"If we're a long distance away we're on another planet - Uh, how advanced is your astronomy?  I'm pretty sure apart from mine they're all empty lifeless rocks, but I studied astronomy even less than the planes so I could be wrong. It's faster to travel long distances by going into the plane of shadows and doing the travelling there, but interplanetary travel is really really far, and the space in between planets doesn't have air so unless elves here have an incredible ability to hold your breath...?

"Also, the space between planets is full of terrifying monsters, and the inhabitants of the plane of shadows tend towards more terrifying and monstrous versions of what exists in the material plane so I think interplanetary travel on the plane of shadows is quite likely worse than staying here. Unless what you're looking for is a quicker death than the Enemy will give you, but there are easier ways for that."

Nod. "We hadn't heard of other planes or other planets."

"...Oh!  I should explain astronomy just in case. If we're not on the same plane there's no reason to believe that any of this applies here, but maybe if I teach you you'll be able to think of a way to confirm if we are.

"So, the sun is a really really big portal to another plane that's filled with the sort of energy we use for healing magic. Planets are big-but-not-as-big-as-the-sun round objects that move around the sun in circles. My planet is mostly rock, I think others are different? Moons are really small - comparatively - planets that go in circles around bigger planets instead of the sun, my world has one, you seem to have one, some planets have more apparently. Some of the stars are not actually stars, but other planets, you can tell because they move around and if you look at them in a telescope you can see that they're different. I don't think anyone is really sure what stars are.

"If you've ever had a time when the sun goes dark in the middle of the day, it's usually just the moon moving in front of the sun and blocking it out, sometimes it's a space monster getting close and blocking out the sun. Mathematicians can predict the former, and they're necessary for some very powerful rituals, the latter are unpredictable and usually accompanied by a lot of bad luck and nightmares."

"...our planet's not round and doesn't rotate its sun, the sun is a recent addition and is towed through the sky, so's the Moon."

"...OK, so the 'towed through the sky' thing is actually what a lot of people on my world used to think, also that the world was flat instead of round, these are common mistakes to make but might actually be the case if the sun and moon are recent additions, how recently were they added?

"A lot of other planes are flat so that's the most likely option conditioning on this being real. Lúthien was uncomfortable with me mentioning that last part, should I avoid it with you too?"

"Used to it. With Nelyo I tried suggesting different lines of evidence and he took them less seriously on account of my having suggested them than he would have if they had eventually occurred to him to check on his own, so I'll avoid that. The sun and moon were added four hundred sixty three years ago, the moon twelve days before the sun. Melkor had destroyed a couple of earlier lighting schemes for the world."

"If things like the plane of shadows come up again, would you prefer that I tell you or keep it to myself? "Things like the plane of shadows" being things where keeping it to myself lets me keep testing if this is real, but the information would be useful to you if it is real. If I do at some point become convinced that this isn't a simulation, I'd be willing to do more spell development, right now I will not work on anything that Nerikross and Alfirin don't already have access to. Also, I will try not to think of any ideas on how to actually kill the Enemy, for the same reasons, I don't want either of them with the capabilities to kill a god."

"Depends how much of an advantage you think you have over us in spell development, then."

Nod.

"When working in spellbooks I have a moderate advantage over other people in my plane - 90th percentile maybe? - in terms of speed. How much of an advantage that is over you depends on how fast you are. Unless everyone here is well below the average for my plane, it's probably better for me to tell you when these things come up, especially given how I'm willing to work on basically every spell that exists back home. My personal preference would be to keep it to myself but it's not that important, I can put that preference aside when it seems like it would do good just in case this place is real."

Nod. And he pulls out pages of annotated notes and spell development questions.

Malak answers questions until they start to get tired and ask where they should sleep tonight.

They can arrange a room. If Malak gets the impulse to leave they can just say to the gate guards "I am leaving" and then they will open the gate.

Convenient! Malak will be sure to do that if they find any more political hostages.

He hopes that Malak's last bout of ignorant conscience-serving doesn't actually result in millions of people being tortured to death but finds it mildly annoying that Malak considers this obviously worth it on principle.

Malak thinks that inside of a simulation which may be intended to test when one compromises on one's principles is an especially bad situation in which to compromise on one's principles. And that taking hostages from neutral parties seems unlikely to prevent millions of torturous deaths and is definitely not worth it without a solid expectation that it won't lead to exactly the sort of civil war that he's supposedly trying to prevent.

"I will be sure not to give you any opportunities to demonstrate your principles to whoever you think is running this. And the scenario I anticipated was that Lúthien would go to Tol-in-Gaurhoth, get herself captured, and thereby provoke Thingol into a fight he'd certainly lose and certainly attempt anyway. Even if you think you can influence her into not trying that, you must agree it's what she'd have done unprompted?"

"If I believed for a moment that that were your motive then I still wouldn't think it was justified, judging from the letters Celegorm says you've received it seems as though trying to hold her would just provoke Thingol into war with you and I don't think that was non-obvious when you made the decision. And somehow I doubt that your intention in holding Lúthien was to prevent her father from warring with your mutual enemy."

"...Doriath was never ever going to march to war with us. Thingol deliberately attempted to invoke a centuries-old incredibly dangerous magic to force our hand into murdering someone for his convenience, there is no ambiguity about whether he would ever help us. He's threatening to go to war with us right now because we can't prove she's safe. I assure you that I very very much prefer Doriath not run off into a fight with Thauron, because I have seen four and a half bloody centuries of this and they would lose, badly, and the Enemy wouldn't even come out of it any weaker."

"And you're definitely not the sort to write a politely worded letter, 'oh, Thingol, glad to hear from you, we stopped your daughter from chasing her boyfriend to his death, we'll happily return her to Doriath as soon as the area's safe enough for her to travel, unfortunately we have this werewolf problem and she'd just be in too much danger travelling back right now, my conscience couldn't bear it if anything were to happen because we sent her back too soon.' Right."

"Thingol was also holding her prisoner, she didn't want to be handed back over."

"And I find his stance on the matter equally objectionable and completely irrelevant to whether or not it's OK to use her as leverage against him."

Malak rubs their temples.

"This is not productive. I am going to sleep, talk to you tomorrow."

"Sure. Do try to avoid deciding you know everything and lighting it all on fire because it's not real anyway."

"Don't worry, if I decide to end it I'll only light myself on fire."

Malak goes and gets acquainted with a bed.

In the morning breakfast is brought.

Malak eats breakfast, then heads back to Curufin's rooms.  Knock knock.