Probably went to Utumno, but I don't think it's wise to try pursuing him there.

Yeah, we decided against going there even without him and against going after him even without him having a fortress. He can twiddle uninterrupted.

In hindsight it perhaps would have been wise to destroy it while it was unoccupied. But yes.

That having been decided, it'd be an ideal chance to attack Angband if they had anything with the slightest chance of working. If. Absent that, may as well enjoy the next three weeks as much as possible while keeping one eye on the Enemy.

The Enemy returns to Angband after ten days. 

Huh. I didn't know Valar did anything that fast.

I mean, the Darkening and Finwë's assassination and the sack of Formenos happened quickly. They don't plan quickly, and their magic doesn't work quickly, but they are perfectly capable of acting in - normal spans of time.

That's interesting, he didn't have all that much longer to figure out how to react than to actually do it. Maybe if we could figure it out there'd be some kind of clue there about what stopped him from marching out and killing us pre-magic.

It is apparently not categorical unwillingness to leave Angband. Maybe he just wanted something in Utumno and did not trust anyone with the errand. Maybe he actually leaves a lot and we just previously had no way to notice.

A secret errand would be a bit too much of a coincidence to swallow... I'd like to lean more toward it meaning that whatever cost it would involve only applies when he attacks, with retreating being free. That's probably just optimism talking.

Probably.

We should get started on turning the universe against him.

That should have already started. Depends more on him than us. We can at least take advantage of it early with the putting people who might have biological orc descendants in charge of missions, but we can't make his karma worse for him.

If he breaks another parley - if we ask for one...

That'd hurt him a lot, but telling a lie would be worth the recovery time if he captures a practitioner. It's not fatal by itself. We could hit him while he's weak from it once there's something to hit him with–

Do we even have prospects of something to hit him with?

Enough practitioners to actually incapacitate him with the summoning trick. Really big elementals from the Ice? Lumps of metal with a high melting point dropping out of orbit, if orbits work here.

Theoretically we could just wait; he'll be digging himself deeper and the spirits will hold him to account for it eventually. Often correctly, even.

Can we bind elementals big enough to be a threat to him? 

Waiting is tempting, honestly. 

We wouldn't be able to be sure we had anything big enough. 

Problem with waiting is that in the meantime he's being himself. Torturing whoever he's got. Plus his practitioners probably outnumber ours. They consider oath-enforced obedience to a dictator the norm. If that sticks around for a few dozen Years, magic'll listen.

And then he'll stop racking up bad karma for it?

That too. I was thinking it'd be one more big thing to correct even after he's gone.

After he's gone we can fix anything, we'll have forever. And Varda said there'll be humans; we can teach them good rules, too.

Nod.

Maybe even find a way to safely dispense with the secrecy.

If it does come to waiting long-term, I want to at least look into trying the artificial meteor strikes. Do you think the Valar monitor for space travel the way they do the world's edge?

I doubt it. How would anyone do it without magic?

Rockets. She only knows how rockets work in generalities, but sends that. And lots of math, most of which probably doesn't apply here.

Throw it at Elenwë just in case, but yes, probably not.