Conveniently so because then everyone will conclude that's what Maitimo was talking about.

...Bella would not have waited TWENTY YEARS but she is capable of waiting twenty minutes. "...okay. So warn people about that whole... class of thing. Uh, adjusting to the gift economy was interesting, I don't know if you plan to keep that up here?"

"Moryo's talking with the Dwarves about it. We were planning to ration everything centrally for the next decade or so until we're back up to having enough of it that it doesn't matter how sensibly it's allocated and they passionately hate that plan and think we should introduce money instead and I promised I'd hear them out after the war. If you have thoughts one way or the other we've only ever been exposed to the one thing..."

"Personally, I would be in favour of introducing money. Central allocation of limited resources is known to have many failure modes and inefficiencies, in my world." 

"I liked the gift economy but it might not make sense under different conditions. Money's okay in ordinary situations but it - limits you to ordinary situations, in a way, the paradigmatic case of a family that all gets along and has a person or two with a productive job and doesn't require anything exceptionally expensive, it makes doing anything that isn't that risky and scary."

"If we actually expect resources to no longer be particularly limited in a decade then it is less clear. Although even in an economy that runs on money, I think that once there are sufficiently abundant resources in general, it will probably drift toward being less limiting in that way. We could also discuss setups in between the two, with a monetary economy and also some centrally allocated resources to aid people who are unable to do sufficient productive work to support themselves. I have a number of books on this subject. If the dwarves passionately hate the centralized plan, it seems difficult to get them on board with it at all, and they are the people with the highest technological level on this continent, no?" 

"They'll still sell us things if we're not using money internally, they just think it'd be stupid of us. I think it matters a lot whether things will be different in a decade. Certainly in the long run it would be pretty intolerable to have material scarcity but right now - there are planets full of people just dying, it might make sense to do whatever's most efficient until we can fix it. That seems likelier to be true if we can fix it in, say, a couple of decades or a century on the outer end, I don't think it's sustainable to compromise quality of life in Vinyamar for centuries even to help people elsewhere."

Vanyel nods. "Are you going to have trade relations with Velgarth - er, considering both Velgarths, I guess. Most of Velgarth does use money, and - honestly, given the actual level of organization and centralization we have in Valdemar, trading goods for money is going to be easier to implement than the way things were in Valinor."  

"I think trade between the worlds is likely to make both sides more prosperous, quite rapidly. On the other hand, I have never succeeded at founding a country with Valinor's lack of material scarcity, despite trying quite hard. The gods seem not to like it." 

Vanyel lifts a hand to his forehead. "Is that going to be a problem?" 

"Quite possibly." Leareth glances at Maitimo. "It seems unconscionable to hold back from trying to fix things in an attempt to avoid conflict with our gods, but...yes, there is likely to be conflict. As Bella and I discovered." 

"Velgarth doesn't need an 'absolutely no entering this plane for any length of time for any reason' rule like Materia does but it's hazardous to have gods after you, yeah. Maybe we could route a lot of the trade through Leareth's safer area in the north?"

"I would have thought Valdemar was pretty safe! But, well, given the whole Iftel thing..." It's weird, he keeps half-forgetting about the whole Iftel thing - presumably that's the anti-curiosity magic. "I think that'd be a good idea, if Leareth is willing–" He cuts off. "We should check in with Leareth's organization in my Velgarth. One assumes he won't be personally leading things over there for a while, but I think the northern area is probably still safer than Valdemar proper?" 

"Now that things are somewhat less of an emergency - and we have less need for operational security - I think I ought to probably visit the other Velgarth and make sure everything is going smoothly. If Bella is willing to offer transport between the two every so often, I could straightforwardly run both for a few years." 

"I guess we should maybe ask your alt if he wants to go back to his Velgarth, I don't know if he'll want to." 

"I am still not thrilled with the results of the last time I gave you a ride. I guess 'Leareth organizations continue to have a Leareth in them' is not a new thing I will feel especially responsible for."

"The other Leareth knows an interplanar Gate. I guess if he's not entirely certain he's out it might be something he is especially reluctant to cooperate with you learning."

"I know an interplanar Gate too? I spent months re-engineering the spell, it's how I was originally going to get the weapon. Just a lot less safe since we knew Melkor could detect and cancel Velgarth magic, and would be especially knowledgeable about Gates..." He frowns at Bella. "I think I missed something. What are you not thrilled about? It sounded like Leareth got everything sorted a lot better than I was managing on my own." 

"Mind controlling a bunch of orcs, without asking me if I had a better solution to the problem first."

"...Did you have a better solution? I was second-stage Truth Spell-ing them and I was still having a hard time - mostly with getting the orcs who even knew the full list of Maiar working for Melkor, much less where the stupid troops placements are, we still don't know that and I'm really hoping it doesn't explode in our faces." 

"Leareth didn't know oaths existed. The Quendi he was taking cues from had more information, but I think that's a symptom of not performing due diligence. I don't know exactly how much he did or how invasive it was but it's at least very plausible I could have come up with something better, especially from his state of information. I did have a supplement to what he did, as it happened, which he only knew about because he came clean expecting me to yell at him."

"Oaths are visible to mage-sight, he couldn't have not known about them in any worlds where they were relevant. I -

- do you think it was a mistake to have you doing healing instead of bringing you in to do interrogations as well? That would have resulted in more deaths and doesn't seem straightforwardly worth it to have avoided coercive Truth-spells but I'm not sure I am modelling your objection to coercive Truth-spells correctly."

"It was a mistake not to ask me because no one who was here except me has a working understanding of how subtle arts or arcana work, healing doesn't take too much of my attention to quickly evaluate whether I have a good solution to a problem, and while in fact there may have been no serious danger and no better option I think it was worth ten seconds of my time to go 'hey Bella do you have a better way to find out a complete list of Melkor's Maiar'."

"That makes sense. I'm sorry; I should have asked you that. I think it would be very hard by any magic to get information from someone in a fashion less intrusive than a Truth Spell, it obliges the target if they know the answer to a question to answer it accurately and that's it. But I should've asked."

"He didn't use a Truth Spell per se, he imitated it with a compulsion. Is that approximately cosmetic? I don't know because no one thought to bring me in on it and let me ask before the fact. Did I have some kind of right to know? Arguably not but my accepting that I don't have a right to know everything that's going on and that I'm participating in led me to take actions in support of a plan at the risk of my friend's alt's life unbeknownst to me so I'm not wholeheartedly in favor of it right now!"