"So in the ones without a means of flight he - just walks in? To an evil god's fortress?'

"While singing. I think he intended it to be a suicide mission to perform a mercy kill."

"Khersis. That's the most horrible sort of cute thing I've ever heard."

"Isn't it just. It's only played out quite like that in Luster but we're assuming that any standard Arda left unattended would have wound up the same because Luster looks like it started with the usual initial conditions and wasn't interfered with until recently."

"No standard Ardas left unattended yet?"

"I mean, once we find the place by definition it's not unattended and we're not going to leave a Melkor running amok as an observational case study."

"Found after the war's resolved itself one way or the other without extradimensional intervention?"

"Nope, none found after when Luster was."

"If these disappearances turn out to be him what're you gonna do?"

"The good news is he has no way to identify me. He met Loki, but we don't look alike; he met Elspeth but at the time Elspeth didn't know that her mom had alts, let alone that we come in boy. I will look like a random curious person, not like I'm here to wreck his shit. So I gather the intel I can, I write it down, and at that point maybe they try dismissing me out."

"And we let people continue accepting this lovely emigration offer?"

"If there seems to be a good avenue to warn them off it we can do that, but if he's actually behind it I find it unlikely he's committed to waiting for permission anyway."

"Right, good point. Well, then we'd have enough to take to the Emperor, probably."

"What sorts of things do emperors do about kidnapper evil gods, here?"

"The Imperium has access to some very heavy hitters. This'd be a bad country to start in if you were hoping to swallow a country without anyone noticing, don't know if that's evidence it's not him or just that he has other plans. I expect they'd bribe some noble dragons and some epic adventurers to have a go? That's how we'd handle it, though with less desirable bribes."

"All right."

"If you've got a better idea we're all ears."

"I don't. We don't have any mechanisms for doing stuff to or in worlds without being in them. It has not previously been a problem, but here it means local solutions may actually be it."

"Well, at least we got a little forewarning and have magic that can in principle kill gods."

"Yeah. Sorry I can't just sail in and fix it like I meant to."

"Trust me, we'd have been delighted if you'd taken out all the dragons and half the deities and then landed to say 'want to meet the family you never had'? It's okay. This works."

"Fingers crossed."

"If it doesn't work we're no worse off because of you."

"I mean, we did kind of chase him off in the first place. In Space Arda the Sauron had a deadman switch - so this one, Loki went and said hello first, to see if he'd give her a reason not to kill him - and off he went."

"But, like, he was already doing evil stuff, just somewhere else, right?"