I don't know. I've never heard of anything except probably Eru that could build a universe of stars.

Are the gods in your world much like the Valar?

Almost but not quite entirely unlike.

They have the recognizable domains, there's a god of wine and I wouldn't be shocked if there's a goddess of trees or light still active. They don't take physical form, just tell their followers what to do in exchange for blessings. Their own power varies based on how much they've been worshipped lately, and what they do with it mostly depends on the particular god's inscrutable motives.

They're in a weight class of their own, past most other things practitioners deal with, but they're never omnipotent.

The Valar aren't omnipotent, thankfully. Eru might be. If so he has strange priorities.

If he isn't, he's near enough as makes no difference. At least for being able to say that about his priorities.

Yeah. Now that you've seen a Vala, whatever went invisibly to the parley with my cousins - Vala or Maia, can you tell -

Maia. The whatever had the same thing I haven't seen elsewhere, but it looked more like Melian's degree of it than Varda's.

Well, we did know the Enemy had some in his service.

Yeah. So the boring obvious scheme at least wasn't a waste of his personal attention. Unfortunately.

Valar have about several hundred times as much attention as people do. So it wouldn't have wasted much of it anyway.

I wonder who it was. A name wouldn't tell us much since we already know he has Maiar, but still.

I bet my cousins have some ideas, if they've been talking with the locals more than we have.

They floated the name Thauron, but I think that was just because he's the one they had heard of. Nothing really substantial, or even "he has a style and it's this."

He sends the mental impression of a shrug. Do you think you could tell him apart from other Maiar by the spirit-pattern?

Probably not. Well, I could tell it apart from a Maia that isn't influencing the world around them just by being there, but I doubt I could distinguish between two. 

And I don't want to risk practicing.

Agreed.

And they get clear of the edge of the world.

Once the rest of them have outgrabe, they can embark on the long flight back. It's simpler and faster than the other direction, now that they can freefall horizontally instead of galumphing around with flying water.

These are going to be so useful.

Firepower is exactly what we needed. Probably too much to hope that we can just walk up and pull down the Enemy's walls, but still.

We might be able to do that, I'm just worried about what happens next.

And I don't know how to find out what he's got. Magically or otherwise.

Yep. I'm worried nothing we've got will even inconvenience a Vala - though maybe that's too pessimistic, they don't have this kind of magic...

I'm very sure magic can in principle inconvenience a Vala. Whether we can do it with elementalism, when that boils down to different ways of moving physical objects around, that's more of a maybe.

Too high-risk to have asked Varda to grab some books from your home, I suppose.

I wasn't going to bring up the other world if she didn't ask.

But for that, it might actually have been worth trying to get her to steal someone's library.