, and decades, sometimes centuries in the longer lived species."

"An anti-science world is just such a bizarre concept."

"I was pretty baffled by a world that lets you actually pick it apart, when I first met one."

"I wish I remembered what Valinor was like when I was young."

"It was great until the Valar started meddling."

"It was so nice until the Valar started meddling."

"Stupid evil Valar."

"Yeah."

"I'm not even sure if I can still reasonably say they're better than the Materian gods. Hard to compare straight across when the Materian ones don't cooperate, I guess..."

"They let the Enemy loose. They knew what he'd done and they let him go free."

"There are similar Materian gods that the less awful ones never bothered to try locking up to begin with."

"How's the planet still in one piece? Or do they contain themselves so the other ones won't be bothered?"