"Unlike Angband, which was all fluffy grass and chocolate and roses."

"I am not telling you it upsets Maedhros because I like the sound of my own voice."

He glances at Kib. "We used to play Evil Governor, bet we can guess. ...you somehow can't give them free will and the Enemy had a better way of coercing properly controlling oaths? ...Valar caught on and Findekáno and I are both straightened out and married to nice girls?... Enemy managed to present the facts about his capabilities such that the entire population believes themselves to be in a hallucination..."

...Kib, frowning thoughtfully at Loki and Cam, says... nothing.

"None of the above. Unless Kib's got it."

"If he doesn't think I should know I'll stop guessing."

"I'm not sure. If I've got it, if I should say if I have..."

"I promise not to throw a tantrum."

"Oh, well, that solves everything, then, that's clearly what we were worried about all along."

"Kib, if you figured it out just by knowing your alts that well, explain your logic, that's going to be far more reassuring than the news can be awful..."

"They said the war part was less fucked up than average. It's probably not going to be anything to do with the Enemy. I think they're - confused about it, it's hard to approach for some reason, not amenable to brute force, I think they'd have told us straight out if it were something about Loki's magic rocks not working right there - we know they don't work here. Angband not being fluffy grass and chocolate and roses it is not that something happened to your alt. There's something wrong with the people in this Arda. ...All of them?"

"Not the Findekáno."

"If evil doubles were a thing he wouldn't have one, no. ....he wouldn't be the only one without..."

"We're not sure if he's the only one or not, Maedhros is working up to checking on some other people he thinks may not come in 'evil'."

"Please tell me there's not one of you."

"No, so far no Bells native to Ardas."

"Well. That's good. Is there a point of divergence or is everyone just evil, are non-locals born there evil, are they still evil if taken off-planet..."

"Haven't identified a point of divergence - the Valar are worse too but it doesn't seem likely to be just that - they seem to remain evil if moved but we're mostly quarantining the place except for the Fëanor, who has the Space Fëanors keeping an eye on him because actually quarantining him would be difficult, and the Findekáno, who is not affected directly by the evilness of the place."

"And wanted to abandon it?"

"Confusing and not amenable to brute force," Kib says softly when the other Bells don't answer immediately. "Tell me I'm wrong."

....they don't.

He doesn't actually require more information at that point.

Look at him, not throwing a tantrum. This is not how he'd expect Thauron to handle this reveal, if this is all a game - though maybe Thauron's airing it now, for plot holes, so that when it's the primary premise there aren't obvious errors... "what's the Findekáno doing right now, we could probably use two on getting Stork up to exporting golems by the billion..."

"He was at one of the Vanda Nossëo embassies investigating a civil war, I introduced him to my friend Sigyn, haven't heard an update since then."

"Okay."

"Elspeth got him let go as a condition for teaching them how to build the nuke. It - helped, but -"