- sure, I can probably arrange something. 

In which case, two candlemarks later, Jisa can check in again on Vanyel's condition, and if he's feeling up for it now (he is), raise an inter-world Gate, she can draw on the Silmarils for it so it's a bit less exhausting and she ought to be able to handle a strategy-meeting afterward.

Vanyel is alert and looks reasonably fine, but is being carried by one of Telumë's Healers. :I'm all right, pet. Just tired. Seems better not to exert myself on the less important bits like walking: 

Telumë still seems worryingly exhausted, and his face is very controlled. He has a bag for all his relevant notes. He thanks her for the Gate, and follows her to whatever Findekáno has set up for their meeting. 

He has modified a Quendi hospital room, which has the advantages in addition to a bed of being ridiculously spacious (since the recovering person will be more-or-less stuck in it) and well sound-proofed; the mages will have to do "shielded". There's chairs for everyone. He smiles warmly at everyone except Telumë (he smiles at Telumë, but it doesn't remotely make it to 'warmly'.)

Dara exchanges something in Mindspeech with Vanyel, pauses at his bedside and grips his hand for a moment before sitting down.

Karis is here for this one as well. She looks a bit disoriented, more than anything else, but also very relieved. 

Yfandes gets herself settled in next to Vanyel - this is a lot more comfortable than the hospital room back in Telumë's facility, there's room for her to move if she wants to.  

Jisa and Telumë both do shielding, against Thoughtsensing and osanwë and all the varieties of Velgarth magic they can think of, not that there should be any other Velgarth mages in Vinyamar but Sauron does have access to mages and inter-world travel and they can't be sure. 

Vanyel looks around. "Er, sorry if I'm a bit scattered. We talked about a lot, I think I spent - it's hard to keep track of time in a place where time doesn't exist but it might've been days, subjectively. The first thing is - hmm. One of our problems here is that Velgarth deities have a hard time communicating directly with mortals - They're not shaped that way, They perceive reality too differently, the concepts They're working with are very alien. I ended up asking to speak directly to the larger god, let's just call him the Shadowgod for now because I don't think He just covers Valdemar, and He certainly does work from the shadows so it's an accurate descriptor. I'm glad I tried it but it was, er, frustratingly incomprehensible. The Shadow-Lover is His avatar and much more designed to communicate with us, but then there's a translation step, and also the Shadow-Lover is built for a very specific purpose and actually just can't, oh, listen to prayers, or show up and possess me to get information from us."

He loses his train of thought for a moment, blinks, checks his notes. "Anyway. Point there is that I think the Shadowgod is pretty much on our side and wants to help, but literally can't be clear and direct about His capabilities or goals here." 

"Is there reason to think that'll be different if we build our own?"

"Actually, yes," Telumë says. "I ought back up a couple of steps. Velgarth deities are very large, very multiplanar beings. Their primary home is not the material plane, where mortals live; Their perception and influence there is actually quite indirect, I think. Obviously there is some guesswork, figuring out how They work, but it is based on enough sources that I am reasonably confident in it. They do not perceive a single present moment as we do, so much as a very large number of possible futures, all the time. By necessity, any being with the necessary kind of power and reach is going to be somewhat cryptic to us."

He spreads out some of his notes. "That being said, They vary along that dimension considerably, just as mortals vary on personality traits or strength or height. This 'Shadowgod' is unusually difficult to communicate with, I think, and relatedly is capable of unusually subtle plans even for a god. Vkandis is much easier to talk to as well as less mysterious in His plans and actions - but, of course, has values that preclude an alliance, this is even more apparent now. The Star-Eyed is somewhere in between. I think She is more capable of ruthlessness and sacrificing human lives than Vkandis, actually, but - well, apparently She is smarter about when to ally with outside forces."

His brow furrows slightly, thoughtful. "Obviously this places limitations on how helpful a god we create can be, but - if we take every possible dimension along which the gods are known to vary, and push them all to the furthest possible edge of what we prefer, we will have a being much better shaped to ally with directly. There will be a narrower gulf to communicate across, and from there, our god can be the one to negotiate directly with the other gods. I think that much of the difficulties I have had are due to the fact that the existing set of gods literally cannot understand what I wish to be different in the world and why. Of course, They might still disagree even once it is made clear, but - at this point, there is a very obvious common enemy. Alliances have been built on far less. So - I think the Shadowgod's point here is more evidence, rather than less, that having a god we shaped ourselves will help." 

"Were you able to ask the Shadowgod about making our own," he asks Vanyel.

"That's next on my list. Yes. And, well, I didn't get a perfectly clear go-ahead, but I think I got the clearest possible approval They can give us, actually." He frowns. "Part of the issue is that They work by seeing possible futures, the Foresight thing, and right now that's incredibly muddy. Having a very powerful force that's not from our world and has different magic is making the immediate future very chaotic."

Sigh. "I asked to look directly, which is a dubious idea because, um, it makes me scattered like this whenever I do it, and also I can't interpret it very well anyway, being that I'm not a god with my mind designed to see the world that way. But I think I could see the future where Sauron wins, 'giant wall of scary darkness' seems about right for that, and there are a lot of paths to it, and there - aren't very many paths to not-that. But the widest path to not-that sure looks like the one where we do the create-a-god plan. It's - I think all the paths to it I saw had some sort of very high cost, some were worse than others, I couldn't tell from that angle whether the 'worse than others' was about murdering Quendi versus not. However, that's one of the places I got a concrete offer of help from the Shadowgod." 

"Oh?"

Vanyel shakes himself a bit, refers to his notes again. "The Shadow-Lover has been talking to Mandos." He stops while he tries to find the rest that he wrote down. 

" - wow. - if we have Mandos on board with this plan I feel significantly better about it. It is ...unclear if the King of the Noldor has the right to command this and it is unclear if the Valar do but if the two agree then - that seems closer to the right place to put the bar."

"It's a bit unclear to me that Mandos is definitely on board with involuntarily killing Quendi - I tried to ask about that but, gah, cryptic. But apparently Mandos was very confused and, it sounds like kind of offended, about the reincarnation setup in our world and how it involves sending people back as babies and them not remembering anything. And Companions aren't that much better, they remember their past lives but not a ton. I had sort of thought the amount Leareth remembers was the upper limit? But it sounds like some of that is - more of a technical limitation than really fundamental to our natural laws - and Mandos was on board with helping the Shadowgod set things up such that anyone who dies under His remit, which would include people in an awful lot of the territory currently held by Vkandis as long as we're positing that we win that back, can be brought back with much closer to Quendi re-embodiment levels of fidelity. It'd take a while and be very costly to Him and require that everything be very stable so whatever resource it takes can be spared, but I got almost a promise that it's possible." 

"That's - Valdemar, Karse, Rethwellan?"

"Karse is unclear, it's been Vkandis' for a long time but - less solidly than Iftel and it sounds like the balance of power is messy there. Also the Shadowgod has partial remit over Hardorn, actually, enough to resurrect people there - albeit with efficiency losses, so it'll cost Him more in whatever resource the gods run down when They do flashy miracles." 

He drags a hand over his face. "...And the Shadow-Lover didn't think his god could give us a warning if Sauron's about to move - he said we might know first, actually, it's...the sort of thing where human senses like 'spying' are going to be more useful than god-Foresight. But - possibly we can do it the other way round, get a warning to him, and if we do then - he offers to pin Mandos down on the Quendi question, as well as - other help he could offer, I'm very unclear on what though - and there'd be more leverage if it was imminent and the alternative was Melkor winning. Er, I do know that Mandos is almost definitely on board with the voluntary sacrifices part, and may or may not be easier to talk around on orcs, again, crypticness makes it hard to interpret there." 

"That is - already far more than I would have expected."

"It really is! I'm not sure whether it's that they can communicate more on the same level due to both being gods, or that the Shadowgod just had more time where Mandos had literally nothing else to do except wait for souls - oh, also, I forgot. I asked about Finwë and managed to get an answer that he's not ready to come back. Sorry. At least we know and I don't have to risk a Gate back to Jkatha to ask him directly." 

Sigh. "Okay. Good to know. We should probably assume that Fëanáro's going to end up hearing from Maitimo that Nolofinwë and I are pretty much running things, though, and probably in the worst possible way."

"...I mean, can we just tell him ourselves in not the worst possible way, then? I realize I'm missing a lot of context on this situation, but it seems like it'd be better if that part happened at a time of our choosing and not in a way that made it look like you and Nolofinwë were trying to hide things from him." 

"He's still reasonably likely to take it poorly but yes, we should absolutely do that."