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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.
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purposeful_glory
All of them do this? Can't even turn it off for stealth? That sounds unpleasant.
They can turn it down but no, not off. At least, not to my knowledge. The Maiar can be as unassuming as they like. As you know, having met Huan.
purposeful_glory
I was so confused the first time Tyelcormo said his dog could take me but I thought it might have seemed threatening to contradict him.
Laughter. He probably felt obliged to give you fair notice and would have been perfectly happy for you to discard it.
purposeful_glory
He did concede later that Huan can't fly. ...Can Thauron fly?
He can stop having a physical form. I don't think he can fly while humanoid.
purposeful_glory
Does it take long for them to switch in and out of having a physical form? The Balrog shapechanged pretty quickly but wasn't able to use this ability to heal itself mid-battle or anything, is that a standard limit?
That sounds like the opposite of what I'd expect, actually; usually they can be absurdly resilient to changes to their form and heal accordingly, but take a long time to change forms. Perhaps there's a tradeoff between the two and stealth agents focus on the second. It's also possible Thauron didn't have a physical form in the first place when he was talking to you, or had a more dangerous one, and was showing you an illusion and then using magic to hold the rock in place.
purposeful_glory
It duplicated the shapes of various people in the camp, down to their clothes, and when I caught it changing visibly it was quite seamless; and then it turned invisible and as soon as I had cover fire set up and bystanders away from it I covered it in disabling illusion and attacked it and then it turned quite promptly into a Balrog. That last change at least was definitely physical and not visual because it broke my illusions and I had to replace them.
One of Moringotto's interests back in Valinor when he was pretending at friendliness was artifact magic that could make the Maiar more like Elves. It struck everyone as a legitimate concern; it'd be nice if they could walk down the street costlessly.
purposeful_glory
Did he seem to get anywhere? Or - would he have been able to hide the results, if he did? I don't suppose you could derive anything from seeing what Thauron looked like.
I can tell you whether it's a form I've seen him use before. I don't think that gets you much of anything.
I'm trying to decide what you should tell my family about all of this.
purposeful_glory
Let me know if you figure it out because I haven't the slightest idea and you'd know better anyway.
Lying to my father would be disastrous if he finds out. I take it you've been usually giving them the transcripts, so if you say 'Thauron offered me a job, I declined, I'm worried about the Men' they might ask for those. I don't think, reading the transcripts, they'll fear he's suborned you. I do think they'd probably demand - or go out to find - proof that you didn't do it and that I'm alive.
Nolofinwë's people you can probably just share the strategically relevant bits. If you did share the whole thing I expect their reaction would be 'well, Thauron's probably lying to you and Maitimo's also probably lying to you'. Except Findekáno, who I'm actually having a bit of trouble predicting. I am not at all sure he'd be okay.
Nolofinwë's people you can probably just share the strategically relevant bits. If you did share the whole thing I expect their reaction would be 'well, Thauron's probably lying to you and Maitimo's also probably lying to you'. Except Findekáno, who I'm actually having a bit of trouble predicting. I am not at all sure he'd be okay.
purposeful_glory
What kind of proof would they want that I didn't turn you in?
I don't know. I can't talk to them. They know why I can't talk to them. You must by now have a better appreciation of why I can't talk to them, given that you know I think the Enemy can observe and use all of this.
purposeful_glory
Abundantly clear, yes. I suppose Tyelcormo could fly out and ask some Dwarves if you're all right, or something.
You can do illusions. If you were really committed to this lie you could - and I'm sure Thauron'd help you - have someone looking like me sitting in a Dwarven hotel room.
purposeful_glory
And I suppose they could say they don't believe me about the limits on my illusions. I have to actively monitor something that's going to look like a person or even an animal, if I'm not paying direct attention all it can do is loops of preplanned behavior. You might have noticed the clouds on your ceiling repeating, they had long enough to do that. And they're not tactile and I can't do heat or ultraviolet. I don't know what it'd look like with Thauron helping, I suppose.
I'm sure they'd check, and, having checked, be more inclined to trust you, but they wouldn't be sure and I'm not sure that they ought to be. You were after all discussing whether you thought you could lie to my father for the necessary decade, when we thought this might be worth it.
purposeful_glory
She vents a sigh. But it wasn't, I'd hope the reasoning on that was clear - ugh. Doesn't it count for anything that even if I'd given you over it would have been with you cooperating and not by force?
If I'd thought that you were probably going to take me either way, I'd have agreed to cooperate and then tried to talk you out of it, on the assumption that you'd be likelier to listen to a cooperative ally than a desperate prisoner. It did cross my mind to do exactly that.
It will be obvious to them that it wasn't worth it, but that's because they care more about me than about all of the orcs in the world combined, and they know you disagree with them there.
It will be obvious to them that it wasn't worth it, but that's because they care more about me than about all of the orcs in the world combined, and they know you disagree with them there.
purposeful_glory
More and longer sigh. All right, how invasive is Macalaurë's lie-detection song, will I notice everything I need to know about whether I can put up with it if I play it at myself alone in my hotel room, and will that suffice.