"So Sauron survives the sinking of the continent, heads back to Mordor, and all the free peoples of the world march off to war to end him for real and forever - and we do, we kill him, it's a horrible war but we do it - but he'd made that ring, the one I mentioned, and we only realized later how it anchors him in the world, and it's lost now to time. So someday he'll come back. We don't know when."

Pop! With Maedhros.

And then she gets a look at Gem's face and - "what happened -"

"Turns out that Ardas where I don't show up one way or another to save the day are so terrible. Hi Maedhros this is - hasn't introduced himself actually - who your alt adopted several thousand years ago, wanna kill a Sauron."

"Yes."

"You know the wording that worked in Luster? Actually - if there might be local circumstances - it was phrased there as 'without destroying anything else in Arda, I want Melkor and all of the Maiar that serve him irrevocably dead from this minute forward', last tidbit to enable time travel magic if something went wrong - does this sound like it'll work if it goes through?" she asks hasn't-introduced-himself.

"Sauron might not fall under "Maiar that serve him", present tense, since there's no Melkor around to serve."

"He's just imprisoned again, not dead, right? But fair enough - Melkor and Sauron and all the Maiar that have served them? Are there any reformed Maiar we might need to worry about, the only gray area I know of is Thuringwethil and she's already done for..."

"If there are any I haven't heard of them."

"Is that ring going to be a problem, what with being an anything else in Arda which would not be covered by the wish as specified?"

"Might wish the Ring destroyed as well." He looks at his own mournfully. "All the other ones'll stop working too, if you're feeling creative you could wish for the Ring and all the corrupted lesser ones to be destroyed without effects on the uncorrupted three."

"...'corrupted' here meaning what, mechanically, and your confidence that yours isn't it coming from...?"

"All the ones Sauron worked on he can exert control over remotely, and instead of their intended purpose they corrupt the bearers into his servants. Well, except Dwarves, immunity to mind-control, the Dwarven ones make their bearers more anxious and hot-tempered, because that's physiological. The Elven rings were made by Celebrimbor in secret after he began to suspect Annatar, and you can tell they don't corrupt their bearers because here I am not a slave of Sauron and I've worn it for thousands of years, in addition to the fact he had no part in their making. If he had the One he could probably still tamper with these rings, but only because if he has the One he'll be nigh-omnipotent.

Anyone who has the One is nigh-omnipotent. That's - that's how it corrupts you."

"That doesn't seem like a very obvious mechanism of corruption."

"The nigh-omnipotence is instantaneous, the corrupting is - not slow, but slower. So you tell yourself you can put it on for a little bit, fix everything, make the whole world safe for everyone, but then once it's on you will never ever have the strength to take it off and let it go - if you have sworn to take it off and let it go you will erase the oath with your own convenient omnipotence - and it'll occur to you that people might want to take it from you so you will build yourself defenses against them, or maybe just change all their brains so they can't even think about it, it will seem like a necessary and right thing to do -

- there is no safe way to use the Ring and the more good you think you'd do with it the more of a danger it is to you. Trust me."

"I believe you, but that's not omnipotence corrupting you, that's omnipotence tempting you and mind-control corrupting you."

"If you like. Just destroy it."

"Sure. Can always get the notes on its creation and then, like, throw them at some Fëanors and maybe get a non-mind-control version. Anything else that needs to fold into the wish?"

"You said you had a solution for the orcs?"

"Collect 'em all in one place, teleport 'em to Edda, there's an orcs planet and there one of my alts can give them free will and there's a healing spell that works on their chronic pain thing."

"Then I don't think there's anything else. Well. Assuming you can't do anything about Eru."

"Unsolved problem but so far he has never actually bothered us while we mess with his stuff."

"I hope that holds."

"Me too." She looks at Maedhros. "Magic rock yes or no?"

"Do we know if the indestructibility sticks -"