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Tumunzahar makes Menegroth look like a contract project. Which, the Dwarves assure her, it was. The stonework is astonishingly careful and beautiful, silky to the touch up close while from a distance it gives the impression of stretching on forever above, a sky of stone with crystals for stars. Vast natural cave systems are connected by dozens of perfectly smooth, gently sloped broad stone pathways from which the fall, if she fell, would be several miles down. There are handrails. "We use those to move materials carts," someone explains to her, "we're not going to be reckless."
There's an amphitheater, a place where a hundred of the stone walkways twine around to create space for a hundred thousand people to sit in close proximity, and someone is giving a lecture or a demonstration at the base of it, the seats closest to him filled with eager, tiny, bearded Dwarf-children.
And they spiral down, and down, and down, past waterfalls and egg-sized gemstones left half in the rock and halls of crystal. Everything grows gradually more ornate and more perfectly maintained and the clang of hammers fades behind them. "People say," her guide says, "that we only have a council instead of a single King because there were nine winners of the competition to design the throne so we couldn't just select one person to sit it." And they push open the doors to reveal, indeed, nine thrones so elaborate it would be hard to choose between them, and nine squat bearded people sitting them.
purposeful_glory
"Well, you've picked up an idea of the sort of compensation that might interest me, but if Melkor can't muster so much as a whim to stop being so darned evil all the time I'm not sure why I should expect him to hire me on as, what, Executive Orc De-Sufferer?"
"Because we want what you have to offer far more than we care about that. Or do you mean that you wouldn't be able to trust us? I am prepared to swear, Loki, and my master is prepared to swear, that for as long as you serve us no orc suffers."
purposeful_glory
"I've never actually had it verified by a disinterested party that swearing works the same way for anybody other than Elves and orcs. And you're being very vague about my proposed job description."
"You're welcome to go verify that; the offer is not temporally limited, and no doubt our paths will cross again. Our goal is to kill the Valar. The job description is mostly to play as much role as possible in our instrumental planning so that where needed it can deviate from script."
purposeful_glory
"Oh, so that will work, I had wondered. If you want to kill the Valar why all this fucking around with armies of orcs and packs of werewolves?"
"Well, until you sign on, we need Men to do anything other than play our designated part. This is more unbearable for us than for the Elves, because we know our fates to a much greater level of detail. We are still in a position of relying on armies to control territory, though hopefully not for much longer. The werewolves are a hobby of mine. They're transformed Men, so might be able to have interesting free will once they're powerful enough to actually change the course of the war."
purposeful_glory
"And the territory control matters because of that thing where you dig in and build up magical oomph?"
purposeful_glory
She hopes that being off its turf wasn't the only reason why the Balrog was an easy target. "What's the endgame? Dig in, hope the Valar aren't bracing themselves too hard, vast continent-destroying warfare, suppose you win, then what?"
"Eru has a lot of pet projects like this one. Shall we split them fifty-fifty? You can have a share of the galaxy as a performance bonus if you end up being instrumental to our victory."
purposeful_glory
"Who has been giving you such detailed personality assessments of me? That carrot implies a long string of successes much greater than killing the local Valar, though."
"I have a high opinion of you and think, were you dedicated to the task, we could achieve it together. And my agent in Nolofinwë's camp was not competent but had good hearing and was there for a long time, which was really all that was required to understand what motivates you."
purposeful_glory
"Maybe I should cultivate an aura of mystery next time I'm visiting a strange planet. But my question was more limited in scope. Endgame for this planet? Anybody who survives the continent-destroying warfare? Or is the plan scorched earth, take off into space?"
"A thriving society of happy and productive orcs, with the most capable ones recruited for our new priorities. None of them in pain, if you join on."
purposeful_glory
"And everybody else gets to go extinct, I presume, or are you planning to offer me an evacuation plan?"
"If you made yourself useful enough I suppose I'd consider it. There are a thousand orcs for every Elf and Man, Loki, speaking only of already extant ones. And time passes faster in Angband; they reach adulthood in three or four years, they have ten children a year. If you side with the Elves and win this war all of them suffer, forever."
"You think you can fix all the children? I can't see you doing that for eternity. I suppose you could sterilize them."
"I apologize. The one already dead are beyond your reach, and if you don't take drastic measures the vast majority of them are and always will be, but if you side with the Elves and win you can spend the rest of the lifespan of this universe trying to protect some of them. Or -
- here, I'll make it easy. I will tell my lord Melkor to fix it right now. You can verify on your way home that all of them are fine, though I suppose you can't verify that dead ones were suffering or now aren't. You can verify that our word is as inviolable as any Elf's, and then I'll swear to the truth of that alongside everything else. How long do you think you'll need to make your decision?"
- here, I'll make it easy. I will tell my lord Melkor to fix it right now. You can verify on your way home that all of them are fine, though I suppose you can't verify that dead ones were suffering or now aren't. You can verify that our word is as inviolable as any Elf's, and then I'll swear to the truth of that alongside everything else. How long do you think you'll need to make your decision?"
purposeful_glory
"I don't know if your agent would have heard my joke about vacation days, but rumor has it a few years are nothing to you?"
purposeful_glory
"That's not very long to get to the various far-flung people I might want to consult about your claims, catch and interrogate samples of orcs, contemplate going to Valinor and vainly filing a complaint even more than I have already contemplated that..."
"In six days if you want the offer to remain open you can bring me proof you're considering it, and from then you have two years."