- and the high priest is suddenly just a mortal man again, falling to his knees on the flagstones. 

- Mandos reaches out and folds the man into his arms, and then everything around them is white-hot and very, very loud. 

Oh come the fuck on - how did they even do that - 

The weapon tears open a tiny crack to the Elemental Plane of Fire. It's not stable, to have a connection like that, it snaps back in a fraction of a second, but the pressure of it momentarily tears the crack much, much wider. Pretty much all of Jkatha is going to be a giant crater.

Anathei bathes in flames. He's going to come out of this stronger, not weaker, which is a good starting point when you need to immediately resurrect your entire mortal population before you can really do anything else. 

Sauron's not going to get any of the blood-power from it, either! Not even from his immediate vicinity. Thirty Adepts with the power of their Goddess behind them can make sure of that. 

He is starting to develop some kind of a grudge against the Elemental Plane of Fire, though he's sure it's a lovely place.

This is too much magic, too much movement, all while concentrating on clinging to the blood power he needs - he spends a while holding still in the crater of Jkatha, orienting himself. 

Fine. Where's the nearest population center. They can't just keep right on doing that, and if they do it will be a victory of its own, though a very infuriating one.

Velvar. Most of the country is sparsely-populated dense jungle, with some roads hugging the eastern edge; the capital city, Ashuel, has almost a hundred thousand people in its surroundings. It's three hundred miles to the south. 

He can't disguise himself to mage-sight, not while carrying three hundred seventy thousand souls of power, but he can stop BURNING A TRAIL WHEREVER HE GOES, and it's not like there's anyone alive nearby to see him clearly. He stabilizes himself. He heads for Ashuel as quickly as he can, which will still be more than an hour, aaaaargh.

Vanyel stands up, wipes his eyes, glares at his hands until they stop trembling, and raises a Gate on the doorway of the just-vacated Work Room where the weapon was stored. He heads back to the north.

Immediately flops down in the flowers, hopefully not literally landing on top of a dead body because - well, his day is pretty ruined already but that would not improve things. 

(Mandos, while he was here, did something with the Quendi bodies; maybe just destroyed them, maybe sent them over to Lórien. The field of flowers is available for flopping in.)

:We did it: he tells Fëanáro as soon as he's sort of caught his breath. :And by 'did it' I mean left a very large crater in a country that Valdemar doesn't have any diplomatic relations with and which belongs to a god who found out about this being a thing half an hour ago: He feels pretty awful about it, actually. 

Telumë has just started feeling a bit more normal, finally, so it's just perfect, really, when the feeling of being filled-with-burning-light comes back. 

We are running out of time, Foundation sends. He will not stop. We have only hours.

Vanyel clambers to his feet. "What, um..." He swallows. "What's our actual plan for...after?" 

Foresight does not show him clearly. But Telumë knows him and his magic. When I am powerful enough to combine that with the futures I can see, I think I will see the rest of the path. 

"...Great. The 'I think' in there is really reassuring." Sigh. "I guess we don't have any better options, and - having those people still alive isn't going to be better, if Melkor wins here." 

I know you had wanted to do more checks, but I am afraid that we need to start moving now if we are to see the path in time.

Vanyel shoots a helpless glance at Fëanáro. 

Well, it seems like a safe bet that Melkor winning will be worse than Foundation winning even if somehow in their years of checking they missed something and Foundation is actually going to pursue some completely random and arbitrary thing. 

Does it fit, Sauron reaching another city within hours?

:He was in Jkatha... He'll head for either Seejay or Velvar, I assume. How fast do we think he can move?:

I don't know. Huan can outrun a Companion.

:Then - hmm, two or three hundred miles - I think 'hours' is right. We should gamble it and move now: 

He turns back to the entity speaking through Telumë. "Er, where to?" 

K'Treva Vale. The evacuees of Valdemar and Rethwellan are there and so is a Heartstone, which will allows access to all the rest. Please bring the mages. I will not need them after this part but I am still not strong enough to draw in that power alone. 

...It's finally occurring to him that draining nearly all the power from all the Heartstones is going to be pretty awkward for the surviving Tayledras afterward. It's better than Melkor winning, though. 

He raises a Gate - a nice big one, so all the mages can cross quickly, again he feels very light and giddy and not tired at all. :Fëanáro, will you come to use the Silmarils again?: 

Yes. Is this the last time we'll need them?