I can ask alone, then, for the extra layer of definitely-not-following-Fëanáro.

Options for who to divinely rob. The priest's demesne is basically a temple, hard to pass off as mine. And we might be out of reach of Earth gods anyway. Isadora, the Sphinx, is really powerful and teaches a lot of practitioners. She's an avatar of Balance, meaning karma and rightness, not just by necessity like we are. Problem is I don't know if stealing her library would help, since she predates writing and I think relies mostly on instinct and experience. There's a practitioner serving a spirit of patriotism, I don't know much about that or how useful it'd be if I did.

The best targets would be old families, and we don't really have any of those. Best bet is a certain servant of the Lord of the city. I think the servant part isn't voluntary; he might not even mind being made less useful. He does illusions and enchantment, which would come in handy but doesn't hit very hard.

I have a friend who does astrology, but a lot of her stuff is sentimentally valuable and would probably be useless here anyway. There's a practitioner who works with ghosts but I don't know much about him. Sisters of the Torch are elementalists, would be partly redundant even if they were focused on magic instead of networking.

I actually don't think there's anyone in the city who can do more destruction than we already can.

And are we limited in scope to this one city out of plausibility of your request, or do you not know much about other cities...

I could go further afield. I'd be directing a Vala to a place I'm less familiar with and might end up with a bunch of perfectly ordinary paperbacks if I get it wrong, but there are some old magical families in the next town over.

If the Valar are helpful that might be worth pursuing.

I only get one shot, but I'll try that. Much more offensive power, for sure.

Hopefully I'll be right back with a truckload of information.

I would not count on it being a short trip.

Faster than the last time we went to the world's edge. Shorter if I ask them at Valinor directly, but that seems almost aggressive.

No, I just mean it might take them a while to answer you. Don't go to Valinor directly, that is likely to anger them.

It'll take them a while to arrive, or to decide? I can go prepared for it to take time.

Likelier the first.

That's fine then.

When they show up, would they take it badly if I ask about Melkor's limits? Since a lot of that does translate to Valar in general.

I do not think so, no. They will be inclined to assume that Eru had a plan for bringing you here.

And I can honestly say that for all I know that's exactly what happened. Good.

I suppose it might be.

Shrug. The competing lack of an explanation is still "universe of origin objected more directly than usual to attempts to change things," so: shrug.

Yep. 

And here is how to best get Ulmo's attention on the shore.

Oh, that's much more polite than showing up at the edge of the world and asking a favor of whoever appears.

Not an ideal method, but it helps a lot that there is one.

Yep, no complications from breaking a rule she had already been informed of.

Is there anything else to ask the Valar? I'd want to know whether they heard about magic from Melian yet, but obviously shouldn't ask.

I want to know whether the Doom applies to us also but it might be better to remain uncertain about that, from the spirits' perspective...

Might be. It shouldn't hurt much if just a few people know, we can still act as if it's uncertain and avoid getting more doomed. I definitely won't ask that if Ulmo is a practitioner when he shows up, though.

Nod. Take supplies for a few months, just in case.

Months. If we weren't already on notice about the edge...

It could be faster than that. Depends whether Ulmo is busy.

Probably, if he's still running the oceans' ecosystem manually. And that's an actual meaningful priority.