"Not really. The gods want them that way."

"Can you get better gods?"

He laughs. "Maybe someday."

"What's ascent like around here, anyway, it's possible where I'm from but, you know, like everything else awfully idiosyncratic and like so many things very unwise to try."

"Most people who are trying to get as powerful as possible cap out at some point, if they don't die. They just don't learn anything newer or more powerful or more interesting than the things they already came up with. And they can't test their capabilities in a meaningful pressured situation because nothing can threaten them. But sometimes - usually if there's a well-timed enormous-scale threat to address - they keep getting more powerful, until they have the abilities to establish a divine realm directly or fight a god and steal one or be invited to join a side of a divine war. And they do that."

"Has anyone already tried the 'find more planes with more stuff to do, do stuff there' method?"

"I didn't before your arrival know of planes beyond the afterlives and the elemental planes and the ethereal plane and the astral plane and those aren't teeming with different challenges than you'd find here."

"Oh. Well."

"Now I should maybe reconsider that, yes."

"Are you in the market?"

"I'm not very powerful. Couldn't really do anything dangerous -" he gestures at the dozen guards trailing them. "Do you have a problem you want to throw people at?"

"I don't have a schedule but I have reason to believe there exist unsolved problems. Lots, even. First we need a place to park, though, here isn't uninhabitable or anything but I'd rather someplace with actually no gods at all and maybe more advanced science."

"Places pretty much only exist if someone made them, right? Where're you going to find one without gods?"

"Maybe there aren't any but I want to look! There's fiction back home about worlds that just happen via scientific type processes all by themselves. Or maybe there's a place gods made originally but then they died, that would also qualify."

"Huh. Good luck."

"Thanks."

They reach the Museum of Commerce. It's grand and elaborate. Fëanáro claps his hands gleefully and darts around.

She keeps an eye on him but doesn't chase him, she wanders around with Rúmil and asks Fe-Anar what any particularly interesting-looking signs say.

"Oh, you know, I'm sorry, I completely forgot - Tongues - not that I mind reading things to you but it's slower so if I were you I'd mind."

"Well, we might be here long enough that I should pick up the language for real but thank you. Rúmil, do you want him to cast it for you too or just have me translate?"

"What does it do, exactly?"

"Lets you speak and understand any language for the duration."

"Huh! Yes, I'll take that."

"Can Rúmil get one too?"

"Of course." He casts it. "The first time I had that spell I was very disappointed. I thought it'd let me understand other languages. It just translates them."