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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
Whereupon Loki explains that if Allspeak worked that way, her sister would be able to read her diary.
"Fine. Silence the area, please, if you have other things to check for invisible beings do those, what if we invented and spoke a language? How many samples does Allspeak need?"
"Overlapping area-effect songs do stack if you're sufficiently clever with them. Thank you for catching that. We figured out how to stack the cognition one further. After about two months with high-speed cognition it becomes hard to move out of it; there's a few hours' withdrawal in which motor reflexes are retarded and subjects report dizziness, confusion, bad headaches that healing can't fix, and an inability to process sound normally. After about a year these effects persist for a day or so when leaving compressed time. They get worse if you keep doing it. My father weighed the risks and decided to spend most of his time with high-speed cognition. I'm ruling in his name. This is known to only about ten people."
"That'd be lovely, but isn't the priority. We've been communicating asynchronously and the last letter I left him I told him what your messenger said; if he thinks it's worth rejoining the world he'll do so. Distractions cost him weeks, not hours, now, and time is at a very dear premium. I think I need more context on what you're trying to do and why."
purposeful_glory
"So I've got a fair ways on the Men's settlement but I am sort of expecting that as soon as Thauron doesn't shatter into pieces of ice whenever he tries to adopt physical form," smirk, "he can steamroll right over it. I was thinking to buy time for them, but if Fëanor's running accelerated by that much I might not need it - I might just start running accelerated, although I need occasional breaks to an extent I think he doesn't."
"It's been three years. I don't think we'll have even prototypes for another three, and it could easily still be seven. Five years' reprieve would be very well timed now, but you being unable to pursue your projects is a high cost for it. You'd need to be somewhere very very safe to attempt what he's currently doing. If anything did attack him he'd be helpless. And we know the side effects for beings like us, not like you."
purposeful_glory
"That part I'm much less sure about, hence the consultation. Nolofinwë doesn't think I'd better."
"Airtight wording is possible. It'd be nice to have Melian as a resource but at a guess she'll attempt to stop you from doing it. You sure we couldn't take Thauron again?"
purposeful_glory
"Maybe if I had tactical teleportation by then. Dicey. But I've been working faster than my original estimate accounted for on several fronts and my original times were for the whole shebang. 'Get somewhere else on top of this bloody cylinder' is easier."
"Then the best choices seem to be to go to Doriath, work on teleportation at as much acceleration as you safely can, stall on the negotiations, and anticipate that Thauron will probably carry out or order a massacre and send you pictures, or evacuate the Men, lose the advantage of space to stall, hope we can drive him off with casualties in the thousands and not the tens of thousands, or find a wording that you think is airtight and waltz into Angband with a really effective way of killing yourself if you're wrong."
purposeful_glory
"Yes, that would seem to be the approximate options. I'm not thinking he'll let me stall very long. Didn't work last time, I only get so much time by relying on an intermediary messenger."
"If he lets you stall it's probably because he's not ready, not because he doesn't recognize the tactic. We build our cities into mountainsides, we enchant them from the ground up, and we don't expect to be able to hold out against Thauron without massive losses. The Men are not in a defensible position and their position cannot be made defensible even were were prepared to deploy significant resources there. Which we're also not prepared to do, because it's entirely possible that truce made with you, Thauron comes here."
"When last you spoke his mental health was the operative constraint on his achieving his objectives. Judging by the city, I think he's now like the rest of us in the realm of being constrained mostly by the speed at which stone can be moved and enchanted. I could be wrong. He's not speaking to me.
All of that aside if you're at all inclined towards the five-year plan it'd be idiocy to go ahead with it without running things by him."
All of that aside if you're at all inclined towards the five-year plan it'd be idiocy to go ahead with it without running things by him."
"Shall we spend a few hours drafting wordings? I can spare the time, you've been dropping by less frequently."
So they spend a few hours on it. Someone brings food, an elaborate array of Valinor delicacies that they didn't have when she'd left because the crops weren't all established yet.