Leareth pauses a moment to check Vanyel's scrying-spell again before carrying Belrun off to bed. 

"I would expect it to show up very powerfully."

"Hmm. I don't think we've seen anything incredibly obvious? Anyway, we three can trade off on watching Sauron and, er, the other half of Sauron, until Belrun's rested. And then we'll figure out what to do next?" 

"Works for me." What's Sauron up to right now? 

He has backed away from Imladris a little bit in response to his prisoner being stolen. He's now about half a mile out.

"All right, it doesn't look like he's headed off to grab the Ring at least," older Vanyel says. "I'll keep watch for now. Telumë, you should get some sleep too." 

Telumë is looking sort of longingly at the barrier which Maitimo is still unconscious behind. "...Are we going to have to kill him now? Because a surprising thing happened?" 

"A surprising thing happened but also we just learned of some additional resources. Such as another Velgarth with no direct connection to the Arda or the Velgarth where Sauron who knows magic has been. I don't know what to do yet, but..." 

"We should think about grabbing Findekáno." 

"...Right. And I have to be the one to Gate for that, Telumë's way too tired still. Hmm. Elrond, are you completely sure that Sauron can't detect any magic we use in here?" 

"Not with local magic. If he's learned Velgarth magic then I don't know, though I think I could also control how Velgarth magic works, here - if you were trying to scry here with your magic how would you do it."

"Oh, hmm - I can try scrying the room you gave us to sleep, can you watch that as I do it?" 

"Yes."

Vanyel scries for it. 

This works fine, at first. He concentrates for a minute and then it stops working. 

"He'll need the Ring," he says firmly. "Or for Maedhros to be conscious, I assume we are going to have a plan before that occurs?"

"We have the starts of some plans but all of them require an interworld Gate." 

 He nods tensely.

"I can keep him unconscious a good while before it causes any permanent harm - we did it for a week before, actually, the limiting factor is how long I can stay awake. Hmm. Probably 'find the Ring before he does' is a doomy plan for all the reasons we've already mentioned?" 

"If we can manipulate it remotely it might be workable. I think we should avoid bringing it here with magic or sending a team to directly get it and do things with it."

"I think we might have some options with Gates, since Leareth can do weird things with them and presumably so can Telumë." 

"You know, our Arda has found some other worlds. Uninhabited ones. They're not useful to us but we could, in theory, drop a Ring there and seal the place off somehow, I bet Fëanáro could figure out some really solid protections to put around it." 

"I think without it Sauron cannot permanently be destroyed. But I suppose if he were restricted to an uninhabited planet that'd be good enough - as long as he couldn't learn how to leave -"

"Well, what are the ways of permanently destroying it? You'd mentioned a volcano - are there others? Is there magic from our world– Vanyel do not offer to Final Strike it, I know that face, goddamnit." 

"I don't know of other ways within our world. The Valar could maybe do it but we're not on good terms. Maybe it'd be straightforward with magic from other worlds but not being able to get close is a constraint."

"We still need to find out where it is," the older of the Vanyels says, darkly. "Before Sauron. ...Hmm, you know, I wonder if Sauron part two is easier to fight than the main one. If we can destroy that, it'll slow down his searching, give us more time."