He's pretty convinced he's out of Angband now. He's still, like, tired and traumatized and everything, but he believes he's not there any more. He has some damage to his core memories, self-inflicted when he realized he'd been tricked and needed a really lasting way to communicate that to himself, but I'm going to try to fix it with reference to the intact core memories of the local Leareth.

:Wow!: Vanyel absorbs that for a moment. :Is that why he stopped doing Gates, then? That's - honestly really impressive, catching it, I would've thought it'd be nearly impossible when Melkor could just erase his memory and try it over every time he got at all suspicious: 

Yeah, that's why, and it's really cool he was able to do that!

:I've spent a lot of time imagining what'd have happened if it'd been me instead, and - I think I might not have been able to catch it: 

Yeah, no, it's really exceptional. And lucky that he even structured himself in that way in the first place, and was able to alter it on the fly.

:I'm not sure I understand what you mean by 'core memories', actually - it must be something that Melkor couldn't just put back again...: 

It's possible that Melkor couldn't figure out exactly what he's done? Valar aren't actually very good at mind magic, they just have brute force to apply.

:Hmm, right: Pause. :I guess I should think about a message to send back to him, but I don't have anything off the top of my head. Anyway. I - was wondering if it'd be possible for me to speak to the local Leareth directly, at some point? I have some magic questions that are fiddly to convey otherwise:

(And it's hard to fake. Not hard enough to fake that they'll be willing to give the maybe helpful stranger any information about his location, but still.) 

- yeah, you know what, I've been hesitant to lend out the earcuff but I think I'm there now.

:Huh: He seems a bit surprised. :What changed?: 

Since I'm going to try to use the intact core memories as a template, he let me look at them.

:Wait, so he let you read his mind?: 

That bit of it, yeah. He was nervous but then decided that since I am against mind control, if I were going to do anything while I was in there it would be making him against mind control, and that I would not do that, on account of being against mind control.

:Pfft: Mindspeech laughter is very recognizable as that. :Wow. I guess that'd make sense. Also it's kind of hilarious: 

I thought so too! I asked him if he had noticed the self-consistency of my position and he said he'd think about it.

:Heh. If you end up convincing Leareth of all people to be against mind control, I'll be so impressed. Anyway. I'm guessing you're still working on the error checking?: 

I've decided that even if the spell is technically perfect I need to add a section to make it more robust against worlds having duplicates. I don't think that's exactly what went wrong, since I didn't land in the corresponding place in your Valinor to where I was aiming in mine, but it seems a sensible precaution now I know that this comes up. I can't find a mistake in the spell, but that just means either I'm missing one or it's one of those spells with a chance of screwing up every now and then, those are a thing in Materia, and I hate this fact a whole lot.

:That's an obnoxious fact! Anyway, I think this is still an area where we'd like it if we could ask for your help, but - need some more assurance that you're who and what you say you are and are trustworthy, because there's a lot hanging on this. The offer to grab Ninquë is still open, if there's a way you can get around not having the interplanar version of the other-person teleport: 

I actually think that in light of the untrustworthiness of the spell I should develop one of those anyway, because it means for multi-person travel one person can go first, and then call along anybody they want to bring with when they confirm they're in the right place, instead of needing to use several people's worth of mana on each trip like I wound up doing because I had Sayshen along. But I can loan local Leareth the earcuff tomorrow, if you want.

:That makes sense. And, sure. I'll pass on the news about Leareth to Maitimo: 

Thanks!

:Any preliminary sense of timelines on the new spell development?: 

I can copy a lot of it, but I don't have my notes from Valinor on me since I never made it back there and the Valar didn't let me pack. I can probably get it done in under a week anyway.

:Oh! That's - fast, I thought it'd be months. Er, thank you for the update, and I would really appreciate being able to talk to local Leareth tomorrow: 

Mm-hm! Anything else today?