...Well, now Leareth is thinking approximately the same things, but calmly, and mostly feeling very stuck. 

He's noting, quietly to himself, that even if this is real, he still has to assume that taking actions in the world isn't safe, since Melkor knows how to destroy and reshape people, he has to assume he's been permanently compromised at this point. Which means it doesn't matter either way - except, he would still prefer to have a probability estimate on torture happening soon, even if it's not decision-relevant. 

"Well, I'm not going to torture you but I suppose having me just say that isn't very helpful. I don't think you have to assume you're permanently compromised, but it's normal for recovery to take a very, very long time, and if you need a very very long time, that's - not in a general sense all right but it's strategically all right, I think, there's no specific hurry."

That makes sense, in the version where this is real, there's another Leareth, who can presumably handle all the usual Leareth things - is he advising the people in charge of the war effort right now, that seems important. (Leareth isn't very worried about giving Melkor information, here, since he was captured before even exchanging hellos with Vanyel, and has no idea what's been happening since.) 

"Yes, he's helping."

...Honestly, in the version where this is real, it seems possible, from a strategic perspective, that the other Leareth should just kill him rather than trying to fix him - he's not useful, he won't be for a very very long time if ever, and in the meantime he's just taking up resources, which they probably don't have to spare if there's a war still going on.

It's scary to think about in a distant way, he doesn't want to die, and...he's finding it weirdly hard to model how his past self would have felt about that. But, well, other Leareth should know that he would understand the necessity. 

(Leareth isn't at all worried about giving Melkor reasons to kill him, there is a zero percent chance Melkor is ever going to do that. At worst he's going to find this hilarious.) 

"He did check if your immortality setup is still working, and it is."

Leareth had actually been thinking that the other him could disable it, trivially. It seems like a terrible idea to risk him dying and coming back right now, given the whole 'compromised by Melkor' thing - although, on reflection, it's not clear it would work. He needs to - fight, a bit, to contest for his new body with its previous inhabitant, and right now he probably just...wouldn't... He has no idea what would happen then, actually. Maybe he would get evicted and come back again and repeat the whole process over and over, which sounds incredibly stupid. 

(Leareth is, on reflex, not thinking about the details of his setup; this is a pre-existing habit, longstanding, because Velgarth contains a lot of mind-readers and there's one thing he wants the gods to never, ever hear the faintest whisper about.) 

She doesn't say anything right away; she goes pretty still.

I really think, she tells Local Leareth, that even if you weren't going to tell me your immortality method kills people, it would have been due diligence to ask me if I were prone to mercy-kills, before putting me in a room with your similarly immortal alt who has been through Angband.

Local Leareth freezes halfway through writing a sentence. He should have thought of that, and he didn't, and he's not even sure why he didn't - well, he definitely didn't imagine the scenario where Bella mercy-killed the other Leareth without asking him, it still seems very implausible. And he hadn't thought she would learn it, because he's so cagey with that information and had vaguely expected another him would be too, but of course the other Leareth is different, probably less in control of his thoughts, and...in short, he really, really should have thought of it. 

:I am sorry. You are correct. I ought to have reassessed my policy here, and told you, as soon as this happened. What were you talking about such that it even came up?: 

I told him you'd checked his immortality method and it was still in place.

Leareth wants to ask how that ended up being relevant, but doesn't. 

:I try not to make the same mistakes repeatedly: he sends, :so I am going to come over there right now, and tell you all of it, in private Mindspeech. Please be aware that this is something literally nobody in my organization knows the details of, since I wish to avoid giving the gods any more ideas: 

If you're still worried about the security of Mindspeech, having me read it off you instead doesn't introduce a new vulnerability.

:All right, you may do that: 

Leareth is thinking that his immortality setup is a spell (still unspecified in its details) which hides his spirit as soon as he dies, so it doesn't get snatched by the local god's usual afterlife process, and then - allows it to find a new body. Specifically it has to be the body of one of his original incarnation's descendants, but he was very prolific about that at the very start, and two thousand years is a long time. Probably it wouldn't be possible for the gods to eradicate all of them at this point even if they made a concerted effort, but he doesn't want to give them an incentive to try. 

He tries to die as rarely as possible, because killing people is actually bad and something he prefers to do less of, and nowadays that he's better at avoiding being murdered by gods and has centuries worth of magical research in life extension, he can generally stretch each body close to two hundred years. 

Wow, Elves would hate that so much. I wonder if the Elves this one met know.

How long's this one got?

:He is maybe twenty years older than I am, so - ordinarily I would think at least a century, but also he spent several years with his magic blocked being tortured, which one assumes does not help. My Healers were not sure how much damage was done and whether it is reversible. Almost certainly he has fifty years, though: 

Okay. I will probably have a chance to figure out arcane immortality in that time if things will just stop happening so damn much.

:I am not sure if it would help to have a number of additional very clever people on the project, but that is a resource I could offer you if you wished. It is somewhat self-interested of me, of course, but also this would benefit you greatly. ...If I have not already said this, I would also offer you our life extension magic, if you need longer to work on the problem: 

Angband Leareth notices that she's been quiet for a bit. He assumes she's having a Mindspeech conversation with the other Leareth on the question of killing him. Which really should be less aaaaaaa than it is, given that it was his idea. He can't get very worked up about it, since she's still keeping him calm. 

(He's realizing that he can't remember a name for her or whether she introduced herself at any point.) 

I don't know yet if what the Valar did has stuck or not, but if I look thirty when I'm fifty, I'll take you up on that. Adding people requires them to take a while to get up to speed, so it's not straightforwardly helpful.

And to Angband Leareth:

"Sorry, you're right I was talking to him but it was actually about how he hadn't mentioned how his immortality worked.

I'm Bella."

Oh no, now the other Leareth is probably furious about him accidentally revealing that. He had assumed she knew - Vanyel knew that much, he thinks, or had deduced it, although maybe not until later than this Velgarth, the memories of it are pretty hazy and feel like they happened several lifetimes ago. 

"I don't think he's angry. He agreed I should have been told earlier."

Leareth is kind of dubious, but mostly on the usual grounds, not expecting people's words to correlate especially with reality. The other Leareth not being angry also seems consistent, since it's not like being angry after the fact helps anything, and Leareth doesn't think he spent much time being angry before all of this. It's a little surprising that the other Leareth thought he should have told Bella sooner, but then again, clearly he trusts her a lot.

...Which is weird in itself, really. Maybe it's weird because it isn't real. Leareth holds it up, tries to decide if it's the kind of off note that, if evidence meant anything, would mean this was probably a hallucination after all. He's not sure? He didn't trust many people, before, but he ended up putting a lot of trust in Vanyel and Maitimo, albeit from several removes. The only way he was able to admit defeat and give up was because he knew there were other people who could pick up the fight instead.

"I can invite him here if you want his account of why he finds me trustworthy; I'd be guessing."

Sure, he's kind of curious. 

She passes this on to his local alt.