Cam checks his mail. "I don't think you should be trying to stay on your usual daycycle in here if you might be here long."

There is not (yet) anything in Cam's mail. 

"Noted," Vanyel says. "Figure we have to keep the door open, then, give Leareth a chance to wake up in the morning and decide if he wants to write you anything."

He wanders over to the bar. 

 Lissa beats him there, requests 'another of the delicious one, spiked', and in response to his raised eyebrows, sticks out her tongue. "Look, it might be morning for you, but I haven't gone to bed yet." 

Bar obliges her.

Vanyel obtains a mocha, carries it across to Cam's booth, and sits. "Right. So, what we talked about. Leareth is – first off, I'm not at all sure he believes me. He mentioned wondering if I've gone insane, or if this is some kind of bizarre scheme against him. However. He's interested in learning more. He said that if I am telling the truth, and you're telling the truth – which, er, he expressed that he might want to verify in more depth before taking costly action based on your claims – then it's very relevant to his interests, and he...would offer his help in exchange for your advice? Didn't say advice on what, and I'm confused because, I mean, you are very competent at a surprising number of things but I don't think anything I said hinted that you were good at empire-building."

Vanyel sips the mocha and takes out his notes. "Next. Leareth said that in exchange for what he's going to write you at some point – if he decides to go ahead, he wasn't sure yet, but I'm almost certain he will – and then assuming that you want to proceed in getting his help, he would like every treatise you have access to on both magical and mundane natural laws of the world in question. Which he pointed out that he can't use against us, since if I'm telling the truth, we can arbitrarily pause time on him if he tries. A next step would be for us to arrange to speak to one of the other gods, obtain more firsthand observations on the deaths. At some point he'd be willing to figure out something to demonstrate trust, but he wants to think more about the details of how." 

Notes are flipped through. 

"Leareth told me he can't make sense of how any purely physical manipulation could permanently destroy a god which is a non-material ambient magical force over an area, though he admits other worlds could be different. Oh, and he has theorized about something similar to what you described, the 'black hole', I guess it's one of the treatises he never published and is in some cave somewhere." Pause. "Um. So. Questions?" 

"...we can't permanently pause him unless you never go home. It buys you a lot of prep time but you have to spend it all here. Uh, the books won't be in a language he can read, does your world have magic translation? It'll take ten days minimum to get ahold of a Maia and that's if a cooperative one turns up immediately on request, my door is on New Valinor and the surviving Maiar are on Endorë."

Vanyel presses his hands to his temples and tries to think. 

"You're right, the pausing-time thing has its limitations as a countermove. I didn't actually describe your powers to him, though, I let it seem like you used an artifact or force from that world, so that's something he wouldn't see coming. Er, for translation, I'm not sure how you're planning to read his writing, but he said you presumably had a setup to translate, and if you could give him a basic dictionary once you translate his work, he's got several millennia of practice with languages and he thinks he can figure it out. Maybe he does have magic translation, I don't know of any but wouldn't put it past him." 

He sighs. "Ten days. Not cheap to obtain. Probably want to at least be sure that he's definitely on our side, first. So I guess wait for, um, morning-out-there?" 

"I'm going to read his writing by being in Milliways while I do it. This won't really give me a leg up on helping him read Arda languages, though I could make it work with some elaborate technology."

“This place has built in translation magic? On top of everything else?” That is almost absurdly useful. “Would it work for me as well?”

"You can understand me, can't you?"

...That is, in hindsight, kind of obvious.

”Does that mean I could read the um, Arda books here?” Vanyel offers. “If I take notes those would presumably be in Valdemaran. Which Leareth speaks. That gives us a chance to vet what we’re passing along.” And an excuse to read about what sounds like a deeply fascinating topic. “Er, what’s the elaborate technology option?”

"I can make machines that can analyze the complete written corpus of a language - which I can also make - and figure out how to translate it. Not especially well, but the ability to spot check its work would help, and the Milliways effect would let me do that. In addition to letting you read books from anywhere."

"Oh, interesting. Is it very inconvenient to do that?" It sounds incredibly useful and Vanyel is also itching to know what kind of 'machine' can do this. "Oh, and I forgot, but you said Bar is also a library? Can I ask for books based on topic or do I need to know the specific title?" 

"It's not especially. She can do recommendations, getting books from me you need to know what you want. Or I do."

"Well, if you don't mind using the elaborate technology and it's not a lot of hassle, um, that seems really valuable and I would appreciate it a lot. Um, I think I want to read a bit about these Maiar and about Endorë. And Valinor, is that the planet that was destroyed?"

Vanyel means to go on with further sensible, plan-related requests, but his mouth doesn't cooperate. "Also that song. Where did you learn it? It's beautiful." And so fascinatingly different. He's never actually formed the thought before that music in his world gets kind of samey, but in comparison to this...

"Valinor's the destroyed one, yeah. Song's the not very inventively titled eighth sonata by Beethoven, I... conjured the sheet music and learned from that, didn't really pick it up in a specific place."

"...You can do that? Never mind, of course you can. Written music? I don't know that I can read it but I'm so tempted to ask you for all of your favorite songs – I guess I don't actually have my lute here and I don't know that it can play that song anyway..." Vanyel shakes his head. "Not actually the priority. I'll go ask Bar for recommendations on background reading." 

Lissa yawns. "Van, if you don't mind trading off with 'Fandes on the door, I'm going to go get some sleep." 

"...do... you want a lute?" Cam asks Vanyel.

"...I mean, if you don't mind, yes? I'm still getting used to knowing someone who can just make things like that. I don't know if 'Vanyel's lute' is specific enough that you can make mine in particular, but just any lute would be fine too." They're outside of time and maybe it's justifiable to take a few breaks once in a while and play. Vanyel is awfully tempted to ask Cam about all the other instruments from other worlds that he surely knows of, but that feels less justifiable. 

Vanyel's lute appears to be conjurable because here it is.

Vanyel is so delighted! "Thank you, that's wonderful." And now he's going to go over to Bar and ask for books about the Maiar and the history of Valinor and Endorë, and he'll have something to do when he next needs to take a break. 

Except that Yfandes has other ideas. 

:Chosen, are you sure about this?: She's trying to be gentle, but underneath he can tell that she's upset. 

:About what?: 

:The part where we're asking Leareth of all people for help. We can't trust him. You know that. I have a bad feeling about this: Unease, vague discomfort. :And messing with the gods of other worlds. I know you want to help, but you heard him – if he waits here, someone's bound to turn up eventually and their world's magic might have a better solution. We don't even know that Leareth CAN help, assuming he wants to. Don't you think Valdemar should be our first priority?: 

...If Cam is paying attention, he might notice that Vanyel has been paused halfway to the bar for a while, staring vaguely in the direction of the window-explosions. 

"...Vanyel? Are you okay?"

“Hmm?” Vanyel blinks at Cam. “Sorry, what? Oh. I’m fine.” :’Fandes, please. Let me be. We’re on vacation, remember?: He leaves the second half unsaid - that Valdemar doesn’t, particularly, want their help right now.

And he’s going to go back to his actual plan of learning important background on Cam’s problem via asking Bar for reading material.