How likely are they to retaliate against an unfriendly-sounding lack of an answer?

If you swear you don't serve the Enemy? Probably just with a scolding. 

Possible they'd send you home.

They could do that? I'm needed here, but maybe they'd send a message...

I could pretend to be one of the naturally appearing Men. 'Had to start somewhere, why not the boundary.'

That'd work if they didn't check with Eru. And I'd very tentatively expect they could send you home. If you get them in a good mood they could probably let you send a message, or possibly let you go visit and grab things; if you're making them mad they might just make you leave.

With the lack of explanation, they probably won't be in a favor-granting mood.

How effective would it be if they did check with Eru, does he talk more often than they do to Melian? And the spontaneous generation option probably only works if I'm alone, so if it's that we'd have to decide in advance.

He doesn't talk to them very often but might if his own actions were being lied about - or, well, presented in a way that caused the Valar to believe something false. 

All right, no annoying the even more powerful superbeing if at all possible.

Even if it does mean the Valar know we're hiding something.

It's possible they'll try to wait you out. Keep you company until you explain yourself.

And I'm not about to try to out-wait a Vala. We could go with 'telling people is dangerous, ask Melian if you don't believe us,' but even then they could just confirm that it's dangerous and insist anyway.

Depends very much on which Vala.

I'd ask which, but we have no control. Doesn't make a lot of difference for now. We might end up leaning hard on getting out in time.

Yes. Or cutting off their attention.

How do you mean?

I think the forget-you're-there trick should work fine on the Valar, too. 

Right. It doesn't do much long-term, and that's on a human scale, but it's something.

When do we want to do this, and do you gain from having people with you?

Yes, it'd allow finding more before we have to get out of there.

And, whenever there isn't anything urgent going on. Could be any time, at least on my end.

Let's all go, then.

The next time they're all free is another week.

So in another (unnaturally long) week, they set off on a long flight. The cold at the northern and southern edges would be more dangerous than usual under the circumstances, and west is right out, so east it is.

It's a very long flight. But eight thousand miles later, there's a mountain range that seems to be angled funny, and as they fly towards it they'll be dragged backwards instead of down.

It's less uncomfortable than it possibly could be. Evenly distributed force is better than most seat belts. Very disorienting, though. They keep flying horizontally toward the direction that is now up.

Then they'll reach the mountain. The air's thinner. The bubble will at one point or another jerk awkwardly in the sky. 

When they're within a few feet of the mountain they'll fall toward it.

Does it get too thin to breathe? There's only the one water-breathing mask–

And then the unwanted landing. A few feet isn't much time to stop, but at least it isn't far to fall.

"I don't see anything big from here. Anyone have better luck, or do we just keep going and hope it gets more intense?"

Nope, still breathable, definitely for Elves.  

The Elves have better vision and, scrambling to the edge of their current surface, Lalwen bounces something potentially promising over to Amber.

The same flat mountainside extends past the edge—the edge is just where down becomes parallel to the surface they're on.

The something doesn't seem to have a fixed shape that could be described more precisely than "convex." It's a distortion in the air, and somehow manages to both gyre and gimble. A small cloud of dust and stones hovers on average around it, being alternately drawn toward it or away or in some third direction.