His facial expression is vaguely reminiscent of a person trying to walk away from the One Ring. 

"That's a lot of resources and some risk the - snake thing - happens again."

"If the snake thing was correlated with being near a Leareth, which is the only pattern I'm noticing, maybe it's less likely in a world where he isn't at all? We obviously can't guarantee it though. I don't know. I...want to risk it, because I'm worried if we kill him at this point we're definitely not getting him back, and...that's a big deal, right, that's worth some resources. If they won't make the difference between winning and losing the war." 

"My Velgarth is not at war," Leareth points out. "I could lend you personnel from my organization. Or," he glances at Belrun, a bit hesitantly, "myself." 

"That is almost certainly a good idea," he says to Leareth. 

"I think we'd get him back eventually," he says to Vanyel. "- admittedly, not on timescales humans find tolerable to think about, and it's discouraging that the Valar still haven't figured out oaths." Sigh. 

"I was not physically near my Leareth when I got snaked. I was in Haven with Amshalan."

"Oh. There goes that theory, I guess. I have no idea at all what's going on with the person-eating teleport snakes." 

"We could tie Maitimo to somebody - not Telumë - except I don't expect the next thing to be person-eating teleport snakes in particular."

"Apparently the multiverse contains many strange things, so yes, right now all I can predict about the next weird occurrence is that we will not have expected it."  

"Anyway," the older Vanyel says. "We should figure something out with Maitimo that results in him not being here, and then - well, we can probably just take out the local Sauron if we team up and catch him by surprise. I think Telumë, er, back when he was Leareth, speculated that he could grab a single Maia and yank them into the Void by casting a one-sided Gate directly. Which is roughly what the weapon we used on Melkor in our Arda did, on a much larger scale. That's an option, if Belrun's Leareth thinks it's feasible? I certainly wouldn't know how..." 

"I would need to develop the technique, but - yes, that is theoretically possible, if we could trap Sauron and force him to hold still long enough to cast it." 

"Still not sure about the Ring, but...it'll be a lot easier to do after Sauron, if we can wrangle that, so he wouldn't have a chance to interfere with us magically transporting it to Mount Doom or something. Then again, if we delay dealing with it to research a Sauron-killing spell, that gives him time to grab it."

"I assume I definitely shouldn't try Fetching it into the volcano because if I get within a mile of it I will instead probably Fetch it onto my finger?"

"I think you would, yes. Destroying it is even harder than not picking it up."

:I didn't get a pull from it, when we were there: Yfandes offers. :I'm not sure why, actually - whether it's that I don't have fingers to wear it, or that I'm a Companion, or that I'm bonded to Van so we make decisions as a unit and it went with tempting him. I don't know if that means I would be safer trying to take it somewhere, though: 

:Huh: the younger Vanyel says, glancing at Belrun. :That - makes me wonder about what a Groveborn would do with it. They have, um, a sort of built-in ethics thing, that can't be bent or changed at all, we think: 

:The Groveborn also likely has a link with the Velgarth gods. I am not sure I want Them having any kind of possible access to the Ring, since we cannot be sure they are not the kinds of entities affected by it: 

"If not having fingers works then so might, like, gluing all your fingers together? Do you have to wear it for it to get worse than trying really hard to make you wear it?"

"I don't know. Contact with it might be separately dangerous."

"Ugh. Uh, we could see if Amshalan or younger Yfandes reacts near it? They're jailbroken and don't have fingers."

:Sending one of us without our Chosen, you mean? I - guess it's worth doing, although I'd want a plan for being yanked out if it turned out I went for it after all: 

"We could do two miles out instead of one." 

"Jailbroken?" the older Vanyel says blankly. 

:Hmm: his Yfandes jumps in. :Do you mean the thing where we can start being able to think about gods?: 

"Yes, that, did you manage it eventually in your world?"

:Y...es...: