“Can it be people who aren’t you on death’s door-“

"I guess it could be anyone Valdemaran. Heralds are better. We don't exactly have a lot of options to choose from though. And I think I have the most practice getting useful things out of the Shadow-Lover." 

"You're the most inconvenient to have incapacitated afterwards, though. 

- if we can ask for miracles can we ask them to fix Maitimo."

Vanyel opens his mouth to answer and then looks at Telumë, closes his mouth sharply, covers it with his hand and looks like he isn't sure whether to laugh or cry. 

He regains his composure a moment later. "I - gods - I almost forgot that part entirely. I - asked, about Maitimo, obviously. The Shadow-Lover says it's outside his remit and probably that of all the gods of Velgarth, and we know Mandos can't fix oaths. But - the Shadow-Lover, lacking any useful context I assume because otherwise this would be obviously the worst idea in the world, helpfully suggested that, um, that it would be in his remit to - make the awkwardly asymmetrical lifebond-marriage thing work from both sides if we wanted– don't panic I told him to PLEASE NOT DO THAT!" 

"How thoughtful of him to offer," he says very very distantly. 

Vanyel dives toward changing the subject. "I asked if he could do literally anything else, and he said he has some coincidence-type influence sort of saved up, no I don't know how that works either, and can make it a lot harder than it should be for Sauron to kill people in Rethwellan or Valdemar or Hardorn, if he starts trying that. Including by - sending them back, en masse, if their deaths are anything like not-fully-determined. So if Sauron is vaporizing people then no, but if he's even just very badly injuring them, the Shadowgod can burn a vast quantity of god-resource-magic to cut down on how much useful blood-power he can get."  

He nods.

"I think that's almost everything - one second..." He riffles through his notes some more. "Oh. Right. One more thing about, er, getting warning to the Shadowgod, possibly the Star-Eyed too. Right now They can't tell whether or not we'll even get to the point of being able to build a god, but - if we have what we need, and we decide to call go on it, then - They'll see it via Foresight. And if that's the first warning They have, as opposed to some other communication route, the Shadow-Lover will assume it's because Sauron is literally moving now and we don't have time for me to almost die. In which case, I have an actual promise that the Shadowgod will throw every bit of coincidence and favour and other-gods-goodwill available at slowing Sauron down and buying us time."

He frowns. "...The Shadow-Lover said he might be able to help in other ways if there is time to communicate, including if the Star-Eyed ends up on board and we can go via Her. He wouldn't say what though." 

"So it sounds like the next step is to talk with the Star-Eyed?"

"Yes, I think so. Hopefully we'll get a clear answer on using Heartstones - I think it's more likely I'll get something very waffly, but it'll still be informative if it's not a flat-out 'no', and - if we think the Shadow-Lover can plausibly resurrect humans with memories, and there's a maybe on Heartstones, and Mandos is some amount on board with Quendi and orcs, then...I'm starting to feel like we actually might be able to pull this off without burning down our entire future. ...I'm kind of scared I shouldn't say that out loud because it'll break it somehow, but..." 

"So at this point we are - trying to be ready to move on a moment's notice at any point but ideally waiting as long as we can for the math to be checked to everyone's satisfaction, and hoping we can do this with volunteers and the Heartstone? - Mandos's endorsement will also make it easier to get volunteers, I'd expect -"

"I think that's the plan right now." 

"Do we have, um, any kind of logistics we would roll out in the event we needed as many volunteers as possible within the next day? Because that should exist as a contingency plan, I think, otherwise there would be horrible last-minute scrambling." 

"There is a current plan but it's pretty sparse, just - make an announcement, tell people where to go -"

"We'd need a Gate, right, we don't currently know how to channel mage-energy from here to Velgarth and also we don't have mages here - gods, that's a really absurd number of people to try to get through an inter-world Gate fast. Telumë, I think it might be worth having a permanent Gate terminus at least on your side. Or maybe pieces of one that could be really rapidly assembled...can we even do it all with one Gate..."

"I have much of the logistics on my side fleshed out, though - if we had to move right now, there would be a great deal of chaotic scrambling. I think we could do it, but not in a day. Honestly the god-creation process would by my preference be done over a couple of years, or at least months, so that checks can be done at various stages and there would be opportunities to abort if something were - going wrong. But having Fëanáro's people review the math means I am, I suppose," he seems very reluctant here, "more comfortable with fewer pauses to review the godlet during the process. And having the Shadowgod apparently on our side now is also reassuring, and not something I had expected to have at all. If we desperately had to, and were willing to do only one check before the final leap to a full god's power, we could do all of it in - thirty-six hours, maybe." 

"Are some of the earlier stages cheap enough we could do them now -"

"...Hmm. In terms of the power requirements, yes. I would need - approximately a hundred human lives for blood-power - probably twenty to thirty Quendi would suffice - or ten of my Adept mages to Final Strike, but I would very much not prefer that since I really need more mages than I even have at all for the final step. Also," a bitter smile, "one Vanyel would work, but obviously we are not going to do that." 

Vanyel shakes his head. "How about if we get access to a Heartstone?" 

"That would be more than sufficient. My other hesitation is that there are a couple of calls that need to be made even in the first step. So I would wish to sit down with Fëanáro's researchers, but that seems likely to be worth doing anyway. In the meantime, I do still have several research groups working on entirely alternate power sources, such as those involving interplanar magic differentials and one-sided Gates - the superweapon you used to defeat Melkor is similar, but this would be the opposite, drawing on a plane with much higher magical energy than ours, rather than the Void. The difficulty is that it is not currently possible to control and would kill everybody involved in channeling it anyway, and with a risk of actually just destroying the godlet, but...if we have even a year, perhaps we could make progress on it." 

"I somehow doubt that we're going to have a year." 

"Will the first step, if we do it soon, be detectable to Vkandis in any way -"

"It would be detectable that I had done something on a significant scale; I do not think it would be obvious what, though if Maitimo had already guessed our response and told Sauron, they might deduce it. Unless we tried to do it in Arda, I suppose, and later transport the godlet through a Gate, which - ought to be possible, it would still be mobile at that point, but is not something I had ever factored into my plans so is at least somewhat fraught." 

"Did Maitimo guess our response and tell Sauron?"

"I think almost certainly not? It was not something that ever came out when we questioned him and I am almost certain I asked questions that were specific enough. That being said, he did guess later, when we were speaking, and - I would not entirely put it past him to manage to avoid even thinking about a previous conversation with Sauron. He was terrifyingly skilled at evading giving answers."