Yeah, no, first rule of enchantment is that you don't trust yourself to check if you're enchanted! Strider is either far gone or rather naive to think otherwise. He can't even detect magic on himself!

"It sounds like burying it is better than carrying it, at least. I can do that, but I'd be using up a lot of powerful spells. But if we do all that, and then I cast Hide from Undead, hopefully the wraiths won't pick up any of our trails, or have reason to pursue you anymore."

That sounds like a plan, which is a lot better than the lack of a plan he had before! The only problem is that involves him going back to join the party he spent all night running away from instead of sleeping. This is the kind of thing he kind of swore off doing again, so he'll only do it if Aragorn commits and neither of them can think of any problems on their way back.

Gord seems to be hiding something.  Aragorn feels uneasy.

"But if we bury it, then the wraiths will find it, and what good is it that they won't find us?"

Yeah, there's the problem. "You're right, we don't want to give powerful magic to wraiths. I could probably still send it to another plane, and whoever picks it up is very unlikely to be as horrible as a wraith, but we'd be endangering a specific person, and there's no way to know if they'll agree when they hear our offer."

Even if it's worth it from Strider's point of view, Gord doesn't want to risk himself and spend money on moving the artifact from one set of near-strangers to another.

"We can still put the ring in my bag. It would hide it from the wraiths, almost certainly, unless they have a mage so powerful that nothing you do will work."

"I'm not agreeing to this yet, but supposing you lost the wraiths, what were you going to do?" Maybe it's something as inoffensive as living in a dark cave.

The way Gord says that first part sounds off.  "Wait, are you thinking of the wraiths as... acting for themselves, like the Barrow-Wights, and trying to take the Ring for themselves?  They're slaves of Sauron, enslaved by the Ring's magic when Sauron held it."

Would that have changed anything last night?  Aragorn doesn't know.

"We're trying to reach Rivendell, for safety and for counsel about what to do next.  And now, I suppose, to heal Frodo."

...oh.

Poor wraiths. It's always good to destroy undead to free their souls, but these ones are enslaved twice over. He doesn't have a way to help them, and it hurts. Maybe if Strider wasn't afraid of using the Ring's power, he could help them -

"You mentioned Sauron before. As the one god Who gives out magic around here. So He sent the wraiths after the ring, and gave them some kind of magic to locate it?" Gord probably shouldn't make an enemy of a uniquely active evil god without good reason. "Putting it in my bag and running for Rivendell is probably the best plan, from your point of view."

"But I'm not convinced that I should take on the risk of joining you. It sounds like a good cause," meaning Gord is going to ask Strider to confirm everything under a truth spell, "but if I helped every stranger's good cause I would be long dead. And so help fewer people. And there might be something much worse around that I don't know about yet and would rather fight without making Sauron come after me."

"In the long term I want to get stronger, which will happen naturally as long as I'm doing something worthwhile, until I'm strong enough to go home. I'll also need diamond dust and eventually whole diamonds," at least he hopes so, "and some other expensive components, and a new magic sword, but I expect I can buy all that for spells."

"You know this world much better than I do." And you don't know about zone of truth yet. "Give me your best argument for why I should risk myself helping you and not someone else."

"You get stronger... naturally?"  Aragorn boggles.  This sounds like something far over and above normal training and practice.

"The best reason is - well, for one, you appeared into Middle-Earth next to us, and in my experience when chance happens that neatly, there might be Someone behind that chance.

"And for another - if Sauron retrieves the Ring, he will be many times more powerful, probably powerful enough to conquer all Middle-Earth."

He bows his head gravely.

"I get stronger like anyone else does? If I keep walking into serious danger and strive for what I want and don't give up. And don't die along the way, obviously. When clerics get stronger, their god gives them stronger spells, and eventually I'll get ones that let me travel back home."

"I... really don't understand your first reason. Maybe Someone had a hand in it, but if we have no idea Who, it seems as likely to work against us as for us. If Someone wants me to do something, They should just ask me!"

"Sauron conquering the - middle continent? - does sound bad. If only because it's usually bad for anyone to conquer places. That might be enough, if I knew for sure what Sauron can and cannot do and what He's actually going to do. Can you say more about that? Anything that ought to affect my decision, I don't need all the political details."

"If you wait for Chance to explain Himself and ask you politely, you'll be waiting a long while."  Aragorn is happy for the god-pronoun's wordplay.

"I visited Sauron's dominions when I was younger, and..."  He shakes his head gravely.

Really, he should have talked about this before now; Gord's asking exactly the right question.  But, he's too used to how everyone who's grown up in Middle-Earth knows Sauron as something to dread, at least as a childhood boogyman if not worse.

"Sauron forces everyone to worship him, and men are offered in sacrifice at his altars.  He and his lieutenants rule as tyrants moving everyone like ants or game-pieces to their plans.  Or at least, he would do that - he had not fully exerted his power over the parts I visited, which is why I dared visit and could escape.  But he had started to, and I heard enough from the lands where he had ruled longer."

Ugh. Another world, same old troubles.

So according to Strider, there's a probably-Lawful-Evil god who rules part of the continent and will conquer the rest if He gets His ring artifact back. Gord has no idea if he'd approve of the rest of the continent as it is now, but stopping a Lawful Evil god from conquering it is probably a good idea even so.

"If that's true then I'm going to help you. I will cast a truth spell on you, which will prevent you from knowingly lying, and ask you to repeat the relevant bits. I have no particular reason to distrust you, but it's a big thing to trust a stranger about."

"This is a good time to tell me anything else you'd like me to be convinced of. About yourself, the ring, the halflings. I'll need a quarter-hour to prepare the spell, you can think while I pray. It will last about eight minutes. Then you can tell me more about this world while we walk, and how you all ended up in this situation. Do you accept?"